{"id":697,"date":"2006-11-28T20:14:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-28T20:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html"},"modified":"2006-11-28T20:14:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-28T20:14:00","slug":"is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html","title":{"rendered":"Is &#8216;Kramer&#8217; Joking About Being Jewish?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/media.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Richards061122.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/media.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Richards061122.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> Former \u201cSeinfeld\u201d actor Michael Richards has barely finished trying to convince the public&#8211;as well as the entertainment community&#8211;that <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/hollywoods-hypocrisy-over-kramers-rant.html\">the racial slurs<\/a> he uttered at a nightclub do not mean he is racist. But now he is facing <a href=\"http:\/\/apnews1.iwon.com\/\/article\/20061129\/D8LMD7QO0.html\">new allegetions regarding anti-Semitic remarks <\/a>he made several months ago.<\/p>\n<p>Richards newly-hired crisis expert, Howard Rubenstein, has admitted that Richards shouted anti-Semitic comments during a performance last April. But he blames Richards&#8217; tirade not on his obvious anger management issues, but rather on the fact that he was only &#8220;role playing&#8221; while on stage.<\/p>\n<p>And while Jewish leaders may not be expressing the same outrage over Richards\u2019 remarks as they did over Mel Gibson\u2019s road rage a few months ago, they are taking Richards to task over something else: Richards claims that he can\u2019t be anti-Semitic because he is Jewish. Jewish organizations have refuted Richards ties to Judaism by pointing out that his family is not Jewish (Richards was actually raised Catholic), and that Richards has not formally converted to the religion.<\/p>\n<p>Rubenstein, however, has continued to defend Richards claim to be a Jew by saying that Richards has had two significant Jewish mentors in his life and agrees with the beliefs and customs of Judaism. Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, responded by saying &#8220;You can&#8217;t feel Jewish. It&#8217;s not a matter of feeling.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Seems to me like no one&#8211;from Jesse Jackson to the Anti-Defamation League&#8211;is feeling the love for someone who was once one of the most beloved sitocm stars of the &#8217;90s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former \u201cSeinfeld\u201d actor Michael Richards has barely finished trying to convince the public&#8211;as well as the entertainment community&#8211;that the racial slurs he uttered at a nightclub do not mean he is racist. But now he is facing new allegetions regarding anti-Semitic remarks he made several months ago. Richards newly-hired crisis expert, Howard Rubenstein, has admitted&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrities"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Is &#039;Kramer&#039; Joking About Being Jewish?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is &#039;Kramer&#039; Joking About Being Jewish?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former \u201cSeinfeld\u201d actor Michael Richards has barely finished trying to convince the public&#8211;as well as the entertainment community&#8211;that the racial slurs he uttered at a nightclub do not mean he is racist. But now he is facing new allegetions regarding anti-Semitic remarks he made several months ago. Richards newly-hired crisis expert, Howard Rubenstein, has admitted&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-11-28T20:14:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Richards061122.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kris Rasmussen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is 'Kramer' Joking About Being Jewish?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is 'Kramer' Joking About Being Jewish?","og_description":"Former \u201cSeinfeld\u201d actor Michael Richards has barely finished trying to convince the public&#8211;as well as the entertainment community&#8211;that the racial slurs he uttered at a nightclub do not mean he is racist. But now he is facing new allegetions regarding anti-Semitic remarks he made several months ago. Richards newly-hired crisis expert, Howard Rubenstein, has admitted&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2006-11-28T20:14:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Richards061122.jpg"}],"author":"Kris Rasmussen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html","name":"Is 'Kramer' Joking About Being Jewish?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Richards061122.jpg","datePublished":"2006-11-28T20:14:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-11-28T20:14:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/667195b00ac2263e0f6700056170bbf8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Richards061122.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/imgs\/tout\/story\/Richards061122.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/11\/is-kramer-joking-about-being-jewish.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Is &#8216;Kramer&#8217; Joking About Being Jewish?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/","name":"Idol Chatter","description":"Beliefnet Entertainment blog, TV blog, Movie blog, Religion in entertainment blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/667195b00ac2263e0f6700056170bbf8","name":"Kris Rasmussen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e7\/2e7278d93dd11c6aad2c82da37f0d657x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/2e7\/2e7278d93dd11c6aad2c82da37f0d657x96.jpg","caption":"Kris Rasmussen"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/author\/krasmussen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}