Cardi B, seen here performing onstage during 2023 HOT 107.9’s Birthday Bash in Atlanta in June 2023, tweeted a picture of Orthodox Jews after her Jewish lawyers announced victory in a legal case. (Cardi B by Paras Griffin/Getty Images; men via Wikipedia)

(JTA) — Soon after Cardi B learned that police in Las Vegas would not charge her in connection with an incident at a recent concert, she turned to Wikipedia.

The rapper tweeted a picture that illustrates the digital encyclopedia’s entry for “Jewish religious clothing.” The picture shows two Hasidic Orthodox Jewish men walking in Borough Park, Brooklyn. One wears a fur hat called a streimel as well as a tallit, a prayer shawl, over his clothes; the other has long peyos, the sidelocks worn by some Orthodox men.

“Remember … ” she wrote.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Fans immediately connected the post to a lyric in her 2018 song “Bickenhead,’ in which she sings, “Lawyer is a Jew, he gon’ chew up all the charges.” Jewish lawyers are a sustained theme in rap music, and Cardi B’s legal team on the Las Vegas incident included multiple Jewish attorneys.

But even as some interpreted the tweet as praise for her Jewish lawyers, others decried it as offensive because Cardi B appeared to attribute her attorneys’ success to their Jewish identity, not their skills. (The men in the picture are not Cardi B’s attorneys.)

“Appreciate you @iamcardib, but tweeting out a vague picture of a visible minority that has been subject to rising hate crimes in NYC to your 31 million followers is just not acceptable,” tweeted David Bashevkin, a prominent Orthodox voice on social media. “When hate is an option don’t leave anyone guessing what you meant.”

Amid a social media backlash, the tweet was removed without comment. “Lawyer is a Jew” continued trending on X, the platform that was until recently called Twitter, for some time.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount