As the measles has spread in and around New York, so has anti-Semitism. Just as the anti-vaccination movement feeds off a handful of fringe outsiders, long-standing stereotypes about Jews have found a new vector in the latest outbreak of the disease.
Anti-Semites have long associated Jews with disease: Scholars have theorized that Dracula, the titular character in Bram Stoker’s story about a parasitic, deadly vampire who travels from Transylvania to England in search of new blood, might have been crafted to evoke insidious stereotypes of Jews. In New York, a very real public-health crisis has fed the image that Orthodox Jews are insular, ignorant, and against vaccines, when in reality the vast majority of this community—and Jews more broadly—support vaccination.
Rivkie Feiner, a community volunteer in Monsey, a town in Rockland County, told me she’s heard numerous stories of people yelling about measles or making derogatory comments when they see Jews. A man walked by her son in Costco and said, “I guess if I get the measles, I’m getting it here.” One local rabbi told her that during a visit to Rite Aid with his family, a group of teenagers screamed at them from the parking lot, “Hitler should have killed you all with the measles.” Feiner has lived in Monsey for basically all her life, she said, and in the past few years, “there have been more anti-Semitic incidents than in [her] entire life combined.”
The measles has spread among Orthodox Jews for complicated reasons, and the public-health conditions in those communities are nuanced. The thing about anti-Semitism, though, is that it’s not typically compatible with nuance. Vaccines are embraced by the vast majority of Jews and Jewish leaders; anti-vax conspiracy theories are a human phenomenon, not a Jewish one. And yet associations have staying power. With every new case of measles in Jewish Brooklyn, with every photograph of an Orthodox school paired with an article on the outbreak, the perceived connection between Jews and disease grows a little stronger. And no vaccine can eradicate that.
honestly imagine being mary shelley. its the fucking early 1800s. we’re barely out of the era when people thought women reading novels would lead to like debauchery and premarital sex. the weather is just fucking bonkers in yonkers. everybodys clothes looked like they oughta weigh two hundred pounds. everyones goth but goth isnt a thing yet so they dont even know it. your kids are dying. your husbands dead. your friends are all probably doing coke. your doctor is also both doing and maybe prescribing coke. no electricity. people are out there just staring into the void and having clandestine affairs in graveyards or some shit just because theres nothing else to do. and whats that? youve just written frankenstein. girl what the fuck even–
today is mary shelley’s birthday. honor her legacy by looking at the completely bonkers shit happening all around you and just saying well might as well fuck around and invent an entirely new literary genre
college is like [meets a rlly pretty woman] [meets an ugly man] [meets a loud man] [meets a woman with life-changing insight] [meets a man with no regard for other people] [meets a man who perceives himself as the smartest in the room] etc etc
college is like *gets an email* *walks somewhere* *realizes u left ur water bottle at home* *walks somewhere* *walks somewhere* *gets an email* *gets an email*
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
germansingergirl
dededos
janainaart
titsay
