Like many of you, I watched the recent video by YouTuber Tyler Oliveira with a heavy heart. It is deeply painful to see our beautiful town (Lakewood) and our way of life portrayed through such a distorted, negative lens. Its natural to feel defensive when someone enters our neighborhoods looking for a “scandal,” but as the dust settles, I think we need to have an honest conversation as a community: Did we accidentally give him exactly what he wanted?
When these influencers come to Lakewood, they arent looking for the truth; they are looking for a “reaction.” They want to see us turning away, closing doors, and refusing to speak. To their millions of viewers, that doesn’t look like “privacy”it looks like we have something to hide. By being defensive, we unintentionally helped him paint the very picture he came here to create.
What if we had changed the script?
Imagine if, instead of silence and suspicion, Tyler had been met with overwhelming, “annoying” kindness. Imagine if every person he approached on Clifton Avenue or in our local stores had offered him a cold water, a smile, or a genuine invitation to learn about our community.
A “Villain” is hard to edit: It is nearly impossible to turn someone into a “bad guy” on camera when they are busy being incredibly nice to you.
The Power of Kiddush Hashem: Our greatest defense against antisemitism isn’t a wall; its our Middos. If he had left Lakewood with ten hours of footage of people being hospitable and warm, he wouldn’t have had a video to post. The “story” would have died because there was no “villain” to be found.
We have to realize that in the age of social media, we are always on a global stage. Every one of us is an ambassador for the Jewish people. When a person like Tyler comes looking for a fight, lets give them a Kiddush Hashem instead. Lets make them leave thinking, “I came here to find something wrong, but I only found the kindest people I’ve ever met.”
We missed a massive opportunity this time, but we cant let it happen again. Lets use this as a wake-up call to be more proactive, more welcoming, and more confident in who we are. Lets show the world that our light is much stronger than their cameras.
Signed,
S.G.
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17 Responses
SG
Your naivety is cute. In the real world, good editing can make anyone look terrible.
Your naivety is cute. In the real world, good editing can make anything look terrible.
Congratulations. This is without a doubt one of the most moronic Mailbag letters ever posted here.
Who here is a naive and foolish enough to think that this lowlife was out there researching these communities with objectivity and openness, and not with a vile agenda?
It wouldn’t make any difference. A person whose claim to fame is posts about Somali “invasions” and Indian “invasions” will post about Jewish “invasions”. Those that thrive on stoking ethnic divisions will not change their tone because they are offered a glass of cold water. We need to recognize the rot of ethnic demonization. We should never be OK with demonization of Somalis, Haitians or immigrants. If we hero worship the guy who lied about Haitians eating cats and dogs and we are indifferent to the the vulgar stereotyping of migrant communities then we shouldn’t be shocked when it comes for us as well.
ITS CALLED TAKING THINGS OUT OF CONTEXT!!! They can ALWAYS do that. I think the Rabbanims hadracha to not engage was the best we could’ve done and that this very letter may be even worse than that video. Scape Goat 101 here. Woah
I want to believe you are genuinely that naive, are you?
On another note, are you aware that watching that video not only pays him a small amount of money but also boosts his videos in the algorithm?
You signed SG please use your real name NAIVE. For the record Tyler took video of Kiryas Joel The fool who did the hit on Lakewood was a guy Who goes by the name Santi. But there are many other such type of videos on You Tube. These guys arent politicians or people who want to learn about our community ok culture. They went hits, likes and subscribers and are looking to portray anything they upload in the most negative way. In addition Tyler was shown many positive things about KJ some of which he even had on his video. But his agenda was to portray the negative.
Turning the other cheek is not in our Bible
Bah. A liar like this guy is not going to be wooed by kindness. He 100% will take any words spoken to him out of context and twist it to seem bad.
You can say “Sholom Aleichem!” with a kind smile, and he will erase the actual words and show the scene with his own description “this guy cursed me out in Hebrew as he looked at me with an evil smirk!” Any footage at all in his hands becomes harmful weapon.
This article is very unhealthy. We all value middos, but the one who posted this shows a deep insecurity, clearly used AI, and assumes that whenever outsiders criticize us, the proper response is to demand that we perform incredible hospitality on demand.
We are the am hanivchar. We are not a public exhibit. We are not obligated to open our doors because someone with a camera wants content.
Performing kindless because we fear how we look is not strength. It is deep insecurity.
The Torah tzibbur values boundaries and privacy- which the writer sees as flaws, when they are strengths.
We owe no one access to our private lives
Boundaries are a stunning thing.
maybe. but the way the guy approached was unsettling he is a stranger walks over to you with a video camera asking intrusive questions like what you do for a living. no hello no smile no would mind if i asked a few questions for my show he is basically accosting people. at least this my impression from watching part of the kiryas yoel video. no one has to answer to this guy.
Well sorry to tell you our town isn’t “hospital” and warm”
We give tzedakah but when it comes down to treating people with decency it doesn’t show up that way. Not in stores not in shidduchim not in day to day life. Sorry.
So he might actually be bringing light to the very problem that plagues us.
Social judgement and cruelty that has been a great stronghold of our nation for quite some time
Generally happens in the day to day social lives of hundreds of people suffering in silence cuz they don’t “fit in”.
We have a middos problem.
Lol and he just put a huge magnifying glass to it. It’s sad but it’s true and no “but aren’t we the most giving action on earth” (giving technically cuz it makes you look good isn’t true kindness, kindness is how you treat people no matter the social ladder is the true litmus test of
If he an outsider was treated so coldly that’s an educational problem and imagine how people are treated inside the community.
rescue
What you’re describing as a human condition, and we are flawed humans.
The issues you mention are bothering you because we SHOULD be better, but we’re still light years ahead of the gentile next door, even though we’re not perfect.
The rest of it, the hospitality and kindness is the cherry on top. Our culture of giving is unique in the world, even though we’re not doing our best.
I’m sorry for your social situation, but your situation would be a billion times worse in a gentile environment.
Hashem should bench you with everything good!
And I think the middos problem stems from our us versus them mentality, I think the non jews are upset cuz we are bulldozing their needs to fulfill our own and that’s very wrong. We should have a little more respect for the neighborhoods and the video unfortunely put light to what seems to them to be deep corruption to get out needs met on our part and that never and will never look good to the outside world so if we can change our behaviour in some way and stop screaming antisemitism to get out way it would be machure and wise.
I think our social mentality within our community also stems from extreme hiarchy that stems from extreme materialism that is getting way out hand. Which is something that is making us slowly lose our humanity
If we get back to basics like
Treat others as we treat ourselves
Treat the stranger with respect and decency
These values mean that we need to go back to basics and get rid of all the frills of materialism which blinds us to our own humanity making us think we are above others based off what we can _afford_ yes there will always be people that seem beneath us but we are not privy to their hardships and our lives can look exactly like theirs if we had the same _circimstances_ as them and God who gives and who takes gives everybody their package wether it’s because of their own sins or not doesn’t make a difference but every person needs grace not just because they “fit in” to our impossible standards but because they are human living a human experience some that don’t fit into our impossible box
Sorry you are not miles ahead of the “gentile” next door. You barely know them to say that. Our culture of giving is not unique to the world that’s something you tell yourself again. Human beings are hardwired to care about others and human beings are built to care and give to others some people are just not tought from a young age to tithe which creates good giving habits but it’s not unique to the Jewish community. That’s another lie you tell yourself. Many many people around the world go out of their way to help others as compassion and conscience demands it. It is hardwired into all humans. Again gentiles do not suffer from social harachies and judgments that the Jewish community does so actually when you say a thousand times worse you have no idea what your taking about
I wouldn’t say our shudduch system kind
Where we scrutinize our singles and humiliae them and treat them like criminals to get a date basing our dating upon perfection instead of shared values and decency
I wouldn’t say our school system is kind where we punish parents for not fitting into our impossible boxes
I wouldn’t say the way we treat others is kind when we vilify those that can’t measure up to our impossible standards
We are not a kind socioty
We are a _very_ judgemental and sometimes insanely cruel and unforgiving socioty.
Stop using the fact that we have a lot of money to work with time and energy to create all these systems that help the poor to mull over the insane standards we have that marginalize anyone who has one hair out of place.
We are extremely unforgiving and cruel
Kindness means we have a conscience and we put ourselves aside to care about others even if they don’t measure up and look like us.
Your misconstruing educated customs and culture with kindness which means putting away our ideologies and treating real people with decency. We don’t treat people with decency we treat them with great judgment perhaps the same way we treat ourselves.
I also find it a little appalling that you make a very crazy assumption that anyone who’s not like you is automatically a bad person…..that’s an insane assumption. Probably ideological brainwash.
everyone is born innocent. It’s not normal that every single person who’s born non Jewish somehow became evil along the trajectory of their life and presumably became evil and a bad person because their not Jewish by blood. Crazy assumption much