Give Dave Chappelle a Shtetl Pass

Comedian Dave Chappelle, at the end of his monologue on Saturday Night Live this weekend, made an observation that — like much of his humor — was a serious point disguised as a joke. “It shouldn’t be this scary to talk,” Mr. Chappelle said. “And I hope they don’t take anything away from me.” Then with an impish grin, Mr. Chappelle delivered the punchline: “whoever ‘they’ are.”The “they” was a reference to the Jews of the imaginations of Kanye West and Kyrie Irving. Mr. Chappelle poked and prodded at their recent outbursts about shadowy Jewish control of Hollywood and the media. Here’s one of Mr. Chappelle’s edgier offerings: “If there are a group of blacks, 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.”As an Ashkenazi-American, I was not offended. Even if I were, it wouldn’t matter. The broader principle of giving artists — particularly comedians — wide latitude to explore cultural taboos is more important than making comedy, music, or cinema safe and inoffensive for the most sensitive audience. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, disagrees. In a tweet on Sunday, he said that Saturday Night Live had helped both normalize and popularize antisemitism. “Why are Jewish sensitivities denied or diminished at almost every turn?” Mr. Greenblatt asked. “Why does our trauma trigger applause.”The president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, tweeted her approval of the ADL’s statement. “Exactly right Jonathan,” she said. “It was chilling to watch. No trauma should be laughed at‚ — or made fun of — none.”Really? Are Ms. Weingarten and Mr. Greenblatt unaware of the work of, say, Mel Brooks or Isaac Bashevis Singer? Both mined the tragedy of Jewish trauma for punchlines and irony. You could say that finding humor in despair is one of the secrets of Jewish survival over the last five millennia.On a more important level though, it’s dangerous for the head of an organization ostensibly devoted to fighting antisemitism to assume the role of hall monitor — particularly because there is today in America a rise in real antisemitism.It has been deadly in some cases, particularly for orthodox Jews whose garb and kippot identify them as such. That said, it’s bizarre to equate targeted violence against Jews with the ramblings of rappers and point guards. The recent attacks against Jews at Boro Park and Jersey City count as real trauma for the Jewish community. The public meltdowns of Messrs. West and Irving are gaper delays on the information superhighway.In this respect, Mr. Greenblatt and Ms. Weingarten are asserting that American Jews should be protected from speech and culture. In other words, they are co-opting the history of Jewish trauma to justify new kinds of censorship.No thanks. A far better way to fight the antisemitism of celebrities is to quietly engage them over time, away from the cameras. This was the approach that Mr. Greenblatt’s predecessor, Abraham Foxman, took with the Reverend Jesse Jackson in 1984, after he referred to New York City as “Hymietown.” Over weeks and months, Mr. Foxman appealed to Reverend Jackson on a human level. He turned a foe of the Jewish people into a friend. When Mr. Foxman retired from the ADL in 2015, Reverend Jackson spoke in praise of him at his retirement dinner. Compare that to Mr. Greenblatt’s handling of Mr. Irving. As Tablet’s Liel Liebowitz wrote last week, Mr. Greenblatt’s first response to Mr. Irving tweeting an endorsement of an antisemitic documentary was to accept his $500,000 donation to the ADL. The ADL returned the money only after Mr. Irving refused to actually apologize for his errant tweets.Mr. Chappelle exposed the absurdity of these public apologies in his opening joke. After reading from a brief statement denouncing antisemitism, the comic waits a beat: “And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.” I don’t speak for every Jew, but this one finds that joke hilarious. The target of the barb was not the Jewish people. It was Kanye West and the ADL. Dave Chappelle deserves a shtetl pass.

Give Dave Chappelle a Shtetl Pass

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