I was a little surprised the national security adviser led with a Jewish joke at last week’s Washington Institute for Near East Policy event — but in the way you’d be surprised if, say, Nancy Pelosi repeated a Bill Cosby routine from his 70s albums (the Fat Albert stuff, maybe). As in: Not offensive, but it just sounds better Jewish.
Now it’s making waves, and Abe Foxman is weighing in (against), but so is Rob Satloff, WINEP’s director (for). Jim Jones himself has apologized:
I wish that I had not made this off-the-cuff joke at the top of my remarks, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by it. It also distracted from the larger message I carried that day: that the United States commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct.
A couple of people told me afterwards that they were kind of offended, but the joke also got big laughs in a pretty much all-Jewish crowd.
Anyway, here’s the joke. You decide.
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