July 21, 2021
The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemns past anti-Semitic jokes made by Japanese comedian Kentaro Kobayashi, who is the show director of the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics.
According to Japanese media reports, Kobayashi utilized the mass murder of six million Jews by the Nazis in a script for his comedy act in 1998. In his act, he made malicious and anti-Semitic jokes including “Let’s play Holocaust.”
五輪開会式前日 開会式ディレクター小林賢太郎過去ネタ=ナチ虐殺犠牲者をあざける内容 赦されない! コヤツ選んだの誰だ? 五輪組織委員会段取り悪杉
人選ミスりすぎしかも感染拡大東京五輪株拡散中。
“Any person, no matter how creative, does not have the right to mock the victims of the Nazi genocide. The Nazi regime also gassed Germans with disabilities. Any association of this person to the Tokyo Olympics would insult the memory of six million Jews and make a cruel mockery of the Paralympics,” stated SWC Associate Dean and Global Social Action Director, Rabbi Abraham Cooper.