#rebecca. or just other jews in general

[ofpd]

we're gonna have to go to war tomorrow girls. fight for remember that we suffered over let's generalize about men

[mariacallous]

(New York Jewish Week) — When a small group of people convened next to an inconspicuous plaque steps from the entrance to the Staten Island Ferry’s Whitehall Terminal earlier this week, they weren’t there to catch a boat leaving the island.

Instead, they had come to the southern tip of Manhattan to celebrate a ship that had arrived on its shores centuries before.

The gathering on Wednesday was the 369th anniversary of an event most New Yorkers don’t know about, let alone celebrate: the arrival of the first Jewish community to the United States in 1654. That lack of awareness is exactly what Howard Teich, the founding chair of a group called the Manhattan Jewish Historical Initiative, hopes to change.

That year, a group of 23 Sephardic Jews arrived on the shores of New Amsterdam, the Dutch colony located on the island. In the centuries since, the city and its image have been shaped in no small part by its Jewish denizens — from Emma Lazarus to Ed Koch to Nora Ephron.

In hosting the “Landing Day” ceremony, Teich’s ultimate goal is for Jews in the city with the world’s largest Jewish population to gather every year to celebrate their culture and accomplishments.

“We just have to change the narrative of the community right now,” Teich told the New York Jewish Week, adding that he felt Jewish communal discourse was at times overly focused on fear and division. “We’ve got to spread a positive message of who we are, what we’ve accomplished, how we’ve worked with other people, what we’ve started, the difference we’ve made in the time we’ve been here and, really, what America has meant to us as a people.”

Wednesday’s ceremony was held at Peter Minuit Plaza, next to a flagpole adorned with a plaque that reads: “Erected by the State of New York to honor the memory of the twenty three men, women and children who landed in September 1654 and founded the first Jewish community in North America.”

Donated by the State of New York, it is called the Jewish Tercentenary Monument and was put up in The Battery in 1954 to mark the 300th anniversary of the Jews’ arrival. That year, events were held for months across New York and the United States to celebrate, but in the decades since, there have only been a handful of gatherings at the site. None of the events and pronouncements associated with a Landing Day celebration in 2004, for the 350th anniversary, took place near the monument.

Teich aims to revitalize the celebration, and he hopes an annual event will take place at the plaza each fall.

“Now is the time,” he said. “[This ceremony] was supposed to show the positive of a community that’s really excelled in freedom. It’s incredible what’s been established in America and in New York in particular as a center of American Jewry to a large extent. That’s what I want to see celebrated.”

For Wednesday’s ceremony, Teich partnered with the Battery Conservancy, the New York Board of Rabbis and dozens of other Jewish and historical organizations across the city. Local and state politicians were also in attendance, including City Councilmember Gale Brewer, State Assembly Members Rebecca Seawright and Alex Bores, and State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Elias Levy, the Jewish consul general of Panama in New York, was also present.

“I want our monuments to come alive,” Warrie Price, the president of the Battery Conservancy, said in a speech. “I ask all of you to make this monument  as relevant as it was in 1954, because its values and what it symbolizes are as true today as ever. We are still a landing site. We will never stop being a landing site. As New Yorkers and as a people of consciousness, we care and we will find the solutions to continue being a landing site.”

Along with speeches and music, which included Ladino and Hebrew versions of “Shalom Aleichem” and “Ein Keloheinu” from Rabbi Cantor Jill Hausman; a klezmer clarinet performance from the musician Zisel; and a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from singer Hannie Ricardo, attendees also heard a short history of the Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam from Bradley Shaw, a historian at the Lower East Side Jewish Conservancy.

Like so many immigrants to New York City who came after them, the Jews who landed in Manhattan in 1654 were fleeing persecution. In this case, they were escaping the Portuguese, who had conquered the Dutch colony of Brazil where the Jews had been living and instituted the Catholic Church’s Inquisition.

As it happens, just weeks before the group of 23 landed, three Ashkenazi Jews — Jacob Barsimson, Solomon Pietersen and Asser Levy, who was the New World’s first kosher butcher and Jewish homeowner — had come to New Amsterdam from Europe. Those three men greeted the group. When Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch director-general of New Amsterdam, originally rejected the new refugees — saying he wanted to establish a colony solely for Dutch Reformed Christians — Levy advocated on their behalf.

“The question I have is, did they have a minyan?” Shaw said, referring to a traditional Jewish prayer quorum of 10 men. The group had arrived just before Rosh Hashanah.

“The answer is, I really don’t know,” he said. “But that said, they might have. They had the four men from the boat and the three that were here. And of the children, there might have been one or two that were bar mitzvahed,” or over 13 years old.

With Levy’s help, along with urging from the Dutch West India Company, which counted many Sephardic Jews among their investors, the group stayed. Eventually, they established the Mill Street Synagogue, the first congregation in the United States. It eventually became Congregation Shearith Israel, or the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, whose building is now on West 70th Street.

According to the most recent estimates, the five boroughs are now home to more than 1 million Jews.

“Usually you come to a strange place and the first thing you look for is a synagogue,” said a woman at the ceremony who wished to remain anonymous, and who did not know the history of the Jews’ arrival before the event. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the first ones to arrive.”

Teich wants to build momentum for the 400th anniversary of Landing Day — just 31 years away.

“There’s a real continuity that we need to appreciate,” he said. “That’s who we should be as a people — we have 5,000 years of history and nearly 400 here. It’s quite something.”

[kazhanko-art]

Apologies if this comes across as tone deaf, but recent events have reminded of when SU hate was at its hight, and how people kept calling Rebecca Sugar (who is Jewish) a nazi for the diamonds and other things.

I know there’s arguments about if Jewish people can nazis or not, and the point isn’t really to weigh in on that, but I think there’s a lot of people who a)think or act like there aren’t other bad and evil ideologies besides nazism (and then treat it as a boogeyman and satan like force rather than an actual ideology with specific reasons for why it is bad) and b) are reeeeeeeeeaaaally eager to call Jews the people most well known for mass murdering them. Which is very 😬

There is in general an issue of the actual victims targeted by nazis (both jewish and otherwise) getting removed from that context in favour of nazis generally hating one’s ideology or against whatever state the person wants to champion. It makes the nazis from being people who cruelly murdered and ostracized or villainized others for not being something conducive to their own world view and society, to people who are some vague evil for the sake of evil, with no goal but to stand in the way of whatever hero fantasy the person in question has.

And a lot of the times, it means trampling on the backs of those for whom the nazis are not just a vague evil, but were (and are) an actual threat, and ironically often using the rhetoric of nazis to do it.

[mysteryhack]

everyone talks about how great the depiction of mental health and sexuality and Jewish rep and etc etc etc is in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, but I think the most amazing thing about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend that goes unsaid too often is how trustworthy it is. every single time I see something that’s offensive or uncomfortable or cruel that would get a free pass in another show, CXG instead goes “I’m glad you picked up on that, and since we respect our audience, we’re going to resolve it.”

like Darryl and Maya’s relationship, he hated her ever since she came out as bi right after he spent a whole musical number trying to get his cishet friends to be as enthusiastic as he was about his sexuality. his constant bullying reminded me how Parks and Rec treated Jerry, like he was worthless trash for being a normal person. that was the whole joke. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend instead had the consideration to go “yes Darryl was wrong to treat Maya this way. thank you for picking up what we put down. now we’re going to address it and this situation will be resolved in a healthy way, not in a way that’s just a half decent apology before he goes back to being cruel for the laughs.”

or when Rebecca nearly fulfilled the self-hating Jew trope (though Remember That We Suffered is HILARIOUS) except then the show went “you’re right, that IS offensive for general audiences. now let’s take a look at what the REAL problem is.”

it’s just so REFRESHING to watch a show that respects the fact that I pay attention to how characters are affected by each other, rather than dropping them into positions where they have to do something out of character because the narrative needs it to happen

[salaamagain]

good morning Palestine!

I woke up here on my last morning in the house, bright and early with my head full of writing to you about what I have learned this trip of Palestine now...

The patient is very sick.  In the countryside the settlements are visibly extending all the time until they are joining up irreversibly, and the settlers are ever more confident and aggressive.  The soldiers remain the same imperturbable defenders and enablers.  The cities are being invaded, and 200 Palestinians, mostly young men, but also children, have been killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of the year.  Every day in the house we wake up to bad news and that did not happen before.  The roots of shabab armed resistance are strengthening against one of the most military forces in the world.  

The world remains largely unconcerned.  Palestinians are more despairing than I have ever known them, and their despair is exacerbated by their puzzlement that this goes unnoticed, unchecked.  The new government in Israel is openly racist, filled with hate, and supported by a surprisingly large proportion of young Israelis.  The gloves are off.  The settlers in Hebron crow ‘we are the government now’ and they literally are.  Itamar Ben Gvir lives in the largest settlement in the Hebron area. The Palestinians say ‘they can do anything. we can do nothing.’

This extraordinary confidence of the Israeli state is born of unblinking international support, aid, arms, media, pushback against pro-Palestinians, and the relaying of Israeli hasbara*.  Trump is running for president again. The weedy handwringing of the west and the adherence to a two state solution are a parade.  You only have to travel around the West Bank to see that two states are logistically completely impossible.  But the pretence that the whole Oslo agreement is alive allows the sitting on hands that is so useful.  

So where is hope? Really? Rebecca Solnit says hope is what you have when there is little else and it is what gets you to that other place.  But also, also, I do see a tiny glimmer and it is not here but in the US.  A 2021 survey of Jewish voters just after the last Gaza ‘conflict’ showed that a quarter of US Jews think that Israel is an apartheid state, 22% agree that ‘Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.’ Figures are even higher for young Jews.  When I first came in 2016 I did not use the word apartheid, not because I could not see it, but because I didn’t want to alienate my readers. Now I can and people do.  The Israeli state knows this is changing and it frightens them, intensifies their hasbara efforts.  As conflict and atrocity intensify here so those tectonic plates will keep shifting. Which they need to.  Palestinians can and do resist every inch but their efforts need to be met by realistic responses from the west.  

I am sorry this is so long.  And I am surprised that I am writing it at all.  I never thought I would pontificate generally on the state of things here.  But here I am, appalled by the sliding I am watching and wanting to report it.  

Now to Hebron...

*hasbara, the Hebrew word for Israeli public diplomacy , advocacy and public relations, to quote an entirely pro-Israeli definition

[dailyaudiobible]

1/12/2023 DAB Transcript

Genesis 26:17-27:46, Matthew 9:1-17, Psalm 10:16-18, Proverbs 3:9-10

Today is the 12th day of January, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. It is great to be here with you today, been just kind of hanging out here with the Global Campfire and it's a beautiful place, and it's a beautiful time, as we gather together to take the next step forward in the Scriptures. And we have now, in the book of Genesis, met Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham has died at 175 years old. And so, his story, although the reverberations of his story continue to echo all the way until now, his earthly story ended. He was buried in the cave of Machpelah, next to his wife Sarah. And so, now we have moved into the…the next generations, Isaac and Rebekah, who have had twin boys, Jacob and Esau. So, we've met Jacob, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and we’ll continue the story. Today, Genesis chapter 26 verse 17 through 27 verse 46.

Commentary:

Okay, so we spent our time in Genesis today, learning about Jacob and Esau and watching their…their story and seeing how there would be enmity between the two of them. We’re also seeing that this first family, this origin family, the origin story of the Hebrew people that effect, not only effect, but wrote down the Bible. We’re able to observe that they are fully human people and we've been able to observe like some shrewd trickery over the generations. So, we watched Abraham go to Egypt and say that his wife was actually his sister and we saw the commotion that that caused. It ultimately enriched Abraham. We watched Abraham and Sarah go to Harar and to King Abimelech and do the same thing again. Then we saw Isaac be born, the child of promise and after he gets married, they go to King Abimelech and Harar and do the same thing. They end up having kids, Jacob and Esau, and we read the story of the shrewd, cunning goings on, for Jacob to get the birthright and the inheritance, the blessing of his father, which has infuriated Esau. And as we leave the story today, Esau's planning to just wait it out. His dad, Isaac, is about to die. He’ll wait it out, he’ll mourn and then he will end Jacobs cunning shrewdness toward him, because he will kill Jacob. Their mom, Rebecca learns about the plot, she tells Jacob. You’ve gotta get outta here. I can't lose everybody, like I can’t lose you both on the same day. You’ve gotta get outta here. You've got to go back to my family. And so, that is what Jacob is going to do, go back to her family. He's going back to the same family that Abraham's servant had gone to, to find her in the first place. So, she's sending her son back to the family. And Jacob is about to get a bit of a taste of his own medicine. But even as we watch all of the humanness embedded in all of these stories, we see people who are amazing and also broken, like everybody else, including us. And we are seeing God come to this group of people, and this family and say, I want to bless the whole world through you. Like, if you will trust in what I am laying out before you, if we can be partners in this, if we can make covenantal partners in this, even greater than just in agreement, if we can be like married to each other in this, then you can rest assured that I will be with you, I will watch over you. You will be the conduit through which my plans are revealed and unfold. You will be my hands and feet and my intention isn't to build a club of people, my intention is to bless the whole world and reveal myself through your testimony. Us, understanding that that's what we’re reading here, that this origin, the beginning of a story that is the whole Bible long, then when we find all kinds of confusing things, we’re like, why would they do that, or why would God do this, or how, or you know what, what's going on. We can remember where this all started and what the goal is, to bless the world through God's people. And then for us to begin to understand that Jew or Gentile, as believers, as followers of Jesus, we are invited into the same collaboration, to be set apart and holy to God, to be in covenant with God, to be deeply intertwined, like a marriage, a commitment to God, walking with God, revealing what God is and what God is like, and blessing the whole world. This is how He reassembles what is broken. And He wants to do it in partnership with us, understanding that that is like one of the big stories of the Bible. We’ll, like, if we can get this kinda clear in our minds as we’re going forward, right here at the beginning, then we will always be rooted to the larger story, that is being told.

Prayer:

And so, Father, we thank You for that. We thank You that You put back together what has been broken. Like, You don't discard and just dump away. You don't give up hope, you continue to pursue, and we are all recipients of that grace and mercy and Your pursuit in our lives. Help us to know that this is the posture we are supposed to be living with. That that is how we live outwardly toward others because that is Your heart toward humanity. And You have invited us to be a part of the story of revealing who You are and what You are like. Help us to be aware of that and to take it seriously. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, it is where you find out what's going on around here. And as I say most every day, you can find out what's going on around here by downloading the Daily Audio Bible app and taking the journey from there, just search for Daily Audio Bible, at whatever app store works with your device, and jump in and take the journey. And while you’re checking things out, check out the…the Daily Audio Bible Shop. There are a number of resources in the Shop for the journey that we are on, in a number of different categories. For example, there's a music and film category in there, so there's music from the Daily Audio Bible music from, a lot of music, from Jill but also in there are some different film projects including Promised Land. Which you can download. And Promised Land is a project that we developed over many years in Israel, filming in Israel, year-after-year as we, as we made the pilgrimage to Israel each year. And with all kinds of stayover's and just trying to access a lot of different places that are identified archaeologically and biblical in nature but are really not accessible. So much, I mean, there’s no rock over there that doesn't have some kind of history to it. But a number of the places from…from ancient Israel that have been identified are not, you need a four-wheel-drive to get to them. They're not easily accessible. And so, they’re not visited that much. And so, we…we set out on a journey to kind of bring some of those places a lot more near and allow them to be seen at all. And so, Promised Land, the essential pilgrim’s addition is, if I’m not mistaken 70, it's…it's 70+ different locations that we’ve filmed. And they’re little vignettes, they’re like two, three minutes long. But they kinda give you a whole lot more than just a static picture would. And that kind of the idea. I’ve seen so many of these places before I ever went to Israel in different books and stuff, but you just get a picture and that's awesome, awesome, it's helpful. But as I was in the land and kind of walking around in turning myself in a 360° view and looking at places, I was like man, I wish, I wish we could do more comprehensive than just a static picture. And so, that's what we set out to do, was bring the places near, especially some of these most famous places, were so, such important things in the Bible happened. So, you can find that. That's the digital download. So, you would buy it and then download it and then unzip it and then you can kind of watch…watch these different places. And kind of just immerse yourself a little deeper in the land where the Bible happened and associate the land with the stories. And yeah, Promised Land. You can find that in the music and film category.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if us coming around the Global Campfire together as a community, each day and having a place, a little oasis of peace, to allow God's word to speak into our lives. If that has been life-giving to you, then thank you for being life-giving. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you're using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, that's the little red button up at the top or there are a number of numbers that you can dial, depending on where you are in the world. If you are in the Americas 877-942-4253, is the number to call. If you are in the UK or Europe 44 2036 088078 is the number dial. And if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61 3 8820 5459, is the number to call.

And that's it for today, I'm Brian, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here, tomorrow.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Hi, my name is Bentley, and my uncles is diagnosed with cancer. And it’s been a hard time for my family. And can you just pray that a miracle happens, and the cancer would kind of just goes away and that people pray, and you have a good and it goes away. Thank you for this, please and thank you.

Hi DAB fam, this is Kate from New Zealand. I’ve been listening for two years now and what a difference this whole podcast has been an anchor like the will of God is in anchor, an anchor for my soul and I’m being propheted. Which has happened a lot in the last two years. It’s like, it’s like that anchor it, regardless of what is happening on the surface of the water, the anchor is strong and sure and it never changes. And the other thing is coming near is like I’m into, under a shower, like a waterfall. You walk under it and you get absolutely drenched and the word of God does this, it drenches you and all the stuff gets slowed off. All the rubbish gets washed away and your lift with a clarity and a sense of peace and purpose and a refreshing that you don’t get anywhere else. I’m so grateful for people who have the courage to ring and call in and say the things that are bothering them. Our completely humble and honest about their weaknesses and their needs. And the others that are in that place too but still call in and offer prayer for others who are in similar situation. We don’t go through anything for nothing. I love the way God uses this economy. The things we go through are a stepping point, a platform to provide comfort to others. And that’s been true in my life too. Very grateful for being apart of this family.

Hello my DAB family, this is Chicago and I’m calling specifically for Ashley from California. And I’m lifting up your 9-year-old son Jackson. Oh my gosh, went in the hospital on Christmas Eve and when you called on New Year’s Eve, he’s still in the hospital with fevers and other complications, Leukemia. And all these things going on with your wonderful son. Heavenly Father, we come together in the name of Jesus and the merciful, gracious name of Jesus. Jehovah Rafah, our healer. We lift up Jackson to you. We pray for your favor over him. Please give the doctors wisdom in every test in dealing with, every person connected to Jackson’s care. We pray Father, for your mighty, merciful, loving hand over Jackson’s life. And for Ashley, to please give her peace, give her strength, give this whole family, even the whole household, I lift them up in prayer with thanksgiving to you. Father, we love to praise You. We love giving you praise. We love you. And we thank You Father, even now, we thank You for what we believe You to do. In Jesus name, and all of these things over this DAB family. I love you DAB family. Thank you for enriching my life. Thank you, Hardin Family. Hallelujah, rejoicing in the Lord. Lifting up His grace, lifting up His praise. Oh, alright, praising God as, even the time runs out, I’ll keep praising Him. Amen and Hallelujah.

Hi this is Boice in Northern Nevada. Calling in and asking for prayer for the first time. Yesterday, was the end of the week for most people but I’m headed to work again today. I’m just asking for prayer because I’m physically, mentally at the end of my rope, as far as work goes. I’ve been working 14-hour days, 6 days a week and sometimes even on Sunday. Trying to keep up with all the Amazon deliveries and they just kind of dumped it on us. And we’ve been trying, struggling through but it’s gotten to the point where it’s completely overwhelming and unsustainable. I’m just asking for prayer that I would, God would get me through this. That’s all I’m asking for, just to get me through it. Yeah, the weather has been contributing but yesterday was a pretty unique day where I could really tell that I was getting attacked because things were happening one after the other, that were just too obvious to ignore. And so, I’m asking for pray, if you guys could. I’d really appreciate it. God bless you. I’m thankful for this community.

Hello DABers, this is Sarah from South Texas. And this is my first-time calling in. I had started this program a couple years back but I lost track of it so, this year I decided I wanted to go through the whole thing. So, here I am. As I was catching up today, I heard Ashley from South California, talk about how her son, Jackson, I think his name was, was in the hospital since Christmas Eve and through New Year’s Eve. So, I wanted to extend my hope and love and support to them. Me and my sister, we had ALL whenever we were younger. And it was hard. I mean I don’t remember much of the things that happened in the hospital or afterwards. But I remember stories from my mom and how hard it was for her. So, I want to, I just wanna pray for ya’ll and I know that with God’s help, ya’ll can get through this. You and your son are on our prayer list and we’ll pray for strength and courage that Jackson beats this. And we know, we believe he will, with God’s help. So, I just wanted to say I love ya’ll, I’m excited for this year and I look forward to finishing it all with ya’ll. So, thank you and bless everyone.

[rockislandadultreads]

Jewish American Heritage Month: Historical Fiction 

All Other Nights by Dara Horn

A gripping epic about the great moral struggles of the Civil War. How is tonight different from all other nights? For Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army during the Civil War, it is a question his commanders have already answered for him - on Passover, 1862, he is ordered to murder his own uncle in New Orleans, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After this harrowing mission, Jacob is recruited to pursue another enemy agent, the daughter of a Virginia family friend. But this time, his assignment isn't to murder the spy but to marry her. Based on real personalities such as Judah Benjamin, the Confederacy's Jewish secretary of state and spymaster, and on historical facts and events ranging from an African American spy network to the dramatic self-destruction of the city of Richmond, All Other Nights is a story of men and women driven to the limits of loyalty and betrayal. It is also a parable of the rift in America that lingers a century and a half later: between those who value family and tradition first, and those dedicated, at any cost, to social and racial justice for all.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie's intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can't imagine - a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture and new opportunities for women. Addie wants to finish high school and dreams of going to college. She wants a career and to find true love. Eighty-five-year-old Addie tells the story of her life to her twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, who has asked her "How did you get to be the woman you are today?" She begins in 1915, the year she found her voice and made friends who would help shape the course of her life. From the one-room tenement apartment she shared with her parents and two sisters, to the library group for girls she joins at a neighborhood settlement house, to her first, disastrous love affair, Addie recalls her adventures with compassion for the naïve girl she was and a wicked sense of humor. Written with the same attention to historical detail and emotional resonance that made Anita Diamant's previous novels bestsellers, The Boston Girl is a moving portrait of one woman’s complicated life in twentieth-century America, and a fascinating look at a generation of women finding their places in a changing world.

A Perfect Peace by Amos Oz, Hillel Halkin (Translator)

Israel, just before the Six-Day War. On a kibbutz, the country’s founders and their children struggle to come to terms with their land and with each other. The messianic father exults in accomplishments that had once been only dreams; the son longs to establish an identity apart from his father; the fragile young wife is out of touch with reality; and the gifted and charismatic “outsider” seethes with emotion. Through the interplay of these brilliantly realized characters, Oz evokes a drama that is chillingly, strikingly universal.

Jacob's Folly by Rebecca Miller

In eighteenth-century Paris, Jacob Cerf is a Jew, a peddler of knives, saltcellars, and snuffboxes. Despite a disastrous teenage marriage, he is determined to raise himself up in life, by whatever means he can. More than two hundred years later, Jacob is amazed to find himself reincarnated as a fly in the Long Island suburbs of twenty-first-century America, his new life twisted in ways he could never have imagined. But even the tiniest of insects can influence the turning of the world, and thanks to his arrival, the lives of a reliable volunteer fireman and a young Orthodox Jewish woman nursing a secret ambition will never be the same. Through the unique lens of Jacob's consciousness, Rebecca Miller explores change in all its different guises-personal, spiritual, literal. The hold of the past on the present, the power of private hopes and dreams, the collision of fate and free will: Miller's world-which is our own, transfigured by her clear gaze and by her sharp, surprising wit-comes brilliantly to life in the pages of this profoundly original novel.

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hi I just saw your post about Israel and Palestinian. I don't know if you're the person to ask or if this is a dumb question but I was wondering if anyone has considered starting a second Jewish state? I was wondering because there's a bunch of Christian countries so why not multiple Jewish ones.

Sorry if I'm bothering you and Thanks for your time.

That’s actually a pretty interesting question. I am going to apologize right now, because I essentially can’t give a short answer to save my life.

I’m not a ‘Jewish Scholar,’ so while I can speak with some authority about the history of Zionism, I definitely couldn’t speak about it with as much authority as others. I mentioned in at least one of the posts I have written about the history of plans for a ‘Jewish state’ when Zionism was originally being proposed, and I can kinda of track the history of Zionist thinking for you if you are interested, though essentially it’s just about arguing where to go. But there are better scholars for this than me, so I would recommend Rebecca Kobrin, Deborah Lipstadt, Walter Laqueur … idk. Maybe just read some Theodor Herzl, honestly. With all of that said, I can speak with some authority about the post-war history of this in the Middle East. So let’s go.

In post-war times, there has really only been one serious discussion of an alternative Jewish state, as far as I know. And actually, this is part of why I find it so ironic that people are campaigning so hard to be “anti-Zionist” and to express views like “anti-Zionism” in their activism, because the Jews in Israel who are most anti-Zionist are actually the settlers of Palestinian territories, who want to secede and form a “Gaza-State” called Judeah. There's a great book about this called The Deadly Embrace by Ilana Kass And Bard O'Neill, if anyone is interested. Anyway, most of those people, who are largely Haredim (the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, though some of those settlers are semi Orthodox), have essentially been waging a “culture war” about what it means to have a Jewish state and what the identity of that Jewish state should look like basically since the 1980s.

There is a really good article about this that you can find right here written by Peter Lintl, who is a researcher at the Institution of Political Science for the Friedrich-Alexander Universitat. I’ll summarize it for the lazy people, though, because it’s like 40 pages. Just know that this paragraph won’t be super source heavy, because it is basically the same source. Essentially, the Haredim community has tripled in size from 4% to 12% of the total Israeli population since 1980, and it is probably going to be about 20% by 2040. They only accept the Torah and religious laws as the basis for Jewish life and Jewish identity and they are critical of democratic principles. To them, a societal structure should be hierarchical, patriarchal, and have rabbis at the apex, and they basically believe that Israel isn’t a legitimate state. This is primarily because Israel is (at least technically, so no one come at me in the comments about Palestinian citizens of Israel, so I’ll make a little ** and address this there) a ‘liberal’ democracy. Rights of Israeli citizens include, according to Freedom House, free and fair elections (they rank higher on that criteria here than the United States, by the way), political choice, political rights and electoral opportunities for women, a free and independent media, and academic freedom. It is also, I should add (as a lesbian), the only country in the Middle East that has anything close to LGBT+ rights.

[**to the point about Palestinians and Palestinian citizens of Israel: I have a few things to say. First, I have recommended this book twice now and it is Michael Oren’s Six Days of War, which absolutely fantastically talks about the ways in which the entire structure of the Palestinian ‘citizenship’ movement, Palestinian rights, and who was responsible for governing Palestinians changed after the Six Days War. If you are at all interested in the modern Middle East or modern Middle East politics, I highly recommend you read this, because a huge tenant of this book is that it was 1967, not 1947, that caused huge parts of our current situation (and that, surprisingly, a huge issue that quote-on-quote “started it” was actually water, but that’s sort of the primary secondary issue, not the Actual Issue at play here). Anyway, I’ve talked about the fact that Israel hugely abuses its authority in the West Bank and Gaza and that there are going to be current members of the Israeli Government who face action at the ICC, so please don’t litigate this again with me. I also should add that the 2018 law which said it was only Jews who had the natural-born right to “self-determine” in Israel was passed by the Lekkud Government, and I really hate them anyway. I know they’re bad. It’s not the point I’m making. I’m making a broader point about the Constitution vis-a-vis what the Haredim are proposing, which is way worse].

To get back to the Haredim, basically there is this entire movement of actual settlers in territories that have been determined to belong to the Palestinian people as of, you know, the modern founding of Israel (and not the pre-Israel ‘colonial settler’ narrative you’ll see on instagram in direct conflict with the history of centuries of aliyah) who want to secede and form a separate Jewish state. They aren’t like, the only settlers, but I point this out because they are basically ‘anti-Zionist’ in the sense that they think that modern Zionism isn’t adhering to the laws of Judaism — that the state of Israel is too free, too radical, too open. And scarily enough, these are the sort of the people from whom Netanyahu draws a huge part of his political support. Which is true of the right wing in general. Netanyahu can’t actually govern without a coalition government. Like I have said, the Knesset is huge, often with 11-13 political parties at once, and so to ‘govern’ Netanyahu often needs to recruit increasingly right wing, conservative, basically insane political parties to maintain his coalition. It’s why he has been so supportive of the settlements, particularly in the last five years (since he is, as I have also said, facing corruption charges, and he really can’t leave office). It would really suck for him if a huge chunk of his voters seceded, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, that is the only ‘second Jewish State’ I know about, and I don’t think that is necessarily much of a solution. I really don’t have the solutions to the Middle East crisis. I am just a girl with some history degrees and some time on her hands to devote to tumblr, and I want people to learn more so they can form their own opinions. With that said, I think there are two more things worth saying and then I will close out for the night.

First, Judaism is an ethno-religion. Our ethnicities have become mixed with the places that we have inhabited over the years in diaspora, which is how you have gotten Sephardi, Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, and even Ethiopian Jews. But if you do actual DNA testing on almost all of the Jews in diaspora, the testing shows that we come from the same place: the Levant. No matter how pale or dark, Jews are still fundamentally one people, something we should never forget (and anyone who tries to put racial hierarchy into paleness of Jews: legit, screw you. One people). Anyway, unlike other religious communities, we have an indigenous homeland because we have an ethnic homeland. It’s small, and there are many Jews in diaspora who choose not to return to it, like myself. But that homeland is ours (just as much as it is rightfully Palestinians, because we are both indigenous to the region. For everyone who hasn’t read my other posts on the issue, I’m not explaining this again. Just see: one, two, and three, the post that prompted this ask). This is different from Christians, for example, who basically just conquered all of Europe and whose religion is not dependent on your race or background. You can be a lapsed Christian and you are still white, latinx, black, etc right? I am a lapsed Jew, religiously speaking, and will still never escape that I am ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish.

Second, I think you raise a really good point about other religious states. There are many other religious majority states in the world (all of these countries have an official state religion), and a lot of them are committing a lot of atrocities right now (don't even get me started on Saudi Arabia). I have seen other posts and other authors write about this better than I ever could, but I am going to do my best to articulate why, because of this, criticism of Israel as a state, versus criticism of the Israeli Government, is about ... 9 times out of 10 inherently antisemitic.

We should all be able to criticize governments. That is a healthy part of the democratic process and it is a healthy part of being part of the world community. But there are 140 dictatorships in the world, and the UN Human Rights Council has condemned Israel 45 times since 2013. Since the creation of the UN Human Rights Council, it has has received more resolutions concerning Israel than on the rest of the world combined. This is compared to like … 1 for Myanmar, 1 for South Sudan, and 1 for North Korea.

Israel is the world’s only Jewish majority state. You want to talk about “ethnic cleansing” and “repressive governments”? I can give you about five other governments and world situations right now, off the top of my head, that are very stark, very brutal, very (in some cases) simple examples of either or both. If a person is ‘using their platform’ to Israel-bash, but they are not currently speaking about the atrocities in Myanmar, Kashmir, Azerbaijan, South Sudan, or even, dare I say, the ethnonationalism of the Hindu Nationalist Party in India, then, at the very least, their activism is a little bit performative. They are chasing the most recent ‘hot button’ issue they saw in an instagraphic, and they probably want to be woke and maybe want to do the right thing. And no one come at me and say it is because you don’t “know anything about Myanmar.” Most people know next to nothing about the Middle East crisis as well. At best, people are inconsistent, they may be a hypocrite, and, whether they want to admit it to themselves or not, they are either unintentionally or intentionally buying into antisemitic narratives. They might even be an antisemite.

I like to think (hope, maybe) that most people don’t hate Jews. If anything, they just follow what they’ve been told, and they tend to digest what everyone is taking about. But there is a reason this is the global narrative that has gained traction, and I guarantee it has at least something to do with the star on the Israeli flag.

I know that was a very long answer to your question, but I hope that gave you some insight.

As a sidenote: I keep recommending books, so I am going to just put a master list of every book I have ever recommended at the bottom of anything I do now, because the list keeps growing. So, let’s go in author alphabetical order from now on.

One Country by Ali Abunimah Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust: A Memoir by Noam Chayut If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State by Daniel Gordis Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis The Deadly Embrace by Ilana Kass And Bard O'Neill Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation by Yossi Klein Halevi Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael Oren The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate by Tom Segev Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation by Eyal Weizman

[literarypilgrim]

Read Like a Gilmore

All 339 Books Referenced In “Gilmore Girls” 

Not my original list, but thought it’d be fun to go through and see which one’s I’ve actually read :P If it’s in bold, I’ve got it, and if it’s struck through, I’ve read it. I’ve put a ‘read more’ because it ended up being an insanely long post, and I’m now very sad at how many of these I haven’t read. (I’ve spaced them into groups of ten to make it easier to read)

1. 1984 by George Orwell  2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon 5. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser 6. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt 7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 8. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank 9. The Archidamian War by Donald Kagan 10. The Art of Fiction by Henry James 

11. The Art of War by Sun Tzu 12. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner 13. Atonement by Ian McEwan 14. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy 15. The Awakening by Kate Chopin 16. Babe by Dick King-Smith 17. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi 18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie 19. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett 20. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 21. Beloved by Toni Morrison 22. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney 23. The Bhagava Gita 24. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy 25. Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel 26. A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy 27. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 28. Brick Lane by Monica Ali 29. Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner 30. Candide by Voltaire 31. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer 32. Carrie by Stephen King 33. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 34. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger 35. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White 36. The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman 37. Christine by Stephen King 38. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 39. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess 40. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse    41. The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty 42. A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare 43. Complete Novels by Dawn Powell 44. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton 45. Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker 46. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole 47. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 48. Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac 49. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky 50. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber    51. The Crucible by Arthur Miller 52. Cujo by Stephen King 53. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon 54. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende 55. David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D 56. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 57. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown 58. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol 59. Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 60. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller 61. Deenie by Judy Blume 62. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson 63. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx 64. The Divine Comedy by Dante 65. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells 66. Don Quixote by Cervantes 67. Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv 68. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson 69. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe 70. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook 71. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe 72. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn  73. Eloise by Kay Thompson 74. Emily the Strange by Roger Reger 75. Emma by Jane Austen 76. Empire Falls by Richard Russo 77. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol 78. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton 79. Ethics by Spinoza 80. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves

81. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende 82. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer 83. Extravagance by Gary Krist 84. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 85. Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore 86. The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan 87. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser 88. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson 89. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien 90. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein 91. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom 92. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce 93. Fletch by Gregory McDonald 94. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes 95. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem 96. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 97. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 98. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger 99. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers 100. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut 101. Gender Trouble by Judith Butler 102. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg 103. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner 104. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen 105. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels 106. The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo 107. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy  108. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky  109. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell  110. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford 

111. The Gospel According to Judy Bloom 112. The Graduate by Charles Webb 113. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 114. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 115. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 116. The Group by Mary McCarthy 117. Hamlet by William Shakespeare 118. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling 119. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling 120. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers    121. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 122. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry 123. Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare 124. Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare 125. Henry V by William Shakespeare 126. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby 127. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon 128. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris 129. The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton 130. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III    131. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende 132. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer 133. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss  134. How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland  135. Howl by Allen Ginsberg  136. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo  137. The Iliad by Homer 138. I’m With the Band by Pamela des Barres  139. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote  140. Inferno by Dante 

141. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee 142. Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy 143. It Takes a Village by Hillary Rodham Clinton 144. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 145. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan 146. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare 147. The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain 148. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair 149. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito 150. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander 151. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain 152. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 153. Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence 154. The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal 155. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman 156. The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield 157. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis 158. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke 159. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken  160. Life of Pi by Yann Martel 

161. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens 162. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway 163. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen 164. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 165. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton 166. Lord of the Flies by William Golding 167. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson 168. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold 169. The Love Story by Erich Segal 170. Macbeth by William Shakespeare 171. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert 172. The Manticore by Robertson Davies 173. Marathon Man by William Goldman 174. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 175. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir 176. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman 177. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris 178. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer 179. Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken 180. The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare 181. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka 182. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 183. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson 184. Moby Dick by Herman Melville 185. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin  186. Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor  187. A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman  188. Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret  189. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars 190. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway 

191. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf 192. Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall 193. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh 194. My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken 195. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest 196. Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo 197. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult 198. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer 199. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 200. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 201. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin 202. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen 203. New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson 204. The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay 205. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich 206. Night by Elie Wiesel 207. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen 208. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan 209. Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell 210. Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski

211. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (will NEVER read again) 212. Old School by Tobias Wolff 213. On the Road by Jack Kerouac 214. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey 215. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 216. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan 217. Oracle Night by Paul Auster 218. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 219. Othello by Shakespeare 220. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens 221. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan 222. Out of Africa by Isac Dineson 223. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton 224. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster 225. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan 226. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 227. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious 228. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 229. Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington 230. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi 231. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain 232. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby 233. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker 234. The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche 235. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind 236. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 237. Property by Valerie Martin 238. Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon  239. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw  240. Quattrocento by James Mckean 

241. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall 242. Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers 243. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe 244. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham 245. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi 246. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier 247. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin 248. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant 249. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman 250. The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien 251. R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton 252. Rita Hayworth by Stephen King 253. Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert 254. Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton 255. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare 256. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf 257. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster 258. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin 259. The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition 260. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi 261. Sanctuary by William Faulkner 262. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford 263. Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James 264. The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum 265. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne  266. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand  267. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir  268. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd  269. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman  270. Selected Hotels of Europe 

271. Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell 272. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 273. A Separate Peace by John Knowles 274. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill 275. Sexus by Henry Miller 276. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon 277. Shane by Jack Shaefer 278. The Shining by Stephen King 279. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse 280. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton 281. Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut 282. Small Island by Andrea Levy 283. Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway 284. Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers 285. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore 286. The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht 287. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos 288. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker 289. Songbook by Nick Hornby 290. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare 291. Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 292. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron  293. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner  294. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov 295. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach  296. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller  297. A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams  298. Stuart Little by E. B. White  299. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway  300. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust 

301. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett 302. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber 303. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 304. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald 305. Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry 306. Time and Again by Jack Finney 307. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 308. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway 309. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 310. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare    311. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 312. The Trial by Franz Kafka 313. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson 314. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett 315. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom 316. Ulysses by James Joyce 317. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath 318. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 319. Unless by Carol Shields  320. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann 

321. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers 322. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 323. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard 324. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides 325. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett 326. Walden by Henry David Thoreau 327. Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten 328. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 329. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker 330. What Colour is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles 331. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell 332. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka 333. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson 334. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee 335. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire 336. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum 337. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 338. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 339. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

[schraubd]

Israel as Contagion

There's a narrative bubbling in certain areas of the left which seeks to tie American policing abuses to cross-training exchange programs some police departments do with Israeli counterparts. The narrative has its roots in Jewish Voice for Peace's "Deadly Exchange" campaign, which uses the claim as a means of further its campaign to see Israel isolated and ostracized in global society. As the issue of police violence surges to its place at the top of the public's deliberative agenda, the deadly exchange claim likewise attracted those eager for a anti-Israel or antisemitic hook. Just yesterday, new Labour leader Keir Starmer sacked Rebecca Long-Bailey -- a prominent Jeremy Corbyn ally and one-time rival for party leadership -- from her position in Labour's shadow cabinet after she approvingly shared an article where actress Maxine Peake claimed, without evidence, that "The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services." This is not true. Many have cited an Amnesty International report where, they say, it is proven that Israeli police train their American counterparts in human rights violations. But Amnesty has since come out and said explicitly that "Allegations that US police were taught tactics of ‘neck kneeling’ by Israeli secret services is not something we’ve ever reported." This is not surprising, as the content of these exchange programs by all accounts rarely, if ever, focuses on what we might euphemistically call "interpersonal" or "tactical" elements of police activity (it generally concentrates on strategic questions regarding operational responses to mass atrocities -- a subject upon which Israeli security forces sadly carry much expertise). So what is going on? The stock response from those objecting to the link is the simple but truthful observation that American police hardly need Israeli help on the subject of how to harass racial minorities. Some have argued that, because it is true that there are Israeli and American policing exchange programs (and apparently some Minneapolis officers had partaken), it is ipso facto fair to draw a connection between American abuses and those training seminars -- without any regard to what actually is or is not done in those programs. The argument, in effect, a contagion theory: anyone who associates with Israelis, we can assume, is at least partially corrupted by the contact. They're worse off coming out than coming in. In apologizing for her comment, Peake said something very interesting: she said "I was inaccurate in my assumption of American police training and its sources." Assumption is the key word there: she had, presumably, read about Israeli and American police training together, and so she assumed that the bad American practices had Israeli roots. But the only evidence was the bare fact of contact -- that's what's driving the narrative. Hence: contagion. This, I submit, is something antisemitism does. It allows such assumptions to become naturalized. They feel right. American police have done exchange training with counterparts in dozens of other countries, ranging from the UK to Germany to Mexico to Tanzania. Even those who take a dim view of, say, the Mexican police however would likely not jump from mere contacts to causality. If someone said "American police learned chokeholds from Tanzanian police," they'd ask for evidence. If the only evidence is "there are exchange programs between American and Tanzanian police", that likely wouldn't be sufficient. But antisemitism gives a smoother cognitive ride down -- it makes little connections look huge, and implausible leaps seem manageable. It is not accidental that the narrative is about Israeli police exchanges and not German or Mexican or Tanzanian ones. This is an unorthodox but I think ultimately more accurate way of understanding what antisemitism does. We think of antisemitism often as a motive: because I hate Jews, I think or say or do this thing. But antisemitism is as if not more often a force or process. We usually ask "did Burke or Long-Bailey say what they say because they hate Jews?" The answer to that may well be no. But that's not that the right question. The right question is "did a particular way of thinking about Jews render what Burke or Long-Bailey said plausible or resonant in a way it otherwise would not have been?" And there I think it is quite clear that the answer is yes. It is because we think about Jews in a particular way that this contagion theory of Israeli culpability in American policing injustices -- a narrative which objectively stands on such a thin reed -- is plausible when it otherwise wouldn't be. That is the work of antisemitism. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2CJ9UDi

[menalez]

Okay, so I want to be clear when I say again that white women in the suffragette movement said/did racist things, just as white women in feminists movements today say/do racist things,. Even white anti-racist activists will, at least on occasion, say and do racist things simply by growing up in a white supremacist society. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m disputing that reality. I only mean to illustrate some of the nuance (and why that matters today).

I sent those quotes in an effort to illustrate how the women’s suffrage movement was intertwined with universal suffrage, both white women and black men campaigned for each other’s right to vote. The women’s suffrage organizations grew directly from the basis of abolitionist movements. The initial suffrage (and wider women’s rights) movement was indistinguishable from the civil rights movement. When the 14th/15th amendment was proposed splits in the civil rights movement deepened — both white women and black women (and presumably some black men) campaigned against any amendment that didn’t include women. Similarly, black man and both white and black women favored the 15th amendment even without including women (of any race), who argued that women could wait. Ultimately the latter group saw their wish, and the division resulted in two separate organizations that continued to campaign for women’s suffrage.

The quotes you screen-shotted are undeniably terrible and exemplify the racism within the movements. To be nuanced however, they also span a wide range of individuals — from actual slave owners to women who said something racist but also directly participated in anti-racist activism.

To illustrate (from the quotes you provided):

Rebecca Latimer Felton - terrible human, slave owner, all out white supremacist

Carrie Chapman Catt - she later said “our task will not be fulfilled until the women of the whole world have been rescued from those discriminations and injustices which in every land are visited upon them in law and custom”, lobbied against the word “white” being added to the 19th amendment, and lobbied congress/used her presidency of the League of Women Voters to advocate for people of color and Jews

Elizabeth Cady Stanton - she also founded the Women's Loyal National League that led the largest abolitionist petition drive at the time, organized the American Equal Rights Association a suffrage organization that explicitly supported universal suffrage. The organization split when (mostly) the black men in the organization supported the 15th amendment without advocating for it to be extended to women. (She definitely said racist things around this time, similarly Frederick Douglass, who was both her friend and one of her main critiques at the time, said many sexist things.) The split was later merged back into one organization that she headed.

Anna Howard Shaw - I know very little about her. She definitely said many racist things, but she did champion universal suffrage and campaigned to end racial violence (arguing that universal suffrage would end lynchings). Still, she also failed to condemn racist actions by her peers.

Same as (1)

Belle Kearney - terrible human, slave owner, all out white supremacist

Frances Willard - confusing mix of actively recruiting and working with black women and also promoting racists myth that white women were in danger of black men that facilitated lynchings (due to her “temperance reform”). Also appeared to be more laissez-faire when president of the WCTU since she let conservative states hold on to conservative and/or moderate positions regarding reform for both women’s rights and racial justice.

Same as (1)

As for why it matters today:

No, women definitely won’t have the right to vote revoked for discussing racism in past movements. But there’s a difference between discussing racism, and perpetuating misinformation. One of the main ways the American government disrupted activist movements throughout history was to sow dissension in their ranks. (And the American government/military taught many of these techniques to foreign countries.) An excellent example of this is the COINTELPRO operation, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Their goal was to divide and conquer - a movement can’t make progress if it’s busy fighting itself - and poison the public’s opinions of the movements, so as to dissuade new members from joining. (At this point, I want to reassure you that while this may sound like a conspiracy theory, it is very much proven and it/other programs did much harm to domestic and foreign reform movements.)

The myth that the suffragette movement was specifically racist, rather than operating in concert with and emerging from, anti-racist activism contributes to this divide and conquer method of disrupting activism. If you (general you) can convince women of color that the “original feminist movement” (ignoring the ahistorical nature of such the label itself) actively campaigned against them, then it’s much easier to dissuade them from considering feminist activism or to divide activist movements. (And, if it were true, it would be entirely justified!)

Of course, that’s not to say that feminists shouldn’t criticize (or disavow, to the extent possible) white supremacists like Felton or Kearney, or that we shouldn’t discuss and reform the racist sentiments in past and current movements. (In fact, I believe, and expect you do as well, that doing so is not only permissible but necessary, because to deny the racism that did exist in past/current movements would alienate women of color just as much as the idea that the feminism-of-old was solely for white women, and would in fact be an expression of racism in and of itself.)

I hope this clarifies what I’ve been trying to convey.

im surprised about the claim that white women and black men campaigned for each other's right to vote. i was under the impression that the civil rights movement was largely focused on black men and often outright excluded black women having a say, so i don't really know why they would support other women (such as white women) having a say when i heard they didn't support that for black women, who were always black men's biggest supporters.

i do get your point, to a degree-- and i think we agree overall but simply word things differently. i don't think that the women's suffrage movement was Bad and i don't think the white suffragettes back then were like, all evil and more racist than the avg white person in their society. i would say overall, those women were quite forward thinking and progressive for their time. i don't doubt that a significant portion of women were far worse than that, and even opposed women's rights (bc of the society they grew up in where this was a controversial thing). my only argument is that pretending they weren't also racist and had traits worthy of criticism (such as their racism) is innaccurate. a lot of prominent suffragettes were quite racist, and that's not to say that their feminist beliefs lead to that or that women's rights is interwined with racism, but just to point out that even those women who fought for the right to vote for women were not particularly good allies to poc but most specifically black people, and more importantly, black women. i also wanted to point out that being anti-slavery and campaigning against it, did not mean they were generally anti-racism or fighting against racism overall. they were fighting against the worst and most extreme forms of racism in their time, but they were all still racist in their own right. i'd like to reemphasise what i initially shared that you disagree with (+ my tags, and my previous comment on it so as to be fully transparent), which is not that different from what you're saying imo:

now i'm not trying to argue the origin of the movement, what it rose out of, how it relates to racism or anything else; my qualms are with the claim that the suffragettes were not racist. maybe back then, they were closer to allies to black people than most, however they were still quite racist. similarly, since you brought up white allies, white allies today may be the best we have and the best in our time, but they are also still often quite racist themselves.

my main and only point is that these women were still racist, and this is not to discount the women's suffrage movement, i just think that when we deny that aspect of the past then what we're doing is alienating woc. i've noticed a general trend of white women on here saying that white women were targetted by the KKK for example, fixation on stuff that is targeted at white women like 'karen' and placed on equal grounds with calling black women 'laquisha' to berate them, arguments that white women dont have racial privilege, etc and while i don't think the people making such arguments are necessarily coming from a bad place, many woc seeing this will end up feeling like the movement is geared towards white women and does not properly consider & include woc. that's why i take issue with the claim that xyz white female historical figure wasnt racist bc she was pro-slavery abolition, like, sure that must've been really progressive for its time but at the same time it doesn't change that the same woman did work w white supremacists and white supremacy was used as an argument to support white women's suffrage. it probably worked as a strategy and helped pave the way for other women, but its good to acknowledge these issues and criticise them esp since they remain relevant today when people are still indirectly debating how much woc should be considered in feminism.

[girlactionfigure]

The Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise, Idaho was defaced with swastikas on Tuesday, the latest incident of anti-Semitism in the United States.

Vos Iz Neias

The only Anne Frank Memorial in the United States was vandalized and defaced. This is my response.

by Yuval David , Actor, Host, Filmmaker and Advocate

I am repulsed, shaken, and deeply offended. But, I am also, once again motivated in the battle to fight the fight I though my grandparents already did for me.

My grandparents are Holocaust survivors and heroes of the war. The vast majority of their family and friends were killed in the Holocaust in the hands of the Nazis and the Europeans who supported the Nazis.

My grandparents fought for survival and for the survival of truly anyone they could help. And, that continued for the majority of their lives, as they lived with the ever constant effort to help the Jewish people survive and thrive.

But, today, I read the news…

Swastikas were pasted throughout the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Idaho. Flyers and stickers were plastered throughout the memorial with swastikas and the threatening words “we are everywhere.”

This is the only memorial dedicated to Anne Frank in the United States. Anne Frank personifies so much for Jewish people, for those struggling with victimhood and marginalization, and for understanding of what Jews suffered during the Holocaust and the horrid Anti-Semitism Jews faced in Europe.

Anne was one of the over Six Million Jews tortured and murdered by the Nazis and Nazi sympathizers during the Holocaust. Her story became almost canonized for so many of us, because of her father, who survived the Holocaust, published her diary. The Diary of Anne Frank gave us a perspective of victimhood from a child’s perspective, which is painfully even more poignant due to her hopeful and wise-beyond-her-years perspective on life.

The Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial was built not only for Anne, and not only for Jewish victims of the Holocaust and those of us descended from Holocaust survivors. It was built as a reflection of the Jewish experience. What we Jews do is use our experiences, turning our victimhood narrative into one of resilience, claiming “Never Again” and “Always Remember.” And, we do all of this as we help repair the world, helping others who are victimized and marginalized. We do all of this as we are always seen at the forefront of every social justice and human rights movement.

This memorial to Anne Frank is the only one in the United States. This place exemplifies the concepts of what our people faced during the Holocaust and throughout our much too long and continued history facing Anti-Jewish hate speech and violence. A statue at the memorial, named “Spiral of Injustice” features the words “language,” “avoidance,” “discrimination,” “violence,” and “persecution.” This artwork symbolizes the surrounded and bound by those words. And, even on this statue the hateful anti-Jewish neo-Nazis plastered their vandalizing swastikas and flyers.

This is a memorial that was built as a physical statement of our Jewish values and shared values of standing up to confront hate.

But, hate….was emboldened once again. And, hate….found its way into this specific place to reveal itself and mark its territory as everywhere. Just as the words of the hateful vandalism state, “we are everywhere.”

These words are meant to strike fear into our hearts. And, they do.

So, what do I say? What do I do?

I speak up, I speak out, and I put my words into action. I must take action to fight hate, and especially to end Jew hatred. It is my responsibility and duty, in honor of my grandparents who survived the horrors of the Holocaust, and in honor of my other grandparents who managed to escape. I do this because all of my grandparents lost the majority of their family and friends. I do this in honor and in memory of the Jews whose lives were brutally destroyed and shattered by those who hate us. I will not stay silent. I will not shudder in fear. I will fight hate.

There has never been a Jewish civil rights in the United States until now. This year a new movement has been formed, End Jew Hatred, which is mobilizing Jewish organizations and activists to fight for positive change. I am proud to support this movement, which aims to eradicate Jew hatred in this generation. If we are determined and work together, Jew hating can be a thing of the past.

This recent act of hatred targeting Jews is not a rare event. Instead of my listing the terror of violent attacks over the past year, take a look at just some of the incidents in the past couple months.

December 7, 2020, in Boise, Idaho:

Vandalism and propaganda stickers that included a swastika and the message “We are everywhere” at the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial.

December 6, 2020, in Westminster, Colorado:

14 First, a neo-Nazi group, distributed propaganda that read “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas” and “A message to white men and women: Diversity is a complete failure and destroying our race.” The propaganda included an anti-Jewish imagery of a swastikas and anti-immigrant messaging.

December 5, 2020, in St. Paul, Minnesota:

The words “Free Palestine,” “Fuck Zionism” and “Solidarity STP — Palestine” were spray-painted on the pavement outside a synagogue.

December 5, 2020, in Colorado Springs, Colorado:

Various property at Roswell Park was vandalized with swastikas and antisemitic, anti-Black, and anti-LGBTQ graffiti that read “Die nig — -s,” “I hate fags,” and “Die Jew.”

December 3, 2020, in Baltimore, Maryland:

Swastikas were found etched into the sidewalk in a residential neighborhood with Jewish residents.

November 28, 2020, in Lakewood, New Jersey:

A dead pig was left on the doorstep outside a rabbi’s home in what law enforcement deemed a “bias crime.”

November 26, 2020, in Jackson, New Jersey:

A swastika image was found traced into the dirt and mulch at a public playground where Jewish children play.

November 25, 2020, in Syracuse, New York:

A number of parked cars in a residential neighborhood were vandalized with swastika graffiti.

November 24, 2020, in Fairfax, California:

An unknown person distributed propaganda stickers that included a swastika and the message “We are everywhere.”

November 22, 2020, in Long Beach, California:

A swastika and a reference to a neo-Nazi gang were spray-painted on a freeway overpass.

November 22, 2020, in Long Beach, California:

A swastika and a reference to a neo-Nazi gang were spray-painted on a freeway overpass.

November 19, 2020, in Falmouth, Massachusetts:

Multiple swastika drawings were found on the playground at Mullen-Hall School.

November 17, 2020

In Nevada City, Nevada:

Graffiti that included a swastika and the message “White Lives Matter” was found on a bridge in a park.

November 16, 2020, in Cleveland, Ohio

Anti-Jewish vandalism and swastikas were found at Lansing Avenue Jewish Cemetery.

November 15, 2020, in Washington, D.C.

Vandalism on a synagogue including the words against Israel.

November 11, 2020, in Westfield, New Jersey:

A Boy Scout Troop’s Eagle Scout project was defaced with graffiti that included swastika drawings.

November 11, 2020 in Skokie, Illinois:

The website and emails associated with two school districts outside Chicago were hacked and responsible for sending emails to students described as “lewd, racist, anti-Semitic and patently offensive content.”

November 9, 2020, in Sumter, South Carolina:

An unknown person or group distributed white supremacist propaganda that included anti-Jewish sentiments.

November 8, 2020, in Lexington, Kentucky:

The sign and menorah belonging to the Chabad of the Bluegrass were found vandalized and ruined.

November 8, 2020, in Hollywood Park, Texas:

14 First, a neo-Nazi group, distributed propaganda that attacked Black Lives Matter, Jews, and other minorities. The fliers included Anti-Semitic images.

November 8, 2020, in Cleveland, Tennessee:

Three men were charged with vandalizing Deer Park, Greenway Park, and Tinsley Park with graffiti that included swastikas and Anti-Semitic racial slurs.

November 7, 2020, in Columbus, Ohio:

A Jewish couple was harassed and threatened publicly by their neighbor who yelled “You fucking liberal Jews…No wonder Hitler burned all your people, I’m going to burn you and all your people, I’m going to burn you and all your Jewish friends.”

November 5, 2020, in Klamath Falls, Oregon:

Billboards, one for the Klamath County Democrats, were vandalized with a swastika and the white supremacist Jew-hating symbol 1488.

November 3, 2020, in New York, New York:

Campaign signs for Assemblywoman Rebecca Seawright were vandalized with antisemitic messages that read “Baptise [sic] the bitch and Her Rabbi,” and another that just read “Baptise [sic] the bitch.”

November 2, 2020, in Brooklyn, New York:

Multiple mezuzas were stolen and apartment doors were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti that read “Fuck the Jews” and “Jews suck.”

November 2, 2020, in Grand Rapids, Michigan:

Multiple headstones at Ahavas Israel, a Jewish cemetery, were vandalized with spray-painted graffiti that read “TRUMP” and “MAGA.”

November 2, 2020, in Fairfax, Virginia:

A sign that read “The Democrat Platform is Socialist,” with an emphasis on “rat” and the “s” in socialist replaced with Nazi lightening bolts, as well as an image of a swastika, was found hung out on a tree outside a Jewish community center.

October 31, 2020, in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey:

A swastika, the words “Nig — -” and “Jew,” and phallic imagery were found drawn in chalk on the road in a residential neighborhood with Black and Jewish residents.

October 27, 2020, in Brooklyn, New York:

A Jewish-owned store was vandalized with an antisemitic message that read “Syrian Jew Whore Fuck You.”

October 27, 2020, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:

During a Black Lives Matter protest, three Jewish men were verbally harassed and physically assaulted by protesters who called them the “Synagogue of Satan” and “Amalek.”

October 25, 2020, in Ithaca, New York:

Antisemitic and racist fliers were posted on Moosewood Restaurant and Sunny Days of Ithaca. The fliers included racist and antisemitic imagery, antisemitic conspiracies, and called for violence.

October 23, 2020, in Dallas, Texas:

Swastikas and the message “Rise up we are everywhere” was found painted in a parking garage at Reunion Arena.

October 21, 2020, in Brooklyn, New York:

A 53-year-old man fired a gun at a synagogue where a man was outside dismantling a sukkah.

October 19, 2020, in Oakland, California:

The sanctuary doors at Temple Sinai were vandalized with painted swastika graffiti.

October 17, 2020, in Iowa City, Iowa:

Three different areas at City Park were vandalized with spray-painted messages that included swastikas and read “We are everywhere voting will not remove them,” and “Hey little village, should this graffiti breathe? WLM [White Lives Matter]!”

October 13, 2020, in Brooklyn, New York:

A man verbally harassed an ultra-Orthodox Jew for not wearing a mask while walking down the street. During an interview with media, the perpetrator made antisemitic comments about Orthodox Jews indicating that he purposely targeted his victim.

October 12, 2020, in West Hartford, Connecticut:

Emmanuel Synagogue’s services held on Zoom were disrupted by unknown participants who shared Nazi imagery and antisemitic statements as well as pornographic imagery.

October 11, 2020, in Madison, Wisconsin:

The University of Wisconsin at Madison reported that antisemitic and neo-Nazi graffiti was found on the Gard Storytellers Circle Monument on campus.

October 11, 2020, in Port Washington, New York:

The Port Washington Police Athletic League’s clubhouse at Sunset Park was broken into and vandalized with a dozen spray-painted swastikas and Jew-Hating graffiti.

October 4, 2020, in Brooklyn, New York:

A man used a flagpole to “break numerous windows” and damage property at Shore Parkway Jewish Center in the Gravesend neighborhood. Following his arrest, the suspect made antisemitic statements.

October 3, 2020, in Lubbock, Texas:

14first, a white supremacist group, distributed propaganda that featured a swastika and messages expressing hatred of Jews and claims that white people are becoming a minority.

October 2, 2020, in Denver, Colorado:

Members of Goyim Defense League, a loosely connected group of antisemitic provocateurs, hung an antisemitic banner on highway overpasses that read “Why Are Jew Banning Free Speech.”

[eddie-redmayne-italian-blog]

photos by Frank Ockenfels

The Long Journey and Intense Urgency of Aaron Sorkin's 'The Trial of the Chicago 7'

by Rebecca Keegan September 23, 2020, 6:00  am PDT

The director of the Netflix film, which stars Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Eddie Redmayne and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, reveals why it took nearly 20 years to get the project about the politically motivated prosecution of protestors made and why it couldn't be more timely: "I never imagined today would go so much like 1968."

In October 2019, hundreds of protesters marched down Chicago’s Michigan Avenue toward the Hilton, chanting phrases like "No justice, no peace!" and "A people united will never be defeated!" as police in riot gear descended on the crowd with billy clubs and tear gas. Earnest and energized, clad in 1960s period costumes and flanked by vintage police vehicles, this group thought they were acting out the past, staging a scene from Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7. As it turned out, they were performing the future, too.

Sorkin’s film, which opens in select theaters Sept. 25 and hits Netflix on Oct.  16, tells the story of the riots at the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention and the circus-like trial of political activists that followed the next year. Thanks to Hollywood development hell, the movie is arriving 14  years after Steven Spielberg first mentioned the idea to Sorkin but just as its themes and plot points — civil unrest, a self-proclaimed "law and order" president’s vilification of protesters (Nixon then, Trump now), the police’s excessive use of force, tensions within the Democratic Party over how far left to move — have become bracingly current."I never wanted the film to be about 1968," Sorkin says in an interview over Zoom from his house in the Hollywood Hills on Labor Day weekend. "I never wanted it to be an exercise in nostalgia or a history lesson. I wanted it to be about today. But I never imagined that today would get so much like 1968."For only the second time in a career spanning nine films as a screenwriter, Sorkin serves as director with Chicago 7, helming a sprawling ensemble cast that includes Eddie Redmayne as anti-war activist Tom Hayden, Sacha Baron Cohen as Youth International Party (Yippie) provocateur Abbie Hoffman, Succession’s Jeremy Strong as counterculture figure Jerry Rubin and Watchmen’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Panther party co-founder Bobby Seale. There are undeniable parallels not only between the film and the present political moment but also between the performance-art activism of the actors and the men they’re playing, most vividly Cohen, who, like Hoffman, has made a career of political self-expression through comedic stunts, including crashing a far-right rally in Olympia, Washington, this summer while pretending to be a racist country singer. (Cohen, who shoots most of his satirical projects incognito, impishly calls reports of his appearance at the rally  "fake news.")Eight months after Sorkin filmed the protest scenes in Chicago, Abdul-Mateen was marching in Black Lives Matter protests in West Hollywood, as was Strong in Brooklyn. "There’s power when a lot of people come together to protest out of anger, out of frustration," Abdul-Mateen says. "Everybody has a role in the revolution; this film shows that.

"Though the movie feels crafted for this political moment, it was born of another. At Sorkin’s first meeting with Spielberg, "I remember him saying, 'It would be great if we could have this out before the election,'" Sorkin says. The election Spielberg was talking about was 2008’s, when Barack Obama and Joe Biden faced John McCain and Sarah Palin.The film hit multiple roadblocks, beginning with the 2007-08 writers strike and continuing as financing faltered repeatedly, a fate illustrated by the more than 30 producers who can claim some sort of credit on Chicago 7. It took another unscheduled detour this summer after Sorkin finished it as the pandemic worsened, and the odds of original distributor Paramount mounting a successful theatrical release before the Nov. 3 election seemed increasingly slim. For some involved with the film, there is a question about the ethics of Hollywood inviting audiences to return to theaters before a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available. "

There’s a moral quandary that we, the motion picture business, have to be careful that we don’t become the tobacco industry, where we’re encouraging people to do something we know is potentially lethal," says Cohen.Before his visit to Spielberg’s Pacific Palisades home to discuss the project on a Saturday afternoon in 2006, Sorkin knew next to nothing about the Chicago 7. The federal government had charged seven defendants — Hoffman, Rubin, Hayden, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, John Froines and Lee Weiner — with conspiracy for their participation in the protests against the Vietnam War outside the Democratic National Convention. (Originally the men were known as the Chicago 8 and included Seale, who asked to have his trial separated from that of the others and postponed so that he could be represented by his preferred lawyer, who was ill; that trial never took place.)

When Spielberg proposed a movie about the riots and the trial that followed, Sorkin, who was 7 in 1968, said, "'You know, that sounds great. Count me in.' As soon as I left his house, I called my father and said, 'Dad, do you know anything about a riot that happened in 1968 or a crazy conspiracy trial that followed?' I was just saying yes to Steven."Despite his ignorance, Sorkin was a logical choice to write the project: Having penned Broadway’s A Few Good Men and its 1992 film adaptation as well as the long-running NBC series West Wing, he’d shown a flair for dramatizing courtroom procedures and liberal politics, and he turned in his first draft of the Chicago 7 script in 2007. Originally, Spielberg planned to direct the project himself, but by the time the writers strike was over, he had moved on and a number of other potential directors circled, including Paul Greengrass, Ben Stiller, Peter Berg and Gary Ross, though none was able to get it off the ground. "There was just a feeling that, 'Look, this isn’t an Avengers film,'" Sorkin says of the studios' move away from midbudget dramas and toward action tentpoles in the 2010s. "This isn’t an easy sell at the box office. And there are big scenes, riots, crowd scenes. How can this movie be done for the budget that makes sense for what the expectation is at the box office?"As the project languished, Sorkin tried writing it as a play, ultimately spending 18 months on a fruitless effort to fashion a stage treatment. "What I didn’t like was having a script in my drawer," he says. "I was just thinking, 'Jeez, this is a good movie and it feels like it’s stillborn.'"It was the confluence of two events that ultimately revived the film with Sorkin in the director’s chair in 2018 — the 2016 election of Donald Trump and the 2017 release of Sorkin’s well-received directorial debut, Molly’s Game, which doubled its production budget at the box office. "This is before George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and police protests or confrontations," Sorkin says. "This is just when Donald Trump was musing nostalgically about the old days when they used to carry that guy [a protester] out of here on a stretcher and punch the crap out of him."With Trump’s throwback rhetoric lending the subject matter a new timeliness and Sorkin’s directing chops confirmed in Spielberg’s eyes, the movie moved forward with its screenwriter at the helm.

Cross Creek Pictures came in to finance, and Paramount bought the domestic rights. But all those years in development had left an expensive imprint on the project — a jaw-dropping $11  million had been spent on casting costs, producing fees and the optioning of Brett Morgen’s 2007 documentary about the event, Chicago 10, leaving just $24  million for the actual 36-day production.

One way Sorkin attempts to achieve a sense  of scope despite that budget is by intercutting real black-and-white news footage with his dramatized protests. He rounded out his large cast with a deep bench of experienced and award-winning actors including Oscar winner Mark Rylance as defense attorney William Kunstler, Oscar nominee Frank Langella as Judge Julius Hoffman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as prosecutor Richard Schultzand, Oscar nominee Michael Keaton as former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark — with the filmmaker and many of his actors working for scale. (Abdul-Mateen and Strong both became first-time Emmy winners Sept.  20.)Sorkin shot the protest scenes on location in Chicago and built a courtroom set in an old church sanctuary in Paterson, New Jersey, because none of the available courtroom locations in the Garden State conveyed the scope he wanted. "If we’re saying the whole world is watching, I want a packed courtroom for six months full of press and spectators," Sorkin says. "I wanted the big, cavernous feeling of the federal government and its power coming down on these people."

Julian Wasser/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images           "The movie is tribute to the bravery of the protesters of 1968 [pictured] and today in Belarus, on the streets of America, in Portland," says Cohen.            

Among the vestiges of Spielberg’s original plan was the casting of Cohen as Hoffman, which required the London native to affect a Boston accent and return to a subject he had studied as an undergraduate at Christ’s College in Cambridge, where he wrote a thesis paper about Jewish activists during the civil rights movement. At 19, Cohen had interviewed Bob Moses, the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which Hoffman was involved in before he founded the anti-war Yippie movement. "Honestly, I was very proud of the fact that Jews were involved in the Black civil rights movement in the '60s, and there wasn’t much written about it," Cohen says, explaining his youthful scholarship.

There’s a clear line to draw between Hoffman’s 1960s theatrics — which included throwing fistfuls of money into the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange and vowing to levitate the Pentagon — and Cohen’s contemporary TV and film pranks. Perhaps among Cohen’s most memorable and pointed gags was getting Vice President Dick Cheney to gleefully autograph a waterboard kit, which the comic did while posing as an admiring Israeli anti-terror expert for a 2018 episode of Who Is America?, his Showtime series. “What I wanted to do was to show that he was proud of torturing," Cohen says. "I could not believe how happy Cheney was to be sitting next to an uber-fan. So, yes. Ultimately in the shows and the movies that I do, I’m trying to be funny, but yeah, I’m trying to get out the anger that I have within me."

Cohen sees Hoffman’s unorthodox protest methods as pragmatic. "The Yippies were underfunded, and he was using theatricality to gain attention for his aims," Cohen says. "He wanted to stop the war. And how do you do that? You use stunts and absurdist humor to try to effect change." The actor estimates that, after researching Hoffman, he pitched Sorkin hundreds of lines the activist had really delivered. "As an annoying person with a lot of chutzpah, I was emailing Aaron every other night until morning, 'What about this line? What about this line?'" Cohen says. The writer-director, known for his exacting prose, politely tolerated the suggestions while largely sticking to his own script.

As Rubin, Strong is playing Hoffman’s conscientious jester sidekick, a role wildly different from the tragic, wealthy approval seeker he portrays on Succession. Strong added some of his own dramatic flourishes, including painting words on his chest for one courtroom scene and bringing a remote-controlled fart machine to disrupt Langella’s imperious judge. "I wanted to channel as much as possible that spirit of the merry prankster and of joyous dissent," Strong says. Hoffman and Rubin’s real-life personae were so large that Sorkin at times asked his actors to dial down their faithful portrayals, requesting, after one particularly jubilant take, "less cowbell."

Sorkin’s script draws a sharp contrast between Hoffman and Rubin’s campy methods and Hayden’s more reserved approach to the anti-war movement, with the tensions between Hoffman and Hayden supplying the film’s key relationship in a kind of begrudging brotherhood of the peace movement. To learn more about Hayden, Redmayne studied remarks that Jane Fonda, who was married to the activist and politician from 1973 to 1990, made upon his death in 2016. In his own life, Redmayne is cautious when it comes to discussing the role that he, as an actor at the center of a huge studio franchise (Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts) might have in political life. "I find it endlessly challenging," Redmayne says of navigating his public activism. "There’s the elitist thing. It’s speaking up on climate change but being conscious that you’re traveling a lot. One has to be aware of one’s own hypocrisies, because they can be detrimental to something you believe in. So sometimes I find that I have to live my life and speak to my advocacy in a way in that it’s around friends, family and people I know rather than making something public."

Abdul-Mateen has begun his acting career largely associated with fantastical roles, like Dr. Manhattan on HBO’s Watchmen, Black Manta in Aquaman and Candyman in the upcoming Jordan Peele-produced remake of the slasher film. Playing Seale represented a chance to do more grounded work and to depict a man who had loomed large during Abdul-Mateen’s childhood in Oakland, where Seale co-founded the Black Panthers in 1966 and later ran for mayor. Seale’s inclusion in the original Chicago riots indictment was controversial and strange — prosecutors accused him of conspiring with men he’d never met after visiting Chicago that week for only a few hours to deliver a speech. For the prosecution, Seale functioned largely as a prop to tap into the fears of white jurors and white Americans watching the news coverage, and during the trial he had no attorney. "I wanted to key in on, how did Bobby Seale survive this trial?" Abdul-Mateen says. "How did he survive the gross mistreatment by the United States government, and how did he go through that with his head high and not be broken? It was an exercise in finding my pride, finding my dignity."

In one scene, Seale is brought into the courtroom bound and gagged, and throughout the trial he is kept separate from the white defendants. "Although it was meant to be a humiliating act, I walked out with my chest high, with my head high. Bound and gagged and everything else. It would be very dangerous for a Black man in that time, even sometimes today, to show the proof of the wear and tear that oppression can take on a person, because that can be seen as a sign of weakness, and a sign of weakness is an open door that it’s working." For the moments of lightness that Cohen and Strong bring to the movie, Abdul-Mateen supplies ballast. "It’s important for the right reasons and at the right time to make art that makes people uncomfortable," he says.

Niko Tavernise/NETFLIX. On the set, from left, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Rylance, Ben Shenkman, Aaron Sorkin and Eddie Redmayne

Spielberg has remained involved in the film "in an emeritus role," Sorkin says, "from giving me good script notes to casting to notes on early cuts of the film." He also showed up to the New Jersey courtroom set. "When you have to direct a scene in front of Steven Spielberg, you’re not at your most relaxed necessarily," Sorkin says. Spielberg did not, however, take an executive producing credit on the film and declined to be interviewed about it.

The decision to switch to a streaming release came after an early summer marketing strategy call between Sorkin, Paramount chief Jim Gianopulos, other Paramount execs and some of the film’s producers. "At the end of the call, Jim said, 'Listen, we don’t know what the theater business is going to look like in the fall. We have troubling data telling us that the first people back in movie theaters are going to be the people who think that the coronavirus is a hoax,'" Sorkin says. This was clearly not the intended audience for a movie whose heroes are liberal activists. "I said, 'I don’t think the Idaho militia are going to be the first people coming to this movie,'" Sorkin says.

The group agreed to explore alternatives and gave Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Hulu 24 hours to watch the film. After a bidding war, Chicago 7 landed at Netflix in a $56  million deal against its $35  million production budget, with a robust marketing campaign and promise of a theatrical release. "We knew we didn’t have the option of 'Let’s wait a year,'" Sorkin says. "This is what we’re thinking about and what we’re talking about right now, and it just would have been a real shame to not release it now."

After Chicago 7 opens in limited release, Netflix will add more theaters in the U.S. and abroad throughout October, expanding upon the film’s premiere on the service, a strategy akin to what it provided Oscar best picture nominees The Irishman and Roma, albeit in a wildly different theatrical environment.

As Hollywood opens up to more production, Sorkin, and many of the Chicago 7 actors, have begun returning to work. Abdul-Mateen has been in Berlin for The Matrix 4 and Redmayne in London for Fantastic Beasts 3, while Sorkin is shooting a West Wing reunion special at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown L.A. that will premiere on HBO Max in October as a fundraiser for When We All Vote and include video appearances by Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton and Lin-Manuel Miranda

For the real-life Chicago 7, the denouement consisted of ultimately being acquitted of conspiracy. Judge Hoffman sentenced Seale to four years in prison for contempt of court, one of the longest sentences ever handed down for that offense in the U.S., but those charges were overturned on appeal. Just three of the original eight defendants — Seale, Froines and Weiner — are still alive, but the legacy of the case lives on in contemporary protest movements. "The movie is tribute to the bravery of the protesters of 1968 and the protesters of today in Belarus, on the streets of America, in Portland," Cohen says. "These people now are risking their lives, and they’ll continue risking them."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/the-trial-of-the-chicago-7-aaron-sorkin-and-stars-on-films-timeliness-to-election-and-why-everybody-has-a-role-in-the-revolution

[manandmachines]

Meta on muses and religion

Scott was born and raised Jewish from his mom and safta. His dad Robert, though born Jewish, isn’t exactly religious since growing up in Soviet Russia. His mother Ruth and his safta Jadzia are Polish, Ruth being born sometime during WWII, while her parents were on the run. The war would leave Jadzia a single mother who’d raise Ruth to never hide who she was, who would in turn pass that onto her son. 

Scott’s never denied being Jewish, and considers himself a reformist Jew. He even wears a chai bracelet given to him by his safta most of the time.

Chai in Judaism means “life,” and also refers to the number 18, which is considered the number of life, because each Hebrew letter has a numerical equivalent. It’s the sum of two Hebrew letters —chet (ח) (8) and yud (י) (10) which makes 18. He wears more often than not as a reminder of what he’s out to protect while being a superhero.

Some Reform Jews reject the idea of a Messiah as an actual person. They do not believe that the leadership of one person is required to achieve a Messianic Age. Instead, Reform Jews believe that ordinary people have the power to bring about a peaceful and prosperous age by carrying out good actions. An idea that Scott holds close to his heart, especially with being Ant-Man. Scott holds strong to his leaders like Sam and Steve, but really believes the team together is what’ll really bring change to the world. 

Although Scott hasn’t been able to practice as much as he’d like to, it’s not for lack of faith but lack of time. He used to celebrate the Shabbat about every Friday with his parents growing up, but Ant-Man duties leave him able to celebrate at least one Friday a month. Still making time at least to call his parents on Friday to talk and update them on his life and share a prayer. 

With Scott being reformist, he doesn’t exactly follow kosher rules, but he does go out to serve only kosher foods when it’s time for Shabbat, as is his family tradition with Ruth being raised more traditionally. He’ll also make time the next day on Saturday morning after Shabbat to visit his local synagogue.

He also celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at 13, and hopes to hold a Bat Mitzvah for Cassie at that same age, which is the same celebration like what he had, but for women. He also speaks fluent Hebrew and taught that to Cassie as well.

I also headcanon Maggie to be Jewish, and they were both married at his parents synagogue in Florida, and like his parents, both Scott and Maggie’s wedding rings are both simple bands. This is because of an old tradition where the worth of the ring is measured in weight, and so there’s no stones to alter the weight and value. Both Scott and Maggie also chose the old fashioned route to wear their rings on the left forefinger, because the vein there leads up to your heart, and Scott just thought as man of science, that was pretty neat. Everything was followed by the seven blessings, Scott breaking the glass and a celebratory mazel tov.

If Scott were to ever get remarried to a non Jewish partner, he’d want to at least do another glass breaking. As he heard of a new way couples do it where they break wine glasses together, instead of just a man breaking a lightbulb (or just any glass thing, really, but it’s typically a light bulb)

And do not worry thinking I’ll have to change his face claim, as Paul Rudd himself is Jewish, with his parents being descended from Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who had moved to England from Belarus, Poland, and Russia.

Being born to third generation Romanian immigrants, Bucky grew up Roman Catholic and often would go to mass with his mother on Sundays. He’d be baptized sometime after Rebecca, since his family was living in Indiana around the time he was born, and couldn’t do it then due to the lack of Catholic churches in the area. Luckily Winnie was finally able to arrange a service for both Becky and Bucky when they had finally settled in Brooklyn, and would go on to baptize the rest of her daughters as well.

The family would go on to celebrate the usual holidays associated with Catholicism, such as the Holy week, Christmas and Easter, as well as Lent.

His father was also not religious due to the trauma from being off fighting in WWI. He’d never go into detail with his distrust in a higher power, but whenever Bucky questioned George as to why he never came to service, George would just reply on how God just wasn’t as kind to some people as he was to others.

He’d think about that sometimes when he went to service, but never thought about it terribly until getting drafted. Then did he really see what dear old dad meant all those years ago in the garage after service when Bucky went to bring him up for lunch.

Religion was really the last of his concerns being the Winter Soldier, again with how Soviet Russia was on religion and I doubt anybody in the Red Room cared about God, with how they were trying to play it with making the girls into weapons of war.

He hasn’t been to service since. Simply taking after the words of his father that God’s not as kind to some people as he is to others.

Neyti was never religious, but however did arrange for subjects to learn about popular religions throughout the galaxy in the idea it’d make them better at handling patients with certain beliefs. Rocket finds the whole idea of religion to be another human hang up and hardly if ever thinks about it, despite having clashed with several Gods of several types. He doesn’t believe in another side, just instead that everyone turns into dust someday.

...although he does like the sound of that reincarnation stuff. The idea that you’ll come out of this life into something either better or worse. He like to think...if it is real, then he’d like to come back as something good. Maybe bring him back as what he was supposed to be before the cybernetics and endless knowing. Back in that little time of peace he had before being turned into what he is now.

[jkottke]

Rebecca Solnit: We Don't Need to Meet Nazis Halfway

Writing for Lithub, Rebecca Solnit on On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito just complained that "you can't say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. Now it's considered bigotry." This is a standard complaint of the right: the real victim is the racist who has been called a racist, not the victim of his racism, the real oppression is to be impeded in your freedom to oppress. And of course Alito is disingenuous; you can say that stuff against marriage equality (and he did). Then other people can call you a bigot, because they get to have opinions too, but in his scheme such dissent is intolerable, which is fun coming from a member of the party whose devotees wore "fuck your feelings" shirts at its rallies and popularized the term "snowflake."

Nevertheless, we get this hopelessly naive version of centrism, of the idea that if we're nicer to the other side there will be no other side, just one big happy family. This inanity is also applied to the questions of belief and fact and principle, with some muddled cocktail of moral relativism and therapists' "everyone's feelings are valid" applied to everything. But the truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?

Reading this, I was reminded of the paradox of tolerance:

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

And also, I can't remember where I heard this recently, but it's perhaps worth noting that in game theory (I know, I know), when you're dealing with an iterated prisoner's dilemma situation (where two competitors are engaged in repeated confrontation), one of the the best strategies is called generous tit-for-tat. Playing a generous tit-for-tat strategy means cooperating on the first move and then mirroring whatever the other player did on their previous move -- but, crucially, occasionally cooperating after an attack as a opening to potential future collaboration. So, if the other party cooperates, so do you. And if the other party attacks, attack back...but not every time. Attempting to collaborate in the face of repeated attack leaves the door open to reestablish a virtuous cooperation cycle. The real world of national politics is not quite so simple, but it seems like a shift in strategy for progressives might be in order. (via christopher jobson)