Eleven people have been killed in an attack targeting a Hanukkah event on the beach.
Tonight is the first night of Chanukkah. This gathering would have been a celebration to mark the holiday’s start. There were 1000 people there; 11 dead (plus one of the shooters), and 29 wounded, so far. They haven’t finished counting the casualties.
I mostly focus on antisemitism in America, but Diaspora communities all over the world have suffered a sharp uptick in antisemitic attacks in recent years:
A year ago, a synagogue was set on fire in Melbourne.
This January, a home formerly owned by by a Jewish community leader was vandalized with antisemitic slogans and two cars set on fire
A few days later, a childcare center near a Jewish school and synagogue was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti and firebombed
Two other synagogues were vandalized during this period
Members of the Australian Jewish community, though grief-stricken by this latest attack, are not surprised by it. Nor am I. We’re seeing the same bullshit here in the US, British and French Jews report much the same, and so forth. This is the new normal.
I know many of my Gentile friends are going to respond with expressions of support and sympathy. I’m grateful for that, I truly am, but I need you to do more. I need you to educate yourself about antisemitism, and to push back against it when you see it in your friend circles. Here are some books on the topic that may be useful for you:
This is becoming the norm for us: violent, sometimes deadly, attacks on Jews on our holidays.
We cannot stop that ourselves, though we’ll continue to try. But we cannot make our communities safe without non-Jewish allies. It’s simply not possible.
Every one of you that has said you support Jews, that you’d “punch nazis,” that you’d have hidden Jews in the Holocaust…
Since I’ve gotten in a number of questions from you all on the misinformation I was referring to, and since the Minister prefers to baselessly accuse me, little queer old me, of homophobia rather than ask for clarification because *checks notes* I disagreed with the good Minister on the extent of gentile involvement in the creation of the Christian NT, let’s set the record straight (hee!) and talk about the two factual assertions I mentioned that are…let’s go with “blatantly wrong.”
Now, to be clear, the good Minister is not alone in repeating these inaccuracies, but they are inaccuracies nonetheless:
So, before I get into it: I am not commenting on the rest of the infographic, and I am not commenting on what solutions one should support to secure peace in Israel or Palestine. That’s not the point of this. This is merely to correct the record (and I guess answer slander? I was honestly kind of surprised, I’m so openly queer that the homophobia accusation was a new one for me).
1) There was not peace between Jews and Arab Muslims prior to 1948.
There were some periods of relative quiet during the British Mandate of Palestine, but that was by no means the rule. The Massacre of Hebron, the Jaffa Riots, the riots in Jerusalem, and the 1936-1939 Arab Revolts (which followed a long sequence of violence back and forth between Jews, Arab Muslims, and the British) all predate the creation of the modern State of Israel. And that’s both just from the British Mandate period and only a sampling from that time frame.
2) Samaritans are not Jews
This is the one that really took me aback from someone who purports to be learned in the Christian NT and it’s historical and cultural context, because the Christian NT includes the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
The reason the Parable of the Good Samaritan would have been a radical story of love for a Second Temple Era Judean audience is because of two reasons: 1) the Samaritans weren’t Jews, so this is someone helping their neighbor after the Jewish man had been left to his own devices by his own people; and 2) the Samaritans and the Jews were, at the time, long-standing enemies. Real bad blood, the Jews during the Hasmonean dynasty destroyed the Samaritan Temple. It was a whole thing.
So you can understand my consternation at the claim that Samaritans are Jews. But even without that Christian clergy piece - just, bare facts, Samaritans aren’t Jews. They have never been Jews. And although relations between the Samaritans and the Jews are not antagonistic the way they were in the Second Temple Era, we remain distinct peoples. (The Samaritans are b’nei Yisrael, Children of Israel or Israelites. We are very closely related. But my sister and I aren’t the same person, y’know?)
That Samaritans aren’t Jews is the kind of fact I’d expect a member of the Christian clergy - any of them, progressive or not - to know.
Both of these facts are, as I said before, readily ascertainable even for someone without any relevant background. Takes less than 5 minutes in the search engine of your choice.
Revisionist history, regardless of what it is in service of, is not the way forward, in my opinion, towards a more just society. And refusing acknowledge facts or, in the alternative, a willingness to blunder ahead while willfully ignorant of the facts can never be the basis of a valuable discussion.
Since this clown is off clowning again — apparently accusing some random Jew on the internet of supporting genocide and being a (((Zionist))) is easier for the good minister to handle than addressing facts — here is the post the minister is referring to. The minister won’t link to it, preferring to misrepresent it entirely, so here you go. I’ll let every individual judge for themselves what this says.
Still trying to figure out how this post supports anything other than factual accuracy, but ah well.
And, to my fellow LGBTQ+ Jewish folks out there, I know this is a hard year and we’re all facing a lot of personal and difficult decisions about participating in Pride. I see you. And no choice you make will be the wrong one so long as it feels right to you. I’m proud of you all.
It’s probably pretty obvious I’ve taken a step back. There are several reasons why, but as many are personal I’ll just say: real life has to come before the internet.
Q: Why haven’t you said anything about the shooting, DYMX?
A: Because I’m running out of ways to say that we warned you. We told you that violent rhetoric on the right and the left would lead to antisemitic hate crimes and violence. And with every escalation we sounded the alarm again.
We have spoken until our voices have grown hoarse; I know I have.
And now? Now when blood is spilled on the streets of the capitol of the United States in a clear antisemitic hate crime, now you want to hear what I have to say?
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is the day the international community remembers the horrific atrocities, the world’s indifference, and the victims of the Holocaust. Ideally, anyway, but that’s a conversation for another time.
This is not that. This is the day Jews around the world mourn our 6,000,000+ dead. Two-thirds of European Jews. One-third of the world’s Jewish population.
Our population still has not recovered.
Those are big numbers. So let me bring them home to smaller ones. My grandmother (z”l) was born into a family of eight (she made the ninth). My grandmother and four others survived the Shoah. Four perished. Two in KZ Ravensbrück. Two more at the hands of the SS Politzei. May their memories be for a blessing.
The survivors? Two hidden children. A young seamstress that survived brutal work camps. A boy told to ride his bike as far away as he could that found a way onto a kindertransport. A young woman who’d been on a teen trip to the British Mandate who heeded her parents warnings not to go back home. Two of them are still alive today, and the rest lived to ripe old age and saw their lineages pass down to children, grandchildren, and, in my grandmother’s case, a great-grandchild.
They were the lucky ones, but what they survived left permanent marks. They cannot forget the Shoah and neither shall I.
There are only two of them left, and their biggest fear is that the Shoah and its tragedies and lessons will be forgotten.
Remember them. Remember their family. Remember the Shoah.
If you are a Christian that wants to host a Passover seder this year:
1) Don’t. It’s appropriative and gross.
2) Still don’t.
3) Jesus never participated in the type of seder that Jews have today. He lived (if he existed as described in your Christian holy books) during the Second Temple Era of Judaism, when worship was Temple-focused and ritual sacrifice was a key facet of the holiday. The modern seder takes most of its traditions from rabbinic Judaism, which was not the Judaism of Jesus.
4) Don’t do it. Don’t. No, there is no good reason for you to do it.
5) Given the Christian antisemitic violence traditionally inflicted on the Jews during this time of year (the lead up to Easter), it is EXTRA awful for Christians to try and appropriate our traditions related to Passover.
6) Don’t. Pesach is our holiday, and our religion is a semi-closed practice. Don’t appropriate our stuff. Don’t make our stuff about Jesus.
7) There are no exceptions to the rule that Christians should not host Passover seders.
@myfairkatiecat, I’m going to treat this as a learning opportunity, as best I can — and you’re young, so I’ll be nicer about it than I would be otherwise — because your tags are full of widespread misconceptions and inaccuracies related to Christianity, Judaism, and the history between our two peoples that should be reckoned with.
This would be them. It’s, uh…they’re sure something. Let’s spare folks dashes and dig into the problems here below the cut.
So, to clarify: I am familiar with the Christian Bible; several of them, in fact, since they do differ between denominations. Because, y’know, I have an academic background in the History of Early Christianity. That’s this blog’s whole thing.
Your argument would have more to stand on if I were taking issue with, say, baptism (rooted in the Jewish mikveh) or the reading of the Book of Exodus in the Christian Old Testament. Those things that can be traced back to when Christianity was a messianic splinter group of Judeans (Jews) who followed the Jesus figure.
But this ain’t that.
Misconception: This is Christians going back to something they used to do.
Reality: Not only is the history of Christians hosting Seders incredibly short, this wasn’t something Christians ever did at any measurable level before around 50 years ago. It’s not that the Seder is something Christians stopped doing, it’s something they never started doing (until recently). Indeed, for over 1,000 years Christian doctrine actively prohibited Christians taking part in Jewish practices.
Notice I do not say here, and did not say in the OP, Christians shouldn’t take part in their own rituals centered on the story of the Exodus or, if they wanna get Jesus-y with it, the Last Supper. I haven’t mentioned Christians participating in the Christian Holy Week. I said not to do Seders. Which were never a Christian thing until Evangelical/Messianic churches started making them a thing.
Misconception: This isn’t something Christians saw Jews doing and went “let’s do that.”
Reality: That is exactly what the Christian Seder is. Because they can’t have taken it from anywhere else. This is not organic Christian evolution from an old Christian practice, this is Christians in the 1970s-1980s looking at something done, up until that point, exclusively by Jews and going “we want it too” and taking it. Just like it’s the basis of Christian appropriation of other Jewish practices like blowing the shofar, and wearing tallitot.
Wild Claim: Labeling this practice as appropriative is crazy (your word, to be clear).
Reality: Judaism is a semi-closed culture that developed its traditions related to the Seder meal after it had split from Christianity entirely. Not only is this something the Jesus figure wouldn’t have done; no Christians ever did it. Because it was never Christian. And we’ve never offered it up for others to take and alter. Our traditions are ours and for us; they were never for you.
Just as it would be wildly appropriative for me to engage in religious practice from indigenous tribes in the Americas — as someone who isn’t part of the relevant culture and who wasn’t given permission — so too is that the case here.
Wild Claim: Labeling this behavior by Christians as antisemitic is crazy (again, your word).
Reality: First, it’s poor form to assume you can spot antisemitism better than Jews can. Moreover, not only can you see in the notes that this is the widespread Jewish conclusion about this behavior by Christians, but it was agreed to by members of Jewish clergy as well. We, as a people, disagree on a lot of things but this isn’t really one of them.
The idea that our culture is up on offer to you all as some kind of exotic buffet is based on Christian doctrines — Christian supercessionism — that posit AT BEST that Christianity is Judaism brought to its natural fruition. Normally, those teachings portray us as a failed, incomplete, or even specifically evil group of people. Christian supercessionism is antisemitic. Feel free to go through my blog to find the various posts where I dig into that more deeply.
Assertion: Passover is important to Christianity too, we just celebrate it differently.
Response: Please point out where I said Christians could not engage with Christian practices related either the Book of Exodus or to Easter.
I’ll wait.
But if you wanna save time: I didn’t.
I said not to host a Seder. Because it’s a wholly Jewish practice. One Christianity prohibited Christians from participating in for nearly all of its history. One Christians murdered Jews for participating in for nearly as long. This is not something that is shared between Judaism and Christianity, and it never was.
By all means, participate in Christian religious practices during the spring (though maybe skip the tradition of attacking a bunch of Jews). But let them be Christian practices rather than stolen, and bastardized Jewish ones.
If you are a Christian that wants to host a Passover seder this year:
1) Don’t. It’s appropriative and gross.
2) Still don’t.
3) Jesus never participated in the type of seder that Jews have today. He lived (if he existed as described in your Christian holy books) during the Second Temple Era of Judaism, when worship was Temple-focused and ritual sacrifice was a key facet of the holiday. The modern seder takes most of its traditions from rabbinic Judaism, which was not the Judaism of Jesus.
4) Don’t do it. Don’t. No, there is no good reason for you to do it.
5) Given the Christian antisemitic violence traditionally inflicted on the Jews during this time of year (the lead up to Easter), it is EXTRA awful for Christians to try and appropriate our traditions related to Passover.
6) Don’t. Pesach is our holiday, and our religion is a semi-closed practice. Don’t appropriate our stuff. Don’t make our stuff about Jesus.
7) There are no exceptions to the rule that Christians should not host Passover seders.
If you are a Christian that wants to host a Passover seder this year:
1) Don’t. It’s appropriative and gross.
2) Still don’t.
3) Jesus never participated in the type of seder that Jews have today. He lived (if he existed as described in your Christian holy books) during the Second Temple Era of Judaism, when worship was Temple-focused and ritual sacrifice was a key facet of the holiday. The modern seder takes most of its traditions from rabbinic Judaism, which was not the Judaism of Jesus.
4) Don’t do it. Don’t. No, there is no good reason for you to do it.
5) Given the Christian antisemitic violence traditionally inflicted on the Jews during this time of year (the lead up to Easter), it is EXTRA awful for Christians to try and appropriate our traditions related to Passover.
6) Don’t. Pesach is our holiday, and our religion is a semi-closed practice. Don’t appropriate our stuff. Don’t make our stuff about Jesus.
7) There are no exceptions to the rule that Christians should not host Passover seders.
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