October 10th, 2021
via: Netflix
Dave Chappelle is a comedian who by now has offended just about everyone. He can make whatever jokes he wants. That said, StandWithUs is an education organization and Chappelle’s latest special offers a teachable moment.
VIDEO: https://twitter.com/i/status/1445507470726631431
In his bit about “Space Jews” he implies Jews collectively left their homeland by choice (because they had “achieved interstellar travel”). If the joke had been rooted in historical facts, the “Space Jews” would have left because they were forced out by oppressive empires. The next part of the joke matches reality – they go to another planet and “things go terrible for them” there. However, the full story is not that Jews left Israel by choice and things happened to go badly in other places.
It is that Jews were defeated by an oppressive colonial force, gradually scattered across the world, and continued to suffer persecution across Europe and the Middle East. Less funny, but true! After 1,900 years of life as an oppressed minority, Jews would indeed claim their homeland as their own, and rightfully so.
In the second part of the joke, Chappelle tells a seemingly unrelated story and ties it back to “Space Jews”. VIDEO https://twitter.com/i/status/1446185377908264964
He seems to imply that “Space Jews” are now perpetrating the worst crimes that were previously committed against them (i.e. the Holocaust).
StandWithUs covered this dehumanizing and slanderous accusation here: https://instagram.com/p/CRlfFECrqVw/?utm_medium=copy_link
Jokes tend to be funnier when they reflect reality on some level, rather than awkwardly distorting it.
About StandWithUs
StandWithUs (SWU) is an international, non-profit and non-partisan Israel education organization that works to inspire and educate people of all ages about Israel, as well as challenge misinformation and fight against antisemitism. Through university fellowships, high school internships, middle school curricula, conferences, materials, social media, educational films and missions to Israel, StandWithUs supports people around the world who want to educate their schools and communities about Israel. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the organization has programs on five continents with chapters and offices throughout the U.S., in Israel, the UK, Canada and Brazil. For the last nine years, SWU has consistently received the highest possible ratings from Charity Navigator (4 stars) and Guidestar (Platinum). www.standwithus.com and www. facebook.com/standwithus and www.twitter.com/standwithus and https://www.instagram.com/standwithus
