Twitter Sorry For Making ‘Kill All Jews’ A Trending Topic

Union Temple in Prospect Heights Image by wikicommons

By Jenny Singer November 2, 2018

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 Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

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