Gay anti-Semites empowered to invade Grindr during the year's final Pride celebration

If there could be one reprieve for gay Jews from the rising anti-Semitism, you'd think it might be a gay social app in the middle of Pride weekend. Nope.

A Jewish friend of mine was recently on Grindr, an app where gay men can meet one another for… romance.

When he was at Palm Springs Pride — the final Pride event of the year in the United States, meant for LGBTQ people to celebrate our community and our mutual journeys — he connected with another guy through DMs and was met with hate and cruelty.

This is how it went:

My friend is a Jew who wears a chain proudly including the Star of David in some of his photos on the app. He also has the Star of David in his Grindr profile. The Star of David is a symbol of his proud Jewish identity.

The anti-Semite on the other end of the messages went on to call my friend a “Nazi.” My friend — whose Jewish people were slaughtered by the millions by Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s in possibly history’s most horrific attempt at genocide — was stunned.

The coward on the other end of the Grindr DMs then blocked my friend before he could screen capture his grotesque labeling of a Jew as a “Nazi.”

What is “Zionism”? At its core, it is the perspective that the Jewish people should have a self-determining state, and that that state should be generally on the land where the Jewish people settled 3,000 years ago, at least 1,500 years before Islam was founded.

Over the centuries, different sects of Zionism — just like any belief or political system — have emerged, some more militant, and others more accommodating of ideas of even a two-state solution. Any sect of Zionism — or any belief system — that calls for the genocide of any people is abhorrent and should be condemned. My friend is not amongst that group.

This anti-Semite on Grindr attacked a gay Jew and called him a Nazi simply for being a Jew and wearing a Star of David, all during Pride.

When my friend posted on Instagram the above screenshot of the exchange with the anti-Semite, he received more disturbing anti-Semitic messages from people who follow him, even “friends.”

It has been disturbing at best over the last month to watch anti-Semites feel invigorated by Hamas, empowered by even members of Congress to speak loudly with anti-Semitic messages. Some of the same people who marched against racism in 2020 are now marching for racism and the support of the genocidal maniacs of Hamas in 2023.

When you have a member of Congress defending calls for the destruction of Israel — even labeling said destruction “peaceful” — despite an important censure from a bipartisan group of her fellow members of Congress and a rebuke from the White House, it’s not hard to understand why hundreds of thousands of anti-Semites feel emboldened to take to the streets.

My friend’s exchange on Grindr is just one of the countless examples of pain I’ve heard from Jewish friends and acquaintances over the last month. They have been heart-broken to see the public celebration and defense of anti-Semitism, and calls for the destruction of their homeland. The message they have received from a very loud minority of anti-Semites and Regressives: Jews should have their homeland taken from them, with many openly calling for them to be exterminated from the earth.

Some of the Jews in my life have called me with tears, reaching out for help in combating the cruelty of a movement that has been overtaken by hate.=

Last weekend in Berlin — the center of the Holocaust of almost a century ago — I met two Jews from Tel Aviv who talked about the pain of seeing so many in the world celebrated for their racist advocacy, silencing the cries of help from Jews.

I assured them that, despite a loud and violent minority bolstered by a complicit news media echoing lies from Hamas, the vast majority of Americans — and America as a nation — stands by them and the people of Israel.

This loud minority — and the support and amplification they receive from some elected officials and the news media — is why I won’t be silenced about my support for Israel and the Jewish people to simply exist.

Three years ago we were told that to be silent about racism was to be complicit with it. I spoke up then, and I’m speaking up now.

No, Israel is not committing — or even remotely attempting — “genocide” of Palestinians. The nation of Israel, attacked five weeks ago, is now taking strategic actions to dismantle the very genocidal, maniacal terrorist organization — Hamas — that some in the United States and abroad now proudly and loudly support, all while warning citizens and attempting to create safe passages to evacuate.

The idea that Israel cannot and should not have the ability to defend itself and eradicate a genocidal terrorist organization whose stated goal is to remove Israel from the map, after the horrific October 7 attack on their country and barbaric massacre of at least 1,200 Jews simply for being Jewish and living in Israel, is abhorrent.

“They are what they accuse you of.” With some people, that is so often true. Some of the loudest amongst them now support the genocidal and nation-destroying maniacs of Hamas, all while falsely accusing Israel of attempting genocide.

No, I won’t stop speaking up in support of my Jewish friends when they need to hear my voice. No, I won’t stop speaking up in support of the nation of Israel to exist and flourish.

And I’m so proud of my Jewish friends — including this particular gay man who had to endure anti-Semitism from another gay man in the midst of the celebration of Pride — for speaking up for himself and his people. I stand with him.

I stand with my Israeli friends.