By COLlive reporter
Facebook is rejecting promotional ads for the new adult education course about antisemitism and Jewish identity offered by the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute (JLI), the adult education arm of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, eJewishPhilanthropy reported.
The course titled “Outsmarting Antisemitism: How to Beat it with Purpose, Positivity and Jewish Pride” will be presented by Chabad Shluchim and Shluchos in over 500 Chabad centers around the world this November.
Using history, Talmudic sources, Jewish mysticism, contemporary expert analysis and captivating case studies, this course considers the sources of this ancient hatred, along with the appropriate strategies for overcoming it.
Despite taking an upbeat tone of the class (“find the confidence to fight hate with hope and to stand tall against antisemitism with positivity, purpose, and plenty of Jewish pride!”), the social media giant has labeled it an issue connected to politics and “sensitive social issues.”
JLI’s Marketing Director Rabbi Zalman Abraham said that about 50 Shluchim and Chabad centers tried purchasing and scheduling ads to reach out to their local community but they all were rejected by Facebook.
Rabbi Abraham told COLlive.com: “While we commend Facebook’s efforts to block hate speech across their platforms, it is frustrating that they have not yet figured out how to discern hate speech from its opposite and instead choose to shut down all conversations on the topic—including silencing the voices of our instructors who are working to educate the public in the struggle against the world’s oldest and longest-running hatred.”
Facebook has come under criticism for disseminating hate speech and promised to crack down on it, most recently last week at the International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance in Malmö, Sweden. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said the company is “now removing 15 times more hate speech than we were just five years ago.”
The Anti-Defamation League, one of the organizations that called for an advertising boycott of Facebook and Instagram, told eJewishPhilanthropy that it’s aware of the problem of tech companies “overenforcing” their hate policies against benign content, although it hadn’t seen the ads Chabad has tried to run.
Facebook needs to address hate speech while not penalizing good actors, an ADL spokesperson said: “Given Facebook’s vast resources, employing the appropriate amount of human reviewers to make this possible should be within their reach.”
Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.
VIDEO: The trailer to the class Facebook didn’t appprove
Because now even the Jews who are (sadly still) on the political Left, will appreciate the extent to which Facebook sensors and shapes public opinion.
Yes, these Jews are finally beginning to realize the importance of free speech.
… Regarding a bee:
To paraphrase, “We want neither your honey nor your sting…”
Chabad should open up there own: YouTube app ( which goes through the same problem) WhatsApp and now facebook. It’s coming to the point, when back in the day yidden were going to goyish newspapers for news till yidden decided to make the first jewish newspaper: the jewish press. An from there a lot more jewish newspapers rolled out. Chabad should start thinking about making their own social media platforms. it will not attract the outside world as much? Then send in ads that are “neutral “, I guess?! It sounds horrible to tailor yiddishkeit according to goyish needs. It’s… Read more »
“While we commend Facebook’s efforts to block hate speech across their platforms…”
What’s to commend at all? Who appointed them the speech police? Especially since “blocking hate speech” is, in this case as in so many others, little more than a fig leaf for censoring non-left-wing-approved opinions.
AGAIN A JEW WANTS TO APPEASE THE GOYIM AND GOYISHE JEWS
This is why Mr Trump is launching a new social platform
TRUTH Social
Or will it be inundated by antisemites who will attack and vilify Jews, and gang up on them and report the Jewish and pro Jewish comments to get them deleted while many of the antisemitic ones remain, like they do on Youtube?
I just saw the excellent presentation video by Rabbi Scnhuer Zalmon Zalakos of Siberia, as given at Chabad Kinnus. It is an excellent presentation of how and why all Jews need to come together to fight Antisemitism regardless of politics. I am also member of the Milwaukee Jewish Community Relations Council who as the son of a Shoah survivor, has spent 50+ years fighting AntiSemitism. Rabbi Zalakos took on a task to spread the joy of Judaism in a part of the world formerly known as the place where dissidents (Jews and others) were sent to gulag labor camps—most did… Read more »