Alex Edelman: An Award-Winning Comedian Shares Some Serious Thoughts on Antisemitism

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Alex Edelman: An Award-Winning Comedian…

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Alex Edelman (born 1989) is a stand-up comedian based in New York City and a Modern Orthodox Jew. His show “Millennial” won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer at the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the first American to do so since Arj Barker won in 1997. Edelman is a very funny guy, but in the article and video linked below, he offers some thoughtful observations about antisemitism.

Quote: “His latest set finds him hurtling headlong into danger with all the recklessness of his twin brother Adam, who is an Olympian in the skeleton event (a sport for people who find the luge too sedate). Threaded through anecdotes about awkward encounters with royalty or writing for the Stephen Fry sitcom The Great Indoors is the story of how he responded to antisemites who trolled him on Twitter by tracking them all the way to a meeting of white nationalists in New York City.”

Sources: Wikipedia, The Guardian

Learn more about Alex Edelman on Wikipedia. ►

Watch “Why are people anti-Semitic? | What’s Behind Prejudice? Episode 4 | BBC Ideas” [4:42]. ►

Read “Comedian Alex Edelman on meeting his antisemitic trolls: ‘Curiosity is my defining characteristic’ ” Note: Click on “I’ll do it [register] later” to continue reading the article. ►

Photo: Telegraph.co.uk

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“[T]he foundations for extremism usually are held in check by various restraints. Societies are not liberal, moderate, progressive, and free because almost all their citizens – let alone their politicians — are liberal, moderate, progressive or committed to the freedoms of others.

“But societies consistently avoid extremism when the infrastructures of freedom are strong: when key institutions and norms encourage a more decent, rights-respective, lawful politics; when powerful social movements and independent media hold leaders to account, expose rather than reinforce political fantasies, and champion the rights of the vulnerable; and when information is produced and scrutinized by scholars, civil servants, and non-governmental organizations devoid of either government repression or vested interests.

“Yet no infrastructure is rigidly immovable, and once key components are eroded and weakened, once sections of the political and cultural elite attempt to mobilize the foundations of extremism, the system of restraints can swiftly collapse.

“While genocide on the scale of the Holocaust is historically exceptional, its central lesson is that the broader danger of extreme atrocities is not. In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw, the Holocaust ‘lit a warning beacon that still burns brightly: it showed how a modern, advanced, cultured society can so rapidly sink into barbarity… It showed what we are capable of.’ Only by rejecting false narratives of conflict and polarization, and maintaining systems of rights and freedoms for all, can we hope to prevent that capability from once more becoming a reality.”

— Jonathan Leader Maynard in his incisive article “Could It Happen Here?: The Holocaust and Atrocities in the 21st Century” To read the entire article, click here.