Antisemitic comments beneath Jay Rayner article about Claudia Roden removed
Review of Jewish cook's latest book by celebrity food critic in The Observer turns into 'cesspit' of hate, including Nazi comparisons and claims she 'stole food' from Palestinians
The Guardian has deleted a slew of antisemitic comments on an article about a Jewish cook’s book.
The piece, a review of Claudia Roden’s latest book, ‘Book of Jewish Food’, by food critic Jay Rayner, was published online yesterday.
Roden, who is best known as the author of Middle Eastern Cookbooks, is both a cookbook writer and a cultural anthropologist. Her latest work took 16 years to write and is more an ‘encyclopaedia of Jewish life’, according to Jewish historian Simon Schama.
But the celebrated chef – a British Jew whose family were refugees from Egypt – faced a torrent of abuse, much of it referring to Israel including: “No, ty I do not eat stolen food from the original owners, Palestinian”
Another said: “Would you have brought a German recipe book during WWII slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people?” …. Show us the Palestinian version. I guarantee it’ll be more authentic and FAR more popular.”
In response to the antisemitism, Rayner tweeted that he was “appalled.” He went on to ask the Guaridan why it “declines to moderate comments on its Facebook page even though it could (by hiding comments). I hope the cesspit of antisemitism on my Roden piece makes them think. I will make the case again.”
Following his, and others, tweets, the original piece was taken down from social media and has since been reposted.
“We removed the Facebook post as soon as the antisemitic comments were brought to our attention overnight. We have since reposted the article and will act as necessary if further such comments occur.
“There is a clear need for social media platforms to enable functionality so that news publishers can post journalism, in the public interest, on the Facebook news feed and other platforms with user comments turned off. This is an obligation on the platforms that was proposed in draft legislation in Australia, but was opposed by the biggest social media platforms on the basis that it would impose an “undue and onerous burden” on their business model. News publishers have suggested that such functionality should be made available by the platforms as a result of the UK government’s upcoming online harms legislation.”
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