In the hours before this article was published, rapper Azealia Banks posted or shared dozens of tweets about topics spanning astrology, Florida’s water supply and Drake — along with many musings about sex.
On Monday, her digital stream of consciousness flowed elsewhere: to Jewish cuisine.
“Nah Jewish American food is delicioooooous,” she opined. “A hot turkey Reuben on marbled rye with no cheese and extra sauerkraut and dressing and a black cherry soda??? With some dill potato salad and pickles and mustard??? Honeeeyyyyy stopp.”
She didn’t stop: “What do you order ?? You don’t like gefilte fish???? Lmfao it’s mad good what are you saying… no chocolate babka? No whitefish spreads? Water bagels?? Come on now.”
The Grammy nominee’s paean to the Ashkenazi palette was a response to a more concise take: “Jews suck at food,” another X user had written.
The post surprised some Jewish denizens of X — who are, themselves, practiced at debating whether Ashkenazi food is good, and who have been witness to Banks’ less laudatory comments in the past. “Babes wake up azealia banks is defending jewish cuisine on twitter,” tweeted Shoshana Gottlieb, a popular Jewish culture commentator.
But if they thought they had a new comrade, they were soon let down.
By the next day, Banks was onto her usual commentary on the platform — which, since she opened her account in 2023, has included at least 60 mentions of Jews. Some of those have echoed antisemitic stereotypes.
One day after the gefilte fish tweet, when someone tweeted a racist remark at her, Banks replied with a post that said, “Are you afraid your Jewish bosses will see you doing this and fire you? Where is all that white bravery?”
The same day, Banks posting about Drake, the Jewish rapper, writing that he would “jump in his jew bag and SUE.”
Elsewhere on X, she’s posted about how Jesus was “born a Jew” to saying “the Country Belongs to the Chinese and The Jewish.” Once, she posted since-deleted tweets in which she claimed “from hip-hop to basketball and sports… the Jews run and own it all.”
Banks also has a storied past with the Jews in real life. In 2018, she vowed to never visit Israel again after she said she encountered racism while performing there. And in 2021, Banks announced her engagement to Jewish artist Ryder Ripps in a post on Instagram with the caption, “I’m Jewish now. MAZEL TOV BITCHES!”
Banks also called herself a “jewcy diva,” a moniker that she now sells as a pendant on her online store.
She and Ripps broke up three weeks later. But that didn’t stop Banks from tweeting, last October, “I’m honestly way more Jewish than Ryder Ripps. He didn’t even have a mezuzah on his door. And he eats pork.”
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