When I came to Israel in 2007, I knew very little about the country, the conflict, Judaism and history. I thought at the time that I knew a lot, but reality quickly caught up with me. As is the case, if you don’t know much, you end up rather left-wing, and so I considered the Jewish settlers to be common war criminals and Arab violence to be justified anger. However, the more I dealt with the subject, the more this picture changed.

I have to admit that I maybe even swayed a little too much in the opposite direction. I was almost paranoid because it seemed to me that the whole world was against us poor Jews. However, once, shortly after I started working at Israel Today, a group of German tourists came to the editorial office and when they saw my kippah, they blessed me and wished me all the best. I was amazed and touched because all day long during work I was occupied with people who hated me because I was Jewish. But there were people here who loved me because I’m Jewish. It was a new experience.

Many Jews in the Diaspora feel the same as I did before I came to Israel. They think they know a lot about what’s going on here and tend to be critical of Israel. One such diaspora Jew is Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and head of Facebook. Antisemitism thrives on his platform, where everybody is free to express their crazy views.

Now, however, Zuckerberg himself has put something Jewish on Facebook and even the boss is promptly pelted with antisemitic dirt on his own platform. Zuckerberg posted a photo of his dog with a kippah and a Jewish prayer shawl and the comments are a collection of the worst in antisemitism.

I’m happy that Zuckerberg is being attacked personally, because maybe he now understands what a terrible platform he has created. Maybe like Theodor Herzl he’ll be inspired by the antisemitism and start doing something positive for the Jewish people, starting with blocking antisemitic sites and posts on Facebook. But I’m not optimistic about that.

If you look at the comments of the antisemites, who almost all have Muslim names, it seems like they have a lot of fun berating poor Zuckerberg. You can imagine these youngsters sitting at the computer and joyfully making mean pictures and comments. It is really sad that there is a place for such people on Facebook, but luckily there is Israel Today – readers who keep showing me that the whole world isn’t against us.