#god this is the best thing about being vaguely jewish

[outsideyourhousewithaknife]

Common reactions when feeding goys latkes:

Ew, it's hot and greasy

Ew, it's damp and cold

OH MY GOD THANK YOU THANK YOU I LOVE YOU FOREVER

Please bring me more

This is the first time I've ever felt lust (???)

Aren't these just hash browns?

Lockouts? Lock what nows?

[genderkoolaid]

I think people forget that atheism ≠ anti-theism. Like in the same way, say, asexuality ≠ anti-sex/sexuality. Somebody talking about how antisemitism is bad is not saying people who don't believe in god are Bad, they're saying being against religious people is bad. And for asexuality, not being sexual yourself does not automatically mean you are against people who are

From what I've seen the basis for antitheism is "religion is inherently harmful and getting rid of religion will improve the world." but the problems with that imo are:

religion is a made up concept that's almost meaningless. like its a well known issue that "religion" is such a vague concept that is deeply western which is why its often really really hard to apply it to the vast majority of human spiritual traditions. hell even "religio" in the context of roman polytheism doesn't map exactly onto the concept of "religion"! like in a lot of cases the line between "religion" and "philosophy" is blurred or nonexistent. not to mention that there are religious atheists. jewish atheists are probably the best example since judaism tends to be far more open to that kind of complexity & fosters a culture which allows people to engage with judaism in a variety of ways. but there are people who don't believe in god or jesus-as-savior but are christians for cultural or philosophical reasons. there are tons and tons of atheists buddhists because its a helpful way of engaging with life regardless of whether or not you believe in samsara literally. the idea that there is this strict binary between Religion and Atheism is, like all binaries, made up.

scapegoating religion for all of humanity's problems is just unhelpful. the idea that religion is this force will propels people to do bad things, and that without religion we wouldn't do them, ignores how humans shape religion to our benefit. there's a reason that wealthy kings who want to maintain power emphasize interpretations of the bible or quran that endorse war while downplaying the ones that endorse peace and compassion. for the same reason that people will support philosophies that view humans as inherently mean and violent and in need of control instead of ones that view us as capable of communal care and cooperation- you don't need to believe in a deity to create a reason why you need to kill another group of people and take their shit. religion is a way this happens, and its important that this is dealt with, but this is not a unique feature of religion. getting rid of religion will not fix our shitty behavior.

going off 1 and 2: trying to get rid of "religion" will inevitably mean fucking over marginalized groups who have already had their spirituality attacked and whose culture cannot be so easily separated from their spirituality. and even beyond that, antitheism is just another way of trying to force a belief onto people. believing in no god is no more objectively correct than believing in one, or any other spiritual concept. there are always going to be spiritual people. also you can say "but there are nonwhite/formerly nonchristian antitheists!!" as much as you want but that doesn't change that saying shit like "all your beliefs are childish and mentally ill, you need an educated intellectual to make you realize you are being stupid and irrational and make you think correctly" is absolutely some classic colonial white supremacist bullshit.

also trying to force atheism on people actually does not help atheists. because it in fact only makes it easier for people to stigmatize atheism as inherently destructive and hostile.

anyways now that anon can get mad for being a wretched child ranting about antitheism. now i've earned it.

[evilwickedme]

I would like to see the Jewish headcanons please

Hi yes thank you so much I wasn't fishing for this at all

We've already covered this in that post that gained me 150 followers in a week, but obviously Peter Parker is Jewish. My personal headcanon is that he's Ashkenazi and somewhere between Reform and Conservative. Like he flip flops on keeping Kosher and observes the high holidays as best as he can assuming there's no world saving he needs to get done, but overall being Jewish to him is about community and culture over the religious part of it

For Bucky Barnes, however, being observant was a way to reclaim his identity after... Well, you know. He's vaguely conservadox? He doesn't really define it beyond being Sephardic. He keeps Kosher (which was difficult during WWII unfortunately) and wears tzitzit and goes to shul whenever he can. He'd love to keep Shabbat but it's just not practical most of the time - essentially it's like being an on call doctor, where your job is essential to saving lives and therefore he can't keep Shabbat properly, but he likes to have Friday night dinners with his friends (and Natasha, whether they're together at the time or not) whenever he can. He doesn't know if God exists, but during the High Holidays is when he comes the closest to believing it

Bruce Wayne is canonically Jewish but like, by accident? I feel like he less defines himself as Jewish and more defines himself as Not-Christian™. His mother used to take him to Synagogue but the memories are vague now, but he always enjoyed lighting the candles on Hanukkah, especially with Jason. He stops celebrating the holiday after Jason dies, because he loved it so much. It's a shame because I KNOW Cass would love Hanukkah and Steph would be so into the Maccabees' story

Tim is also Jewish but he's entirely non practicing; his parents were never around to celebrate any holidays or impart any Jewish traditions on him and Bruce had stopped doing the one Jewish thing of lighting the hanukkiah/menorah (whichever you wanna call it) by the time he became Robin. The main Jewish thing in his life is antisemitic garbage being published about both Bruce and himself, especially once he becomes CEO of WE

Damian was raised Muslim and doesn't really know how to feel about being half Jewish. When he grows up he might try to find a way to reconcile those two parts of his identity, but the only Jewish person who actually practices that he sees even irregularly is Batwoman, who's his cousin once removed and he's not exactly close to, so he just doesn't feel the need to deal with it yet

The Thing and Batwoman are canonically Jewish this doesn't count as a hc I just love them

Same for moon knight minus loving him cause I have a bunch of his comics but just haven't gotten around to reading them

Actually can we talk about Mayday Parker? Because I feel like Peter would absolutely raise his daughter to be Jewish. He wants her to feel that connection to the Jewish people even though he's always been so wishy-washy about it and she grows up to be way more observant than him

I actually don't want canon!Clark to be Jewish, but I think exploring his Jewish subtext in fic can be so interesting? Cause, you know, he's Moses and shit. I feel like an Modern Orthodox Clark would have the exact same values as current Clark but also I'd love to hear his thoughts on certain Mishnahs, you know? Also having read the Death of Superman arc earlier this month I can confirm all Jesus metaphors in adaptations are such bullshit oh my God did you even read the comic

Anyway I think that's it for now? Unfortunately I have not read Every Comic Ever yet so there might end up being even more HCs later on (especially since I plan to read Greg Rucka's Lois Lane series soon and I'm hoping for some Jewish subtext in that)

Thank you so much for asking this was so much fun!!

[haggishlyhagging]

Cosmetics occupied a dark place in the medieval imagination for a number of biblical reasons. First and foremost, they were not natural, and naturalness was the benchmark of anyone truly beautiful. The moment a woman resorted to cosmetics, she was attempting to embellish the work of the divine. This in turn led to the second concern, a conflation of makeup with dark magic. Both concerns were combined in the biblical story of Jezebel, which was trotted out to warn women who were thinking about trying a new recipe for rouge.

Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab of Israel, was a fairly terrible person. Aside from being foreign (which we are meant to understand was automatically bad), Jezebel had engaged in some light murder. She and Ahab had a neighbor, Naboth, who owned a thriving vineyard next door to the palace. After he rebuffed their offers to buy the land, Jezebel conspired to have him falsely accused of blasphemy. He was executed, and the lands passed to her and her husband (1 Kings 21:1-14). Subsequently, justices closed in on Jezebel, whereupon she "painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out of a window." She was later thrown from that window, her blood splattering everywhere. Her corpse was eaten by dogs (2 Kings 9:30).

While most of us would probably say that the thing that marked Jezebel as the wrong sort was, you know, the murder, medieval biblical exegetes disagreed. For them, the worry was the eyeliner and the hairdo. As a result, Jezebel makes a return in the New Testament, in Apocalypse 2:20-23. In Apocalypse, which you might know by the decidedly less cool name Revelation, John of Patmos (ca. 6-100 C.E.) got extremely angry with Jezebel. According to John, God had complained to him that she "calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works; and I will strike her children dead." Biblical scholars considered the references to “sexual immorality” and “adultery” here to be directly linked to the whole eyeliner thing, given that murder was decidedly less attractive to the average man. The fourteenth-century Czech preacher Jan Milic of Kromeriz (d. 1374), for example, announced that during the Last Days, Jezebel would arise from the dead to lead "all who paint their faces" to their Last Judgment and subsequently to Hell. Jezebel's use of makeup thus was more than just throwaway vanity. It is an overtly sexual act that could be conflated with large-scale and vaguely magical seduction, and that had a clearly delineated role in the Apocalypse. In other words, it was not good.

Meanwhile, Jewish and Christian communities could turn to Genesis for their concerns about women using makeup for the purposes of seduction and bringing about the end of the world. Some scholars' commentaries on Genesis warned against the daughters of God who had used cosmetics to disguise themselves and seduce a group of angels, "the sons of God." These women explicitly attempted to improve on God's natural creation and bring themselves up to the level of the divine. Luckily for the hussies in question, they didn't manage to bring about the Apocalypse, as Christian mystics were concerned they would. They were instead blamed for the Great Flood—their sinful nature being one of the things that God allegedly wished to wash from the earth. While cosmetics didn't manage to completely destroy the world in this instance, they came close. Makeup and the dangerous seductive power that women could wield as a result of it were clearly best avoided.

In case Jezebel's dangerousness and the Flood were not enough of a warning, medieval writers set out to underline the diabolical possibilities of eyeliner. Enter, again, the concerned father of daughters, the Chevalier of La Tour Landry. This time he shared the tale of a beautiful princess, whose looks brought her acclaim, admirers, and riches. Rather than remaining a pure emanation of the will of God, however, this princess was augmenting her looks with makeup. As she aged and her beauty faded, she attempted to keep her looks by using yet more makeup, but her face began to wither. The Chevalier assured his daughters that "I heard tell from many that when she was dead, her face became such that one could not know what it was, nor what type of deformation; because it did not seem at all to be the face of a woman, nor did anyone take it for the face of a woman, so hideous was it and horrible to see. So, I think indeed that the layers of paint that she put on it were the cause of this phenomenon."

Some theological scholars saw fit to consider the real victims of the use of cosmetics: men. In the twelfth century at least two theologians, the French Peter the Chanter (d. 1197) and his likely student the English Thomas of Chobham (ca. 1160-1236) tackled the hard question of what, exactly, men should do if they engaged a sex worker in good faith, only to find out later that she had been wearing makeup. Both enlightened minds agreed that in such a case, the clients who hired such women would have in effect been duped. Any woman who was found to be using cosmetics to entice clients was essentially selling falsified goods and should have to return any money that she received for sex.

In the Muslim lands, the seductive power of cosmetics stirred similar concerns, especially perfumes. Jurists grappled with the question of what women could anoint themselves with and came to the conclusion that while it was fine for women to use tints to enhance their faces, these substances shouldn't be heavily perfumed. A light perfume, which could be perceived only by those in close physical proximity to a woman (namely, her husband), was acceptable. What was not acceptable was a perfume that left a trail of scent and therefore seduction. Women who ignored such rules faced legal consequences, as "a perfumed woman who passes by a group of men in order that they will notice her smell is an adulteress."

Women who were tempted to use cosmetics, then, faced condemnation from a number of camps. They faced theological and legal consequences should they decide to enhance their looks through outside help. These concerns were not necessarily for the women but for the men whom they could defraud and seduce thanks to their contrivances. Furthermore, made-up women could cause an honest-to-God Apocalypse, or at least a fairly major flood. Either way it was clear that, in order to ensure the social order, women had to be threatened with legal repercussions.

-Eleanor Janega, The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society

[justasmallbloginabigklainefandom]

Guess I'll also rank all the Glee Christmas songs

I blame you, @thnxforknowingme. Although, I will switch it up a bit. First off, I am sober, second off, I am completely fucking ignoring Previously Unaired Christmas' songs (except for one) cause that entire episode is dead to me, and third off, I do want to rank the album ones as well cause I always listen to the albums.

I am also vaguely ranking them on song choice, quality of the performance, and simply whether I like it. This is very unprofessional and biased. It might not make sense.

Let's start with the two separate songs, that fall outside of the ranking.

Hounourable mention: Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah - Glee, Actually

I also think it should kind of be its own thing, since it's not a Christmas song. It is catchy, though, and Puck and Jake sound great together. And it's nice of the show to acknowledge that there are characters who do not celebrate Christmas (looking at you, Rachel!) (I mean, Tina is also canonically Jewish, but she was never positioned as the big Christmas lover, like Rachel).

(Dis?)Honourable mention: Rocking Around the Christmas Tree - Previously Unaired Crisis

Aka, the only PUC song that I willingly listen. It's not the best song, but it is fun enough.

And now, the ranking:

35. River - Extraordinary Merry Christmas

Boring. The only song that is basically an instant skip for me. It isn't even on my Glee Christmas Spotify playlist. I don't know why. It just doesn't do it for me. Even when I first heard it at the episode's FLF, it just felt like a big pot of meh. Add this to a storyline of Rachel just... showing off... and it's not my thing. Like, I know I shouldn't care about the storylines for these episodes, since it's all about album sales at the end of the day, but it doesn't make it any better.

34. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - A Very Glee Christmas (album)

This song is just kind of weird? But it's also just fine. I do like hearing everyone sing on this one. And is this the only time Dianna appears on the album?

33. Merry Christmas, Darling - AVGC

Huh. It almost seems like I have a vendetta against Rachel Christmas ballads. It's just also a bit meh to me and to be honest, I can't take it seriously cause I keep playing the SIMGM Finchel break-up scene in my head while listening to me. ("You said you'd never stop being friends with me!!!!" "I never thought you could make me feel like this." "NOOOOOO-" "Hey, town down the autotune." "Oh. Sorry. Nooooo.")

32. I'll Be Home For Christmas - Glee, Actually (album)

Yeah. My vendetta continues. I actually didn't realise it until this moment. I like it. It's just fine. But that's it. It's just fine.

31. O Christmas Tree - AVGC (album)

Same here. It's just fine. Matt sounds great, but there isn't much to say.

30. Do You Hear What I Hear - EMC (album)

And same here. Look, we've reached the section of "fine, just fine" songs. I am ranking them mostly on how much I like the voices at this point, cause at the end of the day, all are just fine.

29. Blue Christmas - EMC

Also just fine. This does that the benefit of having a touchy storyline attached to it.

28. The First Noel - Glee, Actually

Same here. Fine. Melissa sounds fine.

27. Do They Know It's Christmas - EMC

I am a sucker of group numbers and it sounds great, but yeah, the song itself is kind of questionable. I agree with Jenna that it's very white saviourism. As if people in Africa don't know the concept of Christmas exists.

26. You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch - AVGC

k.d. lang sings this as a special guest and it's never acknowledged it the episode. I don't have much to say, but I just find it genuinely funny and it fits the whole Sue the Grinch vibe.

25. Last Christmas - AVGC

This song fits the storyline but for inside-joke reasons, I cannot take any version of this song seriously. But it sounds nice and Lea and Cory sound great.

24. Joy To The World - Glee, Actually (album)

Another song that's just nice to listen to. It's better than the "just fine" category, but this one (and the next two) are also just in the same category of "I like listening to it, it's good, that's all I gotta say".

23. Little Drummer Boy - AVGC (album)

I just like Kevin's voice.

22. Angels Have We Heard On High - AVGC (album)

And I like Amber's voice the most!

21. The Most Wonderful Day of the Year - AVGC

It's a nice opener. I think from all the openers, it's my least favourite, but it's just fun. I do prefer to listen to the episode version, mainly because I think Dianna sounds great in it. Like, I obviously also love Chris's voice, but Dianna's little additions are adorable.

20. My Favourite Things - EMC

Look, Glee made it a Christmas song, now. It's just very cute.

19. White Christmas - Glee, Actually

Yeah. Here is my big unpopular opinion. White Christmas just feels fine. The main reason it's not lower is because I am a Klainer 12. I think this duet just feels a bit unbalanced, as in, it's mostly Darren, so it's not really a duet. I do like the jazzy sound, but it's just nice.

18. Christmas Eve With You - EMC (album)

Yes, they wrote another original song that year. Honestly, this one is surprisingly good. Can't believe it made me care about Wemma for once, but Matt and Jayma sound really good together.

17. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Glee, Actually

It does work in the story! That's the main reason I like it. It wraps up everything nicely. But apart from that, it's also just nice to listen to. It's really soothing.

16. Welcome Christmas - AVGC

Same for this one. It sounds nice. The chorus is great. That's it. Also, this song isn't on the album!

15. We Need A Little Christmas - AVGC

This one just makes me very happy. I also just dance along like they did in the episode. It is funny to me.

14. O Holy Night - AVGC (album), Swan Song

The triumphant return of the Rachel solo. Questionable storyline aside, I actually think Lea sounds really good here. It feels like this was the emotion she was aiming for with the other ballads. (But also... Rachel, you're Jewish.)

13. Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Glee, Actually (album)

Ah. Cory's solo. After he died, this passed around with people freaking out about a "hidden Cory solo!", but no, it was just always on the album. He sounds really lovely here, together with the chorus in the back.

12. Santa Baby - EMC (album, cut from episode)

Naya sounds great and God, I wish they had kept it in, cause the performance is really well done as well.

11. Jingle Bells - AVGC (album)

Look, this is just a lot of fucking fun. I am a bitch for upbeat songs and this is just a bop. Like, the glee ladies had that dreadful ballad on this album, but the guys got to party.

10. Jingle Bell Rock - Glee, Actually

I just like this song in general and Chord sounds fun. The accompanying storyline was... weird, though, but it's season 4, everything was weird here.

9. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - EMC

Sure. Why not. I like how Cory and Mark sound together and I really like the instrumentals of this song as well.

8. Let It Snow - EMC

This is just a lot of fun. Darren and Chris sound great on it and there's the nice instrumental and it's just jolly! And of course, I am a Klainer 12.

7. Christmas Wrapping - EMC

I unironically adore this song. Like, it objectively isn't the best song, which is partially because Hemo was never the strongest singer in the cast, but for some reason this one is really doing it for me.

6. Feliz Navidad - Glee, Actually

I am a sucker for Kevin's voice. It's weird. I know. But I think you need to see it as an intentional goofy thing. I always want to dance along to this one.

5. Extraordinary Merry Christmas - EMC

I vaguely recall Darren saying he dislikes this song, but I disagree. It's fun, it's upbeat, but it also doesn't sound like some trashy pop Christmas song (in my opinion) and Lea and Darren sound great together.

Now it's getting difficult. These four are just amazing.

4. Silent Night - Glee, Actually (album)

This is my favourite song of this album. I just remember being moved when I first heard it and that feeling has always sticked. I am usually not the person who likes ballads. I like the upbeat stuff more, which might've become apparent in this list, but this one just got me in the feels for some reason.

3. Deck the Rooftop - AVGC (album)

A mash-up! It's just a really good mash-up and it sounds like everyone is having fun while singing it. I think this is my underappreciated gem.

2. All I Want For Christmas - EMC

This song was made for Amber. She sounds so fucking good in it. It's also a great opener (even though we know it was supposed to be the closing number).

Baby, It's Cold Outside - AVGC

Come on. I am a Klainer 12, after all. But I think even without the Klainer aspect, this is just a really good cover, which is probably why stores still play it. And honestly, it's ballsy to have two men sing this universally known love song in 2010. They sound so good together, too.

[faithfromanewperspective]

you know who we need to hold israel (defence forces and govt) accountable to do better for? the people. israel. who are more than a genocidal, lying government. yes the apartheid state has been around less than a century. but jews have been around for millennia. descendants of abraham, isaac and jacob have been around for millennia. legend has it the name of israel and 'israelites' as a synonym for 'hebrews' and 'jews' ever since this guy called jacob fought God like 4, 5 thousand years ago. imagine what our ancestors would think. these fathers (and mothers, do i need to talk about sarah and rebekah and rachel and leah?) of israelis and (many) palestinians and other europeans like myself with vaguely jewish descent. don't they deserve to have their name taken back from being something that's used as a force of evil? what about citizens convinced that yes, this is bad, they just want the 'war' to be over but think 'free palestine' means their own death and displacement because that's what they've been told? because after 70 years that's the only thing they can imagine is being called for, because it's what their government, if they were palestine, would do? don't they deserve to have a vision of peace that's beyond their wildest imaginings?

such a power-hungry murder-hungry leadership is never elected through the choice of empowered people. humans are better than that. the only way to have something like this kind of pass is to invoke so much fear and so much misinformation that people think it's the best of bad options. that it somehow represents their interest. a whole nation doesn't want this. no nation of people is bad. only the (numerical) minority who are in power are. most people are just scared. and when you're scared, you tend to be misinformed. easy victims of misinformation. it's hard to be the bigger person and to stand up against something wrong when all you're fed is fear. and yet. someone has to. can't we help out with that?

you know, there's some people in Australia who think if our Indigenous people get their way, all people of European and Asian and African and American and wherever else descent will be kicked out or subjugated somehow. treated the way colonisers treated them for centuries. i've met Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander activists who tirelessly spend their time saying this isn't true, they only want peace and reconciliation. they only want to be equal and recognised as such. they shouldn't have to say this. it should be obvious. why do (usually white) people believe this? because it's what colonisers would do. get revenge. it's what the West, largely, would do. somehow deep down even if we don't admit it we know we've been in the wrong. we know justice means to some extent suffering for what our ancestors did. we want that suffering to be minimal. it looks bad from an ethics standpoint. terrible, even. but we as humans are wired neurobiologically to defend our own safety. it's what keeps us safe and allows us to persist as a species.

so the number one way to convince someone to override someone else's right to that is to make them believe that someone else's right to exist somehow conflicts with theirs. this is never true. it's just a question of logistics. but if your government is set on killing people, it's going to do all it can to make sure you don't revolt and stop it. it's going to minimise its crimes over the years. do you know how easy it is to normalise the mistreatment of another people group until it's hard to notice up close? think of how we've discussed systemic racism. think of, if you're a white person, how in 2020 when we were all at home and you had nothing to do but be on the internet, you realised how you've benefitted from it, without ever wanting for anyone to get hurt or have it harder than you did. just by simply existing in a system designed to favour you, preferably without you ever noticing and therefore going and dismantling it.

yes this genocide is bloody and violent. yes it shocks those who were already horrified at one, two, three, or even a hundred Black murders by those meant to protect us. human life is precious. black lives matter. indigenous lives matter. palestinian lives matter. we know that deep within ourselves, we know that we're one humanity. fear and division don't help anyone. but peace can't be false, no one can be one with their oppressor. palestine needs to be free. don't you remember the story of joseph, favoured by his father, oppressed by his brothers, separated from them for decades and when they reunited, wanting only to be equal to them even after saving their lives and holding a powerful political position? hierarchies get us nowhere. all they do is disempower. feminism is meant to help men, too. it always has been. men, who have a right to be raised as more than oppressors. israelis, who have a right to a proper informed decision not to be complicit in a genocide too. who have a right to a vision of harmony. in Australia we celebrate harmony day on the 21st of march. it's coming up in a few weeks. many different cultures living together. and yet. it's true no colonisers are innocent. it's true many of us aussies are living off the benefits of our ancestors who were that. we're not quite innocent either. but if we left, where would we go? many of us don't have a homeland anymore, or we have so many that we can never truly belong in any of them. and i know it's not the same. our genocide isn't happening now, at least not at the same rate, despite the disparity in health outcomes and incarceration and the occasional murder. most of us aren't doing the murdering and actually want to do better. i don't know what it's like to be living as an israeli in 2024.

but i do look to the west and i see the conditional help they gave to construct israel after the war. to build something that in the wake of another genocide, is told that their empowerment depends on the same power structures that hurt them to begin with and with no power of their own, the west would give it to them in exchange for the power to build them into a military monster and it's easy to forget how to be kind. it doesn't mean you're innocent. but when you have millions of people being funneled down this path--I think we've seen this before. we know that not all germans believed hitler's beliefs or supported him, and those who did, it was largely out of fear for their own lives and holding misinformation about what he was actually getting up to. because germans are not bad people. misguided means that with guidance to do better, they will do better. this is the same for israelis. for jews, because many identify with both. jews aren't bad people! yet some of us were raised to believe so. some of us don't realise how normalised that belief was but when christianity has gotten to run the path it has for the last century or more, had people within it be misguided by the same ideas that tell them to disagree with someone is for them to be a threat to your life, those with more power are going to be the voices we hear and it's going to be polarising. we're going to pick up some harmful beliefs and it's up to us in our relative safety all over the world to be the ones to unpack them.

isn't it easy to, if you believe jews to be monsters, when you offer them 'help' with something, to only imagine the help they want is help to be what you believe they are? isn't it easy to raise to power the few who actually do live out this stereotype? until all the good people, the majority of them, with all their traditions and customs that deserve to be respected and celebrated and allowed to exist and do good, are so suppressed we wonder if they're even there anymore? isn't this a self fulfilling prophecy? this is how you villainise someone. and if you're usamerica right now (again, i'm not referring to you, the people. i know that most of you don't want this) and to a lesser extent other western countries, some greedy self-interest to provide someone you already believe to be no better than this with the means to behave in ways you would never be caught doing (but it's just far away enough that people might not draw the link, and it retains your fragile sense of power) crops up and all of a sudden this is the status quo. all of a sudden this is how the momentum is going, and to stop what you're doing will cause chaos but nothing is as bad as continuing. but you're not ready for the chaos. because you're going to lose the power you have which was never yours to hold to begin with.

free palestine, free the world, meet the needs of the people. create a world where israelis and usamericans and westerners in general aren't automatically complicit in genocide unless we stand against it. create a world where israelis are free to be good because we're not backing them into a corner of propaganda believing this is who they are and they are no better than that, so they better allow their government to do this in order that they survive. believe that jews can be good. it's about time. believe that usamericans can be good too but that we need to unpack the power dynamics of the world and work at unraveling the threads of colonialism and healing the hurt to the nations. many of us have generational trauma due to it and will continue to do so. make the economic argument if you have to, for we know the price of mental health care now in 2024 and we know how to sustain the capacity of our healthcare systems, not max them out. we need a lot of trauma informed care. and that means that we can learn to process what we've been through and not turn around and let out that repressed hurt to hurt someone else, someone we believe will hurt us and maybe isn't quite human. chances are they're just as human as anyone. sometimes trauma gives you paranoia, even if it's your ancestors' and not yours. the holocaust is still a living memory for many today. through years when mental health care was stigmatised, its need never went away. hurt simply festered. we've got the resources to do better now and the very first step is a ceasefire. followed by a vision. of harmony where no one's rights are taken away, where everyone has the right to a feeling of autonomy but theirs doesn't take that right away from anyone else. it is possible but we're going to have to think differently. we're going to have to see people as people rather than perpetrators of sins that often aren't theirs specifically but belong to those associated with them willingly or unwillingly. we're going to have to realise that being capable of doing better isn't the same as being completely innocent, and in that raising the moral bar higher than we can handle simply removes the hope that we desperately need: that misguided and scared people who don't stand up to Every Wrong Thing can do better. that they need investment, not villainisation, especially if they've been victims of oppression themselves in the past--we can't sweep this under the rug. we ourselves are them. and we have to believe we can do better too.

[shinra-makonoid]

hey! i'm going to try my best to be kind even though i don't love some of your talking points. i don't think you are intentionally trying to be antisemitic, i think you are just ignorant (which is not a crime). i'm jewish and what specifically has bothered me is "I said that if they believed that god had nothing to do with men and that it had nothing to do with religion, then they were probably agnostic atheists too then". you are assigning jews to a box that we really don't fit in. 1/n

I literally said that because the post before me was this:

If the person before me claims their religion invented agnostism atheism, why would you get mad at being called the thing you literally invented? I did not assign "Jews" into a box, one Jewish person told me that the things that are called agnostism atheism has been invented by their culture/religion and that it wasn't new, so I told that Jewish person that they were the thing they claimed they invented. I was skeptical of this claim. I did not make any generalization, I do not claim to know what "Jewish people" think in general, and I'm not interested in that either. I had a conversation with one person.

I specifically said that, because the OP of the post and the person who replied, had issues with people who were agnostic atheist. In my head, idk about you, but it is kind of strange to, at the same time, say that people who are X are bad, but also that your group of people invented X and that it was a given.

your distinction between 'theistic' and 'deistic' gods also really doesn't hold weight imo but that's a different conversation. your point labelled 2 on that original thread also comes off as extremely condescending, as if someone who is jewish doesn't know that judaism is an ethnoreligion. this is more philosophical, but, "You may be very attached to your beliefs, but they aren't you", what are you if not your beliefs? jewish identity and the self are very intertwined. 1/n

As you say it's a different conversation.

For the point 2 about being condescending, I can't see it. The OP made a point solely on the religion, as if religion was the only factor that kept Jewish people together during all those years and even now. It feels (but maybe I'm wrong) as if, when you are reacting to what I said, you did not read what the people argued before me. Because the logic of why I argued the points I did obviously only make sense if you look at what was posted before.

I don't think I am my beliefs. "Jewish identity" is kind of a vague statement right? Again, just like the OP from the other post, I think you are centering it around beliefs, when, it's not just that. I don't mean to be condescending when I say this, but I don't know how to say it any other way. Being Jew is not just about religion and beliefs, it's about a cultural and historical background too. The reason why I'm making that point isn't because "I know more" or that I want to be condescending or whatever, I specifically said that I was ignorant. And it's also important for me to talk about the historical point because my family lived through WW2 and it's a shared history, it's a shared traumatism. When I go to the Shoah memorial in Paris, I don't think "The jews" in one side and "my family" on the other side, I think "us" who suffered from the nazis. To me, when you focus on beliefs, you push that away. And again idk why you would take that wrongly but at that point I'm pretty sure anything could be problematic but I'm exhausted and I hope you understand I don't mean harm. When I was a child we went to a museum or something, in which we could listen to a Jewish person who survived WW2 and was still alive to tell their story, their suffering. Like... History is so important. We fought so much for it not to be forgotten, to be recognized, to know, to transmit and educate children like me, and it's not a part of your argument regarding your Jewish identity? Like, idk man. The suffering of my family is part of mine. It doesn't mean that it needs to be only that obviously tho. I feel like focusing solely on beliefs is an inaccurate portrayal of how deep/complex the Jewish identity is, which it is! And I'm nowhere equipped enough of knowlegeable enough to actually tell how complexe it is, that's for sure and I never argued otherwise. I literally tried to be as respectful as possible but I don't know how to say it any other way, and again, I don't mean to be rude. It seems (but maybe I'm wrong) that there is no way for me to express that argument without looking bad to your eyes. Why is that? And why do you seem, both of you guys, to focus solely on beliefs in regards to your Jewish identity?

If someone criticize my beliefs, I understand that it's my beliefs that are being criticized, not me. Yes, my beliefs are an important part of my life, but I still manage to make the difference. When I feel targetted when someone criticize my beliefs, I try to go deeper into that because, for me, it means that I'm not feeling secure in my own beliefs. I would recommend a video about street epistemology here. This is legit one of my favorite video ever, you don't have to watch it, but I think it's very interesting.

it's okay that you don't know a lot about judaism, but you really do come across as positing yourself as an authority on the subject so it does not surprise me that people are being hostile about it. i hope you have a good day (3/3 fin)

And I will ask you where I did that ever? For example, the screen just after, does that look like someone who is an authority on Judaism?

ok sorry one more ask: i feel like the whole argument is pointless because the original anon was comparing atheists WHO THINK ALL RELIGION IS EVIL to terfs. not all atheists. so you being mad that spacelazarwolf was "comparing atheists to terfs" is just misreading the post entirely because it was about specifically atheists who are shitheads to folks who are religious

Except I didn't answer to them talking about atheists who think all religions are evil. In regards to the TERFs comparison, I answered to them about that:

I'm an atheist, and arguably by that person, I'd be a "culturally christian atheist". That's what they compared to TERFs. It just here.

"atheists who are shitheads to folks who are religious", you mean like atheists who are being harassed because they said something that has been considered subjectively as rude to religious people's beliefs?

To make a comparison that is less heavily politically charged, I'll talk about "Culturally Christians" and maybe manage to convey how it looks like from an atheist point of view. So it's about a French skeptic that I follow closely and that I love (I would marry him, believe me). In Paris the big cathedral of Notre-Dame was in fire and it had severe damages, but there was no death. I personally was not affected by it, the French skeptic I follow wasn't either. Both he and I made jokes about it burning. It caused a severe ruckus, it turned out that, no matter what you could do, we were socially not allowed to joke about it, because it was a blaspheme, even for people who were not religious. It was considered disrespectful to make fun of a building in fire. And while I just had to stop a few conversation on discord, the skeptic on Twitter had a massive harassment. Objectively, there was no reason to believe that joking about this would cause anything bad, because again, it was an old building burning. You could lament the loss of architectural history for sure, but the way people treated it was sacred. Sometimes when atheists are "shitheads to folks who are religious", it's actually just because we see a building where you see something sacred. And there is nothing we can do as atheists to see it as sacred. We don't choose our beliefs, that includes being atheist. That is not hate against the people who believe. The same way that questioning a specific belief is not hate or condescension or posing as an authority. It's just questioning things to learn more.

No matter what you think/feel, thanks for being not insulting.

[the-knights-who-say-book]

Sorry if I'm completely misremembering this but - did you do a course/take a module/etc on Queer theology? It may have been exclusively about Judaism? It's a topic of interest for me and Im not sure where to start so Im looking for book/article recs. Apologies if I am in fact remembering incorrectly!

Hi! Sorry this took so long to answer, I was kind of burnt out after graduating. I took a class on LGBT topics in Judaism and Christianity, and several other classes in which gender & sexuality studies and Judaic studies intersected, so I know of a bunch of books and articles on the subject, mostly specific to Judaism.

Vaguely separated into lists of academic/not academic but it's a wishywashy categorization. I hope you find something you want to check out!

Less ~academic~ books:

Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. This is a great anthology of short essays, often somewhat personal, on queer interpretations of the Bible. I've been meaning to read it all the way through, so far I've only read specific parts relevant to things I studied

Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition by Rebecca T. Alpert. This book explores the challenges of being a lesbian and a believer in a religion which has anti-lesbian texts and puts forward a model of how to exist as both by facing troubling texts head on

Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders. An autobiography by Joy Ladin, a poet, academic, and Jewish trans woman, who writes about transitioning in relation to the commandment to choose life. Review

Keep Your Wives Away from Them: Orthodox Women, Unorthodox Desires. An anthology of short stories, personal essays, and academic essays. I think the essay "Women Known for these Acts" is the best introduction to lesbianism in Jewish law that I read while studying the topic; you can probably find it solo elsewhere

Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community. An anthology of essays ranging from personal to more academic. Review here.

More ~academic~ stuff:

A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969 by Noah Sienna. Collects historical writings on Jewish queerness. I have only read parts assigned for class, but it's a major (and new-ish) resource

The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective by Joy Ladin. An exploration of using the transgender experience as a lens through which to gain a better, or different, understanding of G-d. Interesting Biblical interpretations similar to Torah Queeries, more fleshed out. Review

Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism by Bernadette Brooten. Discusses lesbianism in Judaism and early Christianity, arguing that homophobia in Christianity and Judaism has its roots in misogyny

Saul M. Olyan's paper "And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying down of a Woman: On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13." Includes a breakdown of just how weird the language of the famous prohibition is and summary of previous scholars' interpretations of the passage. The author argues that the prohibition is very limited

Jan Joosten's "A New Interpretation of Leviticus 18:22 (Par. 20:13) and its Ethical Implications," which argues that the prohibition against m/m sex is actually specific to adultery

A lot of Jewish trans works discuss the Rabbinic gender categories of the androgynos and tumtum, as well as the saris and aylonit. Charlotte Fonrobert's paper "Regulating the Human Body: Rabbinic Legal Discourse and the Making of Jewish Gender" is an extremely influential essay on gender categories on Judaism (it's included in 2 of the anthologies above, and was assigned in my classes several times). You'll find a lot of other articles on the subject to explore if you scroll down to the bibliography of this Jewish Women's Archive post "Gender Identity In Halakhic Discourse" (which is written by, surprise!, Fonrobert)

More important Jewish/gender & sexuality studies scholars, who have published many books and essays: Michael Satlow ("They Abused Him Like a Woman": Homoeroticism, Gender Blurring, and the Rabbis in Late Antiquity"), Steven Greeberg (Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition),

General resources:

Check out transtorah.com, their "Resources" tab provides access to poems, sermons, and essays by many people who contributed to the anthologies I've listed, so it's fantastic supplementary material or point of access if you can't get your hands on some of these books

Jewish Women's Archive, mentioned above, is a great resource. Their "LGBTQIA Rights" tag has a lot of interesting posts ranging from essays by activists, personal reflections by queer Jews, biographies of past and present queer Jews, film reviews, etc. Their encyclopedia entry for "Lesbianism" is also a great starting point for the topic

I'm looking through old syllabi and finding way more but tbh I've reached my limit for today. Just know that there's way more! Remember to look at the works cited of things you read to find more things to read!

[fr00t-snacc]

Comic History 101?

More like Bad Comprehension 101–

Lemme break this down:

The slowing of progress in comics was not the fault of the comic creators. It was the fault of that puritan pissant Fredric Wertham and his book “Seduction of the Innocent,” which lead to a series of Senate hearings, which lead to

The Comics Code of Authority

This BS was used to censor and control comics if their creators wanted them to get published. And it had rules prohibiting things such as:

• “Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority” TLDR don’t portray legal systems negatively in any way

• They forbade “sexual abnormalities” which while a very vague term also attributed to LGBT themes back in the day

• “Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals” Basically the first point I showed, where TLDR you’re not allowed to create a morally grey criminal because it could instill a dislike of the legal system and such

And that was just the CCA! Let’s not even get into when Lynn Johnston was sent death threats for THIS comic strip back in 1993!

Or how about the story of how Jack Kirby, a Jewish American comic book artist widely known for the comic Captain America(where btw he drew CA punching Hitler in the face), scared off a bunch of Nazis who demanded his secretary call him down because they wanted to kill him because…well, he was Jewish!

Oh and sexism…dear GOD the sexism! That Wertham fella said that because Wonder Woman has strength and independence, she’s automatically a lesbian, and while I have no issue with that(what queer girl would not wanna huge buff Amazonian princess for a GF???) this was a no-no back then because almost everyone thought comics were a medium for children, so teaching children about homosexuality is bad.

As for racism, while I haven’t found any examples of that from back then(although I don’t doubt that was there), who’s gonna tell Dobson about Black Panther, the first black superhero who debuted in 1966? Or Storm from the X-Men, who made her debut in 1975? Or that the literal metaphor of the X-Men explained by Stan-motherfucking-Lee was racial discrimination and civil rights???

Huh…wow! It’s almost like this slowing of progress Dobson is talking about(which is only partially true I mean have you seen what they did to Ms. Marvel, the first Muslim protagonist of Marvel Comics?) goes both ways! It’s not the fault of just out of touch executives, it’s also at the fault

OF THE FUCKING PURITANS WHO WANTED TO RUIN OUR FUN

And yet here I am…finding barely ANY comics of his touching on this!

And I’m just touching major comics from Marvel and DC! There’s a huge history of the subtext and underground comix made during the era of counterculture to share unique stories with progressive themes!

B U T, this is becoming very long.

Don’t get me wrong Dobson has some valid criticisms of when comics decide to fridge their female characters…..no that’s it that’s honestly where the criticism kinda ends cuz everything else is such a huge mess-

So, what did we learn today kids? Dobson doesn’t truly know his comic history, puritans can go kick rocks, and Jack Kirby is the G.O.A.T.

Apologizes @hypocrisyofandrewdobson for hijacking your post to create this huge ass rant, but some educating needed to be done, and I wanted to show how Dobson’s claims of being progressive are performative at best, and false at worse.

Dobson digs out yet another old strawman SYAC comic in order to shit on both comic fans and take a shot at Trump again.

Notice the flags being used in the third panel and the website on the last one. Because all comic fans are apparently racist, sexist basement dwellers that only go to 4chan.

Don’t be a Dobson, kids.

[aheavenlylake]

I don't know if anyone else can relate to this, but here goes ~

As someone who could probably best be classified as an agnostic omnist who finds God most often in poetry and song and vague memories and nowhere else (certainly not in the sphere of reality), pursuing any religion at all is hard, even if the religion(s) in question resonate with you. Prose about being Jewish, about the Ein Sof and the sephirot, about the shekhinah, about an anthropomorphized God speaking to an anthropomorphized thing like the Torah or otiyot or a soul often touches me so deeply that I will start crying because my soul has transcended a little piece of the world in that moment. But the rituals and traditions and such often do nothing for me except leave me feeling empty, like I'm missing out on something beautiful that only I can't reach.

But I also have this deep knowing inside me that if I were in a committed relationship with a Jew or a mother raising a Jewish child, I would suddenly find some of the meaning I'm lacking and yearning for. To experience Judaism and Hashem alongside another person and/or be blessed with the joy of teaching those things to someone instead of stumbling around in the dark and feeling sad about everything that I'm missing.

I don't think I believe in God. I think I believe in the Universe, but with a touch of God to it? And I feel like that plus the fact that Christmas is still my favorite cultural holiday (seeing as I am culturally Christian) and the fact that I'm agnostic bordering on atheist and the fact that I feel I exist in the space between religions where I find traces of the truth in Judaism and Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism alike and how they (pretty much) all explain One Being in different ways and the fact that if I was Jewish I probably wouldn't be kosher or very observant but would still go to shul with my loved ones means that I can never convert and I should never be Jewish, but I still love this faith and culture with all my heart. I still wish that I could be Jewish.

[I absolutely welcome commentary on this! I wonder a lot if I'm the only one who feels this way or at least similarly.]

[docholligay]

Shamash Answers: Holligay Hates

The question was basically, to give me a good ol kvetch: A Jewish method of complaining that is, at core, funny (and collaborative and community-based, but that’s a whole nother thing we’re not going to get into here, I just wanted FUNNY)

HERE WERE THE FIVE BEST:

Our new neighbors seem like very nice people, but either they are running a black market tile shop or they are tiling their entire house, apparently with special tiles that can only be cut between the hours of seven and ten by a single man armed with a very whiny saw. They’d better be making Minoan mosaics in there, that’s all I can tell you.-- Lou

I died at “making Minoan mosaics” ahaha

Pardon me, I do apologize for the bother, but please explain to me why you felt it necessary to plant flowers right up to the edge of the landscaped section of the parking lot? See, the way you have it done, if I park in the last spot, I can't open my car door without beheading petunias and whatever those ugly red feathery things are. I'm not a fan, but I still feel guilty being the cause of their demise. Also, once I have opened the car door and gotten put, I have to battle the jungle to get to the back of the car. I do not wish to play Tarzan each time I go for a drive, and I worry that there are ticks in your exotic grasses. Or venomous imported spiders, I did watch Arachnophobia last night, you know. And why is it all on such an artificially made, steep mound? We are not a mountain goat. You know what looks nice this time of year? Decorative cabbage. And it's low, so my car door would just sweep right over the top without inflicting damage. And they should be planted far enough apart to enable my easy egress from the parking area. Also, not a common habitat for ticks. -- @incorrecttact

I LOVE DECORATIVE CABBAGE. You can ask @keyofjetwolf, I mention it every time we go downtown and see them in the little planters! Also, yes, this is perfectly what I was talking about, and I love that you can vaguely hear Michiru saying this. 

Well, if we're complaining then: How dare you live in a different timezone from me! Do you have any idea how many times I've seen you schedule something at noon, then needed to wait 2 whole extra hours before you actually started? At least 2 times! It was very boring! This is definitely something for you to fix, as the solution will not be me learning how time works. Also, your ask link on your blog has a period next to a comma, it looks dumb. -- @skylineofspace

“The solution will not be mel earning how time works” was great, but it was really the nitpicky editing at the end that sent me

Hey,  Sis, I made the frozen pizza you asked for to clear up space in the freezer and we can finish our leftovers from 3 different meals tomorrow like you also requested. What do you mean why didn't I make eggs? No one told *me* there's a great sale going on I'm so sorry I forgot to enable my telepathy today. No, going on for 10 god-forsaken minutes about how it would have been much better to use up a bunch of older eggs is not going to transubstantiate the pizza you asked for and it's cold now because you kept kvetching about the bloody eggs instead of eating it.--- @annoni-no

THIS MADE ME LAUGH SO HARD I DID A DRAMATIC READING FOR JETTY. I was giggling, but “transubstantiate the pizza’ killed me, beautiful,  no notes. 

You know what stupid ass shit I'm still pissed about? MIKE EATING THOSE SHITTY LITTLE DEBBIE MOTHER'S DAY CAKES. I put them on a top shelf, Doc. THEY WERE IN NARNIA'S NARNIA. So not only did he have to go out of his way to know they were even there, but then he didn't say WORD. FUCKING. ONE. to ask if they were for any purpose. WHO THE SHIT BUYS THEMED LITTLE DEBBIE CAKES WITHOUT REASON. Did he think I was lured in by the idea of a new flavour sensation possible only in Mother's Day cakes? NO BECAUSE THEY ALL TASTE THE EXACT FUCKING SAME DON'T THEY. PLUS they're still like $2.78 a box because they've never contained a single ingredient natural to this planet. So if seeing them sparked a sudden desire for Miniscule Deborah snack cakes, maybe, I dunno, GO FUCKING BUY SOME. But no. NO. He had to take the THEMED ones TUCKED AWAY, and then -- AND FUCKING THEN -- eat THE ENTIRE GODDAMN BOX. Not just one and then "oops I wasn't thinking". THE WHOLE BLOODY BOX. So he either ate them slowly over the course of several days without once stopping to think, or he inhaled the entire box in one sitting, and which is worse?? Which pathway of possibility is the least appealing? I don't know! I can't decide! But he did it over two years ago, AND STILL IT SOMETIMES POPS INTO MY HEAD AND IN THAT MOMENT I'M THREE SECONDS AWAY FROM DIVORCE I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD and over LITTLE GODDAMN DEBBIE-- @keyofjetwolf

I die EVERY FUCKING TIME I READ THIS. This is exactly what I was looking for, a petty wild ride from beginning to end, amazing, iconic, also, the soul of being married, kids, let me tell you what. 

[seasonsofeverlark]

Menorah Lights, Blessing of Life

Author: @alliswell21

Prompt: I would LOVE to see some Everlark Hanukkah fluff there’s way to little out there right now. [submitted by anonymous]

Rating: T - for non-explicit: adult situations, childbirth description, and breastfeeding. 

Canon typical violence. Vague reference to a war zone/conflict. 

This work contains religious and cultural imagery and traditions. There’s also some use of the Yiddish language, as well as some Hebrew. There will be a glossary and more in-depth commentary at the end of the fic, when this piece gets cross posted to AO3 in a few days. Peeta makes a quick reference to 1 Samuel 1:27 towards the end part of the fic.

Author’s Note: Thank you, Anon, for this prompt. I have to be honest, and disclose I’ve never witnessed a Hanukkah celebration personally, and most of the events depicted in this story concerning the festival is a product of hours of research. I apologize for any inaccuracies or if I’ve inadvertently misrepresented any cultural or religious aspect of the holiday.

Extensive thanks to @rosefyrefyre​, who was kind enough to beta read, spell check my Hebrew, direct me to some great sites to aid my research, and serve as the best resource for Judaism accuracy I could’ve asked for! Rose, I always learn something from my interactions with you. I’m grateful for your willingness to share your knowledge. 

***Hannah: Hebrew origin. Means: ‘grace’/‘favor’; attributed meaning: ‘He (God) has favoured me with a child’.***

Happy Hanukkah to those celebrating the holiday! 

————-

The house is reverently quiet, despite being crammed to the gills with all our family and friends.

  Peeta checks his watch nervously for the fifth time in ten minutes. He’s so rigid, I know his leg will bother him so much tonight, he’ll take hours to fall asleep. 

  I smile at him, making a mental note to warm some lavender infused oils to massage the stump of his leg. It’s the least I can do for my husband. 

  Peeta lost his lower leg protecting me from shrapnel during an attack while deployed to the Middle East some 16 years ago. I was rendered deaf in my left ear on the same attack…we are a perfect match, my husband and I; he has to wear a prosthetic leg to get around, I have to wear a hearing aid, and that doesn’t even begin to cover the burn marks and other scars we sustained in the service. 

  “I think we should…” he says quietly, motioning to the small table we placed by the window earlier. 

  I turn to my cousin, Johanna, and nod. 

  Jo winks at Peeta and shuts the lights off, while I pull back the curtains from the windows and tie them up, revealing a waning sunset over the rooftops of our neighborhood. 

  Peeta stands a pace behind me, transfixed by the slim line of flaming orange in the horizon being swallowed by deep purples and indigos of the falling night. It’s Peeta’s favorite color. 

  “Almost time, Katniss!” he whispers, giddy, placing a match box on the table at the foot of the menorah. 

  There’s a soft buzz behind us, which means everybody  is shuffling closer to the window. Outside, the world is busy with cars driving by, splashing the dirty slosh of melted snow accumulated on the ground from days ago; a dog barks somewhere in the distance, and a couple of people hustle home; but the thing that really catches my eyes, is that in a few houses down the street, candlelights start to flicker to life on windows and front porches, announcing the start of Hanukkah. 

  “Should—should we do it?” Peeta asks leaning closer to the window pane, clearly seeing the other houses already lighting their candles. 

  “There’s still a sliver of sun. They just can’t see it because they’re facing our way, against it.” I mutter back. 

  This is Peeta’s first Hanukkah as a host, so he’s a little eager. In fact, my beautiful husband was beside himself when everything fell into place for us to host tonight’s celebration. If he could’ve gotten his way, we’d have everyone over to light the menorah the whole eight days of the festival. But, we are expecting the arrival of our very own little miracle any day now, so hosting the first day was a very generous compromise with our family. 

  The thought warms me inside, and I caress my protruding stomach absentmindedly, staring at the darkening sky. 

  The sun finally sinks. “Now!” I grin at my other half. 

  Peeta grins back, handing me the candles. Two of them, to be precise; long and blue. If my Tatte —my father— were here, he would’ve insisted we used olive oil and wicks instead, but it’s only Peeta’s first Hanukkah leading, and he’s so nervous about the whole thing already…candles are perfectly acceptable. 

  First, I place the shamash— “Shamash means helper candle, Katniss,” Tatte would explain— in the middle peg of our menorah, so it sits higher than the rest. Then, I place the one other candle in the rightmost holder, to signify today is the first night of the Festival of Lights. 

  Peeta passes me the matches, and I light the shamash. I smile at him, encouragingly, and mouth the words: “Your turn,” 

  He takes a deep breath, wiggling his fingers at his sides, and then starts reciting the first blessing: “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha-olam, Asher kid-shanu bi-mitzvo-tav vi-tzee-vanu, Li-had-leek ner shel Chanukah.” 

  His Hebrew isn’t perfect, but he recites the whole prayer exactly as we practiced. 

  My mother, who’s standing with Peeta’s family, translates quietly, to not disrupt too much, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to kindle the Chanukah light.”

  Peeta waits a moment, and then recites the second prayer: “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha-olam, Shi-asa nee-seem la-avo-teinu, Ba-ya-meem ha-haim baz-man ha-zeh.” 

  Again, my mother translates, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who performed miracles for our forefathers in those days, at this time.”

  Peeta’s blue eyes shine joyfully in the dim of night. 

  “Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha-olam, Sheh-he-che-yanu vi-kee-yimanu vi-hee-gee-yanu laz-man ha-zeh.” 

  He finishes the third blessing, which we only say on the first night, with utmost reverence, and holds my gaze for only a second. 

  My mother translates this prayer as well, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.” She explains this one we only say once, during the first day, but the first two, we recite every night. 

  I take the shamash from its holder and tip the flame into the wick of today’s candle, so it starts the mitzvah of the night. After the light has been kindled, we —the ones in attendance who speak Hebrew— sing Ha-nerot Halalu together. 

  When we finish, my sister, Primrose, starts singing Maoz Tzur, and Peeta turns puppy-dog eyes on me, because he loves my singing.

  I chuckle ruefully before opening my mouth and letting the lyrics spill like second nature. The rest of the attendees join in singing, and suddenly everyone is participating in some way. When the song ends, another one starts, and the atmosphere grows animated and joyful the longer it goes. As it should! 

  Peeta’s brothers came with their families, so he goes to them to chat. My mother has been sitting with them, explaining the proceedings, since it’s the first time they’ve joined us for Hanukkah. 

  The candlelight flickers from the menorah, the only light in the room, just as we finish another song, and then Uncle Haymitch staggers into the middle of the floor, shoving his hands into his pockets. The children peer up with interest, because most of them have known Haymitch long enough to guess what’s to come.

  Haymitch moves his arms just a fraction, and all the kids slip out of their seats like an exhale, and then, the paunchy, ol’ grump is throwing small, shiny, gold disks up towards the ceiling, crowing: “Gelt! Gelt! Gelt for everyone!” 

  “I think he believes he’s some kinda middle-aged, Jewish Oprah!” Blight, Johanna’s husband, cackles somewhere behind me, as the children descend like locusts on the chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil scattered all over the room. 

  Peeta encourages his younger nephews to get in on the fun. 

  Between all three of our siblings, Peeta and I have seven nephews— two of them are teenagers— and one niece. 

  The adults shake their heads and smile from the sidelines, watching the children in merriment.

  When all the gelt has been collected from the floor, Peeta asks the children if they would rather: eat, play dreidel, or hear a story. Since the oldest child in attendance is 8½, the kids settle on a story pretty quick. 

  I sink into the cushions of our plushest chair to watch my husband corral the little ones onto the rug for their story; one of my hands rests lazily on my heavily pregnant belly, while I hold a half eaten sugar cookie in the other one.

  “So…who can tell me what we’re celebrating for the next eight days?” Peeta starts.

  There’s a soft chorus of kiddy voices calling “Hanukkah!”

  “That is right!” Peeta agrees, his eyes are wide, excited, merry, “and Hanukkah is a very important party, because it reminds us of the Miracle of Lights and the victory of the Sons of Israel over the mean ol’ gentiles—“

  “Mamme says gentiles aren’t ‘all’ bad!” cries out Bekka, Johanna and Blight’s little girl, who looks like a carbon copy of her mother, except with long, wavy hair. 

  “Um…you’re right, I should’ve said ‘Greek invaders’ instead of gentiles…my bad—”

  “Uncle Peeta…” one of our nephews— on Peeta’s side— blinks owlishly at him, “What’s a gentile?” 

  “Non-Jewish people,” says Asher, one of Prim’s twins. 

  “Oh…like Muggles are non-magic folk?” asks another of the Mellark boys. 

  “I guess so,” answers the other twin, Aspen.

  “I don’t think we are Jewish,” comments one of Peeta’s nephews, turning inquisitive blue eyes to my husband and then to his own parents, “Are we?”

  “No, buddy, you aren’t a Jew—“

  “Uncle Haymitch says gentiles are helpless,” interrupts Aspen, shaking his head sadly, “He says the goyish thing gentiles do is putting mayo in their pastrami sammiches! So, if neither of you don’t put mayo in your pastrami, then you’re alright. You’re mishpachah, Bran!”

  “Um…what does that mean?” asks Bran.

  “We’re your mishpachah, right, Mamme?” inquires Asher.

  “It means ‘family’,” explains Prim, making the Mellark boys look relieved, and even proud. 

  “Are you a gentile too, Uncle Peeta?” asks Asher, “Uncle Haymitch says you used to be his favorite Shabbos Goy of all times before you married Auntie Katniss.”

  I almost choke on my cookie. 

  Peeta wheezes out a tiny chuckle, but is interrupted by my enraged sister.

  “Boys!” Prim rushes from her chair, her daughter half asleep in her lap; she dumps the toddler into her husband’s arms to stand in front of the twins with her hands on her hips. “That is not nice! What have I said about repeating all the mishegas Uncle Haymitch says?”

  “Not to…” the twins mumble contritely. 

  “Oy! I’m sitting right here, Sunshine!” Haymitch calls out. “Plus, kinder wisdom,” he pronounces it the Yiddish way, like the start of kindergarten, “it’s still wisdom!” 

  The twins are 7, but they can be a menace and clever to boot.

  Haymitch continues, “Everybody knows the Boy used to be pretty helpful back in the day. I was almost sad when Sweetheart finally snatched him up, despite it being the smartest thing she’s ever done,”

  “Haymitch…” I ground a low warning. 

  It’s a well known fact I kept digging my heels in against Peeta’s subtle advances for years, despite having feelings for him myself; I’m grateful my beautiful husband persevered though, because looking at him now, I can confidently say that our marriage, our family, would’ve happened anyway, despite my deep seated fears, the physical and mental toll being in a war zone took on us both, and all the heartbreak in between… 

  Unlike my mother, Peeta did not convert to Judaism in order to marry me. He did that on his own, way before I agreed to make our odd relationship official. I tried to persuade him from converting though— he does love Christmas and bacon— but again, he was committed to our faith with an iron will only the grave can quell. 

  “Eh!” Haymitch waves me off, “Nobody can win with you girls. Not even kvelling about one of your husbands!” 

  I sink deeper into my chair, sufficiently mollified. The old man can gush all about Peeta all he wants, as long as he doesn’t comment on me.

  But Haymitch has a big mouth; he used to give me a hard time for my apparent ‘prickly personality’, often telling me I was so surly, I was practically gornisht helfn—beyond help—and once, he even said, I was as charming as a slug. I retorted he was probably looking at a mirror, and that was the end of that.

  When Peeta started hinting at wanting more out of the casual arrangement we’ve had since the Army, and to my chagrin, two more suitors sprung out of nowhere, Haymitch had the gall to tell me that before Peeta, I was as romantic as dirt. Peeta gave him an earful for that one, though. It was glorious seeing Haymitch properly chastised by his favorite Shabbos Goy.

  I giggle at the memory. 

  I finally relented a couple of years ago, letting my fears go. Haymitch was the first to congratulate me when I announced I was dating Peeta, like a normal couple. My uncle fixed me with a stare that said he expected me to really try, because this boy was a true catch, or as he called him then, “a mensch if he ever saw one.” 

  I happen to agree. 

  I sigh, massaging my ribs where the baby is digging its tuchis in. 

  Haymitch gets away with a great deal of things on the simple account that he was the only person who actually accepted, and welcomed our mother into our family, when she married our father. Everyone else called her an opinionated shiksa behind my parents’ backs, probably thanks to my Bubbe…dear old Grandma really disliked the idea of my father marrying a gentile girl, despite being clear as day how much they loved each other. 

  My sister glares at Haymitch too, then turns to her sons, “It’s the first day of Chanukah, nu?” The boys nod in affirmative, “Then be good, so Uncle Peeta can finish the story—“

  “But, Mamme…we know the story!” 

  Prim gives them The Look and shuts them up right away. “Bannock, Graham, and Bran don’t know the story. They’re our guests, and we are called to be hospitable to everyone, right?” 

  I stare at Prim with mild amusement. She’s such a MOM! 

  “Yes, Mamme.” 

  I wonder if I’ll be able to master ‘the stare’ as well as my baby sister has? 

  Prim told me once, that everything she knows about mothering, she learned from the years in which I took care of her, after our father died, and our mother fell into a debilitating depression that almost killed us all from starvation and hebetude. 

  I have mixed feelings about that assessment, first, because: At first I was just trying to keep our situation hidden from others, so I made sure Prim and I were clean and presentable for school, that all homework was made on time, that we studied our Torah lessons, and that we attended Hebrew school without missing a class. I made sure Prim ate at least once a day, even if that meant I went without.

  There were things I couldn’t provide for my sister, simply because I didn’t know how, and when the pantry was empty, I started secretly raiding the trash containers behind the stores in our neighborhood.

  I was 11 then. 

  That’s when the first and only interaction with Peeta— or as I knew him then: the baker’s son— occurred before the Army. 

  Peeta had been watching me steadily lose weight and figured something wasn’t right. Then he saw how I dove out of his folks’ bakery’s garbage container and emerged empty handed, because trash had already been collected. 

  Instead of sneering, bullying me or calling the police, Peeta gave me two, fresh loaves of bread— the chiefest of foods in our culture— and thanks to his generosity, I figured out how to keep Prim, mother and myself fed when money was tight, hunting squirrels and little birds, long enough for my mother to find the strength to get the help she needed to get better.

  Secondly, in my adult life, I’ve learned to appreciate our mother’s position. She had a really hard time with life in general. Her family turned their back on her when she converted to Judaism, yet people in our community mistrusted her because of my grandma’s own prejudice, the fact that my mother was a nurse and every now and then her hospital wouldn’t (or couldn’t) honor her religious freedom to observe the Shabbat didn’t help her case. People started trusting her after they saw her care for the sick in the community, often paying from her own pocket for their treatments. 

  Peeta never struggled fitting in with my family. Then again, he’s so sweet and friendly with anyone, always so happy and ready to lend a hand…why everyone in our community loves him, and welcomed him with open arms as one of us. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to picture my loving, sweet husband as a seasoned Army veteran, who’s seen his share of destruction and death…then again, maybe it is because he’s seen humanity at its worst that he makes the extra effort to stay a pacifist and he chooses to show The Lord’s love unto others. 

  “Sorry, Peeta, please continue with the story. You’re doing a lovely job!” says my sister.

  I chance a glance at my husband, and see the mirth in his bright, blue eyes. 

  “Thank you Prim,” he says, turning back to the boys, with wonder in his voice. “But, I was thinking, and this might be the best idea I ever had! What if we let the boys tell the story of Hanukkah tonight, since it’s true, they know it better than I do? They are incredibly smart young men!” 

  “Avadeh!” exclaims Haymitch from his spot. 

  The twins wiggle with excitement, and both of them turn eager, hazel eyes to their mother, seeking approval.

  Prim takes a deep breath and nods. 

  Both boys turn their bronze haired heads back to Peeta, enthusiastically. 

  “Alright, go on then, tells us what happened!” Peeta encourages. 

  Asher starts, “The brave heroes, called the Maccabees, kicked out the Greek gentiles that wanted to make the people of Israel pray to their gentile gods! Then the priests came to ‘re-medicate’ the Holy Temple—“

  “Rededicate!” Thom, Prim’s husband, corrects from the back of the room, but the boys are on a roll now.

  “‘Redadecate’ the Holy Temple, by lighting the menorah. So, they looked all over the place, but found only one jar of ‘puridified’ oil—“

  “Purified!” 

  “Yes, what Tatte said! They only found enough of the good oil, to light the menorah for one day!”

  Asher pauses for effect, while all the adults react to the suspense accordingly, gasping and murmuring. 

  Aspen continues the narration after a second. 

  “At first, the priests thought: oh no! We don’t want to light the menorah for only one day, it needs to burn all the time to clean all the filth the Greeks left behind, so we can praise Adonai again!”

  Hushed voices comment their approval. 

  The other twin picks up the story. “But they decided, that even one day, was better than none at all, so they used that little bit of oil, and fired up the lamp, and the lights burned for eight times straight!”

  “Eight days…” corrects Thom.

  “Eight days straight!”

  “It was a miracle!”

  Everyone claps, excitedly. 

  “The priests had time to…” Asher cranes his neck, seeking his father in the crowded living room, and then smiles, enunciating his word with precision, “‘purify’ more olive oil, to add to the menorah from then on!”

  “That’s why we celebrate Hanukkah every year! To remember how our people defended their freedom,”

  “And won back the Holy Temple,”

  “And The Lord accepted their effort with a miracle of lights!” 

  The whole room erupts in cheers and song. Everybody hugs each other in celebration. 

  After a moment, our auntie Effie calls out, “Oh what wonderful storytelling, Tattelles!” She rushes over to the twins and smacks loud, wet kisses, on both of the boys’ cheeks, leaving red lipstick all over their wincing faces. 

  The twins wipe their cheeks with the backs of their hands, and Prim just sighs, hugging her sons to her chest. “Well done, Asher. Well done, Aspen.”

  Peeta pats them both on the head, and ever the attentive host, directs everyone to help themselves to the many treats he made. 

  “Is everything fried?” asks one of Peeta’s sisters-in-law.

  “For the most part,” I hear my mother say, fondly. “To commemorate the miracle of the oil, traditionally, Hanukkah food is fried.” She explains, patiently. “Everything is delicious, and Peeta and Katniss made quite the spread.” 

  My mother busies herself, setting up a stack of napkins on the table where we placed all the food; she then serves latkes to the Mellarks.

  Haymitch grabs her hand and pulls her to sit by me. “Come rest, sit with your daughter, enjoy the lights. I’ll shmooze the bakers now, nu!” 

  My mother comes to sit next to me. She smiles tiredly, “How are you feeling, zeeskeit?” 

  I grin, she’s using the same term of endearment Tatte used to call us. It means ‘sweetheart’.

  “I’m alright. Just a little tired. My back is killing me and I think I have gas, ‘cause my belly keeps rumbling and tensing up.” 

  My mother arches a dark blonde eyebrow, “Maybe the baby is on the way?” 

  “I suppose that could be a possibility,” I shrug. I’m 6 days shy of my due date, but the doctor says I’m healthy, and he expects no complications, whatsoever, plus first time mothers can be early. 

  Thom brings out a dreidel to play with the children. 

  My toddler niece rubs her eyes grumpily— she’s got gray eyes, like my father did. Like mine. Mother and Prim are blonde and blue eyed, but I favored my father in appearance…I wonder who my child will like? I hope it’s a little of both Peeta and I— the girl clings to her father’s arm, watching her brothers and cousins spin the top, suspiciously. Once she realizes gelt is involved in the game, she perks up a little, and tries to spin the dreidel to mixed results. 

  Everyone sits around the children, eating latkes dipped in applesauce or sour cream; Peeta decided not to serve any meat tonight, so we could eat dairy products. Effie is dipping hers in salsa…what an odd woman! 

  Johanna is eating an entire block of cheese, noshing on it like a mouse. 

  Peeta brings me and my mother sufganiyot; he smiles sheepishly. “These were a hit.” He says, “they’ve already disappeared from the tray.”

  I stare at him with wide eyes. “Why does that surprise you, babe? Your cooking is amazing!” 

  Peeta rubs the back of his head, bashful. “Eh, it would be embarrassing if the baker couldn’t handle jelly filled donuts, nu?” he whispers, kneeling in front of my chair. 

  “Nonsense,” I say equally quietly, “you are the most talented person I know.” I kiss him on the forehead, after pushing back the ashy waves of hair falling into his eyes. 

  I hope our child has wavy hair like Peeta does! Mine is boring…not so much the dark as ink color, but the way it’s so thick and straight, the only way to keep it up is in braid.

  Peeta gazes at me with so much love, my heart skips a beat. 

  “Have I told you recently, just how grateful I am to have you as my wife, lover and partner in life?” He reaches up to caress my face, and suddenly the hubbub of the party fades, leaving us in a bubble of our own. 

  “I’m grateful too!” I say, curling my sugar coated fingers around his, cupping my cheek. 

  It’s a veritable miracle that Peeta and I are here today, married and with a child on the way. 

  We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools, and frequented the same places; yet, despite crossing each other’s paths often, and outside the lone time with the bread when we were eleven, we never truly interacted with each other until we found ourselves deployed to the same base overseas.

  Peeta enlisted in the Army fresh out of high school. I enlisted much later, when it became glaringly obvious that if I was going to pursue any higher education, it would have to be paid for by the military, since every penny Mother and I made, went straight into Prim’s Med school fund. 

  Prim took a couple of breaks from school while building her family, but she’s a pediatrician now, beloved by her patients and their parents. 

  Thom is in the field as well, as a Physical Therapist. He was Peeta’s PT for a while; that’s how him and my sister met. They married years before we did. 

  Call it chance or providence, Peeta and I had no idea we were in the same camp, until our names got chosen for some grunt duty I can no longer remember. We recognized one another instantly, and became very close friends while in the service. Close enough to share cots and knock boots when the itch was too unbearable to ignore. We discovered we had more in common than just our hometown, and then…the worst day of our lives happened, cementing our dependence on the other, like only tragedy can. 

  While on a mission, our unit got attacked. Our Commander, a burly man named Boggs, called for extraction while we ran for cover from a volley of bullets raining on us. In the confusion, Boggs stepped on a landmine that blew off both his feet. 

  I rushed to him, pulling him back to safety. I didn’t think of the shrapnel flying everywhere, but Peeta— who had located me a second earlier— did. He made it to me somehow, and shielded my body with his own, earning a mangled leg full of lead for his troubles. 

  Boggs was beyond medical help; the poor man bled to death in my arms in the transport back to base. Peeta was badly hurt, losing blood quicker than anyone in the transport could stomach. I tried to help him as best I could, wishing I had my mother’s touch or Prim’s cleverness; I placed a tourniquet on Peeta’s thigh. It saved his life, but cost him his leg. 

  It wasn’t until we arrived back in camp, and the adrenaline and terror left my body, that I was able to feel my own wounds. I had second degree burns in several places of my body; the fire and heat miraculously spared my face. Then, I noticed the ringing in my left ear wouldn’t go away, and when it did, no other sounds came in. 

  I was honorably discharged for my damaged ear, but I requested to stay close to my buddy, Peeta Mellark, until he was stable enough to go back home. When questioned about this, I simply replied, “We protect each other. Is what we do.” 

  Peeta was discharged too shortly after. We got shipped back home to America together, which is how we’ve been ever since.

  Peeta and I survived against the odds.

  It took us months and lots of counseling to be able to sleep through the night without waking up screaming. 

  It took him years to convince me it was okay to let my guard down around my heart. I was always so scared I’d lose him to some unseen danger, and like my mother, fall into such a deep depression I could harm any potential children we had together, because in my heart of hearts I knew Peeta was it for me.  

  It took us five, ten, fifteen years to be where we are at, and that in itself is a miracle I’m grateful for. 

  “Peeta, darling, the candles are almost out,” says Effie, who apparently is eager to turn the lights back on. 

  “Alright, let’s see…” I stand up to check just how consumed those candles really are, and as soon as I do, my incompetent bladder releases all the pee I have in my body, and then some. “Feh!”

  My mother gasps and pushes Peeta back, who was still kneeling close by. “Katniss, your water just broke!” 

  “What?! Already? Whatdowedo?!” Peeta is frantic, practically jogging in place, hands hovering uselessly around my belly. 

  Effie screeches in a very uncharacteristic fashion. “Oh! What a big, big, big day this is, darlings! Katniss, doll, you might get to hold your very own bundle of joy in your arms on the first day of Hanukkah! What a blessing!” 

  “Well, first things first,” says my mother, going into nurse mode. “Everyone, calm down! This child is not about to drop just yet. Second, Katniss needs to get out of these clothes and into clean ones. Then we need to get you packed and ready to go to the hospital. Peeta, dear, you need to call the doctor, and let them know your wife’s water broke, and you’re heading to the hospital soon.”

  “Okay! Yeah…on it!” says Peeta chewing nervously on his lower lip. 

  He reluctantly steps aside to make the call. By then, my sister is moving people around to get me through the room.

  Delly, Peeta’s sister-in-law, comes from who-knows-where with an armful of towels to mop up the floor. 

  “Thank you,” I offer embarrassedly.

  Delly waves me off, “Oh no, honey, don’t you worry about it. I know how these things go. You have more important stuff to think of right now. We will clean this place up, and probably call on grandma and grandpa Mellark, to let them know.” 

  I give her a hug, because she’s the nicest person I know, and barely hold back an ugly sob. 

  Peeta comes back from calling the doctor just as my mother is helping me into a pair of baggy sweatpants. Prim’s going through my bag triple checking what I packed, despite my protests that both Peeta and I have been checking on it every day for the last week. 

  “Everything is ready, Katniss. The doctor is on the way to the hospital. There’s a triage nurse already waiting for you, our paperwork is being processed as we speak, so all we have to do is sign it when we arrive, and Effie and Haymitch are taking over hosting duties from us.”

  “Oh great!” I sigh, “you can say goodbye to all the wine in the house if those two are in charge,”

  “Is that sarcasm I detect? That means the contractions aren’t even painful yet…” says Prim dryly. Then she and my mother giggle. 

  I glare at them, rubbing the back of my hips, my bones back there kind of burn. 

  Peeta seems confused and wisely keeps his mouth shut. He grabs the hospital bag I packed for me and the baby, a week ago, and shoulders a backpack for himself, he packed almost a month ago. 

  My mother rides with us to the hospital, and since everyone knows her and my sister there, I get extra pampered by the nursing staff. 

  My obstetrician, Dr. Aurelius, checks on me as soon as I’m put in the hospital gown; he’s a little concerned about my blood pressure, so the nurses keep an even closer eye on me. At 32 I’m not at any greater risk of things going wrong than any other mother-to-be, but this is my first child, so I endure their over prodding gratefully. 

  Labor itself goes quickly, only a couple of hours from the water breaking to the crowning. Peeta holds my hand through it all; he tends to me lovingly, feeding me ice chips, blotting sweat from my face and neck, whispering sweet nothings and encouragement into my ear, and when he’s not talking to me or the medical staff, he prays. 

  After surviving a war zone, second degree burns and a few broken bones, I think that giving birth is perhaps the least painful experience of all. Not in the literal sense of course— giving birth physically hurts like a mother!— but in the psychological-emotional sense. I’m going through this trial for love, with the expectation of meeting someone amazing in the end.

  But when it’s time to push, a fear older than time itself chokes me up. “I can’t do this! Let the baby stay in my belly…I can keep the child safe here, please!” 

  “Sweetheart, look at me,” says Peeta cupping my face in his hands, “You are the bravest, most selfless person I know. I’m not denying how scary this is, bringing an innocent into the world, but you’re not alone…we have each other, and we will face this fear like we’ve faced any other fear, and we’ll beat it into dust!” 

  “Together?” My voice wavers.

  “Together!” he vows. 

  “Katniss…the baby’s crowning,” says Dr. Aurelius, “This is it! On your next contraction, I need you to push real hard, alright?”

  I nod, exhausted; Peeta squeezes my hand in his, and I squeeze right back. 

  “Here it comes!” I bear down with all my might and growl all the breath out of my lungs, and suddenly, the best sound in the world fills the delivery room: the meowling of my newborn reaches my ears. 

  “It’s a girl!” calls the doctor from between the stirrups holding my legs up.

  The man holds the screeching child up, so we can see her, and my whole world shrinks to her tiny shape. 

  Peeta is crying. 

  I’m crying too! 

  My mother is somewhere in the background singing something I can’t quite catch, and everyone around is bustling to get my brand new baby girl cleaned up and measured. Then finally she’s placed on my chest, and my husband and I can’t stop staring and caressing her. 

  “Shalom, sheifale,” I sigh in contentment, kissing my baby’s forehead.

  “Welcome, little one!” Peeta murmurs. Our daughter wraps her whole hand around her father’s index finger and holds fast to it. 

  Again, it feels like we are in this hermetic bubble, where only Peeta, myself, and now our newborn, exist. Meanwhile the doctor and nurses are still working on me, but that doesn’t matter. My family is finally whole, and that too is a miracle full of light!

  “Mazel Tov, my dears!” says my mother, smiling at Peeta and me. “I’ll go tell the people in the waiting room the good news…do you have a name picked out already?” she asks tentatively, her face lit with happiness and relief. 

  “Hannah!” says Peeta right away. “For I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted my plea.” Peeta’s eyes widen, then he looks down at me sheepishly, “unless, you have something else in mind?” 

  “No!” I laugh, “Hannah is perfect!” I hold the babe higher on my bosom, and tilt her head towards my mother, “Hannah, say hello to Bubbie Lily, she’s my Mamme, and I am yours!”

  My mother giggles, “Happy birthday, Hannah Mellark, and happy Hanukkah, zeeskeit.” My mother leans closer, and gives Hannah’s head a peck. “Next time I see you, there will be others with me…your mishpachah, who are eager to meet you, sheifale!”

  “We’re almost done here, and you can see some of your family. But be mindful of visiting hours!” says Dr. Aurelius, pushing back from the instrument table. 

  We all say our thanks to the staff, and my mother goes to talk to our family in the waiting room. Peeta’s led to the nursery, to give Hannah her first bath. Once the baby is dressed and swaddled into a hospital blanket, Peeta snaps a couple of pictures of her with his smart phone and sends it to everyone one we know. The caption reads: “Hannah Mellark, because G-d favored us with a child!” 

  The nurse helping Peeta, takes two of those thin hats they give all the newborns, and fashions it into a single hat with a big bow on the front. Our daughter’s head will be warm and stylish.

  Back in the room, Hannah latches onto my breast easily enough, and to our surprise opens her eyes, to show deep blue peepers, like her father’s! 

  “Look, Daddy, she’s got your eyes!“ I exclaim. 

  “Can she call me Tatte?” Peeta asks quietly, as if asking permission.

  I nod, “Hannah, your Tatte gives the best hugs in the world!” 

  The visitors file in. My mother-in-law falls in love with Hannah, her first and only granddaughter. Peeta’s father tears up a little bit, and hugs his son, kissing his temple. I’ve never seen the Mellarks so happy and moved. A baby would do that, I guess. 

  After our siblings come to visit, Effie and Haymitch make a quick appearance. Haymitch holds Hannah the longest; he sings her a song in Hebrew, then says a blessing over her. 

  Effie pulls Peeta aside, “What we discussed…” she says demurely, smiling softly, and hands him a bag. 

  Since she already gave us practically half of Buy Buy Baby at our shower, I have no idea what else she could’ve gotten, but my husband’s entire demeanor lights up like fireworks when he peeks in the bag. He hugs Effie and thanks her profusely. 

  I fall asleep after a while.

  When I wake up again, the room’s mostly dark, except for a soft, flickering light. 

  Hannah is not in her bassinet, so I sit up with a start, only to find the most wonderful scene in front of me: Peeta’s holding the babe by the window looking down the road. The blinds are open, and on the sill sits a child size menorah. The shamash is lit, but the day one candle is not. 

  “Peeta?” I call softly.

  My husband turns, smiling, “You’re awake! We didn’t want to disturb you. You had a hard, busy day, but…” he shrugs, “It’s Hannah’s first Hanukkah, and I figured you wouldn’t wanna miss it,” 

  No, I wouldn’t. 

  I get up, gingerly, and shuffle towards my family. 

  I cock my head and study the candelabra, which looks suspiciously like the kind business owners put in their offices along their Christmas trees and other wintry decor to show how inclusive they are. This one is smaller than regular menorahs, made of plastic, with a cord sticking from the side which is plugged into the wall besides the window. The flickering light I thought at first to be a real flame, is just a small bulb with a candlelight effect. 

  “Where did you get an electric menorah?” I ask skeptically.

  “Effie,” my husband blushes. “She said it was okay, as long as we lit a kosher menorah, which we did at home,” he says a little defensively, with a lot of pleading generously sprinkled in between. 

  My father would’ve frowned at the decidedly un-kosher menorah. 

  Reading my expression, my sneaky husband harrumps, “This is a hospital, Katniss. I don’t think they’ll be thrilled to find there’s an open flame in a room housing a newborn, no matter what holiday you’re celebrating.”

  I sigh. He’s right. Safety protocols should be observed, and we did light a traditional menorah already; plus, this one is practically a toy for the baby…technically a Hanukkah gift. 

  I relax my stance. I wasn’t aware that my shoulders were so tense during that exchange. 

  “Fine,” I acquiesce, “show me how does the thing work?”

  Peeta grins, looking at ease holding our daughter in one arm like a pro. No wonder he’s always our nephews’ and niece’s favorite uncle. 

  He pulls a couple of bulbs from his pants pocket, and holds them on his palm for me to peruse. “All you do is screw these in the small sockets, just like placing the candles in a regular menorah. Then, you press this button, and it lights up!” He points at a small button at the base of the toy. 

  I nod, accepting his explanation. 

  Hannah wiggles a bit in her father’s arm, then makes an aggravated noise. Peeta adjusts the child against his chest, and looks at me, expectantly. 

  “Hannah’s waiting, and she’s probably getting hungry. I should know, I’m her Tatte!” 

  I snort a reluctant laugh. The man can drive me crazy, in an endearing sort of way. How can I deny my family anything?!

  We say the blessings together, then Peeta whispers all the ceremonial rules on lighting the candles to our baby.

  Hannah has her fist wrapped around his finger again, so he picks up the pretend shamash with the same hand, and touches the tip of the bulb into the opening, so— according to him— Hannah is lighting the day one candle herself…symbolically. 

  He screws the bulbs in their right places, and switches the candlelight on. 

  I must admit, it’s not as tacky as I feared it would be. I make a mental note to let Peeta know I’m glad he thought of this, later…probably tomorrow. 

  We sing quietly, not to disturb anyone else on our floor. After the ceremony of the candles is done, we hold onto each other, watching the flickering lights, while Peeta narrates the story of the Maccabees to Hannah. 

  Everything is quiet after that; Hannah fusses once, so I take her into my arms, and sing a lullaby. 

  Peeta has been staring at me all night like I hung the moon in the sky. He gazes at our daughter like she’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen, and I’m sure my eyes reflect the same feelings as his.

  “I wish I could freeze this moment, right now, and live in it forever.” 

  I smile up at him, who in turn is gazing at our daughter and me with adoration; my heart fills to bursting!

  “I do too!” I stand on tiptoes, and kiss his cheek. “Happy Hanukkah, Peeta. Happy Hanukkah, Hannah.”

  “Same to you too, sweetheart, and thank you Lord, for blessing our family with the miracle of life.”

[hexalt]

CW for discussion of suicide

- She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - What? No, I'm not. - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - That's a sexist term! - She's the crazy ex-girlfriend - Can you guys stop singing for just a second? - She's so broken insiiiiiide! - The situation's a lot more nuanced than that!

There’s the essay! You get it now. JK.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the culmination of Rachel Bloom’s YouTube channel (and the song “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” in particular where she combined her lifelong obsession with musical theatre and sketch comedy and Aline Brosh McKenna stumbling onto Bloom’s channel one night while having an idea for a television show that subverted the tropes in scripts she’d been writing like The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses.

The show begins with a flashback to teenage Rebecca Bunch (played by Bloom) at summer camp performing in South Pacific. She leaves summer camp gushing about the performance, holding hands with the guy she spent all summer with, Josh Chan. He says it was fun for the time, but it’s time to get back to real life. We flash forward to the present in New York, Rebecca’s world muted in greys and blues with clothing as conservative as her hair.

She’s become a top tier lawyer, a career that she doesn’t enjoy but was pushed into by her overprotective, controlling mother. She’s just found out she’s being promoted to junior partner, and that’s just objectively, on paper fantastic, right?! ...So why isn’t she happy? She goes out onto the streets in the midst of a panic attack, spilling her pills all over the ground, and suddenly sees an ad for butter asking, “When was the last time you were truly happy?” A literal arrow and beam of sunlight then point to none other than Josh Chan. She strikes up a conversation with him where he tells her he’s been trying to make it in New York but doesn’t like it, so he’s moving back to his hometown, West Covina, California, where everyone is just...happy.

The word echoes in her mind, and she absorbs it like a pill. She decides to break free of the hold others have had over her life and turns down the promotion of her mother’s dreams. I didn’t realize the show was a musical when I started it, and it’s at this point that Rebecca is breaking out into its first song, “West Covina”. It’s a parody of the extravagant, classic Broadway numbers filled with a children’s marching band whose funding gets cut, locals joining Rebecca in synchronized song and dance, and finishing with her being lifted into the sky while sitting on a giant pretzel. This was the moment I realized there was something special here.

With this introduction, the stage has been set for the premise of the show. Each season was planned with an overall theme. Season one is all about denial, season two is about being obsessed with love and losing yourself in it, season three is about the spiral and hitting rock bottom, and season four is about renewal and starting from scratch. You can see this from how the theme songs change every year, each being the musical thesis for that season.

We start the show with a bunch of cliché characters: the crazy ex-girlfriend; her quirky sidekick; the hot love interest; his bitchy girlfriend; and his sarcastic best friend who’s clearly a much better match for the heroine. The magic of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is that no one in West Covina is the sum of their tropes. As Rachel says herself, “People aren’t badly written, people are made of specificities.”

The show is revolutionary for the authenticity with which it explores various topics but for the sake of this piece, we’ll discuss mental health, gender, Jewish identity, and sexuality. All topics that Bloom has dug into in her previous works but none better than here.

Simply from the title, many may be put off, but this is a story that has always been about deconstructing stereotypes. Rather than being called The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, where the story would be from an outsider’s perspective, this story is from that woman’s point of view because the point isn’t to demonize Rebecca, it’s to understand her. Even if you hate her for all the awful things she’s doing.

The musical numbers are shown to be in Rebecca’s imagination, and she tells us they’re how she processes the world, but as she starts healing in the final season, she isn’t the lead singer so often anymore and other characters get to have their own problems and starring roles. When she does have a song, it’s because she’s backsliding into her former patterns.

While a lot of media will have characters that seem to have some sort of vague disorder, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend goes a step further and actually diagnoses Rebecca with Borderline Personality Disorder, while giving her an earnest, soaring anthem. She’s excited and relieved to finally have words for what’s plagued her whole life.

When diagnosing Rebecca, the show’s team consulted with doctors and psychiatrists to give her a proper diagnosis that ended up resonating with many who share it. BPD is a demonized and misunderstood disorder, and I’ve heard that for many, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the first honest and kind depiction they’ve seen of it in media. Where the taboo of mental illness often leads people to not get any help, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend says there is freedom and healing in identifying and sharing these parts of yourself with others.

Media often uses suicide for comedy or romanticizes it, but Crazy Ex-Girlfriend explored what’s going through someone’s mind to reach that bottomless pit. Its climactic episode is written by Jack Dolgen (Bloom’s long-time musical collaborator, co-songwriter and writer for the show) who’s dealt with suicidal ideation. Many misunderstood suicide as the person simply wanting to die for no reason, but Rebecca tells her best friend, “I didn’t even want to die. I just wanted the pain to stop. It’s like I was out of stories to tell myself that things would be okay.”

Bloom has never shied away from heavy topics. The show discusses in song the horrors of what women do to their bodies and self-esteem to conform to beauty standards, the contradiction of girl power songs that tell you to “Put Yourself First” but make sure you look good for men while doing it, and the importance of women bonding over how terrible straight men are are near and dear to her heart. This is a show that centers marginalized women, pokes fun at the misogyny they go through, and ultimately tells us the love story we thought was going to happen wasn’t between a woman and some guy but between her and her best friend.

I probably haven’t watched enough Jewish TV or film, but to me, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the most unapologetic and relatable Jewish portrayal I’ve seen overall. From Rebecca’s relationship with her toxic, controlling mother (if anyone ever wants to know what my mother’s like, I send them “Where’s the Bathroom”) to Patti Lupone’s Rabbi Shari answering a Rebecca that doesn’t believe in God, “Always questioning! That is the true spirit of the Jewish people,” the Jewish voices behind the show are clear.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend continues to challenge our perceptions when a middle-aged man with an ex-wife and daughter realizes he’s bisexual and comes out in a Huey Lewis saxophone reverie. The hyper-feminine mean girl breaks up with her boyfriend and realizes the reason she was so obsessed with getting him to commit to her is the same reason she’s so scared to have female friends. She was suffering under the weight of compulsory heterosexuality, but thanks to Rebecca, she eventually finds love and friendship with women.

This thread is woven throughout the show. Many of the characters tell Rebecca when she’s at her lowest of how their lives would’ve never changed for the better if it wasn’t for her. She was a tornado that blew through West Covina, but instead of leaving destruction in her wake, she blew apart their façades, forcing true introspection into what made them happy too.

Rebecca’s story is that of a woman who felt hopeless, who felt no love or happiness in her life, when that’s all she’s ever wanted. She tried desperately to fill that void through validation from her parents and random men, things romantic comedies had taught her matter most but came up empty. She tried on a multitude of identities through the musical numbers in her mind, seeing herself as the hero and villain of the story, and eventually realized she’s neither because life doesn’t make narrative sense.

It takes her a long time but eventually she sees that all the things she thought would solve her problems can’t actually bring her happiness. What does is the real family she finds in West Covina, the town she moved to on a whim, and finally having agency over herself to use her own voice and tell her story through music.

The first words spoken by Rebecca are, “When I sang my solo, I felt, like, a really palpable connection with the audience.” Her last words are, “This is a song I wrote.” This connection with the audience that brought her such joy is something she finally gets when she gets to perform her story not to us, the TV audience, but to her loved ones in West Covina. Rebecca (and Rachel) always felt like an outcast, West Covina (and creating the show) showed her how cathartic it is to find others who understand you.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is the prologue to Rebecca’s life and the radical story of someone getting better. She didn’t need to change her entire being to find acceptance and happiness, she needed to embrace herself and accept love and help from others who truly cared for her. Community is what she always needed and community is what ultimately saved her.

*

P.S. If you have Spotify... I also process life through music, so I made some playlists related to the show because what better way to express my deep affection for it than through song?

CXG parodies, references, and is inspired by a lot of music from all kinds of genres, musicals, and musicians. Same goes for the videos themselves. I gathered all of them into one giant playlist along with the show’s songs.

A Rebecca Bunch mix that goes through her character arc from season 1 to 4.

I’m shamelessly a fan of Greg x Rebecca, so this is a mega mix of themselves and their relationship throughout the show.

*

I’m in a TV group where we wrote essays on our favorite shows of the 2010s, so here is mine on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, I realized I forgot to ever post it. Also wrote one for Schitt’s Creek.

[h-sleepingirl]

Personal Reflection on Hypnosis and Magic

I was fairly obsessed with magic as a child. I grew up in a secular household -- my mother’s side was mixed Christian but she didn’t inherit the beliefs and my father’s side was Jewish but not observant. We did Christmas and Chanukah and Easter for a little while but just as a cultural practice; we never went to church or synagogue and we never even had conversations about God.

I liked fantasy novels a lot, and I liked Harry Potter, and for a bit of time around age 8 I was making a concerted effort to transform into a unicorn. I found sticks outside and pretended they were wands with the neighborhood kids. Fairly standard. It was no surprise that when I started wondering if I should attempt to connect to spirituality in some way as a teen I discovered Neopaganism and Wicca. It was a lot of shy reading in the 130 section at the library and keeping a Book of Shadows and learning how to meditate and all the bells and whistles of ritual and correspondences.

I remember sneaking outside and kneeling in the grass in the backyard under the moon, I remember going to Salem for the first time. I felt like sometimes maybe I was communicating with gods or divine powers but I never was able to buy in, despite completing my year-and-a-day dedication and making the actions a part of my life for several years, on and off. Starting to smoke weed in college refreshed my curiosity and reinforced belief to some degree, of course, but eventually, I had to come to terms with the fact that this wasn’t something I should force myself to do if I didn’t truly feel a connection to it.

But though I dropped the label and identification, the rituals of Wicca (and Feri witchcraft, which I had started exploring) had filled a role for me that childhood religion does for most. They became something I was comfortable conceptualizing, something that I had gained innate familiarity with, even if I ultimately eschewed the spiritual and metaphysical.

Hypnosis was never connected to that, for me; it felt sacrilegious to make an association between something that was supposed to be sacred and divine and something that was, for a long time, a shameful part of my sexuality. But it was around the same time that I was earnestly practicing magic that I began really studying and doing hypnosis.

A partner of mine at that time -- with whom I was doing hypnosis -- asked me, “Isn’t hypnotic trance the same thing as meditation?”

Naively, I vehemently disagreed.

--

The big-name NLP practitioners are obsessed with calling what they do “magic.” “The Structure of Magic,” “Frogs Into Princes,” etc. Their books are filled to the brim with the metaphor that people who use language effectively are wizards, because language is a representation of the world and has the capability to transform (or “trance-form,” as they say). 

I struggled with hypnosis for a long time -- both trancing others and being tranced myself -- for a variety of reasons. But one of them was that I always felt like other people wanted to do stuff with hypnosis, while I just wanted to do hypnosis itself. For a while even when I was more comfortable in my skin, I described myself as “boring” -- I liked things like fractionation and really deep trance and control, but I struggled with articulating if I had attractions to specific activities. Doll play? Sure, I guess that’s fun. Oh, is the induction over already? Ok…

This mirrored an issue I had while practicing Wicca -- spells were always meant to do something, invite love, heal, connect with the divine, whatever. But while I often wanted to do magic, I had a difficult time deciding on what to do with it. This was made even more complex when I realized I was likely stuck as a nonbeliever -- why did I sometimes return to the rituals, and what was I trying to achieve? How could I incorporate it into my life without feeling disingenuous?

Even up until a year ago, when I tried out tarot and kept asking the cards, “What is my relationship with magic?” -- twofold, looking for an answer (that never came), as well as to have the opportunity to simply try to read cards when I had no actual pressing questions I could think of (ironic).

Bandler et al, as well, work within a model where goals and change are the purpose of magic.

What I was seeking, the whole time, was not using any of these processes for anything, but simply to feel the thing I felt while doing them that was both difficult to illustrate and uniquely recognizable, unlike anything else.

Once I realized this, I used to try to describe it in hypnosis as that I wanted to focus on the induction, or that I didn’t care what we did, or that “change” wasn’t important to me. But that’s not accurate, either. Transformation, manifestation sates that desire when done in a certain way -- surely then I think that NLP perfectly describes my model?

My hesitation there is that I think for myself, it is the pure exhilaration from doing the thing that is what feels like the sweet spot, and it’s not dependent on what direction it goes, what form it takes, or what goal is being achieved.

For me, that feeling of “doing magic” and “doing hypnosis” are completely interchangeable. It is a pure thrill. It is a specific feeling in my mind and body that I can attempt to describe but can never fully enunciate. It changes and shifts but it is always recognizable on some level.

It is much more like doing recreational drugs than it is about prescribing something. Purely hedonistically, I am seeking a high.

--

I don’t believe in magic. I have had a handful of experiences in my life that have made me deeply question that at times, and they are experiences that I have never reconciled, but that is sort of besides the point. Nothing has ever pushed me into a place where I am able to fully embrace the concept that magic exists in any real sense.

But when I do hypnosis, it is impossible not to work within this model. How else am I supposed to describe what it feels like when I look at someone and know what they are thinking, or I just imagine my will suppressing theirs and their eyes flutter, or I think about what I want and my mouth starts moving elegantly in a way that makes it happen? In kinesthetic hypnosis, it is almost too much. My muscle memory is to do things like manifest energy flowing into and through my fingers, affecting my partner, and it was years of trying rituals like blue fire Feri meditations that made that so easy to feel.

It is not that I can make an easy statement like “hypnosis is magic.” It is not literally true. But as a metaphor, it holds a lot of potency. And magic is a powerful and ubiquitous metaphor; it is culturally ingrained in us in the stories we tell and our history. It is vague; there is no universal definition of it, which allows us to stretch it extensively and apply it wherever we feel it fits.

Metaphor itself is a type of magic, and this is one area where my thoughts about the metaphysical qualities of hypnosis shine through. Magic is about symbolism. We use objects, words, actions that we assign meaning to in order to manifest something. Herbs are purported to have affinities for different concepts so we include them in ritual -- and it’s not just that those affinities are inherent; there is meaning behind the correspondences that works best when we understand it. Similarly, when we are attempting to relate a concept to someone, we often do so indirectly, by telling a story, by creating metaphors or associations.

I don’t believe in magic, so to some degree, when I do it, that action is metaphorical. I am using actions that I don’t literally believe to hold any power in order to find a feeling; I am telling a story about a journey in order to find a real destination. This holds true to one of my beliefs, that symbols themselves hold little to no objective meaning. NLP and Alfred Korzybski say, “The map is not the territory; the word is not the thing; this is not a pipe; there is no objective truth.” Our entire world is made of symbols and metaphors that we all have to buy into in order to function as humans. We assign values to things that intrinsically have much different or nonexistent value -- prices, nostalgia, connotation. A magical symbol, in my eyes, is only as powerful as the connections we’re able to make with it in our minds. Color associations are symbolic. The action of casting a circle is symbolic. 

Words are symbols as well, and I do drink the Kool-aid with NLP on this, to some degree. I think about how words are dependent on a vast, intangible amount of variables in order to settle on their presumed, subjective interpretation by a listener or reader. We do this processing as well as thinking about our intent unconsciously, for the most part. If I assume that language is at least partially representative of our experiences and worlds, that gives communication a lot of power, and sure, yes, fine, that smells like magic to me, I’ll take your 20th tired book now Mr. Bandler, sir.

So to some degree the metaphor of magic is about things that are too big, or too grand, or too unknowable to talk about concretely. We often say something is magical when it is difficult or impossible to explain any other way. I can talk plenty about unconscious reading and microexpressions and altered states and language patterns and any number of artifacts that factor into hypnosis, but although it’s fascinating to know about them and helpful to consider and learn, I don’t often think about them when it actually comes down to it. I used to, but not for a while, and there is surely something to be said there for what “becoming experienced” means in both concepts.

It connects to when I think about what things we tend to call “magical” in hypnosis. When I respond without conscious effort, when something is “too fast,” when I feel like I can just purely make someone do something amazing. Sure, it can be easy enough to pick those apart and use academic language and explain them, but sometimes I drive myself insane trying to do that when I just want to say, “It’s magic; it feels like magic.”

--

After leaving my exploration of witchcraft for a while, I ended up adopting parts of it back into my life. I had more connection to the holidays on the Wheel of the Year than any others, really, and Wiccan ritual feels natural to me. I don’t call myself a witch, and I struggled for a long time looking for a label that fits what I do.

When I picked it back up, it was for a Samhain (Halloween) ritual to show my partner. It had been years, but I felt more comfortable casting a circle and doing all the things than I ever had been. I realized that my magic practice had begun to look a lot more like my hypnosis practice. I was speaking and acting unconsciously, simply filtering whispers of my intent through my words and actions. I had no plan and was following no script, but I knew what to do and say. We were both in very deep trance and we could feel the boundary of the circle as a physical thing, the air buzzing. It was the first moment that I had allowed a harmonious marriage between my knowledge of witchcraft and my practice of hypnosis, and I got the druglike thrill that I always seek. We sat in the circle for an hour, unbeknownst to us.

I did some searching to try to find if others had a similar experience or worldview. The best I could describe what I was doing was “psychological magic” or “witchcraft-flavored hypnosis.” I found very little; chaos magic and secular witchcraft were not what I was searching for.

Despite feeling a little lost, the experience reignited my desire for magical ritual. It has always been complicated to go through the motions that logically have no objective power to me, and saying that I give them power feels like a cop-out when I feel like I give them nothing. To some degree, equating it to hypnosis on any level feels like a crutch, but it’s one I’m used to; after all, there is plenty of me that doesn’t really believe in hypnosis, either -- “Hypnosis is bullshit.”

But “spellwork” became the most effortless thing in the world to me when it used to be so careful and unsure and measured. I take my props, I think about what they could symbolize, I think about how they connect to all the other ingredients available to me. I assign value and meaning through those connections and logic in a pattern my brain knows all too well. It is just like manipulation, and I use that to feel things. Creating rituals is just like giving a good suggestion; identify the message of the utterance and craft something poignant and poetic with the tools at hand to give it meaning. In hypnosis, the tools are your place in the story/trance, your vocabulary, the tone, the props, your history and the history of the person you’re with. In magic, the tools are the same, but possibly with a different flavor. A hypnotic tool is the logic that the word “deeper” is a sensory-rich word; a magical tool is the logic that clockwise motion can be equated to “more.” Both tools are malleable.

I mentioned poetry, and I think for me, one of the most important parts of good magic (and good hypnosis) is that it’s beautiful in some way. Wicca, like other religions, puts emphasis on reverence. Even many secular witches will be awed by nature and use that as a motivating force. Magic is not inherently naturalistic for me, even though I borrow the aesthetic. I don’t necessarily seek that kind of divine wonderment, but my attraction is adjacent.

--

My desires with magic are incredibly reflective of my desires with hypnosis -- power. Blind desire for power, whether to have it or have it taken away from me. It sounds evil to write it out, but at its base level it’s much less about anything but a simple feeling. It feels good and heady and awe-filled, and while on some level that’s sexually driven, I think it might also come from another, deeper place.

I still get uncomfortable when magical rituals feel too sensual, and there is a similar discomfort when hypnosis scenes feel too spiritual, but the latter is easier than the former. Generally, I still don’t know “what” to do when I do magic -- I only know “how” to do it. And not to mention “why” I would do magic if I don’t believe in it.

There’s a lot left that I haven’t reconciled. I suppose from a very broad lens, trying to codify the connections I feel between these two concepts is an attempt to make it easier to think about from a variety of different perspectives. I think about how I got over the phase of calling myself “boring” with hypnosis for only seeking feelings, not concepts, and think maybe that will help me with magic. I think about how I became more comfortable over time with my motivations to do hypnosis -- then less comfortable, then more comfortable. A key of my self-growth has always been recognizing and accepting my cyclical nature. (Wicca might say something about moon phases or a myriad of other natural cycles here; hypnosis and NLP might say something about patterns.)

To some degree, these kinds of explorations are valuable because they force us to limit our frames of reference as well. I barely touched upon connected ideas like religion or kink as a whole, how teaching and writing play in, my skill with self-hypnosis (surprisingly low) or connection to mesmerism/magnetism, and so much more. But it’s approaching nebulous concepts like this in a variety of different ways where we find answers, because often we don’t really even know what questions we should be asking.

--

I hope you enjoyed this piece! There was of course a lot I wanted to say and I’m very interested if this sparks any ideas or conversations -- when I first talked about this on Twitter, I was happily surprised how many folks had some similar thoughts or experiences and wanted to relate.

If you liked this writing and want to see more, you can find similar pieces available on Patreon or Gumroad; I write 6-8k words per month, sometimes academic and sometimes more exploratory like this. Please check it out! You can also get this writing as a downloadable PDF and tip through Gumroad, if you feel so inclined.

Thanks as always for your support, no matter what form that takes, be it monetary or simply reading through what I have to say.

- sleepingirl

[monstrousproductions]

OK so bear with me for adding onto an already giant post but! This ask made me really curious about what is said about Jonah in rabbinic literature. This is all from the wikipedia page 'Jonah in Rabbinic Literature' (thanks, wikipedia!) and the citations are mostly from the Yalkut Shimoni and the Zohar, two collections of Torah commentary. I'm not Jewish and I was never very good at exegesis so I'm mostly just relaying what the wikipedia page told me with some light interpretation, so set your expectations accordingly!

My first favourite thing is that when Jonah ran to Jaffa to get the boat to Tarshish (possibly Tarsus, as vaguely alluded to above), he missed the boat by two days. But God had sent a wind to drive it back into port - a wind which only affected that one particular boat, and no others. Rather than seeing this and thinking, "hm, maybe I shouldn't play games with a god who can do that, maybe actually God is still God even when you're on a boat," Jonah - being what we in theological circles term, "a dumbass" - takes this as vindication of his genius plan!

In his glee, excitement and certainty that everything's coming up Jonah, he goes against normal custom which I assume was a half now, half later kind of deal, and pays for the full journey up front - some even say he paid the whole value of the ship, which, why, Jonah? Why would you do that? Love that he paid that much just to be chucked into the ocean, RIP my best beloved.

My next favourite bit is on the boat. The sailors have woken Jonah from his panic nap and established that yes, this horrendous storm is all his fault, but they're not about to just outright murder a guy without a little sure evidence it's the right thing to do! So they take Jonah and they dangle him over the side of the boat, dunking him up to his knees. And the storm quiets down! and they pull him out and the storm picks up again. And they dunk him again, a bit deeper, and the storm quiets down even more! And they DUNK the prophet of God, they DUNK him like a COOKIE in the name of SCIENCE.

Even then, they're still not wild for the murder thing and as they chuck him overboard they're like, making direct eye contact with the sky like, "You know this isn't on us, right? This is not on us!"

And then we get to my absolute favourite part, which is what the Yalkut Shimoni tells us happened while Jonah was in the fish (or rather, what wikipedia tells me the Yalkut Shimoni tells us happened...)

So first, there's a nice bit in the Zohar that mentions that the fish has eyes like windows, or perhaps has a kind of light-emitting pearl hanging from its ribs so it's not completey dark inside. I think it works better as a Sheol metaphor if it's dark, but also, fish-eye windows is a banging aesthetic.

But then the fish tells Jonah that, originally, he was supposed to be eaten by the Leviathan - the OG sea monster - and not this nice handsome fish. Which I suppose must have the implication that the Leviathan is now still out of Jonah but is going to eat the fish too?? Because Jonah asks to be taken to the Leviathan to try and save both his life, and that of his new friend/house/transport.

Upon meeting the Leviathan, Jonah.... "exhibited the seal of Abraham". Which. Um. OK so this is where my caveat above about not being Jewish and also not having been a very good theologian in my day, it all comes up here. Because I'm like hmm OK so is that uhh.... Is that his dick? Like, the sign of Abraham's covenant with God? Circumcision? It kills me. It kills me. I laughed til I cried. He's just down there flashing his junk at this scary sea monster and it works because the Leviathan sees it and runs two days away.

Which also like, I'm sorry Leviathan but are you worried you'll get smote? Because this guy is already in a fish in the bottom of the sea, I know he's one of God's chosen people and all but let's be honest, that's not a circumstance under which I would assume he was one of God's very favourites.

The fish, meanwhile, is delighted! He's so thrilled at not getting eaten that he takes Jonah on a little tour of all the interesting sights at the bottom of the ocean, like "here's where Moses crossed the Red Sea, here's the big treasure chest that opens every few seconds and squirts out bubbles, here's some crabs that eat wood". And Jonah has three days of... a pretty good time, actually!

But God is like, hey! I did not send you down there for a jolly holiday, young man! And sends another, different fish "where he would be less comfortable". This fish is a lady fish and is pregnant, so Jonah's all squashed and cramped inside her - I imagine him with his knees around his ears as these very annoying little baby fish keep asking him if he has any games on his phone. And that finally pushes him to pray to God and admit that OK yeah maybe he can't "outrun the Almighty" or whatever.

Finally, another thing that really cracked me up while talking to a friend about this all was when we were talking about the people of Ninevah. Like, they repented immediately. They just were like, oh shit, we were doing a sin? My bad, dude. Sackcloth and ashes, posthaste!

(A funny aside - there's a decent argument to be made for Jonah originally being written as a parody or satire, and someone is quoted on the wikipedia page as saying the idea of even the animals of Ninevah fasting in repentance is... "silly".)

Which makes Jonah's fury even funnier, and also his reticence to go in the first place, which these commentaries explain as being about his unwillingness to make God? look bad? I don't really follow it fully, I think it's saying that if he went to Ninevah and everyone repented and then didn't get smote, then nobody would believe God could smite people. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but I'm a 21st century Quaker so who knows.

Anyway, that's all from today's issue of You Said Ramble, So I Rambled. Now I'm off to write my mid-budget, hyper stylised Jonah film adaptation starring Dev Patel as Jonah and Adjoa Andoh as the Voice of God.

I would listen to a audio drama about "your boy jonah" but also, tell me about your boy! Here is a free space to ramble. Please info-dump.

Free space to ramble?! Don't mind if I do!

So, in case anyone is unfamiliar with the story of Jonah, it begins with Jonah minding his business and suddenly being called upon by God to go to Ninevah [the capital city of the Assyrian empire] to call them out for their sins. Instead, Jonah seals his place in my heart by running away from God.

I just find it so immediately endearing that his reaction to being given a divinely ordained job to do is to absolutely nope the fuck out and run for the hills. It's not just hilarious, but it also feels so honest? Like yeah sometimes we know rightly what we're supposed to do, either because of the leading of the spirit or because of our own morals, and sometimes it's fucking terrifying!!

So he runs away, he gets on a boat to sail off to Far Off Lands (poss. southern Turkey) and obviously... God knows. Because it's God. You can't just duck behind a tree and suddenly God forgets you're there lol And God is big mad and sends a storm that threatens to break the ship into matchsticks. The sailors are terrified - I imagine them as these hardened sea-faring men who are used to all sorts of things, and this storm is so fierce they're absolutely terrified.

And Jonah... is fast asleep. Conked the fuck out on one of the lower decks, like he isn't moments from being smithereened. Running away from God is a tiring business, I guess! Also, as a chronic procastinapper, I can't help feeling like he just felt like he had too much on his plate and decided napping is way less scary that That Whole Mess.

So the captain drags him up and demands that he pray to his god because clearly the gods of the sailors are not paying attention lol But they also want to know where the storm came from and why, so they draw lots to see who's to blame? And of course Jonah draws the short straw.

And then this bit I imagine Jonah being super sheepish about OK. Because in this era and place, it was quite normal to accept that other people's gods were real and powerful, but they just weren't your gods. But different gods have different areas of power, so the sailors ask Jonah who his god is. And very grudgingly, Jonah admits that ummm yeah ok so actually his god is... the one who created the sea and the land.

And I imagine there's this moment of absolute silence as these sailors take in the fact that this guy has pissed his god off and who's his god again? Oh yeah, only the one who MADE THE OCEAN which is currently trying to KILL THEM.

"So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea."

But Jonah doesn't drown! God sends a fish to swallow him up, and he sits in the fish for three days and prays while he's in there, because actually all things considered it was pretty neat of God to send a fish to swallow him instead of letting him drown and he's like "I think maybe I have got close enough to death and I would like to stop having an adventure now and go back to being all the way alive."

Which is very cool having his time in the fish being this sort of pseudo-death? Like he was getting a little taste of it. And he even talks about it as being in Sheol, and being out of sight of God and longing to be alive and back where God can see him.

So God tells the fish to vomit him up and tells Jonah again to go to Ninevah, which this time he does! It's a huge city, it takes three days to walk across it, but Jonah made a promise and he sticks to it. He walks and talks and the city repents and God relents from whatever punishment he was going to send.

Which, in a turn that never fails to touch my heart, makes Jonah... absolutely fucking livid. He is so mad about this decision. He's like, "I fucking knew it!! I knew you weren't going to smite these fuckers!" and God is like ??? excuuuuse me ???

And Jonah - I love him so much - he storms off, he stomps out of Ninevah and builds himself a little hu and he sits in his hut and he stares at the city, wishing hellfire and damnation on everyone in it, and sulking like nobody on earth. He is raging and I love it.

But it's the fucking Assyrian desert, it's hot as balls and even in his wee hut, Jonah's got the sun beating down on him. And God makes this plant grow next to him for shade, which Jonah is pretty pleased about - until the next morning, God sends a worm that attacks the plant and kills it. And also throws in some scorching winds and fiery sun for good measure.

And Jonah's lying there about to pass out and he's like, "I would literally rather be fucking dead" and then we get my favourite exchange in the whole Bible:

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

I just love it!! He's having none of it! He is furious and he is feeling more righteous and miserable than any angsty teenager ever could and he's telling God straight out, "You have pissed me off like nobody has ever pissed anyone off before" and I love him so much!!

And God points out that he's that angry about the plant dying, which he didn't even grow or tend to, but somehow it's not fair for God to not be particularly keen on destroying an entire megatropolis full of people and animals who by the way God is responsible for and cares for? Double standards much? And the book ends! It's made its point and off it fucks.

Also there's a bit at the end there where it describes the thousands and thousands of people in Ninevah as "not knowing which is their left hand and which is their right" which I assume is a metaphor for not knowing right from wrong but which I also just love as such a read. Like, "Really? You expect me not to look after these people? Look at them. They're morons, Jonah. They're the kind of morons who would think, oh, I don't know, that they could hide from God in a boat."

I just love how angry Jonah is, and how afraid, and how human! And I love that he has this sassy back and forth with God and that he gets angry at God and argues and has to get put in a fish for a time out. It feels like such a close, bickering sort of relationship and I think the world would be a better place if more people felt like they could look God in the eye and say, "YES! I AM ANGRY!! I AM SO ANGRY I COULD DIE!!!"

[aparrotandaqrow]

Hey @spectraspecs-writes.....

I'm not here to convert you; Jews don't proselytize (maybe where the confusion comes from). But I do want you to know that the above concerns are by no means deal-breakers if it were something your heart yearned for.

You don't think you'd want to keep kosher? During the conversion process your rabbi would likely require you to understand why it is that many of us keep kosher, but lots and lots of practicing Jews don't keep kosher or keep their own version of kosher. I'm a vegetarian myself so it's mostly very easy anyway, but one of my own personal biggest deviations is I drink wine from non-Jewish vineyards. There are really great vineyards in some places without many Jews; sue me. It's important to understand that part of Jewish law (so that you can make an informed decision when you reject it), but not personally adhering to it doesn't make someone less Jewish.

Using the words god or Jesus to swear? I say "goddammit" all the time, and good news, Jesus isn't god so you can swear with his name all you want. I'm a fan of "Christ on a bike" personally. Also, the commandment to not take the Lord's name in vain doesn't mean that in Judaism. That's actually a Christian misinterpretation of the original text. There are many Jews who will avoid using the word 'god' in any language on days other than the Sabbath, but that's because we don't mix sacred and mundane without ritual purification, not because of that one commandment (and not following that practice doesn't make a person less Jewish). The commandment to not take the Lord's name in vain is actually an injunction against using God's name to make oaths you don't intend to keep or to give false testimony. Basically, don't perjure yourself. Cuss all you want.

Having Nazi ancestors is not disqualifying, either. Those were their crimes, not yours. Even for a Nazi, if they sincerely wanted to convert, we would have a Jewish process for trying them for their crimes and sorting out the consequences. It is possible to be a valid Jew who has committed grave sins.

That does not mean you do not carry obligations as a result of your ancestors' sins. Acts of t'shuvah (reparation) are open to all, and central to our understanding of how one deals with a moral stain. Basically, "my ancestors did unspeakable things, so I must do my best to make the world a better place, and repair some of what they broke." In fact all Jews carry that obligation; we call it Tikkun Olam--the act of repairing a broken world. The pursuit of justice and a better world are our most foundational tenets, and what sets us apart as a "chosen people." We see ourselves as carrying additional obligations to clean up the broken pieces.

Judaism is not like Christianity, where the sum of the rules you follow or keep determines your grade in the religion and makes you a better or worse member of the religion. For those of us who believe in God (which isn't required btw), we believe that God will weigh and measure us on an annual basis, but the sins we explicitly confess and repent for are mostly related to harming others. We don't really get hung up over whether keeping kosher will stain our souls in God's esteem. Those who keep kosher will likely have negative reactions to breaking their kashrut, but that's for other reasons related to sanctity and purity, not worrying about the annual performance review.

The state of being Jewish, rather, is a state of belonging to the Jewish people. We are a nation, a tribe that has existed for close to 4000 years. We do welcome converts, even if we don't seek to convert others. Conversion is the process of becoming a member of that nation--like a naturalization process for an immigrant.

And within that people, there are many, many different ways to engage with Jewish law, ritual, and custom. The Jews who don't keep kosher at all, never go to synagogue, don't believe in God, and just sort of vaguely celebrate Hanukkah and maybe Passover are no less Jewish than I am; their membership is just as valid (though I do think they're missing out on some awesome customs).

There are many many good reasons to decide conversion is not for you. But if it's something your heart desires, please know that the things you've mentioned are not deal-breakers.

The urge to convert to judaism keeps following me arond. Hovering withing arm's reach and in line of sight somewhere behind me, roughly at the level of my head, like one of those day old helium balloons that no longer pull all the way up to the ceiling but float unnervingly in the mid-air.

I keep ignoring it. That has not helped in the past, and most likely won't help now. But maybe it will go away eventually.