#jewish woman beaten

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Suspects allegedly involved in an antisemitic assault in London, on Dec 7, 2023. Source: Shomrim (Stamford Hill)

A Jewish woman was brutally assaulted in London this week by two suspects who pummeled her with punches and kicks for over a minute, according to footage posted on social media by Shomrim of Stamford Hill, a Jewish organization that reports on antisemitism.

The attack, which occurred on Thursday evening in the Stamford Hill neighborhood, left the woman unconscious and only ended after two female suspects reportedly said that the woman was “dead” after kicking her while she was on the ground for over thirty seconds, according to Shomrim, which also serves as a neighborhood watch group.

Metropolitan Police are currently searching for the female suspects. No arrests have been made.

Information on the condition of the victim was not immediately available.

The Stamford Hill section of London is no stranger to antisemitic incidents. In October, days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, two Jewish primary schools in the area were vandalized and doused with red paint.

London’s Metropolitan Police said antisemitic attacks in the city have increased by 1,353 per cent following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 October.

[leihaddock]

Let's imagine Steve and Bucky who were well established in their local queer community. Because they lived in one of the few underground queer cities at the time, and it seems damn near impossible that they *wouldn't* know other queer people

Actually, for that, we probably should talk about Sarah first:

as a nurse she saw it as her duty to help anyone and everyone, no question asked and no matter where they come from, and soon developed a reputation for just that

so she had all sorts of people come to her for help

including queer folks in gender and/or sexuality, what we'd nowadays call drag queens and kings, disabled folks, people of colour, jews and so on

little Stevie grows up around a very diverse group of people

when he was only a couple of years old, he asked Sarah ie why that woman had a beard, and she'd explained to him that there are all kinds of people and there was nothing wrong with being "transsexual" or with men liking other men or women liking other women

and that if he ever found out he was like them, she wouldn't care and love him all the same

and that was one of the lessons that stayed with him, along with always getting back up, always protecting those in need of protection, and later from his own experiences, that he didn't like bullies

the community Sarah builds around herself ends up protecting Steve more than once, no matter how much he hates accepting help

So at some point Steve and Bucky meet and befriend each other and become inseparable. And of course the older they get the more people talk. That they're too close, that that sickly Rogers boy is a fairy (or that he's a waste of oxygen and should be dead, let alone ever reproduce), that there are so many pretty girls for Bucky to choose from. You get the idea

Sarah of course figures out they're dating pretty much immediately. she knows her son, she loves Bucky like her own like she knows the Barnes family does in turn for Steve

To me the Barnes family is supportive but it took them some time because they're the "ideal" middle class family and their oldest son being a fairy wasn't quite ideal but they love Steve and Bucky too much to give a rat's ass about it later on

and with all the people Steve grew up knowing and introduced Bucky to, they have plenty of friends, even if they'd choose each other over the world on any given day

society as a whole wasn't kind to them, would never be kind to them, they knew as much, but they weren't alone

sapphic couples to go on double dates with as a cover (though Bucky goes out of his way to find more women to date as a cover, lest people ask too many questions)

underground bars to meet at, in the "bad" parts of town, to drink and kiss and be a normal couple for once

meet artists of all flavours, punks (our modern definition, relative to the time), go to protests and rallies for women's rights and workers' rights

Bucky meets other jewish queer folks, too, to his delight

they run from cops more than once

lose more than one friend in that time too, who got found out and sent to "conversion therapy" at best, but more than once was found beaten to a pulp in the street

Sarah passes away and Steve is distraught, but he's not alone in mourning, her funeral has so so many of the people she'd helped in her life, and there's some solace in that, despite feeling more alone than ever

Bucky moves in with him and they get those few happy years with a lot of the same they'd done since becoming a couple, before the war comes

not only is Steve upset he can't join the war effort, he's now seeing his friends joining, getting drafted, or denied for the same reasons he is. queer women join en mass and he knows he'd find his people there too, but they just won't let him

then Bucky gets drafted and TFA plays (mostly) as we know it

their friends freak the fuck out when Steve's suddenly gone, then shows up as "Captain America"

some of the chorus girls pick up on Steve being queer, and suddenly the whole group feels a lot more comfortable around him, and he actually ends up enjoying their company a lot

the Howlies don't care, Howard doesn't care, Peggy is a Nazi so her view doesn't matter, no one really does, and they get to be pretty open about their relationship, with everyone covering for them

Bucky falls

the Barnes family gets a letter on what happened to Bucky, from Steve, and suddenly they know that they'll lose both their sons/brothers in that war, because there's no Steve without Bucky and no Bucky without Steve

they've always known it would end like that, but just like Steve, they'd never expected Bucky to be the one to die first

Steve puts the plane down

When he's confirmed alive in the 21st century, not only do the families of the Howlies reach out to him, who'd spread far by then

not only the Barnes family, Bucky's niblings and, hell, grand niblings (who all also insist on calling Steve their uncle, because that's who he is to them, and Steve cries at that)

but also all the children and grandchildren of the community he and Bucky had been part of

that had seen so much loss, he gets told, in the 80s and 90s, and before that, but still stands strong as ever and he's welcomed back with open arms

because those people, too, were his family

he's also told how after his death, some asshole wanted to discredit him for being queer, and all the people he'd ever known jumped to help him

his and Bucky's relationship was their families' best kept secret

that loss still weighs heavy on him, so he doesn't have the energy for pride, but there's something about queer rights having advanced enough that people like him can get married, that fills him with both overwhelming joy and longing

then Bucky is alive, and after everything is said and done, they come out to the world and get married, for real, not the fake wedding their community had thrown for them, or the one the Howlies did

and the rest is history

[liatkolink]

For people still in denial whether Israel has committed war crimes, here is a comprehensive list of war crimes Israel has committed both before and after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the list being taken from the Wikipedia article of war crimes with some notable missing examples being the usage of chemical weapons, famine, disease and apartheid. The 7th of October attack did not occur in a vacuum, but is the product of decades of Israel not being held accountable for its war crimes.

Killing civilians:

Israel/Palestine: Unlawful Israeli Airstrikes Kill Civilians by Human Rights Watch on 15/Jul/2014

‘Not a normal war’: doctors say children have been targeted by Israeli snipers in Gaza – The Guardian on 2/Apr/2024

Israeli attack on Rafah tent camp kills 45, prompts international outcry by Reuters on 27/May/2024

Intentionally killing PoWs:

Israel’s Hush-Up Machine in Action: Denying Story Israel Executed Egyptian Prisoners by Washington Report on Middle East Affairs on 8/Apr/2010

Torture:

Israeli government report admits systematic torture of Palestinians by The Guardian on 10/Feb/2000

Israel/OPT: Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees amid spike in arbitrary arrests by Amnesty International on 8/Nov/2023

Israel: Palestinian Healthcare Workers Tortured by Human Rights Watch on 26/Aug/2024

Taking hostages:

Infographic: How many Palestinians are imprisoned by Israel? by AlJazeera on 17/Apr/2022

The thousands of Palestinians Israel arrests, tortures, holds even in death by AlJazeera on 17/Apr/2024

UN report: Palestinian detainees held arbitrarily and secretly, subjected to torture and mistreatment by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 31/Jul/2024

Unnecessarily destroying civilian property:

Israel destroys Gaza tower housing AP and Al Jazeera offices by Reuters on 15/May/2021

Israel targets infrastructure in Gaza to ramp up civilian pressure on Hamas, report claims by PBS News on 11/Dec/2023

Widespread destruction by Israeli Defence Forces of civilian infrastructure in Gaza by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 8/Feb/2024

Deception by perfidy:

Israeli soldier gives 74-year-old Palestinian woman water then shoots her in the head by Middle East Monitor on 20/Jan/2015

Israeli special forces disguised as doctors kill three militants at West Bank hospital by The Guardian on 30/Jan/2024

NBC News investigation reveals Israel strikes on Gaza areas it said were safe by NBC News on 26/Apr/2024

Wartime sexual violence:

Stripped, beaten and blindfolded: new research reveals ongoing violence and abuse of Palestinian children detained by Israeli military by Save the Children on 10/Jul/2023

Israel/oPt: UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 19/Feb/2024

‘Everything is legitimate’: Israeli leaders defend soldiers accused of rape by AlJazeera on 9/Aug/2024

Pillaging:

The Biblical Pseudo-Archeologists Pillaging the West Bank by The Atlantic on 28/Feb/2013

Jewish Soldiers and Civilians Looted Arab Neighbors' Property en Masse in '48. The Authorities Turned a Blind Eye by Haaretz on 3/Oct/2020

Israeli soldiers boast about looting from Gaza by AlJazeera on 14/Feb/2024

Any individual that is part of the command structure who orders any attempt to committing mass killings:

Netanyahu incites violence by casting protesters as clear and present danger by Middle East Eye on 30/Jul/2020

Israeli minister's call to 'erase' Palestinian village an incitement to violence, US says by Reuters on 1/Mar/2023

Netanyahu cites 'Amalek' Theory to justify Gaza Killings by Times of India on 29/Oct/2023

Database exposes 500 instances of Israeli incitement to genocide in Gaza by TRT World 4/Jan/2024

Genocide:

The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective by Center for Constitutional Rights on 25/Aug/2016

Genocide Warning: Israel & Palestine by Genocide Watch on 21/May/2021

A top U.N. court says Gaza genocide is 'plausible' but does not order cease-fire by npr on 26/Jan/2024

‘Reasonable grounds’ to believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, UN rights expert says by CNN on 27/Mar/2024

Is Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza? New Report from BU School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic Lays Out Case from Boston University Today on 5/Jun/2024

Ethnic cleansing:

UN Human Rights Council: ‘Israel engaging in ethnic cleansing’ by the European Union Parliament on 23/Mar/2011

Israel's ethnic cleansing in Palestine is not history - it's still happening by Middle East Eye on 22/May/2019

UN expert warns of new instance of mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, calls for immediate ceasefire by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on 14/Oct/2023

‘Plan for ethnic cleansing’: Israel’s north Gaza siege sets off alarms by AlJazeera on 22/Oct/2024

Granting of no quarter despite surrender:

White Flag Deaths Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead by Human Rights Watch on 13/Aug/2009

Investigators: Israel fired on Gaza civilians carrying white flags by The Electronic Intifada on 28/Jan/2015

3 hostages killed by Israeli soldier in Gaza were waving a white flag, Israel says by npr on 16/Dec/2023

A group of Palestinian men waving a white flag is shot at, killing 1 by NBC News on 24/Jan/2024

She was fleeing with her grandson, who was holding a white flag. Then she was shot by CNN on 26/Jan/2024

Two brothers shot by Israeli forces in Khan Younis, white flag ignored by AlJazeera on 29/Jan/2024

Conscription of children in the military: First one where I couldn't find anything. Way to go, Israel!

Flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity:

Israel violates the principles of necessity, proportionality in its attacks on Gaza by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor on 13/May/2023

Enough: Self-Defense and Proportionality in the Israel-Hamas Conflict by Just Security on 6/Nov/2023

War Crimes and Accountability: The Case Against Israel’s Military Operations in Gaza by JURIST News on 5/Jul/2024

[odinsblog]

“A shocking video captures a woman surrounded, beaten, and terrorized by a pro-Israel mob outside Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Crown Heights, New York—where racist Israeli far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was speaking.

The crowd—largely Orthodox Jewish men—closed in as an NYPD officer tried to lead the woman to safety. She wore a bandana over her face that looked like a Palestinian keffiyeh—enough to make her a target. The men kicked her, struck her repeatedly, hurled a traffic cone into her head, and unleashed a stream of abuse. “Death to Arabs,” they chanted.

One man leaned in as others encircled her and asked if she “would like to be raped.��

The officer struggled to move her through the mass of bodies, flashing a light that did little to push the mob back. They pressed closer, feeding off each other.

It remains unclear whether the woman was part of the protest against Ben-Gvir’s visit, but the mob treated her as though she were.

Earlier that night, clashes between pro-Palestine demonstrators and Orthodox counter-protesters led to six arrests. [EDIT: this is not a “clash,” it is a mob of predominantly Jewish men - who are not being held accountable - assaulting a lone woman.]

Another woman, also wearing a keffiyeh, was left bloodied with a head wound requiring medical attention.”

(source)

[tiredgirlvent]

Heartbreaking 💔

This is what true bravery looks like !

It's not hiding behind a mask !

Monique was savagely beaten for standing with Israel!

It's pure insanity!

What is happening in Europe right now , should be a wake up call for the united states.

This is what happens when you let anti semitism and jew hatred go unchecked in your country .

This is what happens when you let millions of people come into your country and you don't know who they are .

This is what happens when you let those people take your flag down and put up their own and scream for the death of innocent people.

Europe has fallen !

Wake up !

Jews are being attacked everywhere and those who support the Jewish people are also targeted.

Monique silfhout is a very brave woman and we do see her and admire her .

She has doubled down on her support for Israel!

Nobody should be attacked like this for supporting Israel.

We live in an upside down world !

The world needs to deport these violent individuals and stop letting their hate spread like cancer in their countries !

[girlactionfigure]

 THURSDAY HERO: Glagolev Family

It is undeniable that the role of Ukraine in the Holocaust was shameful. Almost a million Jews were killed by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, most of them shot and dumped into mass graves, many while still alive. Because of this ugly history, and at a time when the Ukraine itself is under threat, it is crucial to remember those Ukrainians who did the right thing, even at great risk to themselves.

Alexei Glagolev was a Ukrainian Orthodox priest who practiced his Christian faith despite severe persecution from the Soviet communists. Together with his wife Tatiana and their children, Alexei hid Jews during World War II, a heroic act that almost cost the Glagolevs their own lives.

Born in Kiev in 1901, Alexei was raised in a devout Eastern Orthodox home. His father Alexander was a priest and professor at Kiev Theological Academy and known to be an ally to Jews at a time of rampant antisemitism. Alexei, a stand-out student in high school, enrolled in the Theological Academy in 1919, and studied there until 1923, even after it was shut down by the Bolsheviks and the students had to study in secret. Alexei married Tatiana Bulashevich, the daughter of a sugar plant owner, in 1926. They had three children, Magdalina, Nikolei and Maria.

In 1932 the Glagolevs’ world was rocked when Alexei was arrested by the communists for “anti-revolutionary acts.” He was freed after a week in custody, but was designated a “cult leader” and deprived of civil liberties. With his professional options severely curtailed due to his status as leader of a cult (the Soviets considered all religions to be cults), he labored as a construction worker and security guard. From 1936 to 1940 he studied Physics and Mathematics at the Kiev Pedagogy Institute, while secretly running an underground church. After the war in Eastern Europe began, Alexei was ordained as a priest and served in the Pokrov Church in Kiev.

In October, 1941, Alexei’s sister-in-law asked him to help her brother’s Jewish wife, Izabella Mirkina, who was in imminent danger of being murdered by the Nazis. Without hesitation, Alexei and Tatiana determined to do whatever they could to help persecuted Jews, despite caring for their own three children in difficult wartime conditions. Tatiana gave Izabella her own identity card and baptism certificate. In his memoirs, Father Alexei wrote, “My wife almost paid with her own life for her reckless action. The Gestapo was going from flat to flat asking for papers, and when they found out that Tatiana didn’t have a passport, they were going to arrest her. Very few people returned to their homes after such arrests. We begged and managed to persuade them to leave her alone after a few witnesses confirmed her identity.”

Even with Tatiana’s papers Izabella was unable to escape and returned to the Glagolevs in desperate need of a place to hide. Alexei later said, “Tormented, we searched for a way to save her. What kind of Christians would we be if we refused this poor woman, who was reaching out to us and pleading for help?” The Glagolevs welcomed Izabella and her daughter Irina into their own modest home. When other desperate Jews approached for help, Alexei gave them fake baptism certificates and hid them in his church, even though hiding Jews was a capital crime punishable by execution. The Glagolev children also helped care for the Jews and keep them safe and fed.

In 1943 Alexei moved out of his home and into the hospital at Pokrov Monastery, where he lived beside the Jews he was helping. This was very risky because the Germans had forbidden Ukrainians to live in that part of Kiev. He and his son Nikolei were arrested in fall of that year and deported to Germany, where Alexei was brutally beaten by the Nazis. Somehow they managed to escape and returned to Ukraine after the liberation from Germany in 1944. In 1945, Alexei wrote a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, Secretary of the Ukraine, about the Jews he had saved.

Alexei continued working as a priest in the Pokrov church until it closed in 1960. He worked in several other churches despite increasing ill health caused by his brutal treatment while imprisoned by the Nazis. Alexei died in 1972. Journalist Sergei Kokurin wrote in an article about Alexei, “It is hard to understand to an average man the determination with which Glagolev went against the tide. In 1936 this fragile-looking intellectual publicly carried the cross taken off the Church of Nikola the Kind, and despite threats from the communists kept it in his flat. He was the only priest in Kiev who refused in April 1942 to hold a church service to celebrate Hitler’s birthday.”

Alexei, Tatiana and their children were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem in 1991. In January 2002, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Alexei Glagolev’s birth, a memorial plaque to him and his brave father Alexander was erected on the wall of the National University of Kiev.

For their heroic actions saving Jews, and for practicing their faith in defiance of Soviet persecution, we honor the Glagolev family as this week’s Thursday Heroes.

[saraannereads]

On the portrayal of Illyrian culture in ACOTAR

I’m Sara - by ethnic origin, I am Arabic and Turkish. I was othered my entire childhood and dealt with seriously atrocious racist attacks.

As I got older, those things lessened and people started assuming I was white or biracial in part due to my having dyed my hair blonde.

Since then, I’ve experienced racism of a different kind - I get told I am a “shallow white girl” who doesn’t have the right to speak about issues facing POC by people from all different ethnicities.

I’ve had enough of that. I may not look like your typical WOC but I am a woman of color. And I will not be silenced.

Why I am not offended by the portrayal of Illyrian culture in Sarah J Maas’s books:

1. I’m from a Muslim family and grew up going to mosques in the Western World, where some of the very oppressive and sexist ideals about women and their place in society were preached from the stands and actively shared by members of the community.

2. I was chronically shamed by my peers in the community for being into my education and for wearing makeup or for daring to speak to boys.

3. The above happened in the United States in the community I grew up in because oppressive, sexist ideals travel across immigration. I clawed my way out of this community and will never look back.

3. Honor killings still happen where I’m from. To this day.

4. Genital mutilation still happens in the regions where I’m from to this day.

5. Women are not allowed to drive in some countries in the region where I’m from to this day.

6. Women are publicly beaten or stoned to death in those regions to this day.

7. Women have to be fully covered up when they leave the house in the region where I’m from to this day.

8. Women are silenced and told not to speak in public - even just to talk to someone - and not to leave their houses without a male chaperone in the region where I’m from to this day.

9. Women are glorified birthing vessels and it is socially accepted for men to have multiple wives to have as many children as possible in the region where I’m from to this day.

10. Women do not have full equality or even basic, fundamental human rights in the the region where I’m from to this day.

How does this relate to Illyrian culture and ACOTAR?

Do I really need to explain the answer to that? I realize that some people may have grown up in Middle Eastern families and not had the experience I had. Some of my experience is also due to Islamic religious ideas and not simply cultural ideals. And there are some people who may love where they came from and have had a radically different experience than my own. That does NOT make my experience less valid, nor does it make my criticisms of the culture and countries I’m referring to less valid or accurate.

To me, the portrayal of the Illyrians is an accurate representation of what goes on in some pockets of the mid east, and for that very reason, I’m not offended.

In fact, wing clipping is essentially the fictional version of genital mutilation, which still happens in the cultures that people say Illyria is inspired by.

It is not racist to look at something and call it out for what it is. If I were to say, every single ME person I’ve ever met adheres to some of the more fundamentalist and sexist rhetoric I heard and continue to see, that would be racist and untrue.

The reality is there will also always be people who attack Sarah J Maas because she’s Jewish, especially at this time with conversations about Zionism running rampant. I married a Jewish man. I’ve seen anti-semitism firsthand. I also saw it growing up among the more nationalistic people I grew up with who hated the idea of an Israeli country.

What you can do:

Stand up for women around the world who don’t enjoy the same freedoms you do, and quit picking fights about a book series. Look to solve real problems instead of making some up.

Note - If you attack me in the comments, I will not respond. I will immediately block. This was not an easy post for me to make in any way, and I feel vulnerable having shared so much.

[anti-zionist-jew]

I had to start a new blog, so I figured I would reintroduce myself.

My name is Zara. I’m a Black Ashkenazi Jewish woman, 36 years of age, who grew up in one of the oldest majority Black synagogues in occupied Turtle Island (USA). Being a Black woman, and a Jewish woman, have shaped my entire identity and walk through life. I am proudly Black and Jewish. I have been on the “birthright” trip, and can attest first hand how that is two weeks of pure Zionist propaganda, and how none of this is about Judaism.

We do not need a country to all be shuffled into in order to be safe. Israel does not protect Jewish people, and it never has. Palestinian sovereignty is not and never will be antisemitic, and From the River to the Sea is not a call for genocide against the Jews. It is a call for liberation, a declaration of decolonization. Is “from sea to shining sea” a call for genocide? Or is it a declaration that the land from the Pacific to the Atlantic is the USA?

White westerners get to hide their antisemitism by “supporting Israel” and thus supporting the idea of shuffling Jews to the Middle East. They get to claim they are protecting a historically marginalized people, while sticking us on the other side of the world, where they can “be over there, and they can fight amongst themselves far away from us”

Israel is a settler state. They came in and murdered people to steal their homes. Occupied the land. Began controlling all access to resources. And then started committing genocide when Hamas retaliated. What Hamas did is not just unsurprising, it was inevitable. Tell me that you, in Podunk USA would let people come steal your house. Tell me you wouldn’t use the “stand your ground” or “castle doctrine” to shoot the thieves coming to rob you. Tell me you’ll voluntarily give your home to an indigenous American. You simply cannot. Explain to me how Jews living in Israel who stand against genocide are being arrested, beaten, exiled from their communities. Explain to me how they’re not an ethno state when they do not legally recognize interfaith marriage.

Israel is an apartheid state, Israel has its hands in the worst atrocities the world over. Yes, white Jew reading this in Brooklyn, what is happening to Palestinians will always be far worse than the pro Palestine protestor calling you a colonizer when you inserted yourself against their cause, and then wanted to pretend you were attacked for being Jewish. Zionism ≠ Judaism, and the world knows that now.

Even in the context of those arguments to indigenous to the land, please read a single book or paper published by an indigenous scholar. Multiple people can and are indigenous to the same regions.

Anyway, it’s Free Palestine. Free Congo. Free the Sudan. Release the chains from all oppressed and colonized people. Agitate, educate, organize. And long live the intifada

[ladyodium]

I Could Not Prevent It

S2x7

TW: I am going to be discussing some very heavy topics. I will ask that yall respect these topics. I will be going into Domestic Violence, Lynching, Racism, R/pe, and Gore. (SPOILERS IF YOU CONTINUE TO READ!)

So, as a Black Woman this was a hard watch. From the beginning of the lynching Louis, Claudia and Madeline were bagged and dragged off into an unknown place. Louis was being beaten on the floor while Claudia was thrown in the rat box and had people on top of it so she wouldn’t get out.

I want y’all to notice how only Madeleine is not harmed, Santiago is messing with her mind, but Claudia and Louis are being physical harmed. They all had their achilles tendons cut to the bone to prevent them from walking, they weren’t allowed to speak and if they did the coven vampires would punish them. Claudia and Louis lose their names, they are now “The accused”, Madeleine is the only one whose name is said.

The bagging, dragging, the torture, the beatings, and the mock trial all hit a little too close to home. You have two Black people and a Jewish person on stage and I can’t help but think how traumatizing this must be for Madeline. Who was dragged from her shop by an angry mob, forced on her knees and had her head shaved. Then she continued to have constant harassment on her shop and person, let’s not forget she was almost graped, and no one was going to save her. 

The film that shows in the back ground as Lestat is telling his “story” is such an important detail. “A white man who just came to New Orleans and is being Hunted by a Black male.” We the viewers know that this isn’t true. Lestat pursued Louis, Lestat wanted Louis, Lestat was obsessed with Louis. But Louis can’t convey that, he’s not allowed to speak, to defend himself. Claudia, Louis and Madeline have to sit and watch a Butch of white people laugh and mock them. They have to sit and suffer for something that was really their last option. 

Diction is very important. When Santiago is questioning Lestat he uses words like “you were forced to…you were manipulated….you were sad, and lonely….you had no choice.”

Lestat is the victim in this lynching, he was the one who was hurt, not Louis, not Claudia. He was a victim of love and passion! Of loneliness! Louis was the one who pursued him, manipulated him, made him lonely.

“I..,a vampire, was being hunted…”

“Louis was saying “come to me”…

“Speaking your own unspeakable desires…in hopes that I would come to you”

“Louis was deceptively agile with words”

“He abandoned me in our town house”

Lestat is not the victim in his relationship with Louis. Is Lestat a victim and an abuser? Yes, these two things can be true at the same time, but he was not the victim for what he did to Louis.

Claudia and Louis are described to be these two black vampires who killed their loving Maker (master). The flashback to the fight that happened really messed with me, so I’m just gonna believe that Louis, Lestat and Claudia’s versions of the fights some of them were true. The portrayal of trying to make Louis this monster who rejected Lestat and was an animal himself because he consumed animal blood is telling.

Often Black people are seen as monsters, they are the aggressors even when we are victims. I want people to understand how Louis and Claudia being Black played into their vampirism. They are immortal creatures of the night, but they are still BLACK. New Orleans was notorious for its lynching and Louis was not safe from that, no Black person was. People will say Louis was a pimp and he’s manipulating Armand and Lestat, but I feel like yall fail to understand that Louis didn’t have options. A black man in 1960 New Orleans didn’t have the options to become anything greater than what white people allowed him to be. We see that when he plays the poker game, when he helps Anderson and gets called a Nigger, and when the race riots happen and they burned down his business. 

“She called me an angel…..they burned her building because of me….”

(Context: Claudia thought Louis was God’s angel coming to save her and Louis feels guilty because she was going to die just because Louis was a black man dominating the market. )

Santiago has humiliated Claudia by making her this minstrel act. To have her sing, dance, and parade around like a fool in front of a white audience. He hates that Louis doesn’t want to join them, and that Louis is fine by himself. Louis grimacing as he watches Claudia was my face throughout that episode. He then displays her private diaries to an audience, he tells them to pass it around! Mocks her accent, makes fun at her pain and sorrows. I’m pretty sure he read what happened to her with that vampire who graped her.

She’s not a victim anymore but a prop they can laugh at and mock for their own amusement. She was right when she said “this isn’t a trial, it’s a stoning.” It’s a lynching happening in real time. Notice how Madeleine is the only one allowed the option of redemption, she’s allowed to choose her fate. She chooses death with her companion, and she had my heart for that. She really was a ride or die.

Claudia’s last act is to perform her song to the masses one more time because that’s what she was, entertainment. The way Santiago picks up her yellow dress as some kind of token really made me think of how millions of white people would have picnics and bring their children to watch the burning, lynching of black people and then they would take tokens of the kill.

To conclude, this was a hard episode and Lestat was pissing me off. Also, ARMAND IN HIS LITTLE ASS PLAYPEN?! BFFR! Shout out to the actors! They really made this episode.

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

Responding to yet more unhinged Anti zionists arguments

Because I am not going to waste my precious time and energy on replying to each ignorant person who believes Hamas are a "brave resistance group"

For the millionth time: I do not support the genocide of Palestinians when I say Israelis shouldn't die. I am not deflecting or denying anything, I am making posts about how I and other Israelis have been impacted by October 7th and the war ever since. I am allowed to mourn my people.

Released female Israeli hostages aren't "weaponizing Feminism". Just because some were "only" sexually assaulted and threatened with rape, doesn't mean others aren't raped. Israeli women were targeted on October 7th. Their assault, mutilation, and violent rape were all planned. Hamas terrorists who were caught and interrogated have said so themselves in published recorded interrogations. *** Regarding Mia Shem- I've said before: mocking her appearance isn't making you the great humane person you think you are. I've had some nutjob tell me "Oh well in an interview she said she was only groped and others were raped. She's using feminism and things people care about in order to gain sympathy." She was: -Kidnapped from a party and shot. -Operated on by a veterinarian while in captivity for over 50 days. -Starved ,beaten, mocked , groped and sexually assulted while constantly threatened with being raped. And you're mocking her. Wow that is a new low. Believe Jewish women.

You are constantly backing up your "facts" and statistics with un-credible sources. Let me make this clear one final time: Al Jazeera = racist and antisemitic supports terrorism There isn't a Gaza Ministry of Health- it's Hamas.

Palestinians and Hamas specifically are very racist towards Afro-Palestinian / black people. A quick Google search will lead you to this:

Anti-Black racism in Palestine

The State of Palestine has a community of Afro-Palestinians, many of whom are descendants of the victims of the historical Slavery in Palestine, which ended in the 20th-century.[43]

Racism against African Americans in Palestinian media (Wikipedia)

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has been the subject of some viciously racial personal attacks, alongside vociferous criticism of her policies.[44] These included an anti-black racist cartoon in Palestinian Authority's controlled Press Al Quds. The New York Times reported in 2006:

Her comment that the Israel-Lebanon war represented the "birth pangs of a new Middle East"— coming at a time when television stations were showing images of dead Lebanese children — sparked ridicule and even racist cartoons. A Palestinian newspaper, Al Quds," which "depicted Ms. Rice as pregnant with an armed monkey, and a caption that read, "Rice speaks about the birth of a new Middle East.[45]

The Palestinian media has used racist terms including "black spinster" and "colored dark skin lady."[46][47]

.... The African Palestinians who now live in the two compounds near al-Aqsa mosque have called the area home since 1930.[12] They have experienced prejudice, with some Palestinian Arabs[21] referring to them as "slaves" (abeed) and to their neighbourhood as the "slaves' prison" (habs al-abeed), and their colour has led to objections against them marrying Palestinians with lighter skin.[9][3] According to Mousa Qous, director of the African Community Society and a former member of the PFLP, "Sometimes when a black Palestinian wants to marry a white Palestinian woman, some members of her family might object." Interracial marriage with Afro-Palestinians has become more common in recent years.[8] In colloquial Palestinian Arabic, standard usage prefers the word sumr (dark colour) over sawd, which has an uncouth connotation.[22]

-For further reading I found this research paper to be very detailed: https://d-nb.info/1204258597/34

*** I have to mention this as well since some anti-Zionist brought up MLK as an example for their argument against Israel: you clearly have no idea what you're talking about... he was a Zionist!

Jews and African Americans have historically been allies in their struggles for equality. He literally wrote an open letter titled "Letter to an Anti-Zionist friend", explaining why he supports Zionism. Do your research.

5. Gaza hasn't been under Israel's control since 2006, it is controlled by Hamas! Before that, it was governed by Fatah, Another terrorist organization (Hamas killed all of the Fatah members when they came to power). Hamas = terror organization leaching off the Palestinian people. They want to kill all Jews and are against everything that represents the West. UWNRA - Is filled with Hamas terrorists. UN & ICRC - Both have a long history of being biased against Jews and have failed the Jewish people once again.

6. Israelis don't deserve to die just because they are Israeli. They are not privileged to have a government that (relative to Hamas) cares about their civilians.

7. "From the river to the sea" Is a genocidal chant calling for the death of all Jews / Israelis. The final solution / one solution = killing all Jews, holocaust. Intifadas aren't peaceful or inspiring resistance. It's Terror attacks targeting civilians: Shootings, stabbings, lynchings, school buses exploding, etc.

I have an entire post explaining this, you're welcome to read it but the main takeaway should be: You don't get to decide what's anti-Semitic, Jews do. If Jews tell you this chant threatens them and is antisemitic- it is.

[artemis-fowl-incident-report]

Artemis Fowl: The American Deception update.

@a-usernamelol, @bassiascoparia, since you both have apparently recited the incantations and scarified to the old gods well enough to get me to write this damn fan fiction, I thought I'd give you a little treat. I present to you, Artemis's dream team. No, I will not explain what for yet 🤐

Omen Freeman: 20yo, They/Them lesbian, black, journalism student who heads a student run magazine called "The Panthers child" and is highly involved with organising protests on campus. Their great grandmother was a member of the Black Panther Party and they are determined to carry on that legacy.

Obediah (Obie) John Stokely: 37yo, He/Him, former Maga supporter, widower, Trucker. Obie had a very black and white view on the world and his place in it, until his daughter got brutally beaten up at school and because she was trans (something he didn't know at the time). Once he learned this, he re-evaluated his entire stance on the things he had been told, the people he was told to hate, and the outlook he was told he should have on the world. Now, he runs "The Midnight Highway", a fleet of vintage, decommissioned trucks that he repairs himself to transport goods from different donation centres around Georgia, making sure they spread evenly and that no one had to go without.

Beryl Lilian Stokely: 20yo, Graphic designer, trans woman she/her. She works as a part time teacher at the local high school, helping the kids there learn computer skills, skills she had to teach herself, since they didn't have the budget to send her to college. She originally faced a bit of backlash from the students, teachers, and parents. Now, they would die for her because she and her father do so much good in their community. It was her who originally came up with "Midnight" after learning about the Book Women of Kentucky, also known as "The packhorse library". Women who would travel hundreds of miles to deliver books to Appalachians during the great depression (IRL, this also inspired Dolly Parton to create "The Imagination Library")

Benjemin (Benny) Papadopoulos: He/Him, 16yo, Autistic, Greek/Jewish, hyperfixated on public transportation, infrastructure, and efficiency. He has a YouTube channel where he talks about these topics through the lens of videogames, and its reasonably popular. He has hundreds, HUNDREDS of letters of complaint to his local cities governing body about problems surrounding roads, trains/busses, and gentrification. He has many opinions about Thomas the Tank Engine (OP here, I am also autistic and I approve this message 👍)

Hoon Jang: Trans man He/Him, 66yo, Korean (birth right citizenship) raised by a singe mother. When he was 10, the Stonewall Riots happened (1969), he even saw and heard the tale end of it from his bedroom window. Next morning he asked around to see what had happened, and it fundamentally changed him. He got his law degree and started fighting for the community even before he realised he was truly a part of it, only figuring out he was a man in his 20's.

Sofia Flores-Ruiz: She/her, 32yo Latina (2nd generation, family immigrated from Mexico), Ex-Military, disabled (wheelchair user). Sofia always had dreams of going into politics or law, but had to change her plans when her parents died in a car crash when she was 17. She needed money quickly, so she joined the army, leaving her five siblings in the care of their Abuela. She did a handful of tours, including Pakistan and Iraq with two chances, Army and Marines over 10 years, ending up as a Captain. One day, she narrowly missed being hit by a shell, but son of the shrapnel hit nerve ending in her back. She can walk, technically, without the chair, buts its incredibly painful. By day, she's a telemarketer because it allows her to work from home, and she SBSOLUTELY hates it. By night she is a volunteer councillor for a military transitional program, helping vets get back into civilian life, specialising in those who have physical disabilities and motability issues.

[gaykarstaagforever]

It goes without saying that I love DS9 "Family Business," because it's a zany madcap Ferengi episode and those are always immediate classics.

I loved that Ferenginar is a murky bog planet where it rains all the time and everything is filled with mud and beetles, but they also have neon-lit Metropolis cities:

They handled the whole Moogie / Quark situation pretty well. Like, obviously, Ferengi culture is horrifyingly sexist. And it's unrealistic to expect Quark to not be down for that. And it adds an interesting regressive wrinkle to the show, because hey, lots of contemporary human cultures are like this and are not going to stop, and we have to deal with that. So Moogie, in the end, agrees to help Quark's reputation by admitting she was "wrong" - by lying to both Quark and the authorities, and her and Rom conspiring to keep doing exactly what she was doing. It splits the difference and everyone wins.

Rom is really fascinating, here. He's a momma's boy and a pushover, but he also always gets what he wants the moment he throws a fit about something, which is often. So he's actually kind of a master manipulator. Like he takes the hit of looking stupid and brow-beaten, but he also benefits from that? He's probably smarter than Quark, in that he knows Quark is better at business and that he wins by riding his coattails. Especially since Quark immediately gives in any time Rom puts his foot down. It's such a weird dynamic.

...I don't know if making Ferengi culture more complex than "Gross Jewish Stereotypes" by making their society a 90s American "Orientalist Muslim" trope is really fixing a problem. You would not do this now.

Oh and the B-story where Jake sets his father up with a woman who looks very much like his dead mother is...weird.

Ben is allowed to like thin, sassy, light-skinned Black women. It's his fictional lovelife. People have preferences.

...I still think it's weird.

And that he needs therapy. DS9 needs a Counselor pretty bad. O'Brien is only not a quivering mass of PTSD by the end by the grace of the Prophets.

...I DID like how the Ferengi have to pay for literally every service, all the time. Even though that is certainly not moving them away from the offensive Shylock stereotype.

The woman who played Moogie, Cecily Adams, was ten years younger than Armin Shimerman. She died in 2004 at 46.

[cursedreverie1945]

We really don't talk about the wives all that much, outside of Magda Goebbels and Eva Braun.

Lina Heydrich. Hateful beast of a woman. She deserved nothing but misery.

In June 1942, after her husband's death, Hitler gave Lina the country estate in recognition of his service. It was given the German name of Jungfern-Breschan. Himmler arranged for approximately 30 Jewish forced laborers to work at the estate. According to the Jewish survivors, she physically abused them and often. They were given little in the way of food, slept in the stables, beaten with whips or whatever was handy. Continuously and constantly berated, screamed at, punished. All at the hands of that hellbitch.

She was the daughter of a minor German aristocrat (he worked as a village schoolteacher), she joined the Nazi Party in 1929 and met Reinhard Heydrich in December 1930. The two wed on 26 December 1931 and had four children. She published a memoir in 1976. It was published in German but under two different titles.

Mein Leben mit Reinhard

Leben mit einem Kriegsverbrecher

Supposedly, Lina meant for Leben mit einem Kriegsverbrecher to be tongue in cheek (Life with a War Criminal) and regretted it.

((I believe you can find it published in German, Spanish, and Czech. I'm not sure if it is available in other languages, I've only personally seen a German one. The book is somewhat expensive due to lack of availability.))

She defended the reputation of her first husband (Heydrich) until her death at age 74 in August 1985 in Fehmarn.

In June 1942, after her husband's death, Hitler gave Lina the country estate in recognition of his service. It was given the German name of Jungfern-Breschan. Himmler arranged for approximately 30 Jewish forced laborers to work at the estate. According to Jewish survivors, she physically abused them and often.

Towards the end of the war, "the princess had to flee her castle". That was a reference back to something she allegedly said how she felt like a princess in their new home. (Nazi Wives, I think is what it was in)

Upon fleeing, it was said she took with her the coffin of her eldest child, Klaus, and the uniform Heydrich was attacked in.

I often wonder how Heydrich's grandchildren and great-grandchildren fared and if they were able to break free of the hate-filled ideology of their late family members.

This is the first of a 3 part series.

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Hannah Senesh

Hannah Senesh was a young Jewish poet from Budapest who escaped Hungary in 1939 but parachuted back into Europe five years later as an Allied spy on a doomed mission to save Jewish lives.

Hannah was born in Budapest in 1921 to a secular Jewish family of writers and intellectuals. Her father Bela Senesh, a noted playwright, died when she was only six years old, and she was raised by her devoted mother Katherine. As soon as she could read, Hannah became a writer. She started keeping a diary at 13, which she continued for rest of her life.

Although Hannah was assimilated, that didn’t protect her family against rising antisemitism in Hungary. She joined Maccabea, a Zionist youth group, and for the first time in her life, cared about being Jewish and was proud of her identity. At age 18, after graduating from high school, she made aliyah – moved to the Land of Israel, then the British Mandate of Palestine. She settled on Kibbutz Sdot Yam in 1939.

Life at the kibbutz was difficult and Hannah wrote vividly in her diary about working long hours in the kitchen and laundry. She continued her creative writing, penning poems as well as a lively play about the kibbutz community. Hannah hadn’t forgotten the world she left behind in Hungary, and was determined to help her Jewish brethren escape from Europe, which was quickly becoming a deathtrap for Jews. In 1941 she joined the Haganah, the paramilitary group that later became the Israel Defense Forces. Two years later, she joined the British Woman’s Auxiliary Air Force as an Aircraftwoman 2nd Class.

Her goal was to return to Europe to fight the Nazis and save her fellow Jews. She was recruited into the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a secret British spy organization, and underwent intensive military training in Egypt. Her performance was so exceptional that she became one of 33 people selected for the high-stakes mission. In March 1944, she parachuted into Yugoslavia, where she joined the Partisans, a highly effective resistance group led by Josip Tito, later to be the long-serving prime minister of the country. At this time she wrote the poem, “Blessed is the March.”

Germany invaded Hungary in March, 1944, and immediately started deporting and murdering Jews with shocking speed. Fearlessly, Hannah snuck into Hungary on June 7, ready to do whatever it took to save her Jewish brothers and sisters. Tragically, she was caught soon after by Hungarian police, working with the Nazis. They found her British military transmitter, used to communicate with the SOE, and promptly arrested her and threw her in prison. Immediately upon arriving at the prison, she was stripped naked and tied to a chair for three days, during which she was whipped and beaten with a club. She lost several teeth as they tried to force her to reveal the code for her transmitter so they could catch other resistance workers and parachutists.

Desperate for Hannah to reveal information about resistance activities, they tracked down her mother, hiding in Budapest, and arrested her, hoping that Hannah would talk to protect her mother. Katherine, who had no idea Hannah was even in Hungary, was shocked to see her daughter for the first time in five years – missing teeth, covered in bruises, and malnourished. Together the two Senesh women agreed they wouldn’t help their captors in any way. Katherine was eventually released from prison and sent on the infamous Budapest “Death March,” but managed to escape. She hid in Budapest until it was liberated by the Soviets in January 1945.

During several months of imprisonment, Hannah was beaten and tortured daily, but she amazingly refused to share any information about Resistance activities. From her squalid cell, she used a mirror to flash signals out the window to other prisoners. She drew a Jewish star in the dust outside her window so those outside could see her Jewish pride.

She was put on trial in Budapest for treason in October 1944. She used her moment in the spotlight to eloquently denounce Nazism, and Hungarian complicity in genocide against the Jews. She refused to apologize for her actions or request mercy from the court.

Hannah was sentenced to death. On the last day of her life, she wrote letters to her mother and her comrades in the resistance. As she was taken to face the firing squad in a snow-covered courtyard, she refused to wear a blindfold, forcing her killers to look her in the eye as they shot her. Hannah was only 23 years old. Somebody at the prison, whose identity remains a mystery, made sure Hannah was laid to rest in the Jewish cemetery in Budapest. Her body was brought to Israel in 1950 and buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. In 1993, Hungary officially exonerated Hannah Senesh.

After Hannah’s death, poems were found in her prison cell, many of which have become songs written and performed by prominent Jewish singers such as Ofra Haza and Regina Spektor. Her diary and other writings were published in Israel – in fifteen editions so far. Hannah’s tragic, inspiring story has been the subject of multiple books and plays. A kibbutz and several streets are named after her, and every Israeli schoolchild knows of this legendary Jewish martyr.

One of Hannah’s most famous poems is known as Eli, Eli (“My God, My God.”). It was put to music by composer David Zahavi. The poem reads in part,

My God, My God,

I pray that these things never end,

The sand and the sea,

The rustle of the waters,

Lightning of the Heavens,

The prayer of Man.

For risking her life to save her fellow Hungarian Jews, and inspiring generations of Israelis, we honor Hannah Senesh as this week’s Thursday Hero

[perrysoup]

As an arab who has lived in Israel, everyone's accusations that they are some kind of apartheid state? I don't understand where you get these ideas from? I think you conflate that idea with the things you Americans learned from your racist history of white and black people and your past of segregation and with the history of South Africa's past as well. I have never been othered or harassed as a Lebanese woman by my coworkers, bosses, or friends. I can read everything here becuase we have access to everything here, I cant read hebrew well, but I can read the arabic around the country. I'm not forbidden from places for being arab. I have had uncomfortable experiences in some areas, but never at the hands of a Israeli, but by men who assumed i was Israeli/ a jew and thought I couldn't understand what they would say about me/ my female family or friends with me.

I was gonna write out a different full response but frankly I don't believe you. You are asking as an anonymous person so you could very well be one of the Zionists who keeps complaining I don't have sympathy for the PTSD coming from MURDERING PEOPLE AND LAUGHING ABOUT IT! Or you may be telling the truth but the slew of go fund me scams claiming to be people that are really sets the bar high for someone being anonymous.

I have seen orthodox Jews on the streets of Israel beaten to an inch of their life for trying to stop a Palestinian from being harassed by police.

I have seen the videos about the Israeli government beat back protestors for wanting aid through.

I have seen rallies where people in Israel screamed "Death to all Muslim"

I have see a fucking girl torn to shreds and shoved on rebar like meat by the IOF so politely don't fucking tell me how YOUR experience defines the entire group currently being genocided and tortured.

Do you really expect me to think that just cause things were okay for YOU that the murders I saw with my own eyes aren't real?

Side note: Everyone in the Middle East is Arab, that's a regional cultural identity, not a religion or even a descriptor of which country they were born in. Jews in Palestine are Arab and Muslims in Israel are Arab.

"Arab identity (Arabic: الهوية العربية) is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as an Arab and as relating to being Arab. Like other cultural identities, it relies on a common culture, a traditional lineage, the common land in history, shared experiences including underlying conflicts and confrontations. These commonalities are regional and in historical contexts, tribal. Arab identity is defined independently of religious identity, and pre-dates the spread of Islam and before spread of Judaism and Christianity, with historically attested Arab Muslim tribes and Arab Christian tribes and Arab Jewish tribes. Arabs are a diverse group in terms of religious affiliations and practices. Most Arabs are Muslim, with a minority adhering to other faiths, largely Christianity,[1] but also Druze and Baháʼí.[2][3]"

Edit: to add an item on this, I’ll trust South Africa on if Israel is an segregation/apartheid state over you

[beardedmrbean]

The man charged in connection with an arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home over the weekend allegedly climbed the residence's fence, used a hammer to break a window and threw Molotov cocktails in to start the blaze, prosecutors revealed.

Cody A. Balmer, 38, was charged with attempted criminal homicide, aggravated arson, burglary, terrorism and other counts in connection with the early Sunday morning attack, the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday. 

The arson attack lasted for several minutes. Shapiro and first lady Lori Shapiro, as well as other guests and staff, were inside the Harrisburg residence when the fire erupted around 2 a.m. No one was injured in the fire, and the governor's family was safely evacuated. However, prosecutors said the residence sustained "substantial damage."

Balmer, of Harrisburg, turned himself into the Pennsylvania State Police on Sunday and admitted to "harboring hatred towards Governor Shapiro."

When asked during a police interview what he would have done if Shapiro found him inside the residence, "he advised he would have beaten him with his hammer," the probable cause affidavit said.

The attack

Balmer was caught on security cameras both within and outside the residence, officials said. He was seen wearing a black "snap-on" jacket, black boots and carrying a bag.

Video surveillance footage showed the suspect climbing over an exterior fence of Shapiro's residence, approaching the piano room windows on the south side of the home and breaking an exterior window with a hammer, the criminal affidavit said. He then threw a Molotov cocktail inside through the broken glass. Shortly after, flames were seen in the interior of the home, the probable cause affidavit said.

Balmer then moved to an adjacent window, broke the glass and entered the home through the broken window, the affidavit said. Once inside, he deployed a second incendiary device in the dining room that spurred another fire.

The affidavit states that Balmer then moved toward the dining room exit. Surveillance footage showed him wearing two different colored gloves — one orange and one yellow. He was seen kicking the dining room door open and exiting the residence. He left the property in the same direction he entered, climbing back over the perimeter fence, running through a parking lot and then fleeing the residence in a southeast direction, the affidavit said.

Investigators found two broken glass beer bottles containing gasoline in the dining room of the residence.

Investigators also collected videos from privately owned security cameras and found that the suspect had fled east on Peffer Street. A sweep of Peffer Street led investigators to locate the gloves that matched the suspect’s in a trash can. The gloves had a “strong smell of gasoline emanating from them,” the criminal affidavit said. 

Shapiro, who is Jewish, had shared Passover well-wishes online Saturday evening just hours before the attack.

He condemned the attack in a Sunday press conference, saying, "This kind of violence is not OK … I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other, directed at one particular party or another, or one particular person or another. It is not OK and it has to stop."

Turning himself in

Pennsylvania State Police in Harrisburg were contacted by a woman who said she was the ex-paramour of Balmer. She said Balmer confessed to the act and "wanted her to call police to turn him in," the affidavit said. 

A short time later, Balmer approached a Pennsylvania State Police trooper at the department headquarters. He said he was "responsible" for the fire in the governor’s residence and "wished to turn himself in." He was transported to the Pennsylvania State Police office in Harrisburg, where he was interviewed, the affidavit said. 

During the interview, he confessed his ill feelings toward Shapiro. 

He told investigators that he removed gasoline from a lawn mower and poured it into beer bottles he found at his home, then walked for an hour to the governor’s residence with the intention of throwing the homemade Molotov cocktails into the home. 

He admitted that he scaled the perimeter fence, broke two windows with a hammer and threw the Molotov cocktails inside. Balmer said after leaving the governor's residence, he returned to his own home and removed the clothes he wore during the attack, the affidavit said.

Troopers responded to his home and seized the "snap-on" jacket, a black bag and a small sledgehammer, "which were identical to those observed in the surveillance at the Governor’s residence," the affidavit said.

Balmer also told investigators that he was aware his actions would result in "negative consequences" and knew it was possible that Shapiro and others were home at the time and that they could have been harmed, according to the affidavit.

Balmer was transported to Dauphin County Prison for arraignment. According to his court docket, he is awaiting a preliminary hearing.

Pennsylvania state police said Monday that Balmer was transported to a hospital, and is receiving treatment "due to a medical event not connected to this incident or his arrest." It’s not clear what caused him to be hospitalized. 

Suspect appeared to be critical of the government online

Balmer worked as a mechanic. Kindermans Auto Repair, an auto repair shop in Harrisburg, wrote on Facebook on Sunday that he was a former employee at the shop. 

Balmer’s social media presence suggests he held staunch anti-government views. He often posted memes urging people to "become ungovernable" and reposted an artwork of a Molotov cocktail in 2022 with the slogan "Be the light you want to see in the world."

He posted negative content about then-President Joe Biden and seemed to reject Biden’s 2020 presidential win. He shared posts on Facebook criticizing Biden during his term, including a picture with the text "Joe Biden owes me 2 grand" and a post that said "Biden supporters shouldn’t exist."

He also shared a meme in 2020 that argued that both Democrats and Republicans "would rather argue with other than work to solve the problems we are facing."

Balmer has faced criminal charges before.

He previously pleaded guilty to forgery and theft in 2015 and again to forgery in 2016 in Pennsylvania, court records show. He was also charged with assault in 2023 in a case that is still open.