âĄď¸ | no preferred name or pronouns so call me whatever | be nice or go away | if I don't follow back it's because I'm doing tumblr wrong | millennial
Ableist language is used so frequently on Jumblr when disparaging antisemites and those who don't agree with a poster/commenter's beliefs re the i/p conflict, and that's not okay.
Whether it's intended or not, using ableist language prepetuates harmful biases about disability and mental illness, and stigmatizes already marginalized groups. (An example in this case would be "antisemite = bad â antisemite = [ableist descriptor] â person with disability/mental illness relevant to that descriptor = bad." It's obviously greatly simplified and sounds far-fetched when written out like that, but our brains could be making those connections subconsciously and we'd not even be aware of it.)
And sure, there are bigger problems re ableism, but those bigger problems take effort to combat and require large-scale change, while this doesn't take much effort.
I'm not even asking anyone to stop using this kind of language all the time (except the r-slur, do not use that.) even though that is possible (I've done it). But these types of posts/this specific situation is already so charged/emotional, let's not make it worse.
Stop saying things like "this insane/crazy take" or "these antisemitic morons" and stop using the "antisemitism/jew hate makes you stupid" tags.
Get creative. Find ways to dunk on bigots and people you disagree with, without perpetuating negative stereotypes about people with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses. At a time when we're hurting for allies, let's be the best allies we can be to other marginalized people.
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of Bad Jewish Representation
I recently rewatched the Elementary episode Rip Off (S03E05), and while Iâve mentioned it before in comments and reblogs about bad Jewish rep in media, itâs unfortunately worse than I remembered it being.
Iâve posted it below the cut because spoilers [for episodes S02E11, S02E18, and S03E05] and because this ended up so much longer than I expected it to be.
To summarize the episode: In Manhattan, a severed hand, and then later the victimâs body are found. The hand had been torn off and then the victim killed, after which the victim got dragged by a tow truck (his body had gotten stuck under an illegally parked car) to the impound lot. At the morgue, the victim is identified as being a cancer patient, and then Sherlock identifies him as an Orthodox Jew, so they make the rounds to all the Orthodox shuls in Manhattan [via TV magic, Sherlock knows offhand, exactly how many there are], where they find Mosheâs brother. He tells them about Mosheâs business, which is a postal service store, where they find a hidden safe and deduce [based on a ledger that they find in the safe, which is written in mostly childish Hebrew lettering and which we find out later has a grease stain from non-kosher food on it] that Moshe was a diamond smuggler. In the end, they find out that Moshe had decided to stop smuggling, and Amit, his employee (and previous smuggling partner), paid someone to kill Moshe because he wanted to keep the enterprise going.
(the ledger; the grease stain is on a different page, not depicted)
Okay, letâs dig in.
One of the things that annoyed me the most was the scene at the morgue where Sherlock identified the man as an Orthodox Jew, but it turns out I misremembered it.
I thought he held up a tallis katan sans tzitzis and said theyâre tzitzis, or âzeetzeetâ as he pronounced them.
What actually happened is that he held up the tallis katan sans tzitzis and said, â...these holes are tailored. Sewn in to hold tzitzit, the ritual fringe worn by devout Jewish men.â
So all that, other than the horrific pronunciation, is correct. But I donât see any reason why the tzitzis were actually missing, other than to drive the plot. No âdevout Jewâ would wear a tallis katan without tzitzis. It literally defeats the purpose. I also donât think itâs likely that all four of the tzitzis would have been torn out while the holes for the tzitzis remained mostly intact, but thatâs what we see when Sherlock holds up the tallis katan.
Right, so now we're at the shul where we meet Mosheâs brother, who according to IMDb is named Josef Shapiro. Josef has a big black yarmulke [on the back of his head rather than the top], Hollywood-curled peyos, longer hair than would usually be seen on someone with the irl version of those peyos in real life, and a decent beard and mustache by Hollywood standards. Heâs wearing no tie, a white button up shirt, a sweater or vest, and a black jacket [they donât show him below the waist so you canât see the length but from the cut it looks like a long jacket]... and a wedding ring.
The shul theyâre in is most likely an actual Orthodox shul, given there are separate menâs and womenâs sections. [Josef is sitting in a pew in the menâ section.] The womenâs section consists of two balconies that look like they run the length of the room, with a space in the middle so they can look down. There are (short) railings at the top of the (short) balcony walls, which if you want to be generous, could potentially in real life usually have curtains over them, but Iâm inclined to think theyâre there for safety purposes only.
(I did actually look on Google and then on Google maps to try and find the shul where they filmed to see if I was correct about the railing but I was unable to find it.)
Oof, where to start. So we know by now that Hollywood doesnât know how to handle hair for Orthodox Jews and/or thinks all Orthodox Jewish men have curled peyos. Ironically, the hair, yarmulke placement, type of shul, and maybe even the ring could all be acceptable if not for the curled peyos. (Josefâs English name could be passable even with the peyos because there are chassidim who use English names in non-Jewish/business settings.)
In my previous mentions of this episode, I said that Josef was the rabbi, but thereâs actually nothing in the episode transcript to suggest that. The incongruity of the peyos and the shul is more glaring if he were the rabbi, but maybe we can let it slide just a tiny bit if thatâs not the case. And if weâre being generous again, maybe heâs sitting in a pew in an otherwise empty shul because davening just ended and everyone else cleared out while he remained to speak to Sherlock and Kitty (Sherlockâs protege).
But even with those generous allowances, given the hodgepodge of hair (all inclusive), outfit [none of which has been torn even though he just found out his brother died], and location, plus Josefâs inconsistent and potentially mildly offensive accent [I looked up the actor; heâs Jewish but he doesnât speak with that accent irl], and his and everyone elseâs atrocious pronunciation of Moshe as âmoh-sheeâ, all this tells us is that the show couldnât be bothered to properly research Orthodox Judaism or get the TV equivalent of a sensitivity reader [someone who is/was part of that community, not just a token Jew to sign off on it] to check that they werenât stereotyping or misrepresenting.
And sure, there could be Jews that look and sound like this and attend that kind of shul, but theyâre pretty much not the average Orthodox Jew [even given all the different types of Orthodox Jews] anywhere other than in fictional media. [HT to @knaidelmaidel for reminding me that I wanted to include this.]
Iâve previously said that I think there are two types of not-good Jewish representation in media: bad rep and harmful rep. Up until now, all this has been bad rep. I personally think no rep is better than bad rep, but Iâd understand why people would disagree.
Unfortunately, this episode doesnât stay at just bad rep, it takes a sharp turn into harmful rep, which I strongly believe is significantly worse than no rep at all.
We start with a less-sharp turn with the non-kosher food grease stain that they find on the ledger. After calling Moshe a hypocrite, Sherlock says, âIt wouldn't be the first time a man's looming sense of his own mortality had loosened his sense of piety.â Later, Kitty suggests that the food stain was left by Amit, but this is never confirmed. This is another thing that Hollywood likes doing â portraying Jews as rebelling against their religion, because clearly all religious Jews are all oppressed and want to turn their back on their religion (/s).
While weâre on the topic of Amit, when asked if Moshe was a good boss, Amit says, âHe was the best. He's really tight with his community and still hired a guy named Amit. He had a big heart.â If we ignore the fact that Amit is also a Hebrew name and the actor who plays Amit is named [I literally cannot make this up] Rafi Silver [though I canât find any indication online that he is, in fact, Jewish], and presume that Amit Hattengatti, which if you go by Googleâs correction of Hattangadi, is an Indian name, why would Moshe not hire an Indian employee? The answer is poor research. Because Jewish stores are full of non-Jewish employees, including South Asians. But this poor research results in the implication that most Jews wouldnât hire [non-Jewish/Indian/South Asian/fill in the blank because once weâre being antisemitic letâs go all out] employees.
Each of the above two aspects on their own might not be too bad, but taken together, they start to paint a picture.
But those two aspects pale in comparison to the rest of the picture, the most harmful aspect of this episode. And thatâs Moshe being a diamond smuggler. Oh also not only was he a smuggler, he was also extra-dirty dealing by selling to another smugglerâs customers at lower prices.
So we have a stealing, dishonest Jew [Kitty calls him a scoundrel], which welp, yeah, major harmful stereotype, even if by the end of the episode we know that he âregains his virtueâ and decided to stop smuggling before he was killed.
And hereâs the thing. This isnât the first time thereâs a stealing, dishonest Jew portrayed on Elementary. In Internal Audit (S02E11), we find out that Jacob Weiss, who runs a nonprofit that recovers money/seeks reparations for Holocaust victims and their families, is found to be âembezzling millions from your own charity by filing false claims in the names of survivors who are either dead, or who were simply never informedâ. Jacob isnât identified as a Jew, but thatâs a likely assumption that any viewer would make, given the name and the nature of the charity.
Now, you might say two instances is a mere coincidence. And yes, often that is the case. But I donât think thatâs the case here. Because up to this point, out of a total of 53 episodes, there are exactly three that involve Jews in a role thatâs more than just a mention.
The third of these episodes, The Hound of the Cancer Cells (S02E18) involves Mossad agents [Sherlock and co only interact with one, Dalit Zirin] operating in the US. Iâm not going to go into that too much even though I think there are countless other foreign intelligence agencies that they could have used instead of Mossad that wouldnât reflect poorly on a marginalized, very small group of people, especially because the whole Mossad part isnât actually super significant to the episode plot.
But anyway. Letâs say that the Mossad episode wasnât negative. So we have three Jewish or Jew-ish episodes out of 53 episodes, and two of them portray Jews as dishonest thieves. So yeah, not a mere coincidence in my opinion, and very much harmful representation.
The sad thing is, all this isnât even specifically an indictment of Elementaryâs writers or directors. Sure, I think they could have done a lot better than relying on harmful and inaccurate stereotypes. [And the show actually hiring Jewish actors to portray those three Jews with speaking roles (Stuart Zagnit, Richard Mansur, and Shiri Appleby) is great in general but doesnât make up for the harmful representation.] But the fact of the matter is that this all is just a reflection of how Hollywood sees Jews. Which is especially egregious when you consider the fact that the US film industry was largely founded by Jews. [This is further proof that we donât run Hollywood, because if we did, weâd ensure we had better representation.]
op, as an orthodox Jew I can say that you are SEVERELY lacking in your own knowledge.
You're so desperate to find bad rep I think you're actually being pretty unfair.
Tzeetzeet is actually a perfectly standard pronunciation for anyone who doesn't have Yiddish as a first language/in their cultural heritage. Most of the Jews in the world probably call it that, and even those who don't would recognize it
Moh-shee is an accent way of saying Moishe, which is a SUPER common, if not THE MOST COMMON Hassidish way if pronouncing the nickname for "Moshe"
His clothes aren't torn?? You can't seriously think that's done upon receiving news of a family death. It's done at the funeral, unless the funeral has to be delayed, but either way it wouldn't be done in the middle of shul after he was informed about the death
What you call "childish" Hebrew writing is actually reflective of the level achieved by many Americans (or English speakers, I should say) even after years of study, and likely looks a lot like the level of Hebrew achieved by many Tumblr users. An orthodox man probably wouldn't need to use vowels, but how about you cool it with making fun of people's handwriting?
I am currently taking a break from shabbat prep, when I saw this insipid post, and the prep happened to be because we're having a Hassidish family over, and the dad wears his kippa on the back of his head. Shall I inform him (the son of a rebbe, actually), that he's wearing his kippa wrong for your liking?
Of course it's the wrong type of shul. What Hassidic community would allow them to film in an active synagogue?
Amit is a modern Hebrew name. If the character is meant to be Jewish, the point they're making is that Moshe hired outside his community, which is worth mentioning
I'm not saying I love the smuggling Jew as the primary representation, but you're so off base with many of the "faults" you're finding, it utterly detracts from whatever validity your point actually has.
I grew up Orthodox, yeshivish actually, which you would have found out if youâd taken a breath between reading and rage-responding.
I am fully aware of non-Ashkenazi pronunciation. This was not Tzeetzeet, which youâd known if youâd actually read my post properly. It was zeetzeet. Like ××ת֟ ××ת֟, which will never be accurate.
Also not read properly. Not Moishy, which is the yeshivish and sometimes chassidish way but Moh-she. Like ×× ×Š××. That will also never be accurate.
Various sources say ideally one should tear kriyah immediately or as soon as possible after the person dies or one hears about it.
Youâre right. I didnât consider that there are people on Tumblr who havenât been writing Hebrew since they were in preschool. And I apologize for insulting their writing. But it doesnât change the fact that the character mixed print and script Hebrew, which is never done by someone who grew up writing Hebrew unless they are, in fact, a child and still learning.
Please extend my apologies to that one chassidish man who wears his yarmulke on the back of his head. My point is, this isn't how the average chassidish Jew looks. That's ideally what directors should be portraying unless they're making a point of the character specifically not being average. Which isn't the case with that character.
It wouldnât have had to be a chassidish shul. Wikipedia says many of the interiors were shot in Queens. Iâm sure there are shuls in Queens that look closer to what a chassidish shul might look like and would allow a filming crew. I could look on Google Maps if you need proof. Even a basement filled with Judaica could look more like a chassidish shul than this. No aron kodesh shots are necessary. In fact, they didnât even need to film in the main sanctuary, it could have been in an office or an office-type library. Just take a shot of a shul exterior and boom weâre in a shul. Movie magic.
You donât actually think that anyone in Hollywood knows the difference between different types of Jews, do you? Because they donât. Jews are Jews to them. They wouldnât think that a chassidish man hiring someone with a modern Hebrew name might be noteworthy. (Which, for the record, I donât think it is, at least not in a location outside of a chassidish community.) And I donât think Moshe hiring a non-Jew is worth mentioning actually. Because itâs praised, and therefore one might automatically assume that itâs not the norm, leading one to think that Jews as a general rule do not hire outside of their community, which in the US is illegal. Whether or not itâs actually being done in real life like that, letâs not encourage people to think Jews are committing crimes, yeah?
I think you were so determined to give a critical reading of my post that you didnât consider that you might not actually be right on some of these points you so sanctimoniously âcorrectedâ me.
And the award for 'Best Jewish Thing Inserted Into a Non-Jewish Thing in Media' goes to Sophie Devereaux (who is played by Jewish actress Gina Bellman), for calling a character "Gefilte Fish" instead of the nickname he gave himself ("The Mako"), in the Leverage episode "The Boiler Room Job" (S04E08).
Discord sucks for various reasons, but one good feature it has is the ability to write a note (that only you can see) on someone's account profile, so, for example, you know why you blocked them.
@staff it would be really helpful if Tumblr had something like that too.
I feel so bad for all the non- Jews who donât know about the awesome orthodox Jewish music subculture. If you havenât heard Charasho by Benny Friedman can you even be considered legally alive.
Ok ok this is the same anon from earlier, do Jewish people have diff denominations? Please forgive my ignorance Iâm from a red state Iâm trying my best to learn. Like Christian have catholic baptist etc etc or âlukewarmâ which is like being Christian but being very secular or not following the teachings. Do Jewish people use Hebrew in daily life? Sorry if I sound weird Iâm genuinely curious
In some more religious circles someone might just have a Hebrew like their legal name is Hebrew
There's lots of different traditions and in one of the traditions there are named different movements with different emphases and different understandings of various Rulings.
For instance, my family is "Egalitarian Conservadox", which to another Jewish person tells them an awful lot about my parent's priorities and also some about their level of religious observance.
Also, regarding Hebrew, it depends. Hebrew is the first and native language of roughly half of the world's Jewish community as a matter of nationality.
Outside of that, Yiddish is another relatively common choice for people to speak some of in their daily life, although that tends to happen more in specific subgroup.
There are a few different denominations/sects, with somewhat differing customs and levels of practice. You'd have to do real (i.e. not just send an ask on Tumblr) research if you ever wanted to write a Jewish character â though a non-Jew writing a Jewish character might be frowned upon by some, and at the very least a sensitivity reader would be recommended.
Re Hebrew, Orthodox Jews (one of the denominations) who mainly speak English pepper Hebrew throughout their English speech (and often also Yiddish and/or Aramaic), to the point that they have to, often consciously, code switch and use only English when speaking with people not in their community. I'm not sure if it's the same with people whose primary language is not English or a Jewish language. And idk how much non-Orthodox Jews pepper Jewish languages into their speech.
No Schmear Job: A Brief History Of Bagels And Lox : The Salt : NPR
The origin of the bagel "is somewhat mysterious," says a writer who recently explored the topic. What is unquestionable is that bagel met an
Is this the most antisemitic thing I've seen from npr? maybe not but im trying to work out if it's a joke that they skirt mentioning the j word when it comes to how the bagel ends up in America and i genuinely don't know
I did some cursory research just now, and most articles I searched in/skimmed say that bagels have mixed origins. (It's worth noting that many of the articles have the same source, a 2008 book by Maria Balinska, titled The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread. One article says Balinska is half Jewish, half Polish.) But those articles all at least mention potential Jewish origins. This NPR article does not.
Regarding bagels being brought to the US, some just say they were brought by Polish immigrants, some specify Polish Jewish immigrants. The NPR article doesn't mention bagels being brought to the US.
The Lender family, who NPR credits for the bagel's "leap from being a New York street food to standard brunch fare across the country" was Jewish. But they don't say that.
In my opinion, it's intentional. You can't research bagels without coming across mentions of Polish Jews. I think there was a conscious choice to omit that information. And as far as the Lenders, I could definitely see someone at NPR saying "it's not relevant", though I doubt they'd say the same if the Lenders had literally any other ethnicity.
discoholicmusic
origamiaround
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vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
jacobvanloon
