Here is the thing. I don't actually know Kraft's politics and I don't know that it has any relevancy to this ad. Obviously he hired some very mainstream Jewish group to put it together and just paid for it. For the modern left and this means everyone from center left mainstreamers to hard left radicals, victimhood is fully intertwined with virtue. That is why since 10/7, useless prigs like Charles Schumer keep insisting how many of hate crimes are against Jews. So we can be the biggest victims. We know this is not what is needed. What is needed is a full throated no holds barred defense of Israel Zionism and the Jewish people. And our enemies need to be called out for what they are, modern Nazis. And we need to welcome and thank the millions of American gentiles like John Fetterman or Patricia Heaton who stand with us. We need to make a stand not beg to be allowed into the pantheon of victim hood. And this is where Kraft went wrong.
Gentry liberals, esp the wealthy and/or those who were raised in the 20th century, are NEVER ever ever going to face the reality and causes of our current eruption of Jew hate, mostly because they will never relinquish what's maybe the most influential post-WW2 idea, that sentimental therapeutic humanitarianism is a balm that can heal all wounds (people just need to learn and to feel seen! and the higher we can raise their self-esteem, the nicer they'll be), but also because this would require a level of social conflict and courage that they're simply too fat and content to risk.
If you have a sewage spill or an oil leak, you go straight to the cause and fix it there. In this case, the toxic sewage leak is coming directly from our most prestigious universities, the Qatar-aligned madrassas who are the home office of Islamo-Marxist jihadism and who've given the world all the greatest hits of Anti-Zionism—settler-colonial imperialist apartheid genocidal ethnostate etc. This is the root of modern Jew hate, this state-subsidized idea that Israel is the world's most evil and most illegitimate state, and that Justice requires its eradication.
If you wanted real bang for you buck, how about a simple illustration of the most shocking and repulsive events that recently took place in modern America: the celebrations of the 10/7 massacre that broke out across the Ivy League, the tearing down of hostage posters, the disgusting quotes by dozens of academics that would have them chased out of polite society if uttered about any other minority. Just a simple montage of all the Ivy League students screaming in bloodlust with some quotes (maybe even one from Mr. Mamdani Sr) showing how infested with Jew hate our culture has become. You need to rub the hatred into the faces of the Jew haters, let them feel the shame they're always desperate to smear on others.
Kraft has brought a Hallmark card to a gunfight, but I would expect nothing else. It's hard for people to face and accept what's become of our most prestigious universities, esp to a high-achieving normie who's been saluting them like the flag their entire lives. They still imagine they live in the world they grew up in, but that's dead and irrelevant, as this Super Bowl ad will be by morning.
You almost lost me with the esp abbreviation. I dont believe its wide accepted or used which made me think you were referring to some sort of mind reading. 🤷
Kraft doesn’t understand. It’s so so so much more effective to show a video that informs everyone that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel, as Bill Maher has done very recently; or how many inventions Israelis and Jews are responsible for that we use and couldn’t live without; or how Jews help other ethnic and religious groups all over the world, including Gazans, Muslims, and Arabs; or even proof of the Holocaust using actual evidence with a variety of commentators that are highly regarded famous figures who are not Jewish. What a waste of $15 million that could have had a tremendous positive impact.
I think people are too harsh on these commercials but you bring up a valid alternative if showing proof that we are the indigenous people. I believe there is some video from the early 1900s they could show?
I think Bill Maher’s video says it all, but there are many others. Academic experts -and many of them - would do. Also, there are Arabs who speak the truth on videos.
Kraft is old and as an American Jew --lacks the experience of Israelis. The ad reminds me is something Spielberg would have produced.
I am Israeli born and lived as an American citizen in NYC for many years--and never felt antisemitism. I was in the film/TV business. We decided to move to see how the "other half lives"--and. I never regretted it--especially now with Mamdani in Gracie Mansion.
I'm blonde and blue eyed with small features--when people met me--no one assumed I was anything but an American WASP. I enjoyed being an ambassador of sorts to say:"That caricature--is just that!" A "Jew" can be of EVERY skin tone and appearance. And Jews are not necessarily the typical media example of an Orthodox Jew with a "kippah" and side "ringlets" (Peyas)! Jews come in as many as the Heinz varieties!
Most are secular--as I am.
But my identity-- is exactly as Liel portrays: Strong! I don't like ANY Jew portrayed as a weak victim. Although I'm aware that many only feel sympathetic for "The dead Jew".
I don't care. Having been born in Israel--having a father who died so that Israel can exist--and a cousin -- Ilan Ramon who died in the Columbia tragedy--I cannot be more proud of my heritage.
It is one of bravery!
So I'm in the camp that--like it or not--the world needs to see that side of Jews. No cowering. No "victimhood".
Bigotry is hard to squelch because it is rooted in jealousy. Bigots feel inadequate. Truly confident people have no need to scapegoat "others" for their failings.
We need to emphasize that and instead of defending ourselves-- go on the offensive. Offer the bigots the proverbial"mirror"--and ask: "Is that YOU?"
What a surprise to see some Te Ao Maori (the Maori world) being used here! The pronunciation is as you wrote it, and the spelling is whakapapa. It's a concept in Te Ao Maori that you belong in this chain of people, and knowing about this chain of people helps 'place' you in this world. It also links back to place as well - for example, I will often ask Māori people I meet the place that they whakapapa back to - and that tells me from where they come from. Absolutely this concept can be applied to Am Yisrael today - many Jews I know can whakapapa back in their families, and often to a place in Europe somewhere, and the knowledge of both time and place gives meaning to their lives.
Ka pai (good) for using this concept! Nga mihi from Aotearoa NZ.
Leil Lebowitz is right: Hot Israeli Girls of The IDF with guns, and the caption ‘Fuck around. Find out.’ Mr Kraft, over to you. Next ad is just this please. Why? Because the Jewish experience is BOTH. The response to antisemitic violence is both TOTAL and also SUBTLE. Victory is ALWAYS through strength, because out here in the real world strength is not optional.
Profanity is the language of the unimaginative, which Jews (most) are not.
If your proposed slogan is used in an ad, as you suggest, how do you propose to back that up? You gonna go out there and start “Rambo”ing people’s backsides? Remotely blow up their refrigerators? C’mon. Don't let your mouth write a check that your ass can’t cash. Your suggestion is just a blue square with attitude, and just as useless.
The strong turn inward for strength. I don’t expect back up from someone because of an ad. I’ll get it from like minds, Jewish and non-Jewish. They’re my brothers and sisters, not some social media follower who is momentarily inspired by an ad or a random post on a random platform. You can have ‘em all. They do Jews no good.
Kraft meant well and it's hard to see the harmless Jewish high school student depicted in the commercial committing "genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing." Kraft having a hard night with his team losing badly and all the criticism he is receiving from fellow Jews over this commercial. Best commercial of the night was the Budweiser bit with the Clydesdale, Lynrd Skynryd, and Free Bird. Great visuals and concept. Powerful, no need for stars or celebrities. Suggest Kraft hire the outfit that did this commercial to do his next antisemitism commercial. Here it is:
While I understand the approach taken by Kraft, it seems to be just doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Isn't it time to stop portraying Jews as victims.
Isn't it time that we build Jewish pride in our youth and teach them about the Jewish leaders and heroes who fought back. Our schools portray Jewish history as starting and ending with the Holocaust (and even that is now being diluted and minimized). We need to make sure we teach our children that as a people we have fought back. We need to get rid of the shtetl mentality. We need to make it clear that we no longer need to rely on the kindness of strangers for our own protection. We need to teach our children that yes, we have faced exiles, persecution, pogroms and the Holocaust, but we also have fought back. Teach the children about Moses, Joshua, Judah the Maccabee, Bar Kochba, and more recently about the Jews who fought back against their oppressors like Hanah Senesh, The Bielski brothers and the many partisans during WW2. Teach them about the Jews who founded Israel and who have protected her. I would even say teach about the tough Jews of the 1920s - 1940s who confronted the German American Bund.
What if the money wasted on ads and useless symposium was used to create self defense training for Jewish children, teens, adults. $15 million could have established a whole lot of training facilities. What if instead of pleading with our 'higher' education systems to tone down the Jew hatred, our Jewish organizations work with Israeli universities to open accredited campuses here in the US.
Jews need Catholics and Orthodox and other Christians to recognize their deep historical and metaphysical kinship .. our shared civilization of the book. It is as simple as that
"Jewish journeys have become increasingly disparate, sometimes barely connected by shared language, ritual, or memory. Hebrew offers a unifying counterweight." Or as Haim Press, editor of Shaarei Zion (one of the first Hebrew language newspapers published in Jerusalem from 1876 to 1885) put it, Hebrew is "the bolt that joins us [the Jews] together from one end of the earth to another, strengthening the love of our nation in our hearts.”
"Today, many of us can be openly Jewish and fully integrated at the same time."
Too many Jews down through the ages could not, did not, failed to make the distinction between Integration and Assimilation, no communities more so that the late 20C "Westliche Juden" and more recently the Americanized Jews of the liberal democracies.
"Jewish integration into alien societies] is a fragile achievement, and Jewish history teaches us that nothing, no matter how stable it seems, is guaranteed."
History bears witness that every time Jews were invited into Christian or Moslem countries and rose to positions of prominence and wealth, the Green-Eyed Monster rode their coat tails and sure enough disaster followed.
"in an open, globalized, hyperconnected world, a rigid “members-only” posture is no longer serving the Jewish People."
Jews need to take a leaf from the playbook of Asian immigrants to American shores. They brought their cultures, from the obvious, their cuisines, to their music, their theatre, film, art exhibits, imports of artifacts from their homeland, to name a few exposures of their religeo-cultural-ethnicity to the dominant culture. By exposing the "Whites" to non-white culture, they broadened horizons and not only gained acceptance for whom they were but found enduring admiration from the public at large.
Thus "Making Judaism more accessible is not a threat to Jewish integrity; it is an expression of Jewish purpose." It is an enriching of all who live in their proximity, making Jews less vulnerable to being "Othered", shunned, and ultimately persecuted.
Others have responded thoughtfully to the ad....so I don't want to repeat. The Black saviorism element in the ad would never be accepted if the target was Black and his silent supporter White. All the hate directed at the Green Book....a good film about racism....from Black people. English has replaced German, replaced Arabic and Aramaic as a "Jewish" language. Still it was important from me since a kid to learn Hebrew and to approximate a good accent which I never heard till a half hour or so Sunday Israeli Hebrew program WEVD the station that speaks your language.....a lot of Yiddish was still spoken in the sixties. I studied in HS...imagine a NYC HS teaching modern Israeli Hebrew in today's climate. Is there even one in Forest Hills? And then on the kibbutz Ulpan. It comes back to me when I'm in Israel. I wish more Jews, especially the HS and university age kids were connected with Israel and would study to speak Hebrew but I think it's a minority.
Here is the thing. I don't actually know Kraft's politics and I don't know that it has any relevancy to this ad. Obviously he hired some very mainstream Jewish group to put it together and just paid for it. For the modern left and this means everyone from center left mainstreamers to hard left radicals, victimhood is fully intertwined with virtue. That is why since 10/7, useless prigs like Charles Schumer keep insisting how many of hate crimes are against Jews. So we can be the biggest victims. We know this is not what is needed. What is needed is a full throated no holds barred defense of Israel Zionism and the Jewish people. And our enemies need to be called out for what they are, modern Nazis. And we need to welcome and thank the millions of American gentiles like John Fetterman or Patricia Heaton who stand with us. We need to make a stand not beg to be allowed into the pantheon of victim hood. And this is where Kraft went wrong.
Gentry liberals, esp the wealthy and/or those who were raised in the 20th century, are NEVER ever ever going to face the reality and causes of our current eruption of Jew hate, mostly because they will never relinquish what's maybe the most influential post-WW2 idea, that sentimental therapeutic humanitarianism is a balm that can heal all wounds (people just need to learn and to feel seen! and the higher we can raise their self-esteem, the nicer they'll be), but also because this would require a level of social conflict and courage that they're simply too fat and content to risk.
If you have a sewage spill or an oil leak, you go straight to the cause and fix it there. In this case, the toxic sewage leak is coming directly from our most prestigious universities, the Qatar-aligned madrassas who are the home office of Islamo-Marxist jihadism and who've given the world all the greatest hits of Anti-Zionism—settler-colonial imperialist apartheid genocidal ethnostate etc. This is the root of modern Jew hate, this state-subsidized idea that Israel is the world's most evil and most illegitimate state, and that Justice requires its eradication.
If you wanted real bang for you buck, how about a simple illustration of the most shocking and repulsive events that recently took place in modern America: the celebrations of the 10/7 massacre that broke out across the Ivy League, the tearing down of hostage posters, the disgusting quotes by dozens of academics that would have them chased out of polite society if uttered about any other minority. Just a simple montage of all the Ivy League students screaming in bloodlust with some quotes (maybe even one from Mr. Mamdani Sr) showing how infested with Jew hate our culture has become. You need to rub the hatred into the faces of the Jew haters, let them feel the shame they're always desperate to smear on others.
Kraft has brought a Hallmark card to a gunfight, but I would expect nothing else. It's hard for people to face and accept what's become of our most prestigious universities, esp to a high-achieving normie who's been saluting them like the flag their entire lives. They still imagine they live in the world they grew up in, but that's dead and irrelevant, as this Super Bowl ad will be by morning.
You almost lost me with the esp abbreviation. I dont believe its wide accepted or used which made me think you were referring to some sort of mind reading. 🤷
Kraft doesn’t understand. It’s so so so much more effective to show a video that informs everyone that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel, as Bill Maher has done very recently; or how many inventions Israelis and Jews are responsible for that we use and couldn’t live without; or how Jews help other ethnic and religious groups all over the world, including Gazans, Muslims, and Arabs; or even proof of the Holocaust using actual evidence with a variety of commentators that are highly regarded famous figures who are not Jewish. What a waste of $15 million that could have had a tremendous positive impact.
I think people are too harsh on these commercials but you bring up a valid alternative if showing proof that we are the indigenous people. I believe there is some video from the early 1900s they could show?
I think Bill Maher’s video says it all, but there are many others. Academic experts -and many of them - would do. Also, there are Arabs who speak the truth on videos.
Blue squares? Yellow stars? WTF are they thinking?
Kraft is old and as an American Jew --lacks the experience of Israelis. The ad reminds me is something Spielberg would have produced.
I am Israeli born and lived as an American citizen in NYC for many years--and never felt antisemitism. I was in the film/TV business. We decided to move to see how the "other half lives"--and. I never regretted it--especially now with Mamdani in Gracie Mansion.
I'm blonde and blue eyed with small features--when people met me--no one assumed I was anything but an American WASP. I enjoyed being an ambassador of sorts to say:"That caricature--is just that!" A "Jew" can be of EVERY skin tone and appearance. And Jews are not necessarily the typical media example of an Orthodox Jew with a "kippah" and side "ringlets" (Peyas)! Jews come in as many as the Heinz varieties!
Most are secular--as I am.
But my identity-- is exactly as Liel portrays: Strong! I don't like ANY Jew portrayed as a weak victim. Although I'm aware that many only feel sympathetic for "The dead Jew".
I don't care. Having been born in Israel--having a father who died so that Israel can exist--and a cousin -- Ilan Ramon who died in the Columbia tragedy--I cannot be more proud of my heritage.
It is one of bravery!
So I'm in the camp that--like it or not--the world needs to see that side of Jews. No cowering. No "victimhood".
Bigotry is hard to squelch because it is rooted in jealousy. Bigots feel inadequate. Truly confident people have no need to scapegoat "others" for their failings.
We need to emphasize that and instead of defending ourselves-- go on the offensive. Offer the bigots the proverbial"mirror"--and ask: "Is that YOU?"
Thank you Joshua for another meaningful essay. Kraft has tried but seems tone deaf.
I love Liel's suggested ad. Your suggestions for "being" Jewish are where its at. Great quote from the Rebbe.
What a surprise to see some Te Ao Maori (the Maori world) being used here! The pronunciation is as you wrote it, and the spelling is whakapapa. It's a concept in Te Ao Maori that you belong in this chain of people, and knowing about this chain of people helps 'place' you in this world. It also links back to place as well - for example, I will often ask Māori people I meet the place that they whakapapa back to - and that tells me from where they come from. Absolutely this concept can be applied to Am Yisrael today - many Jews I know can whakapapa back in their families, and often to a place in Europe somewhere, and the knowledge of both time and place gives meaning to their lives.
Ka pai (good) for using this concept! Nga mihi from Aotearoa NZ.
Leil Lebowitz is right: Hot Israeli Girls of The IDF with guns, and the caption ‘Fuck around. Find out.’ Mr Kraft, over to you. Next ad is just this please. Why? Because the Jewish experience is BOTH. The response to antisemitic violence is both TOTAL and also SUBTLE. Victory is ALWAYS through strength, because out here in the real world strength is not optional.
Profanity is the language of the unimaginative, which Jews (most) are not.
If your proposed slogan is used in an ad, as you suggest, how do you propose to back that up? You gonna go out there and start “Rambo”ing people’s backsides? Remotely blow up their refrigerators? C’mon. Don't let your mouth write a check that your ass can’t cash. Your suggestion is just a blue square with attitude, and just as useless.
The strong turn inward for strength. I don’t expect back up from someone because of an ad. I’ll get it from like minds, Jewish and non-Jewish. They’re my brothers and sisters, not some social media follower who is momentarily inspired by an ad or a random post on a random platform. You can have ‘em all. They do Jews no good.
Kraft meant well and it's hard to see the harmless Jewish high school student depicted in the commercial committing "genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing." Kraft having a hard night with his team losing badly and all the criticism he is receiving from fellow Jews over this commercial. Best commercial of the night was the Budweiser bit with the Clydesdale, Lynrd Skynryd, and Free Bird. Great visuals and concept. Powerful, no need for stars or celebrities. Suggest Kraft hire the outfit that did this commercial to do his next antisemitism commercial. Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_mh-v02-Tw
While I understand the approach taken by Kraft, it seems to be just doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Isn't it time to stop portraying Jews as victims.
Isn't it time that we build Jewish pride in our youth and teach them about the Jewish leaders and heroes who fought back. Our schools portray Jewish history as starting and ending with the Holocaust (and even that is now being diluted and minimized). We need to make sure we teach our children that as a people we have fought back. We need to get rid of the shtetl mentality. We need to make it clear that we no longer need to rely on the kindness of strangers for our own protection. We need to teach our children that yes, we have faced exiles, persecution, pogroms and the Holocaust, but we also have fought back. Teach the children about Moses, Joshua, Judah the Maccabee, Bar Kochba, and more recently about the Jews who fought back against their oppressors like Hanah Senesh, The Bielski brothers and the many partisans during WW2. Teach them about the Jews who founded Israel and who have protected her. I would even say teach about the tough Jews of the 1920s - 1940s who confronted the German American Bund.
What if the money wasted on ads and useless symposium was used to create self defense training for Jewish children, teens, adults. $15 million could have established a whole lot of training facilities. What if instead of pleading with our 'higher' education systems to tone down the Jew hatred, our Jewish organizations work with Israeli universities to open accredited campuses here in the US.
Isn't it worth trying a different approach?
Bret Stephens' recent address on The State of World Jewry is very much along similar lines, and is worth a lsiten (30 mins):
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0oNyL92k1XuWCiygmdogje?si=29a337eba3084c3c
Can we please get along and start negatively criticizing everything Jewish people do ???
Jews need Catholics and Orthodox and other Christians to recognize their deep historical and metaphysical kinship .. our shared civilization of the book. It is as simple as that
"Jewish journeys have become increasingly disparate, sometimes barely connected by shared language, ritual, or memory. Hebrew offers a unifying counterweight." Or as Haim Press, editor of Shaarei Zion (one of the first Hebrew language newspapers published in Jerusalem from 1876 to 1885) put it, Hebrew is "the bolt that joins us [the Jews] together from one end of the earth to another, strengthening the love of our nation in our hearts.”
"Today, many of us can be openly Jewish and fully integrated at the same time."
Too many Jews down through the ages could not, did not, failed to make the distinction between Integration and Assimilation, no communities more so that the late 20C "Westliche Juden" and more recently the Americanized Jews of the liberal democracies.
"Jewish integration into alien societies] is a fragile achievement, and Jewish history teaches us that nothing, no matter how stable it seems, is guaranteed."
History bears witness that every time Jews were invited into Christian or Moslem countries and rose to positions of prominence and wealth, the Green-Eyed Monster rode their coat tails and sure enough disaster followed.
"in an open, globalized, hyperconnected world, a rigid “members-only” posture is no longer serving the Jewish People."
Jews need to take a leaf from the playbook of Asian immigrants to American shores. They brought their cultures, from the obvious, their cuisines, to their music, their theatre, film, art exhibits, imports of artifacts from their homeland, to name a few exposures of their religeo-cultural-ethnicity to the dominant culture. By exposing the "Whites" to non-white culture, they broadened horizons and not only gained acceptance for whom they were but found enduring admiration from the public at large.
Thus "Making Judaism more accessible is not a threat to Jewish integrity; it is an expression of Jewish purpose." It is an enriching of all who live in their proximity, making Jews less vulnerable to being "Othered", shunned, and ultimately persecuted.
Others have responded thoughtfully to the ad....so I don't want to repeat. The Black saviorism element in the ad would never be accepted if the target was Black and his silent supporter White. All the hate directed at the Green Book....a good film about racism....from Black people. English has replaced German, replaced Arabic and Aramaic as a "Jewish" language. Still it was important from me since a kid to learn Hebrew and to approximate a good accent which I never heard till a half hour or so Sunday Israeli Hebrew program WEVD the station that speaks your language.....a lot of Yiddish was still spoken in the sixties. I studied in HS...imagine a NYC HS teaching modern Israeli Hebrew in today's climate. Is there even one in Forest Hills? And then on the kibbutz Ulpan. It comes back to me when I'm in Israel. I wish more Jews, especially the HS and university age kids were connected with Israel and would study to speak Hebrew but I think it's a minority.