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Fuck. Today really is shit.

it is very clear that hamas is doing this not because israel did a single violation, but because the world can see the state of our hostages.

evil fucking bastards.

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These men just stole the personal information of everyone in America AND control the Treasury. Link to article.

Akash Bobba

Edward Coristine

Luke Farritor

Gautier Cole Killian

Gavin Kliger

Ethan Shaotran

Spread their names!

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Pornbots - if you follow me, I will block you.

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Ok so the ICE arrests of US citizens and veterans of Hispanic descent.

Read Between Dignity and Despair by Marion Kaplan. Because this is part of a process called “social death.” We already have high level dehumanizing and quasi-genocidal rhetoric about Latinx Americans. We have internment camps. Now we have the Trump Admin and its just-following-orders ICE enforcers arresting citizens.

“Social death” is the process by which a group of citizens has its identity as lawful and ideological citizens questioned to such an extent that it becomes normalized among the “fits ideological notions of citizenship” group to view them as an inherently foreign Other before anyone starts revoking citizenship.

And we’re already ass deep into that process.

The USA is not a country in which ANYONE should feel as though they have to carry their citizenship/naturalization papers on them. That is not normal, and you cannot let the media normalize it.

Also, read Imagined Communities.

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Don’t comply in advance

An Executive Order is not a law

It’s a wishlist

The United States still has some (flawed and deeply eroded, but still standing) systems of checks and balances in play

Behave as though nothing has changed (if, of course, it’s safe for you to do so) until the Executive Orders go through the courts

Me? I’m going to keep behaving as though I have the Constitutional right to criticize our government until the (corrupt and degraded) SCOTUS retracts the First Amendment.

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she wrote this before the girls arrived safely home today, but it resonated with me deeply and I know others will understand.

(I think we should also clarify that Naama has not shared what happened to her, and it’s her choice whether to do so. thus I will not definitively speak to that, but include tw in the tags because of the triggering nature of what we saw that day.)

all of them, living and dead, will forever be part of us.

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It is so nauseating to see them captured and abused on October 7, and so much joy to see them free. I hope that they are able to recover from their awful experiences.

TW FOR MY JEWS AND ISRAELIS: this has footage of the girls’ kidnapping and abuse.

i am posting this for the inevitable “they were treated well” posts bc hamas held them at gunpoint and made them speak arabic.

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I'm so glad they're back with their families!

After 477 days

Liri albag,naama levy,karina ariev and daniella gilboa are back from captive

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like I don’t know. do Jews have to begin any criticism of the pro-Palestine movement with #notallpropalestinians before people will take us seriously? do we have to explain at length how we understand the injustice against Palestinians? do we have to provide lists of the Palestinian authors we’ve read and films we’ve watched and lectures we’ve been to? do you want copies of law journal articles I’ve published advocating for Palestinian rights? records of my semester abroad studying Palestinian Arabic under Palestinian teachers? photos of me in Nablus with Palestinian friends? what level of performativity do non-Jews need to show until you take our criticisms of the left in good faith

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petition to rename the usa ‘south canada’

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She said,

“Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you, and as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurdwara, and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God, for the good of all people, the good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen.”

And he replied,

“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people. Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. It is a giant crime wave that is taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!"

This was the most childish thing I've ever heard an adult say. Accusations of hatred and stupidity as a response to a peaceful request and gentle criticism?

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When and how will Congress pass the Enabling Act, and what will the excuse be?

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Holocaust Memorial Day is next week, on Monday, January 27.

The Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and Genocide Studies

OR how to not be ignorant and offensive when decrying the injustice of the silences in public memory

This is a post about the intersection of historiography and memory.

One too many times, I’ve seen people—online and off—assert that the Holocaust has somehow been raised above other genocides, or that people only care about it because it happened to “white people” (a dude in one of my grad school seminars literally SAID THIS and he is SO lucky that I skipped class that day​).

Some people engage in this rhetoric without fully grasping the implications of their words; others don’t bother beating around the bush, and jump straight to “The Jews are using their global power to make everyone care about the Holocaust at the expense of other genocides and human rights violations.”

Now, to be fair, I haven’t seen much of this lately, but I’ve also only just reached the point where I can discuss these issues and the historiographic realities behind them without becoming an incoherent rage-monster.

Back in April, I had the occasion to conduct semi-deep secondary research on the Armenian genocide. After a while, I noticed a pattern in the historiography sections/essays of all of these works: they all, without fail, discussed the Holocaust, its impact on the field of genocide studies, and its relationship to the study of the Armenian Genocide. And this, is why:

In the wake of WW1, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the architect of the Turkish State, was not interested in constructing a nation-state deeply concerned with its past, or with any memory of the Armenians or their genocide at the hands of the Young Turks Party during the First World War. Ataturk went so far as to change the written form of the Turkish language to erase it from memory, and keep subsequent generations from learning about it. 

For a while, this campaign of historical erasure was successful to the point that, before he invaded Poland, Hitler posed the question: “Who now remembers the Armenians?”

Now let’s skip forward to the 1960s. In the first two-ish decades after the Holocaust, it wasn’t really discussed in any public way. It was only in 1961, with the capture and subsequent trial of Adolf Eichmann, that it began to enter collective/public memory. 

In 1963, Hannah Arendt published Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, based on her reporting on the Eichmann trial. In 1961, Raul Hilberg published his three volume The Destruction of the European Jews, a work largely understood to be the first comprehensive, scholarly historical treatment of the Holocaust. 

So, it was in the early 1960s that awareness of the Holocaust spread throughout a good chunk of the West, and this is where we can definitively say that Holocaust history/studies emerged as a respected sub/field. And in the 1980s, Genocide Studies began to emerge as its own distinct field.

In that period, between the 1960s and the 1980s, academic study of genocide certainly existed, but most of its methodology used the Holocaust as a yard stick, or a framework for understanding genocide. While understandable due to the massively industrialized and bureaucratic nature of the implementation of the Holocaust, this framework is/was ultimately unsustainable as, of course, no two genocides—or indeed, any historical events—are the same.

As time went on, in the United States the Holocaust became sort of a safe issue for the US Government to perform grief, and engage in public commemorative activities over, because the Holocaust wasn’t their sin. To extend that performance of grief to Indigenous Americans, Black Americans, Japanese Americans, Mexican Americans—let alone victims of US policies abroad –would have forced the US Government to take responsibility for its own ethno-racial violence/ethnic cleansing/genocides. 

The Holocaust, then, gave the US something to commemorate that it wasn’t responsible for, while allowing the US to spin the [bullshit] narrative that it saved the Jews, or that it entered the war to help save the Jews, or had humanitarian concerns for/about European Jews while it was all happening. I’m not going to waste too much time debunking these, as we all know that a. the US joined WW 2 because Japan bombed Pearl Harbor; b. US officials were actively working to bar Jewish refugees from entering the US 1933-1941 (look up the St. Louis incident if you feel like crying); and c. the Red Army was instrumental to the defeat of the Third Reich in the European Theater.

So, the Holocaust became a convenient humanitarian performance for the US, at the same time as Holocaust Studies was evolving into the field of academic study from which Genocide Studies would emerge. 

Now, the Armenian Genocide is noteworthy here not simply because of Hitler’s bullshit, but because of its relationship with the entire concept of “genocide.” 

The person who coined the term “genocide” was a Polish Jewish man named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959). Lemkin became interested in mass atrocity and relevant international legislation when Talat Pasha, one of the primary architects of the Armenian Genocide, was assassinated in 1921. Lemkin studied law in Poland and spent the latter half of the 1920s, and all of the 1930s, working as a lawyer. In 1933, he appeared before the Legal Council of the League of Nations to argue for recognition of the “Law of Barbarity” as an international criminal offense for the protection national minorities.

During the Holocaust, Lemkin fled to Sweden in 1940, and received permission to enter the US in 1941. There, Lemkin taught law, lectured at military facilities, and coined the term “genocide” in his 1944 work, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.

After the war, he campaigned for the international recognition of genocide as a violation of international law. In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly resolved to recognize genocide as a violation of international law, and in 1948, that same body passed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

So, both the study of and the international acknowledgement and formulation of the concept of “genocide” was founded, so to speak, by a Polish Jewish man, who lost most of his family in the Holocaust, in response to learning about the Armenian Genocide. 

In conclusion, while the rhetorical use and abuse of Holocaust memory in comparison to other historical atrocities is certainly offensive and tacky, it was not something put there by The Jews. Further, the implication that Jews are somehow involved in the Holocaust’s “privileged” place in public memory is a violently anti-Semitic one, as it is based directly in Protocols of the Elders of Zion/Jewish Global Conspiracy thought processes, which, if you haven’t been keeping track, are responsible for the vast majority of anti-Jewish violence in the modern period.

It’s completely fine and normal to be angry about the erasure of yours and other ethno-racial groups’ historic victimization in mainstream thought and speech; I’m furious about it too. But when you choose to emphasize the shameful silence surrounding the events in question by comparing it to the attention given to the Holocaust, please know that your anger is misplaced, and your words—regardless of intent—carry with them the subtext of anti-Jewish violence.

NOTE: There is a separate but related discussion here about the State of Israel and its use of Holocaust memory in state-building and diplomacy (one day I’ll tell you the story about how I spent an exhibit opening fuming about the overt appropriation of the history of Jewish refugees in Shanghai for bullshit speeches about US-Israel-China relations), but I don’t think this blog, or this post, is the correct space for that conversation. Maybe if my first book goes well and I write a second good one, it can be in the third book. But oy not here.

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they vowed to do this and are following through 💔

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I look forward to the welcome for her and the three other girls tomorrow. 👧

I’ve thought about Naama Levy every day for 477 days. not that that isn’t true of many others individually and of the hostages collectively, but the footage of Naama being taken…we all saw it. we’ve all seen it since, seen it reinterpreted for protests, seen the Jewish outcry to women’s rights organizations met with silence, seen the footage of her saying she has friends in Palestine, seen her mother, Ayelet, who has been so fierce in her fight for her daughter but has understandably faded further and further into grief (the last time I saw her, she was with the Goldberg-Polins at a vigil for the hostages - Rachel and Jon could speak, Ayelet could not bring herself to, and it worried me for her. Hersh was gone, and it seemed almost too overwhelming and frightening to pray for Naama out loud).

remember when Naama’s mother came to New York City and they screamed “shame” at her and called her a killer on the streets? I think about that a lot too.

the footage of Naama’s abduction changed my life, selfishly and in an infinitesimal way in comparison to her and to real suffering, but still. my life of illness and tedium is very small and quiet and sequestered, and it was seeing people laughing and mocking Naama specifically that was the very first image of 10/7 on my dash that day. I didn’t know what was going on, what had happened, but she was the first victim I saw before I realized the extent of the massacre, and she was also the first victim I saw being denigrated as the floodgates of the hatred opened. losing mutuals and friends when my sphere of social interaction is so tiny (it’s nonexistent now lol), shutting my blog down, started at that moment, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. and I’d do it again, but I wish I had not had to. I wish people had reacted to that image of this sweet 19 year old girl, this girl who worked with youth groups promoting peace and equality and a better future for all, and been horrified and sympathetic towards her. I wish they’d taken up her mission of helping and kindness. I wish they’d worried about her, just a little, instead of denying or celebrating what happened to her.

but we remembered her and cared about her and her name has been kept alive, and now we are finally near the miracle of her return. may she and the other girls be embraced, healed, and comforted. may “hands for peace” be a mission statement for far more people going forward.

thank G-d the last moments we see of her will not be from the nightmare of that day.

Ayelet wrote this in December:

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/ayelet-levy-a-mothers-plea-dont-forget-the-hostages

More than 400 days and nights have passed since my then 19-year-old daughter Naama was taken hostage to Gaza. Naama, a fun-loving teenager, loved by all, embodies the values of kindness, tolerance and compassion. From volunteering at a kindergarten for the children of asylum seekers to working to build bridges between Israeli and Palestinian children through the “Hands of Peace” organization, Naama is an idealist who believes in building a better world, not through her words but through her actions.

Over a year has passed since that horrific Saturday, when the world watched Hamas videos showing armed terrorists brutally dragging a beaten and bloody Naama with six of her friends into the trunk of a jeep that took them into Gaza, after forcing them to witness the murder of their friends. A year, and it feels like the world has moved on, and I am fighting daily to keep Naama’s name alive.

The haunting images of that day still torment me with a helplessness that I had previously only felt in nightmares. We know she was wounded, and today she and the 97 other hostages remain in grave danger. Released hostages have confirmed our worst fears about the violence and constant fear.

Last November brought a glimmer of hope when 105 hostages, mostly women and children, were released and reunited with their families as part of the first and only hostage release deal. But Naama wasn’t among them. Since then, despite numerous opportunities for additional deals, each failed negotiation has been another missed chance, another day of separation, another night of uncertainty.

I don’t know where Naama is, under what conditions she’s being held, what she’s going through, or her medical and physiological state. I must learn to cope with this uncertainty. For over 400 days, men, women, the elderly, and two young children have endured abuse, at times sexual, starvation, and darkness in underground tunnels. Now, with winter’s harsh cold setting in, their chances of survival under these inhumane conditions grow even more desperate.

As a doctor, it is chilling to me that the voice of the global medical community is barely heard. The October 7 massacre, the hostages’ health conditions, and the lack of medical access violate every international standard and law. I’ve met with both the Red Cross President and WHO Chairman on several occasions and was shocked to find that the hostages’ dire situation did not seem to be among their priorities. All they offered was a hug and a little empathy. While international organizations remain silent, we cannot afford to wait. Time is running out.

International Human Rights Day was earlier this week, marking the end of the 16 days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence. I am imploring the people of Canada, who have always stood for justice and human dignity: your voice matters now more than ever. Do not let these hostages fade from your consciousness. Do not let their suffering become yesterday’s news. Your support and advocacy could mean the difference between life and death for my daughter and the other hostages.

I constantly imagine the moment of Naama’s return and dream of our life together after this nightmare ends. These visions feel so real, so tangible. When I walk with Naama’s younger sister through our neighborhood, I can’t help but picture their reunion. At every step, every street corner, I imagine us together after she returns from that cursed place. Until then, I talk to Naama in my thoughts, telling her to stay strong, reminding her that she’s a true survivor, and that beyond all this hardship and suffering lie the good days ahead — when she’ll finally be free.

may they all soon be free.