Zzzz

Here I post about random things that interest me, including but not limited to: math, poetry, cats, Judaism

[msjava1972]

[nonlynear]

the losing dogs and i are engaging in insider trading

[egberts]

experts: cats thrive on a schedule

my cats, every day, 2 hours before their scheduled feeding time, that they've had since they were infants: do you wish to see us become evil mother?

[h4ganah]

Jews should not have to live like this

[notaplaceofhonour]

Was going to add this to a post I saw (the gist being a rebuttal of antizionist “separating Jews from Israel” talking points), but the app refreshed when I came back and now I can’t find the original post lol

A lot of people seem to not grasp that just because things are “different” or conceptually distinct doesn’t mean they’re entirely separate or inherently unrelated, where any relation between them is entirely arbitrary & artificial.

Are there distinctions between Jews, the state of Israel, and the land of Israel? Yes. But the relationship between these things has so much overlap that you cannot honestly fully separate them.

If I had to visualize it as a Venn diagram, it might look something like this.

Eretz Yisrael is incredibly important to Jewish history & Jewish religion, and half of all Jews reside there, as citizens of Medinat Yisrael (where most of its population is Jews, and the makeup of its government reflects that), which represents the most substantial embodiment of Am Yisrael’s political autonomy at present or in the last two millennia—which is very clearly necessary with the amount of violence Jews face—and whose borders encompass most of Eretz Yisrael.

The historical boundaries of the land of Israel are not 1-for-1 with the modern state of Israel’s borders; there are plenty of Israelis who aren’t Jews, including in the government; there are Jews living in the diaspora; some of them do not care for the state of Israel at all. So yes, these three things are different ideas. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are still tightly related in every direction, and the exceptions are statistical outliers, not normative.

It’s not that we are “conflating” these things; it’s that they are intrinsically blended concepts with inherent heavy overlap.

[notaplaceofhonour]

what this does not mean is that “any criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic” nor that “all Jews are complicit” when Israel does something wrong.

what it does mean is that attacking Israel’s very existence as a Jewish state is an attack on Jewish political autonomy, that “criticisms” of its government which employ tropes historically used against the Jewish people are still targeting Jews with antisemitic tropes, which is antisemitic, and that Jews have every reason to call that out for what it is when they see it.

[streetkit]

girl shocked to discover that inaction can have consequences too

[dontkickthesnake]

does anyone mind raising a golem I think we could really use one

[chkq-deactivated20260531]

mathematics is a sort of goo/ooze secreted by the human mind when it rubs against the universe

[hiddurmitzvah]

The Joy of Hating Jews - Tablet Magazine

Why antisemites always have a blast—and how Jews enhance the experience

[mouse-fischer]

Today’s digital culture has monetized these pleasures. Online platforms are engineered to maximize engagement by maximizing emotional reward. Antisemitism is extraordinarily well suited to such systems. Platforms amplify the thrill of forbidden knowledge, insider language, memes, and collective outrage while making them instantly accessible and endlessly repeatable. The digital dogpile—coordinated mass attack on a single Jewish target—is the mob made digital. Like the analogue mobs that preceded them, these too are often gleeful and public. But unlike earlier forms, participation no longer requires gathering in the street or much physical effort at all. The mob no longer needs to gather, it simply needs to log on.

Flooding Jewish journalists’ social media feeds with Holocaust jokes and “oven” memes; defacing synagogues, menorahs, or Jewish community centers with swastikas—often timed to holidays; filming antisemitic taunts of visibly Jewish people and posting them online for laughs; turning classic antisemitic tropes into viral “ironic” content or remix videos—none of these are coherent responses to a supposedly sophisticated international cabal controlling the world’s economy, politics, media, migration, and satellites. They are rituals of humiliation. The point is not resistance. The point is pleasure.

[sprinkledsalt]

"The third pleasure is moral. Antisemitism allows its adherents to experience hate as virtue. The antisemite does not feel like a bully. His experience is one of courage. He is exposing hidden power. Defending society. Cruelty becomes public service. This framing—hating Jews as just and right—has proved infinitely adaptable. Medieval violence against Jews was 'defense of Christendom.' In the medieval Islamic world, Jewish subjugation under dhimmi law was framed as righteous social order and mercy. Soviet purges were coded as 'anti-cosmopolitan virtue.' Nazi propaganda framed persecution as national hygiene. In much of the world today, antisemitism travels under the banner of anti-Zionism and resistance, repackaging eliminationist sentiment as liberation theology. The vocabulary shifts—anti-colonialism, anti-globalism, anti-elitism—but the emotional architecture remains. The antisemite gets to feel good. He is a whistleblower. A truth teller. A patriot. A freedom fighter. It is remarkable how stable the narrative structure remains. The blood libel accusations that convulsed medieval Europe—murdered innocents, monstrous perpetrators, the righteous community that exposes them—have proven durable and portable. Dress the accusation in the language of human rights reporting rather than theology and the structure barely changes."

[strangesmallbard]

“If Jews protest loudly, it will be cast as Jews having something to hide. If Jewish organizations demand collective condemnation, it will be cast as Jews having the power to suppress criticism. If Jews stay silent, it will be cast as indifference, arrogance, or worse—tacit agreement. Confront the accusation publicly and Jews feed the spectacle. Ignore it and normalization spreads. Explain it carefully and with nuance and lose ground faster. Complexity will always be outrun by emotional simplicity and the vocabulary of moral crusade. In short, Jews become unwilling performers in someone else’s theater. The antisemite wins either way.

This is part of the exhaustion Jewish communities experience in the wake of antisemitic waves that followed Oct. 7 and have not abated. It is not only fear. It is the demoralizing recognition that every available response is both necessary and compromised.”

[pargolettasworld]

This beautiful outdoor choir performance is an act of rebellion, and efforts are underway to make it illegal to do this.

The choir is part of the larger organization Women of the Wall, a multidenominational, international group of women who are campaigning for the right of women to pray at the Kotel in Jerusalem in an egalitarian way -- to sing, read Torah, and to pray out loud, taking up space, as women.

The Kotel is currently administered by a highly Orthodox rabbinate, which I suspect would prefer it if women just . . . didn't pray there at all. Grudgingly, they allow a teeny tiny official prayer space for women, who are expected to be very quiet and Orthodox about their prayer. The Orthodox men who take up most of the space at the Kotel haaaaaaaaaaate when people pray in non-Orthodox styles there, and they especially loathe it when women do that, to the point where they will physically attack people like the Women of the Wall, by throwing things like chairs and hot coffee at them while they're having services.

The Israeli government has been making noises about setting up an egalitarian prayer area at the Kotel for ages and ages, and noises is all we're going to get from them for the foreseeable future. Therefore, Women of the Wall, and their choir of beautiful Kol Isha voices will continue to campaign, to pray, to read Torah, and to sing for the right of all Jews to encounter the Divine in our most holy place.

[kosher-salt]

To be very fair, the left is quickly advancing to "openly wanting Jews [explicitly] dead," and I'm not so sure that's going to be a good thing. What will it acheive for us, the Jews, exactly, when we say, "you mean Jews" and they say, "well, yes"?

[bluesardine]

I don’t know, truly. It may make everything worse.

But also, maybe it’s good if everyone knows and agrees where they stand. Maybe honest hatred is better than dishonest detente. At least it’s on a more solid foundation.

[bluesardine]

Is this a safe space to say that I get so irritated by the people who say “Jews and Israelis aren’t the same btw!” in response to antisemitic statements, like they’re the good guys defending diaspora Jews against hatred? It honestly makes me angrier than the people who just outright admit they hate Jews, because at least they’re honest.

Ok Israel is the Big Bad and therefore it’s just fine to lie about Israelis and say they eat babies. No no it’s not standard-issue blood libel, because this time the Jews— sorry, Israelis— really ARE doing it!

It’s giving “why don’t the girls want to date me, I’m such a nice guy!!” If you’re going to be an asshole, at least have the guts to stand ten toes down on it.

[troybarnesbucky]

i’m taking away most of the world’s right to talk about jews. i silence u all. shut THEE fuck up.

[iswearbyalltheflowers]

[electronicmail]

i think you belong somewhere bad

like hell???!!!!!! Please say like hell!!!!!!!!

[electronicmail]

is it because of my bad personality

[electronicmail]

Back to the drawing board

[treasuredplanet]

I think that when you're overstimulated you should appear kind of grayed out and no one should be able to interact with you like a locked character in a video game

[sprinkledsalt]

Tumblr post: “it’s so disgusting and idiotic to think any group of people is inherently, ontologically evil. You should be very suspicious of someone telling you an entire ass group of people is all bad or inherently anything because no person is born as inherently anything. No one is born bad, humans start out neutral. People just want an excuse to oppress others so they creature categories of people who are deemed socially acceptable to dehumanize and subsequently brutalize. We’re all creatures feeling the breeze and sunshine on our faces, be free~”

Follow-up reblog from OP: “oh my GOD guys i can’t believe this needs to said but ofc this doesn’t apply to Jews because they really ARE bad and evil and bloodthirsty 🙄”

[lem0nademouth]

most goyim hear “the vast majority of jews are zionists” and translate that to “the vast majority of jews are evil colonizers and genocidal maniacs” rather than the true meaning of that statement which is “zionism is a complex and multifaceted concept that every jew has a unique relationship with and it cannot be distilled into a single slogan-length description”

[mieczyhale]

"The issue is that there's a FUNDAMENTAL misunderstanding between the average "normie" Jew and the average antizionist. The Jew thinks Zionism = "Jews have a right to live there and call it their/our homeland," and they see antizionism as "you think we all should be kicked out, so of course I'm pro-Israel!" BDS types see Zionism as support of Israel the state in real time, so (1/2)

(2/2) when they hear those Jews saying "of course I'm pro-Israel," they hear "I'm in support of everything Israel does in the name of keeping its status as a Jewish state." Which makes the hardcore antizionist fling accusations of genocide apologism, which in turn makes the Jew double down on their belief that the antizionist wants their family expelled and support Israel even harder."

-reply by @godihatethisfreakingcat

[thisgingerisareallybadwriter]

The thing is, Jews have explained these concepts to antizionist goyim, over and over again for literal years. And the antizionists' answer, almost without fail, is to scream at us that Jews have no real reason to fear because we're privileged white oppressors and we need to stop playing the victim card. Oh, and that the mere existence of Israel (or Israelis) is bad as the Holocaust.

So tbh, I don't think it's a misunderstanding. Jews understand perfectly well what they believe, because they've told us so—and they know perfectly well what Jews believe. They simply see it as more evidence against us.

[unsolicited-opinions]

It's a Kafka Trap. They regard (a priori) the explanation of what we actually believe as a deception - which only proves what they already believe about the nasty, tricky, evil Jews.

More

[a-s-fischer]

@godihatethisfreakingcat

There also is no misunderstanding of what Zionism actually is. The way "antizionists" use the term Zionism relies on it having two very different definitions, a broad definition, when deciding who is a Zionist, and a narrow, deeply vile one, when deciding what zionists deserve. I have taken to calling this technique a pump label, because the two definitions are designed to suck people into the broad definition and pump them out into the narrow definition. This is not a technique of misunderstanding, it's bad faith.

The use of "zionist" in this way is designed to sort people, to move them from the unsorted mass of humanity into the category of "bad person" or "enemy". And once a person has been judged an evil enemy, they are presumed to be seeking to decieve, justifying the Kafka trap @unsolicited-opinions points to.

But of course for the people who use "Zionist" this way, it's almost always a way to justify their own Jew-hate to themselves, as evinced by just what can get you sucked into the label "Zionist", including "pointing out antisemitism unrelated to Israel" or "participating in Jewish observance" or even, for the particularly transparent, "being a Jew."

I developed the idea of pump labels here:

So I came up with the concept and term pump label because of what's currently going on with the word Zionest, and because I am a Jew who is

Thank you @sublime-linguist for giving such a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier with the concept of pump labels:...

[bluesardine]

I’ve gotten to the point with people using “Zionist” as a dirty word or an accusation that I’m just disgusted. It’s NOT ignorance at this point, it’s malicious disregard for reality, but I don’t even care anymore. I wish they would take their Jew-hate and go somewhere else because I don’t have the patience to listen to them lie to my face anymore.