An independent congressional candidate from Oregon who recently called first lady Melania Trump a “hoebag” and tweeted that she “works by the hour” aimed anti-Semitic remarks at a prominent Jewish Twitter personality.
Mark Roberts launched an attack on Shoshana Weissmann, the digital media director at the conservative R Street Institute think tank, after she tweeted that he didn’t “understand how the “First Amendment works.”
In response, Roberts tweeted “Shalom mein #Yenta,” a Yiddish term for a gossipy woman, and later a YouTube video of the “Dreidel” song.
Weissmann is well known for her support of licensing reform, her rainbow-colored hair and her love of sloths.
In a tweet earlier this month, Roberts wrote, “Might want to leave that standard to judicial review before you claim you’re correct. I think $TWTR has considered it as they seem to be letting me express myself in the same way they do you. Shalom mein #Yenta.”
“I admire how smart Mark is. He figured out I’m Jewish!!! GENIUS! And I try so hard to hide it!!! Great pick for Congress,” Weissmann retorted, prompting Roberts to declare that he was Jewish as well.
“Yeah it was tough, the face gave it away, if only you were smart enough to figure out I’m Jewish #nitwit,” he wrote.
“If you’re Jewish and also attacking other people for being Jewish, then you’re just even more pathetic than I thought,” Weissmann countered.
Asked by one twitter user why “anti-Semitism like yours [is] all the rage these days,” Roberts replied, “Off with your #Yarmulke and I’ll take a ginsu to your pe’ah too! #oyveyismere you people are so stupid.”
Yarmulke is the Yiddish word for kippah, or skullcap. “Oy vey smere” is a Yiddish expression which can be loosely translated to mean “oh my gosh this is terrible.”
Pe'ah in Hebrew means “wig” and is used to refer to the hair coverings married women wear. However, the plural form of the word (peyot) refers to the sidelocks worn by religious men and boys.