(Jewish Group) Thanks for Sharing My Antisemitism Tweet. Now Do Something About It.
Last week, the FBI released its 2020 hate crime data, revealing that hate crimes targeting Jews accounted for 57.5 percent of all reported crimes motivated by hatred of the victims' religion. Struck by that statistic, I tweeted it out, noting that American Jews make up less than two percent of the U.S. population—evidence of the massive overrepresentation of Jews among the victims of religious bias crimes in America.
The tweet blew up.
In the days since I sent that tweet, it has been retweeted and shared thousands of times, including by several individuals with hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers, from media figures like Jake Tapper and Bari Weiss to celebrities like Amy Schumer, Mandy Moore and Sophia Bush. I've received messages from friends and acquaintances around the world—both Jewish and non-Jewish—telling me that their Instagram feeds are full of images of my tweet.
I get the appeal. There's some real shock value to that statistic and it seems to neatly convey the gravity of antisemitism in America.
But it's too simple, too easy. And antisemitism is anything but simple or easy.
more...