On the evening of May 21, Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, both Israeli embassy staffers, were killed leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
By all accounts, early on the morning of May 22, we knew who the alleged perpetrator was and what his motive was: 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, a leftist who apparently killed random Jews in support of Gaza. “Free, free Palestine!” he could be heard shouting as police took him into custody.
On May 23, The Washington Post was asking the really important questions: namely, “the confusion … about where Jews belong.”
Yes, you heard me right. And while the Post has since deleted an X post, which used that subheadline and the question actually came from a quote by a Jewish woman in the article, the problematic nature of it still resonates.
For instance, for those of you who missed it, this is what the copy on the WaPo’s social media post originally said:
WARNING: The following post contains vulgar language that may offend some readers.
The Washington Post. “About Where Jews Belong”. Jews belong wherever they wish to belong you shit of a newspaper. Alive and thriving. Am Yisrael Chay! pic.twitter.com/Kd0nNHNi3x
— Israel News Pulse (@israelnewspulse) May 24, 2025
That’s still basically the subheadline on the article itself, which remains unchanged from its original version: “The killings of two Israeli Embassy staffers amplify the confusion felt since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks about where Jews belong.” Just a few extra words, certainly nothing to alter the meaning of it.
And enough to give people on social media pause before they took it down:
“Where Jews belong”? https://t.co/uwqac41MAH
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 23, 2025
Um, wut? https://t.co/TivAYRK3Sh
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) May 23, 2025
Where Jews belong? I’m sorry, what? https://t.co/IW4R6aPzUU
— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) May 23, 2025
Confusion about where Jews belong?
How about “everywhere”? https://t.co/P7MOocWoWr
— Matt Cover (@MattCover) May 23, 2025
Now, again, to be fair to the Post — it doesn’t make it much better, but it’s still worth pointing out — this was pulled, in the worst possible way, from a quote from a rabbi in the lede to the story, which generally wasn’t explicitly anti-Semitic in tone:
For Rabbi Ruth Balinsky Friedman, who teaches Jewish text at a D.C.-area high school, the killings of two Israeli Embassy workers this week have deepened the isolation she’s felt as an American Jew in recent years.
Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent attacks on Gaza, followed by divisions around the world over what caused the conflict and who was at fault, left the 40-year-old mother of three feeling confused, with no easy solution to the war in sight. Now, after the shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday, she feels similarly disoriented.
“Where do we as a people belong?” she said. “Where do I belong?” And if Jews belong in America, “why are people shooting us in broad daylight?”
I did not contact Rabbi Ruth Balinsky Friedman for follow-up, but I imagine part of a wider discussion about “why are people shooting us in broad daylight” in America with her might touch upon a broader discussion of the journalistic ethics of the capital’s newspaper of record using her quote to justify that generally-unjustifiable-under-any-circumstances-but-especially-after-a-terror-attack subheadline.
And again, just imagine the outrage from the Post if Trump had said something it found even slightly, mildly questionable about Judaism or the Jewish people from its perspective. Actually, we needn’t have to imagine, because I found exactly what the outrage would look like in an Op-Ed from 2019, with less than 30 seconds scrolling through Google results: “Trump still appears to believe all Jews are really Israelis.”
Spoiler alert: He did not, but he wanted Jewish students on American college campuses protected from anti-Semitism via an executive order, something that Op-Ed writer Jill Jacobs said was “likely to have a chilling effect on criticism of Israel” and said “[t]hanks, but no thanks” to.
Meanwhile, five-and-a-half years later, the same paper — after the executive order Trump was signing regarding that matter seems oddly prescient and needful — was having a conversation regarding “the confusion … about where Jews belong” in America after two Israeli embassy staffers were shot by a man who shot them as an apparent (to use Jacobs’ words) “criticism of Israel.”
They may have deleted the X post, but that makes this not one whit better — not with the paper’s history or its refusal to back off its indefensible tone in the wake of this senseless tragedy.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Washington Post Blasted After People Notice Creepy Anti-Semitic Sounding Message in X Post appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
