There was a time when I was a huge fan of “Saturday Night Live.” For a number of years, it provided some of the greatest edgy comedy in mainstream media. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi; Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy; Phil Hartman, Dennis Miller and Adam Sandler—the list goes on and on. Some of the greatest comedians in history honed their craft on Lorne Michaels’s show.
Comedy was the highest priority. It was funny and took stabs at every political and social issue in the nation, equally on the right and the left.
But those days are long gone. It has been a mouthpiece for a leftist agenda for years. Much worse, it has become a home for blatant hate and antisemitism through the consistent words of one of its stars and former head writers, Michael Che.
Che is considered by many older comedians to be a hack when it comes to his comedy and uses “SNL” as a bully pulpit to express his hate for U.S. President Donald Trump, conservative politicians and classical American values.
And one thing he has consistently attacked is Jews and Israel. For years, he has espoused classic antisemitic tropes, rivaling even the hatred of pundits such as Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, and on par with politicians such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Abdul El-Sayed.
The ‘genocide’ charge
On the recent Halloween show, he perpetuated the disproven propaganda that Israel is committing genocide. Che doesn’t care about the actual definition of genocide: “the destruction of any national, racial, ethnic, or religious group.”
Israel does not seek this in any way and has only been defending itself from the horrific attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies. It has sought the destruction of Hamas, the terrorist organization that killed more than 1,200 people, raped women, beheaded civilians, burned babies and kidnapped hundreds for more than two years.
Che seems oblivious to the reality that Hamas declares the destruction of Israel as its goal. He doesn’t care about the actual truth: that Israel has made millions of evacuation calls before attacks; that it has dropped millions of leaflets warning Gazans that an attack is about to happen; or that Israel has delivered millions of tons of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza, much of which has been hijacked by Hamas and sold to civilians to fund its military campaigns.
If this were a bad one-off joke by Che, perhaps we could say that he is just an ignorant idiot trying to pander to the far left. But this man is much more insidious than that and has a years-long history of attacking Israel and Jews, with what I believe is the clear intention of promoting more antisemitic hatred.
A pattern of attacks
On Feb. 20, 2021, Che tried to perpetuate the ancient blood libel that Jews seek to kill anyone except themselves. In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, he accused Israel of giving the vaccine only to Jews.
Che is either ignorant or doesn’t care that the reason so many people in Judea and Samaria did not get the COVID-19 vaccine is that the Palestinian Authority rejected more than 1 million doses of vaccine that Israel was providing. The P.A. didn’t want its people to be safe and clearly demonstrated that it would rather create a publicity stunt against Israel.
But Michael Che doesn’t care about the facts. Like any true antisemite—or like social-media influencers who promote anti-Israel propaganda—Che just wants to fuel Jew-hatred, and he accused Israel of a blood libel.
Although condemned by many organizations as incitement against Jews, neither Che, Michaels nor NBC ever issued an apology.
Through the years, Che has repeatedly done everything he could to turn the world against Israel and the Jews. On April 11, 2026, he echoed the words of other Jew-hating influencers in claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controls the United States and its military.
Again, this was condemned by organizations that pointed out how such rhetoric perpetuates the antisemitic conspiracy theory of Jews controlling the world. And again, Che, Michaels and “SNL” remained silent in the face of accusations of Jew-hatred against this supposed comedian.
Che is a perpetrator of the worst kind. He uses his platform to mask his hate for Jews through his supposed comedy. This was a technique perfected by the Nazis in the 1930s, and he is simply emulating their use of media to normalize hate.
Where is Lorne Michaels?
He is a Jew-hater, pathetic and should have been fired long ago. But possibly even sadder is the silence of Lorne Michaels, the creator and producer of “SNL.”
It is said that Michaels personally approves every “SNL” sketch. Is it even possible that Michaels, a Jew, would allow this hate on his show—a show he has controlled for more than half a century?
Evidently, the simple answer is, sadly, yes.
Born in Canada and a dual citizen of the United States and Canada, Michaels has consistently demonstrated himself, in my view, to be a “self-hating Jew” filled with suicidal empathy. He has never even condemned Hamas for the heinous crimes it committed on Oct. 7. Apparently, he cares about money and serving his masters at NBC more than using his position to combat hate and bring peace to the world.
I deeply wish I were wrong and that these repeated attacks on Jews and Israel were accidents. But it is Michaels who employs Che; Michaels who promoted him to co-head writer; Michaels who has remained silent in the face of blatant prejudice and hatred; and Michaels who allows and even encourages Che to continue his Jew-hating rants.
A hate-filled shadow
For centuries, Jews have laughed at themselves. As a former member of the Friars Club, I spent years surrounded by self-deprecating Jewish comedians who took equal potshots at everyone, including their own people.
But “Saturday Night Live,” Lorne Michaels and Michael Che have chosen to take their opportunity as image-makers to create peace and instead create hate that inspires violence.
How I wish for the days when “Saturday Night Live” was both funny and inspiring.
Now it, like its writer Michael Che, is just a pathetic, hate-filled shadow of what it once was.