#instead it's “are you genetically Jewish enough and do you know your parents and grandparents well enough”

[brick-van-dyke]

Literally the opposite of what actually happens but ok sure, let's assume all pro Palestinians (including Jewish Palestinians and antizionist Jews) have said what you just put in their mouth. Lets also assume that any and all Palestinians (again, including Jewish Palestinians) who hate Israeli Jews for the treatment of them are wrong while Jews who hate Germans for their cruelty are right. Let's assume we support, unconditionally, all Zionists in the past and present since apparently you see Zionism as Representing Jewish safety.

This implies we should go support the people who have historically supported the Nazi party in Germany (Zionist Federation of Germany with the The Haavara Agreement, as well as their collaboration and in killing Jews in Nazi Germany, remembering also their deal to deport Jews to Palestine), or the famously totally not antisemitic far right neo nazis (Donald Trump, Proud Boys, etc) currently supporting Israel and saying it "should" be the only place for Jews. If these groups, who have been notorious for desecrating Jewish graves and synagogues long before oct 7, spraying graffiti of swastikas, and harassing Jews, are now pro Israel (evidently again as said groups have vouched support for Israel and attacked activists for ceasefire continually over the past years, should we, as people who do not want to accept any intolerance from either anti Jewish OR anti Palestinian sentiment, just ignore all of this?

If supporting Israel means standing side by side with people raising their hand in a seig hail and saying "death to Jews" and "death to Arabs"? Yeah, no, I don't think the enemy here is a race or even the trauma from years of occupation that shows as defensiveness and hatred, but as always, the western Nazis who pit and have always pitted racial groups against each other. And I think I'd rather die both pro Palestinian and pro Jewish rather than live as a nazi. And evidently it is established Neo Nazi organisations supporting Israel and I will not stand besides those antisemitic, racists motherfuckers and no amount of "some of the nazis might be Jewish and hate Jews" will make me rethink that. There were gay Nazis, but they still killed us for being queer. Likewise, I don't stand with any other group who bootlick to their oppressors and side with those oppressors.

Like, there is just nothing that can be said to convince people to join the same side that are reusing nazi slogans, signal and symbols, I'm sorry but no. Many many Jews, queers and people who have any trauma around nazis fucking up their lives don't want that and calling them "the wrong kind of Jew" or "self hating" is just wrong. Jews can hate nazis, and if a nazi says "you should support Israel" damn right I'll question that.

I also want to add a bit extra in relation to people who try to use this movement for antisemitism, and those who do actually have trauma from Israeli occupation. The former are kicked out, ostracized and shunned. They are not part of this movement and, more often than not, hate Palestinians and Arabs as well. Using this movement is a convenient way for them to encite hatred towards both Arabs and Jews, they are racists fuckwits and we, those who want freedom and equality for both Jews and Palestinians, do not recognise these fuckers as much as they hold hatred and clash with our own groups.

The latter are those who, much like many people have been led to believe thanks to propaganda, that Jewishness and Zionism are one and the same when they're very different. Zionism, while originating from Jewish groups intertwining into the French academic community, it is a political movement built out of western socialism and feudalist nationalism. The genuine hope of return is a separate Jewish concept that, while has been misused to justify Political Zionism, is its own concept that has existed long before the influence of French militarism and western colonialist ideologies. Said people see the indiscriminate slaughter in Palestine and even towards other Jews and then blame Jews, thanks to that conflation. The defending of that lie only further endangers Jewish communities and risks the rise of antisemitism. Israel has, despite being warned of this, capitalised further on this and incited violence against Jews.

Despite all of this, all evidence, and all logic, even if we assume that all Jewish and Arab Palestinians somehow are to be blamed more than any far right Nazi standing by your side for 1939, it cannot be denied that the obsession of race being the determining factor of ones morality is a dangerous standpoint to base your stance on. If this really is an argument of "pro Arab or pro Jew" with no allowance to accept all races as equal, then there is no argument to be had; if you think anyone born as any one race or ethnicity is to blame then your own identity cannot claim innocence over the inherent racism of that stance, both towards Arabs and the racist assumption of othering Jews, even and especially as a Jew.

starting to realize that when antizionists say “israel shouldn’t be the only safe place for jews” they don’t mean “so we should make other places safe for jews,” they mean “there should be no safe place for jews”

[calleo-bricriu]

I just blew apart the identities of a good 30-ish people on my mom’s side of the family, and it’s a brilliant, wonderful feeling.

There is backstory here, because it doesn’t make sense without it, so grab a snack and get reading. :)

I did the thing I'd sort of half-ass promised my mom I wouldn't do back when I had medical genetic testing done so insurance would cover a few things back in 2016.

That testing was the one where the genetic counselor asked me several times if I was "absolutely sure" I had no Ashkenazi ancestry and after the third time I got a cautious response of, "It's just that you have a lot of markers only found in those populations; the chances of them all being spontaneous mutations are next to zero." then moved on going over the rest of the results.

Insurance ended up covering what it needed to cover, and I had asked my mom about it as she's been really into tracing both sides of the family trees back as far as possible and it's been possible centuries back due to very good paper trails.

She didn't know what I meant by Ashkenazi which is fair enough as most people in the US only know the word because it shows up on medical forms as a yes/no checkbox.

"Jewish. The sort that wasn't just a conversion."

That got a LOOK, and not a confused one a vaguely frightened one and asked where I got that idea.

Told her I had to do medical genetic testing earlier in the year and the genetic counselor had mentioned it and told her in what context.

Got told to "leave it".

Whatever, I'd recently had fairly major surgery anyway so wasn't really in the mood to dig or push about it.

The next year my ex bought one of those "23 and me" type tests for me because I like completely useless things like that, and that one came back with a not insignificant amount labelled Ashkenazi in the mtDNA haplogroup, which would be on my mother's side.

I asked her about it again and showed her two genetic test results, one a formal medical one, and one that had matching genetics that was, you know, not a formal medical set of genetic testing.

Got told to leave it again.

Fine.

She'd also forgotten that she'd added an account I'd made on Ancestry so I could look through the family tree and all the scanned documents (parish records, birth, death, marriage certificates, immigration paperwork, etc...) because it all went back sometimes until the 1600s.

...and I noticed most of went back that far was on my dad's side or on really remote branches of my mom's side.

On her more closely related side, the family she had that emigrated over from Germany in the late 1800s went back to the 1700s, but she's Polish as well.

And the Polish branches stopped at 1930.

They were extensively documented in 1930, with birth certificates, parish records, and immigration papers as they'd all come over to the US from Poland--right around 1930.

For the hell of it, I saved copies of all of that documentation she'd uploaded, and also figured, hey, they're running a 'join for 3 months get a silly DNA kit!' thing, I'll do a third one.

Did a third one.

Got the same results.

Also found that it was less that there was somehow a convenient lack of parish records older than 1930, and parish records don't just disappear, parish records, especially from Europe, are typically very easy to find with minimal difficulty, but I couldn't even find these NAMES earlier than 1930, including the family names.

The thing is, my definitely influenced by being on the autism spectrum special interest period of history is 1900-1945.

One thing you remember, if you do enough more than casual reading, is one of the chief ways Jewish families both got out of Europe more easily AND into the United States more easily in the 1930s was paying to have entirely new identities forged.

New names, new notable dates in terms of births, marriages, etc, and parish records proving they were either Catholic or Protestant. Usually anyone coming from Poland would have gone with Catholic as that's one of Poland's major religions.

Any previous records that would indicate they were anything but Catholic was typically destroyed out of fear of it being dug up and used to deny emigration or immigration (and remember, the United States routinely turned away refugees fleeing Europe if they were found to be Jewish).

So, I went back.

This time, instead of asking, I took the paperwork I'd saved and printed with me, handed it to her, and said, "These are forged. They weren't Catholic. These aren't their names. Does anyone still alive have the older records?"

Her response was, "I thought I told you to leave it!"

"Does anyone alive still remember?"

"...no. Leave it alone."

Turns out, she'd figured it out based on the cutoff date of the records and knowing history in general, but never said anything because, as the conversation later brought up, "It'd throw too many people's identities into chaos." and reiterated multiple times that they converted which, technically true, but it really doesn't...count if you're forced into it out of fear of ending up dead.

That's also the side of the family that, even by 2017, I didn't speak to most of them unless forced to do so because they're a lot of very rural, very right wing, very openly neo nazi jackasses.

That last part? That part is important. That last conversation about it happened in late 2017.

My mother knows me well enough to know that the first set of thoughts through my head absolutely ran along the lines of, "I'm telling these assholes at the next family reunion because they deserve to have their entire belief system and sense of identity shattered."

Also, that's the side of the family when, back around 2012 or so, one of my definitely unpleasant cousins cornered me to talk about the "shared interest" we had in what that dumb motherfucker termed "world war 2" and got his nose broken by the cousin with purple hair and multiple tattoos for saying we had a lot in common so--saying I don't get along with that side of the family is kind of an understatement.

If they're not afraid I'll also break some bone they possess for existing within punching or steel toed boot kicking range, they openly dislike me, which is fine, it's a very mutual feeling.

And there was a long talk of, "Could you not? Just ignore them, they're stupid, but they're harmless." which was mostly "it's kind of a hassle when you physically assault one of your asshole cousins at a picnic".

By that point I rarely went to those things anyway as free food didn't make up for having to listen to them say words where I could hear them so, whatever, I told her I wouldn't say anything.

Most of them hadn't spoken to me in years anyway but a few of them stayed in spotty contact on Facebook and in an often not used outside of planning reunions group that they'd invited me to join partially so it looked like they were 'making an effort' and also because the place we use for those stupid family reunions is owned by my parents (and I'm also on the deed) so I'd be one of the few people that would have a legal right to tell them all they weren't allowed to be on the property.

I accepted the invitation, just never really paid attention to it because, again, I do not like these people on any level.

Turns out, this evening, I stopped thinking they were even remotely harmless and was reminded that they still existed because they started using that group as their apparent safe space to talk about their views on current events; it’s very possible they may have forgotten I was even in the group as they added me close to 3 years ago and I’ve never posted anything.

So, I’m sitting there after work, watching these absolute shitstain excuses for people be smug about some imagined ‘win’, and I decided to remind them I still exist.

My first, last, and only post to the group: "FYI, none of your grandparents were Catholic. They were all Jewish. You're all ethnically Jewish. See you in July! :)" posted all of my genetic test results, the family trees where they were all included because, shocker, we're all related, scans of the forged records with large notations over all the forged information, and left the group.

Blocked the rest of them, and let them blow my phone up for awhile with calls I didn't pick up, texts I didn't read, and voicemails I didn't listen to--and blocked their numbers as well.

Earlier in the evening I mentioned in Discord that I was probably going to hear from my mother about it and I did (they’d long since removed my dad from the group over the MAGA hats in the firepit thing that happened last July, and my parents share a Facebook account), but it was a short and lovely text exchange of:

"What did you do?"

"I told them."

"Oh. Well, they're all assholes anyway. We should be back on Friday."

Also, nobody is going to see them in July because LAST July after they turned up after my parents told them there wasn't going to be a reunion due to Covid, about 30 of them showed up and that was the summer that I got the text from my mom asking if I was going to stop by.

"How many MAGA hats are out in the yard?"

"Hang on, I'll ask your dad."

20 minutes later:

"About a dozen."

"How many would I be able to throw in the fire pit before it'd cause an issue?"

"Hang on, I'll ask your dad."

20 minutes later, and a reminder for those who don't know, my dad is 6'8", built like a tank even in his 70s, and has a white beard down to his waist (Pointless bonus: When he was younger it was orange and his hair was a slightly darker orange than his dad’s was.). Ex-Navy Vet, took a fish bait he was grinding hooks on to the EYE a couple years ago and just sort of calmly walked upstairs to say, “I think I need you to drive me to the ER.” to my mom (whose response was to start laughing and tell him she TOLD him to put safety goggles on so they’re both a little...odd.) about it, not generally the sort of person anyone wants to even begin to fuck with despite the fact that he’s incredibly calm and even tempered:

"8 and they all left about five minutes ago."

[realbeeing]

ancestral trauma & healing

I’ve recently come to understand what it means to honor my ancestors. I had heard mystics and shamans talk about how we can either relate to our ancestors in an unhealthy way— by holding onto their pain and perpetuating it unconsciously— or in a healthy way, by doing our best to work through the dysfunctions they passed on to us, starting to identify the pain as not solely our own but part of a chain of experience from which now another decision can be made. Breaking the cycle, in other words. 

Lately I started to feel a lot about my Jewish heritage, especially because I got a DNA test where it was confirmed I am pretty much of three-quarters Ashkenazi Jewish descent. I already knew my father’s family and maternal grandmother’s family came from that tribe so it was not a huge surprise, but with the company I bought the test from, they reveal not just that you are of Ashkenazi descent but what that particular descent really means: usually being one-half to two-thirds Arab genetics with the other part Southern European genetics, often Italian. In my case, I learned I had about a third Arab and Near-East origins and another third Italian. (My levels were lower because I have one non-Jewish, Irish grandparent).

Going through my results brought to light a new realization for me about the story of my ancestors. The Jewish people had moved around a lot: from the Middle East, to the Roman Empire, to the German kingdom and then further into Eastern Europe. And then many of them left Europe entirely to come to the United States or to Israel, havens for the Jewish population. For some reason I had never really thought about what it took for my ancestors— really just my great grandparents — to come all the way to America  It was not like they just decided one day to to travel to a new continent for a vacation. Nowadays it’s hard to understand the scope of such travel before the time of cheap and abundant flights and a more globalized culture. I can’t imagine what it was like to uproot yourself from your homeland and go to a place where your familiar language wasn’t spoken, where the culture was totally different. No, they must have come here out of necessity. My family has kept scant records though so I can only speculate. 

I have read a lot about anti-semitism recently and the pogroms that occurred in Eastern Europe, where my ancestors were living. The Jews were always on the run, a persecuted people, for whatever reason that is still mysterious to me. Were we victims? Were we perpetuating this cycle ourselves from a victim complex? I wasn’t there to know. 

Jews have learned to make a home in many places. I feel that in myself in my need to travel and the desire I’ve had since being a child of running away, being a nomad, going to an unknown land. Yet what is my enjoyment was their serious task. In my youthful seeking phase I contacted a bunch of different eclectic religious paths, settling into the Hare Krishna way for a couple of years in Peru as well as going into strange rabbit holes about all sorts of new age topics such as aliens and lost civilizations. In this period, I hardly thought about Judaism at all, nor my ancestors. I was convinced the body is just a phantasm, that we are soul first and thus that my true ancestry was first cosmic and that any earthly ties were not a subject for any earnest consideration. Growing up on North American native land, spending time on Andean land, going deep into Vedic religion— I was a mix of many influences and those related to blood seemed like the least relevant. 

In my Krishna commune, we called our group “family” and I think genuinely felt that way about each other. It was not genetics that connected us but a spiritual purpose and a belief we were all headed to the same lofty quarters of heaven. I remember learning one Hebrew song after hearing tons of Vedic chants and seeing a Star of David in my mind’s eye during a sweat lodge, but other than that my ethnic-spiritual past seemed far away.  

Meanwhile it wasn’t until a couple of years after leaving that group when I began to do a lot of deeper healing than that which had been supposedly dealt with in my religion, when I thought all my burdens had been lit on fire by god. In a way it was true: I received a spiritual communion which rooted itself so deeply in my consciousness that I can never go back to who I was before that experience. But still there was quite a deep wound to address, namely a traumatic childhood based on being abused by a parent. A parent who was abused by their own parent. And so on: a chain not of spiritual transmission but of shit. They were not the ancestors how I would have liked to imagine them: old sages or native chiefs whispering wise words in my ear. I did not want to admit the reality of the situation for a long time because of my chronic conditioning to downplay serious events in my life, brushing them aside because I never thought they were important enough—  which was an idea I had been brandished with by my abuser. Also it went against the image I had of myself as this spiritually liberated person. It wasn’t necessarily that this image was a complete illusion, which is a tempting conclusion to make when we receive a humbling from life. It would be easier to dismiss the entire past— but nothing can be so black and white. My ancestors are not all good or all evil. My initial spiritual experimentation did yield some truly healing moments. That was real for the time being. I could find meaning as a “galactic” citizen. But then eventually I did have to come down to earth. Another layer of the spiral had to unfold. A death had to take place. 

At first I resisted it and I saw my life stagnate a lot. Besides the fact that I was forcibly stranded in a rural country not my own due to the worldwide pandemic, I was stuck creatively, mentally and socially. I was isolating myself both physically and in way of ideas. I slowly started to become more interested in conspiracy theories, especially since world events have gotten so crazy which has sparked a whole tidal wave of increased paranoid thinking among everyone. Forget my ancestors being persecuted-- I was being persecuted just for being alive! The essential message of love—which was the lesson of all my valuable spiritual trips— was sometimes forgotten and the adrenaline rush of fear or excitement at some impending catastrophic event became almost a hobby and stood in for giving my time and energy to more creative and nourishing endeavors. It took a location move and I think my Saturn return to really kickstart a new cycle for myself, one where I do want to look at the pain I have been carrying and see how this pain is both mine and is not. The suffering in my genetic line is both something I can transcend out of and something I am inexplicably bound to and responsible for addressing. 

In the recognition of pain comes the power needed to finally confront it head on. I thought I had already sufficiently looked into my past and done the emotional purging work— but it was a whole new step for me to acknowledge the abuse as well as to acknowledge that I had some degree of trauma from what I went through. What followed from taking this step was not only more self-love and psychological balance but also a razing of my mental inventory: I was not exactly who I thought I was. This clearing made space for new inspiration and motivation, for the courage to create beauty where I could. To make jewelry, paint, dance, run, sing. Things I had forgotten and filled instead with trivial information. That was okay then, and I am okay now too. It is not some before/after scenario: that paradigm of healing is over. Like I said, healing is a spiral which unfurls at its own pace. I am exactly where I need to be. And from this vantage point, I can better hear what my ancestors are speaking to me, and I listen— while also telling them, I’m going to do things a bit differently now. We are going to do things different.