Noam Manor Interview: Israeli-American Comedian + Improviser

noam manor israeli american


• "It only took about 1-day of school for me to want to go back to Israel. It was the worst day ever." •

- Noam on her first day of school in America

There’s a famous story in Noam’s family that talks about how stubborn the women are. Her great-grandmother went against her family’s wishes and decided to escape persecution during the onset of the Nazi regime. She and her husband fled from Poland to Kazakhstan, but her family experienced the fate of the Holocaust…her 10 brothers and sisters, all wiped out.

Two years and 2 kids later (including Noam’s grandmother), they made another daring escape…this time to The Promised Land, with the hope of a Jewish state and a future that would bare no witness to the horrors experienced in the past.

Noam is the daughter of a half-Romanian and half-Polish mother, and Iranian (Persian) father, that were all born and raised in Israel. The family immigrated to the U.S. during the midst of the Second Intifada, which was marked by a period of intensified Israeli-Palestinian violence from 2000-2005. “There were bombings every single day. Financially, Israel was basically screwing its citizens. My dad always had this dream to come to America after he visited when he was 17…and fell in love with it.”

The family moved to Plantation, Florida, which is about 40 minutes west of Ft. Lauderdale. At 12 years old, Noam was an immigrant who understood a bit of English, but did not speak the language. Her schools primarily consisted of Latinos, a few Haitians, and other ethnic groups made up the minority.

As a child, she imagined America(ns) to be like its sitcoms – “Full House” and all the other big shows in the 90s. But her positive impressions turned sour during her first day of school: “I was so terrified…My mom told me: ‘In no time, you’d be able to have conversations in English.’ And I was thinking, ‘That’s impossible!’ It only took about 1-day of school for me to want to go back to Israel. It was the worst day ever.”

So no friends, not being able to talk to your parents, and don’t forget to throw puberty into the mix.

In English as a Second Language (ESL) class, Noam was definitely the odd one, as far as where she came from. The other students were Latino or Haitian and rolled in clicks. But although feelings of isolation and loneliness set in, survival mode kicked in – Noam was able to speak and write English comfortably within 6 months of arriving in America, compared to her classmates whose ESL skills were stagnate.

By 8th grade, Noam was all-good. She was confident, had friends and crushed on boys. Although she was now in a happy place, she experienced first-hand how ESL kids were treated like second-class citizens, so she inched away and wanted to be "American" with the “regular kids” by 9th grade. And the following school year, your girl was put into Honors English!

To the outside world, all seemed fine, but internally, she was going through it – failing her classes and diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD).

11th grade would be the start of many things. Private school in Tampa, which was 4 hours away from home; and an opportunity to live-out her childhood days as a spotlight grabber via the school’s theater program.

“It was an international school with kids from a lot of different places. My family found me a room in a house with an Israeli family, and they would take me to school…I definitely got into the theater program there, succeeded, and graduated with flying colors.”

After high school, Noam moved back home and realized that her straight A’s in 12th grade couldn’t override her poor grades from her earlier days in high school. So she settled for a 2-year community college and planned on transferring to a university at the top of her list. She spent 3 semesters at Broward College before calling it quits – unable to decide on a major or to even find herself – then joined the workforce.

For the next 5 years, Noam found herself in a slump, exacerbated by a toxic on-again/off-again relationship that caused excessive weight gain, and a depletion of confidence. “I couldn’t be without him. I was completely miserable.” But from this relationship, there was 1 good thing that came out of it. Noam befriended her boyfriend’s friend’s wife. Got it?

Noam Manor Israeli American

She not only became Noam’s confidant, but she introduced her to the world of improv. “One day we went over to her house and I was venting to her a little bit about him. She goes, ‘why don’t you try improv classes? You miss the stage and doing things for yourself? Go try improv.” So I started improv classes and I was so terrible at it! [laughter]…I was always nervous. And when I think back on it now, I was a shell of myself. I finally broke up with him May 2014.” Through improv, Noam reclaimed her confidence and moved on to bigger and better things.

When she first met her then-new boyfriend…now FIANCÉ!!!...he was doing standup comedy and was/is also a filmmaker. He happened to be working on a movie about standup comedians, and Noam wanted to join the cast. He agreed, but there was one major stipulation: Noam had to do standup. Her thoughts of course were: “But I’ve never done standup. I don’t know how to do it. How can I?”

Noam sucked it up, wrote a set, and did her first open mic routine for 3-and-a-half minutes, and instantly caught the bug. Noam admits that her greatest love has been standup for the past 2 years, but has continued to perfect her improv skills for the past 4 years. In terms of time spent on each, it’s an 80% vs. 20% split respectively.

If she’s not watching her comedic role models, Chelsea Handler, Bill Burr, Louis CK, or improv mastermind Tina Fey, you can find Noam performing with an improv group called “Sick Puppies Comedy” in Boca Raton. She’s also looking to expand her standup horizons, so 2017 is something serious!

In the works, she’s: creating a podcast with her best friend about the adventures of being women in comedy; producing a show for a well-known LA comedian (slated for August in Florida); working on a documentary with her fiancé about Zionism; and planning a wedding.

Noam Manor Israeli American
Sick Puppies Comedy (L to R): Hannah Petosa, Noam, and Dallas Wait

Through all of this, Noam has remained extremely proud of being Israeli. She credits her heritage for placing her in a position where she was an outsider in a new world – being alone and having to get acclimated. She admits to growing up fairly privileged in Israel, but knows that without the experience of living under threats of terror as a child, and her personal struggles in America, she wouldn’t be equipped with the tools to tell jokes.

Her advice to someone who may be struggling with his or her cultural identity:

“History repeats itself unless we learn from it. Your roots are your roots for a reason. So explore it, embrace it, and things will start making more sense.”

Quote I loved from Noam: “Family is the greatest superpower a person can have.”

Interesting fact: Noam visited Israel last summer under the “Birthright Israel” program, which sponsors free ten-day heritage trips to Israel for young adults of Jewish Heritage. Yes, she qualified! LOL

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- Images courtesy of Noam Manor