#post shabbat sunday

[dihalect]

here's a thing about palestine/israel that i can't stop thinking about. supporting an ethnostate, apartheid, and/or genocide seems like just about the most un-jewish thing one could possibly do. i genuinely do not get it.

like. irl, i've been osmosizing jewish culture and scholarship for the past several years. the impression i’ve gotten is of a people who has undergone untold amounts of discrimination and violence over the past couple millennia, and who is proud of their resilience in the face of that oppression. i know that enduring oppression doesn’t necessarily make someone a good person. and obviously, no group is a monolith. but my impression has been that recognizing that harm and defending other downtrodden groups was a common principle of jewish culture. hell, that’s why my alma mater was founded — so i was living in that legacy for the past ~6 years.

even if you think jewish people have the sole right to the land that we call israel, the israeli state's treatment of palestinians flies in the face of all of that. to go "fuck you, i got mine"*, treat another ethnic group as second-class citizens, and concentrate, blockade, and slaughter them seems completely irreconcilable with what i have come to know and appreciate as jewish values. a complete betrayal.

like. am i missing something big here or

*or, more accurately, “i will fuck you over to get mine”

edit: obviously not every jewish person supposed israel/is zionist. but, as we’ve all seen jewish anti-zionists say recently, most jewish ppl in the imperial core are. and this genocidal ethnostate calls itself ~the jewish state~.

[electrificata]

white american jews are a collectivist old world culture thats just really invested in pretending we're an individualist american protestant-influenced one. you can marry whoever you want but it would just be so much easier if you marry a nice jewish person who will give me grandkids so why bother dating anyone else. you can live wherever you want but youre gonna have to come home for every holiday and just for shabbos dinner sometimes so really its just so much easier to stay close. you can get a tattoo but it would make your grandma so sad so there's just no point. we've made a lot of mistakes but white flighting out to the suburbs in the 60s and 70s and cosplaying wasps for three generations might be one of the worst

[semprini]

I don't care about sample size, this post is only for me.

[liminalkittyfics]

Find a light, hold tight

Or, The Hanukkah Fic 🕎 M • 56k+

\🔥/

\/ \/ \/ \/ | \/ \/ \/ \/

\. \. \. \. | /. /. /. /.

\. \. \. \. | /. /. /. /.

\. \. \. \ | /. /. /. /.

\. \. \. \|/ /. /. /.

____\. \. \ \|/ /. /. /____

Posting Schedule

Wednesday, 25 December - First night

Thursday, 26 December - Second night

Friday, 27 December - Third night

Saturday, 28 December - Fourth night

Sunday, 29 December - Fifth night

Monday, 30 December - Sixth night

Tuesday, 31 December - Seventh night

Wednesday, 1 January - Eighth night

Meet Louis | Meet Harry | Meet Shiloh

Meet Sarah, Mitch, and Noah | Meet Izzy | Meet Rabbi Dev | Meet Evan

About the fic:

Told from the gentile perspective of Louis, recently widowed and trying to cultivate his son’s connection to his Jewish heritage, Find a light, hold tight is intended for everyone — Jews and gentiles alike — who might find comfort in the light, wisdom, and warmth of Hanukkah.

Chapters will be posted each night of Hanukkah, starting 25 December 2024, so you can follow Louis, Shiloh, and Harry’s journey over the course eight nights. (Okay but like the fic’s timeline will be a bit earlier in December than irl.)

Come back every Shabbat (Fridays at sundown/ door time) from now until right before Hanukkah for weekly promo!

Read here

[salixsociety]

The Problem of the 'Witch's Sabbat'

Why we should stop calling our non-jewish holidays 'Sabbats': a (hopefully) definitive guide.

It is the year of our Gods 2024, and to this day I still enter communities and see the word 'sabbat' as one of the first. It is common practice to refer to any holiday, but especially those as featured in the Wheel of the Year, as sabbat(h)s, and frankly, I am sick of it. So I hope that I can use this post to convince some people on why it is time to remove that word from our vocabulary.

Where Does the Word 'Sabbat' Come From?

The very root of this word is the Hebrew ש־ב־ת (sh-b-t). It is the root word for many words pertaining to rest and not working (or more broadly: 'cessation'). This word evolved into שַׁבָּת (shabát), which translates to Saturday or weekly rest-day, normally. This word, also often spelled Shabbos from Ashkenazi Hebrew, travelled through various antique languages (Ancient Greek -> Latin -> Old French) directly to Middle English, where it became 'Sabat', and later Sabbath. While this word, in its travel through Europe, has influenced some words, you'll notice that it has also stayed one unique word, with a unique meaning: the Jewish Rest Day. The Sabbath, Shabbos, Sabbat, Shabat, et cetera, will always and has for most of its history been the word uniquely reserved for Saturday in Judaism. To those not very well read on Judaism, it may be helpful to know that Judaism is what is considered a closed practice. It is only permissible to practice Jewish religious tradition, and to a large extent, Jewish culture, if you are a Jewish convert. By extension, that should clue you in on the nature of the word and holiday of Shabbat.

Further reading on this topic: Etymology, Jewish Sabbath.

When Did it Become Relevant to Witches?

The first time the words 'sabbat(h)' and 'witch' were uttered in the same breath would likely be around the late Medieval period. The reason why this is, is something not nearly enough people are familiar with: the incredibly deep link between antisemitism and witch-hunting. Before the early Church turned its hateful eye to the concept of 'witches,' it was firmly on Jews. Jews, alongside other heretics and oppressed minorities like the Rroma, were considered utterly worthy of damnation. They were seen as antagonistic to the Church, going against everything the Church stood for, and furthermore as misanthropic, greedy, unreliable enemies. They were the scapegoats for many disasters and indeed frequently accused of practicing magic or poisoncrafting to invoke these disasters on the 'Good Christian Folk'. Furthermore, and this may sound familiar to you, jews were accused of 'consorting with the devil' and murdering children in order to consume their blood to mock the Eucharist, often referred to as blood libel. It was often claimed that this (nonexistent!) practice was done on the Shabbat, alongside other practices twisting and mocking those done in Church on Sunday. The persecution of Jews in Medieval Europe was horrific and seemingly endless, having origins in antiquity and reaching a peak during the Crusades, and another when the Plague ran rampant. Jews were banished, forced to convert to Christianity or brutally murdered, not infrequently by burning or strangulation.

What all of this is meant to illustrate is that the witch stereotype, or the wish to persecute witches in the early modern period, didn't come out of nowhere. There is a reason that caricatures and cartoons of witches feature a short and stocky body, a big and 'ugly' nose, green skin, red or dark hair, buckled shoes, and a conical hat (which before it became associated with witches, was often called a judenhut or jew hat). The roots of the witch stereotype in antisemitic caricatures and stereotypes are well-recorded and easy to see. And, indeed, the crimes most witches were accused of and burned for, directly mirrored the crimes jews were accused of before them. Consuming 'pure' Christian blood, mocking the Eucharist, fornicating with the devil, and all of this at the 'witch's sabbat', a made up gathering that witches would supposedly fly to on their broomsticks.

The idea that witches existed and the wish to eradicate them didn't purely come from antisemitism, of course. Misogyny, xenophobia, religious idealism from the Church, and other factors played incredibly large roles. But let us remain forever aware that the people burned were not in fact people flying on brooms, having sex with the devil and drinking the blood of Christian children. They were jews, they were Romani, they were people of color, they were women accused of stealing milk, they were victims.

So, the word 'sabbat(h)' wasn't just appropriated because somebody else wanted it or didn't understand it, like in many other cases of (mis)appropriation. It was appropriated explicitly to harm and eradicate several already fragile and oppressed, and in the case of Judaism, culturally exclusionary, communities.

The Role of Western Esotericism and Wicca

One could have expected the concept of the witches' sabbath to die out alongside the trials, but there is a secondary evil in this story, and it is Wicca.

In the late 19th century, English anthropologist and folklorist Margaret Alice Murray, one of the few women in her field, was halted in her research about Egypt, and was forced to find a new field of interest. She developed a hypothesis, based in mostly fantasy, that certain 'witch-cults' had survived the "Burning Times" in Europe. They were, according to her, secret societies upholding prehistoric fertility cults. Though most of her work was based in fantasy and speculation, her theory had one passionate follower: Gerald Gardner. But we will get back to him in a moment, because there is someone else pivotal to Gerald Gardner's beliefs: Aleister Crowley. Crowley is perhaps one of the most famous sexual predators, racists, antisemites, and cultural appropriators in the history of western magic. But, he was 'intelligent', well-travelled, privileged, and obsessed with occultism. He joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn when Gardner was already there. Both during his time in the Hermetic Order and after, he studied many religious traditions across the continents and wildly appropriated from all of them, most notably for this story, from Kabbalah (Jewish Mysticism). I will not go in depth about him, but he, and his fixation on Kabbalah, were extremely important to Gardner's views. Gardner, amateur anthropologist (with two fake PhDs!) and former devout Christian, used the works of Margaret Murray and Aleister Crowley to justify his claim that an old witch named Dorothy Clutterbuck had initiated him into one of these prehistoric fertility cults, one that survived the witch hunts. This is where Wicca started, and that makes the formation of Wicca entirely impossible to separate from antisemitism - and that is reflected by their language and rituals. From appropriation directly from Kabbalah, a closed practice, to calling their (mis)appropriated holidays 'sabbats', the origins of Wicca and their views on the trials are abundantly clear.

The Harm

I think we are now at the point in this blog where I should no longer have to explain that taking the word 'Sabbath' (or any other spelling of it) outside of its cultural and religious context, and applying it to practitioners of magic, is outrageously antisemitic. It is the propagation and preservation of notions and habits that got thousands of people, jews and not, brutally murdered, displaced, and forcefully converted, and it continues to conflate jews and witches - something that we've had to agree is antisemitic quite a few times, after quite a few genocides.

Another major evil in calling pagan/witchy holidays 'sabbats' is that it misconstrues what the witch trials actually were - it was the persecution of heretics. Witches are heretics, heretics are non-christian, jews are non-christian, therefore jews are heretics, therefore jews must be witches! In both the Old and the New World it was always the different, the other, the unfamiliar that were murdered. Again: people of color, Romani, jews, muslims, scary and ugly women, thieves, disliked women, the disabled, the mentally ill. It was not, and it will never be, privileged white women. In fact, it was generally them assisting in the eradication! I mean this with quite some distaste: if you are one of those people that says 'we are the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn', I know what you are. You are either uneducated or hateful, and I hope you fix that sooner rather than later.

Something else rather distasteful to me is how casually people are willing to dismiss the arguments against the use of 'sabbat' by the pagan/witch community. Antisemitism is not considered as serious, as severe, as relevant, as important, as worth considering. Not as much as other issues. I have had days-long arguments with people providing source on source on source and been met with: "I just don't see the harm." And I hear what you are truly saying. What you are truly saying is: "it's only antisemitism." When it is the appropriation of white sage, when it is the appropriation of Papa Legba, when it is the appropriation of something you don't want all that much, you are willing to stand up. But when it is antisemitism, when it is a word you've used for years, when it seems small and like it would be more convenient to just keep it, you are willing to stand by. And that is performative activism, and that is perpetuating the casual willingness to appropriate from Judaism. And it will be the reason that you and the people in your circle will also feel confident casually appropriating from other cultures.

Intersectionality

Despite the fact that the antisemitic nature of this usage should be enough, there is so much more harm to be done. After all, as was mentioned, it wasn't just jews that died. It was everybody who was not a white, wealthy, able-bodied, heteronormative, Christian man. It was women, so many women. It was schizophrenics. It was slaves, freed and not. It was natives. It was everybody who was different. When you stand by when people call their holidays 'sabbats', you are not just saying yes to antisemitism. You are saying yes to racism. You are saying yes to homophobia. You are saying yes to indigenous hate. You are saying yes to misogyny. You are saying yes to ableism. You are saying yes to ageism. You are saying yes to xenophobia. You are saying yes to hate.

After all, even when it starts with one group being persecuted, the persecution will go on after the extinction of the first group. And when the persecution finally reaches your group, and you have let every other group before you gone extinct, there will be nobody but you to fight for you.

Further Reading

OTHER BLOGS: The Witch Hunts & Antisemitism: An Often Overlooked History Why I Don't Call Them Sabbats, Why You Should Stop, and Other Thoughts on Problematic Aspects of Western Witchcraft The Antisemitic History of Witches Jews and the Witchcraze Can You Be a Jew and a Witch? Why Do Witches Wear Pointy Hats?

BOOKS and PAPERS: The Saturnine History of Jews and Witches - Yvonne Owens Heal the Witch Wound - Celeste Larsen “Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 127, iss. 3 (2012) - Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth "The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated with Introduction, Bibliography, and Notes by Montague Summers Do What Thou Wilt - Lawrence Sutin Witchcraze - Dr. Anne L. Barstow Imagining the Witch: A Comparison between Fifteenth-Century Witches within Medieval Christian Thought and the Persecution of Jews and Heretics in the Middle Ages Male witches in early modern Europe - Lara Apps, Andrew Gow

[killing-time-w-kaz]

I attended events almost every night this week and it all is making me grateful to be leaving college soon. On Tuesday, I went to kosher dinner, which is basically a meal at the chabad house (it’s free and means I don’t have to cook AND I get to hang out w some of my reclusive friends). On Wednesday, I worked an event for the bookstore that had several people show up who were openly hostile to me (from the pro-pal crowd on campus). On Thursday, I went to an antisemitism workshop run by a group of students doing a program called “Stories that Live”, which documents the stories of Holocaust survivors. On Friday, I went to Shabbat 100 (try to invite 100 people to dinner) and heard the story of a professor who has been harassed by her students for being openly Jewish. Today (Sunday), I went to a talk, “how do you Jew”, where professors and students spoke about their connections to Judaism. One Professor talked about how people don’t care about the complexities of his Israeli-American identity and position as a political scientist; they just see him as A Jew who is the enemy.

The posters advertising the antisemitism workshop, Shabbat 100 and How Do You Jew were all torn down. We used to have a private security guard posted outdid the chabad house, but in recent months we now have an armed police detective instead. A synagogue about 10 mins away has been graffitied with swatzikas TWO weeks in a row. Students don’t feel safe on campus. My mom, who normally doesn’t worry too much about my safety (she knows I know how to handle myself), told me to be careful and to stay safe.

People on my campus have the audacity to say that antisemitism isn’t a problem here at our college and our sibling colleges. I can’t imagine being so blind.

I’m burnt out from being around these people for the last 6 months. I love my department and my friends, but I cannot wait to walk across that stage and leave this place behind

[flagbridge]

Shabbat Shalom!

"He didn’t understand the words of the prayers, but he began to understand their cadence, the meaning was intertwined with music he played beneath it, the mumbling voices and groaning of the organ echoing in the sanctuary in one rousing cry out to something in the great beyond. Call it God, call it the heavens, the World to Come, or simply the pinnacle of getting to be alive. And because Christine was so suffused with any music he played, she came to the forefront of his heart. "

Preview of All Vows from this week, posting on Sunday--a scene where Erik plays the organ at the Grande Synagogue de Paris on Shabbat.

[romanarose]

Life update if anyone cares.

I only post this bc i was posting my depressing shit for months and a lot of people were reaching out in concern <3

cw sever depression, self harm, suicide, csa, SA, all the bad. but also lots of good <3

TLDR: Despite a god-awful semester, i got all a's and b's

Everyone thats been following me the last few months has seem my personal posts about how fucking awful things have been for me.

I've dealt with fact I can no longer deny that what happened to me was CSA, despite being on a milder side of things. That sparked an absolutely spiral. I didnt sleep for months which made things worse. School, I got an F on a midterm and i NEVER get F's on writing assignments.

Work had its complications and i quit and then rescinded that quit two days later. I was so constantly depressed in my dorm my roommate literally told me i needed to go to the basketball game with them bc i was sitting in a depression hovel none stop. I only went to services twice this whole time, one shabbat and once for Rosh Hoshannah.

I burned the ever living fuck out of my fingers, yall remember that one? lol.

In novemeber i had relapsed so severely on self harm i thought i had accidentally killed myself. I should've called 911. I thought I was bleeding out and/or going into shock. I then worked myself up more by going down pages of the internet about medical shook and people dying from it. that did not help my heart rate. I couldn't stand, I couldnt see straight for a while.

I could not afford an ambulance or a hospital stay as i am uninsured and only ork 25 hours a week. not a lot of money.

All this happened and I didn't miss work. This is not a brag, this is me not being able to makegood choices for myself.

Finally, thanksgiving break hit. Thank fucking god. I WANTED to use those 4 days of absolutely nothing to get to my TWO BIG RESEARCH PAPERS I HADNT STRTED YET but alas, I was SICK. I was so sick, in fact, and so hoped up on cough medicine for 3 days i was incomprehensible.

I was so physically ill, i couldnt even think about how mentally ill i was. I slept and slept and slept. And by the time sunday hit, I felt so recharged.

My failed midterm was so bad and so not me my professsor reached out to me. Im close with him (in a v appropriate way lol, hes a bruce springsteen fan too) and i felt comfortable telling him essentially that for a few months there things were severe, and I really should've gone in for a 72 hour hold multiple times and i was not safe. through a few lines of resources, I ended up back in therapy bc my school added a new therapist that is a woman (i stopped going last year bc i didnt like seeing a man)

I like my new therapist.

Anway, in about 2 weeks I wrote 2 12 page research papers, 2 book report papers, 1 science paper did 2 presentations, took 2 finals, wrote 2 more finals with essay questions, and at the end of it all, not only did I not fail any classes...

I GOT ALL A'S AND B'S! Which means my gpa is still high enough to renew my scholarship for my last year

I am so fucking proud of myself for accomplishing all this despite suffering so fucking badly. I havnt felt pain like that in years, just agony.

I had a down turn again over christmas bc my siblings were literally ass, upto and including making fun of me for not ating (i am multiple accounts of sexual trauma from several people, so im scared of dating), making fun of my eating, and my sister slapping me and my older brother hitting me. Was a bad time. But for right now, im in the place im staying for break (all january) im back at my old day care and they love me, and olive garden at this store has been going great

Im hoping next semester to be better, im hopful at least

Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who has supported my writing has supported me through these times. It makes me happy that i came her to share my silly little moon knight x reader series, not really intending on writing a whole lot, but next thing i know, i have friends and a lil community. so thank you <3

[girlactionfigure]

ISRAEL REALTIME — DEFENSE & SECURITY - war updates

— BARZELAI HOSPITAL STRUCK BY ROCKET, Ashkelon, children’s care wing.

— UNITY GOVERNMENT DETAILS…

The State Camp, let by MK and former general Benny Gantz, has joined with the coalition to form an emergency unity government.

A new limited war cabinet will be formed, which will include MK Gantz and MK Eisenkot, both former IDF generals.  National Camp MK Sa’ar will join the general cabinet as a minister (not said what ministry, or ‘without portfolio’).

— 2x DRONE ATTACK… from Gaza, to Nir Oz, to Ashdod.

— JERUSALEM GUSH ETZION TUNNEL CHECKPOINT ATTACK… terrorist eliminated.

— 12 INJURED IN ROCKETS, Ashkelon.

— ROCKETS fall in the GOLAN, 4.

— GOLAN enters defense level 2… all Golan settlements, without exception, are in a status that requires being near protected areas at all times. Also, there is a restriction on gatherings in an open area up to 30 people, and a restriction on gatherings in a closed structure up to 300 people.  You can continue to go to workplaces and carry out limited activities in places with access to a protected space.

— MAJOR BARRAGE, Tel Aviv and Mercaz.

— TERRORISTS hospitalized?  I received the following note… “As of 2:30 p.m. - the hospitals where terrorists who participated in the horrific massacre in which women were raped, babies murdered, and people were burned alive are hospitalized are:  Soroka, Barzilai, Bilinson, Sheba, Assaf Harofeh    Hospitals are public space. Everyone is allowed to come and express their private protest, even tonight for example. It is important to observe the law at all times.

— DID EGYPT WARN?  Egyptian officials who are quoted both in the press there and in the Jerusalem Post here clarify: We did not warn Israel before the attack. (Amit Segal)

— LOCAL ELECTIONS, scheduled for end of October have been officially postponed for 3 months due to the war.

— SCHOOL… The Ministry of Education announces that starting next Sunday (Oct 15) all students will return to distance learning (COVID style).  

— GAZA ELECTRICITY DOWN… they have run out of fuel for their power station, Israel has cut their portion of the supply.  Gaza will be dark tonight.

— RABBINUTE TO WORK ON SHABBAT… The Chief Rabbi of Israel HaRad Lau visited the Shura military rabbinical base a little while ago, where the holy work of identifying the fallen victims and bringing them to the grave of Israel is carried out. In response to the question of how to behave on Shabbat (when work normally is not permitted), the Chief Rabbi said, "I am moved and thrilled by the great dedication of all the teams, I appreciate that they will not finish before Shabbat, but it is important and required work because of moral and mental status - if it turns out that someone is not informed and he misses a funeral. In a state of war this is required morale. You continue to work even on the holy Shabbat and will make every effort to continue the holy work as if a weekday and with God's help we will have a comforting Shabbat

[yenteleh]

Today was my last conversion class before moving communities and I can feel myself getting a bit nostalgic. Most of the group is much older than me and quite reserved so we haven’t exactly became friends, but they’re nice and seemed genuinely sad that I’m leaving. I got a small gift from one person I talked with the most - a lovely older lady, who ironically doesn’t speak much English, but we both did our best jumping over the language barrier. The rabbi hugged me and asked if I’m coming back. I’m not sure yet, but if I do I hope it’ll be post-mikva.

I’m leaving on Sunday and have one more Shabbat to spend here, maybe I’ll think of something to make it special.

[eretzyisrael]

by Dion J. Pierre

The University of Pennsylvania’s Hillel chapter announced that it will hold a “massive” Shabbat event this Friday in response to a controversial festival taking place on campus that will feature a gamut of anti-Zionist activists who have promoted antisemitic tropes and called for violence against Israel.

“We will be inviting students from across campus — Jewish and non-Jewish alike — to join us for a night celebrating Jewish pride, unity, and togetherness,” the Ivy League school’s Hillel said in an open letter posted on social media. “Prominent politicians and Penn alumni will be coming to celebrate along with hundreds of students, to show — contrary to what antisemites like Roger Waters would have us believe — that Jewish Penn students will NEVER stop showing their pride in Israel, their Jewish identity, heritage, and beliefs.”

Waters, the former Pink Floyd frontman, is a scheduled speaker at the “Palestine Writes Literature Festival,” which the University of Pennsylvania is set to host from Friday through Sunday. In recent years, Waters has made comments about “Jewish power” and compared Israel to Nazi Germany. In May, during a concert held in Berlin, he performed in what looked like a Nazi SS officer uniform. A projection that played during the concert also compared Holocaust victim Anne Frank to Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh — who was accidentally shot and killed last year while covering an Israeli military raid in the West Bank — and the show was deemed as “deeply offensive to Jewish people.”

Another speaker listed on the festival’s itinerary, Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta, previously said during an interview that “Jews were hated in Europe because they played a role in the destruction of the economy in some of the countries, so they would hate them.”

Islamic University of Gaza professor Refaat Alareer — who said in 2018, “Are most Jews evil? Of course they are.” — was initially scheduled to speak. However, StopAntisemitism, a nonprofit organization that tracks antisemitic incidents and hate crimes around the world, reported last week that Alareer had been removed from the speakers’ lineup.

The festival itinerary includes a host of other speakers who have praised terrorism against Israel and spoken out against Zionism.

In response to the festival, the University of Pennsylvania’s Hillel wrote in its letter that it has three goals for Friday’s event, which is titled the “Shabbat Together Event.” They include a guarantee that Jewish students will not be forced to attend “Palestine Writes” against their will, excluding speakers “who espouse explicit anti-Jewish hate,” and the removal of Penn branding from the event as well as the issuance of statements condemning the “antisemitic backgrounds” of certain speakers.

The letter also said that the school’s Hillel — which is part of a larger Jewish campus organization for college students — is “grateful for the holy work of supporting Jewish life at the University of Pennsylvania, and knows that there is great work to continue to do together in the new year.”

According to the school’s Hillel, the group recently met with high-level university administrators to discuss “Palestine Writes,” explaining that some of the listed speakers made them feel “less safe” on campus and presenting a list of “demands, asks, and suggestions.”

UPenn Hillel’s message came as Susan Abulhawa, executive director of the “Palestine Writes” festival, publicized a letter she had written earlier this month to the university’s leadership amid backlash over the event. In her letter, Abulhawa claimed that Palestinians are indigenous to the land of Israel and have “encompassed many identities over millennia — including religious identities of Judaism, Christianity, Islam,” which critics have argued is an apparent attempt to appropriate Jewish history and identity.

Abulhawa has previously accused Israel of committing “a dozen kristallnachts [sic],” referring to the infamous pogrom carried out against Jews in Nazi Germany in November 1938. Abulhawa’s viewpoints are so controversial that a sponsor of an Australian festival she was scheduled to participate in pulled its support.

News of the “Palestine Writes” event has subjected the University of Pennsylvania, widely considered one of America’s elite institutions of higher education, to sharp criticism from the American Jewish community.

Earlier this month, US House Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) called on the school to move the event off campus, saying in a letter to its president that he is “dismayed that this is now occurring at my alma mater” and that “if the university’s goal is to promote mutual understanding and bring students together, it will fail so long as antisemites and anti-Israel advocates are given a platform to spew hate.”

Last week, Middle East experts and nonprofit leaders told The Algemeiner that the festival is an “Israel hate fest” and noted that City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center professor Marc Lamont Hill, a former associate of Louis Farrakhan who has accused Israeli police of training American officers to kill Black people, will be speaking there.

“Hill in particular is a longtime advocate of violence against Israel and staunch Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions [BDS] supporter who was fired from CNN after a 2018 speech in which he called for the destruction of the Jewish state,” said Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. “Once again we are seeing how propaganda is masqueraded as ‘scholarship.’ UPenn should take a very careful look at where it draws the lines between free speech and hate speech, especially from individuals who have a track record of racism and antisemitism.”

The University of Pennsylvania did not respond to The Algemeiner’s requests for comment on the “Shabbat Together” event and Abulhawa’s letter.

The school responded to the criticism last week, however, issuing a statement to The Algemeiner signed by school president M. Elizabeth Magill, provost John L. Jackson, and dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Steven J. Fluharty.

“We unequivocally — and emphatically — condemn antisemitism as antithetical to our institutional values,” the statement said. “As a university, we also fiercely support the free exchange of ideas as central to our educational mission. This includes the expression of views that are controversial and even those that are incompatible with our institutional values.”

The high-level administrators added, “This public event is not organized by the university.”

Following the statement, StopAntisemitism accused the university officials of countenancing “Jew hatred” and called their response “pathetic.”

[docholligay]

Schedule!

My childcare is unavailable for a lot of the week, so bear with me!

Sunday, Jan 28th: Private livestream

Monday, Jan 29th: The patreon liveblog: JUSTIFIED

Tuesday, Jan 30th: Blue Eye Samurai liveblog

Wednesday, Jan 31st: Night: Fatal Twelve Gamestream, on the patreon!

Thursday, Feb 1: I have the baby all day! (But the patreon nomination post for a fantasy book goes up)

Friday, Feb 2: I have the baby all day!

Saturday, Feb 3: I am trying very very hard this year to get back to not working on Shabbat. Please support me in having a dedicated day off!

[whatshouldwecallramah]

Wishing everyone a restful sukkot and shabbat!! We will resume posts on Sunday!! 💗

[my-unorthodox-life]

shabbat shalom everyone i hope all is well!

this is long blog post about classes and anon hate so some is under the cut for space and what y'all are comfy hearing about

service was beautiful like always, was a little withdrawn today (coworker said some rude stuff that put a bad taste in my mouth earlier) but i got to chat with my buddy who's doing conversion classes with me and set up more meetings with my rabbi.

ugh i wish i could write down all my thoughts on the service like im going to study it later, this week was what i needed and i just want to have it on replay, yanno?

sunday is week two of for fun classes, so i'm excited to do more kabbalah work, i have a lot of side blogs (i like organizing and themes) and the antisemites found my blog that has mentions of my therapy and EMDR journey so that's been...fun. nothing like hyper specific death threats from faceless strangers

the words themselves don't hurt me, but the fact that someone out there is comfortable enough and full of enough hatred to say those things unprompted to strangers just because their face and name isn't known is scary and depressing if that makes sense. it's hard to wrap my head around people making ethnic cleansing "jokes" (?? maybe i don't really know what they think they're doing) and commenting on someone's mental state negatively and still thinking you're in the right. as if calling me fat and telling me to kill myself is helping stop the war

like you can think i'm a gross zionist cow all you want but either say it to my face unveiled or keep it to yourself. i guess it's just hard for me to understand what prompts someone to have that much anger in their life. but if nothing else judaism is a compassionate practice, so i pray they see the error in their ways and get help for what's truly bothering them in life.

but then again if it's a midwestern gay jewish man causing them this much hurt and strife, then i commend them, for having such a lavish lifestyle that little old me is their biggest problem. what a blessing that must be

peace and love friends 🕊️����

[chaotic-archaeologist]

What does a week in the life of a grad student look like?

So the answer to this will depend heavily on what stage of research you are in. I'll give my answer as someone who is currently in pursuit of a Master's degree, because this is currently my only firsthand experience.

As a Master's student, I am expected to take a certain number of courses, usually about three a semester. Often they meet just once a week, for 2+ hours at a time, and they are discussions/seminars rather than lectures.

On top of that, I have my teaching assistantship, which is contractually for 20 hours/week, but can go above or below that depending on when students turn in assignments.

With that being said, here's a week in my life:

Sunday: A heavy work day, during which I do most of my reading/work for Monday's class, catch up on emails, run errands that didn't get done on Friday. I do not go onto campus.

Monday: In the morning I finish up my reading for class in the afternoon. Depending on how much I have left to do, I will also do administrative tasks for my TAship, or work that needs to be done for my own research. Right now that means filling out internship and fellowship applications. Class from 2:30-5:15, after which I come home and eat dinner. From 6:15-7:30 I do reading for Wednesday's class.

Tuesday: No classes of my own today! If students for the class I TA have submitted assignments, I will spend an hour(ish) working on grading those. I am responsible for grading about 100 papers at a time. I try to spend no more than 2 minutes per paper/quiz. The class I TA meets from 2:30-3:45. The professor lectures while I do work on my computer. I get home and do more reading/work for Wednesday's class.

Wednesday: In the morning I finish any reading/work that needs to be done. If I have been productive in the front half of the week I use this time to run errands or do my own work. If I have not been productive I am cramming for class in the afternoon. Class goes from 2:30-5:15. I come home, eat dinner, and then do reading for Thursday's class until 7:30.

Thursday: In the morning I finish the reading for class in the afternoon. Class meets from 2:30-5pm. I come home and give myself permission to not do any work because my brain is fried and I do not have class tomorrow.

Friday: No class today! I start the morning with therapy, and then this is my day to attend to personal errands. This is mostly grocery shopping, laundry, and tidying. In the evening I often go out with friends to things like hockey games and bar trivia. Sometimes I go to Friday night Shabbat services.

Saturday: This is my day to decompress. I sleep in and then spend most of the early afternoon doing nothing. I paint my nails, read for fun, or take my dog for a long walk. In the afternoon I'll do something social—most weeks this is volunteering with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Not pictured are daily activities that include, but are not limited to:

Checking email. Seriously, so many emails. I was not prepared for how many emails I would be getting in grad school

Classwork that I need to be turning in like paper abstracts, discussion posts, meeting with faculty

Doctors appointments

Cooking for myself. Trader Joe's frozen meals are a life saver

Attending talks/programs held on campus, usually in the evenings. These are prime time for networking

Hanging out with friends before class sometimes

Miscellaneous meetings

Walking my dog

Evening routines like Duolingo, journal entries, creative writing time, etc.

NAPS

Unexpected crises

Also, keep in mind that as someone living with a chronic illness/disability, I operate with less energy than some of my peers. But overall, my MA schedule is similar to my bachelor's one, but with fewer classes that each take up more time, and alongside working as a TA. My academic commitments with three grad classes are about the same as my undergrad semester when I took six classes.

As always, other people are free to chime in with their own experiences/observations.

-Reid

[reneesbooks]

make me write <3

snatching up @avrablake's open tag. it's shabbat so i'm not writing but what should i write on sunday?

Rules: make a 24hr poll listing the title of every wip (i'm using chapter names) that you want to work on. Whichever title gets the most votes, write 1 (i'm doing 10 bc i'm hardcore and hate myself) sentence for every vote. as always this is for lacuna

i'll post a snippet of what i write on sunday. lacuna taglist (ask to be added! <3): @serenanymph @lyssa-ink @oh-no-another-idea @lena-rambles @ashen-crest @tragicbackstoryenjoyer @serpentarii @allianaavelinjackson

leaving this as an open tag as well <3 anybody who wants a little pressure to write is free to pick it up