This weekend, the official X account for “Sesame Street”‘s fuzziest 3-year-old puppet Elmo was hacked. The hacker posted racist and antisemitic tweets from Elmo’s account, including “kill all Jews” and “Jews control the world.”
“Elmo’s X account was compromised today by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts,” a spokeswoman for Sesame Workshop said. “We are working to restore full control of the account.”
To which the Kveller team asks: Is nothing sacred anymore?! We thought even hackers had a red (puppet-shaped) line?! (And also, we’d like to remind you that when you’re mean to Elmo, it’s his super sweet social media manager that you’re being mean to, too).
This hacking incident is especially galling because in the last few years, Elmo has been at the forefront of some of “Sesame Street”‘s best Jewish representation.
We were especially struck by a 2024 Shabbat episode in which Elmo was invited to Charlie’s family Shabbat dinner, made challah and uttered lines like “Elmo thinks that Hebrew sounds beautiful,” after hearing the blessings and “Elmo really loves Shabbat dinner,” during the festive meal.
Our hearts melted because that’s how we all feel about Hebrew and Shabbat dinner — and to hear and see Elmo appreciate it all in his adorable voice was just the best.
Then, in February of this year, Elmo learned about what a synagogue is and participated in Charlie’s Mitzvah Day, helping paint a free library with her in the episode “Mitzvah Day Mix-Up.” What a mensch.
These two episodes weren’t the first time Elmo celebrated Jewishness with Charlie (played by Jewish actress Violet Tinnirello). In 2021, Elmo and Charlie celebrated Hanukkah together in an adorable short in which Elmo wore a kippah. And if you thought Elmo just couldn’t get cuter, well, you need to check him out in a yarmulke.
Elmo has always been a Jewish ally. He’s had so many iconic moments with Jewish celebrities. He and Andy Cohen mused together about the world “popular.” Seth Rogen talked to him about the word “embarrassed,” and Sarah Michelle Gellar about the word “disappointed,” which are both things you should feel if you try to hurt Elmo. And Jack Black and Elmo talked about the word “disguise,” which had Elmo exclaiming “Mister Jack is good!” long before he gave us “Steve’s Lava Chicken.”
The Sandman, aka Adam Sandler, even sang Elmo an original song dedicated to Elmo and Elmo alone.
On “Shalom Sesame,” the Jewish American version of “Sesame Street,” Elmo helped teach children one of the most important Hebrew words of all: “toda,” the word for “thank you.”
Elmo has also been a central part of “Rechov Sumsum,” the Israeli “Sesame Street,” and has spoken to Israel’s greatest stars, from musician Idan Raichel to Olympic medalist Linoy Ashram on the Israeli version of “The Not-Too-Late Talking Show with Elmo.”
And of course, if you’re a Jewish parent raising kids here in America, you’ve probably been using Elmo to help you raise Jewish kids for years, because there are so many great Jewish “Sesame Street” books starring the puppet.
There’s the 2011 “Elmo’s Little Dreidel” and its 2017 follow-up “Grover’s Eight Nights of Light.” (Plus, a board book for extra littles starring Elmo was also recently published!) In 2023, when Elmo tweeted about going to his first Passover seder, it had many of us confused because we’ve spent a few years telling the tale of Elmo going to seder in “It’s Passover, Grover!” (which also comes with pretty great stickers, if I do say so myself).
So while the world (and X especially) feels full of dark antisemitism, here at Kveller, we’re going to choose to remember that Elmo has given us a lot of Jewish joy through the years, and that he is a true Jewish ally. After all, as Elmo always says: Elmo loves you! And we love him too.
