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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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The post Comedians are just as capable of antisemitic incitement as political figures. So let’s take Dave Chappelle seriously. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Arson Suspect Targeted Mississippi Synagogue for ‘Jewish Ties,’ Laughed During Confession: FBI
Smoldered remains of the Beth Israel Congregation’s library. Photo: Screenshot.
The suspect believed to have intentionally ignited a catastrophic fire which decimated the Beth Israel Congregation synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi has told US federal investigators he targeted the institution over its “Jewish ties,” according to an affidavit the FBI has submitted to federal court.
Stephen Pittman, the FBI said in portions of the affidavit made public on Monday, “was identified as a person of interest and ultimately confessed to lighting a fire inside the building.” The document added that Pittman, arrested on Sunday, purchased the accelerant, gasoline, with which he ignited the blaze from a gas station.
Pittman, 19, allegedly started the conflagration in Beth Israel’s library during the early morning hours on Saturday, setting off a blaze which coursed through the entire building and intensified to the extent that its flames, according to one local account, “were coming out of the synagogue’s windows.” As he carried out the act, he notified his father of it via text message, saying “I did my research,” the
According to the court filing, Pittman also told his father that he was aware of the incident being filmed by Beth Israel’s security cameras, describing them as “the best.”
“Pittman laughed as he told his father what he did and said he finally got them,” read the affidavit from Nicholas Amiano, an FBI agent in the Jackson division.
In the end, Pittman allegedly destroyed a number of Torah scrolls and caused damage so great that the building must, for now, be abandoned while authorities conclude their investigation of the incident and Beth Israel, founded in 1860, weighs a reconstruction which could takes years to complete.
The institution was once targeted by the Ku Klux Klan over its rabbi’s support for civil rights for African Americans. With the latest destruction, some 150 families will be left without the only Jewish house of worship in the city.
“As Jackson’s only synagogue, Beth Israel is a beloved institution, and it is the fellowship of our neighbors and extended community that will see us through,” Beth Israel president Zach Shemper said in a statement. “We are a resilient people. With support from our community, we will rebuild.”
Jackson Mayor John Horhn, a Democrat also issued a statement, saying, “Acts of antisemitism, racism, and religious hatred are attacks on Jackson as a whole and will be treated as acts of terror against residents’ safety and freedom to worship. Targeting people because of their faith, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation is morally wrong, un-American, and completely incompatible with the values of this city.”
He added, “Jackson stands with Beth Israel and the Jewish community, and we’ll do everything we can to support them and hold accountable anyone who tried to spread fear and hate here.”
Reactions to the suspected hate crime poured in from major Jewish civil rights organizations across the country, with Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt saying, “An attack on any synagogue is an attack on all Jews.” The American Jewish Committee (AJC) called the fire a “hateful act” that “is only the most recent symptom of the dangerous rising antisemitism facing Jewish communities across the country and around the world.”
For several consecutive years, antisemitism in the US has surged to break “all previous annual records,” according to a series of reports issued by the ADL since it began recording data on antisemitic incidents.
The ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024 — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, providing statistical proof of what has been described as an atmosphere of hate not experienced in the nearly fifty years since the organization began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL’s data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
The FBI disclosed similar numbers, showing that even as hate crimes across the US decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this rise in antisemitic hate crimes, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
“This latest deplorable crime against a Jewish institution reminds us that the same hatred that motivated the KKK to attack Beth Israel in 1967 is alive today,” the Florida Holocaust Museum said in a statement shared with The Algemeiner on Monday. “Antisemitism are still trying to intimidate Jews, drive them out of public life, and make houses of worship targets of violence instead of place of safety and community.”
It added, “With your help we can resist this evil. The more society understands about the nature of antisemitism, including the Holocaust, the better prepared it will be to identify and reject anti-Jewish bigotry. May Beth Israel’s Holocaust Torah, which survived the fire, inspire us all to stand up for each other and create a more just and accepting world.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Synagogue arson suspect posted antisemitic cartoon on day of the attack
Stephen Spencer Pittman, who has been charged with setting fire to Mississippi’s oldest synagogue, recently launched a website promoting “scripture-backed fitness” and shared antisemitic content on Instagram the day of the arson attack.
Pittman, 19, was charged Monday in the Jan. 10 arson of Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., which he targeted because it was Jewish and described as a “synagogue of Satan,” according to an FBI affidavit. The affidavit included images of a text message conversation with his father showing Pittman went by his middle name.
St. Joseph Catholic School, Pittman’s alma mater, posted a photo of him in November 2023, with congratulations on his decision to attend Coahama Community College. St. Joe’s, as it’s known, has confirmed that Pittman is the suspect charged in the fire.
Social media accounts appearing to belong to a Spencer Pittman in Madison, Miss., a city about 15 miles north of Jackson, and a website registered to Pittman show a deep interest in Christian evangelism and physical fitness. He regularly posted quotes from the New Testament and images of himself exercising or playing sports.
The website, www.onepurpose.us, is laden with Bible references, including seemingly Judaic ones. Its homepage prominently features the Hebrew tetragrammaton representing God’s name, and calls on young men to transform their lives through a “Temple plan” of exercise and Bible study. It used a Hebrew word, heichal, to refer to sanctuary.
Pittman’s Instagram account took a darker turn in recent days.
Two days ago he reposted an animated video of a woman seeing a Jewish caricature holding moneybags and exclaiming, “A Jew in our backyard!” before pushing the figure into a swimming pool and adding, “You’re getting baptized right now.” The account he reposted has primarily shared that meme over and over. It was unclear whether he posted the video before or after the arson attack, which occurred Jan. 10 at around 3 a.m.
Before that, most of Pittman’s posts were about baseball, which he played at Coahoma Community College. It appears from an Instagram post about three weeks ago that Pittman had stopped playing baseball. In a post from Dec. 19, Pittman wrote, “Peace out to the game that made me ascend.”
He was the team’s starting center fielder at the end of last season. The school has deleted Pittman’s page from its website.
Pittman, who is in federal custody, remains hospitalized with burns it’s believed he received as a result of the arson. He was appointed a public defender on Monday, who appeared with him via videoconference for a preliminary hearing. He is expected to be released from the hospital on Wednesday, his lawyer said. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 20.
According to WLBT 3, a Jackson-based TV news station, after a federal judge asked Pittman during the hearing if he understood his rights, Pittman responded, “Yes sir. Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Law enforcement is still investigating the attack, and additional charges may be filed. If convicted on the current charges, Pittman could face up to 20 years in prison.
Calls to Pittman’s lawyer and to his family were not returned Monday.
The post Synagogue arson suspect posted antisemitic cartoon on day of the attack appeared first on The Forward.
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California Democrat Scott Wiener Accuses Israel of ‘Genocide’ in Sharp Reversal Following Debate Backlash
California State Sen. Scott Weiner. Photo: Screenshot
California State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat seeking to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the US Congress, announced on Sunday that he believes Israel’s military campaign in Gaza meets the definition of “genocide,” a sharp reversal from a recent debate in which he declined to use the term.
Wiener’s declaration came after a contentious candidate forum last week in San Francisco, during which he declined to answer a direct question about whether he believed Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. That hesitation was met with jeers from the audience.
In a video posted Sunday on the X social media platform, Wiener, who is Jewish, said he had “stopped short of calling it genocide, but I can’t anymore,” citing the “devastation and catastrophic death toll” in Gaza as justification for using the term. Weiner also accused Israeli officials of making “genocidal” statements while justifying their military operations against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and claimed that Israel schemed to “destroy Gaza and push Palestinians out.”
The state senator also acknowledged the emotional weight the word holds for many Jews, given its origins in describing the Holocaust.
For years, I’ve condemned Netanyahu and his extremist government and the devastation they’ve inflicted on Gaza. It’s why I’ve been clear I won’t support U.S. funding for the destruction of Palestinian communities. I’ve stopped short of calling it genocide, but I can’t anymore. pic.twitter.com/71nIt6K527
— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) January 11, 2026
Denying accusations of genocide, Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
Wiener’s accusation of genocide marks a complete reversal not only from his recent debate answer but also from a new profile of him published in The Atlantic, in which he denied accusations of genocide lobbed at Israel and decried the weaponization of the war in Gaza as a “purity test.” He compared such ideological mandates to medieval attempts to divide the Jewish community between “good Jews” and “bad Jews.” Weiner also argued that Jewish liberals are being pushed out of progressive spaces if they don’t demonstrate sufficient hatred for Israel.
“If part of your Jewishness is, you know, that you support the homeland of the Jews and the home of one-half of all Jews on the planet, then that makes you a bad Jew,” Weiner said. “If you’re not willing to use the exact language that we want you to use, then you’re a bad Jew.”
The article came out on Sunday, the same day of his social media post accusing Israel of genocide.
Weiner has been a frequent target of anti-Israel demonstrators. In October, a group of agitators confronted the state lawmaker and accused him of supporting “genocide.”
Mallory McMorrow, a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Michigan, similarly lamented that accusations of “genocide” against Israel are becoming a “purity test” within Democratic primaries. She argued in a new interview with Detroit Public Radio that there exists a “broadly shared goal among most Michiganders, that this violence needs to stop, that a temporary cease fire needs to become a permanent cease fire, that Palestinians deserve long term peace and security, that Israelis deserve long term peace and security.”
However, the candidate argued, “I also feel like we are getting lost in this conversation, and it feels like a political purity test on a word — a word that, by the way, to people who lost family members in the Holocaust, does mean something very different and very visceral.”
McMorrow, who has previously claimed she agrees that Israel committed a so-called “genocide” in Gaza, suggested that some candidates in the race are “using this as a political weapon and fundraising off of it.” Abdul El-Sayeed, a progressive Democrat in the Senate race, has condemned Israel for committing “genocide” and has called for an arms embargo on the Jewish state.