Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said he contacted the producer of “Saturday Night Live” and urged him to take action over the show’s “deeply insulting” joke about the COVID-19 rollout. vaccinations in Israel.
“Saturday Night Live’s ‘Weekend Update’ is known for harsh criticism and public removals, but Saturday’s deeply offensive joke about Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination process not only missed the mark, but went overboard,” Greenblatt said in a Monday statement
Greenblatt said the show was based on “the joke’s premise on factual inaccuracy” and “played in an anti-Semetic trope in the process.”
‘I know they can do better. In that spirit, I reached out to Lorne Michaels over the weekend and urged Saturday Night Live to take action, both to repair the damage done and to make sure it doesn’t happen again, ”said Greenblatt.
The show, along with its star Michael Che – a Weekend Update correspondent – has been under fire since Saturday’s episode.
“Israel reports that they vaccinated half of their population. I think it’s the Jewish half, ”Che burst out during the segment.
Many critics called the joke anti-Semitic.
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, the vast majority of the Israeli population – 74 percent – is Jewish.
The vaccination rate of Israeli Arabs is much lower than that of Jews in the country, due in part to mistrust of the government in the Arab community, according to a January article in The Christian Science Monitor.