Antisemitic Humor: A Cloaked Villain
When an image of Anne Frank wearing a bikini circulated around the Harvard University campus in May, many Jewish students were shocked and disgusted, viewing the incident as the epitome of bad taste and insensitivity. That the image was not funny, most people could agree on. That it was a crude appropriation of a young girl’s body was evident to most (except, I suppose, its creator).
That it should not have been published was not heavily disputed. But was it antisemitic? That’s where you have to initiate a baffling investigation: a research project into the origins of jokes that offend Jews. Are they born from a seething hatred toward all Jews? From a blithe ignorance that repudiates any sort of accountability? From the poison of antisemitism that slips through a human’s veins, unawares? From some complicated combination of all of these? Sometimes there is no way to know.