Sep 29th - Oct 7th, 2026 . Edition #73
Ahla {{samar | friend}},
For every event I add to the site, I pick a category. Comedy. Music. Literature. Politics…etc It helps you filter on the site, it helps me organize here. But lately I have been looking at these events and the lines keep blurring. A birthday that is also a fundraiser. A one-man show that is also a political act. A religious talk that is also an olive branch. We say everything is political, and I believe that, but I have been sitting with a quieter question underneath it: are there still spaces that are completely immune to it? And more honestly, do we actually crave them?
Do you crave spaces that are completely apolitical?
THE SHORTLIST
The events worth your time
COMEDY, MUSIC
A Night of Comedy and Music with Rufat, Yedoye, and Or Bareket
🗓️ Thursday, October 1 | 8:00–11:00 PM
📍Dada, Queens
🎟️ $12.51
Stand-up and live music from three Brooklyn-based artists. Rufat Agayev, born in Azerbaijan, does comedy built on big act-outs and clever observations. Yedoye Travis writes for Netflix, NBC, and DC Comics. Or Bareket, born in Jerusalem, an ally leads a quartet with saxophonist Godwin Louis, pianist Jeremy Corren, and drummer Savannah Harris.
Why I like it: a group of allies putting together a fun night
COMEDY
Mo Amer One Night Only at Radio City
🗓️ Friday, October 2 | 7:00 PM
📍Radio City Music Hall, Midtown
🎟️ $53–$157
Mo Amer performs one night at Radio City Music Hall. Tickets are nearly gone
Why I like it: A Palestinian-American comedian selling out Radio City. I would like that.
THEATER
SWANASA Affinity Mixer for FISH
🗓️ Friday, October 2 + 9 | 5:30–9:00 PM
📍WP Theater, Upper West Side
🎟️ $30 (code BODRUM)
the world premiere of FISH by Turkish-British playwright Melis Aker: a darkly comedic coming-of-age story about a 17-year-old SWANA girl who copes with her brother's disappearance by running a twisted online experiment. This pre-show mixer is the SWANA community gathering before the run begins
Why I like it: theater and a mixer, what’s not to like?
PARTY. FUNDRAISER
A birthday party & a fundraiser for Lebanon
🗓️ Sunday, October 4 | 2:00–7:00 PM
📍Laziza, Bed-Stuy
🎟️ $33
Rachelle turns 33 and raises money for displaced families in South Lebanon. She DJs, her collective plays, Laziza feeds you, and every dollar goes toward food, medical assistance, and rent for people who lost their homes. Early ticket buyers get a raffle ticket and a menu item from Laziza.
Why I like it: A menna subscriber turning her birthday into collective good.
TALK. LITERATURE
Interfaith Book Panel: Illuminating Scriptural Connections
🗓️ Monday, October 5 | 6:30–8:00 PM
📍Temple Emanu-El, Upper East Side
🎟️ $5
A panel at one of New York's most prominent synagogues examining a new book that reads the Qur'an as commentary on the Torah. Dr. Abdulla Galadari and Rick Sopher in conversation with moderators Rabbi Josh Davidson and author Sabeeha Rehman. Halal, kosher, and vegetarian catering. Book signing after.
Why I like it: Curious about the content and the conversation.
THE FREE ONE
Free and worthwhile
POLITICS
"Hands Off Our Vote" live NYC event: Protecting Our Elections
🗓️ Sunday, October 4 | 7:00–8:00 PM
📍In-person NYC + national livestream
Mo Amer, LaTosha Brown, Robert De Niro, Mark Ruffalo, and Ezra Levin gather to talk electoral integrity, vulnerable voters, and what to actually do about it. Doors at 5:30pm. Free livestream available nationally.
Why I like it: All those people on a panel the week before early voting kicks off
PROJECT HIGHLIGHT
Project and initiatives to check out
A Goddess has arrived to Bushwick
Amy Rose Khoshbin grew up Persian-American and Baha'i in an evangelical suburb in Texas, daughter of a man who fled Iran after the 1979 revolution. She is queer, her practice runs across performance, collage, sculpture, and participatory tattooing, and her previous solo show was built around a death shroud sewn from her late father's handkerchiefs. Her work has been shown at the Whitney, Guggenheim, and Brooklyn Museum.
For ANAHITA, she turns to the goddess herself: Anahita, whose Avestan name means "the Moist, the Mighty, the Pure," goddess of water, wisdom, and healing, whose priests were the founding Sassanid kings. For Iranian diaspora artists she is a specific invocation: pre-Islamic female sovereignty, called up against erasure.
The show runs October 3 through November 1 at Transmitter Gallery in Bushwick. Centerpiece is Anahita's Grief Tent, a communal space for play, divination, and catharsis. Programming follows a ritual arc: opening October 3, performance October 17, collage workshop October 25, oracle readings November 1. Curated by Lila Nazemian of ArteEast.
MENNA WOU FEENA
Your votes, projects, wins and hands on this
Need your help
I’m working on a new salon theme and speakers, I am looking for SWANA entrepreneurs who have been building their company in public, based in New York (hit reply to this email and let’s bring your favs)
From the community
Laith Yousif, a menna reader has just published his book from Baghdad to Brooklyn. A boy grows up in Al-Dora, in a house his father built by working for free. A young engineer leaves Iraqin 95 with a borrowed $700 and a passport someone else is holding. A new New Yorker walks into the World Trade Center on March 26, 2001. This book is the tsory of what happened next, and the 10 years of waiting that followed. Check it out
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— Menna curates cultural content and events for informational purposes only. Event details are subject to change —
