Comedians pull out of Lisbon festival after Jerry Seinfeld announced as headliner

A rash of performers have dropped out of a Portuguese comedy festival after it was announced that Jerry Seinfeld will headline it, in apparent protest of the Jewish-American comedian’s support for the State of Israel.

The Lisbon International Humor Festival, scheduled to take place October 29-November 1, is set to be Seinfeld’s live debut in the country. Tickets for his performance are selling for 60-220 euros ($70 to $256).

Several of the artists who pulled out made oblique references to Seinfeld, but none named the comedian, or his support for Israel, explicitly.

Actress Inês Aires Pereira wrote on Instagram Saturday: “A festival includes many artists, and in this case, one of the names insistently defends ideas and actions that I consider indefensible.”

“We cannot relativize or normalize genocide,” she said. Israel strongly rejects accusations it has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip, where two years of war left some 70,000 dead, around a third to a quarter of whom were combatants, according to military estimates.

Comedic duo Cebola Mol, in a post that included a watermelon-themed graphic (frequently used as a symbol of the Palestinian cause) wrote: “Hello, friends. Our show on October 31 will not take place. We will celebrate justice, freedom, and joy at a future opportunity.”

The Tributo Pop and Conjunto Cuca Monga groups, as well as visual artist Vhils and comedian Pedro Tochas, all canceled their shows as well, without indicating why.

Seinfeld traveled to Israel in December 2023, several months into the war sparked by the Hamas terror group’s October 7 invasion of Israel, in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.

The comedian and his wife met with freed hostages and families of those who were still in captivity, and visited Kibbutz Be’eri, which lost more than a hundred of its 1,100 residents in the massacre. He later called the trip “the most powerful experience” of his life.

Seinfeld has been repeatedly heckled at shows and during a Duke University commencement speech over his expressions of support for Israel, and has mocked those interrupting him.

After someone disrupted an event with freed hostage Omer Shem Tov, the comedian said the Ku Klux Klan was “more honest” in its antisemitism than some who use the slogan “Free Palestine.”

On other occasions, Seinfeld has responded to the slogan by saying: “It doesn’t exist,” and, “I don’t care about Palestine.”