A response to the "savage" Jewish ads

Yom Kippur, as I wrote in a recent article, is a Jewish holiday to reflect on how we can be better people, making up for our mistakes if possible and moving forward into the Jewish new year with a better sense of how we can improve.

The picture below (which according to Facebook was taken at the 49th St. station) is of one Jew's response to the incredibly racist, colonialist and anti-Muslim ad that has been placed in New York train stations. Regardless of your views on Israel, the language of the ad is offensive and antithetical to what Judaism is supposed to be about.

As the note left next to it says, there is significant overlap between Judaism and Islam (and of course, Christianity) and the tremendous ignorance and racism displayed in the ad is frightening. It should never be tolerated, and especially in this time of Yom Kippur, the people behind this ad need to be doing some soul searching about how they could possibly justify such dehumanizing and sickening rhetoric. Our Jewish holidays and traditions teach us to remember our historical oppression and to always be aware of the oppression of others, not to diminish the humanity of other people by perpetuating the colonialism that was once done to us.

Photo courtesy of New Orleans-based journalist Jordan Flaherty, who reposted it from Sareh Al-Zubaidy.