Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Why Does British Video Depict Internet Troll Wearing Kippah?

An anti-trolling video put out by a British Labour Party politician drew criticism from many in the Jewish community after it featured a still of a Jewish internet troll wearing a yarmulke.

Produced by the YouTube site DoubleDownNews, and featuring Labour front-bencher Angela Rayner, the video displays a clip from the comedy show “South Park,” in which character Gerald Broflovski trolls people on the internet. Broflovski is Jewish and wears a yarmulke, leading some to think Rayner was accusing Jews of trolling her.

“Why is the troll depicted wearing a kippah?” one commenter wrote on YouTube. Another said, “Of all illustrations available they choose a character who is clearly identifiable as Jewish.”

Rayner responded by saying that the clip from “South Park” had been added in during the editing process by DoubleDownNews, absent her input.

“The fact that he is Jewish is irrespective to his trolling, both in the “South Park” episode and in this video,” the site said in a statement. The Labour Party has faced allegations of anti-Semitism under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter, @DanielJSolomon

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

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

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version