After engaging with antisemitic content on her Instagram page, children’s entertainer Ms. Rachel has drawn criticism from media watchdog HonestReporting, which argued that her behavior reflects a “broader pattern” that “can no longer be dismissed.”
“Screenshots revealed her liking a comment that read ‘Free America from the Jews’ on a post of hers, which called for a ‘Free Palestine, Free Sudan, Free Congo, Free Iran,’” HonestReporting wrote on Jan. 22.
Rachel Accurso, who launched a YouTube channel for children under the name “Ms. Rachel” in 2019 and has 4.8 million followers on Instagram, said the interaction was a mistake.
“People are allowed to make mistakes,” Accurso wrote on Jan. 21, sharing her response to a follower alerting her to the comment. “I delete antisemitism any time I see it. I am against all forms of hate, including antisemitism against the Jewish people.”
“I’m so broken over this,” she said in a follow-up video post. “I feel like we can’t be human anymore online. I am so sorry for the confusion it caused, and I am so sorry if anyone thought that I would ever agree with something horrible and antisemitic like that.”
HonestReporting also highlighted another comment thread on her video apology involving an account called the Palestine News Netwerk, which the watchdog group said praised the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and has publicly harassed Jews. The account wrote of the original post, “Spoiler alert: They left the comment themselves,” to which the Ms. Rachel account immediately responded, “Ooooooooooohhhhh.”
“Everyone has accidentally liked a post while mindlessly scrolling through social media,” HonestReporting stated. “But when that ‘accident’ becomes multiple engagements with blatantly antisemitic comments—alongside posts that are explicitly antisemitic—it can no longer be dismissed as clumsy thumbs on a small phone screen.”
The watchdog group also questioned Accurso’s collaboration with Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who has called on followers to join the “resistance” and praised Sinwar, and noted that she has repeatedly accused Israel of “committing a genocide.”
“This is not a matter of clumsy thumbs or a lack of social-media fluency,” HonestReporting said. “When this conduct repeats, it stops being careless and becomes disqualifying for someone positioned as a safe figure for children.”
