#antisemitism in the middle ages

[earthytzipi]

I refuse to let the white supremacists have arthuriana and medieval aesthetics. I am Jewish and queer and autistic and I Refuse To Let You Have It. I will wear the pretty dresses and have long hair and elaborate braids and I will be wearing a Star of David and keeping tznius and kashrut the whole time bitches. Be Mad

[nihilism-and-dad-jokes]

Even outside of customer service it's like.... If I'm surrounded by, say, a group of elderly white Christian ladies on a bus/in a waiting room/whatever, I am not going to be my true self. I'm not gonna flash my tattoos and blast heavy metal and talk about my girlfriend and curse a bunch. Not because I'm ashamed, not because I give two shits about these ladies opinions, but because it could just needlessly make things hard for myself throughout that interaction. Stirring the pot with assholes can be fun sometimes, sure, but doing it constantly is just exhausting, and they don't need to know anything about me when I'm never going to see them again, so why bother?

And on a smaller scale, if I'm in a terrible, shitty mood, I'm not gonna SHOW that at the grocery store and make it some poor employees problem, or stain another customer's good day with it. If an acquaintance talks about something they like that I hate, I'm not gonna SAY that because that's fucking rude. That's all just basic fucking etiquette.

Adopting a certain set of behaviors and moods when interacting with the public is just... Socializing??? That's just how social interaction works?????? And then customer service just takes that and multiplies it by ten.

too lazy to retype this but . insane interaction w coworker last night

[fdelopera]

Yo Goyim! Looks like I'm going to need to give some of you a crash course on what antisemitic language looks like, because I've been seeing entirely too much of it from some of you here on Tumblr.

Now, I think it's time for a Jewish history lesson, because I've been seeing way too many Nazi-related conspiracy theories going around. If you hear contradictions to the basic information that I am about to share (i.e., if you hear someone saying that the Jewish people are "a race that originated in Europe"), it is likely that you are hearing a white supremacist, anti-Jewish conspiracy theory.

So, here's the basics of Jewish history. Jews are indigenous to the Levant have been there for thousands of years. The Levantine people that Jews descended from have been in that area of the Levant since the Bronze Age. Jews as a distinct people have been there since the Late Bronze Age. Before it was Palestine it was the Kingdom of Judah, then Judea, and then Judaea, and that is literally where we are from. The word Jew means "a person from the Kingdom of Judah." The Romans renamed the area Syria-Palaestina (which they borrowed from the Greek name Palestina) in the 2nd century CE after destroying the Second Temple in Jerusalem and leading another campaign to try to eradicate the Jewish people (guess what, we're still here, motherfuckers).

And even after the Romans tried to annihilate us, even after they scattered many of us into European diaspora, many Jews came back, again and again over the ages, and there have nearly always been Jewish communities in the region throughout history.

And if you come for me or try to dispute any of this history with white supremacist bullshit, I am a Jew who has studied way more Jewish history than you. And as politely as possible, you can take your white supremacist conspiracy theories and fuck off into the sun.

Okay, with all that out of the way, let's get into it!

Gloves are coming off, because this is just a sampling of the Nazi dogwhistles I've been seeing here on Tumblr about the Jewish civilians who were tortured, murdered, and worse:

- If you say shit like, "The Jews got what they deserved"...

GUESS WHAT? You're talking like a white supremacist, and you need to fucking check yourself.

- And if, on the other hand, you say shit like, "The reports were probably overblown. I think those were paid actors. I don't think those Jews were murdered. No Jewish children were killed. No Jewish bodies were desecrated" blahblahblah...

GUESS WHAT? You get to sit with the Nazis at their table for lunch.

- If you tell Jews "go back to Europe where you came from"...

GUESS WHAT? Not only are you telling the descendants of Jewish refugees to go back to the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, and the Nazi gas chambers, as I explained in this post, but you are also repeating a white supremacist conspiracy theory about the origins of European Jews.

Jews are a Levantine people from the area of the Middle East currently called Israel (formerly called the Kingdom of Judah, and then Judea). While there was some emigration to Europe during the late Roman Republic and the early days of the Roman Empire, the first mass migration of Jews to Europe was a forced migration. Gentiles from the Roman Empire dragged us there as captives after 70 CE, the year Rome destroyed the Second Temple.

- And if you're telling yourself that there are "good Jews" and "bad Jews," and those Jewish civilians were "bad Jews," so they deserved to be tortured and killed...

GUESS WHAT? You're spouting white supremacist ideology.

Antisemitism takes a long time to deprogram.

A lot of gentiles grow up with anti-Jewish ideology that they have never questioned.

And a lot of Christians are kept ignorant about Jewish history because preachers and priests fear it would make Christians question the many inaccuracies in the Bible.

But the first step in noticing antisemitic beliefs is to notice when you start singling people out *because* they are Jewish.

And I have been seeing some of you gleefully celebrating the murder of Jewish civilians *because* they are Jewish.

And that is antisemitism.

That is one step closer to the next generation of Jews getting shoved into the gas chambers. And there are only 16 million of us left in the entire world. We're 0.2% of the world's population. And we cannot afford another Holocaust.

And if your response to me saying that is, "Well, those Jews deserve it."

Guess what. You are making it easier for Nazis and white supremacists to spread hatred and commit acts of violence against Jewish people. And you will have to live with that blood on your conscience.

So...

If you are a gentile, and you see other gentiles repeating these kinds of white supremacist dogwhistles about Jewish people, here's how you can help:

1. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Help them direct their focus away from attacking random Jewish people online and towards helping Palestinians.

Actions that people can take right now are contributing to verified charities and relief organizations that help the people of Gaza. Only donate to organizations that are verified by CharityNavigator.org and CharityWatch.org.

2. Call that shit out. Tell people that they're being antisemitic, and explain that Jew-hatred is dangerous to Jewish people. Antisemitism gets Jews attacked and it gets Jews killed. In the US, many synagogues require round the clock security to protect against white supremacists who want to murder Jews. In Pittsburgh, my old home town, a group of Nazis from north of the city planned the murder of Jewish congregants at Tree of Life Synagogue, and so far only one of them (the gunman) has been arrested and convicted of the murders. The others are still at large.

3. Explain to them that it is antisemitic to celebrate someone's death *because* they're Jewish. ALSO, it is antisemitic to blame a random Jewish person for the actions of ANY government, whether that be the Israeli Government or the US Government.

4. Explain to people that they're not going to solve this conflict by posting antisemitic statements and memes online. All they will do is alienate the Jewish people in their lives and make those Jews feel scared and unsafe. And they will contribute to this current wave of antisemitism.

Antisemitic hatred doesn't help Palestinians. All it does is put Jewish people around the world in danger.

[jewish-sideblog]

I think people forget that the Nazis never said they were the bad guys. If someone says, hey, I’m evil! You don’t let them take over your country. They presented themselves as scientific, not hateful. By their own account, they were progressives, and the superiority of White Europe over the other races was a proven and immutable fact. They had scientists and archaeologists and historians to prove it. They didn’t tell people they wanted to kill the Jews because they were hateful. They manufactured evidence to frame us for very real tragedies, and they had methodological research to prove that we were genetically predisposed to misconduct. Wouldn’t you believe that?

Hollywood has spent the last 80 years portraying the Nazis as an obvious and intimidating evil. That’s a good thing in some ways, because we want general audiences to recognize that they were evil. But we also want them to be able to recognize how and why they came to power. Not by self-describing themselves as an evil empire, but by convincing people that they were the good guys and the saviors. They hosted the Olympics. Several European countries capitulated and volunteered themselves to the Empire. There were American and British Fascist Parties. They had broad public support. Hollywood never shows that part, so general audiences never learn to recognize the actual signs of antisemitism.

People today think they can’t possibly be antisemitic, because they’re leftist! They abhor bigotry! They could never comprehend Nazi ideology coming from the mouth of a bisexual college student wearing a graphic tee and jeans. How could they? The only depiction of antisemites they’ve ever seen have been gaunt, pale, middle-aged men in black leather trench coats with skulls on their caps.

If the Nazis time-travelled from the 1930s and wanted to take power now, they’d change their original tactics, but not by much. They would target countries suffering from an identity crisis and an economic collapse. They would portray themselves as the pinnacle of what that society considers progressive. Back then, it was race science. These days it’s performative wokeness. Once they’d garnered enough respect and reputation, they’d begin manufacturing propaganda and lies to manipulate people’s anger and fears at a single target— Jews.

If the Nazis made an actual return, they wouldn’t look like neo-Nazis. They wouldn’t be nearly as obvious about their hatred. Their evil wouldn’t give them yellow eyes, and no suspenseful music would play when they walked in the room. They’d be friendly. They’d look like you. They would learn what things your community fears and what things you already hate. They would lie and fabricate evidence to connect the rich elites and the imperialists you revile to a single source of unequivocal Jewish evil. It wouldn’t be hard— they already have two-thousand years of institutional antisemitism they can rely on to paint their picture.

If you’re curious why antisemitism today is coming from grassroots organizations, young, liberal college campuses, suburban neighborhoods with pride flags and All Are Welcome Here signs? That’s why. It’s because, as a global society, we’ve forgotten that the world didn’t used to see the Nazis as bad guys. And what is forgotten about history is doomed to be repeated.

[heritageposts]

An Israeli influence campaign is using hundreds of online avatars and fake social media accounts to attack Democratic lawmakers critical of Israel and promote news articles disapproving of the United Nations Palestine refugee agency (Unrwa), according to a report by the Israeli online watchdog, Fake Reporter. According to the report, the targeted campaign has used more than 600 avatars, sending out 58,000 tweets and social media posts to circulate articles published by The Guardian, CNN and Wall Street Journal, among other major news outlets that amplify Israel’s position on the war. The campaign relies on three major social networks, UnFold Magazine, Non-Agenda and The Moral Alliance, which were created prior to the war in Gaza. But the Hamas-led 7 October attack on southern Israel sent the accounts into round-the-clock posting. The sites, according to Fake Reporter, are geared specifically to a “progressive audience”, publishing content on climate change, AI regulation, and human rights, in addition to the war in Gaza. They have more than 43,000 followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The avatars promoting the content talk up their identity with lines like, “As a middle-aged African American woman” and use hashtags like #FaithJourney and #AfricanAmericanSpirituality.

Some examples from the report:

And continuing,

The avatars were all created on the same day and their profiles were written with the same formula, subbing out just a few words. The declared gender and ethnicity of the avatars don’t match the profile photos, which have been taken from websites selling headshots. The campaign works to amplify news stories published by major media outlets. First, the fake news sites share the reports. Then, the avatars share them across social media, including on the official accounts of Democratic lawmakers. Avatars also shared social media posts showing video clips of what appeared to be Pro-Palestinian protestors calling for "massacres to be normalised" and calling for the US to "go to hell", contrasting that with peaceful protests of pro-Israel protestors.   In other cases, Avatars simply reshared widely published video clips of US lawmakers questioning the heads of Ivy League schools about antisemitism on campus.  [...] According to the report, around 85 percent of all the US politicians targeted by the campaign were Democrats, and 90 percent of them were African Americans. Ritchie Torres, a black Democratic Congressman with generally pro-Israel views, garnered the most social media engagement from the avatars. Other lawmakers targeted included Cori Bush; Lucy McBath; House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries; and Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock. Israeli news site Haaretz reported in January that the Israeli government had launched an online influence campaign to respond to pro-Palestinian content and reports about Hamas.  It’s unclear whether the campaign revealed by Fake Reporter is part of that initiative.

. . . continues at MME (20 Mar 2024)

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

@anshelsdarkparadise LOL. The fact that this slapdash version of history is incoherent and expressed in chaotic hashtags already says a lot.

Moses Maimonides would be astonished to learn that the Jews in Spain were never seriously persecuted and had complete control of the economic system.

Also, I notice this person (perhaps deliberately) fails to mention why prominent Spanish Jews worked as moneylenders: exclusion from many other professions and the prohibition on Christians lending to each other at interest (which was actually a Jewish religious law).

While I don't deny that Muslims were persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition, why hasn't this person discussed the fact that the Muslims invaded Spain and Portugal, and would have invaded France as well? This is important context here, because he or she (I assume a 'she') insists that Muslims had it worst in Spanish history. Yet they established a caliphate on Spanish territory which, while certainly introducing some cultural advances and influence on the Spanish language, also included acts of sadistic brutality and persecution of the Christian faith.

The Islamic caliphate of Spain also included an enormous amount of slave-trading, something people who are so quick to condemn Britain and America's history of slavery don't seem keen to discuss. (Maybe because the slave-traders were Middle Eastern and North African, and the slaves were very often white Europeans?)

i think this person should have to look every single sephardic jew in the eye while they hand us each $18,000 in cash.

[historic-meme]

Found out yesterday my great-great grandparents died in a pogrom in modern-day Ukraine in 1920. The violence lasted for 5 days and killed about 700 people.

I don’t know how to make goyim understand that when finding this out I was so devastated and yet unsurprised. I was unsurprised because when learning Jewish history, starting around the middle ages to modernity, I always feel as if it is “my history.” These events happened to my ancestors. Even if technically that isn’t true.

I did not realize until the start of my MA program in public history that it is not common for people to feel this close a connection to their ethnic/religious groups history.

This phenomenon is what I want goyim to understand. That feeling of when i found out the specific event of violence that killed my great-great grandparents felt more like a final nail in the coffin than an unexpected blow. Yes, it hurt and i cried as i always do when i found out the specifics of my families deaths to antisemitic violence. But it was not a surprise. Why would it be when since at least middle school I remember learning about jewish history and internalizing it as my own history that happened to my own family.

And this phenomenon is also why jews react so strongly when violent antisemitism is in the news. Yes, it has to do with intergenerational trauma but also this deep connection we feel to all of Jewish history. That we can see how this is just another atrocity in a long line of atrocities. That there is no tangible difference between the victims and ourselves. This is all of our collective history.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

This post used to hold a poem inspired by the Rev. Munther Isaac's declaration that "God is under the rubble in Gaza."

After a few anons and a conversation with a Jewish friend, I've decided to take the poem down because, regardless of my own intentions with it, it risks feeding the long and extremely harmful history of blood libel, because I included imagery of the infant Jesus and his parents being killed by an Israeli soldier, as many Palestinians are being killed now.

Before talking with that friend, I wrote in this response to an anon about my intentions with the poem — but while I do believe that intentions do matter, they don't matter nearly as much as impact does.

My friend helped me come to the conclusion that while the poem I wrote could be interpreted as I intended by people who already have all the context I wrote it in (see below), it could also all too easily be interpreted much more harmfully by those who lack that context — or worse, who are looking for more fuel for their antisemitism. The poem is not worth that risk, not at all.

___

Ultimately, I hold two things I believe to be true in tension:

that Christians throughout the ages have found deep comfort and encouragement in understanding Jesus as suffering in and with them. I support all Christian Palestinians who, like Rev. Isaac, experience God-with-them in this way — in this horrific time, they deserve any ounce of comfort they can derive. And them personally seeking and finding the Divine presence with them is not antisemitic.

that for Christians like myself in the USA, who live in the beating heart of Empire and Christian Supremacy, it is vital to take care in how we talk about this theology in this current situation, where the oppressors are Jewish. Providing more fuel for Christian antisemitism is inexcusable, and I deeply apologize for writing and sharing a piece that can be used in that way.

Because modern-day Israel is a Jewish state, exploring that Divine solidarity in this context comes with a great risk of perpetuating the long, harmful history of antisemitic blood libel and accusations of deicide. How do we affirm God’s presence with those suffering in Palestine without (implicitly or explicitly) adding to the poisonous lie that “the Jews killed Jesus”?

In wrestling with this complexity, I tried to write this poem to uplift both Jesus’s Jewishness and his solidarity with Palestinians. Jesus was born into a Jewish family, his entire worldview was shaped by his Jewishness, and he shared in his people’s suffering under the Roman Empire. His solidarity with Palestinians of various faiths suffering today does not erase that Jewishness. Nor does it mean that Jewish persons don’t “belong” in the region — only that modern Israel’s occupation of Palestine is in no way necessary for Jews to live and thrive there, or anywhere else in the world.

I also aimed to point out that Israel is by no means acting alone in this attack on Gaza or their decades-long occupation of Palestine. There is a much larger Empire at work, with my own country, the United States, at the helm. Israel is entangled in that imperial mess, and directly backed and funded by those forces — not because of what politicians claim, that we have to back Israel or else we’re antisemitic, but because Israel is our strategic foothold in the so-called Middle East. How do we name our complicity as our tax dollars are funneled into violence across the world, and act to end that violence?

___

I'm sorry this post isn't as articulate as I want it to be. All of this to say: I deeply apologize for any hurt my poem caused. I understand how horrific Christianity's history of — and ongoing present — antisemitism is, and how it poisons and warps so much that could have been beautiful. I'll keep educating myself; I'll keep having hard conversations; I'll keep working to uproot antisemitism in myself and my communities.

___

I'll close with a list of resources for learning about Palestine's history and getting involved.

[queer-geordie-dyke]

Paid a visit to Clifford's Tower, just a 5 minute walk from our hotel. Like rather a lot of historic buildings in England, it sadly has a tragic and horrific history as the site of one of the worst antisemitic massacres of the Middle Ages, in 1190, in which around 150 Jews (which constituted almost the entire Jewish population of York at that time) took refuge in the tower to escape a mob. Most chose to die by their own hands rather than be killed by the mob and some, who had been promised safe passage if they converted to Christianity, were promptly murdered as soon as they left the building.

[newnitz]

I don't really see people talking about how cultural Christianity is applied to Jews.

In Christianity, Jews are the people who rejected and betrayed Jesus and are punished with statelessness and destitution, whose only redemption is accepting the Messiah and the Son of God. This is the basis of several antisemitic tropes, most prominently deception, religious supercessionism and the Wandering Jew.

In cultural Christianity, these tropes are considered tenants of Judaism rather than Christianity, as Judaism is considered Christianity without Jesus.

Christians see themselves as tortured saints, persecuted for spreading the truth of Jesus and God across the globe. Missionaries who go to non-Christian lands to try and get the people to convert by fearmongering with damnation to Hell see themselves as victims when they're rebuffed and asked to stop.

Cultural Christian non-Christians are usually atheists and adherents of folk religion revivalist movements who have suffered religious abuse, as many sects of Christianity normalize emotional abuse by instilling inherent guilt in the Original Sin and even physical abuse in "Spare the rod; spoil the child". These cultural Christians see the millennia of antisemitism and roll their eyes, to them we're just another sect of delusional religious people with a persecution complex.

To become a Christian all you need to do is accept the Father Son and Holy Spirit, to affirm your beliefs and confess your sins. To become a Jew you are either born a Jew, or you learn the Jewish culture and religion for months on end and must live half a year under the strictest restrictions of the Jewish lifestyle to show commitment. That is the difference between a universal religion and an ethnoreligion.

In a Culturally Christian world there is no room for ethnoreligions, and they do not exist. All religions are about your faith and which God(s) you believe in. So in a Cultural Christian's eyes, a country of Jews is a country that holds one faith supreme above all others and conditions rights with conversion, as that's how Christian countries have historically been.

Christianity's common ground with Jews comes from the Roman Empire appropriating the religion from the Cult of Jesus, and making it more appealing to the masses by introducing Greco-Roman and Germanic folk religion aspects into it. Xmas is Yule but with Jesus, Easter is a fertility holiday but with Jesus and so on. In the eyes of the Cultural Christian, Christianity and Judaism are two once-antagonistic sects of the same religion, no different than Catholics and Protestants.

Cultural Christianity erases and appropriates Judaism and is as inherently hateful of Jews as religious Christianity.

Now, when it comes to the elephant in the room: Islam.

Islam, like Christianity, is a universal religion. You must believe in Allah and accept the prophets, which include both Jesus and Muhammad. It is no more inherently violent than Christianity, though it's no less. In the Christian's eyes, Islam is the competitor, the enemy. The Muslims conquered Christian lands and converted them, and they've fought holy wars against one another throughout the Middle Ages.

To become a Muslim the Cultural Christian doesn't need to unlearn any of the core tenets of their culture. They can simply apply it to Islam.

Which is why many Cultural Christians, damaged by Christianity, are sympathetic to Islam. And since Muslims and Jews are no longer on good terms, they use this sympathy to give themselves a free pass to be antisemitic. Whether Muslims check their converts for bigotry, allow it or are powerless to stop them, that's another issue.

Jews are not diet Christians. We have less in common with you than you have with Muslims. Unlearn Christian cultural appropriation.

And no, I don't care that it's "offensive" to associate you with Christianity due to the religious abuse you endured. You still see the world through a Christian lens.

[jewish-vents]

I know it's not even remotely that time of year yet, but I can't stop thinking about this because the absolute fucking betrayal from people who pretended to be my community for years is just never gonna stop hurting, I guess.

The Disability Day of Mourning was created to memorialize disabled people who were murdered by their caregivers (in particular disabled kids murdered by their parents). This year, surprise, surprise, organizers made it all about Palestine, spinning ridiculous blood libel tales straight out of the middle ages about how Israel is murdering disabled Palestinian babies by the truckload. Of course not a single word was said about disabled victims of October 7th.

Next year, the only disabled people I'll be talking about on March 1st are the disabled people murdered on October 7th, the disabled people who've been killed by Gaza and Lebanon and Iran's missile attacks because it was harder for them to evacuate or get to safe rooms in time, and the disabled victims of antisemitic hate crimes. Since we're just throwing the original purpose of this day in the trash anyway, I am making it about the disabled victims who the rest of this bullshit "community" refuses to acknowledge.

Fuck the goyishe disability community. They are just as violent and hateful and genocidal as any other goyim. I'd say that I hope Noya Dan and Ruth Perez's faces and names haunt them all, but I'm sure none of them even know who those girls were.

.

[girlactionfigure]

Antisemitism, an old saying goes, is the canary in the coal mine. The implication is that, when antisemitism is rising in a society, this is a telltale sign that said society is in decline. In many cases throughout history, this has very much been true. For example, the Nazis rose to power -- and later led their country into a suicidal war -- by mobilizing German society with inflammatory antisemitic rhetoric.

Nevertheless, I’ve always really hated the expression, not because it’s necessarily untrue, but because of the implication that what really makes antisemitism matter is that Jew-hatred eventually poisons everything and everyone else. I think antisemitism matters because Jews are human beings, and that should be enough for us to act decisively against it, not because antisemitism might, in the future, affect other groups of people.

Regardless, I do think that it’s important for people to understand why and how antisemitism eventually might affect them too.

ANTISEMITISM AS A SIGN OF SOCIETAL DECLINE

Which came first: the chicken or the egg? In other words, do societies decline because of antisemitism, or does antisemitism rise because societies are in decline? In my opinion, it’s a little bit of both.

First, it’s important to understand how antisemitism functions. Antisemitism is not only a bigotry, but a worldview that relies on conspiracies, scapegoating, and projection. When things are bad -- for instance, when a society is in disarray -- people need someone to blame. When a child went missing in the Middle Ages, who was at fault? Why, the Jews, of course. When as much as 30 to 60% of the European population died from the Black Death in the 14th century, who was to blame? The Jews. When Weimar Germany suffered from economic hardships, who else could be at fault but the Jews?

I personally noticed this phenomenon in real-time in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests. Instead of holding American police to account for their police brutality, very quickly, antisemites swept in with the “Deadly Exchange” conspiracy theory, which absurdly posits that it’s the Jewish state that is at fault for police brutality in the United States (as though American police brutality didn’t exist before 1948!). In this sense, it’s obvious that antisemitism rises when societies are in strife.

On the other hand, pre-existing antisemitism will poison everything in a society. White supremacists and Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups, for example, often recruit followers with antisemitic rhetoric, but their violence targets more than just Jews. It doesn’t take long for hostile antisemitic environments to become hostile to many other groups of people.

"FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE..."

Surely you’ve heard the famous Martin Niemöller poem: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”

It is, perhaps, the quotation most often associated with the Holocaust and the Nazi persecution of Jews and political dissidents. And while Pastor Niemöller certainly had a point, the question bears repeating: why must others be targeted alongside Jews for antisemitism to matter? Shouldn’t antisemitism matter simply because Jews are human beings deserving of fundamental human rights and dignity?

As it turns out, Niemöller never quite got the memo. In the early 1930s, he not only openly agreed with Nazi ideology, but he voted the Nazis into power. His change of heart came not because he atoned for his antisemitism, but because he disliked how the Nazi Party was meddling with the Lutheran Church, which led to his eventual arrest. Even worse: after the Allied victory, he opposed the de-Nazification of Germany because he thought that it would “do more harm than good.”

In the end, it seems, for Niemöller, antisemitism only mattered when it affected him personally.

"FIRST THE SATURDAY PEOPLE, THEN THE SUNDAY PEOPLE"

The proverb “min sallaf es-sabt lāqā el-ḥadd qiddāmūh” — “after Saturday comes Sunday”— is used in many Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, to describe the treatment of Middle Eastern Jews and Christians. A popular variation is “first the Saturday people [Jews, who observe Shabbat on Saturday], then the Sunday people [Christians, who attend church on Sundays.” The idea is that what has been done to the Jews of the Middle East is now what is being done to Middle Eastern Christians.

The origins of the phrase, with this particular meaning, are contested, but some historians trace it back to the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine and claim that it was coined by the followers of the Nazi collaborator Palestinian leader Haj Amin Al-Husseini. The phrase has also been attributed to the pro-Zionist Maronite Christians in Lebanon in the 1930s and 1940s. After the British authorities passed the 1939 White Paper, which virtually banned all Jewish immigration to and land purchases in Palestine, some Palestinian Arab Christians reportedly worried that they would be marginalized next.

In the 1940s and 1950s, virtually 100% of the Jewish population of the Middle East — which once numbered at around a million — was expelled from their homes in a series of systematic expulsions and massacres.  

Unfortunately, much as the proverb predicts, Middle Eastern Christians have suffered a similar fate. In 1900, Christians made up about 13% of the population of the Middle East. Today, Christians form only 4% of the Middle Eastern population.

Assyrian, Maronite, Coptic, and other Native Middle Eastern Christians have been driven out of their homes by Islamic fundamentalist violence, a recent example being the massacres and executions perpetrated by ISIS.

JIHADIST GROUPS

Like white supremacist groups, Islamist jihadist groups such as ISIS have historically used antisemitic rhetoric as a “gateway drug” for recruitment. For example, Damon Joseph, also known as Abdullah Ali Yusuf, was indicted by a federal court in late 2018 for providing material support to ISIS. After an investigation, it seems that Joseph had been radicalized within a matter of months, following his conversion to Islam. Joseph, however, had espoused antisemitic beliefs for years, and it seems that his pre-existing antisemitic worldview influenced his fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.

According to former CIA agent John Kiriakou, after the CIA captured Abu Zubaydah, who at the time was believed to be the number three in Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah said that he never hated America and only wanted to kill Jews and attack Israel.  

Similarly, in his 2002 “Letter to the American People,” in which he “explained” the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden justified his terrorist acts on the basis that the United States is allied with Israel and Jews allegedly “control” the American government.

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, Jihadist groups have recruited lone wolf attackers in third countries by inciting against Israel.  

Hezbollah, which was formed to fight Israel’s existence, has now taken the lives of Syrians, Lebanese, Iranians, and much more.  

Antisemitism is closely linked to Islamist terrorism, even terrorism that doesn’t specifically target Jews, and it should be considered an international security threat.

WHITE SUPREMACY

Antisemitism is foundational to white supremacy, but it is not exclusive to white supremacy. White supremacy does not exist without antisemitism, but white supremacists don’t exclusively target Jews, and non-white supremacist ideologies can be antisemitic, too. In other words, all white supremacists are antisemitic, but not all antisemites are white supremacists, and white supremacists are bigoted toward many other groups of people, too.

Antisemitism plays a very specific function within white supremacy. White supremacists rely on antisemitism to (1) scapegoat, and (2) divide and conquer. For example, white supremacists believe that Jews are behind a supposed “white genocide,” aiming to replace white folks with Brown and Black folks. In other words, what starts with Jews doesn’t just end with Jews.

White supremacist groups often recruit online with antisemitic rhetoric, and many violent white supremacists were radicalized by consuming antisemitic content.

In the 1920s, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan is tied directly to the 1913 lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish American. The KKK then went on to terrorize Black Americans.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM, MASS SHOOTINGS

Many domestic terrorists and mass shooters have been radicalized through antisemitic rhetoric, even if their violence eventually targeted other people. Some examples include Nikolas Cruz, who murdered 17 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and employees in 2018, and the perpetrators of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people.

rootsmetals

you shouldn’t wait until antisemitism affects you personally to care, but antisemitism *will* affect you personally eventually, whether you’re Jewish or not.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram and  Patreon. 

[unhonestlymirror]

This girl is russian but yk what? When the huge crowd wants to "rip her to pieces because of her nationality" - I don't think they mean russian. I think they mean Jewish, from the Jewish state Israel.

I believe there was a word for that... starts with a, ends with m.

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

Do you ever think about how European classical antisemitism, like the middle ages kind, was so heavily centered around Jews' physical attributes, and how the classical antisemitism in the Arab world in those same times just wasn't?

I wonder why...

[stxrr-strxckk]

Shakedown, 1979 1997!

(General South Park Headcannons)

A/N: Just some silly little headcannons of our favorite main 3 boys! These are non romantic but I can make romantic ones too if y'all want! Cartman isn't included in this except for little cameos he makes in the other hcs.

Any warnings?: Cartman being Cartman, a lot of swearing (obviously), Cartman is just really antisemitic.

What's on the record player?: 1979; The Smashing Pumpkins

Stan Marsh...

✭Stan and Kyle are super close in height. Like, down to the millimeter. You know how some people get measured against wood beams and there's little marks for each age? Stan and Kyle have one they share in Stan's house. Blue marks are Stan, Green marks are Kyle. He made Kyle keep his hat on when they measured since his hair gave him extra height.

"See? I'm taller!" Kyle grinned triumphantly.

"No way, dumbass. It's just that stupid fucking hair, right Cartman?" Stan looked over at his friends for approval.

Cartman nodded. "Yeah, it's that jewey ass hair, Kyle. It makes you seem taller and your nose seem smaller." Kenny's muffled snickers could be heard through his jacket.

"That isn't true, fatass!"

"Yeah stop making fun of his big nose Cartman, he can't help the fact he looks like his bitchass mom." Stan laughed, and Kyle shoved him.

"Hey! Not cool dude, that's my mom you're talking about!"

"Okay, okay, just push your hair down so we can prove I'm taller."

"No way man."

✭Once he gets older, Stan grows facial hair crazy fast. He has to shave every 2 days, at least. One time his razor broke and he had to wait until he got paid to get a new one. He grew the ugliest mustache known to man and Cartman started calling him Chewbacca. His mom said he looked just like a younger version of his father, and that's when he knew he had to get rid of it soon as possible. He wound up finding a waxing kit and tried to get rid of it that way. Long story short, he wound up with half a mustache and burns all over his upper lip. His mom had to let him use her razor to get rid of the rest of the hair. He refuses to touch any kind of wax now.

✭Listens to bands like Weezer and Blink 182, convinced their songs are made for him. "It's just like my life-" no it isn't. You're just a loser.

✭Not a very athletic guy. He's tried every sport under the sun(his parents made him), they're just not for him. He tried drama club too; hated the acting but liked the tech aspect. He ran spotlight for a few productions but ended up quitting because of how much the other guys made fun of him.

✭He had to play cello when he was younger, and quit the moment he started high school. He still knows a few songs and was pretty good.

✭He's insecure about his thick eyebrows and nose. He has a greek nose and thinks it's a lot larger than it is. Kyle judges him every time he starts talking about it.

"No, it sticks out so much! See?"

"You're joking, right?"

"No, it's so noticeable!"

"Dude. At least yours is straight. Mine is hooked. Hooked. You think I like this fuckin' thing in the middle of my face? Hell no!"

✭Whenever he's pissed at Kyle he ends up complaining to Kenny since he can keep secrets better than Cartman (and because people can never tell what Kenny's saying)

"And then he said 'grow up Stan, it's not too big a deal!' Like he wasn't just hung up about some girl rejecting him- At least me and Wendy actually dated! You know who wants to date him? No one! He's never even had a girlfriend. Yeah, you know that girl from Canada who he talked to online for a whole year before she ghosted him? That was a fake account me and the guys made to troll him. He never realized. And what's funnier is that-"

"Dude, you've been talking for like, ten hours. I need to get to sleep, it's a school night.

"Right. Sorry. But can I just say-"

"Out."

"Alright, I'm leaving. But Kyle's such a dick, he won't even stand up to his mom for me-."

Kenny has to push him out the door and lock it so he can't get back in. Then Stan and Kyle make up a week later and everything goes back to normal.

✭Was actually convinced he had superpowers when he was younger, around 5 or 6. He predicted it would rain once and all of a sudden he thinks he controls the weather. He told the guys and when they called his bluff he got super pissed and made everyone on the playground watch as he used his weather powers to try and make lightning strike. He ended up falling off the monkey bars and he now refuses to go anywhere near them.

Kyle Broflovski...

✭Puberty hit him like a truck. And not in a good way. All of a sudden he's 8 inches taller, growing a ratty mustache, with some of the worst acne and and a voice that cracks like no other. (Cartman makes fun of his voice until his starts cracking too. The hypocrisy is wild.) He was also the first in the group to start puberty. He thought he'd feel so mature and cool but ended up hating it.

✭Thankfully, now that he's taller he can actually play basketball without getting blocked by everyone. He's the tallest in the group, around 6'2 or so.

✭He has prescription glasses but never wears them because he thinks they make him look dorky. They do, but that's only because his mom picked out the thickest frames so they wouldn't break easily. When he's wearing glasses, he looks like Bart Simpson in the episode The Last Temptation of Homer, when he gets all nerdy and shit. Kyle even has the orthopedic shoes to boot.

✭He runs a dnd campaign for him, Stan, Kenny, Tweek, Craig, and Token. He used to invite Cartman but after his millionth tantrum they decided it was better without him. Kyle usually dms and sometimes writes a few of his own oneshots for the gang to do.

"Okay, as you trudge through the jungles of Chult, an animalistic cry pierces the air. Everyone roll an intelligence check!"

"This better not be another one of those dinosaurs," Stan groaned. "I just got mauled by one back there."

"Roll perception and you'll find out!" Kyle replied with a grin. "The tomb isn't far, guys. This should be one of your last encounters."

"Wait, we're not even at the tomb yet?!" Tweek's eyes widened. "We've been in this jungle for days!"

"I told you guys Tomb of Annihilation wasn't going to be an easy adventure." Kyle shrugged, before going back to business. "Okay; Craig and Token: while the rest of your party shrugs it off as just another monster you'd rather not deal with right now, you two recognize the call as a Hydra's- and it sounds hungry."

"A hydra? Dude, we are so fucked!" Stan yelled.

"Those things have like, 20 heads! Oh fuck!" Tweek added. A residual groan was heard around the table as the boys realized the danger they were in.

"This sucks ass, Kyle. How'd you talk us into this adventure? We shoulda done Curse of Strahd..." Token complained.

"Mm hmm!" Kenny agreed, crossing his arms.

"Come on guys, I believe in you! It doesn't even have that many hit points!"

"I hate to admit it, but we could really use Cartman's fireball right now." Craig sighed.

"Hey, we all agreed. He's never invited back. Not after the massacre..." Kyle shuddered.

"You're right. We'll just have to hope Princess Kenny can charm this thing." Stan nodded.

(Little bonus: Stan is a fighter, Token is a warlock, Craig is a ranger, Tweek is a paladin, Kenny doesn't have a main class he likes but mostly plays rogues or bards. Kyle usually plays as a sorcerer when he's not dming and when he's invited Cartman plays a wizard.)

✭Kyle doesn't seem like it but he actually is kind of strong. Yeah he's lanky and uncoordinated, but he can throw a pretty good right hook. He's done boxing for years. Started because he wanted to get Cartman to quit making fun of him. He's pretty fast too- he tried track out in middle and high school. He's good at jumping hurdles because of his long legs.

✭He has braces and the amount of food that gets stuck in them is criminal. He starts carrying around a little compact (the ones with two mirrors) just to make sure his teeth are clean after lunch and Cartman calls him gay for it.

"Wow Kyle, I didn't think you could get any gayer but here we are." Cartman said at lunch as Kyle whipped out a little compact.

"Shut up fatass, I'm just making sure I don't have food in my teeth like you always do."

"Ey! I do NOT have food in my teeth, thankyouverymuch." Cartman crossed his arms in a huff.

"Yeah, cus you're too busy eating everything that gets stuck in your mouth, fatboy." Stan said, Kenny laughing in agreement.

"I already told you, I'm just big boned! You're just jealous that my mom cooks me good food, not that jewey stuff Kyle always has."

"Fuck off Cartman, you'd probably eat that too."

"Yeah, no way dude. I like my food American, thank you very much."

"Dude. That's so racist."

"Oh, I'm sorry, is it racist to want to eat normal, all-American food?

✭Hear me out on this one: He's fluent in brainrot. Says skibidi on the regular, refers to himself as a sigma rizzler, all that shit. Since he has to babysit Ike all the time he's pretty caught up on gen alpha slang (Ike watches skibidi toilet unironically. He makes Kyle watch it with him). He started using it around Cartman who was convinced he made it all up. Him, Stan, and Kenny had a field day with it.

"Dude, that's so skibidi!"

"Kyle. What the fuck are you saying."

"You know, skibdi. Like, the thing on tiktok?"

"Don't tell me you don't speak brainrot, Cartman."

"I- I do too! I just... Didn't understand Kyle with his gay ass voice.

"My voice isn't gay, you gooner!"

"Hey! I'm not the gooner, you are, you... gooner!"

✭He barely ever gets haircuts. When he does, his mom just puts a bowl on his head and cuts it herself. It's part of the reason he started constantly wearing his hat. If you've seen that scene from pen15 where Maya gets her hair cut, it's just like that.

"Mom, you promise you won't go too short this time?"

"Of course bubby! It'll look the same as always, I promise."

"Mom- the clippers-"

"Shh, I know Kyle, just trust mommy."

"But the guard-"

"Trust mommy, Kyle."

"It's not the right one- it's too short-"

"No, it's okay! Trust me, I've done this more times than I can- oh."

"What? Is it bad?"

"Uh- bubby, just remember, you have a very handsome face, and if any of the boys say anything about your hair-"

"Oh, no. It's bad."

"No! No, it's just- it'll take some getting used to."

"Let me see. Where's the mirror?"

"Uh- maybe it's best if you just... Put your hat back on..."

✭He can't talk to girls for shit. Resorts to online chatrooms to try and flirt. Has gotten catfished 13 times. At least 3 of them were Cartman.

"No, Stan, I swear! She's real! Her name's Daisy, and she lives in Florida. She says she really wants to meet me, too! So I saved up for months and sent her 1500 for a first class plane ticket here. Check it out, she's pretty cute, right?"

"...Dude. That's Taylor Swift."

"Again?!"

Kenny McCormick...

✭He's a biter. And I don't even mean in a "ooh so freaky and kinky" way, I mean in a "he once bit Cartman so hard he peed his pants and refused to be within 5 feet of Kenny for a week."

✭When he gets older he ends up growing his hair out into a kind of mullet-wolf cut thing, he looks like Kurt Cobain.

✭He's actually pretty smart. He just doesn't think school is that important for him and doesn't wanna try too hard and get unwanted attention for being smart. Purposely gets Bs and Cs so his friends won't beg him for answers.

✭starts giving himself piercings once he's older. He's too poor to get them from a professional so he just uses old needles and snow to numb the pain. They almost always get infected.

✭Draws penises on his friends homework so they get in trouble when they turn it in.

"Yeah, and then she was all like- Dude!"

"What?"

"Again? Mr. Garrison is gonna collect this any second! You really had to draw a dick on it?"

"Heh, you gotta admit stan, it's pretty funny."

"Shut up fatboy, he drew it on your paper too."

"Wha- hey!"

✭He's a scrappy fighter. If a kid tries to fight him, he's biting, scratching, hair pulling, everything. 9 times out of 10 he wins and the other kid winds up absolutely wrecked. Once head-butted someone so hard he knocked out the kid's teeth. Now nobody fucks with him.

✭He was the only member of Moop who actually stuck with making music after the whole strike. He's the most musically inclined of the main 4. Wrote a few of his own songs but most of the lyrics were about loving boobs and pussy so record companies didn't end up signing him.

✭We all know he plays drums, but he also started learning electric guitar when he started his solo career. Can't sing for shit though (unless it's opera), so he tries using autotune. It just makes him sound worse.

✭He's the only member of the main 4 who's nice to Butters. Not just because he feels guilty he's a loser, but because he actually enjoys hanging out with him and how genuinely nice Butters is. The two are actually pretty good friends, Butters gets his mom to pack him extra food he gives to Kenny so he and Karen don't end up going hungry.

✭Was 100% the kid who taught everyone what sex was. Also brought his dad's nudie mags to school and showed all the guys.

"Gross, dude! What is that?"

"I dunno, I found it in my dad's room. All the girls inside are showing their boobs! Check it out!"

"Eww, why are they so pointy?"

"Because, Kyle, girls boobs start out pointy and then, once they turn 30, they get all saggy, like your mom's."

"Gross, dude! Don't talk about my mom's boobs."

"Yeah, don't talk about Kyle's mom's saggy boobs Cartman."

"Stan!"

"What? I'm defending you!"

"Hey guys, you wanna know how babies are made?"

✭As he gets older he starts to see through all of Eric's bullshit like the other guys, but still supports his ideas more than Stan and Kyle. He doesn't wanna just abandon him.

✭Amazing with kids. Shockingly so. He basically raises Karen on his own, so he knows how how to deal with kids better than the other guys. He tried to start a babysitting business after he realized how much money he could make, but if fell apart after Cartman joined and started to get the kids he babysitted involved in a ponzi scheme.

"Cartman, you did WHAT?"

"Nothing! I just had an idea..."

"Oh god, we're screwed."

"Cartman, WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

"I just thought, if people invested in our business we could get them to keep hiring us, and we can get them to invest by making them give us money in exchange for more money back, and instead of actually giving them our money, we'd just give them other people's money who also invested, and then we'd have infinite money!"

"Cartman you dumbass! You ruined my business! We're bankrupt now!"

"Ohhh, I'm sorry Kenny! I just wanted to get us infinite money! But I guess if you don't need my genius ideas, I'll just start my own babysitting business and steal all your clients. Is that what you want?"

"If it means you'll leave us the fuck alone, then yeah."

A/N: Hope y'all like these hcs! I'll probably make romantic ones soon. I'm already working on some more South Park stuff, I got a few requests I'm really excited to write! Please like, follow, and repost! XX, Starr!

Wordcount:2747

[endearing-dalliance]

Another Blow Against Arcane: Antisemitism

Christian Linke posted the original pitch for Arcane, and I'm starting to understand why so many people turned them down before they finally got the project funded.

There's a lot to unpack here, but I got stuck on "svengalis". I wasn't originally going to harp on about this since I had never heard the term before, but I read up on it and OH BOY

apparently Svengali is the name of the villainous character from the French story Trilby. It actually inspired the Phantom of the Opera, which I thought was neat. Many smarter and more eloquent people than I have labeled the character and author antisemetic af

His main role in the story was that he really wanted to train Trilby, a beautiful young woman, but she rejected him. A bunch of stuff happens to her romantically that made her leave Paris with her brother. He later dies, and Svengali takes advantage to sink his claws into her. He hypnotizes her into having a split personality, and in that state she becomes a successful singer like he wanted. Unfortunately, it is physically and psychologically devastating, and she dies because she cannot live without him.

his name has come to mean someone who manipulates or controls another person, usually a young woman, to further his own agenda. There's even the "Svengali defense" that portrays a defendant as a pawn of a more influential criminal mastermind.

his physical description includes a tall and bony middle-aged body, thick black hair to the shoulder, beady and heavily lidded evil eyes, long hooked nose, thin and sallow (yellowish or grayish) face. He wore red and a long cloak, and was described as effeminate and continually filthy.

I know, coincidence right? Surely they didn't create, pitch, get funding for, and produce an updated version of a character that many people, including George Orwell, criticized as antisemetic. That subsequent adaptations have deliberately modified to be less stereotypical and offensive. This cannot be the character so many people enjoy and even admire at times, a symbol of revolution against an oppressive society that literally gases people.

Well fuck. On top of everything else, does this validate the Silco/Jinx shippers?