#diasporan jews

[unsolicited-opinions]

This makes perfect sense and I'm grateful you shared this thought.

The secular Israeli Jew is different from the diasporan Jew, but that difference has multidimensional gradations.

My folks, for instance, grew up as mostly secular Jews in New York City neighborhoods which were overwhelmingly Jewish. Their public schools closed on the High Holidays because a majority of the students and teachers were at shul. They heard and understood conversations in Yiddish between their older relatives and neighbors, the Jewish Daily Forward (in Yiddish, on newsprint) was a daily source of news. Their daily lives were suffused with Jewish identity, and it was mostly secular. My father became Bar Mitzvah at the nearby Conservative shul, but that felt more like a tiresome familial obligation to him than a religious event. My mother's parents sent her to a Labor Zionist summer camp. She never learned Hebrew, but she's the family authority on Yiddishkeit. They didn't need to go to shul to be or feel Jewish and they were not particularly observant. Their Jewish world surrounded them, enveloped them, and permeated all parts of their daily lives. It was easy, almost effortless to feel Jewish.

Does that sound familiar?

My folks didn't appreciate this until they became the first in their families to leave NYC since their grandparents arrived through Ellis Island around the turn of the 19th century into the 20th.

An amazing job opportunity for my father moved my family to a smallish city in the US midwest.

It took my folks a few years in the midwest to realize that their (still young) kids didn't have any sense of Jewish identity. Their kids were growing up without the sense of community/identity they themselves had gotten from living in a place where Jewishness suffused their daily secular lives. That was absent here, and if they wanted their kids to know who they were, it would take work.

So they joined the local Reform synogogue, which was the only Jewish community in the area. Neither of their families had ever been a part of the Reform Movement before that. Neither of them had attended shabbat services regularly at any point in their lives. They volunteered. Each of them served on the board of this synogogue over the next couple decades. They drove each of their kids to Hebrew school and religious education classes. They sent me to Talmud Torah summer programs in a larger city with a larger Jewish community.

For years, I mostly resented all this. It took decades for me to finally understand why this was important to my parents.

When one doesn't have the option of living a Jewish life in a Jewish place with lots of other Jews, when one's daily life isn't suffused with Jewish community and Jewish identity, it takes work - it takes directed, intentional effort to build and maintain that identity.

Hindsight shows me that the Jewish education we got from the Reform synagogue wasn't ideal, but it was enough for us to know who we were and to be proud of who we were. It was enough to let us see the line of continuity stretching back in time and connecting us to that line.

What I take from this is that when you're a tiny minority living in a culture which is not yours, total assimilation is easy.

In those circumstances, learning and appreciating who you are is a choice with costs.

Diasporan Jews who continue to identify as Jews are those who choose it and invest in it.

You're not lazy, cousin. You're fortunate.

💙

sometimes i think about how i feel like a lazy jew compared to jews in diaspora, like i read through jumblr and don’t know many basic jewish things. i’ve been thinking about the privilege that israel provides you, as to growing up in a non-religious, but heavily influenced jewish environment, that you just by default, grow up kind of on a different scale of jewish. i think that what i mean to say is, that while i sometimes feel like a “lazy jew”, i think it might just be that israel created a jew that’s a little different. you might find it in many things, such as the lack of need to remember important dates, for example. it’s part of the national calendar and the overall lifestyle. idk if i make sense.

[unsolicited-opinions]

1. Were Musk's salutes what they looked like?

Yes.

Last year, after years of Musk promoting antisemitic tropes, attacks, and conspiracy theories, Musk was a bit too explicit in his antisemitism, and started losing major advertisers from a platform which was already losing money.

In an attempt to solve the problem he'd created, he went on an apology tour to Auschwitz in a desperate attempt to stop advertisers from leaving his platform. It might have pacified some, but North American Jews saw through this cynical, dishonest performance. It didn't matter that the tour was enabled by Ben Shapiro, because most North American Jews don't trust Shapiro either.

Musk's platform aggressively encourages, promotes, and refuses to do anything to counter the torrent of far right bigotry which now defines the experience of using Twitter.

The Trump government (from which Musk has purchased influence) is aggressively, explicitly racist and is enacting racist policies today which seek to intimidate and drive from public service anyone who acknowledges the challenges the US faces in living up to the promise of its Liberal ideals, the very Western ideals which cynical assholes like Musk and Shapiro claim to treasure.

Musk has actively and recently worked to promote and assist AfD, a German far-right party which the ADL correctly recognizes as concerningly antisemitic and racist.

Musk's salutes were exactly what they looked like, a dogwhistle to the white supremacists of Trump's base...who Musk welcomed onto his platform the moment he gained control of it.

After the ADL defended Musk, Musk made a bunch of Holocaust jokes...which the ADL (way too little, far too late) actually did condemn.

2. How did the ADL fuck this up so badly?

The ADL (and it's chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt) didn't just make a bad call in giving Musk an immediate pass. This was a tremendous moral and intellectual failure which is not excused by any political circumstances.

If he's not going to remedy his error in judgement, Greenblatt should resign.

I see assholes on the left falsely claiming that the ADL is sucking up to an authoritarian administration it agrees with. I don't think that's true, but I have a hard time faulting people who draw that conclusion because it sure looks like it. Those optics are another reason the ADL's clearing Musk was ill-considered.

I think the reason the ADL defended Musk is that under Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL has made defending Israel from antisemitism a greater priority than fighting antisemitism and other forms of hatred in the diaspora.

It needs to do both. If the ADL allows one goal to subvert the other, it becomes a parody of itself.

The ADL should aggressively criticize any government and any person promoting illiberal hatred.

If Greenblatt gave Musk a pass because he's scared of retaliation from an authoritarian government, he is too ignorant of Jewish history, too cowardly to continue to lead their mission, and should resign.

The truth matters. Our values matter. Our devotion to Liberal democracy is fundamental to who we are as North American Jews, but these values don't seem to be anywhere near so fundamental to Greenblatt.

The ADL's responsibility is to fight hatred, and it should do so even if it requires antagonizing a hostile government. If what motivated Greenblatt to excuse Musk was fear and cowardice, Greenblatt lacks the spine for the responsibility of leading the ADL...and should resign.

If Greenblatt gave Musk a pass because he thinks doing so was required to maintain the administration's support of Israel, he has sacrificed the ADL's mission in North America on the altar of defending Israel and should resign for failing to live up to our (and supposedly the ADL's) most fundamental values. Excusing Jew hatred in the US in order to fight Jew hatred in the Middle East is unacceptable.

The ADL must do both, always.

North American Jews are absolutely justified in being furious with Greenblatt.

I think the ADL's work is important. I think it must improve its data collection and reporting methods, find new leadership, and live up to its professed values with much greater consistency.

I don't expect perfection from the ADL, but I sure as shit expect much better than this.

3. So are AOC's criticisms of the ADL valid?

Not by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't want to hear opinions on antisemitism from a political leader (with whom I agree on many policy positions) who has repeatedly spouted antisemitic lies, failed to call out antisemitism from her political allies, and who has dishonestly claimed that...

"...false accusations of antisemitism are wielded against people of color and women of color by bad-faith political actors, and weaponizing antisemitism is used to divide us.”

AOC says:

“When the Jewish community is threatened, the progressive movement is undermined.”

That's absolutely true, because AOC's far left end of the movement calls Jews powerful, white, racist colonizers and shouts loudly that the one, tiny Jewish nation is the root of the world's evils, guilty of apartheid, and comitting genocide...while ignoring actual genocides which have happened in Yemen and Syria. That double standard which holds Israel to a different standard than any other nation is antisemitism

AOC can't recognize her own antisemitism or that of her friends and allies, and is not qualified to judge the ADL on this topic.

The way that the far left keeps insisting they themselves are greater authorities on what is (or is not) Jew hatred than Jews is not just hypocritical and disgusting, but profoundly dangerous.

The illiberal left needs to recognize that they know far less about Jews, Jewish history, Jewish values, and anti-Jewish bigotry...than Jews. No other minority in the US is so consistently the target of this sort of subversion and it needs to be aggressively fought.

While her condemnation of Musk is not wrong, it is profoundly hypocritical. Left wing Pot, right wing kettle.

On this topic, AOC should should take a seat and STFU for the same reason I'm not going to lecture her or other survivors of sexual assault on what survivors of sexual assault should do/say/think/believe. I haven't been there, I haven't lived through what they have, I don't know what that's like, I probably haven't studied the topic to comparable depth, and if I demand that my opinion on what rape survivors should do/say/think/feel should drown out her voice and the voices of other survivors or sexual assault, I'm clearly an asshole.

That's what AOC is doing when she goes after the ADL. She's being an asshole by her own standards. On the topic of the ADL, she should take a seat and STFU.

Does Greenblatt's ADL deserve criticism? Absolutely - but not from her.

4. Where does this leave Jews in the US?

Oh, we're in deeeeeep shit. Our co-citizens elected the most dangerous, far-right demogogue in US history to a presidency which is more powerful than ever.

There are no democratic norms he respects, no Liberal ideals he values, and there are almost no guardrails in place to slow down his authoritarian ambitions this time. He's spiteful, stupid, incurious, and he hates US populations which are already vulnerable.

There's no question that the next four years are going to be a disaster. We just don't yet know the degree of the disaster or how many generations any potential recovery might take.

Far right assholes today either directly cheer Musk's dogwhistle or dishonestly deny what it was.

The Trump administration may be allied with the current Israeli government at the moment, but their base and many in their leadership hate US Jews and if they can benefit more from betraying Israel than backing it, they'll betray Israel faster than you can say "fuck the Jews."

The opposition Democratic party has a far left flank which is actively, aggressively antisemitic and is making, in recent years, remarkable progress in mainstreaming their views...while the mainstream Democratic party is ineffectual.

It's bad.

Jews in the US have been the staunchest proponents of Liberalism in history because that Liberalism emancipated US Jews, gave them new opportunities, and enabled them to live in historic peace and safety for decades.

That US Liberalism is now under attack from both the right and the left, and neither the ADL nor Netanyahu seem to care.

That leads to me feeling that they either don't care about Jews in the diaspora...or they're profoundly incompetent at threat assessment.

I feel as though North American Jews are deeply invested in the wellbeing of our siblings, the other half of the Jewish people, who live in Israel.

At the same time, it feels like Netanyahu and most Israelis are inexplicably apathetic about the continuing US slide into authoritarianism, threats to the safety of diasporan Jews, and the potential consequences of supporting an authoritarian US regime.

Neither Greenblatt nor Netanyahu is stupid. They know what Musk meant.

They just don't care enough to say so.

Today my anger towards Greenblatt and Netanyahu is intense.

I reserve the right to feel differently tomorrow.

[magnetothemagnificent]

It’s clear when people don’t understand Jewish intra-community politics. Like most Jews of color may consider Ashkenazi and (European) Sephardi Jews as white but only in relation to/compared to Mizrahi, North African Sephardi and Beta Israel Jews. Like if you ask JOC if they think Gal Gadot is white they most likely will say yes. But if you ask if she’s white like Kate Middleton for example, most will say no bc Gal is Jewish and Israeli and Kate is a native English woman. Like the majority of us do not view Jewish whiteness as this stagnant and non fixed thing. It is mostly conditional to us and depends on whether that ‘white Jew’ is around other (nonwhite) Jews or goys or whatever. And majority are in support of everyone just identifying as Jewish first and foremost anyway without the racial or even diasporan identity.

Literally like.... don't know how to explain to people that race is relative.

[ashwantsafreepalestine]

Sending this in good faith because I'm very confused about your bio, but please hear me out as I am just looking for answers, again, in good faith.

When you refer to 'zionists' do you mean the far right extremist entities, or the traditional jewish cultural zionists?

You say that all zionists are genocidal terrorists, but the traditional meaning purely states: the belief that a jew has the right to self determinate in their homeland (the levant).

Most zionists I know are very critical of Netanyahu, the Israeli government, and the treatment of Palestinians, even before the war began. I know of a few who have even volunteered as truck loaders that are trying to bring aid into gaza.

Again, in good faith, I'm just not sure why you haven't distinguished between the differences in traditional zionists, because their beliefs are actually quite the same as the Palestinians. They just want self determination, stemming from their indigenousness to the land. I also know a lot of diasporan jews who are mostly just zionist for the sake of their family members who were born and living in Israel, and are completely and totally against the government all together.

Anyways, i hope you have a nice day, and that maybe you'll consider these things.

And your self determination was in the expense of displacing 750,000 Palestinians, destroying 531 homes and killing over 15,000 people especially women and children.

Zionists established a “homeland” through violence and bloodshed and that’s absolutely nothing holy about it.

Your apparent indigenousness does not give you the right to displace and murder. Hope this helps.

[bijoumikhawal]

"A further notable aspect of the text is the choice of the name of Ḥezekiah, the main protagonist of our story. As mentioned, many scholars were adamant to see in Ḥezekiah a historical person.⁷³ True, that behind the character indeed stands a historical person, though not Ḥezekiah. Instead, I wish to propose a literary explanation for the substitution of the name of the high priest who came to Egypt. We may recall that Ḥezekiah (reigned ca. 715–686 BCE) was one of the most prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.⁷⁴ Ḥezekiah witnessed the destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel by Sargon the Assyrian in 720 BCE and himself reigned over Judah when Jerusalem was invaded and besieged by the Assyrian Sennacherib in ca. 701 BCE. The siege was miraculously lifted by a plague that afflicted Sennacherib’s army. Isaiah (and Micah) prophesied during his reign.⁷⁵ As Josiah, Ḥezekiah is praised for having enacted religious reforms, banning the worship of foreign deities in Judah and cleansing the Temple in Jerusalem, thus restoring the worship of {the Jewish god}.⁷⁶

If we recall Onias’ fate and the function of the Ḥezekiah story in the work of Pseudo-Hecataeus, some remarkable parallels emerge.⁷⁷ Firstly, like Ḥezekiah, Onias was an antagonist to the Seleucids (= Assyrians). Also in Onias’ days, Syrians came to Jerusalem in a belligerent manner (the outcome was of course different, for the invasion of Jerusalem by Antiochus IV caused Onias’ flight to Egypt). Moreover, the Bible praises Ḥezekiah for purging the Temple from all pagan influences and cults and stresses that he performed its rededication as well. If Josephus’ report in Ant. 13.67 is reliable, which I am convinced it is, then Onias too purged a temple (a former Egyptian one dedicated to Bubastis) of the worship of a pagan deity and rededicated it to {the Jewish god}.⁷⁸ The only difference between the two is their means of coping with the Temple crisis: Onias fled to Egypt and erected a new one, while Ḥezekiah stayed on and cleansed the old one." (Pg 282)

"But first, and to return to the question of the aim of the story, I have already illustrated that, next to a constitutional concern, the story is deeply interested in legitimizing Jewish residence and Jewish life in Egypt among non-Jewish Greeks and Egyptians. Of note is that the treatise seeks to defend Jewish residence in Egypt on two fronts, namely vis-à-vis fellow Jews (presumably mostly of Judaean origin) and vis-à-vis Greeks (and Egyptians), all of whom opposed Jewish residence in Egypt. The treatise underscores that Jews are perfectly and comfortably embedded in their Diasporan life in Egypt since, so the author claims, the Jews originated there.⁸⁴ Living in Egypt too, does not militate against rigorously following Jewish law and the willingness to defend it by laying down one’s lives for it.⁸⁵ Concerning the relationship between Jews and Greeks, we take note that the treatise highlights the point that some Jews even went to Greece as colonists together with Cadmus and Danaus, while others went to Judaea (Diodorus 40.3.2). This was obviously introduced to reinforce the view that Jews and Greeks not only get along well with each other, but share a common heritage.⁸⁶ The Ḥezekiah story, we recall, is deliberately placed into the chronological context of the time and reign of Ptolemy I in order to promote the view that not only were Jews welcomed since his reign, but they were also present in Egypt ever since the first days of the Ptolemaic dynasty.⁸⁷ In addition to that, the story of Ḥezekiah’s arrival not only legitimizes the foundation of Jewish settlements (the meaning of which most probably refers to military settlements),⁸⁸ but also seeks to explain the prominence and overall presence of Jewish administrators in the Ptolemaic government and court.⁸⁹" (pg 284-285)

From Priests in Exile by Meron M Piotrkowski

[unsolicited-opinions]

Habiv Rettig Gur once mentioned how Americans remember WWII as "The Nazis Lost the War"

Israelis, says Gur, remember WWII as "The Nazis Won the Holocaust." They successfully murdered or ethnically cleansed Europe of most its Jews.

That's what I have in mind when I share this bad news:

Even if all goes as planned with the hostage releases and a ceasefire? Hamas won 10/7/23.

Hamas got *everything* out of 10/7/23 that they wanted, it succeeded far beyond their aspirations. They provoked Israel into actions which have (likely permanently) helped make Israel more of a pariah state. They have gained legitimacy with massive segments of the West. They have successfully penetrated all levels of western culture with propaganda which has been embraced uncritically.

The tipping point has been passed. When GenZ lefties come of age in the fullness of their political power, they will not support Israel.

The world's media aren't going to correct the half-truths and lies they've been spreading for the last 15 months. Even if they were capable, they wouldn't - because it would make them look bad.

Facets of the UN and dozens of well-funded NGOs will continue to attack Israel and the anti-Israel propaganda machine isn't shutting down. Leftist antisemitism in the west isn't going to diminish.

Sure, Israel might be in the news less and our lefty gentile friends may talk about it less, but now we know what they really think of us and our heritage, so those lost friendships aren't coming back. They're not going to acknowledge or apologize for their antisemitism, they're going to double down on it.

The fighting is NOT over. Those in power in Gaza will continue to steer any aid they can into war against Israel's existence.

I apologize. I feel like a thief of joy, and I'm sorry for that.

It is important, though, to understand what this ceasefire plan cannot accomplish, and how the position of Israel (and the position of diasporan Jews) will not be significantly improved.

Hamas won 10/7/23 and got everything they wanted from it.

I think it is important to acknowledge this, because we can't start working to solve a problem we don't recognize.

This fight is nowhere near over because the forces determined to end Israel's existence have grown in numbers and power in the last 15 months.

CEASEFIRE!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!! Finally!!!!!!!

These past 15 months have been more traumatic for the Jewish community than I’ll ever be able to express. And a lot of people are going to have to reckon with how quickly and deeply they bought into antisemitic propaganda and full on Soviet and Nazi rhetoric. And we as a community will have to make sure to educate people we would probably like to never see again in order to make the future safe for ourselves and future generations of Jews.

But I am SO glad the fighting is over. I am SO glad the bombings are done and the hostages are coming home and Palestine can start to rebuild.

These were among the worst months of my life and I am so desperate for this war to be over. I have so many feelings. I feel so bruised but so grateful. And I would so love to be able to call my grandma and tell her about this. I miss her so much.

[jvluso]

Permanent reminder that the ihra redefinition of antisemitism deliberately redefines what antisemitism means to put diasporan Jews in danger in an attempt to recruit us into the idf. The bills that Republicans are pushing right now in response to the anti genocide protests are not new. They are an attempt, backed by the Israeli government, to protect white supremacists who commit antisemitic violence against diasporan Jews.

[ruminativerabbi]

Pesach 2024 - Leil Shimmurim

History is filled with Rubicon moments, moments at which the course of history is altered by an event so widely understood to be of colossal importance that everything that follows feels related to that specific juncture in time, to that specific event. Pearl Harbor was that kind of moment in history. 9/11, too. So must have been also July 4, 1776. And the original Rubicon moment—when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River into Italy in January of 49 BCE and thus initiated the insurrection that led to the end of the Roman Republic and, eventually, to the reorganization of the nation as the Roman Empire with Caesar’s biological nephew and adopted son Augustus as its first emperor—that was (obviously) the first of them all. The famous words Caesar spoke aloud as he crossed the river into Italy, “the die is cast,” sums up the moment aptly: just as you can’t unroll dice, so did Caesar mean to say that his act of leading an army across the border into Italy could not be undone and would have to be allowed to lead wherever it went as the future unfolded in the wake of his decision. In the history of the Jewish people, Pesach itself is the original Rubicon moment. And it involved crossing a body of water as well!

Was October 7 such a moment for Israel? Was it one for Hamas? Or was it one for both, and also for diasporan Jews in all the various lands of our dispersion? I suppose those questions could conceivably all have different answers, but it doesn’t feel that way to me: as the months have passed since that horrific day last fall, things feel to me more and more as though the Simchat Torah pogrom permanently altered the course forward into the future for all directly and indirectly concerned parties. As Pesach approaches, this notion of a Rubicon moment has become the lens through which I feel myself called to think of the Simchat Torah pogrom.

The specific way in which the conflict in Gaza has poisoned the atmosphere not solely on our college campuses, but even in our nation’s high schools and elementary schools, is by now common knowledge, as is also the way that this conflict has opened the gates to the expression of overt anti-Semitism in the American work place and at other public events that feel totally unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict like the Christmas Tree lighting in Rockefeller Center last December. Nor are the halls of government immune: the fact, once unimaginable, that a member of Congress could formally decline to condemn people in her own district chanting “Death to America” at an anti-Israel rally and that that refusal be greeted by her colleagues with an almost universal shrug, is only this week’s example of how things have changed for Jewish Americans in the last half year. That people at the highest echelons of our American government could overtly—and without any sense of shame—suggest that American material support for Israel could, and possibly even should, be conditional on the elected leaders of Israel obeying the instructions of their American masters rather than those of their own constituents is just further proof that October 7 was a Rubicon movement for us all.

But history is not all Rubicon moments. Two weeks ago, I wrote to you about the slow deterioration of the Israelites’ status in ancient Egypt as year after year passed until their enslavement ensued almost naturally. Could slavery have been averted? Surely, it could have been: the Israelites had scores upon scores of years to pack up and go back to Canaan, but chose instead to remain permanently in Egypt on the assumption that their status would never change, that they would always be welcome, that no one would ever resent them as privileged foreigners living off the fat of somebody else’s land. I won’t repeat here what I wrote there, but the bottom line was (and is) that they could have saved themselves but, because there was no specific Rubicon moment, no pivot, no event that changed everything, they apparently chose to assume that nothing was changed at all. And then, just like that (or so it must have seemed), they were slaves possessed of no civil rights at all in a world in which midwives were charged not with assisting women in labor but with murdering the babies born to them.

I’ve written before about my relationship with Erna Neuhauser, my parents’ next-door neighbor. Born in 1898, Erna was in her 60s and early 70s when I was a teenager. But, long before that, she was a young married woman with a young daughter in Nazi Vienna, the city of her birth and the place in which she grew up. Some readers may recall that I’ve mentioned many times that Erna was a childhood friend of the woman later known as Miep Gies, the woman who risked her life years later to hide Anne Frank and her family in German-occupied Amsterdam. But the reason I mention her today is not related to Miep Gies’s story, but to her own. Erna was the first Shoah survivor I knew intimately. Of course, she never let anyone call her that because she was, she always insisted, not a survivor at all: she, her husband Ernst, and their daughter Liesel had been able to escape Vienna in 1938, first traveling to Sweden (where her brother had acquired residency earlier on and was able to sponsor them as refugees) and then to New York, where they settled and lived out their lives. But, also of course, she was a survivor—of the Nazification of Austria, of the intense anti-Semitism Anschluss brought in its terrible wake, of the degradation experienced daily, sometimes hourly, by the Jews of Vienna. And it was her story that framed my first effort to think seriously about the Shoah and to establish my own relationship to the events of those horrific years.

It was from Erna that I learned that the difference between Rubicon moments and non-Rubicon ones is not as clear as historians sometimes make it out to be. Yes, the moment Hitler annexed Austria—the event then as now known simply the Anschluss, the “Annexation”—was the Rubicon moment back across none could step. But it only seemed that way after the fact and what really happened was not one disastrous transformation from being welcome, respected citizens to despised Untermenschen, but the slow, step-by-step deprivation of the rights and privileges to which all had become accustomed. Jews couldn’t get their hair cut in non-Jewish barbershops. Jews could no longer ride the streetcars. Jewish children could no longer attend public schools. Some patriotic souls hung on, certain that things in their beloved homeland would soon improve. Others fled—some to America, others to the U.K. or to Sweden, still others to British Palestine. Many committed suicide in despair. I remember Erna saying that things somehow changed slowly and quickly at the same time. I’m feeling that right now in our nation, that sense that things are unfolding quickly and slowly somehow at the same time.

Wasn’t it just yesterday that Jewish parents would have been overjoyed to send a child to Harvard or to Stanford no matter what the cost? When did it feel reasonable not to wear a kippah on the subway or even on the LIRR? At what point did it feel wiser for Jewish teachers in New York City’s high schools not to mention their pro-Israeli sentiments for fear of being attacked by their own students? When did it start to feel normal for synagogues to hire armed guards to protect worshipers? When did I stop speaking in Hebrew on the phone in public places? I can’t even say that I don’t do that anymore—but I certainly don’t do it if I think someone might overhear me.

This isn’t the Weimar Republic we’re living in and it certainly isn’t Nazi Vienna. The center, at least so far, is definitely holding. Both presumed nominees in this fall’s presidential election self-present as allies of the Jewish community. The issue of anti-Semitism on campus is finally being addressed by people with the authority to effect real change. And, at least eventually, I still think reason will prevail, that people will come back to their senses and understand that Israel is not only our nation’s sole true friend in the Middle East, but also a fully reliable ally. But I am also sensitive to Pesach—now almost upon us—not solely being our annual celebration of freedom, but also our annual opportunity to obey the Haggadah’s famous injunction to think of ourselves not only as now-free people, but as once-enslaved ones…and to use that opportunity to consider how the Israelites ended up as slaves after having watched small micro-aggressive incidents become more and more overt, more difficult to endure, more suggestive of what was soon to come.

At Exodus 12:42, the Torah calls the eve of Pesach by the mysterious name leil shimmurim, a night of “keepings,” of “things kept or guarded.” What that means exactly has been a matter of debate for millennia. But for me it means: a night of holding on to history, of seeing time present through the lens of time past, of understanding our current situation as a function of what we’ve already experienced. Pesach is a hopeful holiday that celebrates the liberation of slaves from their bondage. But there is a monitory side to Pesach as well, one intended to make us think carefully about the present by focusing our gaze on stories from the past and in their light formulating our hopes for the future. Elijah comes to my seder table specifically with his intoxicating promise of redemption and survival. But Erna also comes, and her message is far more sobering than intoxicating…even after four cups of wine.

[utilitymonstermash]

Being vaguely interested in how religions spread, I recently read Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (2006) by Rodney Stark. 

Stark himself is a former non-believer who drifted into Christianity, a long time ago saying he was “personally incapable of religious faith” and identifying as an “independent Christian” slightly after publishing this book. 

In the book, the author takes a "quantitative social science" approach (viz. computing a bunch of correlations) to the early spread of Christianity, mixing in for color some less quantitative historical works and new testament sources (mainly Acts).

In the early centuries AD there were many Jews living in the cities in the eastern, Greek speaking, portion of the Roman Empire. These Jews were partially assimilated into the Hellenized cosmopolitan order with relatively weak ties to their Judaism. (Horus was a popular name among Diaspora Jews.)

Meanwhile Judaism attracted some Roman converts who were usually on the periphery of it for not being part of the tribe (and bring uneager to embrace adult circumcision). 

Christianity offered a continuity with the Judaism that Hellenized Jews had in their background, but was able to engage with them due their weaker religious ties. He compares this to both the success of the Moonies with less attached converts, as well as Mormons doing better in Christian rather than Islamic African countries. 

He backs this point up quantitatively with his data supporting the following hypothesis: “Hellenic cities had Christian congregations sooner than Roman cities,” “The closer a city was to Jerusalem, the sooner a city had a Christian congregation,” and “Cities with a significant Diasporan community were Christianized sooner than other cities” (as well as some about the cities Paul missionized). The rest of the argument is really carried by the more traditional religious and historical sources. 

He also uses data to support early Christianity being most successful in port cities, early Christianity being most successful in big cities (which can build critical mass around a weirdo subculture), early Christianity being successful in cities with cults of Cybele and Isis (who he projects as forerunners to monotheism among the pagans--interestingly city size did not effect presence of these cults). 

There are two more chapters, one on Gnostics and other early heresies and the other on the decline of paganism. His soft arguments in the Gnostics and heresies chapter seem extraordinarily weak to me on this one (maybe it's my own gaps). 

[botaniqueer]

It’s been about two years since I sowed this pomegranate seedling! It’s so big and pretty now! Also as a Jew and diasporan I am very fond of pomegranates in particular, even if the fruit itself is too acidic for my stomach.

[msniw]

Black Leaders Should Return to ‘Roots’

I have found a 30th anniversary edition of Alex Haley’s Roots.

A publisher’s opening statement by Vanguard Press pulls no punches; does not shirk from reminding readers that Haley’s African-American family saga mapping the road from slavery to freedom was both partly plagiarised and roundly criticised for confusing fact and fiction.

 ”But none of the controversy affects the basic issue. Roots”, says Vanguard, “fostered a remarkable dialogue about not just the past, but the then present day 1970s and how America had fared since the days portrayed in Roots …The 30th anniversary edition (is) to remind the generation that originally read it that there are issues that still need to be discussed and debated, and to introduce to a new and younger generation, a book that will help them understand, perhaps for the first time, the reality of what took place during the time of Roots”.

 But 14 years farther on still, there is no dialogue, only the latest fashion for silencing those whose honest views cause acute social discomfort - and with it the eternal rising flame of Jew hate.

 And this would alarm Haley, who died in 1992 barely two months before the Los Angeles anti-police riots and who, in September 1977 visited Israel where he received an honorary degree from the Hebrew University “in recognition of the special significance his book has for the Jewish people”.

 In his acceptance speech, Haley drew parallels between the plight of Jews in history and that of Black Africans who were sold into slavery. “Both have proven that by courage and perseverance they can surmount whatever difficulties they encounter,” he said.

So now I ask why so few people today, including Black historians, examine diasporan Africans’ own forebears’ enthusiastic complicity in their initial kidnap, torture and enslavement? Why does no-one say slavery was and remains traditional in the area and that the ancient monarchs of what are now The Gambia, Benin, West Africa and Ghana, abducted and sold their subjects to Western traders?

None of what happened later would have been possible without these rulers’ early collusion.

Slavery continues without cease throughout the modern world, in the UK and Europe and back to the Far East and Africa and is said to earn international criminal networks barely less than drugs smuggling.

No wonder then, that it remains institutionalised even in countries like Mali and Mauritania where it was abolished but not criminalised during the 1960s and 1980s respectively.

Also dubious is the sudden intervention of the historians cited above, who have complained about the ‘false slavery information’ provided in the handbook for individuals taking the UK citizenship test.

I have not heard of their criticising the defacement, despoliation and removal of historical monuments, be they in Britain, Europe or North America. Why – how - for Heaven’s sake - could they remain silent in the face of the active obliteration of the artistic expression of recorded world memory?

Surely it could not be for the petulant and infantile reason that they dislike the personalities those monuments represent? To erase monuments – even to those of people now loathsome in modern eyes – is to annihilate the past and is the work of terrorists.

The past is littered with benevolent despots like Edward Colston, presently much vilified as an evil slave trader. However, his infinite endowments to the city of Bristol would now be unquantifiable while his skill, energy and imagination make his achievements beyond price. This is ever the troubling conflict at the heart of genius; how extraordinary accomplishment may be attained without abusing others.

But the world prefers instead to laud someone like British Black Lives Matter activist Jen Reid, who in the future will be remembered best as having caused a funding crisis for Bristol Council and current Black mayor Marvin Rees as the thousands of pounds it has cost to remove her temporary, unauthorised statue had been earmarked initially for adult social care and children's services.

If Black lives are now more valuable than those of the rest of us, where does it place the white members of mixed race families? I am acquainted with several such families and so also know that the potential repercussions are too awful to contemplate.

Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of his children being judged by their characters, not their skin colour and his eldest son, Martin Luther King III remarked of him during a recent New York Times interview:

“He would know that we are much better than the behavior we are exhibiting …. Because he showed us what we could become within his life. I think, though, he would be very pleased that in his era, you had demonstrations that were largely Black but often whites joined, and in this era, it seems like there are many cities where there are very few Blacks and the overwhelming majority of those demonstrations are white. You’ve got these massive demonstrations all over the world, and whites are leading many of them, saying that ‘Black Lives Matter’… he often said that riots are the language of the unheard. He empathised with those who rioted, although he never condoned violence”.

King and his recently deceased civil rights colleague, Congressman John Lewis were both stalwart friends of the Jewish community and I suggest Lewis will have been concerned and pained by the huge spike in global antisemitism that occurred during his final months.

But Black figures like him are becoming increasingly rare in a society which seems to be dominated by virulent Jew-haters in organisations including BLM, Antifa and individuals like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan who incites the celebrities who admire him.

As his case is that currently being spotlighted, I end here by reminding Wiley, the UK Grime rapper, that far from enslaving Black people, not only were many Jews at the forefront of the 1960s US Civil Rights Movement but that two prominent English Jews, Sir Moses Montefiore and Nathan Mayer Rothschild were directly responsible for easing the abolition of slavery in England during the 1830s.

This was achieved by making a massive loan to the government for compensation to slave owners. Further, it is said that the loan was not repaid in full until “2015 as part of government restructuring of its debt”.

It is blindingly obvious that too many members of the international Black community are so accustomed to feeling oppressed that they almost enjoy and exploit their perceived victimhood.

It is time for those living in the West to be less introverted and to champion the cause of the millions of genuine slaves I mention above.

© Natalie Wood (08 August 2020)

[unsolicited-opinions]

This is one of the best conversations (from May of this year) I've heard or read since Oct. 7th about Israel, Palestine, Gaza, the Western protests, and the growing divide between Israel's government and diasporan Jews of the West.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-ari-shavit.html

Klein and Shavit are honest critics of Israel speaking from positions of genuine knowledge.

They also model how to criticize the crap out of Israel without ever approaching antisemitism.

[armeniaitn]

Diasporalogue: English Version by Serge Avédikian and Tigrane Yégavian

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/culture/diasporalogue-english-version-by-serge-avedikian-and-tigrane-yegavian-37085-16-07-2020/

Diasporalogue: English Version by Serge Avédikian and Tigrane Yégavian

Fascinating as well is the role that books and culture played for both: the Comte de Monte Cristo which Avédikian’s dad read to him as a child stands out, while in Yegavian’s case his formative years at the Lycée Français de Lisbonne provided a continuation of his own French identity and culture. Diasporalogues opens with a well-known quote from Nogoghos Sarafian about being thrown out into the sea of world affairs as an Armenian and learning to survive: and many of the scenes that Avédikian describes about his father’s existence in Marseille and the factories that Armenians worked in will echo in a welcome way scenes from Sarafian’s Bois de Vincennes, for example.

The book is divided into four parts in which Yegavian and Avédikian broach Armenian and Soviet history; Ottoman and Soviet legacies, as well as the meaning and ways of existing in diaspora at the turn of the 21st century. As in some other parts of the book, Part One (“The France of Our Dreams, The Countries of Our Childhood”) displays a tendency to ramble and to pat oneself on the back.

Part Two “Our Unreal Armenians” is an intellectual dialogue on Armenian identity that will appeal to those vested in issues of identity and dual belongings. The most interesting and rich of the four parts, “Part 3: Language and Transmission” discusses cultural transmission in general; the fourth and last part on Turkish-Armenian relations seems the most incomplete.

At one point Yegavian declares something that Armenians everywhere will recognize and which may summarize one of the main arguments of the book, i.e. that in different ways Armenians have been unable to integrate their culture into the mainstream, in the way that perhaps Jews have done in the American and European contexts. For example: “I don’t want to make comparisons with other diasporas, but the fact of not mastering the linguistic tool, the fact of not being sufficiently integrated in the spheres, the Armenian and the French spheres, is at the root of the situation in which we are today. To me, the mistake was in having wanted to make us believe that this language couldn’t be anything but ‘maternal’. A regrettable error for which to this day we pay the price.” (p114)

English translation issues pervade the text, as in the following passage which mixes up verb tenses and vocabulary, but overall it is an easy enough if sometimes grating read: “We spoke French, which is my mother tongue, while cultivating my Armenian origins. Being named Tigrane (probably the only one in Portugal) is more than a matter of an identity card… Portuguese is the third identity that is imposed, a language exclusively spoken in the preschool.” Also many of the arguments presented are tendentious, but presented as a dialogue or Q & A, they become more opinion than factual assertion.

For all that, Diasporalogues will be of interest mainly to Francophones and Franco-Armenians and to students of diasporan studies. Its specificity is both its strength and its weakness. As mentioned above, the third section “Language and Transmission” is perhaps the strongest, as it addresses issues that affect Armenians worldwide — namely how to transmit a living culture and language long after the last member of the School of Paris, for example — the last great movement of writers who composed in Western Armenia in the Diaspora — Sarafian himself, passed away in 1972.

Read original article here.

[borcolsak-blog]

Of Not Being A Jew

İniyorum kulelerinden katil iniyorum maktul minarelerden taraçadan, bahçeden ilk tanıyı bulanların indikleri her yerden ilk tanıyı bulandıran bir vaşakla birlikte değdikçe ayaklarım merdiven alçalıyor açılıyor leşlerin, atmıkların cesurane canlıların korka korka uzandıkları zemin ağzımda kef iki gözIerimde mil iniyorum kulelerinden katil. Körüm, o halde karanlık niye benden kaçıyor? Sağırım, nasıl oluyor da uğultum uzaktan beni çağırmaktadır? Göklerin çökeltisinden başkaca soy toprağın tortusundan gayrı hısım bilmeksizin iniyorum kirli eteklerine beni emziren kaltak şehrin iniyorum ama indirilmedim iniyorum çalıntı tahtımı terk ederek arada bir çehremi dalgalandıran karaltı vurulmuş arkadaşlarımdan yansıyor olsa gerek iniyorum onlardan artakalan yükü indirmek için indiğim yerde beni bir bekleyen yok indiğim yerde biçilmiş ot gibiyim puslu, çapraşık, koklanmamış ihmalkâr gözle okunmuş bir kitap bîtab bir gözle okunmayı tercih ederdim yoğrulmuş olan benle bir daha yoğrulsaydı benimle açsaydı ağırdan tükeniş faslını mızrap. Yağmurun yoldaşı denebilir mi bana? Ne dökülüş inişimde, ne çakış… Yalnızca o çetrefil aralama zahmetine katlanarak iniyorum kızları utandıran iç çekişle erkekleri boğan kasvetle iniyorum. Öfkemdi başlattı yolu ısrara gerek var deyip durdu şehvetim istemedi doğurmak böyle bir uğraşı tabiat tarih onu tanımazlıktan geldi bir dövüş olsaydı sonunda belki gevşerdi hırsım belki saçlar taranırdı bir sevişmeden sonra ama ben hınca hınç bekçisi kalacağım burçlarımın sonunda yükü bıraktığıma yanacağım. İniyor ve inliyorum nereye bir kucak dolusu sonluluk sorgusu getiriyorsam oraya bir kucak da getiriyorum bir kucak sadece genç ve diri değil bir kucak sadece yaşlı ve yorgun değil bir kucak sadece erkek ve vakur değil bir kucak sadece kıvrak ve dişi değil bir kucak sadece kavruk ve intikamcı değil bir kucak sadece gürbüz ve atak değil bir kucak sadece üzgün ve dindar değil bir kucak sadece temiz ve sevecen değil bir kucak sadece pis ve sırnaşık değil bir kucak sadece cömert ve sıcak değil bir kucak sadece sancılı ve keskin değil bir kucak sadece umursamaz ve bezgin değil bir kucak sadece öksüz ve çolak değil bir kucak sadece bir kucak açılınca açıkları kapatan acıkınca doyuran ve doyurunca nasıl da perişan, ne kadar da ölçülü darası alınmaz yüküm bu benim kayda geçirilemez, narhı konulmaz resmen ve alenen ifade usulü yok gözümün feri saydım onu, gücüm bundadır dizimin dermanıdır o buradan gelir cesaretim bende bu kucak olduktan sonra iyi veya kötü ne yapılabilir kendi hayatı aleyhine binlerce defa dolap çevirmiş olan bana? Bakın, bulduğum her gerçeği delik deşik ediyor kayboluş kapımı sürgüleyen bir vaşak her sevincimi viran eden bu hayvan yalanlar içinde boğulmamı önlüyor ondan kurtulacak olursam biliyorum beni yaşamakla coşturan bir kaynak keşfederim ondan kurtulduğum an bütün boyutlarımı kaybederim. Önceleri, acemiyken bu vaşak yokken daha yanıbaşımda okul müdürü veresiye satan bakkal kapıcı ve akrabaları d��rt ayrı ölümle ölmeyi öğren demişlerdi bana dört bucakmış anlattıklarına bakılırsa dünya omzun güneş kokuyor demişti kısa eteklikli kız o da omzuma bir şey konduracak mutlaka. İşte o zaman bildimdi anladımdı o sıra ne bir atlas kalır bende, ne ibrişim bu çuha, bu sicim elden çıkarsa acemiydim gitmem dedim sizin provalarınıza bön ve berbat buluyorum yaldızlı yaz gecelerinizi berbattır balkonda o güneşli sabahlar biraz açılmak için açıldığınız kırların aniden karşılaştığınız ırmakların ürpertisi ahmakça böndür beni belimden bölmeye kalkan enlem benden iki bakışık parça çıkarmaya çabalayan boylam da berbat ipekli libas giymem, altın takınmam atımın eğerinde kaplan derisi yoktur çehreme iyi baksalardı yırtılırdı uykularının zarı uykuluydular sinerken bedenime kıraç dağlar bitek vadilerle beraber ben tenimi yumarken uykularına tutundular… Çocuklar acıları paylaşmaz demiştim omuz silkerek acılardır paylaşan çocukları gün geldi paylaşıldı acılar çocuklar paylaşıldı bana bırakılan neyse ona burun kıvırdım gittim bir kuyudan su çektim halka boynumdan geçti geçti boynuma kemend d harfine bak dedim nasıl da soylu duruyor sonunda kelimenin harfe bak, harfe dokun, harfin içinde eri harf ol harfle birlikte kıyam et harf of harfler ummanına bat çünkü gördüm ne varsa sonunda kelimenin çünkü böndür altında kaldığım töhmet uğradığım kinayeler bön ve berbat. Evet, ilmektir boynumdaki ama ben kimsenin kölesi değilim tarantula yazdılar diye göğsümdeki yaftaya tarantulaymış benim adım diyecek değilim tam düşecekken tutunduğum tuğlayı kendime rabb bellemiyeceğim razı değilim beni tanımayan tarihe beni sinesine sarmayan tabiattan rıza dilenmeyeceğim. Gittim su çektim en derin kuyudan en hileli desteden kendi kartımı çektim yaktım belgeleri bütün tanıkları yok etmek için ricacıları öldürdüm onlar bu dumanlı dünyanın beni nasıl özlediğini görmüş olabilirdi gerçekten özlemişti beni dünya öze çekmişti özüm gelinceye kadar bana temas etmişti bu dokunuş parlatınca beni benden biraz dünya isteyen ricacıları öldürdüm ve kıtal bitti. Yazık. Yazık ki yazgımın boyası koyu. İnilecek kadar indim. Hayfa. Yine bir geçitteyim, yeniden bir liman şehri bura eskilerin tayfası yine hep buradalar hep bilinen tecimenler, tanıdık yosmalar havada hayza benzeyen aynı koku binalara yaklaşırken eskisi gibi sıklet artıyor hâlâ ayırt edilemiyor dişli gıcırtıları çocuk çığlıklarından tanıyorum bunlar bulutlara bakmak için penceresi evlerin bu da deniz hırs püsküren, toynak durduran deniz rezeleri yerlerinden oynatan vâdeden, vâdeden, vâdeden tesellicimiz. Bir yanımda kıyısı kışkırtıcı ufku muallâk deniz, bir yanımda kamu açıklamaları, genelgeler, tahvilât kimin yüzünü çevirdiysem hüznü de sevinci kadar ıskarta… Niye indim buraya ben? Boşuna mıydı yol boyunca benliğime musallat olan belâ? Bir çevrim tamamlandı mı şimdi? Yine mi döndüm başa? Olmaz diyor yanımdan ayrılmayan vaşak kimse başa dönmemiştir, dönemez hele sen geçtiğin o ormanlar rüyalarındaki canavarlardan sonra çok uzaksın o ilk fırlatıldığın zamana. Aldanma bunlar tayfa değil burada doğdu hepsi denize hiç açılmadılar denizi sen kadar bile tanıyan yoktur aralarında her biri uzak bir beldeden geldi sanılsın istiyor yosmalar böylece saygın fahişeler arasına katışacaklar müptezel birer facire ofsalar da. Tecimenler, onlar da sahi değil onlar da olmayan tayfaların gemilerinden çıkan malları sattıklarına inandırmak istiyor şehrin acemi insanlarını. Sen ve yağmur. Başa dönemezsiniz. Öyle bir yol yürüdünüz ki ancak dönüş yolunu yok ederek gelebilirdiniz inişiniz bir iniş olurdu başa dönmemecesine. Yağmur yalnız yağarken yağmurdur sen yalnız senken sensin burada kalamazsın ve başa dönemezsin gitmek zorundasın kovalanan bir Yahudi gibi ama Yahudiler gibi kendinle kalamıyorsun her şey çok yetersiz senin için her şey sana çok fazla ayıklarsan ayık durabiliyorsun aranı açıyorsun kendinle eşyayı araladıkça uyanmanın bedeli serapları fedadır uykuyu tadayım dersen kâbusa dalmak pahasına. Tarihe dersini vermen gerek yoldan ayrılamazsın yediremezsin sokulmayı kendine tabiatın apışaralarına ne yıkılmış bir tapınağın suskunluğu durdurabiliyor seni ne gürültülü bir havra. Yükün ağır. He’s so heavy just because he’s your brother. Kardeşlerin pogrom sana. Dostlarının eşiğine varınca başlıyor senin diasporan. Herkesin bahanesi var, senin yok günahlı bir gölgenin serinliğinde biraz bekleyebilirsin, daha sonra burada kalamazsın, başa dönemezsin ama dön Eve dön! Şarkıya dön! Kalbine dön! Şarkıya dön! Kalbine dön! Eve dön! Kalbine dön! Eve dön! Şarkıya dön! Eve dönmek kendime sarkıntılık etmekten başka nedir? orada, arada bir beni yoklar intihara ayırdığım zamanlar bunlar temiz, kül bırakan zamanlardır düzgün sabuklamalardan bana kalan.. Evde anlaşılmaz bir tını bilmem nereden gelir uykumdan? kanımdaki çakıldan? unutkanlığımdan? bilemem Yahudi değilim gizli bir yerde genizam yok bilemem insan nerenin yerlisidir ömrüm burada bütün Yahudiler gibi raflara doğru, çekmecelere sahanlıklara doğru geçti yabancı ellerde çitilenmekten korunmak için bir sıvaydım kendime kendi ellerimde tıpkı Yahudiler gibi buraların yerlisi ben değilim. Şarkıya dönersem ense köküm seyrelecek ağdası çözülecek bana aşktan bulaşan kozlarımın şehrin insanları yumruklarımda beyaz bulut yolun çamurunda revnâk-ı bahar bulacaklar ben şarkıya dönünce boğazlarındaki boğum insanların epriyecek ve onun yerine her günkü işleri yaparken kepenkleri kaldırırken, silerken tezgahı kalbe gizlice batan kıymık geçecek şarkıya dönersem, yanık bir şarkıya holokost neymiş meğer herkes bilecek. Kalbime döneceğim, ama hangi yolla? Yedeğimdeki okunaksız şarapla lekelenmiş, solgun harita uyduruk bir şey mi bilmiyorum yoksa sahiden definenin yeri gösteriliyor mu orada? Ama boşver... Nasıl bir ilgi olabilir kalbe dönmekle define bulmak arasında? Lâkin ben inerken her dönemeçte bir parçasını ele geçirdiğim her molada, her zorlanışında nefesimin her ayak sürçmesinde çiziktirdiğim haritamın bütün paftalarında sabit mürekkeple işaretlenmiştir nerelerde kıraçlaşır rahminde levendane öcün tohumları yatan gece güneşin şifa diye bilinen ışıkları nerelerde kıyıcı bir zehre çevrilir… Haritamda caddeyi ürpertiye açacak bir kaç kaçıktan başka nirengi noktası yok. Açıkça gösteriyor haritam farkı nedir bir cenaze kalkarken yağan yağmurun bir hükümet darbesinden sonra yağan yağmurdan. Yağmalar belli ki kim bulsa defineyi, umurumda mı ben kalbime döneceğim fokurdayıp pörtlemek için hep fokurdak ve pörtlek kalacağım kalp içinde canı sıkkın kızların yüzlerinden döşünden ahı kalmış delikanlıların dünyaya habire pörtleyeceğim evlerin olanca tınısı dindiği zaman kısıldığı zaman bütün şarkıların kanatları fokurtum dokunacak herkese yedi ırkın kavşağından. Yahudi değilsem bile bende Yahudalık da mı yok- Kimi öptüm de kurtuldu çarmıha çakılmaktan?

İsmet Özel

[keshetchai]

Hi @princessnijireiki THESE WERE MY THOUGHTS IN RESPONSE TO UR AMAZING THOUGHTS

  And I just sort of thought, if God is traditionally in all things, including us in terms of souls, etc., God cannot be separated from pain; God IS us & God IS healing & God is also suffering in and of itself… not that pain is divine or being in pain is a path TO God & understanding (though that is some OLD SCHOOL Christian meditative practices), but that God hurts, too.

 BUT that also reminds me of the explanation of Martin Buber's I-Thou philosophy. i’m putting this under a cut because it’s SUPER LONG but yeah. good stuff to think on imo.

Granted, I haven't read the book, I've only read summaries of his ideas, so I'll just briefly summarize what I understand. Buber proposes there are two types of 'relationships' the "I-It" and the "I-Thou." In the I-It relationship, it's sort of...between the self and another objective entity (so like self-object/objectified entity relationship). Like othering someone, or having an Other is an I-It relationship. But the I-Thou is a different kind of relationship: "By contrast, the word pair I-Thou describes the world of relations. This is the "I" that does not objectify any "It" but rather acknowledges a living relationship. I-Thou relationships are sustained in the spirit and mind of an "I" for however long the feeling or idea of relationship is the dominant mode of perception." So I-Thou is a relationship where a person relates to another entity as whole and complete (subject to subject relating as opposed to subject-object). 

Another website summarized: "In contrast to this the “I-It” relation is driven by categories of “same” and “different” and focuses on universal definition. An “I-It” relation experiences a detached thing, fixed in space and time, while an “I-Thou” relation participates in the dynamic, living process of an “other." Buber calls God the Eternal Thou - an I-Thou relationship being without barriers and in all people and all things. Or basically: "One who truly meets the world goes out also to God." 

 So yeah! It can be a suuuuuuuper Jewish idea to say that God IS us, in ALL things, without being divided or divisible, God just is in everything. God is the Eternal Thou. Buber (from what I understand) believes all I-Thou interactions ultimately brings us into the ultimate I-Thou relationship with God.

 > If we are to accept at face value that we are made in the image of God and act as stewards in a world which we not only interact with, but are not above— we’re still a PART of the world, ecosystem, etc.— God as sort of Itself AND this legion mass of the UNIVERSES, in each individual part & in whole, including us, then God is complicated & probably not always okay. 

 THERE'S ALSO LIKE the idea that not ONLY do we exist in God's image, and therefore we can "see" the image of God in all people - compelling us to (hopefully) treat other people with respect/dignity/compassion/etc -- but ALSO that we were given God's breath/spark/light to carry within us. There's like midrashic stories about God bringing light into each individual (since God is one and in everything), but also the fact that God "-formed man of dust from the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living soul." So God's breath is given to the first human - the existence of God is also many, many things at once. Allll the time. 

 Plus like we (as humans) often try to ascribe morality to things that aren't necessarily going to have human morals anyways. Does the tsunami that murders millions of innocents really operate on a level of being good or evil? It's a force of nature. It doesn't respond in Good or Evil terms, it exists as a natural part of the universe. A volcano isn't good or evil, it just is, and it exists, and it has its own internal code of existence and purpose. God then, presents an interesting issue like -- God (at least in the Torah) outlines a code of ethics for humans and humanity. 

And it's when God proposes A.) going against God's own previous promise after the Flood and B.) suggests something against the principle of the Ethics God has been slowly giving to humanity -- THAT IS WHEN Abraham tells God something is wrong "Far be it from you!" Does God exist beyond human ethics UNTIL God created human ethics, which humans then expected God to also adhere to? (Hypothetically, If you assume God exists exactly as they appear in the Torah) Or did human ethics define the parameters of God's Ethics/Morality? Or is God just a force of nature which exists beyond our limits of morality -- but whose purpose is the creation of the world, the continued existence of the universe, and the formation of humanity and human ethics -- in the same way a volcano exists and is able to erupt or go dormant, but can also create magma and lava, can enrich soil, expand land masses, super heat the local land and make things like obsidian, etc. 

A LOT of the WHOLE IDEA of a covenant with God implies that with God's giving us commandments and moral laws....God must also uphold themselves/their end of the bargain which is....fascinating. IDK IDK God vs. Ethics vs. Humanity is FASCINATING and how it can even be approached is so wildly different for everyone's understanding of God and how God should or shouldn't "act."

 > And between that and then also different ideas on like— if that DOES matter, and why (in terms of a “design” or “fate” to everything, or bad things happening MUST serve a greater purpose, or even just “this will be tallied up to determine my afterlife” vs. the idea of divine judgement as sth possibly more complex or less “just” than that, or the afterlife as it’s commonly thought of as nonexistent), it indicates more of that same hierarchical view of theology & faith that non-Christian & non-diasporan/non-syncretic religions handle very differently? 

 YUP. It's like....well no, we don't NEED to suffer to achieve something better after death or to become "better" people. But in reverse we can become better people if we better the world, and the world is bettered when there is less suffering. (Aka Fuck off Mother Theresa).

Or like the idea that God or gods are static, vs. a force that evolves even with atrocities & pain… like there are New World exclusive orixas & loa in contrast with Yoruban sourceland practices, specifically created & responded to as a force in reaction to both fusion with/forced containment masquerading as Catholicism, and to the Middle Passage itself… or on a lighter note, how Hopi Sacred Clowns literally change to reflect the times, not in “spirit,” but in execution & appearance, in the same way as those comparison photos of people reading newspapers on a train and people on their smartphones. Which are admittedly examples from faith practices where “God” or a Godhead or spiritual holy entities are not necessarily or inherently all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing by design; nor is that demonized. But New World vodou & santerx practices ARE often specifically linked with Catholicism, even when they seem at odds with each other. 

 BUT THAT ALSO HAPPENS IN TORAH!!!! Someone a little bit back made a post about decolonizing our Judaism and our relationships to Judaism and it's like....well, shit, yeah. Colonialism and Christianity go hand in hand in the modern world, and Judaism is often obscured by Colonialism's misuse and abuse of the "Old Testament." 

 ....But well, it's an indigenous religion of a tribal people who've always lived in/related to a specific land, used a specific language, and shared a base culture/customs with regional variations. (I love visiting the Ancient Israel/Canaan wing of the museum I work in for this reason it's so....awesome to see the objects that came out of this time period TBH). So you've got this religion which frankly really truly reflects the needs of its people and the existence of its people. It's why so much of Torah seems weird or outdated or what have you to people today! Like of COURSE we may not relate to the lives of a bunch of people living in Israel 3,000 years ago as a nomadic people. Of COURSE some of the laws seem bizarre - the first five books talk about the lives of people living outside of the very first cities, practicing a type of religion (monotheism) which really, didn't exist elsewhere.

 Judaism gave Israelites an ancestral God, but one that was shared amongst ALL the tribes. It was a God that existed before the nation (so not a national pantheon) and yet the tribes became the nation-kingdom of Ancient Israel, so the religion preceded the state. AND yet, ancient Jews could (and did) live in other states and maintained their ancestral religion. And despite the fact that so many of the holidays are tied to life in Eretz Yisrael, they were maintained in diaspora!!! (RELATED: It's Tu B'shevat next week i think, so happy Birthday to the Trees. It will be a time to plant trees in Israel. Or like, anywhere, you want, I guess.) Like we still celebrate the harvest season in Israel across the world - so parts of the religion are so directly tied to life in Israel, especially an agricultural life which has been on-going forEVER, and yet is has evolved so so so much to grow and expand and exist beyond that. 

The concepts of God grew and changed with Israel (both the people "Israel" and the land by the same name) just as much as religion itself did. And that's even seen in the growth/change/manifestations of God in the Torah - like God starts out in the garden and makes Adam and Chava (Eve) clothing before they leave the garden. God/Angels later visit Abraham as travelers to be met outside his tent. God wrestles Isaac. But then God shows up as a burning bush. God shows up as a voice. God becomes a pillar of WHIRLING FLAMES. God is a guiding pillar of light and then a huge cloud of shade for the wandering Israelites in the desert - which is very different from the God that, in Eden, made Adam and Chava clothing to wear. God evolves not only for the situation and context, but for human needs (light, shade, water, protection, as a friendly stranger, etc.) God was never static even in Torah, even in the Tanakh as a whole. I mean God literally for a long time becomes an entity which "rests" in the Ark amongst a nomadic people. It's a God box that goes with them in a literal, physical way. But then the Temple is built, and God's throne is there - but also God remains with the people still, simultaneously. 

It again, feels like God exists everywhere, but appears/materializes in ways that humans want and feel comfortable with and/or however they most need. Adam and Chava needed the God who would make them clothes before sending them out of Eden. When God needs to be a supernatural force of miracles and wonder - then God is a bush on fire speaking to Moses - THAT is a God that is not being anthropomorphic but instead otherworldly - a God that can and will bring about a massive change in the social order and make possible the "impossible" - liberation from slavery. Then again, the Israelites need something that will lead them through the desert - a pillar of light, a cloud for shade and resting that quite literally leads the way - a God that guides them but also is portable and goes with them places -- until they settle into a kingdom, where God can also "settle" on the Temple Mount. 

 But anyways yeah it's....definitely a God which can relate to humanity in many different contextual ways and isn't some huge authoritarian UNCHANGING being. God, for better or worse, also seems to be learning how to be God to humans (Justice requiring mercy, requiring empathy, and understanding, learning....patience, lmao...) as much as humans are defining what they need from God. And like, that, I feel is part of the issue of "well Jewish God is an indigenous concept/God figure to Israel (the people/land)" versus "Christian God, which layers on the lens of the 'Old Testament' vs 'New Testament' is a God that is explicitly, and (I would argue foundationally) a part of Western Colonialism." Christian God was utilized as an authoritarian figure in colonialism to create it, to perpetuate/sustain it, and to legitimize it. 

The Colonial Christian God exists with all these problems that really can't (in my mind) ever be fully or completely solved with a definitive answer. On the other hand, post-colonial, syncretic, and indigenous religions either create answers or ways to "mend" over them, or don't see it as a binary either/or issue. In Judaism, the way to "solve' the problem of All-perfect/all-good/all-knowing is usually "Let's keep asking these questions. It's okay to ask them, and we may have many possible answers. If God is not these things, then what do we demand of or expect from God?" BUT a religion which is being appropriated for Colonialism cannot really allow so much questioning to be asked or consideration of alternative routes or answers because then the Colonial power [here, the Church] loses its authority and control over the people it is subjugating.

 Like you said, "that structure is the “universal” norm which has survived & outlasted other “versions” of Christianity because those other interpretations were discouraged, removed from holy texts (the history of the Christian Bible & its translations through history is WILD), or persecuted (sometimes violently), on purpose." It NEEDED to remain as a structure in Christianity. Where Christianity survived and spread through this framework of a particular version of God, particular morals, "saving" or "damnation," etc -- Judaism survived (in many ways) on the exact opposite - to maintain itself it simultaneously became regimented/structured, and "set" in very specific rules, but ALSO it was fluid, adaptable, and changing. The legalistic mindset of Jewish law means that what is said to be "clear cut" in one place is actually debated over millennia, with rulings that can affect local communities differently, or with authorities being decentralized, and that questioning, debate, argument, AND tradition go hand in hand in a way that keeps it sustainable.

[unsolicited-opinions]

Jewish opinions and reading/viewing recommendations, please, on these broad themes?

For most of my life, I identified many elements of my cultural inheritance as just Jewish, but it seems increasingly clear to me that much of this culture is a particular sort of diasporan Jewish culture which is specific to ashkenazim in the US, and I'd like better understanding about how diasporan US Jewish culture differs from that of our cousins elsewhere in the diaspora.

Check out this Pew survey from 2016 illustrating how US Jews and Israelis view Jewish identity differently.

One of the strangest things I've learned from social media in recent years is that many Jews have some very strongly-held views about Israel being the holder of "real" Jewish culture, or about diasporan Jews being the true preservers of authentic Jewish culture/values. A third segment seems to believe that only the ultra-orthodox are the true preservers of the world.

I think all three of those perspectives are fucking ridiculous. The No True Scotsman fallacy is everywhere, but I found it disturbing seeing it applied to Jewish identity by Jews.

Anecdotally, it seems to me (I can't back this up, it's just an impression) as though online anti-Zionist Jews in the US frequently have a lot in common. They're usually not particularly observant (which I don't judge - I'm not observant), they're usually ignorant of the history of the Jewish people (which I do judge because it feels weird (or even sinister) to me to claim kinship with a people and history one knows nothing about only for the purpose of condemning that people), and they seem to believe that there is something authentic about their diasporan Jewish identity which they feel Israelis lack.

Have you seen this too?

I'd like to understand anti-Zionist Jews better than I do, so I sought to eliminate the most ignorant of them and seek out the views of anti-Zionist Rabbis, who are presumably better educated.

This didn't help me understand much, other than confirming that there is extraordinary antizionism in far-left culture in the US.