Jordan Peele

Source: Wikimedia Commons

John Demjanjuk, a Cleveland autoworker, was extradited by the OSI to Israel to stand trial for being “Ivan the Terrible” of Treblinka. The OSI’s main piece of evidence was a Soviet-provided “Treblinka identification card.” In Israel, survivor after survivor fingered Demjanjuk, and one wacky Jew threw acid in the face of Demjanjuk’s attorney. Demjanjuk was sentenced to death, but before he could be strung up, the Israeli Supreme Court, a body with actual integrity (unlike the OSI), concluded that—whaddya know—the “Treblinka ID card” was a Soviet fake and the eyewitnesses were mistaken! Demjanjuk returned home, where the Justice Department continued to hound him until his dying day.

Pure hilarity!

Then there was Elmars Sprogis, a Latvian immigrant whom the OSI tried to deport because during the war he witnessed a column of Jews being marched to an execution site (to the OSI, “witnessing” equaled “persecuting”). A U.S. District Court judge cleared Sprogis and harshly criticized the OSI’s methods (“Alleged Nazi Cleared,” Jewish Advocate, 5/24/84), but—here comes the punch line—because of the OSI’s smears, a year later somebody bombed Sprogis’ home in Long Island, injuring him and blowing the legs off a passerby.

Comedy gold!

Here’s a real gut-buster: If anyone wrote a letter criticizing the OSI’s methods, the agency would illegally access personal and confidential information about the author in an attempt to find out if the letter writer was an immigrant! The OSI was forced to fess up to this unethical behavior after the son of one of its targets won a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (San Francisco Examiner, 7/20/90). And here’s my favorite OSI anecdote: In November 1983, Neal Sher, then director of the OSI, participated in a B’nai B’rith-sponsored conference in NYC. Sher used his time on stage to lambaste black Americans for daring to say that some blacks live in ghettos. He declared that the present-day “underprivileged” must never claim to live in ghettos, because the Jewish ghettos of WWII were the worst ghettos ever, and co-opting the term now is anti-Semitism (“Sher: Holocaust Is Unique in History,” Jewish Press, 12/18/83).

That’s what mattered to him. Not justice, not due process, but “if the underprivileged say they live in a ghetto, they’re Jew-haters.” You know as well as I do, Jordan, that you could make one hell of a funny scene out of that.

So please reconsider your decision to do the show as a drama. Because it’s not drama; it’s farce. Clownish bullies deserve mockery, and you’re one hell of a mocker. Give it to the bastards with both barrels!

Best of luck with your new show.

David