JTA — As images of the banner placed on Interstate 405 in Los Angeles reading “Kanye is right about the Jews” bounced around the internet this weekend, Jessica Seinfeld decided to take a stand.
Cookbook author and wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld posted a simple text on a black background that reads “I support my friends and the Jewish people” and encouraged her 580,000 followers to share the post.
Seinfeld, who is Jewish, was weighing two weeks after West, the rapper who now goes by Ye, launched a wave of anti-Semitic comments, including a call to “go to death with 3” about Jews. The banner was displayed by members of the Goyim Defense League, a white supremacist group whose calling card is distributing anti-Semitic literature in communities across the United States.
For many, the banner became emblematic of how West’s comments can be seen as part of a larger pattern of anti-Semitism in the United States, and for Seinfeld and others who are active on social media, it became the latest from a series of high-profile comments. moments that demand public expressions of solidarity.
“If you don’t know what to say, you can say this on your feed,” Seinfeld wrote.
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Seinfeld’s simple post was reminiscent of other posts that have gone viral at other times in the recent past, including the black box that became a symbol of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement during the summer of 2020. Sunday night, it has been shared countless times, including by prominent celebrities.
Celebrities shared an Instagram post in solidarity with Jews facing antisemitism in October 2022. (Screenshots via Twitter, Instagram/Design by Jackie Hajdenberg/via JTA)
While Jewish comedian Amy Schumer was one of the first to share the Seinfeld post and other Jewish celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow, have shared it, many of the public figures who amplify it are part of Seinfeld’s target audience: non-Jews. .
Jenna Bush Hager, Meghan McCain, Gemma Chan and Reese Witherspoon have shared the post. So have several members of the Jenner-Kardashian family, who, notably, were once linked to West through Kim Kardashian’s marriage to him until the couple’s divorce in March.
Kanye West at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Feb. 9, 2020. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Kim Kardashian did not share the Seinfeld or Schumer post, but did write a short statement on an Instagram story, a form of posting that is viewable for 24 hours.
“Hate speech is never okay or excusable,” Kardashian wrote. “I stand with the Jewish community and call for the horrific violence and hilarious rhetoric of hatred towards them to come to an immediate end.”
The virality of the post has sparked both relief and frustration among Jewish social media users. Some had worried aloud that non-Jews might not be up to the task and condemn anti-Semitism with the same force that many of them have addressed racism and anti-LGBTQ hatred.
“Liberation is a group project,” Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, scholar-in-residence at the National Council of Jewish Women, tweeted Sunday. “Jews must present themselves to non-Jews. Whites must present for BIPOC. People with disabilities must stand for people with disabilities. Cis people should present themselves to trans people. We must all unite for a more complete tomorrow. Do non-Jews show up for us?”
But some Jews rejected the viral post, dismissing it as a social media stunt that could be replaced with concrete action. The same criticism was frequently leveled at people who shared solidarity posts about the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
“Your black square with the empty words and cesspool that is your comments section is doing none of the work to dismantle anti-Semitism and protect the Jewish community,” wrote Debbie Lechtman, jewelry designer and anti-anti-Semitism online activist. . “So instead of lying to us and the world, I’d rather you say nothing [sic] absolutely. Really.”
Lechtman said people sharing the Seinfeld post were demonstrating a “false alliance” and instead offered a 10-slide Instagram carousel in which he lamented that he was unable to generate a non-Jewish audience for his regular posts about anti-Semitism and he described actions that he said would represent more significant. efforts, including “condemning[ing] the anti-Semitism of its allies” and “talking[ing] for the Jews you don’t like.
For Lechtman and others who espouse a similar view, the moment evokes painful memories of May 2021, when an outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians ignited a large volume of posts critical of Israel. Some Jewish Instagram users said the sheer number of anti-Israel posts left them feeling alone, particularly when seeking to counter inaccuracies.
The response to the publication of Seinfeld and West’s anti-Semitism is already veering into some of the divisive territory that characterized publishing during that time. A pro-Israel Instagram user, part of a group of Zionist social media activists, posted a doctored version of the Seinfeld square to add an asterisk that reads in part, “as long as they’re not Zionists, as long as they are.” Not religious, as long as your political views align with mine.”
But so is the gratitude of Jewish social media users when non-Jews post about opposing anti-Semitism. Seinfeld has shared examples of posts thanking him, and other widely followed social media users have reported the same, in a dynamic that one of the most prominent voices on Twitter suggested was concerning.
“Every time I tweet about anti-Semitism I get messages of thanks from Jewish people in my life,” Yashar Ali, who is not Jewish, wrote to his 730,000 followers on Monday. “It’s elegant but tragic. Jews, who are only 2% of the world’s population, feel so alone in fighting anti-Semitism that they notice every time Gentiles defend them.”
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