#L A synagogue

[agentfascinateur]

Zionists still selling illegal stolen lands

[arcticdementor]

(link)

[gingiesworld]

Respectful

Requested

Jewish Wanda Maximoff x Bad Boy M! Reader

Warnings: Angst. Fluff.

Word Count: 2.4k+

Taglist : @natashamaximoff-69 @canvascoloredin @wizardofstories @louxbloom @wandanats-goodgirl @the-ox-fan20 @ladyqueenxoxo @aemilia19 @wandaromamoff69 @mfd-101 @dorabledewdroop

18+ MINORS DNI

Wanda Maximoff was the school's sweetheart, everyone who knew her either wanted to be her friend or partner. Although she never truly wanted to be in a relationship as she was focused on her studies, especially as her father who was the Synagogue Rabbi. Oleg Maximoff was well respected among the Jewish Congregation in Westview, so his children were also expected to surpass the community's expectations, but there was one person who was quite the opposite.

Y/N Y/L/N, they were the school's bad influence, always skipping class to get high under the bleachers. Always taunting those who surpassed the school's expectations. They even had their eye on Wanda Maximoff, she was beautiful and they wanted her. That was all they knew.

"So, Stark is throwing a party on Friday." Nat spoke as she stood beside Wanda, leaning on the lockers.

"You know I can't go." Wanda told her.

"Just tell your parents we're having a sleepover." Nat told her. "Yelena will keep track of my parent's phone to keep our story."

"I don't know Nat." She whispered as she closed her locker, holding her books close to her chest.

"Come on." Nat pleaded. "I need my best friend there, besides, it's senior year. Live a little."

"Fine." She gave in as Nat squealed as she skipped.

"This is going to be so fun." Nat spoke excitedly as they walked to their next class. The two soon spotted Y/N, who sat in the seat at the back of the class. "You're in our seat." Nat told him as he shrugged.

"There's other seats." He pointed out as the two spotted one seat beside Bruce.

"But we always sit together." Nat told him firmly.

"Well, I guess you're on your own now." He smirked as he watched the two.

"Nat, just sit next to Bruce." Wanda told her. "It's only for an hour." Nat just sighed as she walked away as Wanda took the seat beside Y/N. He smirked as he watched her place her books down as the teacher walked in. "Aren't you getting your books out?" Wanda asked him as he smiled at her.

"I don't do books." He shrugged as she shook her head before turning her attention to the teacher. She soon felt his hand in her thigh as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. "You smell delicious today." He teased as he squeezed her thigh.

"Stop it." She growled as she pushed his hand away from her. "I am trying to learn."

"Of course." He leaned back as Wanda took notes. "Maybe you can tutor me sometime?" He questioned as he wriggled his eyebrows. "And I can help you in other ways." He whispered as he bit her earlobe.

"Ok, you will be paired with the person sitting next to you for the rest of the semester." The teacher said as she handed out worksheets. "I want you to work on the information I have given you to complete your project."

"Seriously?" Wanda whispered as she caught Nat's eyes, an apologetic look on her face as Y/N chuckled beside Wanda.

"Looks like we will be spending more time together sweetheart." He teased her as she started to pack her things. "So where shall we meet?" He questioned.

"Your place." She told him bluntly. "After school." With that, she hurried out of the classroom. Y/N smirked as he watched her walk away, earning a glare from Nat as they walked to their next class.

Although Y/N had bad intentions at first, he never expected to actually like the person Wanda is. The more time he spent with her, the more he found himself changing. He spent a majority of his time helping his Uncle at his auto shop, repairing cars and changing tires.

"You're spending an awful lot of time here." His Uncle smiled as Y/N came in after dropping Wanda at home after working on their project.

"I need the money." He told him as he started by grabbing the tools his Uncle needed.

"Or is it because of a certain brunette you've been hanging around." He smirked as Y/N shook his head.

"We're working on a project together." He told him. "Also, Stark is throwing a party tomorrow and I thought I would go."

"Ok." He nodded. "Just be careful and don't drive."

"I won't be drinking." He told him honestly. "You know I don't drink."

"But you smoke." He stated as Y/N shrugged

"That's different." He told him. "I do that for a purpose."

"I have offered to pay for therapy." He told him as they turned the engine over. "You don't have to deal with everything on your own son."

"I know." He told him as he moved to the next car. "I just. It's hard opening up so I like to be alone most of the time."

"Have you even bothered to talk to Val?" He questioned as Y/N shook his head.

"She is still out of state with her family." Y/N answered. "Her mom has been helping their Grandpa since his wife passed." He watched as Y/N walked away, throwing the rag on the side as he left the garage.

Wanda headed out to Nat's car that morning, a pep in her step as she threw her bag in the backseat. As soon as Nat started to drive, Wanda turned to face her.

"So, are you excited for tonight?" Nat questioned as Wanda nodded, a nervous smile on her face.

"Just a little nervous too." She admitted. "What if my father finds out?" She questioned as Nat shrugged.

"That won't happen." She told her. "We have a plan, you can call your mom before we leave, tell her we're watching Miss Congeniality, one and two after we have finished our homework. Then maybe we can watch A Cinderella Story before we go to bed." She turned into her usual spot. "And if your mom calls to talk to you, Yelena will answer and tell her that you're asleep."

"What if she asks to talk to me?" Wanda questioned.

"Well, I don't know." Nat Sighed as the two got out of the car and started their day. Y/N had taken the seat beside Wanda in their classes, she even spotted him defending her twin brother. Pietro wasn't the strongest lad, he was on the track team so he never did many weights, she eyed the two as Y/N helped him up off of the floor, biting her lip as she watched him check on Pietro before he disappeared.

"Checking out the bad boy?" Carol Danvers sneered as she stood behind Wanda.

"I was checking my brother." She told her before she walked away. "In case you didn't see, he was just pushed down by your friends."

"I know." She laughed as she followed Wanda to her locker. "And I can see that you like Y/N."

"What makes you think that?" Wanda laughed as Carol smirked.

"I can see the way you look at him." She snarled. "But he is mine." With that she left as Wanda let out a breath. Putting her things away in her locker before she met Nat on the field for cheer practice.

"Are you ok?" Nat questioned as the two stretched, Wanda only nodded with a small smile before they started on the routine. Of course Y/N watched from his spot under the bleachers, rolling his eyes as he heard Carol approach him.

"Hey babe." She sauntered over to him, taking the smoke from between his lips.

"What do you want, Carol?" He questioned as he tried to look past her as Wanda did the routine.

"Do you want to maybe share a ride tonight?" She asked as he shook his head no.

"I'm good, thanks." He told her with a fake smile.

"Come on, maybe I can do something for you again." She said as her fingers danced along his arm.

"No." He told her. "You only gave me head because you wanted to bum a joint from me."

"And? I still did it." She scoffed. "Wanda won't do anything like that, she's the Rabbi's good little girl."

"Don't." He growled as he pushed her against the wall. "Talk about her like that."

"Or what?" She challenged as he wrapped his hand around her neck.

"I will make the last of your senior year hell and you know it." He moved away and started to leave her as she gathered herself, finding his domineering side arousing.

Wanda entered Tony's house arm in arm with Nat. Watching how everyone was already intoxicated, making out or grinding on each other.

"I'm going to get a drink." Nat told her as she just nodded, watching as she disappeared into the kitchen.

"You look out of place." Y/N said as they stood beside Wanda.

"This isn't really my scene." She admitted as he hummed.

"Soda?" He asked as he held out an unopened can of cola.

"Thank you." She smiled as she took it from him.

"Come on." He gestured to the yard as she nodded, taking his hand as he led her through the bodies grinding sloppily. "Nat dragged you here." He started as Wanda nodded. "What would you be doing if she hadn't?"

"What?" She laughed as he smiled, taking a cigarette and lighting it.

"I just want to know you Wanda." He told her honestly.

"I would be at home, watching TV or reading." She told him honestly as she watched him take a drag. "They will kill you, you know." She told him as he looked at the cigarette in his hand.

"I know." He told her. "It just helps me clear my mind sometimes."

"Because of your parents." She whispered as he sighed. "That's why you don't drink."

"I need another drink." He told her before walking away, Wanda felt bad about her words so she followed them outside to their car, Nat watched as she stood beside Maria.

"I'm sorry Y/N." She told him as he leaned on his car. "I shouldn't have said that."

"No." He whispered as he looked up, taking a deep breath. "It's not something that comes easy to me. Talking about it, my feelings. That just isn't me."

"You can talk to me if you ever need to." She told him softly as he just nodded.

"Do you want to go on a drive with me?" He asked her as she just nodded, watching as he opened the door for her. She smiled as she got it, only waiting a brief moment for Y/N to get in the driver's side.

"So?" Wanda questioned as he parked up at the look out.

"I like you." He blurted out. "I do, I just have this feeling when I'm around you. Like I don't have to be fake."

"Y/N." Wanda started as he shook his head.

"I don't expect you to say anything Wanda, I know I am not the best guy to be around but you make me want to be better." He told her, she only saw honesty in his eyes. "I just, you make me want to be a better me and I feel like I can open up to you."

"I don't know what to say." She whispered as she looked away.

"It's ok." He told her. "Don't say anything." He whispered as he caressed her cheek, gazing into her eyes. Her breath quickened as he slowly leaned in. "Tell me to stop." He told her as he inched closer, his lips ghosting hers. She sighed as his lips touched hers. The kiss was soft and gentle, nothing more as he never wanted to push her, nor make her feel uncomfortable.

As the days went on, turning into weeks. He would take her on dates to the movies, carnival or just for a walk along the beach. He also did his research on her religion, although he was an atheist, he respected Wanda and her family's beliefs.

Shavuot had soon approached and Wanda had invited him to come along to celebrate, so he dressed in a suit. Fixing his tie as he waited at the door for Wanda, he had already purchased a skull cap to place upon his head.

"Hi." She beamed as she kissed his cheek, he smiled as he saw Wanda in a respectable dress. Her hair flowing down over her shoulders.

"Hi." He whispered as he gazed into her eyes, oddly enough his favourite sight to see in this life.

"My father is already at the synagogue." She told him as she pulled him inside to introduce him to her mom. "Mother, this is Y/N, my boyfriend." She told her proudly.

"Hello." She smiled at Y/N, he gulped as he was visibly intimidated by her.

"Hi." He choked out as her mother smiled at Wanda.

"We should get going dear." She told her, Wanda nodded as she pulled Y/N outside, pulling him to his car as he sighed.

"I am nervous, Wan." He whispered as she chuckled, getting in the passenger seat.

"It's ok." She told him. "They'll like you." He just nodded as he drove.

All through Shavuot, Wanda watched as he listened intently to her father, his hands remained in his pockets as he spoke. She even spotted her father's smile as he patted Y/N's back, everyone seemed to like how he took the time to learn about her family's religion.

Even as the weeks passed and graduation was upon them, Wanda approached Y/N at his car.

"Let's drive." She told him as he nodded, the two got in as he drove to the lookout. Wanda unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to face him. "I love you." She breathed out. "I guess I always had a crush on you but seeing how you were with my family and our religious traditions, I couldn't not fall even more than I already have." She cupped his face. "I am in love with you Y/N. I just need you to know before we finish school and move on to college or jobs but I do. I love you so fucking much."

"I love you too." He breathed out as he lunged forward, kissing her with love and passion, soon making out as their tongues danced together, but neither wanted to go any further just yet as Y/N wanted her first time to be special and he was willing to wait as long as needed.

[daloy-politsey]

do you have any recommendations for jewish media (movies, tv shows, books, etc) that isnt painfully zionist? it doesnt even have to be explicitly anti-zionist (although that would be preferred, just hard to find) , just ANYTHING that doesnt bend over backwards to shove isr**l down your throat. i just watched 'the chosen' (1987) for the first time (i know i know im late) and am so disappointed.

Hey anon. There are many pieces of media I can think of!

Music:

Daniel Kahn Batya Levine I don't think Debbie Friedman has any Zionist songs (if anyone can confirm this that would be great)

Chabad Religion; Yes, Chabad is Zionist but even if the band members are Chabad (which I don't know at all) it's more of a play on words/reference to the band Bad Religion and nothing more.

Fully Automated Luxury Kosher Space Kibbutz; I know the word kibbutz is in there but that's the only thing about this group that can be interpreted as Zionist (imo the reference to a kibbutz is not an endorsement of Zionism but just a neutral reference to it)

I don't think Schmeckel has any Zionist songs. There is a line in their song Maybe She's Shomer Negiah "But we didn't shake hands when I said 'chag sameach' / 'cause she's keepin' it Kosher like Shmuley Boteach" but I don't think it's an endorsement of the Shmuley Boteach.

Movies:

There's the classic Fiddler on the Roof; Sholem Aleichem (who wrote the short stories the movie is based on) was a Zionist and there's a part at the end of the movie that can be interpreted as endorsing Zionism but it's a very minor part of the plot.

The Rabbi's Cat

Yentl

Arranged

An American Pickle

You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah; the synagogue where it takes place has Israeli flags and yes I know Adam Sandler is a Zionist but as far as Zionism in the actual movie it's just the flags.

Sixty Six

Keeping Up With the Steins

TV Shows:

The Rugrats is famous for being the first cartoon to have Hannakah and Passover episodes

Hey Arnold has an episode where one of the characters (Harold) has a Bar Mitzvah. There's other episodes that reference Harold's Jewishness but this is the only one where it's a major part of the plot.

As Told by Ginger has a Hannakah episode

Lizzie McGuire has an episode where on of the characters (Gordo) has a Bar Mitzvah

Arthur has a Yom Kippur episode

Muppet Babies has a Hannakah episode

Elena of Avalor has a Hannakah episode

Books:

I rarely finish books but I can say that I did finish Becoming Eve, which is Abby Stein's memoir and it's great

If anyone else has any other recommendations please either tell me in the replies or the reblogs

[girlactionfigure]

🔪 TERROR REPORTS - Latest Updates from Israel  

ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

🔪TERROR - STABBING - (conflicting reports - Pardes Hana or Haifa) - Karkur intersection.. 3 people stabbed, 2 seriously wounded.  No other details at this time.

🔪TERROR - THWARTED - TEL AVIV AZRIELI.. Shin Bet thwarted a deadly attack on the Azrieli Towers & Mall in Tel Aviv that was planned by 5 residents of Taiba who established a terrorist infrastructure identified with ISIS.  The plan was to carry out an attack on the towers & shopping mall using a vehicle bomb.  Arrested.

🔪A CIVILIAN HAS DIED.. murdered in the Hadera terror stabbing, passed away from his wounds.  Raphael Mordechai Fischhoff , 35, of Hadera.  May his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, and may G-d avenge his blood!

▪️HERO CIVILIAN WHO SURVIVED.. Hero of Israel Neria Siboni, the most seriously injured from the bus station shooting attack in Be’er Sheva this week, says: "I heard the terrorist's shots, I shouted ‘Shema Israel’ and ran towards him with bare hands. I knew I was taking him one on one."  The terrorist shot him with a bullet that punctured his lung, but he did not stop until he saw that the terrorist was eliminated. Only after checking that his wife was okay did he allow himself to collapse.

▪️RESCUED IN JUDEA-SAMARIA.. Lt. Col. Hisham Abraham, revealed that since the 7th October, the unit worked to rescue over 200 Israelis, including soldiers, who had entered “Palestinian” Area A and were in danger of their lives.

🔹US factors: Washington proposed to Israel that the US impose new economic sanctions on Iran instead of attacking and damaging economic targets.

▪️ON THE TEL AVIV PRAYER COURT DECISION.. the Rosh Yehudi organization cancels Yom Kippur prayer in the public space of Gan Meir in Tel Aviv, despite the Supreme Court's ruling. Although the court ruled in our favor, due to fear of provocations - Rosh Yehudi will hold Yom Kippur prayers in the synagogue at Bar Kochba 54, and not in Gan Meir.  In times of war, when our soldiers risk themselves in heroic battles, and when the whole nation prays for the return of our hostages in peace, the way to victory and the defeat of the enemy as well as the return of our hostages, is by adding holiness, unity and inner peace. Unfortunately, we heard plans to destroy this legal prayer as well.  We choose a responsible step.

💩ON “URGENT URGENT URGENT” LAUNCH ALERTS.. there is apparently an enemy propaganda campaign, unclear if for internal Arab consumption or to pressure Israel, of reports of missile launches and drone launches, regularly.  Here’s the latest:

.. Suicide Drones launched at Israel from Iraq!  Inbound!  Several hours until arrival.

.. Arab Report: Missiles to be launched from Iraq!

Hints of fake-ness:  Iraqi Shia-Iranian militias have suicide drones and cruise missiles, but in very limited quantity.  They regularly fire at Israel, but so far have never fired more than 3 at a time - and due to the terrain and countries in between, normally fire at either the Golan or Eilat.  Because of this they are minor threat, almost always detected and intercepted by the IDF prior to reaching Israel.  (They did get 1 through which killed 2 soldiers and wounded 20 in the Golan.)

These messages should be ignored by the public unless Home Front Command puts out an alert.

▪️The American-Israeli who was arrested in Lebanon by the Lebanese authorities was released to the US.

▪️AIR TRAVEL.. Air Europa updates will return flights to Israel on Oct. 21.

✡️A word of Torah: The Second Temple was destroyed because of causeless hatred. Perhaps the Third will be rebuilt because of causeless love. - Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, zt”l

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 2)

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

This week, I'm serializing the first chapter of my next novel, Picks and Shovels, a standalone Martin Hench novel that drops on Feb 15:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels

The book is up for presale on a Kickstarter that features the whole series as print books (with the option of personalized inscriptions), DRM-free ebooks, and a DRM-free audiobook read by Wil Wheaton:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/picks-and-shovels-marty-hench-at-the-dawn-of-enshittification

It's a story of how the first seeds of enshittification were planted in Silicon Valley, just as the first PCs were being born.

Here's part one:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/09/the-reverend-sirs/#fidelity-computing

And now, onto part two!

Rivka Goldman was the only woman in Sales Group One, this being the group that serviced and supported synagogues and their worshippers. She’d traveled all around the country, sitting down with men who owned garment factories, grocery stores, jewelry stores, delis, and other small businesses, training their “girls” in the use of the Fidelity system. It could handle business correspondence, company books, payroll, and other functions that used to be handled by four or five “girls”—who could all be replaced with just one.

Rivka was the only woman, and often it wasn’t she who made the sale, because the men who owned these businesses talked to other men. It was her male colleagues in Sales Group One who closed those sales and pocketed the commissions, but Rivka never complained.

“She was very good at it,” the rabbi told me. “She had a knack for computers, and for explaining them. The girls she trained, they learned. When they had troubles, they wanted to talk to her.”

Sister Maria-Eva Fernandez led a very large, all-woman team that ran mostly autonomously within Sales Group Two, a group that exclusively serviced parochial schools across the U.S., with a few customers in Central America. She was a product of these schools—she’d graduated from Christ the King in Denver and gone straight from there into the order, doing some student teaching before finding her way to Fidelity Computing via an internal talent search that filtered down to the convent from the archdiocese.

Like Rivka, Sister Maria-Eva was a natural: she could patiently train school administrators, their secretaries, department heads, and even individual teachers on the use of the Fidelity system. A couple of schools—fat with money from wealthy patrons—had bought entire classrooms’ worth of machines, creating programming labs for ambitious high-schoolers, and they were universally a success.

“We valued her, we praised her, we sent her to the national sales conference to lead workshops and share her expertise,” Father Marek said. “She was a star.” He spat the word.

Elizabeth Amelia Shepard Taylor didn’t have to go on a mission, but there was never any question but that she would. Her family had been prominent in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for over a century, and, as the eldest of eleven kids, she had a familial duty to set an example.

She had hoped for a posting in Asia—she’d studied Cantonese and Japanese in high school—but instead she drew San Jose, California. She staffed the Mission House, helping the boys who knocked on doors all day, serving as den mother, big sister, and the object of innumerable crushes.

She’d found a women’s computing club via a notice at the local library and had taken turns with four other women—two her age, and two retirees—prodding at a pair of Commodore PET computers, learning BASIC. Her letters home to her family were filled with the excitement of discovery and mastery, the esoteric world of assembly language that she’d dived into with the help of books and magazines from the library.

When her father heard that Fidelity was recruiting, he wrote her a letter. The same day she’d received it, she’d written a letter to Fidelity Computing Ltd., typing it up on the used ZX80 she’d bought at a swap meet (“for the Mission House”). It arrived at Fidelity in a #10 envelope, three neatly printed pages with the rough edges of fanfold paper that had had its perforations separated. The last page was all code examples.

She was promised a job by return post, starting the day she finished her mission, and she never ended up going back to Salt Lake City—just got a Caltrain train to the Daly City station and met with a Bishop Clarke’s personal assistant, a young man named John Garn who had done his mission in Taipei and chatted with her the whole way to the office in Taiwanese, which she laboriously parsed into Cantonese.

“She whipped Sales Group Three into a powerhouse,” Bishop Clarke said, with a sad shake of his head. “We went from last to first in under a year. Outsold the other two divisions combined, and we were on track to doubling this year.”

The three women had met at the annual sales conference, a huge event that took over the Fort Mason Center for a long weekend. Most of the event was segregated by sales group, but there were plenary sessions, mixers, and keynote addresses from leading sales staff that helped diffuse the winningest tactics across the whole business.

“We think they met in a women’s interfaith prayer circle,” Rabbi Finkel said. Father Marek made another of his disgusted grunts, which were his principal contributions to the conversation. Rabbi Finkel inclined his head a little in the priest’s direction and said, “Not everyone agreed that they were a good idea at first, but the girls loved them, and they created bonds of comity that served them well.”

“We don’t have a lot of turnover,” Rabbi Finkel said. “People like working here. They do well, and they do good. People from our faith communities sometimes feel like the future is passing them by, like their religion is an anchor around their necks, keeping them stuck in the past. A job here is a way to be faithful and modern, without sacrificing your faith.”

The bishop nodded. “When they turned in their resignation notices, of course we took notice. As Rabbi Finkel says, we just don’t get a lot of turnover. And of course, these three girls were special to us. So we took notice. I met with Elizabeth myself and asked her if there was anything wrong, and she refused to discuss it. I asked her what she did want to discuss and she went off on these wild tangents, not making any sense. I wrote a letter to her father, but I never heard back.”

“Rivka is a good girl,” the rabbi said. “She told me that she still loved God and wanted to live a pious, modest life, but that she had ‘differences’ with the teachings. I asked her about these ‘differences,’ but that was all she could say: ‘differences, differences.’ What’s a difference? She wants to uncover her hair? Eat a cheeseburger? Pray with men? She wouldn’t say.”

Father Marek cleared his throat, made a face, glared. “When Sister Maria-Eva ignored my memo asking her to come see me, I called her Mother Superior and that’s when I discovered that she’d left the order. Left the order! Of course, I assumed there was a man involved, but that wasn’t it, not according to her Mother Superior. She had taken new orders with a . . . fringe sect. It seemed she was lost to us.”

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/10/smoke-filled-room-where-it-happens/#computing-freedom

[fdelopera]

Moon Knight on Erev Rosh Hashanah

I took part in the Moon Knight mystery swap, and I'm writing this fic for @enigmatist17 !

Since it is New Year's Eve (or New Year's Day depending on when you're reading this), I wanted to write a fic for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

This fic is based on the MacKay comic book series (Moon Knight 2021), and is set several issues before Issue 30.

I wanted to show MK System as an observant Jewish System, since that isn't often explored in depth in the comics. And you just know, Jake "For the People" Lockley is usually the one who schleps their tuchus to shul!

Happy New Year!

✡︎

“We’re not going,” said Marc, shaking his head, trying to push back the emotions coming from Jake and Steven. “Absolutely not. I haven’t been in years. Not since … well, not since that time with dad. And Jake, I think it was mostly you around that time anyway. You always paid more attention in shul.”

Marc felt a familiar pulling sensation from where Jake usually hung around, when he was close to front. And then Jake’s familiar Brooklyn twang said, “Marc, bubbeleh, I could just knock ya out cold and take us there myself, you know. But I want you to be there. This is for you as much as it is for us.”

Marc felt Steven chime in with his nasally Long Island cadence, “We both want this. Jake and I do. Not for dad. Not for the family. For us. For you. We’re the only mishpocheh that matters here.”

“Well, I guess I’m just the odd man out. As per usual.” Marc shook his head, and absentmindedly ran his hands through his hair. Their hair was greasy and unkept from being shoved under the mask. What else was new. They needed a shower. That was usually Steven’s job, but Marc didn’t want to give Steven any chance to front and collude with Jake to drag them to shul. Not now.

Not with tomorrow being the 1st of Tishrei. The first day of Rosh Hashanah.

“I heard that,” said Steven. “And neither Jake nor I are going to force you to go to High Holiday services. But we bought the ticket, everything’s all set up. Central Synagogue has a beautiful service. It won’t be anything like dad’s shul. The music is more contemporary. The Rabbi and the Cantor are both women. They’ve got beautiful voices. You’ll find a way to pout about it, I’m sure, but I know deep down you’ll enjoy it. Trust us.”

“What about Reese and Soldier? What about Greer? Are we really going to leave them alone for days at a time? Just tell them, ‘See you later!’ What if they need me? What if Hunter’s Moon has to track down another one of Black Spectre’s goons?”

Marc felt Jake’s chuckle erupt from deep within, and he heard Jake’s words wash over him with yellow-colored mirth. “Marc, I think a couple of vampires and a cat woman are more than capable of taking care of themselves without you fucking everything up, don’t you think?”

“Marc…” Steven’s voice echoed softly within, a wash of blue concern pushing against the back of their eyes. “Marc, what is this really about.”

“It just feels like a complete waste of time, with everything we’ve got going on.”

“Hey!” Jake’s annoyance came quickly. “You might not take shul seriously, but I do. This is important for us. We’re Jewish, Marc. Whether you like it or not. And as Jews, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are our two most important days. Our holiest days. I know that probably doesn’t mean shit to you anymore…”

“No, no, I’m not saying that…”

“Well, you kinda are. You’re saying that our two holiest days don’t matter for shit. Meanwhile, you’re out on the street, doing the bidding of an Egyptian god.”

“That’s different. I don’t worship Khonshu. I still remember the Aseret Hadibrot, and I know that Number One and Number Two are very important.

“I am the L-rd your G‑d, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

“You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any manner of likeness of anything that is in heaven above, that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I the L‑rd your G‑d am a jealous G‑d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments. (x)

“See? I still remember what dad taught us.”

“Nice, so you can recite the Ten Commandments,” sighed Jake from inside. “But you still don’t seem to understand why it’s important for us to go to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.”

“What I do remember is something dad talked about once… This was a while ago. Before he got sick. He was preparing a d’var Torah for Yom Kippur, and there was something he said…” Marc stopped himself before he thought about it more.

“Marc, what is it? What did he tell you?” Steven’s voice was gentle, his blue concern washed over them again.

“You already know, Steven.”

“Well, why don’t you say it, then.”

“It’s silly. Just a stupid thing. Something I heard dad say once. It just, got me thinking. About us. About me.”

“If it’s silly, then why are you trembling now?”

“I dunno. Maybe I still worry that it’s true.”

“Well, why don’t you talk to us about it? We can work through it together.”

Marc sighed and rolled his eyes. “This is fucking ridiculous. It’s not that big a deal.”

“Marc, bubbeleh…” Jake’s thoughts were soft. “C’mon. Try us.”

“Fine. I have to find it.”

Marc grabbed his phone and searched Sefaria for the specific passage. “It was just this one commentary in the Talmud. About Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Here it is. You’ll see how dumb this is. Really.” He sighed dramatically, but he couldn’t quite keep the tremble from his voice.

“The Gemara goes back to discuss the Day of Judgment. Rabbi Kruspedai said that Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Napacha said: Three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah before the Holy One, Blessed be He: One of wholly wicked people, and one of wholly righteous people, and one of middling people whose good and bad deeds are equally balanced. Wholly righteous people are immediately written and sealed for life; wholly wicked people are immediately written and sealed for death; and middling people are left with their judgment suspended from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur, their fate remaining undecided. If they merit, through the good deeds and mitzvot that they perform during this period, they are written for life; if they do not so merit, they are written for death.” (x)

Marc sighed. “That’s it. You get it? That’s why I’m worried.”

“And what about this worries you, Marc?” Steven’s thoughts were patient, even as Marc’s emotions started to rise.

“I’m scared. I’m terrified that something awful is gonna happen. I’m fucking terrified that I’ll be inscribed as one of these ‘Wholly Wicked’ people. Steven, you’ll be fine. You’re one of the ‘Middling People’ after all.”

“Ha! Very funny Marc. And I guess that makes Jake one of the Righteous few.”

“Damn straight I am!” laughed Jake.

“You are, Jake. Jake ‘For the People’ Lockley, of course you’ll be among the Righteous. But me? I dunno. Somehow I’m convinced that if I go to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I’m going to die.”

“Marc…”

“Yeah, Steven?”

“Headmates can’t die, Marc. At least, not without the body dying. And so long as you’re not planning on jumping out of a third story window…”

“No, no. It’s not that. I don’t know what it is. I just feel. Overwhelmed. By something. Something is weighing me down. I know headmates can’t die, or at least, not like that. But I just feel like something is coming for me.”

“Marc, what you’re feeling is grief. And guilt. And shame,” said Jake, his voice softer now. “We need to practice Teshuvah. Repentance. Being wrong. Telling the people we’ve hurt that we know we’re wrong. Explaining why we’re wrong. Asking for their forgiveness. Asking three separate times. Being prepared for them to say no each time. Being prepared to walk away. For that to be the closure we get. But Marc, we gotta start somewhere.” (x)

“I'd rather get punched in the face. Actually, I’d rather take a thousand hits than go through that.”

“Yeah, buddy. I know you would. But we don’t got that choice. Not when it’s the thing that is keeping us from being a Jew. Not when you believe that you are literally going to die because of your feelings of guilt and shame. We need Teshuvah.”

Jake sighed deeply from within. “Marc, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are sacred. They have always been our holiest days. Our Ten Days of Repentance. The Days of Awe. But do you know why they are so important?”

“Probably. I’m sure dad told us.”

“Because of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai.” (x) (x)

“Wait, which one was he?”

“Ribaz. He’s the rabbi who pretty much saved Judaism.”

“Oh. Right. After the Temple…”

“Yes. The Temple. This is how dad used to tell it...

"After the Romans besieged Jerusalem. After they set fire to the Beit Hamikdash, our holy Temple. When we had no place left to offer up sacrifices to G-d. What would we do? Especially on Yom Kippur. Without the sacrifices at the Temple, how would the Jewish people be able to repent? How would we be forgiven of our sins each year? How would we continue to be Jews?

“Ribaz was a wise old rabbi. He stood and wept as he watched the Temple burn. The flames went higher and higher, late into the night, casting evil shadows upon the land. And he looked to the Tanakh for guidance. He turned to the Nevi’im. To Hoshea. And there he found the wisdom he sought.”

“For I desire lovingkindness, not sacrifice; devotion to God, rather than burnt offerings.” (x)

“I remember,” muttered Marc, his thoughts blending with Jake's, remembering their father’s voice. “Hoshea 6:6. And with that, he knew how we would carry on as Jews. We would offer up lovingkindness, prayer, and Torah study. That is how we show our devotion to G-d.”

“Yes!” thought Jake, nudging Marc from the headspace. “And that’s why we gotta go to shul tomorrow. Ribaz didn’t save Judaism just for us to be a slouch about it! So we gotta go to shul tomorrow to get our name in the Book of Life. So we can be sealed on Yom Kippur. So we can start the process of doing Teshuvah. We gotta reach out to Frenchie, Marc. And I miss Gena and Crawley so damn much. It’s gonna be really hard. But we gotta start somewhere. We gotta start repenting to them. And we gotta mean it this time. Let go of some of that ego you carry around your neck. It’s weighing all of us down.”

“Jake’s right,” thought Steven. “We don’t know what the future will bring, Marc. But we gotta start.”

Steven began humming a tune that pushed out in little breaths through Marc’s voice. It was a tune that Marc knew but couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“What is that?” thought Marc, directing the question at Steven. “That sounds like…”

Steven pushed closer to front, and continued humming, a little louder this time. Some words came through Marc’s lips in Steven’s voice.

“Who by fire? And who by water? … Hmmm hmmm hmmmm… and hmmmm hmmm hmmmmm…”

Marc coughed, cutting off Steven’s song for a minute. “Oh, it’s Leonard Cohen.”

Marc could feel Steven’s smile from inside the headspace. “That’s right, Marc. And you know what it is, right?”

“I do. Yeah. Yeah. Who shall live and who shall die. His version of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer.” Marc began to sing softly. (x) (x)

And who by fire?

Who by water?

Who in the sunshine?

Who in the night time?

Who by high ordeal?

Who by common trial?

Who in your merry merry month of May?

Who by very slow decay?

And who shall I say is calling?

“But teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah shall avert the severe decree.” Marc took a deep breath. “I’ll go. I will. For Ribaz. And I’ll do it for you Jake… I’d do anything for you. You know that. And yeah, you too Steven. Even though you’re a pain in my ass. I’ll do it for you. We’re mishpocheh.”

“And for you, Marc?” asked Steven, whispering the words through their lips.

“Huh. Okay. Fine. For me too. I’ll go be a good Jew. Ha! Dad would be so proud.”

“We’re not doing it for him,” thought Jake.

“No. Okay, no. You’re right. We’re not. I’m not. We’re mishpocheh. We’re doing this for us.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mary L. Trump at The Good In Us:

Donald Trump loves violence, especially when it’s committed on his behalf. It makes him feel powerful in a way only humiliating other people can. He knows that violence begets violence; fear begets fear; rage, rage, and so forth. He revels in his ability to set fires that spread—except, of course, when they jump the line. On Saturday, there was another alleged assassin attempt on Donald (the second in two months, which itself practically beggars the imagination) at his golf club in West Palm Beach. It was only a couple days before this that Donald refused to condemn the bomb threats, school evacuations, and general sense of terror in Springfield, Ohio that he and his running mate have unleashed by their vicious targeting of Haitian immigrants who live and work there. He claimed without conviction that he didn’t know anything about it. And then he doubled-down on his baseless attacks, as he always does. Two more Springfield elementary schools had to be evacuated on Monday morning. 

This kind of development is nothing new; it is, indeed what life in Donald Trump’s America has become over the last nine long years. Threats of violence and actual violence from the right are now a regular part of our political discourse and behavior—Donald makes sure of that on an almost daily basis. He is the primary proponent and promulgator of it—it was only a matter of time before he became its target, too. In the early days of his 2016 campaign, my uncle encouraged his rally-goers to assault protesters and claimed that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” as if that was either an accurate description of what was unfolding or a reasonable response to protests with which one disagreed.

Before and during the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Donald encouraged and stoked violence and people listened. Others listened to his anti-immigrant hatred, his racism, and his anti-Semitism as well, like the gunman who killed 23 in El Paso simply because they had brown skin, or the one who killed 11 Jews at the Tree of Life Synagogue. The man who broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home looking to murder her, attacked and assaulted her husband, Paul, with a hammer almost killing him. Donald has since made Paul Pelosi the butt of his jokes, much to the delight of his rally attendees.

This is the America Donald Trump is rooting for. Whether from violence inspired by his rhetoric or doctors’ failures to give pregnant women health care when they’re bleeding out, people are dying. And if we don’t change course, people will continue to die. Every day Americans pay the price while Donald sets the world on fire with his provocations and then spends the day playing golf, completely insulated from the chaos he sows—until this summer. We know he won’t change—there is no new tone, no evolution in his future or ours. He has no self-awareness, no insight to himself and he believes that the only way to maintain his grip on power is to keep us divided, angry, and afraid.

Mary L Trump’s latest Substack piece on Donald Trump claiming to be a “victim” when he is the perpetrator for division in America is on point.

[ravenkings]

Mr. Trump once claimed to be “the least antisemitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” but he has a history of trafficking in antisemitic tropes. During the 2016 campaign, he tweeted a photo of Hillary Clinton against a backdrop of $100 bills and a Star of David. His closing campaign ad featured Mr. Soros — along with Janet L. Yellen, then chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, and Lloyd Blankfein, then the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, both of whom are Jewish — as examples of “global special interests” enriching themselves on the backs of working Americans. In 2018, he helped popularize the unfounded conspiracy theory that Mr. Soros was financing a caravan of Central American migrants, a view shared by the gunman who killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Mr. Trump’s targeting of Mr. Soros escalated in the run-up to his indictment last April in Manhattan on charges related to hush-money payments to a porn star who claimed they had had a sexual encounter. Mr. Trump said the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, had been “handpicked and funded by George Soros,” an allegation then amplified by Trump acolytes. In fact, Mr. Soros’s involvement was indirect: In 2021, the political arm of a racial-justice organization called Color of Change pledged $1 million to the Bragg campaign; shortly afterward, the group received $1 million from Mr. Soros, one of several donations, totaling about $4 million, since 2016. Color of Change eventually spent about $425,000 in support of Mr. Bragg; a spokesman for Mr. Soros said none of his contributions had been earmarked for the candidate. Since then, Mr. Trump’s attacks have only intensified and widened — blaming Mr. Soros or globalists, for example, for letting “violent criminals” go free, “buying the White House” and turning America into a “Marxist Third World nation.”

– Karen Yourish, Danielle Ivory, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, and Alex Lemonides, "How Republicans Echo Antisemitic Tropes Despite Declaring Support for Israel," The New York Times, May 9, 2024

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

L+ ratio + theres a party at the synagogue for simchat torah + everybody is dancing the hora + i find myself a spot next to shlomo + all this handholding is a little bro-mo

[beardedmrbean]

This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

CHICAGO – A 22-year-old man accused of shooting a Jewish man who was on his way to synagogue before exchanging gunfire with Chicago police officers and paramedics has died after he was found unresponsive in his jail’s medical facility.

The Cook County Sheriff’s Office said Sidi Mohammad Abdallahi was housed at Cermak Health Services, the medical facility in the Cook County Jail, and was found unresponsive at around 3:30 p.m. Saturday after an apparent suicide by hanging. Staff members immediately rendered aid before Chicago Fire Department personnel took him to Mt. Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Authorities said there is no evidence of foul play at this time and no prior indication of any suicide risk.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Man charged in West Rogers Park shooting involving officers

Abdallahi was being held on charges of attempted murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm/peace officer/fireman, aggravated discharge of a firearm, terrorism and hate crime.

At around 9:30 a.m. on Oct. 26, officers were sent to the 2600 block of West Farwell Avenue to investigate reports of a person shot. As officers arrived and began investigating, a suspect now identified as Abdallahi fired shots toward responding officers, hitting a Chicago Fire Department ambulance.

Abdallahi then shot at officers from multiple locations.

Officers eventually encountered Abdallahi again in the 6800 block of North Washtenaw Avenue and exchanged gunfire, hitting him. He was then treated at the scene before being taken to an area hospital in critical condition, according to investigators.

Further investigation revealed Abdallahi shot a man in the 2600 block of West Farwell Avenue before encountering police officers. Authorities said the man was Jewish and was on his way to synagogue when he was shot. He survived the attack.

No CFD members or officers were injured. A weapon was also recovered at the scene.

On Sunday, Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th Ward), issued the following statement after Abdallahi’s death:

Dear Neighbor, The police have confirmed that Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi–the man accused of shooting a local Jewish man in an antisemitic hate crime–has died in custody in an apparent suicide. Our neighborhood has been reeling since the shooting in October. Hopefully, these new developments will bring a small measure of closure. The suspect was facing hate crime and terrorism charges, as well as 14 felony counts of attempted murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm for firing on a local man and then on responding officers and paramedics. Details that emerged in court revealed that the suspect was specifically targeting the Jewish community. Thank you to the first responders who stopped the suspect and to all the local police officers who worked on this case. We are deeply grateful to law enforcement for their commitment to keeping our community safe. Ald. Debra L. Silverstein (50th Ward)

[dailyanarchistposts]

Author: Robert Evans Topics: radicalization, right-wing

At 9:50 AM, on October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He carried a Colt AR-15, three Glock handguns chambered in 357 sig, body armor, and a substantial amount of ammunition. Bowers proceeded to open fire during a Shabbat morning service. He killed eleven of the 75 people worshipping at the synagogue that morning. In the hours and days that followed, journalists and researchers in the countering violent extremism community began to dig into Mr. Bowers’s social media presence and internet footprint. If you read or listened to any coverage about this, it probably focused on his use of the social media website Gab, which is essentially Twitter for Nazis. Gab earned a lot of attention because it’s where Bowers chose to announce his attack and his belief that a Jewish conspiracy was responsible for…

[Gab earned most of the attention in the media coverage in the wake of the attack, mainly seen as the place that radicalized him, and was the place where he announced the start of his attack.]

Robert Bowers said other things on the site, stranger things. In various posts, he claimed that people of Anglo-European descent were the “chosen people”, with Jews as their ancient enemy. He warned his fellow racists of a coming false flag attack that would be “one of the final desperate attempts by the Jewish international oligarchy to maintain power in the face of collapse of public trust in the media, which he believed they controlled. On the profile page for his account, Bowers included a quote: “Jews are the children of Satan.” A little more than two weeks before his rampage, he reposted a link to the Wikipedia page for Christian Identity and wrote, “If the Jews hate it, then it must be truth.”

Now, if you haven’t heard much about Christian Identity, don’t worry, neither had I before Bowers went on his rampage. Christian Identity theology is not widely known in modern America. In fact, the vast majority of people who have been influenced by it have probably never actually heard the term. Bowers is sort of a rare figure in that he was aware of it.

It’s been around for so long, and embedded itself so deeply in the consciousness of the far right, that it’s woven itself into the DNA of American fascism. Christian Identity, however, did not begin in America. The origin of this philosophy traces back to Britain, in 1791 in a crazy person and retired Navy man named Richard Brothers started having visions. Rather than writing these visions off as a result of bad canned sardines or ergot poisoned bread, he decided these visions were God telling him that he had to lead the Jews back to Palestine.

Now, he also decided that he was a descendent of the Biblical King David for reasons that are slightly less clear. Revelation followed revelation, as they often do for people with this sort of thing going on in their brain and by the time Richard Brothers was done, he concluded that the majority of Jewish people was actually hidden in Britain. This “hidden Israel” became one of the central tenents of British Israelism. All of the Jews are secretly British. Now, Brothers was eventually declared insane by the State, which is probably fair. He was stuck in an institution, which was probably unfair from to 1795 1806. But in the four years before he got locked up, he earned himself some followers. And although his flock didn’t stick together until he got out of the asylum, some of his ideas persisted for years amongst the fringes of British society.

In 1840, a writer named John Wilson wrote “Lectures on Our Israelitish Origin” and began lecturing across England and Ireland about the theory that the real Jews were basically everyone but actual Jewish people. According to the book, “Religion and the Right” by Michael Barcun, “The Lectures depended less on the interpretation of Biblical prophecy than on Wilson’s attempt to demonstrate empirically that the Lost Tribes had in fact migrated from the Near East to Europe. Like many writers after him, one of his favorite techniques was to look for words in different languages that sounded the same, assuming, usually erroneously, that if the word sounds were similar, then the languages and their speakers had to be connected.” Since similar sounds often crop up in otherwise unrelated languages, they allowed Wilson to claim and to believe that he had proved that “many of our most common English words and names of familiar objects are almost pure Hebrew.”

British Israelism continued to evolve over the course of the 1800s. A fellow named Hine added the assertion that Germans were really Assyrians because apparently those people had become lost too and wound up in Germany somehow. Hine claimed that the United States was also full of Israelites. Now at that this point actual Jewish people were not seen as bad guys. They were considered part of a greater community called All Israel, which was made up of the

British Israelism continued to evolve over the course of the 1800s. A fellow named Hine added the assertion that Germans were really Assyrians because apparently those people had become lost too and wound up in Germany somehow. Hine claimed that the United States was also full of Israelites. Now at that this point actual Jewish people were not seen as bad guys. They were considered part of a greater community called All Israel, which was made up of the House of Israel, which was Europe, and the House of Judah, which is actual Jewish people. Now, there was no evidence for any of this at any point in time. This was all just the result of a guy’s mental illness. This was a sick man who had a dream about leading the Jews back to Palestine and read too much into that.

Now, a fellow named Joseph Wild was the very first American British Israelite. Or, if he wasn’t the first, he was the first guy who tried to popularize it here, and the first one we have any records of. Wild was a pastor at the Union Congregational Church in Brooklyn. At this point, the theory, or whatever you would call it, was fundamentally pretty harmless. But as it drifted through the United States, from the frigid to the East, to the also frigid Northwest, something funny happened. British Israelism turned racist as fuck.

Now, the man most responsible for this turn was an Oregonian named Reuben H. Sawyer. In the late 19-teens, he started writing for a monthly magazine called “The Watchmen of Israel”, which was dedicated to the idea that “The English speaking peoples of today are the lineal descendents of the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel and must fulfill in these Latter days the responsibilities to creed for them through the Patriarchs and Prophets.” Rueben was the pastor of the Eastside Christian Church in Portland, Oregon. And over the years, he built up a sizable British Israel group in the city of roses. In fact, he was so successful at this that he left his job as a pastor in 1921 to lecture and write about British Israelism full time. Well, not quite full time. He did have one other side gig—as a member of the Oregon Ku Klux Klan. Rueben was big into the Klan for several years.

And in fact, he helped sell his fellow Portlanders on it, addressing 6,000 of them on December 22, 1921 at the Municipal Auditorium. He told them that the KKK sought “a cleansed and purified Americanism where law abiding citizens will be respected and their rights defended irrespective of race, religion, and color, so long as they make an honest effort to be Americans, and Americans only.” And at this point, this wasn’t totally bullshit. The 20s Klan was more a pyramid scheme than a terrorist organization. It was racist, but not more racist than mainstream American society when it came to skin color. They were, however, more racist than mainstream Americans about certain things. They hated the Catholic, the foreign-born, Asians, and of course, Jews.

This presented an issue for Reuben Sawyer, because British Israelism loved the Jews, or at least it traditionally did. That was part of the whole idea, this kind of veneration of Judaism, that all these British people wanted to be Jews as well. So, Reuben started out kind of on the side of Jewish people, liking them, but over time, exposure to other anti-Semites in the KKK, Reuben radicalized. In his first speech about the Klan, he brought up “the Jewish question”, but made a point of noting that some Jews were of ancient and honorable faith, while only a few were objectionable.

According to the book, “Religion and the Right,” “by 1922, however, this innuendo had been replaced by full-blown anti-Semitism that was as crude as it was open. “Jews are either Bolshevists undermining our government or are Shilocks (sp?) in finance or commerce who gained commanded control of Christians as borrowers or as employees. It is repugnant to a true American to be bossed by a Sheeney, and in and in some parts of America, the kikes are so thick that a white man can hardly find room to walk on the sidewalk. And where they are so thick, it is Bolshevism there talking. Bolshevism and revolution. The transformation is so startling that one wonders at first if it is the same person speaking.”

He started out making a distinction between good Jews and bad Jews, and then eventually just decided that all Jews were terrible. So Reuben became a major force for pushing his fellow American British Israelites toward anti-Semitism. In the early and mid-1920s, the Dearborn Independent, the newspaper funded by Henry Ford, began pushing even more extreme anti-Semitic ideas on the wider American public. Its editor, William Cameron, was a British Israelite.

Thanks to people like Reuben and Cameron, the category of “good Jews” shrank every year, and the dangers of the “bad ones” expanded to something resembling the all-encompassing anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that set Robert Bowers off on his rampage.

From the late 1920s to the 1930s, Howard Rand, a British Israelite from New England became a thought leader in the movement. His goal was to build it into a political organization. In 1933, he formed the Anglo-Saxon Federation of America, that claimed that actual Jewish people were not in fact descended from Judah. By the late 1930s, Rand’s ideas had evolved to the point where he began to claim that Jewish people were literally the children of the Devil.

If you’re curious how this went down, here’s an explanation from the website of a modern Christian Identity group: “Most that call themselves Jews today are in fact the race of Lucifer through his son Cain. Cain was inherently evil from the beginning because he was of Lucifer’s seed. Eve was beguiled by Lucifer and did in the carnal sense lay with and begot Cain. It was a pear on the ground, not an apple on the tree. Eve was deceived by Lucifer and was led to believe that she was laying down with Yahweh God.”

So, Howard Rand was the very first person to use the term “Christian Identity”. And his thinking had a big impact on a fellow named William Dudley Pelley, who was of course the founder of the American Fascist Silver Shirts movement, who we also talked about on an episode of “Behind the Bastards.”

(Intersectional fascism)

By the 1940s, the core of the Christian Identity belief system was more or less formed. It includes three specific ideas: Number one, Aryans are descendants of the Biblical tribes of Israel. Number two, actual Jews are the result of the Devil having sex with Even in the Garden of Eden. And number three, the apocalypse is nigh, and when it comes, Aryans will have to go toe-to-toe with the worldwide Jewish conspiracy in order to save the planet. When he walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue that cold October morning, Robert Bowers saw himself as a soldier taking place in this great apocalyptic battle against the Jews.

Now, Hart and his fellow Christian Identity believers had to be careful during World War II, since their belief system was essentially just Nazism without the swastika. But that didn’t stop them from railing against FDR’s appointment of the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter. It also didn’t stop them from opposing the admission of Jewish refugees into the United States after 1938. Hart’s specific beliefs were always fringe, but they bled over into the mainstream American rightwing due to the Right’s obsessive fear of socialism.

I’d like to quote next from a great Tablet magazine article “The Bloody History of America’s Christian Identity Movement”, “The broader concern of Hart and his allies and the “respectable” wing of anti-Semitism, liberal journalist Casey McWilliams called them the “armchair anti-Semites of the Right” was that liberal and socialist Jews were ultimately behind the hated New Deal and the corresponding transformations in American society. These armchair anti-Semites believed that admitting Holocaust survivors into the United States after World War II would be the first step in dismantling the Immigration Act of 1924 to Preserve the racial character of America. American Jews, many of whom supported easing immigration restrictions broadly, were the boogeymen of the nativist Right, and since Right wing nativists also often subscribed to Judeo Bolshevik conspiracy theories, opposing immigration was a way to strike a blow against communism as well as Judaism to preserve the white Christian character of the United States.

From the beginning, Christian Identity connected more with the dark and violent chunks of the far Right than mainstream conservatism. This started with the Silver Shirts and the KKK, and continued into 1964 when this peculiarly American fascist cult met a little guy named George Lincoln Rockwell.

Rockwell was the founder of the American Nazi Party, not much more than a decade after World War II ended. He was the first post-war Holocaust denier, he was the first fascist to make money by lecturing in American colleges and provoking fights with anti-fascists, he invented the term “white power” and was in general basically the Johnny Appleseed of Nazism in America.

Rockwell was an original thinker, a pioneer of the tactics that fashy folks still use today to get media coverage and play the victim. But he came into the game early enough that he never quite figured out how to “hide his power level”, which is a term modern fascists use for hiding their beliefs as garden-valley conservatism. Rockwell was initially somewhat anti-Christian, because, you know, Jesus was Jewish, which was something that didn’t play well with 1960s American conservatives. But in 1964, Rockwell met with Wesley Swift, leader of the Christian Identity Church. Rockwell instantly recognized what an opportunity Christian Identity represented for Nazis in America. As it stood at that point in the party’s history, American Nazism was basically just a cheap rip-off of German fascisms. That was good for triggering Jewish war veterans and civil-rights activists, but it didn’t click with regular Americans in a way that would allow it to spread. American fascism, Rockwell thought, needed a spiritual core, something esoteric, a little occult, and thoroughly American.

Wherever it arises in the world, fascism takes pieces of different spiritual traditions and hammers them together around its central authoritarian framework. This is part of what allows it to spread in different cultures. Umberto Eco identified this trait as “syncretism”. “The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements. The most influential theoretical source of the theories of the new Italian right, Julius Evola, merged the Holy Grail with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, alchemy with the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire. The very fact that the Italian right, in order to show its open-mindedness, recently broadened its syllabus to include works by De Maistre, Guenon, and Gramsci, is a blatant proof of syncretism. If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge — that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.”

Obviously, Eco didn’t write his essay until decades after Rockwell’s death, but GLR was such a natural fascist and such an instinctive Fuhrer type that he instantly seemed to know that grafting Christian Identity onto American Nazism was going to be critical if it was going to spread. So he appointed Ralph Forbes, head of the California branch of his Nazi party, to be the party Christian Identity Minister. “For Race and Nation”, my favorite Rockwell biography, says this about Forbes: “His strident racial views, his flair for the dramatic, and his loyalty to Rockwell made Forbes the perfect man for the job. California was an ideal location, there were numerous Identity ministries successfully operating there. Forbes would be the first Nazi officer to preside over a flock. By fusing Christian Identity and National Socialism, Rockwell hoped to maximize the synergies of the groups and broaden the potential membership for each group. Nazis could find religious justification and legitimization in the Church, Identity members could find political expression for their theology in the ANP. A riot could now be expressed as religion under the guise of the Identity Church. The push was on within the party to legitimize the cause, to de-emphasize Nazism and push racial issues to the forefront. Racial issues could be easily exploited, because the preyed upon nativist fears of the white population.”

Thankfully for all of us, Rockwell was assassinated by one of his own men on August 25, 1967…what’s important is that Rockwell’s marriage with American Nazism with Christian Identity took. It spread throughout the fascist right. Richard Butler, the reverend who founded the Aryans Nations’ compound in Idaho, was a Christian Identity preacher. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Aryan Nations acted as one of the lynchpins of American fascism. a place where every kind of violent, right wing extremist would gather and meet and make connections with each other. From the Aryan Nations, Christian Identity beliefs were able to make inroads, not just among Klansmen and neo-Nazis, but into the American militia movement.

Tanya Tolfer Sharp, a researcher with the Journal of Black Studies, was one of the first academics to document the spread of Christian Identity outside of explicit fascists and into the mercurial world of American “patriots”. She documented evidence of Christian Identity pamphlets and underground literature spreading in small local gun and knife shows throughout the country from 1995 to 1999. It had, of course been prominent in that world before 1995. Christian Identity’s focus on the inevitable apocalyptic battle against Aryans and satanic Jews meshed well with the apocalyptic fetishism of the survivalist and militia communities.

[It’s part of why it’s so naturally American…it gives them a reason]

As Tanya Sharp wrote, “Both groups were tied together by their belief that ‘reestablishment of white sovereignty depends on the use of organized aggression against the enemies of true Christians. All non-whites and all non-white Protestants. The first two letters of racial holy war make up the battle cry of RAHOWA , often used in Christian Identity speeches and publications.”

Christian Identity literature regularly focused on preparing for this apocalyptic battle, which allowed them subtly recruit preppers by focusing on not-explicitly ideological tasks, like acquiring dried food and weaponry, or building anti-personnel traps in order to protect woodland compounds. Y2K was a goldmine for Christian Identity. Fear of the year 2000 brought thousands of new Americans into the world of survivalist magazines, conventions, and online message boards. The worlds of the militia movement and the survivalist communities are of course closely tied into the world of conspiracy theorists. In the late 1990s, guys like Alex Jones weren’t preaching overt anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. You would never catch them claiming that Jews were the spawn of Satan, for example. But Jones and his ilk were major proponents of the New World Order, the king of conspiracy theories throughout the 90s and early 2000s.

The NWO took different forms in the mouths of different conspiracy theorists. The most mainstream and least racist version of the theory was that a secret world government of shadowy globalists was slowly taking over the federal government and the governments of the world, with the aim of enforcing total Orwellian control over the populace and killing the majority of the world’s population, particularly the Christians. The NWO conspiracy was again, not inherently anti-Semitic or racist, but in practice, most expressions of the theory wound up focusing on beliefs that a Jewish-led cabal of Blacks, homosexuals, Hispanics, immigrants, and liberals was trying to wipe out all straight, white, Christian Americans. Christian Identity believers introduced the term “Zionist Occupied Government”, or ZOG, into the lexicon of American fringe politics. It took off like wildfire, entering the vocabularies of countless Americans on the far right who would never have considered calling themselves a Nazi.

Christian Identity beliefs happen to mesh perfectly with every other extremist belief in the United States. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, tax protesting became more common. Christian Identity fit within that too, arguing that paying taxes was really just paying for the demonic Jews to carry out their white genocide aims even faster. In 1997, William Luther Pierce, a former devotee of Rockwell, and head of a Nazi group called the National Alliance, wrote this in a newsletter, “The truth of the matter is that the new world order people ultimately aim to create a new world population of serfs for their global plantation, a homogenous population of coffee-colored serfs, a population of docile, predictable, and interchangeable serfs, and they definitely don’t want any large reservoir of white people anywhere who might rebel.”

If you take the word “white” out of that sentiment, it almost word-for-word matches with any one of a thousand rants Alex Jones has gone on throughout the years. Under Rockwell, the American Nazi Party never numbered more than a few dozen real, committed members, and its ideas never gained any kind of mainstream penetration. By the late 1990s, American fascists were no less hateful or violent than they’d ever been, but their rhetoric had evolved to fit with the deep conspiratorial undercurrents sweeping through American society. Rockwell had shotgunned out hardcore racism, and as a result he’d only been able to recruit a small number of the worst people in America.

New American fascism blended with Christian Identity was capable of hiding out in more moderate spaces, and luring in new believers without waving a swastika in their faces. Perhaps the most potent weapon Christian Identity added to the arsenal of American fascism was the idea of white genocide. If you spent much time studying neo-Nazis, you’re aware of the significance of the number 14. It stands for the 14 words “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” This is the invention of David Lane, a neo-Nazi bank robber and, for decades, a Christian Identity believer. While Lane has moved on from Christian identity to a weird sort of bastardized Norse mythology rip-off, he and other Christian Identity believers in the 80s and 90s were largely responsible for seeding the fear of white genocide into American fascism. From Tanya Sharp’s article, “The Identity literature is filled with negative images full of white women caring for mixed-race babies. Race mixing in and of itself is a cause for an organized and radical plan to separate the races.” The National Vanguard magazine, a leading pro-neo-Nazi publication suggests that the cult of miscegenation, which according to them has proliferated over the past 30 years, has placed the white race on the precipice of biological extinction. Furthermore, they argue that only radical action will end the morality of death.

Now, the urge to protect white babies and ensure the future of the white race, inspired a little guy named Eric Rudolph to bomb an Alabaman abortion clinic in 1996. Rudolph was a Christian Identity believer, and his beliefs led him to bomb Atlanta’s Olympic Park the same year, along with a gay nightclub. Rudolph spent more than a year hiding in the woods, eluding federal agents. He killed two and injured more than 120 people over his almost two year long bombing spree. And as we talked in the introduction to this, he also inspired that British bomber who built a series of nail bombs that killed three people and injured dozens more which also inspired the guy who killed Joe Cox.

Now, Eric Rudolph was not the last person moved to violence by this picture of a declining white race. Everyone listening to this will remember of course the 2019 Christchurch massacre, in which a fascist extremist murdered 51 Muslim worshipers at a New Zealand mosque. That shooter did not identify as a Nazi, and his manifesto lacked the expected anti-Semitic rambling, but he ranted at length about the threat of white genocide and what he called The Great Replacement. In between those two terrorists are dozens and dozens of other attacks, with bits of Christian Identity DNA coded into them. John Earnest, the synagogue shooter did not identify himself as a follower of Christian Identity theology, but according to Tablet magazine, “The manifesto left behind by the shooter reads like a hybrid of classical Christian anti-Semitism and contemporary white nationalism. He alternated within paragraphs, sometimes within sentences, from charging the Jews with the responsibility for the death of Jesus and the early Christian saints to declaring that Jews fund politicians and organizations who use mass immigration to displace the European race. The document is riddled with contradictions, and is inarticulate even by white nationalist manifesto standards as it moves between citing the gospels and the killer’s love of Freidrich Chopin, with explosive hatred toward Jews. But what it does evince clearly is a grounding of a form of anti-Semitism that’s equally in debt to older Christian traditions and more modern secular variants centered on race and soil.

Christian Identity’s influence in the fascist right is so deep and so well woven that attacks are now carried out by terrorists who have been inspired by its tenants without ever learning the words “Christian Identity.” You’ll be hearing about it regularly throughout the rest of this audio book, and I’ll be sure to point out wherever groups or individuals we discuss are Christian Identity believers, but it almost isn’t necessary. Christian Identity is now just a part of the furniture of American fascism, no matter whether or not it’s referenced directly, it shows up everywhere.

[blogdimanche]

Évangile de Jésus-Christ selon Saint Luc 1,1-4; 4,14-21

1 « BEAUCOUP ONT ENTREPRIS de composer un récit des événements qui se sont accomplis parmi nous,

2 d’après ce que nous ont transmis ceux qui, dès le commencement, furent témoins oculaires et serviteurs de la Parole.

3 C’est pourquoi j’ai décidé, moi aussi, après avoir recueilli avec précision des informations concernant tout ce qui s’est passé depuis le début, d’écrire pour toi, excellent Théophile, un exposé suivi,

4 afin que tu te rendes bien compte de la solidité des enseignements que tu as entendus. »

(…)

14 « Lorsque Jésus, dans la puissance de l’Esprit, revint en Galilée, sa renommée se répandit dans toute la région.

15 Il enseignait dans les synagogues, et tout le monde faisait son éloge.

16 Il vint à Nazareth, où il avait été élevé. Selon son habitude, il entra dans la synagogue le jour du sabbat, et il se leva pour faire la lecture.

17 On lui remit le livre du prophète Isaïe. Il ouvrit le livre et trouva le passage où il est écrit :

18 L’Esprit du Seigneur est sur moi parce que le Seigneur m’a consacré par l’onction. Il m’a envoyé porter la Bonne Nouvelle aux pauvres, annoncer aux captifs leur libération, et aux aveugles qu’ils retrouveront la vue, remettre en liberté les opprimés,

19 annoncer une année favorable accordée par le Seigneur.

20 Jésus referma le livre, le rendit au servant et s’assit. Tous, dans la synagogue, avaient les yeux fixés sur lui.

21 Alors il se mit à leur dire : « Aujourd’hui s’accomplit ce passage de l’Écriture que vous venez d’entendre. »

Texte biblique tiré de « La Bible — traduction officielle liturgique — AELF »)

(Illustration du site Apprenez-nous à prier)

Commentaire Lc 4,18.21

« L'Esprit du Seigneur est sur moi parce que le Seigneur m'a consacré par l'onction… Aujourd'hui s'accomplit ce passage de l'Écriture, que vous venez d'entendre. » (Lc 4,18.21). Le récit que nous lisons aujourd'hui se situe après le baptême de Jésus et le récit de ses tentations au désert. Apparemment, tout va pour le mieux pour le nouveau prédicateur ; je vous rappelle la phrase de Luc : « Lorsque Jésus, avec la puissance de l’Esprit, revint en Galilée, sa renommée se répandit dans toute la région. Il enseignait dans les synagogues des Juifs, et tout le monde faisait son éloge. » Tout s’annonçait bien ce matin-là : Jésus est un bon Juif comme les autres : il rentre de voyage, et comme tout bon Juif, le samedi matin venu, il va à l’office à la synagogue. Rien d’étonnant non plus à ce qu’on lui confie une lecture, puisque tout fidèle a le droit de lire les Écritures. La célébration à la synagogue se déroule donc tout à fait normalement... jusqu’au moment où Jésus lit la lecture du jour qui se trouvait être ce texte bien connu du prophète Isaïe et, dans le grand silence fervent qui suit la lecture, il affirme tranquillement une énormité : « Aujourd'hui s'accomplit ce passage de l'Écriture, que vous venez d'entendre. » Nous avons du mal à imaginer l’audace que représente cette affirmation si tranquille de Jésus ; car, pour tous ses contemporains, ce texte vénérable du prophète Isaïe concernait le Messie. Seul le Roi-Messie, quand il viendrait, pourrait se permettre de dire : « L’Esprit du Seigneur est sur moi, parce que le Seigneur m’a consacré par l’onction... » Car, dès le début de la monarchie, le rituel du sacre des rois a comporté un rite d’onction d’huile. Cette onction était le signe que Dieu lui-même inspirait le roi en permanence pour qu’il soit capable d’accomplir sa mission de sauver le peuple. On disait alors que le roi était « mashiah », un mot hébreu qui signifie tout simplement « frotté d’huile ». C’est ce mot « mashiah » qui se traduit « messie » en français, « christos » en grec. A l’époque de Jésus, il n’y avait plus de roi sur le trône de Jérusalem mais on attendait que Dieu envoie enfin le roi idéal qui apporterait à son peuple la liberté, la justice et la paix. En particulier, dans le pays d’Israël alors occupé par les Romains, on attendait celui qui nous délivrerait de l’occupation romaine. Clairement, Jésus de Nazareth, le fils du charpentier, ne pouvait prétendre être ce Roi-Messie qu’on attendait. Soyons francs, Jésus n’a pas fini d’étonner ses contemporains : il est bien le Messie qu’on attendait, mais tellement différent de ce qu’on attendait ! Luc, pour aider ses lecteurs, a bien pris soin dès le début de son livre, de leur dire d’entrée de jeu qu’il s’est informé soigneusement de tout depuis les origines ; et, d’autre part, il a souligné en introduction à ce passage que Jésus était accompagné de la puissance de l’Esprit, ce qui était bien la caractéristique du Messie. Mais c’est Luc, le Chrétien, qui l’affirme ; les habitants de Nazareth, eux, ne savent pas que, réellement, l’Esprit du Seigneur repose sur Jésus. Dernière remarque sur cet évangile : la citation d’Isaïe que Jésus reprend à son compte sonne comme un véritable discours-programme : « L’Esprit du Seigneur est sur moi... Il m’a envoyé porter la Bonne Nouvelle aux pauvres, annoncer aux captifs leur libération, et aux aveugles qu’ils retrouveront la vue, remettre en liberté les opprimés, annoncer une année favorable accordée par le Seigneur. » Voilà l’œuvre de l’Esprit à travers ceux qu’il a consacrés. Nous qui cherchons quelquefois des critères de discernement, nous voilà servis ; car ce qui est dit du Christ est valable pour tous les confirmés que nous sommes, à notre humble mesure, bien sûr. (Note du P. Mario Doyle, C.Ss.R. : Ce commentaire reproduit largement celui d’une bibliste bien connue des catholiques de France : Marie Noëlle Thabut)

[transmascpetewentz]

I hope your synagogue kicks you out after realizing you make degenerate posts about boypussy.

Did you know that Jews are the most trans-accepting group of people in USAmerica?

Anyway, L + ratio + get some boypussy + fuck off + that's not what your dad said when he was begging for my tdick last night + can you please be normal about jews and in this case people converting to judaism + what lack of boypussy does to a mf

[jacensolodjo]

The Alphabet of Inadequate Language

A is for Auschwitz, where more than a million were gassed and then burned into ash. The word that could speak for everything that follows. A is for ARBEIT MACHT FREI, the words on the gates of Auschwitz. WORK MAKES YOU FREE. Except that the phrase is untranslatable, like so much else. A is for Atrocity. A is for Armenian Genocide, words that are illegal to say aloud in Turkey. A is for Atom bomb. B is for Buchenwald, where my father and my uncle were imprisoned yet did not die. B is for Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank did die. B is for Belzec, where half a million were murdered. B is for Babyn Yar, the ravine and largest-known mass grave. B is for Birkenau, the “sister” to Auschwitz. C is for Concentration Camp. C is for Crematoria. C is for Collaboration. C is for Communism. C is for Churchill. C is for Cambodia. C is for Children. One and a half million murdered children. Also the Hidden Children, and the Child Survivors. D is for Dictator. D is for Dachau. D is for Death Camp. D is for Death’s Head Insignia. D is for Deutschland. D is for Denial.

E is for Eichmann. E is for Extermination. E is for Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads. E is for Ethnic Cleansing. E is for Euphemism. F is for Final Solution. F is for Führer. F is for Fatherland. F is for Forgetting, which both is and is not the opposite of Remembering. G is for Gestapo. G is for Gas Chamber. G is for Goering. G is for Germany. G is for Ghetto. G is for Genocide. H is for Holocaust. H is for Hitler. H is for Himmler. H is for Höss. H is for Homosexual. H is for Hutu. H is for Hiroshima. I is for Identity Card. I is for Immigrant. I is for Ideology. I is for I Don’t Know How to Go On like This but I Cannot Stop Because the Words Keep Coming. J is for Jew. J is for Jude. J is for Jehovah’s Witnesses. J is for JEDEM DAS SEINE, words on the gate of Buchenwald. TO EACH HIS DUE. K is for Kristallnacht. K is for Khmer Rouge and for Killing Fields. K is for Konzentrationslager. L is for Lager. L is for Lynching. L is for Liquidation. As in, the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Lodz Ghetto and the Vilna Ghetto, where my mother and her parents were forced to live before they escaped to a hiding place in the Polish countryside. M is for Mengele. M is for Mauthausen. M is for Maidanek. M is for Murder, Memory, Massacre, Motherland. N is for Nuclear Bomb and Neutron Bomb. N is for Nagasaki. N is for Neighbors, the ones who hid Jews and the ones who denounced Jews or denounced other neighbors for hiding Jews. N is for Nuremberg. The place of the trials. The place of a nearly impossible quest for justice. N is for Nazi. O is for Oven. O is for Other. P is for Pogrom. P is for Prisoner. P is for Parade. P is for Ponary, the forest near Vilna where 100,000 Jews were executed. P is for Poland, once home to more than 2 million Jews. P is for Perished. Q is for Quarantine. Q is for Questions That Have No Answer. R is for Reich. R is for Roma, whose numberless dead have never fully been mourned. R is for Rwanda. R is for Romania, the birthplace of my father’s father and the citizenship that saved my father’s life. R is for Relocation. R is for Refugee. R is for Roosevelt. S is for SS, for Stormtrooper. S is for Shoah. S is for Sachsenhausen and for Sobibor. S is for Stalin and for Synagogue and for Soap. S is for Sola, the ash-filled river at the edges of Auschwitz. S is for Sonderkommando, the special detail of prisoners forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria. S is for Selektion. S is for Stolpersteine and for Secrets. S is for Silence. T is for Treblinka. T is for Theresienstadt. T is for Tattoo. T is for Twins, whom Mengele chose for special experiments. T is for the Thousand-Year Reich, for Terror, Trauma, Tenacity. T is for Tutsi. U is for Uprising. U is for Underground. U is for Über Alles. U is for U-boat. U is for Undesirable. U is for Understatement. V is for Vichy. V is for Victory. V is for Victim. V is for Vanquished. V is for Vietnam, the name of a country. V is for Veteran.

W is for Warsaw. W is for Wehrmacht. W is for War, and War, and War. X is for X. For everything that cannot be expressed in words, for each and every name of the dead that may have been forgotten. X is for Xenophobia, fear of the stranger, the Other. Y is for Yiddish, the almost-lost language. Y is for You, the one reading this alphabet and all the ones yet to be born. Z is for Zyklon B, the gas used to murder millions of men, women, and children in Auschwitz.

Now go back to the beginning. See under: A.

Survivor Cafe by Elizabeth Rosner

[antisemitism-eu]

The suspect, a 32-year-old Swiss man with reported mental health issues, was seen pouring gasoline outside the building before fleeing the scene. The incident occurred at 8 p.m. shortly before the afternoon prayer service.

The suspect was arrested by Zurich police later that night. Authorities said that the individual was not motivated by extremist ideology, whether from the left, right or related to Islam.

Yehuda Spielman, a member of the local council, reported that the suspect had visited at least one other Jewish institution in the city on the day of the attempted arson and earlier in the week.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that a synagogue was targeted," Spielman said. "This wasn't a random attack –footage shows the suspect had previously been in the neighborhood."