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literally find what was previously
unspeakable. Social media has
become a breeding ground for
bigotry.” Following the Jan. 6 Capitol
riots, which left five people dead,
the social media giants took
serious steps against accounts
they deemed
potentially dangerous. Twitter suspended
more than 70,000 accounts
linked to the QAnon conspiracy
theory, whose followers believe
Donald Trump is secretly saving
the world from a cabal of Satanic
pedophiles and cannibals, and
who traffic in anti-Semitic
tropes. Adherents of QAnon
were numerous among the mob
that stormed the Capitol.

Trump was permanently
suspended from Twitter “due to
the risk of further incitement of
violence,” Twitter announced.

Other platforms, including
Facebook and Instagram, also
suspended Trump’s accounts,
as well as the accounts of some
of his associates.

In the wake of the suspen-
sions, many far-right voices
moved to the platform Parler
until Apple, Google and
Amazon removed Parler from
their platforms too.

Shutting down social media
12 JANUARY 21, 2021
accounts and sites, though,
does not necessarily halt the
spread of violent rhetoric,
anti-Semitism or other hateful
ideologies, according to some
law enforcement experts.

“When you limit these
types of accounts, what
happens is the folks who are
using these various platforms
to communicate will simply
jump to another platform,”
said Shawn Brokos, director
of community security for the
Jewish Federation of Greater
Pittsburgh. “We see that all the
time in law enforcement.” She
analogized tracking extremists
to a game of “whack-a-mole.”
Kathleen Blee, a professor
of sociology at the University
of Pittsburgh who has
researched white supremacy
and is a member of one the
three congregations attacked
during the shooting at the Tree
of Life building, agreed there
are “downsides” to moving
people off of sites where people
understand that they are being
monitored, which can have
some moderating effect.

“It’s moving people into
these end-to-end encrypted —
and really the cesspool of the
internet —sites that are just
vehicles for the most horrific
white supremacist, violent,
anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant
views,” Blee said. “So, that’s a
problem, obviously. And it’s
hard to monitor what individ-
uals are doing on them — it’s
not hard to monitor them in the
aggregate, but it is hard to pin
anything to an individual user.”
As of last week, use of apps
favored by extremists had
skyrocketed, Blee said. Users
on Signal had increased 677%
and Telegram was up 146%.

“That’s a problem,” Blee said.

“These places are slippery. And
Telegram and Signal are very
much open to hosting these
kinds of very violent white
supremacist conversations.”
On the other hand, Blee
said, when more open sites
close down, there is usually
some attrition.

“For one thing, some people
will not want to gravitate from the
level of what was being expressed
on Facebook or even Parler, to
the next step toward violence,”
she said. “And you are also going
to lose some people because, as
you get into some of these, they
become more and more diffi-
cult to access and require more
technological knowledge.”
Another downside to moving
users off mainstream platforms
is that it reifies some of their
false beliefs. “For these racially
motivated violent extremists,
there is this inherent belief
that there is a Zionist govern-
ment that is trying to control
everybody and that the Jews are
behind a lot of that,” Brokos said.

In fact, that ideology may
have motivated the Pittsburgh
synagogue shooter.

“What seems to have happened
with him very much fits the
pattern we see in other kinds of
racially motivated violence,” said
Blee. “First, there’s a sense of some
enormous existential threat out
there. If you think of the 1980s
and ’90s, when the white suprem-
acists became significant in this
country, the existential threat
was banking and farm foreclo-
sures — it was the beginning of
the militia movement and really
the resurgence of anti-Semitism
in a very public way. That was
the existential threat: Jews held
JEWISH EXPONENT
Twitter suspended the account of President Donald Trump, which he had
previously used for most of his communication. 
Screenshot via PJC
a stranglehold over the economy
and were ruining the lives of white
farmers was kind of the message
there.” These days, the existential
threat is more commonly framed
as white genocide or “the Great
Replacement Theory — that
whites will become the minority
and lose power,” Blee said.

The next precursor to
racially motivated violence is
identifying a person or group
responsible, she continued.

“In the Pittsburgh shooting,
the threat was white genocide
and the target was George
Soros — so there you have an
amplification by politicians of
the same message that’s being
spread on Gab and by other
white supremacists online.”
To white supremacists,
“George Soros” signifies “Jews,”
Blee said, “and they all understand
that. George Soros is to white
supremacists what Rothschild was
a couple decades ago. Probably
most of these people couldn’t tell
you who George Soros is — just
an image that stands in for Jews
writ large, Jewish control.”
After identifying the threat
and the target, the third stage is
a “sense of urgency,” Blee said.

“That’s the final trigger.

‘You can’t just wait around
and mobilize yourself for the
threat, you have to act now’
— that’s the message …. It’s
pernicious in any form. When
it’s happening on the internet
all over the place, when it’s
amplified in public, when
there is an echoing of what’s
happening on places like Gab
and what’s showing on TV,
that’s particularly dangerous.”
Shutting down Trump’s
use of social media “as a
megaphone” in the days after
the Jan. 6 riots and before the
inauguration was particularly
important, Blee said: “I think
in the short run, that outweighs
everything — he was clearly
providing an accelerant to these
conversations and actions.”
The Anti-Defamation
League also condoned Trump’s
ban from social media, calling
it an “excellent step.”
“President Trump incited
the violent riots at the Capitol
using social media and he paid
the price,” said Shira Goodman,
regional director of ADL
Philadelphia. “The big platforms
must enforce their terms of service
and demonstrate moral leader-
ship. Individuals who seek to
spread fraudulent and completely
debunked claims to undermine
our democracy and encourage
mobs to overturn an election and
storm the Capitol have no right to
do so on social platforms.

“And social platforms not only
have no obligation ethically or
legally to host and amplify those
voices,” she added. “They have a
moral and ethical and, in some
cases, a legal obligation to stop
such incitement to violence.

While ADL believes that everyone
should have the right to express
themselves, incitement to violence
is not a protected right.” l
Toby Tabachnick is the editor of
the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, an
Exponent-affiliated publication.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



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earned a degree in accounting
from Temple University. After
college, he entered the Navy
and served as a lieutenant for
two years during the Korean
War. In 1953, he married
Hermine Betty Eisenberg.

He initially planned to
join his father in the family
business, Louis Bakery, but
decided to go to medical school
instead. He earned his M.D.

from Temple University School
of Medicine (now the Lewis
Katz School of Medicine at
Temple University), interned at
Philadelphia General Hospital
and served a residency at
Temple University Hospital. He
opened his OB-GYN practice
in Phoenixville and deliv-
ered more than 8,000 babies
throughout his career.

In addition to being on the
board and being a fundraising
chair for his synagogue,
Congregation B’nai Jacob, he
channeled his experience from
years in the family bakery to
bake challahs and haman-
taschen for fellow congregants.

Son Jon Liss said he was
inspired by his father’s work
ethic. As a child, people would
approach him to say how much
they appreciated his father’s care.

“When I close my eyes and
think about my dad, I feel his
genuine joy for seeing me, the
hand squeeze or arm around
me walking side by side, the
elation of watching him revel
in his grandchildren and the
beauty of the true love affair he
had with my mom,” daughter
Abbe Zuckerberg said in a
statement. Gilbert Liss
Courtesy of Jon Liss
speaking Yiddish at home with
his immigrant Jewish parents
in West Philadelphia.

He graduated from West
Philadelphia High School and was
drafted into the Navy Hospital
Corps during World War II. After
the war, he earned three degrees
in chemistry and bacteriology at
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy
and Sciences (now University of
the Sciences). He married Lydia
Aureli in 1952.

Pollack earned a Ph.D. in
biochemistry and nutrition from
the University of Tennessee and
moved to Andorra with his
wife and daughters. He worked
for the U.S. Department of
Agriculture before becoming a
teacher and researcher at Temple
University, a job he loved and
kept for 25 years.

“He just always stayed so
involved,” daughter Janine
Shahinian said. “When he was
a professor he was on all these
committees, he was writing
grant proposals and doing
research.” He cared greatly
about his students and was
always happy to encounter
former pupils on the street.

Linda Pollack-Johnson said
her father stayed connected to
his family, including far-flung
relatives, until the end of his
life, when he was in isolation.

During the lockdown, he partic-
Robert Pollack
Dr. Robert Pollack died of ipated in a worldwide family
COVID-19 on Dec. 1 at Cathedral reunion on Zoom orchestrated
Village in Philadelphia. He was by his daughters. l
94. The scientist, author, Navy Ronald Rosenthal
veteran and former chair of the
Dr. Ronald Rosenthal
department of biochemistry died of pneumonia caused
at Temple University’s School by COVID-19 on Dec 31.

of Dentistry (now Kornberg He was 88 and lived in Artis
School of Dentistry) grew up Senior Living of Huntingdon
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Ronald Rosenthal
Courtesy of Pat Rosenthal
Valley due to his struggle with
dementia. A dentist who practiced for
more than 50 years, he gradu-
ated from Central High School,
Temple University and Temple
University School of Dentistry
(now Kornberg School of
Dentistry). He was beloved by
his community of patients, who
often invited him and his wife
Pat Rosenthal to their weddings,
bar mitzvahs and other simchas.

“His friends
became patients, and his patients
became friends,” she said.

He was a member of Golden
Slipper Club & Charities and
enjoyed hosting family around
his table for the Jewish holidays
at his home in Blue Bell. He
was particularly fond of Jewish
comfort foods like corned beef
sandwiches and matzah ball soup.

Pat Rosenthal said that
although he had a busy
practice, family was every-
thing to him, and the couple
traveled widely with their three
children in the United States,
Europe and the Caribbean. He
also was beloved by the kids in
their neighborhood.

“He was the fun guy on the
street. The kids would try the
doorbell and want to know if
Uncle Ronnie could come out
and play,” she said. “He was a
good father and loved being
a grandfather. That was really
special for him.”
Saul Victor
Courtesy of Beverly Victor
wedding or a friend’s simcha,
that he wouldn’t get up with the
band and sing Neil Diamond’s
‘Sweet Caroline.’ That was his
signature song, along with
Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way,’” wife
Beverly Victor said.

She said he was the ultimate
family man, and the family
was not just his children and
grandchildren. Nieces and
nephews considered him a
beloved second father figure.

People have reached out
to say they remember her
husband’s ability to listen.

“If you would meet Saul
today and have a conversation,
you would walk away knowing
that he heard everything you
said,” she said. “And then if you
met him a month or six months
from now, he would remind you
of that conversation, and what
he had learned from you.” l
City before his family eventually
settled in Philadelphia. After high
school, he helped his father in the
family paperhanging business
before starting his own, serving
in the Army and marrying his
high school sweetheart, Sybil
Schwartz (they later separated).

He was the owner of
Pearlstein’s Furniture and later
became a professional lead
singer in his own band, the
Saul Victor Trio.

“There wasn’t a bar or bat spanzer@jewishexponent.com;
mitzvah, there was never a 215-832-0729
Saul Victor
Saul Victor died of compli-
cations of COVID-19 on Dec.

29. He was 82.

Victor was born in
Wilmington and spent his
younger years living in Atlantic
JEWISH EXPONENT
JANUARY 21, 2021
13