#not just cause he's not a Jew

[penguicorns-are-cool]

It's a tragedy

and I've heard people talk about it about how archaic the traditions with the arranged marriages are and it's like you don't get it

that part is about traditions being flexible. about traditions changing with the times and a new societal view of marriage being for love conflicting with the traditions formed and upheld during times when marriage was viewed as an economical agreement. It's about how traditions can change and it's not the end of the world and Judaism can be so flexible.

The marriages have nothing to do with the tragedy, they're showing life moving and changing with the times. The fiddler on the roof doesn't get pushed off because a couple traditions change, even though that's what Tevye thought at first.

The tragedy is the looming threat of the russians. it's the "little demonstration" that Tevye rightly assumes to be a pogrom, it's the threat of exile that comes true in the end. The daughters getting married and moving away or converting isn't the big bad that breaks apart the community, it's being exiled. it's their entire existence and safety being completely out of their control, even when the person overseeing the tsar in their area is "one of the good ones." No matter how much the Jews change, there will always be the threat of antisemitism.

Dear God, did you have to send me news like that, today of all days? I know, I know we are The Chosen People, but once in awhile, can't you choose someone else?

[andi-o-geyser]

wh. why is judaism trending

[faggotry-enjoyer]

U of M sounds like a nightmare rn. I’m an MSU graduate who wants do my PhD in geophysics and I’ve considered U of M bc they do have a good geology department but I think I’m just gonna uhhh Not Go There. I haven’t really heard what’s up with MSU but I know we had an SJP chapter 🥴 So I suspect it’s not quiet. But U of M’s antisemitism makes HEADLINES, stay safe

It's really more of a mixed bag. The antisemitism here is very real and very scary, you'll never catch me denying that. But it's not the whole story.

On October 7th this year, there may have been an SJP protest at Rackham. But the Diag was like a mini Hostages Square all day long, and there were hundreds of people at the memorial in the evening. Hundreds of people saying a prayer for the state of Israel and mourner's kaddish, hundreds of people singing acheinu and hatikvah. A week or so prior, 500 people gathered on the diag in support of Jewish students and our right to be here. And I can't speak to the latter, as I wasn't there, but on the 7th campus security was by us all day to make sure nothing happened.

If I recall correctly, about 15% of the student body here is Jewish. We have a very active Hillel, as well as a Jewish Resource Center and a Chabad. Even when campus is scary, we've got each other and we've got a lot of each other. There is fear, but there's hope too.

[fruitsofhell]

CW for an anti-black slur cause it's the name of a damn movie title, also mentions of historical racism in cartoons

Get really pissed off whenever I think about Coonskin by Ralph Bakshi because I need to rewatch it to see if it might be a fave movie of mine. I want to go over all of Bakshi's filmography sometime and really digest how he deals with depicting black people (especially Fritz the Cat cause the black crows are so cute!), cause he's in an interesting perspective where he is undoubtably sympathetic to us and grew up around us, but expresses this in ways that are soooo over the top we commonly see them now as only acceptable For A Black Person To Do.

Like, he's some white Jewish guy from the slums, he doesn't really have the right to reclaim the racist iconography as we think of it but at the same time it's like if someone's doing interesting artistic work they're doing interesting work. And I as a black person have actually been really inspired by that film ever since I watched it.

Ever since the rubber hose style became super hot again cause of Cuphead and Bendy I've seen people actively downplay how goddamn racist old cartoons were, or I've seen people pick up a clip from an old film and I just go "Chat, they don't know this is a quietly racist animation trend...". But it's not even just that old cartoons were racist and had racist trends, it was baked into their fundamental styles of comedy and cartooning - they were built to either exclude or humiliate blackness. And I feel like Coonskin is a work that expresses that very very loudly but with some sense of purpose.

I personally have wanted to tap into that idea since I started playing with golden age art styles, but for the tone I set in my shit that's way too overbearing. Plus, maybe as an actual black person something unique for me and not Bakshi is a wish to actually see myself represented in those old cartoon styles as more than as an object of controversy. I've also been meaning to watch more of the Proud family and works by Bruce W. Smith cause of that too, I heard in an interview he was motivated to draw because he wanted to see black folks in that mid-century, modernist style and like, SAME.

But it's actually way easier to work black features into that incredibly flexible style than it is to brute force them into the centerline/rubberhose ones where their origins can be traced back TO BLACKFACE. You guys remember that fucking lesson right? How the entire generic rubbergose face is a play on blackface, that's why the mouths and eyes are white but the body is black. If you're unfamiliar with that idea or don't believe it, look up Bosko, Warner Bros first attempt at a mascot, and see if you can tell what he's supposed to be.

It's more of an uphill battle, but not impossible to make it work in those styles. Though I have also considered the utility of borrowing directly from those racist designs to express a meta-contextual feeling/understanding that that is what you look like as a black person in this time period - that is you in the dominant narrative vision of the time. No matter what you are as a black person, to the historical zeitgeist you just appear as some flavor of coon yknow.

It could be a very potent visual tool I think, and I don't know if I'd be considering that if not for Bakshi and my relationship to Coonskin and its themeing. Which is the point, Bakshi was one of those racey types who always wanted to get people upset to start a convo or whatever. It's interesting to look at older but earnest expressions of this that would seem disastrous by today's standards - imagine "They couldn't make Blazing Saddles today" but true and on steroids.

[uraandri]

most embarrassing faze of my life was when i was a pewdiepie fan

[casualstarunknown]

I've been trying to not show my interest in Judaism in real life by fear of people reactions around me. Well, apparently I miserably failed. I don't know how but a "friend" of mine (I'm questioning that right the fuck now) perceived it somehow, said Jews were "My people". The guy is sending me "funny" videos that without being explicitly antisemitic still make fun of hassidic people and downright antisemitic stuff that are "jokes" "comedy material" to get a reaction out of me. The guy's best friend is a practicing Mizrahi so I don't think he is actively antisemitic but he obviously holds antisemistic beliefs. For him, it's not bad to send those weird videos meanwhile I'm disturbed by his antics. Who the fuck does that? I did debunk some of his claims, "actually you can convert to Judaism it's not a "race" but an ethnicity in the cultural sense" "actually let me tell you why saying "Jews concentrate money" is factually wrong" And he seems to believe me at least but it seems so pointless. Maybe I'm curving his antisemitism a little but I have little hope he will become sensible about the issue. He just likes pocking me about it.

I thought I was paranoid not owning up to my interest for Judaism in real life but Dude. Some people can't be normal about Jews, can they? No they have to absolutly bring up their antisemitism and ignorance.

[kavehater]

Persians being audacious is RICH cause how are you that snarky abt your “rich heritage,” insisting being Arab is the most vile insult to ever suggest, which mind you is bs bc have you seen our history ? LMAO like … honestly why do I defend you atp ☠️ when your personality is that disgusting so as to put down a whole other group to uplift yourself … honestly I should join in on the Persian haterism in such a scenario bc yall literally ruined my country ☠️ so I don’t think you have an excuse to flaunt your shit history if the present day is just you all being foul SORRY 💁‍♀️

[maykr]

Love reading some novel, and out of nowhere *antisemitism* *misogyny* *racism*.

🔨🔨🔨🔨

[mx-paint]

.

[crypticripple]

sigh...why must i be obsessed with 2 very long pieces of media that i want to read at once (homestuck and the tanakh lmfao)

[faggotry-enjoyer]

one of my classmates is a messianic, post cancelled

hebrew 101 started today and my god is it a relief to finally be in a room of people who are Normal About Jews. saw quite a few magen david necklaces, i wasn't worried someone would be a dick about my bring them home dogtag, the professor said he's from israel and used to teach at tel aviv university when introducing himself and nobody was weird about it, class is off for rosh hashanah with nobody having to ask, he played us a song in hebrew and said it was made shortly after october 7th and the following silence was sad instead of awkward. i'm not even jewish yet but i didn't realize just how tense i'd been in most goyische spaces until i was in a jewish/adjacent one and it felt like i could breathe again.

[determinate-negation]

ridiculous how many people are just taking it as just "secret new york jew tunnels" when the reality is so much funnier. the messiah is alive and 122 years old but he pretended to die 30 years ago, we need to dig a tunnel to fuck with the 99% of fake fans who claim to support him but believe slanders like "he died from natural causes at age 92" and "if he's still around why has nobody heard from him since 1994"

yeah people are like “hmm what are the secret jew tunnels for 🤔 why does no one know” but we do know and the answer is more mundane and also crazier than captures the average american because its like the internal religious politics of chabad and the really weird messianic movement associated with them. its soo funny but its starting to just get depressing seeing like protocols of the elders of zion type shit promoted constantly on twitter about the tunnels (truly completely gone to shit as a website) because people seeing it passively just dont understand anything about how the hasidim are in nyc or how this city is. like the guys who dug the tunnels, which u may see referred to as bocherim (young unmarried men who are in religious studies) are like bachelors or frat guys who deeply believe in an esoteric messianic sect its not talmudic ritual child trafficking tunnels that all the world leaders meet at. chabad is probably downplaying how significant this sect is at least in nyc but again this isnt a conspiracy everyone whos been here knows this

[skydaemon]

so we (and by we, i mean the very specific overlap of jews and nerds among whom i make my home) talk a lot about how tolkien's dwarves, in both the books and movies, were likely influenced by certain jewish stereotypes. obsessed with gold/wealth, secretive (especially about their language and religion), refugees from their ancestral home, portrayed with big, sometimes hooked, noses and interesting facial hair, and most specifically: the favourite little meow meows of one particular god, causing them to be shunned and persecuted by other races and creeds. this is likely unintentional, coming from the subconscious of tolkien in the same way orcs were "based on mongols" (ew colonialism) and activating subconscious biases/stereotypes in the people who designed the dwarves for the movies. it's subtext, albeit subtext that influenced the next eighty years of fantasy.

but what i don't see much discussion of is the fact that in terry pratchett's discworld, it's intentional. terry pratchett's dwarves are, more or less, jews.

carrot is a human adopted by dwarves, based on human standards. but within dwarf culture, he IS a dwarf. specifically, he has undergone specific rituals and memorised certain passages, making him LEGALLY a dwarf. this is basically how conversion works in judaism. indeed, as in judaism, it's considered rude to even mention that carrot is six feet tall and obviously wasn't born into the culture he has adopted.

the dwarves also have internal rifts - there are a group of 'orthodox' dwarves who consider the dwarves in ankh-morpork (who have adopted other customs and don't follow traditional roles) not to be dwarves at all, and don't recognise carrot as a dwarf for the same reason. they believe that the way to be a dwarf is to live in an all-dwarf community and follow their traditional rules, while other dwarves believe they need to change with the times and integrate (at least somewhat) with larger society. jewish as fuck.

there's also the interaction of dwarves with gender. when cherie comes out as female (which isn't a recognised gender by dwarvish society) she is ostracised for taking on the feminine roles common to other discworld races. however, she could never THINK of cutting off her beard, because she is still a dwarf. i see parallels with women in judaism taking on roles traditionally considered 'masculine' (e.g., as rabbis, wearing tallit and kippot) and the acceptance of queer people into jewish communities. there's lots of great discussion about cherie as a trans character on tumblr, btw.

finally, something that particularly strikes me is the line from carrot in tfe, where he says that the biggest dwarf city on the disc is ankh-morpork. obviously all diaspora communities can relate, but it's really something to know that new york is the city with the most jews in the world (960k to jerusalem's 570k. btw, 3rd is LA!).

i just love that, again, consciously or unconsciously, pratchett incorporated more positive elements of jewish culture into his portrayal of the dwarves.

[heir-of-the-chair]

Jewish Viktor is canon now. I have never thought of this before but I will now die on this hill I am holding this headcanon to my chest and cherishing it.

Even MORE winter art! No Christmas spirit at ALL this year, might as well fake it till I make it. 🫡

[thisis-an-original-name]

here’s my perspective on the Noah Schnapp situation as someone who is in his shoes and is actually biased FOR him (Jewish college freshman, stranger things fan)

Noah Schnapp is wrong. He is violently, repulsively, dangerously wrong. The original idea behind Zionism (the concept where Jews get their own state), for me, is so far removed from what we have now, Zionism (the concept where we mass murder a bunch of innocent people just for living on land that we’re trying to steal). It’s imperative for every single Jew to pull their head out of their local Hillel’s ass and acknowledge what’s really happening here. Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization that has caused undue suffering. But let’s be real: Netanyahu was waiting for an excuse to bomb and murder innocent Palestinians civilians (and children. Actual fucking BABIES.)

And furthermore. Even if I was a Zionist (to reiterate, I am not) those stickers would NEVER be okay. [complex and tragic political issue] is sexy??? Are you kidding me? It’s giving teenage boy who made a million dollars when he was 12. It’s giving Netflix Sweetheart. It’s giving goes to UPenn because he’s famous. It’s giving white Jewish gay man who believes that he’s incapable of oppression because he’s Jewish and gay. It’s giving celebrity who doesn’t take shit seriously. It’s giving… well, dare I say it’s giving Noah Schnapp.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Lincoln Brown

Beckett Law, a religious freedom advocacy group, has taken up the cause of three Jewish students at UCLA. The students claim that in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, they faced mounting antisemitism, which included barring them from access to areas of the campus. The students are also represented by Clement & Murphy, PLLC.

In the lawsuit, Frankel v. The Regents of the University of California, the plaintiffs claim that pro-Hamas/anti-Israel protesters set up barricades on the Los Angeles campus, effectively creating a "Jewish Exclusion Zone." Beckett Law states that after creating the encampment, protesters not only constructed barriers but also linked arms to prevent Jewish students from accessing the most popular areas on campus. They also imposed an ideological test, and those whose views were deemed to be sufficiently anti-Israel were issued wristbands and allowed to pass unmolested through the "checkpoints."  

By contrast, Beckett law says that Jewish students were harassed and even assaulted. Law student Yitzchok Frankel was forced to find other ways to reach his classes because his route was blocked by the exclusion zone. Sophomore Joshua Ghayoum could not attend classes or study sessions because of the zone and the antisemitic activities on campus. Additionally, he was forced to listen to chants of "death to the Jews" and "death to Israel." Eden Shemuelian had trouble getting to her final exams because of the zones and had to listen to the vitriol from the encampment as she tried to study. These, said Beckett Law, are just three examples of the problems faced by Jewish students at UCLA.

Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket, stated:

If masked agitators had excluded any other marginalized group at UCLA, Governor Newsom rightly would have sent in the National Guard immediately. But UCLA instead caved to the anti-Semitic activists and allowed its Jewish students to be segregated from the heart of their own campus. That is a profound and illegal failure of leadership. This is America in 2024—not Germany in 1939. It is disgusting that an elite American university would let itself devolve into a hotbed of antisemitism. UCLA’s administration should have to answer for allowing the Jew Exclusion Zone and promise that Jews will never again be segregated on campus.

The suit notes:

Defendants have deprived Plaintiffs of the free exercise and enjoyment of religion without discrimination or preference, as secured by the California Constitution, through a policy and practice that treats Plaintiffs differently than similarly situated non-Jewish individuals because Plaintiffs are Jewish.

Defendants furthered no legitimate or compelling state interest by engaging in this conduct.

Defendants failed to tailor their actions narrowly to serve any such interest.

As a result of Defendants’ actions, Plaintiffs have been injured by losing access to educational opportunities, losing access to library and classroom facilities, losing in-person learning opportunities, losing the ability to prepare for exams, being denied equal participation in the life of the university, suffering emotional and physical stress that has diverted time, attention, and focus from study, and by other harms.

In addition to seeking compensation for damages, the primary goal of the lawsuit is to hold the leadership of the University of California accountable and ensure that such a situation never arises again.

As usual, "never again" is here and now. The fact that these "students" take a great deal of pride in slinging the term "Nazi" at anyone with which they disagree yet use tactics that echo those of the Third Reich is ironic and chilling. But their savage nature can be attributed, at least in part, to those who educated them. 

Given that, one must ask if the regents of the University of California were merely caving to mob pressure. Did they turn a blind eye to the madness out of fear or because of the optics? Ideally, there should be nothing wrong with discussing the war and even debating whether or not Israel's response to the Hamas attack has been proportionate. 

The regents, president, vice-president, and chancellors never stopped to think, "Gee, it seems to be getting awfully brownshirty around here." And if they did, they were too cowardly or indoctrinated to say a word.