Actor Seth Rogen is in hot water over his recent mockery of concerns about rising anti-Semitism on social media.
On Wednesday, Tablet writer Eve Barlow tweeted a link to her essay titled, “The Social Media Pogrom.” In it, she detailed evidence that online hate is increasing amid rising conflict in the Middle East:
The activity that Jews—Zionist Jews in particular—experienced all over the web was bizarre at best and invalidating, abusive, and dehumanizing at worst. Zionist Jews weren’t just being unfollowed for advocating for themselves and their brothers and sisters in Israel and Palestine, we were also losing access to direct message and comment abilities, having posts removed for violating community guidelines (while blatant antisemitism online almost never receives the same treatment), and having our accounts threatened with temporary suspension or closure.
The cherry on top, of course, was that we were simultaneously fighting off a barrage of thousands upon thousands of troll comments and hateful direct messages, which frequently included homophobic, misogynistic, and extremely violent language.
As one example, Barlow referenced the grade-school name-calling she has endured, with critics littering her mentions with the moniker, “Eve Fartlow.” She wondered if the attacks are an attempt at psychological warfare, a kind of “digital waterboarding aimed at forcing me to surrender, delete all my accounts, log out of all my devices, and commit digital suicide.”
Rogen’s response to these emotional revelations? He posted a puff of air emoji, which many took as a reference to passing gas.
The social media manager for the U.K.-based Israel Advocacy Movement quickly replied to the celebrity, “Three days ago I was violently assaulted leaving a kosher restaurant because I was visibly Jewish. When a Jewish journalist spoke out against this violence… you humiliated her to your 9M followers. Would you humiliate people opposing anti-black racism? I don’t think so.”
Rogen’s ridicule comes as the Anti-Defamation League reports a massive uptick in online hate against Jews, including more than 17,000 tweets using the phrase “Hitler was right” in the week between May 7 and May 14 alone.
Rogen, who is Jewish by birth, has a history of disavowing Israel. As The Daily Wire reported, the actor said in July 2020 he was “fed a huge amount of lies about Israel” while he was growing up. “They never tell you that, ‘Oh, by the way, there were people there,’” he said in reference to the Palestinian conflict. “They make it seem like it was just like sitting there, like the [fu**ing] door’s open.”
In an interview with fellow comedian Marc Maron, Rogen argued that he sees little reason for Israel to exist as a nation, saying, “To me it just seems an antiquated thought process. If it is for religious reasons, I don’t agree with it, because I think religion is silly. If it is for truly the preservation of Jewish people, it makes no sense, because again, you don’t keep something you’re trying to preserve all in one place — especially when that place has proven to be pretty volatile, you know?” He then added, ‘I’m trying to keep all these things safe, I’m gonna put them in my blender and hope that that’s the best place.’”
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.