#alexis's posts

[prairiemountain]

You need to understand there's no hard line between system and singlet. The line just gets blurrier and blurrier the harder you look. Where's the tipping point from a singlet into a median? What counts as enough dissociation to be called a system? There's no objective, concrete answer to these questions. So if you feel like calling yourself a system makes sense of your life, then just go do it.

[jewish-privilege]

the way stephen miller has been painted as a neo nazi when hes literally jewish has bothered me too. i think it makes it easier for them to shit on israel if they do that to us, though. (and ofc hes fucking awful but theres other ways to express that)

There are so many other ways. A fucking plethora of ways. Because he is the worst and should be criticized.

[jewish-privilege]

Question: if a Christian woman marries a Jewish man and she converts to Judaism, her children will be Jewish. If she divorces him and converts back to Christianity (marrying a Christian man), are her (now adult) children and descendants still Jewish?

Answer: They would be Jewish even if she hadn’t go through giyur. 

Question: Why are you asking a stranger on the internet such specific hypotheticals?

[jewish-privilege]

In a since-deleted video, an Orthodox child cries as a grown man makes fun of his sidelocks. Despite the fact that the video was both anti-Semitic and a violation of the child’s privacy, it went viral, with millions watching and almost 100,000 people “liking” the video before it was finally removed. 

...[The video] was evidence that the most outward and open Jews, even if they are children, are the biggest targets of anti-Semitism. It was evidence that to be an Orthodox Jew today means shouldering the burdens of America’s anti-Semitism. It was evidence that to so many, the hate in the video was invisible, because they can’t imagine how attacking an Orthodox Jew, even a child, is anti-Semitic — or just plain abuse, if we want to be more direct about it. 

The child in the video could be my own child. I live in Crown Heights, where three Hasidic Jews were attacked in the span of three recent weeks. One of the victims was attacked by a group of five men. Another was beaten for waving in greeting to another man. The man attacking him yelled, “I don’t say hello to fake Jews. Who did you say hello to?” Then he began choking the Hassid as he yelled, “You f—-ing Jews! You stole my money! I gotta kill you!”

Then a young student was attacked by two men with knives. His father later said, “They didn’t demand anything from him, all they wanted was to hurt him, to take his life.”

...I went to the original poster’s Facebook page because I wanted to leave a comment letting him know how I felt; I wanted him to know how much hate he’d spread. 

But all I saw were racist comments in reply. All I saw was the same hatred reshaped, but now with the video’s poster as the target. All I saw on Twitter was comments like, “If this had happened to a black child, we’d be up in arms!” even as no one fought back against all the racism that was literally in the same thread they were commenting on. 

...The millions who laughed at the child abused that child. They were part of a cycle of hate that has continued for generations, a chain of hate that has included pogroms, mass slaughter and yes — even the Holocaust. 

As long as we live in a world where a Jewish child is mocked by so many, none of us will be safe or free. Until every person on earth looks at a child and only sees a precious gift from God, and not an object to be mocked, we will live in a world where one of us will be a target. 

...Until the paradigm of hate of all groups is utterly eradicated, all our children are in danger. All of our children could have been in that video. Not just mine. 

And that’s what you ultimately need to see: that child is your child. That child is all our children. Because we are all made in the image of God. And when any child is put in the crosshairs just because of how they look, we are denying the basic truth that will allow us to break out of these cycles. We are still living in a broken world. 

Read Elad Nehorai’s full piece in the Forward.

I’m still angry that this happened. I’m still angry at the anti-Black racism people defaulted to when they called out the video’s poster (who, by the way, should be commended for his menschlichkeit and has shown more graciousness, humility, basic decency, and humanity in his own apologies than the anti-Black racists showed who attacked him displayed in the aggregate). I’m still angry at the woman who retweeted the video, whose response had only been saying something to the effect of “white people” being annoyed, and who made her twitter private instead of apologizing for or dealing with the backlash of making fun of a child because of his ethnicity and religion. 

I’m just tired.

[jewish-privilege]

I’m about to log off for Shabbat (I’m only a couple of hours late this week...), but I’m frustrated and need to get this off my chest.

A podcast that I like, but don’t listen to regularly, did an episode on Jewish identity. Since the episode came out, Jewish people have been sending feedback via twitter and apparently by email. It’s been very frustrating to watch, because one of the two main hosts has come across as dismissive and unwilling to actually interact with Jewish people who have been saying they were disappointed in the episode or who say white-skinned/white Jews are always just white is not the same as saying that other “white ethnic groups” (e.g. Irish or Italian) are now white. 

Against my better judgment, I tweeted out a thread to him both saying I agree with him about white privilege but that the conversation doesn’t just end there.

I agree with what you’ve said in this thread, especially with respect to white privilege. What I’d add thought is that the difference between other forms of oppression that deal with people who have white privilege (which white/white-skinned Jews definitely have) is that antisemitism has always been and continues to be central to white supremacy. It can’t be extricated from white supremacy. 

To white supremacists, we will never be white. At best we’re using our fake (to them) whiteness to destroy white culture from within. See “white genocide.” Ironically, our whiteness is used against us to prove that we’re out to destroy white people. 

Also, although antisemitism is often racially-based, it operates differently than other racially-based prejudices. Unlike “typical” racism where certain races are seen as lesser & subhuman, antisemitism is centered on Jews being inhuman & really controlling everything (ZOG conspiracy theories) & singularly to blame for everything (eg capitalism, communism, multiculturalism, liberalism etc). 

Antisemitism isn't structural or institutional in the same way anti Blackness is, but it is systemic societally and culturally. I grew up playing the which gentile friend would hide me game and knowing without really understanding that I had to have a go-bag because there would be a time that I would have to flee. My parents’ friends, who remember a time before the Holocaust, have similar childhood memories. Their parents fled from pogroms. That’s what being Jewish is: knowing that you’re really just a guest in your country until the next inevitable expulsion or pre-expulsion fleeing. 

Do all Jews feel like this? Probably not, but because of intergenerational trauma we (all Jews, regardless of our race or part of the diaspora we're from) have all of this perpetual refugee cultural baggage. Our history is being expelled, settling, and then being expelled again. 

For me, the question of whether white Jews are really white isn’t the imp question here. Not because white privilege or PoC don't really exist (something being a social construct doesn’t make it less real), but because it ends up being a red herring in deconstructing white supremacy. 

Like you said in the episode, race is a social construct; I’d add that race is determined by who’s doing the racializing and less by the individuals being racialized. In this case it doesn’t matter how you identify, it matters how you’re identified. Be it by PoC or white supremacists...

Resounding silence was the response. 

I mean, he’s not obligated to respond to everyone who tweets at him. I can sympathize that getting a lot of people sending you what seems to be white fragility sob stories on steroids gets old really fast. But if you’re going to do a podcast on race and identity where your about us states you’re “a team of journalists fascinated by the overlapping themes of race, ethnicity and culture, how they play out in our lives and communities, and how all of this is shifting” and do an episode on antisemitism and Jewish identity, it shouldn’t surprise you when Jewish people respond with criticism. 

And to just respond with James Baldwin’s essay “Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White” without noticing that he never says Jews are white end of story but rather that: 1. that (Western) Christianity, assimilation therein, and Christian-based colonialism and missions are the cause of antisemitism in the African American community, 2. the reason he gives for American Jews to not be ashamed of our oppression is that it didn’t occur in the US and we don’t have to live with that history shoved in our faces every day like African Americans do, and 3. that African American antisemitism (according to Baldwin) is that African Americas are “condemning the Jew for having become an American white man--for having become, in effect, a Christian.” I.e. for both assimilating into Western Christianity and having more of an ability to do so. 

The problem is that in doing so (assimilating) we must cease to be Jewish and, for lack of a better word, code switch permanently to the point where we lose our identity completely. I see how my white gentile friends act when I’m “too Jewish,” talk about antisemitism, or talk about experiencing antisemitism. It’s not with open arms; it’s with concern and insinuations that I just should keep my big Jew mouth shut. How is that being the same “kind” of white as Irish or Italian? Is that the same as institutional and systemic anti-Black racism in America? Is that saying that white/white-skinned Jews don’t have white privilege? No. But no one worth listening to is arguing that it is.

I just re-upped my thread and tweeted at the producer (who hosted the show and is a Black Jewish woman) with a link to the most recent Eric Ward interview. I’m just frustrated.

Edited to add my tags: And I’m saying this as a white Jewish woman who routinely gets into arguments with other Jews over whether we who are white-skinned are really white. Because the answer is never yes or no, but rather “it depends on who’s asking and what we’re defining whiteness as.”

[jewish-privilege]

There are many things I am good at, but responding promptly to messages is not one of them. I’m trying my best to respond but a few things are working against me. I’m running the blog by myself, I’m not in a great place as I’m cycling through some fun depression and anxiety, some of the messages are triggering as hell, and I hate answering asks or responding without putting the effort into it. To paraphrase Sarah from Children of a Lesser G!d, “I don't do things that I can't do well.” 

Please allow me some rachmones, some compassion, and I’ll keep trying the best I’m able.

[jewish-privilege]

Where is that reaction image you keep using from because it resonates with my soul.

Right??? 

It’s Jake Tapper, a journalist, correspondent, and anchor at CNN (The Lead and State of the Union). 

He’s pretty prolific (and hilarious) on Twitter and also has a Tumblr @jaketapper . I realized that instead of trying to respond to completely asinine responses that leave me saying “what are you even talking about?”, I was better off using Jake Tapper’s face of abject incredulity.

[jewish-privilege]

A Swiss hotel is facing backlash for singling out Jewish customers using its pool facilities and refrigerator in signs Israel’s deputy foreign minister described as anti-Semitic and worthy of prosecution. 

The signs, posted at the Paradies Arosa hotel, required only Jews to cleanse themselves before swimming. Another sign above a communal fridge restricted the hours in which Jewish guests could access their own food, reading, “I hope you understand that our team does not like to be disturbed every time." 

 Ruth Thomann, who operates the small hotel outside of Zurich, Switzerland, provided a bizarre excuse for the seemingly anti-Semitic signage, saying she has "nothing against Jews,” but that “the behavior of some of those guests is making other guests feel uncomfortable, and we received complaints so we need to be responsible for all our guests and find a balance.”

 "I may have selected the wrong words; the signs should have been addressed to all the guests instead of Jewish ones,“ Thomann told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Monday afternoon. She then went on to claim Jewish visitors were the only guests who didn’t shower before entering the pool. 

 ...Paradeis Arosa has since removed all signs targeting Jewish customers. But the hotel’s response to the backlash, as well as Thomann’s statements on the Jewish community, were not enough to quell calls to boycott the hotel on Twitter.

What. The. Fuck.