(Jewish Group) An open letter to Dave Chappelle from the great-granddaughter of a Hollywood pioneer

[Behind the Aegis]

Dear Dave Chappelle,

Consider me an admirer. I find your comedy wickedly smart, slyly subversive and generally well-intentioned. I also sense your pain. As the descendant of a troubled Hollywood Jewish family, I’ve seen how the business eats sensitive people like you alive.

That’s why, after watching your monologue on SNL, I woke up at 4 a.m. in a panic-attack state. Why did you feel the need to echo Ye’s antisemitic tropes about Jews and Hollywood? Yes, there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood — because discrimination shut them out of other careers in the early 1900s. Pioneer Hollywood Jews like my great-grandfather Sol M. Wurtzel, who produced over 700 films for 20th Century Fox, created a new form of popular entertainment and ran with it. I take pride in the Jewish invention of an industry that gave voice and unprecedented global reach to legions of creative people, including you.

I can say “There are a lot of Jews in Hollywood” without repercussion because my whole being screams Jewish. Unfortunately, in these charged Ye “going Defcon 3 on the Jewish People” times, it didn’t land so well when you said it. Yet, no one should be canceled for speaking the truth. There have been a lot of Jews in Hollywood for over 100 years. Disturbingly, a ton of antisemitism has resurfaced around that truth.

I consider myself a relatively chill Jewish mother. But when anyone says something that could potentially affect my community’s safety or my kids’ pride in their Jewish identities, I go into Defcon 3 Mama Bear mode.

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[Behind the Aegis]

1. Responses...

https://forward.com/community/526019/letter-called-out-dave-chappelle-and-we-got-mail/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=saturdayedition_5614531

Including this loser, likely an anti-Semite himself, but definitely a "'splainer".

Kanye West and Dave Chapelle have the same right to free speech you do.

Jewish history is what it is. What happened to Jews in WW2 was horrific, but it happened 80 years ago. Isn’t it time to let go of the victimhood? Other peoples have faced genocide, from the Armenians to the Cambodians. You don’t see them so up in arms. Get on with your lives. People in this country have the right to speak out on any subject. Except, it seems, when it comes to the Jews. Why is that? If somebody says something stupid that is their choice and their right.

Now, if West and others cannot say what they think and are punished for it, then perhaps what they say is indeed true? Otherwise, why not ignore them.

—Warren Bacon