So Powerful: The Great Humanitarians of Our Time
On Platforming The Westboro Baptist Church of Judaism
This post is free to read, but I really appreciate deeply discounted annual paid subscriptions of $35 which allow me to keep writing. And if that’s too much of a commitment, you can buy me a coffee! Or just share this post with your friends!
I want to preface this by saying that I drafted this a couple of days ago, before the most recent antisemitic terrorist attack on American soil. But, I assure you - it is all connected.
Back in March - or, in this timeline, 200 years ago, I wrote this:
Of all the tokenizing and uplifting of fringe voices, there is nothing that boils my blood more than Neturei Karta – more broadly known as the anti-Israel Orthodox. While folks on TikTok love to “listen to this rabbi!” and “the most devout orthodox are marching!” us into mind-bending combustion, it might be worth knowing who you are platforming.
Neturei Karta is an anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine Haredi Jewish group that believes the Messiah will usher in a Jewish theocracy to rule over the Land of Israel, and that the restoration of the Land of Israel to the Jews should only happen with the coming of the Messiah, not by self-determination. The group is relatively small, with worldwide membership in the low thousands - and, in New York, it’s maybe a couple hundred at most.
In short, Neturei Karta is a very small, deranged group that wants to “free Palestine” so that Palestinians can be *checks notes* removed by the Messiah. It’s a lot like the extreme evangelical Christians who want to protect Israel at all costs so that Jews can all die in the rapture!
They are also racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and delusional. Whether Zionist, anti-Zionist, reform, conservative, or Orthodox - YOU HAVE NEVER MET A JEW WHO ROCKS WITH THESE PEOPLE.
But, sure enough, of all the Jews in New York City, this is who Humans of New York (HONY) decided is best equipped to speak on the pressing international conflict of our time.
From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
HONY is a wildly popular social media project founded in 2010 by photographer and writer Brandon Stanton that typically shares photo portraits of everyday New Yorkers, plus a brief, anonymous first-person vignette. It has nearly 30 million followers between Facebook and Instagram (more than three times the city’s population), and has gained widespread media coverage for the way it spotlights — or, well, humanizes — the struggles and triumphs of a diverse cast of the city’s denizens, many of whom live on the margins.
The Neturei Karta post departed from that model in a couple of ways….unlike most of the stories on HONY — which are famous for sharing intimate, tragic or heartwarming stories — this one said close to nothing about the subject’s life, except that he’s an anti-Zionist Orthodox Jew. Instead, it focused almost entirely on his stance regarding Israel, Gaza, and the pro-Israel response to pro-Palestinian protest.
In some ways, the comments section didn’t disappoint - no less than 10 people alerted me to this post within 30 minutes of it going live.
But, in most ways, the reaction to the post was beyond horrifying. On top of zillions of hearts and shares, heaps of praise for their bRaVeRy and mOrAl cLaRiTy.
Ya’ll: NK doesn’t let the women leave the house. They don’t want Palestinians killed by bombs - they want them killed by the Messiah. And if you didn’t know then, we are telling you NOW. That includes YOU, Mr. Humans of New York!
To the credit of three of my non-Jewish Facebook friends, when I called them in, they deleted or unliked the post. This is three people out of millions.
But when I tried to point this out to an anti-Zionist Jewish Facebook friend, she told me off and blocked me. At that point, I stopped looking to see how many of my other friends liked and shared this.
Despite the bizarre pushback by this woman, I did notice several anti-Zionist Jews pleading with the account to reconsider this post.
BUT NOT HANNAH EINBINDER, who shared it to her stories with the self-awareness of a crouton.
To be clear, the post isn’t going anywhere. What would be the point? It has been shared over 100,000 times across social media platforms. And, were it to come down, it would be blamed on “Zionist power.”
Anyway, all of this was a choice.
Let’s review some of the less harmful choices that could have been made by one of the most popular accounts on the internet, if they wanted to make a statement about the war:
Highlight the story of a Palestinian American in New York who has been personally affected by the war.
Highlight the story of an Israeli American in New York who has been personally affected by the war.
Highlight the stories of ordinary Jews and Muslims with contrasting points of view about the conflict - there are millions of us. It’s OK to share diverse stories, as long as there is some effort to uplift actual representative voices.
None of this has happened. And this is simply a highly visible microchasm of the inability of the media to portray reality, when it’s far more lucrative to post extremist views and ragebait.
So brave. So heroic. So predictable.
Want to share something? Share this instead:
So disturbing. I called out a "friend" on reposting this despicable column, and she responded that she supports anyone who "speaks out about killing innocent babies." (Although she'd poo-pooed my concern for the Bibas boys.) I actually thought she, as a "scholar" might be interested that I helped her check her sources. But no... I guess I unfriend her. I don't know.