French Muslim Rapper Hit by Anti-Semitic Rants
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Dozens of anti-Semitic messages were left on the Facebook page of the best-selling French rapper Booba, who vowed to “avenge the victims of the Holocaust.”
The pledge featured in a new song titled “Master Yoda” by Booba, the stage name of 36-year-old Eli Yaffa, born in France to a Muslim father from Senegal.
The song was posted on the Facebook page of Booba, who has sold over one million albums in France, on Feb. 2 under the title “We’ll avenge like victims of slavery and the Shoah,” a phrase taken from the lyrics.
Among the 4,340 comments left on his post were comments denying the Holocaust and calling for a new genocide against the Jewish people, in violation of French law on hate speech. Some comments used pejoratives against Booba for mentioning the Holocaust.
A user identified as John Ken’Nabii wrote: “Fk the Shoah, invented by Zionists to legitimize Israel.” Another user, Bassim Abir, wrote: “Fk your mother, you and the Shoah, we piss on all the Arabs that listen to you.”
JSS News, a French Jewish news site, termed the statements “cyber-lynching.”
Dozens of comments contained the phrase “shoananas,” a combination of the Hebrew name for the Holocaust with the French world for pineapple. Coined by the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne, it is used as a code word for denying the Holocaust seen to be too vague to violate France’s law forbidding it.
On Jan. 24, a French court ordered Twitter to divulge details of users who made similar comments.
The post containing the new song by Booba received 1,413 “likes” on Facebook.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
