‘online spaces are completely hostile to Jews. […] I imagine it's similar to what walking around as a Black person in the South must have felt like 50 years ago’
‘online spaces are completely hostile to Jews. […] I imagine it's similar to what walking around as a Black person in the South must have felt like 50 years ago’
These people need serious help. I don’t want to take my cynicism too far by officially declaring antisemitism a dead issue (it isn’t), but it is clear that a huge portion of the panicking is driven by Herzlians’ ignorant view of what antisemitism is and their redefinition thereof to include any criticism of their gimmicky ideology (which was never ‘Jewish’, by the way).
It’s unhealthy. Someone has conditioned them to interpret innocent phenomena like watermelons and the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ in the worst ways imaginable. They slam the door in the faces of anybody who opposes the occupation of Palestine, and it does not matter how much good you have done for the Jewish community. A Zionist ruler who has caused the Jews under his reign so much suffering that all of them choose suicide, would still be far more preferable to a philosemitic anti-Zionist who generously covers temple membership fees, educates others in Jewish subjects, volunteers for Hatzalah, and in general has been the greatest gift to Jewry since Cyrus II.
I can promise you that this toxic mindset—that of seeing antisemitism around every corner and believing that Jews can depend on no-one but theirselves—I can promise you that that is going to drive away more Jewish readers than any antisemite could.