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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 15, 2026

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"Cornell student Austin Franco was doxxed by Jewish business leaders after explaining that he “didn’t want to work for a Jew,” claiming his experiences with Jews were not “pleasant,” after a NYC startup he had applied to reached out to him three times.":

After one of the cofounders, Gabe Einhorn, posted Franco’s reply with his last name blocked out, Franco was quickly identified.

Einhorn said he did not “want to ruin his life,” but wanted to “raise awareness” of antisemitism.

Franco, in a now-deleted post, said that in his personal and professional experiences, Jews were tribalistic and vengeful, and tended to ruin and bully others who opposed them.

Franco stated, “I am sure that if you indicated you didn’t want to work for someone who was White or Christian this would not have blown up…”

Franco claimed that the actions by Einhorn and the Jewish community, posting his reply, doxxing him, and then trying to investigate and uproot his personal life, vindicated his concerns that Jews do not work with others politely.

Subsequently:

I was told that "woke is dead" but it seems cancel culture is alive and well on the kosher Right. How is one supposed to take any of the clowns seriously attacking "woke leftists" when they act like this? Why is "student doesn't want to work for jews" worthy of being elevated to international news?

You couldn't have crafted a more disgusting stereotype if you tried.

The reason why Austin replied was because Einhorn tried to get him to work on Sunday. A jew sabbath checking an intern, who sniffed him out and said no thanks.

Then they proceed to cry out in pain as they strike him.

A jew sabbath checking an intern

WTF is “Sabbath checking”? What are you talking about?

First time I've seen the term, but I think it's pretty clear if you know the context.

Specifically, that the three Abrahamic religions have different days of the week as the Sabbath. Jews consider Saturday the Sabbath. Christians consider Sunday the Sabbath. Muslims consider Friday the Sabbath.

Hence, asking him to work on Sunday implicitly (if imprecisely) tests whether he's a practicing Christian, because Christians are not supposed to work on Sundays.

Christians consider Sunday the Sabbath.

I can't speak for the Muslims, but the Christian view of this is, uh, complicated. IIRC Catholic doctrine still acknowledges Saturday as the official Sabbath, but because of the entire resurrection thing considers that obligation fulfilled, but Sunday to only functionally replace it.

Other Christian doctrines may vary too.

Sunday is the Lord's Day, because it is the day on which Christ returned from the dead. It is therefore the site of the primary Christian liturgical celebration. It seems as though it started to be honoured in this way very quickly - see Acts 20:7, for instance.

Whether that makes it 'the Sabbath' or not is... kind of semantic? I have seen both "Saturday is the Sabbath, but for us the Lord's Day is the day of rest" and "the Sabbath has been moved to Sunday" as positions held in the wild.

If you ask me, my guess is that the earliest Christians likely observed both the Saturday Sabbath and the Lord's Day, and that over time the Saturday observance fell away. I'd like to think that the modern custom of treating both days of the weekend as days of rest is a good way of returning to that tradition of honouring both, and that we can even nuance them a little, with Saturday for rest and silence and Sunday for gathering and celebration.

As I understand it, in Islam Friday is not called 'the Sabbath' or any similar word. Friday is, however, the day chosen for gathering, preaching, and communal prayer. It's the day for jumu'ah, the weekly sermon at 1 PM Friday, which is the closest Islamic equivalent to the Jewish Sabbath service at sundown Saturday, or the Christian mass or worship service on Sunday morning.

That said, it plays a different role in the life of the community. For instance, mass is considered obligatory for Catholics and they must attend every Sunday (barring reasonable exceptions), but the daily prayers of the hours are not. Praying the liturgy of the hours is commended, but not required (unless you are a monk or priest), and therefore how much of it to do, and when, belongs to the conscience and good judgement of the individual believer. In Islam, it's reversed. The regular daily prayers are obligatory, but attending the jumu'ah is optional, though recommended, and up to the conscience and judgement of the individual.

This tracks with what I experience on the ground. Devout Catholics tend to be conscientious about mass-going, and there are people who attend more frequently, all the way up to daily mass-goers, but the daily prayers are not that well-known, and if you do them you are unusually pious. By contrast, conscientious Muslims usually make all the daily prayers, sometimes add dua at unscheduled times, and then if you go to the sermon every Friday, you are definitely committed. If a Muslim has to drop one thing, they will usually drop the Friday gathering, not the daily prayers.

That said, in practice Muslims are just like Catholics in that it is extremely common for people to regularly miss daily prayer/Sunday mass/whatever while still internally thinking of themselves as 'good Muslims' or 'good Catholics' and feeling no guilt.

Sorry to use Catholics as the Christian example - they are just unusually legible and public in their requirements. I understand Orthodox to be similarly strict to Catholics, but I am less familiar with them, and I think they are in general less likely to write down a single list of obligations enforceable on all people. And of course Protestants are much more likely to reserve all of this to conscience, culture, and practice. Historically what devout Protestants have done de facto is treat Sunday worship and a daily prayer (usually in the evening, prior to going to sleep) as obligatory, but Protestantism in general is much more skeptical of the utility of legislating specific obligations. As a Protestant myself I do practice weekly worship and daily prayer, and I think the decline in these practices among Christians has been tragic, but I do share the tradition's skepticism of trying to establish a one-size-fits-all timetable of prayer and worship. That, it seems to me, should be a matter of Christian liberty. That said, Galatians 5:13 - liberty should not be a justification for laxity.