A leading Reform rabbi has defended Jimmy Carr's right to make offensive jokes about the Holocaust, but called the comedian "tasteless."
In a letter to the Times newspaper, Rabbi Jonathan Romain of Maidenhead synagogue said that while he "deplored" aspects of Jimmy Carr's humour, he believed the right to make offensive jokes was "sacrosanct."
Rabbi Romain, himself the son of a Holocaust survivor, was responding to outrage at a clip from Mr. Carr's recent standup special on Netflix where he implied that the deaths of thousands of Roma and Gypsy people were a positive of the Holocaust.
In the show, he said, “When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of gypsies that were killed by the Nazis."
“No one ever talks about that because no one wants to talk about the positives,” he added, with his punchline greeted with widespread laughter from the audience.
His Dark Material, which was released on Christmas Day, was according to the British Comedy Guide website, the most-streamed UK stand-up special of the festive period, viewed on more than 1.7 million devices in the country.
After surfacing on Twitter, Carr's comments drew outrage from across the community with several Holocaust charities releasing statements condemning the jokes.
Here is a statement from our CEO @OliviaRMW on the abhorrent jokes made by Jimmy Carr about the Roma genocide.
— Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (@HMD_UK) February 4, 2022
We urge everyone to learn about Nazi persecution of Roma people and follow accounts such as @RomaSupport, @GypsyTravellers and @GypsyTravellerM.https://t.co/lqkdIQ6bWN pic.twitter.com/9SweGA8rOV
