Ms Rachel is facing criticism from scientists over reporting in Gaza amid a wave of anti-Semitism

In recent days, a remarkable and deeply symbolic moment has been unfolding online – what some jokingly call “the Battle of the Rachels.”

On one side is “Miss Rachel,” a YouTube personality with millions of followers, whose recent social media posts about Gaza have gone viral, generating huge engagement and emotional responses. On the other hand, I am: an educator, a researcher on Zionism and Israel, and someone who has spent her career thinking about how stories about Jews and Israel shape the moral imagination of our society.

The contrast is not personal. But it is educational.

Miss Rachel’s platform is extraordinary. Her audience consists of parents, teachers and young children who trust her as a source of safety, warmth and moral clarity. That confidence is exactly what makes her recent political engagement so consequential. When influencers with such reach find themselves in complex geopolitical conflicts, their framework matters. Their omissions matter. And even their informal interactions – their likes, reposts and messages of support – matter.

YOUTUBE STAR MS RACHEL APOLOGIZES EMOTIONALLY FOR LIKING ANTI-SEMITIC COMMENT, SAYS IT WAS AN ACCIDENT

In recent months, Ms. Rachel has increasingly used her platform to promote a unique narrative about the war in Gaza, one that emphasizes Palestinian suffering while largely leaving out the context of Hamas terrorism, the October 7 massacre and the hostage crisis. Even more disturbing, she engaged in online rhetoric that many Jews experience not as political criticism, but as delegitimization and dehumanization.

When a public figure affirms or uses language that targets Jews as a group, even indirectly, they do not exist in a vacuum. It becomes part of a broader cultural ecosystem in which anti-Semitism is increasingly normalized, excused, reframed as “activism,” and made socially acceptable.

We must be exceptionally clear: criticism of Israeli policies is legitimate and necessary in any democratic society. Debate, dissent and protest are essential tools for moral responsibility. But when criticism shifts to rhetoric that erases Jewish history, denies the Jewish people, or echoes exclusionary language, it ceases to be political criticism and becomes something much older and more dangerous.

ANTISEMITISM: FACE. FIGHT IT. Finish it

Rachel Griffin-Accurso attends the 2025 Glamor Women of the Year Awards at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on November 4, 2025. Ms. Rachel wore a dress embroidered with children’s drawings from Gaza, featuring the colors of the Palestinian flag, watermelons and olive branches. Watermelons are often used in anti-Israel protests, including on social media and in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. (Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)

This is where the irony of the “two Rachels” becomes meaningful.

One Rachel represents the power of mass influence without historical basis. The other represents the slow, often unglamorous work of education: teaching individuals how anti-Semitism mutates, how language moves, how stories shape belonging and exclusion.

And this is the deeper issue: if an influencer were to engage in content perceived as hostile to another minority group, the response would be swift and unequivocal. Sponsors would respond. Media outlets would demand accountability. Platforms would intervene.

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When it comes to Jews, however, the response is often muted. Antisemitism is treated as ambiguous. Jews are told to be less sensitive. The rhetoric is excused as ‘just politics’.

Memorials at the site of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack at the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im, Israel, on Monday, May 27, 2024. (Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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This double standard is not accidental. It is part of a long history of minimizing Jewish vulnerability, dismissing Jewish fear, and treating Jewish identity as uniquely negotiable.

Today we are witnessing the consequences. Anti-Semitism is increasing worldwide. Synagogues need armed guards. Jews are murdered at a Hanukkah gathering in Australia, outside a synagogue in Britain on the Jewish High Holidays, at a rally for the hostages in Boulder, synagogues are burned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in DC. We now have parents who think twice before letting their children wear visible Jewish symbols in public.

In this climate, influence is not neutral. And silence is not harmless.

Jewish tradition teaches us to grapple with complexity, pursue justice, and safeguard human dignity – including our own and that of others. It requires moral seriousness, not slogans. Education, not outrage. Responsibility, not performative activism.

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So perhaps the real “battle of the Rachels” is between two models of public engagement: one rooted in reach without depth. The other in the depths without spectacle. The question is which one we as a society choose to reward.