Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, writing in the Washington Post’s On Faith section, compares the president’s “insensitive” jest about the Special Olympics to comic Jackie Mason using the Yiddish ethnic slur “schvartze” in a joke to describe — who else? — the president. Mason hasn’t apologized.

(Story here: Comments about President Obama by Jackie Mason draw racism charges — New York Daily News)

Herzfeld cites the scholar Maimonides to conclude that both men are committing “a great sin.” An excerpt:

Maimonides is referring to people who regularly act in this manner, but the implication is clear: There is nothing funny about making make fun of someone else or using a nickname which the other person does not care for.

Elsewhere the Talmud says in a homiletic fashion that anyone who shames his fellow man in public is considered to have spilled blood. The rabbis explain that on some level it may be worse for the person who is embarrassed as opposed to murdered because he is now forced to live and relive his embarrassment over and over again.

…  let us all continue to make jokes, but not ones that hurt other people.

Herzfeld is the rabbi of the Ohev Sholom — the National Synagogue in Washington, D.C.

See also: Jackie Mason calls Obama the dark word — Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, the God Blog. An excerpt:

Yeah, and I have some friends who were raised white in the south and have Confederate sympathies. They still know better than to use the n-word.

(Photo of Jackie Mason from the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 10:28 am and is filed under commentary, humor, intellectual/developmental disabilities, NOT2BEMISSED, Obama administration, Obama Special Olympics remark, religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.