Twitter Sorry For Making ‘Kill All Jews’ A Trending Topic
Union Temple in Prospect Heights Image by wikicommons
Bright white sneakers. Glass water bottles. Kill all Jews. You know — just trends!
A spokesperson for social media giant Twitter apologized for allowing the phrase “Kill all Jews” to show up on the list of trending topic in the New York area on Friday morning.
The horrifying phrase was “trending” (being tweeted about at a high volume) in reaction to a news report that a Reform synagogue in Brooklyn was vandalized with a series of violent, anti-Semitic phrases, including the words “kill all Jews.” The crime resulted in the cancelation of a get-out-the-vote event that would have been held at the synagogue on Thursday night, hosted by “Broad City” star, comedian Ilana Glazer.
Twitter explained their side of the “kill all Jews” debate in a statement, BuzzFeed News reports:
“This phrase should not have appeared in trends, and we’re sorry for this mistake. This was trending as a result of coverage and horrified reactions to the vandalism against a synagogue in New York. Regardless, it should not have appeared as a trend.”
Oy. Twitter’s algorithm allows “trending” phrases to appear automatically. But would a little oversight hurt? We at the Schmooze noticed the phrase trending for at least fifteen minutes. It looked, to us, like just another example of the new normal for American Jews.
It could have been worse, we suppose. After all, “die Jew rats” was also scrawled on the temple.
Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
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.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.