Director of opening ceremony of Tokyo Olympics fired over Holocaust jokes

July 22, 2021 by J-Wire Newsdesk
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The Simon Wiesenthal Centre condemned antisemitic jokes made by Japanese comedian Kentaro Kobayashi, who was to be the show director of the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics.

Kentaro Kobayashi

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 antisemitic jokes including “Let’s play Holocaust.”

Kobayashi is reported to have made distasteful jokes about disabled individuals.

Kobayashi has been removed from his post, 24 hours before the opening ceremony.

“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.

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