Israel and “God” Fight on Twitter Over Jesus

Once again, it is primarily Jews who step forward to defend the Jewishness of Jesus

By Aviel Schneider | | Topics: palestinians, Jesus
Israel again claims Jesus as its own.
Photo: Public domain

On Twitter, “God” has six million followers. And now he’s messing with Israel. On his account @TheTweetOfGod he let it be known that Jesus was a “Roman-era Palestinian.” The State of Israel’s official Twitter account reacted promptly.

The exchange began with a tweet from “God” on the current topic of “white privilege.” Under a common Western image of Jesus he wrote: “Privilege doesn’t get much whiter than making a Roman-era Palestinian look like this.”

The remark did not only touch on the sensitive issue of the current “Black Lives Matter” protests in the US, but also on claims that Jesus was not a Jew, but rather a “Palestinian.” With this assertion, the Palestinians have been trying for a long time to manipulate history in their favor.

It did not take long for Israel’s English-language Twitter account, which is maintained by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Digital Diplomacy Team, to react. In one of the first responses to the tweet, @Israel wrote:

“God: Jesus was a Palestinian.

“Jesus: Hey Dad, remember when you gave that speech about Jewish values at my Bar Mitzvah?”

Between a flood of derogatory responses, many Christians chimed in rejoicing that Israel had finally acknowledged the divinity of Jesus!

Twitter-“God” himself did not react to the Israeli tweet immediately, but only much later after the post had gone viral and the debate had become very heated. If Jesus is supposed to have been a Jew, tweeted “God,” then he probably looked more like a Jew from Poland.

I was interested in who is behind “God” on Twitter, and so I found out that this satire account belongs to an American Jew, the comedian David Javerbaum (49). For him, God is of course an old white man with a beard. Just like on the profile photo of the @TheTweetOfGod account.

Twitter seems to have become a kind of battlefield for politicians and other personalities in recent years, thanks in part to US President Donald Trump. In a mere 140 characters, people have become very creative in their ability to troll and annoy others.

In this particular case, Javerbaum angered the government of his ancestral Jewish homeland, although one can admittedly understand his tweet differently. The Israel Foreign Ministry, followed by many other Jewish commenters, was quick to embrace and publicly defend the Jewishness of Jesus.

I can well imagine that Javerbaum actually understands that Jesus is more connected to his Jewish roots than to the Palestinian Arabs. But the fact is that this is a highly explosive issue. Palestinians can tweet as often as they want that Jesus was a Palestinian, but it will not change the truth.

Even so, Javerbaum and his @TheTweetOfGod managed to once again make headlines, perhaps at least in part because @Israel misunderstood him? Even the closest families sometimes fight, don’t they?

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