The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) says a humor piece written by Lena Dunham for The New Yorker is “offensive” and “insensitive” about anti-Semitic stereotypes.
The story, “Dog or Jewish Boyfriend? A Quiz,” lists attributes of her dog, Lamby, and her boyfriend, musician Jack Antonoff. ADL National Chairman Abraham H. Foxman took issue with jokes that amounted to “stereotypes about cheap Jews” and said that the comparison “evokes memories of the ‘No Jews or Dogs Allowed’ signs from our own early history in this country.”
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Dunham, whose mother is Jewish, has not yet responded, but called the story a “love letter to @jackantonoff & Lamby” earlier this week on Instagram. The New Yorker’s editor David Remnick replied:
“Abe Foxman’s statement on behalf of the ADL is curious. The Jewish-comic tradition is rich with the mockery of, and playing with, stereotypes. Has Mr. Foxman never heard Lenny Bruce or Larry David or Sarah Silverman or read ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’? Lena Dunham is a comic voice working in that vein. I don’t mind if Abe Foxman didn’t find the piece funny. People can differ on that, God knows. But this is something else and, considering all the real hatred in the world, Mr. Foxman is, like those who railed at Philip Roth a generation or two ago, howling in the wrong direction.”
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