[yidspiration]

“Two men who were fighting over a piece of land brought their dispute to a rabbi. After listening to each man’s case, the rabbi put his ear to the ground. After a moment he stood up and said, “The land says that it belongs to neither of you. You both belong to the land.””

— Talmud, in Living a Jewish Life, by Anita Diamant

[daloy-politsey]

Wonder how long until Chabad talks to Elon Musk about building a Chabad house on Mars

[deliciouslydemure-deactivated20]

[remade-joan-burned]

Can't get over the prominence of the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in my childhood. Can't get over the prominence of the moral of God above family and friends in my childhood. That always tore me apart.

[leave-it-all-behind]

I remember asking a staff member at my camp “how do you have faith like Abraham, I want to believe I could trust God that much, but I don’t think I could”. I felt so guilty for not fully trusting God.

[jesuschristopus]

Yeah, it was pretty wild to go from, “you only need faith as small as a mustard seed,” to “you need to have so much faith that you would kill a family member for god’s shit and giggles.” 

[pickledchickenetti]

Look y’all I know that’s how that story is taught but literally that is not the moral of the story, Abraham failed that damn test, and I will stand behind this interpretation until I die.

[prismatic-bell]

That’s not how the story was taught at all at my shul.

Not only does G-d never speak to Abraham again, Torah tells us he came down from the mountain ALONE.

The price of him not questioning was the loss of his son in a totally different way. The bond was broken. He completely and utterly failed on all counts.

[narcolepticgnome]

Found my new Rosh Hodesh shirt at Hot Topic.

[shretl-deactivated20240225]

OMFG

[ruffboi-mags]

So we were watching Supernatural tonight and uh, Sam had to borrow a shofar from a local synagogue to defeat the baddie of the episode, who was Osiris, bc stabbing him with a ram’s horn was the only way to put him out of commission for a couple hundred years.

So… I guess my question is… if a shofar were used to (temporarily) murder an ancient Egyptian deity to save the lives of people who felt guilty about some harm they’d caused and killed…

Could it be cleaned off and still used in services, or do you just need a brand new shofar?

[athingofvikings]

Um… I’d err on the side of caution, tell the two murderous gun-toting Christians that they have a new souvenir, and just get a new shofar, because that feels like it’s been used in idol worship from multiple angles.

[ruffboi-mags]

I mean, is it idol worship if it’s a being that actively exists and they are in no way worshipping said being, simply trying to make the world safer by taking it out of commission?

Legit question, I’m not trying for any gotchas, in the world of Supernatural there is the actual fact that many deities are at least real beings, even if they’re not as all-powerful as their various religions would have you believe.

[athingofvikings]

In general, yes, it’s an item that was used in an act that involved another deity. Add to the fact it was used as a weapon, and it would be tamay on multiple levels.

[animatedamerican]

(ok i promised OP a response to this and am finally getting to it)

Being used as a weapon (or for that matter as a mundane tool) may invalidate the shofar for Jewish ritual use, but “an act that involved another deity” doesn’t automatically translate to avodah zarah! Remember that any number of actual physical objects, like the sun or the moon or certain rivers or mountains, have been revered as deities at various times and places in human history – however, sunbathing, moon-watching, drawing water from that river, or climbing that mountain are not acts of worship and are considered perfectly permissible in Judaism.

(Now, a human-made statue or icon of another deity could be considered inherently idolatrous no matter what you do with it, but if so it’s because the making of it is considered an act of worship in itself. Objects created for purposes unrelated to worship are another matter entirely. Using, e.g., a sacred moon symbol for any purpose whatsoever might be automatically prohibited as avodah zarah, but it’s for reasons that simply don’t apply to a telescope used for observing the moon or a NASA lunar lander.)

I maintain that in a world where various ancient deities are observably real physical beings, the logical Jewish position on the subject is that we should consider them in the same category of “real things that are worshipped by some cultures as deities”, and merely interacting with them on the basis of their physical reality doesn’t constitute idolatry. In this particular case, unless this being is worshipped in a religion where the ritual killing of the god is an act of worship (which I don’t think was ever the case for Osiris?), I’d argue that avodah zarah has not happened here.

[terulakimban]

How relevant is it that worship of Osiris is of him as a dead figure and not a living one, though? Because that part, specifically, with Osiris, feels… sketchy, on the idolatry front. The death of Osiris is a pretty big deal in Egyptian mythology. From a religious perspective, this would be “returning a false deity from a state in which he is not worshipped to the state in which he is” which seems… a step more into a grey area, idolatry-wise. I’m with you that using a shofar to stab Zeus would be fine on the idolatry front. It’s just Osiris who feels hinky. Of course, that brings up the “how much do you have to know about the situation” question -and perhaps intentionality on the part of the Winchesters? Like, if Sam and Dean are looking at this as an act of deicide -if they see Osiris as a god, even if they don’t see the stabbing as an act of worship, is that significant? 

[prismatic-bell]

Hm, good points. How Osiris is portrayed here may be relevant, too. If destroying him is a net positive for people who are not Sam and Dean, then this could be classified as justified murder, I think, under the laws that allow the killing of a rodef (since, by definition, if he is not G-d but demands worship then he is an enemy of G-d and, by extension, Jews).

Also an important question: does Osiris have blood? Because ram’s horn is porous. If he has blood and it’s soaked into the shofar, it can never be kashered again.

@meisslocked, we had a pretty interesting conversation on how you view the kosher laws and @the-library-alcove you always have interesting takes, you guys wanna chime in?

[the-library-alcove]

I already kinda said my piece under @athingofvikings ’s statement, , but yeah, in regards to @animatedamerican’s point, I can see the counterpoint and agree with it to an extent. However, I’d counterpoint that once it has been used as a weapon to kill (the blood absorption issue aside, which doesn’t really apply, because it’s not a food item and does not fall under muttar be-fikha) it is no longer acceptable to use for the veneration of G-d. This is also aside from the fact that it’s very likely to be damaged as a result of this use, and if it has a crack in it, then it’s no longer kosher.

[animatedamerican]

@prismatic-bell I gotta point out: “enemy” and “rodef” are overlapping but distinct categories, and someone being an enemy does not mean we’re automatically permitted to kill them. To qualify as a rodef (a) they must pose an immediate direct danger to one’s life and (b) there has to be (intended or effective) pursuit with intent to kill, such that fleeing will not save one’s life. I don’t think demanding worship qualifies, unless that demand is backed by active deadly force. All that said, the justification of the killing isn’t the question under discussion here; the question is whether the killing counts as avodah zarah. (I think the original question, whether one can still use the shofar for halachic purposes again, has already been pretty much resolved as Probably Not on the grounds that it’s been used as a weapon.)

@terulakimban​ you make an excellent point, on the subject of “restoring Osiris from a state in which he is not worshipped to a state in which he is”. And here’s where I’m gonna go into the laws of avodah zarah that I learned a bunch of years ago: to qualify as an act of avodah zarah even if one does not intend it as an act of worship, the act has to be either something habitually done as worship by this religion’s worshippers, or something habitually done as worship in Jewish practice. (That is to say, that’s the rule if you’re Jewish. If you’re not, I’m not sure.)

So here’s where I run into my own ignorance on ancient Egyptian religious practice: was there at any time a rite in which the killing of Osiris was ritually reenacted? Because if so, actually killing him could approach too closely to that that rite, and might therefore count as avodah zarah even without intent. If not … then I’m inclined to say that no, it wouldn’t count.

[athingofvikings]

was there at any time a rite in which the killing of Osiris was ritually reenacted?

Yup. Per Wikipedia:

Plutarch and others have noted that the sacrifices to Osiris were “gloomy, solemn, and mournful…” (Isis and Osiris, 69) and that the great mystery festival, celebrated in two phases, began at Abydos commemorating the death of the god, on the same day that grain was planted in the ground (Isis and Osiris, 13). The annual festival involved the construction of “Osiris Beds” formed in shape of Osiris, filled with soil and sown with seed.[34] The germinating seed symbolized Osiris rising from the dead. An almost pristine example was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.[35]

The first phase of the festival was a public drama depicting the murder and dismemberment of Osiris, the search for his body by Isis, his triumphal return as the resurrected god, and the battle in which Horus defeated Set.

[animatedamerican]

I actually just now saw an earlier reply from @bigscaryd on the subject saying the same thing. So yeah, it’s … I’m gonna say I feel like that’s a gray area, but a pretty dark gray.

[rose-icosahedron]

did you know that jews don’t try and convert people? in fact if you tell a rabbi you want to convert you will need to insist multiple times, and acknowledge the fact that you are joining a minority group and know what that entails.

now that I have your attention I want to talk to you about Judaism. most people know that Judaism exists as a religion but they don’t know much and often think they know a lot of stuff that isn’t true so I’m gonna bust a few common myths for you if you care to read on.

1: judiasm doesn’t put any focus on the afterlife most people assume that jews like many other religions belief in an afterlife that you must do good in life to get into. while judisam does have an afterlife, it isn’t in the primary teachings like Christianity. 

2: jews do things because of tradition. most of the practices are carried on for tradition, you follow it because its what your ancestors did. and what you ancestors died or were inslaved or discriminated apon for. while yeas supposedly god did say those rules originally.

3: you don’t need to believe in god to be a jew. aka, tons of jews are atheists jewishness is just as much a cultural identity as it is a religion, and some smaller groups exist within it such as ashkenazi and sephardic which have their own foods, practices, and yes, actual ethnicities that you can sometimes tell by looking at them. its a religion, but its also a cultural and ethnic identity.

4: hannuka isnt an important holiday historically with modern press and times you would get the impression its our big festival holiday, however its not. its only a big deal because of Chrismas. the important jewish festival meal is the passover or pesach seder, a ritual meal during spring celebrating the jews escape from Egypt.

5: jews argue about the meanings of things. its a whole deal, along with our holy text we copy and reprint a text many times the size of rabbi’s arguing about the meanings of lines. at passover seder we read the old arguments of rabbi’s about the passover story and add in our own arguments. if you ask your rabbi for advice on something and then argue with him based on your reading or understanding of the text you will probably be rewarded.

a lot of people think jews are just “old christans” and that chrisantiy is just a better/newer version of an older religion. its not. its just not. they are different religions with a shared root, and a lot of the above misconceptions are because of that.

I’m open to talk about my jewishness and what i know about the religion and ashkenazi jews, but I have one final fact.

take a minute and take a guess at what percent of the world’s population is jewish? what about California(hint, its the state with the highest proportion of all the usa)? save your answer in your mind, then read on.

less than one percent of the world is jewish (<1%), and only three percent of California(3%). 

let that sink in.

everyone knows about jews. well everyone’s heard about them. but in all honesty people don’t know much. jews have been a minority that gets picked on for almost all of our existence. almost all jewish holidays can be summarized as “they tried to kill us, they failed, lets eat.”(passover, purim, and chanuka are all prime examples).  Golems, a old piece of jewish folklore are made to protect jews from discrimination(specifically a thing called blood libel in the original tale). discrimination on us is the majority of our history

please, give one of the smallest, oldest, most well known minorities a chance to represent itself.

goyim(non-jews) are encouraged to re-blog, and ask polite, genuine questions.

(also, last thing to clear up, just because someone is a jew, that doesn’t mean they have a political opinion about Israel, it is not appropriate to ask about it unless they openly talk about world politics or assume an opinion based on the fact they are jewish)

[laineystein]

❗️❗️❗️

[historicity-was-already-taken]

This weekend I was schmoozing at an event when some guy asked me what kind of history I study. I said “I’m currently researching the role of gender in Jewish emigration out of the Third Reich,” and he replied “oh you just threw gender in there for fun, huh?” and shot me what he clearly thought to be a charming smile.

The reality is that most of our understandings of history revolve around what men were doing. But by paying attention to the other half of humanity our understanding of history can be radically altered.

For example, with Jewish emigration out of the Third Reich it is just kind of assumed that it was a decision made by a man, and the rest of his family just followed him out of danger. But that is completely inaccurate. Women, constrained to the private social sphere to varying extents, were the first to notice the rise in social anti-Semitism in the beginning of Hitler’s rule. They were the ones to notice their friends pulling away and their social networks coming apart. They were the first to sense the danger.

German Jewish men tended to work in industries which were historically heavily Jewish, thus keeping them from directly experiencing this “social death.” These women would warn their husbands and urge them to begin the emigration process, and often their husbands would overlook or undervalue their concerns (“you’re just being hysterical” etc). After the Nuremberg Laws were passed, and after even more so after Kristallnacht, it fell to women to free their husbands from concentration camps, to run businesses, and to wade through the emigration process.

The fact that the Nazis initially focused their efforts on Jewish men meant that it fell to Jewish women to take charge of the family and plan their escape. In one case, a woman had her husband freed from a camp (to do so, she had to present emigration papers which were not easy to procure), and casually informed him that she had arranged their transport to Shanghai. Her husband—so traumatized from the camp—made no argument. Just by looking at what women were doing, our understanding of this era of Jewish history is changed.

I have read an article arguing that the Renaissance only existed for men, and that women did not undergo this cultural change. The writings of female loyalists in the American Revolutionary period add much needed nuance to our understanding of this period. The character of Jewish liberalism in the first half of the twentieth century is a direct result of the education and socialization of Jewish women. I can give you more examples, but I think you get the point.

So, you wanna understand history? Then you gotta remember the ladies (and not just the privileged ones).

ask historicity-was-already-taken a question

[roachpatrol]

Holy fuck. I was raised Jewish— with female Rabbis, even!— and I did not hear about any of this. Gender studies are important. 

[kogiopsis]

Why Gender History is Important (Asshole)

[treewizarded]

“so you just threw gender in there for fun” ffs i hope you poured his drink down his pants

[notyourdamsel-in-distress]

I actually studied this in one of my classes last semester. It was beyond fascinating. 

There was one woman who begged her husband for months to leave Germany. When he refused to listen to her, she refused to get into bed with him at night, instead kneeling down in front of him and begging him to listen to her, or if he wouldn’t listen to her, to at least tell her who he would listen to. He gave her the name of a close, trusted male friend. She went and found that friend, convinced him of the need to get the hell out of Europe, and then brought him home. Thankfully, her husband finally saw sense and moved their family to Palestine.

Another woman had a bit more control over her own situation (she was a lawyer). She had read Mein Kampf  when it was first published and saw the writing on the wall. She asked her husband to leave Europe, but he didn’t want to leave his (very good) job and told her that he had faith in his countrymen not to allow an evil man to have his way. She sent their children to a boarding school in England, but stayed in Germany by her husband’s side. Once it was clear that if they stayed in Germany they were going to die, he fled to France but was quickly captured and killed. His wife, however, joined the French Resistance and was active for over a year before being captured and sent to Auschwitz.

(This is probably my favorite of these stories) The third story is about a young woman who saved her fiance and his father after Kristallnacht. She was at home when the soldiers came, but her fiance was working late in his shop. Worried for him, she snuck out (in the middle of all the chaos) to make sure he was alright. She found him cowering (quite understandably) in the back of his shop and then dragged him out, hoping to escape the violence. Unfortunately, they were stopped and he, along with hundreds of other men, was taken to a concentration camp. She was eventually told that she would have to go to the camp in person to free him, and so she did. Unfortunately, the only way she could get there was on a bus that was filled with SS men; she spent the entire trip smiling and flirting with them so that they would never suspect that she wasn’t supposed to be there. When she got to the camp, she convinced whoever was in charge to release her fiance. She then took him to another camp and managed to get her father-in-law to be released. Her father-in-law was a rabbi, so she grabbed a couple or witnesses and made him perform their marriage ceremony right then and there so that it would be easier for her to get her now-husband out of the country, which she did withing a few months. This woman was so bad ass that not only was her story passed around resistance circles, even the SS men told it to each other and honoured her courage. 

The moral of these stories is that men tend to trust their governments to take care of them because they always have; women know that our governments will screw us over because they always have. 

Another interesting tidbit is that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Kristallnacht is a term that historians came up with after the fact, and was not what the event was actually called at the time. It’s likely that the event was actually called was (I’m sorry that I can’t remember the German word for it but it translates to) night of the feathers, because that, instead of broken glass, is the image that stuck in people’s minds because the soldiers also went into people’s homes and destroyed their bedding, throwing the feathers from pillows and blankets into the air. What does it say that in our history we have taken away the focus of the event from the more domestic, traditionally feminine, realms, and placed it in the business, traditionally masculine, realms?

[historicity-reblogs]

Badass women and interesting commentary. Though I would argue that “Night of Broken Glass" includes both the personal and the private spheres. It was called Kristallnacht by the Nazis, which led to Jewish survivors referring to it as the November Pogrom until the term “Kristallnacht" was reclaimed, as such.

None of this runs directly counter to your fascinating commentary, though.

[wtfhistory]

READ THIS.

[somewhereinthedetails217]

This is amazing and crucial personal history that I had never even considered let alone taught. @historicity-was-already-taken are there any books or essays you could recommend?

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Oooh baby do I have books to recommend. The absolute first book to read is  Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Studies in Jewish History) by Marion A. Kaplan. After that, check out my Jewish History Reading List: http://historicity-was-already-taken.tumblr.com/Jewish%20History%20Bibliography (note that some of the linking is busted because tumblr hates my coding and I haven’t fixed it yet b/c I’ve been putting most of my free time into trying get an agentttt).

But after that, what kind of info are you interested in? Gender and historiography? General gender and the Holocaust? Gender and Jewish History? Holocaust and immigration? Holocaust refugees? Do you want memoirs? Autobiographies? Books? Archival collections? 

[cocksmasher69]

What have we learned today? Trust when women say that something isn’t right.

[ultreyt]

New jew lore just dropped

[historicity-was-already-taken]

lmao “Jew Lore”

[ultreyt]

you’ve been here for a decade? L

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Been here since 2011. I was young and With It, but then they changed what “It” was and now what I am isn’t “It,” and what’s “It” is seems weird and scary to me.

It’ll happen to you.

Anyway, yes I wrote this post back in 2012. I stand by it and I’m proud that it’s gone viral so many times and has positively impacted so many people! Since then, however, I’ve grown as a writer and a historian, and have dug much deeper into issues relating to specifically women and the Holocaust. In fact, I’m now working on a book on the subject. If this post was eye-opening for you, you might like these:

Vladka Meed

Girls with Guns, Woman Commanders, and Unheeded Warnings: Women and the Holocaust

We Need to Talk about Anne Frank

Noor Inayat Khan

Hannah Szenes

[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. 

[keshetchai]

I need to say something that is really really going to burn right through me if I don’t:

If you are a white convert to Judaism, you’re still white. Your conversion to Judaism does not blanket, bandaid, or remove your connections to whiteness and white privilege. The Mikvah won’t erase a lifetime of your whiteness, it won’t make you impervious to criticism, and it certainly doesn’t prevent you from being racist.

A white convert is still white. A white convert to Judaism can still intentionally or unintentionally collude with white supremacy, endanger POC, they can still unintentionally uphold or support whiteness, colonial and neo-colonial structures, and they still have white privilege.

Being a Jewish convert doesn’t make you less white and doesn’t remove the inherent whiteness and white privilege you grew up with. It doesn’t mean something you do shouldn’t be criticized for the racist impact it may have. And most importantly, it doesn’t mean you have a brand new shield for your friends/politics/movement/whatever as being not racist because you’re involved and are Jewish.

Your new Judaism as a convert is A.) not a personal shield against you being racist and B.) is not a way for you to protect your (white) goyim friends from being accused of white privilege, racism, or general criticism from other Jews. - xoxo the non-white convert

[closetedconversion]

If you are a Jewish convert or a potential Jewish convert pls reblog this I’m going on a follow spree!

[hymnsofheresy]

when christian artists change the line in hallelujah from “maybe there’s a God above” to “I know that there’s a God above” >:c

[covington-shenanigans]

#idk why i’m so unreasonably angry#maybe cuz it’s my fav line

it’s also because Leonard COHEN (!) was Jewish and this is a quintessentially Jewish line, and changing it to that level of Annoying Certainty is stripping it of its Jewish meaning and imbuing it with that particularly American smug evangelical Christian attitude that makes me tired, so very tired

[hymnsofheresy]

THAT IS EXACTLY WHY

[hachama]

I don’t think I’ve heard any cover artist sing my favorite verses You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah I did my best, it wasn’t much I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you And even though It all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

[hymnsofheresy]

um woah

[cutecreative]

I will always hit the reblog button so hard for Hallelujah but ESPECIALLY mentions of the elusive final verses which are just about my favorite lyrics ever. Why do people always omit the best part of the song??

[fromchaostocosmos]

In Yiddish

In Hebrew

[fromchaostocosmos]

In Ladino

[stoneandbloodandwater]

Yeah, I wonder why the verses that reference specific Jewish mystical and chassidic concepts that aren’t readily understood by American “I love Jews, you know, Jesus was Jewish!” Christians never get any airtime. Funny that.

You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah

These are specifically about Chassidic Jewish theories of the holy language, how each letter and combination of letters in Hebrew contains the essence of the divine spark and if used correctly, can unlock or uncover the divine spark in the mundane material word. And of course, there are secret names of God which, when spoken by any ordinary human would kill them, but if you are worthy and holy and righteous can be used to perform miracles or even to behold the glory of God face-to-face. The words themselves have power. Orthodox Jews often won’t even pronounce the word “hallelujah” in it’s entirety in conversation, because the “yah” sound at the end is a True Name of God (there are hundreds, supposedly) and thus too holy to say outside of prayer.

None of this is to mention how David’s sin in sleeping with Batshevah (the subject of much of the song, with a brief deviation to Shimshon and Delilah) is considered the turning point in the Tanach that ultimately dooms the Davidic line at the cosmological level and thus dooms Jewish sovereignty and independence altogether. From a Christian perspective this led to Jesus, the King of Kings, and that’s all very well and good for them, but for the Jews, the Davidic line never returned and is the central tragedy of the total arc of the Torah. Like, our Bible doesn’t have a happy ending? And that’s what this song is about? There’s no Grace - you just have to sit with the sin and its consequence.

Of course, Cohen is referencing all of this ironically, and personalizing these very high-level religious concepts. Like the point of this song is that Cohen, the songwriter, is identifying with David, the psalmist, and identifying his own sins with David’s. The ache that you hear in this song is that the two thousand year exile that resulted from one wrong night of passion and Cohen feels that the pain he has caused to his lover is of equally monumental infamy. Basically, in a certain light, the whole of Psalms is a vain effort for David to atone for his sin and I think Cohen was writing this song in wonderment that David could eternally praise the God who would not forgive him and would force him and his people into exile. But he ultimately gets how you have to surrender to the inexorable force of God in the face of your own inadequacies and how to surrender is to worship and to worship is to praise - hence, Hallelujah. You can either do the right thing and worship God from the start, or you can fuck up, be punished, and thus be forced to beg for His forgiveness. It’s the terrible inevitability of praise that’s driving him mad.

Like honestly, I identify with this song so strongly as an off-the-derech Jew, I sometimes wonder what Christians can possibly hear in this song, as it speaks so specifically to the sadomasochistic relationship that a lapsed Jew has with their God. It’s such a different song from a Christian theological perspective it’s almost unrecognizable, man. This song continues to be a wonder of postmodern Jewish theology and sexuality from start to finish. Don’t let anyone give you any “Judeo-Christian” narishkeit. This is a Jewish song.

(Sorry about the wild tangent it’s just 2AM and I love this song so dang much, you guys.)

[reformchassid-blog]

This is such an amazing analysis of this song.

[yidquotes]

First, we have to understand that in Judaism we do not pray. Prayer is an English word. What Jews do is l’hispallel.

L’hispallel is a unique experience, but as with most Jewish things today, this holy word has been changed into an English word with a western connotation. The word “prayer” actually comes from the Latin word meaning “to beg” — exactly what most people feel prayer is. They imagine a big king in the sky who is getting a big ego boost from watching his subjects beg. This is a terrible image of our selves and of G-d.

L’hispallel has nothing to do with begging G-d to change His mind. L’hitpallel is a reflexive verb and it means to do something to your self, not to G-d. When you are praying, your question should not be, “Is G-d listening to my prayers?” For sure he is. What you should really ask yourself is, “Am I listening to my prayers? Does what I say impact me? Have I changed?” - Rabbi David Aaron

[leonordchoem]

it’s almost shabbat friends

[starlightomatic]

There are only two genders

milchig and fleishig

[fullcravings]

Triple Chocolate Hamantaschen