Dear Kristen Bell’s Husband, Your ‘Measletov’ Pun Is Anti-Semitic

Spouses Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer June 21, 2019

Measles, a disease that had been considered “eliminated,” is at a 25-year-high for numbers of infections in a calendar year in the US.

Over half of the reported cases in the past year belong to Hasidic Jews.

This is a delicate moment for all Jews, who are also facing a rise in anti-Semitism. Ultra-Orthodox Jews in particular have increasingly faced violent hate crimes, especially in New York. Historically, non-Jews have used times of infectious illness to genocide Jewish communities. During the height of the Black Plague in Medieval Europe, hundreds of Jewish communities, blamed for the disease, were mass-murdered.

When a tiny sliver of a minority community bears partial blame for a health crisis, it’s not okay to make glib comments that equate a religious and ethnic group with causing infection and death.

We’re looking at you Dax Shepard, the comedic actor best known for being married to “Frozen” and “The Good Place” star Kristen Bell.

Over seventy-thousand twitter-users have liked a tweet by Shepard targeting anti-vaxxers, which closes off with the cutesy hashtag “measeltov,” a portmanteau of the word “measles” and the Yiddish phrase “Mazel Tov.”

Hey, Dax? Children are ill, and Jews are facing a rising sea of slow-boiling hatred. Could you maybe lay off on the puns?

I would have a hard time keeping my opinion to myself if someone was telling me their 8 month-old did not need a car seat. The same hard time I’m having currently with anti-vaxxers. #yourenotapediatrician #measeltov

— dax shepard (@daxshepard) June 19, 2019

To be clear, there is no Jewish prohibition against vaccination. Orthodox Jews are generally pro-vaccine, as are Orthodox rabbis. There are slightly lower rates of vaccination among ultra-orthodox Jews than the general population. But assuming anyone in a black hat might be “dirty” or “contagious” is calumnious and hateful, not to mention inaccurate.

The cruel comedy of combining a Jewish crossover phrase, “Mazal Tov” with the name of a contagious illness is something that a sweet liberal celebrity would know not to do to any other minority group. But the Jews, with their funny phrases and crazy blue-and-white scarves, are such safe targets!

Thank you! I can’t stop either!

— dax shepard (@daxshepard) June 19, 2019

Gross.

Large-faced man scores points during public health scare by dunking on terrified minority with subpar word-play? Oh, Dax. This is, indeed, the Bad Place.

Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

A message from our Publisher & CEO 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.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO