unironically this concept is what made me move on from "transmasc nonbinary" to "transmasc" because I saw a (different) tiktok on here about jewish masculinity and i was like ohhhh everything that i thought of as a compromise between what i really wanted and how i could pass better is a discrepancy between gendered norms in different cultures
it's most quickly noticeable with language (jewish english, like AAE, has a lot of tonal variance, but white mainstream english expects men to have significantly less range) but I find it also comes into play because I'm bookish and smiley and ask a lot of questions
You said something in “Smith” which I hope I grasped, and there was a feeling almost of recognition. An odd feeling of grief overcame me when I read it. I cannot explain my feelings any clearer. It was like hearing a piece of music from way back, except that it was nearer poetry by Graves’ definition. Thank you very much for writing it.
Terry Pratchett, in a letter to J. R. R. Tolkien, 22 November 1967
Thank you very much for your letter. The first one that I have received with regard to Smith of Wootton Major. You evidently feel about the story very much as I do myself. I can hardly say more.
J. R. R. Tolkien, in reply to Pratchett’s letter, 24 November 1967
And he did in fact say on at least one occasion that it was this that pushed him to always engage with his own fans in the same kind and conscientious manner.
“Pratchett went back to older throwaway jokes (like dwarves being apparently unisex) and used them as metaphors to discuss social change, racial assimilation, and other complex issues, while reexamining the species he’d thrown in at the margins of his world simply because they existed at the margins of every other fantasy universe. If goblins and orcs and trolls could think, then why were they always just there to be slaughtered by the heroes? And if the heroes slaughtered sentient beings en masse, how heroic exactly were they? It was a long overdue start on redressing issues long swept under the rug by a parade of Tolkien successors who never thought of anyone green and slimy as anything but a notch on the protagonist’s sword, and much of the urgency in Pratchett’s last few books seemed to be related to them. “There’s only one true evil in the world,” he said through his characters. “And that’s treating people like they were things.” And in the last of his “grown-up” Discworld books, that idea is shouted with the ferocity of those who have only a few words left and want to make them count. Goblins are people. Golems are people. Dwarves are people, and they do not become any less people because they decide to go by the gender they know themselves to be instead of the one society forces on them. Even trains might be people, and you’ll never know one way or the other unless you ask them, because treating someone like they’re a person and not a thing should be your default. And the only people who cling to tradition at the expense of real people are sad, angry dwellers in the darkness who don’t even understand how pathetic they are, clutching and grasping at the things they remember without ever understanding that the world was never that simple to begin with. The future is bright, it is shining, and it belongs to everyone.”
He waited for her when she got home so he could tell her about his day
She had her little routine—taking off her gear, bending to sniff the flowers he’d gotten her, dropping a kiss on his forehead as she puttered around, settling back into their domestic bubble. It took time for the work to peel away. Even now, ten minutes after she’d walked in the door, there was something hard in her expression when their eyes met. It would be at least ten more minutes before she was something close to herself again.
As impatient as he was, as much as he loved every form she took, the wait was worth it.
SEND ME THE FIRST SENTENCE OF A FIC & I’LL WRITE THE NEXT FIVE
Question that I'm asking in good faith because I really do want to know about it: why does Herzl describe israel as a colony if it isn't one?
(All good faith questions are welcome, Anon - thanks for this one!)
TLDR: Because words change meanings over time and Herzl wasn't psychic.
In the 1890s, "colony" just meant a planned settlement or concentrated community. This included Jewish agricultural colonies in the Pale, temperance colonies in Colorado, and utopian communes everywhere.
It was basically the Victorian word for "intentional community," with absolutely no imperial baggage required.
The specific meaning activists now deploy (colony as racial domination, metropole extraction, indigenous suppression) is a 20th century framework that didn't exist when Herzl was writing in 1896.
So a reader of the 21st century finds the word "colony" in an old text and assumes it carries a technical definition that was coined decades later.
It's a little like finding the word "trauma" in a Civil War field report and concluding the surgeon was diagnosing PTSD.
Meanwhile, 'settler colonialism' as applied to Israel isn't a neutral analytical tool that happens to fit badly. It's a framework specifically constructed to exclude the features that distinguish Jewish return from actual settler colonialism...and it still fails on its own stated terms.
Jewish immigrants to the Levant were never agents of any empire. They were overwhelmingly refugees from empires who were fleeing Russian pogroms, Eastern European persecution, and later Nazi Germany. No metropole sent them. No metropole would take them back if the project failed.
That's not a minor quibble about definitions, either - it's the primary distinction between settler colonialism and every other form of large population movement in history.
There's also the matter of indigeneity. The Jews returning to the Levant weren't arriving in a place with which they had no connection.
Jewish presence in the region is documented continuously from ancient history, including in Egyptian records dating to roughly 1210 BCE.
The religious, linguistic, and ancestral connection to the land is what distinguishes this case from the British in Kenya or the French in Algeria, who had no such ties - and it is some of the best-documented, most indisputable history humans have ever gathered. (This is why they're so constantly engaged in historical revisionism.)
So when proponents of the settler colonialism framework of accusation encounter these objections, what do they do?
They move the goalposts.
The absence of a metropole gets explained away as an "exception."
The indigenous origin of the Jewish people to the Levant gets ahistorically dismissed or ignored, despite the fact that the Jewish people are the only group whose national identity, language, and religion originated in and remained oriented toward that specific land throughout their entire existence.
The framework gets rewritten and the history is revised until Israel fits the allegation.
So, one word in Der Judenstaat doesn't settle* any of this.
From The Atlantic: The False Narrative of Settler Colonialism (paywall bypassed)
being Jewish and worshipping Gd has elements that are inherently erotic, and we have too much going on existentially to be dealing in sexual shame most of the time
Realms of Men 2026 | A Middle-Earth Monthly Calendar
June · Gondor, the South Kingdom, was one of the two great realms of the Dúnedain. Founded at the end of the Second Age by Isildur and Anárion, it became a kingdom of great warriors and seafarers.
this was submitted as a one sentence horror story, but it feels like it could be an old jewish joke, like the one about the two rabbis proving g-d doesn't exist or the saying 'people plan, g-d laughs'
Even more, it sounds like the beginning -- the set-up -- of the joke. Can’t you hear Carl Reiner opening a bit with this line, or Shalom Aleichem using it to kick off a story?
Well I'm not quite an old Jewish man just yet, but let me give it a shot...
Losing confidence in Himself, G-d became an atheist. He decided to go down to Earth, to walk among humans and see how they found meaning.
He wandered the world until he came to a town, where he happened upon a pastor. "Come to our church this Sunday!" said the pastor. But G-d shook his head. "I don't believe in G-d anymore," he told the pastor sullenly. "And besides, I really shouldn't be working weekends." . . .
He continued wandering, and as night fell, he realized he had no money for a hotel. Walking down the darkening sidewalk, he passed many shivering folk, some young and thin, others old and worn and grizzle-bearded, looking not unlike himself. Just as the rain began to fall, he happened upon a priest. The priest looked him up and down, and said, "You look cold, my son. We're hosting a men's shelter at the church tonight; you can sleep there, and come to Mass tomorrow." This time G-d agreed. He slept well and was warm, and in the morning sat for Mass. They blessed him in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but he felt beside himself and decided to leave.
By this time G-d was quite hungry. He stopped by a deli, but still had no money, so all he could do was watch the fresh steaming bagels be made. On a bench outside the deli, a man was eating a bagel with lox. As he finished eating, G-d noticed there were still some scraps of food on the waxpaper. Unable to help himself, he asked if he could have the scraps, before the man threw it away. "Please sir, I'm so hungry. I'd just like that crumb of bagel there, and that little shred of lox. I think I could make a bisl of fish last quite a while." The man shook his head. "I cannot in good conscience give you my trash," he said, "But come inside, I'll get you your own bagel. I'd offer to get you coffee—but that's trash too."
So the man bought G-d some breakfast and sat with him on the bench. "Thank you so much," said G-d. "How can I ever repay you?" But the man just shrugged and said, "I'm a rabbi. Buying bagels I don't get to eat is part of the job description."
G-d thanked the rabbi again, and ate in silence. "Rabbi, can I ask you a question? I feel I haven't been on this Earth too long, but already I've seen much misery. How do you do it? How do you still believe in G-d?"
The rabbi pondered this. "I believe in joyful things. I believe in kindness, and people choosing to help each other. And isn't that a kind of godliness?" (G-d suspected there was a bit more to godliness than that, but he let it slide.) The rabbi continued: "I've prayed to G-d every day for the last 30 years, and I will every day til I die. And if He answers my prayers, all the better! But tell me, my new friend, what's your name?" G-d hesitated and said, "It's a little hard to pronounce..." The rabbi chuckled and said, "No matter. Say, it won't be anything like Shabbos dinner, but my wife is baking a delightful fig pie today, and I'd like to have you over for dinner to enjoy it." G-d nodded. "I do like figs..."
That evening, G-d sat for dinner with the rabbi, the rabbi's wife, and their four children. The meal was delicious, the rabbi's family was incredibly welcoming. Their conversation was friendly but never prying, and the children laughed and played with each other. Several times, the youngest child tugged on G-d's sleeve for his attention before her father motioned for her to go play with her siblings. G-d began to see what the rabbi had meant about the joyfulness of life.
At the end of the night, G-d stood up to leave, and felt renewed. The rabbi said, "My friend, don't leave us so soon!" And G-d replied, "I will always be with you, for I am the Lord Your G-d." And they understood it to be true.
He had done this sort of thing a few times before and generally knew how it went. As expected, the rabbi and his family fell to their knees, weeping with joy and awe. He did not expect the youngest child to walk right up and tug G-d's sleeve again. He smiled graciously down at her, and she looked up with the wonderful bright eyes of a child who understands nothing but the urge to play. In a high voice, she said, "Knock knock!" G-d couldn't help but laugh. "Who's there?" He replied cheerfully.
Suddenly from across the room, the rabbi swore loudly and rudely. Dismayed, G-d asked, "What troubles you?" He saw the rabbi was trembling, half in rage and half in embarrassment. "I'm sorry Lord! Thank you for this, thank you so much for gracing us with your light, Baruch Atah and so on, it's just..." The rabbi swore again. "Thirty years of daily prayer, Lord, and a KNOCK-KNOCK JOKE is what you'll answer?"
hey captain-acab, this is the highest compliment i can bestow: it would not have surprised me had i found that story in a book of traditional fables in the shul library
Look, someone has to be the first to make up any traditional Jewish story, why not @captain-acab? If we all keep telling it, then in a generation or two it'll be traditional.
baratheonpilled
2087
dededos
kianamaiart
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
annaxmalina
