Two Israeli audience members were sworn at, called ‘genocidal’ and told ‘you’re not welcome’ by fellow spectators shouting ‘Free Palestine’ at them after objecting to a joke told by stand-up comedian Reginald D Hunter, as anti-semitism campaigners tonight called the incident ‘a sickening low that cannot be disguised as comedy’.
The US-born entertainer was half-way through the packed gig at the Edinburgh Festival on Sunday night – described by one theatre critic as the ‘ugliest Edinburgh Fringe moment ever’ – when the commotion began.
Hunter, 55, made a quip about how when watching a recent Channel 5 documentary about domestic abuse it made him think of Israel.
As a woman told her story of how she was ill-treated by her husband, the comedian revealed that he thought to himself: ‘My God, it’s like being married to Israel.’
While the joke evoked laughter from the audience, a couple on the front row were prompted to shout out ‘not funny’, before revealing they were Israeli.
Dominic Cavendish, chief theatre critic for The Telegraph, was in the audience when the furore erupted.
Writing a review of the show, which he awarded one star to, Cavendish said: ‘The pair, who said they were from Israel, then endured their fellow audience members shouting expletives (‘f— off’ among them), and telling them to go – with slow-hand claps, boos and cries of ‘genocidal maniac’, ‘you’re not welcome’ and ‘free Palestine’ part of the toxic mix.’
Rather than pulling the audience up for their animosity towards the unwitting hecklers, Hunter apparently instead said to them: ‘You can say it’s not funny to you, but if you say it to a room full of people who laughed, you look foolish.’
The couple, one of whom was disabled, are then said to have exited from the show as Hunter apparently ‘openly laughed’ at them and as fellow audience members continued to jeer.
Not done with the pair, even as they left, Hunter then related a story about how his partner had complained about not being able to access the Jewish Chronicle’s website, as it is behind a paywall.
He is reported as saying: ”Typical f—ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe.’ ‘It’s just a joke,’ he added.
The incident has provoked outrage among some social media users, who describe it as ‘awful’ and ‘anti-semitic’.
One wrote: ‘His behaviour was abhorrent – but what was the audience thinking by abusing two strangers who happened to be Israeli? Hateful, toxic, repellent stuff.’
Another posted: ‘So disappointing that someone who is from a minority doesn’t empathise with (in fact encourages) racism towards another minority.’
A third said: ‘If your gags are at the expense of [a] bullied minority, you’re not a comedian – you’re a bully.’
Hunter is no stranger to controversy and has had to defend himself previously against accusations of anti-Semitic remarks made at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, The Times reports.
In 2006, Jamie Glassman, a Jewish writer and producer on The Ali G Show, slammed Hunter after he joked about the law forbidding Holocaust denial in Austria.
At the time, Glassman said of Hunter’s show, controversially called Pride and Prejudice and N*****: ‘Of all the possible targets, of all the things he might wish to say, his complaint is that he is not permitted to parrot the greatest anti-Semitic slur of the last hundred years — that the Holocaust never happened.’
Paul Sullivan, Hunter’s publicist at the time, said the comedian was simply trying to convey that it was difficult to make jokes about Jewish people in that moment.
In 2006, Israel was embroiled in the Lebanon war with Hezbollah.
Mr Sullivan said: ‘He’s not making anti-Jewish remarks, all he’s saying is, it’s very difficult to criticise Jewish people in this world at the moment.
‘He wouldn’t be doing the material if he was apologising for it.’
‘Reg just sees it as material for his show, he writes about things he believes in.’
In 2013, he was again caught in a racism storm after performing at the Professional Footballer Association (PFA) awards ceremony.
During that incident he littered his act with the word ‘n*****’ in front of startled guests despite the organisation’s strong anti-racism stance.
The PFA’s deputy chief executive Bobby Barnes said at the time: ‘There were anti-Jewish jokes, there were anti-women jokes, there were anti-Irish jokes, there was the repeat use of the ‘N’ word.
‘If you were looking for a scenario of absolutely everything we wouldn’t want on the night, I think you had a montage there.’
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: ‘The events described at Edinburgh Fringe are extremely concerning.
‘Comedians are rightly given broad latitude, but they also have a responsibility to their audience.
‘Reginald D Hunter has laughed off his Holocaust jokes and another supposed joke about ‘typical f***ing Jews’ in the past, but watching on and cracking jokes as Jews are hounded out of your show is a sickening low that cannot be disguised as comedy.
‘We have seen this before in recent months, and venues must stand extremely firm against this kind of behaviour.
‘Our lawyers are examining this incident and we urge anyone who was present at the show to contact us in confidence at [email protected].’
Reginald D Hunter has been approached for comment.