Jessica Seinfeld’s Instagram post about Kanye West’s antisemitism goes viral among celebrities and influencers
As images of the banner held above Interstate 405 in Los Angeles claiming “Kanye is right about the Jews” ricocheted around the internet this weekend, Jessica Seinfeld decided to take a stand.
A cookbook author and wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld posted a simple piece of 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 in two weeks after West, the rapper who now goes by Ye, launched a spree of antisemitic comments, including a call to “go death con 3” on Jews. The banner was displayed by members of the Goyim Defense League, a white supremacist group whose calling card is distributing antisemitic 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 broader pattern of antisemitism in the United States — and for Seinfeld and others who are active on social media, it became the latest in a string of high-profile moments that demand public expressions of solidarity.
“If you don’t know what to say, you can just say this in your feed,” Seinfeld wrote.
Seinfeld’s simple post was reminiscent of other posts that have gone viral at other moments 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. Since she posted it Sunday night, it has been shared countless times, including by prominent celebrities.
While Jewish comedian Amy Schumer was among the first to share Seinfeld’s post and other Jewish celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow, have shared it, many of the public figures amplifying it are part of Seinfeld’s target audience: non-Jews.
Jenna Bush Hager, Meghan McCain, Gemma Chan and Reese Witherspoon have all shared the post. So have various members of the Jenner-Kardashian family, who notably were once tied to West via Kim Kardashian’s marriage to him until the couple’s divorce in March.
Kim Kardashian didn’t share Seinfeld or Schumer’s post, but wrote a short statement in an Instagram story, a form of post that is visible for 24 hours.
“Hate speech is never OK or excusable,” Kardashian wrote. “I stand together with the Jewish community and call on the terrible violence and hate fun rhetoric towards them to come to an immediate end.”
The post’s virality has elicited both relief and frustration among Jewish social media users. Some had worried aloud that non-Jews might not rise to the moment and condemn antisemitism with the same force with which many of them have tackled racism.
But some Jews rejected the viral post, dismissing it as a social media stunt that could be replaced by concrete action. The same critique was frequently leveled against people who shared solidarity posts about the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
“Your black square with the empty words and the cesspool that is your comment section isn’t doing any of the work to dismantle antisemitism and protect the Jewish community,” wrote Debbie Lechtman, a jewelry designer and online activist against antisemitism. “So instead of lying to us and to the world, I’d rather you not say nothing [sic] at all. Seriously.”
Lechtman said people sharing Seinfeld’s post were demonstrating “fake allyship” and instead offered a 10-slide Instagram carousel in which she lamented not being able to build a non-Jewish audience for her regular posts about antisemitism and outlined actions she said would represent more meaningful efforts, including “condemn[ing] the antisemitism of your allies” and “speak[ing] up for the Jews you don’t like.”
For Lechtman and others advancing a similar view, the moment is conjuring painful memories of May 2021, when an outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence ignited a high volume of posts criticizing Israel. Some Jewish Instagram users said the slew of anti-Israel posts left them feeling alone, particularly when they sought to counter inaccuracies.
Already, the response to Seinfeld’s post, and to West’s antisemitism, is veering into some of the divisive territory that characterized posts during that time. One pro-Israel Instagram user, part of a coterie of Zionist activists on social media, posted a doctored version of Seinfeld’s square to add an asterisk that reads in part, “as long as you aren’t Zionists, as long as you aren’t religious, as long as your political views align with mine.”
But gratitude from Jewish social media users when non-Jews have posted about opposing antisemitism is also prevalent. Seinfeld has shared examples of posts thanking her, 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 troubling.
“Every time I tweet about antisemitism I get thank you texts from Jewish people in my life,” Yashar Ali, who is not Jewish, wrote to his 730,000 followers on Monday. “It’s gracious but tragic. Jewish people, who are just .2% of the world’s population, feel so alone in fighting antisemitism that they notice each and every time gentiles stand up for them.”
Sebastien: Just being that tongue in cheek acerbic little ole”Honeybee
@Honeybee Clearly this is a job for Wonderwoman.
@Honeybee
Another one? You know that was the anthem of the US anti-Vietnam war movement, right? By John Lennon and Yoko Ono. (Plastic Ono Band)
Anyway, she wasn’t advocating surrender like these fools and those..
https://youtu.be/ftE8vr0WNus
@Honeybee I repeat, in this case, where’s the blowback. Examples please. No blowback, no courage.
Sebastien, It takes courage to go against the Black community. Anti-Semitism thrives in Black “intellectual thought.
https://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2022/10/black-conservatives-engaging-in-casual.html
Sebastien “@Honeybee re: Aaron Donald. Commendable but he’s far from alone, according to the article. What risk did he take? Was there a backlash”
A Black Football hero defending Jews is not courage?
Sébastien How can flatter perfection
Sebastian Gadol should write a song, call it “Give Peace a Chance”. The ” dogs of war” are barking. They wraithy to be free of their restraints.
@Honeybee After West attended his fashion show with his “White Lives Matter” teeshirt and anti-BLM black conservative, Candace Owens on his arm, all bets were off, and no black celebrities had any reason to fear for their careers on account of publicly distancing themselves from him for any reason. On the contrary, they get to bask in the glow of virtue signaling against bigotry, not that I have any problem with that.
Take you and me, for example; flattery will get you everywhere. 😀
@Honeybee re: Aaron Donald. Commendable but he’s far from alone, according to the article. What risk did he take? Was there a backlash?
Now, I’m going to take the risk of my life right now like these Israeli nd pro–Israel American Jewish celebrities and say something that will simply blow your mind and risk bringing down the house. Here it is (deep breath):
Have a nice day.
@Honeybee
So you will give them a hard time for it so they will think twice about opening their mouths at all in the future? Good strategy. You should run for the Knesset. You’ve got my vote.
“No good deed goes unpunished.” – Oscar Wilde
Incidentally, I recall reading tyat dound what yoy are supposed to do, say, feeding your kids, is a higher mitzvah than something heroic you are not obliged to do.
@Honeybee
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57098709
Sebastien: This courage:
https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2022/10/25/aaron-donald-leaves-kanye-wests-donda-sports-condemns-antisemitism/
Sebastien dear gruppy Sebastien. I get fussed when people take credit for doing what they ought to do. I also ask where are the Jewish celebrities that constantly degraded Thump. They are silent. As for Gal Gadol, I am ignorant.
Your ever-loving Bee Sting.
@Vinegarbee. :D. Yeah, it took courage. Look at the comparatively mild 3rd degree they’re getting from you over nothing. Remember when Gal Godot was raked over the coals from all directions just for wishing for peace?
@Honeybee “Your words are too harsh.*”
* A favorite snappy Kdrama retort.
peloni1986 Darlin I ares the Queen Bee.
michele xoxoxoxoxo
Sebastien so one cultural critic complains and Seinfeld folds? OMG he is eating forbinded falafes? He should give the critics the verbal finger. That would be courage.
By YAAKOV SCHWARTZ
11 January 2018, 3:07 pm
“Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is taking heat from fans after photos of him at a West Bank “anti-terrorism” course were posted online earlier this week.
‘The Caliber 3 training facility, located near the settlement of Efrat south of Bethlehem, posted the photos of Seinfeld on its Facebook page with the message, “Finally we are allowed to tell you! Jerry Seinfeld and his family were in Caliber 3. During their visit to Israel last week, they came to us for a special and exciting activity with displays of combat, Krav Maga, assault dogs and lots of Zionism. It was great.”
‘Foreign tourists react as Israeli intructors neutralize a man during a simulation of a knife attack at a market as they participate in a two hour anti-terror course at the Caliber 3 shooting range, near the West Bank settlement of Efrat on July 18, 2017. (AFP PHOTO / MENAHEM KAHANA)
Seinfeld put on two performances in Tel Aviv on December 30 and toured Israel with his family. After the training facility’s Facebook post, however, Twitter erupted with a violent backlash against the comedian.
“I can never unsee Jerry Seinfeld gleefully posing with a machine gun at an IDF fantasy camp,” posted culture writer Eric Thurm.
‘Jerry Seinfeld took his kids to play war games with the IDF. So cute, right? Now imagine the reaction if, say, Bella Hadid posed with the PFLP or DJ Khaled (brandishing a machine gun) hung out with Hamas,” wrote controversial academic Steven Salaita, who is known for his biting criticism of the Jewish state.
‘As of Tuesday, the facility had removed the photos from its page…
‘Caliber 3 began in 2003 as a camp for professional security personnel such as police. Since 2009, the program has also become an attraction for tourists who are taught how to handle weapons, participate in paintball or learn Krav Maga, the self-defense method using boxing and martial arts developed by the Israeli military. The course includes simulated “terror attacks” in a make-believe Jerusalem market, complete with plastic fruits and wooden stalls.
‘But the “fantasy anti-terror camp” isn’t the only military-related place Seinfeld visited during his Israel trip. The comedian also has photos – this time, ones he tweeted himself – taken at the Ramon air force base in the Negev.
‘And, JTA reported, Seinfeld was spotted at Tel Aviv’s Hakosem restaurant — also a highly controversial site ever since Israel’s Channel 2 proclaimed it the best falafel place in the White City.
‘The December trip was Seinfeld’s second Israel booking. The first time he performed here was in 2015, when he played four sold-out shows at Tel Aviv’s Menorah Mitvachim Arena.
‘But though he only started performing here relatively recently, he is no stranger to the country. Seinfeld volunteered in a kibbutz when he was 16, and remembers his time there fondly.
‘I was eight weeks in Israel… Of course I had to work, which I didn’t,” he told The Times of Israel in an interview this past November. “I was supposed to be chopping dead banana leaves. I couldn’t do it – it was exhausting.”
“We actually just drove by [the kibbutz again], which was exciting,” he said. “When I go to Israel, I of course go back to that time. I just feel very close to Israel.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/seinfeld-under-fire-over-visit-to-west-bank-military-camp/
—
“Early life”
‘Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City.[3] His father, sign painter Kálmán Seinfeld,[4] was Jewish and collected jokes that he heard while serving in World War II.[3]
‘His mother, Betty (née Hosni;[5][6]) and her parents, Selim and Salha Hosni,[7] were Jews from Aleppo, Syria. Their nationality was stated as Turkish when they immigrated in 1917, as Syria was under the Ottoman Empire.[8][9] Seinfeld has an older sister, Carolyn.[10]
‘Salha’s mother Garez Dayan, Seinfeld’s great-grandmother, was a member of the Dayan rabbinic family, who trace their paternal ancestry back to the Medieval Exilarchs, and from the Exilarchs back to the Biblical King David.[11] Seinfeld’s second cousin is musician and actor Evan Seinfeld.[12] Seinfeld grew up in Massapequa, New York, and attended Massapequa High School on Long Island.[13][14] At the age of 16, he spent time volunteering in Kibbutz Sa’ar in Israel.[15] He attended the State University of New York at Oswego, and transferred after his second year to Queens College, City University of New York, where he graduated in 1976 with a degree in communications and theater.[16][17]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Seinfeld
100% agree with Honeybee! Nothing brave about an Instagram post. People need to stay engaged with what’s happening and stand up against Jew hatred. Daily, it is in the news. Jewish leadership has taken a curb side view to the reality that Jews in this country are dealing with daily (this includes our children on college campuses and our grandparents in Jewish neighborhoods). This didn’t start with Kanye and shouldn’t end here.
@Honeybee
A post on Instagram is the limit of their interest here. These lousy liberals see Mr. Ye as being some Republican giant, much as do many in MAGA, unfortunately, and as a result they are seething with the boldness of their political interests to make as much noise as possible in hopes that the American Jews actually will save their fat from the fire in this coming election. Of course, it is all bogus sentiments as they caucus and fund-raise with the antisemitic Squad, but the hypocrisy is of no matter to them because the press has no interest calling out their Instagram antics as being the political BS which anyone could realize if they were interested in really thinking about it for more than half a tick. Though I see it wasn’t wasted on you (being smarter than the average bee no doubt), this reality will likely be wasted on the ~70% of American Jews, who see their ties to the corrupt antisemitic political party which they call home, as presenting a source of support and defense. Some things will never change, and the unbreakable bond between the antisemitic Dems and the ~70% of the the Jews (all of whom they despise), is likely one such thing as this.
A post on Instagram is considered courage ???