Comments on: Just Say No to Jewish Urban Legends

By: Old Rockin' Dave

Old Rockin' Dave — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:24:18 +0000

In the famous words of Mark Twain:
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes”
I always check anything doubtful with the Snopes.com website as well, and there are other sites that rebut a lot of other urban legends, paranormal “woo-woo” beliefs and other misconceptions.
Some of the more useful sites are:
Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy , Committee for Skeptical Inquiry , Seawana.com .
I recommend them and others because people who will fall for one kind of nonsense will usually fall for numerous other kinds.
Remember that the only lasting cure for bad ideas and false beliefs consists of better ideas and truth.

By: Tziporah

Tziporah — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 14:58:55 +0000

Thank you for this incisive analysis. I am shocked to realize that I have encountered many of the e-mail hoaxes explicitly mentioned above–from the maliciously false ones about Obama to the rumors about the United Kingdom ceasing to teach about the Holocaust. In recalling HOW I came to receive them, I recognized that Jewish e-mail correspondents, including some that consider themselves righteous and upright members of their community, in particular, right-wing Jewish acquaintances, have spread them. Truly an example of lashon hara!

By: Lenore

Lenore — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:02:27 +0000

Spreading internet rumors surely falls within the category of behavior forbidden by Jewish law as lashon hara (evil talk, such as gossip).

By: Sherril

Sherril — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:32:19 +0000

David,
This was a useful email and reading it I kept waiting for the part where you would tell your readers where to go on the web to either validate or invalidate what they read before sending it on, but it never came. http://www.snopes.com/snopes.asp

I always check it out at snopes.com, the urban legend buster. In fact, I also was anticipating learning that a new site was coming out that would bust specifically Jewish urban legends.I was a little disappointed that this was not to be.

I hope your readers are reading this and will use snopes.com to check out Jewish and not-Jewish urban legends. It’s a site that we all should bookmark and use.

http://www.snopes.com/snopes.asp

By: Jim Heffernan

Jim Heffernan — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:34:28 +0000

Great article - but it might be helpful to post some information about how people can help to defuse these internet myths more quickly. One site that is very useful is Urban Legends (snopes dot com); I often send out a “reply all” e-mail blast with a link to the site so that people can get the correct information (and hopefully send it back up the e-mail chain).

By: Phyllis

Phyllis — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:04:16 +0000

I am the women’s studies librarian at the University of Wisconsin, and I applaud your attempt to get people to check before forwarding mass emails. I received the U.K./University of Kentucky one just this week, and I did what I always do, which is to check http://www.snopes.com. I easily verified that this has been circulating for years, and that it has the single school in the UK grain of truth amidst a much larger falsehood. I sent a reply to the person who had sent it to me, urging her to let all the other people to whom she had sent it know not to forward the message. (I prefer not to blast other people’s distribution lists and embarrass my friendly forwarder. I let her/him word their message as they wish.) It is important to let people know where they can check — besides snopes there’s http://urbanlegends.about.com/. The only statement I would take issue with is that Jews are especially prone to receive and forward such messages. It just depends on who you are, what you receive. I, for example, also get a lot of them concerning women, particularly health scares.

By: felix

felix — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:01:02 +0000

Gossip and rumor is part and parcel of our human fabric. It all may have started with our Neanderthal ancestors. Unfortunately, it will not get any better as we become more enamored with taunting the truth. Telling lies will inevitably become more palatable as we, via technology, anonymously venture deep into the long and dark corridors of our societal psyche. Sadly, as a moral and enlightened people we may have faltered as standard bearers of truth, justice and compassion. Though it has been our most pressing social responsibility.

By: Mark Goodman

Mark Goodman — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:42:33 +0000

Justin is correct. The smear campaign against Obama is disgraceful and is a most apt example for Mr. Bernstein’s piece.

Senator Obama’s positions on Israel couldn’t be clearer: co-sponsor of the 2006 Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, vocal supporter of Israel’s right to self-defense during the Hezbollah war (while the world was screaming “disproportionate force”), and unwavering committment to Israel’s security which he has called “sacrosanct.”

He is a Christian and a friend of the Jews, as his legion of passionate Jewish supporters will attest. What are these accusation about him being a Muslim trying to accomplish?

Mark Goodman

By: Nadia

Nadia — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:01:59 +0000

David,
Thank you for your timely post, as a Jew and a journalist I have been very disturbed by the false information flying around about Barack Obama in the Jewish community … and elsewhere.
Sometimes the facts are hard to find, but they are out there if you do your research. Never take one source–especially an email–as gospel!

By: Justin

Justin — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:01:42 +0000

No matter where one’s support lies in this presidential election, one should vote on facts and not be used by those that seek to attack candidates they do not like via false, unsubstantiated rumors. As Jews we should be aware of people using lies masked as truths to attack a minority and we should not allow people to use our fears and concerns to spread lies as a means to sabotage a candidate for office they dislike due to political disagreements.