Dean Obeidallah

Dean Obeidallah (born December 17, 1969; Arabic: دين عبيدالله‎) is an American comedian of Palestinian-Italian descent.

Early life

He was born in Lodi, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paramus. His father was born in Battir, Palestine]] prior to the creation of the State of Israel; his mother's parents were born in Sicily.

Obeidallah received a J.D. from Fordham Law School and practiced law from 1993-1998 with the firm of Beattie Padovano. He then left the practice of law and was accepted into the prestigious NBC Page program in 1998. Thereafter from October 1999 through May 2007 he was a rights and clearance researcher for Saturday Night Live.

Career

Obeidallah is part of a small but growing number of Arab-American comedians who have increasingly received media attention in the past few years, as they use comedy to both retain and dispel negative stereotypes of Arab-Americans and Muslims.

He and other Arab-American comics have been compared to the groundbreaking minority comedians of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s who have used comedy to raise political and social issues in an effort to change them as noted by The Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik: