#Jewish trauma

[fromchaostocosmos]

any other Jews super duper nervous for Pesach due to the history of Blood Libel and Pesach and the amount of Blood Libel and overall antisemitism that we have been seeing increasing exponentially lately. And being seen in both Right and Left extreme fringes as well in main stream.

Also super duper nervous for Easter because again the antisemitism and Blood Libel that we would happen in the past around Easter and how much we are seeing it the same things now.

Just very nervous and nerve wracking time. I really am worried on top the worry that I already have about the safety for Jews and communities.

I just have a terrible feeling that something bad will happen on Pesach.

[garlic-and-cloves]

How can people look at Hamas and think they are good?

How can they see how Hamas violently raped, murdered, and took hostage Israeli civilians on October 7th and support that?

How can anyone read how Hamas continued sexually assaulting, starving, and torturing those hostages and not say anything?

How can anyone hear how they just murdered 6 hostages 3 days ago so they'd be dead instead of rescued and not hate Hamas and what they've done?

How can anyone know how many ceasefires Hamas has broken, how they've launched rockets from hospitals, how they've prevented aid from getting to their own civilians and still see them as having done no wrong?

[mylight-png]

I've been wondering how to put this feeling into words but then came across this post. I still want to write my own take but I'm in the trenches of exam week so I'm sharing this for now instead.

[historic-meme]

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. This whole week l have been thinking alot about the Holocaust. So last night I re-read maus. One panel really stuck out to me during this reading. For context this is in Maus 2 when Art is talking to his therapist, a Holocaust survivor, about how he feels he could never measure up to his father who survived Auschwitz. At this point in the story his father had already past. May his memory be a blessing.

The dialogue, “but you weren’t in Auschwitz. You were in Rego Park,” hit me like a punch to the chest. I have no better way to explain the paradoxical guilt I felt and continue to feel as the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. I did not live during the Holocaust. It had ended before my grandmother reached eighteen years old. And yet, the Shoah seems to loom over me. Forever a reminder, that I am alive by sheer luck. My great grandfather’s parents as well as two of his brothers were murdered in Auschwitz. My great grandmother’s twin sister was also murdered in the Holocaust. Despite hours of research, I still have no idea where exactly she died.

Using the term guilty for what I feel doesn’t seem exactly right but there is no better word in the English language. Maybe if I was smarter or more articulate I could find better words.

A key theme of this chapter is intergenerational trauma. This is the same chapter that has this iconic image.

On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, I simply want to acknowledge the real and extremely painful intergenerational trauma and inherited survivors guilt felt by descendants of Jewish survivors. I know I struggled in the past with feeling like I even have any right to feel this way considering I am three generations removed from any of my family that were murdered in the Holocaust. If any other Jews struggle with thoughts like this, I want to assure you that your feelings are valid and real. Intergenerational trauma is complicated and the feelings that come with it don’t simply disappear once a certain number of generations from the event pass.

This post is specifically about the Holocaust and jewish intergenerational trauma stemming from our persecution and genocide. If this post resonates with you as a non-Jew who has intergenerational trauma I am glad, but please do not derail this post.

[random-internet-teen]

[glitzy-dynamite]

Please STOP comparing Israel government to h*tler. I don’t want to talk about my opinion on Israel and HAMAS war but comparing Jewish people to the person who COMMITTED HOLOCAUST is a spit in the face to all Jewish people.

[magnetothemagnificent]

Jewish trauma: Hillel security guard finds an unidentified bag at the entrance. A few moments of panic until it turns out it belongs to one of the Mashgichim for the deli. Thank G-d.

[tetedump]

Because that's the other part of being a Jew in Europe— each step I take is in defiance of everyone who didn't want me here.

- The Ghosts of Rose Hill, R. M. Romero

[philosopherking1887]

Genocide is never a lesson for the victim.

I feel like that one needs to be emphasized on here especially, because I have actually seen people saying that the Jews must be especially evil because we "had an opportunity to learn from our genocide that genocide is bad." What the fuck?! History is not a kids' afternoon special. Aside from the fact that Israelis do believe that genocide is bad, and generally don't understand what's happening in Gaza as genocide (i.e., as an attempt to eliminate/eradicate Palestinians as a group) -- unlike many other instances of genocide, which are often explicitly conceived as an effort to eliminate a certain despised ethnic or religious group, or to erase its group identity (as in Ukraine, or with the Uyghurs in Xinjiang) -- it's absurd to think that what a people will take from a nearly successful genocide is a moral lesson. What they will take from it is collective trauma and the determination to preserve their own group identity, to never let that happen to them again.

a list of don'ts for goyim in regard to jews and jewishness

do not ever ever compare jews or a jewish person to vermin. i don’t care what the context is. it is an incredibly historically loaded thing

do not under any circumstances alter our magen david or call it something dirty or awful. it is a symbol of all jews, and if you call it something like “satanic”, you are hurting all jews

do not insert israel or palestine in conversations about jewishness or jews when it has nothing to do with either subject

do not blame the actions of israel on world jewry

do not think knowing a jew gives you authority on anything. having a jewish SO or friend gives you authority on nothing

do not think that your country does not have an antisemitism problem.

do not think that antisemitism is isolated to one region or one people

do not think that antisemitism today is harmless or dead or a “political tool”

do not ever source nazi/neonazi material for any of your social justice work. i don’t care how “spot on they are for this one issue”, if you do that, you are trash and your social activism is trash too.

do not celebrate our holidays because you think it would be a fun thing to do. would you think it’s fun or interesting to walk into a synagogue surrounded by cops on yom kippur, weak from fasting, knowing that your chances of experiencing violence on this holy day have increased a hundredfold because of your jewishness? 

do not respond to accusations of antisemitism with “i bet you’re a zionist”. 

do not ever speak over a jew on jewish identity. 

do not erase or ignore our suffering

do not call our genocide a white people’s genocide

do not use our genocide against us. genocide is never a lesson for the victim

do not forget the various genocides and suffering of jews outside of europe and the holocaust. 

do not forget that we are as subject to various -isms as gentiles. your social activism is not intersectional if you forget jews. 

do not forget the jewish history of various social movements

do not forget that we are a varied people—jews are never a monolith. 

[fromchaostocosmos]

Lets talk about trauma

I know that on the many years I've been on this site that the Jewish users of tumblr have discussed, explained, broken down, and shown over and over the multiple ways we are all effected by our generational and communal trauma.

The way that Jews from all over world and varying backgrounds yet all shared the same fears, learned the same survival mechanisms, played the same "games" that were not games, but rather ways to teach children how to survive, just the same everything.

Ask any Jew if nightmares about pogroms and/or the Holocaust and being taken or dying in it and they will tell you yes.

The amount of trauma Jews carry within us is, withing our DNA, within our bodies, within our brains in is immense. We carry several thousands years worth of trauma.

We carry it all. The hypervigilance, that stress cycle, the paranoia, the various of hormones that keep us in semi permanent state of stress, the tension, and more. If you have ever done any research into what trauma does the body, the brain, to a person then you can understand.

Currently Jews who stressed and traumatized people doing our best are being severally stressed and traumatized on a whole new level.

I fear for what this will do to us in the long term. I will not be surprised if Jewish people come out this all with PTSD. I know that I've already had a nightmare where I was at some nebulous Jewish place and a bunch people who came and shot and killed us including me and did so claiming to so in name of freeing Palestine.

Which is sad that I nightmare like that because I shouldn't have to experience that. And Palestinians deserve better than to have antisemites hijacking their cause and needs so that these antisemites can pretend that they are not antisemities.

It is honestly very sad to watch how much of the pro-Palestine movement/people do not actually listen to Palestinians themselves. How much they do not care about what Palestinians want, think, or need. How much this movement supports Hamas despite Gazans direct statements and feelings that say don't support Hamas. How much these groups still will push "charities" that send funding to Hamas or not credible instead of ones that give help to Palestinians.

The self-immolation of the air force man really cemented for how much this movement has been over taken and how little they care for what Palestinians think, say, or want. Because these people have been praising, lionizing, and glorifying this man death is direct defiance of what Palestinians have said.

The way this man death has been treated and talked about makes me extremally worried, and I know other Jews are too, that we may see suicide bombers attacking Jewish centers of life and community. Which in case it isn't clear then I want to make clear this not something I blame Palestinians or Muslims for.

No, this is something we are seeing from people living in the west who culturally Christian.

The way these people talk about martyrdom is terrifying. The way that they talk about Jews is I want to say horrifying and I want to terrifying because it is and it is all not anything new or suprising.

It is horrific, it is disturbing, and there are moments of shock, but not surprise.

I don't know if it is because I've just become numb or because it is the shit gets regurgitated over and over or maybe some combination of both.

Here is a picture of pomegranate for making to the end of this rather depressing post. Pomegranates are wonderful and make things better.

[random-internet-teen]

Having feels again. Unfortunately sad ones.

Thinking about judaism, motherhood, relationships.

It’s Chanukah, and my mom is no longer suicidal. This most recent resurgence was caused by many things but one is that it was recently his birthday on the Hebrew calendar. And it’s been around five years since he’s been able to talk to his own mom.

And with all that baggage finally not making him suicidal, he’s starting to teach me the prayers associated with Chanukah.

Tonight we watched fiddler on the roof. A Jewish classic and the source for many tears over the years.

So well cooking latkes, we watched fiddler. It’s later now but I can’t help but miss a Jewish community i barely ever had. And probably never will

To day i drove past protesters waving flags for organizations founded by nazis (the nazi party of germany)

These protesters were quite obviously trying to prevent the public menorah lighting.

I miss living in the Jewish ghetto I spent so much time in. Because well they hated me and my family for being queer at least they didn’t want to kill me.



I want to have kids. I really really want to have kids. Not necessarily biological kids or my own kids. I’ve been planning on fostering for a long time now. But my current partner gags at the mention, I mean I knew this was probably going to happen.

I’m a butch bisexual, and I won’t find the magical perfect person. But seeing motel and tzeitel… g-d I want that.

I want to fall in love with another Jew. I want to help keep my culture and religion alive. In the weird queer way I participate in it

I want to have sabbots and bake challah,

I think this rant is over for now. Thanks for reading

[zaprowsdower27]

Once, Babylon seemed an invincible threat. Babylon is gone now; only archaeologists remember it.

We're still here.

Once, Rome seemed an invincible threat. Rome is gone now, only tourists remember it.

We're still here.

Once, the Crusaders seemed an invincible threat. The Crusaders are gone now, only historical dramas remember them.

We're still here.

Once, scapegoating for plague seemed an invincible threat. Those who scapegoated us are gone, long forgotten, the plague slain by antibiotics.

We're still here.

Once, the Inquisition seemed an invincible threat. The Inquisition is gone now, only comedians remember them.

We're still here.

Once, the rise of exclusionary nationalism seemed an invincible threat. Those nations have risen and fallen, the political movements that forged them remembered only by historians.

We're still here.

Once, the rise of Eugenics rendering us inferior vermin seemed an invincible threat. Eugenics has fallen, only historians and the scorned remember it.

We're still here.

Once, the Tsars both White and Red seemed invincible. The Tsars of both colors are gone now, and only a pale and thinly stretched shadow remembers them.

We're still here.

Once, the third Reich of Germany seemed an invincible threat. The Third Reich is gone now, and only desperate fools remember them.

We're still here.

Now, old new dangers have risen, those same desperate fools and former friends seeking scapegoats, who together seem invincible and inescapable.

But they, as with all things, will pass, in time.

And we will still be here.

[hermthejewishwyrm]

People don't realize how deeply ingrained trauma is for the Jewish people. You know me and my friends from Jewish school used to play a game called "Russian school" the whole game was that someone has outed that a person in the class is a jew and whoever is the jew has to pretend they aren't no matter what the teacher asks them

WE HAVE CHILDHOOD GAMES THAT TEACHES US HOW TO PRETEND WE ARENT JEWISH WHEN INTERROGATED

And this was normal! Everyone knew and played this game.

Our whole lives are built upon the knowledge that they will try to kill us...even when we were too young to realize it.

[hilacopter]

leftists' all lives matter approach whenever antisemitism is brought up is extremely hypocritical and straight up disgusting. it's always "antisemitism is bad BUT ALSO-" no. no "but also". that's the end of the sentence. imagine saying that shit about any other form of bigotry.

[trying-to-jew]

Constantly torn between my desire to convert and the crushing weight of knowing that I won’t be able to exist in the wider fandom spaces that I love without being constantly reminded that Jews are always guilty until proven innocent post-Oct 7.

[fromchaostocosmos]

The violence of the Oct. 7 attack triggered some survivors around the world, and in the 10 months since, antisemitism in the United States has reminded survivors of childhood persecution, causing symptoms of PTSD including fear, social isolation and nightmares, said Masha Pearl, the executive director of the Blue Card, a New York City-based nonprofit that supports survivors, including Jacoby. “As much as time has gone by, and decades have gone by, a lot of these fears were still there under the surface, and now they’re coming back up,” Pearl said.

Reactions among survivors vary, said Eva Fogelman, a psychologist who does therapy with survivors. She estimated that around 30% of survivors experience PTSD, while others are affected in other ways. 

“PTSD symptoms may have been dormant for many years for many Holocaust survivors, but it got triggered as a result of what is happening both in Israel and in America and elsewhere,” Fogelman said, describing survivors suffering from flashbacks and staying at home due to fear and anxiety.