Books

Milo Yiannapoulos Hires Dwarfs Wearing Yarmulkes To Mock Rival

The bib on a dwarf impersonating Ben Shapiro. Image by youtube

By Ari Feldman July 7, 2017

Disgraced ‘alt-right’ provocateur Milo Yiannapoulos hired dwarfs wearing yarmulkes to perform at a New York book launch party as part of an elaborate stunt to mock an observant Jewish rival.

Yiannapoulos used the dwarfs to ridicule Ben Shapiro, the editor of the conservative website The Daily Wire, at a Thursday night shindig for his new book “Dangerous.”

The dwarfs wore “Ben Shapiro” name tags and bibs that read “It’s my bris and I’ll cry if I want to” at the party.

“They’re a little tall for Ben Shapiro impersonators, but they’ve got the yarmulkes, they’re doing a good job,” Yiannapoulos reportedly said.

The two onetime Breitbart.com colleagues are locked in a bitter feud that has pitted Shapiro, a conservative, against Yiannapoulos, a central figure of the ‘alt-right.’

Shapiro resigned as editor-at-large of Breitbart.com, last year over its handling of a Breitbart reporter’s allegations of sexual assault by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Yiannapoulos and others saw that as a betrayal of Trump and his acolyte Steve Bannon. Yiannapoulos also left Breitbart in February after making approving comments about sex between men and under-age boys.

The Lower East Side party also featured a dunk tank with a Hillary Clinton impersonator in the hot seat, and strippers who began their routine in floor-length burqas.

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO