#Jewish exceptionalism

[badempanadaofpatmos]

The israel lobbies and the western media had to spend billions of dollars in order to make jewish exceptionalism accepted enough, just so that the stunted minds of zionists can constandly appeal to jewishness in order to defend israels genocides.

[kosherkept]

i hope it doesnt sound too stupid but sometimes i scroll through pinterest and look at all gorgeous judaica and feel such a surge of love for judiasm. maybe its becuase i just really love things

[silly-jewish-vents]

Begging, screaming, pleading with gentiles to use Hashem, G-d, or The Tetragrammaton to refer to the Jewish god specifically. Being academic or whatever nonsense you’re using to rationalize it is no excuse to butcher the pronunciation of a name that is not meant to be spoken by the culture you’re referring to. You’re not being academic. You’re just being a jerk.

Edit/additional notes for clarification: this is specifically talking about attempted pronunciations/spellings of the Tetragrammaton in areas like Academia or in conversations about Judaism centered around Jews. This is not about in terms of a religious context such as church or mosque.

The spelling of G-d with a dash instead of an o is my personal comfort level for this post. For anyone for whom that isnt their custom that isnt an issue and they can absolutely use an oh and spell out G-d fully. I chose not to for this post. I may choose to spell it out in the future.

There is technically an argument to be made for exceptionally early israelite history like canaanite era usage. Personally still makes me and others uncomfortable and feels weird. That argument does not apply to temple or onward Jewish history era.

[lookinthymirror]

gendered antisemitism and when jewish violence is exceptionalized (is everyone except the jews allowed to be violent?):

elza niego, a turkish jewish woman, was murdered by an older turkish man for adamantly rejecting his advances. he stabbed her to death more than 8 times in 1927. he had stalked her for years and was enraged at her engagement to her jewish coworker. he had even tried to kidnap her with other accomplices. elza and her family complained to the police and as a result he also spent time in prison (only some months). he refused to stop asking elza's family for her hand in marriage and was rejected each time, making him more upset. after his release from prison, he stabbed elza to death and severely injured her sister who was present at the time and tried to protect her. he did this in broad daylight. she was 17 when he first approached her and he was in his 50s. elza died at the age of 18. her murderer was osman ratip, the son of ahmet ratip pasa, former ottoman governor of the hijaz.

her murder sparked an intense emotional reaction from the turkish jewish community and her funeral attracted hundreds of jews to the streets. the turkish press claimed jews had flocked to the streets, blocking traffic and yelling calls for justice. jewish public outrage was unacceptable, seditious, and ungrateful. the press reaction led to the arrest of nine jewish leaders and the curtailing of the jews’ right to free travel in turkey. niego’s murder was an early indicator of the new government’s determination to quash any public jewish expression.

the funeral march of elza.

now these accusations of jews being disruptive and "violent" are mostly BS. but it is always possible that a few were, indeed, violent and unruly. because 25,000 turned up for elza’s funeral, demanding justice for her. it is only logical that some of those 25,000 acted poorly. or maybe even more than just *some*. with post oct 7th logic, does that make the antisemitic campaign demonizing and punishing jews for flooding the streets in support of elza okay and justified? these accusations of violence were mostly false but the world truly fears jewish violence, exceptionalizing it as "the worse of all". i'm not saying we should just do whatever we want and be violent to get back at them but it is important to recognize that jewish violence is treated very differently than others.

the police protected osman, not allowing him the punishment of being lynched and instead sending him to a mental asylum.

the antisemitic press demanded that turkey break off all ties with the jews. anti-jewish demonstrations spread to izmir: jewish schools were closed down and jewish newspapers prevented from publishing. meanwhile the press demanded that the jews be expelled from turkey. hmm...sounds familiar?

a handful of jews (around 9 or 10) were arrested for bad behavior and some reports state they were also arrested for insulting turkishness.

while the trial for these jewish men was being orchestrated, elza’s murderer osman had been deemed criminally insane and remanded to an asylum instead of being convicted for murder and sent to prison.

limitations on travel were then imposed on turkish jews. jak pardo, an elderly jewish teacher, wrote a letter to his former student prime minister inonu during the trial, complaining of maltreatment of the jews, which led him to be arrested for contempt of court. 

as the prosecutor complained in court about jews not speaking turkish enough in public life and being ungrateful, it was evident to all involved that this was a show trial regarding the jews’ national loyalty to turkey. the case did not hinge on the facts specific to the funeral of elza niego. looking for evidence of an organized anti-turkish contingent, the police investigated the chief rabbinate and other jewish communal institutions and interviewed prominent jewish businessmen and communal leaders like albert karaso and marko nahum. and the anti-jewish campaign that was sparked by elza’s funeral was not strictly local. in izmir, the local turkish press relentlessly published anti-jewish screeds, a young jew was arrested after brawling with a man who hassled him for speaking ladino (anti zionists mad at jews for speaking hebrew is the same energy lmfao), and local teachers organized a petition protesting against jews, including a call for taking down hebrew signage at the jewish hospital and rabbinate—which an anti-jewish mob promptly did. 

immediately after the trial, notable works of jewish apologia were published by prominent jewish writers such as muhsin tekinalp (formerly moiz kohen) and avram galante. 

the jewish memory of the elza niego affair, as the jewish turkish press called it, was focused on the proven innocence of jews against accusations of disloyalty, while turkish memory centered on the unfortunate death of a young beautiful girl, minimizing the surrounding politics and pretending like the antisemitism that ensued never existed.

[tamamita]

Did someone ever ask the Tumblr Zio Folk what they think of the descendents of the Jews... who converted to Islam in the last thousand years? And who still live in the Levant? In Palestine??

Like, do these people even exist in the minds of the "landback" "we're doing anti-colonialism" Jewish Zionists?

Palestinian Christians are arguably the oldest community of Christians in the world, having had a continuous presence in the Holy Land. Their history can be traced back as far as the Apostolic age when they were referred to as Jewish Christians. Their identity as Arabs only came as a result of the Islamic expansion which culminated in them forming their own ethnic and cultural identity, some converted to Islam, some did not, same case with the Jews and Samaritans who intermingled with the Christian and Arab community at that time, hence why Palestinians still retain much of their Levant heritage, this is attested even by Israeli archeologist and genealogists. Even if these Zionists wish to obfuscate the fact that Palestinians has had a consistent presence in the Holy land, the fact is that Palestinians are of Jewish descent and have far more right to be in that land than some White ass Yankee nobody who happens to be Jewish, or some convert student from Philadelphia who apparently has a greater right to citizenship in the settler state than a native Palestinian.

You can skim through every literature made the by earliest Zionists thinkers, such as Herzl, Ha'am, Hess, Borochov, Jabotinsky, Weizmann and Ben Gurion, one thing you'll notice is that they are exceptionally damn proud of being Europeans and were all inspired by the European nationalist wave.

[city-of-ladies]

Licoricia of Winchester (c. 1220–1277) was an exceptionally successful financier and businesswoman who acted as a leader for her community and frequently dealt with royalty.

Licoricia and her time

Little is known about Licoricia’s early life. Like many Jewish women of her time, she was likely highly educated. By 1200, England’s Jewish population numbered between 4,000 and 5,000. Marginalized and subjected to widespread antisemitism, Jewish communities faced fluctuating tolerance—often depending on their financial usefulness to the crown.

Licoricia first appears in records in 1234 as a young widow running a prosperous business. She had three children with her first husband: Benedict, Cokerel, and Lumbard.

Jewish women were not uncommon in the world of finance. Around 10% of loans recorded in the English king’s rolls at the time were made by Jewish women. Names like Henna of York, Mirabelle of Gloucester, Belia of Bedford, Chera of Winchester, and Abigail of London stand out among the many successful female Jewish financiers.

These women acted as independent moneylenders, traveling on horseback or by cart—often with armed escorts—appearing in court on their own behalf, dressing richly, owning estates, and lending money to men from various social ranks.

Licoricia’s business ventures

Well-connected and influential, Licoricia lent money to a wide range of clients—from farmers and local barons to the aristocracy and the church. Among her borrowers were King Henry III and his brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort. She also rented homes to Christian women and conducted business across southern England.

In 1242, Licoricia married David of Oxford, another prominent financier with whom she had a son, Asher. Their union faced obstacles as David’s first wife, Muriel, refused to consent to a divorce. It was only through royal intervention that the marriage was permitted.

Despite her marriage, Licoricia continued to manage her business independently. When David died in 1244, Licoricia was imprisoned in the Tower of London to prevent her from interfering while royal accountants assessed his estate. To reclaim David’s debts, she was forced to pay a sum of 5,000 marks—part of which was used to fund a new shrine to Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey.

After her release, Licoricia expanded her late husband’s business. Thanks to her access to the king, Licoricia was often called upon by other Jews to intervene on their behalf.

Though highly successful, she was not without controversy. In 1253, a man sued her for charging excessive interest on a loan that allegedly forced his father to sell his estate and forge documents. She defended herself by accusing the plaintiff of murder and forgery. With royal intervention, she managed to settle the case with only a small fine.

Unsolved murder

In 1277, Licoricia was found stabbed to death in her Winchester home, alongside her devoted Christian servant, Alice. Her coffers, strongboxes, and goods were stolen, suggesting the crime was motivated by greed. The culprit was never found.

Her legacy endured through her sons, who continued to refer to themselves as the “sons of Licoricia.” Asher, in particular, became a successful financier. However, just 13 years after her death, Edward I expelled the Jewish population from England.

Today, a statue of Licoricia stands in Winchester, bearing the message “Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself” at its base.

If you enjoy this blog, consider supporting me on Ko-fi!

Further reading

Bartlet Suzanne, Tallan Cheryl, “Licoricia of Winchester”

Berman Brown Reva, McCartney Sean, “David of Oxford and Licoricia of Winchester: glimpses into a Jewish family in thirteenth-century England”

“Licoricia of Winchester project”

Waterman Hillary, “Licoricia of Winchester, Jewish Widow and Medieval Financier”

Williams-Boyarin Adrienne, “Anglo-Jewish women at court”, in: Kervy-Fulton Kathryn,   Bugyis Katie Ann-Marie, van Engen John (eds.), Women intellectuals and leaders in the Middle Ages

[psychologeek]

And that also ignoring the long history of hate and persecution before the establishment of Israel.

That is not to hijack this post. But -

I just shared and wrote a long post about it earlier today.

(ft. Ma'abarot, relative-search bureau, the Tsena era, and "you gotta ring twice")

I currently have a lot of Jewish mutuals/people I follow and over the course of the last few months, almost Every. Single. One has talked about their mental health declining, that they’re exhausted and terrified, that they’ve become more closed off and lost their trust in people from outside their communities, due to being gaslit and ignored constantly on a society wide scale. Almost all of them have experienced antisemitic abuse or violence personally or had bomb threats to their synagogues and community centres or had swastikas and slurs graffitied on their properties.

The worst thing about this outrage is that none of them are really surprised by it - frightened, sickened, yes - but not surprised. They and their ancestors have had to deal with this shit for thousands of years. And all of them expect - no they *know* - it’s going to get worse.

It’s beyond fucking shameful. We are failing these people on a massive, society wide scale. Again.

So, I NEVER want to see a single one of my fellow goyim say shit like “Jews are just playing the victim,” “the rise in antisemitism is overblown and not as bad as they say because I haven’t seen it,” “it’s just a few extremists,” because NO, IT ISN’T - it’s systemic. Those who aren’t directly perpetrating it are mostly ignoring it. If you won't believe or listen to Jewish voices (if not, why not?) then the cold statistics cannot be waved away.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up-about-400-since-israel-hamas-war-began-report-says-2023-10-25/

https://news.sky.com/story/more-than-4-000-antisemitic-incidents-recorded-by-jewish-charity-in-uk-in-2023-with-explosion-in-hatred-blamed-on-hamas-attacks-13071580

https://www.reuters.com/world/how-surge-antisemitism-is-affecting-countries-around-world-2023-10-31/

[littlestpersimmon]

Most movements that center on exclusion and separatism will always fail to see (and therefore fail to dismantle in any meaningful way) systems of oppression. T3rves will complain about trans women in women's prisons and will never, ever complain about the existence of prisons in the first place, Transmeds will completely isolate themselves from any iteration of transhood that does not medicalize itself, therefore leaving the thousands of trans identities of various cultures as totally invalid, and having the medical industry be the end all be all of arbiters on the matter. Do u get what I'm saying. Any conversation around oppression that frames an oppressed demographic as exceptionally oppressed often turn into echo chambers where it becomes impossible to talk about the intricacies and intersectionalities of bigotry, often resulting into demands of unconditional support; guilt tripping and weaponized marginalization only a few of its apparatus. Being an antizionist jew has been, actual, literal hell when I know by heart every single liberal zionist Jewish argument that every moderate on this website falls for. I have to make myself clear that I put anti imperialism over my own feelings, that many many others before me have pointed out how callous it is to center jewish feelings, to invoke the millenia of our peoples suffering, to speak of antisemitism in tandem with palestinian resistance, as if speaking of palestine insinuates a steady slope onto hatred of Jews. Many cliques on this website have a bunch of enablers to exploit their own status as part of a marginalized and oppressed group to silence any criticism of Israel and America, which is to me is incredibly perverse and manipulative. If you are a true ally to Jews, any place in the world should be a safe place for us, and it should not be at the desire to build ethnostates on the expense of an indigenous population made to reckon with crimes they did not commit. I don't know.

[thyfleshc0nsumed]

There is a nonzero chance that that is actually him tho and he has come to Tumblr just to find more people to get pissed at and pwn lmfao. But like if so. Oh my god how embarrassing, I mean that's just a 2016 style discourse blog except instead of like, ace discourse it's just telling Zionists to kill themselves. Like not that that's like, wrong, I just think it's just a waste of time and energy.

Why is someone impersonating BadEmpanada on here lmfao

They've got the "combative for combativeness' sake" thing down. I do generally respect the guy and think he actually does have some principles, but god sometimes he does the like chest beating debate lord thing and it's only like 10% a joke. His longer form stuff is good, but sometimes in his short and medium stuff I'm like omg bro you need to log off social media

[jewish-vents]

I know who I am. I'm not afraid or ashamed.

I just wish there weren't billions of people screaming at us to die and spreading lies.

It's demotivating. It's draining. It feels hopeless. They're speaking over us. It's like bullying a little kid. There's so little of us.

I am proud of being Jewish. I accept our flaws, I accept that some of us are bad and kill others in our name, I accept that Israel is flawed and I love it despite it all. If times get tough as they are destined to and you run away from being Jewish, there is no point. Why does the world expect us to bow and tremble and cry and beg because our country is like other countries and has killed and oppressed? Can everyone stop exceptionalizing us? We are not worse than others nor are we better. Bad things are done in our name but bad things are done in everyone's name: we are not special. All religions can attest to this. I hate it too and you have every right to despair but this is the result of being human. We cannot social justice our way out of being human. So why must we denounce our entire religion and remake it and destroy our only safe haven because there is a far right conservative government?

.

[etz-ashashiyot]

About Me/FAQs

You can call me Avital. I am a non-binary traditional egalitarian Jew living in the US. Any pronouns except they/them are fine. (!היא/את בעברית, בבקשה. תודה)

I really appreciate human interaction. That being the case, if you follow me and I don't already follow you, please send me a DM with the following:

What you want me to call you (internet name, username, nickname, whatever)

What brought you here and made you want to follow me

Something random about you that you feel comfortable sharing (pet pics are always welcome too <3)

I had a whole lot of other rules on my previous blog to weed out the faint of heart, but I genuinely don't know how well that worked, so instead I will simply put roughly the same information below as resources and recommended reading. Fair warning: I will operate from a baseline assumption that you've done the reading and therefore will not be explaining anything in them.

I also had a listing of my firm opinions and other miscellaneous information. That got long and unwieldy, but a lot of people seemed to appreciate it, so I will post roughly the same list under the cut.

The current username refers to my current symbol of a tree of lanterns in the starlight. This is related to my desire to create self-symbolism, old school style (like I really want to create a family crest, a flag, a seal, and other heraldic nonsense. Why? Because it delights me, of course.)

This page is under construction and subject to change at any time.

B'vracha,

Avital

Recommend Reading

For followers who are Christian, were Christian, are non-Jews who grew up in a Christian culture and/or have only learned about Judaism through Christianity, these links are very helpful in unpacking some of the antisemitism you were taught:

Better Parables (specifically the article about Pharisees, but read the rest of the site too, it's great)

Antisemitic readings of the Temple table-flipping incident in the New Testament

The current Israel-Hamas war and just המצב discourse in general require a lot of background knowledge to discuss intelligently, and not just propaganda. There is a LOT of antisemitism in the public around this topic and it is having serious real-world consequences for Jews all over the world. The mis- and disinformation is causing problems for everyone involved. Islamophobia in the West has increased as well. If you're going to engage in this discussion, I am respectfully but forcefully asking you to read the following sources. They are useful regardless of where you fall on that political scale.

There Is No Magic Peace Fairy

Ways to help: [1], [2], [3]

Muslim organizations advocating for peace, education, positive interfaith relations, and fighting antisemitism

This is perhaps my best summary of my own feelings on the whole thing

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that

Please learn what Kahanism is, because it actually is what people think Zionism is. Zionism is simply a desire for Jewish self-determination in our ancestral homeland of eretz Yisrael. Kahanism is a type of racism that cloaks itself in Zionism but is fundamentally bigoted.

A non-exhaustive list of antisemitic incidents, attacks, and pogroms during [OP's] lifetime

An exceptionally long and thorough explanation of antisemitism and antisemitic violence throughout history

Why The Most Educated People in America Fall for Antisemitic Lies by Dara Horn (tumblr link in case the article link gets broken)

This explanation of the atrocities endured by Soviet Jews and how the legacy of Soviet antisemitism undergirds western "antizionism-not-antisemitism." If you call yourself an anti-Zionist, this is required reading.

An excellent overview of the basics

This is nowhere near complete information, but it's an important start. I will very likely continue to add resources as they become available and would love to create a primer on this topic more generally.

If you don't believe that October 7th happened or wasn't that bad, or really any atrocity denial please read this article from a reporter who was shown the actual footage, as well as this article documenting its effects on him.

If you are still in denial about the pattern of gender based violence, sexualized torture, and widespread rape as a war tactic committed by Hamas on 10/7, you are legally required to read this article.

About the blog:

I’m going to try my best to keep this blog to primarily Judaism, comparative religion and theology, with the occasional side sprinkling of queer & trans stuff, BUT it is absolutely a personal blog at the end of the day.

I talked about Israel and המצב stuff a lot on my previous blog and will likely continue a bit over here too. I welcome a broad swath of opinions, so long as they objectively treat all parties involved as human and deserving of safety, stability, freedom, dignity, and peace. That is apparently a large ask these days, and a not-small part of why I keep talking about this issue. Please be part of the voices that give me hope for the future, okay?

Minors can follow and interact but please keep in mind that I’m probably closer to your parents' age than yours if you do want to interact with me directly.

Interactions:

Rude asks will be deleted. Harassing blogs will be blocked and probably reported.

I consider anything even remotely in the vicinity of trying to proselytize to me to be “harassing,” or at a minimum, rude. Just FYI.

Otherwise, nice interactions are welcomed.

Banter is encouraged; trolling will be ignored

If you are a goy and want to argue with me about Jewish theology, you have to match my perfect score on this popquiz, no cheating by looking things up during the quiz. I learned Judaism as an adult mostly through self-study so you have no excuse. If you're invested enough to argue with me you're invested enough to do the reading homework. (To clarify: I'm happy to explain Jewish stuff to anyone who is sincerely asking or just have a friendly comparative theology discussion or whatever. But I have zero patience for those who want to argue with me about basic shit claiming they know more than me, especially if what they're claiming they "know" is not only wrong but antisemitic and wrong.)

If I don't respond to your interaction, there's a strong chance that I (a) have no idea what to say and am thinking about it, (2) totally meant to respond and just forgot after the notif disappeared, and/or (3) got incredibly busy. It's not personal! Please don't be shy about following up with me if you like. I promise that if we have a problem that is fixable, you'll know. If we have a problem that is not fixable, you'll be blocked.

I am currently learning Ivrit and am delighted to have interactions in Hebrew. Please feel free to message me, reply to posts or reblog, submit asks, etc. in Hebrew and I will do my best to read and respond to it. (Responses will be slower, but not for lack of appreciation of your thoughts!)

Anything else, just ask.

Hard stances:

You're not going to change my mind on these things; I've looked at the evidence, my personal experiences, and thought about them long and hard, and I am not going to be swayed by an internet rando. I can (often, but not always) co-exist just fine with people who I disagree with, but if seeing my posts about this is going to upset you, just do us both a favor and block me now please.

I am deeply distressed at how many people are choosing to live in a "post-factual society" where the truth is based on truthiness vibes and the politics are based on the quippiest of slogans. I don't care who's doing it, misinfo, disinfo, propaganda, atrocity denial, and gaslighting are BAD. There is no nuance here; these are bad things. They are bad if they go against your cause and they are bad if they "support" your cause. No cause is better than the truth.

If we cannot have a discussion where we are operating from the same baseline reality of verifiable facts, we cannot have a productive conversation and I will not engage with you. We can agree or disagree on a lot and that is fine, but facts matter.

If you cannot be reasoned with in accepting verifiable facts as reality, you need help. I'm serious. That is cult behavior. Get off tumblr and get help.

I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people. If you don't see the inherent worth in other human beings' lives, I can't fix that. Go take that struggle to G-d and heal your soul.

I support the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our ancestral homeland of Israel, the same way that I support other indigenous groups' right to self-determination in their ancestral homelands. If you don't, I'm going to need you to examine why Jews should be singled out of every other group to be denied this right or denied support in seeking it. That said, I definitely do not agree with many of the decisions made by the Israeli government, especially (but far from exclusively) regarding their treatment of Palestinians. I think both Jews and Palestinians deserve to live in peace, safety, freedom, dignity, and self-determination for both. No one is going anywhere; any real solution must recognize that. I tend to favor this proposal by A Land for All as an ideal (and given the grassroots nature of this idea, I think it could work pragmatically too, if the political will exists on both sides.)

I reject the Zionist/anti-Zionist dichotomy altogether for a number of reasons: 1) It impedes conversation because too many people agree but will never know it because they refuse to talk about what they actually mean by those labels and instead make assumptions about the other group. 2) It inherently puts the validity of an existing state up for debate rather than looking at real solutions for the future. You cannot unmake the state of Israel without widespread atrocities, but you can figure out options for everyone to live together in peace and heal from the collective trauma. 3) It also makes it way too easy to play Good Jew/Bad Jew and "Zionist" has basically become the slur de jour for "Jew." It sucks that people took a Jewish word for an important Jewish concept and made it synonymous with "bloodthirsty racist," but personally I don't think arguing over that at this exact juncture in time is helpful.

Bottom line: I'm a humanitarian and a pragmatist, and I care about all the people who call that part of the world home.

Update: for real, if you have trouble seeing Israelis and Palestinians both as human and deserving of safety, dignity, freedom, and inherent worth as living human beings, I don't want to know you. I don't want to talk to you. Go fix yourself.

🌻 I stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦

Free Iran from the Islamic Republic // Women Life Freedom

Abortion is a human right and should be safe, legal, available on demand, and shameless. It's a necessary medical procedure and it's completely barbaric that we're still talking about it as anything else.

Birth control, abortion, and no-fault divorce are actively positive parts of society and building healthy families.

Transition care is healthcare and also a human right. Allowing people to transition prevents self-harm and suicide, and has an extremely high efficacy rate with an exceptionally low level of risk or regret. We now have well over a century of data on this.

That said, detransitioners who are still supportive of trans people/aren't transphobic are more than welcome here, as any exploratory process deserves the right to say, "Interesting! But nope!"

Transunity, ace/aro positivity, and just inclusionism in general, 100%. Fuck off with anything else.

Queer might be a slur in the mouths of some people, but my identity isn't. Don't reblog my posts if you're going to tag it with "q slur" or "q word" or censored in some way. I'm not Gay as in "I prioritize cis men over the entire rest of the community" but Queer as in "my personal labels are none of your business but my political stance on queer liberation sure as fuck will be."

If you don't vaccinate yourself and your kids for any reason other than medical necessity, and especially if you promote anti-vaxxer views and the associated pseudoscience, you are actively harming the most vulnerable members of society for entirely selfish reasons and that makes you a bad person. I hope your kids bypass you to get vaccinated.

Wear a mask 😷

[girlactionfigure]

Heroic Polish Poet: Czeslaw Milosz

Won the Nobel Prize

Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz protected Jews during the Holocaust, wrote poems that inspired millions, and advocated passionately for freedom of thought and human rights. 

Czeslaw was born in 1911 to an illustrious family descended from Polish nobility. At the time of his birth, Poland was not an independent country and the Milosz clan lived in an area that was part of the Russian Empire. He spent his early childhood on his grandfather’s estate, but when World War I broke out in 1914, the family was thrown into turmoil. Czeslaw’s father was drafted into the Russian army, and Czeslaw and his mother spent the next four years fleeing the Germans in (modern-day) Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. When the war ended, the family settled in Vilna.

Exceptionally intelligent and curious, Czeslaw learned six languages (Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, English, French, and Hebrew.) He entered law school at the prestigious Stefan Batory University when he was only 18 years old, but found his true calling and talent in poetry. He published his first poems in the university magazine in 1930, and formed a student poetry group and an “Intellectuals Club.”

Czeslaw had many Jewish friends at the university, and was shocked when an antisemitic mob attacked Jews on campus. Czeslaw bravely stood up to the mob and protected the Jewish students. Sadly one student was killed when a large rock was thrown at his head. 

The incident influenced Czeslaw’s writing, and he described his work as “Poetry of Protest.” While still a student, Czeslaw published his first volume of poetry. After graduating from university, Czeslaw worked at a radio station in Vilna. He produced a wide range of programming for the station, including performances by Jewish musicians and writers. As Hitler rose to power, his hateful ideology took hold among many Lithuanian nationalists. Czeslaw’s showcasing Jewish voices on the radio led to an anonymous complaint falsely accusing him of fomenting communism, and he was fired. 

Czeslaw moved back to Poland, now an independent republic, and worked at Polish Radio in Warsaw. He published another volume of poetry, which quickly gained acclaim among poetry-lovers and critics. He was compared to legendary 19th century Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. 

After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Czeslaw became an active member of the Polish underground resistance. The Nazis persecuted Polish intellectuals and artists, and Czeslaw published his next book of poetry under a pseudonym, which he also used for his translations of Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot. 

Horrified at the violent and vicious persecution of Jews in Warsaw, Czeslaw, along with his brother Andrzej, began helping Jews hide or escape from the Nazis. He defied the Nazis to help at least five Polish Jews and maybe more, providing them a place to hide as well as financial support. Czeslaw knew that the penalty for this transgression was death, but his moral compass did not allow him to stand idly by. In late 1944 Czeslaw was captured by the Germans and held in a prisoner transit camp. Miraculously, he was helped by a Catholic nun (and total stranger) who somehow convinced the Germans to let him go. 

After the war, Czeslaw published his powerful fourth collection of poetry, focusing on the loss of three million Polish Jews, and the willful blindness of much of the Polish population. Came po dei Fiori, written in 1943, became one of his best-known works. It described the suffering and carnage inside the Warsaw ghetto, and the cluelessness of those outside its gates. The poem includes searing imagery: “The salvoes behind the ghetto walls/were drowned in lively tunes/and vapors freely rose/into the tranquil sky./Sometimes the wind from burning houses would bring the kites along/and people on the merry-go-round/caught the flying charred bits./This wind from burning houses/blew open the girls’s skirts/and the happy throngs laughed/on a beautiful Warsaw Sunday.”

Czeslaw received increasing recognition for his work, which ultimately inspired long-overdue public reckoning and introspection on Poles’ failure to protect the three million Jews in their midst. In 1949 he was appointed a cultural attache for the communist People’s Republic of Poland, although he opposed Soviet ideology. During this time he moved from New York to Washington DC and then Paris, creating events highlighting Polish culture, publishing articles, and translating important literary works into Polish, his mother tongue. He returned to Poland for a visit in 1949, and was shocked at what had happened to the country. Stalinist oppression had created a culture of fear and lies, and Czeslaw spoke out against it, leading to his firing and escape from Poland to Paris in 1951. During the tumult he was separated from his wife Janina and their children. They were in the United States, but because of the old smear against Czeslaw of being a communist, McCarthyism led to Czeslaw being refused entry. He received political asylum in France, and spoke out against Stalinism, which led to all of works being banned in his native land. He published two poetry collections, two novels, and a memoir, written in Polish and published by fellow Polish ex-pats. He finally reunited with his family in 1953. 

In 1960, Czeslaw became a visiting lecturer at Berkeley, and American audiences discovered his work for the first time. He published scholarly works on Dostoevsky, among other important writers. Czeslaw took a break from teaching in 1978 to focus on writing full-time. During the Stalinist years, Czeslaw’s work was a source of inspiration to the the Polish anti-communist Solidarity movement. 

Czeslaw won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980, leading to global recognition and the publication of his work in Poland. After 30 years in exile, Czeslaw returned to Poland for a visit and was greeted by adoring crowds proud of the attention and respect he brought to Polish literature. He met with Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II and used his newfound fame to advocate for writers who were persecuted for their beliefs. 

Czeslaw became a poetry professor at Harvard in 1981, and continued to publish poetry in Polish. His wife Janina died in 1986, and after the fall of communism in 1989 he began to spend more time in Poland, finally moving back in 2000. Czeslaw Milosz died in Krakow in 2004, at age 93. He received a state funeral and thousands of people lined the streets to watch his coffin travel by a military escort to the cemetery. At the funeral, noted poets Seamus Heaney, Adam Zagajewski, and Robert Hass read Czeslaw’s poetry in all the languages he knew: Polish, French, English, Russian, Lithuanian, and Hebrew. 

During his lifetime and posthumously, Czeslaw received many honors and awards, including Righteous Among the Nations at Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem. His work was enormously influential among the greatest poets of the age, including Robert Pinsky, Ted Hughes, Robert Strand and Derek Walcott. Raised Catholic, Czeslaw became an atheist as a young man, but later returned to the faith of his youth and was buried at Skalka Roman Catholic Church.

For saving lives and writing poetry for the ages, we honor Czeslaw Milosz as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[rodeodeparis]

re holocaust exceptionalism: as someone who's genuinely annoyed by how ashkenazim do not realize that they're "white" in the us, i really don't think ethnic ashkenazim being white by today's standards has anything to do with conclusions that the holocaust was "unique" or that it's worth recognizing, let alone why its memory is used to justify -sraeli atrocities. the us (for example) is perfectly capable of recognizing the danger uyghurs (largely not white) are being put through - the fault of china, the "enemy superpower" - while not recognizing the danger palestinians (largely not white) are being put through - the fault of their vassal state in the middle east and their own blind support for it.

at the end of the day, countries like the us view the holocaust the way they do because it's both "safe" and politically advantageous for them to view it that way. compare that to, like, iran, who doesn't have good relations with the us and its friends, hence that holocaust denial conference ahmadinejad hosted in 2006 where he invited david duke to speak. (yes, really, look it up.) also compare it to how the us has yet to recognize the many genocides it's committed against native americans, let alone making any significant effort at reparations past whatever haphazard thing they drafted up in the 19th century. the "unique" thing could be a way to deny other genocides the us and its allies were involved in as much as it could be a genuine belief that the genocides the us was complicit in were justified, but it doesn't matter.

as for why individuals think that way, i'd say it's more on a case-by-case basis. some understand how political atrocity recognition and having an ethnostate of your own are and are afraid that losing "power" will somehow make the world revert to rampant antisemitism. some think the us is acting out of the kindness of its heart and are just mindlessly swallowing hasbara narratives that people wanting a free palestine also want to kill every jew. either way, you get the sense that jewish people who are z-onists who think this way are placing themselves in some sort of "competition" against palestinians and other oppressed people, like there's only so much love to go around. looking at the world in this way is selfish, even if it comes out of fear, but you don't need me to tell you that.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Emma Riva

Andy Warhol painted Mao, machine guns and Marilyn Monroe, but the public was scandalized in 1980 when he painted Jews.

The New York Times claimed that Warhol’s “Ten Portraits of Jews in the Twentieth Century” “reek[ed] of commercialism, and their contribution to art is nil,” and The Philadelphia Inquirer called the portraits “Jewploitation.”

But this month, Andy Warhol Museum Chief Curator Aaron Levi Garvey, a Jewish curator and historian originally from New York, installed them at the museum.

“I never understood calling these portraits commercial or vapid,” Garvey said. “What of Warhol’s work isn’t commercial? He worked with the idea of what an icon is.”

The 10 Jewish subjects that Warhol, art dealer Ronald Feldman and JCC of Greater Washington Gallery Director Susan Morgenstein selected in 1980 were actress Sarah Bernhardt; United States Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis; philosopher Martin Buber; physicist Albert Einstein; psychologist Sigmund Freud; comedians the Marx Brothers; Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir; songwriter George Gershwin; and writers Franz Kafka and Gertrude Stein.

The installation at the Warhol, Garvey said, was initially conceived as a gesture of solidarity coinciding with the five-year commemoration of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

Then the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7 happened.

Fear of controversy over highlighting Jews during a period of escalating violence and brutality in Israel — as well as personal antisemitic threats that Garvey said were made against him via email and voicemail — could have caused the Jewish curator to postpone or cancel the exhibit. But he’s no stranger to anti-Jewish hate and decided to go through with the installation.

“People used to carve swastikas into my desk when I was in high school, and I experienced major antisemitism in college,” he said. “I want viewers of ‘Ten Portraits’ to learn and be open to dialogue.”

The portraits share a room on the fourth floor of the Warhol with Keith Haring’s “Untitled (Elephant)” — a literal elephant in the room alongside a figurative one, Garvey noted.

In the lineup of Warhol’s “Jewish geniuses,” as the artist nicknamed them, the views and figures represented are complex. Kafka abandoned Judaism. Bernhardt hid her Jewish identity. Stein supported the Vichy government of France, an actively anti-Jewish regime. Einstein is quoted as saying: “I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state” in a 1938 speech entitled “Our Debt to Zionism,” even though he was offered the position of president of Israel.

One of the many things that makes “Ten Portraits” so timely and provocative is that it asks viewers to consider what being a Jewish icon means. All the portraits are of Ashkenazi Jews and speak to a certain image of Jewish identity. However, rather than Jacob Riis-esque tenement photography or depictions of Jewish suffering and tragedy, Warhol highlighted Jewish exceptionalism in the arts, government and sciences.

“I want viewers to think about all of these people in multitudes, in a non-linear fashion,” Garvey said. “It’s about Jewish exceptionalism but in a multitude of ways. All of the subjects contain multitudes. In the wall text, I put that Martin Buber was a Zionist philosopher. Someone told me I couldn’t say that, and I was like, ‘Well, that’s what he was,’” Garvey recalled.

Garvey said that the museum’s internal response to the installation has been mixed, including various complaints that misidentified Garvey’s ethnicity and some inflammatory antisemitic remarks. But nonetheless, Garvey and Warhol Director Patrick Moore co-signed an exhibition statement calling for peace and solidarity.

[velvetvexations]

very unrelated to what you usually post but i just wanted to vent somewhere i'm a reconnecting native (primarily working on building relationships with my family members in the tribe right now, hoping to apply for membership in the next year) and it's a hard but fulfilling process except. the chief is loudly pro-israel. explicitly. praises the idf. and it just makes my stomach churn. the chief is my cousin and it's likely i'll end up reconnecting with her directly, learning things from her, and of course as i try to get more involved with the tribe i'll have to defer to her for a lot of things. but if she can't see the obvious genocide and human suffering, even after a year of being flooded with images of it and the neverending escalation- it makes it really hard for me to respect and trust her as a person. the tribe was almost wiped out by the exact thing happening to palestine right now. how could you ever support this. i want to be proud of being a part of this community but if this is how we're being represented... idk. it just sucks. i was so happy when i learned i had a whole side of my family i never got to meet (i don't have great relationships with the family i grew up with), a new culture and community to be a part of, and seeing the chief do this makes everything so much more complicated for me.

I'm going to be exceptionally brave and check in without consulting either my Jewish or Native American friend, but go off things they've talked to me about at length to offer a perspective on the 'why' part.

Israel is conducting a genocide beyond a doubt. A lot of that is a cycle of violence, not with Palestine directly but with the world in general throughout history, with Israel being seen as the only safety Jews have or will ever have. It's the reaction of someone who was badly hurt in the past and hurts others to never be hurt again. It's deeply sad all around. I think it's possible your chief empathizes with the feeling of Jews who have framed Israel as a severely threatened and abused people's final fortress bravely fending off existential threats.

Or it's possible I'm reading too much into the racial/cultural parallels and he's just a dumb asshole? I am myself a dumb bitch and very White, so maybe I shouldn't do analysis like this. But I mean, it'd make a lot of sense, and if you want to feel better about why he may feel that way, I think there's a good chance there's more to it than him "just" being a fan of genocide.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Nearly as soon as the Bolsheviks took power, they began to execute anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries, most of whom had fought alongside the Bolsheviks in the Revolution. They also purged elements of their own party deemed "anti-Soviet" or "counter-revolutionary." This state repression was well documented by the Soviet government, but here we have chosen to use journals and letters of those affected. Lithuanian-American Jewish anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman describe the Bolshevik betrayal: The systematic man-hunt of anarchists [...] with the result that every prison and jail in Soviet Russia filled with our comrades, fully coincided in time and spirit with Lenin's speech at the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party. On that occasion Lenin announced that the most merciless war must be declared against what he termed "the petty bourgeois anarchist elements" which, according to him, are developing even within the Communist Party [...] On the very day that Lenin made the above statement, numbers of anarchists were arrested all over the country, without the least cause or explanation. The conditions of their imprisonment are exceptionally vile and brutal. (Boni, 253)