The Jewish non-profit organization “JewBelong” stirred backlash online after calling the keffiyeh, a traditional Middle Eastern headscarf, a “hipster swastika.” The organization, which directed the remark at pro-Palestine protesters across the country, even referred to demonstrators on college campuses as “trust fund terrorists.”
The organization, which made the comments on Instagram this week, is known for its edgy billboards. But many feel its latest commentary, which paints the protests as anti-Semitic, goes too far.
The organization isn’t alone in this assertion: Some Jewish students at universities and colleges with pro-Palestinian protest encampments have accused protestors of being anti-Semitic. Student protesters have denounced anti-semitism—and Jewish students who are participating in pro-Palestinian protests say they’ve been called self-hating anti-Semites by pro-Israel protesters.
JewBelong has also taken multiple digs at keffiyehs, headscarves that originated in the Middle East. During the Israeli-Hamas war, keffiyehs have come to symbolize international support for Palestinian liberation.
“A keffiyeh on an American college campus is just a hipster swastika,” JewBelong said in a post.
Many of the comments on JewBelong’s post were critical of the sentiment and called it bigoted, Islamophobic, racist, and wrong. Some also referenced the Jewish students that participated in protest encampments.
“Including the all the Jewish students?” one Instagram user wrote.
“This is Islamophobic & racist,” another said. “Shame on you.”
“This is an insane, bigoted, cynical, and malicious take,” another person commented.
In another post, JewBelong said that “nothing says coward quite as loudly as keffiyeh wrapped around your face while you are calling for murder.” The post’s caption specified that the statement was referring to college protesters.
The organization also posted a well-known conspiracy theory that posits protest encampments are being funded by an outside actor, and called student protesters brainwashed and terrorists in multiple posts.
“TRUST FUND TERRORISTS,” the organization said in an Instagram post about Columbia student protesters. The post also shared a photo of a New York Post article that shared professional and personal details about Columbia University students who had been arrested in anti-Israel protests.
But that post seemed to be a step too far and didn’t go over well with some of JewBelong’s supporters.
“Please take down this post. Would you want our Zionist youth treated this way?” a commenter wrote.
“Come on, we are supposed to be the good guys,” another person said.
JewBelong also posted derogatory statements about Asna Tabassum, UCLA’s Class of 2024 Valedictorian whose commencement speech was cancelled. Tabussum received online harassment for posting pro-Palestine resources on social media.
“If you want to be a graduation speaker, maybe don’t be a bigot,” JewBelong said in an Instagram post.
In the last 24 hours, JewBelong has started sharing videos taken on Columbia and UCLA’s campuses. One shows Columbia students taking over a school building, and another shows a Jewish UCLA student being blocked from entering a part of the school’s campus in order to get to class.
The organization also posted today in an effort to address its detractors and compared college student protests to the Holocaust.
“They though the Jews were being oversensitive in 1938, too,” JewBelong said. “How did that turn out?”
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