HEADLINES | 8
SPECIAL SECTION | 16
SHORT CREEK
CAMP & SCHOOL GUIDE
Podcast focuses on religious community in AZ
David the Dinosaur makes Shabbat fun for kids
JANUARY 22, 2021 | SHEVAT 9, 5781 | VOLUME 73, NUMBER 9
Experts talk about implications of social media crackdown TOBY TABACHNICK | CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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he man who stormed the Tree of Life synagogue building on Oct. 27, 2018, murdering 11 congregants in the midst of Shabbat prayer, was an active user of the social media site Gab. His Gab bio said, “jews are the children of satan,” and his banner image was an unambiguous reference to a white supremacist meme. His final post, just prior to the massacre, read: “Screw your optics, I’m going in.” In the months following the Pittsburgh shooting, many pundits and the ADL urged social media companies to better police racist, violent and anti-Semitic accounts and clarify terms of service to make hateful content harder to find online — and to prevent such content from being monetized. The profligation of extremist activism online worried experts about radicalization, as researchers made connections between violent words and violent actions. “There are 24/7 rallies online,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the ADL said one year after the Pittsburgh shooting. “With just a few clicks, you can literally find what was previously unspeakable. Social media has become a breeding ground for bigotry.” Following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, which left five people dead, the social media giants took serious steps against accounts they deemed potentially dangerous. Twitter suspended more than 70,000 accounts linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose followers believe Donald Trump is secretly saving the world from a cabal of Satanic pedophiles and cannibals, and who traffic in anti-Semitic tropes. Adherents of QAnon were numerous among the mob that stormed the Capitol. Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter “due to the risk of further incitement SEE SOCIAL, PAGE 2 of violence,” Twitter announced.
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Rabbis hail vaccine for COVID-19, encourage its use SHANNON LEVITT | MANAGING EDITOR AND HEATHER ROBINSON | JNS.ORG
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or Rabbi Reuven Mann, the question of whether to get vaccinated against COVID-19 has a simple answer: “Everyone must get the vaccine as this will protect him and the people he comes in contact with.” Mann, the founder of Congregation Torat Emet in Phoenix, has been in Israel since the COVID-19 pandemic began. He and his wife received the first injection of the Pfizer vaccine at the end of December. “According to Judaism one must do everything possible to protect one’s life and insure one’s health,” he said, via email. “We must be grateful to G-d for enabling us to obtain this life-saving treatment as well as to the scientific community that was involved in producing this remedy.” As the U.S. government launched the largest vaccine distribution program in the country’s history, most rabbis seem united in support of the rollout to battle the coronavirus pandemic, and stress that vaccination is consistent with Judaism’s highest value: preserving life. Two Orthodox rabbinical bodies, the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America, issued a joint statement that there’s a Torah obligation to receive the vaccine as soon as it’s available. The vaccines can even be viewed in light of the recent Torah portion about Joseph and his brothers and “the paradox of God’s omnipotent involvement in human affairs versus the necessity and reality of human effort, action and achievement,” according to SEE VACCINE, PAGE 3
Sami Wilder, a third-year medical student at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, receives the COVID-19 vaccine. PHOTO COURTESY OF SAMI WILDER
Challenge Island gives kids chance to prove their mettle On a recent field trip, Jessica Nathan set up a series of STEAM-based challenges for students of Freedom Academy in Scottsdale. To read more, go to p. 15. PHOTO BY JESSICA NATHAN
KEEP YOUR EYE ON jewishaz.com
ISRAEL
Israelis over the age of 40 now eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccine
INTERNATIONAL
New study shows hope in battle against anti-Semitism, though concerns remain
ISRAEL
Amid COVID-19 pandemic, Tel Aviv marathon to go digital