#yom kippur is also coming up

[stevenssticks]

just to let y’all know i’ve been sick and exhausted from school so idk how active i’ll be

[dontraynamyparade]

may have accidentally created the perfect recipe for feeling bad

[nope-body]

.

[some-israeli-guy]

I want to take a few minutes to talk about my connection to Israel, as a Jew. I want to do that because some people desperately need to understand this, and also I'm procrastinating on uni homework.

Some years ago there were calls to return artifacts from the British Museum to the countries they're from. I know Britain pretty much went anywhere and took anything they wanted, but it got me thinking about cultural identities and their connection over time.

The middle east was home to some of the world's most ancient civilizations, and I'm sure most people living there could trace their lineage back to those civilizations (theoretically of course, we don't have data going that far). But how are they related to them? Do modern day Iraqis have any connection to Babylonians? They don't have a common language, religion, holidays, costumes… there is no cultural connection there. Babylonians happened to live in the same place, but other than that…

But this is not the case for Jews. Wherever Jewish people ended up throughout time, we kept a direct connection to ancient Israelites. I speak the same language they did thousands of years ago, I celebrate the holidays they celebrated. Our holy book is localized to Israel. We have holidays where we use local flora as decorations. We remembered our home, wherever we were, and waited to return.

The city I grew up in has flooding every winter. The whole area does (the Sharon region). It's because it used to be a swamp. There are 3 limestone ridges blocking the rivers from getting to the ocean, and when the early Zionist pioneers bought lands in this area (which were uninhabited swampland at the time) they had to open up tunnels through the limestone and drain the swamps before people could live here.

Why am I telling you this? Because we already did it before. Ancient Israelites already dug tunnels and drained swamps and lived here. There was a prayer during Yom Kippur specifically for the safety of people living here. All of the towns in the Sharon were razed by the Mamluks in the 13th century, and it became a swamp again. Until we returned.

To anyone who call us "colonizers": These "ancient" Israelites don't just share a religion with us, they ARE us. We were expelled from our homeland, but we kept our identity, we refused to let go, we kept wishing to come back home. We were always indigenous to Israel. We don't belong anywhere but here.

And now they're are trying to tell us that some people with a name invented by Rome to erase Judea and Israel, with a religion and language from Arabia, who didn't have a distinct cultural identity other than "Arab" until a few decades ago, belong here more than we do? I don't think so.

[steveyockey]

I paid $5 to access séamus malekafzali’s latest substack on palestine, here’s the full text,

It is easy to be lulled into a state of complacency, even with military occupation.

Israel’s occupation of Palestine has gone on longer than many of us on Earth have been alive, now going on 75 years. The levels of that deplacement, blockading, and violence have ebbed and flowed over years and decades, but that hand around the neck has always remained, even if how much it constricts has a tendency to loosen and tighten. Over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israel this year in its occupation. News bulletins of them dying, oftentimes teenagers, come up through the headlines of Palestinian newspapers and channels as often as the weather. These deaths at the hands of Israeli security personnel are not isolated incidents, with soldiers materializing on roadsides and at checkpoints as unfortunate coincidence. They are constant spikes in the waveform of an incessant low-grade hum of humiliation, imprisonment, and destruction that has made daily life a forced agreement to constantly exist on the precipice of death.

This framing is not meant to be a tired retread of the conflict between Israel and Palestine or the nature of the Israeli occupation. This is meant to be a bulwark against the inevitable framing of this latest battle unfolding around Gaza, as it will appear in the Western media in the days to come.

There is a tendency, a deep-set one, to report Israel and Palestine as two countries that are on roughly the same playing field internationally, as you might report on a war that might involve Israel battling against a place like Jordan or Egypt. This kind of coverage obscures how deeply interlocked Israel’s military operations are with the fabric of the Palestinian society.

In the West Bank, settlements and checkpoints have made Palestinian land into a kind of comical archipelago, where in addition to being separated from Gaza by a huge land border, they are also separated from traveling to communities only a stone’s throw away from them without going through significant anguish. In Gaza, while no Israeli soldiers walk the streets, all their land borders are essentially sealed, their ports almost completely blockaded. Israel’s continued occupation has been so pinpoint and precise that its planes have gone as far as bombing bookstores, and its restrictions did not let up even when the COVID-19 pandemic reduced one health organization to carrying only as many tests of the deadly disease as could fit in a car.

This is not a matter of moral justification; one does not need to constantly busy themselves with having to make a full ideological conversion before understanding this. This is a matter of cause and effect.

What is the logical expectation, regardless of politics, ideology, culture, and creed, when a population of people is thrust into conditions that can only be described as an open-air prison, where every individual is a criminal in the eyes of the military occupying power regardless if they pick up a rifle or not, because there is supposedly always the threat that they will one day?

These are the basic conditions that have preceded the initiation of Operation al-Aqsa Storm this morning. As dawn broke on the morning of October 7, only one day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas’ military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, launched a military operation of unprecedented scope in its history. Hamas fighters would not only attempt to enter Israeli territory proper with ground troops, already in of itself an intensely bold action (though not without precedent in the past decade). This operation would be a combined incursion into Israel by both land, sea, and even air. Ground forces would cut the border fence into settlements surrounding Gaza, speedboats would make landings in southern Israel, and fighters from a newly-inaugurated paraglider division would fly over the border fortifications and then further inland.

Threats of an invasion of Israeli territory proper have been a staple of speeches from Hamas and Hezbollah and groups like it for years. There was a long-standing perception by outside observers that it was fanciful. An intentionally lofty piece of propaganda that fires up supporters while the real military wheeling and dealing is done under far more subtle and controlled terms, as with most militant organizations. After all, no Israeli-administered town, the ones occupied in Palestine during the initial 1948 war, had ever been taken in any war against the Jewish state since its creation, even by a combined force of multiple Arab national militaries.

That notion now can no longer exist.

At sunrise, Hamas fired a gigantic barrage of rockets into Israeli territory, a staggering 5,000 in the first wave alone. As Israeli military and police forces were distracted by fires and rocket destruction in residential areas of the country, Palestinian forces in Gaza proceeded to make their primary move.

After the sun rose, Hamas cut through the border fence surrounding Israel and sent both fighters on foot and on motorcycles into Israel. Images released by the group seem to tell a story in frozen figures. Israeli soldiers, strewn dead, caught by surprise, one having even rushed out so quickly that he put on his military gear but no other clothes except his underwear. An even grimmer story could be found in one of the IDF military dormitories, where an entire room full of soldiers had been massacred, only having perhaps seconds earlier gotten the alarm that Hamas had breached the perimeter, many of them seemingly mid-way through getting out of bed.

From there, Hamas made unprecedented move after unprecedented move. Hamas fighters moved as far north into Zikim, built on the former Palestinian village of Hiribya, and moved as far east as Ofakim, built on the former hamlet of Khirbat Futais. The Erez Crossing, for years the only legal border crossing that Israel operated with the Gaza Strip, came under full Palestinian control. Sderot, a city where Israelis had once gathered on couches dragged to high peaks to watch the bombardment of Palestinians, now found themselves facing down Palestinian fighters in their own streets.

An additional shock would come in Israel’s initial response. Amidst cataclysmic scenes like hundreds of ravers in the desert near Gaza fleeing on foot, neither the Israeli president nor the prime minister spoke in those early hours in the morning.

The Israeli high command, despite the continuous insistence of Palestinian factions that they would one day attempt to take the fight into Israel itself, had become complacent. They, like many observers of Israel-Palestine, believed the occupation they had constructed could go on forever, unburdened by the need to adapt. Israeli soldiers after all were now more used to sniping reporters and unarmed protesters than engaging in military conflict. Entropy was what was propelling the military occupation complex of the Jewish state, not a wholly active effort.

Despite an ungodly amount of Western military equipment, highly advanced anti-aircraft systems programmed to shoot down thousands of rockets, an international reputation for tenacity and strategic knowhow, and multiple victories against Arab nations again and again and again, all of it ended up being useless against a Hamas fighter flying in on a box fan and a parachute.

This failure is two-fold, and both are closely related. One is the expectation that things could go on as before without addressing the root of the issue (that being a military occupation of an entire state), and the other in expectation that those being occupied had no capacity to learn from experience how Israel’s military strategy operates, people who could then going on to capitalize on that knowledge.

There is a fundamental flaw in the perception of Western powers toward the Middle East in general and Arabs in particular that because the groups fighting with Israel or the United States are irregular, bereft of highly professional uniforms and dedicated gigantic military headquarters, that they do not have the same ability to strategize and to confront the forces that are occupying their countries. Flashes of how faulty this thinking is rear their head again and again, from Iraq to Afghanistan and everywhere in-between and around, but still the idea, unspoken as it may be, remains that they are fundamentally unequipped compared to the might they are fighting against. But Hamas has military strategists of its own, ones that understand the asymmetric situation they are dealing with, and ones that understand what the actual capabilities of Israel are, versus what their perception is.

The perception of Israel’s invulnerability versus what has actually been displayed today could not have been more different. Instead of being forced to immediately pull back, in essence making today a raid, Hamas has instead actually contested several Israeli settlements, which are still being fought over at time of this writing many hours after the initial incursion from Gaza began. A single Israeli soldier captured and held in Gaza used to capture the Israeli imagination for years; now there are believed to be not only tens of soldiers captured by Hamas, but tens of Israeli civilians as well, all now being held within the Strip. Hamas has also brought Israeli military vehicles back into the Strip, the novelty of working IDF equipment now under Palestinian control a source of celebration within the territory. Over 100 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the first day of Hamas’ attack, and nearly 1000 injured, a shocking early casualty count in an ongoing conflict where casualties on the Palestinians’ side are usually far more lopsided.

Israel’s response so far to Hamas’ operation has been to escalate rhetorically, with Netanyahu now calling this a war, and escalating its usual military strategy with Gaza, with carpet bombing now on an intense, concentrated scale. At the time of this writing, almost 200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in only a few hours, with that number expected to rise significantly in the days to come. Already, news has come in of Israeli planes having leveled Gaza’s second-largest building, the Palestine Tower, which housed a plethora of media offices, in scenes reminiscent of Israel’s bombing of another tower block of media offices in 2021 that infamously took out the local bureau of the Associated Press.

As fighting continues into the night in ways never seen before since 1948, the question remains: after all these decades, why now?

The ostensible justifications of what the clincher was that sparked this operation are innumerable, but two appear to be most clearly illuminated: the recent increased activity of far-right Zionists at the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem (hence the name of the operation itself), but just as well the indications that the Saudi Arabia and Israel may be close to a normalization deal, which would be the largest such development in the Abraham Accords yet. Hezbollah mentioned this operation as being a “message” and a “decisive response” to Arab nations pursuing the idea of normalization with Israel. Still, it is important to recognize that pinning the undertaking of a completely gigantic operation of this scale as just a simple message to Saudi Arabia would be reductive. As the Los Angeles Times’ international correspondent Nabih Bulos says of the matter:

“To pretend that Hamas did this to be a spoiler of KSA-Israel normalization is just downright epic in its navel-gazing nonsense.”

What is important to always return to is that eternally governing line above everything: the low hum of constant occupation, and who has been causing its spikes. Israel’s government, its most far-right in its history, has been on the warpath almost immediately from its inauguration, with figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, now thrust to the forefront, doing everything large and small to provoke a Palestinian response. The hope is that the inevitable Palestinian response can mobilize the Israeli society, that it can be swiftly defeated by the Israeli military, and that the Israeli state can use such an opportunity to impose its sovereignty over what little of Palestine governed by Palestinians remains, and perhaps even what lies beyond it.

But that formula relies on the Palestinian side only accepting being provoked, themselves having no strategy of their own outside of firing rockets and yelling on television. Military occupation breeds a feeling of annihilation, but that annihilation is enclosed with it inevitable feelings of rabid and desperate hope, inspiring within irregular groups desires to try things never tried before. These are not always guaranteed to be successful: one may look at Aleppo when rebel groups managed to come together and break the siege on the city in the final stages of the battle, only for it to fall in the months to come anyway. Nevertheless, there is a real perception within Israel, communicated out to the world by its media and by its intelligentsia, that it is a nation on the verge of internal collapse, brought to the precipice by far-right forces it has let fester for decades without envisioning its eventual conclusion.

What does looking at how Israel is faring now communicate to Palestinian factions in Gaza? What do young people in Gaza, who make up 47% of the Strip’s population, imagine might lie ahead for them as they see these events unfold? What does a Hamas fighter imagine might be possible when, as the writer Josef Burton says, he exits a 25 by 7-mile space he’s never left in his entire life?

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

here's a fun fact: there were 114 jews in sunderland in 2001 (this was the only year i could find census data); the chances that roy billetted with a jewish family are like. vanishingly small. and i don't think he was canonically intended to be jewish but if there's no jews in a story i will add them (add us), and i really do think there's something about the alienation of growing up jewish away from any sort of jewish community that's very resonant with his arc. because he moves hours away from home and then he loses his grandfather — loses the person who was implied to be his primary caregiver, who had things left to teach him and never got the chance: how to ride a bike, but maybe also how to set a seder plate and build a sukkah and taper off caffeine the week before yom kippur once he's old enough. you can't pick up judaism through osmosis, is the thing, not unless you're around other jews. so he grows up five hours away from home and the school holidays, the holidays from football, never line up with his holidays so he doesn't celebrate; starts to forget what he would have been celebrating, or how. but then he comes back to london and phoebe's shit dad fucks off for good, and his sister decides they're going to raise her jewish. and it's fucking awful, having to learn his own culture from books and from his sister, pushing down the resentment that it's ingrained in her the way it isn't — the way it maybe never will be — in him, but he doesn't want phoebe to grow up feeling the way he did. and so he learns.

[magnetothemagnificent]

A cool Dvar Torah I read:

Parshat HaChodesh, the New Moon, and Eclipses!

This Shabbat we read a special section from the Torah called Parshat Hachodesh. It is the story of the Mitzvah of Rosh Chodesh, that we track, observe and celebrate the new moon each and every month. Since the day that G-d commanded Moshe regarding this Mitzvah, two weeks before the grand Exodus from Egyptian slavery, we have kept a close eye on the moon, looking out for that celestial monthly moment of rebirth that G-d showed Moshe that early evening in Egypt. In the Torah, our holidays - Passover, Sukkot, Yom Kippur etc. - are prescribed to happen on a certain day following the new moon: "the fifteenth day after the new moon", "the tenth day after the new moon" and so on. Meaning, that if we wish to celebrate these festivals, we need to keep track of the lunar cycle, even if no one else on Earth gives it a second thought. Along the way, the Jewish people have come to identify with the moon. We can empathize with the moon's ups and downs, so similar to our own history. One moment we're shining bright, the next moment we're so oppressed and persecuted that casual observers have often written us off, predicting our extinction, G-d forbid. And yet the next moment, to their disbelief, we're back, reborn out of the darkness, and growing stronger every day. It's notable that G-d interrupted the flow of events leading up to the Exodus to tell Moshe about Rosh Chodesh. Not only because it seems to be unrelated to what was happening then, but also because by giving that Mitzvah right then, it meant that it would given in Egypt, the darkest spiritual locale in the world. G-d could have waited a couple of weeks until we were out of that spiritual wasteland and told us about Rosh Chodesh in the desert. Why the rush? * Everyone's talking about the eclipse happening Monday afternoon - The Great North American Eclipse. It's a major event that will have millions of people looking up to the Heavens, an event that will not happen again in the USA until 2044. Now, solar eclipses only happen around the new moon. Monday night and Tuesday, Jews will observe Rosh Chodesh. And not just any Rosh Chodesh, but the annual Rosh Chodesh of all Rosh Chodeshes - the first Rosh Chodesh of the year. This means that Monday is the day before rebirth, the day when the moon is at its very lowest, darkest point, the moment that symbolizes the most difficult, challenging times of the Jewish People. And so it turns out that precisely in its smallest, weakest moment, the moon looms largest: it can even eclipse the mighty light of the sun. Is this not our story exactly? Is this not precisely why G-d told this to Moshe in Egypt, in our place of misery and suffering? During the last new moon of our centuries-long sojourn in Egypt, G-d shows Moshe the truth about the miracle of Jewish rebirth and eternity. In the place of our pain, before the redemption, in the midst of the uncertainty, G-d stops everything and tells us to look up at the moon, see our story in the moon's story, and discover in the moon a solid friend, an eternal gentle reminder that it will be okay, that no matter what, Am Yisrael Chai forever. And better yet, as Monday's eclipse shows, our darkest moments are when we shine brightest and loom largest, as we begin the great turnaround, the journey from darkness to light. This Monday will be the 3,336th anniversary of the day G-d showed Moshe the moon. How perfect. During these painful days of antisemitism, the sun, 400 times bigger than the moon, is eclipsed by it. Far from tottering or faltering, the Jewish People are stronger than ever. Precisely when casual observers report us missing, that's when we shine. L'Chaim, brothers and sisters. Our best days lay just ahead. So in the words of the Lecha Dodi which we'll all be singing in just a few hours: "Wake up, wake up! Your light is coming, rise and shine! Time to wake up and say your song, because G-d's glory is revealed upon you."

by Rabbi Eli Friedman, Chabad Calabasas CA

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

In 1979, when President Jimmy Carter famously unveiled 32 solar panels on the White House roof, he remarked, “A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.”

Despite his reputation as an often ineffective president, he had an enormous effect on the environment as an advocate for clean energy, protecting lands and regulating toxic chemicals.

Jimmy Carter was an early adopter of clean energy in an effort to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil following the oil crisis that preceded his presidency. Four years before Carter took office, the member nations of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an oil embargo on the U.S. and several other western nations in response to their support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. As a result, the price of oil rose by more than 300%, while American dependence on foreign oil was simultaneously rising. 

After Carter took office, he responded by creating the U.S. Department of Energy. One of Carter’s major goals for the agency was to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels by pushing for the domestic production of energy. While this push wasn’t perfect — part of his solution for the complex crisis included propping up domestic coal power — it was also a first-of-its-kind endorsement for clean energy, championing sustainable sources like solar and nuclear. “No one can embargo the sun,” Carter once said. “No cartel controls the sun. Its energy will not run out. It will not pollute our air or poison our waters. The sun’s power needs only to be collected, stored and used.”

In 1979, a second oil crisis hit, this time spurred by the decline in oil trade in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Carter responded by laying out plans to expand renewable energy sources and made a pledge that 20% of American energy would be produced by renewable sources by 2000, but was voted out of office before many of these plans could come to fruition. 

Carter also protected far more land than any U.S. president in history. In 1978, he advocated for the National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA,) which aimed to protect vast amounts of Alaskan wilderness from commercial use and destruction. After the bill failed due to a last-minute filibuster, Carter used executive authority to protect more than 56 million acres of Alaskan wilderness, designating those lands as National Monuments. This action alone would more than double the size of the National Park system.

In December of 1980, roughly six weeks before Carter left office, ANILCA was debated again in Congress, and passed. Upon Carter’s signature, the law became the most expansive federal protection of American lands in history, granting protection to more than 157 million acres of Alaskan wilderness, which included further protections for much of the land Carter had protected two years prior. Of those 157 million acres, it also designated nearly ten million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System, more than nine million acres to the Wilderness Preservation System, and more than three million acres to the National Forest System.

[tinglingfuckingsensation]

Rosie's Big Send-Off

Hello @blood-suits-and-tears, merry hbowar christmas to you! I was inspired by your reunion prompt, your fanart of the boys and your love for Rosie, Kenny and Brady especially. Rosie's such a great character, and his love for music inspired me to make a playlist (some background information for the songs I chose is in the tags). And because he also was an amazing person in real life, and I'm so impressed that he actually took part in the Nuremberg trials, I wrote a little fic tied with the playlist, about the guys organizing a sendoff party for him. I hope you enjoy it✨The fic itself is under the cut!

Rosie

The letter comes late October. Rosie's been waiting for it, feeling like he's been sitting on hot coals. He rips the thick envelope open in the stairway, unable to wait until he's back upstairs in his small apartment.

There's a whole slew of documents, forms and pamphlets, but the most important information is right on the first page. On the 5th of January 1946, he's supposed to be back on German soil, to assist in the upcoming Nuremberg trials.

There's a ticket for the ship taking him to Europe, departure date the 15th of December. He'll miss all of the end of year festivities then, but he'd expected as much. Rosh Hashanah had consequently been filled with as many gatherings and family dinners as possible, his mother set on making the most of the time he spent at home.

It had been good to see everyone again, but he could admit he was glad it was over and he could return to the privacy of his Brooklyn apartment. Return to his work. There was so much to be done, and be done well, and Rosie looked forward to the chance to prove himself.

Rosie hums a tune as he takes the rickety stairs up to his apartment on the top floor, two steps at a time. He's been working towards this for months, has been preparing extensive reviews and depositions along with the other assistants to the prosecutor. He was ready. He feels the same swoop in his stomach as he did getting into a B-17, thrumming with adrenaline and ready to do what was asked of him.

With a hum and a twirl he allows himself because nobody's watching, he moves to his record player. He pulls out the Artie Shaw recording Pappy and the other guys from his crew had gotten him for his birthday back in June.

The first person he calls is his mother. She had been both anxious and proud when he had told her about his plans, and she had doted on him even more than usual while he was visiting. He had caught her, more than once, staring at him with shining eyes, and when he'd finally left, once Yom Kippur had passed, she had hugged him so tight his ribs had creaked.

She cries on the phone, as expected, then hands him over to his father, and then his sister, and it takes an hour until he can hang up the phone.

He calls Harry next. They've been keeping in touch, at least a phone call every week, and Rosie's been down to visit to meet Jean and their newborn son. Harry's as excited as Rosie thought he'd be, starts talking a mile a minute.

"Rosie, that's great! I knew they'd ask you to go, they know there's no one better to get these sons of bitches. It's a shame you're missing the holidays though!" He pauses for a moment, but before Rosie can say anything, he continues.

"We should get together before you leave, who knows how long you'll be gone. Maybe ask some of the other guys too, while we're at it, what do you think?"

"That sounds fantastic, Harry, but I'm not sure I have the time to set that up before I go."

"Oh, no, leave it to me, I think I already have an idea. You just tell me a date that works for you, and I'll take care of the rest."

Rosie laughs, and agrees. It would be good to see some of the other guys from the 100th again. They've all been keeping in touch through letters and the telephone, but apart from Harry, Rosie's only seen John Brady again, who lives in upstate New York.

Rosie dials Kenny's number next, hopes he's fast enough before Harry catches him. While he's getting put through, he swaps out the record for Duke Ellington and flops down into his armchair for his chat with Kenny.

Kenny's slow Arkansas drawl is as pronounced as it ever was over the phone, and fondness wells up inside Rosie at the honest joy in Kenny's voice when he tells him the news.

"No way! I can't believe you're going back so soon. And by ship, too. You don't think they'd let you fly a plane over there? Would be a lot faster than the ship, I'll tell you that."

"At least it's a cruise line and not one of the crew ships." Rosie laughs. Kenny had told him and the other pilots all about the cramped quarters on the ships bringing the ground crews and other personnel to England.

"Yeah, pays off to be a fancy lawyer and all I guess" Kenny teases, and Rosie can't contain his smile as he rebuffs it with a mild "hey now".

They talk for the better part of an hour, until Ken gets called for lunch by his mother.

"Harry's gonna call you later, I think." Rosie says before they hang up. Ella Fitzgerald has gone quiet on his record player, and he feels his stomach grumble. On a whim, he decides to go out for lunch. It's too fine a day to spend it inside, so he slips on his coat and makes his way back out the door.

For late October, it's unusually warm, and he makes his way through the park to get to his favorite lunch spot, a small Italian restaurant just off the main street. He passes a group of buskers playing at the exit of the park, and he decides to stay a while, finds a bench to sit and listen for a spell.

He leans his head back and looks up at the blue sky as he listens to the music drift by. The band has a saxophone player, and Rosie's reminded of John Brady again.

It's a friendship Rosie hadn't expected. He had not gotten to know Brady very well back in England before he went down over Germany. It had been Harry who had told Rosie that Brady was going to see shows in New York City from time to time. Harry had told him, at length, what a talented saxophone player Brady was, and how surely he and Rosie would get along like a house on fire considering their shared interest in music.

"You know I won't be able to make it to Minton's for a while yet, so I know you're in need of a jazz buddy. Go meet him for one of the shows he goes to, I'll call to give him a heads up."

The venue had been small, when Rosie finally went, but the music was fantastic. John Brady had kept up a running commentary on each musician, music instrument and patron, and Rosie had to stifle his laughter in his hand more than once at Brady's astute observations.

By the end, after the fifth encore, the concert had turned into an impromptu jam session, the musicians riffing off of each other and pushing each further and further. Rosie and Brady had both danced and laughed more than they had for ages before.

The next time Brady was in town, he called Rosie up beforehand to tell him to come along, and it became a habit after that. They often had drinks together until late into the night, relishing the opportunity to talk to someone who understood, without many words, what they had seen and what they brought back.

The buskers take a break, and Rosie's pulled back into the present. His stomach growls, so he rummages for some quarters in his pockets to drop them into the hat the singer is walking around with, and he thanks him with a smile and a nod.

As he walks away towards the restaurant, the saxophonist picks up another tune, and Rosie has to pull himself together to not break out into a little dance. Life is good today.

Kenny

Being back home on the farm still feels surreal sometimes. Kenny still wakes up at the ass crack of dawn, woken by the unshakeable feeling that lives would be lost if he didn't get up right now, get to work on the planes, get them ready for the day's mission.

He doesn't always manage to go back to sleep, too often caught up in the memories of waiting, waiting for crews and planes that would maybe never return.

It's a good thing there's always work to be done on the farm - chicken to feed, fences to mend or machines to repair, and the work helps to return back to the present, focus on his hands instead of getting lost inside his own head.

It also helps that he's been staying in touch with the guys, at least a phone call a week. He hears from Bucky, Harry and Rosie the most, but he has a letter from Crank waiting for his answer and a postcard from Jack, sunburnt at the Grand Canyon, hanging on the fridge.

Rosie's sent him some music recommendations too, and although Kenny's not much for Jazz usually, he can admit that the slow tones of Baby Face Willette's music can be soothing when he's too wound up.

His mother fusses over him like she always has, and he knows his father checks in on him each night after he goes to bed, knows he sometimes lingers at the door if he thinks Kenny's sleeping. It's good to be back home, he thinks, but he still misses the guys.

He sometimes marvels at how despite all the bad things that happened, the war has left him with friends he would never have met otherwise.

And to think, he marvels as he hangs up the phone after Rosie's call, he even knows one of the lawyers who'll bring Germany's highest remaining Generals to justice.

It doesn't take an hour until the phone rings again. It's Harry, of course.

"You heard?" He says as a greeting, and Kenny confirms with a hum, unable to suppress a grin. They both know Harry already has a whole plan formed, and Kenny considers getting a pen and a piece of paper to take notes when Harry launches into telling him what he's thinking of.

The plan doesn't sound half bad, Kenny has to admit. A reunion party for the 100th in the beginning of December, combined with a send-off for Rosie. Only, and Kenny feels almost bad to bring it up, they don't have a venue, and the whole thing's just over a month away.

"You have a point of course, but you're in luck. I just happen to know a highly decorated Air Corps Major who loves a good party and knows some people in high places. And more importantly, I know a charming young aircraft mechanic who happens to be his favorite."

It takes a moment to sink in, and then Kenny groans.

"That's your plan? You're making me call John Egan and hope he'll get us a place to set up the reunion? You sure your fatherly hormones haven't cooked your brain?"

"It's worth a try, at least."

"And you want me to call him?"

"Come on now, I know you two talk all the time. You know more air force gossip than half of the intelligence officers."

"Yeah, but that's just because Bucky's responsible for most of it", Kenny snorts.

"So you'll talk to him? I'll call Brady in the meantime, ask if he'll sort out the music for us."

"And all the other guys, make sure they'll come, right?"

"You bet. Tell Bucky to call Buck though, I'm sure they're on the phone with each other every day anyway. And call your boys too, give them the heads up."

John Brady

"Johnny, it's for you! Harry again", Johnny's mother calls from downstairs. Johnny lowers the saxophone from where he had just lifted it from his case, and makes his way downstairs.

His mother's hair is slowly turning gray, he notices. Mrs. Brady has always been a force of nature, her brown hair always bound back tightly, but the war had left unmistakable traces on her. She squeezes his shoulder when she hands over the phone and retreats to the kitchen, her steps slow and careful.

"Harry, what a surprise. I was expecting your call next week at the earliest. You miss me?"

"You know I do, Captain." Harry says warmly, and Johnny's lips curve into a little smile. Harry's not been his navigator for years now, in fact outranks him now, but he figures some habits were hard to kick.

"I've got a mission for you, Johnny, if you're willing. Listen, I'm not sure if Rosie told you already, but…"

"It's a little short notice, Harry, but I'll see what I can do", Johnny promises once Harry's explained everything. "I'll call Waterbury, see if we can get the Century Bombers together. I've missed playing with them, and I hear they made quite the name for themselves."

"I knew I could count on you. Listen, Lewis says to make sure you play some Artie Shaw, at least the Chant. I think it has some kind of special meaning to their crew. You think you could make that work?"

"I'll give it a try, at least." Johnny says.

After the call finishes, he returns to his saxophone. Before the war, music had been his whole life, and he'd always dreamed of becoming a bigshot musician one day, play in a big band and eventually as a solo artist. Now, he can't fathom the thought of travelling across the country, sleeping in a new bed each night, or in cramped tour buses.

No, he's glad to be home, and although he's not quite sure what he'll do with his life quite yet, he knows these dreams would remain firmly in the past. It'll be good to get together with the guys again, and play together, too.

He picks up the saxophone. Back in Stalag Luft, there had been some old instruments, and if he's being honest, it's probably what got him through. He remembers playing for the guys, his fingers frozen stiff, to take their minds off the letters that hadn't arrived for weeks, the news from outside that were so hard to get by, and the hunger that was a constant companion.

The movement of his fingers is familiar as they wander across the brass keys, and his mind clears as he focuses on his breathing. It's a song he's played a hundred times, back when he was playing in one of Bunny Berigan's bands from time to time. He had transcribed it from memory, back in the camp, to teach it to the others, had worked out the entire arrangement so it made sense with the instruments available to them.

There had been little else to do, for months sometimes, and he used to fill the long hours with trying to arrange more songs to play, let the other guys in his hut suggest songs. He pretended not to notice the way Bucky's eyes shone when he first played Blue Skies.

Hambone had requested Idaho from him, and they had howled with laughter at his attempts to sing the melody so Johnny could try and figure it out on the saxophone, and for an entire evening, they had not managed one decent note between them. They had figured it out finally, and Johnny transitions smoothly into the song and remembers Hambone told him it reminded him of home.

Rosie

The first thing Rosie hears is when he steps into the hotel lobby are the notes of Duke Ellington's G.I. Jive playing. He raises an eyebrow at Harry and Kenny, who came to pick him up at his apartment, and they answer with matching grins of excitement.

"I can't believe you pulled this off" Rosie says as he looks around the lobby. It's not the Ritz, but it's not shabby either, the understated but elegant decor speaking of a clientele used to luxury.

Before he can continue, John Egan steps into the Lobby. "There he is" he bellows, "man of the hour!", and he claps Rosie on the back.

"It's Bucky who got the location for us" Kenny says. "But he won't tell me how he did it."

Bucky laughs uproariously.

"Just because you'll tattle to Buck, and then I'll never hear the end of it."

"We won't tell him a thing, cross my heart" Kenny says and looks pleadingly at Bucky, who pretends for a moment longer and then folds with a put-upon sigh.

"Oh well, if you insist…" he leans closer, conspiratorially.

"So, there's this Colonel at my base, we go out for drinks sometimes. Family's loaded, owns a few hotels. Great leader, mediocre pilot but wouldn't admit to it. I dared him to buzz the tower on our next maneuver, see who could get closer. Wanted to do that one for ages. He didn't even get close."

"You didn't get into trouble?"

"We were the two highest ranking officers at the maneuver, Kenny. Anyway, I told the guys it's a learning opportunity. I'm sure they're still trying to figure out what they learned, but hey, it got us this place."

"And why can't we tell Buck? He would have done the same."

"Can't tell him I stole his move, can I?" Bucky laughs and they roll their eyes at him.

"Ready, fellas?" Bucky asks then, and before Rosie can ask, Kenny and Harry take him by the elbows.

"Eyes closed, Rosie, it's a surprise."

Rosie dutifully closes his eyes and lets himself be led into the hotel's ballroom. As they step through the door, Glenn Miller's in the mood starts playing, and Rosie can feel a smile breaking out on his face.

"Surprise!"

When Rosie opens his eyes, he can't help breaking out into a laugh. The whole room is decorated like the bar back at base in Thorpe Abbots, decals of planes on each wall, and a large one on the wall behind where the band is playing.

There's a banner hung a little lopsidedly, reading "Stick it to them" in large letters. Most importantly, however, everyone, including the women present, are wearing fake mustaches. When Rosie turns to the side, he sees Harry, Kenny and Bucky have put on some, too.

He doubles over, has to steady himself on his own knees so he won't fall over laughing, and he can hear the others join him.

"Welcome to your big send-off, Rosie" Harry finally says once they've quieted down a little. "We're all rooting for you."

"Yeah, get these sons-of-bitches, Rosie!", someone calls out, and then Pappy comes up to wrap him in a hug. It breaks the spell, and the guys all rush in, laughing and shouting over each other, while the band keeps playing.

The End

Tracklist: The Chant - Artie Shaw I Let a Song Go Out Of My Heart - Duke Ellington Sometimes I'm Happy - Al Casey Sextet Sing, Sing, Sing - Benny Goodman At Last - Baby Face Willette I Can't Get Started - Bunny Berigan Blue Skies - Ella Fitzgerald Idaho - Alvino Ray G.I. Jive - Duke Ellington In the Mood - Glenn Miller

[keshetchai]

I think a huge problem in internet Judaism (also sometimes irl!) discussions is often that we're so focused on fighting or pushing back on misconceptions, Christian normativity, and distorted Christian ideas about our theology — that sometimes in the pursuit of this, we forget to approach a more complicated internal reality, or we overlook parts of our own religion while trying to not assimilate.

Things like the Talmud talking about Yom Kippur being a happy day. A lot of folks were surprised and didn't know there's a huge tradition that YK is supposed to be a positive holiday and many Jews observe with joy. Then some folks went on to elaborate that if someone wished them a happy Yom Kippur and they were Jewish it was fine, but if they were gentiles who simply didn't know anything and didn't bother to learn, then they were annoyed by the lack of care re: cultural nuance or whatever.

But like...of all the annoying christian-normative bullshit that exists — someone trying to wish me a happy holiday on a holiday that is noted to be solemn AND positive, but not really knowing anything about my religion — that doesn't really make a list of things I have time to be mad about! Or even irked by!

There's a lot of ways in which people are shitty and careless or make it obvious they consider our non-christian holidays an annoying quirk they have to acknowledge, but "happy yom kippur!" Is not one of them. Sometimes I just have to remind myself that I want other people to assume the best of me, even when I am the one who is socially awkward or ignorant, or stumbling around just trying to be an okay person. And sometimes I am the clueless one who has only a shallow understanding of someone's interior life/culture and I said/did nothing actually offensive but treated the situation the same way I treat similar ones in my own life because everyone has cultural blinders somewhere.

So sometimes, I have to look at other people doing The Thing and ask myself if it's at all malicious or harmful, and if it ISN'T, shouldn't I assume the best of another human bumbling around like I do all the time? "Hey thanks. Yeah I had a meaningful holiday."

Likewise, YES, we do have a history of wrestling with G-d and pushing back and asking questions and so on, but no, stiff-necked isn't wholly complimentary, it's...frequently the opposite of that. And the knee-jerk reaction is often to push back against Christianity and Islam vilifying Jews and their stubbornness/failures/wrongs in the Bible. Which is totally reasonable, there's a huge history of a theology of antisemitism and blaming there that impacts us today.

HOWEVER, we can push back against the antisemitic theologies and interpretations of these stories without necessarily having to recharacterize everything beyond recognition?

Yes, Abraham yelled at G-d that one time, and it was great. It may have even been a test of Abraham. Yes, Israel wrestles with G-d. Yes, the Jews in the desert complain to Moses they are dying of thirst and ask what was the point of leaving Egypt if they should only die while wandering instead?

Great. Love that. BUT ALSO: yes stiff-necked is not always a compliment. Yes, the Israelites struggled and made mistakes, and are utterly and painfully human just like people are today. Flawed. We are not so stiff-necked as to say we have not sinned!

Is anything as scary as a group that admits no flaws? No errors of judgment? Never questions themselves or learns from past mistakes? Idk to me, it's all very "with great responsibility comes great accountability, and power isn't the point here." Yes? If we take pride in the moments of arguing and the pushing back, then by that same token, we have to own the failings just as much to learn from. The relationship between G-d and Jews is a two way street.

It's not a failing to be an imperfect human, but it would be a failing to screw something up and then never admit it or keep doing it when you can change.

Idk I just...there's got to be ways we can dig into meaty and interesting stuff without having to constantly be like "just because some ancestors screwed up and G-d was angry at them doesn't mean you can say Jews lost the love of God and the covenant and were replaced you absolute weirdos."

[botaniqueer]

Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah are coming up and I have a lot of intense feelings about it wrt western imperialism and the people of my own ethnic background supporting.

I think I’m going to sunset the Magen David and stop using it for good and for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, I am renewing my anti-capitalist principles and swearing service to colonized peoples everywhere, and these things will be like mental teffilin to me.

Indigenous folks here stopped using the whirling logs after the Nazis used it for the swastika, so I figure it’s my turn to give up a symbol. We also have a lot of symbology to draw from so we can just keep making more, but I think the star is spent.

[storravoid]

Hey yall. With Yom Kippur coming up, I just wanted to get on here and make a quick reminder. You are required to eat or drink if fasting makes you sick.

If you know already that fasting makes you sick but you still want to try, it's permitted to eat 1.5 fl oz of food every 9 minutes and one cheek full of water every 7 minutes.

Also, if it is your first fast, take breaks. Don't jump straight into a 25 hour fast. This isn't supposed to be an absolutely miserable experience. Take breaks, work yourself up to it, learn what you body can or can't take.

Above all else, stay safe. You are required to break your fast if it would put you in danger.

That said, have a meaningful Yom Kippur, everyone.

[phoebe-delia]

can you tell us more about your Jewish Harry hc? Was Lily Jewish? Was James Jewish? Did he convert? I just wanna hear more 🥺 🤲🏽

Hi!! Sure, I'd love to! Thank you for asking. I'm not sure I've gotten this question before so please excuse the long rant this is about to be lol.

CW: mention of canon child abuse, mention of food-related trauma

I want to say, before I begin, that this is all based on my personal experience with Judaism and is my personal headcanon for a Jewish Harry.

In my headcanon, both Lily and James were Jewish. I think Petunia converted to Christianity for Vernon, and she didn't care about Harry knowing anything about his parents' faith. So Harry had no idea he was Jewish until he got to Hogwarts and someone told him and he was like, "Wait, really?"

Still, I think he doesn't really explore his Judaism while he's at Hogwarts. Hermione is Jewish, and she tells him she'd be happy to answer any questions he has about it, but IMO he doesn't really think about it. He celebrates Christmas with the Weasleys every year at Hogwarts and will do so for the rest of his life. I think he's too caught up in Voldemort and trying not to die.

But after Hogwarts, Harry finally has time to learn more about his family, including their faith. He asks Hermione for help, and she's so happy to teach him things; major holidays, traditions, culture, etc.

Harry ends up living in Grimmauld Place after the war. He goes through some boxes and finds an old menorah and a book full of his parents' handwritten recipes for things like challah, rugelach, latkes, matzo ball soup and so much more. He calls Hermione and she comes over once a week and they cook together.

She teaches him about Shabbat (the prayers, the candles, etc). Harry actually likes it and he celebrates Shabbat every Friday night with candles and challah.

Hermione also takes him to her synagogue for the High Holidays (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur—the Jewish New Year and day of atonement respectively). Harry appreciates it, but he doesn't go back after that. He wants to explore the faith on his own.

(I also think he doesn't fast on Yom Kippur; I imagine that would be really triggering for him since he barely got to eat as a kid).

Draco is really supportive, too, when they get together. He doesn't know much about Judaism, but he loves learning from Harry. They end up celebrating both Hanukkah and Christmas every year.

That's pretty much it! Thank you so much again for asking, this was fun!!

[eretzyisrael]

by Daniel Greenfield

The gates of Gaza never became lighter except when Israel won its wars. When Samson stayed strong, he prevailed, but when he allowed himself to be seduced, he lost his sight and his strength, and then in the extremity of his despair, he fought and died heroically.

In every generation the gates of Gaza would grow heavy. As they eventually would for Dayan whose tenure as Defense Minister ended when Golda Meir’s government gave in to diplomacy and political pressure from Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and failed to strike first.

The resulting Yom Kippur War nearly destroyed Israel and began the end of the Labor Party.

But the gates of Gaza also grew heavy on the Netanyahu government and his predecessors, prime ministers Bennett and Lapid, who focused once again on international diplomacy and building an international coalition against Iran through the Abraham Accords to pay attention.

Hamas appeared to have kept its word for two years and Israel was once again blinded and forgot, as Dayan said that, “our children shall not have lives to live if we do not dig shelters; and without the barbed wire fence and the machine gun, we shall not pave a path nor drill for water.”

Israeli leftists, convinced that the Islamic Jihadists would settle for the West Bank and Gaza, the territory beyond the ‘Green Line’, despised those Jews who lived there as ‘settlers’, messianic fanatics who were keeping up a state of war and destroying any hope for a peaceful solution. And the Israeli right, Sharon and Netanyahu, came to believe that walls were the answer. Barak had pulled out of Lebanon and Sharon out of Gaza, ceding them to Hezbollah and Hamas, but Netanyahu focused on Iran and domestic economics, convinced that walls were enough.

The Simchat Torah massacres showed that walls were not enough unless they were vigilantly manned by men who truly understood, as Dayan said, that, “beyond the furrow that marks the border, lies a surging sea of hatred and vengeance, yearning for the day that the tranquility blunts our alertness, for the day that we heed the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, who call for us to lay down our arms.”

On October 7 that day came and so did the killers yearning to “tear us to pieces”.

Samson could carry the gates of Gaza, but what undid his strength was the need to believe that the people he had been fighting for so long were just like him and could become his friends and lovers. Before Samson’s eyes, like those of Roi Rotberg, were gouged out, he had lost his moral vision.

To live with the starkness of the vision that Dayan laid out 67 years ago at a dusty gravesite near Gaza is too much for most normal people. Samson could not do it and neither could any Israeli leader, from Ben Gurion, who had to step in when Sharett failed, and to Sharon, who had led the 50s retaliation raids against Muslim villages, and to Netanyahu, who wanted to focus on geopolitics rather than the dirty realities that lay before him in Gaza and the West Bank.

It is easier for most to believe that some compromise must be possible, to turn over Gaza and the West Bank, to develop joint economic projects, to meet together as individuals, as one of the abducted women, a peace activist, had tried to do, to deny a reality too horrific to be real.

[incomingalbatross]

Gravity Falls, the first year after canon:

Kids start school basically as soon as they get home. Wendy and Co. go back into high school. Dipper starts boxing lessons at a local gym.

Stan and Ford get the Stan O' War II operational around the end of September, making a detour to sail south and see the kids before heading to the Arctic. Meet the Pines parents! (I really wanted them there for Thanksgiving, but I couldn't justify delaying their voyage by a whole three months. And end of September situates their sailing right after Yom Kippur, which from my limited understanding seems nicely symbolic.)

The kids + parents spend Thanksgiving with their dad's side of the family. May involve a belated realization that no one told Grandpa Shermie he has two brothers again. Oops? Situation is rectified.

Through the Magic of Christmas and a fortuitous run-in with Santa, Stan and Ford unexpectedly get to go home for Christmas! They even get to visit Piedmont and (with the kids) Gravity Falls before they zip back to their boat. Lots of reunions. This is also when Soos and Melody announce they've just gotten engaged. :)

Spring is less eventful in terms of California-Oregon-Arctic traffic.

The second school lets out, the younger twins are racing the older ones to Oregon. It's a photo finish probably. Everyone crowds into the Shack, which is fuller with Soos and Abuelita there, but it's also full of secret rooms and a floorplan that makes no sense, so it's fine.

Stan and Ford's birthday is on June 15!! It is a Very Big Deal. Dipper and Mabel go all out on the party planning, though they keep it mostly confined to the Shack crew.

Somewhere in here (maybe at the start? maybe in the middle?) Dipper and Mabel's parents come up for a couple weeks of vacation. It's a little disorienting for everyone, but they learn to love the town and Mabel and Dipper love getting to share it with them.

Soos and Melody get married on July 13 - Melody is making a Statement with that choice of date, which Soos understands and is overjoyed by. Half the town is at the wedding and all of it is at the reception (even though anyone not on the limited guest list has to pay admission. Stan is weeping with pride).

McGucket uses his new wealth to throw a ludicrously wild and extravagant shindig for the town on the date of the traditional Northwest party.

Despite the reach of NMAT, everyone feels unsettled on the anniversary of Weirdmageddon. People end up congregating in the town square in the evening. Wendy and her gang start a bonfire, people start bringing out food, and suddenly people are singing apocalypse folk songs? Trading stories? It's a whole thing in the end, but it helps people make something fun out of their memories.

The summer ends on a better note for the whole town, though, with a blow-out party to celebrate Mabel and Dipper's fourteenth birthday. This year their parents come up to give them company on the trip home, so they get to be there for the party too!

[blueshistorysims]

Late August 1937, Henford-on-Bagley, England

When they returned from India at the end of August, everything went right back to routine; Byron in his library, the children playing, and everything else that happened at Walshstone Park. 

Eleora was pleased to see a letter from Albert, who’d also taken his children to India that July. His wife Odette had been unable to come, too heavily pregnant with their third. She had been counting down the days to hear from her brother’s family with the news of another niece/nephew. 

Her brother and sister-in-law had another son, a little boy named Samuel. His brother Victor, who was now in school, was very pleased with a brother while their older sister Marie-Louise had wanted a sister. 

Along with the news, Albert had sent an invitation for the family to come for Yom Kippur, eager to show his nephew and niece their new townhouse in Paris, as well as to meet little Samuel. 

“Byron?” Eleora asked, entering the library when she finished reading the letter.

He looked up from his book. “Hmm?” 

“Albert sent a letter. They had a boy, named him Samuel.”

“I bet Odette is quite tired of all of her children looking like Albert.”

She chuckled. “He’s also invited us to spend Yom Kippur at their new house in Paris. I know it would mean the children would miss school, but they’ve never been to Paris before, and I want to meet my nephew.”

Byron nodded. “I have no objections.” He stood up. “I must be in London tomorrow.”

“But we just returned!”

“But I am one of the few people in the Foreign Office that reads and speaks Japanese. We’re to discuss what’s happening in ShangHai with the Japanese ambassador.”

“Is it as bad as they say?”

He pursed his lips. “Yes, but I cannot say more. …Ever since the military fanatics took over the Japanese government… I don’t know what will happen in the Far East.”

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