since we now know that all those "my blog is safe for Jewish people" posts are bullshit, here are some Jewish organizations you can donate to if you actually want to prove you support Jews. put up or shut up
FIGHTING HUNGER
Masbia - Kosher soup kitchens in New York
MAZON - Practices and promotes a multifaceted approach to hunger relief, recognizing the importance of responding to hungry peoples' immediate need for nutrition and sustenance while also working to advance long-term solutions
Tomchei Shabbos - Provides food and other supplies so that poor Jews can celebrate the Sabbath and the Jewish holidays
FINANCIAL AID
Ahavas Yisrael - Providing aid for low-income Jews in Baltimore
Hebrew Free Loan Society - Provides interest-free loans to low-income Jews in New York and more
GLOBAL AID
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee - Offers aid to Jewish populations in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in the Middle East through a network of social and community assistance programs. In addition, the JDC contributes millions of dollars in disaster relief and development assistance to non-Jewish communities
American Jewish World Service - Fighting poverty and advancing human rights around the world
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society - Providing aid to immigrants and refugees around the world
Jewish World Watch - Dedicated to fighting genocides around the world
MEDICAL AID
Sharsheret - Support for cancer patients, especially breast cancer
SOCIAL SERVICES
The Aleph Institute - Provides support and supplies for Jews in prison and their families, and helps Jewish convicts reintegrate into society
Bet Tzedek - Free legal services in LA
Bikur Cholim - Providing support including kosher food for Jews who have been hospitalized in the US, Australia, Canada, Brazil, and Israel
Blue Card Fund - Critical aid for holocaust survivors
Chai Lifeline - An org that's very close to my heart. They help families with members with disabilities in Baltimore
Chana - Support network for Jews in Baltimore facing domestic violence, sexual abuse, and elder abuse
Community Alliance for Jewish-Affiliated Cemetaries - Care of abandoned and at-risk Jewish cemetaries
Crown Heights Central Jewish Community Council - Provides services to community residents including assistance to the elderly, housing, employment and job training, youth services, and a food bank
Hands On Tzedakah - Supports essential safety-net programs addressing hunger, poverty, health care and disaster relief, as well as scholarship support to students in need
Hebrew Free Burial Association
Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services - Programs include early childhood and learning, children and adolescent services, mental health outpatient clinics for teenagers, people living with developmental disabilities, adults living with mental illness, domestic violence and preventive services, housing, Jewish community services, counseling, volunteering, and professional and leadership development
Jewish Caring Network - Providing aid for families facing serious illnesses
Jewish Family Service - Food security, housing stability, mental health counseling, aging care, employment support, refugee resettlement, chaplaincy, and disability services
Jewish Relief Agency - Serving low-income families in Philadelphia
Jewish Social Services Agency - Supporting people’s mental health, helping people with disabilities find meaningful jobs, caring for older adults so they can safely age at home, and offering dignity and comfort to hospice patients
Jewish Women's Foundation Metropolitan Chicago - Aiding Jewish women in Chicago
Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty - Crisis intervention and family violence services, housing development funds, food programs, career services, and home services
Misaskim - Jewish death and burial services
Our Place - Mentoring troubled Jewish adolescents and to bring awareness of substance abuse to teens and children
Tiferes Golda - Special education for Jewish girls in Baltimore
When I was eleven we read ‘the Devil’s Arithmetic’ in class. The devil’s arithmetic is a novel about the holocaust. There were several occasions when we were reading aloud in class and my teacher (kindly, with love and care in his heart for me) excused me because I was crying. I was if not the only jew in class, one of the few, and i was the only one crying. It wasn’t new to me. I had already read ‘the Diary of Anne Frank’ and I cried then too.
(The rest of this essay about holocaust education based on dara horn’s people love dead jews under the cut because it is loooooong)
When I was eleven and read the devils arithmetic I cried because the devil’s arithmetic is about a young girl named hannah, no older than thirteen, and maybe more like ten, a modern jewish girl, like i had been at that age, although not exactly, and ill get to that, and when she opens the door for elijah at her passover seder she steps into the holocaust. We follow her as she is rounded up with her village, including her another girl her age, by the nazis. We see that everyone calls her chaya, her hebrew name. We see her in the cattle cars and we see her in the camp. We see her suffering, her starvation. And we see her bond with this girl in the camps. And then we see her switch places when the girl was selected to be gassed.
We see her walk to her death—and find herself back in her grandparents house for the seder, and learn that she was named Hannah, and given the Hebrew name Chaya, after the brave chaya who saved someone’s life in the holocaust by dying instead. I don’t remember who the friend she saved grew up to be, or how/if she was related to hannah’s family or chaya, or even how/if chaya was related to hannah’s grandfather, but the reveal indicates that hannah was living the life of a real relative or family friend who died in the holocaust, whose name she bears.
When I was eleven I cried when I read the devil’s arithmetic—and cried when i read the diary anne frank earlier than that—because all I could think was they killed her, they killed her, there was no reason, the reason was that she was jewish, that could be me, that is me, they killed her, they would have killed me, I am her, they killed her, they killed me.
When I was eleven I thought i was silly and sensitive for always crying whenever we read about the holocaust. None of my family were even in europe during the holocaust, let alone died in it. I was too sensitive, I thought. It wasn’t me, clearly. It was Anne who died, and neither Hannah nor the Chaya whose life she lived were real; the devil’s arithmetic is fiction. Time travel isn’t real, I live in the 21st century, the nazis are gone, and it doesn’t matter that they would have hated me, would have wanted to kill me, because I wasn’t ever going to live at the same time as the nazis. I was safe, so i could stop crying.
When I was around fifteen I read Night, Elie Weisel’s memoir of living through the holocaust, including his time in the camps. I can’t remember if I cried. But I read it in private—they don’t teach Night—so if i did I probably felt less shame about it. Besides, Night is truly horrifying, a real memoir, unlike the fictional devil’s arithmetic, and about the horror of the camps, unlike the diary of anne frank, which necessarily ends before that, so if i had cried, it would have been easier to justify to myself. If i didnt cry, well, I was older, i was more mature, so that made sense too.
Today I am twenty two years old and reading Dara Horn’s ‘people love dead jews’ on an airplane surrounded by people, and when i reached the part where horn imagines anne frank’s obituary after having survived the holocaust and published not only her memoir of the holocaust, including her time in the camps, but other novels and essays, as was clearly her passion, and dying an old woman having lived a full life at 92, i nearly cried again, and only didn’t because i was on an airplane.
And then i teared up again reading the passage that said ‘It is far more gratifying to believe that an innocent dead girl has offered us grace than to recognize the obvious: Frank wrote about people being “truly good at heart” before meeting people who weren’t. Three weeks after writing those words, she met people who weren’t.’
And then i teared up again, and again, and then i had to stop reading and write this, because I realized i was right to cry when I was eleven, and again, maybe, at fifteen. I was not being silly or sensitive. It was devastating. But i teared up today for an additional reason—Dara Horn is right. People really do love dead jews.
The devil’s arithmetic is a fictionalized holocaust isekai story, putting a modern jew in the shoes of a holocaust victim. And the devils arithmetic fucking sucks ass as a story about and especially as a way to teach about the holocaust, or even modern jews’ feelings about it.
First, I don’t remember if the devil’s arithmetic was written by a jew. I hope it was. Because otherwise the author is appropriating jewish trauma, and it’s fucking weird if a goy decided to send a modern jew back in time to die, or think she was going to die, in the holocaust. Either way, though, naming it the devils arithmetic shows that the author wasn’t marketing their book to jews, but cultural christians, and maybe others; i think islam might have a devil but i’m not sure. In any case, we don’t believe in the devil in Judaism. I know it’s supposed to be referring to the randomness of who died in the holocaust and who survived, which has its own problems, but like. we literally don’t believe in the devil. It’s just god. So. Weird title for a book about jews unless it’s not aimed at us, and a fictional holocaust isekai marketed to non jews is a weird choice for holocaust education in an american public school, and also just a weird way to tell a story about the holocaust.
And it’s even worse because the devil’s arithmetic characterizes Hannah as a young secular modern jew who is bored by the passover seder and annoyed, frustrated, and frightened of her clearly still traumatized holocaust survivor grandfather, who she only seems to visit or even think about on holidays, and has seemingly no affection or respect for her heritage and history. Is that a plausible way for a young secular modern jew to behave? Sure. But is that attitude common? Id argue not.
There is demonstrable, verifiable, and widespread generational trauma from the holocaust, because Judaism is a culture and religion that teaches that we are our ancestors, as in the passover seder where we recall when we, not merely our ancestors, were redeemed from slavery in egypt; and because of how traumatized parents pass their trauma on. My own sensitivity about the holocaust is an instance of this generational holocaust trauma, even though my contemporary relatives were all safe in america at the time, because judaism teaches that we are one people, am yisrael.
The devils arithmetic erases generational holocaust trauma, and it’s a problem that someone chose that to be the book that taught all my classmates about the holocaust—about jews—even though the picture of how young, modern, secular jews relate to their heritage and history is, though plausible, statistically inaccurate.
Further, because of the framing of the story, the book ends with Hannah, after living through the holocaust as Chaya, really now appreciating Passover, her hebrew name, her judaism broadly, and her holocaust survivor grandfather. The fucking holocaust— literally choosing to die to save her friend—is positioned as the thing that made Hannah appreciate what she had. It’s positioned as the thing that gives her character growth. And that’s ultimately kind of disgusting.
It’s also reflective of the broader treatment of the holocaust as something to learn from, as opposed to the most industrialized, systemic, and systematic genocide ever. Hannah did not deserve to suffer through and wholeheartedly believe and accept that she was going to die in the fucking holocaust because she didn’t appreciate passover and her hebrew name and her holocaust survivor grandfather. Im not even arguing that was the authors intention. But when you frame a holocaust isekai through the lens of a young secular modern jew who didn’t appreciate her heritage before she got isekaied into the holocaust and now does, you inherently provide a narrative justification of her suffering in the holocaust, intentionally or not.
When I was eleven, I cried because my empathy for even fictional dead jews overwhelmed me, and caused me great fear over my own safety. I was grieving anne frank, and the six million other dead jews murdered in the holocaust, and hannah and chaya, too, especially hannah because even though she was fictional she was almost exactly like me, a modern secular jew with a Hebrew name we never used we were given to honor someone close to/our family. I always loved passover, sure, and valued being jewish, and I didn’t know any holocaust survivors, but at our cores we were the same, even more so than me and everyone who died in the real holocaust are the same, because hannah and I were both supposed to be safe.
I am twenty two years old and i almost cried on an airplane like the screaming toddlers sitting near me several times because of all that, and because I really truly understood that those six million dead jews were supposed to be safe too, and that lots of people care more about the lessons their deaths can teach than that injustice, or the lives they could have lived.
i wish we were able to talk about women's rights without someone mentioning how much they do or don't want to have sex with them. i don't care if you're a lesbian Stop finding worth in women purely from their perceived attractiveness
"I think women should not be expected to shave for societal respect / to avoid discrimination" "yeah🤤 i love bush" ok well that's not what we're talking about is it.
i hate how many posts about trans women deserving respect always devolve into "I love girldick" or "trans rights but I don't want to date a trans person" because that's entirely unrelated to the topic at hand. you should not respond to feminism with "YESSS I loveeee you because I see you as nothing but a sex object" you people sound like other men I get stuck talking with that end up saying "free the nipple so I can see boobies in public" and thinking they're feminists. why can't we just respect women regardless of your attraction to them or not. why does it need to be brought up in every conversation regarding their rights
Nearly pissed myself laughing earlier when I saw this absolute Looney Tunes truck attempting to transport an oversized mattress down the road with only a couple tiny bungee cords holding on for dear life, while it ballooned out behind the truck like a drag racing parachute:
I just want to say, I have seen a good chunk of people defending Israeli citizens against racists and xenophobes. It made me realise that most of the Instagram anti-Israel people are actual children who have no sense of nuance.
Maybe I'm grasping at straws here but this made my day when this was posted. Someone with a relatively large platform is talking about xenophobia. Giving me a bit more hope for the future :')
Whenever I see an apocalypse setting with heavy Christian themes and the entire cast going crazy over this possibility being the end times/rapture/whatever, I'd like to imagine there is a nice area of Jews minding their own business watching smoke blow from the neighbours and deciding for once they can clean up their own mess.
"dni if you engage with irredeemable media! dni to kill a mockingbird stans" ok well CLEARLY you have never read to kill a mockingbird if you think it's irredeemable media and also having a book that was published in 1960 on your dni stan list is kinda ridiculous actually
I went to a library book sale this weekend and I found a very old book called “Electronic Life: How to Think About Computers,” which was published in I think 1975? I’ve been reading it kind of like how I would read a historical document, and it’s lowkey fascinating
There’s a whole paragraph that’s like “okay, find the keyboard. Don’t panic if it has more keys than a typewriter, that’s normal. Really, it’s fine. The extra keys don’t make things harder. It’s FINE”
Thought this section was particularly interesting:
Can the computer create something? At first glance it seems obvious that it can. Animated computer graphics, with their fluid transitions and whiplash perspectives, look strikingly new. And if one watches the machine doing animation work, there seem to be lengthy periods when the computer is acting “on its own.”
But if one observes these processes in more detail, it becomes clear that creation is not occurring within the machine. First of all, computer graphics are not unique. Computers have yet to generate anything that cannot be done by hand—and usually already has been done. Second, the apparent ability of the computer to “act on its own” is the outcome of thousands of hours of patient human effort to refine its instructions. The computer can manipulate a shape for us if we have already informed it what a shape is, what the rules for shape manipulation are, what this specific shape is, and so forth.
You can start an automobile engine and it will run by itself, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s being creative. It’s just running.
Somebody in 1975 had a better understanding of why artificial intelligence is not in any way “intelligence” than the majority of today’s intellectual minds.
The biggest fumble I've ever seen from a company is Netease having a talented and creative artistic fanbase and then firing their creative team for artifical intelligence. Fumble of the century
the world's smallest carnivore is called the "least weasel" 😭😭 i'm dying but like if it's the smallest carnivore then it sure is the least amount of weasel you can have 😭😭😭
