Argentinean TV host tearful about joke about Jewish dancers

JTA — An Argentinean television show host apologized for making a joke that involved Jewish performers that was criticized for having a Holocaust connotation.

Denise Dumas, who hosts the talent show “Este es el show,” said last Friday that it was “nice” to see the performers — a Jewish dance troupe — wearing “numbers on their clothes, not on their skin.” Dumas said her remark was misunderstood and taken out of context. She was criticized in the media for the remark.

She said she had made the remark in reference to an earlier act — a young man with hundreds of body piercings. He wore his designated number directly on his skin, the 34-year-old model-actress said.

Inmates of Nazi concentration camps had numbers tattooed onto their arms.

“It’s perverse to think I could refer to the concentration camps like that,” a tearful Dumas said on camera the same day.

“I apologize for those who felt offended by this,” she said, “but it’s strange to apologize for something that I had no intention of saying.”