Behind the Aegis
Behind the Aegis's JournalTikTok adds new features to direct users to reliable information about the Holocaust
TikTok announced a raft of new features intended to reduce the spread of misinformation about the Holocaust shared on the platform and to direct users to trustworthy sources about the subject.
Beginning Thursday, a banner will pop up when users search for Holocaust-related terms and direct them to aboutholocaust.org, a website run by the World Jewish Congress and UNESCO to offer information about Holocaust history. A link to the website will also pop up for users viewing hashtags related to the Holocaust like #Holocaust and #HolocaustSurvivor.
The new features were announced on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is marked on the day that Auschwitz was liberated. The social media platform, which features short videos, has pledged to crack down on hate speech shared on the platform in the past and has worked with the Anti-Defamation League to develop protocols for determining hate speech.
“Hateful behavior of any kind is incompatible with our values and the inclusive environment we are building at TikTok. We condemn antisemitism in all its forms and deploy a combination of technologies and moderation teams to remove antisemitic content and accounts from our platform, including Holocaust denial or any other form of hate speech directed at the Jewish community,” the company said in an announcement.
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Antisemitic flyers found in neighborhoods in at least three cities over the weekend
Source: NBC
Residents in at least three cities across the country found antisemitic flyers outside their homes on Sunday, according to authorities.
The flyers distributed overnight in neighborhoods in and around Denver, San Francisco and Miami all appear to be similar in nature, according to local NBC affiliates and regional officials.
"Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish," many, if not all, of the flyers said. Listed on the paper were government officials who have played a part in managing the pandemic and the flyers say are Jewish, according to local NBC affiliates and regional officials.
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In the Denver metro area, "white supremacist and anti-vaccine propaganda was also distributed locally with the antisemitic messages," according to the Anti-Defamation League Mountain States Region.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/antisemitic-flyers-found-in-neighborhoods-in-at-least-three-cities-over-the-weekend/ar-AAT8xdx?ocid=msedgntp
According to the ADL, these also popped up again in Maryland and Texas, as well, this weekend.
Four maps that explain the Russia-Ukraine conflict
The conflict playing out between Russia and Ukraine is one marked by land borders and shaped by strategic influence. Moscow sees Ukraine as an important buffer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. Ukraine sees Russia as an aggressor that has already occupied parts of Ukrainian territory.
Here are four maps that help explain the deep roots of the conflict and where things stand right now.
How are Russia and Ukraine linked historically?
The historical links date as far back as the 9th century, when a group of people called the Rus moved their capital to Kyiv — a legacy President Vladimir Putin has often invoked when arguing that Ukraine is bound to Russia.
How Ukraine became Ukraine, in 7 maps
Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until it declared independence in August 1991.
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Opinions The myth that Jews are all-powerful is the biggest threat to Jewish lives
During Shabbat morning prayer services at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Tex., Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker let in a man who was asking for help. The man soon turned a gun on the rabbi, holding him and three other congregants hostage in a harrowing 11-hour ordeal. He ordered the rabbi to call the leader of Central Synagogue in New York City, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, and demand that she free a convicted terrorist serving an 86-year sentence.
The idea that a rabbi could overturn a criminal conviction at the drop of a hat is such a stereotype of a stereotype that it’s almost comical. And yet it is precisely this type of absurd conspiratorial thinking that presents the greatest threat to Jewish lives.
“This was somebody who literally thought that Jews control the world,” Cytron-Walker told a reporter at the Forward. “He thought he could come into a synagogue, and we could get on the phone with the ‘Chief Rabbi of America’ and he would get what he needed.”
This weekend’s Texas hostage situation highlights the deadliest threat to Jews today: the myth of Jewish power. The conspiracy theory that Jews are uniquely evil and influential has led to the spilling of Jewish blood since at least the Middle Ages and heavily influenced the Nazi ideology that left 11 million dead, including 6 million Jews. But it isn’t just systematic use of the trope for political ends, on the level of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” that Jews should fear. Even the sort of casual “jokes” that spread online in extremist circles can be deadly.
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One needs go no further than the comment section of this article to see what the article is discussing in action!
Antisemitic tropes cited by the Texas synagogue hostage-taker have deep roots
Malik Faisal Akram’s decision to take four hostages at a Texas synagogue left many wondering: Why Colleyville? Why the Beth Israel Congregation?
The 44-year-old British citizen chose the small, tightknit congregation, according to his hostages and those who heard him on the live stream of Saturday services, because he saw it as the closest gathering of Jewish people to a federal facility in Fort Worth where a convicted terrorist was being held.
Akram wanted the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman serving an 86-year sentence in federal prison in Fort Worth for trying to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. And he apparently thought the Jewish worshipers assembled for the Sabbath could make that happen — drawing upon centuries-old antisemitic tropes and conspiracies that Jews secretly control the moves of politicians and manipulate world events to their advantage.
Akram told the assembled that he chose to attack a synagogue because “America only cares about Jewish lives,” according to Beth Israel member Stacey Silverman, who viewed the online Shabbat service.
“He even said at one point that ‘I’m coming to you because I know President Biden will do things for the Jews. I know President Trump will do things for the Jews,’ ” Jeffrey Cohen, one of the hostages, told CNN. Akram “came here, he came to us, he terrorized us, because he believed … these antisemitic tropes that the Jews control everything, and if I go to the Jews, they can pull the strings,” Cohen said.
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Muslim groups show support for Jewish community after Dallas hostage crisis
In the aftermath of the hostage crisis in Colleyville, Texas at the Congregation Beth Israel, religious groups are coming together to condemn the actions of Malik Faisal Akram, the British national behind Saturday’s crisis.
“I swear to my lord and maker, that there is no act that can justify going into a holy place of worship and holding people hostage,” said Khalid Hamideh of the Islamic Association of North Texas. “I don’t care what your motivation is, it’s entirely wrong and unjust.”
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“Antisemitism is real, and we feel with our Jewish brothers and sisters,” Hamideh said. He added that individuals who commit these crimes are doing “something that is absolutely unconstitutional, illegal, inhumane – because we feel the same thing with Islamophobia.”
The Islamic community in North Texas has had strong relations with the Jewish community for many years. Hamideh recalls times when he would visit the synagogue to learn more about the Jewish faith, and when the synagogue’s congregants would, in turn, come to his mosque to learn about Islam.
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Texas rabbi details standoff: Gunman 'literally thought that Jews control the world'
COLLEYVILLE, Texas — During the nearly 11 hours he was held hostage inside Congregation Beth Israel on Saturday, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker focused on what he’d learned in security workshops — “Do whatever you have to do to get out,” he said — and on making sure that the gunman saw him and the three other congregants inside the synagogue as human beings.
But Cytron-Walker was able to steal brief moments for reflection, silently praying the Sh’ma and offering the Hashkiveinu: “Grant, O God, that we lie down in peace, and raise us up, our guardian, to life renewed. Spread over us the shelter of your peace.”
As the hours passed and Malik Faisal Akram, the British gunman, became increasingly agitated, Cytron-Walker saw an opportunity to escape. One hostage had been released earlier in the day, and Cytron-Walker told the two men who remained with him to run for a fire door before throwing a chair at the assailant and sprinting after them.
“It was really a matter of looking and waiting for an opportunity where all of us could go and no one would be left behind,” Cytron-Walker said in an interview with the Forward on Monday morning.
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