Norway's state broadcaster airs 'Jewish swine' cartoon

[DavidDvorkin]

Norway’s public broadcaster NRK defended from accusations of anti-Semitism its airing of a cartoon showing an overweight Jew taunting a man who is afraid to call him a swine.

The video, posted online earlier this month by the NRK state-owned government, is titled “Scrabbles” and was captioned “tag a Jew” on the Facebook page of the animators who created it, Norske Grønnsaker.

https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/norways-state-broadcaster-airs-cartoon-about-jewish-swine

[dhol82]

1. WTF?

[Me.]

2. Norway?

It's like the world has been infected with the traitor trump virus.

[Behind the Aegis]

10. Maybe it is one of the reasons the Dickhead-in-Chief keeps using Norway as an example?

[Me.]

12. I Thought It Was Forest Raking

[Behind the Aegis]

13. Don't forget the scads of white people, too.

[Coventina]

17. I thought that was Finland?

But, I absolutely could be wrong.

Those Scandinavians, they're all the same!

[dhill926]

3. mind boggling....

jesus christ. And Norway?

[Codeine]

4. I'm sure that's just a harmless disagreement

with Israeli policies.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. I'm sure.

[Behind the Aegis]

11. Winner! Winner! Matzoh Ball soup dinner!

Oy!

[richsonpoordad]

6. Under this administration we have set the tone for the world. And the ugly are following.

[Codeine]

16. As if Europe needed our tutelage

in the fine art of Raging Antisemitism. That’s a pre-existing condition for which cannot accept credit.

[cabot]

7. Norway has a long history of accepting antisemitism

The Attorney General said the phrase “fuck Jews” can be considered legitimate criticism of Israel.

Norway's attorney general ruled Tuesday that a Norwegian Muslim rapper who said "f*cking Jews" during a concert was not engaging in anti-Semitic hate speech, but rather legitimate criticism.

The initial incident took place in June 2018, when rapper Kaveh Kholardi, who is of Iranian origin, was performing on stage at a municipal festival in Oslo. He asked the audience if there were any Muslims in the crowd. When some people responded, Kaveh wished them a happy Eid. He went on to ask if there were any Jews, and when no one reacted, he said "Fucking Jews." He then said, "Just joking."

https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5478028,00.html

[DavidDvorkin]

8. Wow.

[struggle4progress]

9. Quisling seems to be a national hero to some Norwegians

[Meowmee]

14. Hard to believe but not really I guess

but since it is just antisemitism it will be ok

[Igel]

15. I wonder how many read the link.

I'd also wonder what would happen if somebody was playing scrabble and had aebcktw while playing Julian Castro.

Would they settle for "back" or "cake" when they could use all 7 letters and get the bonus?

If they set it up on their rack, would it be the same thing as calling Castro by the epithet-that-shall-not-be-named?

How about if they actually played the word?

In the case of the Norwegian word for "Jewish swine" there may not be set lexemes with other ethnicities. That may or may not be evidence of current racism, it may reflect older racism. Notice that there aren't parallel phrases in English, either, but neither does "Jewish swine" sound particularly native. "French swine" or "Russian swine" or "Tutsi swine" sound all a bit odd, but I suspect that's because of so many WWII movies. "Thai swine" is something I have to form compositionally; "Jewish swine" is a set phrase I've heard a few times before. It's like "schweinhund", a word all my high-school peers knew and from time to time used--on the other hand, none of us knew German, had studied German, etc. (And failed to understand how the German kid who transferred in, stepson of a former armed-services member, reacted to it. For us, it was mildly jocular. For him, it was from his first language and really pissed him off--an early lesson in tolerance for both of us, since we had to rein in its use to protect the sensibilities of the immigrant student and he had to accept that his perceptions of what the majority intended were off base.)


I think that in the case of the Norwegian cartoon some probably also took it as the caption. That's not how I took it at first--but I can see how others could make that mistake. (The problem is saying that they've made a mistake.)