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OK Google: Where’s ‘Death to Jews’?

Everybody’s favorite web-based Big Brother continues to have all the answers

by
Jonathan Zalman
October 26, 2015
YouTube
YouTube
YouTube
YouTube

Life offers us some big questions—questions about identity and the meaning of life, of friendship and parenthood and faith. There are smaller questions, too, about how many calories are in a bite-sized Snickers, or directions from one’s home to a frame shop. Most of us pour these questions into Google, the Internet’s sponge, which then provides us with an answer one way or another.

Last month, if you were to search for “Who Runs Hollywood?” on Google, it would provide you with the following answer: The Jews. And until very recently—this past weekend to be exact—if you were to search Google Maps for “Death to Jews,” you would be taken to Jerusalem, smack dab to the Temple Mount.

Which makes one wonder: 1) Who’s stirring the voodoo into Google’s search algorithm? and 2) Who’s trolling Google for anti-Semitic information?

In any case, a search for “Death to Jews” on Google Maps from New York City currently yields zero results.

Jonathan Zalman is a writer and teacher based in Brooklyn.