Claudia Oshry’s DMs have been more hateful than ever as she speaks out against Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israeli civilians.
“They definitely feel different now,” the Girl With No Job influencer, 29, told Pvnew exclusively of her private messages while walking the red carpet at Heidi Klum’s 22nd annual Halloween party at Marquee New York on Tuesday.
“I think we’re in a place where people feel really comfortable being insanely antisemitic. Different than before,” she added.
Oshry, who was dressed as Fran Fine from “The Nanny” at the festive fête, said the DMs she has seen are on another “level of hatred.”
She shared that the messages she received prior to Hamas killing and kidnapping nearly 2,000 innocent civilians, including children and babies, were more “the usual stuff” that she let roll off her back such as people “using Jew as a bad word.”
“But it’s a new level now. They’re hitting me with the K-word. They’re talking about Hitler and the gas,” she said, referring to the gas chambers used by the Nazis to murder millions of Jewish people during the Holocaust. “You know when you see a message with gas in it, you gotta go.”
While her inbox has become a scary place for hate, Oshry noted that she has turned to comedy to shed some light in these dark times.
“It was hard when Oct. 7 was happening and we still had to do our show and be funny, but that’s just the cornerstone of Jewish life,” she said of recording her podcast, “The Toast,” with her sister Jackie Oshry.
“Like, smiling through tragedy and still celebrating the good things in life and the simchas, so I felt like it was an important part of who I am, and I’m a very proud Jewish woman, so I thought it was the right thing to do,” she said.
Claudia, who boasts 3.2 million followers on Instagram, also finds that distracting herself with pop culture can help with trauma following the Hamas attack, which was the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
“I also think it was really helpful for me to, like, get through that sort of trauma just by, like, talking about different things and getting my mind off of things and making people laugh,” she said. “Because at the end of the day, it’s the only thing that makes life worth living, and if I can do that for one person, then it’s totally worth it.”
Claudia’s husband, Ben Soffer, also discussed the importance of speaking out against the hatred.
“We’re incredibly proud Jewish Americans, and I say it in that order intentionally,” the “Good Guys” podcast co-host, who was dressed as Mr. Sheffield, told Pvnew on the red carpet.
“So whenever there’s anything that comes up with Judaism or Israel, it’s so important to us that we are as vocal as possible for people that maybe are afraid to be more vocal and encourage people to be vocal because the second that we’re not vocal is the second we’re in trouble,” he said.
“So, we’re making sure that we’re on the frontlines of being vocal and praying for everybody in Israel.”
Claudia, who married Soffer in 2017, told us that she transformed into Fran Fine for Halloween because the character is “proudly Jewish.”
“I’m rewatching it. I’m obsessed,” she said of the ’90s sitcom, which ran for six seasons and starred Fran Drescher.
“I really forgot how iconic of a show it was, and she’s so proudly Jewish and so am I, and she’s so fashionable, too. So it’s an outfit that I can feel pretty in but still be in a costume.”
