A ghost is haunting Australia. It’s one that ultimately didn’t come down in the jungle there, but – here we imagine the studio band playing a trick – in Cologne.
Gil Ofarim is a B-celebrity in the RTL jungle camp who caused a scandal in 2021 with the false accusation that a hotel employee had harassed him in an anti-Semitic manner. Even though the court proceedings have been dismissed against a condition, the case still excites many. “Some of his fellow campers bring questions with them – probably representative of countless people in Germany,” RTL had announced in advance.
Ofarim did not answer any questions at the camp. He refers to a “non-disclosure clause” that he signed and makes small, strange suggestions. For this year’s jungle camp, Ofarim’s refusal initially meant a lot of hostility, but at some point every accusation of “You criminal” and “Finally show remorse!” faded away.
“At some point you don’t feel like it anymore,” said candidate Samira Yavuz, explaining her decreasing desire to ask questions and also doubted whether the RTL format is really the best place to find out the truth: “I’m not a judge.”
Broadcast on Holocaust Remembrance Day
Stefan Raab seems to see it differently. An hour after the self-important analysis session “The Hour After,” RTL sends its heavyweight celebrity to the station to follow-up on the jungle show. On January 27th, by the way: Holocaust Remembrance Day, Raab introduced the jungle candidate Gil Ofarim, son of the Israeli singer Abi Ofarim.
This Gil, reported a painfully funny voice-over, carries a “cheater gene” that he inherited from his “Uncle Samuel,” who was invented especially for this gag. In keeping with this, Ofarim’s music was accompanied by images of dancing ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Nothing was left out. There was also the claim that the musician only scored his hits with the “Jewish community,” and then a competition called “Money or Gil” was presented. The ideological ground that Jews were interested in money anyway had now been sufficiently prepared.
So an A-list celebrity did what none of the B-listers sitting in the jungle with obvious malice could say: anti-Semitic resentment about a Jewish candidate. What they didn’t do, Raab did: In his show, Ofarim was not the subject of criticism because of his actions at the time or because of his subsequent behavior, but rather the Jew was made contemptible.
This is the responsibility of an A-list celebrity who works with a large team of gag writers and whose grossing films are approved by an editorial team.
The ghost in Cologne
It’s remarkable that this derailment didn’t happen to the motley horde of reality TV actresses and early-night series actors who appear on the channels without scripted texts, and in which even supposedly confidential nightly campfire conversations are prepared for an audience of millions.
The ghost that was suspected in Australia actually appeared in Cologne, in Stefan Raab’s studio. The malice that is showered on actors such as Samira or Ariel, Farmer Patrick or Eva is shattered by this realization: basic humanistic attitudes are better off with those than where A-list celebrities consider themselves unimpeachable.
RTL has since deleted the clip and announced its understanding that “the player could have led to misunderstandings”. It’s actually a shame that the jungle camp is coming to an end and Stefan Raab remains with us.