#being antisemitic

[diabetesnscoliosis]

I had thought that the rhetoric of "I'm a part of x group and don't think y is xphobic" would eventually come crashing, but I didn't anticipate it would take oct 7 to do that. Not that it doesn't make retrospective sense.

from my perspective over the years, there were all sorts of conversations around this: is criticism of Islam racist? Is Queer a slur? The concept of "identifying" as disabled, which then expanded to various sexualities, gender, sex and incredibly rarely... race.

My experience looking at these circles showed me that the answers to these questions and concepts lied in who thought it was OK, rather than critical analysis of the questions and concepts itself. It was the priority of token representation than dealing with the issue itself; the bigotry in question.

This would culminate in the US 2016 election, with many justifications for voting in one of the most dangerous and impactful presidents in the world boiling down to "I'm Mexican and I agree" or "I'm gay and I agree". No discussion of why agreeing with a politician that has tangible, negative impacts on the target demographic would render one individual protected from rhetoric or policy.

What am I seeing post October 7 is similar . "My statement isn't anti semitic, x jewish person agrees with me!" This statement doesn't address why the statement isn't antisemitic, but shuts down criticism by tokenising the Jewish person and dehumanises them; they are a prop to use to "prove" the point of someone else and no more.

The use of tokens to prove arguments instead of facts and reasoning is probably the byproduct of the US "culture wars" ideology that's been forcibly exported to every anglicised state. That doesn't mean i don't expect better from leftists, who should be the group to use facts and reasoning to argue against individualist right wing policies. It is such a shame to see my political ideology become downtrodden by intellectual laziness.

If you cannot use reasoning to prove your point, who are you acting for?

That's a rhetorical question. If you cannot use reasoning, you use ideology, and ideology only serves to divide the "believers" and "unbelievers"; it's about power.

Bigotry is irrational and can always be argued against.

[jenovacomplete]

"i don't think we should ban nazi symbols because they're entitled to their opinions" and other batshit takes overheard from my parents

[lezzian]

i actually think we should not be giving JK rowling any attention in general but to be honest maybe normies should know that woman is straight up doing holocaust denial on twitter now

[heritageposts]

A state-owned bank in Germany has frozen the account of a Jewish anti-Zionist organisation and demanded the group disclose a list of all its members. Judische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost, or Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East, announced on Tuesday that its account with Berliner Sparkasse was frozen on 26 March with immediate effect. "In 2024, Jewish money is once again being confiscated by a German bank: Berliner Sparkasse freezes Jewish Voice account," Jewish Voice said in a statement on its social media platforms. The group received a letter from the bank informing it that a full list of all members, including adresses, tax documentation, income statements and other internal documents, needed to be submitted to Berliner Sparkasse by 5 April to "update customer data".

. . . continues on MEE (28 Mar 2024)

[thatweirdtranny]

it is literally so easy to talk about what’s happening to palestinians without being antisemitic i don’t know how so many of you are failing so badly at it

[hazel2468]

Seems like a good time to remind people that the phrase "from the river to the sea" - while apparently popular on this hellsite, is basically a call for the total eradication of not just the Israeli state (and by that I don't mean the government, I mean EVERYTHING) but of every Jew in that area.

SO. If I see it on your blog? Bye. I do not trust you to have anything even remotely approaching a nuanced take to this fucking tragedy.

[frownatic]

Please remember that non-israeli Jews can't do anything about the crimes being committed in Palestine, they have no power to stop it

Hell, even Israeli Jews can't do much, which is made clear with them having also protested and taking initiative to stop the war with no success (so far)

The blame for the crimes and atrocities committed in Gaza is on the Israel government and the governments of other nations that blindly support them

I'm saying this because I have seen some people being openly hostile to the Jewish community and justifying it by blaming them for the genocide happening in Palestine

Hating Jews for being Jewish is antisemitism, no if or buts about it, target your anger at the people actively committing the crimes, not random people that happen to share one identity with them

[hanmegumi]

LMAO

edit: turning off reblogs because some of the people that are reblogging are extremely fucking moronic. holy shit

[notaplaceofhonour]

“The influence of Israeli money in American politics—!”

Qatar—the country that funds Al Jazeera and is currently hosting Hamas senior officials—spends more money lobbying the US government than Israel does.

China, Japan, and Liberia each spend roughly twice what Israel does on lobbying. Where’s the outrage about the Liberian lobby being a threat to US democracy?

Hell, the Bahamas has a greater influence on American politics than Israel. I see you freaked out about shekels; where’s this energy for the starfish pennies?

“but AIPAC!”

AIPAC isn’t the biggest pro-Israel PAC, it’s just the Jewish one, and pro-Israel PACs don’t even scratch the top ten of special interest groups.

Y’all’re just weirdly obsessed with the narrative that Jewish money drives American politics.

Source:

[kelluinox]

Bitches be like "You're on the wrong side of history!" and then receive personal thank yous from Khamenei and Al Qaeda

[deaddee-anime-brownfanlady]

[jujusjunk]

[perfectlyvalid49]

On being Jewish, and traumatized (It’s been 5 months and I want to talk):

Judaism is a joyous religion. So much of our daily practice is to focus us on the things that are good. I know that there’s a joke that all our holidays can be summed up as “they tried to kill us. We survived – let’s eat!”, and you might think that holidays focused on attempts at killing us might be somber, but they’re really not. Most are celebrated in the sense of, “we’re still here, let’s have a party!” When I think about practicing Judaism, the things I think about make me happy.

But I think a lot of non-Jews don’t necessarily see Judaism the same way. I think in part it’s because we do like to kvetch, but I think a lot of it is because from the outside it’s harder to see the joy, and very easy to see the long history of suffering that has been enacted on the Jewish people. From the inside, it’s very much, “we’re still here, let’s party” and from the outside it’s, “how many times have they tried to kill you? Why are you celebrating? They tried to KILL YOU!”

And I want to start with that because a lot of the rest of this is going to be negative. And I don’t want people to read it and wonder why I still want to be Jewish. I want to be Jewish because it makes me happy. My problem isn’t with being Jewish, it’s with how Jews are treated.

What I really wanted to write about is being Jewish and the trauma that’s involved with that right now.

First, I want to talk about Israeli Jews. I can’t say much here because I’m not Israeli, nor do I have any close friends or family that are Israeli. But if I’m going to be talking about the trauma Jews are experiencing right now, I can’t not mention the fact that Israeli Jews (and Israelis that aren’t Jewish as well, but that’s not my focus here) are dealing with massive amounts of it right now. It’s a tiny country – virtually everyone has a friend or family member that was killed or kidnapped, or knows someone who does. Thousands of rockets have been fired at Israel in the last few months – think about the fact that the Iron Dome exists and why it needs to. Terror attacks are ongoing; I feel like there’s been at least one every week since October. Thousands of people are displaced from their homes, either because of the rocket fire, or because their homes and communities were physically destroyed in the largest pogrom in recent history – the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust ended. If that’s not trauma inducing, I don’t know what is.

And there is, of course, the generational trauma. And I think Jewish generational trauma is interesting because it’s so layered. Because it’s not just the result of one trauma passed down through the generations. Every 50-100 years, antisemitism intensifies, and so very frequently the people experiencing a traumatic event were already suffering from the generational trauma that their grandparents or great grandparents lived through. And those elders were holding the generational trauma from the time before that. And so on.

And because it happens so regularly, there’s always someone in the community that remembers the last time. We are never allowed the luxury of imagining that we are safe. We know what happened before, and we know that it happened again and again and again. And so we know that it only makes sense to assume it will happen in the future. The trauma response is valid. I live in America because my great grandparents lived in Russia and they knew when it was time to get the hell out in the 1900s. And the reason they knew that is because their grandparents remembered the results of the blood libels in the 1850s. How can we heal when the scar tissue keeps us safe?

I look around now and wonder if we’ll need to run. We have a plan. I repeat, my family has a plan for what to do if we need to flee the country due to religious persecution. How can that possibly be normal? And yet, all the Jewish families I know have similar plans. It is normal if you’re Jewish. Every once in a while I see someone who isn’t Jewish talk about making plans to leave because they’re LGBTQ or some other minority and the question always seems to be, “should I make a plan?” It astounds me every time. The Jewish answer is that you need to have a plan and the only question is, “when should I act?” Sometimes our Jewish friends discuss it at play dates. Where will you go? What are the triggers to leave? No one wants to go any earlier then they have to. Everyone knows what the price of holding off too long might be.

I want to keep my children safe. When do I induct them into the club? When do I let my sweet, innocent kids know that some people will hate them for being Jewish? When do I teach them the skills my parents and grandparents taught me? How to pass as white, how to pass as Christian, knowing when to keep your mouth shut about what you believe. When do I tell them about the Holocaust and teach them the game “would this person hide me?” How hard do I have to work to remind them that while you want to believe that a person would hide you, statistically, most people you know would not have? Who is this more traumatic for? Them, to learn that there is hatred in the world and it is directed at them, or me, to have to drive some of the innocence out of my own children’s eyes in order to make sure they are prepared to meet the reality of the world?

And the reality of the world is that it is FULL of antisemitism. There’s a lot of…I guess I’d call it mild antisemitism that’s always present that you just kinda learn to ignore. It’s the sort of stuff that non-Jews might not even recognize as antisemitic until you explain it to them, just little micro-aggressions that you do your best to ignore because you know that the people doing it don’t necessarily mean it, it’s just the culture we live in. It can still hurt though. I like to compare it to a bruise: you can mostly ignore it, but every once in a while something (more blatant antisemitism) will put a bit to much pressure on it and you remember that you were already hurting this whole time.

On top of the background antisemitism, there’s more intense stuff. And usually the most intense, mask off antisemitism comes from the right. This makes sense, in that a lot of right politics are essentially about hating the “other” and what are Jews if not Western civilizations oldest type of “other”? On the one hand, I’ve always been fortunate enough to live in relatively liberal areas so this sort of antisemitism has felt far away and impersonal – they hate everybody, and I’m just part of everybody. On the other hand, until recently I’ve always considered this the most dangerous source of antisemitism. This is the antisemitism that leads to hate crimes, that leads to synagogue shootings. This is the reason why my synagogue is built so that there is a long driveway before you can even see the building, and that driveway is filled with police on the high holidays. This is the reason why my husband and I were scared to hang a mezuzah in our first apartment (and second, and third). For a long time, this was the antisemitism that made me afraid.

But the left has a problem with antisemitism too. And it has always been there. Where the right hates the “other”, the left hates the “privileged/elite/oppressors.” It’s the exact same thing, just dressed up with different words. They all mean “other” and “other” means “Jew.” It hurts more coming from the left though. A lot of Jewish philosophy leans left. A lot of Jews lean left. So when the left decides to hate us, it isn’t a random stranger, it’s a friend, and it feels like a betrayal.

One of the people I follow works for Yad Vashem, and a few weeks ago she mentioned a video they have with testimonies from people who came to Israel after Kristallnacht, with an unofficial title of “The blow came from within.” The idea is that to non-German Jews, the Holocaust was something done by strangers. It was still terrible, but it is easier to bear the hate of a stranger – it’s not personal. But to German Jews, the Holocaust was a betrayal. It wasn’t done by strangers, it was done by coworkers, and neighbors and people they thought were friends. It was done by people who knew them, and still looked at them and said, “less than human.” And because of this sense of betrayal, German survivors, or Germans who managed to get out before they got rounded up, had a very different experience than other Holocaust victims.

And I feel like a lot of left leaning Jews are having a similar experience now. People that we’ve marched with or organized with, or even just mutuals that we’ve thought of as friends are now going on about how Jews are evil. They repeat antisemitic talking points from the Nazis and from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and when we point out that those ideas have only led to Jewish death in the past they don’t care. And if someone you thought of as a friend thinks of you this way, what do you think a stranger might think? Might do?

The Jews are fucking terrified. I’ve seen a post going around that basically wonders if this was what it was like for our ancestors – when things got bad enough to see what was coming but before it was too late to run? And we can see what’s coming. History tells us that they way people are talking and acting only leads to one place. I’m a millennial – when I was a kid the grandparents at my synagogue made sure the kids knew – this is what it looked like before, this is what you need to watch out for, this is when you need to run. I wonder where to run to. It feels like nowhere is safe.

I feel like I’ve been lucky in all this. I don’t live in Israel. I have family and acquaintances who do, but no one I’m particularly close to. Everyone I know in real life has either been sane or at least silent about all of this (the internet has been significantly worse, but when it comes to hate, the internet is always worse). I live in a relatively liberal area – there’s always been antisemitism around anyway, but it’s mostly just been swastikas on flyers, or people advocating for BDS, not anything that’s made me actually worry for my safety. But in the last 5 months there have been bomb threats at my synagogue, and just last week a kid got beat up for being Jewish at our local high school. He doesn’t want to report it. He’s worried it will make it worse.

I bought a Magen David to wear in November. At the time it seemed like the best way to fight antisemitism was to be visibly Jewish, to show that we’re just normal people like everyone else. Plus, I figured that if me being Jewish was going to be a problem for someone, then I would make it a problem right away and not waste time. I’ve worn it almost constantly since, but the one time I took it off was when I burnt my finger in December and had to go to urgent care. I didn’t think about it too much when I did it, but I thought about it for a long time after – I didn’t feel good about having made that choice.

The conclusion I came to is that the training that my elders had been so careful to instill in me kicked in. I was hurt, and scared, and the voice inside my head that sounds like my grandmother said, “don’t give them a reason to be bad to you. Fight when you’re well, but for now – survive.” It still felt cowardly, but it was also a connection to my ancestors who heeded the same voice well enough to survive. And it enrages me that that voice has been necessary in the past. And it enrages me that things are bad enough now that my instinct is that I need to hide who I am to receive appropriate medical care.

I wish I had some sort of final thought to tie this all together other than, “this sucks and I hate it,” but I really don’t. I could call for people to examine their antisemitic biases, but I’m not foolish enough to think that this will reach the people who need to do so. I could wish for a future where everything I’ve talked about here exists only in history books, and the Jewish experience is no longer tied to feeling this pain, but that’s basically wishing for the moshiach, and I’m not going to hold my breath.

I guess I’ll end it with the thought that through all of this hate and pain and fear, we’re still here. And we’re still joyful as well. As much as so many people have tried over literally THOUSANDS of years to eradicate us, I’m still here, I’m still Jewish, and being Jewish still makes me happy.

Am Yisrael Chai.

[hussyknee]

I know some dickheads have now decided that Judaism is the "bad, violent, terrorist religion" and Islam is the "good, peaceful" one, which is only to be expected of white people, but how much of an issue is it currently? Like I've seen some USAmericans sharing how the Islamic faith shapes Gazans values and perseverance (good) except with that distinct white hippie "I'm about to imprint on this like the world's most racist duck" vibe (bad), but I didn't think they're already turning on Judaism in numbers.

Do they realize that Christianity is also the same kind of comfort to Christian minorities in Asia and Africa? That it was Buddhists that genocided the Rohingyas in Myanmar and Tamils in Sri Lanka? That Hindu fundamentalists are even now trying to ethnically cleanse Muslims in India? How Hindus and Christians are terrorized and persecuted in Pakistan? That Muslims have a history of persecuting and ethnically cleansing Jews too?

Really tired of asking y'all to be normal about people's religions man. There's no religion that's inherently violent or exceptionally peaceful. It's just like any other ideology that becomes a weapon in the hands of ethnic power. Interrogate power, not religion, and respect people's belief systems insofar as they aren't in your business.

Edit: I've amended the "long history" of Muslim persecution of Jews because it might be misleading in the current political climate. Zionism and antisemitic Arab nationalism are twin births resulting directly from Christian colonization, and Islamic empires tended to actually be more tolerant of other religions compared to Christianity, especially Judaism, which was considered a sibling religion. Antisemitism wasn't ideologically entrenched in Islamic tradition. It's simply that ethno-religious power will lead to ethno religious domination and intermittent cleansing of minorities, and Islam is no exception. Humans be humaning always.

[applesauce42069]

When I stopped being a tokenized antizionist jew I realized how that behaviour is actively harmful to the Jewish community. Token antizionist Jews and their presence in spaces that would not be welcoming to Jews who are not willing to be tokenized or antizionist is something that is used to actively discredit and minimize the experiences of the vast majority of the Jewish community. It also allows goyim, ESPECIALLY those who are engaging in the tokenization, to absolve themselves of antisemitism. I mean, when I worked on a BDS motion, my entire job was literally to stand up and say that it wasn’t antisemitic. To the Jews that involve themselves in this process….. all I’ll say is maybe one day you’ll wake up and realize how you’ve actively endangered your people and have to contend with that. I know I’m glad I got out when I did.

[stolen-stardust]

why do people want a cookie for not harassing random jews living their lives. “the people i racially profiled were nice to me, peace is possible ✊” is a fucking INSANE take