I had a quiet weekend, too much time for Twitter which seemed to be ablaze with all the replies informing me that Jews are Khazars and racists. Perhaps they meant that Zionists, not Jews, are racists – but who are the Khazars? I have never seen an anti Zionist Jew identify as a Khazar. Do those who adhere to the theory that Jews are from a Khazaria, which I cannot find on a map, maintain that the victims of the nazis in Europe were Khazarian?

They would have an answer to this, I am sure, as the quiet weekend was spent largely looking at their proliferating answers.

Today, I tried to trace the origin of a thread in which I was tagged, where adversarial accounts iterated the words apartheid, Khazar and other disobliging terms. Some accounts include the word apartheid in every tweet they write, with the compulsiveness of a child avoiding cracks in the pavement. They have articles by Amnesty, Btselem and Mondoweiss ready to hand.

The origin appeared to be a tweet from Chris Williamson, who quote tweeted Chief Rabbi Mirvis.

This generated some anger from those sympathetic to the Chief Rabbi and our answers provoked the ire of a panoply of ‘anti Zionists’, a sample of which will be shown below.

These anti Zionists abided by the Twitter tradition of tweeting with a jaunty self-confidence, jouissance almost, more marked as their tweets became more insulting. Of course this applies to all tendencies, not just those hostile to Jews, or should I say Khazars, as some of Chris Williamson’s fanbase like to call us. It is a commonplace for an individual accused of antisemitism to supply the spirited denial that, on the contrary, they are devoted to the semitic Palestinians.

It makes me weary. I would do better to go for a jog and then I would be weary in a good way, although to be honest, jogging no longer presents an option.

It makes me depressed, a word which the antagonistic accounts would replace with the phrase ‘playing the antisemitism card’.

And I am cursed with a desire to answer, for the performative value, for all the innocent bystanders who yet might be persuaded not to believe that an army of conquering Khazars traversed the Near East in the years after the Second World War.

Nevertheless, by the end of Saturday, I blocked all the hostile accounts in my notifications. On Sunday night, I blocked a lot more. One man repeatedly called me a racist. Eventually riled by this, I painted a blue Star of David on the back of my left hand, photographed it doing a middle finger salute, tweeted this to Kevin and then blocked him. The utility, if any, was merely to show that there is an end to my patience.

After this, the onslaught abated, except for one man called ‘Clemenza’ in honour of the Godfather character, who sent me a selection of iffy Talmud quotes famously assembled by neonazis.

When I think of the long, long arguments in the Gemara, often not resolved and finished only with the word ‘Teiku’ which indicated an impasse, I can’t imagine that Twitter would be the place to embark on Talmud apologetics.

However I will just quote the Mishnah (Avot 5:17) on arguments:

Every dispute that is for the sake of Heaven, will in the end endure; But one that is not for the sake of Heaven, will not endure. Which is the controversy that is for the sake of Heaven? Such was the controversy of Hillel and Shammai. And which is the controversy that is not for the sake of Heaven? Such was the controversy of Korach and all his congregation.

Not everyone will know about Korach’s rebellion (Numbers 16) or about the first century disputes between the sages Hillel (lenient) and Shammai (strict) but some arguments are worth having. Others are not worth having but you just can’t get out of them.