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The Larry David Holocaust Joke
– Not What You Think.
Larry David
T
rue, Larry David told a concen-
Jews such as Einstein and Jonas Salk —
tration camp joke during his
Nobel laureate for developing the first
monologue late last year on
polio vaccine. He then continued, in a
Saturday Night Live. As expected, our
humorous way, suggesting that Gentiles
American Jewish watchdog groups
scrutinize Jews, and that Jews tend to
immediately sprang into action, roundly care too much about what Gentiles
condemning the Jewish come-
think. All true, all connected in a
dic genius. They denounced
light entertaining way.
David. “Offensive, unfunny
Then came the concentration
and insensitive all at the same
camp part. David explained that
time,” according to the Anti-
if he were growing up in Poland
Defamation League (ADL)
when Hitler was in power and
CEO.
ended up in a concentration
Sadly, such criticism evinces
camp, would he still be check-
an ominous ignorance of the
ing women out? “The problem
Eugene
media and how messages are
is,
there are no good opening
Greenstein
promoted in our media-centric
lines in a concentration camp,”
culture. It also demonstrates
he said.
ignorance of Larry David, who
When we connect the dots,
recently found out his mother’s
David’s subtle and subliminal
entire family had been mur-
message is clear: Judging all
dered by the Nazis on an epi-
Jews — or any group for that
sode of Finding Your Roots.
matter — based on the bad
David’s monologue, like any
Jews or some bad members is
episode of Seinfeld or Curb
what leads to genocide. Judging
Your Enthusiasm connects dots
all Jews based on the bad Jews
Martin Leaf
— many of them seemingly
makes us no better than Nazis.
insignificant at first. However,
Judging all Jews based on the
by the end, these dots connect
bad Jews is as bad as judging
in important ways. That is
all Gentiles based on the bad
the architecture of both Larry
Gentiles, e.g. Nazis and their fel-
David’s comedy and his mind.
low travelers.
David’s monologue mentioned that
It doesn’t matter whether the ADL
“many, but not all, of the sexual preda-
CEO consciously figured all this out
tors are Jewish.” True enough. He then
as it was happening. What matters is
stated that on the other hand, there are
how the tens of millions of the most
Contributing Writers:
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Greenwald, Ronelle Grier, Esther Allweiss
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Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz,
David Sachs, Karen Schwartz, Robin Schwartz,
Steve Stein, Joyce Wiswell
Arthur M. Horwitz
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ideal demographic — the 16- to 40-
somethings — were affected. There is
every reason to believe David’s mes-
sage positively impacted their minds.
David’s message and method is exactly
what modern, expensive advertisements
do — subtle, subliminal, entertaining
and targeted to young adults. It is also
the method Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Nazi
minister of propaganda, arguably the
greatest propaganda genius of all time,
believed was the most effective method.
There is a significant increase in anti-
Semitic messages in American media
that are subtle, subliminal, embed-
ded in entertainment and targeted to
young adults. There is also a significant
increase in anti-Semitism among that
demographic, including Jews. In fact,
the anti-Semitic messages are so preva-
lent they are now being tweaked to tar-
get different types of young adults.
The 2011 motion picture Drive targets
the NASCAR crowd and Hispanics to
hate Jews. Nike’s anti-Semitic advertise-
ment “The Last Game,” seen by billions,
exploits the well-known anti-Semitism
among soccer fans worldwide. The
film Triple 9 reaches out to young adult
blacks with its message of Jew-hatred,
and so on. This should be alarming
given the fact that the Nazis only pro-
duced two major anti-Semitic films: Jud
Suss and The Eternal Jew.
Now comes the ominous part. If our
watchdog groups are blind — willfully
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or otherwise — to these effective anti-
Semitic messages and methods, then
American Jewish watchdogs are in the
same precarious and ineffectual posi-
tion they were in during the Holocaust.
History now proves unequivocally
that the American Jewish watchdog
groups knew about the Nazi policy of
genocide as early as 1942 and about the
mass murders and war crimes much
earlier.
The ADL and the other Jewish watch-
dogs were virtually silent then, believing
it better to suspend their Jewishness.
Even worse, they tried to silence,
sabotage, denounce and harm the few
heroes such as Academy Award-winner
Ben Hecht and Peter Bergson. Hecht
and Bergson and their mostly Christian
supporters were all trying to stop the
genocide.
It takes courage and a moral com-
pass to get up in front of America and
promote the message Larry David deliv-
ered. The Jewish people and America
need more such individuals. The leader-
ship of our Jewish American watchdog
groups needs to understand the power
of the subliminal in film and they can
learn a lot from Larry David, if they
would carefully listen. •
Eugene Greenstein, Ph.D. is a community activist
from West Bloomfield and Martin Leaf is a Sylvan
Lake attorney who is litigating a number of cases
involving advanced deceptive anti-Semitism.
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January 4 • 2018
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