#end jew hatred day

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Meghan Blonder

New York Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman is touting an endorsement from a left-wing group that denounced a resolution commemorating "End Jew Hatred Day" in New York City. That resolution was "dangerous" and "a farce," the group said.

In a Monday tweet, Bowman heaped praise on Indivisible Brooklyn, calling their work "crucial in ensuring that everyday people are actually represented in our democracy."

"I am honored to have their endorsement and continue working with them," Bowman said.

Roughly one year prior, in June 2023, Indivisible Brooklyn blasted a bipartisan New York City Council resolution that established an "End Jew Hatred Day" in an attempt to combat rising anti-Semitism in the city. "That 'End Jew Hatred' bill was a total farce and is dangerous," the group said, adding that one of the two Brooklyn Democrats who voted against the resolution "was right to oppose it." The resolution passed with 41 yes votes.

Bowman's praise for Indivisible Brooklyn comes as the lawmaker faces a difficult primary challenge from Westchester County executive George Latimer, a pro-Israel Democrat whom local rabbis encouraged to run, citing Bowman's hostility toward the Jewish state. In the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 attack, the two-term congressman has accused Israel of "mass murder," "genocide," and "ethnic cleansing."

"Many of us tried to engage the congressman early in his term, seeking constructive dialogue about the damaging positions he took—especially on matters related to America's relationship with Israel," the rabbis wrote in an October letter. "Regrettably, Congressman Bowman disregarded our outreach and doubled down on his anti-Israel policy positions and messaging."

Neither Bowman nor Indivisible Brooklyn responded to requests for comment.

The "End Jew Hatred Day" resolution, which was sponsored by Republican councilwoman Inna Vernikov, came as New York led the nation in anti-Semitic incidents and experienced a record number of anti-Semitic assaults, according to data from the Anti-Defamation League. In 2022, 72 anti-Semitic assaults were reported in the state, the highest on record at the time. That number represented 65 percent of all anti-Semitic assaults reported in the United States.

Vernikov's resolution aimed to "acknowledge this reality and to express support for this historically victimized community," according to New York GOP chair Ed Cox. Still, in addition to the two Democrats who voted against it, four others voted to abstain. One of those four, Charles Barron, said he did so because the "Jewish community … supported apartheid in racist South Africa and said nothing about African people dying."

A bipartisan group of lawmakers denounced the New York City Democrats who refused to back the bill.

"Antisemitism has a long and ugly history. It has seen a resurgence in NYC with a record number of hate crimes," Rep. Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.) said at the time. "How can anyone vote against a resolution to end antisemitism?"

Since Latimer's entry into the race in December, Bowman has done little to improve his relationship with his district's Jewish leaders.

During a January panel discussion titled, "Palestine Oct. 7th and After," Bowman glowingly introduced anti-Israel author Norman Finkelstein, who celebrated Hamas's massacre as a "heroic resistance" that "warm[ed] every fiber" of his soul.

"I'm also a bit starstruck, because I watch them all the time on YouTube," Bowman said of Finkelstein and two other anti-Israel panelists. "You have given me the knowledge on YouTube even before coming here."

One month later, Bowman teamed up with fellow anti-Israel House member Cori Bush (D., Mo.) to hold a joint fundraiser in Los Angeles. That fundraiser was hosted by a number of activists who defended Hamas's attack, including one who called it "a desperate act of self-defense," the Washington Free Beacon reported. Bowman also held a joint fundraiser with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), during which the lawmakers filmed themselves leading a "Free Palestine" chant.

In addition to Indivisible Brooklyn, Bowman in January touted an endorsement from Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a left-wing nonprofit that blamed Israel for provoking Hamas's attack. The group has also argued against sending anti-Semitic hate criminals to jail, saying those criminals should be met with "restorative, community-based education and healing," not "a police-driven response with criminal penalties."

[fructidors]

i get that having parents that have never pushed me into doing anything religious is probably objectively a good thing however as a person who really does wants to be more observant than i currently am oftentimes I'M the one pushing my PARENTS to take me to synagogue which is. a bit of a weird position to be in

[germiyahu]

This phenomenon of so called Leftists throwing up their hands at the tiniest pushback, or criticism, or suggestions on how to not actively be antisemitic needs to be studied. Because what do you mean instead of just accepting that an antisemitic troll claiming to be on your side said "Zionist Occupied Government" and denouncing this and moving on with your life... you double down, defend, and deflect. It's classic DARVO, but like, when people are very patiently and slowly explaining how this is a literal KKK Nazi white supremacist fascist phrase, it's not enough? You don't care?

It's clear that the "pro Palestinian" left have been fully infiltrated by fascists, both Western fascists who have always been nakedly antisemitic and are finding the perfect avenue to mainstream their Jew hatred... and Islamist fascists who simply never cared that Jews are a global minority group that has faced oppression and violence in multiple different continents, they don't care about social justice or fundamental human rights. It's not part of their intellectual tradition.

The "pro" Palestine movement has been captured by people who have decided that a) Palestine is emblematic of all of the problems of the world, and that b) every Jew is worth sacrificing to correct these problems, because c) if Palestine is emblematic, aren't Zionists responsible for everything then?

Now the prevailing thought is that someone should be able to call for violence against Jews, someone should be able to harass or even assault Jewish Americans, because bringing it up, complaining, taking a stand, that's the equivalent of telling them you like children blowing up, you like hundreds of thousands of people being homeless and food insecure, you like prisoners being detained in Guantanamo conditions without due process, where anyone can torture them as revenge even if there's no proof they're an actual Hamas member.

Is there a reason they argue like Republican Fox News addicts? I guess that kind of explains how easily the "movement" is falling apart to literal fascists.

They say "nobody cares about your hurt feelings ZIONIST!" if you mention literal stabbings and firebombs. They say "but we should talk about how pervasively synagogues indoctrinate the vast majority of Jewish people with Zionist ideology." They roll their eyes because "don't you know Palestinians are suffering 200x what these cushy American Jews could even imagine?" Facts don't care about your feelings uwu~

But at the end of the day, they care a lot about their own feelings, much more so than the facts. They feel entitled to hate all Jews all over the planet, to secretly revel in antisemitic rhetoric and acts, to want to take out their impotent frustration and despair on any and all Jews they'd like. This is very much about their feelings and not any Jewish people's feelings.

They've been waiting for this, or many of them never cared at all. Now it's finally Leftist to quote Nazis and openly make fun of Jews who are getting stabbed. Now it's finally Leftist to call for incinerating all of Israel and maybe we should consider a lot of Diaspora Jews too, you know they can't be trusted! Oh but don't forget to honor the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, innocent civilians should never have been targeted by America's vicious imperial violence!

The fact that it took this substantial contingent of watermelon twitter less than a year to go full mask off like this... is that revealing or troubling?

[matan4il]

An incomplete "there's a good chance the icon you love and support is a Zionist" list

🌟 Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, whose family was murdered during it. Lemkin is responsible for coining the term "genocide," and for every legal provision that exists today against it. His work against genocide was inspired by his Zionism.

🌟 Martin Luther King, Jr., who did not only support Israel and its right to security, a fellow participant at a dinner with MLK shortly before his assassination quotes him as having stopped a student attacking Zionism, and replied, "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism." He also encouraged Americans in 1967 to support the Jewish state, as Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran, endangering Israeli citizens by cutting the country off from its oil supply.

🌟 Emma Lazarus, a Jewish American poet, whose words ("Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free") are engraved on the Statue of Liberty's pedestal, after they helped raise the money needed for its completion. Drawing from the value of Jewish solidarity, she also wrote, "Until we are all free, we are none of us free," adopted as a slogan by intersectionality (while many in the movement exclude Jews from it). She was a great supporter of establishing a state for Jews in the Jewish homeland, having argued for this idea years before the word "Zionist" was even coined.

🌟 The 14th Dalai Lama, the leader of the fight against the occupation of Tibet, who was invited in 1994 to Israel, at a time when China's communist regime did its best to prevent his visits anywhere in the world, and who came to Israel more than once, talking about the 2000 years long Zionism of Jewish culture in exile as an inspiration and role model for Tibetans. "Among Tibetan refugees, we are always saying to ourselves that we must learn the Jewish secret to keep our traditions, in some cases under hostile circumstances."

🌟 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who spoke more than once about how her pursuit of justice is a continuation of that very same thing in Jewish tradition. She had repeatedly referred to American Zionist Jews as sources of inspiration. For example, in 2018, during her fifth visit to Israel, in a speech she gave when receiving the Genesis Award, she mentioned two such women, Emma Lazarus and Henrietta Szold.

🌟 Nelson Mandela had an ambivalent view of Israel, but repeatedly recognized its right to exist, which makes him a Zionist, he also called upon Arab states to do the same, and was favorable towards the Zionist Jews who supported him during his underground days. Mandela being critical of Israel and still a Zionist is an apt reminder that criticizing the Jewish state and opposing its very existence are NOT the same thing, and only one's antisemitic.

🌟 Felix Salten, the Jewish author of Bambi (the book Disney's movie is based on). The tale was originally a metaphor for Jews suffering antisemitism, something Salten personally had to cope with. He was also an ardent Zionist, feeling the self-liberation at the core of this ideology suited his idea of how to deal with Jew hatred.

🌟 Sun Yat-Sen, who helped end the rule of China's last imperial dynasty, was its first provisional president, and is nowadays honored as an important Chinese leader in both China and Taiwan (sometimes referred to as "Father of the Chinese Nation"). He was an enthusiastic supporter of Zionism. Among other instances of expressing that, he wrote in a 1920 letter to a leader of the Jewish community in Shang Hai about Zionism that it is, "one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of Democracy cannot help but support wholeheartedly and welcome with enthusiasm the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserves an honorable place in the family of nations."

🌟 Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay Jewish sexologist, nicknamed among other things "The Einstein of Sex" and "The Father of Gay Liberation," because his medical and scientific work on human sexuality, as well as social advocacy for women's, gay and trans rights, was nothing short of pioneering. He was persecuted by the Nazis to the point where he died in exile. They broke into his institute of sexual research, where the world's first clinic performing sex reassignments surgeries was located, and burned down the institute's library. Hirschfeld had attended a Zionist conference following the Balfor Declaration of 1917, and his work on sexual liberation found inspiration in young socialist Jewish Zionist workers he met during a visit to the Land of Israel in 1931-2.

🌟 Marcia Langton, a professor and prominent Aboriginal rights activist from Australia, who has been leading the fight against racism and for her community. She spoke out against the hijacking of native rights movements by terrorist sympathizers and antisemites, and has clearly stood against all loss of life, including that of Israelis.

🌟 Felix Zandman, a Holocaust survivor whose work on resistors is integrated into many smartphones, laptops, cars, satellites, hospital ventilators (saving many Covid patients), airplanes and more. Whenever the anti-Israel crowd is scrolling social media on their phones, they're enjoying the work of a Zionist, who enthusiastically supported the State of Israel, and even introduced an important improvement to the Israeli Merkava tank, which has likely saved many Israeli lives, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, and others like him, since Israel's high tech is considered only second to Silicon Valley (going back to at least the 1990's). If they truly wish to boycott everything that's been "contaminated" by Zionism, they should probably just boycott technology.

🌟 Rosa Parks, an African American leader of the civil rights movement (and someone who personally demonstrated how one can resist without turning violent). She was one of 200 notable black American leaders who publicly organized to express their support and respect of Zionism as the Jewish right to self-determination, and Israel as the manifestation of that right.

-> Like I said, this is VERY incomplete, even just in terms of how the overwhelming majority of Jews are Zionist, and have been since the inception of Judaism, which is itself Zionist. Over the years, this led to many non-Jewish human and native rights champions to be supportive of Zionism, too. Take note of who is being vilified, when the term "Zionist" is ignorantly used as if it means anything other than belief in the equal right of Jews to liberation and self-determination in the Jewish ancestral land. Especially when it is used as being inherently evil.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[chanaleah]

At what point do you not see yourselves in Palestinians? At what point in all of this violence, do you not see yourself in the people of Palestine? I would genuinely like an answer, if you don’t mind. I simply cannot comprehend how you go about your day and not see all of the pain and trauma that was inflicted on the Jewish people in the conflict in Palestine. How do you go about life knowing that what happened to your people is happening to others, some of whom are also Jewish?

ok first of all, to address your latest point, there are no Jewish Palestinians. There have been people who have called themselves Jewish Palestinians or Palestinian Jews at points in history, but they do not exist as a people today - because all of the Jews who once lived in what are now the Palestinian Territories were kicked out in '48. The only Jews in Gaza are the hostages, and the Jews living in the West Bank certainly don't consider themselves Palestinian.

But I will answer your question.

Why must Jewish pain and trauma be projected onto anyone but Jews? Of course I feel for those in Palestine. They are dying in a terrible war. The situation in Gaza is awful. I don't deny that. It's true. I hope that there can be an end to the fighting and actual lasting peace in the middle east very soon. Palestinians deserve it, Lebanese deserve it, Syrians deserve it, Iranians deserve it.

But keep in mind that Israelis are suffering in this war, too. Hundreds of people, including a baby and many others, mostly civilians, are still held hostage in Gaza. Many of those taken have been killed. Those who are still captive are no doubt suffering greatly. Israelis in the north of Israel have faced incessant rocket barrages from Hezbollah since October 8th. Just recently, Iran fired hundreds of missiles towards Tel Aviv.

When I look at this conflict, I see suffering in Gaza. I see how the government of Gaza - Hamas - has stolen aid and resources from Gazan civilians and has embedded themselves into civilian infrastructure. I see how Gazans are starving, unable to get aid, and how their are constantly having to flee. I also see multiple terrorist groups, backed by the Islamic Republic (Iran), who are openly genocidal towards Jews - you can look at the statements their leaders have made and their charters. For example, an entire line of the Houthis' slogan is "a curse upon the Jews". These groups are not subtle about their hatred of Jews - neither in their actions or in their words. I also see how those countries have expelled - in the case of Yemen - every last Jew in the country.

In that, I see echoes, loud ones, of the millennia of antisemitism. And the pain and trauma we have faced does not have to be applied to other groups. It is completely right to ask that we care about Gazan civilians. The vast majority of us do. In my eyes, those who don't are in the wrong. But it is unfair to ask that we apply our own pain, our own trauma, to a situation that does not compare to what we have faced.

I'm not saying that what Gazans are enduring is not awful and terrible. I'm not trying to play oppression olympics here. Don't twist my words. But our pain belongs to us.

[still-searching-for-something]

Today was Yom HaShoah, the day that Jews remember the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945.

This is a really simple opening statement, but bear with me--I think it gets a lot more... 'yeah, buts' than most people may realize. And I think a good way of illuminating that is to break down the difference between how gentiles and Jews commemorate and remember it.

In my experience, gentiles seem to view the Holocaust as the ultimate example of mankind's barbarity to mankind. Like, the distillation of evil, the most obvious example of dehumanization and bigotry brought to its horrifying and extreme conclusion. They emphasize Nazi Germany's responsibility, elevate the instances of non-Jewish Frenchmen and Poles and Germans who made efforts to save Jewish lives, and generally view Nazi oppression as a catastrophe of whom Jews were one of many victims. And they emphasize the Allied Powers' role in ending it by liberating the camps and invading Germany. Hence why International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on January 27th, the day Auschwitz was liberated.

But Jews have a different perspective.

We view the Holocaust as the most extreme manifestation of--but far from the conclusion to--mankind's barbarity to Jews. Not to his fellow man, per se, not to some universalized insert minority here slot, but to Jews, particularly and deliberately. The Nazis could never have accomplished their genocide were it not for the two millennia of anti-Jewish hatreds and dehumanization embedded deep in the institutions and political structures of European society. They didn't have to persuade Europe that the Jews were incurably evil, the Europeans already believed that. The Nazis had 99% of their work done before they'd even come to power, work that was done by the the Russian Empire, the Romans, Martin Luther, Christian Passion Plays, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the centuries of blood libels, the Fourth Lateran Council, the New Testament, the Spanish Empire, and on and on and on and on. It's as if some people think Hitler just woke up one day, out of the blue, with a total hatred of Jews and managed to use propaganda to convince the previously 100% tolerant Germans to hate Jews, too. Antisemitism did not begin or end with the Holocaust.

The sole responsibility of Nazi Germany in the Holocaust is also just... not true. Vichy France rounded up 13,152 Jews in the Vel' d'Hiv roundup, with not a single German participant, and sent them off to be murdered in Auschwitz. Vichy passed antisemitic legislation without any outside coercion--French Jews were hiding as much from the French police as they were from the Gestapo. France, of course, was the home of the Dreyfus Affair--antisemitism was and is a deep part of French society. And it isn't just France. Ukrainian nationalists participated in the Lviv pogroms, killing maybe around 8,000 Jews, Poles perpetrated the Jedwabne pogrom, and that doesn't even bring in that countries like the US, Switzerland and Ireland and Britain blocked Jewish emigrants, and I could just keep going on, but I think you get the point. Quite simply, six million Jews interspersed throughout Europe don't get murdered if it isn't without the collaboration of--or at minimum, silent assent and indifference--of all of their neighbors. The Nazis were the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust, of course, but almost all of Europe collaborated on some level, too. And this is a history that gets wiped away in favor of the comforting narrative of the Allied Powers bursting into Auschwitz, killing Nazis, and being horrified by what they've found, and then the poor people in the surrounding towns having NO IDEA about what had been going on. I think this narrative is why gentiles have International Holocaust Remembrance Day when Auschwitz was liberated--when they 'came to the rescue'--and why we have Yom HaShoah on the day in the Jewish calendar that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began--when we died on our own terms in spite of our murderers.

Think of the tiny, unwritten, centuries old minhagim of small Jewish shetls and towns like Trochenbrod, which were entirely annihilated. The end of the burgeoning Yiddish cinema. Yiddish going from 13 million speakers to 600,000 today. See how many entries in this list of shetls end with "town/city survived, but all/most Jews exterminated." Imagine for a moment, the potential rabbis and scholars and actors and scientists and artists who could have lived, had they survived or been born of Jews did. Three and a half million Polish Jews, to around 15,000 to 20,000 Polish Jews today. Imagine if Thessaloniki were still a majority Jewish city. How many Jews worldwide would be alive today had the Holocaust never happened? I've heard estimations of 32 million, compared to the real life 16 million. To kill such a massive number of people from an already tiny minority group--that has real consequences. The cultural loss for the Jewish people is staggering and beyond human comprehension.

And yet, the Nazis deliberate targeting of us is, in many ways, being pushed aside. Magnus Hirschfeld was gay, yes, and advanced the Institute of Sexology way ahead of its time and yeah, the Nazis were homophobic. But they were homophobic for antisemitic reasons. They viewed his work as Jewish perversions BECAUSE Dr. Hirschfeld was Jewish. In fact, they viewed homosexuality as a creation of the Jews. But so many progressive queer people, especially those who run in antizionist circles, seem to be trying to co-opt the Holocaust as being their trauma, downplaying Hirschfeld's Jewishness and holding the Institute up as proof that queer people were the 'real' victims of the Holocaust, entirely shutting out the millions of Jews, Sinti, Roma, and Slavs who were murdered. You can also see this in anti-mask conservatives comparing masking mandates during the pandemic to anti-Jewish legislation in the Holocaust, or the comparisons of the ongoing war against Hamas as being a 'modern day Holocaust.'

This phenomenon, Holocaust universalization, gets so much pushback from Jews for a reason--it downplays the anti-Jewish character of the Holocaust. It's softcore Holocaust denial. And it's so ridiculous we even have to say that, as the whole point of the Holocaust was to be anti-Jewish, to be the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." It's 'All Lives Mattering' the Holocaust. Holocaust universalization, and Holocaust inversion--the phenomenon of talking about Jews, Zionists, or Israelis as perpetrating a 'new Holocaust'--minimizes and trivializes the astounding damage and traumas and death and destruction wrought by the Holocaust. It's a polemical lie, so incendiary and so insulting--imagine telling a sexual assault survivor that they're morally no better than their rapist--that the only thing it can be is antisemitic. It is beyond reprehensible to talk like that, but it's so mainstream and acceptable to do it. Activists who say these things need to examine their own rhetoric, because it's dangerous, antisemitic, and adjacent to Holocaust denial. Not a place I think anyone should want to be.

The Holocaust is not a lesson Jews should have learned, an educational seminar, a 'card' Jews play, a choose your own adventure novel, a philosophical meditation on the nature of mankind's evils, or an empty slate upon which to project modern politics, warfare, or your ideology onto.

The Holocaust is, quite simply, the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945. And today was Yom HaShoah, the day we remember that.

[jewishvitya]

I'm sorry I'm slowing down. I've been missing meals over these attacks. I had a full day where I wasn't able to eat. It's really hard to take care of myself right now.

I saw an Israeli soldier proudly declaring that he means to commit genocide. On camera saying we'll turn Gaza to dust. I heard people celebrating the idea of Gaza becoming a children's cemetery. A father of one of the hostages taken by Hamas protested, not to end the war, but to get the hostages back first. He got attacked in the street by a person who told him he deserves to be lynched. That's how the people who aren't media trained are talking right now.

I said we went too far and shouldn't be killing so many civilians and I got called a kapo. I told someone I was scared because I never imagined this escalating so quickly and so many people in Gaza are dying. She scoffed at me and asked me if I'm this bothered by our own dead too. Any expression of sympathy towards the people of Gaza is automatically translated to mean I don't care about Israeli civilians. Even while I am one.

I guess one of my goals was to help people feel more comfortable speaking up about this. If you've been following me, you most likely care about Jewish people and antisemitism. I've been talking about antisemitism for a very long time. I want more people who care about both Jews and Palestinians to be outspoken.

The whole conversation is poisoned because Israeli propaganda conflates criticism with antisemitism, and because there are the people who choose a side based on hatred of either Jews or Muslims. So you'll see very hateful people on your side regardless of which side you're on. You can't always use that as a guide for if you're right or wrong.

If you're accused of being antisemitic for criticizing Israeli violence, don't automatically try to defend yourself. You don't want to feed into that aspect of Israeli propaganda. If you want to make sure you're being diligent about avoiding antisemitic narratives, you can avoid statements that imply conspiracy headed by Jews, avoid dehumanizing Israelis, avoid minimizing the holocaust and other violence we experience in diaspora, and watch the ways pro-Palestine Jews talk about this. You don't need to invent the wheel.

So be careful about your word choices and your sources, but Palestinians are dying. This isn't the time to be silent because someone is weaponizing your desire to avoid causing harm.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

The six not in favor

Shahana Hanif, a Bangladeshi American freshman on the council who voted against the measure, rejected the criticism.

“I think it is extremely disrespectful to be called antisemitic on the floor based off of just one action when I continue to show up for our Jewish colleagues and communities,” said Hanif, who succeeded City Comptroller Brad Lander in the 39th District, which includes the Park Slope and Borough Park neighborhoods of Brooklyn.

She said she had not planned to explain her vote, but felt compelled to after listening to her colleagues lash out at those who did not support the resolution.

Hanif, who is Muslim, said she refused to support an initiative spearheaded by “right-wing organizations” and supported by Brooke Goldstein, an activist and head of the Lawfare Project who has claimed that Palestinians don’t exist. “They have not stood up for Muslims. They have not stood up for trans New Yorkers or anybody,” she said. “And I’ve not seen my colleagues step up those who introduced this legislation to support our trans siblings.”

Hanif said she would be open to discussing the fight against antisemitism “on a broader aspect as opposed to a simple gesture.”

Charles Barron, a longtime member of the Council who has associated with antisemitic hate groups and has been condemned for his anti-Israel views, said he chose to abstain because of the “inconsistency” demonstrated by the Jewish community’s leadership in speaking out against hatred.

They do not speak out against “hatred of the Palestinian people, like the state of Israel murdering Palestinian women and children and stealing the land of people in Palestine,” he said. He added that “leaders in the Jewish community even supported apartheid and racist South Africa and said nothing about African people dying.”

Vernikov told the Forward it was “sickening” to listen to the remarks of those who opposed the resolution, noting that she referenced the atrocities of the Holocaust in her introduction of the measure.

[beautiful-basque-country]

On a day like today...

in 1940, besties Franco and Hitler had a 7h meeting in Hendaia (Lapurdi).

Although fascist propaganda regarding the neutrality of Spain in WW2 eventually caught on, truth is Spain was an active supporter of the axis. Franco had to pay back the German aid during the Spanish Civil War - remember it was nazi planes the ones that bombed Gernika - and Hitler wanted to lure Franco into full war promising Gibraltar and territories in North Africa.

Franco somehow kept his position willingly ambiguous: while selling the allies a neutral image, he gave several public speeches supporting the axis throughout the conflict, mantained radio-blocking stations, German observation posts, and radar systems until the end of war. He also sent around 45,000 men to fight for Hitler in Russia, let German submarines refuel in Spanish ports, sold wolfram to Germany, welcome fleeing nazis, and ran a net of spies devoted to raid the Pyrenees hunting Jews on the run to hand them to nazi officials.

When the victory for the allies was apparent and Spain was in a bad international position, the regime used the Spanish press to defend the 100% neutrality Spain had mantained during WW2, and to make clear that any doubt about it was nothing but vitriol from the "exiled red scum". His hatred to communism would be handy now since it was that fact what not only made him survive the post-WW2 era, but until his death in 1975, for eternal shame of the Western democratic countries.

"Spain was neutral" was A LIE since minute 1 and many people fell for it, and fall even today.

[a-very-tired-jew]

Fandomization, Fervor, and Fuck Off

A consistent and appalling behavior since October has been the fandomization of the I/P Conflict by anti-Zionists and co. Many of us on this site have documented and talked about such behavior. From my own personal experience it reminded me of certain anime fandoms back in the day when they first emerged. If you weren't talking about it and it wasn't all consuming then you were a problem. I remember conventions being hell as these new fandoms crashed photo shoots and panels that weren't about them. The way in which anti-Zionists crash into other issues to make it about their particular one is reminiscent of these behaviors. As I've stated before, my toes are dipped into a variety of scientific topics as an ecologist. One of them is climate change and for the past few months the conversation within CC spheres has been forcibly turned to I/P and the "wanton destruction of the Palestinian landscape by the evil Jews Zionists. Thereby proving they're not indigenous because no indigenous culture would destroy their landscape." Never mind that the conversation prior to that moment was about pollinator loss due to climate change and habitat loss. This is Fandomization and Fervor. The want to drive your fandom into every single topic and make it everything. But now? We're in the Fuck Off stage, and I don't mean this as us telling anti-Zionists to fuck off, I mean the Fandom is telling people within it to Fuck Off or, at least, shut up. Since the beginning of this conflict there have been moderate voices within the anti-Zionist activist movement. We talk about the outright antisemitic and hate fueled ones here, but don't talk about these persons enough. The Moderates are the ones within these spheres that get pointed to when we bring up antisemitism because they bring nuance to the movement and try to curb the worst of the vitriol. They are the ones that screen capped and held up besides the token "Good Jews". While they didn't necessarily have as much of an impact in the beginning of the conflict due to the lack of numbers and the overwhelming fervor, zealouness, and righteousness of anti-Zionists, they are being noticed now. Many of the spaces I am in that posted incessantly every day and had multitudes of conversations about I/P throughout them have now become relatively silent. There might be a brief conversation over the course of 30 minutes here or there, an article gets posted every few days, and the AJ update is the only daily posting. Now, when larger conversations kick off there is more attention paid to the Moderates and the nuance they bring because it's not rapid fire anymore. People don't have to scroll back through hundreds of messages to find the nuance, it's right there and it's loud and clear. So they're being told to Fuck Off In every space I am in I have seen some variation of "Shut up, every time you talk the conversation ends" told to the Moderates. Why? Because each time they are addressing something that would have radicalized people earlier in the conflict. They are addressing outright hate and/or contradictory messaging. The culmination of which has been talking about the Islamic Republic's recent attack on Israel. I have seen them blatantly call out their activist community for celebrating an attack by a country that stands antithetical to everything its members say they stand for (LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights, political rights, etc...) and jails, tortures, and kills people like them. As such, the Fervor and radicalization of new fandom members can't happen, and I see it angering the people whose entire identity has revolved around the Fandom and the hatred associated with it. The cognitive dissonance that the Moderates invoke in the radicals has resulted in some outright hatred in these communities that I thought was reserved only for us Jews. But now? Now it's clear that the most ardent members of the Fandom are just full of hate. That's it. They don't actually care of Palestinians, they just want to justify their hate and wallow in it.

[buddhistmusings]

Pay Attention to Bangladesh

My heart breaks today as I learn about the immense suffering that Hindus are being subjected to in Bangladesh.

There is a history of oppressing religious minorities in the country, including periods of immense ethnic violence, escalating to the point of potentially being labeled as genocide in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, which are populated by groups of mostly Buddhist indigenous peoples called the Jumma. This is a label for a group of related tribes.

Both Hindus and Buddhists have faced violence in Bangladesh, this is nothing new, but since the fall of their government a few days ago, the violence has become much higher. Hindus in the country are being targeting especially strongly right now. People are being killed, their homes are being destroyed, people are being kidnapped, temples are being desecrated and destroyed, and at a pretty massive scale.

I see people celebrating the fall of this government, which I can understand on one hand, as it was repressive, but the lack of authority has allowed incredible violence to be carried out against Hindus.

Please, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, Jain, or Jew, pray for an end to this. Whatever power you believe in, pray for the violence to end. Do what you can to spread the word about what is happening to my brothers, sisters, and siblings in Dharma.

May all beings be free from hatred and the causes of hatred. May all beings be happy and may all beings be free. Let none anywhere despise any being, let none deceive another. May peace and Metta extend outwards from myself to each and every person, barring none, and may all beings swiftly be free of all suffering. Namo Buddhaya, Namo Buddhaya, Namo Buddhaya.

[queer-geordie-nerd]

I no longer talk about being Jewish online, let alone Israeli; hence the anonymity. But I've always felt keenly that part of Jewish culture is to remember and acknowledge those who do well by us. Alexander the Great was good to Jews, we name our children after him to this day. Kashimir the Great was good to Jews, my family does not let the actions of our 20th-century Polish neighbors tarnish that. Bayezid II was good to Jews: we enriched his kingdom; we do not forget. And it is true for small things as well, individual acts. My great-aunt and her family were hidden by a farmer. He was not kind by disposition, but that did not matter: he saved all their lives at risk of his and his family's own. You aren't at risk of your life, maybe, but for the sake of our human dignity you've spoken out, and knowingly drawn the hateful shouting at yourself, and that's exhausting and never-ending and it hurts. We know. We don't forget.

sorry for sounding so dramatic but you should have your courage recognized.

I truly don't know what to say, except thank you for the trust you've shown in me here. I have had a lot of abuse thrown at me, it's true, but I feel that what I say on my blog is such basic empathy for other human beings that to not do so would go against everything I've ever believed in. I hope profoundly that if in my real, offline life it should be necessary for me to show the courage you speak of, that I would be up to the task. As it is, any courage I have doesn't compare to the courage it takes for you and every Jewish and Israeli person to live your everyday lives surrounded by so much hatred. The dignity and strength you show is unimaginable.

[matan4il]

Update post:

Yesterday, there were no less than two terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, one in the morning, and one in the evening.

The first one happened in Beersheba, where the terrorist stabbed and injured two people before being neutralized. The terrorist was an Israeli Bedouin, who had been convicted of drug-related criminal charges. The prosecution asked for his arrest, but the court decided to be lenient, to aid in his rehabilitation, and instead only sentenced him to community service. He was due to start in two weeks, but instead he chose yesterday to attack innocent civilians.

The second terrorist attack took place in Gan Yavne. A Palestinian man, who used to have a work permit in Israel, but lost it and remained here illegally, carried out the attack. The Palestinian terrorist started stabbing people at a gym and then at a nearby cafe, wounding 3 people, all of them originally determined to be in serious condition, one is a teenager, the other two are reported to have life threatening head injuries. The terrorist was 19 years old, and he was neutralized at the scene. In investigating how he managed to stay inside Israel illegally after his work permit had expired, the police has arrested two people so far.

Israel has wrapped up its second operation at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, with another soldier pronounced dead (20 years old Nada Cohen), bringing the IDF fatalities in the Gaza ground operation so far to 256, and the total number of killed Israeli soldiers in this war, including during the Hamas massacre (reminder that some of those soldiers were girls serving in non-combative posts, without combat training or even a weapon, and were slain while still in their pajamas) to 600.

The end of one operation in a Gaza hospital doesn't mean that's the end of Hamas abusing medical and humanitarian facilities, so there are and will be more such operations. That's why I'm also sharing this reminder that nothing is sacred or even just... off limits to Hamas, who moved kidnapped civilians in ambulances, as one of the released hostages testified.

I mentioned in a post expressing my frustration over foreigners' ignorance over the conflict, which doesn't stop them from acting like they know better than the people actually living it, the Hamas-Fatah "civil war," which erupted in 2007, when Hamas killed Fatah members in Gaza and took over the place. The two Palestinian factions have tried reconciliation several times over the years, but it never lasted long. Israel's war in Gaza against Hamas and its fellow terrorists organizations is not over yet, but already there's signs of that tension. This def bodes well for Palestinians if Hamas survives this war.

A city council meeting in California, which dealt with Holocaust remembrance, ended up being the scene of some despicable displays of antisemitism in its anti-Zionist form. IDK what was most distressing to hear about, the way they screamed "Lies! Lies!"' at a Holocaust survivor, or that they took and threw to the ground the phone of a Jewish man who came to speak about his grandma who had survived the Holocaust, or that they mocked a mother speaking of her child being harassed at school to the point he doesn't wanna be a Jew, because he doesn't want to be hated... Maybe that they made my friend, who attended the meeting, cry on what was supposed to be a very special day. I saw coverage on Israeli TV of the city council, which both told me how bad it was, if of all things, that's what they're talking about, and at the same time, it was nothing like hearing about it from her. So I'm glad that she shared some of her own impressions about this ugly demonstration of hatred (I'm also scheduling her post for a reblog). I just hope Jews all over the world know that we here in Israel care about you, we love you, we are standing by your side, and we wish we could do more for you. <3

Speaking of antisemitism, and an inability to recognize it as such, to call it out and condemn it, here's some recent examples from around the world. In Spain, the locals went out for an Easter drink, a tradition called, "to kill the Jews," but insisted it's not racist. Attacking and even killing Jews actually was customary in Europe on Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter. In fact, this specific nickname is derived from those old attacks.

In London, a policeman insisted that swastikas being displayed at an anti-Israel protest were not antisemitic, and should be taken "in context," despite admitting that a symbol that's abusive or would cause public distress would fall under his jurisdiction to act against.

In the Netherlands, a single mom of a Jewish girl was attacked for the daughter's choices (she decided to move to Israel and has served in the Israeli army) both at home and at her workplace, a hospital. The mother was so rattled after the attack at her home, that she wouldn't stay there. A Jewish hotel owner offered her a free stay at his hotel. In an interview with an Israeli reporter, the mom said she's considering moving to Israel, too (source in Hebrew).

This is 32 years old Celine ben David Nagar.

She worked as an office manager at a law firm, was married to Iddo, and they had a 6 months old baby together. On Oct 7, Celine was on her way with a friend to the Nova music festival, but they never made it there. The Hamas rocket attack started first. For 10 days, she was considered missing, and it took a while, but eventually they found her body. While her fate was still unknown, two days after the massacre, Iddo went on TV and talked about the fact that Celine was still breastfeeding. Following the interview, hundreds of Israel women volunteered to donate their mother's milk to the little baby girl. At Celine's funeral, Iddo asked said goodbye to his wife, and asked hr to watch over him and little Eli from above.

May her memory be a blessing.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[kick-a-long]

your post from a few days ago about the defeatist logic of antisemitism raises another point:

as you said jews are a concrete target. i would also add that we are the easiest target. there's only .2% of us and we are seen as inherently alien by everyone (most ppl have never met a jew so we're sooo unrelatable and mysterious to them) which leads to antisemitism being ignored/labelled unimportant.

because antisemitism is seen as unimportant and gets easily dismissed this leads to an interlocking of all other bigotries with antisemitism being the odd one out. leftists can care about racism because it's something everyone faces and the same applies for homophobia (which is seen as universal), islamophobia (there are hundreds of millions of muslims and it's viewed as a form of racism) and the list goes on. but antisemitism is labelled and viewed as a jew only problem. so why must anyone else care? its the easiest thing in the world not to. for the longest time i saw non jews pair antisemitism with every other form of bigotry as if trying to make it relatable so people can view it as a real problem.

these are really important and good points. as you said, the problem of "antisemitism always needs a chaperone" is both that antisemitism is not treated as important as there are so few jews and it's treated as trodden ground. "not important" if it's on it's own, but also that antisemitic attitudes never travel alone either. it's always the structural underpinnings of violent extremism and the hatred of any other group and it needs to be addressed as THE issue behind the escalation to violence. jews are seen as both an easy target but also a worthy (aka powerful) one that makes an extremist look like they are going up against something much bigger than they are.

that jews are rich and powerful is also widely accepted as true even by centrists.

the end of discussion, dissent, and figuring out how to improve obvious problems in society, and the beginning of random mass violence is antisemitism. people need to recognize that it's where the violence is coming from. you don't need jews around to have antisemitism. not only that, but you don't need to be jewish to catch a bullet because of antisemitic theories that say violence is the only way to defeat (((the jew))) as imagined in antisemitic conspiracy theory.

look into any mass shooting, terrorist attack: black, white, brown, blue, red, purple, green... you will find antisemitism tying it all together and demanding blood, soil, and death.