(JTA) — When more than 100 million viewers tune into the Super Bowl on Sunday, they’ll see Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady go toe to toe in a 30-second spot, screaming in each other’s faces.
The commercial is the second annual Super Bowl ad produced by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, or FCAS, the nonprofit founded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. It’s titled “No Reason to Hate.”
The ad features the two icons aggressively listing why they hate each other (“I hate you ’cause you look different.” “I hate you ’cause I don’t understand you.”). It ends with the message “The reasons for hate are as stupid as they sound.”
“This year, we’re proud to bring together my friends, Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg, in our No Reason to Hate Super Bowl campaign,” Kraft said in a press release. “Their shared commitment to this cause speaks to the strength of and amplifies the Foundation’s continued message: no matter where we come from, there is no place for hate in our world.”
Brady, often deemed the greatest football player ever, quarterbacked Kraft’s Patriots for nearly all of his career. He will be announcing Sunday’s game, held in New Orleans, between the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Kraft founded FCAS in 2019, at a time of rising antisemitism, and aired its first Super Bowl commercial last year, four months after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, when reports of antisemitism had surged to historic levels. The ad featured Clarence B. Jones, an advisor to Martin Luther King Jr., and was believed to be the first-ever Super Bowl ad about antisemitism.
Combatting all hate, not just antisemitism
And until further notice, that 2024 commercial will likely remain the only Super Bowl ad about antisemitism. That’s because this year’s ad from FCAS does not mention Jews, or prejudice against them, at all.
The foundation’s name appears on screen at the end, and Brady and Snoop Dogg each don the foundation’s signature blue square pin. But other than that, the ad focuses on combating all hate, rather than bigotry against Jews.
That’s in contrast to last year’s ad, which featured imagery including a swastika, someone wearing a yarmulke, and a sign with a Star of David. The end screen showed “Stand Up to Jewish Hate,” before “Jewish” flipped to “all.”
Sunday’s game comes at a time when antisemitism is still reported to be at high levels in the United States and around the globe. In a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, FCAS said their latest ad advances its work in “Tikkun Olam,” a rabbinic idea that translates to repairing the world, while continuing its efforts to reach a wide audience and, in its words, “put antisemitism into the conversation with other forms of hate.”
“We have seen firsthand how one form of hate begets other forms of hate,” the statement said. “Our mission in keeping with this principle remains clear: to educate and inspire unengaged Americans to stand up to Jewish hate by recognizing that hate of any kind increases hate of all kinds.”
FCAS has placed ads in several high-profile sports and cultural events, including the NBA playoffs and awards shows. Last year’s Super Bowl broke the all-time viewership record for any television broadcast with 123.4 million viewers. Last year’s Academy Awards — which featured an FCAS ad depicting a dramatization of a real-life synagogue bomb threat — topped 20 million viewers.
That ad, as well as one slamming antisemitism at campus pro-Palestinian protests — focused heavily on antisemitism and its impact on Jewish communities. But this year’s Super Bowl ad is not the only one by FCAS to widen the lens to combating hate more broadly. A recent spot featuring the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, for example, called for a “timeout on hate.”
In addition to the ad, FCAS is hosting a “Unity Summit” at the Xavier University of Louisiana on Friday, which will bring together over 100 Jewish and Black student-athletes for conversations about the two communities’ experiences with discrimination. The summit will feature guest speakers including Brigham Young University’s star Jewish quarterback Jake Retzlaff and Jewish NFL player Greg Joseph.
FCAS is also producing social media content in partnership with the digital media company Jubilee and with individual creators and sports personalities like NFL sideline reporter Erin Andrews.