June 23, 2017

B4 | The Jewish Press | June 23, 2017

viewpoint thejewishpress

(Founded in 1920) Eric dunning President annette van de Kamp-Wright Editor richard Busse Creative Director Susan Bernard Advertising Executive lori Kooper-Schwarz Assistant Editor Thierry Ndjike Accounting Jewish Press Board Eric Dunning, President; Andy Ruback, Past-President; Sandy Friedman, Treasurer; Andrew Boehm; Paul Gerber; Alex Grossman; Jill Idelman; Mike Kaufman; David Kotok; Debbie Kricsfeld; Abby Kutler; Pam Monsky; Paul Rabinovitz and Barry Zoob.

The mission of the Jewish Federation of Omaha is to build and sustain a strong and vibrant Omaha Jewish Community and to support Jews in Israel and around the world. Agencies of the Federation are: Community Relations Committee, Jewish Community Center, Center for Jewish LIfe, Jewish Social Services, and the Jewish Press.

Guidelines and highlights of the Jewish Press, including front page stories and announcements, can be found online at: wwwjewishomaha.org; click on ‘Jewish Press.’

Editorials express the view of the writer and are not necessarily representative of the views of the Jewish Press Board of Directors, the Jewish Federation of Omaha Board of Directors, or the Omaha Jewish community as a whole. The Jewish Press reserves the right to edit signed letters and articles for space and content.

The Jewish Press is not responsible for the Kashrut of any product or establishment.

Editorial The Jewish Press is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Omaha.

Deadline for copy, ads and photos is: Thursday, 9 a.m., eight days prior to publication. E-mail editorial material and photos to: avandekamp@jewish omaha.org; send ads (in TIF or PDF format) to: rbusse@jewishomaha. org.

letters to the Editor Guidelines The Jewish Press welcomes Letters to the Editor. They may be sent via regular mail to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154; via fax: 1.402.334.5422 or via e-mail to the Editor at: avandekamp@jew ishomaha.org.

Letters should be no longer than 250 words and must be single-spaced typed, not hand-written. Published letters should be confined to opinions and comments on articles or events. News items should not be submitted and printed as a “Letter to the Editor.” The Editor may edit letters for content and space restrictions. Letters may be published without giving an opposing view.

Information shall be verified before printing. All letters must be signed by the writer, but the name can be withheld at the writer’s request. The Jewish Press will not publish letters that appear to be part of an organized campaign, nor letters copied from the Internet. No letters should be published from candidates running for office, but others may write on their behalf.

Letters of thanks should be confined to commending an institution for a program, project or event, rather than personally thanking paid staff, unless the writer chooses to turn the “Letter to the Editor” into a paid personal ad or a news article about the event, project or program which the professional staff supervised. For information, contact Annette van de Kamp-Wright, Jewish Press Editor, 402.334.6450.

Postal The Jewish Press (USPS 275620) is published weekly (except for the first week of January and July) on Friday for $40 per calendar year U.S.; $80 foreign, by the Jewish Federation of Omaha. Phone: 402.334.6448; FAX: 402.334.5422.

Periodical postage paid at Omaha, NE. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The Jewish Press, 333 So. 132 St., Omaha, NE 68154-2198 or email to: jpress@jewishomaha. org.

american Jewish Press association award Winner

Nebraska Press as- National Newspaper sociation association award winner 2008

B

The marketing of dissent aNNETTE vaN dE KamP-WriGHT Editor of the Jewish Press efore we dive into this week’s topic, there is a large helping of crow I have to serve myself.

In my 6-16-17 op-ed, I managed to mix up two Rogers. In writing about Roger Waters’ love affair with BDS and the resulting pressure he puts on other artists to boycott Israel, I erroneously identified him as the front man of the band The Who. That is actually the completely innocent Roger Daltrey. Roger Waters, of course, belongs with Pink Floyd. I apologize for my mistake, especially to any fans of the other Roger. To those readers who pointed out my error: thank you! Believe it or not, I might have never realized what I did had you not been kind enough to tell me.

Now that that’s settled, let’s move to what’s possibly the most bizarre story I found in my inbox this week, titled: “Mexican beer featuring swastika-clad Donald Trump quickly sells out.”

Excuse me? I know; it’s total click-bait. It’s one of those stories that one is almost ashamed to read, because, you know, fires and terror attacks and great big sweeping investigations should take precedence.

And yet, sometimes it’s the weird and unusual that deserves a little bit of the spotlight. Why? Because it’s often the weird and unusual that tells us something about ourselves.

Here’s the short version: Mexican brewery Casa Cervecera Cru Cru launched a new beer called ‘Amigous Cerveza,’ with the word ‘Amigous’ misspelled on purpose to poke fun at a bad American pronunciation. Its label features a cartoon of President Trump, dressed in Mariachi attire with a swastika on his belt buckle. The batch of 1,200 bottles and 400 liters on tap sold out within a week.

As it turns out, they are not alone in protesting Trump’s Presidency through beer. “Craft beer has become a potent protest symbol in the age of Trump,” wrote Andrew Gill for av.com.

In Colorado, Goldspot Brewing, under head brewer Kelissa Hieber, crafted a beer named ‘Makin Noise: a P**** Riot Beer.’ Proceeds are donated to the LGBTQ advocacy group

Belgian-inspired beer, and $1 per bottle goes to charity.

“Anti-Donald Trump beer is a boozy political protest,” wrote Jeanette Settembre in the New York Daily News.

“Former Trump Towers beer supplier 5 Rabbit Cerveceria severed business ties with Donald Trump and renamed their beer.”

The title of this limited run? Not going to repeat that here, but it suggests doing something inappropriate with the President’s hair.

Why is this a story? Is it that swastika belt-buckle? Is it just another form of free speech? Is it the marketing of dissent?

There is a certain appeal in purchasing products that have been made by like-minded individuals, especially if these individuals are small business owners who donate part of their proceeds, I get that.

At the same time, one always has to ask: does it help, or does it hurt?

Because it has to do one or the other; we abandoned neutral territory a long time ago—if we ever lived there to begin with. Still, most of the times we “voted” with our purchasing power, it was to boycott or frequent stores based on the owners’ and employees’ behavior Crow Credit: Neil Fifer via Wikimedia Commons (Starbucks is a good example). To One Colorado, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Conser- have the very product we buy present us with a ready-made vation Colorado. political opinion is a step beyond. Am I overthinking it? Or Also in Colorado, the Guardian Brewing Co. joined forces is it perhaps the swastika on the ‘Amigous Cerveza’ that ruwith Lady Justice Brewing and others (all women owners, ined it for me? by the way) to follow Goldspot’s example. They created a Maybe, sometimes, a beer should just be a beer.

Neo-Nazi fundraises over $150,000 for lawsuit against Jewish woman Emma HoCHfEldEr Intern, Jewish Press In Whitefish, Montana there is a lawsuit brewing. The two parties involved are an unlikely pair: a Jewish woman and a notorious white supremacist.

Tanya Gersh, a Jewish real estate agent in Whitefish, filed a lawsuit against Andrew Anglin, an infamous neo-Nazi who blogs for The Daily Stormer.

The Daily Stormer is one of the most popular neo-Nazi websites on the Internet. The content concerns topics surrounding anti-Black, anti-Semitic, anti-Immigrant, and anti-Muslim dialogue. Clearly, the website only has the most “intellectual” contributors. One of those contributors is Anglin.

Gersh filed suit against Anglin on April 18, 2017 after he targeted Gersh and her family in various attack articles. The targeting began December 16, 2016 when Anglin initiated a “troll storm” against Gersh. For this “storm”, Anglin posted Gersh’s address and phone number. He also provided the Twitter handle for her 12-yearold son for followers to use to “troll” and suggested leaving poor reviews for Gersh on Yelp, a website used for rating and reviewing businesses.

Anglin instructed his online following to “tell them you are sickened by their Jew agenda”. Although he did inform his followers to not actually do anything physically violent, users still attacked Gersh and her family with anti-Semitic threats.

This online declaration of war was sparked by an interaction between Gersh and Sherry Spencer, a mother of another renowned white supremacist, Richard Spencer. Sherry Spencer is a resident and business owner in Whitefish.

Spencer recently built a building complex in Whitefish. However, she claims that in mid-December of 2016, local real estate agent Gersh began demanding she sell the property.

The demand apparently stems from Spencer’s clear connection between herself and her neonazi son. Spencer and her husband have publicly denounced their son’s supremacist views.

Spencer claims that Gersh extorted her by demanding Spencer sell the newly finished building complex or else large protests against Spencer’s ownership of the property would reach national news outlets. This negative coverage would drive down the property value.

After Anglin’s “severely pressured” followers began heavily harassing the Gershes, Gersh partnered with the Southern Poverty Law Center who are helping sue Anglin for invasion of privacy, intimidation, and infliction of emotional distress.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit that helps ensure extremists and extremist groups are shut down by damaging their funds through lawsuits, which is why they agreed to work with Gersh on the suit.

Anglin was obviously well aware he had a large online following at his beck and call.

Credit: WikiCapa at English Wikipedia via WikiMedia Commons So he rallied the Spencer published her view of the interactions troops by claiming he was being sued by “Jewish between Gersh and herself in a lengthy blog post. Terrorists”. He told his followers how The Daily She also published email interactions and FaceStormer was at risk of being “shut down if we don’t book posts from Gersh. This blog post is where win this”. It is at that point he began fundraising.

Anglin got wind of the situation happening in Anglin used the website WeSearchr.com to raise Whitefish. funds to fight Gersh’s lawsuit.

Anglin clearly empathized with Spencer’s artiWeSearchr is a popular crowdfunding site for cle. He too felt marginalized in the society. neo-Nazis and those alike. It is similar to GoWhen calling to his online army to “storm” FundMe. However, unlike other crowdfunding Gersh, he emphasizes how “it is very important sites, WeSearchr doesn’t have a policy forbidding that we make them feel the kind of pressure they hate speech and takes three times more commisare making us feel”. Yes, the oh-so damning pres- sion per fundraising campaign. sure neo-nazis in the United States feel.

Neo-liberalism at its finest.

It must be exhausting for neo-nazis to spout The website publishes “bounties” as a request bigotry all day long. It is surely “stressful” to be for funding. Some of the real “quality” bounties filled with that much hate and ignorance. Imagcurrently being requested include a support ine how tiring it must be to be weighed down by fundraiser for Katie McHugh who was fired from all that “supreme race” rhetoric. It would be “im- Breitbart. Another bounty request is for the “Free possible” for anyone but neo-nazis to feel any Speech Rally” in Berkeley whose headliners insort of marginalization for just being themselves. cluded Based Stickman aka the Alt-Knight who What a “crazy” thought.

See Neo-Nazi fundraises page B5