#i know that a lot of jews will already know most of the jewish history i've shared but just in case i'm putting this in the jumblr tag

[fdelopera]

I’m Christian but want to challenge what I’ve been taught after seeing your posts about the Old Testament having cut up the Torah to fit a different narrative. Today I was taught that the Hebrew word Elohim is the noun for God as plural and therefore evidence of the holy Trinity and Jesus & Holy Spirit been there at creation. Is that what the word Elohim actually means? Because I don’t want to be party to the Jewish faith, language and culture being butchered by blindly trusting what I was told

Hi Anon.

NOPE! The reason G-d is sometimes called Elohim in the Tanakh is because during the First Temple period (circa 1000 – 587 BCE), many of the ancestors of the Jewish people in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms practiced polytheism.

(A reminder that the Tanakh is the Hebrew bible, and is NOT the same as the “Old Testament” in Christian bibles. Tanakh is an acronym, and stands for Torah [Instruction], Nevi’im [Prophets], Ketuvim [Writings].)

Elohim is the plural form of Eloah (G-d), and these are some of the names of G-d in Judaism. Elohim literally means “Gods” (plural).

El was the head G-d of the Northern Kingdom’s pantheon, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah incorporated El into their worship as one of the many names of G-d.

The name Elohim is a vestige of that polytheistic past.

Judaism transitioned from monolatry (worshiping one G-d without denying the existence of others) to true monotheism in the years during and directly after the Babylonian exile (597 – 538 BCE). That is largely when the Torah was edited into the form that we have today. In order to fight back against assimilation into polytheistic Babylonian society, the Jews who were held captive in Babylon consolidated all gods into one G-d. Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad. “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”

So Elohim being a plural word for “Gods” has absolutely nothing to do with the idea of the Holy Trinity in Christianity.

Especially because Christians are monotheists. My understanding of the Holy Trinity (please forgive me if this is incorrect) is that Christians believe that the Holy Trinity is three persons in one Godhead. Certainly, the Holy Trinity is not “three Gods” — that would be blasphemy.

(My sincere apologies to the Catholics who just read this last sentence and involuntarily cringed about the Protestants who’ve said this. I’m so sorry! I’m just trying to show that it’s a fallacy to say that the Holy Trinity somehow comes from “Elohim.”)

But there's something else here, too. Something that as a Jew, makes me uneasy about the people who are telling you these things about Elohim and the Holy Trinity.

Suggesting that Christian beliefs like the Holy Trinity can somehow be "found" in the Tanakh is antisemitic.

This is part of “supersession theory.” This antisemitic theory suggests that Christianity is somehow the "true successor" to Second Temple Judaism, which is false.

Modern Rabbinic Judaism is the true successor to Second Temple Judaism. Period.

Christianity began as an apocalyptic Jewish mystery cult in the 1st century CE, in reaction to Roman rule. One of the tactics that the Romans used to subdue the people they ruled over was a “divide and conquer” strategy, which sowed division and factionalization in the population. The Romans knew that it was easier to control a country from the outside if the people inside were at each other’s throats.

Jesus led one of many breakaway Jewish sects at the time. The Jewish people of Qumran (possibly Essenes), whose Tanakh was the “Dead Sea Scrolls,” were another sect.

Please remember that the Tanakh was compiled in the form that we have today over 500 years before Jesus lived. Some of the texts in the Tanakh were passed down orally for maybe a thousand years before that, and texts like the Song of Deborah in the Book of Judges (in the Tanakh, that’s in the Nevi’im) were first written down in Archaic Biblical Hebrew during the First Temple Period.

There is absolutely nothing of Jesus or Christianity in the Tanakh, and there is nothing in the Tanakh that in any way predicts Christianity.

Also, Christians shouldn’t use Judaism in any way to try to “legitimize” Christianity. Christianity was an offshoot of 1st century Judaism, which then incorporated a lot of Roman Pagan influence. It is its own valid religion, in all its forms and denominations.

But trying to use the Hebrew bible to give extra credence to ideas like the Holy Trinity is antisemitic.

It is a tactic used by Christian sects that want to delegitimize Judaism as a religion by claiming that Christianity was somehow “planted” in the Tanakh over 2500 years ago.

This line of thinking has led Christians to mass murder Jews in wave after wave of antisemitic violence over the last nearly 2000 years, because our continued existence as Jews challenges the notion that Christians are the “true” successors of Temple Judaism.

Again, the only successor of Temple Judaism is Rabbinic Judaism, aka Modern Judaism.

This line of thinking has also gotten Christians to force Jews to convert en masse throughout the ages. If Christians can get Jews to all convert to Christianity, then they don’t have to deal with the existential challenge to this core misapprehension about the “true” successor to Temple Judaism.

And even today, many Christians still believe that they should try to force Jews to “bend the knee” to Jesus. When I was a young teenager, a preacher who was a parent at the school I went to got me and two other Jewish students to get in his car after a field trip. After he had trapped us in his car, he spent the next two hours trying to get us to convert to Christianity. It was later explained to me that some Christians believe they get extra “points” for converting Jews. And I’m sure he viewed this act of religious and spiritual violence as something he could brag about to his congregation on Sunday.

Trying to get Jews to convert is antisemitic and misguided, and it ignores all the rich and beautiful history of Jewish practice.

We Jews in diaspora in America and Europe have a forced immersion in Christian culture. It is everywhere around us, so we learn a lot about Christianity through osmosis. Many Jews also study early Christianity because Christianity exists as a separate religion within our Jewish history.

But I don’t see a lot of Christians studying Jewish history. Even though studying Jewish history would give you a wealth of understanding and context for your own religious traditions.

So, all of this is to say, I encourage you to study Jewish history and Jewish religious practice. Without an understanding of the thousands of years of Jewish history, it is easy to completely misinterpret the Christian bible, not to mention the Hebrew bible as well.

[perfectlyvalid49]

On being Jewish, and traumatized (It’s been 5 months and I want to talk):

Judaism is a joyous religion. So much of our daily practice is to focus us on the things that are good. I know that there’s a joke that all our holidays can be summed up as “they tried to kill us. We survived – let’s eat!”, and you might think that holidays focused on attempts at killing us might be somber, but they’re really not. Most are celebrated in the sense of, “we’re still here, let’s have a party!” When I think about practicing Judaism, the things I think about make me happy.

But I think a lot of non-Jews don’t necessarily see Judaism the same way. I think in part it’s because we do like to kvetch, but I think a lot of it is because from the outside it’s harder to see the joy, and very easy to see the long history of suffering that has been enacted on the Jewish people. From the inside, it’s very much, “we’re still here, let’s party” and from the outside it’s, “how many times have they tried to kill you? Why are you celebrating? They tried to KILL YOU!”

And I want to start with that because a lot of the rest of this is going to be negative. And I don’t want people to read it and wonder why I still want to be Jewish. I want to be Jewish because it makes me happy. My problem isn’t with being Jewish, it’s with how Jews are treated.

What I really wanted to write about is being Jewish and the trauma that’s involved with that right now.

First, I want to talk about Israeli Jews. I can’t say much here because I’m not Israeli, nor do I have any close friends or family that are Israeli. But if I’m going to be talking about the trauma Jews are experiencing right now, I can’t not mention the fact that Israeli Jews (and Israelis that aren’t Jewish as well, but that’s not my focus here) are dealing with massive amounts of it right now. It’s a tiny country – virtually everyone has a friend or family member that was killed or kidnapped, or knows someone who does. Thousands of rockets have been fired at Israel in the last few months – think about the fact that the Iron Dome exists and why it needs to. Terror attacks are ongoing; I feel like there’s been at least one every week since October. Thousands of people are displaced from their homes, either because of the rocket fire, or because their homes and communities were physically destroyed in the largest pogrom in recent history – the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust ended. If that’s not trauma inducing, I don’t know what is.

And there is, of course, the generational trauma. And I think Jewish generational trauma is interesting because it’s so layered. Because it’s not just the result of one trauma passed down through the generations. Every 50-100 years, antisemitism intensifies, and so very frequently the people experiencing a traumatic event were already suffering from the generational trauma that their grandparents or great grandparents lived through. And those elders were holding the generational trauma from the time before that. And so on.

And because it happens so regularly, there’s always someone in the community that remembers the last time. We are never allowed the luxury of imagining that we are safe. We know what happened before, and we know that it happened again and again and again. And so we know that it only makes sense to assume it will happen in the future. The trauma response is valid. I live in America because my great grandparents lived in Russia and they knew when it was time to get the hell out in the 1900s. And the reason they knew that is because their grandparents remembered the results of the blood libels in the 1850s. How can we heal when the scar tissue keeps us safe?

I look around now and wonder if we’ll need to run. We have a plan. I repeat, my family has a plan for what to do if we need to flee the country due to religious persecution. How can that possibly be normal? And yet, all the Jewish families I know have similar plans. It is normal if you’re Jewish. Every once in a while I see someone who isn’t Jewish talk about making plans to leave because they’re LGBTQ or some other minority and the question always seems to be, “should I make a plan?” It astounds me every time. The Jewish answer is that you need to have a plan and the only question is, “when should I act?” Sometimes our Jewish friends discuss it at play dates. Where will you go? What are the triggers to leave? No one wants to go any earlier then they have to. Everyone knows what the price of holding off too long might be.

I want to keep my children safe. When do I induct them into the club? When do I let my sweet, innocent kids know that some people will hate them for being Jewish? When do I teach them the skills my parents and grandparents taught me? How to pass as white, how to pass as Christian, knowing when to keep your mouth shut about what you believe. When do I tell them about the Holocaust and teach them the game “would this person hide me?” How hard do I have to work to remind them that while you want to believe that a person would hide you, statistically, most people you know would not have? Who is this more traumatic for? Them, to learn that there is hatred in the world and it is directed at them, or me, to have to drive some of the innocence out of my own children’s eyes in order to make sure they are prepared to meet the reality of the world?

And the reality of the world is that it is FULL of antisemitism. There’s a lot of…I guess I’d call it mild antisemitism that’s always present that you just kinda learn to ignore. It’s the sort of stuff that non-Jews might not even recognize as antisemitic until you explain it to them, just little micro-aggressions that you do your best to ignore because you know that the people doing it don’t necessarily mean it, it’s just the culture we live in. It can still hurt though. I like to compare it to a bruise: you can mostly ignore it, but every once in a while something (more blatant antisemitism) will put a bit to much pressure on it and you remember that you were already hurting this whole time.

On top of the background antisemitism, there’s more intense stuff. And usually the most intense, mask off antisemitism comes from the right. This makes sense, in that a lot of right politics are essentially about hating the “other” and what are Jews if not Western civilizations oldest type of “other”? On the one hand, I’ve always been fortunate enough to live in relatively liberal areas so this sort of antisemitism has felt far away and impersonal – they hate everybody, and I’m just part of everybody. On the other hand, until recently I’ve always considered this the most dangerous source of antisemitism. This is the antisemitism that leads to hate crimes, that leads to synagogue shootings. This is the reason why my synagogue is built so that there is a long driveway before you can even see the building, and that driveway is filled with police on the high holidays. This is the reason why my husband and I were scared to hang a mezuzah in our first apartment (and second, and third). For a long time, this was the antisemitism that made me afraid.

But the left has a problem with antisemitism too. And it has always been there. Where the right hates the “other”, the left hates the “privileged/elite/oppressors.” It’s the exact same thing, just dressed up with different words. They all mean “other” and “other” means “Jew.” It hurts more coming from the left though. A lot of Jewish philosophy leans left. A lot of Jews lean left. So when the left decides to hate us, it isn’t a random stranger, it’s a friend, and it feels like a betrayal.

One of the people I follow works for Yad Vashem, and a few weeks ago she mentioned a video they have with testimonies from people who came to Israel after Kristallnacht, with an unofficial title of “The blow came from within.” The idea is that to non-German Jews, the Holocaust was something done by strangers. It was still terrible, but it is easier to bear the hate of a stranger – it’s not personal. But to German Jews, the Holocaust was a betrayal. It wasn’t done by strangers, it was done by coworkers, and neighbors and people they thought were friends. It was done by people who knew them, and still looked at them and said, “less than human.” And because of this sense of betrayal, German survivors, or Germans who managed to get out before they got rounded up, had a very different experience than other Holocaust victims.

And I feel like a lot of left leaning Jews are having a similar experience now. People that we’ve marched with or organized with, or even just mutuals that we’ve thought of as friends are now going on about how Jews are evil. They repeat antisemitic talking points from the Nazis and from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and when we point out that those ideas have only led to Jewish death in the past they don’t care. And if someone you thought of as a friend thinks of you this way, what do you think a stranger might think? Might do?

The Jews are fucking terrified. I’ve seen a post going around that basically wonders if this was what it was like for our ancestors – when things got bad enough to see what was coming but before it was too late to run? And we can see what’s coming. History tells us that they way people are talking and acting only leads to one place. I’m a millennial – when I was a kid the grandparents at my synagogue made sure the kids knew – this is what it looked like before, this is what you need to watch out for, this is when you need to run. I wonder where to run to. It feels like nowhere is safe.

I feel like I’ve been lucky in all this. I don’t live in Israel. I have family and acquaintances who do, but no one I’m particularly close to. Everyone I know in real life has either been sane or at least silent about all of this (the internet has been significantly worse, but when it comes to hate, the internet is always worse). I live in a relatively liberal area – there’s always been antisemitism around anyway, but it’s mostly just been swastikas on flyers, or people advocating for BDS, not anything that’s made me actually worry for my safety. But in the last 5 months there have been bomb threats at my synagogue, and just last week a kid got beat up for being Jewish at our local high school. He doesn’t want to report it. He’s worried it will make it worse.

I bought a Magen David to wear in November. At the time it seemed like the best way to fight antisemitism was to be visibly Jewish, to show that we’re just normal people like everyone else. Plus, I figured that if me being Jewish was going to be a problem for someone, then I would make it a problem right away and not waste time. I’ve worn it almost constantly since, but the one time I took it off was when I burnt my finger in December and had to go to urgent care. I didn’t think about it too much when I did it, but I thought about it for a long time after – I didn’t feel good about having made that choice.

The conclusion I came to is that the training that my elders had been so careful to instill in me kicked in. I was hurt, and scared, and the voice inside my head that sounds like my grandmother said, “don’t give them a reason to be bad to you. Fight when you’re well, but for now – survive.” It still felt cowardly, but it was also a connection to my ancestors who heeded the same voice well enough to survive. And it enrages me that that voice has been necessary in the past. And it enrages me that things are bad enough now that my instinct is that I need to hide who I am to receive appropriate medical care.

I wish I had some sort of final thought to tie this all together other than, “this sucks and I hate it,” but I really don’t. I could call for people to examine their antisemitic biases, but I’m not foolish enough to think that this will reach the people who need to do so. I could wish for a future where everything I’ve talked about here exists only in history books, and the Jewish experience is no longer tied to feeling this pain, but that’s basically wishing for the moshiach, and I’m not going to hold my breath.

I guess I’ll end it with the thought that through all of this hate and pain and fear, we’re still here. And we’re still joyful as well. As much as so many people have tried over literally THOUSANDS of years to eradicate us, I’m still here, I’m still Jewish, and being Jewish still makes me happy.

Am Yisrael Chai.

[germiyahu]

Republicans are absolutely 100% manufacturing consent for pogrom-like violence against immigrant communities, specifically Haitians. That is true. Haitians keeping their children home because of increased threats and harassment is a cause for alarm.

But seeing people already call it a pogrom... nobody has been chased out of their home, nobody has been murdered, nobody has been raped, nobody has posed with the bodies for grizzly photo-ops. I don't know, this all fits into the larger narrative of liberal~leftist apathy toward anti-Jewish violence, taking it and washing out its historic Judenhass connotations, and applying the term to anyone even when the conditions haven't been met yet. At the least, there's a lot about historic pogroms that the general American public just don't know about. They're not aware of just how brutal and swift they were. All it takes is a little education, but clearly it took me wanting to become a Jew to even try to learn more about Jewish history so I don't have a lot of faith in the vast majority of gentiles.

It's a complicated mix of emotions where like, it's appropriate to be nervous and scared for these communities, but I find myself annoyed that most of these accounts just don't care when entire Jewish communities are harassed and have libel spread against them. A lot of online leftists certainly didn't care, in fact celebrated, the October 7th pogrom!

Let's hope nothing escalates further, but it is not appropriate to just take terms from Jewish history, not understand the actual implications of these terms, and throw them at the nearest Republican politician. It's just like invoking Hitler. And when you also apply these terms to Jews, I know you are not operating in good faith.

[former-leftist-jew]

“Jews are willing to give up land for peace.” Bull fucking shit!!! Have you seen what’s happening to the West Bank??? Are you aware of how many Palestinians have lost their homes to Israeli settlers? In settlements that are internationally recognized as illegal!!! This isn’t just an Israeli thing either. Diaspora Jews are being recruited to move to the West Bank but Israeli real estate agents.

“We are NOT willing to bare our necks before the executioner's axe just because Islamists demand it.” But you expect Palestinians to bare their necks for the executioner’s axe because Israel demands it.

Jews are not the fucking victims here. I know Jews have been the victims of a lot of violence throughout history but the situation in Palestine is perhaps the one time in history Jews are the perpetrators.

I see you didn't read or watch a single source I gave to back up my claims, and didn't cite any sources to back up your claims either.

Since you're not going to bother to read, I'll keep it brief:

Are you aware of how many Palestinians have lost their homes to Israeli settlers?

And are you aware of how many Jews were violently driven out of their homes due to Islamic aggression after WWII--mostly in retaliation for Israel being formed?

Are you aware that Jews were living in and around the "West Bank" (historically Judea and Samaria) for centuries before Arab Jordinians invaded and violently expelled all the Jews living there in 1948?

Are you aware that most so-called "illegal settlements in the West Bank" are places where previous Jewish communities were forcibly expelled by Arab armies or militia, and many "Israel? (Or slaughtered, like Jewish community of Hebron in 1929?)

Are you aware that about 2 out of 9 million Israeli citizens are Israeli Arabs--most of whom are descended from Arabs who chose not to leave to make it eas

Meanwhile, most of Israel's current 2.2 million Israeli Arabs are descended from Arabs who chose not and annexed

But you expect Palestinians to bare their necks for the executioner’s axe because Israel demands it.

No, I just want them to stop attacking and trying to kill all Israelis/Jews already.

Like the so-called "moderate" Palestinian Authority's infamous "pay to slay" Martyr Fund, which incentivizes West Bank Arabs to attack and kill Israelis/Jews, since they get more money for every act of violence they commit against "the state of Israel."

Like Hamas firing rockets Israel non-stop after the latter completely withdrew from Gaza and effectively gave them a Palestinian state to run as they please, without Israeli.

Jews are not the fucking victims here. I know Jews have been the victims of a lot of violence throughout history but the situation in Palestine is perhaps the one time in history Jews are the perpetrators.

I want you to stop and think about that for a moment.

What logical sense does that make? "Yeah, Jews were victims of violent persecution throughout history, but THIS TIME all the evil things people say about you and do to you are totally justified!!"

a) Isn't that what antisemites say every time they attack Jews?

b) Have you ever considered that maybe the said extensive history of violent antisemitism might have contributed to Palestinian Arabs being complete hostility towards and refusal to accept a Jewish homeland?

For example: After the Ottoman Empire lost against the European Allies in WWI and ceded territory to the victors, France gained control of "Greater Syria" while Britain gained control of Palestine and Mesopotamia (now Iraq).

About the same time that Britain thought about dividing Mandatory Palestine into an Arab State for the Arab Muslim majority to the east and a Jewish state for the (existing) Jewish minority to the west...

France was ALSO dividing Greater Syria into a larger Arab State for the Sunni Muslim majority, and a smaller state for the Maronite Christian and Druze minority.

Yet, no one ever questions why Arabs grudgingly accepted a state for the Maronite Christian/Druze minority, but threw a raging bitch fit against a homeland for the Jewish minority?

No one ever accuses Maronites/Druze of "stealing Syria land!" but they do constantly accuse Jews of "stealing Palestinian land!"

Speaking of, roughly 3/4 of the original Mandate for Palestine became what is now Jordan, yet no one ever accuses Jordan of "stealing Palestinian land"?

IF NOTHING ELSE, I would like you to AT LEAST read this detailed and well-researched article about historical attitudes and treatments towards Jews in Islamic lands, and how those same attitudes and treatments carried over into the Islamic world's reaction to Jews emigrating to and eventually creating Israel.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

I am posting and responding to this ask anonymously as I don't want anyone harassing its sender. This has already been communicated with the person who sent the ask.

I just want to thank you for being a light in the darkness of anti-semitism, especially on this website. I have found I am on this site a lot less ever since it was made clear that other leftists here are more anti-semitic than we ever knew possible, using very specific wording of our own trauma against us (i.e. saying stuff like "colonialism", "genocide/ethnic cleansing", and calling JEWISH PEOPLE Nazis). It feels like, at best, they know Hamas ≠ All or even most Palestinians, but think that they think all JEWS = Bibi; and at worst, agree with Hamas and think of him as some sort of "freedom fighter". So, thank you from one leftist Jew to another, just trying to keep afloat here. ❤️

You are very welcome; it's certainly been overwhelming, and I'm glad this can be a safe space for you.

I do want to push back on some of this ask, though. Specifically in regard to terms such as "colonialism," "apartheid," "genocide," and "ethnic cleansing."

The use of these terms is not inherently anti-Semitic. For a lot of people, these terms are the best ones they have access to describe what they are seeing. I do think such terms as “colonialism” and “apartheid” are overly simple in regard to the last ~3000 years of Jewish history, and that they cast the situation into an alien historical context which dilutes and uncomplicates the all the historical realities at stake, but I truly do not think that all who use these terms do so to cause Jewish people pain.

Further complicating the picture is that terms like "colonialism" aren’t completely wrong. Modern Zionism arose in the context of mid-nineteenth century European large-scale movements towards nationalism (ie, the creation of nation-states) and away from the multi-national empire. Jews—a subject of anti-Semitism and fifth columnist suspicions within those emergent European nations—reacted to all this by joining the nationalism game.

What’s ironic, is that those European Jews who founded contemporary Zionism were reacting to the exclusion and racial hatred with which Gentile Europeans treated them, and then once they had some settlements in Palestine, they deployed similar variants of racial hatred at both the Palestinian Arab population, and Middle Eastern Jewry.

The existence of a distinct people and ethnic group in Palestine before the aliyot were not something the first generation of Zionists were concerned with. Because they were part of the same shitty, white supremacist, pro-imperialistic intellectual European tradition to which they were responding as victimized parties. As time went on and Zionist thought spread across Ashkenazic communities, we can see some variants. Some forms of far-left Zionism in twentieth century Poland, for example, actively built the presence and rights of Palestinian Arabs into their ideology, some of them actively stating that Zionism could not be a success if it necessitated transforming Palestinian Arabs into a group of secondhand citizens and a cheap source of labor in their own home.

Those leftist strands of Zionism tended to be Socialist/Communist in nature, and centered around the idea of life in Eretz Yisrael as one of a series of self-sufficient communes. Thus when the 1930s hit and things start to go bad, the Zionists we see fleeing to Palestine tended to be of the more centrist and far right variants. The left wing, socialist movements, already operating as a collective, had a membership uncomfortable with fleeing to safety while the rest remained behind.

And that same socialist/communal attitude, is why those variants of Zionist thought never made it into the Israeli political mainstream; most of their members and proponents were murdered in the Holocaust in part because they refused to leave their comrades behind. The General Zionists and Zionist Revisionists who rode out the years of the Holocaust in Palestine therefore already had access to the avenues of power which would become important in 1948, when the British Empire shrugged off its responsibilities towards the regions it colonized and destabilized.

Now, as for ethnic cleansing. I can’t sugar-coat this: that’s what the Naqba was. It was ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from their homes to make way for the Jewish State. The manipulative shit (but still somehow extremely prestigious) youth group I was in taught us that Arabs call it Naqba because they hate Jews and therefore existence of Jews in the Southern Levant was a tragedy, as was the fact that Hitler didn't finish the job.

That’s garbage: it’s called the Naqba because it was ethnic cleansing. And that's not the fault of the Holocaust survivors who made their way to Mandatory Palestine/Israel in the late 1940s--they lacked political power, and were often looked down upon by those who did; the Holocaust as part of Israeli National Mythology wasn't an immediate Thing.

If you spent your formative years around older Jewish folks of A Certain Generation, whose trauma has pretty much placed a permanent block on their ability to see some of what went down in 1948 for what it was, I can’t blame you for having that gut/cognitive dissonance reaction to the use of “ethnic cleansing” in the context of Israel and Palestine. I know those older folks. I loved them. They’re mostly gone now, and I miss them terribly. But their trauma-induced view of everything lives on in the ability of some younger Jews to properly name and understand what it is that happened in 1948.

It was ethnic cleansing.

Further, not only were Palestinian Arabs ethnically cleansed, but the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Jews who were forced by their governments to flee their homes of thousands of years and seek refuge in Israel throughout the second half of the twentieth century…the Western and Central European Jews in control of Israel and its institutions treated them like shit too. Hadassah actively stole the babies of Yemeni Jews, told the parents that their children were dead, and rehomed them to Ashkenazic couples. There were death certificates. Members of the Ethiopian Jewish community were forcibly sterilized, and their ongoing treatment by the State is racist and generally atrocious. And this analysis of the relationship between the Israel State, MENA Jewish populations, and different Ashkenazic groups in Israel is horribly short and overly simple.

As for genocide. I honestly don’t know. I do know many people, who are very much not Anti-Semites, who are calling what’s happening in Gaza right now genocide; many of these people are also Jewish. I know many others who refer to the experiences of Palestinians between 1948 and now as a slow genocide. Many of these people are also actively not anti-Semites, and many of them are Jewish.

So these terms, as uncomfortable as they may feel for people within the very specific Jewish generational background I believe we share, are not deployed as anti-Semitic weapons. Nazi comparisons? Yes. Swastikas superimposed over the Star of David? Yes. Very specific hook-nosed Jewish caricatures in relation to Israelis? Yes. Blood libel shit? Yes. These are all anti-Semitic, and are deployed to hurt and retraumatize Jewish people. But the rest are not nearly that simple.

And I didn’t learn this from like, Bad Evil Post-Modern Academics at Columbia University Who Hate Jews; I learned this from doing graduate-level work in the field of Modern Jewish History, and working in Jewish archives; this did not come from outside the building.

Now, as for Hamas as freedom fighters…that’s ignorant at best. Hamas’ charter clearly calls for the global destruction of the Jewish people [ETA: they edited this part out in 2017 for PR purposes], and their actions as rulers are horrifically, violently, homophobic, and seem to be more abut provoking Israel than they are about governing and protecting their people. But as you said, Hamas isn’t all Palestinians, and it’s also not all Palestinians who consider themselves freedom fighters. (A second reader of mine had the following commentary on this paragraph: "Might need a bit more complication around Hamas? I know that's not your area of expertise but it's worth mentioning that they were basically set up to undermine the PLO and what would become the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. You're right that they aren't representative of all Palestinian thought and resistance, and that they are on some fuck shit.")

So while I’m so glad that blog is a comfort to you, I encourage you to also take a step into some of your discomfort, and ask yourself where it comes from.

No one reading this post has my consent to use it to silence other Jewish people who are in different stages of their journey towards understanding how generational trauma has impacted their ability to grasp all of this. Further, if you choose to attack me for gently calling my people in, you're a piece of shit and I will be mean to you.

[etz-ashashiyot]

About Me/FAQs

You can call me Avital. I am a non-binary traditional egalitarian Jew living in the US. Any pronouns except they/them are fine. (!היא/את בעברית, בבקשה. תודה)

I really appreciate human interaction. That being the case, if you follow me and I don't already follow you, please send me a DM with the following:

What you want me to call you (internet name, username, nickname, whatever)

What brought you here and made you want to follow me

Something random about you that you feel comfortable sharing (pet pics are always welcome too <3)

I had a whole lot of other rules on my previous blog to weed out the faint of heart, but I genuinely don't know how well that worked, so instead I will simply put roughly the same information below as resources and recommended reading. Fair warning: I will operate from a baseline assumption that you've done the reading and therefore will not be explaining anything in them.

I also had a listing of my firm opinions and other miscellaneous information. That got long and unwieldy, but a lot of people seemed to appreciate it, so I will post roughly the same list under the cut.

The current username refers to my current symbol of a tree of lanterns in the starlight. This is related to my desire to create self-symbolism, old school style (like I really want to create a family crest, a flag, a seal, and other heraldic nonsense. Why? Because it delights me, of course.)

This page is under construction and subject to change at any time.

B'vracha,

Avital

Recommend Reading

For followers who are Christian, were Christian, are non-Jews who grew up in a Christian culture and/or have only learned about Judaism through Christianity, these links are very helpful in unpacking some of the antisemitism you were taught:

Better Parables (specifically the article about Pharisees, but read the rest of the site too, it's great)

Antisemitic readings of the Temple table-flipping incident in the New Testament

The current Israel-Hamas war and just המצב discourse in general require a lot of background knowledge to discuss intelligently, and not just propaganda. There is a LOT of antisemitism in the public around this topic and it is having serious real-world consequences for Jews all over the world. The mis- and disinformation is causing problems for everyone involved. Islamophobia in the West has increased as well. If you're going to engage in this discussion, I am respectfully but forcefully asking you to read the following sources. They are useful regardless of where you fall on that political scale.

There Is No Magic Peace Fairy

Ways to help: [1], [2], [3]

Muslim organizations advocating for peace, education, positive interfaith relations, and fighting antisemitism

This is perhaps my best summary of my own feelings on the whole thing

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that

Please learn what Kahanism is, because it actually is what people think Zionism is. Zionism is simply a desire for Jewish self-determination in our ancestral homeland of eretz Yisrael. Kahanism is a type of racism that cloaks itself in Zionism but is fundamentally bigoted.

A non-exhaustive list of antisemitic incidents, attacks, and pogroms during [OP's] lifetime

An exceptionally long and thorough explanation of antisemitism and antisemitic violence throughout history

Why The Most Educated People in America Fall for Antisemitic Lies by Dara Horn (tumblr link in case the article link gets broken)

This explanation of the atrocities endured by Soviet Jews and how the legacy of Soviet antisemitism undergirds western "antizionism-not-antisemitism." If you call yourself an anti-Zionist, this is required reading.

An excellent overview of the basics

This is nowhere near complete information, but it's an important start. I will very likely continue to add resources as they become available and would love to create a primer on this topic more generally.

If you don't believe that October 7th happened or wasn't that bad, or really any atrocity denial please read this article from a reporter who was shown the actual footage, as well as this article documenting its effects on him.

If you are still in denial about the pattern of gender based violence, sexualized torture, and widespread rape as a war tactic committed by Hamas on 10/7, you are legally required to read this article.

About the blog:

I’m going to try my best to keep this blog to primarily Judaism, comparative religion and theology, with the occasional side sprinkling of queer & trans stuff, BUT it is absolutely a personal blog at the end of the day.

I talked about Israel and המצב stuff a lot on my previous blog and will likely continue a bit over here too. I welcome a broad swath of opinions, so long as they objectively treat all parties involved as human and deserving of safety, stability, freedom, dignity, and peace. That is apparently a large ask these days, and a not-small part of why I keep talking about this issue. Please be part of the voices that give me hope for the future, okay?

Minors can follow and interact but please keep in mind that I’m probably closer to your parents' age than yours if you do want to interact with me directly.

Interactions:

Rude asks will be deleted. Harassing blogs will be blocked and probably reported.

I consider anything even remotely in the vicinity of trying to proselytize to me to be “harassing,” or at a minimum, rude. Just FYI.

Otherwise, nice interactions are welcomed.

Banter is encouraged; trolling will be ignored

If you are a goy and want to argue with me about Jewish theology, you have to match my perfect score on this popquiz, no cheating by looking things up during the quiz. I learned Judaism as an adult mostly through self-study so you have no excuse. If you're invested enough to argue with me you're invested enough to do the reading homework. (To clarify: I'm happy to explain Jewish stuff to anyone who is sincerely asking or just have a friendly comparative theology discussion or whatever. But I have zero patience for those who want to argue with me about basic shit claiming they know more than me, especially if what they're claiming they "know" is not only wrong but antisemitic and wrong.)

If I don't respond to your interaction, there's a strong chance that I (a) have no idea what to say and am thinking about it, (2) totally meant to respond and just forgot after the notif disappeared, and/or (3) got incredibly busy. It's not personal! Please don't be shy about following up with me if you like. I promise that if we have a problem that is fixable, you'll know. If we have a problem that is not fixable, you'll be blocked.

I am currently learning Ivrit and am delighted to have interactions in Hebrew. Please feel free to message me, reply to posts or reblog, submit asks, etc. in Hebrew and I will do my best to read and respond to it. (Responses will be slower, but not for lack of appreciation of your thoughts!)

Anything else, just ask.

Hard stances:

You're not going to change my mind on these things; I've looked at the evidence, my personal experiences, and thought about them long and hard, and I am not going to be swayed by an internet rando. I can (often, but not always) co-exist just fine with people who I disagree with, but if seeing my posts about this is going to upset you, just do us both a favor and block me now please.

I am deeply distressed at how many people are choosing to live in a "post-factual society" where the truth is based on truthiness vibes and the politics are based on the quippiest of slogans. I don't care who's doing it, misinfo, disinfo, propaganda, atrocity denial, and gaslighting are BAD. There is no nuance here; these are bad things. They are bad if they go against your cause and they are bad if they "support" your cause. No cause is better than the truth.

If we cannot have a discussion where we are operating from the same baseline reality of verifiable facts, we cannot have a productive conversation and I will not engage with you. We can agree or disagree on a lot and that is fine, but facts matter.

If you cannot be reasoned with in accepting verifiable facts as reality, you need help. I'm serious. That is cult behavior. Get off tumblr and get help.

I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people. If you don't see the inherent worth in other human beings' lives, I can't fix that. Go take that struggle to G-d and heal your soul.

I support the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our ancestral homeland of Israel, the same way that I support other indigenous groups' right to self-determination in their ancestral homelands. If you don't, I'm going to need you to examine why Jews should be singled out of every other group to be denied this right or denied support in seeking it. That said, I definitely do not agree with many of the decisions made by the Israeli government, especially (but far from exclusively) regarding their treatment of Palestinians. I think both Jews and Palestinians deserve to live in peace, safety, freedom, dignity, and self-determination for both. No one is going anywhere; any real solution must recognize that. I tend to favor this proposal by A Land for All as an ideal (and given the grassroots nature of this idea, I think it could work pragmatically too, if the political will exists on both sides.)

I reject the Zionist/anti-Zionist dichotomy altogether for a number of reasons: 1) It impedes conversation because too many people agree but will never know it because they refuse to talk about what they actually mean by those labels and instead make assumptions about the other group. 2) It inherently puts the validity of an existing state up for debate rather than looking at real solutions for the future. You cannot unmake the state of Israel without widespread atrocities, but you can figure out options for everyone to live together in peace and heal from the collective trauma. 3) It also makes it way too easy to play Good Jew/Bad Jew and "Zionist" has basically become the slur de jour for "Jew." It sucks that people took a Jewish word for an important Jewish concept and made it synonymous with "bloodthirsty racist," but personally I don't think arguing over that at this exact juncture in time is helpful.

Bottom line: I'm a humanitarian and a pragmatist, and I care about all the people who call that part of the world home.

Update: for real, if you have trouble seeing Israelis and Palestinians both as human and deserving of safety, dignity, freedom, and inherent worth as living human beings, I don't want to know you. I don't want to talk to you. Go fix yourself.

🌻 I stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦

Free Iran from the Islamic Republic // Women Life Freedom

Abortion is a human right and should be safe, legal, available on demand, and shameless. It's a necessary medical procedure and it's completely barbaric that we're still talking about it as anything else.

Birth control, abortion, and no-fault divorce are actively positive parts of society and building healthy families.

Transition care is healthcare and also a human right. Allowing people to transition prevents self-harm and suicide, and has an extremely high efficacy rate with an exceptionally low level of risk or regret. We now have well over a century of data on this.

That said, detransitioners who are still supportive of trans people/aren't transphobic are more than welcome here, as any exploratory process deserves the right to say, "Interesting! But nope!"

Transunity, ace/aro positivity, and just inclusionism in general, 100%. Fuck off with anything else.

Queer might be a slur in the mouths of some people, but my identity isn't. Don't reblog my posts if you're going to tag it with "q slur" or "q word" or censored in some way. I'm not Gay as in "I prioritize cis men over the entire rest of the community" but Queer as in "my personal labels are none of your business but my political stance on queer liberation sure as fuck will be."

If you don't vaccinate yourself and your kids for any reason other than medical necessity, and especially if you promote anti-vaxxer views and the associated pseudoscience, you are actively harming the most vulnerable members of society for entirely selfish reasons and that makes you a bad person. I hope your kids bypass you to get vaccinated.

Wear a mask 😷

[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.

[thecrazyalchemist]

I've recently seen a post on Tumblr that just, 'broke' something in me (for a lack of a better term).

So I just want to vent about it and another thing that's been bothering me.

(Disclaimer: this is a vent post. I am not an expert in the topics discussed. What I say is knowledge that I have learned from all kinds of places (school, history classes, researching for history projects, reading first hand written material from archives, and other places) and I don't have much the energy to compile everything source into a list (if I can even remember them). However, if you want to add, argue against, or argue in favor of something said here, correct me, you're welcome! Although, please act civil and cite your sources please. (I know I didn't and I'm sorry, but also please remember this is a vent post.) so anyways, here we start)

So, first of all:

Let's talk about Zionism. What does it mean?

To me, it seems that a lot of people think Zionism is something along the lines of 'racist bloodthirsty monstrous baby murderer and cold blooded killer and a rapist pedophile' since I keep seeing the word 'Zionist' in DNI lists next to 'nazis', 'pedophiles', 'minor attracted people', and other stuff like that.

I would love to hear what you think its definition is and I would love to hear where did you learn it, or perhaps any sources for such a definition.

Here's a brief recap of how Zionism was formed and what it is:

Zionism means the desire for Jewish self determination and self governing to exist/continue in the land/country of Israel.

It is an umbrella term, like the term queer, for example.

Zionism has deep roots in Judaism. A lot of practices and rituals in Judaism involve or are related to Israel. The name Israel comes from the name Jacob got from the angel he defeated, and after him the whole tribe of the Jewish people and the area are called Israel. The name Israel is in one of the most basic Jewish prayers - Shema Israel. Also, at the end of every pesach (Passover) Seder we say "Leshana habaa beyerushalaim habnuia" - next year in built Jerusalem. Jewish people have said so ever since the diaspora started.

Before the state of Israel existed, Zionism was about how to create and build Israel.

Three examples:

Political Zionism - create Israel by first getting a charter and international recognition and funding.

Practical Zionism - create Israel by first buying land, building settlements and developing the area.

Synthetic Zionism - a merge between the two movements above. Afaik most of the early political leaders of Israel were from that movement (for example, the first Israeli prime minister - David Ben Gurion).

Nowadays, Zionism is more vague. The reason for is that Israel already exits. The different movements on how to create Israel are kind of irrelevant now, because it exists now. The discussion on how to run Israel is perhaps what one may define as different movements within Zionism in modern time, however yet almost always when one says they are a Zionist, they mean they desire/want/believe that Israel should exist. That's it.

As such, Zionism alone doesn't say almost anything about the political view of the person who identifies as a Zionist.

Afaik basically 100% of Israeli Jews and around 80% of the Jews in America identify as Zionist. Under *this* definition.

Now because Israel exists, it's much harder to talk about different movements within Zionism which aren't basically political movements within Israel.

That leads me onto Kahanism.

Kahanism is an extremist far-right nationalist-racist religious Zionist movement (that I completely do not, I repeat: **do not** agree with). It was founded by the rabbi Meir Kahane, which believed that Jews should rule the whole area which was the kingdom of Israel in the days of the Tanach and should kill anyone who's an enemy of the Jewish people (which according to him, is basically everyone).

Here's an article that sums up some of my feelings about it in relation to the current events:

[https://archive.ph/2024.06.10-191347/https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-06-10/ty-article-opinion/.premium/forget-being-anti-zionists-lets-be-anti-kahanists/00000190-0228-d660-af95-6fbed3e60000]

Now on to the post that 'broke the camel's back', per say.

The post said “I think that all Israelis should go back to Europe” and that it would solve all the problems here.

Let's try to break down the sentence “all Israelis should go back to Europe”. That sentence implies that that's where *all* Israelis came from.

What's "Israeli"? Afaik, since Israel is a country, Israeli is anyone who has Israeli citizenship (and some may even add 'and/or everyone who was born here').

What's Israel's population demographic? According to official government surveys, Israel has around ~9.9 million citizens, out of which ~73% (~7.227 million) are Jewish, ~21% (2.079 million) are Arab and the rest ~6% (0.594 million or 594 thousand) are classified as else.

The Arab population of Israel (which has equal rights as the Jewish population in Israel) and the Arab population of Gaza and the West Bank originate from the same group of people. Some of them originate from Arab people who had been here for hundreds of years (since the empires age) and many originate from Arab immigration between the end of the WW1 and the establishment of Israel.

Even if you claim that the Arab population of Gaza and the West Bank are the actual indigenous population of this area (despite numerous archeological and historical evidence pointing otherwise, although they do have a long history here), you cannot claim that just because a person was born or even just lived on the other (wrong, in your eyes) side of a border they aren't indigenous to the area!

In Israel, there are also a lot of minorities who are persecuted in other parts of the middle east. Such as: Druze, Armenians, Circassians and more. They have to go to Europe too? No, just the Jews? Surely this isn't antisemitism!

And let's talk about the Jewish population in Israel. MOST JEWS DID NOT COME FROM EUROPE! There are Jews who came from diaspora in Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Saudia, Ethiopia and a whole lot other countries through the middle east, south west Asia and north Africa. They have to go to Europe too?

And that's beside two other important facts: first of all, the Jews are indigenous to the levant. We are indigenous to the land of Israel.

And of course, do you now what happened to Jews all over the world, and especially Europe?

To name a few very notable examples: *The Spanish inquisition*, Kishinev pogrom, Jedwabne pogrom, *The Holocaust*, what that happened in the Soviet Union and many more pogroms, expulsions and massacares. (There were of course also pogroms in the MENA countries, however *I* haven't learned about them. Two examples I am told is notable is the farhood pogrom and the Holocaust in North Africa).

All throughout history, the Jews were expelled and massacred from almost every place. You then expectus to just come back to those places as if nothing has happened?

You want us to come so badly. Can you prove that we are safe to come? That we *have a place to come to*? Because so far you haven't shown that.

That when you and the people around you see a Jew, you won't immediately turn them into the scapegoat of every problom you have and then rape and/or expell and/or kill them.

And also, how would that solve more problems than it will create? Exchanging around ~2 million refugees for ~9.9 million refugees? How would that help? And even if you only mean the Jews (which I can't see how it isn't antisemitic) it's ok cause it's Jews? (which is even more antisemitic)

So no, it would not solve any problems. The country of Israel won't go anywhere, the Jews won't go anywhere, because we don't have anywhere to go - we were born here and we are staying.

However, yes, just as well, the Palestinians will probably not go anywhere (*not talking about Hamas and other similar groups here*). The only way to solve the situation is to unpack and deescalate those decades of conflict and escalation and hate, which will take a lot of work.

[copperbadge]

Hi, please ignore if this is too personal, but as someone with Jewish ancestors who is considering conversion, I'd love to know your reasons for converting? For me it's more about community and reconnecting with that part of my family (there's a complicated family history there) than about religious belief, but I'm worried that might not be enough of a reason, if you know what I mean?

I don't know, I think conversion to Judaism is hard enough that if you don't have "enough" of a reason, you'll find out -- but I also think that one doesn't have to have a "sufficient" reason to convert to any faith which allows it, just determination and respect. If you want a connection to your ancestors and community, that's a very powerful motivation. And if it's not enough to sustain you through conversion, that's still a huge self-discovery for you, and while some practice should remain closed, you can still connect through things like traditionally Jewish foods and appreciation for Jewish art and culture.

For me, it's not that it's too personal, but it's difficult to vocalize; often when I'm asked about converting there's an assumption that I'm marrying a Jewish person, and when I say no, I usually add, "I just hear a call." Which admittedly is much more often said by Christians joining a ministry, but it's the most truthful I know how to be in short. Something in Judaism speaks to something in me. I have very little Jewish ancestry (although every time the DNA websites reevaluate their calculations it ticks up a percentage point, which is hilarious to me; I'm up from 2% to 6% currently) but the attitude towards the divine, the strength of tradition, the respect for learning, they all speak to my soul.

Even the hard stuff -- content in Torah or Talmud that I find difficult to reconcile with modern sensibility -- is at least something to challenge me, and Judaism is a faith that encourages argument, so I'm allowed to have a critical opinion of it. I think a lot about a quote I read from someone (possibly a reader, if so I am so sorry I can't find your name in my memory) who said, "I keep kosher, but sometimes I eat bacon when I'm mad at G-d." I think a lot about my Methodist confirmation class, where I was almost kicked out because I thought the Parable of the Wedding Feast was stupid and continued to argue against it after, realistically, I should have stopped; if it had been a class for a Bar Mitzvah, we might have been allowed to really examine it instead of glancing across it awkwardly and moving on. (As I found out years later, it was basically about how anyone can be a Christian but Jews should be punished for refusing to convert, so you know. Even as a kid I was very Jewish in my approach to theology and knew anti-Semitic propaganda when I heard it.)

I like that so many of the traditions involve things that I find compelling: bread, fire, water, the written word, the cycle of the harvest. I like that there's a search for truth and precision in Jewish scholarship, and that scholarship often seems to reward a neurodiverse approach to faith and study. As someone committed to philanthropy and versed in radical compassion, the exhortation to care for others baked into every foundational Jewish text is also very attractive. Some of the prayers I find viscerally satisfying (particularly the Traveler's Prayer, for some reason).

I find faith in a single divine entity extremely difficult, but one of the first things that got me to seriously consider Judaism (something I'd already been interested in) was being told that you can be an atheist Jew. To be able to commit to a faith community while still struggling with faith itself feels special to me. Whether a divine entity caused the miracle of the oil we celebrate this time of year is immaterial to me; the beauty of the narrative, the righteous rebellion rewarded with eight nights of light, is enough for me.

I might never finish conversion; realistically while I've done a lot of studying I still haven't worked extensively with a rabbi on a conversion path, and I do not call myself a Jew and won't until I complete conversion (I do observe a lot of the holidays and prayers, but mainly because that's generally advice to converts, so they can understand the demands of the faith and the myriad issues with being Publicly Jewish). But that's fine too; Judaism has been around for thousands of years, it'll wait for me, and if I never convert I'm still enjoying the journey.

[hilacopter]

You say ur a zionist depending on the definition but you believe jews are indigenous to the levant? That is the definition why don't you just call urself a zionist

see the thing is I genuinely think a lot of the whole zionism controversy mostly stems from a giant stupid misunderstanding and people not being properly informed. me telling someone I'm a zionist can either give them the right idea or the completely wrong idea.

let me paint a picture for you: a self-identified zionist and a self-identified anti-zionist walk into a bar. the zionist thinks the definition of zionism is wanting a Jewish state in the Levant, they want peace and a two-state solution. the anti-zionist thinks zionism is kahanism, they want peace and a two-state solution. "are you a zionist?" the anti-zionist asks, "yes" the zionist answers, and they immediately get into an argument. "anti-zionism is antisemitism!" the zionist shouts, "zionists are fascists!" the anti-zionist yells. of course this could all have blown over peacefully if they had asked eachother what zionism is, but why would they need to? what else could the word possibly mean?

I respect people on this site who identify as zionists, providing of course their meaning is wanting Jewish self-determination and not denying the right to Palestinian life and self-determination alongside us (remember I'm literally saying all this as an Israeli, if anyone wants Jewish self-determination in Israel it's me because my life quite literally depends on it). but I feel like they create a lot of unnecessary conflict for themselves by identifying as such and in most cases not explicitly stating what they mean by zionism. I know there's the desire to make dumb people understand the actual definition of the word, but with how much the misconceptions have already been set in stone I think it's a battle we cannot win.

there's more to all this though, buckle up for a pretty long post because I have a lot to say which I won't religate to the tags for once. first of all, I genuinely think a lot of anti-zionists, especially on the younger side (saying this as a minor myself), do not even have a solid definition of zionism in their head. they just see all of their peers shitting on it and follow along, making up whatever zionism means in their head along the way. since in leftist spaces it's not very acceptable to actually ask about the cause, why everyone is doing what they're doing. you have to take everything for granted, after all you wouldn't want to look uneducated by not knowing what zionism is! (this aspect of leftism 100% comes from cultural christianity btw)

there are also many anti-zionists who, at least to some extent, do know zionism means self-determination of Jews in the Levant and wanting Israel to exist. a lot of which think Israel is a white colonizer state, unaware of the history of the region, how more than there are ashkenazi Jews in Israel there are mizrachi Jews expelled from Arab nations, and are unaware of Jewish indigeneity to the Levant. how this land was originally Judea, only renamed Syria-Palaestina after being conquered from us and having most of us expelled. unfortunately the vast majority of pro-pal activists are very much simply jumping on the trendy train, not bothering to actually do their own research about the history of this insanely complex conflict and simply know everything by word of mouth from other equally uneducated leftists. I do think a lot of these people genuinely just don't know and aren't actively denying Jewish history on purpose, I've had like two cases happen where I told anti-zionists of this sort about Jewish indigeneity to the Levant and they just went "really? I had no idea". but of course for every person like that, there will be a person who will double down and dismiss it as propaganda, a myth and a fairytale. those people can go fuck themselves, clinging desperately to their half-assed worldview rather than willing to own up to being wrong and better themselves. denying Jewish history. or in a rare case of exceptional shittiness an anti-zionist can view zionism as wanting Jewish self-determination in the Levant and know that Jews are indigenous, yet still choose to identify as an anti-zionist by that definition for what can be a myriad of horrible reasons, usually complete tride and true antisemitism.

so in conclusion, I don't identify as a zionist outright until I know what kind of anti-zionist is asking me the question. is it an anti-zionist who just wants peace as much as I do, or is it an anti-zionist who wants me and my family dead? I've had people call me a zionist, non-zionist, anti-zionist and I don't really know what to expect each time. I feel like this approach leaves the most room for me to open good faith discussions with people and educate them on the subject as someone who actually knows xir shit, more than the average pro-pal at least, rather than having them immediately dismiss me as whatever definition of a zionist they have. not that good faith discussions are easy to have with people on tumblr dot com, and really online in general, but I'd rather have the option in the rare case of an actual open-minded individual who is willing to listen to Jews and better themself.

[dalishious]

Hi Lydia-Marc!

I want to reach out to you because of something you posted. Usually when I reach out like this, I get blocked, I’m hoping you’ll be willing to listen.

You said that “Zionism is a colonial movement that supports building an ethno-national state for Jewish people on top of Palestine, by any means necessary.” And then linked to Al Jazeera as proof.

I want to start by pointing out that Al Jazeera is the state media of Qatar, a nation that in its state approved textbooks teaches that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a debunked soviet antisemitic conspiracy theory) are true, as well as teaching that Jews are evil, and that the holocaust isn’t real/the holocaust was actually a Jewish plot to further their nefarious goals (https://efile.fara.gov/docs/3492-Informational-Materials-20200917-70.pdf). I am asking that you acknowledge that if that is what’s in state run textbooks, then the state media outlet might also be biased against Jews.

What you state Zionism is sound more like Kahanism (https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-meir-kahane-the-extremist-kahanist-movement ), a movement that most Jews (and most Jews – about 80-90% depending on the survey – are Zionist) thoroughly denounce. The founder and his political party were actually banned from participating in the Israeli government because most Jews found the movement so disgusting.

Zionism is actually a land back movement that supports self-determination for Jews in their ancestral homeland. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism ) A lot of leftists have decided to try to change the definition of the word into something more like what you said, but it’s a Jewish word to describe a Jewish movement, and non-Jews don’t get to define our words for us.

Applying a colonizer/colonized lens to the area is not really useful, but if you must, then please recognize that we have archeological evidence of Jews in the southern Levant going back over 3000 years (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/opinion/jewish-history-israel.html ), genetic evidence that even the whitest looking Ashkenazi Jews have middle eastern genetic markers (https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.100115997 ), and written evidence from Rome talking about the Jews living in the area. In fact, we have maps showing that the area that is now called Palestine, used to be called Iudea (https://www.worldhistory.org/image/269/map-of-the-roman-empire-in-125-ce/ ) prior to Rome conquering the area, extracting its wealth, and taking the native, Jewish, population as slaves back to the empire (https://www.worldhistory.org/The_Bar-Kochba_Revolt/ , https://www.britannica.com/event/Siege-of-Jerusalem-70 ). The people who identify as Palestinian are the descendants of the people who filled the void left by Rome’s abduction of the Jews, and the descendants of the actual colonizers from the Arabian peninsula who showed up hundreds of years after the majority of Jews had already been evicted. The area has been colonized repeatedly, just not the way you claim.

I, personally, as a Zionist, am in favor of a two state solution, and I know many other Zionists that feel the same way. Palestinians have been living on the land a long time, and should have a state, but there is no denying that the area is the Jewish homeland, and they should be allowed a state of their own as well. It is frustrating to see so many people decide that self-determination (a human right!) is something that should be denied to the Jews, simply because they were conquered so long ago that everyone considers the colonizer’s presence to be “normal.” Apparently, somewhere along the line, Jewish indigeneity expired.

I hope you’re still reading this. I hope you’re willing to listen. If you have any questions, or want to discuss this further, I’m happy to talk.

Anyway,

[matan4il]

Idk if you know who Noah Schnapp is but I feel so sad for him. He seems like a sweet kid and The internet has been sending him death threats and trying to get him fired because he’s pro Israel/anti Hamas. Noah is gay and Jewish the two groups Hamas hates the most of course he’s not gonna support them

Hi Nonnie!

I do know who Noah is. I think he seems like a nice guy, I was really happy for him when he was able to come out as gay, and get such a positive reaction, first from his family, then from the public.

He visited Israel back in July, almost 3 months before Oct 7, and already he was getting attacked simply for that. I think it's SICK in the worst way possible, that Jewish people are getting harassed for even simply visiting their ancestral land, and it's the kind of racism we wouldn't see turned on ANY other marginalized group in the US. Kids of Mexican descent don't get attacked simply for visiting Mexico, African Americans don't get vilified for visting Africa, no matter what people think of these countries. It's anti-Jewish racism to do this to Jews, and it should be loudly called out and condemned. Noah was brave to post about this visit, he was brave to explicitly say he had never felt as alive as he did visiting his ancestral land, and getting to know fellow young Jews here, but he shouldn't have to be.

By now, however, as the attacks on him intensified since Hamas' massacre, and Noah's continued support for Israel, of native Jewish rights in our land, and calling out Hamas for being the vile organization they are (you're right, it is vile to Jews AND to gay people. In fact, it's an organization that should be vile to ANYONE who claims to care about human rights), he's deleted most of his posts from his visit here on his IG, only one remains, and he removed the caption for that one, which is that one that IIRC said he's never felt more alive. Now there's no caption, and it's still apparently taking a lot out of him to simply keep it up on his account.

He did try to backtrack, IDK to what a degree he might have been pressured to. He's certainly not the first Jewish celeb I've seen having to do that, and later admitting they were motivated by fear and harssment. The "kind" anti-Israel crowd is definitely implying Noah is only doing it due to Stranger Things' new season which is about to be released. I'm afraid whatever the reason, he's about to find out that if the antisemites can't tokenize you to use you against other Jews, then you're forever a "bad Jew," and nothing you say will ever change that. On the way, I guess he'll disappoint many Jewish followers, who looked up to him when he was one of the few celebs, even more so one of a handful of young celebs, to stand by Israel. The anti-Israel crowd claims to be persecuted, silenced and bullied, but as far as I can tell, especially with young people like him, they're the ones doing the persecuting, silencing and bullying. I'm really saddened that he felt he had to backtrack his support of Israel, to a great degree because it tells me just how severe the attack and pressure on him must be, and I just don't want any Jew to suffer.

But this actually brings me to another, maybe more important point: just because celebrities have a bigger stage than the rest of us, it doesn't mean they know more about politics than others. If Noah, as a Jew, could safely speak about his experiences as a young Jewish man, I think that would be fantastic, just like I think it's great whenever a queer celeb comes out of their own accord and shares some of their experiences. It's a really sad thing to realize that in 2024, it's safer to talk about being gay, and to speak up for gay rights, than to be Jewish and speak against antisemitism, or about Jewish experiences, or for Jewish rights. But beyond sharing personal experiences, celebrities don't understand a conflict as complex as the Israeli-Arab one, and with as much history as this one has, more than the average Tiktoker. Neither one is an authority, and neither one should be who people go to for their political views. The fact that people look at Tiktokers as any kind of authority, or have expectations from celebs regarding political views and bully them for the "wrong" ones (based on what Tiktokers said) is a part of what has gone horribly wrong with modern society.

The internet was supposed to help us fight misinformation through the availability of facts. Instead, we see repeatedly how what is true falls prey to what is viral.

Sending big hugs, and I hope you're doing good! xoxox

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

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Ok I lost the post so I can’t confirm that these all haven’t been said already but I’m trying to say new ones! These are some things that I know about Judaism and Jewish culture as a gentile who has always lived on the US west coast (I didn’t know a single Jewish person growing up bc I went to catholic school. My partner is Jewish now. He isn’t practicing but the culture means a lot to him)

Bagels, challah, matzo, and latkes are all delicious Jewish foods

Prayers are said before meals (I have been invited to pray with my partner’s family!)

There is a list of 613 rules (mizvots?) but the exact interpretation varies based on translation

Many dietary restrictions are based on hygiene and health, such as not eating scavenger animals

Other dietary restrictions are a bit more curious to me, such as not eating dairy with meat. Many involve not consuming an animal with its offspring (like not taking the bird when you take its eggs, not consuming an animal cooked with its mother’s milk)

A glass is stepped on during weddings

Although there is a heavy emphasis on what is physically clean or unclean and the state of the body, Judaism, in contrast with many branches of Christianity, is less concerned with the “purity” of thoughts and more with actions. Whereas Christians are made to feel guilty for things like questioning faith, these types of thoughts may even be encouraged in Judaism

Similarly, certain concepts regarding the spiritual may differ a lot amongst Jewish people, such as beliefs about the afterlife

Passover is generally considered the most important holiday, but I hear Jewish new year is the most fun! If invited by a Jewish loved one, Gentiles are typically welcome to participate

I could try to pull out a lot more regarding faith, history, and culture, but I feel a lot less confident about it and don’t want to get it wrong. Correct me if any of these are wrong! I’m eager to learn and always enjoy spending time with partner’s family so I can learn more. They’re all always so happy to talk to me about being Jewish and what it means for them (:

Matzo is gross imho but everything else is correct

That again depends on the household

Correct and we are allowed to violate all but three to save a life

Of don't eat shellfish which was hard to cook back then

Yes what it symbolizes depends on sect (the wedding I saw in gritty 1920s silent film the rabbi said it was to acknowledge the broken world before the coming of the messiah)

I explain it as either sins are grave enough punished by exile (or smiting) or that's between that Jew and G-d. There is no original sin or christian guilt in Judaism

We JUST had a conversation between Jews, Christians and Atheists about our beliefs (or lack thereof) on the afterlife

Passover is very important but so is Rosh Hashanah- Yom Kippur. Just as there are Christians who only go to church on Easter and Christmas so are there Jews that only go to Synagogue on Passover and Rosh Hashanan

[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.

[spacelazarwolf]

Seeing how you're responding to a lot of insensitive asks from Christians, I was wondering if I could ask a good faith question as a change of pace?

I am religiously a liberal quaker, so one of the most important things to me spiritually is learning about how other people engage with god/their higher power. By listening to their experiences and making a strong effort to understand their perspective, I feel more connected with God and my community. Specifically, I want to learn how individuals engage in their faith and not just the "by the book, this is what x religion believes" you find online.

I've always had a deep respect for Judaism, and I want to approach the people in my circle and try to have those good faith learning experiences if they are willing, especially since the Jewish faith is so rare where I live.

Unfortunately, with a lot of my ethos and language being derived from Christ (even if I'm not a christian), it makes it feel like a minefield to even start the conversation. I'm queer, and the man who raised me was native American. I'm very aware of how being connected to Christianity, even only tangentially, will immediately raise red flags for people. And for good reason.

So, how do I disarm myself? I want to hear people's stories, I want to know the Light in them because I truly wish to love and understand them as they are. How do I approach and ask for consent for such a thing without it feeling like I'm waving a torch in their face?

i would start with gauging your level of awareness and education when it comes to general jewish stuff like history and practices and holidays. if you want to get more into the nitty gritty with hearing people's stories you'll need that foundation first if you really want to understand them. there's tons of books, websites like myjewishlearning, and you could even try contacting a rabbi and asking for an in person or phone appointment with them to ask some questions and get some suggestions for what resources to use. once you have that foundational level of understanding of judaism and the jewish people, it'll be much easier to talk to jews about more personal things.

in terms of actually approaching people, if they're your friends, then hopefully they already have a good idea of what kind of person you are and if they're comfortable sharing with you. if you don't know them as well, make sure you're not just going into the encounter with the goal of "learn jew stuff" and that's it. they're whole people, and you don't want to treat them like a jewish encyclopedia.

we can usually tell when someone is being genuine and when someone has weird or bad motives, so as long as you're respectful and honest about what you want from the conversation, and maybe share a bit of yourself as well, most of us are happy to talk about it.

also quakerism and quakers have always seemed very cool to me. i heard it's much more about a way of life instead of a set faith, which feels a lot like judaism to me. also y'all have the public universal friend so u r winning.

[edenfenixblogs]

Well, tuned into the Drawfee stream...

I promised I'd check it out before determining if I'd ever be able to give Drawfee another chance after this...

Verdict TL;DR: Maybe one day, but not in the foreseeable future, especially not streams. Certainly never through my financial support ever again, unless they are fundraising for a particularly worthy charity (like in the Trans Rigs stream). But luckily, I don't think they give a shit if I watch or not, which is totally fair.

Overall: The Drawfee YouTubers didn't do anything wrong. However, their lack of acknowledgement of any Jewish pain or concerns served to further digital ghettoization and social isolation of diaspora Jews in a way that many (but definitely not all) Jews will probably find painful. Between that and the really bad faith link-sharing from the mods, I'm personally too fragile to imagine engaging with the channel again.

This conclusion is geared toward fellow Jews seeking escapist content or content that doesn't make them feel erased during this time. This is not a prescriptive recommendation for anyone else. It is simply my reasoning, should anyone else be on the fence and need insight.

The Good (There was a lot of it!):

I didn't see any Drawfee folks parroting antisemitic conspiracy theories, which is good. An extremely low bar, but one that many, many people fail to clear.

They kept their tone fun and light and didn't turn anything into a diatribe

They kept their focus on humanitarian aid and an end to violence.

I think they made a few statements generally about keeping chat civil.

They kept chat limited to people who already subscribed to the channel, which was SO smart. It kept bots and bad actors from making the chat hostile.

While they all joked about silly stuff, they never jokes about real issues or the pain of anyone involved in the conflict. This is very important!!!

Chat in general was a very good place to hang out. Most people were just happy to be there and commenting about funny and fun art and it had the (mostly) typical Drawfee vibes, which I miss.

There was nothing performative or disingenuous about the team's intent: They wanted an end to violence. They wanted aid to reach Palestinian refugees. They wanted to encourage voter turnout in upcoming elections, and they wanted people to pressure their representatives to call for a ceasefire. These are all unambiguously good things.

Most importantly: They raised WELL over $100,000 for PCRF, which (despite not being totally perfect) is a very well-rated charity that has no history of its funds falling into Hamas' hands and is geared toward helping children. This matters much more overall than the stream's impact on me personally.

Ultimately, I believe the stream did more good than harm by a large margin.

The Iffy (Neither good nor bad; just things that I noticed):

Basically, none of the actual Drawfee crew did anything antisemitic that I saw. But they had a lot of missed opportunities -- to affirm solidarity and support with Jewish viewership, to acknowledge Jewish pain in any way, to advocate for a peaceful solution that left room for any negotiated peace between Jews in Israel and Palestinians in any capacity (whether that meant as Israel or as a newly formed state of some kind), or to be specific and directed in how they wanted people to approach a ceasefire.

I didn't hear any call to specifically keep the chat free of antisemitism. I tuned in a few minutes late, so maybe I missed it.

No substantial knowledge of the conflict demonstrated. Just that the current situation is unacceptable and should stop. I don't know anyone who disagrees with that (who I consider to be acting in good faith), but no language from the team about how to bring about that end to violence other than demanding a ceasefire.

Mods had a chance to add links to AllMEP charities, A Land for All, and some other Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli and Muslim-Jewish charities that support either inter-faith healing OR even just solely pro-Palestine charities that have inter-faith or inter-cultural backing. They did not add these to the shared links that I saw. (This would have been fine if they had a rigorous evaluation process and couldn't moderate and evaluate quality at the same time. But based on the links that WERE shared, I severely doubt that was the case)

Someone in the chat was repeatedly giving the very good advice that when writing your representatives to demand a ceasefire, you should demand that the US offer to facilitate a negotiated peace and permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Again, my feed crashed a couple times, so I may have missed it. But I personally did not see any of the mods or the Drawfee crew acknowledge this or mention Israeli suffering or Hamas violence once.

A least one of the mods should have been assigned fact-checking duty. Not many falsehoods were posted, but some were and community-members had to address them.

As expected there were lots of people posting watermelons, flags, and FtRttS. But, surprisingly, nobody was spamming it. I've written before about why the phrase FtRttS is upsetting to me personally, but I'll probably do a larger breakdown about i in the coming week. I appreciate that in general, people did seem to use it respectfully, in good faith, and without clear aggression toward Jewish people. There was some clear aggression toward Israelis (as in citizens not politicians), in general, but not too much or from too many people.

The Bad and Pretty Ugly (This is why I ultimately have to step away and other Jews might have to as well. At least for awhile):

Honestly, for all the care that people put into this stream, there was a general apathy toward and invisibility of Jewish people suffering in this crisis. Like I said, nobody on the on-screen Drawfee team did anything antisemitic. That was nice. Unfortunately, it didn't really seem like any actual effort was put in to determine what links were worth sharing. It was more of a "the mods like this one so it's allowed" sort of thing. Even cursory research on most of the links shared involved blatant instances of antisemitism, historical revisionism, or that just in general fell apart on any inspection whatsoever.

They could have made a lot of Jews feel seen and heard by mentioning the hostages even once, acknowledging 10/7 even once, acknowledged even once that Israel continues to be bombed from Hamas and Hezbollah daily, acknowledging that this is a war with two sides that both require an end to violence...literally any ONE of those things would have made a difference. But it was all just ignored, which is far too common when dealing with this conflict. This is especially painful for Jews who, like me, have experienced social isolation and digital ghettoization during this time. I think a lot of Jewish viewers will struggle to reconcile how this echoes a lot of the erasure that we all feel in our daily lives and in our digital spaces and in our hybrid digital and in-person communities. (<- Reblog 2 contains the accounts of The Jewish Experience of antisemitic erasure and ghettoization)Like, I do understand the argument that this is about providing humanitarian relief, but I also don't know why so many creators (and this is NOT unique to Drawfee) pretend like Jewish suffering is not relevent to ongoing discussions.

The mods posted links that supported UNRWA and some chatters spoke up in support of the UNRWA without any consequence. (All links here are verified as highly credible with high factual reporting standards via Media Bias/Fact Check and represent analysis from left-leaning, right-leaning, and least-biased sources)

One mod also posted a link to decolonizepalestine(.)com (not including the link because i don't want to support blatant propaganda). I have shared information about this terrible, bad-faith website before but there's so much more to pick apart here that I will reserve an evaluation of it as a source for a whole post of its own, unrelated to Drawfee. This website does cite its sources, but it provides no mechanism for readers to evaluate those sources. They are not hyperlinked and each individual citation must be looked up individually. I don't even have remotely enough time to do that right now. But if any of my bookwormish allies wish to tear apart those sources or the website in general, be my guest. Tagging y'all for visibility, but do not feel like I am actually asking you to do this work. It is simply something to add to the list of bad sources that we'll have to tackle at some point. cc: @comradevo @the-road-betwixt @faggotry-enjoyer @arandomshotinthedark et. al.

The mods also shared arab.org a few times. It is weird to me that they could have recommended AllMEP, which routinely emphasizes interfaith and intercultural and international cooperation and peace, but instead chose this much less evaluate-able source that excludes any efforts to find cooperative peace between Israel and Palestine. I had not heard of Arab.org before this stream and when I started to look into it, I fell into a bit of a rabbit hole:

So, first of all, Arab.org is a charity? organization? network? based in Beirut, Lebanon. I can't find them on Charity Navigator. The homepage didn't have a clear mission statement, so I navigated to the About Us tab. That gave me a little more information.

There, they state that their vision is to, "Empower people & organizations to do good." - Vague, but inoffensive. OK.

They state that they have three objectives:

Raising awareness, which they define as, "Civil society’s active role and through active collaboration." -- Vague but inoffensive.

Raising hope, which they define as, "Enabling the use of technology to innovate ways of contributing to the wellness and welfare of society." -- Vague but inoffensive.

Raising standards, which they define as, "Education, Reporting, Communication to & from civil society in the Arab World." -- Unclear, but inoffensive. Are they trying to raise the standards of these listed items within the Arab world or are they trying to raise international standards to be more inclusive of these listed items that originate from within the Arab world. And how do they define increased standards? Whose standards? IDK. This doesn't tell me anything really, but it also doesn't tell me anything bad, necessarily?

So what about their principles? Well, they list 5:

"Collaboration: Only together as a collective, can we bring about real change and betterment to society." -- OK, fine, but this still tells me nothing.

"Transparency: We conduct our business with a high level of transparency and a simple development model and we publish our impact publicly." -- Great! Excited to explore that!

"Innovation: We use our skills and creativity to make the world a better place. We want to make it possible to both inform and take action to solve the problems we discover." -- Intriguing, but how?

"Inclusion: We champion the inclusion of everyone in society, whether it is part of civic inclusion or charitable inclusion." -- This sounds really promising!!!! I'm excited to learn more!

"Leadership: We believe in taking the lead whenever wherever required by empowering individuals and organizations to influence others towards common goals." -- Gonna be honest, this just sound like vague buzzwords to me, but if they actually accomplish what they set out to do, great.

Luckily, each of these principles was clickable.

Let's start with "Collaboration"!

This takes me to a weirdly vague page with a gif of various men helping each other climb out of frame. The text below it says "We are currently on the look out for the following technology/platforms/businesses relevant to civil society" and then a list of pretty random things, some of which have checkmarks near them. Why is the formatting so strange? Why don't they all have checkmarks? Why is only the indicated section clickable but none of the other things? Where is more info about any of these items?

But fine, lets click that one clickable link about online marketplaces.

It doesn't actually take you to a marketplace but a page where artisans in the Arab world can submit their information. Submit heir information for what? Well, this is what the website says:

We understand how difficult life is for craftsmen & craftswomen to compete with mass-producing giants. We’re here to change all that. We are creating a win-win-win relationship whereby all sides benefit from our new platform “Shop to Help"

The "Shop to Help" is not clickable. I have no further information on what this is.

Fine, there's one more thing to click on this page: a list of Arab.org's partners.

First up: The Arab Institute for Women at Lebanese American University. Clicking on the info there takes me to the AIW:LAU website. Arab.org says the organization used to be called "Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World," but I couldn't find anything on Charity navigator for them either. Cursory research on them shows they've been around for 50 years. Fine. I'm not doing an evaluation on them right now (anyone who knows anything about them feel free to comment. I just don't have time) I was just investigating how they partner with Arab.org. I didn't find anything about that aside from a list of AIW's partners, which lists Arab.org amongst them. Clicking the link to Arab.org just takes me back to the homepage. I've learned nothing.

Next: They list Bayt.com, which is a job search site. Clicking that link takes me to the Bayt homepage. I couldn't find that addressed partnerships of any kind was their affiliate links page? But becoming an affiliate helps the affiliate make money, not Bayt. So I'm unsure what's going on or if this is even related.

Third: Building Markets. As far as I can tell, this is a real organization. I also cannot find them on Charity navigator, nor can I find any information about how they partner with Arab.org from their website. They do clearly share their financial information, though, which is great. I neither endorse nor condemn this organization. I'm not investigating them right now.

Fourth: Takreem Foundation. I CAN FIND THEM ON CHARITY NAVIGATOR! But they aren't rated. A search of the Takreem website shows no affiliation with Arab.org or accessible financial information.

Fifth: #GivingTuesday Woohoo! They are on Charity Navigator and have a pretty high rating! However, there's no evidence of a link between them and Arab.org, and the organization claims to have no list of official partners or participating organizations. Odd. Did Arab.org run a #GivingTuesday campaign and highlight #GivingTuesday instead of the organization they were giving to? Idk. And I don't have time to figure it out.

Sixth: CSR Engine. It's just a website with nothing on it except the statement "World’s first business for good solution to assign & align CSR activities seamlessly using AI and blockchain technology," which is the same text available about it from the Arab.org partners page. It does show it's affiliation with Arab.org...by listing Arab.org as a customer and then linking back to the Arab.org homepage. WHAT IS GOING ON.

Finally, and buckle up for this one cuz its a doozy, Greenpeace: I'd actually heard of this one, but I don't really know anything about it. Clicking Greenpeace doesn't even take you to the real Greenpeace MENA site. It just takes you to Arab.org's really weird write up page about Greenpeace. So, instead, I searched for Greenpeace on Charity navigator, where it got a 100% rating. Awesome! I clicked the charity navigator link, which took me to the Greenpeace Fund website. But wait a second. What's their connection to Arab.org? Well, there was no search function on the GreenpeaceFund website. So, I typed Greenpeace into google and uh?????

What?

That was surprising. I clicked the link and...

It showed me a totally different website...

Than the one I was just on...

Mods and the Drawfee crew stopped people from sharing links unless those people were mods. That was a super good choice which I fully support. But why did the mods share THESE links?

Well, I had the websites both open in side-by-side tabs.

That's...odd... So I studied the URLs more closely...

The lighter green G that's less pixelated? THAT ONE is the Greenpeace Fund. That is the one with penguins and a 100% charity navigator score.

The one with the lime green, pixelated G? That's Greenpeace International, a conspiracy/pseudoscience website with low crediblity.

But hey, the Greenpeace International website says there's a MENA-based branch. And, upon closer inspection, the Greenpeace International MENA website is the one that was linked on the Arab.org page. Maybe that one was better?

Clicking it took me to the Greenpeace MENA site...

which gave me another blinking Conspiracy Alert Icon from Media Bias Fact Check.

Just to be safe, I typed Greenpeace MENA into google, and fam... it is not better.

PS: searching ANY Greenpeace website for Arab.org showed no results.

In one last-ditch effort, I checked the Transparency page, where Arab.org claims to be "leading by example" in sharing all their documentation for charitable donations. And y'all it's fucking weird.

Let's stick with Greenpeace cuz they're already open tabs on my computer.

First of all, Arab.org's "leading by example" financial disclosures...

...are literally just the "Thank you for donating" receipts that you get whenever you donate to any cause. It's fucking weird.

And yeah, you read that right. For all of the 4th financial quarter of 2023, Arab.org donated just $109 TO THE ORGANIZATION WHICH THEY CALL A FEATURED PARTNER.

"OK," you say. "Well, there was a fucking lot going on in the fourth quarter of 2023. They were probably more focused on Palestine." Sure, lets check out their donation history to UNRWA (which, btw, is still a not great charity)

In case you don't want to click another link--Spoiler alert, they only donated $380. For the whole quarter.

And before you say, "But Eden! You must have missed it Arab.org is another organization called The Olive Tree (The Olive Tree SAL). That must be where the REAL work takes place!" Look at the mission statement of that one! The call themselves, "A mission-driven social enterprise startup making an impact for the common good.''

No.

The Olive Tree SAL is not on Charity Navigator. It's just another nothingburger website that links back to Arab.org and has no search function or further information.

This is the entirety of the website:

And a weird little LinkedIn logo that takes you to the organization's business page on LinkedIn.

From what I can tell, Arab.org just uses Ad revenue to generate minimal donations for charities and organizations of varying credibility that mostly don't even seem to know that Arab.org is even doing anything related to them. And that are designed to make people who are basically uninformed on the whole topic feel good for clicking on a link.

IDK, color me unimpressed. But I'm frankly a little mad that I spend so much fucking time trying to promote charities and organizations that promote peace between Palestine and Israel with actual detailed financial reports and disclosures that seeing this really makes me upset. Maybe if people actually listened to Jewish people with a lifetime of experience dealing with this conflict and trying to help solve or even Palestinian people on the ground who are affected by all this, they might instead focus their energies on one of the many organizations that are actually doing something to help alleviate suffering, increase empathy, encourage education and interfaith dialogue, learn to use language that is respectful of everyone undergoing and who has survived trauma, or build a peaceful future.

Whatever.

Donate to an AllMEP Charity:

And the craziest thing is that I'm gonna be the one who gets hate for this--even tthough I've been so driven out of most fandom spaces and discourse spaces that I can't even tag Drawfee here, let alone I/P, Palestine, or (G-d-forbid) Israel and get this to reach people who this could actually hep.

Because every time I try to engage, I'm inundated with messages like this: