'SNL' Draws Protests Over Anti-Semitic Joke

NBC's "Saturday Night Live" faced protests outside its studio before the show's latest episode over a recent joke about about vaccinations in Israel.

Hours before Saturday's show aired, a crowd led by former state Assemblyman Dov Hikind chanted "Shame on NBC!" and "Anti-Semitism is not funny!" outside NBC's entrance in midtown Manhattan.

During the Feb. 20 "Weekend Update segment, comedian Michael Che said: "Israel is reporting that they've vaccinated half of their population. I'm going to guess it's the Jewish half."

Jewish groups claimed the comment was anti-Semitic. Hikind posted a video of Saturday's protests on Twitter.

"It's amazing that they have not apologized yet," Hikind told the New York Post. "They did something so egregious, so horrible, I'm personally sick and tired of a major network like NBC indulging in spreading hate. That's basically what they did."

Hikind promised to do "whatever has to be done" to promote the issue.

"I'm not going to be silent about this stuff that really endangers the Jewish people," he said.

Israel, which has become a world leader in COVID-19 vaccination, is almost three-fourths Jewish.

Researchers earlier this month said 84 percent of Israel's 70-and-older population had been fully immunized with the Pfizer-BioNTech two-shot vaccine, per CNBC. 

Vaccination rates of Israeli Arabs are much lower than Jews, in part due to distrust of the government in the Arab sector, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

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