NEW YORK, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- Human rights groups are investigating claims that a Jewish comic led Arizona bar patrons in an anti-Semitic song, it was reported Monday.
The incident aired on a recent episode of HBO's "Da Ali G Show," in which Sacha Baron Cohen who plays Ali G., sang "Throw the Jew Down the Well" at a rural bar in Arizona, the New York Post reported Monday.
Cohen, who is Jewish, sang the song under the guise of Borat, a phony TV host from Kazakhstan, one of three characters he uses to engage unwitting audiences into gags for his series.
"While we understand this scene was an attempt to show how easily a group of ordinary people can be encouraged to join in an anti-Semitic chorus, we are concerned that the irony may have been lost on some of the audience ... It is a very thin line between what's offensive and what's supposed to be funny and that line was crossed," said Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League.
The British version of the Federal Communications Commission and Britain's Jewish Board of Deputies also are investigating.
