6 Kislev 5780

[date-a-jew-suggestions]

When are you people going to learn what a dogwhistle is

[pomoapple]

⚡⚡- Nazi SS insignia

((())) - With a name in the middle, it's used to identify/accuse people of Jewish ancestry

3%ers/lll%ers - Three percent'ers. A militia group that bases themselves symbolically on the incorrect statistic that only 3% of men in the original 13 colonies fought against the British. A flashy signifier to let other far right groups know that they will absolutely take up arms for America

9% - The supposed percentage of the worlds population that is fully/pure white

13% - Anti black dog whistle for the false claim that black men make up 13% of the population but commit 50% of homicides

100% - Pure race white

1-11/111 - Used almost exclusively for the Aryan Knights with 1=A and 11=K in accordance to their numerical alignment in the English alphabet

12 - With no law enforcement context, 12 could read as Aryan Brotherhood with 1=A and 2=B in accordance to their numerical alignment in the English alphabet

13 - Used almost exclusively for the Aryan Circle with 1=A and 3=C in accordance to their numerical alignment in the English alphabet

18 - Adolf (A=1) Hitler (H=8)

21-2-12(21/2/12) - Used only for The Unforgiven as a shorthand for their motto. Unity (U=21) Brotherhood (B=2) and Loyalty (L=12)

23-16 - White (W=23) Power (P=16)

109/110 - Representative of the number of counties Jewish people have been expelled from which (depending on which type of fascist you're dealing with) some would consider America to be/will be included, hence the 110

311 - Representation for the KKK meaning 11 (K) three times

737 - Used only for Public Enemy Number 1 (PEN1) in accordance to their numerical alignment on a telephone keypad

1423 (14/23) - Used almost exclusively for the Southern Brotherhood. Unlike other white supremacist organization who follow numeric symbolism, they instead choice to represent themselves under The 14 Words AND The 23 Precepts

1488 (14/88) - 14 being David Lane's Fourteen Words and 88 being the eight letter of the alphabet twice (HH) as a placeholder for Heil Hitler

6,000,000,000,000/6 trillion - Not only limited to trillion. Some variants feature billion, zillion, gorillion etc. A mocking reference for the 6 million lost to the Holocaust

AKIA = KKK shorthand for "A Klansman I Am"

American Identity Movement (AIM) - The chosen reformation name for Identity Evropa. Definitely a source of confusion though since the change was made last year but members (ex members?) still choose to identify as Identify Evropa members

Blood and soil - "Blut und boden". Lebensraum ideology claiming that the original (blood) descendants belong to their original (soil) land

Blueish - Placeholder for Jewish. Can sometimes be found in manipulated/edited photos that gives the subject a more blue tint

Coal burner - "Race traitor" white person who dates black people

Clown world (🤡🌍) - The normalization/continuous birth of Jewish, Muslim, poc, LGBT+, autistic, disabled people will make the world (west) a circus

Day of the rope - A fictitious day where mass murders of Jewish/Muslim/Poc/Race traitors will occur

Discussion club - Alt right meeting

EST - Purposefully meant to be confused with Eastern Standard Time but when used in a context that doesn't have anything to do with time, it's actually shorthand for Every Single Time. Meant to place blame on Jewish people whenever anything "bad" happens. (Can also be used against Muslims and pocs)

FGRN - KKK slogan. "For God, Race, and Nation"

Fren - "Far Right Ethno Nationalist". Plays into internet subculture baby talk (think uwu or cummies or woofer) with common phrases being "frens don't fite frens" or "no fren wars!!"

Globalism - Obvious anti immigration nonsense

Great Replacement - Claim (falsely stated as scientific fact) that immigration and increased birth rates of foreign born people is leading to white genocide. (May sometimes include interracial relationships)

Happy Merchant - The written version of that ONE anti semitic drawing that's a standard for all anti semites to post that we've all seen a dozen times before. No I'm not gonna post it -_-

Identitarianism/Identitarianist - Nice way of calling themselves Nazi

JQ - "Jewish Question". Debate on the status of the civil, political, and all around humanity of Jewish people

Jwoke - Someone who is supposedly "woke" to the "ruling status" and "crimes" that Jewish people commit

Listen and Believe - The far right belief that liberals (and some moderates and centerists) are more willing to allow/accept the talking points of fascist if presented by someone they view as a leader, role model, trustable, or at the very least, level headed

Loxist/Loxism - Combination of lox (brined salmon commonly enjoyed by Jewish people) and racism

Milk before meat - Mormon origin. Used when recruiting/softening up "normies" to far right ideology. Offering up soft and digestible fascist talking points to gauge openness before giving them more hearty fascist ideology

NazBol - THERE'S A LOT TO UNPACK HERE! NazBol is, simply put, Nazism and Bolshevism smashed together. With Bolshevism originating as a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, and Nazis just being your standard Nazi. Bolsheviks were a working class alliance who greatly opposed Russian involvement in WW1, heavily favored unity amongst the poorer class, and coined the slogan Peace, Land, and Bread. Absolutely baffling how one can force these two polar opposite political magnets to collide, but APPARENTLY the mental gymnastics behind it is that it's a Third Position political ideology. Basically NazBols espouse the standard ideas of Nazism (eugenics, ethnic cleansing etc etc) but heavily favor certain leftist ideologies because they will give a better quality of life to the chosen few left behind. Ain't it funny!?

Nibba - The n word

Noticer - ~see jwoke~

ORION - Our Race Is Our Nation

Our guy - A far righter/believed to be far righter

Power level - Dragon Ball Z origin. Indicative of someone's involvement in far right beliefs. The more of a fascist you are, the higher your level is

ROA - Race Over All

RWDS - Right Wing Death Squad

Skype - Anti semitic k word

WAU - Women for Aryan Unity

Windmill - Swastika

YKW - "You know who". A question where the answer is Jewish people. ~see EST~

Zioworld - A replacement for Zionist Occupied Government meant to be less obvious

I'm also including fascist symbols. Although not technically dog whistles themselves, they still rely on obscurity to thrive

And here are some more detailed/extra dog whistles

This database provides an overview of many of the symbols most frequently used by a variety of white supremacist groups and movements, as we

BONUS: Here's a video dispelling the stupid Great Replacement myth sinces it's extremely informative and relevant

(Disclaimer: This list is by no means perfect or binding. ANY type of person can have a skull on their body, but have it be used soley for their grimdark aesthetic. You can also have someone with a hammer in their profile, but have it be representative of their work as a carpenter. Or you can have someone be referred to as "our guy" just because he's the life of the party! Certain pieces of dog whistle symbols and lingo can be totally innocent on their own (Pepe), BUT many literally CANNOT exist in any capacity that doesn't tie into fascism ((())). This is why they need to be learned and context needs to be added to every situation and sentence they are found in. Because the kid in the tiktok begging their fren to come dance with them doesn't need to be burned at the stake. And the Kekistan citizen putting blue filters over celebrity pics with a milk icon in the Twitter header DOES NOT need to be given the benefit of the doubt.)

[date-a-jew-suggestions]

This is one of the best replies I’ve ever gotten this is so comprehensive thank you!

[shretl-deactivated20240225]

[yidmemes]

[sorekbekarmi-deactivated2022051]

They need some friends to make a minyan though

[yidmemes]

via @vibratoryblurriness

[batboyblog]

Prominent European Jews worry the war against antisemitism has been lost

The full dimensions of Europe’s current surge in antisemitic activity are not yet clear, but by some measures, including those by the Britis

Prominent European Jews worry the war against antisemitism has been lost

In Germany, a man wearing a kippah was beaten on the street. In Austria, a student was harassed on the train for reading a book mentioning Jews in the title.

In London, a nurse said she was threatened at her hospital for wearing a Star of David necklace. And in Belgium, an Orthodox Jewish woman was told “Get away, dirty Jewess” by a man with whom she tried to share a park bench.

The full dimensions of Europe’s current surge in antisemitic activity are not yet clear, but by some measures, including those by the British Jewish community, the extent is unprecedented. Meanwhile, the range and density of incidents are unusual.

.....

In light of dozens of incidents in Belgium alone in recent weeks, Joel Rubinfeld, the president of the Belgian League Against Antisemitism, wrote that he doubts whether he will be able to continue living in the country with his wife and two children.

“I believed I could. Now I doubt I can,” Rubinfeld, a former leader of the CCOJB, the umbrella group of French-speaking Belgian Jews, wrote in an op-ed published Saturday in the Le Vif weekly.

Brigitte Wielheesen, a well-known journalist and counterterrorism expert from the Netherlands, wrote Thursday in an op-ed for the news site Jonet that after years of battling antisemitism, she has concluded that the activity has become useless.

“The fight against this sickness has become hopeless,” wrote Wielheesen, a former secretary of the Interprovincial Rabbinate of the Netherlands. “If Jews are Europe’s canary in the coal mine,” she said, then “that bird is no longer alive.”

......

British Jewry’s security unit documented more than 250 antisemitic incidents in the 17 days that followed May 9 — a 500% increase over the previous 17 days. In May, that unit, CST, has logged 325 incidents — more than any month since 1984, when CST began documenting incidents. In July 2014, during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, CST recorded 317 cases.

These were a few of the parts of this that really stuck out, the lines that will stay with me forever. Over the last few years the news from European Jewry has been bad, to worse, murder, assault, harassment, fear. There's a part of the movie, Schindler's List where the Nazis are about to liquidate the Jewish population of Krakow, and the Nazi Amon Goth says

"For six centuries there has been a Jewish Krakow. By this evening those six centuries will be a rumor. They never happened. Today is history."

There have been Jews in Europe since the Roman Empire, over 2,000 years. Year after year I've watched the slow motion death of European Jewry, when will it finally happen? when will our history in Europe finally pass? Today is History, please stop looking the other way.

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hello, it is I, your friendly neighborhood historian. I am ready to lose followers for this post, but I have two masters degrees in history and one of my focuses has been middle eastern area studies. Furthermore, I’ve been tired of watching the world be reduced to pithy little infographics, and I believe there is no point to my education if I don’t put it to good use. Finally, I am ethnically Asheknazi Jewish. This does not color my opinion in this post — I am in support of either a one or two state solution for Israel and Palestine, depending on the factors determined by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli Government does not speak for me. I hate Netanyahu. A lot. With that said, my family was slaughtered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have stood in front of that memorial wall at the Holocaust memorial in DC for my great uncle Simon and my great uncle Louis and cried as I lit a candle. Louis was a rabbi, and he preached mitzvot and tolerance. He died anyway. 

There’s a great many things I want to say about what is happening in the Middle East right now, but let’s start with some facts. 

In early May, there were talks of a coalition government that might have put together (among other parties, the Knesset is absolutely gigantic and usually has about 11-13 political parties at once) the Yesh Atid, a center-left party, and the United Arab List, a Palestinian party. For the first time, Palestinians would have been members of the Israeli government in their own right. And what happened, all of the sudden? A war broke out. A war that, amazingly, seemed to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal prosecution, despite the fact that he has been under investigation for corruption for some time now and the only thing that is stopping a real investigation is the fact that he is Prime Minister.

Funny how that happened. 

There’s a second thing people ought to know, and it is about Hamas. I’ve found it really disturbing to see people defending Hamas on a world stage because, whether or not people want to believe it, Hamas is a terrorist organization. I’m sorry, but it is. Those are the facts. I’m not being a right wing extremist or even a Republican or whatever else or want to lob at me here. I’m a liberal historian with some facts. They are a terrorist organization, and they don’t care if their people die. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

There are two governments for the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In April 2021, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed planned elections. He said it was because of a dispute amid Israeli-annexed East Jerusalum. He is 85 years old, and his Fatah Party is losing power to Hamas. Everyone knows that. Palestinians know that. 

Here’s the thing about Hamas: they might be terrorists, but aren’t idiots. They understand that they have a frustrated population filled with people who have been brutalized by their neighbors. And they also understand that Israel has something called the iron dome defense system, which means that if you throw a rocket at it, it probably won’t kill anyone (though there have been people in Israel who died, including Holocaust survivors). Israel will, however, retaliate, and when they do, they will kill Palestinian civilians. On a world stage, this looks horrible. The death toll, because Palestinians don’t have the same defense system, is always skewed. Should the Israeli government do that? No. It’s morally repugnant. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s hurting people without the capability to defend themselves. But is Hamas counting on them to for the propaganda? Yeah. Absolutely. They’re literally willing to kill their other people for it.

You know why this works for Hamas? They know that Israel will respond anyway, despite the moral concerns. And if you’re curious why, you can read some books on the matter (Six Days of War by Michael Oren; The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich; Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergmen; Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt; and Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis). The TL;DR, if you aren’t interested in homework, is that Israel believes they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they consider ‘hostile powers.’ And it’s almost entirely to do with the Holocaust. It’s a little David v Goliath. It is, dare I say, complicated.

I’m barely scratching the surface here. 

(We won’t get into this in this post, though if you want to DM me for details, it might be worth knowing that Iran funds Hamas and basically supplies them with all of their weapons, and part of the reason the United States has been so reluctant to engage with this conflict is that Iran is currently in Vienna trying to restore its nuclear deal with western powers. The USA cannot afford to piss off Iran right now, and therefore cannot afford to aggravative Hamas and also needs to rely on Israel to destroy Irani nuclear facilities if the deal goes south. So, you know, there is that).

There are some people who will tell you that criticism of the Israel government is antisemitic. They are almost entirely members of the right wing, evangelical community, and they don’t speak for the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish people and Jewish Americans in particular are criticizing the Israeli government right now. The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel support Palestinian rights and are speaking out about it. And actually, when they talk about it, they are putting themselves in great danger to do so. Because it really isn’t safe to be visibly Jewish right now. People may not want to listen to Jews when they speak about antisemitism or may want to believe that antisemitism ‘isn’t real’ because ‘the Holocaust is over’ but that is absolutely untrue. In 2019, antisemitic hate crimes in the United States reached a high we have never seen before. I remember that, because I was living in London, and I was super scared for my family at the time. Since then, that number has increased by nearly 400% in the last ten days. If you don’t believe me, have some articles about it (one, two, three, four, and five, to name a few). 

I live in New York City, where a man was beaten in Time Square while attending a Free Palestine rally and wearing a kippah. I’m sorry, but being visibly Jewish near a pro-Palestine rally? That was enough to have a bunch of people just start beating on him? I made a previous post detailing how there are Jews being attacked all over the world, and there is a very good timeline of recent hate crimes against Jews that you can find right here. These are Jews, by the way, who have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. They are Americans or Europeans or Canadians who are living their lives. In some cases, they are at pro-Palestine rallies and they are trying to help, but they just look visibly Jewish.  God Forbid we are the wrong ethnicity for your rally, even if we agree.

This is really serious. There are people calling for the death of all Jews. There are people calling for another Holocaust. 

There are 14 million Jews in the world. 14 million. Of 7.6 billion. And you think it isn’t a problem the way people treat us?

Anyway (aside from, you know, compassion), why does this matter? This matters because stuff like this deters Jews who want to be part of the pro-Palestine movement because they are literally scared for their safety. I said this before, and I will say it again: Zionism was, historically speaking, a very unpopular opinion. It was only widespread antisemitic violence (you know, the Holocaust) that made Jews believe there was a necessity for a Jewish state. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that I supported it the abstract idea too.

I grew up in New York City, I am a liberal Jew, and I believe in the rights of marginalized and oppressed people to self-determine worldwide. Growing up, I also fit the profile of what many scholars describe as the self hating Jew, because I believed that, in order to justify myself in American liberal society, I had to hate Israel, and I had to be anti-Zionist by default, even if I didn’t always understand what ‘Zionism’ meant in abstract. Well, I am 27 years old now with two masters degrees in history, and here is what Zionism means to me: I hate the Israeli government. They do not speak for me. But I am not anti-Zionist. I believe in the necessity for a Jewish state — a state where all Jews are welcome, regardless of their background, regardless of their nationality. 

There needs to be a place where Jews, an ethnic minority who are unwelcome in nearly every state in the world, have a place where they are free from persecution — a place where they feel protected. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that place being the place where Jews are ethnically indigenous to. Because believe it or not, whether it is inconvenient, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. I’ve addressed this in this post.

With that said, that doesn’t mean you can kick the Palestinian people out. They are also indigenous to that land, which is addressed in the same post, if you don’t trust me. 

What is incredible to me is that Zionism is defined, by the Oxford English Dixtionary, as “A movement [that called originally for] the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine, and [since 1948] the development of the State of Israel.” Whether we agree with this or not, there were early disagreements about the location of a ‘Jewish state,’ and some, like Maurice de Hirsch, believed it ought to be located in South America, for example. Others believed it should be located in Africa. The point is that the original plans for the Jewish state were about safety. The plan changed because Jews wanted to return to their homeland, the largest project of decolonization and indigenous reclamation ever to be undertaken by an indigenous group. Whether you want to hear that or not, it is true. Read a book or two. Then you might know what I mean.

When people say this is a complicated issue, they aren’t being facetious. They aren’t trying to obfuscate the point. They often aren’t even trying to defend the Israeli government, because I certainly am not — I think they are abhorrent. But there is no future in the Middle East if the Israelis and Palestinians don’t form a state that has an equal right of return and recognizes both of their indigenousness, and that will never happen if people can’t stop throwing vitriolic rhetoric around.  Is the Israeli Government bad? Yes. Are Israeli citizens bad? Largely, no. They want to defend their families, and they want to defend their people. This is basically the same as the fact that Palestinian people aren’t bad, though Hamas often is. And for the love of god, stop defending terrorist organizations. Just stop. They kill their own people for their own power and for their own benefit. 

And yes, one more time, the Israeli government is so, so, so wrong. But god, think about your words, and think about how you are enabling Nazis. The rhetoric the left is using is hurting Jews. I am afraid to leave my house. I’m afraid to identify as Jewish on tumblr. I’m afraid for my family, afraid for my friends. People I know are afraid for me. 

It’s 2021. I am not my great uncle. I cried for him, but I shouldn’t have to die like him. 

Words have consequences. Language has consequences. And genuinely, I do not think everyone is a bad person, so think about what you are putting into the world, because you’d be surprised how often you are doing a Nazi a favor or two. 

Is that really what you want? To do a Nazi a favor or two? I don’t think that you do. I hope you don’t, at least.

That’s all. You know, five thousand words later. But uh, think a little. Please. 

[emptydragonseverywhere]

If you find yourself looking at oppression and think to yourself “would they let this happen to the Jews!?” as a means of outrage - the answer is yes, it would happen to Jews. It has probably already happened to Jews in history and it is probably happening again now or is on track to happening again in the near future.

Yes, the restrictions in France and Sweden on halal shops also affect kosher shops.

Yes, the ban on the burkini would be similarly enforced if a Jewish woman was wearing one or something similar.

Yes, Jewish women are also affected by the “no head scarf” rule in France. It just doesn’t affect our school-going children as much because, in many Jewish cultures (but not all), we don’t cover our hair until we are married. 

Yes, in the last few years: Jewish people have been second class citizens not afforded the rights of citizenship because of their status as Jews. Jewish people have been told to convert, leave, or die in a country that has had Jews for 2000 years. Jewish people of the diaspora have been attacked by terrorists, especially in France. Jewish people have been targeted and beaten for being visibly Jewish. Jewish people have been murdered for being Jewish. 

We will not be part of your “oppression olympics” to prove other marginalized groups have it worse. We are not above our oppression; our oppression is not solely historical. Many laws that target Muslims also target Jews. Many people shouting against Muslims also shout against Jews. We are also targeted by the KKK and white supremacy. Yes, even if you think Jews are white, white supremacists don’t. Surprise. We are targeted for being Jewish, for having connections to Israel (regardless of our individual feelings on the matter). We are targeted whether we are religious or secular. We, the Jewish people, have had targets on our backs for over 2000 years and we continue to wear those targets today. Just because you don’t see it (or dismiss it because of your confirmation bias that Jews are no longer oppressed) doesn’t mean Jewish people don’t still go through these things.

So, again: would they let this happen to the Jews? The answer is always yes.

[twodotsknowwhy]

On a related note, if you are talking about a racialized tragedy, don’t use the Holocaust as a comparative device. Yes, people do tell Jews to “just get over” the Holocaust, people don’t always treat it with respect, sometimes we have trouble getting people to even admit it happened. You just don’t see it because you rarely make room for Jews in your social justice.

[torahfeminist]

Shared this years back. Still relevant.

[mena-jews]

Haketia (western Ladino)

Haketia is an endangered Jewish romance language also known as Djudeo Spanyol, ladino occidental, or western judaeo spanish. It was historically spoken by the north african sephardim in the moroccan cities of Tétouan, Tangier, Asilah, Larache, Ceuta and Melilla.

The well-known form of Judeo-Spanish spoken by Jews living in the Balkans, Greece, Turkey and Jerusalem is “Ladino Oriental” (eastern Ladino). Haketia may be described by contrast as “Ladino Occidental”(western Ladino)

Most of the Sephardim expelled from Spain in 1492 established their communities around the Mediterranean and the Balkans. Those who fled to North Africa and stayed in Morocco and Algeria eventually adopted the customs and the language of local Jewish communities. Haketia is composed mainly of old Castilian with Hebrew, maghrebi arabic and French. It is believed that the origin of the word Haketia comes from the arab word 7aka (Hakka), which means talk, but some others believe it may have originated from the name Isaac, which later evolved into Haquito, and it could mean the language of the haquitos. Haketia is a spoken, oral language. Until recently it was not written in the Latin alphabet, and now is missing some clear orthographic rules. It should be mentioned that the center of Sephardic Studies of Caracas publishes books and a magazine, Maghen, dedicated to Haketia and its history.

Bailava en Tetuan (dancing in Tétouan) is a song in Haketia.

source

[kuttithevangu]

some angel facts for tonight courtesy of Rabbi Isaacs: 

- in Torah angels never do anything supernatural. They just show up and say stuff and then leave. Or maybe fight you if you’re Jacob. It’s the prophets who start assigning them miracles to do 

- we don’t say the blessing for the new month before Rosh HaShanah because we don’t want to remind the angel of death what day it is, he is bad at calendar (also hates loud sudden noises, i have a lot in common with him it seems)

- one time an angel drop-kicked a dude off the temple porch and we know it was an angel because it left a hoofprint on his shoulder. Angels have hooves specifically like baby cattle, we learn

- the seraphim lost a set of wings when the temple was destroyed! it was the pair they used for singing! OH NO!

- angels just look like whatever God wants them to look like at the time, which is why so many of them (all of them in the Torah) show up looking like men (aside from their calf feet, presumably). There’s no particular suggestion that an angel who looks like a human is “in disguise,” it’s just that’s what the angel needed to look like to do that job, I guess. Sometimes people who are special notice that a dude is an angel but not necessarily because they see anything other than a dude who happens to be an angel 

(if their job is to be screaming and on fire they’re shaped like a thing that would scream and be on fire???)   

- demons hate peas 

[sorekbekarmi-deactivated2022051]

The Sheydim Follow-up

The reasons for avoiding an abandoned building in the Talmud are, in this order - 1) it might collapse on you, 2) someone might think you’re going there to commit adultery, 3) demons.

Doors and windows shouldn’t be airtight because demons like to be able to come and go

It’s not a good idea to drink water or eat food that has been left out in the open overnight, because that may now be food which has been taken from by demons.

When you’re moving into a new house than no one has lived in, it’s auspicious to 1) study Torah in it first, or have children do so or 2) pay someone else to live there first for a week, in order to acclimate the local demons to their new building and neighbors

Many Jewish customs like breaking a glass at a wedding, dousing the havdalah flame in wine, and even hanging mezuzot and wearing teffilin, may originally stem from anti-demonic practices

Angels and demons only speak and understand Hebrew, no other languages. Therefore, certain prayers in Judaism are deliberately said NOT in Hebrew (usually in Aramaic) to avoid unwanted listeners. For example, halachma anya in the pesach liturgy invites all who are hungry to come and eat. We say it in Aramaic to avoid inadvertently inviting hungry angels or demons in.

It is polite to knock on a synagogue door before being the first one to enter in the morning, because religious demons may have been using the synagogue during the night. That’s right! Some demons set themselves up as minor gods with their own human worshipers, some are neutral or independent, and some are observant Jews! Who knew.

Demons aren’t immortal, they seem to have long life spans but do eventually pass away. Also, they live in specific places, they have homes and home countries, like people. They don’t have corporeal bodies, because Friday evening the sun started to set as God was creating them, and God had to leave them unfinished because Shabbat was starting. But they are not fallen angels, nor are they humans. They’re just their own thing.

[sorekbekarmi-deactivated2022051]

Oh I forgot a bonus tip

Leaving water out for 24/48 hours makes the chlorine evaporate, so you can offen your sheyd water to your plants and they will appreciate it more than tap water

[kermitheefrog]

ARGHHRGGHH 💞💞💞💞 THEIR MIND THEIR LITERAL MIND

[jewish-privilege]

'Good Jewish boy' or chief 'infiltrator'? NJ man spent years as fake rabbi in Israel, groups say

A self-professed “good Jewish boy from New Jersey,” Rabbi Michael Elkohen had come a long way.

In the ultra-Orthodox enclave in Jerusalem where Elkohen now lives, he was often called on to perform marriages, circumcisions and other sacred Jewish rituals. He was even hired to write Torah scrolls, handwritten copies of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, in a task typically reserved for the most devout and highly trained scribes.

But for 15 years, Elkohen was apparently living a lie. The father of five with the black hat, beard and side curls was fluent in Judaic texts and traditions but living a double life: Born Michael Elk in Salem County, he was actually a Christian missionary sent to the Holy Land to convert Jews, according to two anti-missionary groups whose accusations have captivated Israelis in recent days.

Elk’s tale has grabbed headlines across the Jewish state, where religious leaders see a growing trend of covert missionary work by evangelical Christians.

(…)

Elk “was a clearinghouse for missionary activity,” [Rabbi Tovia Singer, director of Outreach Judaism, a counter-missionary group in Jerusalem. ] said in an interview. “He was able to guide missionaries on where to go in Israel. The idea of these messianic groups is to blur distinctions in order to lure Jews who would otherwise resist the Christian message.”

(…)

The revelations have also raised questions about Elk’s late wife, Amanda, who claimed to be the daughter of Holocaust survivors and died of cancer in February. Her ties to the faith also appear to have been faked, meaning her Orthodox funeral in a Jewish cemetery would defy religious law.

Michael and Amanda Elk emigrated to Israel using forged documents and with the help of South Carolina-based Morningstar Missions, according to Beyneynu and Outreach Judaism.

(…)

Elk’s path to missionary work isn’t completely clear, but he appears to have served as a minister for a time in Olympia, Washington, according to Alan Brill, a professor of Jewish-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University. He published an online interview with Elk in 2012.

(…)

Michael Elk eventually ran a yeshiva for Messianic Jews and sought to raise his prominence in the Jewish community, said Beyneynu founder Shannon Nuszen. His five children attended ultra-Orthodox schools, and Elk worked as a scribe, rabbi and mohel, performing circumcisions. He claimed to be a “kohen,” a descendant of Aaron, the biblical high priest.  

All the while, he was working to coordinate missionary work in Israel, according to the watchdog groups. While living as a rabbi, Elk authored a book and anonymous blog posts about his work as an undercover evangelist, according to the Jerusalem Post.

(…)

“He’s the leader of this new variety of infiltrators who portray themselves perfectly as very religious Jews,” Nuszen said. “He teaches them everything from how to pronounce things correctly, how to dress, to the intricacies of Jewish law …. Michael has students and online followers all over.”

She estimates that there are about 30,000 missionaries in Israel, 300 organizations focused on evangelizing Jews and 200 websites dedicated to converting them.

Elk authored a book under the pseudonym “Orthodox Jewish Rabbi” for Morningstar Ministries, based in Fort Mill, South Carolina. In an interview, the group’s founder, Rick Joyner, recalled Elk attending Morningstar conferences and praised his “remarkable” religious knowledge.

“When people hear the word ‘missionary,’ they often think it means someone who is trying to convert them to Christianity, but that was not Michael’s intent,” Joyner said. “He was in Israel to help and to learn.” [Alexis’s note: That’s because that’s LITERALLY the definition of missionary.]

(…)

The controversy is likely to set back efforts to build bridges among Jews and Christians in Israel, said Jonathan Feldstein, a former Teaneck resident whose Jerusalem-based Genesis 123 Foundation focuses on such work.

“The deceit of a Christian family living literally in disguise as Orthodox Jews will only serve to highlight the long and sadly very bad history of Christians persecuting and forcefully converting Jews,“ he said.

[secretlymagneto]

I would like you to consider: Synagogue Architecture (spanning many places and many eras of history)

Look at them!! Stunning! Amazing! Beautiful!!!!! And these are the ones left standing, I can’t imagine what the many many others that were lost could have looked like.

[graveyarddirt]

@neelytherese

[confusionofconfusions-deactivat]

i love that 17th century jewish poltergeist story where the family living in the haunted house calls a catholic priest for help before they contact a rabbi, because yeah, i think that would be my call too; id be like, oh? a demon in my house speaking latin and drawing inverted crosses on my wall in sulfuric bile? then without even questioning my faith i’d call up the catholic church and be like yo father, one of your boys loose come get him

[confusionofconfusions-deactivat]

creepy child: I’m the antichrist

me, a jew: sounds tough kid

[scuffed-tarot-deck]

I need to read this story?????????

[confusionofconfusions-deactivat]

Prepare yourself for this thrilling tale of a Jewish exorcism, which illustrates another reason you might want to call the Catholic Church first: fewer legal fees

Keep reading

[sorekbekarmi-deactivated2022051]

Evangelical Christians: "Jewish people are wrong because they have another book that 'reinterprets' the Torah, but we have another book that says the Torah Law is no longer necessary, & that's OK 🤡"

Literally

[didyoumeanxianity]

It is, as always, amazing how much like evangelical Christianity evangelical anti-theism is.

Thanks Anon, for the attempt to “save” me. I’ll file that away with the Christian doorknocking adventures I’ve experienced.

Because evangelizing to get me to leave Judaism isn’t any better or more moral just because you took the Jesus out of it.

[sorekbekarmi-deactivated2022051]

Would you be willing to go into the whole “Jesus was actually a radical socialist bc the Jewish moneychangers!” thing is like. 1) bad and 2) the anti-Jewish sentiment behind such things as that’s been used in history (including the supposed actions of Jesus irt to temple life?). I’ve seen a lot of xtian leftists use this as a weird gotcha that I don’t get. Especially bc political ideologies being applied anachronistically is just a little weird.

First I want to clarify that Jesus as a historical figure may or may not have existed, but in the (somewhat more likely) event that he did, he was NOT a notable Jewish leader or a major reformer - descriptions in the Xian NT scriptures paint him as a notable religious leader, born from the royal line of David, in Bethlehem, who was educated in the Temple by the Priests and Pharisees, who preached to throngs of thousands of people and led a great and populous movement and just... none of that is AT ALL likely, in fact, its actively unlikely that ANY of those claims are true (and some of them, live him being the Davidic heir, are impossible even using the Xian logic and scriptures tbh). So, we will be taking the Xian Bible with a TRUCKLOAD of salt as a source, and any statements about Jesus are henceforth prefaced with an invisible, "if he existed at all,".

So when we talk at all about who Jesus was or may have been, it's all somewhat uncertain, and there's almost nothing historically valid to go off of. Also, for purposes of Judaism, it doesn't MATTER, this question only matters because Xian and culturally Xian people hold Jesus up as some kind of Ur-Role-Model, like, the ultimate figure that may be held up to make ones moral point.

When people do that (you can stop by the way it's not helpful and its annoying), they often say things like "Jesus was a brown skinned Palestinian POC socialist communist reformer," and I GET what you're trying to do but you're really just making an ass of yourself.

You can't apply modern metrics and labels like "POC" or "Palestinian" or "socialist" to ancient figures. They did not understand themselves in those terms, they did not identify that way, it is not part of their context.

Jesus was not "Palestinian" because the modern ethnicity and culture and identity of being Palestinian did not exist. He would have identified as a Judean politically and nationally, and as a Jew or Hebrew religiously, ethnically, and racially, although even those labels are not really applicable to the ancient world, because they didnt exist as separate entities the way they do today. In the same way, Jesus wouldn't have thought of himself as a person of color, and that wouldn't have been part of his social identity and experience - although being a poor Jewish man under Roman imperialism would have.

The context of Judea at the time was not about oppression based on skin color, or about socialism vs capitalism, it was ALL about Jewish independence from Roman rule vs Jewish hellenization and assimilation into the Greco-Roman cultural norms. On that front, Jesus was actually NOT a terribly radical reformer, and his legacy was not one of radicalism and reform.

Radical Judaism in that context was expecting a political reformer, a leader for a rebellion, who would remove a colonial power and establish indigenous political authority for Jews in Judea, and ultimately establish international peace. (That, by the way, is the role of the Messiah in Judaism - Jesus did not do that, which is why we don't think he is the Messiah.) Instead, Jesus said to "render unto Caesar" and continue to pay taxes to the imperial establishment. His implication was that coins bore the image of Caesar and that people bear the image of G-d, and that we can live spirtual lives even under authoritarian regimes. Spirtual, but hardly revolutionary. If anything, he supported the colonial powers.

This legacy carried over to early Xians, who actively worked against Jews who WERE rebelling against imperial rule, betraying them and joining the Roman establishment, quickly becoming the state religion of Eastern Rome. Even Xian theology is inherently a syncretism of Jewish texts and terms with Hellenistic culture and philosophy. Xianity and Jesus are NOT the movement and leader of radical reformers, but of assimilationists and those who upheld the status quo.

However, people DO love to hold up Jesus as some kind of underdog or revolutionary against the JUDAISM of his time.

THIS is what people are getting at when they praise Jesus the socialist, the righteous anger reformer, and shame the evil, greedy, performative, hypocritical, disingenuous Pharisees. But Xians and culturally Xian people usually fail to understand some KEY context in Second Temple Judaism.

First of all, the Pharisees themselves WERE the Jewish reformers of their day! Almost all modern Jews (basically all of us except Karaites and Beta Israel) are literally Pharisees. They were a movement that basically began when Jews were exiled to Babylon outside the context of Israeli land, agriculture, and Temple ritual, evolved the religion into true monotheism, and continued defining and reforming Judaism even once the Second Temple was built. The whole era of the Second Temple was about intre-Jewish conflict between differing sects: the Pharisees, the Saducees (Priests, advocating for mortals physical, Temple based Judaism independent of Oral Law and the supernatural/immortal soul/afterlife), and the Essenes (a sectarian group who rebelled against the political power of Rome by withdrawing from society, living communally, and occupying themselves with escatology, angelology/demonology, and gnostic/hidden wisdom). Pharisees were all about monotheism, Oral Law, and the idea that we as humans can live righteous lives on earth that influence our immortal soul, the spiritual world, and our place in the world to come. They themselves were reformers of the polytheist expression of ancient First Temple Judaism and the Temple sacrifice centered system of their day.

Secondly, it's important to understand the role of early Xians in that context of sectarian strife. Jesus himself didn't write ANYTHING, all of the NT was written ~50-100 years after his apparent death. Christianity was largely invented by Paul, and it represents basically a syncretism of Jewish ideas with Hellenism. Within the first century, Xianity had distanced itself from Judaism, welcomed in non-Jews, eschewed Jewish practices and identity, and actively embraced antisemitism: early Xians literally betrayed Jews to the Roman's resulting in mass death, and they embraced mandatory traditions like eating pork that made it impossible for Jews to be Xian. Jesus was not a reformer of Judaism, and his earky followers did not practice a reformed Judaism, but an appropriated Judaism.

Lastly, because of the last two points, antisemitism and anti-Pharisee and Saducee sentiment is BAKED INTO the text of the NT (which again, does not reflect any historical truth about Jesus as much as it does the attitudes of Paul and the anonymous authors of the NT, who were actually NOT Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John). Aside from the aforementioned attitudes about Pharisees (being hypocrites, fake generosity, performative prayer, etc), Jesus curses a fig tree which has not born fruit to wither, which is explained in the text as a metaphor for Jews being cursed for not accepting him as Messiah. The NT also goes on to call Jews the "synagogue of satan" saying that we "belong to our father the Devil." It also paints Jews as the murderers of Jesus, even though he was killed by Romans and convicted in Roman court, and as priests and Pharisees working together persecuting Xians in Damascus, even though that was well outside their jurisdiction and priests and Pharisees wouldnt have been working together.

The story you're mentioning about the money changers is another example of antisemitism baked into the text of the Xian NT. The NT paints Jesus as being full of righteous anger, purifying the Temple, rebelling against the true enemy of the people - not Roman oppression, but greedy Jewish bankers. In fact, we know from extra-Biblical texts and archeological that 1) money changers were in the outer court of the Temple, not inside the Temple, 2) they were in accordance with the Jewish religious laws regarding interest and just banking, and 3) they preformed an ESSENTIAL service. In the ancient Roman world there were many different currencies, and they needed a foreign exchange - every city had a centralized bank for this purpose, and in Jerusalem it was the Temple. People also needed to have a place to deposit and withdraw money from, and to make change - small coins for large ones. Further, Temple Judaism revolved around three pilgrimage holidays where all adult Jewish males traveled to the Temple three times a year to make livestock offerings - bringing livestock from the diaspora and the far reaches of Israel was very impractical, so we know that many people chose to bring money and buy sacrifices in Jerusalem.

Keep in mind that even the sacrifices were not just religious in nature, they helped feed and sustain the priests, who were working as community and legal religious leaders, but didnt have their own land to farm. They were part tax, paying for public infrastructure that benefited everyone. BUT, money, grain, and animal sacrifices given to the Temple were not JUST religious sacrifices OR taxes, they also helped pay for feeding the poor and homeless (soup kitchens), burying the dead (public funerals for the poor), redeeming prisoners (bail fund), and providing paved roads and clean water (infrastructure). Religous authorities also had their own systems in place to prevent corruption, which amounted to peer review and accountability and public transparency.

Read all about it!

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2015/2/12/1361655/-D-var-Torah-The-Money-Changers-in-the-Temple

D'var Torah: The Money Changers in the Temple

There are two Torah readings for this special Shabbat. The weekly reading, Mishpatim, chapters 21 through 24 of Exodus, forms the backbone

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/money-changers

Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-S

In this story, Jesus is not "socialist man of the people," he is "crazy guy flipping tables in your locally based community credit union." Again, the legacy of Jesus and Xianity is of rebelling against JEWISH authority, but of conforming to imperial authority.

Now, it IS true that the NT says that early Xian communities lived in what were essentially communes, selling their property and investing in communally shared bank accounts, with each giving according to their ability and taking according to their need. But that isn't as interesting or powerful an image as table flipping Jesus, and it doesn't have that delicious taste of antisemitism. It's not spicy enough.

TL;DR - you aren't allowed to say SHIT about Jesus as a revolutionary socialist or to quote the money-changers in the Temple story to make your point unless you first 1) read Jewish sources on the subject (Jerusalem Talmud) and 2) sell all your property and give all your money and possessions to your local Xian commune. Since I have never heard of a SINGLE Christian who has done ONE of those things, let alone both, I would like to cordially invite every single Christian to shut the fuck up about Jesus and the money changers in the Temple FOREVER.

PS - Even though Marx was racist and antisemitic as fuck, and even though Communist Russia was SUPER bad and evil to the Jews, it was actually Jewish revolutionaries who pushed for socialism in the early 20th century, in Israel, America, Europe, and all over the world, and a lot of the pushback was BECAUSE they were Jewish. So if your concept of socialism doesn't include, embrace, and celebrate Jews, you also don't know shit about socialism.

[honeygordo]

Don't rly wanna go after the person who made the uquiz but this shit has me 🙄 i hate how shit like ophanim and stuff are associated with Catholics now just bc a bunch of ex Catholics were like "I'm gonna make art coping with my religious trauma by making fucked up angels" but all the "fucked up" angels are just angels from Jewish theology like when did Judaism traumatize you? 🤔

[honeygordo]

These are your guys' angels stop making your weird paintings and statues with Jewish angels lol

[keeper-of-the-flames]

This is your periodic reminder that the story of Jesus flipping over tables in the Temple is inherently antisemitic and holding it up as a great example of “fighting capitalism” or some such in the modern day is also antisemitic because those people in the Temple were doing what they were instructed to do in the Torah (in Exodus) to help make the Temple more accessible to those who lived far away. The story frames the fulfillment of this commandment from Gd as Jews being greedy, opportunistic, schemers and I’m so tired of people talking about it like it’s a good thing.

Goyim please reblog, and if you interact with this post please just be respectful.