Ari Fuld v. Sarah Tuttle Singer, Jerusalem Day 2016: The Case of the Disappearing Video

Yom Yerushalayim 5779...

NOTE: A very controversial conversation took place 3 years ago between Ari Fuld, HY"D and Sarah Tuttle-Singer...Judean Rose, the author of this post documenting the conversation, is concerned that Ari's voice will continue to speak, and I am concerned because this post went away from its original site because of other people's baseless accusations (now you don't see it anymore!).

This post is reprinted by permission.

***

It’s not that Ari Fuld was a prophet, it’s that he was speaking the truth. That’s how I look at the confrontation between Ari and Sarah Tuttle-Singer that happened on Jerusalem Day, 2016. Tuttle-Singer wanted to know why Jews only come to the Arab section of Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day, “davka.” She saw the Jerusalem Day parade as a provocation.

Ari explained that it’s dangerous for Jews to go there on regular days, because “they’re looking to stab.” That Ari was, himself stabbed, proves the point she denied. That a video of the confrontation disappeared off the face of the earth after Ari’s murder, suggests that Sarah Tuttle-Singer or perhaps her followers, don’t want to take any chances that you will come across this truth.

That was my conclusion after I went digging for the three-year-old video. We’d spent Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, at the home of close friends. As often happens, we got to speaking of Ari Fuld, HY”D, who was stabbed to death 8 months ago while speaking on his phone at the Gush Etzion shopping center. Ari was a friend and warrior for Israel. The pain of his absence still feels way too keen and fresh.

Our friend mentioned that she’d never seen the much-talked-about Jerusalem Day video in which Ari confronts Sarah Tuttle-Singer, the leftist new media editor at the Times of Israel. STS, as we call her for short, had happened by as Ari was filming a spot about the celebrations in “East” Jerusalem, a part of Jerusalem that is for the most part, populated by Arabs. Ari debated Jewish rights to the land of Israel with the popular blogger until she said she didn’t want to be on camera “like this.” At that point, always the gentleman, Ari immediately stopped rolling. You see a brief fade out and then the film moves on to something else.

I promised I’d find the video for my friend and send it on. Some time elapsed until I remembered my promise. I then went to Google and searched “Ari Fuld confronts Sarah Tuttle-Singer.”

There were three videos, none of them the one I sought, then a Jewish Press article which I knew was the right one. The title was “Confronting the Left at the Jerusalem Day Parade [video].” I thought “Bingo!” but when I opened the link, the video was gone. Inside the piece, Ari had also linked to his Facebook post of the video, but when I clicked on the link, I got the error message: “Sorry, this content isn’t available right now.”

I had only watched that video a month or so ago, and now? Poof! It was gone.  

I knew what I think happened. STS or her minions had reported the video and Facebook had removed it.

Some background is appropriate here: Ari expressed to me that felt hounded by STS and her followers in the last several months of his life. He told me he was gathering information on STS, creating a dossier. Ari said that STS had written to his employers at the news station where he worked, accusing him of disgusting things I'd rather not write here. He said he had the email. His impression, as he expressed it to me, was that she was going for the throat, attempting to cut off his livelihood to make it difficult for him to support his family.

Why haven’t I shared this information before? Because Ari told me these things on Facebook Messenger, and this account, one of many Ari was forced to create, was “disappeared” by Facebook, pending "verification” that the account was real. As a result, I can no longer see the messages he sent me.

The "Ari Y Fuld" account and the vestiges of our correspondence as in this photo, are now gone.

I wrote Facebook support several times, telling them that Ari was real, had been murdered by terrorists, that his messages were dear to me and important, but all I received in return were rote replies that let me know that Facebook didn’t care and wasn’t listening. 

Ari was constantly in Facebook jail the last few years of his life. He’d no sooner set up a new account than it would be reported as a fake and taken down. The left very much wanted to silence him. And with the disappearance of  the video of Ari confronting Sarah Tuttle-Singer on Jerusalem Day 2016, it appears that the left had finally succeeded in this task.

I was wrecked at the thought that Ari had been persecuted and silenced even after death, so I dug further. I posted queries on Facebook groups dedicated to Ari’s memory, asking if anyone still had a copy of the video. Those who attempted to respond found that they too, could no longer access the clip as it had been removed by Facebook.

I went back to Google and hunted some more until I found a single, very poor copy of the original film. I shared it on Facebook. And then I downloaded it for posterity. Twice. My husband downloaded it, too.

We did this quickly. Because evil works fast. You always have to take that screenshot, something I should have done with what Ari told me in that Messenger conversation. I failed him then.

But now there are three copies of the Jerusalem Day video in private files belonging to me and to my husband. No one can take them from me, from us. No one can silence Ari. Or the truth.

Here is one of those copies [interview with Sarah Tuttle-Singer begins @0:45 - HDG]:

What did he say, what did she say that was so frightening to the left that they campaigned to disappear the video? It was this:

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: How often do you think that the people who march through here go and, and, buy things, buy um, you know, eat at these restaurants, talk to the shopkeepers?

Ari Fuld: That is a great question and I’ll answer you.

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: Okay.

Ari Fuld: Number one: not too many times because the food’s not kosher, one. In terms of buying things, personally, I bought a lot of stuff in Bethlehem until the Oslo accords happened.

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: Okay.

Ari Fuld: But you just can’t walk through because it’s dangerous.

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: I do all the time.

Ari Fuld: Well, you don’t exactly look like a Jew.

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: Well, sometimes I do and sometimes, I mean--

Ari Fuld: Well, it doesn’t matter. As of right now, you look like a tourist.

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: Do you know what language I speak to the shopkeepers?

Ari Fuld: Completely irrelevant. You asked me a question, I’m answering it.

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: Sure, I understand, but--

Ari Fuld: The reason that Jews don’t walk through here is ‘cause it’s dangerous. Because the Muslims who are here are looking to stab. If it were not dangerous--

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: No they are not. They are not looking to stab.

Here is the one case where I wish that Sarah Tuttle-Singer had been right. That they were not looking to stab. Because had she been right, Ari would not have been stabbed and murdered. He would still be alive. His wife would have a husband, his children a father. And Israel would still have its warrior.

But Sarah Tuttle-Singer was wrong. Many of the Muslims here were/are indeed, looking to stab, and they stabbed Ari Fuld to death. This is the truth that someone so desperately wanted to hide that they reported every single copy they could find. Perhaps this copy escaped notice, or perhaps the quality is so bad, they didn't think it could hurt them. 

It isn't just her contention that it isn't true that they are looking to stab and the subsequent stabbing murder of Ari that would be bothersome. It would also be this admission by Sarah Tuttle-Singer, captured on film, that Jews did not steal Arab land:

Ari Fuld: Did we take Palestine from the Arabs?

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: I don’t think so. I think this is my home.

Ari Fuld: That’s not what I asked you. Historically, did we take Palestine from the Arabs?

Sarah Tuttle-Singer: No.

Where that quiet “no” is pronounced, STS looks unhappy. Ari had cut through the bull and gone straight to the facts. She'd been caught up short, ensnared by logic:

“Did we take Palestine from the Arabs?”

“No.”

The truth was, is, and always will be as simple as that. Nothing else really matters.

Ari had demonstrated that "facts don't care about your feelings." You want to be an empath? Fine: show empathy for your own. Because Western notions of social justice are not Jewish and certainly not Tikun Olam. Because supporting the other side out of sympathy for the underdog is wrong. Because their narrative is a lie and demonizes our people. And because all too often, they're looking to stab and murder Jews like Ari Fuld. 

Here is what someone knew that people would take away from this clip: when you support the Arab narrative, you not only support a lie, but undermine Jewish rights and threaten the very existence of the Jewish people.

In the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t disappearing video, Sarah Tuttle-Singer was caught up short by the truth. Something that Ari stood for. But the left doesn’t like the truth. And that is why the left tries so hard to silence Ari’s voice, even as it calls from the grave.

The truth messes with the left’s image of themselves as the ones who dole out empathy to the disenfranchised. They don't care that in so doing, they disenfranchise themselves and their own people. They figure the Jews are privileged, we can take it. We’re the ones with the stronger position, the ones who are sovereign.

But what happened to Ari proves that this is a lie. He was made of flesh and blood, and flesh and blood is no match for cold steel. Which shows that when you empathize with those who lie, you strengthen the hand of hate: the hand that takes Jewish lives.

At the moment that the knife took Ari’s life, who deserved the left’s support? Was it those who claim the Jews stole their land? Was it the terrorist who murdered Ari? Or was it Ari, the one who insisted on spreading the truth? And before he was murdered? Who deserved the left's support then, in the time leading up to the dreadful event?

I think we know. I think Sarah Tuttle-Singer knows, though she may be loath to give in and face the simple truth in black and white: Ari was right. He was right all along.

But it takes courage to be like Ari, to display the strong courage and conviction that is so lacking in the left. In today’s world, you need to be brave to speak out against the lies that drive the hands that wield the knives. It’s a lot easier, more familiar perhaps, to hide the truth and go on as usual. 

It’s so much simpler to write to Facebook support and report a video, to hide the evidence from view. Especially ... as a lone truth-teller bleeds out on a shopping plaza in the Gush.

 NOTE FROM EOZ [original site owner and moderator - HDG]: I edited this article to ensure that there is no direct accusation of Tuttle-Singer being behind the removal of the video, since there is no evidence of that.

UPDATE: Varda and Sarah Tuttle-Singer (and I) had a lengthy discussion on Twitter about this article.  Sarah vehemently and repeatedly denied having had anything to do with Ari's being fired, saying she never sent an email nor asked anyone to send an email to his employer.

https://twitter.com/TuttleSinger/status/1134187676867993600

***

The original post was taken down on Friday afternoon. Thank G-d I got it all except the accompanying commentary. Commenting on this copy of the post is not allowed due to the commenters' part in the original controversy, resulting in its takedown. Again, my main concern, joined with that of Judean Rose, is that Ari Fuld's voice be heard because he can no longer defend himself in THIS WORLD. 

Happy Yom Yerushalayim -HDG