#on galut

[torahtot]

sth that always frustrates me is when people on here say things like "jewish ppl u can let go of connection to israel bc you can be at home in the countries you live in!" and someone responds with a whole essay on how antisemitism is alive and well.. bc that still accepts the original premise. you're saying yes, i agree, we would not feel a connection to the land if antisemitism didn't exist, but it does. this ignores the root misconception that makes someone say things like that, which is that they deny (or simply don't realize/understand) our connection to the land, which transcends the existence of antisemitism in the diaspora. walk into any orthodox school that doesn't even consider itself zionist, and you'll find the kids having conversations with their teachers about how to reconcile feeling comfortable in galut with the desire to properly mourn the beit hamikdash & yearn for mashiach so that we can return. this isn't metaphorical in the slightest; many of them will make aliyah whether mashiach comes or not (and it won't have anything to do with secular zionism or antisemitism). eradicating antisemitism in the diaspora would never change the fact that we are in galut. if they were smart they would actually shift the conversation to why we don't need an explicitly/exclusively jewish state in order to live safely & thrive in eretz yisrael, but they won't bc a) that would require accepting the validity of our connection to it and b) they consider it "validating settler fears" or wtvr the fuck. so instead they will continue to be totally inept at realpolitik solutions & fail to see eye to eye in conversation with jews bc they fundamentally misunderstand.. everything about us.

[anonymousdandelion]

after too long in exile

I hear Yiddish and feel immediately at home.

I hear Yiddish and the rhythms sound like family.

I hear Yiddish and my heart yearns for more.

I hear Yiddish feel Yiddish want Yiddish am Yiddish

I hear Yiddish and I do not understand a word.

[todaysjewishholiday]

5 Menachem Av 5784 (8-9 August 2024)

Almost every Jew (and for that matter many a Gentile) has heard of the Kabbalah at some point or another. And the Kabbalah which they know of is almost certainly the Kabbalah of Yitzhak Luria, who died on the 5th day of the month of Av in the year 5332.

Luria was born in Jerusalem in 5284 to an Ashkenazi father and a Sephardi mother. His father died when he was a young child and he was taken in by a wealthy maternal uncle in Cairo who wished to raise him as a Torah scholar. At the age of fifteen, he was married to his uncle’s daughter, and his uncle continued to financially support them while Yitzhak studied. When he was in his mid twenties his studies took a mystical turn, and after some time he withdrew to the banks of the Nile to be an ascetic and took a seven-year vow of silence, returning home only on Shabbat and speaking to nobody if he could at all avoid doing so. It is probably during this period that he developed his own novel mystical system. At the age of 35 he returned to Jerusalem, but after only a few months there departed for the new center of Jewish mysticism in Tzfat at the kabbalistic yeshiva of Moshe Cordovero. Cordovero died within a year of Luria’s arrival but the newcomer’s charisma and confidence led the gathered disciples to select him as their new teacher. Luria wrote little during his own life, though he composed three poems which became popular for Shabbat recitation. But he lectured extensively and enthusiastically and after his death his disciples compiled his conceptual system from their lecture notes. For years it was circulated among a small group of kabbalists in a small number of copies, before finally receiving a wider printing. By that point Luria’s system had become widely adopted by mystically inclined Jews thanks to his popularity with the mystics of Tzfat.

Yitzhak Luria died within three years of his arrival in Tzfat, at the age of 38.

It is also Erev Shabbat! The queen herself comes to meet us before sunset as we light the candles in her honor. Prepare yourselves to greet her!

[stimulantz]

Girlfriend in a Coma / Mojo Nixon

[istherewifiinhell]

My advice to the world? Dont live with a dog that knocks on doors. Scares the shit outta me.

[torahtot]

babe wake up new haskalah just dropped

This past Saturday, an antisemitic mob hundreds strong in Russia rioted and shut down an airport. They were trying to find, catch, and murder Jews entering the country. That same day, a Jewish community centre in a different part of Russia was burned down, and "Death to Jews" was painted on the rubble. [1] [14]

On October 9th, protestors in Sydney, Australia chanted "Gas the Jews." [2]

There has been a 300% increase in antisemitic incidents in the UK, including kosher grocery stores being broken into and vandalized, and cars shouting "Kill Jews" at London Synagogues. [3]

Over the past month in Germany: Holocaust memorials have been defaced. The phrase "Jewish pigs" was spray-painted on a Green Party office after a party member spoke out about antisemitism. A teenager at a rally shouted "I want Adolf Hitler back. I’m for Hitler, for gassing the Jews." Molotov cocktails were thrown into synagogues. [3] [4]

On October 21st, Italians shouted, "Open the borders so we can kill the Jews." [5]

In Canada, a Jewish Community Center was egged by a man shouting antisemitic slurs, a Jewish business was, and a local Rabbi had a swastika drawn on his window. [11] [12]

Over the past month, synagogues have been defaced or raided in Austria, Colombia, Chile, France, Portugal and Spain. A historic synagogue was burned down in Tunisia. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [13]

All that happened this month, this year. I'm not even touching on the past twenty years of global antisemitism. I'm not even mentioning the United States.

Who told you the proponents of antisemitism and the enemies of Jews were dead? Who told you that our culture and religion were respected in the diaspora? Who told you we could be safely Jewish in “our own countries"? Who lied to you?

[torais-life]

Vivir en Israel o en la Diaspora, ventajas y desventajas- Majón Ora Midrashet

[determinate-negation]

3 March, 2011

An ongoing trial in Tel Aviv is set to determine who will have stewardship of several boxes of Kafka’s original writings, including primary drafts of his published works, currently stored in Zurich and Tel Aviv. As is well known, Kafka left his published and unpublished work to Max Brod, along with the explicit instruction that the work should be destroyed on Kafka’s death. Indeed, Kafka had apparently already burned much of the work himself. Brod refused to honour the request, although he did not publish everything that was bequeathed to him. [...] But to begin with, let us consider who the parties are to the trial and the various claims they make. First, there is the National Library of Israel, which claims that Esther Hoffe’s will should be set aside, since Kafka does not belong to these women, but either to the ‘public good’ or else to the Jewish people, where these sometimes seem to be the same. David Blumberg, chairman of the board of directors of the National Library, puts the case this way: ‘The library does not intend to give up on cultural assets belonging to the Jewish people ... Because it is not a commercial institution and the items kept there are accessible to all without cost, the library will continue its efforts to gain transfer of the manuscripts that have been found.’ It is interesting to consider how Kafka’s writings can at once constitute an ‘asset’ of the Jewish people and at the same time have nothing to do with commercial activities. [...] So it seems we are to understand Kafka’s work as an ‘asset’ of the Jewish people, though not a restrictively financial one. If Kafka is claimed as a primarily Jewish writer, he comes to belong primarily to the Jewish people, and his writing to the cultural assets of the Jewish people. This claim, already controversial (since it effaces other modes of belonging or, rather, non-belonging), becomes all the more so when we realise that the legal case rests on the presumption that it is the state of Israel that represents the Jewish people. This may seem a merely descriptive claim, but it carries with it extraordinary, and contradictory, consequences. First, the claim overcomes the distinction between Jews who are Zionist and Jews who are not, for example Jews in the diaspora for whom the homeland is not a place of inevitable return or a final destination. Second, the claim that it is Israel that represents the Jewish people has domestic consequences as well. Indeed, Israel’s problem of how best to achieve and maintain a demographic majority over its non-Jewish population, now estimated to constitute more than 20 per cent of the population within its existing borders, is predicated on the fact that Israel is not a restrictively Jewish state and that, if it is to represent its population fairly or equally, it must represent both Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. The assertion that Israel represents the Jewish people thus denies the vast number of Jews outside Israel who are not represented by it, either legally or politically, but also the Palestinian and other non-Jewish citizens of that state. The position of the National Library relies on a conception of the nation of Israel that casts the Jewish population outside its territory as living in the Galut, in a state of exile and despondency that should be reversed, and can be reversed only through a return to Israel. The implicit understanding is that all Jews and Jewish cultural assets – whatever that might mean – outside Israel eventually and properly belong to Israel, since Israel represents not only all Jews but all significant Jewish cultural production. I will simply note that there exists a great deal of interesting commentary on this problem of the Galut by scholars such as Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, who, in his extraordinary work on exile and sovereignty, argues that the exilic is proper to Judaism and even to Jewishness, and that Zionism errs in thinking that exile must be overcome through the invocation of the Law of Return, or indeed, the popular notion of ‘birthright’.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Today is צום תמוז (17 Tammuz), a minor fast day, which started at dawn (first light) and ends at night (full dark), which remembers the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem during the seige of Rome and begins us on the sad journey of the Three Weeks. Read more:

I hope everyone who is fasting has an easy fast and that even if you are not, that you take time today to engage with the commemoration of this day in history.

[floralfanboy]

I can tell you didn't read at all because you did not address anything I pointed out.

@yourtoradorasextendedwarranty asked if the land was stolen from the Jewish people by the Romans. I explained that the Jewish people remained the majority and remained the majority under Roman rule.

If you disagree that was the case, feel free to present your own historical overview of Judea/Palestine under Roman rule.

Why are you pro Israel instead of pro Palestine?

A number of reasons:

First, Hamas, Gaza's elected government, attacked first and has been attacking for decades. And even before Hamas, the people who would later call themselves Palestinians along with several other Arab countries, attempted to kill the Jewish population of Israel. All of this, by every reliable source I can find, was done unprovoked. The original Israeli settlements did not displace anyone, and Israel only claimed the territory it has now due to the fact these two wars were waged (much of it was even given to them by these Arab Countries in order to prevent them launching a counter-offensive).

Second, sources within Gaza have been proven over and over and over to be lying. From using AI to add corpses to pictures to using photos of murdered Israeli children in collages of "missing Palestinian children." We can't even rely on their numbers for how many have died. The side that lies so thoroughly that you can't even trust when they say "this many people have died in this conflict" is not the side that's in the right. I have not seen anywhere close to this level of manipulation from Israel. Literally the worst I've seen from Israel is a few of their government officials talking in a way that dehumanizes Palestinians.

Third, one side is a historically oppressed group who has suffered CONSTANT attempts at their lives. Several genocides, many attempted genocides, and now one side of this conflict is ruled by people who openly declare they want to kill all the Jews. Even their propaganda piece openly admits that they want to kill all Jews GLOBALLY.

Fourth, falling in line with my last point, Hamas openly says that they view Gaza as a country of martyrs that they're willing to sacrifice. One side being a genocidal terrorist group that views the people of the country they're occupying as disposable fodder to achieve their goals is not the side that deserves to be supported.

Those are my reasons, tho I will add one thing: I may be pro-Israel, but I fully believe Palestine also has a right to exist. Gaza and the West Bank should both be free to govern themselves. A 2-state solution is the only way forward.

But this kinda requires eliminating Hamas and every other extremist group that decides to break the peace every time it's achieved. Gaza and the West Bank cannot have their freedom if every time they get it a terrorist group steals all their international aid and uses it to fuel their genocidal campaign. They will never live free so long as they're under the yoke of monsters.

[crazy-so-na-sega]

punto per punto

la storia degli ebrei è un mito che si fonda sulla Bibbia (e basta)

A) l'archeologia e la filologia dimostrano che gli ebrei non furono espulsi dalla loro terra nel 70 d.C (furono i dotti, gli studiosi della Torah che scelsero la religione invece della terra [fonte Belkind])

B) ai primi del novecento c'erano ancora molti villaggi arabi il cui nome rimanda a origini ebraiche.

C) La probabilità che dall'antichità fino ai giorni nostri si fosse mantenuta in loco la continuità demografica della popolazione è molto alta anche dopo la conquista islamica [Polak]: l'Islam cacciò i Bizantini, non il popolo del Libro.

D) La logica dell'Esilio è di origine cristiana: il primo a tematizzare il mito della cacciata fu Giustino martire che a metà del terzo secolo spiegava l'espulsione dei circoncisi da Gerusalemme dopo la rivolta di Bar Kokba come una punizione collettiva per l'uccisione del Cristo. Altri scrittori cristiani videro nella presenza di ebrei fuori dalla Terra Santa una conseguenza e una prova schiacciante dei loro peccati [Sand].

E) sulla base di fonti tannaitiche del II e III sec. d.C. che il termine "galut" - esilio - indicava un asservimento politico, non uno sradicamento territoriale, e che le due cose non erano necessariamente correlate [Milikowsky].

A+B+C+D+E = La Diaspora è una colossale narrazione (recente) costruita da storici al servizio dello Stato etnico-religioso ebraico. The end.

-Shlomo Sand (L'invenzione del popolo ebraico)

[sethshead]

This is what Ta-Nehisi Coates admits he might have participated in. Never forget why Jews never feel entirely safe among our neighbors in galut. We never know which of you look at this and side with the butchers of Be’eri.

[schizografia]

La fine del Giudaismo

Non s’intende il senso di quanto sta oggi avvenendo in Israele, se non si comprende che il Sionismo costituisce una doppia negazione della realtà storica del Giudaismo. Non soltanto infatti, in quanto trasferisce agli ebrei lo Stato-nazione dei cristiani, il Sionismo rappresenta il culmine di quel processo di assimilazione che, a partire della fine del XVIII secolo, è andato progressivamente cancellando l’identità ebraica. Decisivo è che, come ha mostrato Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin in uno studio esemplare, a fondamento della coscienza sionista sta un’altra negazione, la negazione della Galut, cioè dell’esilio come principio comune a tutte le forme storiche del Giudaismo come noi lo conosciamo. Le premesse della concezione dell’esilio sono anteriori alla distruzione del Secondo Tempio e sono già presenti nella letteratura biblica. L’esilio è la forma stessa dell’esistenza degli ebrei sulla terra e l’intera tradizione ebraica, dalla Mishnah al Talmud, dall’architettura della sinagoga alla memoria degli eventi biblici, è stata concepita e vissuta nella prospettiva dell’esilio. Per un ebreo ortodosso, anche gli ebrei che vivono nello stato d’Israele sono in esilio. E lo Stato secondo la Torah, che gli ebrei aspettano all’avvento del Messia, non ha nulla a che fare con uno stato nazionale moderno, tanto che al suo centro stanno proprio la ricostruzione del Tempio e la restaurazione dei sacrifici, di cui lo stato d’Israele non vuole nemmeno sentire parlare. Ed è bene non dimenticare che l’esilio secondo il Giudaismo non è soltanto la condizione degli ebrei, ma riguarda la condizione manchevole del mondo nella sua integrità. Secondo alcuni cabalisti, fra cui Luria, l’esilio definisce la situazione stessa della divinità, che ha creato il mondo esiliandosi da sé stesso e questo esilio durerà fino all’avvento del Tiqqun, cioè della restaurazione dell’ordine originario.

È proprio questa accettazione senza riserve dell’esilio, con il rifiuto che comporta di ogni forma presente di statualità, che fonda la superiorità degli ebrei rispetto alle religioni e ai popoli che si sono compromessi con lo Stato. Gli ebrei sono, insieme agli zingari, il solo popolo che ha rifiutato la forma stato, non ha condotto guerre e non si è mai macchiato del sangue di altri popoli.

Negando alla radice l’esilio e la diaspora in nome di uno stato nazionale, il Sionismo ha tradito pertanto l’essenza stessa del Giudaismo. Non ci si dovrà allora meravigliare se questa rimozione ha prodotto un altro esilio, quello dei palestinesi e ha portato lo stato d’Israele a identificarsi con le forme più estreme e spietate dello Stato-nazione moderno. La tenace rivendicazione della storia, da cui la diaspora secondo i sionisti avrebbe escluso gli ebrei, va nella stessa direzione. Ma questo può significare che il Giudaismo, che non era morto a Auschwitz, conosce forse oggi la sua fine.

Giorgio Agamben, 30 settembre 2024

[j-saying]

Also, there had been 2 major eras of Jewish political entity BEFORE that exile in 70CE.

And that 2,000 years later, we still pray to go back to our homeland in peace.

For example, when Israel declared “independence”, US media wrote excessively on how great it was, how the Israelis were celebrating, how the Jewish people now had a homeland of their own etc etc etc, but there was no mention of Palestinians whatsoever like zilch

When we were EVENTUALLY introduced into the narrative years later, the word Palestinian wasn’t mentioned once, but we were referred to as “Arabs”, and when this is presented to a population that has already been fed a narrative of the land belonging solely to the new ~Jewish state~, we’re the implied invaders, attacking Israel out of purely malicious intent

etc etc 

You couple this with Israel’s burning of our libraries and destruction of thousands and thousands of our historical texts, and you can dupe people into believing that Israelis were ~there first~ and that Palestinians really are just invaders looking to take over Israel because they enjoy a “better life”, which is ofc pure bullshit

[some-teeth-in-a-trench-coat]

Listening to my master playlist (all songs I've added to any playlist) on shuffle is fun because the songs really are just

I'M RABID PSYCHO I NEED TO KILL YOU OR THE HORRORS IN MY HEAD WILL EAT ME ALIVE GET READY TO DIE

I like sunshine I feel alive for the first time it's gonna be alright :)

I'm dead come join me you know you want to YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO

Hey I love being Jewish thanks Hashem I'm alive, lie-lie-live

War sucks it will kill you I'm gonna kill you death death war should DIE

Once upon a time there were these twins and one was terminally ill and the other was always hated by everyone except his brother then the sick one died and the healthy hallucinated his ghost climbing into a tree and for the rest of his life he could hear his brother's voice and all of his descendants after him would also hear the voices of their dead ancestors going back to the twins and though some may see it a curse it was also a valuable connection to the past and a really big loving family that just happens to be mostly ghosts and they sing forgotten songs together

Here's a list of crimes by the USA let's eat cops

MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER I'M SICK I NEED TO MURDER

Can you imagine an insect? Ok now imagine a lot of them? Yeah that's awesome

ברוך השם ברוך השם ברוך השם

The umbrella of the world is crumbling and inverting in the storm you started when you looked me in the eyes and told me fish can't fly now all I have is a radio telling me it's still sunny on Mars

I am a wild animal I will bite you because I'm neurodivergent it's a metaphor but I'm literally going to bite you

The only thought I've ever had is I need to kill and kill and kill and die and kill

We can end the galut with the power of love let's goooooo

הוא לא מכיר את המילים האלה

I am a manifestation of all your crimes I'm here to destroy you destroy destroy destroy I'll gladly take the world down with you

Robbing a bank is cool, kid, let's find one

Welcome to your funeral mwahahaha

I had a dream once I walked into the woods and found a dying fox I put it out of its misery and asked myself what could possibly have caused its injuries then the horse spotted me and I ran and ran for my life it was the most vicious and bloodthirsty beast I ever encountered

Hey I thought of a cool pun - um yeah that's cool but do you really wanna chill when you could rap about being a vegan - nevermind puns are in my blood

In my defense I am no longer homicidal I got better

[eretzyisrael]

by Phyllis Chesler

Both Butler and Gessen seem to revere Jewish vulnerability, statelessness and martyrdom. Are they also Nazis in drag?

The two conformists see Jewish vulnerability to persecution as far more “ethical” than the Jews’ ability to defend themselves from persecution and genocide. According to Prof. Corinne Blackmer in her brave book Queering Anti-Zionism: Academic Freedom, LGBTQ Intellectuals and Israel/Palestine Campus Activism:

“Butler implicitly argues that Jews were better off suffering rather than perpetrating state-sponsored persecution. … Two possible lessons or conclusions can be drawn from the fact that Jews experienced considerable state-sponsored violence, persecution and discrimination in the galut [exile], culminating not only in the Holocaust but also the forced removal of nearly one million Mizrachi Jews from their ancestral homes in the Middle East before or during the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948. One, supported by Butler and other BDS advocates, states that precisely because Jews suffered extreme state-sponsored violence, they should endeavor to avoid state-building, although this formulation leaves unanswered precisely under what political system Jews should (peacefully?) reside.”

In her piece in The London Review of Books, Butler does “condemn without qualification the violence committed by Hamas. This was a terrifying and revolting massacre. This was my primary reaction, and it endures.”

However, she then goes on to “contextualize” this statement by trotting out all manner of false allegations against Israel: “We should develop some understanding of why groups like Hamas gained strength in light of the broken promises of Oslo and the ‘state of death, both slow and sudden’ that describes the lived existence of many Palestinians living under occupation, whether the constant surveillance and threat of administrative detention without due process or the intensifying siege that denies Gazans medication, food and water.”

Butler appears to be either ignorant of or deliberately concealing several important facts: Israel left Gaza in 2005. Hamas—an Iranian-funded Islamist terror group—controls, indoctrinates, tortures, torments and impoverishes Gazans. Hamas has taken the lion’s share of the aid meant for Gaza civilians and diverted it into their own bank accounts abroad and into building their terror tunnels and weaponry. No Arab country has been willing to offer Gazans refuge, even temporarily. Egypt has walled off Gaza from the Sinai. Hamas has increasingly forced women to wear veils, marry into polygamous families and risk being honor-killed if they “shame” their families.