It’s not easy to write a review of a comedy show. Most of the jokes quickly blend into the background and you walk away with a general sense of how funny such and such comic was. “Yeah, I liked the one about, you know, when he, um, talked about the beach, right?”

But I’ll give it a try, since last night’s installation of the now twice-yearly Comedy for Koby show was one of the best of recent years.

Comedy for Koby is a fundraiser for the Koby Mandell Foundation, which helps bereaved family members who have lost a loved one to a terror attack attend a therapeutic, healing and ultimately rejuvenating overnight camp or retreat. The foundation was started by Seth and Sherri Mandell whose 13-year-old son Koby was murdered by terrorists in 2001.

Los Angeles-based comic Avi Liberman puts together a package of 3 top U.S. standup artists, all with deep television chops, who perform around the country (this year there were 7 performance scheduled). Lieberman raises all the money to cover expenses, so every shekel for tickets goes straight to the foundation.

Last night, the comics were on stage in Jerusalem. Lieberman himself always leads with a 15 minute set of his own. Liberman mixes his own Jewish identity with Israel-specific jokes. His best last night (and totally politically incorrect, so sensitive readers should skip the next two lines): what’s the difference between a pizza and a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) man? The pizza can provide a meal for the whole family.

Next up was Ted Alexandro, a soft-spoken self-proclaimed Catholic comic. His funniest moment was when he was touring the Old City of Jerusalem, looked up, and saw a statue of Jesus. This god really has strong abs, Alexandro mused, before disparaging the Buddha as prophet in dire need for a trip to the gym, and speculating what a good Christian exercise machine ought to be called. “Cross-trainer,” he joked.

Religion was also part of Ian Edwards set as he compared the names of Jewish holidays with African American women’s names. Rosh Hashana – yeah, I dated her once, he quipped. Along with her sister, Tu B’shvat.

Judy Gold closed the show; she was reputed to be the best of the bunch and she certainly had the ribald personality (apparently toned down for her Israel appearance), along with a good dose of Yiddishkeit – how many funny men (or women) keep a kosher home and celebrate shabbos every Friday night, as Gold does?

After bemoaning the use of cell phones at the Western Wall (more a sad observation than a joke), her performance unfortunately descended into too many vaudevillian Jewish American mother jokes. Her best bit was a political zinger, when she spoke with pride that an Orthodox Jew – Joe Lieberman – ran for vice president alongside Al Gore in 2004.

But what would Lieberman’s answering machine sound like during the run up to the November elections, which also happen to be smack dabble in the middle of the Jewish holidays? “Hi, we’ll be out of the office for the next three days for Rosh Hashana, then off again on Friday from sunset until sunrise, closed during Yom Kippur, Sukkot (2 days) and Simchat Torah (another 2 days). Not exactly barnstorming the country.

If you’re in Israel, there are two more shows – tonight in Tel Aviv and Tuesday in Gush Etzion. Tickets are not cheap – NIS 100 each – but it goes to a good cause.