Stop platforming ‘Good Jews’. It’s a pernicious form of antisemitism
The Zionist movement uses every tool at their disposal to silence criticism, and dismissing righteous people as ‘antisemitic’ is one of their most powerful tools. There has been a decades-long effort to confuse the masses.
These aren’t the words of a social media provocateur or a college protester. They were spoken by a man in a shtreimel and peyos — a Chasid, unmistakable in appearance.
He was also wearing a keffiyeh with a red, green, and black fringe.
He belongs to the Neturei Karta — a fringe sect whose ideology is radically anti-Zionist. They represent a tiny fraction of the Jewish world, numbering in the low thousands. Since October 7th, members of this group have been given disproportionate media visibility.
Most recently, Humans of New York — a popular social media page which features profiles of everyday New Yorkers telling their stories — posted a photo of the Neturei Karta member who made the statement above. His words accused “Zionists” of wielding political power to silence dissent — a narrative apropos of classic antisemitic libels, such as those found in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
This was a notable example of the media platforming the “Good Jew.” The Jew who publicly disavows Zionism. The Jew who condemns the State of Israel’s existence. The Jew whose theological and political views stand in stark opposition to the overwhelming majority of world Jewry.
It doesn’t matter that this Jew is a minority among Jews. It doesn’t signify that this Jew has spread sentiments that almost all Jews consider anathema. It isn’t relevant that these Jews have historically partnered with organizations and figures that have openly called for Jewish harm. Their marginal status becomes an asset, a symbol of virtue for audiences who want to hear Jewish condemnation of Israel without confronting their own biases.
This dynamic should feel familiar. After the murder of George Floyd, Forbes published an op-ed on “Black Exceptionalism,” critiquing the tendency to highlight only “respectable” Black success stories. It was dangerous to do so, argued the author, because it played into the notion “that if Black people act the “right way”, they are deserving of decency and respect” — which, flipped around, implies that the Black people who don’t act the “right way” are not worthy of decency and respect.
Why is that logic well-received when applied to other ethnic and racial groups, but not when it comes to Jews?
The truth is that most Jews are Zionists — not blindly, not without criticism of Israeli policy, but because they believe in Jewish self-determination. Yet those Jews are rarely given airtime unless they offer apologies, disclaimers, or distance themselves from the very idea of Israel.
And by giving a platform only to the minority of Good Jews, our media is perpetuating the idea that most Jews are “bad”.
But where are the moderate Jews who seek peace without erasure? Who grieve for Palestinian suffering and also for Israeli losses? Who challenge Israeli policy with nuance and care, not hatred? Who believe in coexistence, not dissolution?
They exist — they might even be the majority.
And if the media just amplified those voices, we might get much closer to real peace.
