Leading Jewish figures targeted with renewed online antisemitism

"Fire up the ovens" a common tweet from gleeful Trump supporters.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: JANUARY 24, 2019 20:19
An example of antisemitic incitement on Twitter (photo credit: TWITTER)
An example of antisemitic incitement on Twitter
(photo credit: TWITTER)
As the US election results began to unfold on Tuesday night, liberal American journalist Peter Beinart tweeted "I've never felt more Jewish and less American."
He was commenting on the rhetoric of division between different segments of the US electorate during the turbulent campaign, and those feelings were compounded by a deluge of antisemitic abuse.
A glut of mostly anonymous trolls set upon the Atlantic and Haaretz contributer, with gratuitous references to forced expulsions and the Holocaust.
Reactions to Peter Beinart
Fellow journalists Ben Shapiro, Yair Rosenberg and Nate Cohn, among a number of others, were also sent or mentioned in antisemitic tweets; by now the phenomenon is de rigueur when prominent Jewish figures comment on social media.
Antisemitism has found significant growth engines in the digital media age, with Twitter-based antisemites fueled by alt-right forums such as the Daily Stormer, which was predictably alight with new posts relating to "The Jewish Problem" as Trump's victories began to roll in.
Alt-right Daily Stormer forum
According to a previous study of online antisemitism by the ADL, between August 2015 and July 2016 2.6 million antisemitic tweets were sent by users, with around 800 Jewish journalists receiving approximately 19,000 of the tweets.
The rate of the abuse had turned up a gear significantly during 2016, with Trump supporters far more likely to be behind the abuse than supporters of other candidates.