‘I Burn Like a Jew’ Is Mexico’s 6th Most Popular Hashtag on Twitter

By JTA February 1, 2013

“I burn like a Jew” was the sixth most popular hashtag phrase among Mexican Twitter users a week after another anti-Semitic phrase trended in that country.

The phrase, #MeQuemoComoJudío, made it to number six among Mexican users on Jan. 23, according to Twed.it, a website which measures the popularity of hashtags – a word, name or phrase preceded by the # symbol which makes Twitter conversations searchable.

Some Tweets contained jokes about gas chambers. One Tweet by a user identified as Miguel Angel had attached to it a picture of dead Jews at a Nazi concentration camp juxtaposed with the Milton Bradley Company’s Twister game, in which participants’ limbs are often entangled on a large board.

“This one is used more like a slang expression, as in ‘I make a fool of Myself = I burn like a Jew,’ according to the Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism, an international watchdog.

On Jan. 18, the Forum reported that #EsdeJudios, which translates to ‘it’s Jewish to’, or “just like Jews,” was second among trending topics in Mexico. There were mocking references in those tweets people to soap, ashes and gas.

A French court on Jan. 24 cited hate speech laws ordering Twitter to share the details of users who made anti-Semitic statements under the hashtag #unbonjuif, or ‘a good Jew’. The social network has yet to decide whether it will comply with the request.

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