#even if he does use it for antisemitism

[appleblossompossum]

I like to believe that House seeks a conversion to Judaism as a way to antagonize Wilson and Cuddy, who then up the ante by betting that no rabbi would sponsor him for more than a month.

Thus begins an exhaustive process of finding and then disappointing, offending, or dismissing nearly every rabbi in a 100 mile radius. Until there’s one who sees through his bullshit and decides to entertain this bet in hopes of nurturing House’s spirituality.

Towards the end of an intensive month of meetings, House goes on a tirade about how ridiculous the notion of g-d is, how the work he does every day disproves the idea of a compassionate creator, the typical House behavior of being dramatic and off-putting as a way to proactively reject anyone or anything who’s getting too close to him.

Yet towards the end of his speech, House confesses that even though he doesn’t believe any of it is true, he wants it to be. He wants a world where choosing to do the right thing matters, where it makes a difference and doesn’t just get rubbed out by cruelty and monotony. He wants to believe there’s a reason, that in the end it will all be for something. He can’t say that he knows these things to be true, but he still stupidly hopes they are.

The rabbi accepts House as an official conversion candidate right then, saying he’s never seen anyone summarize Torah and Talmud so succinctly and blasphemously.

[wild-at-mind]

Seeing some posts on my dash that are kind of in the wheelhouse of the stuff I was just posting about. I really like their posts normally and I don't want to unfollow but :/.

[pixeljade]

Okay so JK Rowling has:

• Openly been transphobic as fuck

• Donated tons of money to causes which have eroded trans rights across the globe, to the point of being one the biggest forces behind the current transphobe movement

• Defended slavery in her most popular work (House elves LIKE being slaves thoooo 🙄)

• Used racist caricatures which have racist names in her most popular work (Kingsley Shacklebolt, Cho Chang, Seamus Finnigan)

• Used antisemitic caricatures in her most popular work (Goblins)

• And if you're still "well, but..."-ing the antisemitism of the Goblins, the recent game was straight-up the definition of blood libel

• Completely botched her representation of native americans because she doesnt care enough to do research

• Used the name of the man who invented conversion therapy as a pseudonym to write books

• Made a movie set in her universe where the *VILLAINS* goal is to stop the holocaust (which. WOW)

• And has now engaged in ACTUAL HOLOCAUST DENIAL

Seriously, how bad does she have to get before you all will admit to yourselves that supporting her is the same as supporting nazism??? "It was part of my childhood!" Same!!! And it sucks to admit that something you used to love is actually awful and harmful!!! But also at some point you have to just...move on!!!! "Oh I'm sure its just a mistake!" Why, because she claimed that ONE character is gay and wouldnt even let it be shown ever??? Because the main villain was slightly more cartoonishly racist than she is???? Because one of the most popular characters quit being a cartoon racist *BECAUSE HE WAS HORNY*?

Seriously. Give up Harry Potter. No grey area anymore.

Edit: forgot some shit she did, added it

[fromgoy2joy]

I sat next to the protest today.

I wrote fan-fiction about two gay jewish dads raising children to the play list of the chant- "No peace on stolen land!" on an American college campus. It isn't a name brand one either, nor does it have any legitimate ties to Israel. The anger is just there- it has rotten these future doctors, nurses, teachers, and members of society.

I don't even know what to call their demonstration- it was a tizzy of a Jew hatred affair. At points, there were empathetic statements about Gazans and their suffering. Then outright support of Hamas and violent resistance against all colonizers. Then this bizarre fixation on antisemitism while explaining the globalists are behind everything.

"Antisemitism doesn't exist. Not in the modern day," A professor gloated over a microphone in front of the library. "It's a weaponized concept, that's prevents us from getting actual places- ignore anyone who tells you otherwise."

"How can we be antisemitic?" A pasty white girl wearing a red Jordanian keffiyeh gloats five minutes later. "Palestinians are the actual semites."

"there is only one solution!" The crowd of over 50 students and faculty cried, over and over.

"Been there, done that," I thought, then added a reference to a mezuza in the fourth paragraph.

Two other Jewish students passed where I was parked out, hunching and trying to be as innocuous as possible. We laughed together at my predicament, where I am willingly hearing this bullshit and feeling so amused by this.

"Am I crazy? For sitting here?" I asked them. My friends shook their heads.

"We did the same last week- it's an amazing experience, isn't it?”

We all cackled hysterically again. They left to study for finals. Two minutes later, I learned from the current speaker that “Zionism” is behind everything bad in this world.

Forty-five minutes in, a boy I recognized joined me on my lonely bench. He came from a very secular Jewish family and had joined Hillel recently to learn more about his culture. His first Seder was two nights ago.

He sat next to me, heavy like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. There was just this despondent look on his face. I couldn’t describe it anyone else, but just sheer hopelessness personified.

“They hate us. I can’t believe how much they hate us.” He said in greeting.

And for the first time all day, I had no snarky response or glib. All I could do was stare out into the crowd, and sigh.

[ramlionbam]

a lot bugs me about the "christopher colombus was secretly jewish" thing thats been making the news.

primarily the timing of it: in a time where antisemitism is rising, where many are considering jews to be (primarily white and european) colonizers, here is one of the most famous colonizers of all, christopher colombus, a secret (always secret; those sneaks) jew!

but besides that, there's something very obvious to anyone that knows judaism: dna doesn't make someone jewish. the primary 'evidence' for colombus being jewish is dna (which, while it is most likely his, it may not be). every article's quotation is this:

"And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin."

"traits compatible with jewish origin". its a very vague term. it doesn't really impart a solid understanding that colombus is jewish; and him being jewish, from what i can tell, also contradicts past understanding of his origin (genoa) as well as his actions (forced conversion of native americans, a deep connection and religiosity based in christianity).

even if this dna evidence is correct, however, him having jewish heritage does not make him jewish. saying that he is jewish based solely on dna reflects a blood-based understanding of jewish identity that echoes back to antisemitic purges like the holocaust. saying that he, a deeply catholic / christian person, is jewish erases colombus' actual faith, and states that personal choice / conversion / professed beliefs are inferior to having jewish blood.

the fun part is, this isn't even a new antisemitic lie / exaggeration. even back in 2012, cnn has been trying to claim that colombus was jewish. his colonization of america was actually all part of his plan to get money to take back jerusalem. it also includes other arguments, like that him leaving money to charitable causes in his will is a sign of judaism.

there's also a paper that discusses this, and how its much, much older than even 2012. i havent verified it, but it may be useful reading for some; it also mentions that the theory gained popularity in the 1930s as the 'jewish question' "was very much on the public mind".

[homunculus-argument]

About five years ago there used to be some dude in my hometown who consistently kept putting up nazi propaganda stickers, so I made it my job to take them down. It was a hobby for a while, I'd take long walks, with a scraper in my backpack, and kept an eye on every trash can, streetlamp, and wall that accumulated stickers, learning to spot these specific stickers. I even went to their website (which is still up, apparently, but I'm not guiding traffic their way) to see if they had any logos that I would have missed.

This one time I was scraping one sticker off a lamp post - one of their big standard ones, with a fist punching a star of david and the text "against zionism!" - this white guy who wasn't finnish actually walked up to me, and asked in awkward english what exactly I'm doing. And I explained I'm removing these fucking stickers that some other guy keeps putting up. I've never seen the guy but I hate seeing his shit, and I've heard it through the grapevine that he's sworn to kill the guy who keeps taking his stickers down.

He asked me if I knew what zionism is, and to be entirely perfectly honest, no I did not. So he started telling me about all the things that are wrong in the state of Israel, and how being against zionism isn't automatically antisemitism, and I can't just assume that anyone criticising Israel or zionism is a nazi. The semantics of propaganda are insidious and it's easy to be led astray.

I let him talk for long enough to understand what he wanted to say and to believe that he really meant what he was saying. Once we had established that, I told him that while he may know more about the situation in Israel than I do, I know more about my own people than he does. And the finnish national socialists who use this logo right here do not give a shit about the people of Palestine. I'm not taking these things down because I'd think Israel should be an ethnostate. I'm taking them down because I think Finland should not be one.

[darcylindbergh]

I have no idea what Harris' actual views on I/P are, but even if she is fully pro-Palestine wouldn't she still have to meet with Netanyahu? I mean realistically any change the US can possibly make would have to involve talking to Israel, right? Presidents meet with Putin even if they hate him/Russia's actions because that's how international politics works, it doesn't mean they like/agree with him

Well, theoretically, there's a bit of political game playing involved yes. But because the ICC has issued warrants for Netanyahu's arrest, if we're strictly following international law, Netanyahu shouldn't have been meeting anybody, he should have been arrested. But we're not doing that because the US currently thinks the ICC is wrong, which is a bad look for the US and which undermines the strength of international law, so I think this is bad and also wrong, but that's what's happening at present. And although US presidents etc have historically met with Putin, they would not at this point because Putin also has warrants out for his arrest. The difference between how the US has treated Putin v Netanyahu is, as it seems, pretty hypocritical.

Practically speaking, as you say, meeting with Netanyahu is a bit of a political game. The US has historically been a very strong ally to Israel and the US has historically been very much involved in the normalization of relations vis a vis Israel and the rest of the Middle East, and the US would very much like to remain involved in brokering a lasting peace, which involves not seriously alienating Netanyahu and Israel et al. Netanyahu and his far-right government are the ones holding up the ceasefire, and the US is only able to exert pressure so long as they are a valuable ally to Israel - if Israel has nothing to lose, in other words, the US loses its ability to exert pressure. And Harris wants very much to hang onto that ability, because she's setting herself up to exert more pressure than Biden has.

Harris has been critical of Israel. Harris is the highest-ranking Dem that has been critical of the situation in Gaza. She has been upfront about highlighting the suffering in Gaza. She's not oblivious to the conversations going on re: Palestine and the ongoing genocide. She's not sticking her head in the sand on it.

“The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time - we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.”

But she's trying to walk a very careful line on public sentiment re: Israel and Palestine. She's going to be very cautious to condemn anything with even a whiff of antisemitism in strong terms. She's going to be very cautious to affirm Israel's right to exist and to defend itself, which she does in the article linked above, with the caveat that "how it does so matters." But her willingness to call attention to the crisis ongoing in Gaza and her willingness to imply wrong-doing by Israel in how that crisis has been created signals to Netanyahu that her government will have stronger limits than Netanyahu has encountered previously. Will she be a perfect candidate? No. Will she always align with my moral compass? No. Will she be totally evil? Also no.

As voters, what does this mean for us and how we support Gazans and Palestinians?

To me this is very simple. Harris is a candidate who is willing and able to exert pressure on Israel to end the genocide and, ideally, to broker a long-lasting peace. Trump is a candidate who is willing and able to exert pressure on Israel to blow Gaza off the face of the earth. Between "willing to tell Netanyahu this is unacceptable" and "willing to tell Netanyahu to break out a nuke," I'm voting for the former every fucking time.

Not voting or voting third party doesn't actually tell Democrats anything except that you didn't care. They don't have a list of people who would otherwise have voted blue if only they'd taken harder pro-Palestine stance, they're not cross-checking your voting status against your social media posts and going, oh, nuts, we lost that one. Not voting or voting third party doesn't exert pressure on the Dems to go more left, you're not "teaching them a lesson," you're not making a point. It's non-information. It's not a boycott - it's a white flag. It's giving up.

You know how you exert pressure on politicians? You call. You write. You protest. Are you still calling your representatives about Gaza every day? Are you going to town halls and asking them about what they're doing to stop the genocide? Pressure is exerted through participation.

Progress is made by the people who show up.

If the Dems lose, you can pressure them all day and it won't make a difference because they don't have any power to make a difference. And the racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Middle East far right won't be listening no matter how much you shout.

I'm not giving up on Palestinians just because some greyface anon on the internet tells me I'm a bad person for choosing to vote for the candidate I can pressure to make a change.

I'm also not going to give up on people here at home who's lives are hanging in the balance. I'm a queer woman with a uterus and a pre-existing condition - I simply do not have the luxury or the privilege to stay home in November. I do not have the luxury or the privilege of being a single issue voter. I'm not going to give up on trans kids or immigrants or BIPOC or women or disabled folks or poor folks. I'm not going to give up on healthcare or on libraries or on public schools or on the environment or on the court systems. I'm not going to give up on safe workplaces and livable wages and safe products. I'm not going to give up and let corporate monopolies and censorship and AI and five rich dudes decide what the future will be.

Don't you care? Don't you look around you and care about the people in your own communities? Or are those people too real, too complicated? Do you only care when you can win points off it in someone else's inbox on tumblr dot com?

Is Kamala Harris going to be the perfect pro-Palestinian candidate? No. But I'm not inviting her to brunch. I don't need her to be my bestie. I don't need her to be my moral compass - I have one of my own, thanks.

I just need her to step forward instead of back.

Progress is made one step at a time.

[mylight-png]

I refuse to be told to "move on" from October 7th. I simply refuse.

You know the thing about trauma? You don't really get the choice to move on. You may be living in the future, but at least a part of your mind is trapped in that horrible moment. Sometimes that part of you can never escape.

Right now, as I'm writing this, I am sitting at my desk in my room. But right now, as I am writing this a part, huge part, of me is still in that airport. That part of me is still staring at my phone, trying to catch its breath but failing. That part of me is still watching in shock as the death count rises, the videos of Hamas's atrocities are broadcasted everywhere I see, the celebration of my people being massacred is burning my eyes. My ears are hearing the wailing sirens from when I was last in Israel. My hands are still feeling the shaking of the walls as the Iron Dome intercepts attempts upon the lives of my family and me. My heart is hurting for each life lost and each family left broken.

My body is here, in January 10th. My mind is not. My mind, and the mind of nearly every Jew is still stuck in October 7th.

Do not think we chose this. If I could choose indifference, if I could choose apathy, if I could choose ignorance, I wouldn't feel so constantly triggered and in pain.

But nobody gets to choose trauma.

This wasn't a unique trauma, a first-time event. Pogroms are nothing new to us, genocides and attempts at such against us aren't anything new, hateful libel and lies are near-constants.

That's part of what made October 7th so much worse.

I grew up hearing about how my great-grandfather lost his entire family to the Holocaust, how my ancestors survived pogroms, how my parents faced systemic antisemitism in the USSR.

We all grew up hearing our parents and grandparents tell us about antisemitism.

And do not think we were ignorant of it. I was well aware that the world is not even close to shedding its deeply ingrained antisemitism.

I was aware of it when I wrote a speech about discussion of modern antisemitism and being told it was "well-written but controversial". I was aware of it when my teacher said I was responding "emotionally, not academically" to an author claiming antisemitism and the Holocaust weren't "that bad".

I was aware of it when a synagogue near me got shot up, a synagogue I've been to. I was aware of it because I had no other choice.

But it had always felt like it was "winding down" from what my parents had told me. Yes what my teacher did was bad but at least he didn't explicitly single me out for being a Jew and intentionally fail me. Yes the feedback for my speech was hurtful but it wasn't like I was being violently censored. Yes the shooting was awful but it wasn't a full-blown pogrom.

I'm not saying my logic was correct. Far from it. But that's how it felt before October 7th.

When October 7th happened I saw that nothing was "winding down" as I had previously thought. People were still just as keen to gleefully cheer on the killing of Jews as they had been. The world is just as slow to act when Jews are being forcibly held and tortured and killed. Blood libel and ideas of the "doctor's plot" are alive and well.

Oct 7th triggered old trauma, Oct 7th was traumatic in its own right, and for most of us, Oct 7th proved that antisemitism isn't going anywhere. It isn't winding down or getting better.

And that kind of pain? That kind of trauma? That sticks with you.

You wouldn't tell any other person to get over their trauma. So what makes it ok to say it to traumatized Jews as we are still processing the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust?

That behavior is horrible and inexcusable.

Trauma is trauma, you don't get to decide who does or doesn't have the right to be traumatized. You don't get to decide how people discuss their trauma.

[girlactionfigure]

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

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

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

ANTISEMITISM AS A SIGN OF SOCIETAL DECLINE

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

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

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

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

"FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE..."

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

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

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

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

"FIRST THE SATURDAY PEOPLE, THEN THE SUNDAY PEOPLE"

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

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

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

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

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

JIHADIST GROUPS

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHITE SUPREMACY

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

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

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

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

DOMESTIC TERRORISM, MASS SHOOTINGS

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

rootsmetals

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

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

[still-searching-for-something]

Seriously, the glorification of violent suicide as the greatest form of protest that a person can engage in on the pro-Palestine side deeply shocks me. What’s next? If we can justify violent, traumatic public suicides in pure agony, are we so far off from justifying violent public murder suicides? If a person suicide bombs a synagogue and shouts “I am engaging in an extreme form of protest to raise awareness, but it’s nothing compared to what Palestine is going through! Goodbye! Free Palestine!” just before he blows up, what will the reaction be?

Will they loudly and publicly condemn this act of domestic terrorism? Will they say “We disavow any and all antisemitic violence and we stand with the Jewish community in this difficult time?” Will they do some introspection and realize they’ve been radicalized and indulging in the oldest form of hate in the world?

These people have been claiming the man who self immolated was a hero with courage. What does that make a man who “takes the fight to the Zionists!” What does that make the man so devoted to the cause of “freeing Palestine” that he won’t just die for it, but kill for it?

This is why we Jews are so incredibly unnerved and nervous right now. I already have to worry about getting doxxed, stalked, assaulted, and insulted for wearing a Magen David, for attending shul, and for refusing to play the left’s purity politics game and disavow my Jewish identity. Do we also need to start worrying about being suicide bombed by US airmen with two kids who’s so disgusted by the Jewish state defending itself but not the U.S. fighting in the Afghanistan war? Do I need to be on the lookout for people with bulging vests and a literally burning desire to become another martyr?

Enough. Seriously. If you’re mentally prepared to kill yourself for a cause, you’re mentally prepared to kill others for it. Even the most Zionist Zionists that I’ve seen aren’t demanding people kill themselves to save Israel. Martyrdom stands in opposition to everything we stand for—because we know life is precious. We are commanded to violate almost any mitzvah to save a life. If you’re reading this plea for calm and your first instinct is to leave a snarky comment about Zionists not understanding the weight of that man’s “sacrifice”, then this post is about you.

You are on the road to radicalization. You are being indoctrinated into a cult. You are being groomed to either justify, deny, or perpetrate antisemitic violence. Please, for the love of God, stop. Please stop self immolating yourselves. Please understand where you are going. I am begging you to stop killing yourselves here. Seriously. This isn’t a game.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Where does this curious Hindutva-Zionist solidarity spring from? One origin is from the earliest Hindu nationalists who modelled their Hindu state on Zionism. Hindutva’s founder, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, supported majoritarian nationalism and the rooting out of all disintegrating forces. These included Muslims who supported electoral quotas for their community and left-wing internationalists. As a result, he even condoned the Nazis’ antisemitic legislation in two speeches in 1938 because, as he saw it: “a nation is formed by a majority living therein”. Yet Savarkar was not antisemitic himself. He often spoke favourably of the tiny Jewish-Indian minority because he considered it too insignificant to threaten Hindu cohesion. In fact, Savarkar praised Zionism as the perfection of ethno-nationalist thinking. The way Zionism seamlessly blended ethnic attachment to a motherland and religious attachment to a holy land was precisely what Savarkar wanted for the Hindus. This double attachment was far more powerful to his mind than the European model of “blood and soil” nationalism without sacred space. Today, Hindu nationalists perpetuate this legacy and still look to Zionism as a uniquely attractive political ideology. To Hindu nationalists, some Zionists were engaged in a project to reclaim their holy land from a Muslim population whose religious roots in the region were not as ancient as their own.

[...]

In 2018, Israel passed a law that rebranded the country as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” and delegitimised its non-Jewish citizens. Similarly, India’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019 eased paths to citizenship for immigrants from several religious groups, but not Muslims. Coupled with rhetoric associating millions of Indian Muslims with illegal immigration, human rights groups argue that this law could be used to strip many Muslims of their Indian citizenship. Hindu nationalists have also stoked a culture war to consolidate “Hindu civilisation” and sweep away symbols of Islam. This is very much in keeping with the wish of Israel’s far right to rebuild Solomon’s Temple on the site of the holy Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where al-Aqsa mosque compound currently sits. In 1969, a Zionist extremist burned the south wing of al-Aqsa. And in 1980, the fundamentalist group Jewish Underground plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine at the centre of the compound. A similar project of demolishing mosques and building temples in their place was suggested by Savarkar and Golwalkar. Hindu nationalist organisations focused their attention on Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodha, since this was the mythical birthplace of the Hindu god, Ram.

[notaplaceofhonour]

Understanding Alex Jones’s place in the Bush-era anti-war scene would do the left a lot of good in understanding (and not repeating) similar mistakes that the current anti-war scene is making today.

For those who aren’t old enough to remember, there was actually a time when Alex Jones had a decent amount of goodwill on the far left. He was obviously always a lunatic conspiracy theorist, and most everyday people saw him as such, but there was a significant enough portion of the anti-war left that liked him, that actually promoted InfoWars, appeared on AJ’s show, and linked arms with him at anti-war protests.

Without the momentum that his Bush-era popularity gave him, Jones would not have become a recognizable or relevant media figure like he did. The model InfoWars pioneered, which helped pave the way for the entire far right griftosphere that sprang up around it—from Breitbart to OAN & the Epoch Times to the sea of smaller Q-fluencers—owes its success in part to this diagonal reach across political lines. The extreme right wing conspiracy theory platform that has all but consumed the GOP would not have been able to gain nearly as much of a foothold if it were not for the years of work InfoWars & outlets like it did to normalize it in the Bush years.

Obviously I am not going so far as to say “The Left Is Solely Responsible For Alex Jones™️”. But much of the anti-war/anti-government left absolutely participated in helping him rise to prominence. They were willing to jump in bed with Jones without paying attention to his work or else were willing to turn a blind eye to who Jones was, all because he was saying things that were convenient to their cause. It didn’t matter that he was a rightwing or grade-A bigot; he opposed the US government & the war.

And I’m fully aware that there’s a common refrain among a lot of that “I used to listen to InfoWars” section of the left that would push back against this and say, “well, yeah, Jones is obviously a fascist now, but back then he wasn’t like that; he was kooky back then, sure, but the pre-Sandy Hook, pre-Gay Frogs Jones wasn’t nearly as bigoted or rightwing as the ‘Hillary For Prison’ Trump-era Jones became”.

To that I say, no, that’s bullshit. If you actually go back and listen to his show from back then… holy shit. He was homophobic as fuck. He was racist as fuck. The entire NWO/Globalist framework that he hangs all his other conspiracy theories on is built around antisemitic tropes from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion he regularly hosted & promoted explicit antisemites like his pastor Texe Marrs, who openly espoused that Jews (often named as such) controlled the world politically, financially, and religiously through Zionism, a global banking cartel, and Communism. In some ways, Jones was even more transparent then than he is now.

“Okay, but what does this have to do with the current anti-war movement?” I hear you say. “I never fell for Alex Jones; I’ve always hated that guy.”

To begin with, you should be on the lookout for the internal biases and lack of vetting that lead the left to tolerate Jones in the first place, whether you think you’re liable to or not (arguably, it is all that much more important when you think you aren’t, because you are never more susceptible than when you think you aren’t). But unfortunately much of the anti-war left of today has been making the same mistake, just with different people and organizations.

Take for instance Jackson Hinkle, a tradcath & self-described “MAGA Communist”, who has gotten a lot of traction with the leftwing anti-Zionist crowd (and I would be remiss not to mention, has also been a guest on InfoWars). Or take another AJ, the media outlet Al Jazeera, which says a lot of things that are attractive to the left out one side of its mouth while spewing a bunch of rightwing theocratic garbage out the other, much like Bush-era InfoWars did. Take PSL/ANSWER (Pro-Putin Pro-Assad Pro-Xi atrocity denialists & conspiracy theorists) are one of the most common fixtures of the current protest movement, regularly advertised as organizers by other prominent organizations like JVP & SJP. A lot of people on the left have been embracing figures and organizations that espouse Khazar Theory, Deicide, Media Control, and Blood Libels not at all dissimilar to the accusations you could hear from Jones and his pastor friend Texe Marrs, with the same figleaf of “anti-Zionism” that Marrs frequently used himself.

Whether by sheer ignorance or willfully turning a blind eye, the left keeps making the same mistake of tolerating & even embracing figures & organizations with similarly noxious politics & conspiracy thinking now that was made with Bush-era InfoWars. We need to do better. We need to learn from the past so we can stop repeating its mistakes.

[androgynousspace]

For any of you who even DARE to think about voting for trump just because of the war happening in Israel, this post is for you.

-First off trumps opinion on Israel is pretty much the same as Biden, in terms of sending money to them and being anti-gaza, https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna141905

-Let us not forget project 2025, I know a solid portion of palestine supporters are in the LGBTQ+ community, a vote for trump, is a vote to put your fellow queers in jail, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

-Another section of pro-palestinian people are POC, not only does project 2025 include the killing and jailing of POC just in general trump has a long history of hating POC, ex: he used to pay hotels and casinos to get rid of any black people who were currently there, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/trump-casinos-black-employees/

-Now let's talk about Jews for palestine, trump is also extremely anti-semetic and has a history of being anti-semetic, atleast Biden cares about the Jewish people, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/17/trump-history-antisemitic-tropes/

-Muslims for palestine, trump wants to ban the ability for hijabis to wear the hijab, and for muslims in general to work and be in public, https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/17/trump-muslim-ban-gaza-refugees

Last if this has convinced you to not vote for trump I'm glad, this also applies to any republican running. DONT. VOTE. THIRD. PARTY. I don't know how many times I have to say this, it splits the leftist vote and gives trump or any republican for that matter a WAY better chance of winning the election, as much of anti-semetic you may be towards Israel, the only valid vote is for Biden.

[jewish-sideblog]

There’s a reason why the western goyishe left is so preoccupied with labeling people as Zionists, and why there’s so much hypocrisy coming out of these spaces night now. It’s because there’s a broader problem regarding leftist views on violence. There’s a belief that violent cruelty is only morally reprehensible if it is forced upon the “innocent”, and that any and all violence is justified against perceived wrongdoers.

It’s the reason why we always hear that“Six million innocent Jews” died in the Shoah, as if six million dead in a genocide isn’t worthy of condemnation on its own. It’s the reason why debates on the internet about oppression always focus on innocence as opposed to violence.

“George Floyd was innocent,” they say, “there’s no evidence he paid with a counterfeit bill!” The left and the right spent endless time debating that three years ago. Why does it matter if Floyd had intentionally used a counterfeit bill or not? Hell, even if he ran a counterfeiting empire— death by suffocation is not a just punishment for counterfeiting. But for many leftists, a lack of “innocence” would somehow validate the unjust violence he suffered and died from.

“There is no excuse for bombing a hospital,” is the response when they think Israel bombed a hospital. But when it turns out that Hamas actually bombed the hospital, suddenly there is an excuse. “There is no excuse for ethnic cleansing,” is what they say when Israel cleanses Gazans. Meanwhile, they maintain their full support for Hamas, whose stated goal is to ethnically cleanse Jews from the Middle East. Excuses are only offered to those deemed innocent. They view Palestinians, even Hamas, as universally innocent. Israelis and Zionists, even children, are seen as universally guilty.

That’s why the antisemitic stream of the anti-Israeli narrative clings so tightly two ideals: That all Israelis are colonists, no matter what, and that Hamas isn’t actually a terrorist organization committing war crimes. If either of those ideological columns fail, then either the presumption of universal Palestinian innocence fails, or the presumption of universal Israeli guilt fails. Then leftists start asking themselves questions:

Have I been in the wrong? Have I been antisemitic? Am I innocent in all this? And if I’m not, does that mean that violence against me could be justified? Most will choose cognitive dissonance and reaffirm their harmful beliefs, rather than face the answer to any of those questions.

But the truth is that innocence doesn’t have an effect on the justification of violence. There isn’t an excuse for bombing a hospital, intentionally or accidentally. There isn’t an excuse for ethnic cleansings of Arabs or Jews or anybody else. Violent oppression is still bad when it happens to harm people you disagree with. Violent oppression is still bad when it harms bad people.

[hindahoney]

If you want to code-switch so often that you are nearly incomprehensible to goyim, here is a list of my favorite and most-used Jewish terms:

Schvitzing - Sweating. (Ex: "I'm schvitzing so much it's showing through my clothes.")

Schlep - A tedious and long journey, depending on usage it can mean that you were carrying something. (Ex: "I had to schlep all the way across campus, my backpack was so heavy." Usually denotes a long walk, but other forms of transportation are acceptable too. "You drove all the way to New York from Florida? That's quite the shlep.")

Shtati - Something really cool. (Ex: "I visited my friend's place and they had a shtati mezuzah!")

Neshama - Soul. (Ex: "Mazel tov on your conversion, you have such a strong Jewish neshama!")

Balagan - A big mess, chaotic, confusing (Ex: "Moshe forgot to bring challah for shabbat dinner, and it turned into this big balagan")

Achi/Achoti - "Achi" literally means "my brother," but can also be used like bro or dude, "achoti" is the feminine equivalent meaning "sister"

Yalla - Come on, let's go (Ex: "Yalla yalla, you're going to make us late again")

Mishpacha - Family. Doesn't have to be literal blood relatives, usually a sign of warmth or friendship. (Ex: "I care about every Jew, they're all my mishpacha.")

Pshhh - Interjection sound, to express respect or agreement with what someone is saying, but can also be playfully poking fun at someone taking themselves too seriously, can be used sarcastically.

Achla - amazing, awesome, great, the best (Ex: "You graduated from university? Achla!")

Sheina Punem (Shayna Punim) - Pretty face (Ex: My bubbe kept pinching my cheeks and calling me a sheina punem) Can be used ironically, in which case it means "a disgrace."

Ahavat Yisrael - to love your fellow Jew (Ex: "I firmly believe in ahavat yisrael, even if it's hard sometimes.")

Schande - Shame, dishonor among the nations, meaning a Jew who represents Jews badly, a serious insult. (Ex: "He's a schande, he feeds into antisemitic stereotypes.")

Schmutz - Dirt, stain. (Ex: "Use your napkin, you've got schmutz on your face.")

Amalek - Any enemy of the Jewish people. ("[Fill in blank] is the modern Amalek, they hate the Jews.")

Lanceman/Landsmen - Two jews from the same place, a point of connection between two Jews who now live far away from their hometown. (Ex: "Your grandma is from Crown Heights? Mine too, our grandparents are landsmen!")

Goyisch - Something not Jewish (Ex: "I don't listen to Taylor Swift, her music is too goyisch for me.")

Goyischekop/Goyische-kop - Goyisch head, a jew who thinks/sounds like a non-jew. (Ex: "How could you say about your fellow Jew? Do you have a goyische-kop or something?")

Kindaleh/Kinderlach - Little children (Ex: "I passed by the school and saw the kindaleh on the playground, they're so cute!")

Chamud/Chamuda/Chamudi - Sweetie, cutie, usually aimed at children, but can be a term of endearment between a couple. Can be condescending when said rudely to another adult, like "Sweetheart" can be in English. (ex: "Goodnight, Chamudi. I can't wait to see you tomorrow.")

Daven - to pray ("Are you going to join us for davening?")

Frum - A religiously observant Jew. ("He's frum, he davens three times a day.")

Treif - Unkosher, generally something not good, doesn't have to literally refer to a food. ("I trained my dog to stop barking when I say 'treif!'.")

Bubkis - Zero, nothing, nada ("Moshe got a gift from bubbe and I got bubkis.")

Kvetch - To complain ("I'm just kvetching, I'm not that upset about it.")

Kvell - Extreme pride. ("I heard your daughter made it into her top school, you must be kvelling!")

Mensch - A good, admirable person. ("He volunteers every week, he's a mensch.")

Chillul HaShem - Disgracing God's name, someone who does something that makes Jews look bad.

Kiddush HaShem - Something that sanctifies God's name, brings honor to God. ("I love seeing you wear a kippah, it's a kiddush HaShem!")

Bubbe meise - Little white lies ("He told his teacher a bubbe meise about his dog eating his homework.")

I should acknowledge that these are mostly Yiddish words, as my experience is primarily with Ashkenazi Jews. If you would like to add common slang from your community (like Ladino phrases, Judeo-Arabic, Italki, etc) I would love to learn about them!

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

With the rise of booktok/booktwt, there's been this weird movement against literary criticism. It's a bizarre phenomenon, but this uptick in condemnation of criticism is so stifling. I understand that with the rise of these platforms, many people are being reintroduced into the habit of reading, which is why at the base level, I understand why many 'popular' books on booktok tend to be cozier.

The argument always falls into the 'this book means too much to me' or 'let people enjoy things,' which is rhetoric I understand -- at least fundamentally. But reading and writing have always been conduits for criticism, healthy natural criticism. We grow as writers and readers because of criticism. It's just so frustrating to see arguments like "how could you not like this character they've been the x trauma," or "why read this book if you're not going to come out liking it," and it's like...why not. That has always been the point of reading. Having a character go through copious amounts of trauma does not always translate to a character that's well-crafted. Good worldbuilding doesn't always translate to having a good story, or having beautiful prose doesn't always translate into a good plot.

There is just so much that goes into writing a story other than being able to formulate tropable (is that a word lol) characters. Good ideas don't always translate into good stories. And engaging critically with the text you read is how we figure that out, how we make sure authors are giving us a good craft. Writing is a form of entertainment too, and just like we'd do a poorly crafted show, we should always be questioning the things we read, even if we enjoy those things.

It's just werd to see people argue that we shouldn't read literature unless we know for certain we are going to like it. Or seeing people not be able to stand honest criticism of the world they've fallen in love with. I love ASOIAF -- but boy oh boy are there a lot of problems in the story: racial undertones, questionable writing decisions, weird ness overall. I also think engaging critically helps us understand how an author's biases can inform what they write. Like, HP Lovecraft wrote eerie stories, he was also a raging racist. But we can argue that his fear of PoC, his antisemitism, and all of his weird fears informed a lot of what he was writing. His writing is so eerie because a lot of that fear comes from very real, nasty places. It's not to say we have to censor his works, but he influences a lot of horror today and those fears, that racial undertone, it is still very prevalent in horror movies today. That fear of the 'unknown,'

Gone with the Wind is an incredibly racist book. It's also a well-written book. I think a lot of people also like confine criticism to just a syntax/prose/technical level -- when in reality criticism should also be applied on an ideological level. Books that are well-written, well-plotted, etc., are also -- and should also -- be up for criticism. A book can be very well-written and also propagate harmful ideologies. I often read books that I know that (on an ideological level), I might not agree with. We can learn a lot from the books we read, even the ones we hate.

I just feel like we're getting to the point where people are just telling people to 'shut up and read' and making spaces for conversation a uniform experience. I don't want to be in a space where everyone agrees with the same point. Either people won't accept criticism of their favorite book, or they think criticism shouldn't be applied to books they think are well written. Reading invokes natural criticism -- so does writing. That's literally what writing is; asking questions, interrogating the world around you. It's why we have literary devices, techniques, and elements. It's never just taking the words being printed at face value.

You can identify with a character's trauma and still understand that their badly written. You can read a story, hate everything about it, and still like a character. As I stated a while back, I'm reading Fourth Wing; the book is terrible, but I like the main character. The worldbuilding is also terrible, but the author writes her PoC characters with respect. It's not hard to acknowledge one thing about the text, and still find enough to enjoy the book. And authors grow when we're honest about what worked and what didn't work. Shadow and Bone was very formulaic and derivative at points, but Six of Crows is much more inventive and inclusive. Veronica Roth's Carve the Mark had some weird racial problems, but Chosen Ones was a much better book in terms of representation. Percy Jackson is the same way. These writers grow, not just by virtue of time, but because they were critiqued and listened to that critique. C.S. Lewis and Tolkien always publically criticized each other's work. Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes had a legendary friendship and back and forth with one another's works which provides so much insight into the conversations black authors and creatives were having.

Writing has always been about asking questions; prodding here and there, critiquing. It has always been a conversation, a dialogue. I urge people to love what they read, and read what they love, but always ask questions, always understand different perspectives, and always keep your mind open. Please stop stifling and controlling the conversations about your favorite literature, and please understand that everyone will not come out with the same reading experience as you. It doesn't make their experience any less valid than yours.