#return to judaism

[secular-jew]

Found today -- Notice that Sinwar's bodyguard - Hani Zourab - is an UNWRA teacher from -- Ramallah -- with an Egyptian passport. UNWRA !!!! The UN (UNWRA) is in league with Hamas, and the UN should be defunded.

[feygaleh]

This is a genuine question because I'm trying to understand your side and not get involved in internet fights.

You keep saying you pray to Eretz Yisrael and not Medinat Yisrael. But if you're praying and the prayer yearns for a return to Eretz Yisrael, how do you interpret that? How is that not about returning to the Land of Israel (country there or not)? You say Eretz Yisrael specifically, not Am Yisrael (you did say a few times you were praying to the People of Israel so maybe it's a miscommunication, assuming not though). I'm confused how you reconcile [praying to return to the land of Israel] with [being against the return to Israel].

If you can't explain that I understand but that's my sticking point with this whole thing. This is why I'm personally having trouble taking your arguments seriously. Hope to hear back, have a nice day/night.

i mean i pray to eretz and am. but to answer your question, medinat has no reason to exist. the geographical location of our holy land will always remain. we don’t need a jewish state to make it so

jews who yearn for the holy land have every right to want to return and to return. we don’t need medinat yisrael to do so

the other side of my argument points out a lot of the antisemitism in the palestinian charters. which yes they did go back on that, and yes there are still several antisemitic flaws in certain structures of their government as well. but that is something we could have pushed harder for. that is something we could’ve gotten the UN involved in. dividing up the land and expelling people was cruel and unnecessary to the people presently there

i hope that makes sense…

[engagemythrusters]

right ways to get mad at catholics: your institution and your practice of beliefs has irreperably harmed millions of people, end the lives of more, and brought struggle and strife to many cultures on a global scale

wrong ways to get mad at catholics: you believe in "sky daddy" so you are stupid as fuck

[foursaints]

rosekiller would be on the streets protesting for palestine

i find it a bit.. tasteless or at least offensively cavalier to discuss real world genocide through the lens of harry potter characters. but i support you and entirely agree with where you’re coming from

donation link for medical aid for palestine

continuously updating google doc of palestinian escape funds (URGENT)

donation to palestinian children’s relief fund

gaza emergency appeal

donate to arab.org with one click

[yellowocaballero]

I love how your Bruce is traditional but it is also like a mix of different types of traditional. Like he comes across as both "Rich white old money type" traditional AND "member of a marginalized minority group who take great pride in their identity to cope with years of ostracization and going "the world wanted me dead for my culture and religion so i might as well die loud and proud instead of conforming to their unachievable ideals" " traditional

Thank you for this ask, I really love it! I have a shitton to say on this topic, including a lot of worldbuilding decisions on Gotham cultures, immigrant spaces, segregation, how it ended up like 1920s-1930s NYC/Chicago mixed with my own city, Jason "Foil" Todd's Inferiority Complex, but that would make this depressingly long. Long time readers would know that I have, like, really complex and discrete religion headcanons for everybody I write. It's important.

Any decent Batman Story (TM) is about Gotham. It has to be a huge presence. It's like writing Dick Tracy without Chicago, or Cheers without Boston. When he's written well, Batman is a reflection of Gotham, and they metaphorically represent each other.

Most Batman writers get this, so there's always a lot of historical worldbuilding and everything. But I'm a community health person, and I grew up in the inner area of my own very large city, and creating a Gotham that feels real and rich is more complicated than the Court of Owls stuff. For me, cities are the intersection of culture, community, history, oppression/SES/war etc, and the modern day to day lives of people. When I want to make a rich city that was relevant and important to the story, I wanted to focus on immigrants and cultural minorities. You know - the people who create the cities lol. I decided on a history that involved the idea that Jewish families were the oldest in Gotham, and that they were one of the people to help create it and influence its culture.

I read a Daniel Handler quote just now that said "there is something naturally Jewish about unending misery". What is more Batman, Bruce, and Gotham than that, lol. The Jewish diaspora experience - the traditional history just as you outlined it in your ask - is baked into Gotham, it's the foundation. Gotham is a city of unending misery, but it's a city that stands tall. It takes a thousand hits and always gets back up again. People within it experience unending poverty and suffering, but they stand together. Just fucking refuse to die, as a whole. What's more Jewish than that! What is more Batman than that! Gotham should always be allegorical for Batman and Bruce, and through Gotham existing in that traditional Jewish experience, I think that's where you got the impression of Bruce as very traditional too.

Tim and the Drakes are the modern reflection of this. I was extremely explicit that Tim is alone in the world because of the Holocaust. I talk a lot in the story about how war and violence destroy children's lives, and that stretches back to the 1940s. About how war and violence creates violent children, which is what Tim became. His acting out was from the trauma of seeing his family slaughtered in front of him, and like a lot of people he used his religion to justify it.

There's a reason why the very first moment when Tim and Bruce actually connect as a family is when they find kinship and understanding through their shared backgrounds and values. They both saw their families slaughtered, they're both alone in the world - but they found each other, and they'll keep living.

OK BELIEVE IT OR NOT THAT'S THE SHORT VERSION. Seriously, though, I'm not. Uh. Actually fucking Jewish. This is like the fourth time I've talked out of my ass about this. I'm actually really interested in reading about the actual Jewish themes in Batman, because from what little I know they HAVE to be there. Any smart people out there who know about it, or who can link something written about it?

[rotzaprachim]

fundamentally a horror beyond words happened to my people and some people swore it didn’t happen and a bunch of other people who include also my people decided that terrible things would happen to civilians and idk how to be a part of my own culture atm in any way we should all be filled with shame I found out everyone hates Jews this week in particular white Americans I also found out there were Jews who would use what happened to us to commit ethnic cleansing everyone is screaming someone needs to die

[quixtrix]

Ngl, did NOT have this scenario on my metaphorical bingo card for insane shit that has happened in this fandom. Infighting and discourse? Yeah. Fighting over ships? Yeah. Main character getting sidelined? Unfortunate but also yeah. Someone making essentially a fan theory about the creator's personal life, getting mad that people are telling them that's creepy, then turning around and calling others CREEPS for 'being entitled to personal info' even though they started it in the first place? Wow, most of those types back off and put out a shitty apology to try and get people to back off, but this mf doubled down and hit it with a double whammy of 'well you should've expected it, don't want your work to be known, don't create', what the actual fuck is going on here.

i dont even know man. i think i shouldnt have engaged further after the initial villain monologue bro pulled on me, but i digress. it was also very weird to me how they were lecturing me on how to analyse media and digest it but couldnt register that i was using a basic example in my initial explanation on why writing about dark topics does not necessarily equal having the trauma those experiences give.

tbf i looked at their blog and theyre a zionist so

[apenitentialprayer]

Seedling, by John A. Copley, acrylic on canvas, 2008.

One day, [Ḥoni] was walking along the road when he saw a certain man planting a carob tree. Ḥoni said to him: "This tree, after how many years will it bear fruit?" The man said to him: "It will not produce fruit until seventy years have passed." Ḥoni said to him: "Is it obvious to you that you will live seventy years, that you expect to benefit from this tree?" He said to him that man himself found a world full of carob trees: "Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants."

Tractate Ta'anit 23a:15

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. […] We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

from a 1979 prayer by Fr. Kenneth Untener, the future Bishop of Saginaw

Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

Gandalf (J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King, page 190)

[jdsquared]

Bava Batra 164b

[cynically-optomistic]

bizarre to me how the same people who insist we have to hold space for grace and forgiveness for literal neo-nazis and missionizing evangelicals in conversations will feel comfortable turning around and saying the vilest shit about a theoretical satmar bochur who has never been exposed to a different viewpoint and probably never will. No this isnt about something in particular, its a tendency i noticed over the last few years and it pisses me off.

[secular-jew]

[carlyraejepsans]

the game you're thinking of is perfect vermin

thank you! anyway everyone go watch jacob geller's stuff and experience every emotion at once

[akiva-echo]

Returning to Tumblr years after leaving because of antisemitic goyish nonsense to see left-wing discourse has remained exactly where it was (Leftist goyim showing that they believe that only the Good Jews™ deserve to be protected from antisemitism and any Jew who doesn't proclaim an immediate and unconditional antizionist stance on demand is a Bad Jew™ who can be bombarded with antisemitic hatred regardless of the context and whether the conversation was even remotely related to the modern nation-state of Israel)

[sugarpsalms]

i am once again crafting a longpost so niche and so so unasked for! but never fear, i will use the readmore function. y'all welcome

[arielmagicesi]

Every day I regret titling a fanfic after one of the less good CXG songs because whenever I get kudos for it, I get goddamn "Camp Kvetcher Girl" stuck in my head

[over-fen-and-field]

The religion section of my bookshelf has been growing more quickly as of late (something about the spring and autumn always gets me, I don't quite know why), and I am growing so tired of the incredible condescension toward anyone who leaves the faith community of their upbringing or heritage, either to join another tradition or to seek a secular life.

Most often, the 'failure' (and it's always framed as a failure) seems to be pinned on the individual as a sort of shallowness -- that they don't adequately understand their own tradition and if they'd delved deeper into such-and-such or so-and-so, they would have inevitably found renewed interest and commitment, or that they're too enmeshed in their day-to-day life and comforts to accept the inconveniences, discomforts, etc. that arise from maintaining a practice and/or holding the mental and spiritual space their tradition requires, or that they're merely giving into social pressure. In other cases, the authors gesture toward institutional failures -- inadequate outreach and programming (particularly for young adults or families without children), lack of support for struggling members, refusal to change with the times and address the anxieties and joys of their members, etc.

Certainly, both of these things can be true, and I don't mean to say that they aren't, but I wish the authors of the books I've been reading would leave some space for the simple fact that different things work for different people. If, after serious consideration of their own innermost desires and their relationship to their faith and associated community, someone finds themselves seeking a better fit for their values, sense of community, or other priorities, that seems like something that should be congratulated. Maybe they'll find that what they wanted was there all along and reaffirm their commitment to their tradition, maybe they'll find something else fits them, maybe they'll find that they need to step outside of faith communities to meet a certain need, in whatever degree each of these might entail -- regardless, good on them for being willing to explore themselves and the richness of the world around them!

Inevitably, questions of faith, belonging, and seeking are complicated and bring up a lot of difficult feelings and history, especially in marginalized or persecuted communities who've had to fight to maintain their faith and traditions, but that means you need a complicated and compassionate answer to them, stemming from a place that seeks to understand the range of individuals' experiences and desires rather than to immediately condemn them. No one tradition is going to work for everyone, and in any tradition, there's beauty and love to be found and nurtured.