A social media screenshot of Eitan Levine’s comedic street interview act, “Jewish or Antisemitic?” Photo: TikTok screenshot

Eitan Levine said he was stunned that his show “Jewish or Antisemitic” got 20 million views on TikTok. But he was not surprised that some people criticized him.

“It definitely resonates more with younger people,” Levine said. “There are a few, I guess, who are confused and maybe think I don’t believe there is real antisemitism or I’m belittling antisemitism. That’s not the case. Of course, antisemitism is terrible. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor. I’ve been asked to make funny Jewish content, and this kind of thing has resonated.”

Levine, who lives in Harlem and is a cancer survivor, said the point of his game show is to increase engagement, and that it also invites surprise answers. In the show, Levine stops people in the street and asks if they are Jewish. He then gives them a subject, and asks them to decide if it is “Jewish” or “antisemitic.”

In one post that got more than 640,000 likes, Levine posed the subject of “Cats” to a passerby.

“OK, the animal [is] Jewish; the musical [is] easily antisemitic,” the young man joked.

On June 9, Levine will host a live version of his show at Super Secret Arts, a noted live performance space in Brooklyn. He said that some people are too quick to label something as antisemitism; but that for the most part, people know what is and what is not antisemitic.

His profile @eitanthegoalie has more than 85,000 followers and 3.3 million likes.

“This is not political,” he said. “It’s about Jewish pride, acknowledging that yes, antisemitism is here but no matter what, we can always have fun.”

Levine said he was recently near a college in Alaska, and was recognized from his YouTube show.

“It’s wild,” he said. “I’m shocked that the show … resonates with non-Jews. … There’s also a conversation of ‘what is a Jew?’ So there’s comedy, but also an educational element.”

The author is a writer based in New York.