#i doubt this person is a real jew

[cree-n-jewish-thoughts]

Because you are a ridiculous human. You have been brainwashed by hamaskins and think that you're an "individual". No, you are an antisemetic Jew. Are you even a real Jew? Because you don't seem to grasp anything from the teachings of Judaism or Torah/Tanakh themselves so...

What is Zion? Do you even know what Zionism is antisemetic Jew?

[some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat]

How long is it gonna take until the three align:

I'm on my computer

I have the spoons to edit my blog description

I remember that I've been meaning to edit my description for like a month at least

Anyway in the meantime and so maybe someone will hold me accountable:

Black lives matter. No ifs ands or buts. Black lives matter.

Religious Christians ask me before you follow or you will be blocked on sight (this obviously doesn't apply to followers from before I put this in my description who are unaware of the new rule, but if any new follower doesn't read my description before following that's their problem)

[spacelazarwolf]

if you have “zionists dni” in your bio, i do not trust you. at all. bc y’all have proven that “zionist” can mean anything from “actual kahanist who hates arabs and thinks that bombing gaza into oblivion is great” to “doesn’t want every single israeli to be violently murdered or expelled.”

i do not have time to figure out if you’d consider me an antizionist bc i’m highly critical of the israeli government and think the occupation of the west bank and siege of gaza are wrong, or if you’d consider me a zionist bc i think the jewish people originated in eretz yisrael and that antisemitism is bad even when it’s coming from progressives and leftists. i do not have the luxury of giving the benefit of the doubt to ppl who say “death to zionists” when there’s a very real chance they are including me and pretty much every other jew on the planet in that statement. you (hopefully) would not expect queer ppl to have a calm conversation with each person who says something questionable just to check if by “kill all pedophiles” they were including us in that statement. extend the same consideration to jews when using a word that has been used, within living memory, to systemically persecute and murder us in several countries.

[transmascpetewentz]

ok, account that was created in october.

Do not respond to Tikkunolamresistence. Responding to Tikkunolamresistence is the killer of the soul.

[make-friends-with-the-rats]

The Jacobs Family is Jewish full stop.

This is not a headcanon.

Bob Tzudiker and Noni White, the authors of the original newsies script Hard Promises, were very intentional in the naming of their characters. Many, if not all, of the newsie characters they created were named after or inspired by real newsboys from the 1899 strike. The entire project was heavily researched.

"I am a history buff and I also don’t trust secondary sources. After we decided to work on it (Newsies); it came from a single small paragraph in the New York Times we then started checking primary sources." -Noni White [source]

So when the Jacobs family was created, you better believe that their names were meant to be read as Jewish.

The Jacobs surname is Jewish.

"The Hebrew Yaakov and the Biblical Jacob are the sources for the surname Jacobs and its variants.  The Jewish surnames from Yaakov include Yakov, Jacob, Jacoby and Jacobowitz, as well as Jacobs."[source]

David, Sarah, and Esther are likewise all names that are Hebrew in origin. They are also the names of important figures in the Bible or Tanakh.

"The name Mayer is a Jewish Ashkenazic name that was originally derived from the Yiddish male given name Meyer. This personal name was in turn derived from the Hebrew name Meir, which means enlightener." [source]

I could not find anything for Les, likely because 'Les' is a shorted version of his real name.

The Jacobs family is further confirmed to be Jewish in the Newsies novelization:

page 11 of the Newsies novel by Jonathan Fast

The original Hard Promises script adds further confirmation. In the original scene where David buys his papers, Weasel calls David a Jewish racial slur. Later on, as David, Jack, and Les go back to the Jacobses, the script indicates that the Jacobs family lives off of Baker Street (possibly misspelt Baxter Street) in "Jewtown":

Hard Promises (Original Newsies Story)

Additionally, David Moscow (1992 David Jacobs) has a Jewish father [source] and both of Ben Fankhauser's (OBC Davey) parents are Jewish. [source]

The Jacobs family is and always has been Jewish.

On a related note, Esther Jacobs is confirmed to be Polish. This makes the Jacobs children canonically at least half-polish.

Hard Promises (Original Newsies Story)

In researching this, I also found that, In addition to the name Mayer being an Ashkenazic Jewish name, the surname Jacobs "was often given to Jewish people as a surname in Ashkenazi Jewish communities." [source]

Therefore, I think it's safe to say that Mayer Jacobs (and the Jacobs family by extension) is Ashkenazi Jewish in heritage.

Mayer being Ashkenazi Jewish also makes it likely that he too is Polish, as a vast majority of Ashkenazi Jews immigrated to Poland from Germany in the Medieval period. [source]

This would then make the Jacobs some of 2.5 million Ashkenazi Jews who came to the United States from from the Russian Empire (which at the time included Poland), the Kingdom of Romania, and Austria-Hungary between 1880 and 1924 and took up residence on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. [source]

The Jacobs are Jewish.

(If there was ever any doubt.)

___

inspired by this post

[etz-ashashiyot]

if you disappear off tumblr, I understand, but you'll be missed ❤️✡️🍃

You're sweet, anon.

I doubt I'll ever fully delete this blog and will likely pop in from time to time, but I have and will continue to take a major step back. Arguing on tumblr, while often enough cathartic, was still stressing me out enough that it was detrimental to my mental health in real life and was eating up time I could and should have been spending on Torah, work, friends, family, shul, mitzvos, hobbies, etc.

My most unproductive hobby is still more valuable than arguing with bigots who will never ever ever see me or my people as human. Unfortunately it took my personal life imploding to get me to realize that, but Hashem works in mysterious ways I guess 🙃

Ideally someday I'll be able to be here a healthy amount and post quality Jewish content again. I love the Jewish community here and have loved contributing (hopefully) positively to it.

In the meantime, know that I am working on some serious cheshbon hanefesh and teshuva in order to fix my relationships with my loved ones, my relationship to observance, my relationship to myself, and to Hashem. It might still be Menachem Av on the calendar, but it's already Elul for me baby, and that means pulling back from things I know will cause me emotional harm.

I will see you all occasionally, and in the meantime, do a mitzvah in my honor: love your fellow Jews more than they could ever hate us. We are family, at the end of all this.

[edenfenixblogs]

Look what Google just recommended to me!!!!

I already own (and love) Shabbat and Portico.

But I am OBSESSED with the rest and must acquire them immediately.

Top of my list is Love Japan because LOOK AT THIS BEAUITFUL BOWL OF MATZO BALL RAMEN!!!!!

We hear a lot about Jewish people in Europe and MENA, but we do not hear a lot about Jewish culture as it blends with East Asian cultures, and that’s a shame. Not just because it erases the centuries of Jewish populations there, but also because there are plenty of people of mixed decent. People who may not have come directly from Jewish communities in East Asia, but people who have a Japanese Father and a Jewish Mother, for example. Or people in intercultural marriages. These are all real and valuable members of the Jewish community, and we should be celebrating them more. This cookbook focuses on Jewish Japanese American cuisine and I am delighted to learn more as soon as possible. The people who wrote this book run the restaurant Shalom Japan, which is the most adorable name I’ve ever heard. Everything about this book excites and delights me.

And of course, after that, I’m most interested in “Kugels and Collards” (as if you had any doubts about that after the #kugel discourse, if you were following me then).

This is actually written in conjunction with an organization of the same name devoted to preserving the food and culture of Jews in South Carolina!

I’m especially excited to read this one, because I have recently acquired the book Kosher Soul by the fantastic, inimitable Michael J. Twitty, which famously explores faith and food in African American Jewish culture. I’m excited to see how Jewish soul food and traditions in South Carolina specifically compare and contrast with Twitty’s writings.

I’m also excited for all the other books on this list!

A while ago, someone inboxed me privately to ask what I recommended for people to read in order to learn more about Jewish culture. I wrote out a long list of historical resources attempting to cover all the intricate details and historic pressure points that molded Jewish culture into what it is today. After a while I wrote back a second message that was much shorter. I said:

Actually, no. Scratch everything I just said. Read that other stuff if you want to know Jewish history.

But if you want to know Jewish culture? Cookbooks.

Read every Jewish cookbook you can find.

Even if you don’t cook, Jewish cookbooks contain our culture in a tangible form. They often explain not only the physical processes by which we make our meals, but also the culture and conditions that give rise to them. The food is often linked to specific times and places and events in diaspora. Or they explain the biblical root or the meaning behind the holidays associated with a given food.

I cannot speak for all Jews. No one can. But in my personal observation and experience—outside of actual religious tradition—food has often been the primary means of passing Jewish culture and history from generation to generation.

It is a way to commune with our ancestors. I made a recipe for chicken soup or stuffed cabbage and I know that my great grandmother and her own mother in their little Hungarian shtetl. I’ll never know the relatives of theirs who died in the Holocaust and I’ll never meet the cousins I should have had if they were allowed to live. But I can make the same food and know that their mother also made it for them. I have dishes I make that connect me to my lost ancestors in France and Mongolia and Russia and Latvia and Lithuania and, yes, Israel—where my relatives have lived continuously since the Roman occupation even after the expulsions. (They were Levites and Cohens and caretakers of synagogues and tradition and we have a pretty detailed family tree of their presence going back quite a long time. No idea how they managed to stay/hide for so long. That info is lost to history.)

I think there’s a strong tendency—aided by modern recipe bloggers—to view anything besides the actual recipe and procedures as fluff. There is an urge for many people to press “jump to recipe” and just start cooking. And I get that. We are all busy and when we want to make dinner we just want to make dinner.

But if your goal isn’t just to make dinner. If your goal is to actually develop an understanding of and empathy for Jewish people and our culture, then that’s my advice:

Read cookbooks.

[mylight-png]

Hello. I have been really depressed these past three weeks. In over twenty years of my life I do not remember seeing as much antisemitism as I have in the past month. I am deeply disappointed in the world. I had a higher opinion of it, especially places like Europe, Britain and America. I had believed that when we said "never again", we really had meant "never again". But I was wrong.

It turns out, that our history, and history of Israel has been lied about and twisted into something unrecognizable in universities and mass media, and the world just allowed it to happen. It turns out, that when Jewish people are massacred, people still rejoice in our deaths, using new lies to justify their hatred than the ones they used in WW2. It turns out that the world hates the idea of a Jewish state, it does not want us to have a country of our own, and so will look for any excuse to disparage our state, holding us to an impossible standard that cannot ever be realistically achieved.

We were not given the chance to mourn October 7th. We were not allowed to do so. Almost immediately the world rejoiced, came out in these "Pro-Palestine" protests — even before Israel had retaliated. Called the horrific massacre "resistance". Victim blamed us with the fictional fairytale of "75 year old oppression". Dismissed our grief with "Yeah well but the Palestinian deaths—". Screamed "From the River to the Sea". These were the words we heard on the 7th and 8th of October as news of our people's deaths were reaching us in real time. How can anyone support this so-called "Pro-Palestine" movement after that? Are we still hated this much?

I have already lost someone I considered a friend over this. She started reposting antisemitic lies, calling us "colonial settlers", parroting the Khazar conspiracy theory about Ashkenazi jews (which I am), making absurd claims about how we weren't indigenous, and how Israel does not have the right to exist and how we should cede control to the Palestinians and then live in "their" state, under "their" government. Yeah, we have already seen on the 7th how that idea would go. I was especially disheartened, because she is a person of color, as a fellow minority, I thought she would know better and would know what it's like to be hated over something you can't control...

I still may lose another friend. Recently, she has written me "It looks like Israel is enjoying this! They used this as an excuse!" I have tried to educate her and she seems to have listened, but I doubt my words will be enough. I know where she has gotten these lies, with the mass media continuously airing unverified statistics posted by Hamas controlled institutions all the while sneering at every shred of evidence Israel publishes. I'm tired. I do not believe I can fight against this continuous stream of lies. I'm tired and heartbroken that this is happening to us again.

I always wondered how the world ever bought these lies about how we were responsible for Germany's economic crisis and how we controlled world governments. Now I know. Because it's happening again. Just with new lies. And everything we've seen in WW2: the marking of Jewish homes, the pogroms, the persecution - it's all happening. Again.

I'm sorry for this extremely depressing message. My father, my grandmother and I no longer feel safe in this world. And we feel silenced lest we become victims as well.

I have nothing to add to this, it is as if someone wrote out my thoughts and feelings for me.

I wish and pray for safety for you and your family in this time when safety is an uncertain luxury. We have outlived them before, we will outlive them again. We meant "never again" when we said it, and I know our community well enough to know we follow through.

Am Yisrael chai

[xclowniex]

I want to talk about allegations of jew face aka claims that someone is faking being jewish.

On one hand, people do fake being jewish. Last year, at pro Palestine protests, JVP handed out shirts with "not in our name" on the front and "jews say ceasefire now" on the back, to people at protests. Some of the people who recieved and wore the shirts were jewish, but there were also non jews given the shirts and wore them. This shirt is still available for sale on the JVP website. Non jews who wear the shirt are doing jew face, as the shirt implies they are jewish.

Then you have blogs like one which was deleted a few months ago, who claimed to be a jew but was actually someone from Iran. Whilst there are jews in Iran, the blog was claiming to be a Jew in the US. So safe to say, it was an Iranian psyop as they were antisemitic.

Conversely, there are many antizionist jewish bloggers who get falsely slapped with the accusation that they aren't really jewish. 10% of jews worldwide are antizionist or non zionist (someone who doesn't believe that countries should exist, and therefore believes both Israel and Palestine, along with every other country should no longer exist).

And it is actually disgusting when an antizionist jew gets slapped with claims that they aren't actually jewish. A jew is a jew is a jew. Someone's opinion does not strip them of their jewishness.

This post was something I have been wanting to talk about but the thing which motivated me to write it is a post I saw listing behaviors that if someone who says their jewish does, then they aren't really jewish.

And I agree with this in some capacity. A lot of those behaviors are indicative of someone faking being jewish, but no group is a monolith and there could be real jews doing that behavior. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to that poster and assuming they meant it as a loose rule and not hard criteria.

Some of the behaviors listed were people only saying they were jewish after Oct 7th, jews who post antisemitic content, and blogs which go beyond criticisms of Israel and is literally just xenophobia and that's all they post.

And yes, that are all things which jew fakers do. They only claim to be Jewish to gain a sense of being reputable. However I have spoken with jews who are really jews, who do engage in that behavior. Do I agree with that behavior (excluding claiming to be Jewish only after Oct 7th)? No, I do not. I think it's terrible. But does that made a person less Jewish? No. The reason I excluded the only claiming to be Jewish post oct 7th is because for some jews, being jewish wasn't something they want to advertise on their blog. Whilst I have said I was jewish on past blogs I've had, on this one, it wasn't till after Oct 7th did I make it known here. Which for those who never knew my old blogs, which would be everyone as I was cyberstalked by an ex and would delete blogs when my ex found them, it comes off as if I'm suddenly claiming to be Jewish post oct 7th.

There is also another claim commonly tied to claiming antizionist jews are fake jews, which is that antizionist jews must have no connection or limited connection to jewish culture. That they were either not raised with jewish culture or if they were, as an adult they no longer practice even secular judaism. And whilst again yes, this is true for some, it's not true for all.

There is a popular antizionist jewish blogger on here, which has spoken multiple times about how they practice jewish culture and religion. It would be stupid to deny it because of a political belief.

This post as ended up being far longer than I intended, so to hurry up and get to the point, I do not think we should fake claim jews unless there is hard proof that someone is faking being jewish.

Hard proof can be a person claiming prior to not be Jewish, if a blog is revealed to be a psyop, or if you personally know the person running the blog and know for a fact that they aren't jewish.

[tomorrowusa]

MAGA is really just a variant of fascism. The racist anti-Latino orgy of ethno-nationalism at MSG on Sunday has removed all doubt.

Dean Obeidallah at SubStack walks us through it.

Here is a sample of the hate buffet served up to the cheering MAGA crowd. 1.        Anti-women: Donald Trump again called VP Harris a "very low IQ individual." Tucker Carlson said to cheers if Harris wins she will be “the first Samoan, Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”  Grant Cardone, a businessman said VP Harris and “her pimp handlers will destroy our country,” obviously suggesting Harris is a  prostitute. -David Rem a person the campaign identified as a childhood friend of Trump, brandished a crucifix and called Vice President Kamala Harris “the antichrist” and “the devil” to huge applause. 2.        Anti-Black: -The rally played Confederate favorite “Dixie” before Black GOP Rep. Byron Donalds came out at Madison Square Garden. -“This cool Black guy with the thing on his head, what is that a lampshade? Believe this guy? Just kidding, that’s one of my buddies. He had a Halloween party last night. We had fun, we carved watermelons together,” said podcaster and alleged comedian Tony Hinchcliffe. 3.        Anti-Latino and anti-Migrant hate: -Referring to Latino migrants, radio host Sid Rosenberg declared to cheers that they are causing crime and that: “The fucking illegals, they get whatever they want, don’t they?!” -“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Tony Hinchcliffe. -“These Latinos, they love making babies. Let’s know that they do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They cum inside. Just like they did to our country!’ again Hinchcliffe. 4.        Anti-Arab/Palestinian hate: -Rudy Giuliani declared: "The Palestinians are taught to kill us at two-years old. There may have good people. I'm sorry I don't take a risk with people who are taught to kill Americans at two." He then declared to big cheers, “I’m on the side of Israel…Donald Trump is on the side of Israel.” 5. Anti-Semitism: -“You also know the Jews having a hard time throwing out that paper, you know what I’m saying?’ Hinchcliffe stated while mimicking holding money, playing on anti-Semitic trope that Jews are cheap. Before this MAGA event, some invoked the hate-filled February 20, 1939 Nazi rally at MSG billed as a "Pro American Rally" which featured a huge image of George Washington in between swastikas. After Sunday’s Trump rally, that comparison was no longer speculative, it was 100% accurate.

Yes, they even played "Dixie" – the Confederate anthem.

This event was held at a large venue in America's media capital with the intent of exposing as many Americans as possible to their message. They are not trying to hide anything. They want to make sure every last nutcake hears their words.

As David Frum via Charlie Sykes on SubStack observed:

This rally seems aimed at the crucial bloc of swing voters who like Donald Trump but worry that maybe he's not quite stupid and obnoxious enough. They need him and his team to squeeze out of the tube that one last plop of stupidity and obnoxiousness.

The stupidest thing for us to do is to freak out. Michael Tomasky wrote an excellent piece in The New Republic.

If You’re Being Fatalistic or Panicking, You Are Helping Donald Trump

It's way easier to prevent dictators than it is to get rid of them once they're here. So quit doomscrolling and do stuff in real life to save a whole lot of work in the future.

Volunteer | Kamala Harris for President

[dirt-apple-productions]

I wouldn't know for certain about the legitimacy of any specific person. There are scammers of course, but I find it silly to claim that every single one of the GFM fundraisers is a scammer, just because they fund for Gaza, which is what nerdylilpeebee was claiming.

As for “From the river to the sea”, I really don't think that everyone who says it is calling for genocide. Don't people also use it as a call for freedom? Though, I agree with your last point, No matter what Palestinian civilians believe, they don't deserve to die.

And do you mean yourself by a Zionist account? Maybe that person didn't know you were Zionist. I mean, I didn't know that and I have been following you for some time. I'm curious, what do you mean by being a Zionist? Do you support turning Palestine into a Jewish national state? Because if you think that some Palestinians wanting the state for themselves is genocidal and wrong, then isn't the eradication of Palestine and its people in favor of establishing a Jewish state also genocidal and wrong?

Sorry if I sound confrontational, I just want to understand your point of view. Please correct me if I misunderstood what you meant!

I’m answering this publicly so people can understand my beliefs a little better!

As far as “from the river to the sea” goes, I don’t doubt that people in the West mean it as a call for freedom, not a call for genocide, but that is not the origin of the phrase. The origin of the phrase is an Arabic term meaning “from water to water, Palestine will be Arab.” It is an intentional call for genocide. This is also true when you look at the Hadith that Hamas quotes in their charter:

The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews. (Sahih Muslim 2922, emphasis mine)

All Zionist means to me is that I believe the state of Israel should continue existing as a safe haven for Jews. That may not be what the term means to other people, but that’s what I mean by the term. The reason I’m suspicious of these so-called Gaza relief funds is that on their profiles, they are calling for the genocide of Jews, but then solicit a pro-Jewish and pro-Israel account for money. Now, I would give them money anyway, if I could be sure they were real. War sucks for everyone. I’m just saying it’s suspicious they ask when most people chanting “From the river to the sea” hate Jews, as well as their supporters.

I’m glad we can agree that human life is valuable, Jewish or Palestinian.

NOTE for the people who inevitably see this ask and feel like shitting on me for it: Any sort of harassment over my views will be ignored and/or mocked. You aren’t changing my mind on this issue, especially not that way.

[artist-issues]

Was wondering what your take on this was. I have a Christian friend who's very anti-media, like he never listens to non-Christian music (even then enacting limits on the artists) and he believes all films are evil and stuff like that.

I believe his rationale is that it's all anti-Christian, making arguments like "Thanos is a representation of God in the book of Revelation and the film is therefore about killing God" or "Superman isn't a Christ-like figure; he's an antichrist figure because he points people's attention away from Jesus, the real Christ," and stuff like that.

Speaking as a Christian myself, I feel like that's a very extreme take to have when stories can always have Christian values to identify and distinguish and that even if he was right, it does no good to isolate yourself from those stories or to assume the worst faith interpretation of them.

Anyway, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the subject. I know well from some of your posts especially that there are stories with very unhelpful or anti-Christian messages baked into them, but should we not still give those stories a chance? And is there not a much more forgiving line to draw before that point? If a story isn't directly and explicitly about the direct and explicit Christ, does it have any value?

Well. I had a friend who was kind of like that, too, and over the years he’s softened up on that a lot. Sometimes people get really zealous and have these extreme convictions and it’s okay, if they’re really doing it because they genuinely read Scripture with a heart to do what God wants, not a heart to find a set of rules they can follow and find self-righteousness.

I think there’s two separate ways to answer this ask. One is:

How to Treat Your Brother in Christ Over This

which is the most important part, for you, like it was for me with my friend, personally.

In 2 Corinthians 10 Paul is talking about this with meat sacrificed to idols. Technically, you’re free to eat that, even though to non-believers it means something else. Because to you, a Christian, you’re not under the old Law, so it’s not a condemnable thing to take what non-believers are using for evil and just…eat it. For what good there is in it. Because it’s meat. So there is some good in it, and you’re technically free to enjoy that good. But this is what the Word of God says:

1 Corinthians 10:19–33 - What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. And I do not want you to become sharers in demons.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?

All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but that of the other person. Eat anything that is sold in the meat market without asking questions for conscience’ sake. For the earth is the Lord’s, as well as its fullness.

If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything that is set before you without asking questions for conscience’ sake. But if anyone says to you, “This is meat consecrated to idols,” do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for conscience’ sake. I do not mean your own conscience, but the other person’s. For why is my freedom judged by another’s conscience? 30 If I partake with gratefulness, why am I slandered concerning that for which I give thanks?

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.

Paul also says, in Romans, “But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”

(emphasis added)

The idea is, your convictions should be in place because of faith. So if, in Scripture, your friend is finding something that makes him feel convicted that watching these movies is sinful or distracting from Christ, and he really believes that’s how Scripture should be applied—this is one of those areas where you just shrug and be gracious and say, “he’s trying to act in faith.” It would be different if Scripture clearly taught about movies or even characters. You could point to a verse and say, “dude, you’re misinterpreting Scripture,” but this is one of those areas where God left it up to our convictions. So we have to respond in grace, even if what bothers another believer doesn’t bother us, because it’s not a ���hill to die on.”

You can only control you. So obey God in how to respond to him, even if you don’t agree, and put him before you. If he won’t watch a Superman movie and it bothers him, don’t talk about Superman around him. Don’t invite him to movies like that. Consider him more important than yourself. If he can’t be convinced from Scripture that he’s free to watch that stuff and enjoy that stuff, don’t try and convince him. Just put his conscience in front of your preference for movies, on your list of priorities.

Maybe he is turning a grey-area into an area for self-righteousness. Or, maybe he is trying to live out his faith, even if it’s “extreme.” But the point is, you don’t know, and you don’t get to know. Only God knows. You just get to decide how to treat him.

BUT! I bet you’re already doing all that. I bet you already knew all that. And what you asked me was “And is there not a much more forgiving line to draw before that point? If a story isn't directly and explicitly about the direct and explicit Christ, does it have any value?”

So Part 2:

What I Think/My Convictions on the Gray Area of Valuable Stories

Stories can have Christian values if there is anything “Good” represented in them. It can also have Christian values if there is anything “Evil” in them. There is no such thing as “good” or “evil” in a movie like The Joker. So that movie I would say has zero Christian values. They don’t call what is evil “evil,” and they don’t call what is good “good” in that story. So I’m just agreeing with you that not every story or every piece of media has a “nugget of something Christian” that you can pull out. Only in one sense do all stories have a grain of God in them, and that sense is, “it’s a story.” The same way you can speak blasphemies, because God created the tongue and invented language and communication—that doesn’t mean He’s in any way reflected or has anything to do with your blasphemies. But you wouldn’t say, “we should at least let the blaspheming guy keep talking, because God invented talking.” God invented stories and storytelling. That doesn’t make all stories worth a chance. If that makes sense.

Anyway.

That being said, I do think it is rare for you to be able to decide that’s worth giving a chance… until you give it a chance. ^^ Like, I watched The Joker. Now I know it’s godless. So I won’t be seeing the sequel.

The main answer to this is: yes. I believe there is value in a story that is not directly and explicitly about the direct and explicit Christ. And here’s why, are you ready, here’s the reason I’m convinced, here’s the best card to play:

JESUS TOLD STORIES THAT WERE NOT DIRECTLY OR EXPLICITLY ABOUT HIS DIRECT AND EXPLICIT SELF.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is not about Jesus. You could make an argument that it’s got some Jesus-imagery mixed into the Samaritan character because of how selflessly and thoroughly he cares for others even though Jesus specifically framed the story like it was the answer to the question “who is my neighbor?” and it’s about “what a good neighbor is.” But hey, if you’re arguing, then guess what, it’s not very direct or explicit, is it?

Because that’s how stories work.

If I weren’t advocating for treating your brother in Christ with grace, if I were in my flesh right now, I’d say, “ask your friend if every conversation he has is directly and explicitly about the direct and explicit Christ. Is every single word “Jesus?” Is every single sentence about Jesus? Would you say all your communication is focused on Jesus 100% explicitly & directly? No? Then why does a storyteller’s communication have to be?”

Because that’s what a story is. It’s a uniquely compelling medium of communication. But it’s communication, that’s it.

I mean you know my understanding of stories. Stories are meant to be signposts that point you back to truth when you’ve wandered. Stories are meant to be a way for you to escape the specific imprisonment of bad ideas and lost wanderings, and you’re specifically escaping TO HOME: which is truth. Good ideas, and truth.

Well guess what? Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Every good and perfect thing is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights. If there is anything good, anything worthy of praise, anything excellent—we’re supposed to be thinking on those things, and associating them with Christ.

It’s almost short-changing Jesus or His relevance to say, “yeah there can be truth in stories but that truth doesn’t have anything to do with Jesus so it’s not worth my time.” What are you saying? He is the embodiment of Truth. If it’s true, then it’s His. In that sense. If it’s Loving, then it’s His. The idea of self-sacrifice, love, good triumphing over evil, truth triumphing over twisted-truth, is to do with Christ, because He invented those things and He’s their source.

My pastor likes to call this “plundering the Egyptians,” or “the world is tripping and stumbling into Biblical truths all the time.” They might not believe in Jesus but their story wouldn’t have anything worthwhile in it without Him. The writer of Beauty & the Beast might not be connecting self-sacrificial love to Jesus when she characterizes Belle, but guess what, she can’t escape it. Just because she didn’t make the connection doesn’t mean it’s not connected. You can’t say that all good and true things, even coming out of the foul mouths of humans, are no longer good and true simply because of the state of the mouths they come out of. Goodness and Truth is goodness and truth, and our brokenness can’t blot it out or stain it or ruin it. If it’s in the story, and it’s good and true, it’s good and true. Regardless of who we are or whether or not we attribute it to it’s proper Source.

Also, look at all of History. Jesus is woven symbolically throughout all of it, but He doesn’t ��directly and explicitly” write Himself into the story of the world until the First Century.

But He was telling stories that had pieces of Himself and the truth before that. And He’s been telling them after that.

The Global Flood? Mankind is so wicked that God utterly destroys them—but He saves a small handful of righteous with a Vessel that only has ONE DOOR that they CANNOT SHUT THEMSELVES? That’s a story about Jesus. It’s not “direct or explicit.” God wrote it, that’s called “reality.”

The lamb in the Garden? Adam and Eve have something perfect and wonderful, and they can be exactly who they are and who they were made to be, but then they ruin it with sin, so God makes a way for them to be covered and protected—but it’s with the sacrifice of a Lamb? That’s a story about Jesus. It’s not “direct or explicit.” But God wrote it into reality.

Caterpillars? Into butterflies?? God invented a creature that starts out as a low worm in the dirt, then it goes into a tomb-like, death-like sleep and emerges a new creation that is beautiful and flies? That’s a story about Jesus, I don’t care, it’s not “direct or explicit” but it’s what God wrote into reality.

If it’s true and good, then the good and the true parts are connected to Christ. And it would be cheating myself of more ways to consider where goodness and truth and beauty come from to say that His direct and explicit incarnation in human flesh 2000 years ago was the only way I’m allowed to be reminded of Him.

I would never say any of this to your friend unless they asked. Because it’s not gracious to slam your friend over something that Scripture is not directly commanding, one way or the other, about.

[gingerswagfreckles]

At this point the "Secret Zionists control the media" rhetoric is going way beyond the actual coverage of Israel. Reports of hate crimes against Jews worldwide are being immediately dismissed as propaganda, false flag attacks, and elaborate conspiratorial lies all designed to derail the Free Palestine movement and help Israel. All I have to say to this is: You people are fucking crazy, and very, very antisemitic. Jewish people globally are not faking the massive uptick in death threats and hate crimes we are facing. Jewish people aren't faking their own deaths and elaborately staging antisemetic attacks against themselves to make the supporters of Palestine look bad.

It's the same age old situation as we have seen in so many social justice movements infiltrated by bigots: If you actually hate Nazis and hate antisemites, why are you so committed to covering their hate crimes up? Why are you so committed to denying the existence of this bigotry? Shouldn't you be trying to distance yourself from this bullshit, be trying to weed out the Nazis that use the pain and suffering of the Palestinians as a vehicle of their hate?

But way too many people seem content to look away at best, and at worst, to actively perpetuate the narrative that Jews worldwide are coordinating a fake media campaign against ourselves to stir up sympathy for Israel. And it's antisemitism. It's textbook antisemitism. Some of you are lifting phrases and tropes directly from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and then getting angry when Jewish people around you doubt your sincerity about wanting to "punch Nazis."

Being critical of the media's slant towards Israel isn't antisemitic, but the way you guys talk about this often, often is. Zionism isn't just some word you can throw around to justify ignoring the growing wave of antisemitism. It's a specific ideology that seeks to establish and maintain a Jewish ethnostate in the Israel/Palestine area and is not what it is driving 99.9% of the pro Israel narratives you are reading.

The United States isn't backing Israel because the government is controlled by people who are oh-so-commited to Jewish Ethonationalism. They are funding Israel because they want to have an ally in the Middle East and a place they can launch nukes from if they want to. Any slant in the American media that exists is much more tied to the interests of those in power (who are OVERWHELMINGLY gentiles) than it is to the interests of some secret cabal of nationalistic Jews. The idea that "Secret Zionist Jews" have control over the narratives in the media is perpetuated by antisemitism, not reality.

When confronted with this fact, gentiles within the left are very quick to say that they are not accusing Jews as a whole of controlling the media, "just" Zionists. There are even Christian Zionists, they tell you! Maybe you, the paranoid Jewish person seeing antisemitism everywhere, are the real antisemite, since it's you who are conflating Jews and Zionists!

This is an extremely dismissive and disingenuous way to frame the very legitimate concerns and fears Jewish people are bringing up in regards to the narrative around "Zionist controlled media." The vast majority of people who are using the word "Zionist" here are using it as a synonym for Jews, and the argument that the loudest voices on the left are truly using this word to only target real "Zionists" is very very quickly falling apart.

If you don't really believe there is a secret group of interconnected JEWS controlling the media, why are you accusing random Jews worldwide of elaborately lying about hate crimes? Why are you accusing actual Jewish Pro-Palestinine activists of being double agents for the Israeli government when they speak up about antisemitism? Why are you accusing the ADL of working for the Israeli government? Why are you suspicious of every single instance of antisemitism being reported by unrelated Jewish people around the world, regardless of their connection or lack of connection to Israel?

Most importantly, why is the fact that these unrelated reports are occasionally making the news evidence to you that the media is controlled by "Zionists"? If you really did not believe that these media-controlling Zionists are all Jews, you would not be accusing Jews who have no connection to Israel of lying about antisemitic hate crimes that are making the news, and you wouldn't be accusing news organizations that are reporting on these unprompted, unrelated attacks of being Controlled By The Secret Zionists.

Insisting that you do not really mean Jews when you say Zionists control the media means nothing when every word a Jewish person says absout rising antisemitism is evidence to you that they are part of a conspiracy. The more you accuse random Jews of lying about antisemitism, the more Nazism and bigotry are allowed to grow and take advantage of the Free Palestine movement. When Jews start talking about this antisemitism, your reflexive response should not be to accuse them of lying, or of being a double agent only pretending to be pro-Palestinine who is really secretly an Israeli pysop. This is classic antisemitism and it is absolutely terrifying how many people are regurgitating it without a thought.

Not everything you read on the news can be blindly trusted, but the stories and people you choose to be critical of are telling when they start to create a pattern. At this point that pattern is very clearly NOT just "we are critical of the coverage of Israel, and of statements from the Israeli government." Its now quite openly becoming "we don't believe any news reports covering instances of antisemitism, and are suspicious of all statements or accounts provided by any Jews."

Please, please, please stop. For the love of God, slow down. It's very easy for bad faith actors to hijack righteous anger for a just cause to perpetuate their own conspiracies and hate. And that is very clearly exactly what is happening right now.

Jews worldwide are a minority group. A tiny, very hated minority group that is not responsible for what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinian people. We are facing a massive wave of antisemitic backlash over it, which is landing most squarely on the Jews in the world who have the least power, because those are the ones who are the easiest to hit. But we are not your punching bag, or the outlet for your anger over Palestine. And the immense suspicion so many of you are casting on all Jewish discussion of antisemitism is terrifying. We are not your enemies. We shouldn't have to beg you to recognize that, but we clearly do. The recognition that there is growing antisemitism everywhere, including the left, is not mutually exclusive to supporting the Palestinian cause.

And we are not. We are not. Controlling the media. Please stop accusing us of faking antisemitic attacks.

[usssnarfblat]

Did Anastasia deserve to die for her family's crimes against Fieval's family?

I've always found it interesting that "Anastasia" and "An American Tail" were made by the same guy...

My mom got us "An American Tail" as kids, since we were Jewish, and a Disney-like movie with Jewish characters was a one-of-a-kind thing. ("The Prince of Egypt" was still a few years away. Yes, I'm that old.) More to the point, my dad's side of the family is largely Russian Jews, who immigrated in the early 1920s, for exactly the same reasons as the Mouskewitz. Being a child of this background and very literally obsessed with cats, I had mixed feelings about the movie.

When "Anastasia" came out a few years later, Mom didn't let that history stop us from enjoying the new princess movie, but she didn't shelter us from it either. We regarded it like we did the real history behind any sugar-coated princess movie. She even got us some history books about the real Romanov family, and we were fascinated by the subject.

Still, it's an odd elephant in the room, watching "Anastasia" and knowing that her granddad was the one who sent those Cossack cats after Fievel's village, and her dad himself continued doing it to the Jewish mice who didn't leave.

"Go, Pompom, Kibble and Fluff-Baron! Kill those Jew mice, and I'll give you extra catnip treats tonight!"

Don Bluth presents both the Romannov family and their victims with equal sympathy, even opening both movies with the family celebrating a holiday, with the kid heroes getting a plot-specific present, before being viciously attacked.

"Wow Grandmama! Fieval and Tanya could use this as a merry-go-round!"

*Cough* "Yes uh, about those Jewish mice Sweetie..."

Bluth's portrayal of the Romanov family is not entirely inaccurate. By all accounts, Nicholas II was a deeply loving father who both doted on his children, but raised them not to be spoiled. Despite being royalty, the princesses shared bedrooms and did charity work at hospitals.

It's a baffling irony that Nicholas was nevertheless was a tyrant, and not remotely just to his Jewish subjects. When I was about twelve, Mom got me the Dear America book A Coal Miner's Bride, about the Catholic Polish immigrants who also fled the oppression of the Russian Tzar. (Anastasia's family conquered part of Poland in the 1800s, banning the Pols from speaking their own language and drafting their sons into the Tzar's dick-measuring contest wars.) Anyway, that's what my mom's side of the family was fleeing when they immigrated. Yes, my family has double reason to hate the Romanovs.

So, I personally don't have a lot of sympathy for Nicholas II. But the horrors his poor wife and children endured in their final moments never fails to get the reaction from me.

The rationalization for the murder of the children and queen was that it was the only way to ensure that the monarchy never returned. But I assume most modern-thinking people would say that the ends do not justify the means in this case.

That said, millions of families like Anetka's and Fievel's suffered as bad or worse than the Romanovs, because of the Romanovs, and no one remembers them because they didn't wear tiaras. This no doubt was another factor that killed sympathy for the Romanov children. But they were still children.

The question today is, if we can feel for a family that was literal royalty, despite their father being an undeniable tyrant against our own families...can we also feel for Palestinian and Israeli families, during a conflict that is vastly more complicated than Imperial Russia?

Or do they need to be cute mice and glittery princesses to get our attention?

[spacelazarwolf]

i keep thinking abt how that person said that my refusal to give them an answer was it and of itself an admission of guilt or proof that i had The Opinion I Wasn’t Supposed To Have, that by not disclosing to a complete stranger whether or not i “support israel” i was tricking people into supporting me when secretly i must be harboring these evil opinions. and it just speaks a whole lot to how a lot of y’all truly do not believe that jews are entitled to the same respect and protections that gentiles are.

“innocent until proven guilty” doesn’t apply to us because to the world we are guilty simply by virtue of existing as jews. if we really wanted the same rights and protections as real citizens, then we’d denounce our jewishness and assimilate. but since we won’t, then we clearly can’t be trusted. we can’t be given the benefit of the doubt. so there must be a new set of rules to apply to us, ones that will keep us in check and out of your way. we have to be tested periodically to prove that we haven’t betrayed you, that we haven’t succumbed to our treacherous nature. and every time, part of you almost hopes we have, because then you can say you were right to doubt us in the first place. if we fail your litmus test, and you do always make sure we fail, then you get to say you were right about us. that you were just doing your due diligence. it’s in our nature, after all, to be untrustworthy. and that bias is further engrained in the way you see us and interact with us, and every litmus test becomes less of a test and more of a formality until finally you don’t even bother giving it anymore. you’ve decided. every jew you’ve encountered has failed your test. clearly you were right about us.

[trykefag]

Hi.... :] before we get into this I wanna say one (1) thing: I'm pro-Palestine AND (shocker) pro-Israel. I'm hitting a hornets nest tagging this with pro-Palestine when how I view being for Palestine is so drastic to others' views.

Any sort of harassment or antisemitism will be reported and you will be blocked. We don't hate Jews or Israelis here. Also, if you tag this post with "to the river to the sea Palestine will be free" you're ignorant and dunno what the fuck you're saying.

This post is lengthy (imo) and just my personal spew on stuff, it's nothing like...revolutionary lol. I just need to get shit out somehow.

I don't get the anti-Israel crowed like....they know nothing and its so baffling they'll just say shit they don't understand the concept or history of. You can be pro-Israel and hate the Israeli government, you can be pro-Palestine while also realizing that the history is very convoluted and if you did a simple YouTube search about history on Palestine and Israel you'd be more educated. You can be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine...shocker I know!

I've learned more from YouTube than in history class. I've also learned that antisemitism is very easy to fall into, which is something I knew but didn't understand. Pro-Palestinians I don't doubt actually care, I'd love to think most Pro-Palestinians actually give a fuck about the murders that're happening! The downside is that they're falling and repeating shit the fucking Nazis would say in the name of activism and see NO ISSUE. (Saying "gas the Jews" and holding up Nazi flags is, even in the name of activism, antisemetic.)

I try and not be cynical, but like there's literal dog whistles and antisemetic shit being spoken about and there's signs being put up that says "No Jews" and there's even fucking Tumblr blogs with "Jews DNI" on them. (I've seen them, they're very much real. Most of them have "Zionists DNI" which is usually just a dog whistle to Jews, but I digress.)

Don't get me started on fucking Zionism actually, no one knows what the fuck that is and they claim they do when they don't. It's so brain numbing!

"Go back to where you came from!" that'd be Israel....which you wanna get rid of. That's also what Zionism is btw. Jews are from Israel...please Google things before you open your yapper.

I can only find solace in the Jumblr tag (& similar ones) because they have knowledge about what the fuck is going on and I won't get called a "Zionist Nazi"!

In the face of chaos I will say that studying and my plans to convert one day is the best decision I've ever made; you can't get rid of Jews, no matter how much you want us gone. Reading the Torah, researching about Israel, learning the culture, the food, the language, etc. It's healing and I'm glad to be coming home slowly but surely. Am yisrael chai.