The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people… Screw your optics, I’m going in.” Those were the last words posted online by Robert Bowers before he massacred worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018. It was the single deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. In previous postings, Bowers explained the grievances that led him to commit mass murder.
When I first heard that Israeli civilians were being massacred on the country’s Gaza border, I thought of my friend Amir Tibon. Amir is an exceptionally talented journalist who is fluent in Hebrew, Arabic, and English, and who has devoted his life and skills to humanistic coverage of what can often be a dehumanizing region. His writing includes award-winning reporting on efforts to achieve a two-state solution and a biography of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Like most politicians, former President Donald Trump marked the occasion of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, by passing along holiday greetings to American Jews. Unlike most politicians, Trump used the opportunity to threaten them.On Sunday evening, just as Rosh Hashanah was coming to a close, Trump posted a meme on his social-media platform, Truth Social, excoriating “liberal Jews” who had “voted to destroy America.
Over the past few days, hundreds of thousands of posts on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, have lambasted a Jewish organization that many people are only vaguely aware of: the Anti-Defamation League.
Even by the standards of today’s political ads, the video that recently roiled the Republican presidential race is not particularly subtle. In it, a talking head accuses Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of producing “some of the harshest, most draconian laws that literally threaten trans existence.” Headlines like “DeSantis Signs ‘Most Extreme Slate of Anti-Trans Laws in Modern History’” flit across the screen.
For the past three months, Israelis have been protesting across the country against the attempted overhaul of their judicial system by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition. In February, a survey found that nearly one in five Israelis had taken part in a demonstration. This unprecedented activism culminated in a national strike at the end of March that compelled Netanyahu to pause, but not abandon, his efforts to push through the legislation.
Last night, hundreds of thousands of Israelis poured into the streets, believing their country’s democracy to be in peril. The immediate precipitant for this popular protest was the firing of Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister. A former general tasked with overseeing the Jewish state’s security, Gallant had called for his own coalition to pause its attempted overhaul of the Israeli judicial system, arguing that division around the plan was undermining national cohesion.
The social-media web is built on a lie. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter enticed countless users to join with the promise that they could see everything their friends or favorite celebrities posted in one convenient location.Over time, though, the sites were carefully calibrated to filter what users saw—regardless of their stated preferences—in order to manipulate their attention and keep them on the platform.
Joe Biden knows how to handle a tough crowd. This was evident last night at the State of the Union, and it was apparent to me seven years ago, on March 20, 2016. On that day, President Barack Obama sent Biden to sell the recently struck Iran nuclear deal to the national conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). This was the political equivalent of asking the vice president to push New York Times subscriptions at a Donald Trump rally.
In 2015, an Israeli police investigation into Jewish extremism uncovered a wedding video that shocked the public. In the clip, a group of far-right revelers were captured celebrating by stabbing a picture of a Palestinian baby who had been murdered in a recent firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma, perpetrated by a settler extremist. The guests at this affair drew from the furthest reaches of the Israeli right, and included a lawyer named Itamar Ben-Gvir.
As I watched Dave Chappelle’s much-discussed Saturday Night Live monologue poking fun at recent anti-Semitic incidents involving Black celebrities, I finally figured out why I no longer felt comfortable cracking jokes about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.In his 15-minute appearance, Chappelle, a habitual line-stepper, deliberately mocked the presumptions of both anti-Semites and their critics, with little concern for where the chips fell.
Sign up for Yair’s newsletter, Deep Shtetl, here.On Tuesday night, Israel was shocked by a terrorist shooting spree that left five dead. Less than 24 hours after the attack, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the opposition, insinuated that Arabs in the country were collectively responsible for it. “We must restore peace and security to Israeli citizens,” he said.
Yair Lapid will become Israel’s prime minister on August 27, 2023, if things go according to plan—which, in Israeli politics, they almost never do. But when Lapid—the architect of Israel’s current coalition, its foreign minister, and the leader of its largest party—speaks, it matters.