Jewish creators made a satirical cartoon. Then the Mississippi synagogue arson supsect shared it
The suspect shared a clip from the defunct Comedy Central cartoon ‘Drawn Together’
A screenshot from “Drawn Together,” the defunct Comedy Central cartoon. Screenshot of Drawn Together
By Hannah Feuer January 14, 2026
Stephen Spencer Pittman, who confessed to setting fire to Beth Israel Congregation in Mississippi, shared a cartoon on Instagram mocking Jews on the day of the attack. What Pittman may not have realized: He was sharing a satirical cartoon made by Jewish creators.
The video clip Pittman posted shows a character named Princess Clara, who spots a Jewish caricature holding moneybags. She exclaims, “A Jew in our backyard! I can’t believe my Jew crow didn’t work!” The camera pans to a scarecrow with a sign that reads “Tips, please.” Princess Clara then pushes the figure into a swimming pool, adding, “You’re getting baptized right now.”
That clip came from the cartoon Drawn Together, an animated parody of reality TV shows and cartoon tropes, which aired on Comedy Central from 2004 to 2007. Its creators, Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein, were both raised in Jewish families in Bergen County, New Jersey. Jeser has described himself as coming from an ardently Zionist family.
Pittman reposted the cartoon from an Instagram account that had been sharing the same clip daily for upwards of 90 days and had shared other antisemitic content. The clip has also been used to justify attacks on Jews: In December 2024, someone posted the cartoon as the thumbnail and closing footage on a video of Hamas executing an alleged Israeli collaborator. The Forward also found the clip shared in antisemitic contexts on social media going back to 2023.
Had Pittman shared the next piece of dialogue in the episode, the satire would have been more evident.
“I can’t swim!” the character, wearing peyot, or sidelocks, and a kippah, yells out.
“Don’t worry, you’re a Christian now! Jesus will be your life preserver!” Princess Clara responds.
A Jesus character then says, “Look at that heeb pretending to drown. Ha, those Jews kill me.”
Deliberate offensiveness is arguably the whole point of Drawn Together, which, in addition to caricaturing Jews, includes stock characters that stereotype the LGBTQ+ community, Black people and nearly every other protected class. They all share a house in the show, and the friction of their dynamics, as in Big Brother, is played for laughs. The original tagline for the show, a play on the one from MTV’s The Real World, was “Find out what happens when cartoon characters stop being polite … and start making out in hot tubs.”
While critics have at times accused the show of straying from satire into cruelty, its intent to be parody is clear.
“Most of the racism on the show is coming from people who are so obviously stupid about it; it really isn’t that threatening,” actor Jess Harnell, who voices the character Captain Hero, a toxically masculine riff on Superman, said in commentary accompanying the show’s DVD.
Jeser and Silverstein did not respond to the Forward’s request for comment.
The show also found itself embroiled in controversy in 2010, when Comedy Central created an online game titled “I.S.R.A.E.L. Attacks!” The game was based on Drawn Together: The Movie, with a female robot character who attacks people. The film features Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane voicing the character “I.S.R.A.E.L.,” which stands for Intelligent Smart Robot Animation Eraser Lady, and a character named “Jew Producer” — inspired by Jeser and Silverstein.
The game drew backlash from Honest Reporting, a pro-Israel media watchdog, and the Anti-Defamation League, which cited “offensive antisemitic and anti-Israeli stereotypes.” Comedy Central took down the game.
But Jeser defended the movie as parody and said people should watch the whole film before casting judgment — the character “I.S.R.A.E.L.,” he said, actually ends up saving the day.
“It’s less a comment on Israel and the world than a comment on the silliness and stupidness of the characters on the show and their unwarranted fears of the unknown,” Jeser told Jewish Standard at the time, later adding, “The last thing we wanted to do was make fun of everyone but not ourselves and our own people. Laughter’s the best medicine, and we’re all very sick and need more of it.”
PJ Grisar contributed writing and reporting. Andy Carvin contributed reporting.
