#you can't decide you aren't antisemitic and if a jew calls you antisemitic

[whitesunlars]

coming in hot with my first take on antisemitism in a while after trying to limit my time on this cesspit of jew hatred: being an ally is not something you can identify as, it is something that you become through actions and are deemed so by the minority you are allying with. 99% of you who identify as an ally of the jewish people are actually raging antisemites. if we are scared of you (we are) you are not an ally, not matter how much you identify as one.

[germiyahu]

This phenomenon of so called Leftists throwing up their hands at the tiniest pushback, or criticism, or suggestions on how to not actively be antisemitic needs to be studied. Because what do you mean instead of just accepting that an antisemitic troll claiming to be on your side said "Zionist Occupied Government" and denouncing this and moving on with your life... you double down, defend, and deflect. It's classic DARVO, but like, when people are very patiently and slowly explaining how this is a literal KKK Nazi white supremacist fascist phrase, it's not enough? You don't care?

It's clear that the "pro Palestinian" left have been fully infiltrated by fascists, both Western fascists who have always been nakedly antisemitic and are finding the perfect avenue to mainstream their Jew hatred... and Islamist fascists who simply never cared that Jews are a global minority group that has faced oppression and violence in multiple different continents, they don't care about social justice or fundamental human rights. It's not part of their intellectual tradition.

The "pro" Palestine movement has been captured by people who have decided that a) Palestine is emblematic of all of the problems of the world, and that b) every Jew is worth sacrificing to correct these problems, because c) if Palestine is emblematic, aren't Zionists responsible for everything then?

Now the prevailing thought is that someone should be able to call for violence against Jews, someone should be able to harass or even assault Jewish Americans, because bringing it up, complaining, taking a stand, that's the equivalent of telling them you like children blowing up, you like hundreds of thousands of people being homeless and food insecure, you like prisoners being detained in Guantanamo conditions without due process, where anyone can torture them as revenge even if there's no proof they're an actual Hamas member.

Is there a reason they argue like Republican Fox News addicts? I guess that kind of explains how easily the "movement" is falling apart to literal fascists.

They say "nobody cares about your hurt feelings ZIONIST!" if you mention literal stabbings and firebombs. They say "but we should talk about how pervasively synagogues indoctrinate the vast majority of Jewish people with Zionist ideology." They roll their eyes because "don't you know Palestinians are suffering 200x what these cushy American Jews could even imagine?" Facts don't care about your feelings uwu~

But at the end of the day, they care a lot about their own feelings, much more so than the facts. They feel entitled to hate all Jews all over the planet, to secretly revel in antisemitic rhetoric and acts, to want to take out their impotent frustration and despair on any and all Jews they'd like. This is very much about their feelings and not any Jewish people's feelings.

They've been waiting for this, or many of them never cared at all. Now it's finally Leftist to quote Nazis and openly make fun of Jews who are getting stabbed. Now it's finally Leftist to call for incinerating all of Israel and maybe we should consider a lot of Diaspora Jews too, you know they can't be trusted! Oh but don't forget to honor the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, innocent civilians should never have been targeted by America's vicious imperial violence!

The fact that it took this substantial contingent of watermelon twitter less than a year to go full mask off like this... is that revealing or troubling?

[gay-otlc]

A popular sex ed blog has decided trans men & mascs aren't allowed to use our own words to describe our own oppression, and seems to be deleting replies and asks that say otherwise, so I've decided to take my ramble over to main.

Regarding TMA/TME language, they've brought up a couple of times how "exempt" means "set apart" rather than "never experiences transmisogyny ever," and how words can have multiple definitions (this post). So it's best to hear people out before jumping to bad-faith interpretations of their words.

However, they also say, "misandry is a term for the 'oppression of men based on gender'" (this post) as a reason why "transmisandry" can never be used.

That is one definition of misandry, yes, but as they pointed out, words can have multiple definitions! Regarding the oppression against trans men & mascs, misandry is generally used to mean the literal "hatred of men," and people in these discussions don't believe that misandry is an axis of systemic oppression (which has been stated over and over).

Yes, it has negative connotations, which is why people more often use transandrophobia or anti-transmasculinity instead. (This poll shows more specifically which terms are most preferred.) But that doesn't mean people who use the term transmisandry are MRAs or believe in the MRA concept of misandry.

Transmisandry is not claiming a combination of systemic transphobia and "systemic misandry," but hatred against trans men & mascs for being trans men/masc. Again, many people prefer other terms that leave less room for that misinterpretation, but people who do use the term transmisandry aren't responsible for others repeatedly ignoring their actual explanations of the term.

In general, arguing over the words rather than the concepts is a very common way to silence people who are trying to talk about their oppression. Jews talking about antisemitism get dismissed because "You're not Semitic, you're from Poland." Aromantic and asexual people get dismissed because "Aphobia literally means 'fear of nothing,' that's a stupid term." And trans men & mascs get told "You can't use that word to talk about your oppression, it's problematic." (Time and time again, and every time we pick a new word, that one gets called problematic too; it's almost like the problem was never really the word?) The words get picked apart but people don't listen to what we're actually saying, the ways we're suffering.

In their own words, from this post: "Do you have to like the language? No. Do you have to respect the way and language oppressed people have chosen to speak about their oppression? Yes. Yes, you do."

Trans men & mascs shouldn't be an exception to your respect.

[mieczyhale]

if you actually cared about palestinians, if you actually wanted to help people in gaza, you would donate to accredited organizations that are actually making a difference

throwing your money at every gofundme you get sent is performative, it's ignorant, it's a real 'head empty' move. something a child with no internet knowledge or common sense would do.

and to continue to defend doing that just shows that you don't actually care about helping people in gaza. you just don't want to be wrong. you don't want to admit that maybe you've been wasting your own money and the money of those who follow you and follow the links you share

you can't vet gofundme's. 'reverse image search' isn't actually vetting. and you can't trust every person on tumblr who says 'trust me!'

i can't believe any of this actually has to be pointed out in the first place, let alone driven home repeatedly because y'all refuse to even CONSIDER you JUST MIGHT be wrong. that you just might have fallen for propaganda and lies designed to hit your desire to do right, do good, and help (falling for those things btw is common. it's easy. you're not bad for getting caught up in it, but i am judging you if you refuse to consider that might be where you are.) (this actually applies to gofundme scams AND whatever heinous antisemitic alternate universe you're living in due to the non-facts you eat for every meal)

i'm not a zionist

i can't be. i'm not jewish.

but i am pro-peace, pro-two state solution, pro jewish self determination, pro palestine's continued existence, anti-ANYONE dying, and beyond fucking tired of y'all's bullshit

stop being fucking stupid

stop throwing your money in the trash

stop acting like your hate isn't hate

stop acting like you're on some fucking high horse and you have all the facts despite actually knowing absolutely fucking nothing because you refuse to listen to a single real non-token jew. you're antisemitic. i don't care that you don't think you are. you are. so many of you just are. and you don't get to decide you're not. just like a racist doesn't get to decide they aren't racist. if people in a group are calling you something there just might be a fucking reason for it, kathy

re-learn your internet safety, turn your brain back on, hop off the hate bandwagon, educate yourself beyond surface level shit the internet presents you with, make informed decisions based on facts, do things that will ACTUALLY help people in gaza.

be fucking better. do fucking better.

[transmascpetewentz]

hey so. can we all agree to stop saying "asperger's syndrome".

the arguments have been made already for why the term is offensive to autistic people as a general whole, so i'm not going to repeat them here. what i want to focus on is the less talked about issue with the fact that we as a community still use this word.

there is literally no excuse for any person, but especially jewish & romani people, to have their medical condition named after a fucking nazi who tried to genocide their ancestors. ZERO.

and before i get a ton of people in the replies trying to make excuses, let me pre-emptively answer the most common replies i know i'm going to get.

"ohhhh no but it's sooooo hard for me to switch my language, it's only been ten years since the dsm five came out!!!!!"

boo hoo, it's hard for you to use a different word after over ten years of the dsm five removing asperger's as a diagnosis. it must be soooo much more difficult to give a single shit about jews and roma than the experiences of jews and roma who went through a genocide and are still facing violence to this day /s

"but i'm an aspie and i get to reclaim that word if i want!!!!!"

yeah, the term asperger's syndrome is offensive both to autistic people who fall under the criteria and to autistic people that don't. but do you know who else that term is offensive to? the people who went through a genocide. unless you are jewish or romani i don't want to hear it.

"but i was diagnosed with asperger's syndrome before the dsm five came out!!!!!"

see the above two points about how not continuing to glorify genocide is more important than keeping the same words we've always used for things. it's fine to say you were diagnosed with asperger's, but you do not have "asperger's", you have autism (or are autistic if that's the language you prefer).

"but i didn't know that asperger was a nazi!!!"

well, now you do.

"but naming a medical condition after someone doesn't necessarily glorify them!!!!"

would you apply this logic to literally any other field of science? if we decided to name an element after a nazi, people would rightfully be angry. people have been calling for years to rename a beetle named after a nazi. if you name a medical condition after someone, that generally means one of two things: the person was a very important and good researcher in the field, or the person was a notable person who had the medical condition. this might be a hot take, but i don't think that a nazi scientist working for the nazis should ever be considered the best and most important early researcher in any field to be deserving of having a discovery named after them.

"but you can't speak for all jews!!! look, you aren't even jewish yet, it says that on your profile!!!!"

no, i cannot speak for all jews. but i am speaking for myself when i say that all of your (general) excuses have stopped working, and that y'all need to put others' needs above your feelings sometimes. during the writing of this post, i spoke to other jews who have made posts about this before, but y'all continue to ignore jewish voices and make excuses for yourselves when it really isn't that hard to just stop saying a word.

"you're being ableist by telling me, an autistic person, how i can and cannot identify!!!!!"

i'm writing this post as someone who is autistic and would have been diagnosed with "asperger's syndrome" had i gotten my diagnosis before the dsm five came out. being autistic is no excuse for being racist, antisemitic, or any other bigotry. autistic non-jews have continuously spoken over autistic jews on many issues, including this one, and guys, it is not that hard to care about jews and roma enough to make this tiny change to your vocabulary.

i hope all of this has been enough to ward off some of the responses that i'm going to get to this post. i'm willing to engage in good faith if you're genuinely ignorant or confused, but if you have read this post, you no longer get to say that you "didn't know" that hans asperger was a nazi and that we shouldn't name any medical condition, but especially one that many jews and roma have, after people who committed genocide.

[kelluinox]

I saw the video of people chanting at Sydney. I saw Shani Louk. I saw Naama Levy. I saw Noa Argamani. I saw an Israeli boy being pushed around and taunted "Say Ima! Say Ima!". I saw the Bibas family. I saw photos of burned bodies and shot up cars. I saw people fleeing from the Nova festival and I saw the bodies of the 260 people that were shot there. I saw the interview with a girl whose grandmother was murdered and her murder recorded and published on social media by Hamas. I saw a kindergarten floor smeared in red. I saw terrorists throwing grenades into a bomb shelter where people were hiding. I saw a group of friends hiding in a public toilet on the beach, one video recorded from one of their phones, the other - from the soldier who found their bodies. I saw Twitter explode with celebrations. I saw people call it resistance. I saw victims being called hipsters. I saw student groups blame the victims instead of the people responsible. There is never, ever a justification for such atrocities and I never, ever tried to justify the bombings the way you people bent over backwards trying to justify Hamas.

So you can throw scary article headlines at me from newspapers that had shown bias before all you want. You can tell me how it's all AI, how "those darn jews are lying again". You can cite the UN, who still haven't kicked Russia out and who had Iran chair human rights, whose organization UNRWA has been keeping Palestinians as refugees, employing terrorists in their schools, programming children to become future sacrifices and weapons, and whose teacher had held a hostage captive. You can tell me that reports of rape come from "unreliable sources" even as UN hears testimonies about October 7th and after we had already seen videos, taken by Hamas themselves, on the day that it had happened. You can try to tell me how the slogans I say are antisemitic and that other jews say are antisemitic are not antisemitic (because jews apparently can't define antisemitism according to you). You can try to tell me that we're the problem when support of Hamas' actions exceeds 50% in Gaza and 70% in the West Bank (in no small part thanks to the decades of radicalization facilitated by UNRWA and Iran proxies). You can tell me all of that — truth is, I don't much care for your opinion if you say all these things because all of it is verifiably a load of nonsense. I'm not going to engage with you. I'm not going to believe you aren't acting in bad faith. I'm not going to give you a platform. I'm not going to gather up all the evidence that we all saw and that is still in public access, because I know you've most likely seen all of it already and decided not to believe it, to lie about it, to obfuscate. And I'm not heartless to broadcast suffering again and again just to debunk your lies.

I saw what happened the day it happened and I saw your immediate reaction to it. And that was more than enough.

[forthegothicheroine]

@gehayi said: can you please tell us more about Israel Rank?

POV: We are at a slumber party and I am kicking my feet and giggling and telling you about the boy I like.

"Oh my god, his name is Israel Rank, and he's from a book called Israel Rank: Autobiography of a Criminal, and he is so hot! The musical A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, and the movie Kind Hearts and Coronets were both based on the book, but they made him other things besides Jewish, which is so bogus. Roger Ebert said it made the story more 'universal', which I guess means half-Italian is more universal than half-Jewish, which, what the fuck?

Anyway, he's the worst person in the world and I love him. He's like Heathcliff plus Steerpike plus Edmund the Bastard. He's the really distant relative of and earl, and his mother was disinherited for marrying a Jewish man. Israel isn't technically Jewish, he was baptized and raised Anglican, but he looks Jewish- and also really hot, and he says that combination upsets people! Kind of an Adrian Brody thing? I would have cast Ezra Miller before they turned out to be a shitshow of a person. And his name is Israel, kind of as a fuck you to mom's family. So he decides if people are going to give him shit about it anyway, he's going to embrace it.

He's in love with this girl Sibella, who won't marry him because he's both half-Jewish and poor, so starting as a hypothetical lark he wonders if he could just murder every single family member between him and an earldom. And then he does it! After sexual fantasies about Lucrezia Borgia encouraging him to! What an absolute freak.

So he starts killing, and his narration is so dry and funny about it. He tells the reader that in his experience, Jews aren't all that violent- he speculates that Shylock would have walked back the pound of flesh if he'd had time to calm down- but he has the blood of evil rapacious noblemen on his non-Jewish side which are to blame. He kills most of his family, except for the cousin-in-law whom he marries. He also still love Sibella. And his wife! He just can't stop fucking, he's so awful! (And I think he's bisexual. At least, I don't know how else I'm supposed to interpret the part where he's in school and "the boy I loved chose me as his Jonathan.")

And he gets away with it! He's super popular at his trial because he's so handsome and charming and the same society that scorned him, now that he's an earl, gossips that his Jewish ancestry must be very slight and distant. And there's a twist that gets him off the hook which is actually a real bummer of a plot point, even he's bummed out by it, but it's such a perfect capper to a life of cruelty.

Honestly, I do get why none of the adaptations keep the half-Jewish thing, they're probably afraid it would seem antisemitic, but in my opinion it's a real shame because it's so central to his character and I think I do want a sexy Jewish Byronic antihero. He's the worst. I love him. I would marry him. I would immediately divorce him. His favorite book is Emma!"

For a more academic discussion, I did a podcast episode on him way back when!

[icereader12]

I know I'm either preaching to the choir, or screaming into the void about this, but I feel the need to say it anyway. The phrase "from the river to the sea" is antisemitic. Full stop. Don't like it? Disagree? Unfortunately reality disagrees with you. And in a fight over information, reality should always win.

Let's start with origins. The phrase first gained traction, or general use, in the 1960s. It was co-opted by the PLO in 1964. The PLO was a group of Palestinian liberation groups, hence the name. Throughout the 1960s - the 1990s, they launched terrorist attacks around the world, but mostly in the Middle East. (Brittanica, Nov 16, 2023) The US designated them a terrorist organization, and their first leader, who brought the phrase "from the river to the sea into the limelight, repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel using this phrase (University of Michigan). The PLO claimed to represent Palestinians, and was a fighting force in the Arab-Israel war of 1967, which was declared by the Arab, and lost by them. When the PLO and Arab nations lost, the PLO rallies, and began attacking Israel with guerilla warfare. So the phrase originally referred to the desire to destroy the only majority Jewish state in the world.

History of the phrase continued.

When the PLO decided to recognize reality and acknowledge a two-state solution might be a good idea, many more radical groups in it refused to follow along and broke with the PLO. One of those group was Hamas. Hamas, widely recognized as a terrorist organization, uses the phrase in its charter. Hamas, also in their original charter, states that there will be no peace in the region until all the Jews in said region have been killed.(translation done by Federation of American Scientists). For those who can't connect the dots, that's a call to genocide. By putting that phrase next to their stated desire for genocide, Hamas confirms that that phrase, to them, is a call for genocide. (Business Insider, Nov. 6, 2023) So, in more modern day, it is still a call to genocide.

How the phrase is treated today.

Many who march for Palestine, including Palestine-American Representative Tlaib, say the phrase has changed meanings to them, and that they do not use it as a call for Jewish genocide. (Washington Post, Nov, 2023.) However, most Jewish organizations still regard the phrase as antisemitic, both for its origins, and for how people use it. This includes the ADL, AJC, Jewish Journal, etc. all of whom provide in depth analysis on why the phrase is bad to use. Most of it has to do, as previously stated, with the continued use of the phrase by terrorist organizations such as Hamas and PLEP to call for genocide. While some Palestinians argue that phrase has been commandeered by extremists, but it's okay if they use it because they aren't, that is an horrible argument. The extremists didn't take the phrase from them, they took it from the extremists (see above proof). You'd think, since many pro-palestinians claim to not support the extremists like Hamas, they wouldn't use the same phrases, so as to distance themselves from the crazies. Instead, they embrace the rhetoric.

Nevertheless, the real problem with continuous use of the phrase is that, when a minority group collectively says "that phrase is harmful to our community, please stop saying it", we oblige. When Black Americans said, "stop using the n-word, it's hurtful", we listened, because they were the community being hurt . And soon enough, we as a society realized those still using that word were racist. When the disabled community asked, "stop using the r-word, it's hurtful", we listened, because they were the community being hurt. And soon enough, we as a society realized those who kept using the word despite the harmed community's wishes were bigoted. The phrase "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used, both in the past and now as a rallying call for destruction of an ethnic group on the grounds that those calling for said destruction didn't like having to share land with said ethnic group. It has been used to kill people and incite violence. That's not up for debate, that's a historical fact. It is still being used to incite violence and get people killed. That is also fact. Marginalized communities are allowed to reclaim hurtful phrases for themselves. But the phrase "from the river to the sea" wasn't and still isn't used to hurt Palestinians, it's used to hurt Jews. Therefore, the only ones allowed to reclaim it are the Jews.

I don't care some Palestinians claim to not be using the phrase as it was originally meant. They are still using the rhetoric of an extremist group that uses that rhetoric to call for Jewish genocide. And when people use that same rhetoric for the same cause (liberating Gaza/ Palestine), they are saying, intentionally or not, that they agree with the rhetoric and actions of the terrorists who use that phrase to call for genocide. We can't read minds. Intention means very little when people call for hate. Whether they "mean it" or not, they are still calling for hate. It's the same cause, with the same words. If pro-palestinians insist on using the same phrases used by terrorists, they need to stop getting mad when we confuse them for supporting terrorists. The is nothing wrong with calling for a two-state solution. There is everything wrong with supporting a terrorist organization that calls for genocide. If you use language that could mean either but has historically meant the latter, people will think you are the latter. Calling for the death of all the Jews in a region is antisemitic. The phrase "from the river to the sea" has historically been used, and is currently being used to call for the death of all Jews in Israel. No one cares if you think you're using it differently. To the community still being hurt by that phrase, it is one and the same. Either pick a different slogan or stop being upset that you are being called an antisemitic terrorist supporter.

[sparkling-pink-lemonade]

Got an ignorant hate comment. Felt it deserved it's own post. It's a long one, and technically isn't doing anything productive as I blocked the person. I just like yelling into the void. Mind the tags.

1) You're funny. I'm agnostic, and wasn't even raised christian. It's like an atheist saying "Oh my god" (this can't be real/that's ridiculous) or "God save me" (I'm doomed). "My brother in Christ", what would normally be a term of endearment and familiarity in a christian setting becomes very condescending and 'holier than thou' if said to any non christian (not just jews). Because of that, outside of a christian setting, it's now a term of sarcasm and mockery to point out someone's stupidity and ignorance. So the fact you jumped into a defensive standpoint, calling someone you know nothing about antisemitic over a post that wasn't even directed at you, tells me a lot more about your insecurities.

2) Yes, you're right! It is perfectly reasonable to not WANT people with an involuntary attraction to real life children to INTERACT with your work. But let me lay out a few things. Stop using that word, it does not mean what you think it means. Being attracted to fictional characters depicted as kids in a form of media that is (at least in a non indie setting) designed, and written by a team of adults, fudging up the looks and behaviors of their characters compared to reality to be more appealing to a wide demographic, is not pedophilia. Pedophilia is a mental disorder, where an attraction to children who can't consent is causing direct harm to yourself or those around you in your day to day life. This usually presents itself as crippling distress for the person with the disorder due to their intrusive thoughts, and fear of losing your friends and family should they find out about your disorder. By calling an attraction to fictional character depicted as children "pedophilia" you are doing what's called pedojacketing. Which is a false accusation against someone in attempt to rally others by appealing to their disgust to ruin the life of another person. It causes major harm by both trivializing a serious and often debilitating mental illness into a "voluntary perversion", while also trivializing the seriousness of child predator allegations by equating the sexual abuse of real, breathing children, to that of fictional story that never happened. Most predators aren't even pedophiles, they are attracted to the power imbalance and control, not the kid itself. But that's not what proship is, it's an ideology that people should be allowed to have their own space to enjoy whatever fiction they want without harassment or censorship. And guess what, that doesn't mean we aren't entitled to your space. If our ideology makes you uncomfortable, it's your right to block us and keep us from interacting with your art.

But get this, consuming and interacting are two completely different things. Consuming means you've looked at a piece of art, you watched a video, read a piece of literature, or played a video game. The moment you post something to the public, and not somewhere with restricted access, you forfeit all right to decide who can consume your media. AO3 is a public website, even if you choose the lovely option of only showing your work to people who are logged in (which anyone can get an account), you can't then decide who is allowed to view your work. When you post media publicly, it is impossible to discern every single person who has consumed your work. At best a site may have a "views" counter, or in AO3's case, hits, but it will always remain anonymous. As such, if you don't like the idea of a proshipper consuming your work, congrats, you will never have to know.

Interacting however means that you've consumed a piece of media, and are now making a public display about your consumption where the creator can see it, that individualizes them from the rest of the crowd. A comment, a post, if the media has a non-anonymous "like" function, or non-anonymous subscription/follow function. Most people are sane, and don't go out of their way to do background checks on every single person that interacted with their work. But if it comes to your attention that someone who makes your uncomfortable is interacting with your work where you can see it, then you have the tools to make it so you'll never be able to see or hear from them again. They will still be able to consume your public work, but now you've curated your personal experience.

But if you're so paranoid and disgusted by the idea that someone you find icky or gross might be able to consume your content without your consent, then you have to take responsibility for your own experiencing it and revoke your consent from the wider public by removing your content from a public platform.

This person was deluding themself into believing that consumption was the same thing as interaction and that the existence of a dni means it was the public's responsibility to regulate their online experience for them, and was getting upset at the realization that they can't regulate a public space the same way as a private one, and that people they don't like will be able to see their public work even if they will never know about it.

[allycat75]

So, you really are doubling down on this ASP thing aren't you, Boston Dumb Fuck (some final thoughts for a shameful day; for you, in case you are that oblivious now that you have capitulated to the dark side).

(Oh, and for any of his minions out there trolling, I fully entreat you to bubble this up to your stubborn, anxious overlord because he could do some real damage to the world, not just himself)

The negative, and 100 percent correct, comments for the Antisemitism in Schools discussion wasn't enough for you? Try to bury it all you want- the internet (and screenshots) are forever and people know. Not even when Secretary Cardona lamented the normalization of hating Jews, while you were awkwardly flaunting your poison band, tying you to the Nazi wifey, thus making you a perpetrator of this very normalization, did you not get the hint you are not welcomed in this space?

You know you can't have it both ways, right? You can't be the Political Avenger and also be "married" to a racist, antisemetic, fat-shaming, arrogant, selfish xenophob. Your balls aren't nearly strong enough to stratle that fence! Is this so much of a vanity project you are willing to forgo your "egoic narrative", wasting important people's precious time, who are trying to keep the ship we call democracy from sinking, while you look for a pat on the back for rearranging the deck chairs. You know, for someone who is very conscious of odors, you reek of rich white male Privlege. I can smell it through the Bluetooth connection and God does it stink! Didn't know being tone deaf also made you nose blind 🤷‍♀️.

Are you really going to tackle the big problems that young voters care, or should care, about head on? Are young voters even going to pay attention to what you have to offer? And who are you going to get to speak to your baby website, run by dilatants and clout chasers? I am sure you could get some blowhards like Rafael "Ted" Cruz, Matt "the Frat" Gaetz, and your old friend "Uncle" Tim Scott, but anyone with anything worth speaking to is not going to want to degrade themselves for liars like you. By the way, you may want to get used to the feeling, BDF, because if you don't make some MAJOR changes to your life soon, I sense this is how your dating life will be, too, once the divorce is finalized.

I hope your mama is still proud, because most everyone else is ashamed or embarrassed for you. You don't need to use the website as your personal barometer to tell you that.

PS- Don't make some corny joke tomorrow with the high schoolers about you being old. This isn't about you, and they weren't the ones who decided to "marry" someone 16 years their junior, who looks 26 years their junior and is sucking the life and soul out of you, making you look like you have aged about 10 years since the two kinda, sorta ceremonies. People Magazine's Most Pathetic Man of the Year! Yes, teach the young people how to make good decisions for their future, jackass!

[ace-hell]

1. I disregard the UN bc they do nothing against all the active war crimes and human rights violation that are being done by muslim countries like oh i don't know? Child brides? And SLAVERY?? Horrible executions of queer people? They don't commit at all about the genocide that happened for the past like, 100-200 years against jews all over the arab and muslim countries. They just sit there and talk and they sound like they don't k ow anything. Also btw 100 of the hamas terrorists that attacked on 7.10 graduated from the UN university for palestinians, so idk how i perceived the UN anymore besides ignorant

2. Yes nowadays israel will take control over gaza that much is true can't say i support that israel aren't made of pure gold, im pretty sure your country isn't made of angels for government. Seriously people judge israel as if all the countries in the world are pure gold hearted angels sent from heaven. Like get out of your own ass. Also ppl in the WB are not israeli citizens they are under the PA and israel gives them jobs, i would know bc the busses in center of israel-the ones israeli ppl use- are absolutely PACKED with palestinians from the WB around 6-7 am

3. Lol as european you can sit your ass down bc you are the part of the reason jews felt so unsafe they wanted a country of their own to feel safe- jews aren't colonizers- they can't be especially not white considering after the holocaust the majority of the jewish population kinda ceased to exist. You completely overlook all the mizrahi, sefardi and tzabar jews which is absolutely hilarious. You can't demand jews to "go back to the middle east where they came from"and when they do that be mad at them. Jews are indigenous, cope in silence.

Also "palestine" is a derogatory name for the land-canaan. It comes from the greek word "philistine" which technically means barbaric and from the aramic word "plishtim" which means invador. Palestinians means "barbaric invadors" so if you want to jeep calling them that have fun

4. Bro what do you want the ottomans and arabs colonized the land, the brits also did that, EVERYONE fucking colonized the land and brutally opressed the jews. You really don't know about the opression they did? Really? It didn't happen at first, no, at first they came and build muslim settlements on the land and actually loved jews,jews even worked at the royal palance at some point. but one king came up and just decided that he hates and jews and chritians

5. The first pogroms against jews started in 1908,then became worse in the 1920's. The brits actually tries to come to their aid multiple times in so many ways even opressing jews by writing 3 fucking whole books with restrictions to jews such as: limiting the amount of jews that can immigrant and forbidding jews from buying land- yes bc jews didn't come and just went house to house and kicked arabs out, they bought lands and build villages of their own. All the cities the arabs lived in are original jewish cities from thousands of years ago that they occupied. Stop denying jewish heritage, history and connection to the land you antisemite freak.

Also the nakba happened in 15th of may 1948- a day after the declaration of israel and when arabs started the 1948 war. How did you say it? That arabs were "pissed off"? Yes so the jews were also a little "pissed off" after they started a fucking WAR (surprising) with 7 other nations + the arabs within the land. Mind you A LOT of arabs fled themselves, not everyone were expelled. Wow i guess its not the first time the palis waged war on israel and started to cry when israel answered back with brutality. Also there were less than 1 million jews at the time - including elderly, children AND HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS agains millions of trained military nations and they still won.

6. Again, the nakba happened AFTER they started the war-i don't support it, i condemn it, it was horrible- so yes they could just declare themselves a country on 14th together with israel. In the israeli declaration of independence they call for peace amongst the arabs in the region and the neighboring arab countries and to that they answered with war. Not a really peaceful move ey?

7. It is, in fact, about religion. You really act so self rightous bc you truly don't understand how deep it all is. Pro palestinians march with swastikas, praise hamas, attack jews- the antisemitism is rising WORLDWIDE everytime there's something about israel. One thing you are right about- israel does not care about the ethnicity nor the religion considering there are 2.048 million arabs palestinians that are citizens that are free- they are doctors, in the knesset, they are truly everywhere and we can live with them just fine? Lol my dentist is a palestinian arab. Oh wow and lets not talk about the beduins and druze, fucking hell they are more zionists than a lot of jews that i encountered with- they serve in the IDF wholeheartedly and oppose the sharia laws that the palestinians support and know what hamas, isis and all the terror organizations are. You TRULY don't understand anything about israel

I recommend you to listen to Yusuf mosad hassan, he is a son of one of the head leaders of hamas- he was a terrorist that served 2 years in the israeli prison fully believing whatever propaganda you say, he was raised in ramallah IN A SCHOOL FOR SHAHID since he was a CHILD after he was released he walked around israel streets in tel aviv and got the shock of his life and now he is super pro israeli.

You really suppose to have a bigger insight over all that instead of seeing posts like the og posts that are just straight up BS and lies. Cheers

[gaelic-symphony]

Okay, so first of all, I genuinely want to thank @angrylittlesliceofpizza for listening to Jews when we talk about antisemitism and doing the work of starting to learn about supersessionism and how pervasive it is, and how it works to create a culture of antisemitism in our society. And your tags aren't entirely wrong: Christian supersessionism very much *is* Christians deciding they're better than Jews and taking our history and theology and sacred texts for themselves.

But here's the thing: Supersessionism isn't just a Christian phenomenon. It is every bit as ingrained into the foundation of Islam as it is in Christianity. Supersessionism is Christians AND Muslims deciding they're better than Jews and taking our history and theology and sacred texts for themselves. You can't fully understand supersessionism and how harmful it is unless you can recognize it in BOTH Christianity and Islam.

Christianity, at least here on Tumblr, is an easy target. If you're interested in being anti-racist, standing up for marginalized groups, and deconstructing traditional imperialist narratives of history, taking a critical look at the history of Christianity and Christian institutions is a very good place to start. There is certainly A LOT to criticize there, and unless you're an antitheist asshole, it's generally understood that being critical of Christian institutions and Christian nationalism doesn't mean that individual Christians are bad people who shouldn't continue practicing their faith in peace and finding joy and meaning in their Christian communities. It's comparatively low-risk in left-leaning circles to be critical of Christianity's complex history as a geopolitical institution and call out Christians when they are causing harm in the name of their faith. It's much harder for young people and left-wing people, and especially young left-wing people, to grapple with the same issues when it comes to Islam.

Something I've noticed a lot in liberal/progressive/leftist circles, especially among young people from Western countries who grew up in the era of post-9/11 islamophobia and the War on Terror, is an overwhelming reluctance to entertain anything even remotely critical of Islam or Muslim societies and institutions out of concern for being seen as racist or islamophobic or perpetuating harmful stereotypes. And on a very basic level, it's good that millennials and gen z are pushing back against the islamophobia they were raised with. But a lot of these progressives and leftists have come all the way back around to, for lack of a better word, islamophilia, believing that Islam is a "better" and "purer" faith than Christianity.

The truth is that Islam is every bit as supersessionist as Christianity, if not more so. Islam is structurally and institutionally antisemitic in much the same way that Christianity is. And much like Christianity, Islam is a universalizing religion that has spurred on centuries of violent imperialism, forced conversion, ethnic cleansing, and genocide across much of Asia, Africa, and Southern/Eastern Europe. And to this day, Muslim societies and nations have many of the same problems and injustices that Christian ones do.

Muslim and Arab empires historically tried to forcibly assimilate non-Arab and non-Muslim populations that were indigenous to the lands that they conquered, and today, Muslim countries still tend to be hostile to those ethnic and religious minorities that resisted Arabization and Islamization: Jews, Hindus, Kurds, Yazidis, Samaritans, Druze, Amazigh, Circassians, Dinka, Parsis, Sikhs--and yes, also Christians. Spend five minutes talking to an Assyrian, a Copt, an Armenian, a Maronite, or a Pontic Greek about their people's history and you'll realize they do not actually benefit from the same kind of Christian privilege that Western Christians do. Where Christianity has white supremacy, Islam has Arab supremacy. It is wielded as a cudgel for Arab nationalist movements and religious fundamentalists just like Christianity is in the West, and these Islamist movements in non-Western countries are no better or more liberatory than fundamentalist Christian nationalists in the U.S. Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood are "freedom fighters" in the same way that the architects of Project 2025 are "freedom fighters": They're fighting for the "freedom" to forcibly impose their religious fundamentalist ideologies on everybody else.

Of course, none of this means that Islam or Muslim communities are inherently bad or dangerous, just like Christianity and Christian communities aren't inherently bad or dangerous, and NONE of it justifies violence or prejudice against individual Muslims or Muslim communities and institutions. And it's also true that many modern-day Muslim countries and populations were *also* victims of colonialism themselves from European empires, and that Muslims living in non-majority Muslim countries are a marginalized minority whose lived experience is often more similar to Jews, Hindus, and Sikhs than to Christians, and they often experience oppression on the basis of both religion and race/ethnicity. But on a global scale, as a geopolitical force in history, Islam and Christianity have A LOT in common with each other, certainly more than either of them has with any other religion. So if you're rightfully critical of the French, British, or Spanish empires, but not the Ottomans, Mughals, or Caliphates, then you might be falling into the subtle bigotry of low expectations. And if you want to understand antisemitism and supersessionism and be an ally to Jews, you have to be willing to view Islam with the same critical lens as you do Christianity.

Something I wish more gentiles understood, especially Christians, is that "supercessionism" is just a fancy academic term for "colonialism of the soul."

It's cultural appropriation. It's taking our sacred texts and saying "we know your history, your faith, and your G-d better than you do." It's twisting the deeply Jewish meanings of the Tanakh into somehow being about things that wouldn't happen for hundreds or thousands of years. It's taking the history of our people and egotistically making it all about you, somehow. It's trying to split the spiritual atom. It's trying to sever the self from the soul.

It's assuming you know anything about us because your holy texts talk about us, and because you read our stolen texts through a lens that flatters you. You take our practices and denigrate them, and you take our holy sites and bar us from them with violence. And when we protest this, or even simply try to practice our religion and culture in peace, you try to silence us and stop us. Why? Because you can't stand the sight of the people you hurt and stole from. And the longer the violence continues, the more our ongoing survival becomes loathsome to you. You can't face your people's history and you can't face what you took from us, so you would rather we were dead. But our living ghosts haunt your steps and your prayers. You see us everywhere in the things you took from us and your desperate efforts to write us out of our own story and it drives you insane.

But it didn't, and doesn't, have to be like this.

[mistwhisperexpress]

Sorry reblogging this again and deleting my previous one because it keeps bothering me and I want to unpack it. But first thank you so much for messaging them about it even if you got such a terrible response, it really means more than I can express. Hopefully asking him to send your support ticket to another employee as well as his supervisor results in something.

"Star Stable would never associate any form of religious beliefs onto any creature or person in starstable."

But you do. Like big time. Ignoring the fact religion isn't even the point and Judaism is an enthoreligion (and only became a religion in some aspects because Napoleon wouldn't let us practice our traditions any other way), the game is very culturally Christian. It may not directly be called Christmas anymore, but we all know that's what the winter holiday is. It's filled with Christmas centered traditions. It has a tree and presents. That's a Christmas tree. There's Santa hats. Santa was literally in the game for years. And also the witches?? There are real life practicing witches? Irregardless of whether you believe that's possible or not, it's still a thing. Mysticism type things are very much practiced by real people.

"Antisemitism just isn't something that we have added to the game."

If you aren't Jewish, you don't get to decide that. Period. You do not define antisemitism.

"Goblins are a fantasy creatures that don't exist. They exist within pages of magical stories. Goblins and Trolls are derived from a similar fantasy so changing any name from goblin to troll isn't solving anything. An imp is also just a smaller goblin. Calling a goblin an elf is also somewhat wrong. When I say elf i think if the beautiful human-like people with pointy ears and shiny hair."

Lots to unpack with this one. Okay. Fantasy and folklore, particularly European fantasy and folklore, which is what the game draws influence from, and which is where goblins come from, is filled with antisemitism. I can't emphasize enough how antisemitic Europe and the Grimm Brothers were. Goblins and trolls absolutely do not derive from similar places. Goblins were initially a Germanic fae creature. Trolls likely come from Norwegian witch folklore. He's right in that changing the name alone wont fix things, because they need to also NOT BE FUCKING GREEN. Imps have similar fae origins to goblins, but they aren't a fantasy creature historically been used as an antisemitic caricature. The only vaguely maybe antisemitic imp connection I've seen is grimmsnarl in Pokemon. The caprans in the game are called elves several times, and elves also have fae origins like goblins.

"Again I appreciate your concern. Star stable would never insinuate that Jews are Goblins and that isn't what we have done during our character development process."

No one said SSO insinuated Jewish people are goblins. We're saying the game perpetuated an antisemitic version of goblins. SSO took an element of folklore without researching it, the antisemitism may not have been done intentionally but that is the result.

"I think you will be able to overlook the antisemitism, for one reason, jews are not goblins, that's absolutely ridiculous."

Telling someone to overlook antisemitism is gross. Noticing it is our survival. Telling someone to overlook racism, which antisemitism is a form of, is like telling the frog to ignore the water is getting hotter. This issue is relatively low stakes and not serious, but it's part of a culture that normalizes it. Ignoring that while antisemitism is rising makes it worse. I think this is part of a language barrier issue but also, this is a bit of an admittance?

mister sso, fire him /reference

[generallemarc]

They're just unaware of the deep antisemitic history of repeating claims that "Jews have too much power",

Cold take, but I don't think that a rational, mentally competent adult who made it anywhere past the eight grade in a Western country could possibly be unaware of that. "X ethnic/religious group has too much power" can't be a true statement in a functional democracy at all, since power is given to those elected by the people and thus is rightly possessed by the victor, whoever they may be, but it's especially stupid when said of a minority. The logistics necessary for any minority group to be more powerful than a vote bloc, like Cuban Americans for example, simply cannot be achieved unless this "minority" could comprise over a quarter or a third of the entire population, and last I checked all the Jews in the world (16 million, according to an Israeli think tank) don't add up to even a tenth of the American population.

Waters is openly and explicitly antisemitic, saying that there is a widespread conspiracy of Jews running the world's politics... but he has been insisting for over 40 years that he's just "antizionist, not antisemitic."

His latest brilliant theory is that the opening attacks of the war were a "false flag." Because that's a perfectly acceptable thing to say about the deaths of thousands of innocents, just like how it was totally normal and socially acceptable to accuse Bush of doing 9/11 before September of 2001 was even over. That definitely wouldn't have made you a social pariah and it 100% wouldn't have been deserved.

Well, if your ideology claims that you want a better life for everyone and social progress and being against racism and bigotry... but yet they don't speak up when it's happening right in front of them...

This right here is why the left will always get under my skin more than the right. At least these days, most right-wing retards are just pure personalists, deciding their morality entirely based on what their idol(which 99% of the time is Donald Trump) said that day. They'll follow wherever he leads them, and for the most part they're up front with that. They'll never call it what it is, but they don't try to deny what they're doing as they're doing it either. And that's all that seems to happen with more and more of the left these days. They're fighting for equal rights for everyone, unless you're one of an ever-growing list of outgroups who aren't as equal as the smaller and smaller pool of people that is "everyone".

Some people in this category might object to being labeled as "Pro-Jewish", as if they're biased for Jews. But I have to ask... do you think that they would also object to being labeled "Pro-LGBTQ"?

It's like the parallel to the people who use "[insert group here] rights advocate" as an insult. Yeah, you're gonna attack me by saying I want men or trans people to have equal rights? Wow, I sure must be an awful person for wanting that.

But the number of Type 3s I've seen are outnumbered a hundred to one by Types 1, 2, and 2.5.

I want to call this a problem with modern leftism, I really do. And I do think that the obsession with categorization, us-vs-them binaries, legitimization of calls for and celebrations of political violence and the encouragement of bigotry against "privileged" groups all played a role in this. But honestly, I don't think it's possible to teach this kind of cruelty to this many people in any free society. You'd need Chinese levels of control to pull that off. What's happening is a mass unmasking of all the varieties of moral bankruptcy known to man, as people willfully reveal that all they needed was the right opportunity and they would choose to talk and act like the fascists they claim to fight. Alot of these people would've been rotten no matter what they chose to use to try and legitimize their spite.

In my own experience as a Jewish Leftist, and corroborated by the similar experiences of other Jewish Leftists, there are, roughly speaking, five to six broad categories of Leftists in their attitudes towards Jews. This is a tangential categorization in terms of precise political affiliation; in other words, one's position in these categories is not dependent on what precise type of Leftist/Progressive an individual is.

Type 1: Open And Unapologetic Jew Haters

These Leftists hate Jews and don't try to hide it at all. According to them, Jews are the Problem, and they know what type of Solution they want enacted.

The archetypal example that I'll currently use is Cynthia McKinney, former US Congresswoman and US Green Party presidential candidate, who, well...

But this is also the class of Leftists who say that there is no room for Judaism in their ideal, imagined perfect world, that they picture everyone assimilating and giving up their ethnic and cultural identities to just be "human", and often single out Judaism as a particular problem in that regard.

Type 2: Closeted Knowing Jew Haters

These Leftists hate Jews, know that they hate Jews, but know that it's bad optics to openly praise Hitler or cozy up to the KKK to satisfy their hatred of Jews, so they try to find the barest veneer of plausible deniability to hide behind. "Anti-zionism" is a particular favorite on the Left, but the hatred has a way of slipping past the mask when they get questioned.

A classic example here is the Boston Mapping Project, who literally made up a list of every Jewish institution in Boston, Mass, on suspicion of them being "Zionist"--including elder homes, Jewish high schools, and Kindergartens, and including scary "links" on the map to various government agencies, no matter how tenuous or outright imaginary, thereby invoking old conspiracy tropes about "Secret Jewish Control of the Government". (And BDS, as the parent organization, also gave the lie that they're just antizionist, not antisemitic, when they disavowed the Mapping Project for bad optics, not the rank antisemitism and conspiratorial thinking they were promoting). Another example would be the organizers of the Chicago Dyke March, who explicitly expelled Jews from the March and crowed about "zio tears" (which is a slur originally used by the KKK, no less).

However on first encounter, Type 2 are indistinguishable from and camouflaged by...

Type 3: Undereducated And Unknowing Traffickers In Antisemitism

These Leftists don't hate Jews per se... they're just unaware of the deep antisemitic history of repeating claims that "Jews have too much power", or stating that the Holocaust was "White on White violence", or that "Jews are just White People from Europe", or any of a host of other antisemitic beliefs that are endemic on the Left. They're initially indistinguishable from Type 2, as they say the same things, and can only be told apart by their reactions; a Type 3 will go, "Oh, I didn't know and I'll try to learn!", while a Type 2 will typically double down, or let the mask slip in some other way.

The problem is that, from the perspective of Jews, Type 2 and Type 3 are indistinguishable from each other at first glance, and rather than try to engage and risk the emotional harm, a lot of Jews tend to write off all of them as Type 2, and there's a lot of debate on the ratios between the two.

Also worthy of mention, as a midpoint between Type 2 and Type 3 are:

Type 2.5: Openly Antisemitic "I'm Not An Antisemite, I Just Refuse To Learn, Listen, Or Let Jews Define Antisemitism"

As a midpoint between types, these Leftists openly traffic in antisemitic motifs, conspiracies, and attitudes, all the while insisting that they're not antisemitic. They're a midpoint between types 2 and 3 because they've had plenty of time and opportunity to learn about the bigoted attitudes they're espousing, but refuse to do so... but at the same time, they genuinely seem to think that they're not antisemitic. They just think that there's a vast Jewish conspiracy out to get them personally, or any of a number of other antisemitic beliefs, and refuse to accept or learn that what they're saying is antisemitic. They can believe that they themselves are not all they want, saying that Jews have too much money and power and run the world's politics is still trafficking in antisemitic conspiracy theories.

The archetypal example of this type, assuming we can take his word for it, is Roger Waters. Waters is openly and explicitly antisemitic, saying that there is a widespread conspiracy of Jews running the world's politics... but he has been insisting for over 40 years that he's just "antizionist, not antisemitic."

But these are just the outspoken ones. None of them would get anywhere without the tacit support of...

Type 4: The Silent Majority

These Leftists are, being blunt, hypocritical cowards. They don't want to get involved in issues on antisemitism. When a Leftist Jew is being harassed by one of Types 1 to 3, they don't speak up, they don't get involved, they just say nothing.

Maybe they agree with one of the above types. Maybe they just don't want to get involved. Maybe they're afraid of seeming sympathetic to Israel. Maybe they're afraid of getting the social backlash that the Jew is experiencing. But ultimately, their motivations don't matter, their actions do—and their actions give tacit social support to the antisemite in the Leftist group, not to the Jew being harassed and chased out.

And the reason they're hypocritical cowards?

Well, if your ideology claims that you want a better life for everyone and social progress and being against racism and bigotry... but yet they don't speak up when it's happening right in front of them...

Well.

That says a lot, doesn't it? Both on what their ideals actually mean to them... and how highly they value Jews. And we know that it is possible, because of...

Type 5: The Pro-Jewish Leftist

These Leftists are, in my experience, a minority outside of Leftist Jews, but they do exist among non-Jewish Leftists. They stand up to Types 1, 2, and 3 when they express antisemitic views, and try to shame and cajole Type 4 into standing up as well.

And, just to point out how normalized antisemitism is on the Left...

Some people in this category might object to being labeled as "Pro-Jewish", as if they're biased for Jews. But I have to ask... do you think that they would also object to being labeled "Pro-LGBTQ"?

[the-catboy-minyan]

op said goyim calling antizionists "real Jews" implying zionists are fake Jews and that Judaism is at its core antizionist, I said Zionists calling antizionist Jews "fake Jews" implying Judaism is inherently zionist, or "self hating Jews" implying the only reason you'd be against zionism is if you hated Judaism.

while I did add it to the post as if both statements are the same, they have fundamentally different issues: (I'll try my best to explain, but I might make mistakes, and keep in mind I'm also biased as an Israeli)

when Goyim (non-jews) call antizionist Jews "the real jews", it's tokenizing and appropriating a culture that isn't their own. they're deciding to only listen to Jewish voices that matches their political beliefs that that any Jewish person who's also a zionist (which happened to be the vast majority of Israelis, by the Jewish definition) is actually fake and shouldn't be treated as a Jew. it implies you can't be antisemitic to a Zionist Jew because they aren't a "real jew", it separates Jews into "good Jews" and "bad Jews". in general they have no place to choose if Judaism should inherently support a political stance since they aren't Jews and weren't raised with Jewish culture with with the Jewish identity attached to them, and never went through the conversion progress.

(first a disclaimer: when I wrote "some zionists" I meant to write zionist jews, if zionist goyim did that it would be almost exactly the same points as above) when zionists call antizionist jews "fake jews", that comes from a feeling of betrayal, that those jews betrayed their people. there's this feeling that after everything we've been through and due to our history in the land, there's no way to be against the zionist movement unless you're "not actually Jewish". except jewish opinions are as varied as there are Jews in the world, and a person's political opinion doesn't make them more or less Jewish. this also plays into the idea of "good jews" and "bad jews" (which is even worse coming from inside the house), and while they might be justified in being angry about a Jewish person demonizing half the world's Jewish population, that doesn't give them any right to claim that person isn't actually Jewish.

calling antizionist Jews "self hating Jews" implies being antizionists mean they hate themselves (aka hate being Jewish), which conflates judaism with zionism. zionism might be a Jewish movement, but it's not Judaism itself. it's heavily condescending to call someone "self hating", and it also feels a bit ableist? like there are people who genuinely struggle with self hatered, and they use it as an insult.

tldr:

goyim calling antizionists Jews "real Jews": antisemitic good jew vs bad jew narrative, goyish superiority policing what is real Jewishness, erases the Jewishness of the majority of jews and almost all israelis.

zionist jews calling antizionist jews "fake/self hating jews": infighting, trauma induced response which is condescending and gatekeeping, a potentially ableist insult.

hope this helps!

You know what really pisses me off? When goyim call "antizionist" Jews "real Jews" and say "this is what Judaism is really about."

[fierceawakening]

josiepugblog Also you mention conversion and yes while conversion is possible in Judaism it doesn’t work like in Christianity. For one, Jews are forbidden from evangelizing. Two, Jews require years of study and participation in the culture to convert and actively dissuade newcomers. Three, Judaism considers converts to have Jewish souls that are being welcomed back into the community. If you go to such effort to become a Jew, there is a sense that you always were one even if your soul took a detour 3/

josiepugblog Finally I think the frustration you’re seeing from Jews is two-fold. One they are dealing with many people talking over them when they try to explain words specific to their culture that do not map neatly onto Christianity or Islam. Two, being “anti-Zionist” rather than simply not engaging in Jewish Zionism is often seen to mean that said person wants the state of Israel to stop existing. Now. Which, given the rampant antisemitism in neighboring countries would mean the death of many Jews4/4

Oh, I actually know that about conversion. I was just pointing out that to me it's strange that people would make the argument "indigeneity is the most important factor here" while ALSO accepting non-indigenous people as legitimate members of your group.

It wasn't meant to be any kind of refusal to acknowledge that conversion is a very slow and very serious process.

Just... if you look at *any* religious tradition closely enough you'll find contradictions, because cultural norms and standards are never designed to be completely consistent (and shouldn't be!)

But this DOES turn into a problem when you start mixing that culture stuff with politics, because suddenly you're arguing "indigeneity should determine who gets to live here" AND "indigeneity is a soul thing, and souls take detours" and this is in the laws you're making/rules you're setting.

It wouldn't matter if people weren't trying to base politics on it.Just humans being weird again. But they are basing politics on it. That's the thing at issue. (This is often phrased in the US as "church and state should remain separate," which is an unfortunate phrasing when someone's politics is based on religious identity but their places of worship aren't churches.)

The other thing is there's this weird "why is the left so bad about this issue" vibe to a lot of the conversation, and it confuses me, because...

When I was first coming up as a feminist in the early oughts, some feminists said, "We want female-only spaces. We think people we deem not-female are a threat to us. But they really shouldn't mind! We just want our own space to have our own unique culture. If you don't want that, don't participate, but let us exclude over here."

We argued this to hell and back and eventually called these people TERFs and decided they were toxic and the thing they wanted wasn't innocent. We now mock or at least block them on sight, because exclusion isn't a leftist value.

Then some people started to say, "We made gay spaces, and we had a lovely time, but suddenly some ace people came by! We don't feel comfortable, as there's a lot of gay liberation and gay history that's very, very raunchy. We worry that if we allow sex-repulsed people in our spaces, we'll be pressured to 'tone it down,' so we want the ace people to go do something else."

(Full disclosure: I was one of these people briefly. This line of thinking was persuasive to me at one time. It's not now, as I quickly observed people using this thinking to shame ace people and deny their reality, which is just gross and mean and wrong. I didn't realize at the time that that was the goal. When I came to see that it was, I changed my mind.)

And over time, leftists went, "No, that's not the right way to look at this. Exclusion by default makes people tend to take others' experiences less seriously, to assume it can't be that bad even when they're literally telling us they've gone through horrific stuff many of us haven't. This way of thinking is inherently a dead end, and it's making us mean. That's Bad!"

And then some people come along and say, "Our group is so oppressed we need our own space! We're not totally against other people being around too, but don't you see how IMPORTANT it is, and how we're NOTHING LIKE those other exclusionist movements?"

And someone like me goes, "You know what? I worry that I can't and don't see that, actually. I was dead convinced that not wanting aces around wasn't abandoning them, when... in practice, it turned out it was. I was hurting people, and justifying it to myself as about what I needed because of my oppression. I do get that you're not saying Gaza should be taken over... but a LOT of Israelis, some of them IN the government, ARE saying that. Literally and blatantly.

As someone who myself thought exclusionism in small doses should be fine as long as the people doing the excluding are oppressed, I am BEGGING you to give me a good reason this isn't the same thing, and am alarmed when your response is that it Just Isn't. People are dying. A lot of them. Horribly.

Are you sure you understand why the rest of us see any rhetoric that even faintly smells exclusionist as kryptonite and say not even once?

Or are you telling yourself we're all taken in by propaganda because that's easier than asking if the synagogue community you trusted and loved as a kid might have been wrong about something very important?"

So since That Post wherein I asked "so what *is* Zionism, exactly? I need to know to have an opinion" is once again going around and people are once again taking it the opposite of literally and talking to a guy they made up in their head, I'm going to complain about a thing they keep doing.

Which is say stuff like "90% of Jews are Zionists," as if this is some impeccable feat of logic that will by itself immediately stop me from needing to know what having it as your political view actually entails.

Which is weird as fuck to me, as this is... well, I can't think of the name of the logical fallacy right now, I'm tired, but it's the "so if everybody else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" one.