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Merrimac Man Sentenced to Ten Years in Federal Prison for Attempted Sex with a Minor
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edwi/pr/merrimac-man-sentenced-ten-years-federal-prison-attempted-sex-minor
Young US Zionists say they’re fighting antisemitism online, but is it effective?
A group of pro-Israel Jews in their 20s and 30s assertively defend Zionism and Jews on social media, but critics across the political spectrum question the campaign’s efficacy
NEW YORK (JTA) — Two weeks after the recent flareup of violence in Israel and Gaza, as fights over Israel and Palestine raged on social media, Julia Jassey wondered aloud whether any of her effort was worth it.
Jassey, a student at the University of Chicago, has spent the better part of a year immersed in online skirmishes surrounding Israel and antisemitism. Last summer, as racial justice protests swept the country, she and a few other college students founded Jewish on Campus, an Instagram account chronicling antisemitism and anti-Zionism facing Jewish students. It was modeled after similar accounts documenting racism at universities and high schools.
In recent weeks, Jewish on Campus has collected anonymous anecdotes of antisemitism online and in person in the wake of the Israel-Gaza conflict. Jassey said the account has been inundated with submissions. At the same time, harsh critics of Israel have taken aim at her and her personal posts — including some people she knows from school.
“We can’t even have meaningful discussions, we just fight,” she tweeted on June 3. “It’s toxic, and it brings us nowhere productive. Where do we go from here? I don’t know about you, but I am tired of it.”
Jassey is part of a small group of young, assertively Zionist Jews with an active social media presence who have taken it upon themselves to call out and respond to anti-Zionism, antisemitism and the many instances in which they believe those two concepts overlap.
But after weeks of fighting over Israel and Judaism on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram, those activists, and others who observe them, are asking whether the effort of combating antisemitism online, in real time, is winnable or worthwhile.
Does that fight create space for substantive dialogue or narrow it? Can a crusade to combat antisemitism distort our understanding of it? What does it do to the mental and emotional health of those involved? Is social media, with algorithms that incentivize division and anger, and policies that have long been criticized for tolerating hate speech, the right arena for this debate?
There’s no secret meme, silver meme, that is being developed that someone is going to glance at and is going to say, ‘That explains the complexity of the Israeli-Palestinian situation to me’
“Do I think that having full-out brawls on social media are effective? No,” said Susan Heller Pinto, the Anti-Defamation League’s senior director for international affairs. “If that’s how somebody seeks to engage, it’s really going to only appeal to the people who are already hardened in their opinions.
More dribble
https://www.timesofisrael.com/young-us-zionists-say-theyre-fighting-antisemitism-online-but-is-it-effective/