Comedian Dave Chappelle went on a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rant at a show in Boston on Thursday evening — and was cheered by the crowd, causing Jews present in the audience to walk out.
A source posted on Facebook:
Hello my friends. This is my first FB post in nearly 7 years. With that said, it is also the only social media platform I have, so I hope people still use FB.
I would like to share with you an experience I had last night. [My wife] and I went to the Dave Chappelle-Standup Comedy show at TD Garden with three other couples. What started out as a funny and joyful evening for the 8 of us ending with disgust and fear.
Towards the end of his act, Chappelle mentioned the war in Israel and how he as a Muslim denounces Israel for its treatment of the people in Gaza and started to add in lots of false and unsubstantiated claims. A gentleman towards the front yelled out “You should shut the F up”. Chappelle lost it on the man yelling, “You do not tell me to shut the F up at MY show”. Chappelle then started on a tirade of his beliefs leaving comedy behind and focusing purely on the politics.
While that was awful in itself, what made my heart sink and started to invoke fear was when the crowd of nearly 20,000 people started yelling out “Go Palestine. Go Hamas.” and other related hatful jargon. The audience was cheering Chappelle on during his tirade. I was sick. We were sick. I turned to my friends and wife and said I think it is time to go. We walked out and met up with many other Jews leaving the show. Never in my life have I felt so unsafe and so fearful of what I was witnessing. The words alone were horrific, but we were vulnerable in a public forum. How could we know what would happen? Could violence against the Jewish members in the audience break out?
Here in Boston, how was there so much hate for Jews. How could a comedy show provide such a mechanism for people to verbally shout our their hatred for Jews? The unfortunate icing on the cake was that all cell phones and communication devices had to be locked up so there is no video or audio evidence. With that, I am hoping social media can spread this word.
If you have made it this far and know how to use social media better than me, please share and see if we can get this to the Boston Globe. Thank you.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Chappelle first condemned the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants, but criticized what he said were war crimes in Gaza, according to people in attendance.
The comments came up when Chappelle said he didn’t think students should lose job offers for supporting Palestinians. An audience member’s command for the comedian to shut up drew an emotional response from Chappelle, who criticized the Israeli government for cutting off water and other essentials to Gaza and accused it of killing innocent people, according to the attendees.
Some audience members cheered Chappelle on and shouted “Free Palestine,” while others yelled, “What about Hamas,” the attendees said. Some in the crowd got up and left.
Video of the show has yet to emerge.
NEW: Dave Chappelle criticized the Israeli government’s bombardment of Gaza in a show in Boston last night while suggesting the Hamas attacks were not an excuse to commit war crimes.
Updated post w/recollections from more attendees: https://t.co/4rkGjACrqN
— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) October 20, 2023
A spokesperson told the Journal that he was not in Boston the night before, though a schedule for tour dates confirms the show took place. It is possible the spokesperson was referring to Friday night and not Thursday.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
This post has been corrected to note the show took place on Thursday, and not on Saturday.