If you’re both a fan of Puka Nacua and a decent human being you might not want to read any further — but also you should, because he doesn’t have a right to be free of criticism for engaging in antisemitism.
Nacua made an appearance on Adin Ross’ livestream where he floated a conspiracy theory about referees, and mocked the Kansas City Chiefs for getting eliminated, which is dumb, but whatever. The real story is that Puka reprehensibly vowed to Ross that the next touchdown he scores he will do a “Covetous Jew” dance, which Ross taught Nacua and involves spinning a dreidel, flexing, then rubbing his hands together while mimicking an established antisemitic trope.
Ross has a reputation for allowing antisemitism on his show, often done under the guise of “joking.” In addition he has a history of hosting guests who espouse antisemitic views, most notably white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes — who has appeared with Ross multiple times. In addition, Ross was permanently banned from the streaming platform Twitch in 2023 for failing to have moderators in his chat, while displaying unmoderated messages on his stream.
“During that time, the influencer did not moderate the chat he was showing while it included multiple racist and anti-semitic comments. He didn’t condemn or stop showing his chat, which is against Twitch community guidelines.”
It’s unclear what, if anything, Ross believes in. The influencer has routinely kept his personal religion amorphous, so as to keep plausible deniability against criticism. Ross has identified as Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, and non-religious in the past — which he’s used as a shield during controversy. In this case it will be used to say that it’s fine Ross perpetuates the most hateful and harmful stereotypes about Jewish people, because he is one — next week he can move the goalposts, claim to be another religion, and keep the cycle going.
There has not been a statement from the NFL, the Rams, or Nacua at this time. It’s possible he will face a fine for publicly criticizing officials, which the league has always had a ban on. However, it’s unclear if there will be any ramifications for modeling the antisemitism on the stream, or potentially replicate in on a football field.
At best Nacua was uneducated about Ross and did something extremely stupid on a livestream. At worst he’s a willing participant in perpetuating stereotypes about the Jewish community, alarmingly less than a week after the attack at Bondi Beach in Australia during a Hanukkah celebration killed 15 people. There is absolutely no excuse either way. Both the Rams and the NFL should look into the incident and demand answers about why one of football’s biggest stars took part in this stream.
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