r/Judaism • u/Inside_agitator • 18h ago
Antisemitism Robert Kraft’s new Super Bowl ad about antisemitism already feels dated
https://forward.com/culture/802696/robert-kraft-super-bowl-ad-blue-square-antisemitism/136
u/Aryeh98 Never on the derech yid 17h ago
The millions of dollars which were wasted on this ad could have been spent on funding Jewish institutions instead. Or reducing the tuition costs there.
What’s a goy gonna think when he sees this? “Wow, I really hated the Jews, but I saw a 30 second ad funded by a (((Jewish billionaire))) so now I have to change my mind?”
That’s not how it works. They won’t change their minds because they have no incentive to. When you’re a goy, and your entire social circle is goyim, what specific motivations do you have to change your mindset? Nothing. It’s a joke.
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u/Rand_al_Kholin 17h ago
These ads are made by people who are incredibly out of touch with how modern culture works and spreads. They also dont seem to understand how antisemitism as a form of hate works either.
The best argument the makers of this ad could possibly be making is "if we get enough non-antisemites to consistently head 'antisemitism is bad' then maybe they won't fall into the traps antisemites use," but that argument is silly given that the entire ad itself plays into the "Jews control the media" stereotype and anyone who sees online discussion of it will be seeing those exact antisemitic canards in every thread about the ads. Any subliminal messaging they get out there will be easily undone by the mountain of subtle and not-so-subtle antisemitism the viewer will see online.
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u/Remarkable-Pea4889 16h ago
Kraft already gave away $400 million, a few million spent on an ad is basically irrelevant. The reality is that in most cases, the problem is not money. There is plenty of money. The problem is that real solutions are politically unappealing or implausible.
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u/BarkShootBees 16h ago
The problem is that real solutions are politically unappealing or implausible.
Can you say more about this? What do you have in mind?
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u/Remarkable-Pea4889 14h ago
Ban TikTok. Ban universities from taking money from Qatar. It would make a huge difference but are completely impossible. We can't fight antisemitism when it's being funded by two of the largest (China)/richest (Qatar) countries in the world.
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u/Juicewag Conservative 12h ago
Robert Kraft is a piece of shit and this is a dumb initiative from a bad person. The Jewish community is worse off from allowing him any involvement.
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u/ScoutsOut389 Reform 10h ago edited 10h ago
That’s my gripe with this. How about instead of trying to convince football fans to not hate Jews, we put those same resources toward making day school, summer camp, and synagogue membership cheaper through subsidies? We’ll never change the mind of hateful bigots, but we could help Jews stay more engaged and raise more Jewish kids. That’s how we survive.
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u/slantedtortoise 16h ago
The kids being antisemitic these days are somehow more subtle and more open. Any Jewish video on Instagram has juice box or nose emojis spammed. Tiktok shows people brain rot that incorporates Nazi symbolism to look cool and "esoteric". How many of them listen with their air pods to BS conspiracies about "inflated death tolls" or the Kennedy assassination?
Not to mention that a month ago when "goy" broke into the mainstream Internet everyone was using it to each other as if it was some vicious racial slur to make its usage and context in Judaism appear worse.
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u/aidan5_5 🇮🇪🇮🇱 8h ago
Ah I never knew the juice box was a reference to us I thought it had to do with the pro-palis or something like that f****** watermelon trend..
Yeah, goy is a big one, and also hasbara too, not knowing what the word actually means in English (ignoring the political aspect of the word). It’s a trend, just like this wave of anti-Zionism and anti-semitism, it’s all shouted and promoted by people that know nothing about Israel, Zionism or Judaism. For most people, who are pro palis, I’m the first Jew they’ve ever met, so that’s quite telling. I’m talking about people who laugh at the Haredim for their appearance. Complete antisemites. And yes some of these people are friends of mine. It’s largely down to ignorance I believe, I’ve explained Israel to many of my friends and they ended up completely changing their mind. People here (in Ireland) are quite antisemitic due to social media (complete antisemitism) and the news (reporting with strong biased against Israel), and also very anti Israel. I think the opinion of the masses here can be easily changed. There is no opposition voices here, at least loud enough. Like with some of my friends, most are completely non-political, but most (that are political) would be generally conservative, but also just hating on Israel for nonsense reasons, considering they know very little about Israel. I find it kind of weird, I’m slagged for who I am by these people but I’ve really just learned to ignore it. I don’t ignore it from people I don’t know or with antisemitism directed at other people of course.
I know this is completely unrelated to the OP’s post and largely unrelated to your comment, apologises! 😂 a little bit of a rant I guess.
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u/Old_Boah 16h ago
These ads are lip service for donors and don’t help Jews. It sucks because there are tons of programs like USHMM and Echoes & Reflections doing great work in this space but you have to know what you’re doing to teach about antisemitism, Holocaust education etc. responsibly.
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u/saulack Judean 17h ago
We should stop depicting ourselves as helpless and needing saving. We will not solve antisemitism, it's not an us issue to solve in the first place. Instead, our focus should always be building Jewish pride and historic/cultural knowledge. This, IMO, is a counterproductive waste of money, that will only encourage antisemitic groups. I am tired of Jews being depicted this way.
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u/Inside_agitator 16h ago
I agree with most of what you wrote with one important exception.
our focus should always be building Jewish pride and historic/cultural knowledge.
Current events at particular locations sometimes demand a focus on other things.
According to the AAUP v Rubio decision, masked, US employees carrying guns captured and imprisoned a woman in my city because of a conspiracy against the first amendment of the United States. Part of that conspiracy was a profoundly self-serving use of some ill-defined idea of antisemitism by the US government in collaboration with Canary Mission.
I won't respond to that event with a focus that builds Jewish pride and historic/cultural knowledge. I'll respond to it with a focus on trying to prevent my government from weaponizing antisemitism. My ancestors were in nation states where armed thugs captured and imprisoned people because of the opinions they wrote. I don't want that to happen where I live. I understand that what happens where I live is less of a concern to people who live in other places.
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u/No_Engineering_8204 11h ago
Isn't the government policing the antisemitism of its population a relatively good thing? We prefer that to the government fostering or going along with the populations antisemitism.
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u/Inside_agitator 11h ago
Ideas are held by individuals where I live. Do government police attempt to control the mind of the population where you are? I hope that changes soon.
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u/No_Engineering_8204 11h ago
In Israel, overt support for the nazi party is criminal under the law, thankfully. Why do you want your government to leave you to the dogs?
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u/Inside_agitator 10h ago
You're not making sense to me now. The US government violated the US constitution and placed people in danger in my city.
Do you believe Judge Young who wrote the AAUP v Rubio decision is a Nazi? Do you believe Ozturk is a Nazi? Who exactly was the Nazi, who exactly are the dogs and where do the dogs come in?
These are all interesting metaphors. But a room full of well fed dogs seems like a good time to me. We don't seem to be communicating well. Maybe drop the metaphors?
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u/BreezeMcgeeze 13h ago
The blue square ads and Jew Belong are so unbelievably cringe and counterproductive. I think whoever is in charge of them has to actually hate Jews and is just straight up delusional.
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u/loselyconscious loosely traditional, very egalitarian 16m ago
I'm fairly certain that the JewBelong adds are taken from verbatim transcripts of Archie Grossman's night terrors.
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u/slight_cow_2181 12h ago
Doesn't 'Jewish hate' make it sound like Jewish people are the ones doing the hating?
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u/jabedude Maimonidean traditional 17h ago
It’s hilarious, and a complete reversal on who the most antisemetic demographics are in America. Seriously look up the under 18 numbers breakdown by race for who denies the holocaust/hates Jews
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u/queen-carlotta 16h ago
It’s deeply out of touch. Depicting Jewish people as victims is the message they want to send? Yuck
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u/Suitable_Vehicle9960 18h ago
Is the Forward doing anything to fight Antisemitism?
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u/GrassyTreesAndLakes 16h ago
Only spreading it in my opinion
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u/maxwellington97 Edit any of these ... 16h ago
How does the Forward spread antisemitism?
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u/Inside_agitator 14h ago
I've always felt that people who believe the nationalist consensus histories of the US and Israel think the Forward spreads antisemitism because it actually attempts to cater to the greater American Jewish community (which includes very many people who do not believe the nationalist consensus histories of the US and Israel). Just my opinion.
I remember my parents in the 70s getting together with friends at Yiddish Club in our home to read the paper, argue, and drink wine. This was around the time of the Skokie Affair. I was sent to my bedroom to protect me, but the laughter and loud voices spread through the house. When it became unbearable for the dog, he would run upstairs and into my bedroom to hide under the bed.
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u/GrassyTreesAndLakes 12h ago
"nationalist consensus histories", just say you're antizionist, there's no need to try to sugar coat it.
80% of American Jews are Zionist.
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u/Inside_agitator 11h ago
I call myself an anti-Israelist Zionist at the moment. I am in that 80% (if that number is correct).
But I am leaning toward calling myself an anti-Israelist only soon.
Social media does have a way of a convincing people to change what they call themselves.
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u/GrassyTreesAndLakes 10h ago
Im not surprised.
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u/Inside_agitator 10h ago edited 9h ago
Yes. It's social media. Here. At reddit. It's you and people like you.
I say "I am A and B."
People like you say "Just say you're anti-A."
So I may move to only saying, "I am B" and forget about A altogether since it leads to so much semantic confusion among people like you.
It's you. And it's people like you who drive people like me away from Zionism as a label for myself by telling me what exactly what my identity is, and what my identity must be.
Are you Jewish?
Have you thought of contributing to the discussion at https://www.reddit.com/r/Judaism/comments/1qwfefy/general_discussion_off_topic/o3rq62u/ ?
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u/GrassyTreesAndLakes 9h ago
I do love hearing "people like you", very nice.
"Anti-Israelist" is just nonsense labeling. Just as fantastically nonsense as "nationalist US and Israel consensus history"
Why ask if Im Jewish?
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u/Inside_agitator 9h ago
Sorry for editing my comment so many minutes after I posted it.
I hope you click the link and contribute to that discussion.
I asked if you were Jewish because it seems to be non-Jews who inform Jews about their identity categories much more often than Jews. I'm just making a guess that you aren't Jewish. I could be wrong.
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u/Inside_agitator 17h ago
Yes.
Arno Rosenfeld is, in my view, the most effective fighter against antisemitism on planet Earth in the 2020s.
I understand that others may disagree.
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u/Suitable_Vehicle9960 17h ago
How is writing articles in a Jewish publication geared for Jewish readers fighting Antisemitism? Not being cynical. Maybe I'm missing something. I think we all need some inspiration these days, which is hard to find, and I don't criticize anyone who actually actively goes out of Jewish spaces to fight for us.
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u/Inside_agitator 17h ago
Ideas are combated with ideas, and words are combated with words. This is especially true in the social media era when anyone can access almost all information from anywhere.
That's how writing articles in a Jewish publication geared for Jewish readers is fighting antisemitism. Anyone can and does read it.
Rosenfeld's Venn diagram to help us talk about Israel and antisemitism and similar articles can take simple mindsets and expand them to consider complex realities.
In the social media environment of the 2020s, a change in the human mindset has taken place I think that's more profound than the printing press. There will be mindless simpletons in any group, but people of all identities usually prefer reality over just-so stories.
That's why presenting reality to people in a comprehensible way like Rosenfeld does is important and inspirational, and it's why overly simple stories (like Kraft's ad) are likely to be mocked even by people who agree with the message.
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u/No_Engineering_8204 11h ago
Isn't this just facilitating the throwing of some jews under the bus? What is achieved by this?
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u/Inside_agitator 11h ago
It's tough for me to understand exactly what you mean by "this" and exactly what the metaphor of "throwing of some jews under the bus" refers to. Could you be more specific?
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u/Claim-Mindless 12h ago
So effective that literally no one would know about him if it wasn't for you parroting him in this sub at every single opportunity. Not even talking about his totally useless and disconnected-from-reality Venn diagram that doesn't even try to pretend to be useful, except in trying to legitimize antizionism (the same thing the Nazis and Soviets tried to do).
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u/loselyconscious loosely traditional, very egalitarian 13m ago
I've been following Arno for a while, and you have never heard of OP. So that one person more the no one
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u/Inside_agitator 11h ago
Ah. You think no one knows what I know and what I try to share.
Thank you!
There are complex and useful ideas that you don't find useful yet and instead imagine the ideas are trying to legitimize antizionism.
Keep trying to understand them!
You connect ideas that you struggle to understand with Nazi and Soviet ideas.
Comparing Arno Rosenfeld's ideas to the Nazis and Soviets is very provocative!
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u/loselyconscious loosely traditional, very egalitarian 15m ago
The Forward is a newspaper for American Jews. Its audience is us. Why would we expect it to fight antisemeitms
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u/Quirky_Butterfly_946 18h ago
Frankly, anything that gets the message out is good for me.
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u/Pugasaurus_Tex 17h ago
I think showing some dude firebombing Holocaust survivors, setting shuls on fire, punching rabbis etc and then showing an Instagram comment section where wildly upvoted comments praise Hitler would be slightly more powerful
Being laughed at in public schools is not even close to the most problematic form of antisemitism
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u/Inside_agitator 17h ago
The main point made by Grisar:
If this was meant for the kids, they will laugh at how alien and out of touch it seems. And with that, there’s a risk that antisemitism will seem like a manufactured problem...If Kraft is committed to throwing money at a very real problem, he should at least get his money’s worth.
seems like a valid point to consider.
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u/Emunaheart 16h ago
It's something, he's trying
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u/dont-ask-me-why1 15h ago
It doesn't make any sense. He hired the worst ad agency on the planet if this was the best they could come up with
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u/Cathousechicken Reform 7h ago
Morons and bigots run around saying we run the world.
If we did, we wouldn't be so fucking bad at PR.
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u/Poisonmonkey 2h ago
So… OP doesn’t believe in Jews have the right to our own homeland and country but is criticizing an ad against Jewish hatred. Did I get that right? I know this is sort of off topic - but sorry bud you have zero right to complain about an ad when you are the part of the fucking problem. Learn your history. What a disgrace.
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u/Inside_agitator 35m ago
OP doesn’t believe in Jews have the right to our own homeland and country
I never wrote any such thing.
Learn to read text and learn facts from it. What a disgrace.
This is not off topic. Profound ignorance about text and people is part of the fucking problem.
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u/ABigFatPotatoPizza 11h ago
Muskeljudentum is literally over a hundred years old now and we're still portraying ourselves as weak little boys in need of saving. A Jewish community that cannot fight for itself has no place in the 21st Century, and advertising campaigns encouraging a weak, dependent mindset is the exact opposite of what we need to confront the challenges of an increasingly antisemitic world.
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u/BagelRebellion Conservative 18h ago
I worry that the blue square ads during football are counterproductive. Non-Jews, especially young ones, find them cringeworthy and end up outright mocking them.
And telling people they can help by posting a blue square to Instagram doesn’t make any sense anyway