During a recent edition of the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast, comedian Ari Shaffir joined the show and ended up dismissing some of Mandel’s fears regarding antisemitism.
Shaffir and Mandel, who are both Jewish, briefly touched on the alleged rise in antisemitism with the podcast host saying, “As a Jew, it’s a little scary.”
Howie Mandel is perplexed that Ari Shaffir isn’t concerned with anti-Semitism and Ari even says Iran is great for Jews pic.twitter.com/hGBk1dVKAv
— An0maly (@LegendaryEnergy) May 29, 2024
Pushing back against Mandel’s state of fear, Shaffir explained he often travels and isn’t afraid of being targeted for being Jewish.
For example, in London where Muslims and anti-Israel protesters frequently hold large rallies, Shaffir said, “No one’s gonna break into your hotel room for being Jewish.”
He went on to say that in Iran, “they just don’t like Zionism,” but they allegedly “love Jews.”
“They have a long history of Jewish culture there. They just don’t really like Zionism, so it’s not really a problem to go to Iran,” Shaffir said.
A paranoid Mandel asked Shaffir, “So, there’s nowhere in America that you would be concerned?”
Shaking his head, Shaffir answered, “No, I don’t think about it.”
Mandel responded by claiming Shaffir’s “face says” he’s Jewish, and the guest said, “Ok, so I would have seen it then. I go out and travel all the time for work all around this country. My face is, ‘Hey, there’s a Jew.’ You think I would have heard one thing in real life.”
Continuing, Shaffir told Mandel, “I’m telling you, I’m out there testing it. It’s not there. It’s just online. You just gotta shut that laptop and go outside. Everything’s pretty fucking great. ‘Oh, it’s so hard to be a white guy right now.’ No, it’s not. ‘Everywhere they go black people get killed by cops.’ That’s not true… Everyone’s online getting riled up. The world is great.”
The show clip is ironically going viral online as people praise Shaffir for shaking Mandel and his viewers out of their echo chambers that only breed fear and anger.