Top 10 Anti-Semitic Slurs of 2010
Movies, music, books… ‘Tis the season for top 10 lists. And the Simon Wiesenthal Center has jumped in the ring with its own: The “2010 Top Ten Anti-Semitic Slurs.”
Former UPI White House bureau chief Helen Thomas topped the chart with her infamous, on-camera “Jews should get the hell out of Palestine” quote, which ended up tanking her 57-year career. Oliver Stone nabbed the No. 2 spot with deep thoughts about Hitler as “an easy scapegoat throughout history” who “did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people.” And while other familiar faces round out the roster — including former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohammed, German Central Bank exec Thilo Sarrazin, and ex-CNN loudmouth Rick Sanchez — the list is anchored not by a person, but by social networks like Facebook (home of pages like “Kill a Jew Year”), Yahoo! Finance message boards (“Burn all the Jews up”) and Twitter (“Dropping bows on Jew nose, throwin cracks at wetbacks”).
“Oddly, the quotes and labels don’t include the repercussions of the remarks — good or bad,” writes religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman on her USA Today Faith and Reason blog. “Since the point of the list is to show anti-Semitism is harmful, and all the Top Ten listed made headlines at the time the comments were made, is it worthwhile to include a followup?”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
