#know HALF the trauma of someone living in gaza

[skippingseaglass]

people are my religion and this is fucking blasphemy

[girlactionfigure]

let Anne Frank rest

NOVEMBER 11, 2024

THIS IS DISRESPECTFUL

ANNE, MARGOT, THEIR MOTHER, AND FATHER WERE ZIONISTS

Here’s the thing: we have absolutely no way of knowing how Anne Frank would feel about today’s Israel-Hamas war, because her life was brutally cut short by the Nazis at just 15 years old. Is it possible that she would be attending pro-Palestine marches and donning keffiyehs? Sure, it’s possible. A minority of Jews do that.  

Here’s what we know for sure: in her own famous diary, Anne Frank wrote that she was interested in Zionism. Her sister, Margot Frank, was an ardent Zionist. She joined the Dutch Zionist youth club in 1941, and hoped to make aliyah (immigrate) to Mandatory Palestine, where she planned on becoming a midwife for the Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community in Palestine).

Otto Frank, the only family member to survive the war, was very, very strongly pro-Israel, particularly after the Holocaust (whereas beforehand, he was slightly more ambivalent, though never anti-Zionist). In fact, in the 1970s, Otto had a disagreement with the Anne Frank House, as he demanded that the museum’s statutes explicitly affirm Israel’s right to exist — a right much of today’s keffiyeh-wearing pro-Palestine movement doesn’t accept.

We don’t know how Anne would feel today. But we do know how most Holocaust survivors feel. Not only do most Holocaust survivors -- like most Jews -- support Israel, but 49% of today’s remaining 245,000 survivors live in Israel. It’s even possible that Anne may have moved to Israel had she survived the war; after all, Israel absorbed nearly 400,000 Holocaust survivor refugees between 1946-1952, including Anne’s childhood best friend, Hanna Goslar.

APPROPRIATION OF OUR TRAUMA, AGAIN

I’ve talked about Holocaust inversion on this account for years. I have numerous posts on it, with more coming. But perhaps I haven’t made this explicitly clear yet: Holocaust inversion -- that is, the depiction of Jews and/or Israelis as Nazis, crypto-Nazis, or “worse than the Nazis” and the Palestinians as the “true” victims of the Holocaust -- is a blatant appropriation of the Jewish people’s worst collective trauma.  

That is not to say that Palestinians don’t endure pain. Of course they do, and pain and trauma can’t exactly be quantified. But this obsession with stripping Jews of our very unique, deeply painful experience and placing it onto someone else is deeply offensive. At a certain point, it almost looks like these people have Holocaust envy, which is bizarre and frankly deeply disturbing.  

Why would you want this? For six years, the international community stood by as nearly 70% of Europe’s Jewish population was exterminated in the most industrialized genocide in human history. Countries all over the world shut their doors to Jewish refugees. The Allies refused to bomb the death camps and the railroads leading to the camps, despite the desperate pleas from the Jewish community. In 1939, there were 16.6 million Jews in the world. Today, 85 years later, we just scrape 15 million. This is not what has ever happened to Palestinians, whose population has not decreased by even half a percentage point since 1948, not even since October 7, and not even in Gaza (as there have been more births than deaths, according to Hamas and Save the Children). 

Even more infuriating? Not even did Palestinian Arab leadership collaborate with the Nazis during the Holocaust -- and in 1948 -- but public opinion polls from the time period demonstrate most Palestinian Arabs favored Nazi Germany. Enough. You don’t get to take this one from us, because your ancestors, too, were complicit during the Holocaust.

STOP IMPOSING IDENTITIES ON JEWS

As I explained in a recent post, antisemitism can arguably be divided into two categories: (1) “Nazi antisemitism,” which seeks to eliminate Jews physically, and (2) “Hanukkah antisemitism,” which seeks to strip Jews of the qualities that make us Jewish. In other words, forced assimilation.

Anne Frank was a Jewish child. She was born in Germany and later became Dutch. Never in her lifetime would she have worn a Palestinian keffiyeh, because at the time, the Palestinian keffiyeh was the official uniform of British officer Sir John Bagot Glubb’s “Desert Patrol,” comprised of Palestinian and Jordanian Arab Bedouins who were loyal to the British police force in Mandatory Palestine. Since Anne Frank was neither a Bedouin nor a member of Glubb’s Desert Patrol, putting the keffiyeh on her -- a murdered child -- is nothing but imposing an identity on her that isn’t hers.  

Maybe this sounds dramatic, or like it shouldn’t be a big deal. But this is also part of a larger pattern of Palestinians appropriating Jewish historical figures and claiming them as their own (the Jesus comes to mind).

And this is not a matter of doing this just to historical figures, but to living, breathing Jews. For example, several of the released Hamas hostages testified that Hamas threatened to forcibly convert them to Islam, much like their ancestors once did to ours when they conquered the Holy Land from the Byzantines in the 7th century.

IF YOU ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT ANNE FRANK, YOU WOULD CARE ABOUT THIS

On November 7, 2024, a premeditated pogrom took place in the streets of Amsterdam -- Anne Frank’s Amsterdam.

Thousands of pro-Palestinians supporters ambushed Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv fans as they were leaving a Maccabi Tel Aviv-AFC Ajax soccer match. Much like on October 7, the perpetrators live-streamed themselves stabbing Israelis and Jews, running over Israelis and Jews, throwing firecrackers at Israelis and Jews, and beating Israelis and Jews to a pulp, as the Amsterdam police looked the other way. They stole their phones and passports, and for some time, some of the victims were missing. Jews tried to hide in a canal, in boats, in a KFC, and more, just like the Franks hid in an attic. The perpetrators forced the victims to shout “free Palestine!” They attacked not just men, but women and children. Not all of the victims were Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, or Israelis, but all of the victims were Jews -- or perceived to be Jews.  

Of course, it wasn’t long until antisemites -- and the mainstream media -- spun the event, which, again, had not only been premeditated, but the perpetrators had dubbed “a Jew hunt” (in fact, it was so premeditated Israel had forewarned the Dutch police). They said it was simply soccer hooligans brawling, or that it happened because the day before, a few Israelis had torn down a Palestinian flag, or because some of the Maccabi fans had chanted racist chants. In this regard, they’re in terrible company: every pogrom in history has had its “justification;” sometimes the justification is based on a true event; other times, it’s pure fiction (e.g. blood libel). Kristallnacht, the pogrom that marks the beginning of the Holocaust, was excused because a Jew killed a German diplomat in Paris.

Are some Maccabi fans racist? It seems so. That’s no justification for an attempted lynching. Imagine if Jews tried to lynch pro-Palestinian protestors every time they chant antisemitic chants (“globalize the intifada,” “Khaybar, Khaybar ya Yahud,” for example), or every time an Israeli flag or hostage poster is torn down. None of us would have jobs, because this happens daily, multiple times a day, everywhere in the world.

For over a year, Dutch Jewish community leaders have warned of a hostile, dangerous environment for Jews in the Netherlands, and in Amsterdam more specifically. The Central Jewish Consultation, the official Jewish umbrella organization in the Netherlands, defined the November 7 mob attacks as a “pogrom” and tied it to the growing antisemitic climate in the country, which existed long before any Maccabi Tel Aviv fans showed up in Amsterdam.

As usual, however, antisemites are tokenizing the words of fringe Jews whose views are not representative of the community. 

The Chief Rabbi of the Netherlands also issued a damning statement, noting the hostile, antisemitic climate in the country.

The above is true. But this is not a one-off event. The Netherlands has been failing the Jewish community for a long, long time. These situations don’t escalate out of nowhere. Instead of offering us your apologies and condolences after the fact, take decisive action.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram and  Patreon. 

rootsmetals

another post I started working on before November 7 that suddenly became very relevant…

[springcrafter]

Man, the Antisemites are getting bold.

Friendly reminder that "from the river to the sea" is a chant calling for the extermination of half the world's Jewish populace. Like. I cannot believe that in the Year of the Lord 2023 I have to risk being targeted only so I can come out here and explain this.

And mind you I live in this shithole, I speak Hebrew, I get to see the worst of the worst that Jewish Israelis are saying. I'm not gonna repeat it because it could be triggering, but I'm also not gonna sit here and pretend everyone here is a peace-loving hippy. The difference being that vile attitudes are called out and made into outliers in broader society.

(Notably, I saw this when I was taking shelter from rockets on the stairwell - I live in a predominantly center-right area and when someone said something vile they were reminded that the Palestinians in Gaza aren't all Hamas, have no control of their fate, and also have it 100% worse than we ever will)

Thing is, Israelis are not a monolith and a sizable majority are unflinchingly critical of our government. Netanyahu put us in this position and he has so much blood on his hands it's not even a point worth making. By dividing and conquering and pretending that senseless violence is a show of strength, he has made us weaker. We're terrified and traumatized and he continues to perpetuate that fear and trauma to capitalize on it. He was right when he said this was our darkest hour, and he was the one who brought us here. All because he wants to stay in power and avoid going to jail. Over here we loathe him and criticize him more than anyone outside of Israel ever could.

I'm not behind him. I condemn his use of extreme violence and his disregard for Palestinian lives. I know the warmongers from either side don't care about their civilians and are happy to get rich from our suffering but he could at least pretend.

Listen. Call me a hippy, but I believe that everyone who calls this sliver of land their home should have a right to live here in peace. I believe in the right of the Palestinian people to independence and self-determination. Thing is, in my experience, "Free Palestine" is a slogan so vague that it can mean different things and I'm rather wary of it. Do you mean "free Palestine from the tyranny of its leaders and the Israeli occupation" or "free Palestine from all the Jews and kick them all to the sea"? It has become enough of a dogwhistle that I stopped trusting it and by extension, anyone who holds these views while conveniently ignoring the atrocities of October 7 and the frankly appalling reporting around the al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion.

(It's the same with Zionism, and why I don't affiliate myself with the movement. I believe in the right of Jewish people to self-determination and a home in their ancestral homeland, and I think the unabashed Antisemitism I've seen lately justifies that position, but I cannot approve of the atrocities that have been done to get here or people who support and justify them)

My point is, if the (otherwise legitimate) Free Palestine movement is going to harbor, shelter and encourage Antisemitism - all I can say from here is, I see you. And while I would love to go elsewhere, alas, I'm stuck here, so that's not going to change.

(ETA: Thank you to the person in my replies for proving my point)

[deadpoetmagda]

40,000 people have died so far. I see videos of people mutilated, disemboweled... on the daily. I see parents holding their dead children in their arms going insane from the realization... Any words of condemnation? You can't. Otherwise, you might be thrown in jail. To a certain extent, I understand your view: you can't hate the people doing this, because if you did, then what? Become a militant? You want to live a normal life, I get that. But also when you condemn Hamas, you probably know that Hamas doesn't exist in a vaccum. They're a reaction against the injustices Israel has been perpetrating against people in Gaza and the West Bank for decades now. Who will not radicalized by another group micro-managing every aspect of their life? From how much food and water they get, to which roads they get to use, till which hours? A group who gives itself the right to just walk up to someone's property and claim it as theirs? Who imprison people without trials? Who get to beat, kill... people with a slap on the wrist if not impunity... I can go on. But I think anyone's honest about the situation especially in Gaza knows Israelis/the IDF hate Gazans, want them gone or dead, and thus see no wrong in committing heinous acts against them on a day to day basis. So supposing that Hamas are far right wing, they're undeniably fighting on behalf of Gazans, just like Hezballah are. Again, I understand it's easier to deny that, act like being right wing detracts from that, it doesn't. Two things can be right at the same time.

In your place, I'd consider leaving Israel. That way, you can be more honest with yourself, instead of feeling like you have to turn a blind eye to what Israel is doing, because that might make your life difficult.

I hope you read this whole post just as I read your whole ask and tried to answer all the points at 1 am with a headache :)

• Wow, trying to have a conversation and an argument after calling me lower than a dog, wow throwing assumptions about me left and right, WOW telling me to LEAVE a country that I was born in like it's so easy man anyone can just start a new life in another country.... are you hearing yourself, what kind of fairy tale are you living in???? Also what happened to defying the occupation and holding onto our land and not abandoning it???

• Like I said I don't turn a blind eye to anything, believe me it won't make my life difficult, the mossad doesn't have access to my thoughts and in real life conversations with my arab community :)

• I wonder how many of these 40000 are hamas militants and how many are innocent civilians that were caught up in the middle of all of this, sadly people die in wars, I myself might die soon too :(

• I've seen the footages of oct 7th that hamas released themselves before they managed to delete and hide some of them again, you know like shooting a young girl next to her pet, sitting a house on fire with people inside, dragging limping young girls with blood on their pants, tying a woman to a bed and sitting it on fire, beheading a Thai man with a shovel while still partly alive etc, any words of condemnation anon??? Or is it okay cause it was done to the dirty jews????

• once again, I spent more than half my life hating and cursing the jews so don't worry about that I've already done my part, I'm just now older and more educated and understand not all thing in life are black and white :)

• my man my life is filled with shit I've been through traumas after traumas I'll never have a normal life sorry to break it to you 😩

• why haven't a huge amount of the Jewish ppl been radicalized after being conquered by arabs and islam for decades, or by the intifadas that consisted of bombing school busses filled with children, or the dozens of massacres the arabs did to them in the 1920s to 1930s under the British mandate and haven't killed the remaining arabs in the region after they won in 1948... I just wonder why a huge chunk of them didn't turn out same as hamas who'd justify everything by the oppression they faced for decades????

• I wonder if you think what hamas did on oct 7th to innocent civilians who were mostly leftist living near the border to show everyone that coexisting and a 2 state solution is possible but then got betrayed and were killed with cold blood is justified anon 🤔

• I wonder if you turn a blind eye to what hamas have been doing to their own people in gaza, fine everything coming out of israel is just one big lie, but are you also turning a blind eye to what the gazans have come out and said about hamas hiding amongst them, taking the aid and starving them, not allowing them to evacuate their homes, beating up journalist who disagrees with them and criticizes them??? Or just the obvious fact that they are hiding in tunnels and started a war without building one shelter in Gaza for the civilians???

• I never said I'm okay with what's happening to the people in Gaza, I rarely post on tumblr.com, sorry I'm too busy grieving and living in a war zone to post everything I believe in, I never said I support what the idf is doing a 100% so let's stop making accusations!!

• and you better read this post on what I think about hezbollah

Anyways, an ask filled with sugar coated accusations and what not, please stop sending me anons cause like I said I refuse to engage with you any further, I'd have welcomed having arguments and sharing points of views if you haven't called me and my community lower than dogs, so excuse me for calling you a fucking asshole in return :)

(Such a shame cause you seem you'd be nice and fun to talk to but you already showed your true colors I guess)

[disco-cola]

ok i need to rant again. when i was actually ON THE TRIP almost exactly 4 years ago (again, it was an educational trip organized thru a berlin based socialist youth organization) I literally had NOOO IDEA about palestine, like yeah I have heard the name before sometimes but I thought it existed CENTURIES AGO like no fucking joke I will admit this. in Germany they don’t teach you about this in school or in the media, ESPECIALLY due to germanys history, world war two and the holocaust you carry a sort of blame that’s passed on from generation to generation - it’s only been like 80 years too it might sound long ago but it really isn’t. you think oh israel is the jewish state and it has to be right after all germany did to jewish people, no further questions asked. before i never ever educated myself bc when I got old enough to watch and understand news that did involve Palestine, like in 2k14 i remember Gaza was big on the news with violent images and I was horrified just believing everything i heard and saw i distinctly remember googling where is Gaza bc i saw footage on the news and being scared but downright relieved when i saw its not close to germany (dumb) and I just believed the reports on tv. i didnt really use the internet then as much, i had no social media except Facebook and this blog at that point. Man I was 17 and in high school i didnt care for anything outside my small bubble bc I didn’t have to, being a privileged western child. So fast forward to late 2k19 in the project i was still hanging out at at the time we got the offer for the „israel travel“ and a lot of people wanted to go and I literally just succumbed to peer pressure imma be so honest. Everyone wanted to go so I did too, i didn’t wanna stay home. i just thought ohh i have not flown since 2003 and 300 euros for a two week trip i can actually afford this too for fckn once and there were too many people interested and too little spots so there was a Tombola and my name got drawn so that was literally the reason I went. And i usually pride myself with very good memory and recollection but those two weeks are honestly a BLUR to me like idk if it was the stress and excitement of the traveling itself but i wish i sometimes had listened more carefully, had already known what I know now and been able to ask more questions and watch and listen more closely. we did stay with Arab guest families in tamra for a week of the trip, the other half in Tel Aviv (i got wasted with the hostel staff after having to be freed aka 2 doors kicked down in my room the first evening we were there bc the doorhandle in the bathroom broke i was in trauma and then was mutuals on ig with the hostels chef until 2k21 when israel bombed gaza and there were also rockets from Gaza to Tel Aviv in response and he turned out to be Zionist so I unfollowed then) and then for the last few days we were staying in two air bnbs in jerusalem. We celebrated new years in haifa with a Christian Arab family that invited us. we did visit a kibbutz on New Year’s Day bc someone from our groups grandma was living there since 48 (yep back then i just thought oh wow that’s amazing now I would view this a lot more critically) which also got us an exclusive guide around the kibbutz which was just on the border to lebanon and seeing the bunkers was eerie but I understand it now that I got into the history involving Lebanon too. we visited several museums like ghetto fighters and yad vashem. which dont get me wrong im glad we did, it’s an important part of history. it was a „both side“ experience and I literally didn’t even realize there was a Palestinian side to it then. Like genuinely it wasn’t really made clear how this all came to be Israel. They showed us a map pre-1948 vs. now but how did it get so big i didnt know. What zionists are. What settlements are. What the IDF is (by now let’s just call it IOF) I just remember the second day in Tel Aviv someone told us israel has only existed since 1948 and I was like lol what like baffled how new it actually is. Dude it’s the first time I heard about that.

It was only a few months after the trip that i one day randomly started to read up on the history, like literally starting out on kids websites bc growing up i only ever just heard „it’s complicated“ making it seem like the „middle east conflict“ as they liked to call it was sooo hard to understand and you had to be sooo smart and diplomatic to have an opinion on it. and after reading up suddenly stuff I saw but didn’t question on the trip started to make sense. The huge checkpoint we went through going into jerusalem, our car full of Germans basically being waved right through without any control while i saw other cars being emptied out completely by heavily armed soldiers. We took a teen girl from Tamra to Jerusalem with us bc she liked to come along and then there were problems suddenly with BOTH our air bnb apartments and we asked the staff if we could accommodate our suitcases somewhere and just go explore the old city instead of waiting around blocking the entire lobby. first they said no you have an Arab with you (I didn’t even understand what they meant by that) then came around and let us do it after all at least. Dude she was literally a 15 yr old like 5‘3“ teenage girl. Why one of the guys from our group was detained and questioned at the airport for like 3 hours because he was born in Syria (had a German pass tho but anyway). And when we wanted to travel back the group guide prepped us for questioning and made sure we all had straight answers which I also didn’t understand the reason for - I wasn’t one of the people being asked questions but someone did truthfully tell Airport staff what we did during our stay and that we spent a week with Arab guest families and after that several suitcases SEEM to have been rummaged through (and I know bc I packed mine soooo neatly bc I bought baklava on the market the day before to bring my family and it was smashed like flattened) we did get into a storm when changing flights in Istanbul so idk maybe the suitcases really were just thrown around but for real it wouldn’t surprise me if they did control us after that.

Anyway I posted stories throughout the trip to my ig back then and just went with the first location tag that was suggested to me and looking back now, it’s all „…, israel“ when i was actually on occupied land (tel aviv jaffa haifa akka…) and I HATE IT ☺️ I can’t change it back now obviously. I don’t wanna delete the stories from my highlight tho, even tho it does make me feel kinda guilty, bc i see it as part of my journey. Quite literally. I honestly wish I could teleport back now being more educated about the situation and ask more questions, talk to more Palestinian people (like the guest families). Would I do such a trip again? Not as long as the destination on the ticket is called only israel. I genuinely hope I can visit Palestine again tho someday. But this time for real real.

[adaywithandrew]

Genuinely losing limbs or having them damaged beyond saving due to trauma / and THEN, after that initial living nightmare - amputation without anesthesia (not even getting into the trauma of performing this on someone you know and love (even if you don’t!!! It’s still beyond words!!!) because they are your friend or family member bc you are their only shot of survival) …….is the part of all of this i have nightmares about the most. I have intrusive thoughts about it at work all day, and if I think “im safe in my bed” I almost always have a vision of this pieced together from the real world images I’ve seen in Gaza over half a year. in the myth of normal, maté talks about a woman trying to heal from the trauma of waking up during a routine surgery and no one being able to tell since she appears to them to be sedated- so they complete the surgery as she is aware of it underneath the anesthesia gone wrong. This essentially ends up altering her life forever, giving her ptsd she has to then commit to attempting to move past. And this is from a surgery at a hospital not under siege, by doctors on a regular shift not those who are starving, grieving, short circuiting under the traumas they are doing through at the same time. Who would you be after a surgery without anesthesia in Gaza? Who would you be if you helped perform one of these surgeries in Gaza? And while that is haunting you and destroying your psyche, it’s likely you are losing your family entirely, seeing your home destroyed forever - having little to no support in transitioning into being a physically disabled person (or a person who helped perform the surgery who has developed specific ptsd from that experience, which is so overwhelming that you can’t distinguish it from the ptsd you are getting at the same time from the other immeasurable loses you are experiencing outside of the makeshift operating rooms). And to endure all of this for the sake of survival, love, the indomitable human spirit, the determination and faith inside you - and to then be executed???? There are different moments where the weight of this feels like it will collapse my chest. And that is a faint echo of what people closer to this genocide, physically or emotionally, are feeling. I understand that america is a sick and haunted place- it already committed a genocide and a worldwide slave trade to build every single home I’ve lived in here. I know it will become more sick, more haunted because of these actions. The karma and the fate will become worse and worse with each passing day. We are living in hell as a planet!! Even when I have a good morning, this feels like a fact that is silently in parentheses written in the air. usually I’m reminded of it bc of the daily intrusive visions I have of these amputations regardless of if I even open my phone and see an update or a new massacre…

[diaryofanangryasianguy]

07/02/21

Israel's siege and violence are damaging Palestinian children's minds

Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip are being psychologically tortured. Growing up with periods of prolonged fear and abuse has devastating physical and mental consequences, and young people are suffering as a result. Israel's latest military offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza inflicted lasting trauma on children, with noticeable behavioural changes due to what they witnessed during the bombing; not only the destruction but also the killing of entire families.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2020 nearly half of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank were under the age of 18. An average 15-year-old in Gaza has lived through four major Israeli offensives. Nearly everyone in Gaza knows someone who has been killed in the attacks. Whole families are affected. "The children live under the care of adults who are suffering too, due to the high rate of unemployment, poverty and food insecurity in Gaza," said Dr Samah Jabr.

[weyassinebentalb]

Gaza Conflict Stokes 'Identity Crisis' for Young American Jews

Dan Kleinman does not know quite how to feel.

As a child in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, he was taught to revere Israel as the protector of Jews everywhere, the “Jewish superman who would come out of the sky to save us” when things got bad, he said.

It was a refuge in his mind when white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanted “Jews will not replace us,” or kids in college grabbed his shirt, mimicking a “South Park” episode to steal his “Jew gold.”

But his feelings have grown muddier as he has gotten older, especially now as he watches violence unfold in Israel and Gaza. His moral compass tells him to help the Palestinians, but he cannot shake an ingrained paranoia every time he hears someone make anti-Israel statements.

“It is an identity crisis,” Kleinman, 33, said. “Very small in comparison to what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, but it is still something very strange and weird.”

As the violence escalates in the Middle East, turmoil of a different kind is growing across the Atlantic. Many young American Jews are confronting the region’s long-standing strife in a very different context, with very different pressures, from their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

The Israel of their lifetime has been powerful, no longer appearing to some to be under constant existential threat. The violence comes after a year when mass protests across the United States have changed how many Americans see issues of racial and social justice. The pro-Palestinian position has become more common, with prominent progressive members of Congress offering impassioned speeches in defense of the Palestinians on the House floor. At the same time, reports of anti-Semitism are rising across the country.

Divides between some American Jews and Israel’s right-wing government have been growing for more than a decade, but under the Trump administration those fractures that many hoped would heal became a crevasse. Politics in Israel have also remained fraught, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-tenured government forged allegiances with Washington. For young people who came of age during the Trump years, political polarization over the issue only deepened.

Many Jews in America remain unreservedly supportive of Israel and its government. Still, the events of recent weeks have left some families struggling to navigate both the crisis abroad and the wide-ranging response from American Jews at home. What is at stake is not just geopolitical, but deeply personal. Fractures are intensifying along lines of age, observance and partisan affiliation.

In suburban Livingston, New Jersey, Meara Ashtivker, 38, has been afraid for her father-in-law in Israel, who has a disability and is not able to rush to the stairwell to shelter when he hears the air-raid sirens. She is also scared as she sees people in her progressive circles suddenly seem anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, she said.

Ashtivker, whose husband is Israeli, said she loved and supported Israel, even when she did not always agree with the government and its actions.

“It’s really hard being an American Jew right now,” she said. “It is exhausting and scary.”

Some young, liberal Jewish activists have found common cause with Black Lives Matter, which explicitly advocates for Palestinian liberation, concerning others who see that allegiance as anti-Semitic.

The recent turmoil is the first major outbreak of violence in Israel and Gaza for which Aviva Davis, who graduated this spring from Brandeis University, has been “socially conscious.”

“I’m on a search for the truth, but what’s the truth when everyone has a different way of looking at things?” Davis said.

Alyssa Rubin, 26, who volunteers in Boston with IfNotNow, a network of Jewish activists who want to end Jewish American support for Israeli occupation, has found protesting for the Palestinian cause to be its own form of religious observance.

She said she and her 89-year-old grandfather ultimately both want the same thing, Jewish safety. But “he is really entrenched in this narrative that the only way we can be safe is by having a country,” she said, while her generation has seen that “the inequality has become more exacerbated.”

In the protest movements last summer, “a whole new wave of people were really primed to see the connection and understand racism more explicitly,” she said, “understanding the ways racism plays out here, and then looking at Israel/Palestine and realizing it is the exact same system.”

But that comparison is exactly what worries many other American Jews, who say the history of white American slaveholders is not the correct frame for viewing the Israeli government or the global Jewish experience of oppression.

At Temple Concord, a Reform synagogue in Syracuse, New York, teenager after teenager started calling Rabbi Daniel Fellman last week, wondering how to process seeing Black Lives Matter activists they marched with last summer attack Israel as “an apartheid state.”

“The reaction today is different because of what has occurred with the past year, year and a half, here,” Fellman said. “As a Jewish community, we are looking at it through slightly different eyes.”

Nearby at Sha’arei Torah Orthodox Congregation of Syracuse, teenagers were reflecting on their visits to Israel and on their family in the region.

“They see it as Hamas being a terrorist organization that is shooting missiles onto civilian areas,” Rabbi Evan Shore said. “They can’t understand why the world seems to be supporting terrorism over Israel.”

In Colorado, a high school senior at Denver Jewish Day School said he was frustrated at the lack of nuance in the public conversation. When his social media apps filled with pro-Palestinian memes last week, slogans like “From the river to the sea” and “Zionism is a call for an apartheid state,” he deactivated his accounts.

“The conversation is so unproductive, and so aggressive, that it really stresses you out,” Jonas Rosenthal, 18, said. “I don’t think that using that message is helpful for convincing the Israelis to stop bombing Gaza.”

Compared with their elders, younger American Jews are overrepresented on the ends of the religious affiliation spectrum: a higher share are secular, and a higher share are Orthodox.

Ari Hart, 39, an Orthodox rabbi in Skokie, Illinois, has accepted the fact that his Zionism makes him unwelcome in some activist spaces where he would otherwise be comfortable. College students in his congregation are awakening to that same tension, he said. “You go to a college campus and want to get involved in anti-racism or social justice work, but if you support the state of Israel, you’re the problem,” he said.

Hart sees increasing skepticism in liberal Jewish circles over Israel’s right to exist. “This is a generation who are very moved and inspired by social justice causes and want to be on the right side of justice,” Hart said. “But they’re falling into overly simplistic narratives, and narratives driven by true enemies of the Jewish people.”

Overall, younger American Jews are less attached to Israel than older generations: About half of Jewish adults under 30 describe themselves as emotionally connected to Israel, compared with about two-thirds of Jews over age 64, according to a major survey published last week by the Pew Research Center.

And though the U.S. Jewish population is 92% white, with all other races combined accounting for 8%, among Jews ages 18 to 29 that rises to 15%.

In Los Angeles, Rachel Sumekh, 29, a first-generation Iranian American Jew, sees complicated layers in the story of her own Persian family. Her mother escaped Iran on the back of a camel, traveling by night until she got to Pakistan, where she was taken in as a refugee. She then found asylum in Israel. She believes Israel has a right to self-determination, but she also found it “horrifying” to hear an Israeli ambassador suggest other Arab countries should take in Palestinians.

“That is what happened to my people and created this intergenerational trauma of losing our homeland because of hatred,” she said.

The entire situation feels too volatile and dangerous for many people to even want to discuss, especially publicly.

Violence against Jews is increasingly close to home. Last year the third-highest number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States were recorded since the Anti-Defamation League began cataloging them in 1979, according to a report released by the civil rights group last month. The ADL recorded more than 1,200 incidents of anti-Semitic harassment in 2020, a 10% increase from the previous year. In Los Angeles, the police are investigating a sprawling attack on sidewalk diners at a sushi restaurant Tuesday as an anti-Semitic hate crime.

Outside Cleveland, Jennifer Kaplan, 39, who grew up in a modern Orthodox family and who considers herself a centrist Democrat and a Zionist, remembered studying abroad at Hebrew University in 2002, and being in the cafeteria minutes before it was bombed. Now she wondered how the Trump era had affected her inclination to see the humanity in others, and she wished her young children were a bit older so she could talk with them about what is happening.

“I want them to understand that this is a really complicated situation, and they should question things,” she said. “I want them to understand that this isn’t just a, I don’t know, I guess, utopia of Jewish religion.”

Esther Katz, the performing arts director at the Jewish Community Center in Omaha, Nebraska, has spent significant time in Israel. She also attended Black Lives Matter protests in Omaha last summer and has signs supporting the movement in the windows of her home.

She has watched with a sense of betrayal as some of her allies in that movement have posted online about their apparently unequivocal support for the Palestinians, and compared Israel to Nazi Germany. “I’ve had some really tough conversations,” said Katz, a Conservative Jew. “They’re not seeing the facts, they’re just reading the propaganda.”

Her three children, who range in age from 7 to 13, are now wary of a country that is for Katz one of the most important places in the world. “They’re like, ‘I don’t understand why anyone would want to live in Israel, or even visit,’” she said. “That breaks my heart.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2021 The New York Times Company 

source https://www.techno-90.com/2021/05/gaza-conflict-stokes-identity-crisis.html

[the-record-columns]

Sept. 11, 2019: Columns

A forgotten father-in-law

The grave marker for Albert L. Hamby in the cemetery of Stony Hill Baptist Church in Purlear

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

Anyone who reads this space knows I like to write about mother-in-laws.

For a guy who has managed to get married every time he turns around, I have lots to choose from. 

Father-in-laws, however, are another matter entirely. My relationship with them all was good to downright wonderful.  I have often written stories about my favorite father-in-law, Dr. William L. Bundy.  He is the one with whom, I by far, spent the most time, both during my stint with his daughter, and thereafter—when he would make me feel good by still introducing me as, "Kenneth, my son-in-law."

But today, I want to talk about my first father-in-law, Albert Hamby. Al for short.

Yes, the husband of my famous mother-in-law of the family reunion/burning hot dogs.

Albert was born in1916 in the Purlear area of Wilkes. While his education was very limited, Al had a talent for sizing up a stand of timber like no other, and made a good living doing just that. He was a World War II Army veteran who was on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.  While he was pretty closed mouth about the war, later on he did share one story with me.

And one only.

It was several days into the Normandy invasion and he was among thousands of troops fighting their way inland.  Al, like all his brothers, was a crack shot with his rifle, an ability borne of hunting the forests of Wilkes from his early childhood. He was proud, he said, that when he sighted in on a target, he knew it was going to be a deadly hit most every time.

To that end, his story begins. Again, his aim was deadly and as he approached a dead German soldier he had just killed, he thought about getting a souvenir or two. He said he had walked by several men he knew he had just shot, but never stopped and for the life of himself, he couldn't say why he stopped this time. A German Luger pistol was an oft taken prize and he took one off that soldier.

Then he saw a wallet in a coat pocket. He took it out, opened it up, and his life changed forever that day. Thinking about retrieving some German money, he instead was struck like a bolt of lightning by a photo of the soldier, his wife, and his three children staring up at him. Albert said he threw down the wallet and the gun and ran to another place for cover.  For seven days he didn't fire his rifle. When there was someone who might notice, he said he pretended to be on guard and prepared to fire, but never did.

All he could see was those five folks staring up at him in that wallet as if from a grave, and the realization that the soldier he killed was doing just what he was doing—as he was taught, and as he was told.

At some later point, as he basically went through the motions of being a soldier until an artillery round came so close to him that the sound of the explosion practically deafened him and killed several soldiers near him. From that moment on, he resigned himself that it was kill or be killed, and resumed being an active soldier for the duration of the war.

I don't know why Albert Hamby was on my mind this morning. Perhaps it was the fact that today is September 11, or that this year is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, but he is a good man to remember any day.

While I was still married to his daughter, Albert sold off his logging equipment and got all his affairs in order.  He then told his family he just didn't feel well, and it turned out he had a massive brain tumor that robbed him of his life in 1974.

He was just 57 years old.

He was the proverbial good old country boy.

His handshake was his bond.

He was proud of his service to his country.

He signed a note to help a scrawny son-in-law buy a car.

He died too soon.

                                                 Albert Lee Hamby

                                       May 29, 1916-March 24, 1974

                                                      Rest in Peace

Incentive to kill

By AMBASSADOR EARL COX and KATHLEEN COX

Special to The Record

Most would agree that crime doesn’t pay, and they would be right, unless the reference is to jailed Palestinian murderers and terrorists.  You see, if a Palestinian murders a Jew and is captured, tried, convicted and incarcerated by the fair and impartial Israeli judicial system, they and their families will receive hefty lifetime monthly payments from the Palestinian Authority. There’s something very wrong with this picture. 

As a reference point, almost 16 years ago, Palestinian terrorists from Gaza carried out two consecutive suicide attacks in Israel; one at a bus stop near a hospital and military base and the other at a cafe on a busy street in Jerusalem. A total of 75 Jewish people were injured, some losing limbs and eyes, and 16 others lost their lives. Since that time, the Palestinian Authority has paid 3,248,900 NIS (New Israeli Shekel) in financial rewards to those who carried out these two attacks.  In U.S. dollars, that equates to more than $800,000.  To put this in a context to which all can relate, that’s more than $32,000 per year for 25 years with no end in sight. Quite a nice retirement pension and this is in addition to the payments received by the families.

Among the victims of the cafe attack were Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava, who was to be married the day after the attack. American-born Dr. Applebaum was chief of the emergency room and trauma services of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center and a specialist in emergency medicine. Before the attack he had just participated in a symposium where he taught terror-trauma procedures to medical professionals. It’s important to note that Israeli medical professionals treat the victims of suicide (homicide) attacks as well as the perpetrators, if they survive their evil deed.  Ironically, in the emergency room, the innocent victims may be receiving treatment right next door to the person who perpetrated the crime and Israeli doctors do not discriminate.  Their job is to save lives and they do it well.  Any judging is left to God and the justice system.  

Alon Mizrachi, the security guard at the café, was killed when he identified the suicide bomber and shoved him toward the door just as he exploded. While Mr. Mizrachi died, his quick actions saved many others. Alon Mizrachi was the uncle of Ziv Mizrachi, an IDF soldier who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in November 2015.  There is virtually no one in Israel who has not been impacted by Palestinian terrorists in some way yet the olive branch of peace is constantly extended only to have the Palestinians trample it underfoot.  

The PA has vowed to continue paying martyrs and terrorists and has even taken their “pay for slay” program to a higher level.  Those who manufacture the suicide belts used by the terrorists now also receive monthly salaries of 7000 NIS or approximately $1750.00 USD per month.  The average Palestinian could work a 60 hour work-week and not earn this much!  

So, back to the question of, “Does crime pay?”   The answer is yes, crime does pay if you happen to be a Palestinian who wants to kill Jews. 

Payments to terrorists are guaranteed by Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (a.k.a. Abu Mazen) and his Palestinian Authority (PA). In addition to guaranteeing terrorists in Israeli prisons a monthly salary, the PA passed the “Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners” act which prohibits the PA from signing any peace agreement that does not include the release of all the Palestinian terrorists being held in Israeli prisons and this includes the murderers.

The world is insane to expect Israel to live side by side with such evil-minded people.   The days are long behind us when we could count on people, especially our elected officials,  to “do the right thing.”   Those who know the truth have a duty and an obligation to speak out in support of Israel by using our voices, our pens, and our votes.

 Pass the Pawpaw Please

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

Carolina days in late summer provide us with humid warm weather, afternoon showers and the anticipation of a colorful fall season.

This time of the year also provides a forgotten or little know tasty treat.

As with all things, there are those “in the know” who are glad our largest native American fruit remains somewhat elusive. It means less competition in finding and consuming this vintage delicacy.  

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about the Pawpaw fruit. While it is grown in about half the nation, due to its short harvest season, ease of bruising and short shelf life, the pawpaw is not found in common grocery stories. You may find them at local farmers markets and even then, only for a few weeks during the year.

I have had the opportunity to introduce the curious fruit to several people this year. Some have said that it will take some getting used to and others have proclaimed their profound gratitude for the introduction. To me, the Pawpaw has the blended flavor of a mango, banana and pineapple.

A few words of wisdom to those new to the Pawpaw: It’s a bit like a custard. It’s important to pick them when they are ripe. They are best when the flesh is yellow and soft, but not too dark and mushy, unless that’s the way you love them.

It’s flexible and can be used in just about anyway you like. It’s like anything else, you just need to experiment and see if you find something that works for you. Pawpaw ice cream is a favorite of many. A cup and half of mashed Pawpaw, two cups of cream, two cups milk, a cup of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and five egg yokes. Apply your ice cream making method and then you will have an amazing treat.

For those of a certain age, the Pawpaw Patch Song will bring back memories. The Pawpaw Patch Song has several regional versions. This is one of more common versions of the youthful folk song:

Where, oh where is pretty little Susie?

Where, oh where is pretty little Susie?

Where, oh where is pretty little Susie?

Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.

Come on, boys [or girls, or kids], let’s go find her,

Come on, boys, let’s go find her,

Come on, boys, let’s go find her,

Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.

Pickin’ up paw-paws, puttin’ ‘em in her pockets,

Pickin’ up paw-paws, puttin’ ‘em in her pockets,

Pickin’ up paw-paws, puttin’ ‘em in her pockets,

Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.

It’s hard to say how many Pawpaws you can get in your pocket because they vary in sizes.

Dr. Greg Reighard, a Professor in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Clemson University, is conducting research on Pawpaws. Clemson Musser Fruit Research Center has a good size grove of Pawpaw Trees with a variety of cultivars. The fruit can be small or up to a pound or more. So, you might only get one of those in your pocket.

While the flesh is good to eat, you should not eat the skin or the seeds. A lot of research is being done on the tree leaves and bark as they seem to have anti-cancer properties.

Another note of nature wonderment; The beautiful Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly comes for the larvae that take its primary food source from the leaf of the Pawpaw tree.  

Please pass the Pawpaw; It’s warm outside and I need to make some ice cream.

 Carl White is the Executive Producer and Host of the award-winning syndicated TV show Carl White’s Life In The Carolinas. The weekly show is now in its 11th year of syndication and can be seen in the Charlotte market on WJZY Fox 46 Saturday’s at noon and My 12. The show also streams on Amazon Prime. For more information visit www.lifeinthecarolinas.com. You can email Carl at Carl@lifeinthecarolinas.com

[hmsharmony]

None of this is in response to you JeChristine, but to the user you replied to.

How is insisting that it ISN’T complex or nuanced any less propaganda? It just happens to be propaganda that supports your narrative. If someone refuses to engage under the idea that you can’t possibly understand, that’s one thing, and something I’d agree is propaganda. But to ask someone to understand the historical and current geopolitical realities is completely different. There is no chance, none, of obtaining justice for Palestinians without ending in an ethnic cleansing of Israelis (7 million of which are Jews, so the ethnic cleaning or god forbid genocide of half of all Jews) if you refuse to learn about the virulent antisemitism in the region, including among Palestinians (see eg the UNRWA textbooks denying the Holocaust). Instead of saying “it’s not complicated,” you should be amplifying the voices of and supporting groups that work on the ground to find a solution, who are engaged in reconciliation to counter antisemitism and anti-Palestinian sentiments (much of the latter of which stems from the terrorism of the second intifada)—groups who know this history and reality better than any of us in the west could ever hope to. Groups like standing together, and roots, and the family circle, and looking the occupation in the eye.

Acknowledging the geopolitical realities—which ARE complicated—doesn’t detract from criticism of the Israeli government or claims that the Israeli government’s response is disproportionate under the laws of war and thus a war crime, nor does it stop someone from calling for the prosecution of West Bank settlers and Israeli soldiers who are murdering and violently attacking Palestinians and attempting to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the West Bank. It isn’t even an obstacle to saying the siege in Gaza isn’t complex (although I disagree, for the reasons stated in the next paragraph). It isn’t an obstacle to demanding justice for Palestinians, unless your justice involves another ethnic cleansing.

Even in the context of the siege of Gaza I’d argue it’s a disservice to Palestinians to claim what’s happening is simple. Hamas has outright said that it is not its responsibility to make bomb shelters for Palestinians or provide them with fuel—the group GOVERNING GAZA has insisted the safety of its people is the responsibility of Israel and the UN. If any other governing body said that, they would rightfully be crucified. You SHOULD be asking why Hamas isn’t letting Palestinians shelter in the tunnels, why it’s stealing fuel that hospitals desperately need. It is Hamas’s JOB to protect the civilians of Gaza, and instead it purposely endangers them by shooting rockets from densely populated areas (and yes, there are areas of Gaza that aren’t densely populated), keeping fuel from hospitals, instructing Gazans not to flee. The Israeli military is showing, at best, apathy toward Palestinian civilian life. But it’s also true that civilian deaths wouldn’t be nearly as high if Hamas did anything to protect civilians. There are two parties with blood on their hands, and refusing to acknowledge one of them does nothing to help Palestinians.

Finally, your comment on how there isn’t room in your heart to care about antisemitism—where did anyone say it’s a MORE pressing matter? All we ask is that you care about antisemitism, that you also decry the murder and violence against people for merely existing in the world as a Jewish person. We carry with us thousands of years of collective trauma. It is not unreasonable for us to be terrified when we see mobs in Russia searching for Jews, or people trying to break into a library where Jewish student are hiding, or seeing posters equating Jews to trash. If you are truly anti-Zionist and not antisemitic, as I imagine you would claim based on the tenor of your reply, if you think Jews should only live in the diaspora, then the violence and murder we’re experiencing in the diaspora—violence that makes us think we aren’t safe in non-Jewish spaces—should matter. Yes, even when horrible things are happening elsewhere—maybe even especially, because history shows when awful things happen, Jews are blamed. All you need to do is look at the frighteningly long list of pogroms and expulsions.

people are just loving throwing around their unsolicited opinions on the israel/hamas war because they think it's a white on brown crime. and that's just ignorant, antisemitic and very much american-centric. they don't talk so passionately about other aspects of a crisis in the middle east because they can't compare it to american or european politics. It's so aggravating to hear "it's not complicated, it just.." because it is one of if not the most GLOBAL and complicated issue to this day. extremist religious right-wing leaders hold so much power in the middle east, in Israel/palestine and every other country there. fascist, violent, aggressive male leaders that seek war. but a lot of people seem to understand the situation very narrowly when it is compared to what they know- a HUGE disastrous mistake. this has a very long, very complicated, very global history. and STOP erasing jewish history, especially of the very big non ashkenazi jewish population. and people need to stop denying their antisemitism and have a look inside.

Hm well we all throw around our unsolicited opinions on everything, to be fair (lol!)

And I think people, especially Americans, are focused on Israel and Palestine more than other conflicts because our American government is complicit in it—Israel receives a staggering amount of foreign military aid—at least since Israel and its neighboring Arab states were brought into the Cold War in the 1960s.

As for the racial mapping, yeah, I agree with you that it’s the wrong frame to put on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and wrongly American-centric. Zionism has always existed in the Jewish diaspora, some of which was European but much was Northern African and Middle Eastern, and the Palestinian Jews were forced to revolt against the British in the years leading up to the declaration of an Israeli state since by then the British had reneged and essentially stopped Jewish immigration to Palestine. But I do think that some on the left are expressing their own feelings that the conflict has surfaced again, even their own trauma, and not facts, exactly. I can sympathize with that impulse if disagree with it.