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Dave Chappelle focuses ‘SNL’ monologue on ‘the Jews’ and Kanye West’s antisemitism controversy
(JTA) — Hosting “Saturday Night Live” for the first time since he faced widespread criticism about jokes ridiculing transgender people, comedian Dave Chappelle opened the show with a lengthy monologue about … “the Jews” — namely, the controversy surrounding rapper Kanye West’s recent antisemitic comments.
In the lengthy monologue, Chappelle danced along the lines he was mocking, emphasizing that he was not antisemitic while arguing that “it’s not a crazy thing to think” that Jews control Hollywood and insinuating that Jews have been making Black people into scapegoats for their past trauma.
Reaction from the audience featured ample laughter, although one joke landed in silence; online, criticism mounted immediately, with Time Out New York’s theater critic tweeting: “That Dave Chappelle SNL monologue probably did more to normalize anti-Semitism than anything Kanye said.”
In an unusually charged appearance for an SNL host — with rumors that some of the show’s writers might boycott in protest — Chappelle also appeared to address his own near-cancellation by analyzing the public and corporate backlash against West.
At the start of the routine, Chappele unfolded a small piece of paper and read from it, saying, “‘I denounce antisemitism in all its forms. And I stand with my friends in the Jewish community.’ And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”
He then went on to explain that, over his 35-year career in comedy, he has come to learn that there are “two words in the English language that you should never say together in sequence: ‘The’ and ‘Jews.’” He then mocked West’s threat to go “death con 3” on Jews and the rapper’s boast that Adidas, his erstwhile corporate partner, would not dare sever ties with him. The sneaker company broke ties with West days later.
“Ironically, Adidas was founded by Nazis,” said Chappelle, “and they were offended. I guess the student surpassed the teacher.”
Chappelle, an African-American who often satirizes the Black community while at the same time mocking the serious and casual racism of whites, performed a similar tightrope act in dissecting West’s antisemitism.
“I’ve been to Hollywood and — no one get mad at me — I’m just telling you what I saw,” he said, adding a signature pause. “It’s a lot of Jews. Like a lot.” As the audience at NBC’s Manhattan studio laughed nervously, he quickly added, “But that doesn’t mean anything! You know what I mean? Because there are a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri, it doesn’t mean we run the place.”
That joked echoed a familiar line of Jewish defense groups, who are often at pains to point out that a disproportionate Jewish presence in an industry is not an indication of a conspiracy — an age-old canard.
But Chappelle leaned harder into the joke, leading some reports on the monologue to suggest that he was justifying and defending West’s antisemitism.
He said the “delusion that Jews run show business” is “not a crazy thing to think,” but “it’s a crazy thing to say out loud.” He also said of West, “It’s a big deal, he had broken the show business rules. You know, the rules of perception. If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob. If they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.”
Chappelle also alluded to a similar controversy surrounding Kyrie Irving, star of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, who was suspended after tweeting about a film that promotes a series of antisemitic canards.
“Kanye got in so much trouble that Kyrie got in trouble,” Chappelle said. “This is where I draw the line. I know the Jewish people have been through terrible things all over the world, but you can’t blame that on Black Americans.” The line was met with silence, until a single audience member was heard to hoot approval. “Thanks, the one person that said ‘woo.’”
Chappelle closed what for SNL was an unusually long opening monologue by seeming to allude to “cancel culture” and the controversy that swirled around his own comedy and charges that he is transphobic.
“It shouldn’t be this scary to talk about anything,” he concluded. “It’s making my job incredibly difficult. And to be honest with you, I’m sick of talking to a crowd like this. I love you to death and I thank you for your support. And I hope they don’t take anything away from me… whoever they are.”
Snap reaction to Chappelle’s routine was mixed. In addition to the tweet by Adam Feldman, Time Out New York’s theater critic, the Jerusalem Post accused the comedian of “engaging in antisemitic tropes.” Screenwriter Amalia Levari tweeted, disapprovingly, “So cool that SNL gave Chappelle the stage to deliver a TED Talk about how antisemitic dog-whistles are good, actually.”
Ari Ingel, who heads Creative Community For Peace, a group that fights antisemitism and other forms of bigotry in the entertainment industry, appeared more forgiving. “Some people will be offended at some of his monologue, but sometimes you just need to laugh,” he tweeted.
Wrote Rabbi Josh Yuter, an influencer on Jewish Twitter: “As I understood Chappelle’s monologue, the key point is that there are double standards regarding who can say what about whom. If my Twitter feed is any indication, everyone agrees this is a problem though there’s rampant disagreement over the details.”
Last week, the Irving controversy was also mentioned in the show’s “Weekend Update” segment, when mock newscaster Michael Che said that Irving met with the Anti-Defamation League and said that “from now on he would pretend to not be antisemitic.”
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The post Dave Chappelle focuses ‘SNL’ monologue on ‘the Jews’ and Kanye West’s antisemitism controversy appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Says It Kills Senior Hamas Commander Raed Saed in Gaza
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a car in Gaza City, December 13, 2025.REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
The Israeli military said it killed senior Hamas commander Raed Saed, one of the architects of the October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, in a strike on a car in Gaza City on Saturday.
It was the highest-profile assassination of a senior Hamas figure since a Gaza ceasefire deal came into effect in October.
In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said Saed was targeted in response to an attack by Hamas in which an explosive device injured two soldiers earlier on Saturday.
The attack on the car in Gaza City killed five people and wounded at least 25 others, according to Gaza health authorities. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas or medics that Saed was among the dead.
HAMAS SAYS ATTACK VIOLATES CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT
An Israeli military official described Saed as a high-ranked Hamas member who helped establish and advance the group’s weapons production network.
“In recent months, he operated to reestablish Hamas’ capabilities and weapons manufacturing, a blatant violation of the ceasefire,” the official said.
Hamas sources have also described him as the second-in-command of the group’s armed wing, after Izz eldeen Al-Hadad.
Saed used to head Hamas’ Gaza City battalion, one of the group’s largest and best-equipped, those sources said.
Hamas, in a statement, condemned the attack as a violation of the ceasefire agreement but did not say whether Saed was hurt and stopped short of threatening retaliation.
The October 10 ceasefire has enabled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to Gaza City’s ruins. Israel has pulled troops back from city positions, and aid flows have increased.
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Hezbollah Chief: Disarmament Would Be ‘Death Sentence’ for Lebanon
Lebanon’s Hezbollah Chief Naim Qassem gives a televised speech from an unknown location, July 30, 2025, in this screen grab from video. Photo: Al Manar TV/REUTERS TV/via REUTERS
i24 News – Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Saturday that it was not the responsibility of the Shiite terror group “to prevent aggression,” but rather the Lebanese state’s, and it is the responsibility of Hezbollah to engage “when the state and army fail to do so.”
In a recorded televised statement, Qassem sarcastically posed the question whether it was not Hezbollah that should be demanding the Lebanese Army’s disarmament if the latter fails to stop “Israel’s ongoing aggression.”
On the issue of disarming Hezbollah, Qassem said that disarming it in the manner currently proposed is a death sentence for Lebanon.
“Even if the sky falls, we will not be disarmed, not even if the entire world unites against Lebanon. We will not allow this and it will not happen,” Qassem said.
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High schoolers’ ‘human swastika’ on football field shakes San Jose Jewish community
(JTA) — The photo spread swiftly after a student posted it on social media: Eight California high schoolers were lying on their school’s football field, their bodies arrayed in the shape of a swastika.
Alongside the picture was a quote from Adolf Hitler, threatening the “annihilation of the Jewish race.”
The incident at Branham High School in San Jose began on Dec. 3 and has roiled the local Jewish community in the days since, as the wrenching saga has ignited suspensions, recriminations and alarm from around the world.
The photograph and the response to it were first reported by J. Jewish News of Northern California.
“We don’t want to see hatred,” Cormac Nolan, a Jewish Branham senior, told the local Jewish newspaper. “We don’t want to see the idolization of one of the most evil men to ever walk the face of the Earth. We don’t want someone who spews out hatred like this on our campus.”
The school’s student newspaper reported that the students involved had been suspended, and that dozens of other students walked out to protest the incident.
The San Jose Police Department told J. that it is investigating the incident, and the school’s principal, Beth Silbergeld, who is Jewish, said the school was working with the Anti-Defamation League and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, a local antisemitism advocacy group, “to ensure that we receive appropriate support and guidance as we work to repair the harm that’s been done to our community.”
Silbergeld told J. that she felt pressure to learn from the incident.
“I’ve been in education for a long time and have seen, sadly, lots of incidences of oppression and hate toward many groups,” she said. “I think that we always have a responsibility as schools to do what’s right and to take action and learn from the experiences of other other schools and other incidents as a way to hopefully eliminate actions like what we’ve experienced.”
The incident is not the first time Branham High School has faced controversy over antisemitism on its campus. In April, the California Department of Education ruled that the school had discriminated against its Jewish students by presenting “biased” content about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a 12th-grade ethnic literature curriculum.
It is also not the first instance of a “human swastika” roiling a school community. In 2019, nine middle schoolers in Ojai, California, also arranged themselves in a “human swastika” and faced disciplinary measures from the school.
Exactly what possessed the Branham students to do what they did is not clear. But psychologists told the J. that the teen years are a peak moment for transgressive behaviors that may or may not reflect deep-seated biases.
“It’s a developmental time where you’re doing new things, you’re trying new things, you’re making mistakes, you’re trying to fit in, you’re trying to get laughs and likes,” Ellie Pelc, director of clinical services at the Bay Area’s Jewish Family and Children’s Services, told the newspaper. “And you often do so in some hurtful or harmful ways that you don’t always have the capacity to think through in advance.”
The photo was met by condemnation by California State Sens. Scott Wiener, who wrote that antisemitism was “pervasive & growing” in a post on Facebook, and Dave Cortese, who said he was “deeply disturbed” by the incident in a statement.
“What happened at Branham High School was not a joke, not a prank, and not self-expression — it was an act of hatred,” wrote San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan in a post on X. “The fact that this was planned and posted publicly makes it even more disturbing.”
By Tuesday, the uproar had sparked a response from district leaders. In a post on Facebook, Robert Bravo, the superintendent for the Campbell Union High School District, wrote that the district “will respond firmly, thoughtfully, and within the full scope allowed by Board Policy and California law.” (Displaying a Nazi swastika on the property of a school is illegal in California.)
He added that the school district considered the incident an instance of “hate violence” based on California state education code, which allows for suspension or expulsion in such cases.
“Our response cannot be limited to discipline alone,” continued Bravo. “We are committed to using this incident as an opportunity to deepen education around antisemitism, hate symbols and the historical atrocities associated with them.”
The antisemitic post comes two months after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill creating a statewide office assigned to combatting antisemitism in California public schools. The office, which is the first of its kind in the country, was met with praise from local Jewish advocacy groups while some critics warned it could chill academic freedoms.
Marc Levine, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in the Central Pacific region, called the incident “repulsive and unacceptable” in a statement on X. The incident was also condemned by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area, which wrote in a statement that it had been working with the school about “how to ensure an effective response.”
The Bay Area Jewish Coalition also issued a statement on Tuesday, writing that the antisemitic act had “shaken Jewish families across Northern California and beyond.”
“We hope that what happened at Branham serves as a wake-up call for California and for the rest of the country to take the antisemitism crisis seriously and reverse the trend through real, meaningful action and long-term change,” the statement continued.
The post High schoolers’ ‘human swastika’ on football field shakes San Jose Jewish community appeared first on The Forward.