Skwawkbox’s promotion of ultra-reactionary religious bigots like Stern tells you a lot - ditto the continued lionisation by a section of the left of the Neturei Karta cult. They’ll big up some the worst reactionaries going as long as it fits their narrative.
It’s important to break down what’s actually going on here. The reason they love Stern and Neturei Karta is that it gives them figures who appear more “authentically” Jewish - ultra-Orthodox, beards, shtreimels, and payes - who’ll echo their talking points about antisemitism.
It’s a toxic form of vicarious identity politics. Stern, Neturei Karta, and the rest of the Jewish religious far right (and make no mistake: that’s what they are) are, first and foremost, bitterly hostile to expressions of Jewishness that are modern, secular, and progressive.
By promoting them as the “authentic” Jewish voices, Swawkbox et al are taking sides in a political struggle *within* Jewish life, and are siding *against* the people to whom the left should be offering support and solidarity.
The phrase “wrong sort of Jews” got bandied about a lot in Labour Party antisemitism debates, with both sides accusing the other of selectively promoting Jewish voices that agreed with them to the exclusion of those that didn’t.
This isn’t about saying Stern or NK are “the wrong sort of Jews”: it’s about saying religious fundamentalist bigots who are deeply sexist, homophobic, and reactionary are the wrong sort of *people* - Jewish or otherwise - for the left to be promoting, full stop.
