But he has found himself apologizing this week after one of his jokes might have gone too far! While being the guest on a podcast last month, Stewart suggested that the elves that run "Gringotts Bank" in the "Harry Potter" books were modeled after anti-Semitic depictions of Jews from a 1903 publication called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
"[People think,] 'Oh, that's a character from Harry Potter,' [and] you're like, 'No, that's a caricature of a Jew from an anti-Semitic piece of literature.' JK Rowling was like, 'Can we get these guys to run our bank?'" Stewart joked...
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For many it was simply a joke, but for many others the comedian went too far. This follows years of online speculation that perhaps the characters were meant to enforce a stereotype that Jewish people run the banking systems of the world. The author of the books, J.K. Rowling, hasn't made a comment about Stewart's remarks, or the speculation surrounding her characters.
Stewart himself took to Twitter to clear the air about it all with a video where he said: "There is no reasonable person that could have watched it and not seen it as a light-hearted conversation amongst colleagues and chums - Having a laugh, enjoying ourselves about Harry Potter and my experience watching for the first time in the theatre as Jewish guy and how some tropes are so embedded in society that they're basically invisible even in a considered process like movie-making.
"This morning, I wake up, it's trending on Twitter, and here's the headline... 'Jon Stewart accuses JK Rowling of anti-Semitism'. - So let me just say this super-clearly, as clearly as I can, 'Hello, my name is Jon Stewart. I do not think JK Rowling is anti-Semitic. I do not think the Harry Potter movies are anti-Semitic.'
"I really love the Harry Potter movies, probably too much for a gentleman of my considerable age," Stewart joked again.
So there you have it folks! With that in the books, it looks like all is well in Tinsel Town again!
