Berlusconi’s Jewish Joke Draws Rebuke From Vatican

By Saviona Mane October 4, 2010

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.

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