A thread on a very unpleasant day on this website.

1) My partner tells me that I have a habit of starting at step 7 when everyone else is at step 1. She's a smart cookie. I want to unpack some of my own assumptions for those who are willing to read in good faith.

My assumptions about the internet are informed by being on it for a very long time. None of this recent drama is new or even unique to Jews. Anyone who was on message boards in the 90s and aughts will immediately recognize what went down.

There's a lot of unpleasant behavior on the internet because it's frankly easier to be mean over a keyboard than it is in person. I include myself in that assessment! My cultural background means you're polite to a fault until lines are crossed.

I'll get to the lines in a moment, but one of the things that enables being cruel to folks online is that you can often do this anonymously.

I do not believe you get to be cruel anonymously. Twitter permits it, other platforms permit it. I still believe what I believe.

I firmly believe that if you are dishing it you have to accept that others will dish back. I believe this even after a day of being inundated with folks really dishing it back in ways that are legitimate and in ways that, in my eyes, are absolutely not.

2) A great many folks regard it as doxxing to say the name of the person who is criticizing others. I don't! The reason for this are alluded to in previous tweets but I will repeat again why here (THIS IS A MULTI PART TWEET I'd appreciate it if you didn't quote it out of context)

The problem with the formulation of "one person gets to be anonymous and encourage dog piling while another does not" is that it's not a level playing field. How this is leveled is by making both participants own what they are saying.

Supporters of the person I had the misfortune of siding against point out that this person is subjected to targeted harassment from Nazis. If true, this is alarming and should factor into the assessment. But follow this to its logical conclusion.

I have also been subjected to death threats, harassment, and trolling from Nazis. I don't wish it on anyone. But that argument has not stopped the person in question from criticizing Jews *by name and tag* that she disagrees with. Why one line for one and another for others?

Put differently, the dogpile her followers subjected me to today would not have changed if I reminded them that I am also harassed by Nazis not just for disagreeing with them, but for arguing that the government should be cracking down on them. 1 set of rules for both parties!

Any argument that one party deserves one set of rules and another deserves a different (and more unpleasant) set is not a tenable position. You can't ask people to accept that they can be criticized in a public forum in harsh terms and not even know who is doing it.

3) I mostly try to avoid a lot of mishegas on this site unless it's worthwhile to get into. I'm not sure it was worthwhile to wade into this as a personal experience, but why I did is because the person in question dragged my friends into it and has before.

It's easy not to notice things when you are not on the receiving end of it. Many people know the critic as someone who argues for a strong Zionist line. I'm a proud Zionist. So I'm not the usual target. Her targets are folks I often disagree with (and clash with): leftist Jews

What I have experienced, observed, and tried to change for myself is recognizing when an ideological or policy disagreement is about more than what's being discussed. I used to be the guy who would fight with a lot of leftist Jews, many of whom happen to be Black or PoC.

To my mind, I didn't see an issue in arguing with them.

I didn't think I disagreed with them because of their race as defined in America! Jews are Jews and these Jews are wrong.

But I didn't ask myself why I kept having the same fights with the same Jews of Color.

I didn't ask myself this question because I didn't have to. I wasn't subjected to it. The beauty of this website, and why I haven't quit, is because I befriended Jews who don't look like me. (Including Zionist ones!)

You start to see things differently when it's your friends.

Offline, in the real world, as a Jew from the former Soviet Union, I have been routinely subjected to "questions" people think are acceptable: are you really a Jew? But on this site I'm another white Jew.

That's the daily experience of Jews of Color on this site.

Let me repeat that again: it is a routine experience for Jews of Color and Black Jews to log into this website and have their status as a Jew questioned.

I didn't know that until I saw my own friends being subjected to it. You start to get angry about different things.

I bring it up because I believe the person I tussled with also sees things as I once did. I don't believe she appreciates how her heated rhetoric towards Leftist Jews and JoC enables abusive behavior that should be beyond the pale.

What prompted me to comment today in favor of leveling the playing field was not her fight with a guy who, if he remembers me, definitely does not like me. It was that her followers were harassing Jews of Color who *liked his tweets*. An argument that had nothing to do with them!

Now, you can read her retweeting this behavior and the wildly abusive dogpiling I've been subjected to (already in this thread a follower of hers called me a Kapo and compared me to people who disappeared my family) as something beyond her control. But distributing it is!

I hope if she reads this thread in full, that she will understand I am making this argument in the hopes of trying to improve the way we disagree with each other on this website. Her followers hate my guts this thread won't change any of their minds!

I hope she will read this thread in full to consider what makes for healthy arguing and what does not. If you are reading, I hope you will too. The next tweet will be proposals that, if adopted by her or other Jews, I believe will make Jwitter healthier for all.

1) It's not fair to criticize and argue anonymously when your opponents are not anonymous. Level the playing field in the way that is safe to you and your family and fair to your opponents.

2) Please take some time to ask yourself why it's always the same group of folks that you're arguing with, and why your followers think it's fair game to attack their status as Jews when disagreeing. It's hard to see things from someone else's eyes, but doing it is rewarding!

3) Please discourage dogpiling from your followers. You have a reputation for it. Today many folks privately discouraged me from saying anything about you because your followers can be quite cruel. Is this really what you want to be known for? I sincerely hope it is not.

4) Let me know how I can do better on this site. I'm not an angel, and I certainly have my own blind spots. But understand that there is a big difference between "do better" and "never criticize me."

What kind of Jews would we be if we never argued?