Vogue cover model Paloma Elsesser slammed for telling followers not to post about anti-Semitism

Model Paloma Elsesser has been blasted for wading into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, telling her legion of followers on Instagram not to post about anti-Semitism as it ‘delegitimizes the Palestinian struggle’.

The plus-sized model, who appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine in January, made the comments as violence flared again between Israelis and Palestinians,  and waves of protests around the world sparked angry scenes.

Elsesser, 29, posted a statement written by Anna Rajagopal which called on people to think twice before posting about anti-Semitism.

The comment said: ‘No one is saying you have to be silent on anti-Semitism, but before you post about anti-Semitism during this time ask yourself… will people be able to use this to delegitimize the Palestinian struggle’.

Elsesser was slammed on Instagram for the post.

‘You know nothing about Israel about Palestinians or about Jews. Stay out of our affairs if you aren’t going to educate yourself,’ wrote one user.

‘You’re the biggest anti-Semite’, wrote another. ‘Get it through your head, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. You use your platform to divide. It’s disgusting, you should be ashamed.’

Another called on Elsesser to ‘stop spreading lies’.

‘We don’t tell you what racism is. Don’t tell us what anti-Semitism is.’

It comes days after supermodel sisters Bella and Gigi Hadid sparked a firestorm over an Instagram post that said Israel was not a country, but rather a land settled by colonizers.

Bella Hadid, who has nearly 42 million followers on the platform, published the series of cartoons Wednesday that called Israel ‘occupiers’ and called Palestinians ‘oppressed.’

Her sister Gigi then liked the post, amplifying the cartoons riddled with historic inaccuracies and anti-Semitic tropes to her 66.2 million followers.

Israel’s official social media channels hit back at the superstar sisters.

‘When celebrities like @BellaHadid advocate for throwing Jews into the sea, they are advocating for the elimination of the Jewish State,’ the State of Israel’s official Twitter account wrote Sunday.

‘This shouldn’t be an Israeli-Palestinian issue. This should be a human issue. Shame on you,’ along with the hashtag Israel Under Attack.

Meena Harris, the niece of vice president Kamala Harris, has also been an outspoken supporter of Palestine.

‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the oppressor,’ she wrote on Instagram.

On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in New York City holding ‘Abolish Israel’ signs to show their support for Palestinians, with protests also planned in other US cities following intense demonstrations around the world.

The ‘Rally to Defend Palestine‘ on Saturday afternoon in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens was organized by the New York group Within Our Lifetime (WOL).

In Queens, one car displayed a poster branding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘the biggest terrorist in the world!’

Marchers were pictured holding various flags, including one that appears to show a red target over Israel’s flag – though the meaning of the flag was not entirely clear.

Another man held a sign that called to ‘Abolish Israel’ while another protester held a sign that reads ‘End the Ongoing Nekba’, a reference to the day Israel became a nation.

Meanwhile, anti-Semitic attacks are surging across the United States.

The Anti-Defamation League reported almost 200 attacks on American Jews in the seven days from May 10 – the date that Hamas first fired rockets at Israel.

That number represents an almost 40 percent increase on the 131 anti-Semitic incidents that were clocked in the US the week before.

‘As the violence between Israel and Hamas continues to escalate, we are witnessing a dangerous and drastic surge in anti-Jewish hate right here at home,’ ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said Thursday.

It came after a wave of violence against Jewish people across the United States.   

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 

The LAPD are investigating a link between two anti-Semitic attacks that took place on consecutive nights in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Beverly Grove.

On Monday evening, two cars bearing Palestinian flags chased down a ‘terrified’ Orthodox Jew before he ran to the safety of a nearby synagogue.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said the father-of-six – who is too scared to be publicly identified – ‘literally had to run for his life’.

The following evening, pro-Palestinian protesters were caught on camera brawling with diners at a kosher restaurant in the same neighborhood.

The protesters pounced after allegedly asking the patrons if they were Jewish.

‘We do believe that these two incidents are related, by some evidence that’s available,’ Dominic Choi, a deputy chief in the Los Angeles Police Department, said Thursday.

He added said investigators have reached a ‘critical point’ in the cases. The FBI is also involved in the probe.

MIAMI, FLORIDA 

Police in Miami have launched an investigation after a Jewish family were pelted with garbage and subjected to vile slurs as they left a synagogue.

Eric Orgen was walking with his wife and daughter on Monday when a group of men slowed down their car and began yelling ‘Free Palestine’, ‘Die Jew’ and ‘I’m gonna rape your wife’.

The harassers only stopped when a stranger in another car intervened, brandishing a gun to scare them off.

‘I mean he was almost there as our guardian angel just protecting us. I think once they saw him they just took off,’ Orgen told CBS12 News. 

It comes after a van was seen cruising through Miami earlier this week sporting Palestinian flags and the words ‘HITLER WAS RIGHT’ written across a side window.

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK 

Jewish people had fireworks thrown at them during competing pro-Israel and pro-Palestine demonstrations in New York City on Thursday night.

A number of vehicles carrying people waving Palestinian flags and shouting racial slurs were captured on videos, driving through Manhattan’s Diamond District, home to many Jewish-owned businesses.

The NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force said it was investigating the assault of a Jewish man in Times Square, with video posted to social media purporting to show him being kicked as he lay on the street. He was taken to hospital with minor injuries.

More than two dozen people were arrested in the skirmish.

One Big Apple resident told Fox News: ‘My eyes are swollen from crying. This is not the New York City I recognize’.

Another told the network:’ Stop telling me this is about Israel and Gaza. My people are being targeted across the United States in broad daylight. This is textbook anti-Semitism, and we will continue to live in danger until the public starts to recognize it for what it is.’

Meanwhile, Jewish man Joseph Borgen, 29, was hospitalized after being set upon by a group of pro-Palestinian protesters during the dueling demonstrations .

Video shared to social media shows him being pushed to ground before he was kicked by multiple people.

‘They were punching me, kicking me all over my body. I have bruises on my ribs, my back, all over… I got a slight concussion,’ Borgen told FOX 5 following his release from hospital.

SKOKIE, ILLINOIS 

It is not just big cities where Jews have been subjected to the abhorrent attacks.

On Sunday, one synagogue in Skokie, Illinois – a heavily Jewish town north of Chicago – had its windows smashed in.

A man brandishing a Palestinian flag was caught on buildings security camera also leaving a pro-Palestine sign outside.

The same day, a group of demonstrators chanted ‘Intifada!’  (a cry for violence) across the street from Temple Beth Israel.

One resident told Fox News that she is ‘scared’ to be visibly Jewish in the town – a particularly sad fact given that Skokie has long been a safe haven for Jewish.

In the mid-1960s, more than half of its 65,000 residents were Jewish, and many were Holocaust survivors.

TUCSON, ARIZONA

In Tucson, Arizona, a rock was thrown through a window of a synagogue on Tuesday morning.

No one was injured, and the offender or offenders have not yet been found.

It prompted an outcry from Democrat Rep. Alma Hernandez, who is Jewish.

‘I’m a complete mess in tears as I write this. I just got off the phone with my Rabbi and our synagogue was vandalized. Someone through a rock at our glass door. This was NOT and accident! I feel numb,’ she posted on Twitter.

Hernandez believes the attack was designed to ‘intimidate’ members of the congregation. Jews only make up a small number of Tucson residents.

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

A synagogue in Salt Lake City was vandalized with a swastika on Sunday morning, prompting outrage from the local community.

Rabbi Avremi Zippel told local reporters: ‘A swastika is not a political statement. A swastika is an image of hate. A swastika represents one thing and one thing only and that is death to the Jews’.

Zippel said politicians have not been vocal enough in condemning the surge in anti-Semitic attacks.

‘The silence surrounding the cheapening of Jewish blood is deafening and downright sad,’ he told Fox News.

Rabbi Cooper in Los Angeles even blamed some US politicians for inciting attacks on Jews with their anti-Israel rhetoric.

‘Political leaders like ‘The Squad’ and those who agree with them including influencers and entertainers and the media are giving a moral equivalency and parroting talking points of Hamas, a terrorist organization,’ he stated.

Anti-Semitic attacks in the United States were at near historic highs even before the recent eruption of violence in the Middle East.

Last year, the ADL reported 2,023 anti-Semitic instances – the third-highest on record since they began tracking data back in 1979.

But as the attacks now increase in both their frequency and brazenness,  many Jewish Americans fear a dark new chapter is not only on the rise, but has already arrived.