"It seems that Caryn Johnson saw value in appearing to be Jewish.... So, is it racist to pretend to be Jewish if one isn’t? Is it ‘cultural appropriation’?... Perhaps Whoopi does have some distant shred of Jewish heritage buried far back in her family tree.... Minorities are often granted licence to joke about their own... If Whoopi had been better connected to her putative Judaism, she might have thought twice about her festive jumper design aimed at Jews, depicting a ‘Jewish’ octopus wearing a kippah. Most Goldbergs I’ve met know that Jewish Octopuses are usually associated with Nazi era antisemitism. Not Whoopi. When it comes to racism, it’s not only Jews Whoopi has angered. When she was dating the comedian Ted Danson in 1993, he nearly ended his career by appearing in blackface in a sketch at the Friars Club comedy event, which was reported to have included jokes about how he got her to clean his parents’ house, contained numerous full occurrences of the “N word” and ended with him eating from a tray of watermelon. The gags didn’t go down well with the 3,000 strong audience.... She’s said to have come out on stage to challenge the audience, saying: 'N*****, n*****, n*****, whitey, whitey, whitey! It takes a lot of courage to come out in blackface in front of 3000 [people]. I don’t care if you don’t like it. I do!'"
Writes Jonathan Sacerdoti in "Will the real Whoopi Goldberg please stand up? Is Caryn Johnson really Jewish? And would it make any difference if she was?" (The Jewish Chronicle).
***
You can see a photo of that "festive jumper" in this 2016 Haaretz article, "Will Jews Buy a Sweater Featuring an Octopus Menorah? Whoopi Goldberg Thinks So Goldberg's 'Christmas sweaters with a twist' seek to include her Jewish friends in the holidays, but use a cute version of an animal often used in anti-Semitic tropes."
Here, at the Holocaust Encyclopedia, you can see the well-known Nazi era cartoon depicting Jews as an octopus that is destroying the entire world.
***
Goldberg said "I don’t care if you don’t like it. I do!" in 1993, but in recent years she's been entrenched in a long-running group project on network daytime TV that supports and mildly challenges nice American ladies who want to think well of themselves. I'd love to see her quit the show and get back to the woman-alone-on-stage shows that first made her famous.
Maybe she's too comfortable with "The View," but "The View" wasn't sufficiently comfortable with her. Comfort is overrated, and it deserves a particularly low rating in comedy. It's the enemy of comedy. Goldberg could build a one-woman show around this incident, and that's what I'd like to see. Take the time to look at the problem from multiple angles and bring us somewhere surprising. That's what Dave Chappelle does with his very independent shows.
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71 comments:
Good grief. She’s all about convenience riding whatever waning popularity she has. Or had. The View pays her a bunch of money to spew leftist stuff. She’d be better respected were she balanced, but maybe that’s not in her wheelhouse.
Yeah, make her go back to Caryn Johnson.
If all those Confederate Civil War generals can be erased, then her name can be erased. Equity!
"...nice American ladies who want to think well of themselves."
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you the encapsulated zeitgeist of the American White Female Liberal (AWFL for short...).
AWFL - Noun - A nice American lady who wants to think well of herself.
Many Jewish entertainers have changed their names from a Jewish sounding name to a more Anglo sounding name. See nothing wrong in going the other way.
The big question for me is why did Arnold Dorsey change his name to Engelbert Humperdinck. Could understand that for a comedian but not for a mainstream singer.
there's is this Norm MacDonald's joke about Marlon Brando's antisemitic statements made on Larry King Live. Could be relevant in how Whoopi's controversy will play out
Wouldn’t it be funny if the token conservative on The View started calling Whoopi, Caryn?
Ummm...she's reportedly making $8 million/year on "The View." Now THAT is oppression!! She gets that for being sassy and accusing half of America (the half that votes GOP) of being RAAAAACIST.
The Man is holding her down.
However, I totally support her right to spout whatever nonsense comes into her head, no matter how bigoted and anti-semitic. Her foolishness is obvious.
"...nice American ladies who want to think well of themselves."
The nice American lady who wants to think well of herself is how she can support BLM while living in a 97% white neighborhood.
The nice American lady who wants to think well of herself is why she watches the view and drinks chardonnay while her husband makes 6 figures on K Street.
The nice American lady who wants to think well of herself gave that homeless guy $10 for 'gas' but wants the manager now because you messed up her mochachino-mint w espresso shot. The nice American lady who wants to think well of herself yelled at her kids last night about how all cops are bastards but just dialed 911 on the suspicious guy in the alley.
...
The nice American ladies who wants to think well of themselves love Whoopi Goldberg for every reason that has nothing to do with Whoopi Goldberg. They watch Whoopi. They talk about black people at their book club. They voted for Obama. They make whoopi with their husband once a month and twice a month if it's their birthday. They like chardonnay. They helped that homeless guy once. They deserve nice things, they're good people.
Jews have a very high verbal IQ and a tendency to whine, so you hear about it. Holocaust for children shows up in the Judaism section of book catalogs, or used to back when there were book catalogs, so it's a little fetishized. Everybody in a panic over the narrative not being quite right is weird but a mark of the times.
Jews are mainly resented for being smart and successful.
My own favorite authors are Jewish, even writing on Judaism (Levanis, Jabes). Levinas "Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism" or "Nine Talmudic Readings" in particular. A nice chapter in the former "A Religion for Adults."
On Christianity (via Talmud), everybody is the Messiah. Take on the suffering of others.
It's also why Palestinians who are sick wind up treated in Israeli hospitals.
That would be the great PR move, if you want something to bring up.
The difference is that Dave Chappelle, at his core, is funny. Whoopi Goldberg has never been funny. Cute, likable? Yes (until this week). But funny? Not so much.
There are some well informed entertainers. Few...not that many. Listening to them to expand your knowledge will seldom benefit anyone.
Take the time to look at the problem from multiple angles and bring us somewhere surprising. That's what Dave Chappelle does with his very independent shows.
This ... but in recent years she's been entrenched in a long-running group project on network daytime TV that supports and mildly challenges nice American ladies who want to think well of themselves. explains why the former would never work. She's never shown an ounce of the introspection that Dave Chappelle has. Remember that he voluntarily quit working to sort out the relationship of his comedy routines to his audience.
One hastens to add that there's no shortage of show-biz personalities who changed their Jewish names to less obviously Jewish ones.
Caar beams light up the front of a building. (In which street? There are so many behind and before him that he cannot remember). He reads:
MORT AUX JUIFS
JEWS GO HOME
scrawled in white chalk, in caps. ...
"My God," he murmurs. "The hands of the years show always the same hour."
- Jabes, The Book of Questions v1, p52.
That's effective. No whining, nothing about race or not. An indictment of the stupid, is all.
Porn stars change their names, too.
Jeepers. I think it is antisemitic to assume that someone named "Goldberg" must be Jewish.
ha ha ha
Biden Quietly Withdraws Whoopi Goldberg SCOTUS Nomination
"Comfort is overrated, and it deserves a particularly low rating in comedy. It's the enemy of comedy."
Comedians everywhere approve of this message.
That formula works for me. I don’t care if Caryn Johnson hates Trump, I like him. I do.
Levinas ends the Preface to "Existence and Existents" with
These studies begun before the war were continued and written down for the most part in captivity. The stalag is evoked here not as a guarantee of profundity nor as a claim to indulgence, but as an explanation for the absence of any consideration of those philosphical works publiched, with so much impact, between 1940 and 1945.
I don’t watch The View. I cannot stand Whoopi and her “elder statesman” pose on the panel. Joy is particularly obnoxious and stupid. Joy seemed very uncomfortable during Whoopi’s misinformed instruction on Race and the Holocaust because Joy is married to a Jewish guy. But Joy does not have the courage or the smarts to challenge Whoopi. I believe that Whoopi has gotten fat and lazy sitting on The View and if she is fired or leaves, she will not go back to a one woman stand-up show. First of all, she is NOT Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle is super smart and willing to take on the gender bending folks…which is not Woke approved. His humor is timely and relevant.
She is 66 years old. Her cohorts, Billy Crystal is retired, and Robin Williams in dead. Chris Rock, Seinfeld have said they will not do stand up and colleges because the Woke movement has ruined comedy. I think her time has passed. She, most likely, will return to The View to thunderous applause and continue to be a good BLM supporter.
Jeez, you’d think Goldberg’s Ted Danson blackface act would’ve bought her the undying respect of Althouse’s commenters.
Every time I happen to catch the View, and watch just a few minutes, I am utterly appalled that these women are drawing an audience. The way they are so sure of themselves, while they display their utter stupidity and ignorance, is cause for despair. Even McCain, the token conservative, was awful. These women know nothing about the real world. They speak in vapid, left-wing platitudes. No depth, no substance. And the crowd cheers them on as if every quote is a brilliant insight. Yuck.
Earnest Prole said... Jeez, you’d think
because you see, Earnest never thinks; If he Did he'd know no one here respects blackface
You're advocating stand-up comedy as a career move? In 2022??
Ceciliahere said...
I believe that Whoopi has gotten fat and lazy sitting on The View
Literally!
Whoopi said in the past that she took a Jewish name because Hollywood was run by Jews and thought it would help her. That view is straight out of the antiSemitism playbook.
RideSpaceMountain said...
The nice American ladies who wants to think well of themselves love Whoopi Goldberg for every reason that has nothing to do with Whoopi Goldberg. They watch Whoopi.
Which is why she got suspended, not fired. The nice American lady core audience of The View watch it because they love to hear the judgmental shit that Whoopi and Joy Behar spew out every day. Not even mild challenging going on there.
Whoopies greatest talent is having a wise sounding voice. It makes the pablum she serves up to the view viewers go down easy.
Anyone seeing an octopus nowadays would only think of HYDRA. . . . . .
"nice American ladies who want to think well of themselves"
Hey, hey, you're stealing my meme. It's OK. Happy to share.
"bring us somewhere surprising"
The only surprise will be to see the true depth of her inanity.
The point of the Holocaust episode is show how predictably predictable American progs are. They have one scheme, one obsession, and apply it consistently. Nazis vs. Jews = whitey-on-whitey, so have at it. Jew = white, so no prob accusing Israel of perpetrating a Holocaust against brown people. Etc. etc.
Danson joking about how he got her to clean his parents’ house: that’s funny.
I have a lot of old affection for her, because of her role on Star Trek. This is why I don't like to know anything about actors' personal opinions.
I enjoy her discomfiture. It's fun to watch her flop and flounder for a day or two, but ease up. Technically speaking, she was not responsible for the Holocaust nor dropping a dime on Anne Frank.. The Jews would be blessed if all anti-Semites functioned at her level of malice and effectiveness. I could work up three minutes of hate for Joy Behar but not so much for Whoopi Goldberg.
The Justin Trudeau video wins the internet!
https://youtu.be/9OQl2V_5SXs
Ah yes, advice for Goldberg to lie down and accept being cancelled. Althouse, you clearly don't know how non-cowards think. If they seriously press this, Goldberg likely has decades of Hollywood stories that would absolutely destroy the careers of some producers of no specific ethnicity.
As for the Podhoretz types "demanding" Goldberg change her name: uh, fockin' w0t, mate? Are you all the ethnicity police now? Is Whoopi Goldberg's practice of Judaism any less traditional or informed than Reform Judaism is? (Nope!) Is there an ethnic component to being a Jew, but not to being an American? Would Podhoretz be okay with certain celebrities changing their names back after trying to assimilate?
Are they sure they want to go down this road? Or maybe we should drop the Whoopi Goldberg scandal before more cans of worms get opened.
Whoopi Goldberg is a nasty racist who wants to destroy the lives of people she disagrees with.
She should make her new show after she moves to China.
The "Goldberg" supposedly came at her mother's insistence because that stage name would more likely find favor with "the Hollywood Jews."
Apparently she comes from a long line of anti-Semites.
Way back when, when Barbara Walters started The View, it was a good, interesting show with women of different ages and backgrounds sharing their views on the hot topics of the day. NOW, it has become an angry 4 Progressive woman show that gang up on the 1 "supposed" conservative voice. They attack guests they don't agree with, and they are really uninformed about what is going on in the world, taking in only the CNN talking points. It should NOT be under the News division, it should be under their comedy division, because all you can do is point and laugh at them.
Does "Goldberg" belong only to Jewish people? I had a friend in college with the last name "Eisenberg." For a long time I assumed he was Jewish, but it turns out he was not.
Also, did Caryn Johnson choose "Whoopee Goldberg" to indicate Jewishness, or because she just thought it was a colorful name for a comedian?
doctrev said...
Is Whoopi Goldberg's practice of Judaism any less traditional or informed than Reform Judaism is?
Is there evidence that Whoopi is actively practicing Judaism? I've never seen any and if she was I think there would probably be much less uproar about what she said (If she would have even said it at all).
When she returns to The View in two weeks she will be treated to a prolonged standing ovation. There will be tears. Hugs. The women watching at home will weep seeing the oppressed woman of color released from her chains of exile.
I still can't believe her real name is Caryn. It's too perfect. Like audience, like host.
"Jews are mainly resented for being smart and successful."
Is that true in the USA? I don't see any evidence of that.
whoopi Goldberg is too valuable for The View to leave. They need a black woman and Whoopi is a perfect fit for their show. That's why she didn't get cancelled. They need her, more then she needs them.
She'll probably leave when Joy Behar leaves.
If you wonder why we have Senile Dummy Joe Biden as POTUS, go watch the view. millions think this is a smart show.
So Whoopi converted just for the jokes.
Whoopi needs to shut her mouth and go on a diet.
Taking a Jewish sounding stage name to supposedly gain favor from Jews in the entertainment business is not anti-Semitic. At worst it's an attempt to ingratiate yourself with a group that you believe can help your career. How is that derogatory towards Jews? By that logic Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz was anti-Anglo for dropping his last name.
It could also have been a homage to all the great Jewish comedians that inspired her. It's not unheard of for white blues musicians to take a stage name that sounds more authentic. Jerome Solon Felder becoming Doc Pomus is one example that comes to mind. Whoopi Goldberg sounds like a comic, Caryn Johnson doesn't.
@rcocean
Holy cow, I never thought I'd see it here of all places. You're a rabid anti-dentite! You probably think we need our own schools don't you?
"However, I totally support her right to spout whatever nonsense comes into her head"
The problem is, she wouldn't return the favor. I don't even think feeling the sting of cancel culture herself will give her empathy for other (wrong thinking) victims of it. She'll just police her own language so as not to offend the wrong (left wing) groups. She lives in a bubble and is quite comfortable there.
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...
Is there evidence that Whoopi is actively practicing Judaism? I've never seen any and if she was I think there would probably be much less uproar about what she said (If she would have even said it at all).
2/3/22, 10:13 AM
If Judaism was even primarily about religion, then it would be entirely understandable for Whoopi Goldberg to back off discussions about conflicts over Judaism. But that's the point: obviously this debate is sparked over whether Jews are a distinct ethnicity from European whites, with religion as a secondary component (if it can be applied at all).
"Whoopi Goldberg sounds like a comic, Caryn Johnson doesn't." And THAT is the problem. The View is under ABC's News division, and 2 of the most ignorant hosts are comediennes that should be funny, NOT snarky about things they are ignorant about. Bring in people who have some smarts, and it would be different, but when you have ignorant comics who aren't even funny trying to discuss hot topics...it becomes what it is...A JOKE.
rcocean said...
whoopi Goldberg is too valuable for The View to leave. They need a black woman
***********
Candace Owens
There was a time when Whoopi seemed interesting, which was followed by a time when she seemed disappointing. Maybe we can hope for the return of interesting.
Blogger xxx said...
The "Goldberg" supposedly came at her mother's insistence because that stage name would more likely find favor with "the Hollywood Jews."
===========================
I believe people like Caryn Johnson, er, Whoopi Goldberg, would not label taking a Jewish name a blatant cultural appropriation. But I am guessing that Caryn is good with that in her case since the charge of “cultural appropriation” only applies to white people. Caren is a big hypocrite like many on the left, especially being a big Molotov cocktail thrower at those on the right.
When comedian Tiffany Haddish discovered she had some Jewish ancestry on her father's side, she made a big deal about it -- she even had a sort-of bat mitzvah at age 40, and her last comedy special was titled "Black Mitzvah." It was a little weird, but nobody really minded (in fact, she got a lot of praise for it). That's because she was presenting the whole thing as a celebration of the idea of being Jewish -- and not claiming that she actually was Jewish for any personal benefit.
On the other hand, Michael Richards, as seen in the "Seinfeld" item above, used to claim to be Jewish -- or that he somehow "felt Jewish" -- even though he wasn't. (Of course, his "Seinfeld" character Kramer was based on a guy who's actually Jewish -- but, as with George and Elaine, the show kept up a halfhearted pretense that he wasn't, because the network was afraid America wouldn't accept too many Jews in one show.) The upshot was that for weeks after his infamous comedy-club rant, commenters kept decrying it as a case of "Jewish racism." (A claim that has never really gone away, despite the fact that Richards has no actual Jewish background whatsoever.)
I wonder how popular Whoopi Goldberg is in the black community especially as a comedian? How funny would it be for her to go on stage and make jokes about being a fake Jew all this time since Jews are white? Not very.
She was clearly wrong in her understanding of The Holocaust and there is really nothing funny about that either. A comedy routine about how she was only punished because of having a Jewish sounding last name might get a few laughs.
". But that's the point: obviously this debate is sparked over whether Jews are a distinct ethnicity from European whites, with religion as a secondary component (if it can be applied at all)."
The people who committed the Holocaust believed very much that Jews were a separate race/ethnicity than other Europeans. In fact, they believed THEY were a separate (superior or master if you will) race/ethnicity than other Europeans. That these beliefs were total bullshit is beside the point. All racism is based on total bullshit.
Whoopie can't see it because she sees race as a matter of outward appearance. The Nazis were a bit more creative than that when it came to separating people. They manufactured a mythical past worthy of Tolkien to justify how they were the master race who's blood must remain pure. To that end, they didn't trust outward appearance. They did genealogical research.
It's a bit like the old Star Trek episode "Let this be Your Last Battlefield", where the Enterprise crew see Frank Gorshin and Lou Antonio (whose faces are half black and half white) as members of the same race. The two inform the crew that they are quite different as they are black and white on different sides. To the crew (and the audience) it was a difference without a difference. To the aliens, it was a difference worth killing over. The Holocaust happened because the Nazis convinced themselves they could detect differences no one else could, and those differences were worth taking innocent lives for.
I think Brad Garretson ("Robert Barone") put it well when he got some acting award: he accepted on behalf of all the other Jews who had been kept out of American entertainment for so long, OWTTE.
I had a colleague with a "Jewish-sounding" name, as mine is; she said that she let people assume she was Jewish if it might do her some good. I don't, though I don't blame her for doing so.
IDNK that Michael Richards ("Kramer") was a Gentile. Makes no diff, but it's interesting.
Taking a Jewish sounding stage name to supposedly gain favor from Jews in the entertainment business is not anti-Semitic. At worst it's an attempt to ingratiate yourself with a group that you believe can help your career.
Isn't that called cultural appropriation?
Also, did Caryn Johnson choose "Whoopee Goldberg" to indicate Jewishness, or because she just thought it was a colorful name for a comedian?
Since when do someone's intentions matter?
Sorry, but the Whoppi thing got boring already.
"Iceberg, Goldberg; what's the difference?"
I’d wanted to say earlier: Whoopi’s jumper is blasphemous.
Also: she thought she was Jewish- her DNA says: no. How is she different from the scold who thought she was Cherokee?
I read about a job opportunities where parks are looking for an environmental interns. Preferences given to those “who self- identify as indigenous, so we highly recommend you do this” on your application. Wth? Self- identify as indigenous and you’ll get special preference. Unreal.
She should have changed it to Whoppi Gopnik.
People would be saying: "She must be Jewish. Nobody one would change their name to that".
Michael Richards isn't Jewish?
Suprising.
"Perhaps Whoopi does have some distant shred of Jewish heritage buried far back in her family tree.... "
Perhaps not, but some of her best friends....
“ Richards was born in Culver City, California, to a Catholic family.[8] He is the son of Phyllis (née Nardozzi), a medical records librarian of Italian descent, and William Richards, an electrical engineer of Scottish and English descent.[9] His father died in a car crash when Michael was two and his mother never remarried.””
Of course Jews were a distinct ethnicity, especially Jews in Eastern Europe where Jews lived in completely segregated communities for centuries. It's somewhat ironic imo that the Jews of Germany were the Jews most assimilated into European culture, but they were resented because so many had risen to high positions in German society. There, like here in the US, Jews were a tiny percentage of the population but were over represented in prominent positions of law, science, academia and business. That's where the classic question about anti-semitism arose - (do you believe that Jews have too much power in society?)˜ Many people in Germany felt that way about Jews prior to WWII. How did the Nazis explain that these people who were racially inferior but had higher accomplishments? Obviously they must be evil incarnate.
Another point of reference about Jews being the same as other white Europeans and why that's not true. My DNA testing results:
Ashkenazi Jewish - 98.5%
Eastern European - 0.7%
Broadly European - 0.3% *
Cypriot - 0.4%
North African - 0.1%
*I'm more related to Cypriots than to other Western Europeans! I did feel much more connected to the people in Greece when I traveled there.
Extrapolating from my uncle's 23 and Me test results, I am confident that I am more Jewish than Whoopi, and I ain't Jewish...
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