By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

I’ve been watching videos of “Saturday Night Live Weekend Update” hosts Michael Che and Colin Jost on my Facebook feed. The videos began to pop up after I read about Che and Jost exchanging jokes while a real-life rabbi sat at their desk, shaking her head at their so-called news reports. Che, who is black, and Jost, who is white, gave each other deliberately offensive jokes to read. While the content of the jokes could be vulgar, they were also hysterical. (Jost, after reading racist jokes written by Che, has been known to comment, “You are going to get me killed!” However, Che has told jokes that are just as bad.) I find myself laughing at the two and watching more and more of their videos. Both hosts of the weekend update are asking us to question how we look at race relations and it works because it makes me think while I’m laughing.

However, not all satire works. For example, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency published an article about a column that recently appeared in the Belgian magazine Humo. According to the report. Herman Brusselmans, a Belgian author, “is being sued by the European Jewish Association after he wrote that Israel’s bombing of Gaza made him want to ‘ram a sharp knife through the throat of every Jew’ he meets.” Brusselmans claims he is not calling for the murder of Jews, just noting how angry those living in Gaza must be. His editors call his work satire and say it is not to be taken seriously.

I’m generally fine with satire, but there is something about this one that bothers me. While I understand that his intentions were probably not meant to be antisemitic, I’m not sure Brusselmans would have written a column using any other religious or racial category in that way. He wrote, “Jew,” not Israeli, not Israeli army soldier, not leaders of Israel, but “Jew.” That general word includes those who are calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, who cry with despair at what’s happening in Gaza, who have protested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank for decades... as if every Jew in every part of the world is exactly the same and directly responsible for what is occurring. 

The reaction of Jewish authorities and institutions is understandable. There has been an upsurge in antisemitic attacks across the world. The fear that someone will take his words seriously is not to be taken lightly: some might see it as a call to action, even though he doesn’t mean it to be. History has shown us the need to err on the side of caution when it comes to potential attacks on our brethren across the world.

I don’t think a column about anger that includes the desire to kill Jews is funny because those deaths include me and you and our families and our friends. Brusselmans certainly has the right to publish his column, but I hope that next time he will pause before painting every Jew with the same brush. He could have gotten the same point across without resorting to suggesting violence. I may be over sensitive, but even when I dislike something done by a member of a group, I don’t want to ever – even in fun – suggest that I want to kill any or every member of that group. In the dangerous world in which we live right now, it’s just not funny.