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Sarah Silverman (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP)
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The source of the tweets was far-right, white supremacist Twitter profiles and bots, which used the hashtag to post a mixture of classic conspiratorial theories involving Jewish domination and control of the media, Holocaust denial and accusations of underwriting social unrest movements so that Jews could displace whites with minority groups.
Some of the tweets revived the attempt to pass themselves off as being Jewish and “confessing” their sins of privilege.
One wrote that he felt “guilty that our people’s role in slavery dwarfed Whites, but it’s important we pay for that dominant role that hurt so many millions of blacks. We jews are 1/3 of billionaires and MUST give much more to blacks.”
Almost immediately, Jews across Twitter pushed back, using the same hashtag to share their experiences with antisemitism. By early Monday, the hashtag had been largely “flipped”: #JewishPrivilege was dominated by reminders of antisemitism over the years and stories of struggles with modern antisemitism.
The responses that drew the most attention came from celebrities, including actor Josh Gad, television producer David Simon, comedian-actress Sarah Silverman and former presidential contender Marianne Williamson.
The responses that drew the most attention came from celebrities, including actor Josh Gad, television producer David Simon, comedian-actress Sarah Silverman and former presidential contender Marianne Williamson.
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Actor Josh Gad
Credit: Rebecca Cabage,AP
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Guess we’re at the #JewishPrivilege part of 2020 because Neo-Nazis have a social platform. Where to start? Is it the privilege of my mom never getting to meet her grandparents because they were murdered or is it her parents being robbed of their childhoods by being put in camps?— Josh Gad (@joshgad) July 12, 2020
Simon, best known as the creator of “The Wire,” wrote: “My #JewishPrivilege? Garden-variety stuff. Eleven dead relatives at Auschwitz and in the Russian woods and a father who was a hostage and suffered PTSD years after the Jewish non-profit where he worked was stormed by angry dudes with guns & scimitars who threatened to behead him.”
My #JewishPrivilege? Garden-variety stuff. Eleven dead relatives at Auschwitz and in the Russian woods and a father who was a hostage and suffered PTSD years after the Jewish non-profit where he worked was stormed by angry dudes with guns & scimitars who threatened to behead him.— David Simon (@AoDespair) July 13, 2020
After Silverman tweeted: “My dad getting the shit kicked out of him everyday at school 4 being a kike to kids in NH throwing pennies at me on the bus to pastors in Florida calling for my death and telling their congregation that knocking my teeth out and killing me would be God’s work. #JewishPrivilege,” Williamson responded with her own experiences: “It’s people emailing & tweeting to me that Jews need to be quiet now & that ‘that’s not just a suggestion’ or friends who don’t realize I’m Jewish making it clear how anti-Semitic they are or family members afraid to wear a Star of David in their own neighborhood.#JewishPrivilege.”
It’s people emailing & tweeting to me that Jews need to be quiet now & that “that’s not just a suggestion” or friends who don’t realize I’m Jewish making it clear how anti-Semitic they are or family members afraid to wear a Star of David in their own neighborhood.#JewishPrivilege https://t.co/pYusLEa8NP— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) July 12, 2020
Many of the high-profile Jews tweeting experienced hostile backlash. Silverman in particular was called out for discussing racism against Jews, with many people tweeting out photographs from when she did an episode of her television show in blackface. She had apologized for that in 2018, saying she was “horrified” by the fact she had done it: “I don’t stand by the blackface sketch. I’m horrified by it, and I can’t erase it. I can only be changed by it and move on.”
Other tweets came from Jewish activists and representatives of Jewish advocacy organizations, as well as individual Jews sharing their experiences with antisemitism.
Rabbi Elchanan Poupko, for example, wrote: “#JewishPrivilege is my cousin Reb Nochum Moshe Twersky of the Chernobyl Hassidic dynasty being asked to come and bless Ukrainian soldiers just for them to shoot him dead later.”
#JewishPrivilege is my cousin Reb Nochum Moshe Twersky of the Chernobyl Hassidic dynasty being asked to come and bless Ukrainian soldiers just for them to shoot him dead later. https://t.co/6j8HVPsnEU pic.twitter.com/zkAQsbSp4T— Rabbi E. Poupko- WEAR A MASK (@RabbiPoupko) July 12, 2020
If you haven’t heard about the #JewishPrivilege hashtag, that’s trending, you should do yourself a favor, and read their stories. Me attempting to give y’all anymore details than that, would not do it any justice.— Jimmy ✊🏾 #PowerToThePeople (@Jwheels_74) July 12, 2020
The Jewish tweets triggered their own wave of reaction, both on Twitter itself and on Gab – the alternative platform infamous for its far-right users and tolerance for hate speech, with posters complaining that the Jews on the hashtag were engaging in “arrogant kvetching,” “whining” about discrimination, and “complaining about how persecuted they are for no reason.”#JewishPrivilege is having rocks thrown at you for being a “dirty kike,” being told “you’re not American enough” to join Boy Scouts, having your neighbors call you a “dirty Jew,” frequently overhearing anti-Semitic drivel in Berkeley, and knowing your family was murdered here. pic.twitter.com/YzLNLhX9pX— Stuart Rojstaczer (@StuartEtc) July 12, 2020
