Will WhatsApp let my people go? - The Jewish Chronicle

Tevye had it easy. His main stress was who his kids would marry. Could you imagine the real agony if he’d instead been forced to decide what social media they had access to? Should they get a smartphone or a basic Nokia? Tradition! WhatsApp or text? Tradition! TikTok? Disowned!

Whether early 20th century Pale Settlement parents, or early 21st century North London Settlement parents, when change is coming you can try holding back the tide, but the moment you make one little compromise the Red Sea comes crashing in over you.

WhatsApp was my one eventual compromise to my 11-year-old son. “I won’t make any friends without it”, “Everyone else’s using it”, “You can check what’s written,” are all things I’d said when pleading for my wife to invite me on to the Year 7 parents’ WhatsApp group, so I was sympathetic to my son when he made the same points to me.

To be fair to my wife, her concerns were realised when I immediately managed to ostracise myself by making what I thought was a hilarious joke gently mocking some exclusionary language from one of the mums. I realise now that they have no idea who I am, a surprisingly regular occurrence, and not knowing I’m a stand-up comedian, I just came across as a prat. Maybe more accurately, it’s the fact that I’m a stand-up that gives me the permission to be a prat.

I’ve been getting away with murder for years on my primary school parents’ groups, as they’ve had the time to come to accept my sense of humour, or at least humour my sense of self. In fact I’d have to say, amid the bitching about homework, lost school uniform enquiries, and confirmation of ever-shifting pick-up times endemic to Jewish schools, they contain some of my finest work. Stoking the Fortnite war of late 2017 between the parents letting their children play Fortnite, and those who love and care about their kids, was a particularly fine example of my oeuvre.

Recent world events have meant my five different parent WhatsApp groups are now my main outlet for comedy. A recent primary parent’s bragging request for information about how 15-year-olds can apply to Cambridge had me up all night crafting the perfect passive-aggressive comeback. It was a smash.

But admittedly the transition graduating to secondary school did make me anxious, it’s just so much bigger than I’m used to, easy to get lost, much more grown up, scary.

It’s been a difficult transition for me, even though it was helpful when I used my eldest’s year group to warm up. An unprovoked attack by a 11-year-old troll saw me take on the role of Cyrano de Bergerac, utilising my immense wit and perfect selection of emoticons to win the altercation on my son’s behalf. I know you can’t fight every battle for your children, but alas his over-reliance on gifs just wasn’t getting the job done. This week though, the stakes have risen. The overprotective bubble of innocence I’ve constructed around him has threatened to shatter after some inappropriate posts from his peers.

In response I’m considering cutting my losses and leading a family exodus from WhatsApp. But will it let my people go? We’ve become so entrenched in its net; the groups, the sub-groups to complain about others in the groups, the sub-subgroups, and so on until it’s just me and my wife. And I know she’s got a few other groups just for complaining about me. What’s sad is that of all the social media, it seemed like with WhatsApp the Jews had finally found their online home; enclosed, secure, wordy and prone to over-analysis. I’m sure those of you with any experience with the talmudic commentaries must feel the same as conversations branch off and across hundreds of years, never reaching a definitive conclusion.

Mind you, anything’s preferable to Twitter. Don’t be fooled by familiarity just because it’s formatted like Torah verses. Although that’s probably why God didn’t use any vowels, abbreviating to fit the letter count. Twitter’s the most toxic space for our tribe, our presence there now consigned to patrolling the badlands for antisemitism like lone lawmen, ready to put the call out so that Tracy-Ann Oberman can ride into town, guns blazing.

I guess we could give Instagram a shot, but with its emphasis on imagery it feels a bit Christiany.

If only there were some other way for Jews to communicate with each other. A safe space to catch up, get the news, free of antisemitism, see who’s doing what, connect. And maybe make it once a week so we’re not checking our phones every two minutes? That’d be the dream.