Today I want to reach out to you commenting on the ADL vs. Musk debacle that unfolded this week. For those of you who don’t know, the ADL (Anti-Defamation league) is an organization that is committed to fighting anti-Semitism. Frequently, they are charged by others for stirring the pot and exacerbating anti-Semitism. The ADL is also accused of being alarmists who need anti-Semitism to continue operation, so they “make up” anti-Semitic episodes.

On Monday, Elon Musk threatened to sue the ADL for defaming X. Elon claimed the ADL was labelling X as a hotbed of anti-Semitism, and welcoming to the rhetoric.

I don’t really have a stance on the ADL. A lot of the work they do is respectable and important for the Jewish community. But I didn’t look into the claims of them exacerbating anti-Semitism for their own notoriety.

Anyways, all this is not where I wanted to focus on in this post. Musk tweeted this about a 2009 documentary covering anti-Semitism.

Interesting documentaryhttps://t.co/W1tAOdEaqm

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2023

Of course I watched the documentary! I hated it. But that hasn’t stopped me before. I had to see what the other side has to say! (If you’d like, and the film is still up, you can view it here.)

Here are my thoughts on the film

• Note, I speak Hebrew and understood the language spoken, in its original form: A lot of the time things get lost in translation. It is worth pointing out that I understood the interviewees in their original form. So my understanding of the film goes beyond the simple translations of the interviewees, the cultural references and circumstances come through to me as authentically understood.
• While claiming anti-Semitism is a thing of the past, virulent anti-Semitism is shown throughout the film as alive and thriving nowadays: I mean the film opens with a person (then his grandma) disparaging Jews. Claiming Jews run the world, and an onslaught of anti-Semitic tropes that is embedded in our history. Clearly, scenes were selectively edited and inserted to serve the agenda that anti-Semitism is a thing of the past. I mean he didn’t even provide pushback on peoples’ citations of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a widely proven propogandist work that originated in Russia. Ironically, the film ends with the sunsetting over a concentration camp claiming Jews should move on from playing victim and crying anti-Semitism.

• This film was released in 2009, in a pre-Trump/pre-populist era. Oh how much the world changed: Attacks on synagogues in the US (see my commentary here on the death sentence delivered on the Tree of Life murderer a couple weeks ago), battery and assault at an all time high on identifiably Jewish people, and open anti-Semitism by celebrities and members of Congress all happened in the past three years. Not to discount the chants in Charlottesville, VA of “Jews will not replace us.” This was beyond unimaginable to me in 2009. There was a degree of shame to this kind of vitriolic anti-Semitism.

All this leads me to my final, and main point. Elon is a smart guy. This is not the first time he circulated false and misleading information. But by circulating this film that trivializes anti-Semitism, calling it “interesting” and directing overwhelming traffic to the film, he is circulating a dangerously one sided view of anti-Semitism in our world.

The last thing the Jewish community needs is another crazy person acting on the antisemitism shown in this film. Elon has a platform, a big one. That comes with a certain level of discretion he should exercise. By promoting this one sided view of anti-Semitism, he bears responsibility for the potential misinformation and its propagation among the uneducated.

Keep your eye out for my video on this! Make sure you’re subscribed to my YouTube channel!

No one knows anything. Keep learning. Stay curious. Never stop questioning.

Thank you again for joining Marketplace of Ideas (what I’m calling this for now). I look forward to embarking on this exciting journey with you!

To an independent-thinking, knowledge-seeking, and skeptical you.