Reginald D. Hunter, half-comedian and half-preacher from the United States, is a Black man who should understand what racial persecution is. He stands in front of a cheering crowd and tells a joke: Israel, he says, reminds him of a woman who abuses herself and then blames her poor husband. In other words, according to the joke, Israel is the one who attacked, raped, and murdered herself on October 7 and then blamed the innocent Gazans; hilarious.
But that is just the beginning. This “clever” joke doesn’t amuse everyone at the show in Edinburgh. A couple who protested the joke and shouted, “Not funny!” faces a mass attack from the audience and the comedian himself, eventually having to flee the hall to cries of “genocidal maniacs.” Hunter, who has a few Holocaust jokes in his repertoire, encourages the hateful atmosphere and later responds that these things happen during performances. As a result of the incident, another of his shows is canceled.
I love stand-up shows that include various associations and comparisons. It can be funny when someone says, “Airbags remind me of my banker,” or “Mashed potatoes remind me of my ex-wife,” as long as there’s a funny explanation.
However, Hunter, like a sophisticated contemporary antisemite, doesn’t use the word “Jews” directly; he merely leads the audience to think it. He doesn’t generate complex associations; he just delivers a simple, politically charged statement that Israel is to blame for everything done to it, while it accuses the innocent. The path from this to “From the river to the sea” is short.
I also enjoy self-deprecating humor. When Seinfeld talks about the uncle who blames all his failures on “antisemitism,” it’s funny. When Modi the comedian tells stories about Jewish organizations always trying to squeeze out more money or how a Jew feels discomfort in a hardware store, it’s hilarious. You don’t need much – just throw in words like “shtick” or “rachmones” in an English text, and I’m already laughing. We have a sense of humor, and unlike certain other religions, we can definitely handle self-criticism. “Oy vey krechtsen” is part of who we are.
But Hunter isn’t so funny. He lacks sophistication, subtlety, and certainly compassion. What he does have is a keen sense for what can rile up an ignorant and manipulated Scottish crowd. Comparing the State of Israel to a masochistic, self-victimizing woman is not humor but part of a lie industry, igniting a small tribal bonfire with a Star of David, under the guise of art.
World War II
I have associations too, and they involve Hunter reminding me of the Polish government during World War II. The government that didn’t dirty its hands but slyly provided moral support to its citizens to join the Nazis in murdering three million Polish Jews and seizing their property. He reminds me of the regime that, even after the war in 1946, when the extent of the destruction was known, “couldn’t stop” Polish citizens from carrying out the Kielce pogrom – in which 47 Holocaust survivors were murdered.
Like the Polish government, Hunter didn’t explicitly say that Jews should be attacked, and for that, he indeed deserves praise. But he also operates under the surface, encouraging the attackers. Hunter, too, will soon apologize, deny involvement, claim he was misunderstood, and say that he is actually the victim of the situation, just as the Polish government does today. But it won’t really help him, either.
Because associations, as he knows, whether funny or not, are very subjective. And even if he converts and makes aliyah, a Hunter show will always elicit memories of an antisemitic performance.
The writer is the president of WIZO.