Jimmy Carr's joke was appalling - but as the son of a survivor I defend his right to appal me

However, the incident raises the larger issues as to whether Carr’s show should be pulled from Netflix, or future performances be banned, or at least his scripts be subject to scrutiny in advance, so as to weed out any hurtful material.

Much as I disliked his “joke”, I strenuously oppose such calls and would argue for him to be able to continue using unpleasant material. There is no right not to be offended.

Freedom of speech is a precious right that needs preserving. It is also a delicate one: if we limit it for him, we limit it for ourselves too.

We would also be entering very murky terrain. Who would vet the jokes? What criteria would they use? Who would they protect from being outraged?

Would mother-in-law jokes be banned lest it upset all those who spend so much time baby-sitting or cooking, and are far from being the monsters as they are so often portrayed?

The result would be to kill comedy and result in utterly bland jokes. Even worse, it would lead to the very totalitarian mentality that humour needs to puncture.

So often we Jews have used jokes as our secret weapon to survive those oppressing us. Just because Carr misused it, this should not stop us employing it against today’s despots.

The only ban should be when malicious speech incites others to violence - but this is already enshrined in law.

It is easy to let righteous anger against Carr lead to attempts to prevent any repeat by him, but calling for censorship would carry far more harm than his actual remark ever caused.
But what should worry us much more than Carr himself is his audience. His joke was greeted not with stunned silence but peals of laughter. The job of education - about the Holocaust and about prejudice in general - is still as urgent as ever.

That is the depressing conclusion to be drawn from this episode, and despite twenty years of Holocaust Memorial Day ceremonies in public and a whole generation of teenagers (now adults) having lessons in school on the Holocaust.

There can be no letting up in the work of trying to instil tolerance, decency and sensitivity amongst the population at large. If this is one way of fulfilling Isaiah’s injunction that we be a “light to the nations” – a warning about the bestiality to which ordinary people can sink, as shown by what they have done to us in the past – then that is our unwelcome but necessary task.

As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I thought Carr’s joke was tasteless, but the right to make it is sacrosanct. The best response is not for anyone to cancel him but for audiences to boo when they hear such material.

Meanwhile, we should help Traveller groups seize this moment to educate the public about their treatment during the Holocaust. Carr claimed his joke helped highlight their sufferings. This may be post-facto justification, but let’s take that opportunity.

I do not defend Jimmy Carr, but I do defend his right to appal me...and for you and me to create a society better than that.

Jonathan Romain is rabbi of Maidenhead Synagogue and author of Confessions of a Rabbi