#listen to jews

[the-ind1gen0us-jude4n]

“A lot of Jewish money is at the top of the tree,” say anti-Israel protesters

[hilacopter]

conflating diaspora jews with the actions of the israeli government is not okay, yes, but have you considered it's not okay to conflate israeli jews with them either

[gingerswagfreckles]

It's crazy how a completely random gentile can just lie and say "this Jew who talks about antisemitism on the left is a Zionist" and everyone just goes oh ok thanks and then dismisses everything you've said forever no matter how well thought out your posts are or how many hours you spend citing primary source evidence. And no matter how much you say you're not a Zionist everyone is just like ok well you're a slimy lying Jew and the person who accused you is a noble gentile 🤨 who should I really believe about your own political opinions?? And then they go back to not reading the news and spreading conspiracy theories about hostages writing their captors thank you letters and Spotify Wrapped being a Jewish Plot. 🙄🙄🙄🙄

[kelluinox]

This is just oh so very telling

So, what did we learn?

Majority of jews believe calling for the destruction of the only Jewish state in our ancestral homeland is antisemitic

Antisemitic goyim will come in to drown out jewish voices

Majority of goyim realize that it's antisemitic to call for the destruction of Israel (it would be nice if there was more actual pushback against the mob from them)

Listen to jews

[infiniteglitterfall]

A Chabad synagogue in Pomona, New York, burned to the ground on April 17th, along with its three Torah scrolls.

Torah scrolls are hand-written, hand-made, and kept in elaborately decorated cases or wrappings.

Many of them have long histories; my synagogue has two, I think, that were smuggled out of villages being destroyed in pogroms or in Nazi attacks. One of them is the only remaining piece of that village on earth.

Sometimes, the Torah scroll doesn't even belong to the synagogue, but is on loan from a place like the Memorial Scrolls Trust:

There's an entire Jewish holiday just for taking them out and dancing with them: Simchat Torah, "The Joy of Torah."

In fact, that was the holiday on which Hamas's invasion took place.

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So it's a particular tragedy when a Torah is destroyed.

Chabad itself has a page about what goes into making just one Torah scroll:

"An authentic Torah scroll is a mind-boggling masterpiece of labor and skill. Comprising between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment -- cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications -- and containing exactly 304,805 letters, the resulting handwritten scroll takes many months to complete.

"An expert pious scribe carefully inks each letter with a feather quill, under the intricate calligraphic guidelines of Ktav Ashurit (Ashurite Script). The sheets of parchment are then sewn together with sinews to form one long scroll. While most Torah scrolls stand around two feet in height and weigh 20-25 pounds, some are huge and quite heavy, while others are doll-sized and lightweight."

I learned all of this on Tumblr.

Once upon time, in people's "punch Nazis" days, I would've been able to find some mention on Tumblr of this synagogue burning.

There is none, so I'm posting about it.

And I'm going to quote Daniel Weiner, Rabbi of Temple de Hirsch Sinai in Bellevue, Washington, when his own synagogue was vandalized last November:

"It’s horrific and heartbreaking.... [Taking out your feelings about] what's going on in the Middle East by defacing a sacred space of a synagogue -- that’s the very definition of antisemitism."

I'm also posting about the Kehillat Shaarei Torah Synagogue in Toronto, whose windows were broken on Friday, April 19th, by someone who also tried to break the front door down.

And the April 15 graffiti outside a Bangor, Maine synagogue that said, "Nazi Israel 30K murdered," next to a crossed-out Star of David. The same synagogue faced pro-Hamas flyers plastered around it in November.

I was going to include all the synagogues vandalized over the past six months. But there are way too many. Several every week. Lots are swastikas.

I'll go back to just doing attacks on and near synagogues.

Someone has to talk about the 1-year-old who was stabbed outside Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel (BZBI) synagogue, in Philadelphia, on April 13th.

The foiled terrorist attack on a Moscow synagogue on April 11th.

The man who, on April 9th, screamed at the rabbi at Moldova's Great Synagogue, "What are you doing here? How come no one has finished you off for everything you are doing to the Palestinians?" Just one week after people had vandalized a Holocaust memorial in nearby Soroka, and sprayed "Free Palestine" on it.

The Oldenburg, Germany synagogue that was firebombed on April 5th.

The Florida Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center, which on March 16 burned, but not to the ground. The Torah scrolls were safe, and no one was hurt, but the back of the building was severely damaged.

The planned-but-thwarted-on-March-7th ISIS massacre in a Moscow synagogue.

The stabbing of an Orthodox Jew in Switzerland on March 5th. (He was badly injured, but expected to survive.)

A man leaving a synagogue in Paris was beaten on March 3rd.

People set the courtyard of a synagogue in Sfax, Tunisia on fire on February 27th. Firefighters managed to put the fire out before it consumed the inside of the building.

The synagogue is no longer used; there are no Jews left in its area, and fewer than 1,000 Jews left in Tunisia overall.

(Thousands of Tunisian Jews were sent to work camps during the Holocaust. Antisemitism across the Middle East continued to increase rapidly for decades. By the 1970s, 90% of Tunisian Jews had fled to France or Israel.)

On February 18, an Orthodox Jew leaving Synagogue of Inverrary-Chabad in Lauderhill, Florida, was beaten by an attacker yelling racial slurs.

Someone deliberately chose International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, to smash all the windows in the front of Sgoolai Israel Synagogue in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick.

On December 29, Turkey arrested 32 people linked to ISIS who were planning attacks on synagogues and churches.

On December 17, a man drove a U-Haul truck up onto the sidewalk between a barrier and the front door of the Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington D.C., got out, and started yelling "Gas the Jews." He also sprayed a foul-smelling substance on two people leaving the synagogue.

December 17 also saw 400 synagogues across the United States receive bomb threats.

On December 11, a man attacked an elderly couple on their way into a synagogue in Los Angeles, screaming, "Give me your earrings, Jew!!" and beating one of them bloody with a belt. (Happily, he chased the guy down the street, and caught him when his pants fell down.)

On December 10, a 16-year-old was arrested in Vienna for planning an attack on a synagogue.

On December 8, on the first night of Hanukkah, 15 synagogues in New York State received bomb threats. And someone screamed, "Free Palestine," and fired shots outside of Temple Israel in Albany, NY. Which has a preschool that was in session.

Meanwhile, the five Jews left in Egypt were canceling public Hanukkah candle-lighting at their synagogue out of fear of reprisals. Particularly after two Israelis in Alexandria had been gunned down by terrorists on October 8. (While Israel was still fighting Hamas in Israel.)

On November 15, a terrorist group set the only synagogue in Armenia on fire.

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) has a history of working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

(PFLP is part of Hamas's network of groups. Samidoun is their nonprofit arm - which is why Germany banned Samidoun last year, although it's still active in many other countries.

PFLP is also actively supported by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a diaspora nonprofit group, and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an SJP spinoff in NYC.)

On November 11, halfway through Shabbat services, police asked Central Shul in Melbourne, Australia to evacuate "as a precaution" due to a "pro-Palestinian" protest that had chosen the neighboring park as its gathering place. Australia has seen some very outspoken antisemitism at protests, including the march shortly after October 7 that chanted "Gas the Jews."

Also on November 11, protesters targeted a synagogue along a march route. They sat in their cars, spraying green smoke and shouting at people leaving the synagogue. The march itself featured a record number of horrifying signs and chants.

On November 7th, Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal was firebombed, and the back door of the Jewish organization across the street (Federation CJA) was set on fire.

On November 4, protesters chanted "Bomb Israel," and burned an Israeli flag outside the only synagogue in Malmo, Sweden.

During October, there were 501 antisemitic acts under investigation in France in just three weeks, including groups gathering in front of synagogues shouting threats, and graffiti such as the words “killing Jews is a duty” sprayed outside a stadium.

On October 18, people firebombed a synagogue in Berlin after homes all over the neighborhood were graffitied with stars of David.

And also on October 18, hundreds of "pro-Palestine" rioters attacked the Or Zaruah Synagogue, in the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa, while worshippers were inside.

Based on the video, they seem to have blocked the synagogue entrance completely, while screaming "Murderous Israel" and waving Palestinian flags. (Melilla is an autonomous zone belonging to Spain. It borders Morocco.)

On October 17, during pro-Palestinian protests, hundreds of rioters set fire to Al Hammah synagogue, an abandoned house of prayer in central Tunisia. They hammered down the building’s walls and raised a Palestinian flag on the building. Police did not intervene.

The Facebook page "Tunigate", which has around 88 thousand followers, published a video of the assault. So did "Radio Bousalem”, with 83 thousand users. The vast majority of comments on these videos welcome these acts. The building was severely damaged and almost completely razed to the ground.

On October 15, bomb threats were sent to many East Coast synagogues. Attleboro synagogue Congregation Agudas-Achim received one of the emails, which read, "The bombs will blow up in a few hours. A lot of people will die. You all deserve to die."

On October 8 -- again, while Hamas was still in Israel -- Madrid’s main synagogue was defaced with graffiti that read “Free Palestine” next to a crossed-out Star of David.

And on October 7, an assailant in Rockland, NY fired a BB gun at two women entering a synagogue. Later in the month, a banner at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in the area was vandalized with the words, “Fuckin kikes."

[anshelsgendercrisis]

yesterday i watched a youtube recording of a class from the 2022 piyyut global workshop and something one of the facilitators said really struck me. he was talking abt all the people he’s studied with and said “it’s important to learn from these people because they are the last teachers.” they’re the last generation who lived in vibrant jewish communities in places like morocco and iraq and understood the cultural context of these piyyutim, the last who really experienced firsthand what it meant to be a moroccan jew or an iraqi jew, because for the children and grandchildren of mizrahi jewish refugees, all they have left is the experiences of their elders. and it made me think of ppl claiming to care abt mizrahi jews in one breath then advocating for “cultural and educational boycotts” of israel in another. when the only place a lot of these cultures really exist anymore, when the only people who can really teach about them, are in israel and you are saying not to listen to them, that they don’t matter, you’re sentencing those cultures to death.

[queerandpagan]

Hi.

When I say that hearing actual Jewish people discussing the "Dybbuk Box" was the nail in the coffin for me in terms of Very Popular ghost shows I'm being literal.

I cannot look at that EdgeLord of a culture vulture anymore. Because he's still out here touting the og box was the real deal. While, unwitting or not, perpetuating incredibly antisemitic ideas.

Have you heard of Dybbukim?

[tiredandsleepyaf]

Ok, so let me explain why rebloging posts like these do little to nothing to assure Jews that they’ll be safe around you.

Goyim reblogging this stuff don’t typically listen to Jews (which is apparent because we’ve said stuff like this doesn’t actually do anything to help us many times) about their experiences with antisemitism or listen when Jews try to educate them on things like antisemitic dog whistles or blood libel. Most of them are way more enthusiastic about punching Nazis than they are about showing any compassion to Jews. I’d venture to guess the majority of Jewish people know that often the goyim who reblog this stuff are just out for blood and don’t give a damn about us, because we’ve seen this many times. Not to mention that the desire for a violent revolution that some leftists seem to have has led to Jewish people facing a lot of antisemitism (at their hands). I would bet that some of the people reblogging this act similar to Nazis themselves. I know at the very least the goyim rebloging this don’t listen to Jews because we’ve said many times that this sort of thing doesn’t really do anything to help us, and we’d much rather goyim call out and learn about antisemitism. Overall, it’s just very performative activism, and it’s pretty obvious that the goyim reblogging this are just doing it to try and make themselves look better, and not for the sake of Jews.

[rotzaprachim]

it’s actually incredibly hard to talk about Jewish religious extremism beyond tzionus you’re met with the fact that half the population thinks Jews are basically just inherently evil parasitic bad actors and ultra orthodox people especially are stupid and/or evil for the crime of Looking Different and then the other half believes that ultra orthodoxy couldn’t possibly do anything problematic or religiously extreme cause hey look at least (some) of them aren’t Zionist!

[hindahoney]

Unapologetic and opinionated Jews please know I love you

[sag-dab-sar]

I hope you don't mind me reblogging with this (if not shoot me a DM and I'll remove it when I log back in)

How can anyone compare Covid lock down to the Holocaust? For starters, Anne Frank hiding was illegal... us staying home as much as possible, limitations on # of people at events, and closures of many buildings and venues was the gov't's attempt to try and stop a scientifically identifiable virus from killing people.

Whether you think lock down should or shouldn't be government enforceable or it's effectiveness in the pandemic is irrelevant to the comparison because lock down was a public health haphazard scramble..... the Holocaust was industrialized mass murder. Trial and error at first with mobile killing units, then mobile gas vans, plus death through the conditions of a concentration camp, then extermination camps, a very meticulously well organized industry of extermination. And industry that, if you didn't know its purpose, could have looked like any other like construction of vehicles or household items in factories. Many genocides had occurred in history, and concentration camps were nothing new, but the Nazis? They were the Industrial Revolution of Genocide.

The Nazi's transported Anne to Auschwitz-Birkenau and the only reason she wasn't immediately killed upon arrival by Zyklon-B was because she was 15. She assumed her elderly parents surely would have been unsuitable for slave labor and thus murdered upon arrival which according to eye witness left her feeling like she no longer wanted to live. She died a horrific death at Bergen Belsen from disease and starvation— she was there because her very existence was seen as a pestilence that needed to be eradicated.

This comparison is..... frankly obscene.

Think about the transportations from Hungary to Auschwitz in 1944 when the war was turning against them, when the Nazis knew the war was turning against them. They sped up their industry. Starting in May of 1944 they loaded freight trains with 3,000-4,000 Hungarian Jews and transported them from Hungary directly to Auschwitz, around 3-4 trains per day then that figure increased to 6 trains per day, then 10 per day, then by July 5th-9th 18 trains per day. 80% of all Jews on those trains were gassed upon their arrival. The industrial machine was being overworked because people had to wait hours in line to be murdered. The crematoriums literally could not keep up with the amount of corpses being produced per day, they had to burn bodies in open pits. That is the hell Anne Frank arrived too after being taken from her hiding place, the only reason she was not murdered on arrival is because she was 15... had she been 14 she would have been in those gas chambers.

Or think of Treblinka II the second deadliest extermination camp; they set up a fake train station, fake ticket window, fake schedules, fake everything to keep the "process" of getting new arrivals from the trains to the gas chambers as smooth as possible. The commandant of that camp claimed 3,000 people could be killed in a 3 hour period, leading to 12,000-15,000 people murdered in a 14 hour work day. Every. Single. Day.

Sorry but no. No one in lock down was headed for a Zyxlon-B or carbon monoxide gas chamber if they got caught hiding in their homes. No one was tattooed for slave labor with only a few months life expectancy. No one was hiding in neighbors homes in a secret crypt as an act of survival.

This person is not passionate about history. She is an Anne Frank fangirl. Or maybe she is passionate but needs to take some time to actually learn real history and learn how to actually engage in the topics she's interested it. Move past Anne's journal (which is valuable but there is so much more to learn), move past the fictional boy in the striped pajamas movie, move past high school history class (assuming its even taught to you in any decent detail) and learn the full real history.

Here, I'll help, these are some videos I watched recently (yes, this is one of the history topics I can't get enough of when it comes to learning)

▫️"Did the Germans Know About This" from Today I Found Out on YT, this actually also has a really good section on how eugenics was the norm and extremely popular throughout the west not some Nazi concoction they just took the ideas to their logical extremes.

▫️"Surviving the Holocaust" the story from Irene Fogel Weiss from her own words.

Photo of her on the selection platfrom (left) | Her two brothers and mother waiting to be gassed, her sister had been separated (right).

▫️Photos from the Auschwitz Album | Short info video on the album

▫️"Holocaust Survivors from Thessaloniki" (In Greek with subtitles) Jewish survivors from Greece. 83-87% of Greece's Jewish population was murdered, the highest in the Balkans and one of the highest in Europe.

Some more:

▫️Yad Vashdem — World Holocaust Remembrance Center and their Youtube Channel

▫️United States Holocaust Memorial Museum & their Youtube Channel

▫️Night by Elie Wiesel on Internet Archive Library

▫️Auschwitz Through the Eyes of the SS — an Album by Nazis at Auschwitz showing happy guards and vacationers. I find this so important because it shows these Nazis are human and thats terrifying; because it means it could easily happen again. We don't want to admit people who do these things are humans just like us, by calling them monsters we get to distance ourselves from the reality. Distancing ourselves allows us to look at Kanye and call his rhetoric "crazy" and pretend its too outlandish and no one would buy it, without realizing that many do buy into it. Or shrug our shoulders at the idea of synagogues needing guards. Don't distance yourself.

▫️Hitler's Holocaust (2000) — Is a 6 episode series. Its made up of many interviews with victims, witnesses, soldiers from various countries, and perpetrators. Combined with a plethora of archival photographs and footage. It is a gold mine for those deeply interested in the Holocaust. But warning it is a very hard watch mentally: the footage in particular, watching victims recount the horror, and having to put up with any excuses by perpetrators. I watched it on Amazon Prime originally but it's unavailable now and extremely difficult to find. Episode 1 and 2. [edited because I can't make playlist]

-not audio proof read-

I saw this girl on tik tok who got two anne frank tattoos (she’s not jewish) and I want to speak on it since I am jewish. I can tell she has a somewhat good passion for history because of anne frank, but the comparison she made between her and anne frank because of the covid lockdown is not only wrong but highly disrespect. what you went through during the covid lockdown is nothing compared to what anne frank and her family had to live through. this glorifying and idolization of anne frank needs to end, she isn’t some kind of idol, she was a child who was murdered by nazis, not someone you get a tattoo of.

[hilacopter]

at this point when I read free palestine or see a watermelon emoji in someone's bio I go "are you free palestine as in innocent gazan civilians don't deserve to be massacred and peace is the solution to the conflict or are you free palestine as in hamas are freedom fighters and the solution is getting rid of the isnotrealis". I wish I had the power to instantly know which one it is so I know whether I'm looking at a person who wants me dead or not.

[gingerswagfreckles]

"OPs whole blog is dedicated to Zionism" actually my whole blog is dedicated to acknowledging antisemitism but thanks for making it clear for the class that you think that's the same thing.

[jewreallythinkthat]

The most moderate, nuanced and productive people I have discussed the Israel-Hamas war with have been Jews, Israelis, and people with Palestinian family. Everyone directly affected by this just wants it to stop and to have peace and safety in the region in a way that minimises the casualty count.

The most extreme and performative and vile things I've been told are by people who have no connection to this and like to think they are experts because they have covered adjacent topics during learning, or read stuff online.

If all the randos in the west would just shut up for ten minutes and let those of us actually affected, with an understanding of the history of the land and the culture and the generational trauma experienced by Jews and Palestinians alike talk, we might actually have a chance to salvage this and stop it spiraling

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I had a really nice discussion (almost two hours long in my car that was hot!) with my rabbi. As some background, he's kind of a naturalist/hippie kind of character. He started out our meeting with deep breathing and meditation, to illustrate this.

So, the interesting thing he said was about Rosh Hashanah and Tu BeShvat. It went something like...

"When the leaves fall, we celebrate the new year. Our own leaves fall as we shed our old habits and the things we choose to leave behind, and we enter the hibernation of winter to reflect. It's the new year for ourselves. Once the leaves bud again with leaves, we celebrate the new year with trees just as we ourselves wake up and rejuvenate to dedicate ourselves to growth. We are connected with everything in nature, with the trees around us as we continue to live"

I don't know, there's something about connecting ourselves with nature that I really love about judaism. We are not an island - we cannot survive alone. We need each other, we need nature, we need g-d, we need to live. And that's what I love so much.

[antigonenikk]

inspired by @sea-changed 's post.