{"id":152029,"date":"2026-06-09T08:28:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/152029\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T08:28:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:28:23","slug":"pro-israel-celebrities-joke-about-israel-dog-rape-claims-at-tribeca-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/152029\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Israel celebrities joke about Israel dog rape claims at Tribeca Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tribeca Festival<\/a> has denounced jokes alluding to allegations of rape against Israeli prison guards made on the red carpet by the comedian and actor Elon Gold and pro-Israel influencer Lizzy Savetsky.<\/p>\n

The two Jewish figures made the jokes at the world premiere of Gold\u2019s new film,\u00a0The Wedding Entertainer (The Tale of Moishe Badhan), on Thursday, and Savetsky included them in a highlights reel that she posted to Instagram on Friday.<\/p>\n

In the reel, Gold notes that it\u2019s significant that the Tribeca Festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals<\/a> in the world, included a movie that was made in Israel.<\/p>\n

The implication was that at a time of surging anti-Israel sentiment, he would not have expected films with an Israeli connection to be admitted.<\/p>\n

Then he joked about his time in Israel: \u201cI was only raped by two Israeli dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LizzyLizzy Savetsky attends as Ari Ackerman is Inducted into the Manhattan Jewish Hall of Fame Class of 2026 In Bryant Park on May 05, 2026 in New York City. (credit: Roy Rochlin\/Getty Images for Ari Ackerman)<\/p>\n

Savetsky responded, \u201cI thought they only raped Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Gold answered, laughing. \u201cI got also a dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

NYT Nicholas Kristof article<\/p>\n

The pair were alluding to allegations of sexual abuse by Israeli prison guards against Palestinian prisoners that New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof<\/a> surfaced in an opinion column last month. One of the most sensational claims, which Israel rejected along with all the others, was that Israeli prison guards use dogs to rape prisoners.<\/p>\n

After the comments drew criticism online, the Tribeca Festival said in a statement Saturday that it \u201cunequivocally condemns the offensive and unacceptable remarks\u201d made by Savetsky and Gold.<\/p>\n

\u201cSexual violence and human suffering should never be mocked or minimized,\u201d the festival said. \u201cThe comments do not reflect the Tribeca Festival\u2019s values, and we regret the hurt and offense they have caused. We have not been able to reach the filmmakers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pro-Israel activists have condemned the column, Kristof, and the newspaper for airing the allegations against Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to sue the newspaper over the claims.<\/p>\n

In an Instagram video response to a NYT<\/a> reporter asking for comment over email, Savetsky compared the allegations made in Kristof\u2019s column to an antisemitic blood libel.<\/p>\n

Savetsky: ‘No regrets’ for joke<\/p>\n

In a comment to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Savetsky denied that the jokes she made on the red carpet were \u201cabout rape\u201d as the festival alleged.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a joke mocking the NYT story with a horrific blood libel,\u201d she said in a message to JTA. \u201cAny other interpretation is ridiculous and a deflection from the actual issue here, which is irresponsible journalism meant to villainize Zionists. Comedy and the arts have always been used to address real issues – the issue here should not be dog rape, which is biologically impossible; it should be the blood libel spread by the NYT.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI stand by it with no regrets. The outrage only exposes how the press and those poisoned by anti-Israel propaganda will twist anything to blame the Jews… even when it means justifying a story with zero evidence about something biologically impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gold, who also served as executive producer on the film, did not respond to JTA\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

The Wedding Entertainer (The Tale of Moishe Badhan) is an Israeli comedy about a Hasidic ex-comedian who returns to the comedy world after battling addiction to earn enough money to marry off his daughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tribeca Festival has denounced jokes alluding to allegations of rape against Israeli prison guards made on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[10722,2492,15034,4488,37,48742],"class_list":["post-152029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-actor","tag-antisemitism","tag-antizionism","tag-film","tag-israel","tag-tribeca-festival"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116719210019338674","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}