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(JTA) — Two years in the past, a ballot on Twitter tried to settle as soon as and for all tips on how to confer with the nook of the social media platform the place Jews conversed. “Jwitter” acquired two thirds of the 525 votes, with the remaining falling to “Jtwitter.”
No matter they name it, the Jewish customers of Twitter have used the positioning over the previous 15 years to do every part from commerce jokes, combat over meals and contend over abiding divisions in Jewish communities, typically in phrases that might be onerous to know for anybody who’s not versed in Jewish custom, texts and popular culture references. Their discourse summoned into existence crowd-sourced Shabbat studying lists, revelations by synagogue staffers and even an alternate actuality by which Jews are the bulk inhabitants.
Now the hundreds of Twitter customers who keep on with area of interest Jewish content material are questioning their relationship to the platform amid sweeping turmoil following its acquisition final week by the billionaire entrepreneur and provocateur Elon Musk. Musk has swiftly made steep layoffs and abrupt modifications to moderation and authentication guidelines, all whereas tweeting crass and controversial content material himself. The scenario has emboldened antisemites on the platform and triggered the Anti-Defamation League to name for a boycott.
Taken collectively, many Jewish Twitter customers, particularly those extremely concerned in these micro-communities, have began to query whether or not the platform stays a great place for the Jews in any respect. Some are signing off, whereas others are standing agency. Many are mourning the potential disruption to the neighborhood they’ve valued whereas questioning the battle and incivility they skilled alongside the best way.
“I don’t know if it ever acquired resolved,” Abraham Josephine Riesman, a Jewish author who has been energetic on Jewish Twitter for a number of years, advised the Jewish Telegraphic Company concerning the debate over the area of interest’s identify. “And now it’s all going to simply be destroyed earlier than we come to a decision.”
We spoke to a dozen longtime individuals on Jewish Twitter about what Jwitter/Jtwitter was (and wasn’t) and what they foresee for the way forward for Jewish dialog on-line. Right here’s what they advised us.
Emily Tamkin (@emilyctamkin), writer of “Dangerous Jews” and “The Affect of Soros”
Snapshot of Twitter bio: “Senior Editor, US, @newstatesman.”
I believe the velocity of the decline continues to be to be decided and is determined by what Musk and firm really handle to roll out (or don’t), however the day of Twitter as form of “pressing agora” is gone.
Like each different a part of Twitter, Jwitter/Jtwitter might be maddening and imply. On Inauguration Day in 2021, I tweeted a joke that it was a giant day for American Jews, what with Bernie Sanders’ mittens and Doug Emhoff. Some folks noticed this and determined to let me know that I used to be every part mistaken with American Jewishness. I received’t miss moments like that. I received’t miss dangerous religion assaults or hyperbole. There have been debates that I ought to have stayed out of that I concerned myself in, and ones the place I really feel now that I ought to have mentioned one thing and didn’t, and I received’t miss both of these emotions. And I cannot miss watching folks argue forwards and backwards about issues they’re by no means going to resolve, and definitely not on Twitter.
However however, there are folks I now contemplate myself pleasant with whom I’d by no means have met, and other people I’m now conscious of about whom I had by no means heard earlier than. I realized recipes and traditions and acquired e book and music suggestions, however, greater than that, I realized totally different — and Jewish — methods of serious about the world. Even these countless debates have been, in a method, a privilege. I acquired to look at Jewish thinkers hash out issues that mattered to them. I do know I simply mentioned within the earlier paragraph that I received’t miss that, however a special a part of me will, and already does.
Shoshana Gottlieb (@thetonightsho), Jewish content material creator
Twitter bio: “i train, i write, i watch television, i’m jewish”
Possibly I’m actually naive, however I don’t assume the Musk takeover goes to irrevocably change Twitter. I lived by way of Tumblr getting bought and resold like 5 instances. Individuals got here and other people went, however surrounding myself with the proper neighborhood meant that I by no means actually felt the large modifications. And my Twitter expertise is identical: I’m cautious with who I observe, I’m liberal with the block button. I create an area that’s enjoyable and fulfilling, in any other case what’s the purpose of being there?
Leaving the web site isn’t the large “get effed” a few of us assume it’s. Leaving the web site merely means there isn’t a Jewish voice anymore, no digital neighborhood for many who search it, no one pushing again in opposition to dangerous rhetoric. There’ll at all times be antisemites, such is the character of the world. Solely we get to resolve if Jewish neighborhood stays.
If I’m mistaken, if it turns into unattainable to make use of or harassment kicks as much as an insufferable notch, I’ll be unhappy to see it go. I’ll miss the jokes and gags, however I’ll additionally miss the micro-Torah, 280-character shiurim that make me assume and rethink for days on finish. I’ll miss the intense Jewish geography (one time I posted my grandfather’s Hebrew identify and somebody DM’d me that he knew my uncle and cousins). I’ll miss being half of a bigger dialog with folks infinitely extra fascinating and spectacular than I’m.
Anthony Russell (@mordkhezvi), Yiddish opera singer
Twitter bio: “So, your bubbe was nattering on about some black man who sings in Yiddish. It’s me”
Wading into the troubled waters of JTwitter has at all times given me the vertiginous feeling of corresponding from the penthouse of the tower of Babel; collapse is imminent and we but right here we’re, muttering wryly in one another’s common path.
At its finest, JTwitter has been a supply of humor, data, studying, group, solidarity, religious, emotional and communal help; at its worst — particularly when one is a Jew of Colour, it’s by no means very far behind — it has been the positioning of ignorance, rancor, marginalization, racism and fear-mongering, a public hashing-out of a few of the most contentious areas of Jewishness that cry out for endurance, understanding, goodwill, justice and a want for decision. Sadly, at a restrict of 280 characters, these issues often don’t make the lower.
Does this make JTwitter totally different from some other communally organized parts of the platform? I suppose not, however we even have a phrase for what it ought to be fervently making an attempt to keep away from: sinat chinam — mindless hatred.’
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg holds her 2022 e book about apologizing. (Instagram/Danya Ruttenberg)
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR), scholar in residence on the Nationwide Council for Jewish Girls
Twitter bio: “Rabbi & writer.”
For me, essentially the most profound impression of Twitter is how a lot I’ve realized from people who find themselves not like me. Twitter is a spot the place folks of many alternative backgrounds and views and experiences can all exist in the identical area and share their concepts, which makes it a beautiful place to show Torah.
I like instructing Torah on Twitter partly as a result of it’s such a wild cross-section of people that have so many alternative responses and views and questions that they bring about as they interact with the subject at hand. Jewish conversations are richer as people who find themselves not sometimes engaged in Jewish areas are capable of come and study and sit on the desk as equals, lastly — individuals who have been marginalized for much too lengthy in our neighborhood. And people who find themselves not Jewish ask fascinating questions or make superb observations based mostly on their very own experience that illuminate the dialog. So the conversations are expanded and still have a depth and richness that I’ve not skilled wherever else.
It jogs my memory very a lot of the story within the Talmud when Rabban Gamliel, the pinnacle of the Sanhedrin who was a little bit of an elitist and problematic in different methods, winds up getting deposed. Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria is appointed to take over and he removes all the gatekeeping and makes area for everyone and so they add all of those benches into the beit midrash as a result of persons are pouring in to come back and study. Persons are determined to study and all they needed was entry and Twitter has been this entry level for therefore many individuals, for therefore many Jews who’ve been marginalized in so some ways from our neighborhood, who’ve been determined to be a part of the dialog and to have interaction and have discovered deep neighborhood and studying and transformation.
All of us are studying and rising as we make area for every part we are able to study from folks whose experiences will not be like ours and attempt to get out of our echo chambers in a myriad of the way. And our Torah is deeper the extra we’re uncovered to different methods of pondering and being and doing.
I have no idea what’s subsequent. I’ve confidence that we are going to discover our approach to the following alternative to study and develop from one another.
However hopefully Twitter nonetheless has some life again in her. This platform is and has been one thing actually extraordinary — the Arab Spring, #MeToo, Black Lives Matter: it has spawned profound actions — and I believe quite a lot of us have realized and grown a lot because of gaining access to it. I’m not going wherever till the colonnades are falling round me.
Phil Keisman (@keismanphil), graduate pupil in European Jewish historical past
Twitter bio: “closing my twitter account on the finish of the month”
The intersection of Jewish Twitter and educational Twitter I discovered to be a very invigorating neighborhood. For instance, a historian who was placing collectively a writing group of graduate college students engaged on their dissertations was actually into my tweets about basketball and German Jewish historical past and acquired in contact with me. By means of that I met an in depth pal. Solely social media can get by way of on the intersection of Judaism, basketball and academia.
Institutional Jewish life can have a tendency towards the apolitical, particularly when it has to do with Israel. I’ve discovered at instances that there’s not a spot the place I might be a progressive Jew and put on each hats. Jewish Twitter completely has been that area, which is each good and dangerous: It results in bubbles, which aren’t good, however there’s this form of leftist streak, this egalitarian-but-not-normatively-Orthodox form of subgroup that I discovered very partaking.
And the jokes have been implausible. The primary Jewish Twitter particular person I discovered was this particular person whose deal with is ”Maimonides Nutz”! There’s this language of insiderness that sometimes occurs in yeshivas and shuls, locations which can be sometimes male and sometimes white. Rapidly now we have this area with folks with much less studying, folks with extra studying, ladies, and Jews of coloration and other people within the LGBT neighborhood —and out of the blue there’s this outlet for Jewish humor that had humorous potentialities and subversive potentialities. I’m going to overlook that form of cultural commentary and I’m going to need to hunt for it somewhat extra.
As a result of I’m quitting. I don’t have any illusions that there are great altruistic billionaires strolling round, so it’s not something concerning the earlier regime, however Musk is such a bully. And I’ve additionally discovered myself having dangerous experiences. I’m concerned in basketball, and also you’ve acquired Kyrie Irving on the heels of Kanye, and swiftly my feed was crammed with antisemitism. I spotted I don’t have the management over my feed that I would love, and that Twitter is making me really feel horrible. I’ve acquired a gorgeous child boy, I’ve acquired a dissertation in progress, I’ve acquired a spouse, I’ve acquired a number of issues that may demand my consideration that aren’t this.
But when I discover myself in a spot the place both issues are so dangerous on this planet that this resolution now not feels so salient or one thing modifications within the ecosystem, I might completely see myself coming again.
Sophia Zohar (@MaimonidesNutz), artist, author and web persona
Twitter bio: “Maimonides, as within the twelfth Century Jewish thinker – and Nutz as in ‘Deez Nutz.’
I’m saddened by the modifications we’re witnessing in Twitter’s management. Twitter has at all times been a spot with the immeasurable energy to carry folks collectively, so it is smart that some would search to harness that energy for their very own achieve. Nevertheless it’s that very same energy that has allowed JTwitter (or Jwitter) to come back collectively and flourish throughout such a darkish time.
We now have performed Talmud video games collectively, now we have made memes out of antisemitic tweets, now we have even had conversations about the way forward for Judaism, and located what number of related issues we maintain expensive. Jwitter has at all times been a discussion board for bringing collectively new and outdated types of Judaism and I’m honored to have been part of that. I admit I’ve been weary at instances (together with now), however I plan to stay round as a result of I’m hopeful that not all of that has to vary.
Alex Zeldin and Tamar Caplan are lifted on chairs throughout their marriage ceremony reception. (JC Lemon Pictures)
Alex Zeldin (@jewishwonk), columnist and commentator on Jewish points
Twitter bio: “All dangerous takes are mine alone.”
Twitter has had content material moderation issues for years, which most Jews on the platform are properly conscious of due to years of harassment from Nazis and different antisemites. Musk’s buy of the platform has not been encouraging from a content material moderation perspective, contemplating the folks championing it inside the corporate have been swiftly fired.
I’m taking a wait-and-see strategy on what it means for my use of the platform. I’m not prepared to present it up simply but. I’ve made many good pals. I’ve realized quite a bit about every kind of Jewish communities due to relationships cast on this platform. Each alternative I’ve gotten to write down and converse to Jewish audiences got here from right here too. My guess (hope?) is Musk will finally study the identical classes Twitter’s earlier administration did: no one likes being continuously harassed by bigots. Beefing up content material moderation is sweet for customers, particularly minorities like Jews and different marginalized teams, and finally good for enterprise. If he doesn’t study, I hope I can take my dangerous Jewish meals takes to different platforms.
Elad Nehorai (@eladnehorai), author and activist
Twitter bio: “Ex-hasidic, pro-good bother”
Jwitter is — and God I hope it stays this manner with the arrival of our new overlord — a gorgeous, cantankerous microcosm of the Jewish folks. It’s acquired the synagogue you don’t go to, which is possibly extra essential than the synagogue you do go to. The individuals who you belief and joke with, together with the group you might be ashamed of, in addition to the group that you realize talks trash about you about your again.
As a result of we’re so small, we all know everybody (whether or not we prefer it or not). This creates a way of intimacy and connection on a social media web site that’s in some ways outlined by the possibility that at any second you can say the mistaken factor and tens of hundreds folks you by no means heard of might let you know you’re the worst particular person to ever stroll the earth. At the very least on Jwitter, once they inform me that I do know them. It’s extra like that irritating uncle that you simply most likely shouldn’t have invited to the household reunion than a mob. We are able to’t stand one another, however in the best way that household can’t stand one another. It’s based mostly on an consciousness that beneath all of it, we’re united on this journey collectively. And possibly that’s a part of what makes us cranky.
It’s additionally like a microcosm of the world itself, if I’m being sincere. And I imply that in a miserable method. We’re a small group on there, and the antisemites outnumber us. With moderation loosened or eradicated, they’ll most likely proceed to develop. In some ways, we get a front-row seat to the rise of those extremists, since at any second they could assault us or goal us. Amazingly, this has additional united the Jwitter inhabitants: We now have realized tips on how to use our networks to push again and demand higher. It’s particularly as a result of we’re small, as a result of we’re household, as a result of now we have our tradition of cliques and grudges and love and pleasure, as a result of everyone knows one another, that we are able to combat again. That when folks attempt to rewrite our story, one particular person will elevate a flag and we’ll take part. We all know the urgency of this second, and we stand collectively even after we can’t stand one another.
This to me is the great thing about being Jewish as properly, and it’s why I thank God for the messy magnificence that’s Jwitter. Each day, I get to spend time with queer Jews, activist Jews, Jews of coloration, anarchist Jews, Hasidic Jews, ex-Hasidic Jews, anti-fascist Jews, fascist Jews, punk Jews, inventive Jews, Jewish celebrities, Jewish legal professionals, Zionist Jews, anti-Zionist Jews and a lot extra. Each single day, it’s like strolling into essentially the most numerous congregation on earth. Individuals who, irrespective of how separated, are related by their care for his or her folks. By the truth that they merely present up. That they join and have the powerful discussions. That is what makes us sturdy. That is what makes me grateful.
Russel Neiss (@rmneiss), Jewish technologist
Twitter bio: “I (attempt to) write code to make the world a greater place.”
The factor that I beloved most about Twitter was the identical factor that I beloved about EJewishPhilanthropy earlier than it was acquired by Jewish Insider two years in the past — each locations supplied a platform for anybody, even a schnook like me in the course of flyover nation, to be part of the broader dialog of concepts, and to problem those that held actual energy as long as you have been capable of articulate your self successfully.
Even in the perfect of instances Twitter’s lack of respectable moderation instruments, inconsistent floor guidelines, and tradition that rewarded being a jerk made it a sub-optimal place to hang around. In some unspecified time in the future I coded up some scripts to routinely ban any problematic consumer who interacted with me based mostly on some tough heuristics, that made my expertise right here significantly better. Final I checked there have been practically 100k accounts on that record. These two issues are virtually definitely associated.
I’ve been pondering fairly a bit these days of Darius Kazemi’s 2019 essay on the advantages (and challenges) of internet hosting your individual small social community [runyourown.social] — I’m undecided if I’m prepared to completely make the dedication that that entails, however this week I did register san.hedr.in and I plan to put in a Mastodon occasion there this week. I don’t plan on letting it develop past 71 customers although.
Dovid Bashevkin (@dbashideas), NCSY director of training
Twitter bio: “Rejected from many prestigious fellowships & awards”
I’m very happy with the Jewish neighborhood that has been constructed on Twitter. And I’ve no plans of leaving so far as I can inform.
Giving folks a lens to have fun their very own experiences, their very own tradition, which I believe Jewish Twitter has accomplished a reasonably admirable job of, is so stunning, and I definitely hope it continues.
I’m additionally extremely happy with this custom, which some folks hate and a few folks love, of sharing the books that you simply learn over Shabbos. Each Saturday night time, I publish what I learn. It takes social media out of the treadmill of opining on world occasions, and it gives an accessible entry level for folks to have interaction with Shabbos in a significant method on-line. This, to me, goes past Twitter and isn’t one thing I’d ever shut down.
I like that the Jewish Twitter world has adopted this meme of political world leaders, and captioning photos of them in Jewish conditions. If you see, like, a stern look of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, and also you caption it “telling your Jewish in-laws that you’re going into Jewish education” — these forms of moments enable a playful approach to interpret world occasions by way of a distinct segment Jewish lens. Some folks could discover it’s diminishing, or it’s not severe sufficient. However I believe that that may be very a lot consistent with the Jewish custom of humor, which has exploded on Jewish Twitter.
The way in which memes work is the extra area of interest and particular the scenario, the ethical hyperlocal it’s, the higher the snigger, and the extra folks take pleasure in it. Plenty of the issues which have gone viral are drawing upon a really specialised Jewish information. Twitter has taken Jewish tradition on-line past bagels and lox, and actually attracts upon a really wealthy, particular Jewish expertise.
There’s additionally quite a lot of cultural overlap and experiences that individuals have had within the Orthodox world and in different intensely non secular communities, and typically you’ll see that within the memes or the moments or the idiosyncratic experiences that they share. I as soon as noticed an evangelical Christian account making enjoyable of how at their youth retreats there’s at all times one man who loves schlepping too many chairs, which can be a really Jewish shabbaton expertise.
I wouldn’t name these moments non secular training. However I believe they’re celebrating non secular experiences. And that, too, is holy.
Shayna Weiss (@shaynamalka), affiliate director of the Schusterman Middle for Israel Research at Brandeis College
Twitter bio: “Scholar of Jewish Research. Lover of Israeli TV.”
I don’t have quite a lot of religion in Elon Musk, however I do assume it’s too early to inform about Jewish Twitter. Social media platforms or the methods we talk are at all times short-term. Individuals speak about if you happen to solely learn on a display, it’s not actual. Effectively, I’ve a pal who does historical Judaism whose joke is, I don’t need to discuss to you until you’re solely studying issues on codexes.
It’s onerous to know what my breaking level could be. I really feel prefer it’s now form of like a Jewish goodbye, when folks say goodbye with out really leaving.
It was helpful to me as an educational. I related with superb those who I don’t assume I’d have related with in any other case, teachers from totally different elements of the world or reporters or different folks doing analysis. I’ve invited folks to talk at Brandeis as a result of they’d posted about their scholarship on Twitter whom I’m undecided I’d have heard in any other case, together with a scholar in England.
And there’s a number of little area of interest communities on Twitter, like for OTD or “off-the-derech” [formerly Orthodox] Jews or voices from the haredi [Orthodox] neighborhood; studying what they mentioned and what they thought was fascinating to me and provided a window right into a dialog area that I might need not had a window into in any other case.
However as a result of Twitter didn’t interact in a few of the moderations and constructions that it ought to have, it’s important to use it in a really particular methods for it to be helpful — and it nonetheless has points. I needed to be very liberal about utilizing the block button, and I nonetheless acquired referred to as Nazi greater than as soon as.
Abraham Josephine Riesman (@abraham joseph), journalist
Twitter bio: “Ladybearded authoress”
I can’t think about that Twitter as a spot the place folks like me really feel comfy goes to exist in like per week. I actually assume it’s taking place in flames as we watch.
By the point I began eager to yell about issues within the Jewish world, Twitter was already form of the place the place that occurred. I form of melted into Jwitter round like 2018 or so. To be sincere, I believe it form of ran its course. All of the arguments that might be had on Twitter have form of been had at this level. Despite the fact that I’ve solely been on for just a few years already, it simply appears like there’s nothing new to say on Twitter anymore.
The meals fights, the hamentashen-versus-latke fights that individuals would have, or whether or not we must always cancel hamentashen or no matter, that form of stuff was enjoyable. However after some time it began to really feel like, OK, however the world’s on fireplace. I do know that Jewish humor is commonly about taking issues just like the world’s on fireplace, and saying let’s make a joke. However the perfect sorts of jokes are those which have somewhat little bit of reality, edge and argument to them, and I really feel like persons are both afraid to make an edgy joke … or they’re simply too wrapped up in having fights on a regular basis.
The meals fights have been at all times proxy battles, or at the very least distractions from the true fights, that are concerning the issues that may’t be simply resolved on Twitter. We’re not going to unravel intermarriage, we’re not going to unravel homosexual rabbis in Orthodoxy, we’re not going to unravel Zionism and the way Israel pertains to the Palestinians on JTwitter. However that doesn’t cease folks from arguing about them on there.
I received’t miss the truth that you might have a number of folks whose facet is successful within the fights who’re performing like they’re nonetheless the victims. That mentioned, I’m nostalgic for some issues. I actually did make quite a lot of pals. And I shouldn’t be ungrateful as a result of, my god, I’ve gotten a lot readership by way of Jewish Twitter. There have been folks supporting me there and discovering what I needed to say fascinating, and I’m eternally grateful for that. It was just a few years however being a part of JTwitter actually did alter the course of my profession and subsequently my life.
I don’t know the place persons are going to go. Possibly we’ll all return to maintaining written correspondence the place we focus on the good knowledge of the sages. I’d a lot reasonably that the place Jews come collectively be on the Shabbat desk, reasonably than JTwitter. The higher conversations are available smaller, direct settings reasonably than, you realize, quote tweet-dunking on folks. Actually, there are positively Shabbat tables I acquired invited to due to Twitter. I actually owe the folks on there an incredible debt.
Caleb Guedes-Reed contributed reporting.
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