HEADLINES | 8 SPECIAL SECTION | 16 SHORT CREEK CAMP & SCHOOL GUIDE Podcast focuses David the Dinosaur on religious makes Shabbat community in AZ fun for kids JANUARY 22, 2021 | SHEVAT 9, 5781 | VOLUME 73, NUMBER 9 $1.50 Experts talk about Rabbis hail vaccine for COVID-19, implications encourage its use SHANNON LEVITT | MANAGING EDITOR AND HEATHER ROBINSON | JNS.ORG of social media or Rabbi Reuven Mann, the question of whether to Fget vaccinated against COVID-19 has a simple answer: crackdown “Everyone must get the vaccine as this will protect him and TOBY TABACHNICK | CONTRIBUTING WRITER the people he comes in contact with.” Mann, the founder of Congregation Torat Emet in he man who stormed the Tree of Life synagogue Phoenix, has been in Israel since the COVID-19 pandemic Tbuilding on Oct. 27, 2018, murdering 11 congregants began. He and his wife received the first injection of the in the midst of Shabbat prayer, was an active user of the social Pfizer vaccine at the end of December. media site Gab. His Gab bio said, “jews are the children of “According to Judaism one must do everything possible to satan,” and his banner image was an unambiguous reference protect one’s life and insure one’s health,” he said, via email. to a white supremacist meme. His final post, just prior to “We must be grateful to G-d for enabling us to obtain this the massacre, read: “Screw your optics, I’m going in.” life-saving treatment as well as to the scientific community In the months following the Pittsburgh shooting, many that was involved in producing this remedy.” pundits and the ADL urged social media companies to As the U.S. government launched the largest vaccine better police racist, violent and anti-Semitic accounts and distribution program in the country’s history, most rabbis clarify terms of service to make hateful content harder to seem united in support of the rollout to battle the corona- find online — and to prevent such content from being virus pandemic, and stress that vaccination is consistent with monetized. The profligation of extremist activism online Judaism’s highest value: preserving life. worried experts about radicalization, as researchers made Two Orthodox rabbinical bodies, the Orthodox Union and connections between violent words and violent actions. the Rabbinical Council of America, issued a joint statement “There are 24/7 rallies online,” Jonathan Greenblatt, that there’s a Torah obligation to receive the vaccine as soon as CEO and national director of the ADL said one year after it’s available. the Pittsburgh shooting. “With just a few clicks, you can The vaccines can even be viewed in light of the recent literally find what was previously unspeakable. Social media Torah portion about Joseph and his brothers and “the has become a breeding ground for bigotry.” paradox of God’s omnipotent involvement in human affairs versus the necessity and reality of human effort, action and Sami Wilder, a third-year medical student at the Mayo Clinic College Following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, which left five people of Medicine and Science, receives the COVID-19 vaccine. dead, the social media giants took serious steps against achievement,” according to SEE VACCINE, PAGE 3 PHOTO COURTESY OF SAMI WILDER accounts they deemed potentially dangerous. Twitter suspended more than 70,000 accounts linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose followers believe Donald Challenge Island gives kids Trump is secretly saving the world from a cabal of Satanic pedophiles and cannibals, and who traffic in anti-Semitic chance to prove their mettle tropes. Adherents of QAnon were numerous among the On a recent field trip, Jessica Nathan set up a series of mob that stormed the Capitol. STEAM-based challenges for students of Freedom Academy Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter “due in Scottsdale. To read more, go to p. 15. to the risk of further incitement PHOTO BY JESSICA NATHAN of violence,” Twitter announced. SEE SOCIAL, PAGE 2 KEEP YOUR EYE ON jewishaz.com ISRAEL INTERNATIONAL ISRAEL Israelis over the age of 40 now eligible New study shows hope in battle against Amid COVID-19 pandemic, Tel Aviv to receive COVID-19 vaccine anti-Semitism, though concerns remain marathon to go digital HEADLINES SOCIAL Telegram was up 146%. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “That’s a problem,” Blee said. “These Other platforms, including Facebook places are slippery. and Instagram, also suspended Trump’s And Telegram and accounts, as well as the accounts of some Signal are very much of his associates. open to hosting these In the wake of the suspensions, many far- kinds of very violent right voices moved to the platform Parler white supremacist until Apple, Google and Amazon removed conversations.” Parler from their platforms too. On the other hand, Shutting down social media accounts and Blee said, when more sites, though, does not necessarily halt the open sites close down, A screenshot of President Donald Trump’s deleted Twitter account spread of violent rhetoric, anti-Semitism or there is usually some other hateful ideologies, according to some threat: Jews held a stranglehold over the 2021 Phoenix law enforcement experts. attrition. economy and were ruining the lives of white “When you limit these types of accounts, “For one thing, some people will not farmers, was kind of the message there.” Jewish News what happens is the folks who are using want to gravitate from the level of what These days, the existential threat is more these various platforms to communicate was being expressed on Facebook or even commonly framed as white genocide or will simply jump to another platform,” Parler, to the next step toward violence,” “the Great Replacement Theory — that Print Dates said Shawn Brokos, director of community she said. “And you are also going to lose whites will become the minority and lose security for the Jewish Federation of Greater some people because, as you get into power,” Blee said. January 8 August 6* Pittsburgh. “We see that all the time in law some of these, they become more and The next precursor to racially motivated enforcement.” She analogized tracking more difficult to access and require more violence is identifying a person or group January 22 August 20 extremists to a game of “whack-a-mole.” technological knowledge.” responsible, she continued. February 5 August 27 Kathleen Blee, a professor of sociology Another downside to moving users off “In the Pittsburgh shooting, the threat at the University of Pittsburgh who has mainstream platforms is that it reifies some was white genocide and the target was February 19 September 3 researched white supremacy and is a of their false beliefs. “For these racially George Soros — so there you have an March 5 September 10 member of one of the three congregations motivated violent extremists, there is amplification by politicians of the same attacked during the shooting at the Tree of this inherent belief that there is a Zionist message that’s being spread on Gab and by March 12 September 24 Life building, agreed there are “downsides” government that is trying to control other white supremacists online.” March 19 October 1 to moving people off of sites where people everybody and that the Jews are behind a To white supremacists, “George Soros” understand that they are being monitored, lot of that,” Brokos said. signifies “Jews,” Blee said, “and they all March 26 October 15** which can have some moderating effect. In fact, that ideology may have motivated understand that. George Soros is to white April 2 November 5 “It’s moving people into these end-to- the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. supremacists what Rothschild was a couple end encrypted — and really the cesspool of “What seems to have happened with decades ago. Probably most of these people April 16 November 19 the internet — sites that are just vehicles for him very much fits the pattern we see in couldn’t tell you who George Soros is — May 7 December 3 the most horrific white supremacist, violent, other kinds of racially motivated violence,” just an image that stands in for Jews writ anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant views,” Blee said Blee. “First, there’s a sense of some large, Jewish control.” May 21 December 17 said. “So, that’s a problem, obviously. And enormous existential threat out there. If After identifying the threat and the target, June 4 it’s hard to monitor what individuals are you think of the 1980s and ’90s, when the third stage is a “sense of urgency,” doing on them — it’s not hard to monitor the white supremacists became significant Blee said. July 9 *Best of Magazine them in the aggregate, but it is hard to pin in this country, the existential threat was “That’s the final trigger. ‘You can’t just **Annual Directory anything to an individual user.” banking and farm foreclosures — it was wait around and mobilize yourself for the As of last week, use of apps favored by the beginning of the militia movement and threat, you have to act now’ -- that’s the WWW.JEWISHAZ.COM extremists had skyrocketed, Blee said. really the resurgence of anti-Semitism in a message …. It’s pernicious in any form. Users on Signal had increased 677% and very public way. 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