Thread by @JoshuaCypess

1/ This morning a vituperative troll lobbed attacks in response to the thread below. I responded to him in order to fulfill my own ideas of internet ethics & try to model the behavior I'd like to see normalized.

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1550562334816587777

2/ Since I blocked him, I'll recreate the conversation with screencaps (which is proper netiquette for trolls, anyway). He sent two responses in close succession, the first here:

3/ Second here:
Note: The "59% Disruptive" is from the @BotSentinel app. Which told me immediately that I was dealing with a probable troll.

4/ To the first message, I said:

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1551209993763954688?s=20&t=rlijbeAdzDMGkukYwd0wAA

And to the second:

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1551210831978938370?s=20&t=rlijbeAdzDMGkukYwd0wAA

5/ What I hoped to do was (1) interact in the manner I would were face-to-face with him; (2) explain my boundaries, why I'm trying to set limits on the nature of the interaction, and (3) signal early what would indicate to me that I would need to block.

6/ Part of #1 is neutralizing the tone; taking what's being said at face value as if weren't an obvious attack, and allowing the most charitable interpretation of his words.

Hey, sometimes people back off when they are forced to humanize their interlocutor.

7/ Moreover, his accusation - that I was discriminating against women rabbis out of self-aggrandizing political agenda - isn't totally out-of-bounds.

I put in hours of work on this project every week b/c of my ideology: promoting women who I feel aren't otherwise well supported.

8/ But people who legitimately care about social justice & egalitarianism must also care about mutual respect. I provided him that door.

Also, it's ridiculous to accuse another person who's put in hours of unique work that it's not enough b/c of different ideological standards.

9/ The previous two points are crucial: I set up a structured litmus test to establish how any conversation could continue:
1) we can disagree, but treat me as a person not a punching bag
2) If you are what you claim then you should go through the doors I'm opening for you.

10/ Unfortunately, he evidently saw my boundary setting as a threat and sent me a flurry of invective. (Alt-text is in reverse order of the image to reflect the chronological order of comments).

Note how I'm first called a "snowflake" (BIG red flag) and then DARVO kicks in.

11/ Before blocking him, I sent out this message (and threaded it for my own archival needs).

I alluded to the terms of my boundary setting, described how he violated them and why I would proceed in protecting myself (just blocking for now).

https://twitter.com/JoshuaCypess/status/1551219795407822849?s=20&t=rlijbeAdzDMGkukYwd0wAA

12/ Some other implicit practices I hoped to model:
(1) I didn't impute anything about his mental state or character; I described his behavior and what I was learning about him from them
(2) I studiously avoided ableist language about mental health and insults about internet use.

13/ I avoided these for two categorical reasons:
(1) Ableism is ethically bad. I must presume bad behavior (see the 'disruptive' tag) comes from autonomous choices. I'm trying to show how describing a person's antagonism is sufficient; ableism both hurts others & doesn't help me.

14/ (2) More importantly, saying things like (sorry) "see a therapist!" or "touch grass!" undermines the very terms of interaction I tried to establish.

If I said those things, that'd be telling him what to do b/c of how it affects me. That's breaking boundaries I myself set.

15/ It's not my place to tell another person to do anything to themselves because of how I want their behavior to change.

I talked to him as if he were right in front of me and I have experience with this IRL but without the luxury of being able to block bullies.

16/ And he was a bully. "Snowflake" was a clear sign, the ripped up stated boundaries were another, and I'd add the misunderstanding of "bully pulpit" which seems to be used only by wannabe bullies who hope to override others' autonomy. Many strikes; he's out.

17/ As for his initial criticism: the women I'm highlighting in my thread have decided they would not seek out becoming rabbis. Given that, I want to validate their decision because I agree with their essential premise: women can learn and teach Torah at the highest levels.

18/ I know and read many non-Orthodox rabbis, many of whom are women, as well as Maharats & Rabbahs from the "open Orthodoxy" branch. I'm not adding these women to my thread because (1) I feel they have communities that actually support them more than the women I'm writing about.

19/ And (2) because I'm the one writing the thread. This takes a lot of work: hours of archiving, chronicling, compiling etc. @ChochmatNashim is a great organization but they don't platform their Divrei Torah parsha-by-parsha. I'm doing that here b/c I think that would help them.

20/ In my opinion, Orthodox women who teach Torah aren't treated with enough respect nor platformed adequately. The same politics that makes a shul "Ezrat Nashim" less-than-habitable has been extended to all aspects of womanhood. I want to help reverse that.

21/ But, in the interest of egalitarianism, and because it helps keep the memory alive of a colleague who passed away too young, here's the #Pinchas drashot of (JTS) Rabbi Joyce Newmark zt'l.

First her main page: njjewishnews.timesofisrael.com/writers/rabbi-…

22/ Rabbi Joyce Newmark zt'l cont:

5780 When taking a census, everyone counts njjewishnews.timesofisrael.com/when-taking-a-…

5779 Empowering women in the Torah njjewishnews.timesofisrael.com/empowering-wom…

5776 Making hard choices njjewishnews.timesofisrael.com/making-hard-ch…

23/ @threadreaderapp please unroll.