Yair Rosenberg

Joe Biden knows how to handle a tough crowd. This was evident last night at the State of the Union, and it was apparent to me seven years ago, on March 20, 2016. On that day, President Barack Obama sent Biden to sell the recently struck Iran nuclear deal to the national conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). This was the political equivalent of asking the vice president to push New York Times subscriptions at a Donald Trump rally.

In 2015, an Israeli police investigation into Jewish extremism uncovered a wedding video that shocked the public. In the clip, a group of far-right revelers were captured celebrating by stabbing a picture of a Palestinian baby who had been murdered in a recent firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma, perpetrated by a settler extremist. The guests at this affair drew from the furthest reaches of the Israeli right, and included a lawyer named Itamar Ben-Gvir.

As I watched Dave Chappelle’s much-discussed Saturday Night Live monologue poking fun at recent anti-Semitic incidents involving Black celebrities, I finally figured out why I no longer felt comfortable cracking jokes about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.In his 15-minute appearance, Chappelle, a habitual line-stepper, deliberately mocked the presumptions of both anti-Semites and their critics, with little concern for where the chips fell.

Sign up for Yair’s newsletter, Deep Shtetl, here.On Tuesday night, Israel was shocked by a terrorist shooting spree that left five dead. Less than 24 hours after the attack, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the opposition, insinuated that Arabs in the country were collectively responsible for it. “We must restore peace and security to Israeli citizens,” he said.

Yair Lapid will become Israel’s prime minister on August 27, 2023, if things go according to plan—which, in Israeli politics, they almost never do. But when Lapid—the architect of Israel’s current coalition, its foreign minister, and the leader of its largest party—speaks, it matters.