Kanye West thanks Jonah Hill for ’21 Jump Street’: ‘I like Jewish people again’

During the final months of 2022, there was no escaping KanyeWest’s publicly escalated spiral of anti-Semitic statements. Right-wing influencers in the USA quickly recognized the potential and used it. Each performance was worse than the one before. The inevitable “Hitler was a goody guy” moment came and went, West lost his partnerships with Adidas and Balenciaga, fans turned away, his Instagram account was suspended, then his Twitter profile (both of which he’s back now). At the end of the year, attention waned somewhat and public appearances also decreased. There has been speculation that Kanye might not have disappeared. But he returned – with the news that he was newly married. Unexpectedly.

The current development of the cause remains bizarre: Last Saturday (March 25) West shared a photo of the movie poster for 21 Jump Street, the 2012 buddy cop comedy starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum.

West captioned it: “Because I saw Jonah Hill on 21 Jump Street, I like Jewish people again. No one should turn their anger at one or two individuals into hatred at millions of innocents.”

Following these statements, questions arise that either surrender to the absurdity of the situation or capitulate completely. But note that this implies the euphemism that West “just didn’t like Jewish people” before. But then his will to reform ends. The following sentence seems to come from a kind of policy debate: “No Christian can be called anti-Semitic, knowing that Jesus is a Jew.”

Christian anti-Semitism, by way of context, is a well-documented and consequential historical fact. In addition to the denunciation of the attempt to absolutize oneself from anti-Semitism, the question arises as to what this objection means. Does it refer to the knowledge of Jesus’ Judaism by those who call Christians anti-Semites, or to Christians themselves, who are supposed to be protected from the consequences of anti-Semitic ideas? West’s statements are part of the worldwide increase in anti-Semitic violence, and even the strong tradition of this resentment does not prevent it from changing at the moment. West is a central part of this development.

The British BBC recently announced that it would produce a documentary about the rapper, with the working title “We need to talk about Kanye”. Jonah Hill has not yet commented (as of March 27, 11:30 a.m.). However, the actor also deleted his official social media profiles in mid-2022.

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