#Jews of

[no-passaran]

This week, over 350 rabbis from the USA, together with some American Jewish creatives and activists, took a full-page ad in the New York Times to oppose Trump's plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.

Sources: website of this campaign (Jewish People Say No To Ethnic Cleansing), Jewish Voice For Peace, The Guardian.

[dynamicity-keysmash]

I think people mean well when they insist that America isn't a Christian country but it just obfuscates the situation and makes it more difficult for minorities to frame their experiences. America is a fundamentally, structurally, ideologically Christian country from top to bottom. It's exhausting, it's suffocating, and it's the truth. Nearly all political forces, pop culture phenomena, and major life philosophies here are either built on Christianity or propped up as subverting Christianity in a way that is, of course, still entirely about Christianity. Leftwing movements here that are ostensibly hostile to Christianity still ultimately structure their worldviews around their own versions of salvation, rapture, original sin, eternal judgement, heaven, and hell. Most people here fail to see Christianity all around them, influencing every facet of American life, for the same reason that a fish can't see water.

[quantumshade]

goyishe tumblr leftists seeing a quote from the torah: wow. i can’t believe they fucking mentioned israel. kind of problematic. fucking zionists.

[necronomeconomicism]

Ok gotta talk about it.

As a Jewish historian, I fucking hate Israel in ways most probably will never be able to comprehend. I'm going to try and explain it anyways. The central creation myth of Israel is that it is Jewish, and then consequently, that Israel is a part of Jewishness. Its easy to simply state this is false, but fully comprehending this and putting it into practice in thought and deed seems rare to me.

The evil at the heart of this violence predates the recent acceleration of genocide. Israel is a colony, and more than that, an antisemitic fraud itself. After WW2, when Israel was being founded, the Jews of Europe generally did not wave goodbye to their neighbors and head to the promised land. Many were expelled from their homes. Zionism itself, as an action, was a false choice at the time. A mere excuse to place an ally in the middle east, and an excuse to complete the expulsion and destruction of the European Jew. The Zionist Jew is more than complicit in this, they actively seek the destruction and assimilation of all other Jews.

Many fail to realize, and largely because of Israel, that Jews are not inherently white, Ashkenazi, European-descended people. Our faith and culture has an immense variety that is spread all across the globe. Jewishness, in population and volume of culture, exists more so outside of Israel than within it. Israel is for a very specific kind of Jew. The kind that lets Yiddish die, that attaches themselves to European things, that makes themselves and their practices as white as possible.

And they have the nerve, the fucking belligerent GALL, to frame themselves as the necessary saviors of our people. To the Zionist, questioning Israel is to question Jewishness itself. They bake adoration for the colonial machine into their very prayers, and push them on us even as children. To *not* oppress, to *not* kill, to *not* genocide, is to invite death. This is the core of fascistic thought, of course. "Kill them before they kill us." And they KNOW this too, they really do. The truth of that irony does not matter, because as is true for all fascists, the truth itself does not matter to them. They wanted this, they wanted this even before the British saw it in their best interest to give them the land. Any excuse to RETVRN, as the neo-nazis say of Rome, or the German Empire, or whatever the fuck stupid country they want to poorly animate the corpse of. Some select Zionists even *sided with the fucking Nazis* in agreement they should abandon Europe to colonize Palestine. (Haavara Agreement)

My people have proved time and time and time again you don't need a nation state to have an enduring culture. We have protected ourselves for thousands of years without the help of these spiteful, doom-saying maniacs. I was going to post something like this on Passover, but that would be hypocritical. The state of Israel doesn't actually have shit to do with Jewishness. Hear Israel (the state and supporters, Israel the icon) I should outlive it long enough to bury it. (old yiddish curse)

Free Palestine. Donate what you can, they need it right now.

[strangesmallbard]

thinking about the time a professor said the phrase “it’s just like the judeo-christian concept of turning the other cheek—” to which i immediately said something like “you mean the christian concept? it doesn’t appear in judaism” and he looked at me like a startled slow loris.

[hindahoney]

Because I'm only seeing other Jews posting about this, non-Jews I need you to be aware that for the past month or two there has been a wave of bomb threats and swattings at synagogues all across the US. They usually do it when services are being livestreamed. I haven't seen a single non-Jew talking about this. High holidays are coming up in a few weeks, which is when most attacks happen against our communities. We're worried, and we need people to know what's happening to us.

[iwieldthesword]

If you as a leftist can understand that

the Trump administration is using the concept of violence against women to oppress transgender people and strip back civil rights

AND violence against women is a real societal issue that needs to be taken seriously, especially when women's safety and autonomy is directly attacked by the same right wing politicians claiming to care about it to further their agenda

Then you can also understand that

the Trump administration is using the concept of antisemitism to perpetuate oppress activists and strip back freedom of speech

AND antisemitism is a real societal issue that needs to be taken seriously, especially when Jewish safety is directly attacked by the same right wing politicians claiming to care about it to further their agenda

Right? ...Right??

[wearenotjustnumbers2]

Important for people who are still stuck accusing people of antisemitism when they say genocide is actually not right.

[remindertoclick]

Here's your daily reminder to click for Palestine!!!

U.S. residents, take 5 minutes and use this link to pressure your members of Congress to stop sending weapons to the Israeli military!!

(Letter variants you can copy/paste under the cut!!)

Original letter written by Jewish Voice for Peace:

I am writing as your constituent to ask that you do everything in your power to press the Biden administration to suspend all weapons shipments to the Israeli military, and oppose all future military funding to Israel. The Israeli government has vowed to push forward with a large-scale military operation in Rafah, even though President Biden has repeatedly said such an operation would be a "red line." On May 7, the Israeli military seized the Rafah border crossing, a crucial passage for humanitarian aid, and ordered 100,000 Palestinians in eastern Rafah to evacuate. The 1.3 million displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah will have nowhere to flee should a full invasion commence. Millions of Palestinian lives now hang in the balance. I urge you to do everything in your power to stop this unfolding catastrophe before it's too late. Thank you.

Slight variations I created (so that emails don't get marked as spam for being identical to each other)

Variation 1:

I'm writing to you as your constituent to ask you to do everything you can to pressure the Biden administration into suspending all weapons shipments to the Israeli military and opposing any and all future military funding to Israel! The Israeli government is pushing forward with a large-scale military operation in Rafah. President Biden has repeatedly said such an operation would be a "red line," yet his administration is still supporting this operation. On May 7th 2024, the Israeli military seized the Rafah border crossing, a crucial passage for humanitarian aid, and forced 100,000 Palestinians in eastern Rafah to abandon their homes. 1.3 million Palestinians have been displaced. Those sheltering in Rafah have nowhere to flee during a full invasion. Millions of Palestinian lives now hang in the balance. Their fate lies in the hands on Congress, in your hands. I urge you to do everything in your power to stop this unfolding catastrophe before it's too late. Thank you.

Variation 2:

I'm writing you today to ask that you do everything in your power to convince the Biden administration to stop funding Israel. We have to telk them to stop all shipments of weapons to the Israeli military and oppose all future military funding to Israel. The Israeli government has vowed to push forward with a large-scale military operation in Rafah... President Biden made it clear that such an operation would be a "red line," and yet he continues to fund them. On May 7th of this year, the Israeli military seized the Rafah border crossing, a crucial passage for humanitarian aid, and forced 100,000 Palestinians to flee their own home of Eastern Rafah. Should a full invasion commence, 1.3 million displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah will have nowhere safe to go. Millions of Palestinian lives now hang in the balance. I am begging you now, as your constituent, to do everything in your power to stop this unfolding catastrophe before it's too late... Thank you

[slyandthefamilybook]

[dynamicity-keysmash]

'Tis the season to unpack some stuff about Christmas from a minority perspective:

Christmas is a Christian holiday. The fact that many celebrate it in an irreligious way (which is valid!) does not change its origins, connotations, symbolism, nor what it has historically meant for religious minorities.

The idea that Christmas is "secular" (read: neutral) is a product of Christian hegemony and the blindness of many in Christian countries to the permeation of Christianity as "default" culture.

When someone says they don't celebrate Christmas since it's a Christian holiday, it is not actually reassuring or helpful to say something along the lines of "oh well it's just a secular day of family & presents for everyone! So you can celebrate it too!"

Though the above statement is usually well-intentioned, it is often distressing to hear because it is untrue and is erasing our lived experiences. The reflexive effort to make Christmas universal is a cultural reverberation of the millennia-old evangelizing effort to make Christianity universal, and as such, can be very uncomfortable for religious minorities.

[dykigenia]

Could've sworn we were all aware the Iranian regime was bad. Could've sworn just a few years ago my dash was full of people posting that Iran in the 70s video and spreading awareness about women getting murdered. Now that the fight is with Jews it's fine though, right? The enemy of (((my enemy))) is my best friend or whatever?

[gingerswagfreckles]

It's weird how in the past 5 or so years the left's understanding of decolonization devolved into some kind of weird Nazi era eugenicist thing about how people's "true places" are something encoded in their DNA and no one in the history of the world should have moved anywhere and anyone decendent from people who moved at some point should be shot.

[i-am-aprl]

Wearing Kippahs in the colors of the Palestinian flag…Jews rally in support of Gaza

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Child's Writing Exercises and Doodles, from Egypt, c. 1000-1200 CE: this was made by a child who was practicing Hebrew, creating doodles and scribbles on the page as they worked

This writing fragment is nearly 1,000 years old, and it was made by a child who lived in Egypt during the Middle Ages. Several letters of the Hebrew alphabet are written on the page, probably as part of a writing exercise, but the child apparently got a little bored/distracted, as they also left a drawing of a camel (or possibly a person), a doodle that resembles a menorah, and an assortment of other scribbles on the page.

This is the work of a Jewish child from Fustat (Old Cairo), and it was preserved in the collection known as the Cairo Genizah Manuscripts. As the University of Cambridge Library explains:

For a thousand years, the Jewish community of Fustat placed their worn-out books and other writings in a storeroom (genizah) of the Ben Ezra Synagogue ... According to rabbinic law, once a holy book can no longer be used (because it is too old, or because its text is no longer relevant) it cannot be destroyed or casually discarded: texts containing the name of God should be buried or, if burial is not possible, placed in a genizah.

At least from the early 11th century, the Jews of Fustat ... reverently placed their old texts in the Genizah. Remarkably, however, they placed not only the expected religious works, such as Bibles, prayer books and compendia of Jewish law, but also what we would regard as secular works and everyday documents: shopping lists, marriage contracts, divorce deeds, pages from Arabic fables, works of Sufi and Shi'ite philosophy, medical books, magical amulets, business letters and accounts, and hundreds of letters: examples of practically every kind of written text produced by the Jewish communities of the Near East can now be found in the Genizah Collection, and it presents an unparalleled insight into the medieval Jewish world.

Sources & More Info:

Cambridge Digital Library: Writing Exercises with Child's Drawings

Cambridge Digital Library: More About the Cairo Genizah Manuscripts