The ‘Jewish Nose’ Insult Is Back Again in D.C.

Nancy Mace, a congresswoman from South Carolina, recently said to Sara Jacobs, her fellow congresswoman from California, who is Jewish, “I have a good surgeon if you ever want to get your nose done.”

Jacobs answered, “I didn’t say anything about your body but thanks for confirming! And going with the Jewish nose joke…very creative (and also very antisemitic).”

Jacobs is right: Jokes about Jewish noses are not funny and they are clearly antisemitic.

The last time hurtful remarks about Jewish noses generated news in D.C., it was from a very surprising place: the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Dr. Rebecca Erbelding, a staff historian at the Holocaust Museum, tweeted in 2019: “At a talk today, asked about my personal background. I confessed that I’m not Jewish, but with a Hebrew first name, German last name, and my nose and hair, I ‘pass.’”

So far Mace has not apologized. Erbelding has never apologized at all. In fact, she hasn’t even acknowledged the public’s legitimate concerns about what she wrote.

The producers of the game show Jeopardy! were right in 2021 to oust Mike Richards after it was revealed that he had made a joke about a Jewish woman’s nose. That sent a message to the public that antisemitism can’t be washed away with an apology. Richards apologized — but he was fired from Jeopardy! anyway. Dr. Erbelding’s refusal to address the controversy, much less apologize, was an insult to the public which pays her salary. For a government-funded institution to have on its staff somebody who jokes about “Jewish noses” is an embarrassment. For a Holocaust museum — which is devoted to teaching about the horrific consequences of antisemitism — it was positively shameful.

For a government-funded institution to have on its staff somebody who jokes about “Jewish noses” is an embarrassment. For a Holocaust museum — which is devoted to teaching about the horrific consequences of antisemitism — it was positively shameful.

Neither the GOP nor the Republican Jewish Coalition seem interested in Mace’s bigoted remark.

The danger of the “Jewish nose” stereotype should not be underestimated. The notion that there is a distinctive “Jewish nose” is one of the oldest anti-Jewish myths. Jew-haters invented it in the 12th century as a way to single out Jews for contempt.

The danger of the “Jewish nose” stereotype should not be underestimated. The notion that there is a distinctive “Jewish nose” is one of the oldest anti-Jewish myths. Jew-haters invented it in the 12th century as a way to single out Jews for contempt.

Government propagandists in Nazi Germany often used the “Jewish nose” stereotype in their hate-mongering. A notorious Nazi film in 1940, called “The Eternal Jew,” which claimed to expose the “real” Jew, focused again and again on “Jewish faces,” zooming in on their noses to make Jews seem repulsive.

Images of big-nosed Jews appeared frequently in the Hitler regime’s news media, cultural publications, and children’s books. “Der Giftpilz,” an anti-Jewish children’s book published by Julius Streicher (who was also the publisher of the Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer), featured a section called “How To Tell A Jew.” It showed a 7th grade boys’ class, in which “Karl Schulz, a small lad in the front row,” stepped to the chalkboard and proclaimed: “One can most easily tell a Jew by his nose. The Jewish nose is bent at its point. It looks like the number six. We call it the ‘Jewish six.’”

In much of the Muslim world since the October 7 Hamas-led terrorist attacks, caricatures of Jews with stereotypical noses have regularly appeared in viciously anti-Zionist and anti-Israel editorial cartoons.

Perpetuating stereotypes such as the “Jewish nose” is not just offensive. It can have real-life consequences. Professor Jonathan Kaplan of the University of Technology-Sydney has pointed out that the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, Robert Bowers, echoed classic anti-Jewish stereotypes in his online ravings. “How we speak about and depict others in the media and social discourse perpetuates long-held stereotypes and ultimately emboldens hate-filled individuals,” according to professor Kaplan.

Whether told by a co-worker at the water cooler, a schoolyard bully, an elected politician, a TV celebrity, or a museum historian, jokes about “Jewish noses” deserve the public’s scorn — and there must be consequences.

The GOP can and must do better the next time a remark like Mace’s is made.

On October 6, 2024 the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum stated in a news release: “Since the attack, an unprecedented wave of antisemitism, Holocaust distortion, and Holocaust denial has swept the globe.” Let’s hope the Museum does better the next time one of its staffers uses an antisemitic trope.

Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.