Trevor Noah, New ‘Daily Show’ Host, Criticized for Anti-Semitic Tweets

By Alison Lesley --
06 Apr 2015 --

Trevor Noah, a newly announced replacement for Jon Stewart as host on Comedy Central’s hugely popular The Daily Show, has come under intense media criticism and massive bashing from fans, barely 24 hours after the announcement.

The internet community is aggrieved over a string of anti-Semitic jokes the new Comedy Central host published on Twitter a while back. The controversial tweets which have brought the ace South African comedian under widespread backlash were jokes he published on the microblogging platform as far back as 2011 and 2012 – way before he got into Comedy Central’s searchlight.

The seemingly harmless tweets laced with tones of anti-Semitism which Noah published over three years ago, were first dug up and brought to the limelight by Tom Gara, an editor with BuzzFeed.

Starting off by tweeting “I retweet not in anger. But it’s an impressive rise for a dude who three years ago was replying to Uberfacts tweets with dick jokes,” Gara exposed a couple of disturbing jokes that Noah tweeted before he was hired by Comedy Central.

Replicas of the tweets which many have described as rude and racist, were compiled and published on Jewish Business News, some of which have been embedded below:

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/4081446354

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/465769407047028736

South Africans know how to recycle like israel knows how to be peaceful.
— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) June 2, 2010

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/162296270684295168

Some of Noah’s tweets also included crude jokes about women:

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/225302619692871681

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/230326875648573440

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/124793524095950848

https://twitter.com/Trevornoah/status/281753454278483969

Noah has since made efforts to respond to and settle the dust surrounding the tweets which are haunting him from his past.

In that regard, the embattled comedian tweeted Tuesday: “To reduce my views to a handful of jokes that didn’t land is not a true reflection of my character, nor my evolution as a comedian.”

Trevor Noah learns Twitter just can’t take a jokehttp://t.co/6jT5ATkmJn via @NYTOpinion pic.twitter.com/5FN3cUW3it
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 5, 2015

In the same vein, Comedy Central has come out to defend their new 31-year-old talent, who has so far had three appearances on The Daily Show to his credit. “Trevor Noah pushes boundaries; he is provocative and spares no one, himself included,” Comedy Central said to CNN. “To judge him or his comedy based on a handful of jokes is unfair. Trevor is a talented comedian with a bright future at Comedy Central,” they added.