Carr crash: Holocaust jokes defended by rabbi
VA SENIOR rabbi has spoken out in defence of comedian Jimmy Carr’s “right to appal” amid snowballing outrage over his Holocaust joke about Roma victims that went viral last week.
In a clip of the joke, originally aired on Netflix, Mr Carr said: “When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.
“No one ever talks about that because no one wants to talk about the positives.”
Writing for the thejc.com,
Rabbi Jonathan, Romain of Maidenhead Synagogue, said: “Much as I disliked his ‘joke’, I would argue for him to be able to continue using unpleasant material. There is no right not to be offended.”
The son of a Holocaust survivor added that he thought that censoring the comedian “would kill comedy and result in utterly bland jokes. Even worse, it would lead to the very totalitarian mentality that humour needs to puncture.” But a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson and comedian David Baddiel expressed outrage over the clip, which was taken from Mr Carr’s standup special for Netflix, His Dark Material, released on Christmas Day.
A Traveller Movement spokesperson condemned the joke as “disturbing”, adding that it “goes way beyond humour”.
The Nazis murdered around 130,000 Roma people between 1935 and 1945. The Board of Deputies wrote on Twitter: “There are no ‘positives’ to be drawn from the Holocaust and the Porajmos — the Nazi genocide of the Roma people.” Another joke by the comedian about the Holocaust — this time the genocide of the Jews — also resurfaced this week.
In his recent book, Before & Laughter, published last September, Mr Carr drew attention to the 1997 Oscar-winning film Life is Beautiful about an Italian father and son who end up in a Nazi concentration camp. Mr Carr said: “How could they make a Holocaust movie that was funny? Well, because that sh** happened. And I think it’s OK to joke about the Holocaust. They say there’s safety in numbers. Tell that to six million Jews.”