#how to debate jewish hate

[buddhistmusings]

Every time I post something referencing the very real humanitarian crisis in Palestine, my "for you" page changes and becomes filled with recommended posts that contain the most vile antisemitic shit.

It makes me so sad, because it reminds me of what an awful job that a movement that was supposed to be about advocating for Palestinian lives has done with boundary maintenance. It is so compromised that social media algorithms don't appear able to differentiate between advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and antisemitic content. The crossover between the two has become enough that a user who engages with content of one kind is recommended content of another. People who are not educated on antisemitism and the covert symbolism it uses might not recognize it right away, so we are seeing an entire group of people, convinced that they are participating in a civil rights advocacy movement also being indoctrinated into a separate hate movement, under the impression that these two movements are the same.

With such poor boundaries being maintained between these two ideally separate movements, and such overlap growing, how long can I honestly maintain that these are two separate movements?

Meanwhile, innocent Palestinians are being bombed, children are starving, far-right governments on both sides of the conflict are gloating in the support they get from American conservatives and leftists respectively, and functionally, I hear nobody advocating for peace anymore, only the destruction of their enemies. Palestinians are being so incredibly demeaned, by both the people who want to destroy them and their sovereignty, and the people who claim to be supportive of them.

Sane, rational people who are advocating for peaceful solutions are disregarded and voices on the fringe are centered. People are witnessing what they interpret as a genocide unfolding and in response are advocating for a counter-genocide. Can they not see how this actively impedes the peace process? They give legitimacy to (false) far-right Israeli nationalist claims of Palestinian statehood as an inherent danger to the safety of the Jewish people, and demean the Palestinian people by suggesting that what they want is revenge and not to live their lives in peace. They've made questions about the legitimacy of Hamas, an evil terrorist organization, central to the movement, instead of what should be the priority, that innocent people are suffering and that this is unacceptable. They have redefined and reappropriated Jewish words to use as antisemitic slurs and convinced their audience that using these slurs is not antisemitism.

Meanwhile, capitalizing on the above mentioned antisemitism, those who want to harm the Palestinian people, deny them statehood, are using the words and actions of these activists as ideological ammunition to fire up their anti-Palestinian base. Donald Trump literally called Joe Biden a Palestinian at the presidential debate as a slur. Republicans are using the word "Palestinian" as a slur. Netanyahu (possibly one of the worst people involved in this entire situation), in his speech to congress, was able to point to the very real antisemitic actions of activists to further cement support for him personally. By the way, saying how antisemitic activists harm Palestinians shouldn't have to be the rhetorical point we resort to. The fact that antisemitism hurts Jewish people is enough to make it a bad thing and is enough to make us avoid doing it, right?

I'm tired of turning in one direction and saying "You should NEVER say something like that about Palestinians" and then turning in the other and saying "You should NEVER say something like that about Jews". It should not have to be said that condemning the very existence of one of two ethnic groups in their shared homeland is unacceptable, and yes, it is their shared homeland, because they both live there and are both from there. It should not have to be said that you should understand what a word means before using it to insult people. Here I am in fact talking about the word Zionist, because that is a family of various movements, some of which are worthy of condemnation, but frankly, the basic premise of Zionism does not demean or degrade Palestinians at all, because it simply is the belief that Jewish people have the right to return to and form communities in their homeland.

I'm kind of opening myself up to get a lot of criticism here, but I wanted to get these thoughts out, because I have been finding them enormously frustrating. My heart breaks for all the innocent Palestinians who are suffering and have a lackluster movement advocating on their behalf, and my heart breaks for all the Jewish people who have lost friends to antisemitic conspiracy. My heart breaks for the victims of 10/7 and their families, as well as the Jewish community who was interrupted in the mourning of their losses. My heart breaks for all of the Palestinians who have lost friends and family in the subsequent destruction in Gaza and the immense violence and famine we are seeing.

Please root your activism in peace and compassion, not hatred and destruction. Please think before you speak about entire groups of people. Learn about what words mean before you use them to condemn others. Learn about Jewish people, Palestinian people, their lives, their cultures, and why they both feel such a strong connection to the land. Make this about healing, love, and reconciliation, and not about being right.

[baroque-hashem]

I like to argue about Judaism as much as the next Jew, but that debate is not the most important part of Judaism.

You know what is?-- Living a good, Jewish life.

And what is a Jewish life? What is required of us?

The prophet Micah said this: "You have been told what is good: only to do justice, to love goodness, and to walk modestly." (Micah 6:8)

The Rabbi Hillel put it this way: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole Torah, the rest its interpretation, now go study." (Talmud, Shabbat 31a:6)

In other words--Be a mentsh! Be a good person! You can debate about how to observe Shabbat all you want but at your core what is most important is not hurting others.

Don't be a putz. Be a mentsh. That's it.

[matan4il]

Hearing people, including Ivy League university presidents, citing freedom of speech to justify allowing genocidal calls is beyond crazy.

I can't believe this has to be said, but under democracy, no freedom is sacred unto itself. EVERY freedom we have is limited based on our choices regarding how to use it. If we're willing to abuse it in the service of harming others, we can and should lose it.

We have the right to property, but if we'll use our money to kill people (for example, if we're a terrorist organization, or helping to fund one), our money can and should be confiscated. We have the freedom of movement, but if we use it to stalk someone, we can and should be limited by a restraining order, or even by being arrested.

So yes, we have the freedom of speech. But if we use it to incite hate against Jews, to spread demonizing lies about the Jewish state, to call for the ethnic cleansing or even genocide of Jewish people, we can and SHOULD lose that freedom.

This is not a debate. This is how democracy works.

And if this principle had been applied properly and justly, as it would be to any hate speech against any other marginalized group, then we wouldn't get to where the violence against Jews at these protests had long ago stopped being just verbal. The vid below is one of MANY examples from campuses around the world.

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

[fromgoy2joy]

I have been… biting my tongue from saying things. 

Partially because I’m not “really Jewish” (on the way to it via conversion), and because I didn’t want this blog to be political. 

But I realize I want this page to be a safe space. If anyone takes issue with what I’m about to say, I don’t want them on this page. 

I joined the college jewish community very shortly after 10/7 and was immediately welcomed in. There was no separation between me and the girl who had gone to orthodox shul all her life and was the head of the state youth group. I was told explicitly  “you are one of us. And together, we are mourning. We have lost our people and so have you.” 

Still I felt no authority to speak on things as insidious as antisemitism until recently. But how many times do you have to experience an antisemitic incident until you get to stand up? 

Six. The answer is six. 

Since explicitly aligning myself with Jewishness, I have lost friends who told me I have “dual loyalties” in so many words. I’ve been ostracized in events because we were singled out . I’ve been followed back to my dorm room from events by people hurling genocide accusations at me- white girls wearing keffiyahs who don't know anything about the Nakba when I try to connect with them about how awful it was.

My face was used in a local “fight jew hate” campaign” where I’m in a group of people with clearly middle eastern descent. But what circulated around my campus was my blonde hair and blue eyes, with people using laughing emojis.

“This is who we’re supposed to be defending!? Bitch please! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣” 

(Which is perfectly ironic because they singled out the person who wasn't ethnically Jewish and focused on her. )

Campus security and the disciplinary office knows me quite well from all the reports I've filed whether for me or other people.

I leave campus for breaks. Even though I’m returning to my highly Catholic conservative family, I breathe a sigh of relief. I don't have to look over my shoulder constantly or check myself in the surroundings I'm in. I already feel the dread about returning in January.

What hurts is the blindness- the lack of nuance- that is being given. Every single Jewish person at my school is not a self described zionist, other than that they acknowledge Jewish indignity to the land, and that there was a reason for the creation of Israel- not even justification in the current state or the matter it came about.

But they- and we- shouldn't have to prove ourselves. We shouldn't be debating if we should fundraise for Gazans (we are) in case someone accuses us of "lying about our intentions" or if we'd be pointed out as "the good jews!" They shouldn't have to have a tab open on their computer for Israeli passports, even though they desperately don't want to leave the United States. I shouldn't have to wonder whenever I'm at a synagogue "If I get killed here in a terrorist attack before being immersed in the mikvah, will I get a Catholic or Jewish funeral?"

But that never mattered. Our voices never did. Unless the antisemitism came from a high school dropout neo-nazi with a shaved head and swastika jacket, it's never going to matter.

I will never forget- even as I advocate for Palestinians, call for a ceasefire, and donate. Or any other cause where I'll be marching besides these activists I can never call well meaning.

I could go on and on about it. But I won't be able to write it out in this post.

All I know is when the counsel of rabbis ask me if I'm ready to be apart of an unpopular group, I'm going to have to fight myself from laughing at the question

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Vice President Kamala Harris walked onto the ABC News debate stage with a mission: trigger a Trump meltdown.

She succeeded.

Former President Donald Trump had a mission too: control yourself.

He failed.

Trump lost his cool over and over. Goaded by predictable provocations, he succumbed again and again.

Trump was pushed into broken-sentence monologues—and even an all-out attack on the 2020 election outcome. He repeated crazy stories about immigrants eating cats and dogs, and was backwards-looking, personal, emotional, defensive, and frequently incomprehensible.

Harris hit pain point after pain point: Trump’s bankruptcies, the disdain of generals who had served with him, the boredom and early exits of crowds at his shrinking rallies. Every hit was followed by an ouch. Trump’s counterpunches flailed and missed. Harris met them with smiling mockery and cool amusement. The debate was often a battle of eyelids: Harris’s opened wide, Trump’s squinting and tightening.

Harris’s debate prep seemed to have concentrated on psychology as much as on policy. She drove Trump and trapped him and baited him—and it worked every time.

Trump exited the stage leaving uncertain voters still uncertain about whether or not he’d sign a national abortion ban. He left them certain that he did not want Ukraine to win its war of self-defense. He accused Harris of hating Israel but then never bothered to say any words of his own in support of the Jewish state’s war of self-defense against Hamas terrorism. In his confusion and reactiveness, he seemed to have forgotten any debate strategy he might have had.

Something every woman watching the debate probably noticed: Trump could not bring himself to say the name of the serving vice president, his opponent for the presidency. For him, Harris was just a pronoun: a nameless, identity-less “she,” “her,” “you.” It’s said that narcissists cope with ego injury by refusing to acknowledge the existence of the person who inflicted the hurt. If so, that might explain Trump’s behavior. Harris bruised his feelings, and Trump reacted by shutting his eyes and pretending that Harris had no existence of her own independent of President Joe Biden, whose name Trump was somehow able to speak.

Hemmed, harried, and humiliated, Trump lost his footing and his grip. He never got around to making an affirmative case for himself. If any viewer was nostalgic for the early Trump economy before its collapse in his final year in office, that viewer must have been disappointed. If a viewer wanted a conservative policy message, any conservative policy message, that viewer must have been disappointed. When asked whether he had yet developed a health-care plan after a decade in politics, Trump could reply only that he had “concepts of a plan.”

Almost from the start, Harris was in control. She had better moments and worse ones, but she was human where Trump was feral. She had warm words for political opponents such as John McCain and Dick Cheney; Trump had warm words for nobody other than Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian strongman whom Trump praised for praising Trump. It was an all-points beatdown, and no less a beating because Trump inflicted so much of it on himself.

At a minimum, this display will put an end to the Trump claim that Harris is a witless nonentity unqualified to engage in debate. Harris met Trump face-to-face before tens of millions of witnesses. She dominated and crushed him, using as her principal tools her self-command and her shrewd insight into the ex-president’s psychic, moral, and intellectual weaknesses.

Will it matter that Harris so decisively won? How can it not? But it may matter more that Trump so abjectly lost to a competitor for whom he could not utter a syllable of respect.

David Frum is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

[sissa-arrows]

There’s this white guy in France who went from Zionist to Pro Palestinian.

He explained how it happened for him and the thread is very telling. It was all about Islamophobia and dehumanizing Palestinians because he dehumanized Arabs and saw Palestinians as just a group of random Arabs.

He briefly mentioned how he saw Israel as a refugee for Jewish but every other argument only worked if you see Arabs as backward savage monsters. It only works if you don’t see Arabs as equal humans.

He explained how he started questioning his views after he started dating a Lebanese woman and he was like “if the woman I love hates Israel maybe there’s something more to it than Arabs being antisemitic and sore losers”. His views started shifting when he dated a Lebanese woman because it taught him how to humanize Arabs. Then he says it himself they broke up so he stopped thinking about it and became “neutral” (he counts his two years being “neutral” as being a Zionist which is a good thing because too many people refuse to acknowledge that neutrality only help the oppressor aka the Zionist entity).

Then October 7th happened and as a self proclaimed leftist he had to question what was happening. He learned history and he realized that “Israel” was an apartheid settler colony and that it had zero legitimacy.

As horrible images and videos are coming from Rafah I think it’s important to remember that those defending “Israel” are doing it because they are racists anti Arabs pieces of shit. They don’t see our children as children they don’t see us as humans. Because of that debating with them is useless educating them is useless. If 7 months of genocide plus 75 years of ethnic cleansing didn’t do anything to sway them nothing will and we need to accept that they are pieces of shit who only deserve a punch in the face and rotting in hell.

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

goyim who say that "antizionism is not antisemitic", or believes all jews have to be vehemently antizionist, are absolutely antisemitic. I'm talking about the original, true definition of zionism (the jewish right to self determination) and not political/revisionist zionism used by the israeli government. i hate what the israeli government has turned zionism into and even though revisionist zionism is technically a real form of zionism i think it makes a joke out of the other branches bc it throws a lot of core ideals out of the window. zionism is about building a safe place for jews in eretz israel, not trying to conquer as much shit as possible.

if a goy thinks jews have to antizionist then that alienates a huge part of the community. most jews i know are zionists to varying degrees. we believe we have a right to our ancestral homeland, and that we are allowed to connect to the history we have in israel regardless of where we live. I may be wrong about most jews being zionists! I'm sephardic and i interact mostly with other sephardim and some mizrahim. However, most jews are ashkenazim and im not close enough with any of them to know their opinions on zionism or im not aware that they are ashkenazi.

goyim cannot be against a sizable chunk of the jewish population without being antisemitic. it sounds ridiculous to say "i support this group but only if they disagree with that core belief that many of them have!" in order to talk about jewish people from an outside perspective then goys need to learn what defines us.

there's also two main options when a goy believes jews must be antizionist. they either know the true definition of zionism or they have no fucking clue what it actually is (yet still think they do). in the first case, theyre clearly against an important belief of jewish ppl, which as I said before, is antisemitic. in the second one, they are speaking for the jewish community without learning our history, which is also antisemitic. you cannot make decisions for a community you are not part of ESPECIALLY if you dont know shit about them.

it is very, very important that goyim learn about the jews before saying shit about us. expecting us to be against our right to self determination is complete fuckery. believing that we all have to agree on a complex topic is laughable. debate and arguments are a crucial part of our lives, and goyim should not attempt to take that away from us. we can't fuckin agree on what to flavor our rice with sometimes, much less an issue as complex as zionism. even though a lot of jews are zionists we still have our own unique opinions that may differ greatly from other zionists. we also recognize that antizionist jews are valid and they tend to feel the same about us.

zionism is simply our right to self determination and our right to be connected to israel, whether its an emotional connection or we actually live there. i also firmly believe in everyone's right to self determination, including palestine. i don't think that jews are the only ones who deserve that right. all groups that have been displaced or are currently being displaced are allowed to connect to their homeland however they wish. it doesn't matter if the displacement was yesterday or a thousand years ago.

if you're jewish id love to hear your opinion on this. if you're a goy, please sit back and listen. it is not your place to decide how jews should interpret our own history.

[schraubd]

Going Fishing

The wave of terror Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have unleashed upon the Haitian community in Ohio continues to crest. I am by no means the first to observe the similarities between how they are talking about Haitians and how Nazis spoke of Jews at the outset of their rise to power. That's strong language, and yet it is terrifyingly warranted. We are seeing something that is, in fact, not at all unprecedented. But there is a particular aspect of the racism we're seeing here that particularly resonated with me as a Jew -- the frenetic scouring to find anything and everything that "proves" the conspiracies right, or at least justified. In the Ohio case, this reached a comical (if anything about this could be comical) apex when Christopher Rufo offered a bounty to prove the "Haitians in Springfield are eating cats" conspiracy correct and then started crowing over a video of not-Haitians in Toledo grilling chicken. But other examples abound (although at least J.D. Vance had the "decency" to admit he was simply making things up). Far, far too many Republicans response to blatant acts of hatred is to cast far and wide for something that makes the hatred feel palatable. As a reasonably public-facing Jewish professor, I frequently idly wonder if I'll be targeted by some sort of antisemitic attack. Mostly, it doesn't happen. Occasionally, it does; though in my case never in such a fashion that would explode into the public view. But if an "incident" did happen -- someone graffitied my office door, for instance -- I am absolutely sure that a certain cadre of online folk would immediately begin pouring over my collection of writings to find anything they possibly could to explain why I'm a legitimate target. That knowledge -- less that something could happen, and more that if it did I'd be the one scrutinized to hell and back, with the most gimlet eye and uncharitable gaze -- is perhaps what stresses me the most. I do not think I am alone amongst Jews in feeling this way; hyperpoliced at every turn to justify ex post facto a judgment that has been handed down in advance. By all objective accounts, the Haitian community in Springfield has been a boon to an erstwhile struggling city. But they are not universal saints, any more than anyone else is -- if one places them under a powerful enough lens, one will of course be able to find something or someone butting up against the social compact (though not, I'd wager, stealing and eating pets). No group can maintain a perfect record under that sort of scrutiny. And the knowledge that one is under that microscope is just exhausting. It's exhausting right alongside the more direct anxiety and misery of being directly subjected to acts of hate and bigotry. The people responsible for this have no shame, so I won't bother to say they should be ashamed. But no good person should feel anything other than contempt for this latest dose of bigotry. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/NJkLSEa

[eye-in-hand]

Alexander, 27 (18+), ✡ autistic bisexual trans man, married to my platonic companion and in love with a gorgeous man, thank fuck they get along lmfao ✡ Deep in the depths of Jewish conversion.

Feel free to message in English, Russian, Spanish or Italian!

Art blog: @sova-dozhd

Fandom blog: @flut-flut

Book blog: @look-books

Header Image: Fanny Baron Rouah (fannybaron1 on insta)

I do not have anons on, if I can show my face while talking about politics you can show yours. Stand behind what you say proudly or don't say it at all.

And I have a lot of political opinions, but since I post about these the most and it's gonna give me the most shit lmfao:

All indigenous peoples have a right to self determination in their indigenous lands. All of them.

On Israel and Palestine: Note: These are not up for "debate". I am not spending any more time arguing with fascist hamasniks on tumblr dot com.

I am not qualified to have an opinion on how to end the centuries old conflicts in the Middle East. I urge people to listen to those in the region who support Peace and coexistence, whatever that may end up looking like.

Jews are indigenous to the Levant. You can not settle or colonize your native land. Israel is a land back movement.

The far-right of Israel speaks for Jews about as much as Trump speaks for me as an American. Which is to say he fucking doesn't.

While the conflict centers around Jews and Arabs, there are other groups of people in Israel and Palestine that also deserve safety.

Hamas is using Palestinians as human shields. Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist proxies of the Iranian regime, and Arab colonialism is just as awful as European colonialism and has resulted in numerous native cultures being erased.

To actually care about Palestinian lives you must condemn Hamas.

The UN and UNRWA are arms of Hamas and the Iranian regime.

I will not engage with historical revisionism, propaganda, or Nazi rhetoric on any topic, but especially Israel/Palestine. I will not engage with terrorist sympathizers. And I will not engage with anyone who claims Israel is committing Genocide when that is not a proven fact and everything says the opposite of that (like the Palestinian population actually growing. Which you know, doesn't happen during a genocide.). I will not engage with anyone who refuses to accept that Jews are indigenous to the Levant, and Arabs are indigenous to Arabia. This does not mean I support killing Arabs in the Levant, as I believe anyone should have the right to live where they want. I just support Native rights to self determination in their indigenous lands, no matter how long they've been forced into exile. My position on Israel is not founded by Religion or the Torah, it's founded on archeological fact. If you ignore these facts, I am not engaging with you.

I will not engage with Kahanists either btw. Equating all Palestinians with Hamas is racist.

On Ukraine and Eastern Europe:

Слава Україні! Героям слава!

Westerners really need to get a grip on not supporting the USSR/Russia or Russian supremacy.

Communists are not the opposite of Nazis - the USSR did not fight the Nazis because they cared about human rights.

Here at home (the US):

Trump is a fascist.

You do not get to not exercise your right and responsibility to vote and then bitch and whine that you don't get what you want.

America has a real problem with the alt-right and the rad-left. The average person is incredibly radicalized.

Russia interfered with our election because Trump owes Putin's friends money (or government secrets, take your pick).

Misc:

I'm neither a capitalist nor a communist because we need an entire re-hauling of human society and the only way it'll ever get better is to demolish the economic system all together. However this is an idealized world view and not the reality we live in right now.

I support unions, a 4 day work week, paid maternity and paternity leave, and not having to work when you're sick!

Anyone or any movement that tries to get you to hate an entire group of people for traits they were born w is trying to sell you something.

Trans people exist, deal with it. Someone else's identity is none of your business.

Support victims regardless of gender

Whiteness is a western social construct but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect people in different ways. We need to be open to talking about race if we want to take a stand against racism.

To truly be anti-imperialism, we have to stand against it regardless who is doing it.

Pro choice. If abortion is murder every twin that ate their sibling is a murderer. Sound ridiculous? Because it is. A fetus is not a baby. Abortion saves women's lives.

Waiting for a revolution is not going to save you. The "revolution" is not going to save you. To protect each other we need to engage with positive social change!

Politics are not sports, you don't have to choose a "team"

Being safe from bigotry is not conditional. I don't care how much you disagree with someone. You can disagree/hate someone without being discriminatory.

Most Importantly:

Value human life. Value companionship. Value peace. Value understanding. Value communication. It's harder to be radicalized by hate groups when you put loving human beings over ideologies.

[eretzyisrael]

María Rivera Maulucci, a professor of Urban Studies at Barnard, spoke out against the arrests.

“The root of word education means to lead out, but how are we leading our students out? In zip ties. Where are we leading students out? To buses? To police stations?” she told the crowd, according to the blog.

Comments such as that — and the general support for the anti-Israel students — left Rory Lancman, the senior counsel of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, lamenting his alma mater.

3Columbia University’s faculty is facing backlash after their decision to back students at the anti-Israel demonstration on campus was denounced as “grotesque” by members of New York’s Jewish community.Getty Images

“It’s grotesque that we have professors who can’t discern the difference between hateful, discriminatory and violent rhetoric that violates the university’s anti-discrimination policies and terrorizes a segment of the university community and reasoned free speech and debate,” said Lancman, whose legal advocacy groups works to battle antisemitism.

“What you’re witnessing at Columbia is the anti-Zionist, antisemitic movement at its core.”

Lancman described the protesters as wannabe “fascists” who were trying to get their way “through harassment, intimidation and violence.”

Several Columbia graduate students, who only gave their first names, also questioned the professors’ support for the student protesters.

“I don’t think it was a smart thing for them to do,” Dana, 34, told the Post.

3Professors appeared on the school’s steps to support the right of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” to take over campus space and denounce the administration’s decision to have protesters arrested.REUTERS

“The professors siding with them, basically that tells me, ‘OK Columbia is not a place of discourse, it is not [a] place where you can peacefully argue. It’s a place that sides with a very specific student body.'”

Ali, 26, a transfer student from Tel Aviv University, said the faculty walkout made it clear that the professors were not just endorsing the protest at Columbia, but were actively taking part as well.

“There was no reason to believe that they weren’t part of the protest. They joined the movement because they came out and joined the protest,” Ali said.

He added that the protesters at Columbia have “made no effort to distance themselves from pro-terrorism positions,” calling the demonstrations “disturbing.”

Omer, another graduate student who was putting up pictures of the remaining hostages kidnapped by Hamas, said he was also troubled by the professors’ walkout.

[jewreallythinkthat]

Wait.

You blew my mind with:

“Canonically in Tanach, there is an admittance that other gods exist”

I didn’t know this! I’m agnostic, and not in anyway Jewish, but trying to learn more about peoples and cultures other than the one I was raised.

I always thought Jewish monotheism was similar to Xtian (if we can call the trinity monotheistic!) in that, there’s only one god and any other claims are people being mistaken because people.

Is this not the view in Judaism then? Is it like, there’s only one god Jews care about because covenant? Others exist and it’s fine for gentiles to worship them?

Hey Nonnie!

So like everything in Judaism, it's a hotly debated topic - and please other people on Jumblr, feel free to join in the convo! I cannot speak for all Jews so this is just my opinion and conclusions I've drawn from chats about Thai with friends.

There's a couple of points you've mentioned which I'll address (a bit out of order) if that's ok?

So about the trinity in Christianity, I've always found it a little bizarre as to me, the monotheism of having three 'aspects' of god is a bit ... Dodgy? I've never really been able to see how it can count as monotheism when prayers are literally sent to the father, the son and the holy spirit. But also, I'm not Christian and I'm sure someone may be able to hop in and explain how that doesn't count as praying to different gods!

I'm regard to the Jewish view of deities - I think a few quotes from the Tanach may be useful for this one. The translation I'm using is from Chabad online as I cannot be bothered to get my Tanach from the other side of the room and transcribe. Translations often vary a bit here and I prefer the ones I grew up with but the general gist will be there. I've highlighted the bits I view as especially important in red.

So first -

Genesis, chapter 1, verse 26

And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heaven and over the animals and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep upon the earth."

Genesis chapter 3, verse 22

Now the Lord God said, "Behold man has become like one of us, having the ability of knowing good and evil, and now, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever."

I mean this, to me, implies G-d to be talking to others right? God says "our", as if more than one is there at the time, almost observing the creation. In the second one, again God is talking other beings which must be like God for they are referred to by the collective 'us'.

Exodus, chapter 20, verses 1-5 (the start of the first reading of the 10 commandments)

God spoke all these words, to respond:

"I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

You shall not have the gods of others in My presence.

You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the heavens above, which is on the earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth.

You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a zealous God, Who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me,

So this is where it gets interesting. There is specificity in the first line 'your God', not the God of other people but specifically the people Yisrael for this is addressed to them and them alone. This then is followed by explicit acknowledgement that other peoples have their own gods and to worship them is a BIG no no.

This is also where we get another famous antisemitic trope from - the idea that Jews think they are better than others because they are the 'chosen' people. This is, of course, bollocks. Not only is the 'chose' more like chosen to do the washing up rather than chosen as favourite, it is also specifically to do with the Jews as the ones with whom God, our God, has the covenant. We are the ones in the contract, chosen to have to fulfill the mitzvot. The Jews were the ones with the king list of things they had to do while others are not bound by the covenant and may do as they please.

Now from the Haggadah (which tells the story of the exodus and is ready during the Passover Seder) we have this - it's the section about the 10th plague so there is a lot of talk of death and child death.

As it is said: “I shall pass through the land of Egypt on that night; I shall kill every firstborn son in the land of Egypt, man and beast, and I shall pass judgment on all the gods of Egypt: I am the LORD.”

“I shall pass through the land of Egypt on that night” – I and no angel. “I shall kill every firstborn son in the land of Egypt” – I and no seraph. “And I shall pass judgment on all the gods of Egypt” – I and no emissary. “I am the LORD” – It is I and no other.

We have explicit mention that the Egyptians have their own gods. We also have the final line - 'it is I and no other' - why would God need to clarify it is Godsself rather than a different god, unless God I is acknowledging there are other godly beings? It's also worth nothing, the judgment and punishment on the Egyptians is not a punishment for worshipping other gods for the Egyptians never entered into a covenant with Hashem - the Israelites who built the golden calf however did suffer quite severe punishment.

If there are other gods, the others have nothing to do with me because theyre not the one my people have a covenant with. If others want to worship them, I don't care. It doesn't affect me in any way so they can do what they want 🤣

I also, from a personal pov, like the fact that this horrific thing, the slaying of the first born, would be performed by God rather than being delegated to an angel or a seraph. There's something about the big boss taking on the worst of the jobs (as it were) which I really respect as clearly God has emotions (from the line about God being jealous) and I cannot imagine that slaying the first borns (of all ages, not just children, it just says every priest born) is a task that would have been anything other than mentally destroying.

It's also important to note that I do not believe this happened - otherwise I'd not be so flippant about mentions of child death and murder. I view the Torah as the written version of the oral histories of the Jewish people, a tribe's oral history that like with many indigenous peoples oral histories, has been embellished and mythologised. It's a good story with grains of truth to tell the history of how the people Yisrael came to be, how our culture and people became not just a group of random tribes but a community with shared history and culture and traditions.

I'm never sure if I believe God exists. Some days I really do wish there ot be something else - often when I think about achievements that I've done which are the result of the help of family members who have since died and I like the idea that they could still be there in some way to enjoy and see how grateful I am for them helping me get to where I am. Other times, I look at things like October 7th, the famine in Sudan, the innocents dying in Gaza, genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia etc and I think "how could a god allow this to happen". There is so much suffering in the world and I cannot bring myself to believe that a god could condone that when they have the power to literally create the world, to strike Egypt with the plages, when they have the power to stop the suffering.

I'm glad that in Judaism, we don't focus on the afterlife in the way I see it centred in Christianity and Islam. I don't view the notions of Heaven and Hell as beneficial and while ther are notions of them in Judaism, they've generally very much sidelined and not centered in conversation.

While the beneficiary of help does not care if you have helped them altruistically or because you think it will help you get into heaven, the concepts of heaven and hell have been used to slaughter so many innocents in the name of religion and I am thankful that for me, I've never seen this in Judaism because the important stuff is what happens when you're alive. You should be focussing on the here and now, to try and complete as many of God's commandments as possible. What happens when you die? Well frankly that's a problem for you when you get there. (Obviously I know there are extremists within the Jewish world - ie WB Settlers - but they are such a small minority and certainly are not a major part of the history of our people)

Anyway, this answer sort of got away from me so sorry about that. I hope you at least found it interesting and enjoy the foray into learning about other cultures!

[chaifootsteps]

Hello, sorry to bother you. I've been seeing things about vivzie drawing "nazi comics" and I was wondering if there was any validity to this claim? I know she's abusive, toxic, and transphobic, and I've seen the evidence to support those claims, but I've been out of the loop (for mental health reasons) and I'm not sure where the claim came from and if it was true or just people lying (not that they'd need to, but you know how the internet can be). Thank you for your time!

No bother at all! This is one of those bits of misinformation where the truth is arguably worse than the rumors, because no, Viv didn't actually draw Nazi comics. She was, however, really into Sausage Party when it first came out and had a secret blog for Sausage Party art, which is how we got this.

And truth be told? I don't actually think this is a big deal. It's pretty obvious what she was doing, which was taking the Hitler caricature that already exists in Sausage Party, the Hitler caricature from Producers, and mixing chocolate with peanut butter. Whether or not it's funny or appropriate is up for debate, but it's obvious what gag she was going for.

However, during this time, she also did things like follow "I-hate-jewce..."

And ship her OC (a cannibalistic candy cane and an Angel Dust prototype) with the Josef Mengele inspired OC of someone who proudly admitted to finding Mengele fascinating, even referring to him respectfully as "Dr. Mengele."

Vivzie referred to this character, happily based off a man who tortured and murdered Jewish children, as a "science bab."

And just to be clear, this wasn't some cringe thing Viv did as a young teenager. She would have been around 24.

[ravenkings]

Debate rages over the extent to which the protests on the political left constitute coded or even direct attacks on Jews. But far less attention has been paid to a trend on the right: For all of their rhetoric of the moment, increasingly through the Trump era many Republicans have helped inject into the mainstream thinly veiled anti-Jewish messages with deep historical roots. The conspiracy theory taking on fresh currency is one that dates back hundreds of years and has perennially bubbled into view: that a shady cabal of wealthy Jews secretly controls events and institutions contrary to the national interest of whatever country it is operating in. The current formulation of the trope taps into the populist loathing of an elite “ruling class.” “Globalists” or “globalist elites” are blamed for everything from Black Lives Matter to the influx of migrants across the southern border, often described as a plot to replace native-born Americans with foreigners who will vote for Democrats. The favored personification of the globalist enemy is George Soros, the 93-year-old Hungarian American Jewish financier and Holocaust survivor who has spent billions in support of liberal causes and democratic institutions. This language is hardly new — Mr. Soros became a boogeyman of the American far right long before the ascendancy of Mr. Trump. And the elected officials now invoking him or the globalists rarely, if ever, directly mention Jews or blame them outright. Some of them may not immediately understand the antisemitic resonance of the meme, and in some cases its use may simply be reflexive political rhetoric. But its rising ubiquity reflects the breaking down of old guardrails on all types of degrading speech, and the cross-pollination with the raw, sometimes hate-filled speech of the extreme right, in a party under the sway of the norm-defying former, and perhaps future, president.

– Karen Yourish, Danielle Ivory, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, and Alex Lemonides, "How Republicans Echo Antisemitic Tropes Despite Declaring Support for Israel," The New York Times, May 9, 2024

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Any time someone condemns the actions of Israel killing children you accuse them of hating Jews. That only makes sense if you think killing children is inherently a part of Judaism.

Hoo boy, you are very dumb, for real.

Okay, I'm going to explain this to you even though you either, already know it and you're just pretending not to because that's the only way you can avoid having to admit how wrong you are, or you're too stupid to grasp basic English conversation. So I know it's pointless and I know you're still not going to get it. But here we go anyway.

Israel is a majority Jewish country. Anti-semitism, or hatred of Jews if that's too big a word for you, is often dressed up in "criticism" of Israel. Since October 7th, a lot of people who claimed to not be anti-semites because they were only "criticizing" Israel have been loudly celebrating an attack where Hamas terrorists raped, murdered, and kidnapped people who were mostly Israeli Jews. They have taken up chants of "Globalize the Intifada" (The Intifada is a Palestinian movement to eliminate Israel and all the Jews in it, so this is a call for the global elimination of all Jews) and "From the river to the sea" (which is a call for the destruction of Israel and all the Jews in it so "Palestinians", which are not a real cultural or ethnic group by the by, can occupy all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea). Since these people are cheering a brutal attack on Jews, and supporting the destruction of the only majority Jewish state in the world along with the murder of every Jew who lives there, and calling for the global extermination of the Jewish race, they are anti-semites. (Remember that means they hate Jews).

Following along so far?

Probably not, but let's continue anyway.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. In 2007 it was elected into power. Shortly after, it won a civil war to stay in power. That makes it the ruling power in what's called the self-governing territory of Gaza. That ruling power sent soldiers into Israel, a legitimate nation recognized as such by most of the world, and attacked its citizens as well as the citizens of other countries. Israel responded by declaring war. Now, if this had happened with any other nation in the world, there would be very little debate about Israel's justification in defending itself and the abhorrent nature of Gaza's attack. But since Israel is a mostly Jewish state, that's not what's going on. Western leftists are gleefully showing their hatred of Jews by demanding Israel not strike back and not defend itself and instead just sit there and let themselves be destroyed.

Now, by any sane standard, Israel would be justified in turning the entirety of Gaza into molten slag. Remember, the 10/7 attacks were carried out by the ruling power that was originally voted into that position of power. When the terrorists returned from their attack, where they raped and/or murdered some 1,200 people, many of them children, the citizens of Gaza celebrated. They cheered as Hamas terrorists led naked hostages who were bleeding from their vaginas from being brutally gang raped through the streets. They cheered as their children surrounded Jewish children who had been kidnapped and taunted them and threw rocks at them. Ever since Israel freed Gaza and allowed them to govern themselves, Gaza has supported terrorists who want to kill every Jew in Israel. But Israel has no interest in destroying Gaza completely. They just want to wipe out Hamas and let the Gazans go back to governing themselves. They even went so far as to let the enemy know where they were going to attack so civilians could evacuate.

And what did Hamas do in response?

They refused to allow anyone to leave.

Because Hamas has a long history of hiding behind Gazan civilians. They build their terrorist bases under schools, hospitals, and mosques specifically so Israel would have to choose between attacking those locations or allowing Hamas to attack them with impunity. They make sure civilians are in the path of every Israeli bomb because they believe that Gaza is a "nation of martyrs" and they know that every dead Gazan civilian is a prop they can show to the largely Jew hating western media as "proof" that Israel is some kind of evil, genocidal country. They want that perception to flourish worldwide so, when they do finally manage to kill every Jew in Israel, they can say it was justified. They were just fighting back against their oppressors. They were decolonizing. (Ignoring the fact that the Arabs were the ones who colonized the Jewish land and then began exterminating all the Jews that still lived there, or who fled to live in other lands, to the point where there are almost no Jews left anywhere in the Middle East except in Israel)

So when people ignore the mountains and mountains of proof that Hamas are the ones responsible for the civilian deaths in Gaza, because their strategy relies on dead children and dead civilians, because they do everything in their power to make sure children are between them and Israeli bombs and bullets, they are doing so knowing that they're giving support to a terrorist group that wants to murder all the Jews in Israel. They are showing their hatred of the Jewish people by promoting lies and joining the cries for "global Intifada". So yes, when people blame Israel for the dead children that Hamas killed by forcing them into the line of fire during a war, they are doing it because they hate Jews.

And if you think calling out that hatred means anyone thinks killing children is a part of Judaism, then you're either stupid, or you hate Jews too.

[orphee-aux-enfers]

I. Don’t understand how being against homophobia and misogyny and informational suppression is cultural relativism? Yeah I have a #USAmerican raised Christian bias but I think not being bioessentialist and anti-intellectual is. Normal???? Genuinely don’t understand

Okay so. My guess from how this was written is that you are either a child or just into your 20s. I'd expect much different wording and approach if you were older. So. I'm going to try and be as gentle and clear cut as possible.

1) Orthodox Judaism is actually quite diverse and also different from Christianity, even fundamentalist Christianity .

2) What you're witnessing is not necessarily indicative of the actual community values; you are interpreting without insider perspective, or seemingly any actual knowledge. You're also ascribing motive to actions that may or may not be there.

3) many orthodox Jews, myself included, are queer and trans and embraced by our community. Every person of authority I've spoken to on the matter says that my incredibly queer, t4t marriage that gets read as gay no matter what, still gets the mitzvah of sex on erev Shabbos, and that includes my main community of Chabad.

4) many books are screened before being given to children by all people everywhere for a variety of reasons. Just because you don't fully understand the reasons as you are not yourself Orthodox Jewish doesn't mean that they are automatically something to be hated due to your preconceived notions.

5) Assuming a group is inherently homophobic, misogynistic, etc. Simply because you don't understand them as you are not part of their community is in fact a bad behaviour, yes. Don't do that. Most of the time, in most communities people are at worst confused.

6) As for misogyny... It's important to know the ways in which Judaism actually structures it's sex roles. No one has different sex roles because they're lesser, which misogyny implies. And every SINGLE person I have ever met observes mitzvos based on sex due to actually desire, not coercion. But for example, married women cover their hair as a way of making their marriage even more holy. Men meanwhile are told to cover their head at all times so they are mindful of G-d at all times. What does this imply at first glance? Why, that women are capable of remembering G-d at all times and the men are silly and must forget G-d if not reminded! Do we think this is all to the interpretation?

So. Before you judge our community so harshly... Perhaps also consider the last century of human history alone. We are being killed and hurt at alarming rates again, especially in the USA. Is it any wonder we don't stop in the streets to justify our existence to you?

Lastly, an oversharing of my personal details because as I am currently safe and well at home, I feel I ought to give you opportunity to understand that you aren't seeing/understanding the complexity of sex roles in Judaism

7) so, yes, orthodox Judaism has gender/sex based roles. It also is, in my experience, pretty flexible to meet individuals. I was coercively assigned female at birth. I was however by Jewish law, tumtum. In English terms, I had ambiguous genitals which could be surgically changed. My sister wanted a baby sister. And so, I was surgically "corrected" and raised female, until puberty and onset of hormonal problems that indicated that it wasn't just a genital mutation. I felt disconnected from binary gender, and at time, in part of my community having a label for me while the hospital I was born at had simply labeled me "incorrect", I came to embrace a masculine social standing. Because I was unable to be sexed as an infant, have masculine levels of testosterone and a lack of menses for years at a time, I have to adhere to both male and female sex based mitzvos. Religiously, I am operating with the strictest possible adherence, but this is all written and debated, as are all of the other sexes in Judaism. I am, however, allowed to exist as intersex in a Jewish community in a way that I am NEVER allowed to exist as intersex without a fight in the secular world, to the point that if it's not relevant I identify only as trans, because otherwise it becomes too complicated in the secular world. And this is genuinely because there is actually a space for me to exist in, as there are six Talmudic sexes.

Being trans and intersex is "allowed". Being queer is "allowed". Some communities differ, but I've lived in seven, and all of them have been more accepting of me being queer, trans, and intersex, than any secular space, including liberal and leftist spaces. At WORST, I am met with curiosity because I am new to the community. I think, perhaps, too many people in this world mistake curiosity with hatred.