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To everyone celebrating:

HAPPY DIWALI!!!

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October 4 1936 - The Battle of Cable Street. In 1936, fascism was gaining ground across Europe. In Britain, Sir Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirted British Union of Fascists (BUF) portrayed Jewish people as the cause of the country’s problems. East London had the largest Jewish population in Britain and the announcement that Mosley and his Blackshirts planned a provocative march through the area on October the 4th was greeted with anger and a determination that it should be stopped. A petition was signed and local politicians tried to have the march called off - but to no avail.

On the day, up to 250,000 people gathered to defend the East End. There was a fierce battle with the police when they attempted to clear a path for the march and a barricade was erected and defended in Cable Street. People in their houses threw eggs, milk bottles and the contents of chamber pots from upstairs’ windows, whilst at ground level, marbles were rolled under police horses’ hooves. The march could not proceed and Mosley was ordered to abandon his plans. It was a blow against fascism and that night there was dancing in the streets. [video]

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Created seven centuries ago, the magnificent Luzzatto High Holiday Mahzor is a scribal masterpiece that attests to the vibrancy of the medieval Jewish community. Written in a distinctive and elegant Hebrew script, this rare prayerbook contains the liturgy for the two holiest festivals on the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

This manuscript was copied and decorated in Southern Germany in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century by a scribe named Abraham. His calligraphic dexterity and artistic creativity are evident in the book’s layout, script, and imaginative illustrations of Gothic architecture, fantastical beasts, and medieval Jews engaged in prayer.

Hebrew prayerbooks known as mahzorim (sing., mahzor) contain the cycle of prayers for the entire Jewish liturgical year. In the Middle Ages, Jewish communities around the world developed their own unique prayer usages that can be classified by region. The rite of the Jews of Ashkenazic (i.e., German-speaking) lands, in particular, incorporated the tradition of embellishing the prayer services with Hebrew liturgical poems known as piyyutim (sing., piyyut), which were recited on fast days, special Sabbaths, festivals, and other occasions. These poems helped direct the worshipper’s thoughts to the themes of the day on which they were meant to be said and thereby elevated his or her religious experience.

In the High Middle Ages, when book production was costly, Ashkenazic congregations often expended large sums to hire a scribe to copy their particular prayer rite in two large mahzor volumes, one comprising the liturgy for the winter, spring, and summer holidays and fast days (Hanukkah through Tish‘ah be-Av) and the other the liturgy for the fall holidays and fast days (Rosh Hashanah through Simhat Torah). These volumes were usually housed in the private home of a member of the community and carried to the synagogue before the services for which they were needed. There, the congregation’s prayer leader would read aloud or chant from the mahzor while the community listened along silently or joined him in chorus.

We can reconstruct the following stations along the Luzzatto mahzor’s journey: originally produced for a Jewish community in the region of Bavaria in southern Germany, where it was likely copied and decorated; a mixed German-French community, perhaps in Alsace, where it was probably vocalised; Constance, to which it seemingly arrived following the Black Death; and Northern Italy, where it was eventually censored. Each of these places left its mark on the text of the volume, which was adapted and updated to bring it into line with local usages and contemporary customs. [x]

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Jamaican Jews in a synagogue on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the celebrations heralding the start of the Jewish New Year.

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making simple bunny lantern for mid-autumn festival by 大可的手学会了

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moon boats for mid-autumn festival on wesk lake, hangzhou, zhejiang province

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Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Eat lots of mooncake!

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Today is Independence Day in Benin, so we'd like to share a little piece of Beninese history with you!

The people is this photo are Agojie - often called Dahomey Amazons by Europeans.

The Agojie were regiments of soldiers who served in the army of Dahomey - now Benin - in West Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. Numbering around 8000 at their height in the 1840, they were renowned for their fearlessness in battle, and considered the backbone of the Dahomean army.

The Agojie were all assigned female at birth but they expressed their gender in a variety of ways. Some renounced womanhood, and identified themselves as men. At other times, the group embraced womanhood in their war songs, comparing themselves to lionesses, and linking womanhood to their superiority over male regiments.

Learn more

[Image: photo of a group of Agojie, some pose with weapons including guns and large knives]

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Mosque in Biljani - Ključ, Bosnia & Herzegovina

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June is Pride Month, and, in some countries, it is also observed as Gypsy, Romani, and Traveller History Month. I am a gay and trans artist of Cale Romani descent, so I wanted to try my hand at making pride banners and icons with Romani cultural motifs.

I hope you like them, please reblog if you save or use any. While you're at it, learn some more about queer Romani history.

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Pictured: Warsaw ghetto resistance fighters including Malka Zdrojewicz, right, who survived the death camps.

* * * * *

Resistance Is Not Futile:

On this day, 19 April 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising broke out in earnest when Jewish people fought back against Nazi attempts to deport them to the Treblinka extermination camp.

2000 German troops and police backed up with tanks entered the ghetto with the intention of removing the surviving residents, and were met by around 750 resistance fighters with a small number of smuggled small arms and some home-made Molotov cocktails. They forced the Germans to retreat and come back with reinforcements. After several days of failure to overcome the rebels, the Germans began burning down the entire ghetto one building at a time.

Despite this, the resistance managed to hold out against the onslaught for 27 days, killing around 300 Germans. While some fighters managed to escape through the sewers, 7000 Jewish people were killed and another 7000 eventually deported to Treblinka.

Pictured: Warsaw ghetto resistance fighters including Malka Zdrojewicz, right, who survived the death camps.

[Guillaume Gris]

[ayin-me-yesh]

غُريّبة.

كل سنة و انتوا طيبين، ربنا يجعله عيد تكونوا مرتاحين و مبسوطين فيه.

(Ghoriba): Moroccan sweets made to celebrate Eid Al Fitr.

Happy Eid for all muslims.

[ayin-me-yesh]

Twenty years ago on this day, the US-led ground invasion of Iraq began. Death and destruction quickly became a common sight in the country. The war caused the deaths of more than 200,000 Iraqi. Chaos and instability gripped the whole region as a result of this occupation.

Source

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People put up decorations in preparation for the holy month of Ramadan. Giza, Egypt. 

Photograph: Khaled Elfiqi/EPA

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The crescent moon is seen near mosques in old Cairo on the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (Asmaa Waguih)

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On this day, 12 February 1978, in New Zealand/Aotearoa 250 Māori Tainui Awhiro people and allies occupied the Raglan golf course, preventing games being played. The course had been built on the site of an Indigenous burial ground which was seized by the government during World War I. Later, the tribal occupants were evicted, their homes and graves destroyed and the land sold to private developers. Eva Rickard, both a member of the golf club and the tribe, was a key organiser of protests which began in 1972 when the club planned to expand and destroy more burial grounds. At the occupation, Tainui Awhiro religious leaders held a ceremony and danced a traditional haka welcome. But by the afternoon, the police began making arrests. They violently arrested Rickard, permanently injuring her wrist, and 17 others. In response, a prominent member of the Te Matakite land rights group, Ben Matthews, played a round of golf on Parliament’s front lawn in front of television cameras. Eventually, the Prime Minister phoned Rickard and offered to sell the land back to the tribe, but Rickard rejected the offer, arguing that the government never paid for the land in the first place. Direct action by Māori people continued, until 1983 when the government gave in and returned the land, which is now home to a community centre open to all. * For this and hundreds of other stories, check out our book, Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance & Rebellion, available here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/working-class-history-everyday-acts-resistance-rebellion-book https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1919316818253459/?type=3