Kate Hackett
Dave Chappelle joined Saturday Night Live this past weekend and has sparked an upset in the Jewish community for comments during his monologue.
On Sunday, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on Twitter that the comedian and NBC show were out of line.
“We shouldn’t expect @DaveChappelle to serve as society’s moral compass, but disturbing to see @nbcsnl not just normalize but popularize #antisemitism,” tweeted Greenblatt. “Why are Jewish sensitivities denied or diminished at almost every turn? Why does our trauma trigger applause?”
Chappelle hosted the show and spoke about the outrage facing Kanye West, who has recently come under fire for being ragingly antisemitic.
Chappelle started the show off by reading a statement. It said, “I denounce antisemitism in all its forms and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community.”
He then addressed Kanye, “And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”
He explained that Kanye broke “the show business rules”, which are actually “the rules of perception.”
“If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob,” Chappelle said. “But if they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.”
He then spoke on the number of Jewish people in the entertainment business.
“But that doesn’t mean anything,” he joked. “There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri. Doesn’t mean they run the place.”
He explained that he could understand “if you had some kind of issue, you might go out to Hollywood and start connecting some kind of lines and you could maybe adopt the illusion that Jews run show business.”
“It’s not a crazy thing to think,” he said. “But it’s a crazy thing to say out loud.”
Writer Adam Feldman tweeted “That Dave Chappelle SNL monologue probably did more to normalize anti-Semitism than anything Kanye said.”
He continued, “Everyone knows Kanye is nuts. Chappelle posits himself as a teller of difficult truths. It’s worse.”
