Amy Schumer Gets Flack For 'Tasteless' Jewish Joke Tweet

Never one to shy away from controversy of any kind, Amy Schumer has come under some harsh criticism over a racially-charged tweet.

Taking to her Twitter page, she posted a picture of herself standing between a saxophonist and a clarinetist, with the caption ‘a Jew with horns’.

Shortly after, she corrected herself, adding: “My bad. I meant to say 'A Jew with 2 horns’.”

The joke refers to the myth that the Jewish people had horns, perpetuated since medieval times after a misinterpretation in old religious texts.

But the myth has long been strongly linked to anti-semitism.

It wasn’t long before Schumer, who was raised Jewish – her dad is Jewish, her mum protestant christian – was being pulled up for the gag by Twitter users.

One wrote: “This is a disgusting attempt at humor. It’s like making a slavery joke. Tasteless and unfunny.”

Celebrity website Gossip Cop took particular exception to Schumer’s joke too, in a scathing commentary.

“The misconception that Jews have horns was most notably propagated by Michelangelo, whose Moses sculpture, which sits in a Rome church, features the Jewish leader with two protrusions atop his head. That seemingly was a result of the misinterpretation of the Bible’s book of Exodus, which noted that after Moses communicated with God on Mount Horeb, his face had 'karnay’, the Hebrew word for shining 'rays’. But the mistaken translation of 'karnay’ for the phonetically similar 'karnim’, the Hebrew word for 'horns’, led to the inaccurate belief that Moses (and the Jewish people) had horns,” they wrote.

“Anti-Semites have used that anatomically inaccurate error to fuel their bigotry and portray Jews as horned individuals, like the devil or Satan. The wholly untrue imagery was later co-opted by the Nazis, who depicted Jews in their propaganda as satanic people.

“Any of this funny yet?

“Who’s the audience for Schumer’s joke? The 0.2 percent of Jews around the world? The vastly larger percentage of anti-Semites?

“Schumer’s 'Jew with horns’ tweet misses the point that sometimes humor doesn’t trump hurtful stereotypes. It’s time for Schumer to grab her tweet by the horns and apologize for perpetuating this slanderous depiction of Jews for a mere half-laugh.”

It’s not the first time the 'Trainwreck’ star been criticised for making racially-charged jokes.

Another of her stand-up routines featured the gag 'nothing works 100 percent of the time, except Mexicans’, while she described the plot of the film 'Gone Girl’ as 'the story of what one crazed white woman, or all Latinas do, if you cheat on them’.

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Image credits: Deadline/Twitter