During the Super Bowl last week, I, like millions of others, was attuned to the most exciting part … the commercials. OK, I enjoyed the game too, but one of my favorite pastimes is to try to guess the product being advertised before it is revealed at the end of the advertisement. In a society where there is immense competition for our attention, this is not always an easy task. Advertisers will go to immense creative lengths to get our attention, even if that means the content of the commercial has nothing to do with the product.
This year we were presented with another advertising problem: what to call your product. During the game, hundreds of millions of people saw an ad with the tag line “Stand Up to Jewish Hate”. Even though I knew that the ad was meant to oppose hatred directed at Jews, I turned to my wife and said, “You could read that line as trying to prevent hatred that Jews direct toward others.” Apparently, many others agreed with me that the message was confusing and poorly worded.
What’s more odd is that the ad was funded by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. So why didn’t they just use the tag line “Stand Up to Antisemitism”? I suspect it’s because the advertisers felt that wording would be equally confusing. It presumes that the viewer knows that antisemitism is hatred of Jews, an assumption that you cannot make in America in 2024, especially because the word antisemitism makes no mention of Jews or Jewish.
The word antisemitism is confusing for other reasons as well. Semite is a person who speaks a Semitic language, which includes Hebrew and Arabic, but antisemitism does not refer to hatred of Arabs, only Jews. In addition, there is no such thing as Semitism (outside of linguistics), against which one could be called anti-Semitic. It is for this reason that many have removed the hyphen and capital S and spell the word antisemitism.
The Super Bowl ad could have used another alternative: “Stand Up to Jew Hate”. But this wording has its own problems, not the least of which is the same confusion of “Jewish Hate”. Are we talking about hatred of Jews or Jews who hate. In addition, the word Jew tends to have a negative sound in 2024 American English. I often hear people avoid the word in favor of “Jewish person” to not sound pejorative.
So, what should the ad have said? I am no advertising executive, but how about “Don’t Hate Jews”. It’s simple and to the point, and it could fit with the other message of the commercial: that prejudice is linked. The tag line could have been interspersed with similar messages like “Don’t Hate Muslims”, and “Don’t Hate Latinos”. At a cost of millions of dollars for only 30 seconds, you have to make your Super Bowl ad count. Not only do you need to grab the viewer’s attention, you must make sure they understand your pitch. Next time the foundation has America’s attention, they better make it crystal clear that Jews are under attack and need everyone’s help.
Rabbi Adler's Study 