#jewish myth

[shtetlshabbos]

shalom, and welcome to the shtetl shabbos tumblr blog!

shtetl shabbos is a new community and jewish only discord server dedicated to jewish magic, mysticism, witchery, mythology, folklore and more! with many plans and much to offer, we hope to connect with the tumblr jewish community as well!

disboard link (pls leave us a review!): ✡︎ | discord server direct link: ✡︎

we offer:

♡ a verification system to ensure maximum safety of all members ♡ a server guide featuring a faq, a pdf exchange spreadsheet and a constantly growing library of jewish resources ♡ a safe-space chat to discuss mental health, antisemtism and the likes ♡ a weekly book club and parsha study group + monthly zine and research prompt ♡ chats specifically for bipoc jews, lgbtq+ jews, disabled/nurodivergent jews, alterhuman jews, jewish systems, and converts! ♡ a variety channels to start new and exciting conversations ♡ polls, qotd, chat revival, astrology ping, starboard, vcs, events, mutual aid channel and more!!

quick FAQ under the cut!

FAQ

Q: what is a jewitch/jewish witchcraft?

A: considering there is an expanse of ideas on both what being jewish and what practicing witchcraft/magic means, there is no one definition to describe jewitches or jewish witchcraft. for the sake of this server, we define “jewish witchcraft” as any practice that involves the magic, mystical, supernatural or spiritual within a jewish framework and a “jewitch” as anyone who considers themselves a practitioner of judaism and witchcraft/magic. Q: how can you be a jewitch or practice magic/witchcraft as a jew?

A: the answer to this question is complex and depends on who you ask. respectful conversation surrounding this topic is welcomed within the server. we recommend the following article by the creator jewitches as a primer for this question.

Q: who can join?

A: any jew, self-identified jewitch or not! our server is pluralistic and we welcome people from all movements, minhags, and backgrounds. we appreciate having diverse perspectives. we are explicitly a safe space for gers, disabled & neurodivergent jews, lgbtq+ jews, bipoc jews and jewish systems. bigotry, hatred and infighting will not be tolerated. messianic "jews" are not welcomed here.

Q: can i join if i'm curious about or new to jewish magic?

A: yes! infact, once you are verified, we have a resource forum channel where we are constantly working to update it with new and improved resources all the time! we also have a dozen channels and other things to explore different topics within both judaism and witchcraft.

Q: can i join if i'm a ger/convert/conversion student?

A: yes! converts are fully jewish and welcome to practice jewish practices. conversion students are welcomed to join, however we want to make it explicitly clear that gers-in-progress should not practice jewish magic/mystycism/witchcraft without supervision and approval from a rabbi. we are happy to educate and provide our perspective but we cannot preform the job of a rabbi.

[heritageposts]

By Ilan Pappe, published 5th of November 2023.

On October 24, a statement by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres caused a sharp reaction by Israel. While addressing the UN Security Council, the UN chief said that while he condemned in the strongest terms the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, he wished to remind the world that it did not take place in a vacuum. He explained that one cannot dissociate 56 years of occupation from our engagement with the tragedy that unfolded on that day. The Israeli government was quick to condemn the statement. Israeli officials demanded Guterres’s resignation, claiming that he supported Hamas and justified the massacre it carried out. The Israeli media also jumped on the bandwagon, asserting among other things that the UN chief “has demonstrated a stunning degree of moral bankruptcy”. This reaction suggests that a new type of allegation of anti-Semitism may now be on the table. Until October 7, Israel had pushed for the definition of anti-Semitism to be expanded to include criticism of the Israeli state and questioning the moral basis of Zionism. Now, contextualising and historicising what is going on could also trigger an accusation of anti-Semitism.

. . . article continues on Al Jazeera

[sysmedsaresexist]

Could you please dive into the RAMCOA controversy that's been going around? I've literally never heard someone say "RAMCOA is antisemitic" until like a week ago and now there's multiple blogs (I'm sure you can guess who at this point) who are saying this and calling RAMCOA a conspiracy theory from the satanic panic.

It's being said by the same 3 blogs that all reblog the same bad takes so I wasn't putting any stock in their word. Just the latest misinfo spreading unchecked, would appreciate your thoughts on this.

You know what, I'm not going to lie, I've been dreading getting this question.

Terrified. Harassment in this area of discussion is rampant.

We are currently debating making a post and how to approach it.

I will make our stances clear right now.

I think the conversation as it is now is full of misinformation and confusion. I think no single post can cover that amount of history and the theories and controversy.

I don't think anyone understands what they're arguing about, or the histories they're trying to bring up, and how they overlap. I think many members of the conversation lack access to resources and education that the mods of this blog DO have access to. Most of the links being thrown around lead back to the same single sources.

To shorten a very long, complex, and honestly unfinished conversation: the satanic panic and RAMCOA are two completely different entities. The satanic panic was a religious political movement of the 90s pushed by conservatives as a way to scare people back into church and scare women back into their "place" at home by attacking child care facilities. It called on a lot of tropes. And many of them were, yeah, ridiculously antisemitic. As the movement got more and more sensationalized, it began to call attention to therapists (some of them bad faith) and to RAMCOA survivors as a "Look! It's real!" kind of thing. If anything, this attention hurt far more than it helped. It painted an inaccurate and insulting picture that's still utilized to harm people today.

To be very clear: programmed DID is a well documented occurrence and it can occur in several ways.

We support survivors, no matter what they call it. We support clinicians trained in treating people who have gone through that extreme level of horrific abuse. We support people learning to separate fact from fiction, in whatever way that may apply to any given situation.

SAS supports ramcoa and oea survivors.

Here's something we suggest reading, though it's very long.

Stay safe, everyone ❤️

[tzipporahs-well]

While OSP's videos are generally very good, they do fall a bit into the "Happy Dhimmi" myth.

Blue has an unfortunate tendency to gloss over Muslim antisemitism, and many of the wrongs of the Ottoman Empire.

Yes I would absolutely agree with that. I think some of it was addressed in the Maimonides (video made 3 years ago) and Medieval Spain and Al-Andalusia videos (5 years ago) where more fundamentalist Muslims (Almoravids and Almohads) started taking over, but there is still an overall sunny-ish outlook.

I think one of the problems is that it is a very prevalent myth that has been spread for many years where I see even history books pushing it (AP world history textbook looking at you) and academia debating if it was really that bad or if even The Pact of Umar was heavily enforced/strictly followed (it was really bad and saw variable enforcement dependent on the ruler’s whim).

Even our own history books pushed it, at least in the 19th century (see Heinrich Graetz) and/or play the comparison game (“it was not as bad as in Xtian lands.”) In the history book of A Short History of the Jews by Raymond P. Scheindlin (generally a good book; a book I had to read for my conversion), there is more about the “prosperous time” and our accomplishments in the chapter “The Jews in the Islamic World” (632 CE to 1500 CE) compared to the more negative stuff. Only later does it discuss how life for Jews severely deteriorated under Muslim rule even though dhimmi status was by in no way good. The fact that Jewish life in medieval Spain is even called the Sephardic Golden Age and a Sephardic Silver Age at all emphasizes how much our history…sucked.

I think one reason Jewish sources try to focus on “the good” is cultural. We are encouraged to look for and focus on the good even when our circumstances really suck. But when it is not based in truth, that’s where the problem lies.

We have to be willing to look our true history in the eye: the good and the bad. The way I see our dhimmi status in Muslim lands: we made the best of a bad situation where all options around us weren’t great especially by modern standards. We accomplished great things, but we still faced the yoke of oppressive dhimmitude.

The problem comes from when “not as bad as” (relative for the time period where treatment of Jews generally sucked and treatment varied dependent on state and ruler) turns into “good actually” especially in modern lenses, which is categorically untrue. If anything, the pattern of Jewish history in Muslim-ruled lands was eerily similar to the Xtian one (Aish). Jews were invited for a little bit as second class citizens under the ruler’s “protection.” Then when they got tired of us or we became too comfortable/“too big for our britches”, we got kicked out or killed…again.

At the very least, Muslim oppression of Jews was briefly touched on in the OSP summary video. It is an imperfect video while still better than certain other summary views on the topic.

Still, I do wish that the happy dhimmi myth was busted more.

[theupfish]

"109 Countries" is BS

The White Supremacist slogan "109 countries" alledges that this is the number of countries that have banned Jews.

Anyone ever have any luck finding a complete list of all those 109 countries?

No?

That's because many of the locations counted in that number aren't countries, but townships. And the same places that banned Jews more than once are counted separately each time that they did. Among several other confections.

https://www.reuters.com/article/fact-check/screenshot-of-snopes-article-involving-antisemitic-claims-has-been-fabricated-idUSL1N3942C0/

"109 Countries!" is simply put, penguin shit.

[enlitment]

Top 5 myths/legends/folklore? :)✨

Thank you for the fun ask! ✨ (and sorry for taking so long!)

1. The Sacrifice of Iphigenia

I'm not exactly sure why, but it may be my favourite piece of Greek mythology. There's just something about it that resonates with me. I definitely prefer the versions in which Iphigenia gets saved at the last minute by Artemis (and I'm here for any potential queer readings).

I also think it's interesting how it highlights the parallels between a wedding ceremony and a ritual sacrifice (things like white colour symbolising purity, symbolic death of the bride for her old family, priest being present, a subsequent feast, even the fact that blood was technically expected in both cases). Something I've been thinking about ever since I watched the new Contrapoints video.

2. Hyacinth and Apollo

The original death of a twink! Jokes aside, it's quite a tragic story. What I find the most interesting about the myth however is how Hyacinth was mourned/celebrated during the Spartan festival of Hyacinthia. If you want to get really heretic, you could see the festival as a forerunner of some of the later Christian Easter traditions, with the whole death/rebirth motive.

3.  Lady Godiva

One of the earliest examples of women getting involved in British politics!

Again, jokes aside, I do appreciate this legend because it is essentially a story of a woman taking risks for a cause that she believes in. It also brings up the idea that femininity can be used as a weapon. That is not necessarily my most favourite take of all, but it's certainly interesting - and this old English myth captures that perfectly!

also the iconography is so cool I mean--

4. The Legend of El Dorado

I definitely think that the legend of the mythical city filled with gold located somewhere in South America can tell one a lot about European colonialism. Not an expert on it by any means (though I'd love to read more about it at some point), but I really enjoyed how it was portrayed in Voltaire's Candide!

5. The Golem of Prague

Okay, obligatory hometown reference. I do find Jewish folklore genuinely fascinating, and the story of a being made of clay that came to life is perhaps the most interesting of all! Some parallels can be traced with later stories - like Frankenstein - or even with things like robots or AI, if you stretch the definition a bit.

It can be seen as a warning that technology can turn against its creator which dates all the way back to the 16th century!

(I also find it really interesting how much emphasis Jewish culture places on the power of words, and the story of the Golem is a great example of it, since words are literally what brings the golem to life).

[judaismandsuch]

A Small Note on Gilgamesh (and arguments based on parallels)

So, I saw a post that briefly refrenced the simalarities between the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the story of Noah.

Now, I am not going to recount the 2, because... I don't want to, but suffice to say the similarities are not simply surface level, but are fairly significant.

Now, I have seen that used as a 'GOTCHA' for Judaism/the bible. "This story clearly predates Judaism, so the religion is clearly bulshit."- though not exactly phrased that way- is the thrust of the argument.

I want to address *exactly* how stupid that argument is/give several counter arguments that exist with a quarter ounce of thought.

Assuming that Judaism *is* correct in it's entirety, and that therefore the story of Noah actually occurred as written, then of fucking course another culture in the area would have a near identical version of story! It happened! It's collective history! It would be weird if they didn't!

There was a major flood in the area, it permeated the collective unconscious and, due to base cultural similarities, both cultures independently developed there own similar myths.

The flood story was incredibly common across all cultures in the area, and when G-d was creating the mythological history if it was ignored people would have rejected the creation myth, so HaShem took the most popular one (Gilgamesh version) re-adjusted it to fit the morals and lessons that were desired, and put it in.

It is a portion of Jewish theological doctrine (not a necessary aspect, but a popular view) that G-d went to each people and offered them the Torah, but it was rejected by all but the Israelites. If this occured, the ancient Babylonians would have heard the Noah story, and then re-jigged it to match their beliefs in the epic of Gilgamesh.

The dating of Israelites and/or the creation of the bible is off. So the 'historical analysis' of the bible puts the creation of Breishit at around 500 BCE*, but the Exodus at around 14th c. BCE (usually), Assuming that the Jewish view of the creation of the Torah is correct, it would be written at 14th c. BCE as well. The oldest copy of the Gilgamesh flood myth is 1640 BCE, toss in a touch of wiggle room, and you could have Gilgamesh written post exposure to Israelite nation.

Abraham is dated to about 1800 BCE, if HaShem told him the flood story, there would have been more than enough time for him to tell it to others, and for it to make its way to Assyria.

Now, basically all of these do depend on one running with the pre-supposition that Judaism is actually G-d given (or at least willing to accept that for the sake of the argument), which I feel is kinda ok in an argument about whether or not a religion is full of crap. After all, if you refuse to accept any argument with 'the religion is to some degree true' as a premise, no argument about its validity can function.

But I am not endorsing any of these arguments per se, rather I am giving them to show how stupid using another religions flood myth to discredit Judaism is.

The same form of argument goes for a lot of the caananite religion based 'gotchas' that people have tbh.

*k I'll be honest, the arguments about the bibles age and authorship bug me *so* much. They all feel preseneted in a 'if you disagree with this you're a fucking religious nut job' kind of way, and really run with 'lack of physical evidence before such and such a date', which... its a book, written on hide. How much did you expect to survive in an agrarian society almost constantly at war which went through multiple periods of straight up ignoring it and reverting to paganism? Like, they would have pushed them more recent if the dead sea scrolls hadn't been found! I know it's a tad fundamentalist of me, but damn those arguments annoy me.

[alostwanderernotfound]

This information comes from old spoken Jewish tradition about the importance of wearing Tallits (or prayer shawls/Jewish prayer blankets) and tassels (Tzitzit)

“The phrase more kosher than tzitzit" is a Yiddish metaphoric expression (כשר'ער ווי ציצית).”

What does this mean and why do people say it? A true kosher tallit from Israel is said to hold many essential powers and some of the benefits are only for those with Jewish blood. All people that follow Judaism, were born Jewish, converted to Judaism at one point in their life, have any amount of Jewish blood in their body, and those married to Jewish people are supposed to own a tallit and wear tassels.

Why?

1. General protection: The Tallit can serve as an emergency blanket. It can be used to give someone warmth.

2. It also is said it has properties that can protect you from electromagnetic fields. This is a type of radiation anyone can be exposed to depending upon what is happening to the Earth in our solar system. If the sun for any reason has even a momentary increase in activity on the sun’s surface, it can expose us to excess radiation.

3. This can also reduce static electricity shocking you.

4. The parts of the blanket that are shiny like metal (which can be seen by looking at the back of the blanket when holding it up to a source of light) are important sections of the blanket as well. If you obtain a real tallit, It is said this material is conductive enough to be used as conductive fabric. This means in an emergency you can cut off these parts of the blanket and use them in the same way as you would electrical wires for electronics. This material is able to be stretched and conduct electricity from one end to the other end. This is why it is said they can be blankets made so thin, but they can keep you very warm.

5. They have antibacterial and anti allergen properties to make you feel better when you wear it.

6. Tassels are said to hold special power for Jewish people. All people that are Jewish or even friends to Jewish people were told to wear tassels on their clothes and/or wear a tallit/prayer blanket at all times. This can even mean cutting off the tassels on a tallit/prayer blanket and attaching them to you and your family’s belongings. Kids that didn’t wear clothing with them on could even have them attached to their backpacks. If you pray, are Jewish by blood, and live outside of Israel it is said this is even more important to practice. Direct help and intervention from Jewish spiritual power cannot enter your city or state without many people wearing or decorating the environment with real Jewish tassels. This is because if a Jewish spiritual entity gets hurt attempting to help you, their soul can temporarily enter a tassel for their protection. Different tassels are for different ranks of Jewish spiritual help. Good spirits are the only ones said to be able to use it. The entire blanket is able to be used for them and each section corresponds to a different type of spirit being able to stay with you. This can also be used so a good Jewish spirit can watch over you. Without a tassel nearby and a Jewish spirit is hurt, much more detailed and costly rituals using specialized knowledge must be performed to help them get back to a form where they can help us and be safe. Burning of tassels and eventually the entire blanket is associated with specific rituals to let these stored good spirits out of the blanket and back in our world in a more helpful form. Without tassels it is said outside of Israel you may not be able to get direct intervention to help with any problems by MANY Jewish entities. Even the moths will eat nonkosher clothes for your protection when you live and practice faith in Israel. There are many changes seen in spiritual life and directly in nature you will not see the benefits of without following many Jewish practices. Cities that do not follow Jewish law, but have Jewish people are associated with chaos coming from violation of Jewish law. This is because Jewish protection arises from not only prayer, but requires action from us everyday to stay safe. Living outside of Israel means you cannot benefit from other people practicing the faith around you to create a safe space- you and your community must be an active participant in your own safety at all times.

Stay safe.

[infiniteglitterfall]

Me, looking through books on Palestine: "Ilan Pappé wrote one called 'The Biggest Prison On Earth?!' People in Gaza hate it being called a prison. There's an entire hashtag for it. There's been an account dedicated to collecting pics and videos of #TheGazaYouDontSee for 6 years.

"Is Pappé even Palestinian? oh god wait I can tell already. this is gonna be an 'Israeli apologist' isn't it." Internet: "Yeah, Pappé's Israeli."

Me: "For fuck's--- so people will believe Israelis unquestioningly if they're shit-talking Israel, but in all other situations, Israelis are all liars?"

Internet: "Pretty much. Also, at best, Ilan Pappé must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians."

Me, admittedly in full schadenfreude now: "What?!?!"

Internet: "Benny Morris. That historian who's extremely hard-core about primary source documentation, who wrote that detailed book about how and why each group of Palestinian refugees left in 1947-9. He reviewed three books about Palestine."

Me: "Holy shit. And the book by Pappé is about the Husaynis. The family that Nazi war criminal Amin al-Husseini came from, the guy who fucked absolutely everything up for both Israel and Palestine."

Internet: "That's the one. Morris wrote, 'At best, Ilan Pappe must be one of the world’s sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest. In truth, he probably merits a place somewhere between the two.'"

Me: "Why??"

Internet: "He says, 'Here is a clear and typical example—in detail, which is where the devil resides—of Pappe’s handiwork. I take this example from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'....

"Blah blah blah, basically in 1947 the UN voted to partition the land into Palestine and Israel, and extremist militias started shooting at Jewish towns and people. David Ben-Gurion was the leader of the Jewish community there, and his journal describes a visit from a scientist named Aharon Katzir, telling him about an experiment codenamed "Shimshon." Morris gives us the journal entry:

...An experiment was conducted on animals. The researchers were clothed in gas masks and suit. The suit costs 20 grush, the mask about 20 grush (all must be bought immediately). The operation [or experiment] went well. No animal died, the [animals] remained dazzled [as when a car’s headlights dazzle an oncoming driver] for 24 hours. There are some 50 kilos [of the gas]. [They] were moved to Tel Aviv. The [production] equipment is being moved here. On the laboratory level, some 20 kilos can be produced per day.

"Morris says, 'This is the only accessible source that exists, to the best of my knowledge, about the meeting and the gas experiment, and it is the sole source cited by Pappe for his description of the meeting and the "Shimshon" project. But this is how Pappe gives the passage in English:

Katzir reported to Ben-Gurion: 'We are experimenting with animals. Our researchers were wearing gas masks and adequate outfit. Good results. The animals did not die (they were just blinded). We can produce 20 kilos a day of this stuff.'

"'The translation is flecked with inaccuracies, but the outrage is in Pappe’s perversion of "dazzled," or sunveru, to "blinded"—in Hebrew "blinded" would be uvru, the verb not used by Ben-Gurion—coupled with the willful omission of the qualifier '"for 24 hours."'

"'Pappe’s version of this text is driven by something other than linguistic and historiographical accuracy. Published in English for the English-speaking world, where animal-lovers are legion and deliberately blinding animals would be regarded as a barbaric act, the passage, as published by Pappe, cannot fail to provoke a strong aversion to Ben-Gurion and to Israel.

"'Such distortions, large and small, characterize almost every page of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. So I should add, to make the historical context perfectly clear, that no gas was ever used in the war of 1948 by any of the participants. [Or, he later notes, by either Israel or Palestine ever.] Pappe never tells the reader this.

"'Raising the subject of gas is historical irrelevance. But the paragraph will dangle in the reader’s imagination as a dark possibility, or worse, a dark reality: the Jews, gassed by the Nazis three years before, were about to gas, or were gassing, Arabs.'"

Me: "Uuuuggghhhhhhhhh. Yeah, it will."

Internet: "He does say, 'Palestinian Dynasty was a good idea.' Then he does some really detailed historian-dragging about the lack of primary sources and reliance on people's interpretations of what they say instead.

"'Almost all of Pappe’s references direct the reader to books and articles in English, Hebrew, and Arabic by other scholars, or to the memoirs of various Arab politicians, which are not the most reliable of sources. Occasionally there is a reference to an Arab or Western travelogue or genealogy, or to a diplomat’s memoir; but there is barely an allusion to documents in the relevant British, American, and Zionist/Israeli archives.

"'When referring to the content of American consular reports about Arab riots in the 1920s, for example, Pappe invariably directs the reader to an article in Hebrew by Gideon Biger—“The American Consulate in Jerusalem and the Events of 1920-1921,” in Cathedra, September 1988—and not to the documents themselves, which are easily accessible in the United States National Archive.

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'Those who falsify history routinely take the path of omission. They ignore crucial facts and important pieces of evidence while cherry-picking from the documentation to prove a case. 

"'But Pappe is more brazen. He, too, often omits and ignores significant evidence, and he, too, alleges that a source tells us the opposite of what it in fact says, but he will also simply and straightforwardly falsify evidence.

"'Consider his handling of the Arab anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s.

"'Pappe writes of the “Nabi Musa” riots in April 1920: “The [British] Palin Commission... reported that the Jewish presence in the country was provoking the Arab population and was the cause of the riots.” He also quotes at length Musa Kazim al-Husayni, the clan’s leading notable at the time, to the effect that “it was not the [Arab] Hebronites who had started the riots but the Jews.”

"'But the (never published) [Palin Commission Report], while forthrightly anti-Zionist, thereby accurately reflecting the prevailing views in the British military government that ruled Palestine until mid-1920, flatly and strikingly charged the Arabs with responsibility for the bloodshed.

"'The team chaired by Major-General P.C. Palin wrote that “it is perfectly clear that with... few exceptions the Jews were the sufferers, and were, moreover, the victims of a peculiarly brutal and cowardly attack, the majority of the casualties being old men, women and children.” The inquiry pointed out that whereas 216 Jews were killed or injured, the British security forces and the Jews, in defending themselves or in retaliatory attacks, caused only twenty-five Arab casualties.'"

Me: "Yeah. I'm looking at that report right now and it says there had been an explosion, and then people were looting Jewish stores and beating Jews with stones, and in one case stabbing someone. Some people said that some Jews got up on the roof of a hotel and retaliated by throwing stones themselves.

"And then it literally says, 'The point as to the retaliation by Jews is of importance because it seems to have impressed the Military and led them to imagine that the Jews were to some extent responsible for provoking the rising.' That's the only thing it really says about anyone blaming the Jews.

"Except.... the very beginning gives some historical context. And it does say that when the Balfour Declaration came out, Muslims and Christians 'considered that they were to be handed over to an oppression which they hated far more than the Turk's and were aghast at the thought of this domination....

"'If this intensity of feeling proceeded merely from wounded pride of race and disappointment in political aspirations, it would be easier to criticise and rebuke: but it must be borne in mind that at the bottom of all is a deepseated fear of the Jew, both as a possible ruler and as an economic competitor. Rightly or wrongly they fear the Jew as a ruler, regarding his race as one of the most intolerant known to history....

"'The prospect of extensive Jewish immigration fills him with a panic fear, which may be exaggerated, but is none the less genuine. He sees the ablest race intellectually in the world, past-masters in all the arts of ousting competitors whether on the market, in the farm or the bureaucratic offices, backed by apparently inexhaustible funds given by their compatriots in all lands and possessed of powerful influence in the councils of the nations, prepared to enter the lists against him in every one of his normal occupations, backed by the one thing wanted to make them irresistible, the physical force of a great Imperial Power, and he feels himself overmastered and defeated before the contest is begun.'

"Wow! What a great fucking example of how 'positive' stereotypes are actually used to fuck people over! We're not antisemitic, we actually think Jews are the smartest, most powerful, richest group with tremendous global power! So positive!! Not at all being used here to justify antisemitic violence!

"Also, immigration from all over the world actually meant that different agricultural and manufacturing techniques were brought into the region, and yes, financial investments to start businesses sometimes, which meant that Arab Palestinians there had the highest per capita income in the Middle East, the highest daily wages, and started a lot of businesses of their own. But go off, I guess."

"Anyfuckingway.... it basically says that the Muslims and Christians were angry and scared, the Jews were too quick to set up the functioning government that the Brits were supposed to be there to help both sides create -- and which the Arab leaders completely refused to create for Palestine, because (1) fascists and (2) didn't want Jews nearby -- and that they were "ready prey for any form of agitation hostile to the British Government and the Jews." Then it says the movement for a United Syria was agitating them real hard, and so were the Sherifians.

"Is that what Ilan Passe, I mean Pappe, meant by the Palin Report blaming the Jews?! That when it says it's understandable the Arabs were freaking out, because antisemitism, Pappe thinks it's saying the Jews were provoking them?!"

Internet: "I don't know. I kinda tuned out after the first hour you were talking."

Me: "OGH MY GOD"

Internet: "So anyway, then Morris ALSO says, 'About the 1929 “Temple Mount” riots, which included two large-scale massacres of Jews, in Hebron and in Safed, Pappe writes: “The opposite camp, Zionist and British, was no less ruthless [than the Arabs]. In Jaffa a Jewish mob murdered seven Palestinians.”

Me: "What the ENTIRE FUCK? There was no united 'Zionist and British' camp! The Brits would barely let any Holocaust refugees in, ffs!"

Internet: "Morris says, 'Actually, there were no massacres of Arabs by Jews, though a number of Arabs were killed when Jews defended themselves or retaliated after Arab violence.

"'Pappe adds that the British “Shaw Commission,” so-called because it was chaired by Sir Walter Shaw (a former chief justice of the Straits Settlements), which investigated the riots, “upheld the basic Arab claim that Jewish provocations had caused the violent outbreak. ‘The principal cause... was twelve years of pro-Zionist [British] policy.’”

"'It is unclear what Pappe is quoting from. I did not find this sentence in the commission’s report. Pappe’s bibliography refers, under “Primary Sources,” simply to “The Shaw Commission.” The report? The deliberations? Memoranda by or about? Who can tell?

"'The footnote attached to the quote, presumably to give its source, says, simply, “Ibid.”

"'The one before it says, “Ibid., p. 103.”

"'The one before that says, “The Shaw Commission, session 46, p. 92.”

"'But the quoted passage does not appear on page 103 of the report.

"In the text of Palestinian Dynasty, Pappe states that “Shaw wrote [this] after leaving the country [Palestine].” But if it is not in the report, where did Shaw “write” it?'"

Me: "I'M ON IT. [rapid-fire googling] OMG. This is.... Not the first time. In 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,' he reported that in a 1937 letter to his son, David Ben-Gurion declared: 'The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as war.'

"It's not in the source he gave. It's not in any of the three different sources he's given for it.

"He apparently has never responded to any requests for an explanation, either from the journal he published in, or from other historians. But it says he did "obliquely [acknowledge] the controversy in an article in Electronic Intifada, in which he portrayed himself as the victim of intimidation at the hands of “Zionist hooligans.”'

"This is absolutely fucking wild. THEN it says the chair of the Ethics Committee where he was teaching eventually said that the second part of the quote ('but one needs,' etc) was a (combined?) paraphrase of a diary entry and a speech Ben-Gurion gave, and that the first half is 'based on' a letter to his son.

"And it's so convincing! The chair says, 'Shabtai Teveth[,] Ben Gurion’s biographer, Benny Morris and the historian Nur Maslaha have all quoted this letter. In fact their translation was stronger than the quotation from Professor Pappé: ‘We must expel the Arabs and take their place.’ Professor Pappé has documentary evidence of these quotations and the source will ensure that this is correctly cited in any future editions of the publication or related studies.'

"And IT'S NOT EVEN TRUE?!

"Ben-Gurion's actual diary entry (not a letter) says the opposite.

“'We do not want and do not need to expel Arabs and take their places.... All our aspiration is built on the assumption – proven throughout all our activity – that there is enough room in the country for ourselves and the Arabs.'

"Benny Morris misquoted it as "We must expel the Arabs and take their places" in the English version of his 1987 book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, although it was correct in the Hebrew version. He corrected himself in the 2001 book Righteous Victims.

"Teveth also misquoted it in the English version of his 1985 book Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, but again, had it correct in the Hebrew edition.

"And both Morris and Teveth explicitly point out the rest of the entry. The part about all their aspiration being built on the assumption and experience that there was enough room in the country for everyone.

"Historian Efraim Karsh’s 1997 book Fabricating Israeli History pointed out and corrected their mistakes.

"This is apparently a very well-known issue among historians of Israel and Palestine. It was a big deal in 2003, when an evangelist Christian publisher put out a book FULL of disinformation, which not only used the same quote as Pappe does, but also could not give a real source for it.

"But Pappe STILL USED THE MISQUOTE AND DOUBLED DOWN ON IT EVERY SINGLE TIME."

Internet: "Are you done? I know all this already."

Me: "Also, there are literally only two places where the phrase 'twelve years of pro-Zionist policy' shows up online, and they're both about Pappe making quotes up.

"NOW I'm done."

Benny Morris wasn't, though. The review continues at the link below. And the next part starts, "To the deliberate slanting of history Pappe adds a profound ignorance of basic facts. Together these sins and deficiencies render his “histories” worthless as representations of the past, though they are important as documents in the current political and historiographic disputations about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Pappe’s grasp of the facts of World War I, for example, is weak in the extreme."

[news4dzhozhar]

You can watch the full lecture (about 2 hours long) here if interested. The YouTube account is German but the lecture is in English.

[fortunatelychaoticphantom]

Okay, so I don't mean to be that kind of Jew, but I just saw a post about how wonderful Purim is (it is) and what a wonderful thing it is that despite facing the prospect of genocide, Mordechai and Ester chose to commemorate this event by celebrating and being joyful instead of responding to it with anger or sadness. I didn't want to take away from that lovely sentiment, but

[ichverdurstehier]

So much for "believe all women"

Hey, that twelve year old girl from France or somewhere who got called a "dirty Jew" as three boys raped her? Is that a fake accusation? The boys that had pro Hamas shit on their phone?

TWELVE YEARS OLD.

And before you say something like "oh but look at this bad thing Israel did" how does that justify raping a twelve year old girl???

Yes, Israel does bad stuff. Attacking a twelve year old girl doesn't fix that!! What the fuck

To the little girl, wherever you are, you did not deserve it. It was not your fault. You did not deserve rape for being Jewish. No one deserves rape

[sssfrs]

Golem

[briefbestiary]

The Shamir. Despite its age and use, apparently it had lost its potency around the time of destruction of Solomon's Temple at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar II.

[bijoumikhawal]

What does the Earth Stand on?

Once, when Aaron the Priest, brother of Moses, was offering sacrifices on Yom Kippur, the bull sprang up from beneath his hands and covered a cow. When that calf was born, it was stronger than any other. Before a year was out, the calf had grown bigger than the whole world.

God then took the world and stuck it on one horn of that bull. And the bull holds up the world on his horn, for that is God’s wish. But when people sin, their sins make the world heavier, and the burden of the bull grows that much greater. Then the bull grows tired of its burden, and tosses the world from one horn to the other. That is when earthquakes take place, and everything is uncertain until the world stands secure on a single horn.

So it is that the bull tosses the world from time to time from one horn to the other, causing earthquakes and other catastrophes. And if people only knew of the danger, they would recognize how much they are dependent on God’s mercy. For if they would only observe the commandments and sanctify God’s name, the bull would stand still and the world remain quietly on its horns.

This Moroccan myth about God putting the world on one horn of a giant bull demonstrates that myths, as well as folktales, can be found among the abundant tales collected orally in Israel by the Israel Folktale Archives. While many of these myths are found in earlier texts, sometimes, as here, a myth is passed down orally and is not to be found in the written tradition. This myth reminds us of myths from other cultures about what the world stands on, such as the widespread belief in South Asia and among North American Indians that the earth rests on the back of a turtle. Not only does this myth explain what the world stands on (since it appears to be standing still), but also provides an explanation for earthquakes and other disasters. Note the genesis of the bull that grows to be bigger than the world—it is born from the unplanned copulation of a bull about to be sacrificed on Yom Kippur. What the myth does not address is the obvious contradiction that the world already existed at the time of Aaron, brother of Moses, the first High Priest.

Pg 80-81, Tree of Souls by Howard Schwartz

[bisexual-maelstrom12]

Elie Wiesel I did read Night in school and it is not stopping me from criticizing Israel bombing Gaza because it taught me that ethnic cleansing is bad actually