JTA reports:

Over the weekend, the Department of Homeland Security’s X account appeared to reference an antisemitic dog whistle. And it wasn’t the first time that happened this summer.

“Which way, American man?” the department’s official page posted Sunday, over a political cartoon from 1936 called “Uncle Sam at the Crossroads.”

The post, a recruitment ad for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alluded to the phrase “Which way, Western man?” — the title of a 1978 book steeped in antisemitic conspiracy theories and explicit threats against Jews. As a social media meme, the phrase has been used to ridicule the “woke,” feminism and immigrants.

In its own X post Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League called the “Which way” reference “the latest problematic ICE recruitment post from the X account of the Department of Homeland Security.” The ADL cited several problems with it, including the reference to the 1978 book by William Gayley Simpson, whom the organization calls a “white supremacist and antisemite.”

The “American man” post came a month after another controversial post from DHS reading “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage,” with both “H”s capitalized — an alignment that both progressive outlets and X’s own AI chatbot Grok theorized could be an illusion to “HH,” a shorthand for “Heil Hitler” deployed by neo-Nazis.

“HH capitalization … and a painting symbolizing white colonial expansion over Native lands mirrors known white supremacist dogwhistles,” Grok wrote in response to one user. [Continue reading…]