kvetch und kvell

[guerrillatech]

[jewish-privilege]

by Rakhel Silverman

…Lakewood[, New Jersey] is known as the hub of American Haredi life (a group within Orthodox Judaism also referred to as ultra-Orthodox), with a rapidly growing population of 100,000 residents, the majority of whom are Haredi. This put me in an interesting position as a non-Orthodox Jew. On the plus side, our supermarkets had kosher food as far as the eye could see. The con: Due to deep communal divides between Haredi and non-Jews, I was one of, if not the only, Jew that my friends and teachers personally knew, which made me the soundboard for their negative thoughts about Haredim. Occassionally their complaints were downright misinformation or anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, but most surrounded current events. Scandals about the Haredi community seemed to always be in the papers: Haredi realtors pressuring non-Jews to move out of their neighborhoods, drivers without licenses, and couples arrested of welfare fraud.

Each controversy played into their anti-Semitic sentiments as they joked about how Jews are cheap, deceptive, and bad drivers. Their disclaimer was always that I “wasn’t like those Jews,” and I nodded along. I was quick to throw this community under the bus if it meant that I wasn’t the target of anti-Semitic comments, and anyway, was the sentiment really anti-Semitic if it was based on real events?

Then other days, newsletter headlines put a pit in my stomach. The scandals often coincided with anti-Semitic hate crimes — online and verbal harassment and threats, more than 100 tires of Jewish car-owners slashed, an anti-Semitic banner over a congregation’s Holocaust memorial, and a campaign to move Haredim out of the area that used anti-Semitic rhetoric. These events disturbed me but did not cause much alarm, because as someone who wasn’t visibly Jewish, I did not face much risk. It would be much easier to insist that I was a “different kind of Jew” and note that Haredi actions triggered these anti-Semitic incidents.

Eventually, I realized that my passivity in the face of comments against Haredim did nothing but fuel the anti-Semitism that my Haredi siblings were at the forefront of. By repeatedly reminding gentiles that not all Jews are Haredi, separating myself from them, I was perpetuating the anti-Semitic notion that Haredi are the Other, backwards, and untrustworthy. I may fundamentally disagree with how they interpret and follow Jewish law, but that does not erase the fact that they are Jews. Just like I ask people not to view all Jews as a monolith, I should remember that the Haredi are not a monolith either. Contrary to the narrative that our local newspapers told, the tens of thousands of local Haredim were not all committing crimes.

It is possible to critique specific actions of certain people without generalizing the community with anti-Semitic tropes. In Lakewood, this shows up when critiques paint Haredim as sneaky, cheap, and untrustworthy. During the current pandemic, it is when people blame Haredi Jews for spreading COVID-19, perpetuating the centuries-old conspiracy that Jews are vermin who spread diseases.

So while yes, Mayor de Blasio deserved to be called out for conflating the actions of one particular community with the entire Jewish community, Jews should also keep this in mind before critiquing his tweet. In defending yourself and the broader Jewish community, are you putting the blame on all Haredi or Orthodox sects?

…However, when a huge amount of attention is given to these bad actors, we must ask ourselves: Where is the attention to the Orthodox communities that have organized testing facilities, blood plasma donation centers, and food banks? Or the Orthodox rabbis who have made exceptions to Jewish law so their community can social distance, because the holiest Jewish act is to save a life? Where are the articles noting the synagogues who were closed way before legal rulings, Jews who have made major modifications to important rituals such as burials and daily prayer? How many Jews celebrated Passover by themselves for the first time in their lives this month?

And by the way, why is the country only talking about Haredi Jews who are not social distancing, and not the Florida megachurch that held two services with over 500 people each, or the spikes in COVID cases that are due to Easter gatherings?

If your only examples of Jewish responses to COVID-19 are Haredi Jews breaking social distancing, and your only examples of social distancing breaches are Jews, that is the result of anti-Semitism, both in the media and unconsciously internalized.

…Anti-Semitism has led society to target the most visible Jews, and we will not achieve our liberation by continuing to other those who have not assimilated.

This truth is of course nuanced, and grappling with it is very difficult for me. I am a non-binary Reconstructionist Jew who aspires to be a rabbi. I am very aware of the fact that I may not have received an equal education in some Orthodox communities because of my assigned gender at birth, and that I could be rejected from them because of my queerness, and that many will not acknowledge me as a rabbi. Yet that does not make generalizing them acceptable, especially when the rhetoric plays into anti-Semitic tropes. This not only harms the entire Jewish community, but physically harms the Haredi community, and will not cause them to adopt more progressive ideologies. Only compassion, understanding, and solidarity can…

[chromolume]

jews after moses told them the name of the lord

[yidquotes]

‘Jesus is a Jew,’ is not the revelation that Christians seem to think it is. He was weighed and found wanting as the messiah and being Jewish didn’t help his case. He isn’t a ‘part’ of Judaism either. Jews don’t care about Jesus. They’ve never cared about Jesus and tagging Christian posts with Judaism isn’t going to convert anyone. It just means you don’t know enough about Judaism and are somehow under the impression that Jews can’t read their own damn book.

[jewish-humanist-deactivated2020]

On Biblical Interpretation: Why Christians Are Especially Wrong

General Note: When I refer to the Bible, I am referring to the Jewish canon of the Hebrew Bible based on the Masoretic text, aka the Tanakh. I am not referring to the Christian Bible or the Apocrypha. I will be relying in this discussion on the English translation published by the Jewish Publication Society (JPS).

I generally don’t argue much about the “right” interpretation of biblical texts. For one thing, I don’t believe in a god who could have inspired or dictated them as is traditionally taught by Christianity and Judaism, which makes the exercise largely pointless for me. Secondly, the original intention of the texts’ authors is likely impossible, in contested instances, to ascertain. This is especially true of texts where the Hebrew is ambiguous, as the JPS translation faithfully points out in the footnotes. Thirdly, due to historical circumstances, there is no single biblical text. There are differences of wording in competing manuscripts and translation issues that makes theological interpretation all the more difficult. And finally, theological interpretation of a religious text, like the Bible, is largely dependent on a person’s presuppositions. A religious Jew will read the Bible with Jewish theological presuppositions, an atheist with atheist presuppositions, and a Christian with Christian presuppositions.

The problem of reading the Bible with theological biases, however, is particularly acute for Christians. Unlike atheists, Jews, or any other reader, Christians simultaneously must interpret the Bible through their theology while also trying to prove their theology from the Bible. This is due to the fact that Christianity began as a messianic sect of Judaism, which requires them to prove their claims about Jesus by citing the Hebrew Bible. An atheist, for example does not have this problem. The presupposition that no gods exist does not require a biblical proof text, unlike the proposition that Jesus was the messiah. So, let us examine the Christian approach to proving their central claims.

Keep reading

[yidquotes]

Long read but well written.

[j-uwu-ish]

Me @ leftists when they see a Jew and immediately start interrogating them about Israel for no reason

[starlightomatic]

if you smear purell over your doorposts the angel of coronavirus will pass over your house

[fractalhawthorn]

Modern Passover ritual

[3tznius5this-deactivated2018010]

Let’s Talk About Zionism

off the back of a discussion that happened on facebook I wanted to compile some examples of different Jewish perspectives I knew on how they relate to ‘zionism’. Mainly to highlight that 1. this is a Jewish word the precludes any aspect of the modern state of Israel. 2. Jews are not monolith, and thus just because you know one accepted way a Jew relates to it, doesn’t mean you have the whole picture. & 3. (probably the most important one) that there is a systematic cross purposes happening when you have groups of activists who have only come across the word ‘zionism’ or ‘zionist’ inside the strict paradigm of acceptable I/P conflict discourse. (By which I mean, where pro-Palestine western discourse has dominated the definition of this word by unilaterally equating it with complicity, support & tolerance of violence against Palestinians). 

“I’m a Zionist..” what it could mean when a Jewish person says this:

1. I’m saying this because I support the state of Israel, including its policy and sanctions against the Palestinians, and believe that the modern state of Israel should expand and control all territories.

2. I’m saying this because even though I do not support the modern state of Israel, and I abhor what is happening to the Palestinians, I believe that the Jews who currently live there should not be forced to leave. 

3. I believe in the Jewish right for self determination, that is my end goal but I truly wish it could be established in a way that brings solace to both the Palestinians and the Jews who currently live there. I am open to a one state or two state solution as long as the end goal is a homeland for the Jewish people and the end of mistreatment against Palestinians.

4. I’m saying this because my family were forced out of Egypt/Yemen/another mena country, and to suggest that we have to go back to the people who mistreated us is violent, and thus the treatment of Palestinians can only get better when mena countries end their own antisemitism.

5. I don’t support the modern state of Israel, or the politics, however I’m a religious Jew who believes in the commandment of not ‘insulting’ Israel, and using the term zionism best encapsulates that for me. 

6. This word represents revolutionary unity between Jews in the face of antisemitism as codified by Herzl (& others), even though I reject most ways in which it is used now by the modern state of Israel, it is an important and historic word to my people in a political manner and I refuse to give it up. 

7. I am very critical of the Israeli government, and I wish (although I don’t always know how) for peace and better living standards for Palestinians, simultaneously however Israel is the epicentre of the Jewish world (even if I’ve never been there) and I don’t think modern politics can detract from that.

8. I never use to use the word zionist but ever since the UN ruled antisemitic and ahistorical statements denying the Jewish history in Israel I realised that anti-zionism is in fact often antisemitic, for me it is only by working with other zionists that we can change the future of Israel to a more peaceful one.

9. I plan to make aliyah one day, this doesn’t mean I agree with everything the government is doing or that it is fair that the Palestinians have had to suffer. I still plan to join the Jewish nation and be able to live religiously near our ancient sites.

10. There are pogroms/riots against Jews/”anti-Israel” demonstrations that chant things like “gas the Jews” where I live right now. I never planned to go to Israel but I am now. It is sad that me & my community are giving up our diaspora community, I am glad Israel exist for us to flee to.

11. Since the diaspora community in [x] (for example, Yemen) has been completed obliterated in the face of violence and forced conversion to Islam, even though I don’t live in Israel I believe it’d be wrong to not support it as that is the only place where my family’s culture still exists through no fault of their own. To me the Jews didn’t create Israel, they were forced there & thus it’s insulting that we are treated as the ‘one true oppressors’ in this discourse.

12. I have family in Israel, to not be a zionist would be saying I want them to be harmed/that if they were murdered that would be just. 

13. Because so many Jews were forced to flee their countries into Israel, to not be a zionist would be saying I think they deserve to be made into refugees/sent back to countries that seek to enact violence on them. That doesn’t mean I support the government of Israel however.

14. I am a convert and part of my conversion meant joining a community that sees Israel as their ancestral homeland. Calling myself a zionist helps me feel close to me (new) identity and is my personal tie to this history. 

15. I am Israeli, no matter what I believe politically this inherently makes me a zionist because I live here & do not wish to be murdered here. 

“I’m Not a Zionist…” this could mean any of the following:

1. I do not support the state of Israel, although I of course don’t want the Jews living there to be ethnically cleansed, the most important thing is to focus on the plight of Palestinians right now.

2. I love Israel, and I fully support the state of Israel including its sanctions against the Palestinians because I believe that’s the only way to keep hamas at bay - who themselves enact violence against Palestinians - I’m not a zionist though as I never plan to make aliyah.

3. I have visited Israel/plan to visit Israel & I see it as a Jewish historical place, I don’t feel like I know enough about politics though to have an informed opinion on it though, and I am sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. For this reason I just tend to say I’m not a zionist.

4. I used to call myself an anti-zionist but have since realised that anti-zionism is a movement entrenched in antisemitism and after being systematically abused and belittled for merely being a Jew - even when I openly said I’m anti-zionist - I have given up the title & now say non-zionist.

5. I believe in the Jewish homeland, and that it should be Israel. One part because it is our ancestral home, another part because that’s where Jews live now. I don’t support the actions of the government however, so I choose not to call myself a zionist in light of that. 

6. I am really tired of being dragged into the I/P debate just because I’m a Jew, so I say this to try and get goyim to leave me alone. 

7. I think the time of the usefulness of the word ‘zionism’ is over, and instead we should be looking at the viability of a bi-national state. 

8. I support the right for Jewish self determination, and that Israel is our ancestral homeland, furthermore I think that modern pro-Palestinian activism is often antisemitic and ignores the fact that destabilising Israel will lead to a genocide of the Jewish people who live there. However, many people who use the term zionist are racist/believe things I don’t believe in, so I don’t associate with that word.

9. I’m frum* and to me zionism is a secular word and movement that I don’t associate with, this doesn’t really tell you anything about my politics however. (**note to goyim: frum means ‘religious’ in yiddish, but is better translated as part of a community that strictly observes religious law.)

10. I am Israeli, I don’t need to be zionist as I just have political opinions about my country. Zionism is more for people in diaspora.

“I’m anti-Zionism…” this could mean:

1. I do not support the modern state of Israel, I don’t support people who do, I actively fight the political movement of zionism & would be happy to see “Israel” dismantled and Palestine returned.

2. I believe in the Jewish history and ties to Israel, and I also understand why it was created, but for me Zionism stands for enacting violence on Palestinians and thus I will actively fight against it. 

3. Although I am not wholly comfortable with the term, I use anti-Zionist as goyishe activists would probably throw me out of left wing movements if I don’t constantly prove that I’m not a zionist. 

4. I am Israeli, thus when I say I’m anti-Zionist I obviously am not saying I want Israel to be dismantled, or for Israelis to be harmed, I am instead saying something about the political rights of Palestinians.

5. I think Zionism has come to dominate too much of the Jewish identity, for that sake I distance myself from it. This doesn’t say very much about my political opinions.

6. I don’t want Israel to be destroyed, and I fear for the lives of Jews who live in diaspora and may not be able to flee there if Israel were to change, I am also fearful for the lives of Israelis as Israel’s neighbours have often promised death upon them and hamas’ charter has been one of wishing genocide upon Jews. However, I don’t ever want to go to Israel myself, I don’t agree with the government, and in any way I can I support the pro-Palestinian activism. 

7. Everything about Israel makes me really embarrassed and angry, I wish Israel would stop its violent actions as in the long run it is Jews like me in diaspora that face the brunt of it. 

8. It makes me really angry that right wing politicians and bigots can be antisemitic and even enact/incite violence against Jews, but just because they ‘support Israel’ Jewish safety is ignored by the left, and many Jewish institutions will ignore them in hopes of not rocking the boat. 

9. To me it is a simple binary: do you accept what the modern state of Israel is doing now? If yes: you’re a zionist. If no, you’re an anti-zionist. I fall on the latter, but that doesn’t actually tell you about the other layers of opinion I may have. 

To write this I genuinely just ran through all my Jewish friends and tried to summarise their position and sort it into the three headings. As you can see, from just one British Jew in London, I rub shoulders with a multitude of opinions, feelings & perspectives on Israel. And none of these are even supposed to adequately sum up even one Jew’s feelings on the place Israel or the word zionism. 

Hopefully those reading will see why I get so frustrated when they assume that Jews are either sharing the same opinion on the word zionism, or that they are talking about the same thing Jews are when we use it. 

Finally I will say: zionism is a Jewish word, for my own sake I have a complicated and not particularly happy relationship with it. However, I don’t believe any non-Jew have the right to take away the Jewish control over its definitions. This is especially the case as ‘zionist’ is more easily used as a placeholder for Jew, to the extent that the stormfront created ‘zio’ was in fact common place in ‘anti-zionist’ spaces for a long time & used even by ‘woke’ leftists. Asking goyim to stop using zionism as a catch all term to rile against in regards to Israel doesn’t detract anything from pro-Palestinian activism, the activism itself is still there unless your support for Palestinians was just preformative, to show off your ‘wokeness’ or worse: because you’re explicitly or latently antisemitic and don’t want to give up the ‘acceptable’ means of manifesting that. 

[shezze-blog1]

I’m upset because I want to change the world but the world is too big and people are too mean

[wufflesvetinari]

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” - Rabbi Tarfon

[mangozetango]

I needed to hear this

[antique-scarecrow]

not obligated to complete the work, not free to abandon it.

[gerintraining]

We stan Vashti AND Esther in this house

[tiny-fallen-star-deactivated202]

vashti 👏 deserved 👏 better 👏👏👏

[gay-hamlet]

just remembered that chuck palahniuk quote

[gay-hamlet]

“your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it’s all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary.” going off the rails my good folks

[eretzyisrael]

#BringBackOurGirls #BokoHaram #NigerianChristianGenocide

Dumisani Washington

[eretzyisrael]

Rashida Tlaib and the company she keeps. by Barry Shaw

Rashida Tlaib in the company of friends she is comfortable with. There is an expression that people can be identified by the comp...

There is an expression that people can be identified by the company they keep.

 Rashida Tlaib was elected to the House of Representatives in a district with a constituency whose culture and issues she shares and now projects within the United States Congress.

She celebrated her arrival into the American political stage by draping herself in a Palestinian flag. She says she wants to lead a Congressional delegation to Palestine to expose the human rights abuses against the Palestinians. 

If that is correct she should take her fellow Congress men and women to visit Issam Akel who was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labor - but not by an Israeli court. There is no such Israeli sentence as imprisonment with hard labor. That human rights crime is carried out by Palestinian courts on the orders of the Palestinian Authority. 

Akel, like Tlaib, is a Palestinian-American. All the more reason for American congress people to visit him. 

Akel’s crime was selling his Jerusalem property to an Israeli Jew. 

This is the racist, anti-Semitic, Palestinian justice system that flies under the radar. If Tlaib wants to show her fellow Democrats human rights abuses against her fellow Palestinians here it is, inflicted on Palestinian by their unelected leaders.

And if that is not enough, let Tlaib bring her colleagues to visit the twenty eight Palestinians languishing in Palestinian detention camps in Jericho where, according to Human Rights Watch, they are being tortured for the crime of peaceful protest not against Israel but against their own corrupt leadership.

But of course Rashida Tlaib will not address the blatant human rights abuses inflicted on their own people by the PA and Hamas. Better not to spoil a false propaganda narrative with gruesome facts.

Let’s instead examine the friends she keeps.

[jewish-privilege]

Horrifying moment teen girls perform a Nazi salute at Auschwitz death camp where more than a million people were killed

by Sofia Petkar

[October 10, 2018] - AUSCHWITZ officials are trying to identify three teenage girls who performed a Nazi salute outside the ‘gate of death’ to the World War II death camp.

According to local media, the girls uploaded the image to Instagram but quickly decided to take it down.

However, officials at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum had already been alerted to the image and informed the public prosecutor’s office.

The photo was also shared on Facebook by the group ‘Racist and Xenophobic Behaviour Monitoring Centre’.

The group wrote: “The girls’ ‘prank’ proves how education about the horrors of the Holocaust and totalitarian systems is needed, especially with anti-Semitism growing in Poland.”

They added that “young people unknowingly absorb hateful content”.

Local authorities are in the process of identifying the teenagers and their school will be informed about the incident.

This is not the only case of Nazi gestures being carried out by ignorant visitors to the Auschwitz II-Birkenau death camp.

In 2017, a group of Swedish teenagers were filmed making inappropriate gestures and remarks while visiting the memorial complex.

Meanwhile, an Israeli student ended up in hot water when he dropped his trousers at the former death camp in Majdanek, close to the Polish capital Warsaw.

In his case, the Israeli Ministry of Education intervened and made the culprit pay a £250 fine.

[sweetchcraft]

*stands under the full moon to charge myself *

[jewish-privilege]

Today, January 27, 2017, marks 72 years since the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi occupied Poland. Today we remember the worst of humanity: genocide. Today we remember all the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. We remember the roughly 11 million people (1.1 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp) who were slaughtered simply for who they were and those who were imprisoned, and sometimes killed, for what they believed.

The Nazi regime murdered an estimated 6 million Jewish people, 2 million Romani people, 250,000 mentally and physically disabled non-Jewish/non-Romani people, and 9,000 non-Jewish/non-Romani gay men all in the furtherance of white supremacy and “racial purity.”

Today we remember them all and continue to fight against fascism, totalitarianism, and white supremacy so that this never again happens.

[jewish-privilege]

Today, January 27, 2018, marks 73 years. Never again.

[jewish-privilege]

Today, January 27, 2019, marks 74 years. 

[yidquotes]

“Old Testament” is an unconscious piece of anti-Judaism. “Testament” means “covenant.” To say that the Jewish Bible, or the TANAKH, is the old testament implies that the covenant that God made with Israel is old — as in, outmoded, out of step, out of style. To put it in computer terms, the old covenant needs an upgrade — to a new covenant, a new testament — through Yeshu. for that reason, many sensitive Christians no longer refer to our Bible as the Old Testament. Some refer to it as the “first testament.” Some even respectfully call it what we call it — the TANAKH.

Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin

[daisysactuallyjewish]

!!!!!!