On April 23, the Comedy on State homepage listed a performance scheduled for May 2 with Michael Rapaport. “Special engagement,” it stated, per an archived version of the site. “No passes or promotions.”
The Madison, Wis. venue, which bills itself as the city’s “premier comedy club,” canceled that performance this week, and all references to the Jewish comedian on its website yield error messages.
“Madison bows to bullies. Michael Rapaport’s sold-out comedy shows in Madison, Wis. have been canceled following threats from the pro-terror mob,” wrote Aviva Klompas, a former head of speechwriting at Israel’s mission to the United Nations.
“The mob is screaming about the right to free speech, and here they are trying to silence a comedian just because he is Jewish,” Klompas added. (Rapaport responded to her post and confirmed the show had been scrapped.)
Todd Richman, co-chair of the Democratic Majority for Israel, wrote that if venues in Arizona and Chicago had “stayed strong and not succumb to the pro-Hamas anti-Israel ‘potential protestors’ and cancel Matisyahu, then maybe Comedy On State in Madison, Wis. might not have been cowards and had the guts not to cancel Michael Rapaport.”
“When will these institutions stand up for what is right?” he wrote. “Welcome to America, where Jewish artists are banned from performing. They said it couldn’t happen here in this amazing country, but I guess so many were wrong. Welcome to the 1930s Nazi Germany.”
The Madison comedy club reportedly emailed ticket holders to say “In light of the current environment downtown, marked by escalating protests and a contentious nature of the dialogue surrounding current affairs, we have made the difficult decision to cancel the Thursday show with Michael Rapaport.”
“The safety and well-being of our audience members, staff and community are our top priorities, and we believe this decision is in the best interest of all involved,” the venue reportedly stated.
Rapaport was one of 450 Jews in the entertainment industry to sign a letter denouncing the speech that film director Jonathan Glazer gave at the Academy Awards ceremony in which he said “Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.”
He also spoke at the “March for Israel” rally in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 14.