Jewish fury over 'scissors' gag

The ‘rock-scissors-paper’ gag about the Second World War that was at the centre of a plagiarism row last year has hit the headlines again, after it offended a Jewish group.

The joke, which a comic wrongly claimed was stolen by BBC One’s Have I Got News For You, has now been made into a T-shirt.

And the garment, made my surfwear specialists Mambo, has infuriated Australian Jews, who fear making jokes about Hitler trivialises the Holocaust.

The gag, based around the childhood game, has Churchill’s V-sign ‘scissors’ defeating Hitler’s Nazi salute ‘paper’.

Anton Block, president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, said the daughter of two Holocaust survivors had first told him about the £20 T-shirt, right.

‘The reality is for a Holocaust survivor, this T-shirt is effectively diminishing what this man is responsible for,’ he told the local Herald-Sun newspaper.

‘Hitler is not street art.  I would challenge the general manager of Mambo to go to the Holocaust Museum wearing that T-shirt.’

Mambo said they never set out to offend or insult and claims the design will help educate children about Hitler.

The joke was at the centre of a row last year when Scottish-based comic Mac Star, pictured, claimed to it was stolen from his stand-up set. He threatened legal action when it appeared on the BBC panel game claiming ‘People go to Scotland and steal jokes from comedians here… it has to stop’.

However, he later accepted the show’s writers came up with the gag independently, and that Brighton-based stand-up Stephen Grant also had been performing a similar routine.

Published: 19 Sep 2006