Jerry Seinfeld performs in Tel Aviv, December 19, 2015
Jerry Seinfeld performs in Tel Aviv, December 19, 2015Reuters

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld on Saturday night took the stage at a Tel Aviv basketball arena as he kicked off a short comedy tour in Israel, his first ever in the Jewish state.

More than 11,000 fans packed the stadium for Seinfeld’s show, which is the first of four sold-out performances he will give in Tel Aviv this week. 

“Look at yourselves - how proud are you of yourselves, how proud are you that you got tickets to this show?” Seinfeld asked, according to quotes in Haaretz. When the audience responded with wild applause, he replied, “You don’t even care about this show. You just want to tell everybody…. you want to make somebody else feel bad.” 

Seinfeld made few direct references to Israel in his hour-long comedy set, noted the newspaper, other than noting that the country’s name “has a lot of vowels” and that Israelis have two answers to any question: “no problem” or “that’s impossible”.

The successful Jewish comedian spent most of the act dealing with topics about men, women, and married life.

He also paid a great deal of attention to a theme that many Israelis can relate to, noted Haaretz, that being the modern obsession with electronic devices. 

“Our devices keep getting smarter,” he said. “Why don’t we?” 

He later took questions from the audience and was asked to say some phrases in Hebrew, which he politely refused to do by explaining that he learned Hebrew “for my Bar Mitzvah and that was enough.” He finally agreed to comply and said, “Shalom, how’s that work for you?” 

After two shows on Saturday night, Seinfeld will also perform two more on Sunday at the Menora Mivtachim Arena in Tel Aviv.

Seinfeld’s last visit to Israel was in 2007, when he toured the Jewish state to promote the Bee Movie. However, when he was younger, years before becoming popular, Seinfeld did spend time volunteering in a kibbutz.

There is no word as of yet whether Seinfeld will be seeking any soup in Israel, or whether he’ll prefer one of Israel’s many coffee shops. Yada, yada, yada.