JewBelong [as in jew be long GONE]

[yankeedoodle]

JewBelong is a website that claims to promote and explain Judaism mostly to Jews, as well as to act as a community space for Jews who feel distant or insecure about Jewish religion, heritage and culture.

However, it is openly targeting Palestinian accounts – occasionally giving cash prizes – in clear violation of stated Meta community standards to "include different views and beliefs, especially from people and communities that might otherwise be overlooked or marginalized."

If these are indeed values to which Meta holds itself, Palestine is apparently an exception to the norm.

Cash to harass
Incentivized online harassment of pro-Palestine accounts has long been a Zionist strategy. For years, Israel has offered "hasbara fellowships", which are essentially scholarships given to students to engage in digital propaganda for Zionism and the Israeli colonial regime.

Hasbara is the term used by Israel for its various promotional activities.

The now-defunct app Act. IL, which was aligned with the Israeli government, offered its users various "prizes" and scholarships to complete digital "missions" – including spamming the inboxes of companies or universities hosting pro-Palestine material in order to push for cancellation.

And while they do not appear to offer monetary compensation, blacklist sites such as Canary Mission and the more recent Stopantisemitism.org weaponize the trope of "fighting anti-Semitism" to encourage Zionists to mass-report Palestinians and their allies.

JewBelong is a non-profit group founded in 2017 by Archie Gottesman and Stacy Stuart that, according to its ProPublica page depends entirely on "contributions," meaning donations, for income.

Its initial purpose was supposedly to "provide straightforward explanations, clear definitions, meaningful readings and easy rituals so that anyone who's interested in starting or reigniting a Jewish practice can find a way in that works for them."

Now it seems that JewBelong has embraced digital advocacy for Israel and Zionism that includes harassment of pro-Palestine accounts.

An honest reveal
This may not be a rebrand so much as an honest reveal. Several team members of JewBelong have direct ties to Zionist organizations and institutions.

Co-founder Archie Gottesman has been a board member of organizations such as Israel Campus Coalition, Democratic Majority for Israel, and the liberal-Zionist faux-feminist Zioness.

Advisory board member Yuval David is a "go-to host and narrator for Jewish, Israeli, LGBTQ, arts, cultural and humanitarian organizations and initiatives" that include the US branch of the colonial Jewish National Fund, and the far-right Israel lobby group StandWithUs.

Fellow advisory board member Noa Tishby is an Israeli actress and writer whose first book is titled Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth. She is also the "first-ever Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs special envoy to combat anti-Semitism and delegitimization" of Israel.

And that's not all: the organization's recently-launched Partisan Prizes has provided $360 payments to "brave social media influencers working day and night to call out anti-Semitism and protect Israel's right to defend herself."

JewBelong claims to have awarded 23 young individuals with cash prizes for digital pro-Israel advocacy. Awarded accounts include those of Zionist journalist Eve Barlow and Zioness.

One of the prize recipients, who goes by @partisanprincess on Instagram (attributing the origin of this handle to JewBelong's creation of the Partisan Prize) has been repeatedly and systematically mass-reporting pro-Palestine accounts in an explicitly acknowledged attempt to get them deleted.

Screenshots obtained by The Electronic Intifada reveal stories and posts by @partisanprincess encouraging followers to mass-report accounts such as the Palestine Pod, a podcast about Palestine co-hosted by Lara Elborno and Michael Schirtzer.

"@thepalestinepod was taken down once, we can do it again," reads one story that labels a Palestine Pod episode with a Palestinian guest speaker "vile propaganda."

The Palestine Pod account was temporarily deleted by Instagram, though it was restored following a sustained social media and legal campaign.

Meta employees subsequently said that the account was mistakenly flagged for data scraping, the act of automating access to, or scraping information from Meta products. Usually, such issues resolve themselves prior to deletion, but this was not the case for the Palestine Pod.
Vicious backlash
This incentivized mass-reporting is having a range of impacts. The Instagram page for @crackheadbarneyandfriends – a self-described New York City folk-hero and anti-fascist performance artist – was deleted after the program dedicated an episode to Israel's assassination of Palestinian reporter Shireen Abu Akleh (the page was eventually restored.)

But even when JewBelong's mass-reporting campaign does not result in accounts being deleted, it still encourages targeted harassment that can in turn have a chilling effect.

Palestine Pod co-host Michael Schirtzer told The Electronic Intifada that "Zionists routinely make death threats at activists supporting Palestinian rights. This includes Palestinian activists and anti-Zionist Jewish activists."

The fact that anti-Zionist Jews have also been heavily targeted in this latest harassment campaign shows that the issue is not anti-Semitism, as Zionists are wont to maintain, but rather the threat embodied by a political coalition between Palestinians and Jews that squarely rejects Zionist colonization.

In researching the campaign against the Palestine Pod, Schirtzer discovered, he said, a "digital hasbara" WhatsApp group that "encourages group to report Palestinian accounts and anti-Zionist Jews including Rabbi Brant Rosen."

Rosen is the founder of Tzedek Chicago, a Chicago-based synagogue formed in an attempt to create a Jewish communal space outside of Zionist principles. In March 2022, Tzedek Chicago went from a "non-Zionist" to an "anti-Zionist" position, making it possibly the first anti-Zionist synagogue in the US.

Rosen told The Electronic Intifada that the reaction to the announcement, especially online, was intense.

"We expected some backlash. But almost immediately, Twitter and Instagram just exploded," Rosen said. "The responses were vicious and increasing. The majority of them were coming from places I didn't recognize. I was gaining followers from Twitter accounts with Israeli names, and zero followers... clearly there was some kind of new online campaign that I have never seen before. I was especially taken aback by how long it lasted. It just dragged on for weeks."

Rosen added that, in his opinion, "Israel and the Zionist movement have among the most sophisticated bot infrastructures in the Twittersphere. It's widespread and nasty, and it's very well organized. I've never seen anything quite like it."

Full article here:
Meta facilitates bullying of Palestine activists
https://electronicintifada.net/content/meta-facilitates-bullying-palestine-activists/35991

From the jewbelong GONE website:  https://www.jewbelong.com/

Have you ever asked yourself, "Why be Jewish?" Us too! The short answer is that Judaism is a somewhat easy and time-tested (like 5,000+ years) way to add meaning and connection to your life. But yeah, sometimes Judaism can be more complicated than your last girlfriend. That's where JewBelong comes in. Think of us as the friendly, kinda funny kid from your geometry class who explained in simple language and without judgment only what you needed to know for the test. We provide straightforward explanations, readings and rituals to help warm your heart. We promise never to JewBarrass* you because we've been there. We're thrilled that you're here, and hope you find what you're looking for.

[*You've said or done something jewish "wrong."  We've all been there.  At JewBelong, we're on a mission to end jewbarrassment so that people can focus on the good parts.  ]