ארץ זבת חלב ודבש

This is my five-second Zionist blog. All of my posts will relate to either Judaism or Zionism. Take from it what you will

[happiness-in-yiddish]

Beautiful challa! Sukkot

[judaizing-blog]

keeping thsi here for safe keeping

[gotochelm]

wedding

I had forgotten that our people smash glasses (not behind closed doors and out of anger, but—) in front of an audience and out of happiness; that it means: we are fragile, our joy must be tempered, we promise to try to repair the pieces of this glass that symbolizes the broken vessels of the world together.

I say: I am fragile, my joy must be tempered, and I promise to try to repair the pieces of the broken vessels of the world without you.

[eretzyisrael]

She is Christian, Arab, Israeli and a brave defender of Jews and minorities alike. Happy Holidays to all! 

[levoneh]

another gem in the world of goyische naming practices

one of my (irish catholic) dad’s cousins has daughters named

kitty, katie and kathleen

[judaizing-blog]

how is this that different from Israeli's naming their kids names that go together. ex. "Guy, Shai,, veh May" or "Noa, Neta, veh Nimrod"?

[politeandwhite]

[westsemiteblues]

Were you aware that Lebanon has precisely the same situation? You weren’t? Well, you know now. Are you going to spend the rest of your life being mad about Lebanon? Probably not.

To clarify: Israel’s problem, and it is a problem, is a lack of civil marriage. Marriage is in the hands of religious authorities, of whatever religion. In both Israel and Lebanon’s case, this is largely the result of having adopted parts of the Ottoman system, which was admirable in terms of leaving various communities to sort out their own shit, and somewhat less admirable in terms of allowing people to stand on their own without being defined as Jewish, or Druze, or Maronite or what have you.

So Israeli and Lebanese ‘multi-faith couples’ leave the country, often for Cyprus, and get married. Then they go home, and they’re married. Oh, yeah, did OP leave that part out? There’s no law against being married to someone of a different religion, there’s just no mechanism for getting married to them in Israel.

The same goes for same-sex marriage, by the way. If you and your sweetie go to Canada and come back married, Israel will give you all the status of a married couple.

anti-imperialist tumblr voice/eerily matched by neo-nazi tumblr voice: “This fucking awful country, I can’t even.”

I should probably also mention, for those who are getting all starry-eyed about the perennial Westerner’s fantasy of an Israeli/Palestinian Romeo/Juliet that an awful lot of the Israeli couples getting married on Cyprus are both culturally Russian, it’s just that one is halachically Jewish and the other isn’t. Boring, I know.

[quienmandaaquiquien-deactivated]

The Treasure of Cochin Jewish Women

"What is tradition? Tradition is something you inherit and you give something of yours and pass it on. Because if we only take and don’t give of ourselves, where is our generation in all of this?"

[historicaltimes]

George Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, protests a pizza place in Arlington, VA, 1961

[fegeleh]

MARIO THE JEW SERVES NEGROES BUT NOT WHITE GENTILES

[timetoleavethisplace-deactivate]

He’s a right mensch then

[arugratshanukkah-deactivated201]

#mario the jew is a right mensch

[vulgareconomics]

SO OPPRESSED!

[lieutdreadhands]

Mario the Jew is now my fave. Rock on, fellow Arlingtonian.

[vulgareconomics]

Of course, Mario didn’t refuse service to white gentiles.  Just nazis:

…Rockwell’s followers picketed Mario’s Pizza House on Wilson Boulevard after the owners refused the Nazis service while continuing to serve blacks. (The picketers’ signs targeted “Mario the Jew,” a reference to Howard Levine and family, whose son still owns the pizzeria today.)

[semitish]

From left to right: 1. Stop murdering babies. 2. The world was silent when we were poisoned with gas. We won’t be!!! 3. Israeli people can’t stay silent when innocent citiizens are being slaughtered.

[judaizing-blog]

musings

I'll defend Israel and Zionism to my death, but I'm not opposed to a bi-national state if it means peace. 

[onwhitefemaleprivilege-blog]

I hate it when white women like to act like they’re not white when they claim to be Jewish. Ummm, you’re white, and being Jewish doesn’t hide your white privilege, it actually makes you more privilege. Being Jewish doesn’t make you a Women of Colour when most Jews are BEYOND white passing.  Jews in the United States and Europe are FAR overrepresented in banking, the media, the justice system, government, ect. Jews also played a huge role in the slave trade where most of the slave ships were Jewish owned. If anything being Jewish is a privilege which has historically and still is favoring their own and benefiting off the struggles of People of Colour which has aided white supremacy. If you’re jewish and want to aid people of colour in their struggles and rape, check your privilege and call out people you know for their racism, sexism, misogyny, ect.

[this-is-not-jewish]

Sit. Your. Sorry. Ass. Down.

As a blonde, blue-eyed Jew with an Anglo last name living in metropolitan America I have undeniable white passing/white privilege. But my Jewish friends with dark curly hair, “swarthy” skin, and “Semitic” noses? My friends with last names like Weber and Katz and Rosen? They don’t pass in America, let alone in Europe (and I feel 100% confident in stating that you know jack-all about how Europeans view race, but spoiler alert: Jews definitely don’t make the white people shortlist there, light skinned or not). Ever notice how white supremacist groups always include Jews on their list of “enemies of the white race?” Or how the place where Jews are really overrepresented is in hate crime victim statistics? Millennia of rape and forced assimilation in diaspora may have lightened some of our skins (fun fact: many Jews, including many Ashkenazim, are people of color), but neither we nor white Gentiles have forgotten that our ethnicity and culture stem from the Levant.

It is absolutely mindblowing that you are using antisemitic falsehoods to deny that antisemitism exists. Far from controlling the slave trade, Jews were in fact barred by law from even entering many of the countries involved in the trade and were barred from or limited in engaging in international trade venues by several others. That is a canard heavily promoted in the black community by black antisemitic groups in the 90s, and has been utterly discredited by historians. And you’re going to pull out that antisemitic “Jews control the media, banks, and government!!!!!11!” bullshit, too? Really? Put down the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and read up on the “model minority” myth—and while you’re at it, take a look at how well financial success has shielded Jews from marginalization and violence in the past.

Were Jews often used post-Civil War as racial go-betweens and tools of white oppression against the black community? Yes, and it’s fucking shameful…but when those Jewish minstrel performers, shop owners, and slumlords went home in the evenings, it was to Jewish-only communities. Not because we chose to live there, but because white Gentiles didn’t accept us in their neighborhoods. We were “white” enough to do the jobs white people didn’t want to dirty their hands with, but not white enough to live with or go to social clubs with, God forbid. The entire reason colleges began requiring interviews and essays from admission applicants was to limit the number of Jews on campus, because we’re just so fucking privileged to be Jewish. The U.S. sent Jewish asylum-seekers and refugees fleeing the Holocaust back to Europe and refused to lift the immigration quota on Jews during WWII because it didn’t want any more white people.

Whiteness/white-passingness is a privilege (and yes, we Jews who have it need to be conscious of it). But Jewishness is NOT A PRIVILEGE, least of all “historically.” We look out for “our own” because Gentiles—white or otherwise—sure as fuck won’t.

Kiss my diasporic ass.

[zaatarwitholives]

What have we learned?

[judaizing-blog]

Dear Europe, zaatarwitholives:

Every once in a while I see someone comment on the persecution of Palestinians by Israel with a “shouldn’t the Jews know better?” and “they of all people” and “haven’t they learned from the Holocaust?”

Fine. Would you like to know what we learned from the Holocaust? From the pogroms before and after, from the expulsions from all over Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, from the massacres of Kiev and the Farhud of Bahdad - you want to know what we have learned?

That no matter how peaceful we are, no matter how assimilated, no matter how loyal, no matter how well we speak your languages in our homes and no matter if we fight in your warsfor your countries and no matter if we never lift a hand in violence, not even in self defense -

you will slaughter us.

You will cleanse your countries of us by expelling us and by killing us and you will wipe your hands of it after. 

What we have learned?  That if we take the moral high ground and lay down arms, we will be killed en masse and that we cannot protect ourselves with appeals to humanity, to learning, or to civilization.

You taught us to pick up guns, you taught us to slaughter and persecute and ethnically cleanse, you taught us that the only way to protect ourselves was to stop preaching peace and patience because that leads to our graves. We learned your lessons well

and that in no way could ever excuse the actions Israel takes towards Palestine. Nothing can excuse the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, the barring of them from their homeland, the theft of their land, the arresting of their young children, or the attempted destruction of their hope. Nothing, just as nothing could ever justify the way you did that to us.

But stop asking us what we learned from the Holocaust because what we learned is what you will do to us given the chance and what we learned is how your nations treated those physically weaker and what we learned was how our nation could be “strong” like all of yours. 

So take some responsibility. And stop pretending that it is our duty to learn from the systematic murder of our people and start realizing that the way the world looks know has a lot more to do with how your militaries and imperialistic leaders shaped it. 

Don’t pretend it isn’t your legacy.

[semitish]

One of my best friends is spending her summer in Istanbul, Turkey. She just told me about a really interesting experience she had…

"A couple days ago we were wandering around the city and it was getting close to shkiah (sunset). I wanted to daven (pray) mincha (the afternoon prayer) and my friend suggested I find a mosque to daven in. I wasn’t so sure at first (mostly I was afraid the people running the mosque would have a problem with it), but he talked me into it (it’s actually preferable according to Jewish law to daven in a mosque rather than out in the street).

They were totally fine with it. They gave me a head scarf to wear when I entered because even though I was dressed tznua (modestly) by Jewish standards I wasn’t according to Islam. And the coolest part of the story? From Istanbul, Jerusalem and Mecca are in the same direction, so both Jews and Muslims pray facing the same way. And the mosque was beautiful. I had much more kavanah (spiritual connection and intent) than I would have in the middle of a bustling sidewalk.”

[judaizing-blog]

"By forcing Israel to capitulate to terrorism by releasing murdering terrorists with so much blood on their hands that the US would never dream of releasing if it was their own citizens murdered – you are not only being extremely hypocritical, but are actually dabbling in experimentation and gambling, by putting me and my children's lives at risk,"

Shaked also attacked the US administration for forcing Israel to release convicted murderers, whilst keeping former Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard in jail.

"You forcing us to release terrorists with blood on their hands is made all the more absurd, cynical and vicious by the fact that your country refuses to this day to release Jonathan Pollard from jail, despite the unprecedented term he has served thusfar," she wrote.

"Mr. Secretary: the price of releasing over a hundred convicted murderers will be borne by my family and my people, not by you." she continued, asking "How will you carry the burden of the terrible price toward which you are leading us?"

"You forced us into peace talks during a period of time that the entire Middle East is in chaos, without realizing that by doing so, you have foolishly put us in an impossible situation in which we cannot and will not make any concessions." 

By "raising expectations to a dangerous level" in this way, Kerry is threatening "to cause the whole region to spin out of control," she claimed.

Shaked ended the letter with a word of "advice" for the US Secretary of State.

"The past four years in Israel have been as quiet and peaceful as ever. Therefore I suggest you perform your job in a much more effective and relevant fashion by focusing your attention on Syria and Egypt, where people are actually being slaughtered."

[judaizing-blog]

The tsarist police, in alliance with the landowners and the capitalists, organised pogroms against the Jews. The landowners and capitalists tried to divert the hatred of the workers and peasants who were tortured by want against the Jews. ... It is not the Jews who are the enemies of the working people. The enemies of the workers are the capitalists of all countries. Among the Jews there are working people, and they form the majority. They are our brothers, who, like us, are oppressed by capital; they are our comrades in the struggle for socialism. ... The capitalists strive to sow and foment hatred between workers of different faiths, different nations and different races. ... Rich Jews, like rich Russians, and the rich in all countries, are in alliance to oppress, crush, rob, and disunite the workers. ... Shame on those who foment hatred towards the Jews, who foment hatred towards other nations.

Vladimir Lenin, pointing to the origin of antisemitism - a distraction from the true oppressors, much like the antisemitism in the middle east.

[judaizing-blog]

[judaizing-blog]

Israel The Oppressor

Crazy Water Aqua Fun Park was a water park in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian territories, that served the territory's small wealthy class.[1] The park opened in May 2010 and was burned down by masked men in September 2010, after being closed by the Palestinian Hamas de facto government for allowing men and women to mingle.[1][2]

(source: Wikipedia)

[jinbezalelkim]

[unmooredonasundayevening]

Oh look this tokenizing bullshit again. 

[judeoceltische]

Look, to everyone who posts these photos with the notion that you’re proving something about the illegitimacy of Israel and Zionism:

I’m not going to go over the reasons NK are not representative of religious Jews. Not tonight. I’m focusing on something else this evening.

These men, these ludicrous fundamentalist men who belong to a tiny sect within Judaism that was founded in 1938. These men who travel to be palsy with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. These men who stand out on the pavement with signs denouncing Zionism, who are so eagerly photographed and blogged and reblogged by Gentiles who also denounce Zionism. These men in their streimels and their black hats and their coats and their beards and their payess: do you have any idea how disrespectful you are toward them?

You know nothing about their beliefs, their history, or their way of life, and frankly, you don’t care. You don’t understand why they oppose Israel’s existence. (Hint, human rights have nothing at all to do with it.) You don’t know the roles they play within the larger Jewish world, the alliances and rivalries and conflicts, the court cases. You don’t understand where they came from. You don’t give a damn what they do on yontiff, or how they spend their days when they’re not protesting. You don’t know where their women and children are, or indeed if they have any, and what those women and children’s lives are like, and you don’t care.

You see them in a completely decontextualized and exploitative way: Old-Country-looking Jews who dress like the cast of “Fiddler on the Roof” in European black and funny hats, look authentic as all hell to your uneducated eyes, and  conveniently uphold your hatred of Israel. Look, look, we found some real Jews, and they agree with us!

Everything they stand for besides the destruction of Israel would offend you. You don’t respect them. You have no intention of being allies to them in any way. They’re a conveniently exploitable camera shot to you, just as marginalized ethnic groups in their quaint tribal costumes have been ever since there have been cameras.

And as little as I like Neturei Karta, as a Jew, as a social justice activist, and even as a Zionist, I have to say, that sucks. You suck. Stop sucking so much.

[ralexmarshall]

Neat explanation of why Neturei Karta make for very bad pro-Palestinian arguments.

They’re good as an example of how Zionism isn’t inherent to the religion, but there’s dozens of better examples than this. Though I suppose they have novelty comedy value if you don’t know the first thing about Zionism, or Judaism, or the historical causes of the Israel-Palestine conflict.