Some Thoughts on Space Jews

And a brief history and analysis of Jews as the punchline.

Last week, comedy legend Dave Chappelle dropped a new, and final, Netflix special, The Closer. If you haven’t been following his career of late, let’s just say people, particularly the LGBTQ+ community (which Chappelle has derided as “the alphabet people”), are mad. In The Closer, Chappelle doubles down on his past jokes and statements and issues a sort of mea culpa as the grande finale, an emotional (or self-righteous?) monologue that calls upon comedy and humanity to link arms and fight cancel culture.

He’s right. But comedy is supposed to take everyone down a notch together, to look at our shared, collective human absurdity. We’re supposed to laugh with each other, not at each other. So when does comedy cross over into harmful social commentary that feeds hate?

I’m not going to speak for the LGBTQ+ community and where they think this line is. But I notice when a Jewish joke isn’t just a Jewish joke anymore. And Chappelle’s two swipes at Jews — two little swipes among many louder slaps, admittedly — are not so funny.

Everything’s funny up until the Jewish jokes, one might say. Here go the Jews, complaining about everything again. It’s practically a joke just to point this out. We take ourselves too seriously, decry anti-Semitism at the slightest offense, issue statements and drag legislators to Holocaust museums as if that will make a difference. And it’s Chappelle. He is an equal-opportunity offender. Big deal.

You tell me what you think.

Okayyy. Jews as aliens coming back to Earth after a long period of interstellar exploration and disappointment. I’m more interested in how the audience reacts. They’re not sure if they’re supposed to laugh. They kind of don’t get the joke. (Although apparently someone shouts “Free Palestine.”) After that, Chappelle pauses and says: It’s gonna get worse.

About 40 minutes in, it does.

Now it’s getting awkward. Did he just compare Jews to a freed slave who “learned nothing” and turned around and oppressed his brothers and sisters with an eye toward brutality that unnerved even the most brutal slave owners? Is that a thinly veiled allegory for Israel? The audience laughs harder this time.

I still don’t think they get it. So why are they laughing? Because a freed slave enslaving his brethren is so horrible it’s funny? And because applying this analogy to Jews makes it even funnier? Or because a pressure valve has been released? Or because it’s a comedy show and people know that when the comedian lands a punchline, they are supposed to laugh? Or because the punchline is just Jews, and you know when you hear “Jew,” you are supposed to laugh?

When I Googled around for the Jewish reaction to Chappelle the other day, not much came up. Today, I got a little message at the top of the search indicating that results were changing so quickly they may not be accurate. OK, so the Jews are on it. In my own exploration of where to stop the dial on the offense-o-meter, I began contemplating the greatest hits of Jewish jokes.

First up, Mel Brooks. Some people in the Twitter/reddit realm did mention that these jokes were just a riff off Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part I and this trailer for a never-made Part II. I don’t think they have anything in common.

But anyway, watch.

Funny? Here’s how to find out: Did you laugh?

A few more.

Stick with this one to the end and tell me what you think.

I know, Louis CK got canceled for sexual misconduct, tried to come back, got booed off the world stage, but still, he is “hilarious.” If you’re not familiar with this clip, you have to stay with it for about 4 minutes until he gets to the “Lisa” bit.

Now we’re getting at something. What is it about the word “Jew” that can be either a normal name for a group of normal people, or a slur with just a little “stink.”

If you’ve got a few extra minutes, watch this one, too.

Next up is everyone’s favorite anti-Semite, Cartman. South Park has been going hard on Jews in the form of Kyle Broslofski for its entire run. Kyle’s parents, with their sexual fetishes and Long Island accents and poofy hair and magenta yarmulke make you cringe a little. But I think we’re all in the joke by now, right?

For old time’s sake:

And finally, we can’t skip over Sacha Baron Cohen, the Jewish comic genius who catches people in their own (innocent?) participation in racism and anti-Semitism. What changes when it’s a Jew making the Jew joke?

When we know Jews are behind the joke itself, we recognize instantly that everyone is laughing with us, not at us. And when the joke is about us, but not by us, as in the case of people like Louis CK? Still funny, I say. Uncomfortable, maybe. But a good comedian is not just an equal opportunity offender, but also a social observer, someone whose job it is to take the wind out of everyone’s puffed up sails. We’re all in this human thing together.

There can be jokes about groups of people and the way they talk, the smelly food they eat, the pushy way they act, the frizzy hair they can’t control, the weird sex they like to have, the power people imagine them to hold, and so on. And everyone can be in on the joke. It can puncture stereotypes so people feel allowed to laugh — people who will not then leave the comedy club and go beat a Hasid to near death with a skateboard or drag a gay kid behind a truck.

Then there are deep, centuries-old stereotypes that have actually been the primary source for pogroms, lootings, stabbings, and mass murder. These aren’t jokes. These aren’t social commentary. They are public grievances.

Will any of our Jewish organizations speak out about how Chappelle’s “space Jews” bits invert the Holocaust and distort Jewish history and cryptically accuse us of world domination? Will anyone wonder what may have led him to these conclusions?

Or is it better to let the audience laugh at the punchline, “Jew,” and just hope they don’t get the actual “joke”?

Since this is a subscribers-only post, your comments will only be seen by other subscribers and won’t be open to the entire Internet. In other words, the comment section is a “safe space.” What do you think?