A group of graduating students — screaming, « Free Palestine » — walked out of the Duke commencement as speaker Jerry Seinfeld was introduced, but they missed a vital message.
In the bizarro world of 2024 college commencements — at least the ones that haven’t been canceled — Jerry Seinfeld, a man who riffs on breakfast cereal and Superman, is too controversial for some thin-skinned graduates of Duke University.
On Sunday, a small group walked out, screaming, “Free Palestine,” as the comedian was introduced as commencement speaker.
Why? We’re left with only one conclusion: because Seinfeld, 70, is Jewish and — gasp — visited Israel to meet with families of victims taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7.
Seinfeld is zealously apolitical in his stand-up.
He didn’t jog onto the stage wearing an Israeli flag draped around his shoulders or use “Hatikvah,“ the country’s national anthem, as his walk-up music.
He wasn’t there to act as a proxy for Netanyahu, or to deliver a blistering defense of Zionism or an argument against divestment.
Nonetheless, some 30 or students couldn’t stand to hear an American Jew deliver a commencement address. And thought they’d really make a statement by being disruptive (thereby collectively usurping hoops villain Christian Laettner as the most detested Duke graduate of all time).
