The Holocaust Is Not a Joke

 It is not my place to weigh in on the disaster that the Olympic games may potentially turn out to be. The event was mired in controversy almost since the day Tokyo was awarded what was supposed to be the 2020 games in 2013. The Japanese public did not seem to be particularly eager to host. Infrastructure issues and exorbitant costs marred excitement in the pre-pandemic era.  The pandemic forced the cancellation of the games last summer, and now the authorities must contend with a rampant and aggressive rise in COVID cases in Japan, as well as among Olympic hopefuls, dashing hopes for the fulfillment of the dreams of the host nation, the international Olympic committee, and millions of fans throughout the world. Let the games begin!

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse for the organizers of this event, on the eve of the opening ceremonies the organizers fired the artistic director of the ceremony, Kentaro Kobayashi for a comedy routine that mocked victims of the Holocaust years ago. To its credit, this comedy routine was fiercely criticized not only by leading Jewish anti-defamation and Holocaust education organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center, but by the government of Japan, as well as the IOC. That condemnation is particularly significant considering the IOC’s long history of antisemitism and its willful indifference to the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.  To his credit, Kentaro Kobayashi acknowledged his comedy routine, and profusely apologized for it. There is no reason to doubt the sincerity of this apology. He deserves our respect for acknowledging his role.

Had he apologized for this routine before he had been selected for this important role, there would have been no reason for him to resign at all. Indeed, every person reading this column has said things in the past that we now understand to be racist, homophobic, misogynistic, or just old-fashioned offensive.  We have all used language that dehumanized others, and when we used it, we failed our obligation to recognize that every individual is created in God’s image.

Now in the larger scheme of things, the comedic routine of a Japanese artist 20 years ago would not be all that important (insulting and offensive to be sure, but not that important).  Yet when you consider that the Olympics is the world’s biggest international event, then what it allows and disallows makes an important statement, one of particular importance to world Jewry.  In an era where antisemitic attacks are on the rise throughout the world, when Holocaust denial is widespread, and when irresponsible politicians on both the local, state and national level trivialize the Holocaust to further their own narrow political agendas, then the Olympics cannot ignore this matter. We must applaud their efforts to hold them to account. In an international and political environment that increasingly demeans and contextualizes Jewish suffering in general and the Holocaust in particular, the response of the Jewish community must be clear and unambiguous. The Holocaust is not a joke.