Comedian Elon Gold castigates antisemitism with Jewish humor

After the past few years have seen the world facing a catastrophic pandemic and a dramatic rise in antisemitic rhetoric and attacks, American Jewish comedian Elon Gold has only one question: “Is it me or does it feel like these past couple of years, everyone was either asymptomatic or antisemitic?”

Gold asked the question during his recent appearance on “The Late Late Show” with James Corden.

“And like being asymptomatic, you can even be antisemitic and not even know you have it,” he added.

Gold, an observant Jew living in Los Angeles, has experienced the poison of antisemitism first-hand. In 2014, as he was walking back from a Shabbat dinner with family, a young Arab man confronted them, yelling “Free Palestine” and wishing his children to die.

“It was explained to us that it would’ve been a hate crime if they had said they were going to kill us, instead of merely hoping we got killed, which makes it a hate incident,” he wrote in an essay for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. “Try explaining that differentiation to a 10-year-old girl who was just told to die.”

'I love to find the funny'

Born and raised in Brooklyn, where he attended an Orthodox Jewish day school, Gold has appeared on The Tonight Show a dozen times and among others starred in the FOX sitcom "Stacked." His stand-up special “Chosen & Taken” debuted on Netflix in 2014 and is now streaming on Amazon. 

Antisemitism is a theme at the center of many of his jokes. However, he has often highlighted that this also helps him to raise awareness on the issue.

“I love to find the funny in hate because then you get to expose the ignorance of bigotry,” he told the Jewish Journal in 2017, while presenting his new show “Pro-Semitism."

“More important than the laugh is the message that’s behind the laugh. Comedians get across lots of messages disguised as jokes. Those jokes resonate and stay with you.”

'It's laughable'

Recently, Gold offered an answer to Kanye West, now known as Ye, who in the last few months of 2022 had several virulently antisemitic outbursts.

“The board of my shul has fights about what to serve at kiddush and someone thinks millions of Jews are all together and control things?” Gold said. “Are there Jews in prominent places in Hollywood, finance, music and in the media? Of course, there are. Sorry, we value education and family and everything Kanye is ‘jealous’ of.”

“A tiny minority rise to those positions in many fields from medicine to finance to the film industry,” Gold added. "When I hear the Jews control the media, it’s laughable.”

Elon Gold will perform at the Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York on June 5. Buy tickets.