Really, Elmo? Do better!

Et tu, Elmo?

Of course, no, it wasn’t actually Elmo — the intensely adorable, many-decades-older-than-he-looks little Muppet whose bright red body, high-pitched voice, and odd toddler-ish syntax have made most of the world fall deeply and permanently in love with him — who was spouting moronic antisemitic garbage on X.

His account had been hacked (why imaginary characters have real social media accounts is another issue entirely), and the foul posts were deleted.

It would be just an odd interlude, too gross ever to be funny but just a one-off idiocy, had it not been so very much not a one-off.

X is Elon Musk’s makeover of Twitter; the bluebird has been replaced by two black slashes. That’s not accidental.

Musk’s AI chatbok, Grok, went full Nazi, calling itself MechaHitler and spewing yet more antisemitic bilge, before it too was taken off line.

Yes, the connecting element here is Elon Musk, the giver of perhaps accidental Nazi salutes, but the problem goes far beyond even this very problematic very rich man.

According to Rabbi David Levy, who is the American Jewish Committee’s New Jersey regional director, “69 percent of Jewish adults reported seeing antisemitism online in social media in the last 12 months, and among young adults, this increased to 83 percent.”

Moreover, he said, “our survey found that one in five Jews who see antisemitism online feel physically threatened.” That doesn’t mean they worry about being assaulted, Rabbi Levy explained, but that their bodies respond to what they see. It makes them feel not only metaphorically but at times literally sick.

And “one in four hide their Jewish identity sometimes when they’re out in public,” he added, through such techniques as tucking their stars of David under their shirts, or not wearing their kippot. “That’s been happening for a while, unfortunately,” he said.

What to do? It’s not yet clear, but one thing that is clear is that while we older people dither, younger people are fighting back. Young Jews like Tessa Veksler, whom we profile in this paper — she’ll be speaking in Teaneck this week — and others are taking back their campuses. They’re smart, tough, and unafraid.

Unsurprisingly, our hope is with the next generation.

—JP

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