WATCH: TOI blog post sensation, ‘I’m that Jew’
Eitan Chitayat’s video puncturing anti-Semitic tropes spreads across the Web, a defiant retort to the haters
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleMiriam Herschlag is Opinion & Blogs editor at The Times of Israel
Being members of the tribe is not the only thing Bob Dylan, Elena Kagan, Richard Dreyfuss, Jack Black and Moses have in common. All of them, and more than a hundred more of your finest semites, also make cameo appearances in a new video by Eitan Chitayat, a Tel Aviv-based marketing professional and, not coincidentally, Times of Israel blogger.
Since dropping on YouTube and Facebook on Friday, the video has racked up more than two million views and shares, its popularity spurred by those seeking escape from a new surge in anti-Jewish social media content.
The video’s fast-paced stream of (mostly) Jewish figures illustrates Chitayat’s text, originally published on his Times of Israel blog, that reels off a litany of varied and often contradictory Jewish stereotypes. The defiant, celebratory tone has viewers thanking Chitayat, who says he did it “lest any Jew forget.”
“[B]ecause of all the violence directed at us, the hatred, the incitement to kill, the vile words, the missiles, the rockets, the knives, the rocks, the deafening silence of the world that we all feel right now – we should be proud of our heritage, accomplishments and spirit.”
“We’re okay,” Chitayat wrote. “In fact, we’re more than okay.”
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