#(and jews in particular)

[worfsbarmitzvah]

there’s such an attitude among ex-christian atheists that religions just spring up out of the void with no cultural context behind them. like ive heard people say shit like “those (((zionists))) think they own a piece of land bc their book of fairy tales told them so!!!” and they refuse to understand that no, we don’t belong there because of the torah, it’s in the torah because we belong there. because we’re from there. the torah (from a reform perspective) was written by ancient jews in and about the land that they were actively living on at the time. the torah contains instructions for agriculture because the people who lived in the land needed a way to teach their children how to care for it. it contains laws of jurisprudence because those are pretty important to have when you’re trying to run a society. same for the parts that talk about city planning. it contains our national origin story for the same reason that american schools teach kids about the boston tea party. it’s an extremely complex and fascinating text that is the furthest thing from just a “book of fairy tales”

[coffeewhiskeysleeprepeat]

Say whatever you want about the ongoing Signal debacle in the US, but can everyone be fantastically grateful that Jeffrey Goldberg took fucking screenshots?

I'm a lawyer and before anyone asks,

I am currently going insane. It would take me an hour to try and explain how many laws were broken. In any sane world, these people would be lawyering up as fast as they fucking could because frankly an argument could be made that they committed fucking treason. The penalty for treason is death!

I am also Jewish, and as much as it pains me, I have to acknowledge something which frequently gets used as an anti-semetic talking point. Jeffrey Goldberg is a dual citizen, which adds a whole new layer of consequence to this. He served in the Israeli military. These dumb assholes sent military plans to someone who served in a foreign military. A foreign military in the region the war plans were for.

I thank G-d Jeffrey Goldberg is an honest man, who, when presented with the most absurd, ridiculous, illegal, situation on the planet, stood up and navigated it as honorably as he could, screenshoting the receipts. I will say a prayer for him and his family because this mess is going to impact them all for years to come.

[son-of-avraham]

I've been doing a lot of reflection as of late, especially after this past class.

This past class was about the Torah and Tanakh in general, and the way the rabbi talked about the commandments (specifically the ten commandments) has made me really reflect on how I interpret them, specifically the fifth commandment, or honoring your mother and father.

This is a commandment I have wrestled with for a long time - in fact, it brought me away from g-d at multiple times. I was severely abused when I was incredibly young by my mother, and I used to feel insulted at the implication that I were to honor her while she got to live a better life. It was hypocritical, in my eyes.

But this rabbi surmised that this particular commandment was because parenthood is an act of creation, something that is like the g-d from which we come from. My realization is this: I don't think we're necessarily meant to take even these commandments literally.

I this particular commandment is more of a call to honor creation - creation is a gift, and like any gift, many people simply will not like it and will discard it. The person who abused me created me, but she did not honor creation. She didn't honor me, but I can still honor it.

I have started to honor creation much more. I'm too young, too unstable, not mature enough to be a father (though I fantasize about it), but I create all the time. I create relationships, I create with my hands through crochet. I create memories, I create my world. And I can honor who I am and where I came from that made me who I am. I've been learning one of the mother tongues of my family (Italian, since part of my family originates there) and it was judaism that inspired me to do this.

I don't think g-d wants me to honor my abuser. I think He wants me to remember the Holy action of creation. When I am a father, that act of creation will be Holy, and indeed, I am already joyful about the thought.

I have seen many people struggle with this particular commandment, but I think this perspective helps me personally. I don't think I ever have to forgive my abusers (plural), and I don't think I am commanded to simply because they happened to be family. I am commanded to recognize the holy, to elevate the mundane. In doing so, I will remember g-d. Through creation, I honor g-d and everything he has done for us, for me, and for our collective people.

[thearoacezionist]

you know shit is real when you start saying the Shema Israel at night in your dream

[slyandthefamilybook]

Once there was a boy who was a shepherd. He kept watch over a small flock of sheep in a pasture at the edge of town. He loved his sheep. He had been born to a shepherd from a family of shepherds, and had so grown up amongst his flock. He knew all of the sheep by name and would great them one-by-one each morning. "Hello Dolly," he would say. "Hello Steven and hello Betty."

Now these sheep were undoubtedly useful: the townspeople would eat their meat and weave their wool and gnaw on their bones as they worked the fields. But these sheep were also alive. They had a glittering intelligence in their black eyes, and they would commune every so often to discuss the harvest, and the shepherd boy, and the townspeople. The sheep loved the shepherd boy and they loved the town and the townspeople, and the people loved them back. They were good sheep.

Now one day the shepherd boy overheard one of the townspeople talking about his flock. The man said he thought the sheep were ugly, and that they smelled bad. This upset the shepherd boy, because he loved his sheep, and he thought the people loved his sheep as well. The shepherd boy, being no more than 12 years old at the time, wanted to remind the people of how much his sheep mattered to them. So one night as the moon hid behind the clouds the shepherd boy stood on a stone in his pasture and cried out: "Help! Help! A wolf!"

Out came a crowd of people, blinking the sleep from their eyes and carrying torches and pitchforks and shovels and ladels. They stood in the pasture and looked about, but they could see no wolf. The townspeople became angry and shook their fists at the shepherd boy. "This is a serious matter!" they cried. The shepherd boy had to admit that his ploy was juvenile, but he was still a child, and so the people forgave him. And they continued to love the shepherd boy and his sheep, and the shepherd boy and his sheep loved them back, for the townspeople had proved that night how much they cared.

Five years later, when the shepherd boy was now a teen, he stood amongst his flock in the pasture and he said "good night, Dolly. Good night, Steven and good night, Betty." But as the clouds passed over the moon the shepherd teen saw a shape in the distance, and out of fear for his flock he cried out: "Help! Help! A wolf!"

Again came the great crashing crowd with their knives and their swords and axes and bows. They stood in the pasture and looked about, but they could see no wolf. The townspeople once again became angry, and they shook their fists at the shepherd teen. "This is a serious matter!" they cried. "We love you and we love your sheep, but you must learn to not be so frightened!" With great grumbling the townspeople returned to their homes, and the shepherd teen sensed that something had changed.

Five more years passed, and the shepherd teen was now a shepherd. He still passed through his flock every morning and said, "Good morning, Dolly. Good morning, Steven and good morning, Betty." And the sheep loved the shepherd and he loved them. But in his age he had grown cautious. The shepherd had learned from the townspeople that perhaps the wolves were not so great a threat as he had thought. And so at night when he would see their red eyes prowling at the edges of his pasture, he would stay silent and wait.

One night, as the clouds began to cover the moon, a wolf appeared. The wolf approached Dolly the sheep and snarled, its lips wet. "Away!" cried the shepherd. "Away with you!" But the wolf showed its fangs and said, "I want your sheep." "Why?" cried the boy. "Why must you take my sheep? You have your food in the forest!" But the wolf laughed. "I want your sheep because I am a wolf and they are sheep. That is how it is done." And the wolf parted its terrible jaws and snatched up Dolly the sheep and dragged her into the deep woods. And the shepherd remained silent.

The next night two wolves appeared, their eyes red and their tongues hungry. The wolves approached Steven the sheep who was with his family. "Away with you!" cried the shepherd. "Why do you hate my sheep so?" The wolves cackled and said with the same voice, "we hate your sheep because it is the thing for sheep to be hated. All wolves hate sheep, and they cannot all be wrong. Even the birds and rabbits of the forest will come around." And the wolves each took a leg from Steven the sheep and hauled him into the dark woods. And still the shepherd held his tongue.

The next night as the moon was new the shepherd saw a sea of red eyes at the edge of the forest. The wolves marched toward his sheep, their heads held high. And the shepherd saw that indeed the birds and rabbits of the forest were among them, their eyes bleeding and their teeth sharp. They approached Betty the sheep who cried out in terror. The shepherd stood on a rock in his pasture and called out with a loud voice: "Help! Help! The wolves have come, and all the birds and rabbits of the forest!"

But this time no one came. You see, although the boy had cried wolf before, his fear was now justified. But the townspeople had grown tired of him. Every time the flock was threatened they felt compelled to act, and that compulsion drained them. And they no longer liked the shepherd. He had spent too much time with his sheep, and they had begun to see that same glittering black intelligence in his eyes. Sheep are frightened of everything and cannot be expected to know when they are truly in danger.

What had the shepherd done for them? He kept his sheep mostly to himself these days. Perhaps the shepherd was the one really in control, and he had used his cries of wolf to bend the townspeople to his will. Anyone whose flock was threatened that often must be doing something wrong.

And what was this about the birds and rabbits of the forest? They were peaceful! They could never be convinced to join with those who preyed upon them. Flocks of sheep are old and backwards and they are a drain on the town, the people thought. If the birds and rabbits hate the sheep they must have good reason to do so.

Again the shepherd called out, but the townspeople rolled over in their beds and stuffed their ears with sheep's wool. The shepherd's cries of wolf had made them feel guilty, and so they had found reasons for why they did not have to listen. And besides, the townspeople thought as they pulled their wolf skins over their heads and their eyes glowed red, the sheep really were delicious...

[zimwy]

i'm going to put this plainly: please be upfront if you want something from me or want to say something to me, i cannot take hints, i am not always on the dash (in fact i'm mostly not), i cannot read your mind, and frankly i am not always productive. you cannot expect 100% from me constantly and i do not like being treated like that.

[koheletgirl]

hey mutuals are any of you available for questions about churches?

[gay-jewish-bucky]

i've gotten a few new followers recently so i'd like to remind everyone that i'm pro peace and pro two state solution and think both jews and palestinians have a right to live in and share their homeland with dignity and self-determination (no matter what arguments you have about who and what, i believe arabization doesn't remove anyone's indigeneity just like mixing in the rest of the diaspora doesn't devalue jewish indigeneity, and both groups became distinct peoples on the same patch of land)

i know for a lot of us that can seem impossible or far away, or that it's looked down on by many people without a stake in the conflict, but i'm committed to keeping the dreams and hard work of those who lost their lives on oct 7th alive

[lizbethborden]

Makes me super uncomfortable seeing other Ashkenazi Jews claiming to categorically be "not white" when they live e.g. in the US of A. Don't get me wrong, I agree that Jews have conditional privilege, and that especially for Jews who look very Jewish, whether in terms of religious garments or in terms of stereotypical features, the stakes are different. (There is also a racialized element to antisemitism that is poorly understood by those who don't pay attention to it, i.e. all Gentiles all the time.) But for a pale-skinned person living in the country that is universally understood as Racism Central, who is not assumed to be Jewish off the bat by everyone they meet, to defensively claim to not be in the social category of "white" at ALL is actually very stupid, politically disingenuous, and incredibly disrespectful given the fact that, again, we are pale-skinned people living in Racism Central. Tokenizing Jews who would be categorized as "nonwhite" or "people of color" if they lived in the US is also massively disrespectful and is just actual straight-up intra-community racism if you're doing it to claim their racialized social category as your own.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Goyim when I tell them my dad is a rabbi and he also eats shrimp.

[bi-kingdavid]

oof I just saw one hell of a shirt.

It was a black T shirt with the words “silence=death” under a pink triangle that was actually a watermelon

[velvetvexations]

There are a lot of things that suck about JKR and Harry Potter in retrospect, but while everyone knows by now about the goblins being disgustingly weird Jewish stereotypes I don't think I've seen anyone else express is that when I was younger I found the alternative moral framework of goblins to be interesting and inspired me to think a lot more about "blue-and-orange morality". Now that kinna thing is something I'm really big on in both my own work and in the works of others, but it really sucks having that original inspiration soured by not only the general awfulness the franchise has come to exude, but also that element in particular being one of the most blatantly gross things about it since it boils down to "fantasy Jews be greedy, am I right?".

[rotzaprachim]

Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Weniti - Māori language "merchant of venice"- you are SO much

[roguelibrarian]

Really there's no reason for deep fried Oreos not to be a Hanukkah food.

[nerianasims]

A lot of people online (and elsewhere but I see it mostly online) don't seem to realize when they're throwing good time after bad. This makes it easy for people who want to upset them to get them to waste their time and energy in pointless arguments.

This is very "raised Christian and read Matthew in particular dozens of times as a kid" of me, but: Don't cast your pearls before swine.

[leupagus]

↑

The second you start talking about some mysterious "they" that are controlling society in some fashion, you are engaging in dangerous conspiratorial thinking even if you're being woke about it. "They" did not institute the 40 hour work week specifically so you would be too tired to revolt. "They" did not invent the sleek minimalist aesthetic in order to crush the spirit of art in the common people. "They" are not pushing mediocre media into the mainstream in order to poison people's critical thinking skills.

Your best case scenario after that is you talk to someone who actually knows what the fuck they're talking about and you get embarrassed because you can't answer basic questions about your own ideology because you never learned anything past "the ruling class/capitalists/politicians are making things bad and if we got rid of them the bad things would all go away!"

Your worst case scenario is obviously the woo-to-fascist pipeline and you end up believing Jews are poisoning American food supplies with GMOs in order to turn us all into beta cucks, so like . . . maybe just stop blaming "them" before you fall down that route.

Obligatory round of disclaimers: Yes, sometimes people do bad things. Be specific about exactly who is doing what instead of ascribing it to some vague group of shadowy elites. Yes, sometimes things in society are bad. Learn to identify the root causes of complex social issues instead of assuming that they're actually extremely simple to fix and we're just not doing it because of some vague group of shadowy elites. Yes, minimalism isn't for everyone. Learn that some people don't share your tastes and get the fuck over it for the love of god.