Amy Schumer’s social media has been a wall of support for Israel. Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Good+Foundation

By PJ Grisar November 1, 2023

Amy Schumer, the comedian and actor, has taken a new role in recent weeks: pro-Israel advocate.

On social media, Schumer has been posting a number of memes and messages calling out antisemitism, pleading for the Israeli hostages’ return and saying a cease-fire should only come with Hamas’ surrender. 

Mostly, Schumer has reposted other celebrities, like musician Regina Spektor and comedian Brett Gelman, with text pointing to double standards about how Jews are being treated amid the conflict and throughout history. But on Oct. 30, Schumer shared a video of Martin Luther King Jr. on her Instagram where the civil rights leader says, “the whole world must see that Israel must exist, and has the right to exist and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.” MLK’s daughter Bernice responded.

“Certainly, my father was against antisemitism, as am I,” Bernice King, CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, wrote in a thread on X (formerly Twitter). “He also believed militarism (along with racism and poverty) to be among the interconnected Triple Evils. I am certain he would call for Israel’s bombing of Palestinians to cease, for hostages to be released and for us to work for true peace, which includes justice.”

King then suggested Schumer read her father’s book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?

Schumer’s posts online have been excoriated by some for seeming tone-deaf or, in the case of a shared cartoon showing protestors holding posters that read “Gazans only rape Jewish girls in self-defense” and “beheading is resistance,” of being Islamophobic. On Wednesday she was trending for appearing to direct message a stranger who criticized the tenor of her social media.

The comedian posted in her defense on Instagram Wednesday to clarify she wants “safety for Jewish people and Muslims as well,” denying she is Islamophobic or genocidal and noting that Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is her dad’s second cousin once removed and she didn’t meet him until she was 25. 

Schumer previously posted an image of MLK to Instagram with his quote, “in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” She turned the comments off.

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