The #SNL thing is exhausting. But it's also symbolic and real. And there's a significant difference between the way it plays out in Israel (the ostensible target of the joke) and the way it plays out in America, where 'Jewish,' the punchline to the #antisemitic 'joke,' is a physically vulnerable minority.
While I don't often quote the Jerusalem Post, their editorial (which called the outcry over Michael Che's joke 'unreasonable') articulated why in an America that still boasts Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and tiki-torch-wielding White Nationalists, a fierce Jewish response is necessary:
"It’s one thing for us to make fun of ourselves to each other here, and quite another for someone else to make fun of us to others over there. That type of joke in Israel will not spur someone with antisemitic tendencies to go dab a swastika on the wall of a synagogue, or worse. In America it may."
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art: "Words in the Wind," Ruben Monzon
