#Eli Valley

[drsonnet]

Campus in Crisis! by Eli Valley

May 3, 2024

[steveyockey]

I love the Haggadah, the guidebook to the Passover seder, because it's one of the few Jewish texts that embraces imagery, and because its imagery has evolved to reflect the perspectives of particular periods and communities. One section in particular, the Four Sons (updated to Four Children) frames various approaches to questioning and answering the Passover narrative. They each embody types: the Wise Child, the Wicked Child, the Simple Child, and the Child Who Does Not Know How To Ask. It's the representations of the Wicked Child that fascinate me. The Wicked Child is said to cut himself off from the community, and in turn the community is obligated to ostracize him. He is what we might call a “self-hater." For hundreds of years, Haggadot in Europe depicted the Wicked Child as a warrior, his uniform updated for the region and era in which the story was retold. It was a point of Diasporic pride that Jews and war—and, by extension, Jews and empire—were incompatible. Not just incompatible: mutually exclusive. Judaism was fundamentally opposed to tyranny and all its trappings. Soldiers were intrinsically wicked, their armaments signifiers of depravity.

Then, after 1948, this imagery was reversed, and the uniform vanished. Not only was it no longer acceptable to depict the Wicked Child as a soldier; it was now often the Wise Child, typically the hero, who'd get that role—depicted as an Israeli soldier, of course. There are Israeli Haggadot with soldiers everywhere, not just among the Sons. And not just Haggadot; some of my favorite Rosh Hashanah cards involve soldiers, tanks, gunships, and aircraft carriers. "Have a sweet New Year, also here's a hand grenade!" It's almost a parody of the traditional antipathy for warriors, and a brutal denial of what used to be intrinsic to Judaism. I know Zionists will read this differently—pre-state Jews feared armies because they had no sovereignty, we need our own nukes, etc. The gleaning I take is that neither culture nor self-imagery is static. Contexts change, authenticity is subjective, culture is fluid. The one constant is that the Haggadah itself, and everything it represents, is our cultural firmament, and it is everybody's. Imagery, tradition, family, history, narrative: they're all part of the ever-morphing palette of art.

Who knows, maybe one day we'll stop policing legitimacy based on conformity to twentieth-century dualities etched in stone. In the meantime, we have comics.

Eli Valley, Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel (2017)

[power-chords]

Comic by Eli Valley, January 10, 2024.

[fuckyeahbds]

Eli Valley shows Genocide Joe and Netanyahu in action.

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[nando161mando]

Eli Valley Predicted the Future

[theculturedmarxist]

Conversations about white supremacy in America today typically center on right-wing media and incendiary politicians who blast out racist dog whistles.

But hate doesn’t need demagogues to get mainstreamed; it has also found an outlet at elite universities.

On June 29, Stanford University hosted a delegation from the Azov Brigade, a neo-Nazi formation in the Ukrainian National Guard. The panel, during which Azov’s neo-Nazi insignia was projected onto the wall, was attended by noted political scientist Francis Fukuyama, who posed for a photograph with the delegation.

This event — and the disturbing lack of reaction from Jewish organizations — showcases the limits of America’s commitment to combating white supremacy.

Call it the Ukraine exception.

Before Russia’s 2022 invasion, nearly every Western institution raised alarms about Azov. Putin’s brazen attack on Ukraine led to a much deserved outpouring of support for the country. Unfortunately, it also led to suppression of those who criticize the dark side of Kyiv: its reliance on far-right military elements, the most prominent example of which is Azov.

Even amid today’s surge of antisemitism globally, Azov has become the Teflon Neo-Nazis: freedom fighters who can do no wrong, celebrated across America, including at prestigious institutions like Stanford.

All too often, this adulation of a neo-Nazi formation has been met with silence by the Jewish community.

From neo-Nazis to heroes 

Azov began in 2014 as a paramilitary battalion formed out of a neo-Nazi street gang; it helped Kyiv fight back against Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine. Azov eventually grew into a brigade in Ukraine’s National Guard. In addition to committing war crimes, the unit is notorious for its recruitment of radicals from around the world, including America.

Azov’s radicalism has been tracked by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League, banned as a hate group by Facebook and blocked from receiving weapons by Congress.

But then, Russian president Vladimir Putin used Azov as “justification” for his invasion. Moscow needed to sell the war to the public — it exploited Azov’s existence by falsely painting Ukraine as teeming with fascists and Russia’s invasion as a “denazification” mission.

The reaction of the West played in Azov’s favor. The existence of white supremacists certainly doesn’t give Putin the right to invade Ukraine. The Kremlin’s premise of “denazification” also rings hollow, considering there are plenty of neo-Nazis fighting for Moscow.

But for Azov, Moscow’s obsession has been a ticket to the limelight. Buoyed by the notion that If Putin hates them, they must be the good guys, brigade members have been welcomed to Congress and lauded on television.

In addition to an Azov veteran, the Stanford appearance featured Kateryna Prokopenko, whose husband Denys was the brigade’s commander through the spring of 2022.

Denys Prokopenko has been photographed with his platoon’s informal insignia of a bearded Totenkopf, a type of skull-and-crossbones used by the SS. He was also featured on the cover of Azov’s unofficial magazine, which uses the Sonnenrad neo-Nazi rune favored by white terrorists like the perpetrator of last year’s massacre in Buffalo, New York.

Third Reich insignia on an elite campus

Last week’s event wasn’t Azov’s first Stanford tour – a delegation was also welcomed there last fall. Ironically, one of Stanford’s own institutes published a report chronicling Azov’s white supremacy mere months before the brigade’s visit.

When asked about Azov’s return to campus, a university spokesperson told me via email on June 27 that the event was co-sponsored by the Ukrainian Student Association at Stanford at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. “The university does not take positions on outside speakers that groups within our community want to hear from,” they added.

But Azov’s visit concerns an issue Stanford has taken a position on: Nazi symbolism.

The flyer advertising the Azov event contains the brigade’s official insignia, which is the wolfsangel, yet another hate symbol used by both the Third Reich and today’s neo-Nazis.

This isn’t the first Stanford incident involving Nazi imagery. However, the lack of response on Azov stands in sharp contrast to Stanford’s actions in previous cases. 

n 2019, Stanford was embroiled in controversy after left-wing cartoonist Eli Valley was invited to speak on campus. Valley, whose artwork features grotesque satire using Nazi imagery, was met with protests. Indeed, it led to university officials issuing a lengthy statement condemning antisemitism.

This March, the school addressed the discovery of swastikas in a dormitory by stating, “Stanford wholeheartedly rejects antisemitism, racism, hatred, and associated symbols, which are reprehensible and will not be tolerated.”

When more antisemitic attacks followed in April, Stanford’s president said: “I want to make it very clear that we will not tolerate antisemitism and the symbols of antisemitism here on campus. It is something we need to eradicate.”

Yet despite these declarations of commitment to combating antisemitism, Stanford has not responded to repeated inquiries about the university’s position regarding the Azov event displaying the wolfsangel.

We seem endlessly surprised at politicians like Donald Trump who refuse to accept responsibility for actions that enable bigotry. It shouldn’t be surprising, considering demagogues don’t bother with responsibility; that’s what makes them demagogues. 

But what about a pillar of education and enlightenment like a prestigious university? What’s Stanford’s excuse? 

Calling out neo-Nazism: Void where prohibited

Our tolerance of Azov seems even more alarming when we consider reactions to neo-Nazism that don’t involve the brigade.

In 2018, Rep. Matt Gaetz was caught inviting a Holocaust denier to the State of the Union. Gaetz’s decision to platform hate on Capitol Hill was condemned by colleagues and the ADL.

But there have been no denunciations of numerous lawmakers who welcomed Azov fighters to Washington. This includes Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who was photographed with an Azov veteran whose Twitter contained pictures of him wearing a shirt with 1488 (neo-Nazi code) and “likes” of a Hitler photo and “Death to Kikes” graffiti. 

Indeed, Azov delegations to Washington proudly advertise their meetings on the Hill. 

Or see how Jewish media and the State Department took the trouble to condemn musician Roger Waters for wearing a fascist uniform during concerts (this is part of Waters’ performance of The Wall, a satire of fascism).

The very same day, The New York Times exposed the prevalence of Nazi symbols in Ukraine’s armed forces, which receive billions in American weapons. You’d imagine this news would be at least as concerning as a musician’s costume. Yet neither the State Department nor Jewish watchdogs reacted to it (and neither the State Department or the ADL have responded to my requests for comment).

The American Jewish community must condemn neo-Nazism without exception, not just when geopolitically convenient. They can start by calling on institutions like Stanford to stop platforming Azov.

[ottoog3]

it's joever

joe mama

joe biden podcast

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[alanshemper]

“The Biden Pitch” —Eli Valley

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i swear there was a image similar to this but i can't find it :( anyways this is what it feels like when you try to court shane

[drsonnet]

Art: Eli Valley

Eli Valley is a Jewish Currents contributing writer.

[elirium]

A helpfull step by step guid on how to turn your EtC jason & tim fics into Etc Jean-Paul Valley & tim fics

for people who have never read a comic <3

i made a power point

[jetcorax]

backwater boys

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thinking about how hawk joined miyagi do instead of eagle fang in s4 after the two dojos split again just because he's in love with demetri demetri asked him to

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