'Kill the Jews!'

Odessa has a large Jewish population and there were many Jews involved in the revolutionary movement at the time. The man meant something like "Down with these Jewish revolutionaries!" Of course, Eisenstein was half-Jewish himself.

For the record, Jon Stewart was quoting Tom Lehrer's song "National Brotherhood Week."

I also found it funny, becasue it came all of a sudden, like out of place.
Im a jew.

I'm not gonna lie, this film confused me to no end. Was it the citizens of Odessa who killed the jew?

As Russian-speaking I can say that the translation of this sentence is not accurate. 'Bey zhidov!' doesn't mean 'Kill the Jews!'. More correct translation is 'Beat the kikes!'. Beating is not killing, so English translation is more violent. From the other side, 'zhid' is offensive slang for 'jew', so the Russian original version has more profanity.

The subject is a bit more complex than what's been written above. Repressive systems often use hatred as a tool, in turning the justified anger of certain repressed groups against other groups, even lower in the social scale. The Tsar effectively used this strategy. When poor Russians would complain about their situation, they would simple channel that anger against the Jews.

The anti-Semite in the crowd was certainly meant to show a government provocateur, of the kind the audience would have recognized, and the film was clearly making a stand against this, and showing how the Communist Party was opposing this anti-working class kind of Antisemitism.

You can also suggest a similar process in the US South, when poor whites would be encouraged to attack poor blacks.

We could have high times
if you'll abide