Im Against Jews: A Heckler Tried To Corner This Comedian — But His Comeback Was Gold

Like any comedian, Lucas Zelnick is used to dealing with hecklers and rowdy crowd members. But the woman he encountered last month during a gig wasn’t your average heckler.

About midway through a live show in San Francisco, Zelnick asked the crowd if anyone was religious enough to believe in the events of the Bible. The bit usually leads to a few general jokes about religion, he told HuffPost, but not on that night. The woman in the crowd had different ideas.

“I’m against Jews,” the woman said randomly, as an incredulous Zelnick asked, “What?”

Zelnick, 31, works his Jewish identity into his material ― his fans know that, and he’d touched on related topics earlier in the night ― so the commentary was unexpected.

“You guys are evil,” the woman said, pointing to “what’s happening in Palestine” when Zelnick pressed her to explain what she meant.

Zelnick cut in there. “Considering what’s happening in Palestine, you say. But that’s not all Jews. Like, I’m here, right, and I’m pro Palestine.

“Have you just been white-knuckling my entire set since I said I wish Jewish?” he joked. “You were like, ‘fuck, I didn’t realize, but I paid for a ticket’ ― cause by the way, that’s a pretty Jewish thing to do.”

Then Zelnick offered her his take on the Gaza war and broader Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which has resulted in massive casualties and displacement of the Palestinian people.

“Here’s what I’ll say, there are a lot of Jews being naughty in Israel right now, but it’s not all Jews, and it’s not because they’re Jewish,” the New York City-based comedian told the woman.

Hoping to reach others who might share the woman’s views, Zelnick posted the clip to Instagram after the show. It has since been viewed 7.5 million times.

As the clip shows, Zelnick and the woman picked up their discussion again six minutes later. The comedian was still taken aback, and the woman had stuck around because she wasn’t satisfied with his earlier response and “wanted more depth.”

“Why am I on the hook for explaining to you why one religion of people aren’t all evil at the individual level?” he said. “I care about being Jewish. I think what’s happening in Israel is horrible, but those are two different things.”

Eventually, the woman did leave of her own accord.

“I’m not going to kick someone out just because they’re antisemitic,” Zelnick joked during the set. “I don’t want to kick someone out. I’d rather try and make them connect.”

In an interview with HuffPost, the comedian said that in liberal-leaning San Francisco, he really did think the person was joking at first.

“Usually when someone in the audience heckles something terrible at a show it’s a misplaced attempt at cracking a joke,” he said. “I guessed she was Jewish herself and just trying to be funny.”

But once he realized she was genuine, he tried to level with her and understand her perspective, rather than going the shame route.

“She was young, seemingly at the show alone, and didn’t seem really to be angry, drunk, or any of the other typical emotions that cause people to say negative things to comedians at shows,” he said.

“I sort of made some guesses in my mind about what kind of person she was. I figured she was chronically online, potentially lonely, and maybe just someone who ― for whatever reason ― managed to form some extreme belief,” Zelnick said.

“It never occurred to me that trying to intimidate her or be unkind would have been a productive way to engage with her,” he added. “I also felt like she was a symptom of a larger machine ― the internet ― like she was repeating someone else’s thoughts rather than stating her own.”

Anti-Jewish tropes, conspiracy theories and hate speech have surged across social media following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and the Israeli government’s ensuing military retaliation in Gaza.

As organizations that monitor hate speech, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, point out, holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the Israeli government or its leaders is antisemitic.

Jewish Americans are far from a monolith when it comes to Zionism or support for the Israeli government’s actions. While a large majority view Hamas’s actions as unacceptable and express deep concern about Israel’s security, polling by the Pew Research Center reveals significant differences in how Jewish Americans view the war.

While not across the board, older and more religious Jews are generally more supportive of Israeli government policies, while younger, more secular and progressive Jews are more likely to criticize the war in Gaza, voice support for Palestinian rights or advocate for a two-state solution, Pew found.

Given how nuanced the conversation is within the Jewish American community, Zelnick hopes his viral video can model how to confront hate productively.

“I know it’s naive to believe that people who hold horrible beliefs can be capable of changing their minds, but I certainly feel like the common modern response to people who hold hateful beliefs: to scream at them, insult them or alienate them just assures a situation where everyone becomes more extreme over time.”

Zelnick hopes people who watch the clip will consider meeting perspectives they disagree with with genuine curiosity rather than hostility. Obviously no one thinks they’re the bad guy, he said, and the woman probably thought she was standing up for someone by saying what she said to me.

“I’d argue she’d be wrong to think that, but I’d rather go that route of telling her she’s wrong, than go the route of telling her she’s horrible, which is a much more intense indictment that I think will lead her to double down rather than to reconsider,” he said.

We were curious whether he’d heard from the woman since the clip went viral — maybe she’d slid into his DMs to elaborate on her point or even admit she’d had second thoughts about how she’d framed her comment.

Nope, he hadn’t. But he also has a deluge of messages in his inboxes right now; going viral about something as touchy as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will do that to you.

“My phone has been very busy this week and I’m trying to do a better job of staying off it,” he said, laughing.