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Comedians are just as capable of antisemitic incitement as political figures. So let’s take Dave Chappelle seriously.
(JTA) — Last week saw Dave Chappelle deliver a brilliant monologue on “Saturday Night Live” addressing the antisemitism controversies surrounding Kanye West and Kyrie Irving.
Unfortunately, “brilliant” doesn’t inherently mean “moral” or “good.” Chappelle’s monologue was a masterclass in how to normalize and embolden antisemitic discourse, delivered in plain sight and with just enough “wink wink, nudge nudge” plausible deniability — mixed in with a sprinkle of real commentary — that one would easily almost not realize that … wait, did Chappelle denounce anything exactly?
He opened the monologue by pretending to read from the kind of apology being demanded of Kanye West, the rapper who in recent weeks had exposed various antisemitic tropes. “I denounce antisemitism in all its forms, and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community,” Chappelle “read,” mocking the boilerplate apologies that often arise in these moments. At face value, it’s a great piece of satire. But then he follows up with the punchline: “And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”
He isn’t holding West to account. He’s clearing the way and setting the stage for the finest bout of antisemitic dogwhistling probably ever featured on “SNL.”
There is legitimate commentary to be made about the often disproportionate and racialized vitriol directed at Black Americans who engage in antisemitism, coming from a society that revels in Black pain and punishment. Jews of color, and especially Black Jews like me, have been addressing this reality across social media for decades, noting the lack of intensity and accountability when the shoe is on the other foot — when Jewish figures espouse anti-blackness.
But this monologue by a Black comedian is making no such argument. And it comes as more bold and brazen bad-faith actors are acting out in more and more violent ways. Comedians are just as capable of incitement as political figures.
Chappelle is wildly adept at structuring complex jokes. For years he deftly delivered biting, raw and real socio-racial commentary, from his standup routines to “The Chappelle Show,” and since the 2000s has positioned himself as an astute teller of hard truths. If you doubt the man’s intelligence, watch what he does late in the “SNL” routine when he talks about Donald Trump.
With backhanded praise, Chappelle attributes Trump’s popularity and appeal to his skill at being an “honest liar.” Never before, said Chappelle, had voters seen a billionaire “come from inside the house and tell the commoners, ‘Inside that house we’re doing everything you think we’re doing.’ And then he went right back inside the house and started playing the game again.”
Chappelle took notes on Trump’s knack for saying exactly what he means and telling people exactly what he planned to do.
When Chappelle says there are two words you should never say together — “the” and “Jews” — he’s not speaking against antisemitic conspiracy theories that treat Jews as a scheming monolith. He’s insinuating instead that there is a “The Jews” that should never be challenged. (Chappelle goes on to repeatedly use the phrase “The Jews” in his monologue.) The one time he uses “the Jewish community” is to introduce the straw man argument that Black Americans should not be blamed for the terrible things that have happened to “the Jewish community” all over the world — a declaration so baffling that only one person in the audience responds. After all, no one was blaming West or Irving, the NBA star who shared on Twitter a link to a wildly antisemitic film, for the terrible things that happened to Jews. They were just being asked not to promote the ideas of people who had done those terrible things.
Also on full display is Chappelle’s deft, almost “1984”-esque doublespeak. Chappelle notes that when he first saw the controversy building around West’s antisemitism, he thought “Let me see what’s going to happen first” — a strange and telling equivocation. Chappelle diminishes the significance of the film shared by Irving, “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” by describing it as “apparently having some antisemitic tropes or something,” but then jokes that Irving probably doesn’t think the Holocaust happened — a trope presented in said movie.
Chappelle is reluctant to call Kanye “crazy” but acknowledges he is “possibly not well,” but has no problem referring to Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker as “observably stupid.”
Ultimately and persistently, Chappelle suggests that Kanye erred not in being antisemitic, but in being antisemitic out loud.
Most insidious in this regard was his seeming rejection of the notion, promoted by West, that Jews control Hollywood. Said Chappelle: “It’s a lot of Jews [in Hollywood]. Like a lot. But that doesn’t mean anything, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri. It doesn’t mean we run the place.” He refers to the idea that Jews control Hollywood as a “delusion.”
And then, rather than let this necessary distinction set in, he undercuts it, saying, “It’s not a crazy thing to think. But it’s a crazy thing to say out loud in a climate like this.” The problem, Chappelle is suggesting, is not harboring dangerous delusions, but saying them in public and risking being called on it. The “climate” is not one of dangerous antisemitism, but the danger of speaking one’s mind.
Chappelle telegraphed this sentiment with an earlier quip: West, he said “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, but if they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.”
The “perception” is that only Jews can’t be spoken of in derogatory terms. Kanye wasn’t wrong for thinking antisemitic thoughts, Chappelle suggests, but, again, speaking about them.
There are lots of jokes made in Hollywood at the expense of Jews. This, however, was not a case of Jews being unable to laugh at ourselves. There’s a difference between laughing at ourselves and having someone who isn’t Jewish use “wink wink” antisemitic tropes. It’s not that Chappelle’s monologue wasn’t funny on its face, it’s that it was harmful. This isn’t happening in a vacuum: It’s happening in a specific context, particularly one in which antisemitism has already been riled up and emboldened by Kanye and Irving. (“Hebrews to Negroes” became a bestseller on Amazon after Irving tweeted about it.)
It just takes the wrong kind of person to hear this monologue for us to experience, God forbid, another Tree of Life shooting. I didn’t particularly relish the wake of the first shooting when, as the rabbi of a congregation in Rockland County, New York, I met with county officials and negotiated police presences, and discussed mass-shooter evasion tactics to ensure the safety of my congregants.
For anyone who thinks Chappelle’s monologue was “just jokes” or that I am reading too much into it, consider his last line — a bravura complaint about cancel culture and the unspoken forces behind it: “I’ll be honest with you. I’m getting 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. [ominous voice] Whoever ‘they’ are.”
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Jewish lawyer quits Heritage Foundation’s antisemitism task force over Tucker Carlson defense
A prominent Jewish lawyer has quit a national initiative to fight antisemitism over comments by the president of the Heritage Foundation defending Tucker Carlson’s decision to host the white supremacist Nick Fuentes on his popular streaming show.
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, announced in a letter posted to social media on Sunday that he is quitting the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, convened by the Heritage Foundation, because of Kevin Roberts’ comments last week. The president of the Heritage Foundation both rejected calls to cut ties with Carlson and called conservatives criticizing him “a venomous coalition” within the Republican Party.
Goldfeder wrote that he had joined the national task force, launched in 2023, because he believed it would be nonpartisan, “transcend[ing] politics, ideology, and institutional affiliation.” Roberts’ defense of Carlson, he said, showed that it had departed from those values.
“Elevating him and then attacking those who object as somehow un-American or disloyal in a video replete with antisemitic tropes and dog whistles, no less, is not the protection of free speech. It is a moral collapse disguised as courage,” wrote Goldfeder, who is also an Orthodox rabbi.
He continued, “It is especially painful that Heritage, an institution with a historic role in shaping conservative policy, would choose this moment to blur the line between worthwhile debate and the normalization of hate.”
The episode comes as Republicans are increasingly divided over how to respond to antisemitism on the right, which many within the party say is surging. Some, including Sen. Ted Cruz, say antisemitism must be forcefully rejected, but other leading Republicans have downplayed the issue or, like Roberts, framed the presence of antisemitic rhetoric as a side effect of free speech.
Goldfeder rejected that idea in his letter.
“Free speech protects the right to speak. It does not compel anyone to provide a megaphone for a Nazi,” he wrote. “Those of us who lead or advise efforts to combat antisemitism have a responsibility to draw that line clearly. If we fail to do so, and if we equivocate when hatred dresses itself in the language of populism, we betray both our mission and our values.”
Goldfeder is not the first Jewish voice on the right to break ties with the Heritage Foundation, a key architect of conservative policy, over Roberts’ comments. Rep. Randy Fine, one of four Jewish Republicans in Congress, announced at the Republican Jewish Coalition convention in Las Vegas over the weekend that he would no longer allow Heritage staffers into his Capitol Hill offices and called on his colleagues to do the same.
Roberts’ video and the backlash has spurred open discord within an organization known for its unified conservative voice. The Free Press reported on Sunday that multiple people affiliated with Heritage had denounced the video on social media, and that Roberts’ chief of staff, seen as responsible for it, had been moved to another position.
Roberts responded to the backlash — and to goading by Fuentes — in a second social media statement late Friday that explicitly denounced Fuentes, citing specific comments in which Fuentes downplayed the Holocaust and called for the death penalty against Jews.
It did not mention Carlson, who is closer to the Republican Party’s mainstream and was the subject of protest at the Republican Jewish Coalition convention.
Rep. Randy Fine addresses the Republican Jewish Coalition’s national conference in Las Vegas, Nov. 1, 2025. (Joseph Strauss)
“Nick Fuentes’s antisemitism is not complicated, ironic, or misunderstood. It is explicit, dangerous, and demands our unified opposition as conservatives. Fuentes knows exactly what he is doing. He is fomenting Jew hatred, and his incitements are not only immoral and un-Christian, they risk violence,” Roberts wrote.
“Our task is to confront and challenge those poisonous ideas at every turn to prevent them from taking America to a very dark place,” he added. “Join us—not to cancel—but to guide, challenge, and strengthen the conversation, and be confident as I am that our best ideas at the heart of western civilization will prevail.”
The new statement earned praise from Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, which has long criticized Fuentes and Carlson as elevating antisemitism on the right. The ADL, founded to fight on behalf of Jews facing discrimination a century ago, had criticized the Carlson interview and amplified news reports critical of Roberts’ video.
“Credit to @KevinRobertsTX for stepping forward today and issuing a clear, cogent takedown of the toxic antisemitism and venomous racism expressed by Fuentes,” Greenblatt tweeted. “It was clarifying and crucial to hear firsthand that @heritaghas zero tolerance for this kind of poison.”
For his part, Goldfeder said he believed Heritage was feeling pressure from the antisemitism task force, which is chaired by Jewish and Christian Zionist figures. He also left the door open to a return.
“I want to personally thank the leaders of the task force, many of whom have already spoken up and about the need for Heritage to course-correct before it is too late,” Goldfeder wrote in his resignation letter. “I hope that Heritage will listen and, someday, reclaim the clarity that once defined its best moments. And I look forward to working together again as soon as that day comes.”
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Remains of Omer Neutra, Israeli-American hostage killed on Oct. 7, are returned to Israel
(JTA) — Hamas has returned remains belonging to Omer Neutra, an Israeli-American who was killed while serving in the Israeli army on Oct. 7, 2023, to Israel.
Neutra was one of two Israeli-American soldiers killed that day, along with Itay Chen, whose bodies were still being held by Hamas in Gaza weeks after the start of a ceasefire under which the group was required to release all hostages. Twenty living hostages were released at the ceasefire’s start, but Hamas has released deceased hostages intermittently and with snafus that have tested the truce.
On Sunday, Hamas transferred remains that it said came from three deceased hostages, which if confirmed would reduce the number of Israeli hostages in Gaza to eight. Neutra was the first to be positively identified.
“With heavy hearts and a deep sense of relief — we share the news that, Captain Omer Neutra Z”L has finally been returned for burial in the land of Israel,” his family said in a statement.
Neutra, who was 21 when he was killed, was the son of Israeli parents who grew up on Long Island, where he attended Jewish day school and camp. Following graduation, he moved to Israel and enlisted in the military. He was serving as a tank commander on Oct. 7.
For more than a year, his parents labored under the possibility that he was alive. Orna and Ronen Neutra became prominent faces of the movement to free the hostages, speaking at the Republican National Convention in 2024 as well as at a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition and numerous other forums. They also spoke directly with both U.S. presidents during their son’s captivity, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, in an effort to free their son and the other hostages.
After the Israeli army announced in December 2024 that it had concluded that Neutra had been killed on Oct. 7, his school and Jewish community on Long Island held a memorial service for him, while his town of Plainview named both a street and park for him. But family members continued to lobby for the remaining hostages, to return those who remained alive and give those whose loved ones had been killed the closure they desperately sought.
“They will now be able to bury Omer with the dignity he deserves,” the family’s statement said. “Omer has returned to the land he loved and served. His parents’ and brother’s courage and resolve have touched the hearts of countless people around the world.”
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A century before Mamdani, this Jewish socialist mayoral candidate divided NYC Jews
A socialist immigrant running for mayor on an anti-war, pro–working class platform divides New York’s Jews over whether his campaign, and potential victory, might stoke antisemitism.
The year isn’t 2025, and the man isn’t Zohran Mamdani. It’s 1917, and Jewish labor lawyer Morris Hillquit is running on the Socialist Party ticket.
While Hillquit fell well short of winning, he received more than 100,000 votes, or about 22% — over four times the Socialist tally four years earlier. He ran again in 1932, receiving about 12 percent of the vote.
Who was Hillquit, and how did his mayoral moment parallel the political currents shaping Mamdani’s rise today?
The economic parallels
Many aspects of Hillquit’s 1917 and 1932 mayoral platforms bear a striking resemblance to Mamdani’s today, according to Shelton Stromquist, emeritus professor of history at the University of Iowa and author of Claiming the City: A Global History of Workers’ Fight for Municipal Socialism.
Hillquit called for public ownership of the city’s transportation, and for the construction of affordable housing to replace substandard living arrangements. He also promised to bring down food prices, pledging to “put the milk profiteers out of business” by buying milk directly from farmers and selling it at cost.
Mamdani’s campaign has echoed many of those ideas, centering on affordability with proposals to make buses “fast and free,” freeze rents for tenants in rent-stabilized apartments, and create city-owned grocery stores.
And just as Mamdani has positioned his campaign as fighting big-money influence, Hillquit’s campaigns took on a populist tone.
“Too long have the people of New York been misruled for the benefit of bankers, franchise magnates, realty speculators, landlords, and other capitalists,” read a pamphlet distributed by the Socialist Party endorsing Morris Hillquit for mayor in 1932.
Both campaigns also drew on immigrant pride, according to Stromquist. Mamdani was born in Uganda; Hillquit in modern-day Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, in 1869. Hillquit’s family immigrated to the U.S. in 1896, settling in a Lower East Side tenement. He dropped out of school to help support them, working in garment factories and later helping to start the United Hebrew Trades, a garment workers’ union.
Like Mamdani, “Hillquit’s campaign was singular in many ways, but at the same time, it was very much a part of a broader movement that had been growing and spreading,” Stromquist said.
Mamdani, for his part, cites Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders — a fellow democratic socialist — as an inspiration. Sanders endorsed Mamdani and featured him on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, events that often draw tens of thousands of people and highlight other rising democratic socialists, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A recent poll shows socialism is more appealing to college students than capitalism.
Municipal socialism was also gaining traction in the early 20th century. In 1910, Jewish politician and journalist Victor Berger became the first socialist elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing a Milwaukee district. In 1913, socialists won a majority on Hamilton, Ohio’s city council and elected the mayor.
And while Hillquit lost the 1917 mayoral race, socialists still made gains in New York City that year: 10 state assemblymen, seven city aldermen, and one municipal judge were elected on the Socialist Party ticket. Of those 18 elected, 16 were Jewish.
A campaign that divided Jews
Mamdani’s positions on Israel have roiled Jews across the country, and he’s often had to defend himself against allegations of antisemitism for: refusing to outright condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada;” reiterating support for Palestinians in his statement on the Gaza ceasefire; vowing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York; and saying he doesn’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He’s simultaneously built a coalition of Jews who support him.
During the 1917 mayoral election, opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I overshadowed economic concerns for many voters, according to Stromquist.
Hillquit, a pacifist, was a principal co-author of the Socialist Party’s resolution opposing U.S. entry into World War I, and he made peace a central plank of his campaign.
His stance drew fierce backlash. Opponents labeled him “a traitor and an agent of the Kaiser,” and the attacks quickly grew personal. A 1917 editorial in this publication, the Yiddish Forverts, noted that Hillquit’s “bitterest enemies wish to see him drown in the Rutger Street fountain, or hanged off a sloop on the East Side.”
Hillquit’s position split the Jewish community. Some feared antiwar sentiment would make Jews appear unpatriotic and fuel antisemitism, according to Gil Ribak, associate professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona and author of the paper “For Peace, Not Socialism”: The 1917 Mayoralty Campaign in New York City and Immigrant Jews in a Global Perspective.”
One newspaper editor wrote to his readers as “a Jew to Jews,” asking them if they wanted “to give a chance for our neighbors to say that we are not loyal enough to America?”
Even Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis weighed in, telling his colleagues at a private meeting of Zionist leadership in 1917, “I cannot help feeling myself that the pacifistic attitude of some Jews is a danger to all Jews, and some form of a pogrom would not be at all unlikely.”
Others dismissed such concerns as fearmongering and rejected the idea that Jews had to vote a certain way to prevent antisemitism. As Forward founding editor Abraham Cahan argued in this publication, “Well, if we are destined, heaven forbid, to have the antisemitic bear come at us, then let’s not give our vote to a corrupt gang.”
Ultimately, the attacks on Hillquit did not deter Jewish voters. Though he fell well short of winning office, according to Ribak, turnout for Hillquit was especially strong in Jewish neighborhoods with the socialist candidate winning more than 60 percent of the Jewish vote in some areas of the Lower East Side.
Chana Pollack contributed research. Jacob Kornbluh contributed writing.
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