I am a huge comedy fan. I have been since the first time I watched Saturday Night Live on the American NBC network in middle school. This love has led me to follow everything from stand-up to improv, from movies to podcasts. I even dabbled in stand-up and improv myself, creating a troop in college.
To this day, I’m an avid consumer of the genre, and that’s why Dave Chappelle’s SNL monologue hit me so hard.
I’m the first to defend a controversial joke. Many of my favorite comedians take shots at any and every ethnic group, and that’s fair game. Of course, one should always start by poking fun at oneself, but after that, anything goes.
John Cleese put it best in his 2019 Tel Aviv show, saying, “We’re all family, and so we josh each other. That’s how we show love. Now, as for you Jews…”
But this is not to say there aren’t limits. A comedian’s job is to find that line, walk right up to it, and sometimes cross it. When launching societal critiques, stepping over the line is inevitable. And when it happens, I’m the first to point out that it was all in fun. That’s the nature of comedy.
The same was true when Dave Chappelle hosted SNL in 2022. In jesting about Kanye West’s cancellation, he said things such as: “I’ve been to Hollywood and – no one get mad at me – I’m just telling you what I saw, it’s a lot of Jews. Like a lot.” The response from the Jewish community was widespread disdain.
But at that time, I stood by him. Jokes are jokes, I said. The reason the blowback was so intense was that Chappelle violated Jay Leno’s rule of comedy: You can only be as controversial as the joke is funny. And to be honest, the jokes just weren’t that funny.
A different tone
However, this most recent monologue was different. Chappelle mirrored the style of such comedians as Whoopi Goldberg. Her early comedy was both laugh-out-loud funny and hard-hitting. She’d lower your defenses with a string of jokes and then hit you with a dose of tough reality. This stand-up style is eye-opening and, when done correctly, has its place.
This was the tone of Chappelle’s most recent monologue. It’s something he has done many times before. In fact, Lorne Michaels, the long-time producer of Saturday Night Live, brought him back to address the nation on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration for this very reason. But instead of solely focusing on American politics, Dave turned his ire toward the Jews once again.
Chappelle’s message, this time, was not delivered in a comedic style. The Jewish people were now part of his serious conclusion. He lauded the late president Jimmy Carter for visiting the Arab-controlled territories in 2006.
At the time, the Israeli government warned Carter they could not protect him if he visited the region, but he went anyway. Chappelle deemed Carter’s visit true heroism and beseeched us all not to lose our humanity. “Please have empathy for displaced people whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine,” Dave said.
In this regard, he’s correct. We must never forget how our actions or inactions affect the innocent. But in this instance, Chappelle needs a dose of his own medicine. His statements were riddled with falsehoods and inaccuracies, and that, too, has its effects.
A close friend of mine was verbally assaulted on a New York Subway the very next day. The assailant quoted Chappelle’s monologue while labeling my friend a “genocidal Zionist.” His only crime was wearing a kippah in public.
Our words have consequences. And just as liberals attack Trump for every exaggeration and misapplication of the facts, the same needs to be true for the other side.
As much as I wish it weren’t the case, Dave Chappelle’s comments were not a joke. This line of attack is not new, but the more Hollywood elites speak out on behalf of the radicalized people of Gaza, the more my people are in danger, from New York to Jerusalem.
The writer is a rabbi, wedding officiant, and mohel who performs britot (ritual circumcisions) and conversions in Israel and worldwide. Based in Efrat, he is the founder of Magen HaBrit, an organization protecting the practice of brit milah and the children who undergo it.