Name: Jews fight back against the anti-Semitic hashtag #JewishPrivilege, with ironic tweets about the ‘privilege’ of being targeted by bullies, Nazis and white supremacists
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Jews fight back against the anti-Semitic hashtag #JewishPrivilege, with ironic tweets about the ‘privilege’ of being targeted by bullies, Nazis and white supremacists

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AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneJul 14, 2020 at 1:55 pmSammie Marks recalls the time when she was asked whether Jews really have horns on their heads. This was about 10 years ago, she said, in relatively liberal Iowa City.“It was one of those things (when) you just stop in your tracks and think, ‘How in the world do I respond to this in a productive way?‘” she said.AdvertisementSuch memories surfaced Sunday, when Twitter users took on the anti-Semitic hashtag #JewishPrivilege, a variation on the old smear that Jews are somehow controlling money and politics, and that everyone else is suffering as a result. Jews and allies retweeted the hashtag thousands of times, with ironic references to the “privilege” of losing relatives to Nazi death camps, fearing for your safety in your house of worship or being showered with pennies on the school bus.The comedian Sarah Silverman joined what became a national Twitter trend, with a tweet AdvertisementOrdinary Chicagoans offered salutes to relatives lost in the Holocaust, with Marks saying that many members of her maternal grandfather’s family died in Nazi Germany, a fact that she only learned in adulthood.In an interview with the Tribune, Marks also referenced an atrocity closer to home: the 2018 temple shooting in Pittsburgh, in which authorities said that a gunman yelling anti-Semitic slurs killed 11 Jewish worshipers.“It just breaks my heart that we can’t go to our places of worship without going through security,” said Marks, 28, a project manager at an investment research firm. “I miss the days when people could go into the synagogue freely.” Jewish privilege is a pejorative term, according to Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.“What I see is a clear intent to promote anti-Semitism,” said Segal. “These are classic anti-Semitic canards that have animated anti-Semites for eons — with a modern twist.”The center noticed the term as early as 2017, when it was included in flyers handed out at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Segal said. The flyer said that “ending white privilege intersects (with) ending Jewish privilege” and promoted the idea that Jewish Americans receive special privileges at leading universities.At the time, a representative of Black Lives Matter condemned the flyer, as well as additional flyers with anti-Semitic messages and the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, according to the ADL.During the recent Black Lives Matter protests, the ADL started seeing variations on the Jewish privilege flyer on social media.AdvertisementWhite supremacists have distributed the flyer, Segal said, but it’s unclear who created it. Segal said that he believes the creator is opposed to Black Lives Matter, and wants to drive a wedge between Jews and other groups likely to support the anti-racist movement.“There is no indication that anybody in Black Lives Matter has shared, printed or otherwise disseminated these (anti-Semitic) flyers,” he said. is having your kids come home from a play date and find out the Christian mom attempted to baptize them. I found out when my daughter prayed to Jesus randomly.— ✡️לילה layla ليلى✡️ (@LaylaHersch)AdvertisementWhen Marks’ fiance is heading to synagogue in Lakeview, he puts his kippah — the Jewish skullcap — into his pocket, wary of the response from the general public, Marks said. Marks is similarly careful with a favorite necklace.“I bought this beautiful Star of David at a Tel Aviv market, and with the rise of anti-Semitism, and also being female, I am very aware of the kind of attention that brings,” she said. When she’s in Chicago, she tucks the star inside a turtleneck so no one can see it — or she doesn’t wear it at all.Segal likens the #JewishPrivilege tweets to pushback against the anti-Semitic “echo” symbol, in which Jews and allies responded to white supremacist attempts to put the names of prominent Jewish people in multiple parentheses. Jews and allies began putting their own names in parentheses, defusing the hate message.“Jews and non-Jews were basically saying, ‘OK, who’s a Jew now?‘” Segal said.AdvertisementMarks sees her #JewishPrivilege activism in the larger context of younger Jews taking responsibility for the fight against hate.“It’s important for my generation to start speaking about anti-Semitism and not relying on the lessons of the Holocaust, because that’s obviously changing drastically when we don’t have the same amount of survivors to tell their stories,” she said. Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneJul 14, 2020 at 1:55 pmSammie Marks recalls the time when she was asked whether Jews really have horns on their heads. This was about 10 years ago, she said, in relatively liberal Iowa City.“It was one of those things (when) you just stop in your tracks and think, ‘How in the world do I respond to this in a productive way?‘” she said.AdvertisementSuch memories surfaced Sunday, when Twitter users took on the anti-Semitic hashtag #JewishPrivilege, a variation on the old smear that Jews are somehow controlling money and politics, and that everyone else is...

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Nara Schoenberg

The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the 6th highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017.

Jews fight back against the anti-Semitic hashtag #JewishPrivilege, with ironic tweets about the ‘privilege’ of being targeted by bullies, Nazis and white supremacists

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