Have you heard the one about the Jews?

[OrechDin]

Jamie Glassman

As a writer on The Ali G Show I can do insulting jokes. But the anti-Jewish sentiment at Edinburgh is shocking


THERE’S NOTHING I like more than a Jewish joke. It’s the anti-Jewish ones I’m not so keen on.
Wandering through the streets of Edinburgh during the world’s largest arts festival, you never know what sight or sound you will be bombarded with next. Half-naked men on 6ft stilts meander by, half-naked girls rush to sell you their show, troops of Japanese acrobats tumble past. But I wasn’t prepared for the verbal assault I got when I wandered into a comedy gig this week.

There have always been anti- Semitic jokes. But you know times are changing when you go along to a stand-up show at the Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh Fringe and you hear audience members shouting “Throw them in the oven” when the comic suggests kids should stop playing Cowboys and Indians and replace it with Nazis and Jews.

Stand-up comedy is as good a prism as any through which to look at the changing attitudes in our society. If my past few days are anything to go by then it is becoming increasingly acceptable to hate the Jews. Again.

I’ve seen two comics so far who have been happy to amuse their crowds with Holocaust gags. I’m not sure which to be the more concerned about.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-2312891,00.html

[cali]

1. I don't think it's acceptable

to try and turn suffering into a joke, but I went to your link, read the article, and then read feedback from one of the comics. He categorically denies the accusation that he was making a joke about playing "nazis and jews". It sounds like the author made an unjust accusation.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Was good of you

to go to that trouble. In actual fact if a comedian over here really did go too far over the top on such a subject he could even be arrested for doing so assuming someone reported him.

[OwnedByFerrets]

7. And we all know that the only persons

exempt from prosecution for hate crimes are the radical right wing blowhards. :sarcasm:

[dipsydoodle]

10. That don't apply in the UK

The law's the law as they say - comes under our most recent incitement law. Helps explain why the guys in the British National Party keep getting arrested.

Some brief details here : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3873323.stm There were logistic problems due to this bit amongst others :

snip

What if someone hates a religion because they think it's a threat?

This was at the heart of the criticisms of the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. Those opposed to the law argue that it would be impossible to say X or Y religion damages British society because, in doing so, they may be accused of inciting hatred.

[OrechDin]

11. Yes I saw that,

Glassman should challenge it or apologize. There must have been an audience to back up or refute the `claims`.

[Felinity]

2. Blechght, YUK, Barf

:grr:

Let's get this straight, citizens of earth. There are a few things that are not funny. The holocaust, rape, pedophilia, domestic violence, and Tucker Carlson (too much like matzo).

Geez.

[dipsydoodle]

3. I'm surprised that Glassman should have written that.

He's only too well aware what stand up comedy is like here. I can only assume his article is a space filler and he had nothing else to write about. He'd have got the same result at the local Comedy Store without travelling to edinburgh.It's always been the same here and probably always will be. It goes back to when Lenny Bruce came over and beyond that. If the comedians don't use provokation the audiences lose interest. I've never been aware of anyone taking whatever the subject matter is seriously and generally speaking those whose feeeling are easily hurt just shouldn't bother going.

Notwithstanding what I've written above - yes , somethings are in bad taste.

[originalpckelly]

5. What exactly is the point of posting this?

Are you trying to say that all people in Edinburgh are anti-semitic?

[OrechDin]

13. See post 12 nt

[treestar]

6. So let's bomb Scotland

- there might be people there who deny Israel's right to exist.

I disagree that it is "becoming more acceptable to hate the Jews." Totally disagree. That is not so. There are always a few rabid racists.

This is just being brought up to prop Israel's actions and again in some indirect way to imply that criticizing Israel is equal to anti-semitism.

But it is becoming more acceptable to hate the Arabs. If there was a joke about that, would you be complaining? Or are Islamofascists who "want to kill us all" fair game?

If any collective needs to worry today that they will be persecuted on grounds of religion/ethnicity today, it is Arab Muslims.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[rockymountaindem]

14. And that makes it ok for comedians in Scotland

to make sick jokes about the Holocaust? I think not.

[PCIntern]

15. I've been at DU a whole lot longer

than PSU has been in existence.

No one, and I mean no one, used more of his professional time to campaign for Kerry to get out the vote and to bash *. Don't you ever accuse many of us of 'infiltrating'. It is beneath comtempt. We are not a Fifth Column, we are concerned indiciduals with a right to our opinions.

I will withold comments concerning your brain power because it will cause a problem here.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[OrechDin]

12. So pointing out anti semitism and repugnant `comedy` about the Holocaust

Has somehow morphed into `This is just being brought up to prop Israel's actions and again in some indirect way to imply that criticizing Israel is equal to anti-semitism. `



Lets all re-read this article again, shall we?



:eyes:

[cali]

21. That all depends, doesn't it?

If you're a Christian in Afghanistan things aren't going to go to well for you. And as the last person in this country (that I'm aware of) to be actually killed for their ethnicity was a Jew, I think it safe to say that you can never tell what ethnicity or race will be targeted. In addition, according to all reports, anti-semitism is indeed on the rise.

[villager]

24. Would you be this patronizing if it was about black or hispanic "jokes?"

Rushing to say it's "all in your head" whenever they feeled singled out in the media, or by the dominant culture?

Or even more ridiculously, twisting it to the needs of your own defensiveness?

[Behind the Aegis]

25. What does this have to do with Israel?

Sounds like someone is 'conflating.'

[unblock]

8. i wonder if he wrote ali g's "throw the jew down the well"?

:shrug:

on edit: he does talk about it in the article....

[PCIntern]

16. I bet that was just a riot...

A laff a minute...

[Lurking Dem]

18. It was kind of frightening

and funny at the same time. You couldn't BELIEVE that people were gladly singing along yet it was so ludicrous you just had to laugh though the tears.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vb3IMTJjzfo

[izzybeans]

22. Sasha Baron Cohen is Jewish-at least by birth

It seems likely it is gallows humor in the vain of Spike Lee's Bamboozled.

The absurdity displayed the hidden racism of the crowd. The irony busts open the silence of the contradiction of surface smiles and hidden angst through laughter and allows us to talk about it. Like right now for instance...

[leftofthedial]

19. I don't think anything is off limits for humor

there are things that won't work for any particular audience, but everything is fair game.

If you don't like it, don't listen.

[Jed Dilligan]

20. My sentiments exactly. nt

[PCIntern]

23. Right...Wanna bet?

Your mother's so fat you have to roll her in flour...

[rockymountaindem]

26. I was going to suggest rape as an example of something that is

never funny. Would anybody put up with rape jokes? I think not, and for good reason.

[Marr]

30. George Carlin has an act in which he proves that you can indeed

make a funny rape joke. He convinced me, at least.

I agree with leftofthedial- people can joke about anything. Feel free to be offended.

[leftofthedial]

27. that's a good one!

although a little old

and when I heard it, it was about your mother!

:rofl:

[Ms. Clio]

28. have you heard the one about a separate line at the airport for Muslims?

oh, wait, that wasn't a joke.

[Synnical]

29. Is this the same festival?

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1219491.ece

The politics of humour: Religious extremism? What a joke

This year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe is taking place in a climate of heightened inter-faith sensitivity. So how are the comedians handling this touchy subject? Johann Hari finds out
Published: 16 August 2006

If one sentence summarises the mood of this year's Edinburgh Fringe, it is this earnest pledge, muttered by a Bushalike President as he orders a new terror raid: "I have to keep killing religious fanatics. God told me to."

The terrific comedy twosome Toulson and Harvey have perfectly summarised the suspicion in Edinburgh that the world is choking on converging toxic clouds of religion, wafting in from the West - where there is a Christian fundamentalist president who believes stem cells are people - and even more speedily from the East, where Islamic fundamentalists believed blasting 4,000 infidel out of the sky last week would put them on an escalator to virginarama. This year's Fringe is filled with newly energised atheists, offering ironic points of darkness as their answer to this blaze of fake light.

A few brave Muslim and ex-Muslim comedians are standing up to the death-threaters and the head-hackers. This should, for example, be Omar Marzouk's year, since, as a Danish-Muslim comedian, he has a unique take on the fever that broke over the Muslim world when a clutch of Danish cartoonists dared to draw Mohamed.

"It's hard enough being Muslim, but now one billion Muslims hate me for being Danish too," he says. "I'm a buffet of hate. It's hard figuring out what to boycott and what to burn." But his latest show is a surprisingly stale rehash of last year's gags. It is still politically brave: he militantly defends free speech, and while he savages "Israel's precision bombs that hit random targets", he also points out that "nobody kills more Muslims than Muslims at the moment". But his joke-death ratio is worrying - although he does quip: "I don't mind when my jokes die because they go to heaven and get 72 virgin jokes."

As so often, the bravest, smartest critic of Islamic fundamentalism in town is a woman the fundamentalists would love to claim as "one of ours" and enslave. Last year it was Shazia Mirza; this year it's Shappi Khorsandi. She is a jangly bundle of unveiled nerves whose show, Asylum Speaker, is both adorable and daring, a rare combination. "I'm a female Iranian stand-up," she says as she enters. "They call me the box-ticker." ("You might find it difficult to tell the difference between Iran and Iraq," she adds. "We're the ones with weapons of mass destruction.")