“If there’s another Holocaust and people start rounding up the Jews again I hope Ben [Shapiro] gets gassed first. Or last,” Youtuber Ethan Klein said on his H3TV podcast on Monday during a discussion on Kanye West’s recent antisemitic rants and other political controversies.
Klein’s employees and co-hosts looked visibly disturbed by the comment. Klein had hesitated before making the joke, remarking prior that it would be controversial.
“Can I not say that?” Klein, who is also Jewish, said to his podcast staff. “I’m not doing anything. I’m getting gassed too. Do you think it would be more justice if he got first or last?”
Klein attacked Shapiro because the pundit’s Daily Wire outlet employs political commentator Candace Owens, who the Youtuber said had taught West his antisemitic rhetoric.
“Candace Owens also works for the Daily Wire, and he’s [West] apparently getting all this fun antisemitism from her it seems like, and they just love it,” said Klein.
Shapiro responded to Klein’s comments in a tweet on Thursday, saying that “If there were another Holocaust, I would hope that Ethan and his family escaped. But maybe that’s just me.”
Klein attempted to appease his coworkers’ concerns by reminding his audience “I am Jewish by the way. Just putting that out there. 99.7% Ashkenazi Jew, B***H. No one can even step to me. I’m the king of the Jews. Jesus ain’t no king, I’m the king. You’re afraid of gas? I was born in the gas,” a play on a line by the character Bane from the Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises.
As one of Youtube’s most prominent comedians, Klein has amassed millions of followers, with 6.13 million subscribers on his old channel H3H3 Productions, and almost 3 million subscribers to his newer podcasting channel.
Klein met his wife Hila, who is Israeli, at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial when Ethan was on a Birthright trip and Hila was serving in the IDF.
