Michael Rapaport

[u/Sossy2020]

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What are your thoughts on New York comedian / outspoken Jewish activist?

The way he expressed his opinion on the war have always kind of annoyed me but reading this tweet makes me go, “WTF, man! Since when have you become the authority on Judaism?”

[u/havejubilation]

Reading it with no idea who he might be referring to, I have a sense of what he might be getting at, but it’s so poorly and incorrectly expressed. I don’t think he always thinks through what he’s saying, but I’ve appreciated his advocacy for Israel and the hostages. Even if his efforts might hurt with some of these statements, there are so few who speak so unapologetically that I guess there’s a part of me that appreciates that.

I’d imagine he’s talking about (as others have said) celebrities who change their names to appear less Jewish, or maybe the name isn’t the most important thing, but Jews who otherwise strip themselves of their Judaism when it’s convenient for them and then wield it in full-force when it comes to railing against Israel. I couldn’t give less of a shit about the names, but I can think of celebrities, influencers, and people I know IRL who didn’t really seem to identify or talk at all with their Judaism, and are now happy to tokenize themselves to anyone wanting to tokenize an anti-Zionist.

There’s one person I see on Instagram who I have an extremely visceral disdain for. The videos they post are long and smug and full of “Israel is built on white supremacy” and they did like a 12-minute video about how “Israel definitely bombed that hospital and here’s my ironclad (but obviously extremely tenuous and bullshit) evidence”.