Hark: I am a Shekel Goblin

I love when antisemites insult me. Here’s why:

Nothing makes me giggle quite like a keyboard warrior calling me the latest version of a centuries-old antisemitic trope. Frankly, I love it.

I love it because it’s wildly transparent.

Simply put, I love when antisemites abandon their masks along with all pretense and call me an ugly name that reveals their full hand and shines a bright light on their own vile bigotry.

It’s so much easier this way!

It’s that much more work for the rest of us to battle against the raging hatred all around us when the haters-in-question work hard at masking their hatred with “social activism” and “genuine concern” for something or someone else.

Show me exactly who you are, naked racism on full display, and save us all the trouble of wasting our breath proving it.

And that’s it. That’s the whole point. It could have been a tweet. (Yes, I called it a tweet.)

So why “waste” an entire stack on this seemingly simple preference?

Allow me to elaborate:

Instagram is the platform where I have the largest group of followers who regularly share a laugh with me and engage in meaningful discussions around Jewish activism and our relationship with the Land of Israel.

This is the online space that serves as the proverbial cafe where we wile away the hours commiserating over our shared experiences and the perpetual gaslighting of those who insist our experiences are imagined.

Now, as a strict personal policy, I do not engage with online hatred and aggression directed towards myself or any other Jew.

The hateful comments, messages or mentions I receive go completely unanswered by me.

I refuse to be baited into stooping down to the level of someone perpetuating repulsive, divisive behavior and I wholeheartedly suggest that you do the same.

No, this is not a contraction to my tweets that appear in the form of “replies” to instances of online hatred. Those are actually called “quotes” on that platform and, as standard practice, go largely unnoticed and unanswered by the original poster. Quoting someone is not a conversation starter. It’s an act of “point making”.

I firmly believe that we should preserve our precious energy for the difficult conversations we are forced to have in person and/or with people we know in real life.

On select occasions, if a public figure makes an online post that is dangerous and/or libelous towards the Jewish people, then I would agree that we are responsible for respectfully and firmly calling out their behavior.

Take a stand.

Stand up to hate.

You know what’s not taking a stand? Wasting your time on some person you don’t know who is looking to antagonize you and pick a fight in the comments section or your DMs.

When a person shows up on my page - which is so clearly a Jewish-run account for Jews about the experience of being a Jew - and wants to rant and rave about the evils of Israel or whatnot, THEY are the one making a fool of themselves.

What on earth do they expect to accomplish by declaring their anti-Jewish conspiracy theory all over a post that celebrates Jewishness, or directly as a message to someone who they see is a proud Jew? Do they really think that they’re going to magically change our minds with their one shouty comment about “genocide”?

Now that you see where I’m going with this, ask yourself why you would bother trying the same?

Where I have sympathy is in seeing how easily so many of my brethren are baited into these altercations by people who are successfully disguising their positions of hatred behind pseudo-intellectual arguments. They present their phony “reason” and the Jew thinks, “Oh, let me refute this intellectual claim.”

And then, before they know it, they’re 10 comments deep and now they have a headache. They’re emotionally drained. And the world is not a better place than it was 10 minutes earlier.

This is why I love the bigots who peacock their evil around with full confidence.

By all means, tell us how you really feel.

Expose your truest self, red flags and all, and let my people get back to the meaningful work we engage in daily to cure the world from the evil disease that has rotted your soul.