While some voices on the left, such as National Public Radio, have tried to argue that the TikTok problem is overblown and white supremacists are the real problem when it comes to rising antisemitism, we think that denying that antisemitism exists is not the solution.

To that end, we note a recent column by the Chicago Tribute Editorial Board that began as follows:

“We’ve seen contagions induced by social media before. But the sudden popoularity of TikTok videos in which confused young people muse on the merits of Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ reveal the depths of this particular app’s ability to corrupt young minds.

“Yes, that would be the deranged and paranoid thoughts of the terrorist mastermind of the murderous Sept. 11 attacks. On TikTok, you can find folks wondering aloud if he might just have had a point. The stupidity and ignorance of history boggles the mind....

“TikTok, in particular, has become such a cesspool of antisemitism that  some Jewish parents have taken to social media to say that the app is traumatizing their teenaers, thanks to the current force-fed diet of lightning videos twisting Michael Jackson’s ‘The Don’t Care About Us,” offers of support for jihadism against the West, and even setting the thoughts of the Ayatollah Khamenei to sympathetic music.

“‘TikTok risks turning a whole generation into antisemites,’ wrote British columnist Jake Wallis Simons, adding that the app is ‘torturing’ his Jewish daughter. ‘This is moral and intellectual vacuity,’ Simons wrote, ‘an internet brain-rot arising from a propaganda mechanism the like of which the world has never seen.’

“How much of what TikTok serves us has to do with Chinese interests and how much it follows from the dangers of its famously effective and amoral algorithm is a contested matter.”

Indeed, the flashing red light from TikTok must be met head-on with an intervention from those have read — and understand — the lessons of history.

Many have suggested that the holiday season should be free of political conversation this year, especially regarding the Middle East, but we agree with the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board’s suggestion that “those gathered together work on their listening skills — when it comes to family members  with experience and context.”

Also, instead of giving in to their TikTok addiction, we urge folks to turn off their phones and, instead, spend their leisure time reading a history book — or two.