Reading the Comments: A Jewish Response to Online Hate

In a press conference following the terror incident at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said, “Antisemitism and antisemitic behavior has become normalized. It’s been allowed, and that’s unacceptable… We have to stand up and say: ‘No, this is unacceptable.’” He was then asked how to deal with the hatred and virulent antisemitism in online comment sections, to which he quickly responded, “Don’t read comments… social media is terrible when you have people empowered to say things about situations they know nothing about.”

Not long ago, if you wanted to engage with a news story, you might discuss it over coffee, at the Shabbat dinner table, or after services at the synagogue. Today, the conversation often unfolds in the comments section following an online article, a social media post, or a YouTube video, and that is not always a healthy place to be.

Spend a few minutes scrolling through comments and it becomes clear how much hostility exists just beneath the surface. For Jews, that hostility often takes a very familiar form. Antisemitic and anti-Israel comments appear with alarming frequency, often posted by anonymous users hiding behind fake names and profile pictures.

Recently, I came across a comment on a New York Magazine article about the attack at Temple Israel. One commenter wrote that Jews were safer before the creation of the State of Israel. It was a striking statement, not only because it was offensive, but because it was so historically detached from reality. The Holocaust took place before 1948, and Jewish persecution spans thousands of years across continents and cultures. Yet there it was, presented as fact.

Moments like this raise an important question: How should we respond? Should we stop reading the comments altogether, or should we engage and try to correct misinformation? Should we report hateful content, even when it feels like nothing will come of it? There is no single answer, although Jewish tradition offers a helpful framework for thinking about these questions.

With the Rise of Anti-Semitism, I Won't Be Silent

There are certain blog posts and articles that I feel inspired to write and simply sit down at my computer, type it out, and publish it in the same day. With other blog posts and articles, I allow my feelings to sit with me for several months, watching as current news events inform my opinion. The latter was the case with my recent article on TIME.com.

Over the past few months I've been jarred by the anti-Semitic violence around the world and felt the strong need to speak out about it. When Islamist gunman Amedy Coulibaly murdered four Jewish hostages on January 9 in Hyper Cacher, the Paris kosher grocery store, I thought of the many American rabbis who didn't speak out about the brewing storm in Europe back in the early 1930s. I knew I didn't want to be a silent rabbi who didn't speak out about the rising anti-Semitism that we're currently witnessing.

My article in TIME, titled It’s Time to Stop Ignoring the New Wave of Anti-Semitism: I Won't Be a 1930s Rabbi, has already created a buzz on social media. Perhaps the best way to know if I was correct that anti-Semitism is on the rise, in Europe as well as in the rest of the world including in America, is by reading the pernicious anti-Semitic comments that appear on TIME's Facebook page under the post linking to my article. Of the hundreds of comments, most mention Israel even though my argument was about the rise of anti-Semitism around the globe and not about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Several use the term "Zionism" in their comments and equate it with racism that justifies global hatred of Jews.

A comment from Eton Ziner-Cohen, a Jewish man in Toronto, offered his appreciation for TIME publishing my article: "Thank you Time for having the courage and decency, unlike all other mainstream news outlets and commentary hubs, to finally call this pernicious and pervasive rise in anti-semitism what it is and for denouncing thinly veiled manifestations of it, such as anti-zionism." His comment received the following reply from Aditya Sapovadia of Gujarat, India, who wrote: "Oh please. Six Jewish-led companies control 96% of the world's media. Maybe stupid Jews like you is the reason why Gentiles will be able to break the Jewish domination."