After two Brooklyn 21-year-olds wearing sweatshirts emblazoned with the logo for the Israel Defense Forces were allegedly attacked by two men who called them “dirty Jews,” a social media movement is striking back. The #IDFshirtchallenge asks users to post pictures of themselves proudly sporting their IDF apparel on both Twitter and Instagram, and figures such…
On Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, some two hundred students at Marc Garneau Collegiate staged a walkout in support of Palestinian rights to show their solidarity with Desmond Cole, a Toronto anti-racism educator, and Javier Davila, a teacher in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). Earlier this year, Davila was suspended (and then reinstated without discipline)…
I recently joined a rally to protest the horrific conditions at Rikers’ Island, where 14 people, all awaiting trial, have died in the past year. I walked away in tears at the pain of these families and individuals, and angered yet again by the racist structures that put a disproportionate number of people of color…
“You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” This quote from Pirkei Avot is recited so often among Jewish activists that it can feel like a cliche. Many of us have heard it in moments of exhaustion, pessimism or despondence. Last month, Sunrise DC, a local…
From the moment the statement dropped on Twitter, it was entirely predictable what would happen next. After Sunrise DC announced they were withdrawing from a voting rights coalition because of the participation of three major Jewish organizations on Tuesday, Oct. 19, many leaders in the Jewish community labeled Sunrise DC’s behavior as antisemitic, which major…
If 174,000 American Jews had been physically attacked in the past year, you’d think we’d all have heard about it. That’s roughly five times the number of Jews who were assaulted, had their businesses vandalized or were sent to concentration camps during Kristallnacht, the worst pogrom of the 20th century. Yet that’s the tsunami of…
Teenagers today, like many adults, seem to have become obsessed with Israel and Israeli politics. Last May, when a ceasefire was called after 11 days of fighting in Israel, my fellow students at Columbia Secondary School in Manhattan, who had never posted anything about Israel on Instagram, were suddenly spokespeople for the “anti-Israel movement.” As…
While Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip traded missiles in May, a parallel war exploded on social media. And though analysts disagree about the relative gains of Israel and Hamas on the battlefield, in the field of social-media, the pro-Palestinian cause seems to have increased its share of hearts and minds — or…
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