‘Dead Jew’ is newest anti-Semitic phrase on French Twitter

JTA — Hundreds of French Twitter users wrote the phrase “a dead Jew” on Twitter after the company removed some anti-Semitic content.

Twitter agreed to pull anti-Semitic materials offline on Oct. 19 after the Union of French Jewish Students threatened legal action. During that week, a hashtag meaning “a good Jew” became the third most popular among French-language Twitter users. Le Monde wrote that the hashtag functioned as the entry to a virtual “contest of anti-Semitic jokes.”

On Monday, the Jewish student association reported that Twitter still carried anti-Semitic hashtags and content including images.

Some of the users of the “dead Jew” hashtag, or “unjuifmort,” wrote that they were using it to protest censorship on Twitter. A user on the account of Kamel Mezouar wrote the hashtag and added, “Here comes the Mossad.”

Others posted the “dead Jew” hashtag along with “dead Muslim” and slogans for freedom of speech.

Stephane Lilti, a lawyer for the student association, told the French news agency AFP that her group has flagged the anti-Semitic tweets in a report to Twitter.

“We are giving a few days for these tweets that we have drawn attention to be taken off,” Lilti said.