One of the most disturbing things I'm seeing on the Fediverse, alongside (and in some ways worse) than the blatant antisemitism are when antisemites parade out a Jew to further their agenda.
"See, this Jew said what I think, so I CAN'T BE ANTISEMITIC!"
Perhaps they don't realize (or don't care to realize) that doing this is in itself an act of tokenization and using Jews as pawns.
You will always find a minority of people who are the dissenters in their community. When the suffragette movement existed, fighting for women's right to vote, there were some anti-suffragette women, but their numbers and their opinions did not reflect the greater reality, and I think that anyone reasonable would look at a blog post that says "See, women don't want voting rights!" based on an anti-suffragette demonstration and know that it's not only nonsense, but actively harmful.
The same is true here. Stop tokenizing Jews in upholding your biases.
"Stephen Fry issued a heartfelt #Christmas message Monday, calling out the surge in #antisemitism in the #UnitedKingdom and encouraging the country’s #Jews to take pride in their heritage — and swiftly sparked a torrent of online trolling and backlash, with many accusing the actor and writer of playing the victim instead of shining light on the plight of #Palestinians in war-torn #Gaza."
Fry is figuring out he should have kept it a secret. Sorry bud. Welcome to the thunderdome.
"Elon Musk Wades Deeper into Antisemitic Propaganda - The CEO is helping to amplify a hashtag campaign against the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights group that combats hate speech"
A word about #ADL: As with most organizations, I don’t agree with every position they take. But when Musk accuses the most organized voice against #antisemitism in the U.S. of costing him ad revenue, he is leaning on a most #antisemitic dog whistle (that Jews control the media) and he most definitely knows it. 1/2
Look America, if you really can't distinguish between a deli in Los Angeles and a country on another continent I don't know what to say. But I do know that the left is rife with #antisemitism and wants to be Judenrein.
I've always been a litttle cynical but as the days go by since Oct 7 I feel like my lifetime of left activism was just embedding myself within my own lynch mob.
"A photograph of the graffiti in the Canters Deli parking lot showed three different areas beneath a mural depicting #Jewish history in L.A. defaced with phrases that read, “Israels only religion is capitalism,” “How many dead in the name of greed?” and “Free #Gaza.”
People might know that there are countries where it is effectively impossible for Jews to live.
What less people know is that there are countries where Jews are not banned outright, or prevented from getting work permits by law, but are made to pay a "Jew Tax" in the form of preventing Jews from producing kosher meat, requiring them to buy foreign meat that is less available and costs a lot more.
Those countries are Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Slovenia.
These countries have a "Jew Tax" which requires their Jewish citizens to buy food at higher prices.
Canada has now joined these countries.
When I was in school and people would ask "How could people pass laws against Jews?", the answer is this... by starting with making life more difficult for Jews, then like the frog in the pot, turning up the heat.
Antisemitic gaslighting is playing on infinite repeat
It is important to remember that many #Jews have dealt with #antisemitic gaslighting for years. It is isolating, traumatizing, and has pushed many of us out of friendships and activism circles. What is happening now has been going on for years, but now it has intensified and feels worse than ever.
And if a Jew tells you something is antisemitic, and your impulse is to search for some fringe Jewish source to “prove” they are wrong, don’t do it. Also don’t cite your “Jewish friends” as if that gives you authority to talk over us. Just don’t. #Antisemitism
#antisemitism is in vogue here in the US under the guise of "anti-zionism". Goes to the much older idea that Jews don't belong anywhere and should be thankful for their existence barely being tolerated.
Re: authentic & fake #Jews: the tragic #Gaza war has predictably led to bad #history going viral:. European Jews are descendants of medieval #Turkic converts--#Khazars-- thus have no #historical & #genetic connection to the land of #Israel
A myth, promoted by a combination of the cynical or stupid, sadly embraced by the naive & uninformed
Sadly relevant, as I will give a virtual talk about this at Indiana Uni this week.
Calling the Jews "Settler Colonialists" denies that they are native to the region. It's a way to deny Jews their homeland by de-legitimizing Israel.
Calling it a genocide is a deliberate misstatements of facts, since the word "genocide" has specific and direct meaning. It's a means of demonizing Israel.
Calling for the destruction (or "forced reformation" of Israel to any other country formation through non-democratic means is directly calling for the death of 7 million (or half the world's) Jews.
I’m sharing this because it is some of the most vile Mein Kampf level #Antisemitism I have seen on Mastodon. Isn’t this place supposed to be better than that?
It is astounding to me how people who espouse Nazi beliefs can actually consider themselves anti-Nazi.
This is indistinguishable from Hitler’s (yimakh shemo) perspective. If you lament that we “didn’t learn our lesson” from the Holocaust or if you, like this poster, consider the Holocaust to be some kind of preemptive justice against us, you are part of the “Hitler was right” crowd even as you delude yourself that you’re anti-Nazi. We see through you. All you’re missing is a swastika armband.
Auschwitz Memorial announces on the Hellsite that they are blocking users who post antisemitic and Holocaust denial comments that appear under their posts. To which Musk responds 'directly' that "Block[ing accounts] is going to be deleted".
Being pro Palestine doesn't justify staying silent about worldwide fast rising antisemitic hate crimes and how terrified Jews are these days of speaking our languages and wearing our Jewish signs.You having whichever view on what's happening in the middle east can't ever be accurate without living it. But ignoring what's happening in your own streets, campuses, workplaces makes you complicit. Don't be like those who watched the Holocaust. Don't be fooled into the new excuse for #antisemitism
Let's make this clear... Making lists of Jews and where they live isn't "Pro-Palestinian".
Furthermore, calling this and similar actions "silencing Pro-Palestinian voices" conflates the Palestinian cause with hate, which not only harms Jews, but also legitimate Pro-Palestinian voices.
Michael Flynn, a Christian nationalist who previously served as US national security advisor under Donald Trump, said that Jews were willingly given to the Nazis and said there were no guards.
Well evidently things for the Jews have gotten very very very bad on the birdsite with musk literally blaming the ADL for #antisemitism. I can’t even wrap my head around this. But listen - we are the canary in the coal mine. It never ever ends with just us. AS WE KNOW.
This instance handles, on average, 6.5 reports of antisemitism a day.
Why is that significant? It's significant because Babka already suspends individual accounts, and Limits entire instances.
Despite this, we deal with ~6.5 new antisemitic accounts per day.
And yet, if we look at the graphs from Fediverse Observer, the number of active users on the Fediverse has gone down!
So what exactly does that mean, if the number of antisemitic accounts continues to grow and the number of active users continues to shrink?
It means that the number of antisemites on the Fediverse is quite large, and what we're seeing isn't new antisemites as much as it is antisemitism being so normalized that people feel comfortable spouting hate, and that despite blocking or silencing thousands of accounts, hate continues to be emboldened.
Weaponisation of antisemitism - unsafe for Jews.
We saw this in the UK as AS was weaponised against Corbyn and the left. But that was local compared with what is happening now. Diaspora Jews are being put at risk by this cynical weaponisation of AS, aimed at stifling legitimate criticism of Israel's genocidal actions and statements.
Former Trump adviser blames Jews for dying in Auschwitz (www.jpost.com)
Michael Flynn, a Christian nationalist who previously served as US national security advisor under Donald Trump, said that Jews were willingly given to the Nazis and said there were no guards.