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Meet the Jewish teens whose social media experience is better than you think
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — At the SAR High School, an Orthodox Jewish day school in Riverdale, New York, teens participate in anti-harassment training every fall. Students listen carefully as faculty list the dangers of TikTok, the potential social isolation resulting from excessive social media use, and the negative implicit messaging — both Jewish and otherwise — that often pervades these platforms.
Yet for many Jewish teens and young adults, social media provides the opposite effect by furnishing them with a voice, community and alternate avenues for exploring identity.
Olivia Fertig, a student at the Orthodox Ramaz High School in Manhattan, acknowledges that social media might tempt her to one-up someone with a better post or photo, but she also feels connected to the people whose posts she comments on or likes. “Social media allows me to interact with other Jews and come across Jewish content which teaches me more about how other Jews live,” she said.
Despite the risks involved, 35% of teens use YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook “almost constantly.” Movies and podcasts from Jewish community leaders warn of the dangers of social media “overuse” and its ravaging effects on teen mental health and cognition. “Teen mental health is plummeting, and social media is a major contributing cause,” the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt told Congress in 2022, citing adolescent mood disorders, self-harm and suicide rates.
But for some observant Jewish teens, social media provides the connection for them to be their authentic selves and learn from others.
Ilana Gadish, a member of the Judaic faculty at SAR High School, highlights the benefits of social media. “When teens, especially Jewish teens, are struggling with personal issues — whether it’s Jewish identity, sexuality, gender identity, relationships or complicated relationships that might be possibly dangerous — social media has so many accounts out there that help teens and adults navigate spaces where people can feel connected to others that aren’t in their life going through the same thing as them,” she said, while acknowledging that social media shouldn’t be the only way young people connect.
For teen content creators like Tali, who asked that only her first name be used to protect her safety and her family from antisemitism, TikTok helps her explore Jewish identity without the constraints of her real-world Orthodox community. As a self-described “practicing, religious” teen, she creates mainly Jewish content with an overarching aim of exploring sensitive Jewish issues that might otherwise remain unspoken. Specifically, she focuses on the place of women in Orthodox Judaism and seeks to raise awareness of sexual assault in Orthodox Jewish communities.
In one video, she highlighted the case of a student who had been the victim of sexual abuse, whose identity was kept anonymous. The video provided explicit support for the victim and showed “her that she wasn’t alone.” The video, which has 30,000 views on TikTok, led to a partnership between Tali and Za’akah, an organization that fights child sex abuse in the Orthodox community.
“Learning about Judaism online gives you everyone’s perspective on it, not just your school’s or your community’s,” Tali said. TikTok introduced her to “topics that are considered taboo and generally not taught in school, like the laws of sex in Judaism etc.”
This openness may be perceived as dangerous by various community leaders but also as liberating by young social media users. “Social media gives me the freedom to express it [Judaism] however I want without restrictions from community or school etc.,” Tali said. “In certain circles you will be ostracized for voicing certain opinions.” On TikTok she is able to find a peer group that is accepting of her views.
TikTok also gives her the opportunity to learn about a diverse range of Jews, including Rabbi Seth Goldstein, a Reform rabbi whose popular TikTok videos explain Judaism through pop culture. His beliefs differ from her Modern Orthodox upbringing and allow her to gain a better understanding of his liberal denomination.
Some haredi Orthodox communities, including a number of Hasidic movements, have called for its members to disconnect from social media entirely. In the summer of 2022, two rallies organized by Orthodox rabbis specifically urged Jewish women and teens to rid themselves of these platforms, saying they encourage impure thoughts and gossip.
And some teens, even among the less insular Modern Orthodox, share this pessimistic view of social media. Jacob Prager, a sophomore at SAR High School, does not have a smartphone and does not use social media. “For the people who say that social media brings them happiness that can actually be dangerous because that’s the only way that you seek to find confirmation and love,” he said. He used to have an Instagram account for school but gave it up when he started getting addicted and didn’t have time to do things he enjoys, like crossword puzzles. “Now that I don’t use it as much I think my mental health is so much better and I’m able to do stuff that I really love,” he said.
Yet other teens say the good of social media outweighs the negative effects.
A recent study found that a majority of teens, like Tali, credit social media for “deepening connections” rather than fracturing them. Rachel SJ, an LGBTQ actor and content creator who asked to be referred to by their professional name, uses social media to make purposeful bonds with other Jewish creators on these platforms. “There’s something really wonderful about having a wider trans Jewish community, we’re able to share resources, get each other’s more niche jokes, and learn from each other,” they said.
Rather than suppressing Jewish and other identities, social media provides a unique set of tools for self-expression and authenticity for Rachel and other members of Jewish Tiktok.
As a nonbinary practicing Jew, Rachel also uses their account to make connections and interact with a much wider audience than would be possible on a local level. “I have made so many incredible connections through Jewish TikTok, it almost feels undervaluing to call them just ‘connections,’” Rachel said. “Many of them have become friends, confidants, and support.”
Rachel met @amaditalks, another Jewish creator who uses ze as a pronoun, through TikTok. “I really appreciate the compassion and humor ze brings to our conversations beyond content, but also about what’s going on in the world and our lives,” they said.
Rachel says these connections would not have been possible in any single community or real-world location. “Sure shared experiences/culture/belief/values etc brought us together but we don’t live in the same place, we very likely wouldn’t have ever met,” they said. “These community members are able to look to each other to talk through it, get input, respond, and stand up together.”
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How Billy Wilder and B&H Dairy birthed ‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York’
Noah Segan’s crime thriller The Only Living Pickpocket in New York has drawn comparisons to NYC auteurs Spike Lee, Elaine May and John Cassavettes. While the writer-director is far from anxious about these influences, he notes another, less obvious touchpoint: a Billy Wilder comedy.
“There’s a line in The Apartment, where the very kindly Jewish neighbor doctor says to Jack Lemmon’s character, after he’s been through all of this meshugas with his apartment,” Segan, wearing a shirt that reads “I [Image of a heart-shaped pretzel] New York,” said in a Zoom interview.
The neighbor advises Lemmon’s befuddled, hyper-gentile character to “be a mensch.” In explaining what it means, he says, “just be a person.”
In Pickpocket, Harry Lehman (John Turturro), the titular gentleman thief, calls his neighbor across the hall a mensch for looking out for his wife. Her response: “I’m just being a person.”
While the film, about what happens when an old-school filcher accidentally lifts a high-tech MacGuffin, has its share of grit and cynicism for an increasingly impersonal, online world, its open-hearted menschlikeit shines through.
I spoke with Segan about the film, his sophomore feature after his 2022 Jewish vampire romp Blood Relatives, about Yiddish, B&H Dairy and whether Turturro is the GOAT of non-Jewish actors playing Jews. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you arrive at this idea of an ode or elegy to a Luddite New Yorker?
I looked in the mirror. (Laughs) I’m sort of a Luddite New Yorker — at heart. But a realist, I guess.
It started with a character. It started with Harry. You go, “OK, what is he going through? How is he functioning? What are his challenges?” And then you go, “Oh man, this guy is New York. And this can happen in New York. And I’m from New York.” You’re looking for patterns, you’re looking for the thing that works for you — but is it a chicken and the egg? Is it New York? Is it Harry? Are they the same thing? But once you get those two aspects, the rest of it can blossom naturally.
Your embodiment of New York is an old Jewish guy.
The embodiment of me is an old Jewish guy! (He fishes out a chai necklace from under his collar.) I got my little chai. Represent for the Forward.
In your previous film, Blood Relatives, you were a Jewish vampire. You said in an interview you were thinking about the fear of “otherness.” I’m wondering if there’s something in that choice of making Harry Jewish. Someone with community, but kind of on the margins. Obviously, in New York we don’t think of ourselves as being marginal, but maybe it’s indicating a change.
I think for the first film, part of the conversation was how to discuss otherness through both a realistic lens: that of a Jew, and through a cinematic lens, that of a vampire. The more you think about things like blood libel, the more you think about things like how Jews were murdered, all of that colors that dynamic. In Pickpocket, it’s a little bit different because Harry isn’t really an “other” he is one of. Not just because there are lots of Jews in New York, but there’s lots of everybody in New York!
I think that New York is often unified less based on religious and racial lines, much more so on socioeconomic lines, which of course is something this movie talks about.
Part of the texture there is Yiddish as a kind of lingua franca. We have Giancarlo Esposito and Lori Tan Chinn — older, non-Jewish characters. They all use it. I know we all say “schlep,” but I teach kids at City College, they don’t all know the word “mensch.” Is that a disappearing part of New York for you, in the same way Harry is recognizing his obsolescence?
To me, it’s not a disappearing part because I run into it all the time, and I think most New Yorkers know a little bit of Yiddish, just like most New Yorkers know a little bit of Spanish and that’s how you get by.
You’ve spoken of the Jewish-Italian handshake, a principle in casting that lets Robert DeNiro play Ace Rothstein and James Caan play Sonny Corleone. I have long maintained that John Turturro is probably the greatest living non-Jewish portrayer of Jews.
I think the idea with John is that he embodies New York to such a degree, that he truly does get to do any version of a New York character. This is a guy who just is New York, and so if you let him be a New York-coded character, it is what it is. It is whatever it needs to be. That man knows more about Philip Roth than anybody I’ve ever met, which makes me feel like that makes him definitely an honorary Jew.
Harry’s doorpost has a mezuzah and he goes to visit his daughter and there’s a wreath on the door. I was wondering about that bit of set dressing.
The mezuzah on the door — it’s like painted over. The idea that it had been there a long time was really important to me. That this is a matter of fact of one’s life. There is probably a question of how much Harry’s culture and religion influenced his daughter, who he left at a young age, and her choices to identify or not with that. Obviously, who knows who she married and how they practice. There are Jews who feel jolly and put a wreath on their door, so there’s no rule about that. But I do think that it is safe to say that there were historic, cultural, ethnic identifying aspects that Harry did not pass on. And that is part of the tragedy, of course, of leaving one’s family.
Did you shoot the film before the death of the MetroCard, and do you think Harry would have been able to figure out OMNY? I feel like the transition from tokens might have been difficult for him.
The transition from tokens was definitely difficult for him. We still had MetroCards when we shot the movie. I think it was a combo. But he doesn’t have a phone to tap! So what’s he gonna do? He’s gonna get an OMNY card and load it up? I mean, I guess that’s sort of like having a MetroCard.
The other day my phone died, so I just used my credit card. So you could do that in theory.
I don’t know if Harry has a credit card.
He deals in cash.
I think what he’s doing is he’s just waiting for somebody to open the emergency door for him. And then he passes them a couple bucks.
How do you think he would feel about Mamdani and the Knicks championship?
I don’t know if Harry votes. I think he likes to stay off the rolls. The more off-the-grid he could be, the better. But I do think that he would be very pleased about the Knicks. I don’t know if he’d be as pleased as John is. But I think he would be very pleased about the Knicks.
We feel that the days of Harry and his analog life are numbered, but there’s also a glimmer of hope when we see him mentoring a younger guy in the old ways of the five-finger discount.
All hope is never lost, especially in New York. New York is a hopeful place. Because it is sarcastic and cynical and has a sense of humor and it’s very fast. People think that that somehow makes it not an optimistic or hopeful place. But no. New Yorkers are the most resilient people on earth — that’s why the all the Jews move here!
Any there other Jewish tidbits that you’re not going to get a chance to to speak about with the general press?
You picked up on B&H right?
I don’t know if I did!
The first scene with Harry, he’s having his matzo brei at B&H.
Oh! I wasn’t thinking of B&H Dairy. I was thinking of B&H Photo.
There used to be a whole cottage industry of these places that that showed up at the turn of the century called B&H, and people go, “Well, why is it called B&H.” It’s Baruch Hashem. It wasn’t anybody’s name. It was just like, ‘Well, I guess thank God we opened up a store.’
(Author’s Note: Regrettably, in the case of the dairy establishment, this tidbit, while widely believed, appears to be apocryphal; the founders of B&H, who catered to Yiddish actors on Second Ave. were named Abie Bergson and Jack Heller and gave their initials to the enterprise.)
B&H is such a great example of New York because it is still kosher. It is still signed off on by a rabbi. The rabbi puts the stamp on it. Remains kosher. It is run by a Catholic Polish lady, her Muslim-Egyptian husband, and the head chef is Mexican. And if you buy the T-shirt, the T-shirt says “Challah por favor.”
It is a great New York, multi-ethnic, multicultural institution, and I’m very proud that we got to shoot there.
The post How Billy Wilder and B&H Dairy birthed ‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York’ appeared first on The Forward.
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A synagogue and Jewish-owned shops damaged in French riots
(JTA) — PARIS – Jewish-owned shops in Marseille were set ablaze and a synagogue in Paris was vandalized as part of widespread property damage caused by riots across France Saturday and Sunday, according to the Jewish Community Protection Service.
It is too early to assess the full extent of the riots protesting the rising cost of living and the damage they’ve caused, but various elements in the media have described them as civil unrest and chaos.
From Lille in the north to Marseille in the south and in the major cities in between, media estimate that nearly 800,000 people took to the streets and some 2,000 shops were vandalized or looted. Public buildings were set on fire, and hundreds of people or more were injured, including 150 police officers, with thousands arrested.
The riots followed a student uprising that blocked entrances to high schools across the country in recent weeks. Palestinian flags and keffiyas have been a recurring motif in most of the violent protests, acts of vandalism and looting.
But according to SPCJ, known as the Service de Protection de la Communaute Juive in French, there was no evidence that Jewish institutions or businesses were deliberately targeted.
Vandals broke into the Ohalei Yaakov synagogue in Paris’ 19th district overnight between Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday morning, members of the Jewish community discovered that their temporary place of worship had been broken into. The permanent synagogue building is currently undergoing renovations.
Inside the sanctuary, prayer books, tefillin, and various objects — taken from boxes and cupboards — were found scattered on the floor. The rabbi’s office was also searched. Despite the mess, the Torah scrolls appeared to be unharmed.
According to a member of the synagogue committee, the incident primarily points to an attempted theft. The suspects may have been looking for money, but nothing was believed to be missing.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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How much will Trump’s endorsement help Netanyahu?
(JTA) — JERUSALEM – Within minutes of President Donald Trump endorsing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a post on Truth Social Sunday, Netanyahu’s campaign team had released a 30-second clip showing all the times Trump has lavished praise on the Israeli leader over the past few years.
With polls showing that Netanyahu and his governing coalition are slipping in their struggle to retain power in the upcoming Oct. 27 election and lag behind the opposition bloc, an endorsement from the president of the United States is a powerful statement.
But is it enough to tip the scales?
“I don’t think it will change anything,” said Ilana Shpaizman, a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
Of course, she said, “Netanyahu will say this is the proof that I’m a leader and all that, and I can speak to Trump … But so what? His followers already know that and they believe in him. They don’t need the endorsement.”
Those who oppose him, Shpaizman continued, “know that Trump forced him (Netanyahu) to accept the ceasefire in Gaza and accept the hostage deal, and that Trump runs the show around Iran. So they also don’t need the endorsement either,” Shpaizman said.
Some pundits speaking on Israeli news outlets criticized Trump for “interfering” in Israel’s election, while others put it down to the fact that Trump does not want America to return to fighting Iran alone if Netanyahu, who is hawkish on Iran, is replaced by someone less willing to act militarily. If Netanyahu loses, that is a scenario that could play out.
“This is the first time ever that the president, at least publicly, endorses a candidate in Israel’s election,” Bushinsky, a political commentator and former adviser to Netanyahu, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Bushinsky said he remembered Netanyahu complaining about U.S. intervention in previous elections in 1999 and 2001, when presidents less enamored of him were in office. He even pushed for an initiative that would block foreign funding for election campaigns.
Now, Bushinsky said, “I guess he is not complaining,” adding that the endorsement serves Netanyahu in two ways.
First, it signals that Trump thinks that Netanyahu is the most suitable guy for the job. Second, it puts Netanyahu’s election campaign back on track, refocusing attention on an issue where Netanyahu is strong – Iran.
“It lets him say ‘I can now finish a job, and I can finish a job with Trump,’ and ‘without Trump or without me, the job will not be finished,’” said Bushinsky.
He said that in the last few days, the political debate had pivoted to other issues such as Ashkenazim vs Sephardim, the draft law and the contentious efforts by the outgoing government to overhaul the judiciary.
“This [endorsement] is the ultimate campaign boost for Netanyahu,” Bushinsky said.
But that boost might not be enough.
Most of the polls taken in recent days show the opposition bloc led by former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot pulling ahead of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, but give neither bloc enough seats to gain the necessary 61 of 120 seats in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to form the next government.
“I think this might give Netanyahu one more seat, one more mandate, but not more than that,” said Bushinsky.
Prof. Tamar Hermann, director of the Israel Democracy Institute’s Viterbi Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research, said that the timing of Trump’s support for Netanyahu in this election race had come both “too late and too early.”
“It’s too late because people have already decided electoral preferences. They may shift within each bloc, but will not move between the blocs because of this,” she said. “And it’s too early because there are nine days to go to the elections, and we can already see other American leaders spilling some cold water over what he said, even on the Republican side of the aisle.”
This criticism, Hermann continued, will be transmitted to Israeli voters, and they will see that Trump is facing a huge battle in the upcoming midterm elections.
“The image of President Trump has deteriorated significantly since April 26, when he started the negotiations with Iran,” she said, pointing to one of the IDI’s recent public opinion surveys that found the president’s popularity had plummeted after he stopped the war with Iran without totally removing the threats against the State of Israel.
According to that poll, the Israeli public’s confidence in Trump as someone dedicated to Israel’s security fell from around 70% to just 42%.
“In my view, the endorsement will not make a big change,” Hermann added. “It will just strengthen Netanyahu’s political supporters, who will see it as a sign that he is still the internationally known figure that even the president of the United States is endorsing.”
She concluded, “The meaning of endorsement in Israel is totally different than in the United States … we are not that used to this kind of move, and it will not make people change their minds.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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