#and even the jews who do know our history don’t know US. don’t know our culture don’t know anything.

[troybarnesbucky]

“but before israel existed, jews in the middle east lived in peace with muslims, they were arab jews!!!!!” what if i shove my entire foot up your ass

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[thrashkink-coven]

I get the thing of wanting to be as harmless and uncontroversial as possible in your craft. I understand white witches trying their best not to encroach on closed practices or cultural appropriation. I understand wanting to cancel problematic occultists and generally push the witchy community away from its history with white supremacy and racism. I get it, I really do.

and I say this with love and try to come across as gently as possible.

Some of you, though your intentions may be pure, don’t seem to recognize the difference between genuine caution and concern and blatant white saviourtism. I promise you that people of color don’t need white witches to speak for them. I promise you that it is not your responsibility to be the saviour that enforces what is and isn’t problematic, especially when you yourself are so clueless about the issue at hand.

People who don’t know even the first thing about Judaism shouldn’t be trying to herd all of their white friends away from Lilith or dictate why you shouldn’t use magick with a k. It’s frustrating because the original message gets completely lost every single time.

Jew witches will say “hey guys maybe don’t work with Lilith if you don’t understand her origins because she’s not just a girl boss mother of demons but also has a lot of history in our culture as an extremely violent and chaotic energy that actively victimizes women and children”

But all that tumblr heard was “Lilith is associated with Judaism and that means she’s a religious figure and can’t be worked with by non-jews” without having even the slightest clue what her role in Judaism was and why people advise caution. Saying that Lilith is a religious figure to Judaism tells me that you’ve never even met a Jewish person in real life.

People will say “hey Crowley was actually a piece of shit and shouldn’t be idolized as a wise practitioner when he was literally just an extremely racist heroine addict who tricked a lot of women into having sex with him for rituals”

But all that tumblr hears is “Crowley bad. Anything associated with Crowley also bad. If you do anything that was associated with Crowley you are also bad.”

Indigenous witches will say “Hey white sage is an extremely sacred herb that is being heinously over harvested by corporations selling the witchcraft equivalent of fast fashion and it’s causing severe harm to indigenous businesses and communities, please stop supporting them”

but all that tumblr heard was “White sage shouldn’t be harvested. If you get white sage from anywhere, even indigenous people themselves, you are racist.”

and in retaliation to that super hard stance you have witches who have decided they don’t care about respecting closed practices in general and purposely buy from non indigenous sources out of spite

“I don’t know enough about this topic to have an intelligent stance on it” is ALSO a perfectly acceptable position. You don’t have to be opinionated about things you don’t understand. You’re more than welcome to just avoid the things you know would make you uncomfortable to participate in without pushing blatant misinformation.

Most occult spaces have some sort of historical tie to icky stuff like racism, misogyny, ablism, etc. You’re not a bad person for recognizing that and wanting to stay away from them. I’m happy you care.

But you are not an authority on things you’re uneducated about. When you pretend to be you only muddy the words of the people you’re supposed to be helping.

Saying shit like “using magick with a k is just as antisemitic as using a swastika” completely waters down what real antisemitism is, and makes the matter less serious than it actually is.

Saying “working with Lilith is just as antisemitic as working with the Tetragrammaton” is just a complete slap in the face to practicing jews, and you don’t know why because you don’t understand Judaism or the people who created it. You can’t understand it because you’re so busy talking over them that you never took the opportunity to listen.

Before you make the decision to run these mass cancelation events, take a second to consider if you’re doing this because it’s actually important and something you truly understand, or if you’re just doing so to feel morally pure and accepted by your fellow politically correct white peers.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Received this question just now. Posting my response sans askers' username per their request:

Hi, as you are a holocaust historian, and as you mentioned in a recent post, words mean things, I was sort of wondering what you thought about people saying that what’s happening in Palestine isn’t genocide because the holocaust was genocide/6 million Jews was genocide. I’ve seen a couple people saying stuff along the lines of ‘if what’s happening in Palestine is genocide, we need another word for the holocaust’. I’m not worried about you knowing it’s me asking (like asking on anon) because I think you talk to people pretty reasonably but if you could answer it in private or without my name on the ask I would appreciate it, people seeing it could get… unpleasant, talking about this stuff and I try to stay out of the line of fire to the best of my ability. Totally fine if you don’t want to answer, I don’t want you hounded about Palestine either, it just seemed like you might have an interesting take with your studies

Anyone is capable of genocide, of following orders to commit human rights abuses, of attacking civilians, etc. No identity groups’ past—however violent and traumatic—makes them incapable of committing war crimes. Referring to what’s happening in Gaza as genocide doesn’t invalidate Jewish communal thought regarding the Holocaust. Moreover, the fact that the State of Israel has built Holocaust memory into its nation-building doesn’t mean that that country is inherently incapable of crimes against humanity. There is a cohort of primarily 65+ Jews who hold a trauma-induced belief that Israel could never be capable of these crimes because everything Israel does is in the interest of protecting the Jewish people. It’s a pretty thought, and one I used to hold, but it’s not reality. Many as well would argue that, because the October 7 attack was inherently genocidal, Israel was moral and just doing what it needed to do to bring the hostages home and stamp out Hamas cells. Indeed, these hypothetical individuals would continue, the fact that Hamas has built itself into the civilian architecture of Gaza means that Hamas is using Palestinian civilians as human shields; not that Israel is committing genocide. I personally think that’s wishful thinking. Hamas 800% bases itself near structures like hospitals and kindergartens so Israel will look bad when it attacks those places,* thus willfully allowing the people it governs to exist as human shields. HOWEVER, I don’t believe for one minute that the Israeli military doesn’t have the technology needed to seek out evidence of heat, heartbeats, etc, in hidden subterranean areas. Their counter-attack was always going to happen, but the way it’s been fought? Naw man it’s indefensible.

You know I don't do comparisons or Holocaust inversion, but I do have feelings and emotional responses which don't care about my Serious Intellectual Historian views on comparisons and Holocaust inversion. And, there's a very disturbing moment in one of my primary sources for my book where a woman describes a Nazi attack on a hospital in the Warsaw Ghetto. She describes the screaming and the panic and the civilians begging to be euthanized. Similar readings and sources exist for hospitals in Warsaw during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising when the Germans were destroying the city. I suspect similar descriptions exist of any hospital of a densely populated civilian area under siege. And, even if I was still bullheadedly in my Zionist era, I wouldn't have been able to simultaneously do the work I do, watch Israeli soldiers attacking hospitals, and emerge completely fine with everything. All of that doesn’t erase the simultaneous facts that: 1) the Holocaust happened and was a traumatic moment in Jewish History, the memory of which will endure throughout the millennia; and 2) the October 7 attacks were carried out by Hamas with genocidal intent.

What you’re seeing is people within our community dealing with cognitive dissonance. And honestly the experience of watching people lash out is stage 1 of that process (or as I call it, the Cognitive Dissonance Temper Tantrum). It’s no fun to witness, but can be positive if the person doing the temper tantrum chooses to learn from it. 

ETA: When I discuss things I felt/believed in my "Zionist Era," I'm discussing stuff from when I was like, under 21 years old. For reference I am currently 35.

No one has my permission to use my words to silence other Jewish people. You have no obligation to stick around for people having cognitive dissonance freakouts or saying shitty things about Palestinians, but I see part of my...duty as being available to work with Jewish individuals who want to deal productively with their cognitive dissonance once the freakout period dies down, if they want help.

*Here my Unnamed I/P Reader notes that it’s quite a bit more complicated than stated here in part due to Gaza’s pre-Oct. 7 2023 population density.

[brainscrems]

Making a little pinned post for goyim who stumble across this blog. Nothing in your background, none of your experiences with marginalization, nothing at all makes you exempt from having unconsciously incorporated antisemitism into your world view and mindset. The best thing you can do is seek out a wide range of all jewish voices with no preconceived notions, hear how different things affect their lives and oppression, and take that into account about what you say and do. Next thing to address. Antisemitism from the left DOES exist and it IS in your movements for palestinian liberation, as ugly a truth as that is. I support a free palestine and an end to genocide. So, when I showed up to my first protest and saw a displayed swastika with hundreds of people around, I was extremely dismayed that not a single one was willing to stand up and say a goddamned thing. This is the state of antisemitism on the left. Most people won’t *openly* spout hateful rhetoric, tho those who will are quite loud. The real problem is that there is no collective willingness to go after the open antisemites in these movements. It’s deemed acceptable because it’s for a good cause. And let me tell you, this shit is quite typical and we jews see it constantly. Just because you aren’t seeing antisemitism doesn’t mean it’s not there. Of course you aren’t seeing it. You’re not jewish. You don’t have the background to notice shit that you’ve been taught is normal and fine. Yet, your silence in the face of these things or even your engagement in them still hurts us. And. You know what they say. If nazi joins 4 people at a table and they do nothing about it you have 5 nazis. So. What can you do? Seek out jewish voices and LEARN!! Don’t tokenize us. Don’t choose ones you already agree with. The first resource I recommend for dealing w antisemitism in leftist spaces is called “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere” by April Rosenblum. This is a jew with a long history of palestinian advocacy and she has done a great job at breaking down where antisemitism happens. Link at the bottom. It was written in 2007 and remains depressingly relevant today. This pamphlet is 24 pages, a bit long, but very thorough. This pamphlet is the barebones details of what’s antisemitic btw. The things listed in there are basic “nearly every jew in the world” would agree things. There is more than just what is contained in there that’s antisemitic and your best resource is gonna be listening to jewish voices. No tokenizing. No dismissing. Just listening and seeing what makes sense. That said, this shit is essential reading because it gives you the tools to start making spaces safe for jews. If you don’t care about that then, well, you probably don’t belong on this blog.

EDIT: In an ideal world I would like a binational one-state solution with a right of return for jews and palestinians as well as massive reparations for palestinians. I don’t identify as a zionist. And. I know jews who identify as zionists who want the exact same things I do. If your rhetoric is calling for violence against those people you can fuck right off. Zionist is a jewish word that has been appropriated by goyim, both by christian “zionists” as well as those who wish to discredit jews wanting to live peacefully with palestinians in our shared homeland. It means whatever the jew using it says it does in the context of their speech. The people who support the ethnic cleansing and genocide of palestinians or the treatment of palestinians as second class citizens are called kahanists and racist assholes, not zionists. Stop misusing our fucking word. Learn what the word means from actual members of our community instead of shouting about it as a fucking outsider and appropriating a term with deep community roots. Yea, Israel has committed so many war crimes and is currently committing genocide. This is not what zionism represents to most zionists so if you’re pushing that narrative just fucking do better and stop putting jewish lives at risk with your irresponsible rhetoric. I once again redirect you to the linked pamphlet. This is not a heavily focused on topic in it, but it gives clear instructions on what not to do, even if it doesn’t give you all the details on the why.

[jewishbarbies]

wild to me that the majority of jews giving antisemites a pass and being used as tokens are in fact jewish but didn’t care about it until oct 7th. like. they weren’t raised jewish, they’re not religious, they probably didn’t even know they were jewish until someone did a 23&me for christmas one year and the whole family just moved past it. now suddenly it’s “well I’m a jew and I don’t think this is bad” and “well I’m a jew but I’ve never experienced antisemitism” hm I wonder why?? you’re completely disconnected from jewishness in any possible way and now suddenly you’re an expert on what is/isn’t antisemitic, disagreeing with hundreds of jews who have experienced antisemitism their whole lives and pretending your opinion supersedes theirs. jews who are well educated on our history, culture, language, religion. jews who care about being jewish and don’t use it as a fucking pawn in online political discourse.

yes, you’re jewish too, but you need to sit down and fucking listen. if you’re not willing to learn and be educated about what affects us, etc., then you don’t get to claim jewishness on your hate exemption form. if you wanna be jewish now you have to deal with the same vitriol we do, bud. claiming jewishness just for this argument isn’t as temporary as you think it is. the leopards will eat your face.

[edenfenixblogs]

Thank Your Jewish Friends Trying to Educate You Right Now

If you’re a leftist, and you have had a Jewish friend reach out to you to try and tell you that you’ve said something alarming or harmful or antisemitic: listen to them, learn, and say thank you.

I am VERY lucky in that all the friends I’ve personally reached out to have taken the opportunity to learn and grow and adjust their behavior. I have never told them that they should not advocate for Palestine. I have told them I want to advocate for Palestine WITH them, but I need to feel safe in order to do so. I need to feel like the people I’m advocating with don’t want me and my loved ones dead. Thank HaShem that they have listened to me. From the bottom of my heart, my friends are a blessing.

But I’ve seen an incredibly disheartening number of fellow Jews who have had the opposite experiences—being expelled from their queer communities and activist communities and book clubs and any space they once found community. This is horrid but it’s especially horrid for Jews. It’s a reminder that we are only accepted if we conform. We are only accepted if we accept abuse. Our presence is always tolerated, never wanted. Our views are not to be trusted. Our opinions are always suspect. Our motives are always sinister. Our acceptance is always conditional. And I think that hurts even more for us than you’d imagine, because our own spaces are no longer safe. We are already in diaspora. And now our synagogues and homes and other community buildings are being vandalized and attack. We are cut off from our own cultural community and now many of us are being cut off from our personal communities as well. It is a loneliness that most people outside of a diaspora will never know.

Im willing to bet that if you have/had a Jewish friend who you considered close but who seems to have disappeared from your life, it’s because you either didn’t reach out to them after 10/7 or you have failed to acknowledge the stochastic threat to Jews or the Jewish connection to Israel. Why is it important that you do this? Because we are your friends and loved ones. And when friends and loved ones tell you they are hurting, you should listen. When you say you care about someone, you should be willing to listen to them when they say you’re hurting them and then you should apologize. It is more hurtful than you can possibly imagine to watch people you thought cared about you decide to listen to people across the world who they have never met rather than simply have a conversation with a friend, because they assume that friend will dismiss the pain of Palestinians.

Many of you are assuming what your friends are feeling about Israel and Palestine, but you haven’t actually asked them. Many of you think that expressing sorrow for Israel or jews in the world, that means we cannot care about or want a better future for Palestine.

If you are lucky enough to have a friend who has tried to reach out to you, that means they are willing to forgive you for neglecting them in this time. They are willing to talk with you and try to explain their emotions in good faith. They want to find a way to advocate for progress with you. They want to keep you in their lives. They want you to understand our culture and history—not at the exclusion of anyone else’s culture and history—just at the inclusion of our own.

Because here’s the other thing: they won’t forget that you denied them understanding and respect and the benefit of the doubt. That’s not a threat. That’s a cultural feature of Judaism. We have famously long cultural memories. We remember the people and places we can trust and those who refused to give us peace and safety and basic kindness. We remember the people who targeted us, your friends and loved ones, simply because other Jews who we have never met behaved in ways you don’t understand and of which you don’t approve. You are blaming the sins of others on people you claim to love.

If someone is giving you the chance to undo the damage you have done on this, you should take it. And if you have expelled Jews from a space you once shared or failed to acknowledge their pain in this time—find them and apologize.

I am not Muslim, but I wouldn’t doubt that something similar is happening in Muslim spaces. Islamophobia and antisemitism are at terrifyingly high levels right now. And if you think you can’t support Jews without condemning Muslims or you can’t support Muslims without condemning Jews, you’re not only part of the problem—you’re the biggest part of the problem.

What we all need right now is unity, peace, solidarity, understanding, and education above all else.

[weirdmageddon]

i posted this on twitter also but it’s still eating at me. i’m so fucking embarrassed to be jewish rn. i dont want to be associated with this ongoing bullshit from israel. why do we need our own state. theyre just making every jew across the globe look bad in general even though many of us are conflicted about zionism and the legitimacy of israel as a state

people have hated jews throughout history for no fuckin reason but now israel exists but now its like. GIVING people reasons to hate us as a group. note that i DON’T conflate zionism with jewishness, but a lot of people in the world don’t know the difference because theyre uninformed and been dripfed cultural antisemitic tropes their whole life and that’s the scary part is them falsely putting two and two together. like what the fuck israel stop youre just putting fuel on the fire for people around the world to hate an entire group of historically persecuted people if youre being this shitty with your insane colonialism and apartheid like……I Want No Fuckin Part Of This. you’re spelling our own doom. you cant just swoop in and go “mine now” and then oppress the people you took land from under a regime without my blood boiling at the injustice no matter WHO you are. even if my lineage is tied to you. so when news outlets support israel it doesn’t feel like they have the best interest of jews as a people in mind. it’s in the interest of a zionist ethnostate and whatever that christian zionism belief is about the jewish people returning to the holy land as prerequisite for the second coming of jesus. its not like they care about us as a dispersed ethnocultural group, it’s all for that religious narrative that a bunch of people in the US are backing.

saying you want all jews to die is antisemitic. beating someone up because they’re jewish and no other reason without knowing their views is antisemitic. criticizing human rights violations perpetrated by israel and the belief that one group deserves more rights another is not antisemitic. and the fact that israel has the ability to pull that antisemitism card in response to criticisms of the violations they commit because their state is the “jewish homeland” drives me fucking insane. take fucking accountability for your actions. and yes, there do exist full-on anti-jewish groups in the middle east that go beyond hatred of israel’s policies and existence as a state and i’m tired of people pretending there aren’t in fear of appearing to seem like they support the state of israel. on the other side of things many people overestimate this by fearmongering and saying EVERY arab is out to get jews worldwide, telling people like me “they want YOU dead”. this is not the belief every person in the middle east and it really rubs me the wrong way that people group millions of individuals into all-encompassing lumps like this. many people there do understand nuance of this political situation.

even if i have that “right of return” by israeli law or whatever, i don’t feel obliged to it; it does not register as fair. why do i have a “right of return” when i’ve never even been there in the first place while palestinians who have homes there can’t return to them? what’s the basis for that? substituting objective reality with an imaginary reality? i don’t think like that. i can hypothetically come and go whenever i please but palestinians are severely limited in mobility? what makes me more entitled to that land than the people who lived there for centuries? nothing that comes from natural law thats for sure. it’s all artificial and inflated.

but at the same time i also dont want to be the target of antisemitism and caught in the fray just for being ethnically jewish. once people start calling for the genocide of entire groups we’ve got issues (and you better believe this absolutely applies to the palestinian victims in gaza too), because people who dissent to the violence perpetrated by the loudest are caught in there with the people who are perpetrating the violence. lack of nuance. people conflating israel and its zionist apartheid policies with jewish ethnicity and culture worldwide. other people conflating being terrorist anti-jew with muslims worldwide (like that 6-year old palestinian-american boy that was just stabbed to death in chicago). scary times man. but as a jew i can’t just opt out of this if it’s how i was born as. i don’t have control over that. but i can control what i think and what my beliefs are

[wi11owbird]

a little psa about Christmas and Chanukah because it’s that time of year again

People who celebrate Christmas: this is for you. It’s not an attack, nor is it saying that Christmas is bad or that you shouldn’t celebrate it! It’s just a few notes by a tired Jew on how you can change your language and behavior to make the Christmas season even though Christmas is still over a month out a little less exhausting for the Jews in your life.

The holiday season: Calling this “the holiday season” and using other related terms bothers me to no end. Imo it’s not actually better if you sprinkle in a menorah or two. It doesn’t matter that much what you call it or what religious iconography you include, we know it’s a Christmas party; even if you include other holidays, it’s just because they fall near Christmas and therefore must be important. Please, just call it a Christmas party. There’s nothing wrong with a Christmas party!! Go for it!! Have fun, I mean it!! Just don’t pretend it’s something that it isn’t, because that doesn’t make me, at least, nor other Jews I’ve spoken with, feel much more included. It just confirms that you fundamentally do not understand what it’s like to live as a non-Christian in a Christian society, and you’re more interested in appearing as if you do than actually making an effort to.

Chanukah misconceptions: Chanukah is not about peace and love and family. You’re just copy-pasting Christmas themes. The only thematic overlaps are a) hope and miracles, and b) bringing light to a physically dark time of year. Chanukah isn’t Christmas. It’s hopeful and positive, yes, but it’s also yet another reminder of the cycles of trauma in our history. It’s about yet another time they tried to kill us and yet another time they failed. It’s about resilience and resistance and an uncrushable spirit. It’s about the impossible victory of the underdog. It’s also not even that big of a deal in Judaism. In fact, it’s one of the most minor Jewish holidays. People only think it’s important because they associate it with Christmas. Come back for the High Holidays or even Pesach, those are the real deal.

[a-very-tired-jew]

Thank you again for putting anon on for me so I could send this. I didn’t want the harassment that would happen otherwise if I put it on main.

So I am the person that sent STA the call out ask that got Cecil/Spot harassed. I felt bad about it and sent a follow-up ask a few days later to STA to say so.

I said that I was a non-Zionist Jew who had been following this whole thing since STA made their first blog months ago, the contradictions in their posts, and the hard and fast change they did.

STA never published it.

I waited a week or so and sent another one and STA still didn’t respond.

They instead doubled down on their tete-a-tete with Spot. It’s almost obsessive that they think any and all negative asks are from them.

I will admit in my follow-ups I did say that it doesn’t matter if they, STA, don’t consider themselves antisemitic, the people they are friends with are. The blogs that they reshare from and interact with are some of the most antisemitic blogs on this site. Many of them are well known tankies and there’s no denying their antisemitism, it’s been well established. Many of their “friends” on here have a long history of harassing Jews. There is a history of them going into the jumblr tag and Jewish communities and harassing Jews. It’s well documented and their past actions speak for themselves.

I’ve even seen everyone’s favorite Jew hater Spaceship, aka Trudge, as a frequent flyer on their blog.

I will also admit that I put in there that I remember when they tried to present as an Israeli and got caught using a translator to speak Hebrew. That they changed their story to being an Israeli living in CT, and then when that didn’t work out, they arrived at their current iteration of an ethnic Jew living in CT. I don’t believe them to be any of what they claim for a second. The whole debacle of them pretending and getting caught shows that they’ll lie and obfuscate for their goal(s).

But STA won’t share an ask that outs them, lists their past actions, or clears the air regarding Spot and them. They also won’t post anything that calls out their fanbase and friends. They’ve made a name as the token anti-Zionist Jew in their antisemitic clique and had a post about how they won’t address any other form of antisemitism except their Zionism=antisemitism position.

I did also send another ask to them to clarify what a pogrom actually is since they denied that Amsterdam was one. It’s like your artist friend, they don’t actually have an answer and instead will either delete or ignore any asks that want them to clarify their positions.

Since I sent that ask and looked at their blog, I noticed that they really only respond to certain types of anons. They are either praising them, are extremely negative and attack-y so as to bang the “look at how bad the anti-Zionists are!” drum, taken out of context screenshots, or simple enough that they can dismiss the claims with their talking points and sources that agree with their bias.

You’ll notice any ask they get that is trying to address antisemitism that is within the anti-Zionist movement is extremely short and not exactly well thought out. You’ll see ones that are full of insults and curse words attacking them that STA gets to point to and go “see how bad the Zionists are?!”.

You know I’m not a conspiracy theorist or one to jump to conclusions, our work does not endorse that kind of thinking, but it does seem suspicious that those are the only ones they will respond to.

And their friends and followers eat it up. STA, IMO, is disingenuous in their intent and their actions, and is a really bad representation of an anti-Zionist Jew in all respects. If they are one at all.

An IRL friend asked me to throw anon on so they could post this. I only throw anon on for folks I know or ones who ask me to do so. They didn't want to send it to Spot, vents, or anyone else since they, you know, actually know me.

I've had STA blocked for a long ass time so I haven't seen this pattern of only responding to certain types of anons. But taking a quick look? Yeah, seems like it.

Who knows, maybe they will actually post them now?

I doubt it (and they were likely deleted, but who knows?). And we're all very well aware of their social circle. It's a who's who of antisemites that they turn a blind eye to because they're all "anti-Zionists". It's old hat at this point, but I thought my friend added some insight into some of the shit going on.

Unfortunately they've recently broken containment and I've seen their shit across my dash. I saw that they went after applesauce a few days ago, took a screenshot out of context, and them and their followers harassed applesauce even after there was a clarification and correction regarding the post. Targeting a Jew over an out of context screenshot is antisemitic harassment, plain and simple. They keep saying that they were going after a Nazi apologist, then why not show the entire thread where applesauce clarified and apologized for what they said? Why show the singular post out of context unless the point was to harass a Jew you inherently didn't agree with because suddenly their words didn't convey what they were actually trying to say in a singular occurrence?

But they definitely fight antisemitism right?

They're also going after transmascpetewentz because they have the "audacity" to actually take into account the full context of what applesauce said and clarified. We all know what went down, what they were saying, and what they had to clarify. To which that entire thread had apologies and clarification as we would expect.

But again, we're talking about an account that rabidly goes after Zionists, or those they've labeled Zionists, and gets their followers to harass them. We're talking about an account that has only focused on "Zionism = antisemitism" and done everything it could to push the "Zionists = Nazi" narrative in some way or another.

They're definitely stopping antisemitism though.

I also saw their stuff going after cree-n-jewish (because once containment is broken it seems like the algorithm likes to keep it broken) and I can't help but shake my head at the hypocrisy. An outgroup person going after an in-group minority member by finding members of the larger minority group who agree with them. It's disingenuous at best and reminds me of all the times we had to combat anti-science misinformation online and people would be like "Well I found this one group of doctors who agrees with me so I'm right" when talking about vaccines or the 3 out of 97 scientists who disagree with climate change.

I have a pet hypothesis that they're not Jewish at all, but actually a goy who made a fake account and pretended to be their concept of Zionist all those months ago. The likely intent was to post what they thought Zionists would post and get people to agree with it. Then they'd turn around and go "See! Look how evil they are!" and have screenshots as "proof". Problem is their concept of Zionism was actually Kahanism, everyone called them out for it, as well as called them out for their ever changing origin story (Israeli to Israeli ex-pat to Jew in CT, which was fun to watch them backtrack and retcon).

Then suddenly overnight they became a raging anti-Zionist that fully embraced antisemitic rhetoric and has continuously justified it "as a Jew"? Yeah, something is off there.

There was absolutely no "hey, I'm reading these books or writings that stand opposed to Zionism and I'd like to talk about them with the greater Jewish community". There was no discussion on the subject at all. It was a sudden about face that was entirely outside of the norm, and if you know anything about our people and culture it's that we like to talk and discuss things ad nauseum amongst ourselves. The fact that there was nothing like that and their journey from Kahanist to anti-Zionist happened overnight is extremely out of the norm. Especially as they went from posting Kahanist shit to raging antisemitism and justifying violent terrorism in the blink of an eye (part of why they got their first account nuked).

So yeah, all of that plus the refusal to post your anons to them (even the ones asking for clarification and explanation) and other patterns of behavior leads me to my conclusions about them.

[girlactionfigure]

in broad daylight

It's 2024, not 1933. 

Crowds of thousands are chanting for the indiscriminate murder of Jews in major western cities.

why do you continue to gaslight us?

Intifada: indiscriminate suicide bombings, bombings, stabbings, and shootings targeting civilians.

There it is. In plain English. To a crowd of thousands, in front of an exhibit in New York City memorializing the victims of the October 7 massacre. "Long live October 7."

These are not ceasefire marches. They are Jew-hate rallies. Why are you still gaslighting us?

OCTOBER 7 SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOUR WAKE UP CALL

For years, as someone whose politics have always been left, myself and others have been warning of the genocidal antisemitism brewing on the left. Our concerns were minimized, and we were gaslit, both within and outside the Jewish community. Even when people conceded that yes, antisemitism does exist on the left, they insisted that only right-wing antisemitism was actually dangerous. If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know how frustrated I always was with this sentiment. I hope they see now that they were wrong. 

Even though I knew something ugly was brewing on the left, even I was shocked not just by the Hamas atrocities committed on October 7, but by the world’s reactions. On October 7 itself, very few people on the left unequivocally stood with the Israeli victims, no ifs, ands, or buts. They talked of “context,” decided that was the appropriate time to criticize the Israeli government, justified, or even went as far as to celebrate the heinous massacre. Now, as more indefensible information came out, they deny it. 

Supposedly progressive organizations, like the Women’s March, #MeToo, and even some chapters of Black Lives Matter either ignored the atrocities or outright supported them. On October 8, before Israel retaliated, enormous crowds in New York City marched in support of the murderers of October 7. As recently as a few weeks ago, influential progressive politicians were gaslighting us about the unabashed antisemitism present at the college encampments. 

If you haven’t noticed that genocidal hatred for Jews has become acceptable, in broad daylight, so long as it’s disguised under the costume of “pro-Palestine activism,” I don’t know if you ever will. Maybe you will after it’s already too late. Every genocidal antisemite in history had an excuse. This is no different. 

WHO IS ACTUALLY RUNNING THESE PROTESTS?

Virtually all “ceasefire,” “pro-Palestine” protests in the United States are organized by groups such as Within Our Lifetime, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Samidoun. 

Samidoun, which has ties to the internationally-recognized terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and has an office in Tehran, is banned as a terrorist organization in Germany. Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine both openly support Hamas, other Islamic Republic proxies, and the October 7 massacre. 

On October 7, various SJP chapters released statements justifying and even celebrating the massacre. National Students for Justice in Palestine released a “toolkit” calling the massacre a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance.” 

SJP’s founder, Hatem Bazian, is also the co-founder of American Muslims for Palestine, an organization formed by former members of the HolyLand Foundation, KindHearts, and Islamic Association of Palestine, all of which were disbanded after its members were convicted of transferring material support to Hamas. 

Meanwhile, Within Our Lifetime is openly supportive of Hamas and other Islamic Republic proxies. WOL promotes “Palestinian resistance by any means necessary.” On October 7, WOL issued a statement, saying, “We must defend the Palestinian right to resist Zionist settler violence and support Palestinian resistance in all its forms. By any means necessary. With no exceptions and no fine print.” Abdullah Akl, a WOL organizer, has a top role at the Muslim American Society, which was founded as the American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, though MAS denies that they continue to have an affiliation. 

Would you attend a protest hosted by the KKK? By the Nazis? If a hate group organizes a protest, can that protest actually be deemed “peaceful”?

WHAT ARE THE PROTESTORS ACTUALLY SAYING?

In between “ceasefire now” and “free Palestine” calls, the protestors aren’t exactly making their genocidal aims a secret. Among the most popular chants at “pro-Palestine” protests since October 7 are “intifada, intifada,” “there is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and “globalize the intifada.”

The intifadas were Palestinian “uprisings” that indiscriminately and primarily targeted civilians, in a series of suicide bombings, car bombings, shootings, stabbings, and even stoning. When you call for a “global intifada,” you are openly calling for violence against Jews, not just in Israel, but around the globe. The chant couldn’t be any more explicit. 

Even more horrifying, “there is only one solution, intifada revolution,” alludes to the Final Solution. Of note, at the outbreak of the 1948 war, the Palestinian Arab leadership, which had allied with the Nazis during the Holocaust, vowed, “The Arabs have taken the Final Solution to the Jewish problem. The problem will be solved only in blood and fire. The Jews will soon be driven out.”

Another popular chant is “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which, regardless of Rashida Tlaib’s lies, is not a peaceful call for coexistence. It’s a call for the destruction of the State of Israel, which has nine million citizens, the majority of them Jews. Its Arabic counterpart is “from water to water, Palestine will be Arab,” also heard at the protests, an even more explicit call for genocide and ethnic cleansing. 

Another common chant at pro-Palestine protests is “Khaybar, khaybar ya Yahud, Jaish Muhammad, sa Yahud,” translating to “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning,” which alludes to the surrender to Muhammad, ethnic cleansing, and extermination of the Khaybar Jews in the seventh century. The chant is also explicitly genocidal. 

We’ve spent the last decade discussing microaggressions and dog whistles, and yet, when we hear antisemites call for the murder of Jews in broad daylight, you tell us that’s not what they reallymeant. Why?

MAYBE YOU MEAN WELL

I understand that you don’t want to see Palestinians suffer. No moral person likes to see people suffer. But has it ever occurred to you that terrorist organizations are not moral? That terrorist organizations extort your empathy to further their goals? Just the other day, The Wall Street Journal uncovered secret documents that revealed that the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, openly said that more Palestinian deaths help Hamas further its political goals. They are extorting you because you care. This is not brand new information. Hamas leaders and leaders of virtually all Palestinian political factions and terrorist organizations have made similar statements in the past. 

(And yes, you could argue that Israel didn’t have to “give them what they wanted” by retaliating. Either way, though, it’s a lose-lose situation for Israel, because no matter what, the message Hamas would be getting is “slaughtering and kidnapping people is a great way for you to get what you want,” such as releasing Palestinian mass murderers from Israeli prisons. Most countries would react to October 7 exactly as Israel did, or worse, but this is a separate discussion from this post). 

If the “globalize the Intifada,” “there is only one solution, Intifada Revolution,” “intifada, intifada,” and “long live October 7” crowds do not represent the core of the free Palestine movement, why are these the voices leading the protests? Where are the condemnations from “pro-Palestine” organizations? From “pro-Palestine” celebrities? Why do they not issue statements making it explicitly clear that these people don’t represent them? When pro-Israel protestors fired fireworks into a “pro-Palestine” crowd at UCLA, Jewish organizations issued loud and clear condemnations. 

If these sentiments didn’t represent the pro-Palestine movement, the movement would be the first to distance themselves from them. Instead, they are either silent, or worse, they openly support them. 

PLEASE SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

Every antisemitic regime in history has mobilized the masses under the guise of a “righteous cause.” The Catholic Church did it. Hitler did it. Stalin did it. Now the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies — Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — are doing it too. And you, who has vowed to “punch Nazis,” are falling for it. 

In the nearly eight decades since the Holocaust, just about everyone has wondered: had I been alive during World War II, what would I have done? Would I have I have hid Anne Frank, as Miep Gies did, or would I have been a collaborator? Everyone, except the most rabid of Jew-haters, reaches the same conclusion: of course I would have hid the Frank family. I’m not a monster. 

The problem is that most people have been playing the wrong game, deliberating on a misguided rhetorical exercise. If it’s between the bad guy and the good guy, well, of course everyone will choose to be the good guy. But in truth, it’s notbetween the bad guy — and don’t get me wrong, the Nazis were certainly bad — and the good guy. It’s between the antisemite and the Jew.

When people pontificate over what their behavior would have been during the Holocaust, they tend to do so with one glaring oversight. Antisemitism, this deeply-engrained 2000-year-old hatred, projects whatever any given society hates the most onto the Jewish people. Nowadays, certainly in left-leaning circles, where white colonialism is considered the most egregious sin, we are powerful white oppressors and settler-colonialists. When we play bad guys versus good guys, a whole bunch of people will conclude that the bad guys are…well, the Jews. 

If you can't figure out a way to oppose the war without supporting protests led by groups that back Hamas and Hezbollah, call for a global intifada, protest in front of Holocaust museums and October 7 memorials, and wave banners that proclaim "long live October 7," your problem is not with the war. Your problem is with Jews.

Hope that helps. 

[camillasgirl]

Queen Camilla's speech to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, 23.01.2025

Survivors of the Holocaust, Survivors of Genocide, Ladies and Gentlemen. As Patron of the Anne Frank Trust UK, it is an honour and a privilege to join you to remember the victims of the Shoah and of genocides since the end of the Second World War. It is also an opportunity to renew our commitment to two simple, but powerful, words: “Never Forget”.

This year we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the death of Anne Frank in Bergen Belsen, at the age of 15. Had she lived, she would be 95. Miraculously, her father, Otto, survived. He had been one of the 7,000 people freed on 27th January 1945, when the Soviet Army marched under the gates of Auschwitz that bore the sign, “Arbeit macht frei”, “Work makes one free”.

Words, as I said just now, have power. Those over the gates of Auschwitz represent one of history’s greatest, and most evil, lies. But Anne knew that they were always there to offer truth, comfort and hope. A year before she died, she wrote a promise in her diary: “I’ll make my voice heard, I’ll go out into the world and work for mankind!”. She was never to do so in person. However, over subsequent decades, and thanks to Otto’s tireless efforts, Anne’s diary has become the enduring embodiment of that promise. We can only guess at what she would have made of her legacy. Yet her story demonstrates that even the quietest, loneliest voice in the wilderness can change the world. That is the true power of words.

Anne’s life and death continue to inspire an anti-prejudice movement across the globe, including the Anne Frank Trust here in Britain. Last year, you reached 126,000 young people in this country alone, with your distinctive combination of Holocaust history, education about discrimination and youth empowerment. I am proud to be your Patron and grateful to all of you who support the Trust in its vital work – thank you.

Five years ago, I heard another survivor, Marian Turski, a Polish Jew, speak at a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. During his testimony, Marian said this:

I shall not be telling you about the very worst experience, the tragedy of being separated from my nearest loved ones and sensing what awaited them after the selection. I want to talk with the generation of my daughter and the generation of my grandchildren about themselves…. Don’t be complacent, whenever you see the past being misused for current political purposes. Don’t be complacent, whenever any kind of minority is discriminated against. Democracy itself lies in the fact that the rights of minorities must be protected. Don’t be complacent… Because if you become complacent, before you know it, some kind of Auschwitz will suddenly appear from nowhere and befall you and your descendants.'

Today, more than ever, with levels of antisemitism at their highest level for a generation; and disturbing rises in Islamophobia and other forms of racism and prejudice, we must heed this warning. The deadly seeds of the Holocaust were sown at first in small acts of exclusion, of aggression and of discrimination towards those who had previously been neighbours and friends. Over a terrifying short period of time, those seeds took root through the complacency of which we can all be guilty: of turning away from injustice, of ignoring that which we know to be wrong, of thinking that someone else will do what’s needed – and of remaining silent.

Let’s unite in our commitment to take action, to speak up and to ensure that the words “Never Forget” are a guiding light that charts a path towards a better, brighter, and more tolerant future for us all.

As Anne wrote in her diary on 7th May 1944:

"What is done cannot be undone, but at least one can prevent it from happening again."

Thank you.

[tributary]

I'm asking in the best faith possible, so please don't take this as an attempt to start shit. In what way is the "punch Nazis" attitude a form of soft Holocaust denial?

“punch nazis lol” can be a form of soft holocaust denial. in theory it can overlap with actually supporting jewish people, but in practice i have not seen much of that.

when i have expressed reservations along those lines, i get incredulous and infuriated responses from people who are not part of groups targeted by nazis. i’m not going to cry if a nazi is actually punched, but that happens so rarely it is almost beneath notice. i worry that this posturing rhetoric—and it is posturing—serves to rile them up further. self-preservation is not cowardice here. defend yourself and others if you have to, but don’t seek out opportunities for violence against socially acceptable targets who are dangerous. for many people i think that the violence is what it is all about.

part of a broader problem, really, where people think the be-all-end-all of jewish history is “the nazis didn’t like them.” and that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.

and that’s best case scenario—i have had people tell me, full of confidence, that jews weren’t the nazis’ priority. a lot of these “punch nazis lol” types probably know very little about the holocaust and couldn’t tell you why nazis are bad, only that they are.

there’s also the issue of calling people who are not nazis ‘nazis’ in order to justify violence against them. sometimes this happens to people who are jewish. putin is fond of this one.

i recommend you read this post and check out my #godwin’s flaw tag.

then read this one. and this one. and ask the people who post about punching nazis to show us their knuckles, to put up or shut up. to do something helpful or get out of our way.

[fdelopera]

Musings on the Moon Knight System for the High Holidays

BROKE: Moon Knight System in the comics are Jewish in name only. They’re basically pagan idolaters.

WOKE: Jake is MK System’s spiritual protector in the comics (especially MacKay), and connects the most with their Jewish identity.

BESPOKE: The Moon Knight System are very Jewish, but Marc, Steven, and Jake have a lot of specific religious trauma, and they each connect to their Jewishness in different ways and at different times ... just as most Jews do. Their Jewishness is an intrinsic part of who they are.

At the Rosh Hashanah 2nd day service yesterday, the Rabbi said something that brought Moon Knight System to mind.

During the Malchuyot, Zichronot, and Shofarot prayers, she said this before the Zichronot prayer:

“Jews are all about memory. We tell and retell the stories of our ancestors to link our generations together. We tell the story of the Exodus and redemption, and these are human memories. Here in the Zichronot section, we consider G-d's memory. What we are asking in Zichronot is, "Am I remembered? Is my life in G-d's memory?" And the answer is, yes. Adonai remembers each one of us, every single creature created in G-d's image is seen and noticed.”

And yet, what about those of us who are dissociative? What about those of us whose memory is scattered, fragmented, and traumatized, just like the Jewish people have been throughout our history?

What about those of us whose memory stops at a certain point, just as our family tree goes back only a few generations to those who escaped the pogroms and the Holocaust? Yes, we can trace some of our ancestors across the ocean to the shtetls, and we can search for the deep root systems that our people have grown from, but we know that if we do, we will only find tragedy and death.

For every one of our ancestors who has a gravestone in an intact Jewish cemetery in the Old Country, there are countless others whose roots were cut, who were murdered by Romans and Inquisitors and Cossacks and Nazis, whose bodies were desecrated, and who were never buried in Jewish soil. And yet, even as the Nazis and the Russians and the Spanish and the Romans and so many others tried to erase us from living memory, still we persevered. There are still some branches left. Our cultural memory endures, even though it is fragmented.

And yet, what of us who strain to remember? What of those of us who have high walls instead of doorways, keeping us out? Perhaps we can even see trees growing on the other side, but we cannot enter, not yet. How then can we connect to our past? Must we wander for another 40 years? And on Yom Kippur, how can we atone if remembrance is scattered and hidden like the Lost Tribes of Israel?

I imagine that Marc has wondered thoughts like these from time to time, especially around the High Holidays. Marc wants to think of himself as an apostate. If he’s being particularly edgy, he might even describe himself as an idolater. But I don’t think he is. Marc has a Jewish soul. So does Jake and so does Steven.

And as much as Marc might want to think that he is beyond atonement for the things he’s done, perhaps in quiet moments, he still hopes to atone as best he can. Perhaps some nights, Marc and Jake and Steven share dreams of teshuvah, of repentance, of making amends. With Gena. With Crawley. With Frenchie. And yet, how to even begin?

Perhaps Elias Spector, the Orthodox rabbi, might once have read the following passage on Rosh Hashanah as he spoke to the congregation from the bimah. And even if Marc was dissociating into the ether when he heard these words, sitting as far away from his father as possible, halfway to hiding deep within, the duty of being the Rabbi's son weighing heavy on his shoulders ... perhaps Jake and Steven listened, and they remembered for all of them:

“When a person commits a sin and does not turn in repentance, when that person forgets the sin, Hakadosh Baruch Hu remembers. When a person fulfills a commandment by doing a good deed, but forgets about it, Hakadosh Baruch Hu remembers. When a person commits a sin and later turns in repentance by remembering that sin, Hakadosh Baruch Hu grants atonement, and forgets the sin. But when a person fulfills a commandment and is constantly filled with self-praise because of it, Hakadosh Baruch Hu forgets it. What a person forgets, G-d remembers, and what a person remembers, G-d forgets.” -- The Hasidic Master Shmelke of Nikolsberg

Shana tovah and g’mar chatima tovah to the Moon Knight System. May they be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Steven Zeitchik

Those comments sparked a backlash at the time. But many liberal Jews in Hollywood, media and tech identified with her remarks.

To some non-Jews I talked to, today’s news was just a case of a tribal rooting interest not going our way. “Oh well, you’ll get the next one,” went their vibe. But when a Jewish leader this popular from a state so necessary gets passed over, it becomes more than just a matter of losing a round of identity-politics poker — it touches an existential nerve.

Some Jews have also noted that in choosing Walz, Harris was simply trying to stay away from raising Gaza as an issue. But outside of antisemitic projection, why would it do that? The idea that a candidate would automatically want to talk more about Israel simply because he’s Jewish raises ugly tropes of dual loyalty, or worse.

Wary of seeming killjoyish, some liberal Jewish Americans also sought to find a silver lining — at least now Jews wouldn’t be blamed for administration failures, they said. They cited The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg, one of the most eloquent expositors of the double standards applied to Shapiro, who in a recent piece expressed some reservations about what a Shapiro vice presidency would bring.

“Anti-Semitism conceives of Jews as clandestine puppeteers who control the world’s governments and economies, fueling political and social problems,” he wrote. “A Jewish vice president would provide the perfect canvas for these fevered fantasies — a largely ceremonial figure onto whom bigots could nonetheless project all of their conspiracies, casting him as the real power behind the Resolute Desk.”

Rosenberg has forgotten more about the history of antisemitism than most of us will ever know. But this train of thought has always struck me as self-defeating. The response to fears of prejudice can’t be, “Let’s hide the Jews to prevent us from finding out about it.” 

A Jewish vice president would have been important not only because it would have signaled the latest progress of one ethnic group in America as thrillingly as Harris’ candidacy does for Americans of Black and Indian heritage, but also because it would have drawn antisemites out from the crevices, shining Louis Brandeis’ disinfecting light brightly upon them.

(That Harris’ husband is Jewish, incidentally, should do little to quell the unease. Jewish affiliations are proof of nothing except the reminder of past justifications. It calls to mind those who several years ago said Taika Waititi’s Nazi comedy Jojo Rabbit couldn’t be antisemitic because Waititi was Jewish. It wasn’t antisemitic. But that wasn’t the reason.)

Walz is a solid candidate with a strong record of speaking out against antisemitism. Just this spring he told Twin Cities PBS that, “I think when Jewish students are telling us they feel unsafe in that, we need to believe them.”

But Walz’s pro-Jewish bona fides don’t mean the decision to put him on the ticket — or the reaction to his appointment — can’t also be shadowed with antisemitism. Both can be true.

And so here liberal Jews again find ourselves, hopelessly marooned between a belief that Democratic policies are fundamentally better for our interests and yet worried we are not welcome in our own home — feeling a gentle nudge that perhaps we might find ourselves more comfortable in another place but unsure, in the end, of where else to go.

[mswyrr]

“As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

“The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

“The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

“As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

“I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

“The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

“I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

“I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next?

“All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

“I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.”

“My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

“If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

“It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

“Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

“Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most."