Berlusconi’s Jewish Joke Draws Rebuke From Vatican
Crossposted from Haaretz
The Vatican journal and the Italian bishops’ daily newsletter yesterday condemned a “Jewish joke” told by Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi on his birthday last week.
Berlusconi, who turned 74, jocularly told well wishers a joke about about a Jew that charged another Jew 3,000 euros a day to hide him during the Holocaust. “The Jew says, the question now is whether we should tell him Hitler is dead and the war is over,” Berlusconi recounted as the punchline.
The joke, which was recorded on video, was quickly distributed on the Internet by major daily La Repubblica.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
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.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO