Zochrot Veers Into Realm of Anti-Semitic Comedy

The radical anti-Israel organization Zochrot, which promotes the abolition of the Jewish State, has recently garnered attention in major newspapers regarding its GPS app advertising the Palestinian narrative of Nakba (catastrophe). Some of these media reports resemble promos for Zochrot’s app and downplay the group’s radicalism by describing it simply as an Israeli group “advocating the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.” What receives little to no attention is the extreme, anti-Jewish agenda of those Israelis involved in the organization.

NGO-Monitor points to a grotesque YouTube clip, made with the involvement of several Zochrot officials, that mocks the Holocaust by attempting to turn anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred into comedy.

On April 23, 2014, a highly disturbing video was posted on YouTube, “The Holocaust’s Visit to Yad Vashem,” featuring radical activist Natali Cohen Vaxberg. In it, she visits the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and adopts the persona of the “Holocaust,” claiming to be “the best thing that ever happened” to the Jewish people.

Paul Leslie in The Algemeiner draws a comparison between this “comedy” and that of the anti-Jewish agitator and French comedian Dieudonné who was banned from entering the UK after his hateful performances were cancelled in France. Leslie demonstrates how anti-Semitism is rendered acceptable in certain circles by parading as anti-Israelism:

The growing influence in certain intellectual, journalistic, and cultural circles exerted by even the most extreme detractors of Israel has contributed to a significant increase in anti-Jewish prejudice – either expressed openly or manifested in the guise of “anti-Zionism.” One consequence of this mounting anti-Israelism is that the kind of mockery and lampooning of Jews that would cause outrage if directed at other ethnic or religious groups has become respectable among those who would like to think of themselves as “progressive” or “liberal.”

Dieudonné, the French comedian, failed politician, anti-Jewish agitator, and frequent mocker of victims of the Shoah, has often taken advantage of the hypocrisy mentioned above. He has continued to exploit the anti-establishment and libertarian attitudes that have emerged in the milieu of stand-up comedy and among its supporters in order to bash Jews and the Jewish State of Israel.

When it is “Zionists” and Jewish supporters of Israel who the comedians and satirists choose to attack, there is good reason to see this as being motivated consciously or unconsciously by anti-Semitic feelings,…

That Zochrot officials participate in similar anti-Jewish mockery is appalling. That countries and NGO’s supposedly friendly to Israel continue to fund this organization and those involved is a disgrace, as Leslie points out. That the media continues to portray Zochrot as a legitimate organization even while condemning Dieudonné’s Jew-baiting and hate-mongering is simply hypocritical.