Antisemitism at Amazon

They have a huge Jewish problem, and this is yet another bombshell

I am finally speaking out about the Amazon-insanity that I have been witness to beginning last summer. Since I posted the video below on Instagram yesterday, I have received notes from current and past Amazon employees wanting to share their stories. I have a feeling this is just the beginning of a bigger storm.

The Details

Let’s begin with the sad history of the Amazon Jewish group. For years now, Jewish Amazon employees have tried unsuccessfully to be recognized as an official Amazon Employee Resource Group (ERG). Amazon has 13 officially recognized groups including an Arab group, a Latino group and so on. The Jews have been repeatedly told they are not qualified to be a group because “they are a religion, not an ethnicity.” Hogwash we know, as Jews are an ethno-religious group, but this is what Amazon has selected as their reason for rejecting them. As a result, Jewish emp[oyees have self-organized as an affinity group on a Slack channel.

The benefits of being recognized as an official Amazon group include having an annual budget for speakers and events, being listed in the official directory, having swag in the Amazon store, and being included with the other ERGs as a feature in Amazon’s recruiting. Not having a budget makes it hard to plan anything, and because they are not listed in the ERG directory, Jewish employees find it difficult to find the group.

In June this unofficial Amazon Jewish group invited me to speak. Because the Jewish group has never been formally recognized, I agreed to speak for free over Zoom so that I could give them at least a bit of hope and a sense of community in the wake of October 7th. After we scheduled the event, things fell apart fast. My speaking engagement was reported to HR and HR then told the Jewish group that I was too controversial to speak there.

When pressed about what was controversial about me, Amazon couldn’t come up with anything except someone else’s humorous post that I had reposted months earlier. Despite their digging as far back in my social media as they could go, they could find no there there.

After lots of back and forth between the unofficial Jewish group and HR, HR made a decision, the group could interview me in a prerecorded fireside chat that HR would then vet before releasing to the larger group. The Zoom recording took place including me and two Amazon employees. Afterwards, both employees said that because they could see nothing controversial about the conversation, they couldn’t imagine HR blocking it. They were wrong; HR never let the recording see the light of day. The Jewish group asked them how they could possibly be subjected to company “standards” when their group has not been officially recognized by the company and has no access to company resources. HR had no answer.

To add to their outrage, last month known antisemitic singer Macklemore was invited to speak to Amazon’s addiction recovery affinity group. The Jewish employees brought their complaints about a Jew-hater and racist speaking at Amazon to HR and official discussions were had; He was not blocked from speaking.

According to Amazon’s standards, Macklemore is less controversial than me.

Now this is on top of even bigger issues. Most notably, Amazon employee Sasha Trufanov was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th and remains a hostage to this day, yet astoundingly, Amazon has not spoken out to get him freed from captivity.

And then this week, an Amazon executive sparked new outrage when she wore a necklace with a Palestinian flag over a map of Israel in a video promoting an Amazon event.

To let Amazon know how you feel about this particular issue, send an email.

Amazon has a deep-rooted antisemitism problem. What will they do about it?