#Passover 2023

[notyourgoodjew]

Not this being the illustration for the four sons in the haggadah 😭😭😭

[yhebrew]

After Day 7, Comes Day 8. The 2023, 2024 Wars signal DAy 7 and 8.

Signals to Day Seven and Day Eight are happening now in 2023 and 2024. The eclipses are signals to America to return to God's covenant with Israel. What Day is April 16, 2024? It is Day Eight Nisan. Lazarus has risen and so will Christ.

What Happened at The Eclipses of 2017, 2023 and 2024? What Happened to the goats? The Nations are called, goats. God came and carefully investigated what was happening on the earth at the eclipses of 2017, 2023 and 2024. It had been determined by God that no more of his children would be lost to hell. The signal of Creation is systematically being witnessed in eclipses. The earth was once…

[mariacallous]

Terrorism doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It depends on the oxygen of rhetoric for sustenance and encouragement. Nearly two years after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, the cumulative effect of calls to “Globalize the intifada” and “End Zionists” perhaps inevitably led to the horrific attack yesterday in Boulder, Colorado, where a man yelled “Free Palestine” as he threw an incendiary device at a Jewish gathering in support of the hostages.

Words matter. The protester at Columbia University in 2024 holding a sign labeling Jewish demonstrators who were waving Israeli flags as Al-Qasam’s next targets was dismissed as being hyperbolic. So were the By Any Means Necessary banners carried at demonstrations and the red inverted triangles, similar to those Hamas uses to mark Israeli targets, spray-painted on university buildings, a national monument, and even the apartment building of a museum director. When demonstrators wave the flags of terrorist organizations, wear headbands celebrating those same groups, and publicly commemorate the martyrdom of terrorist leaders such as Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, they’re not throwing the bomb, but their message can light the fuse.

In the past six weeks, that fuse has produced a succession of terrorist acts that have threatened the safety and security of America’s Jewish community. That two of the incidents also occurred on Jewish holidays—the arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s official residence on the first night of Passover and yesterday’s incident in Boulder on the eve of Shavuot—show that Jews in America are not only in some danger, but even more likely to be targeted on specific dates marking religious ritual and observance.

And they won’t be just singled out, but subjected to especially heinous acts of violence. The attacker in Boulder used a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, resulting in eight people being hospitalized with burns and other injuries. Tragically, among the eight victims, who ranged in age from 52 to 88, the eldest was reportedly a Holocaust survivor.

Yet another example of an especially egregious act of violence was the shooting deaths last month of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim on the street outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. One bullet from a powerful 9-mm handgun is often sufficient to kill. But police found 21 shell casings scattered around the two bodies. The murderer allegedly stalked Milgrim as she attempted to crawl away, shooting her repeatedly. This was an execution.

For years, American Jews watched with horror the attacks on their European co-religionists. A young man kidnapped and tortured to death, an elderly lady beaten and thrown out the window of her home, and a teacher and three children murdered outside a Jewish day school are among a long list of violent anti-Semitic incidents in France alone—the country with the world’s third-largest population of Jews after Israel and the United States.

“What history had taught him was Amazement,” Lion Feuchtwanger writes of the conclusion reached by one of the characters in his deeply prescient 1933 novel about Nazi Germany, The Oppermanns. “A tremendous amazement that each time those in jeopardy had been so slow in thinking about their safety.” Despite the sharp increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. recorded over the past decade by the Anti-Defamation League, American Jews also once believed that the violence against Jews in France, Britain, Germany, and other European countries couldn’t happen here. Many told themselves that this threat was unique to European Jewry, given the internal frictions within their own countries, which had absorbed large immigrant populations from former colonial possessions. But yesterday’s attack, coming on the heels of the firebombing of Shapiro’s residence and the D.C. murders, has proved otherwise. As Ian Fleming, the former spy and novelist who created James Bond, reportedly observed, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

Arguably the system was already blinking red after the 2018 mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, where a gunman killed 11 people, and the near tragedy averted four years later, when an armed man took hostage the rabbi and worshippers at a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue. The October 7 attacks heightened that awareness and led Jews to emulate the security measures standard at synagogues, day schools, community centers, and senior residences in Europe. Private companies were hired to provide guards at the entrances to synagogues and schools. Volunteers were solicited, trained, and deployed by community-based security organizations. The positioning of at least one local police car and patrol officer in front of synagogues became commonplace.

But in today’s threat environment, the question for Jews everywhere is inevitably: How much security is enough?

Shapiro’s residence was not unprotected. Additional armed guards were deployed at the entrance to the Jewish museum for the event that Lischinsky and Milgrim attended. Jewish institutions, organizations, and agencies, moreover, are already burdened with rising security costs. A study of expenditures at Jewish day schools in four states found that the average cost for security had nearly doubled in 2024–25—to $339,000—compared with 2022–23. After the past six weeks, further increases can be expected. The same is true on university campuses across America, where Jewish- or Israeli-studies departments and centers, as well as similarly oriented student organizations and Jewish ministries, are themselves responsible for paying for the security now standard for all of their events.

And there will be challenges in what can be done to prevent such tragedies in the future. For instance, although security was increased at the entrance to and inside the D.C. Jewish museum, Lischinsky and Milgrim were gunned down outside, on a street corner. Will security measures now require that a secure perimeter be established, or even concentric circles of security in front of every venue and surrounding any event? Will a phalanx of local police or community volunteers be required to box in and protect participants at any and every Jewish event? After yesterday’s attack in Boulder, the answer, most likely, is yes.

Security provisions are often likened to the proverbial length of a ball of string. In the case of American Jewry, however long that once was, it now needs to be lengthened. Whatever upgrades and increases have been implemented in the past will necessitate reassessment, further modification, and enhancements. More resources will need to be dedicated to ensure the protection of Jewish places of worship, clerics, and congregations. The same is true for other Jewish and Israel-related activities at schools, community centers, offices, and senior homes. The same goes for marches, parades, demonstrations, vigils, and other inherently public events. Strengthened physical, personal, and digital security measures will likely follow—especially during religious holidays and festivals. Even greater cooperation, coordination, and information sharing between law enforcement and Jewish institutions than already exists will be needed.

Ultimately, however, physical security alone will not protect American Jewry. The prejudice and calumny directed against that community that have now become commonplace and have often been treated with indifference must change as well. And with this must come the recognition that violence threatens not just American Jews but all Americans. The Council on American-Islamic Relations cites record numbers of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents; CatholicVote finds hundreds of instances of vandalism as well as more serious attacks on Catholic churches in the U.S. since 2020; and the Hindu American Foundation had to issue a “Temple Safety & Security Guide” to its worshippers.

Violence against all faiths is rising. To stop it, our society must take more seriously not just bomb throwing, but the messages that light the fuse.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dion J. Pierre

In the past few years, the school’s AEPi fraternity house has been vandalized at least three times. In one incident, in April 2022, on the last day of the Jewish holiday of Passover, a caravan of participants from a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) rally drove there, shouting antisemitic slurs and spitting in the direction of fraternity members. Four days later, before Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, the house was egged during a 24-hour reading of the names of Holocaust victims.

The milieu of extremism at the school resulted in at least one death threat against the life of a Jewish student since last Oct. 7. In November 2023, a local news outlet reported, freshman Matthew Skorny, 19, called for the murder of a fraternity member he identified as an Israeli, saying on the popular social media forum YikYak, “To all the pro-Palestinian ralliers [sic] … Go kill him.” In March, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce launched an investigation of Rutgers’ handling of antisemitism, responding to complaints that it has, for years, allowed an open season of hate against Jewish students. In notifying school officials of the probe, committee chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) denounced the university for having stood out “for the intensity and pervasiveness of antisemitism on its campuses.” By settling with OCR, Rutgers University “committed” itself to forging a better future, the agency’s assistant secretary Catherine E. Lhamon said in a statement. The terms of the agreement include training employees to handle complaints of antisemitism, issuing a non-discrimination statement, and conducting a “climate survey” in which students report their opinions on discrimination at the school and the administration’s handling of it.

"Issuing a non-discrimination statement, and conducting a “climate survey” ". Yep! That'll do the trick! I'm sure SJP members and other campus Jew-haters are quaking in their keffiyehs over their non-discrimination statements.

[mcyt-passover-event]

MCYT Passover is (probably) back for 2025!

What does this mean: We don't know yet! I'd like to hear what folks would be interested in doing—feel free to send along prompt ideas, schedule notes, etc. If you feel like it, join the Discord to get full communication on scheduling/event details and to help plan what it'll look like this year!

If you're interested but not sure what getting involved would entail, feel free to look through the pinned FAQ (dates are wrong, obviously, but the information about Passover & the previous event there is still true) and check out some of the past works from 2023, and if you still have any questions, you can send the blog or admin bell (@atthebell) an ask!

[skelligiri]

2024 recap

This year, I focused almost exclusively on videos, and there were quite a few actually! I took a step back from telling one coherent story while I regrouped so there's quite a few standalones.

Next year will be quite different, in that regard. I will try to finish as much of Leaving the garden as I can before the s3 release. Hope you like what I have in stock!

Good Omens animated videos:

Silly serpent. If you'd told him, Aziraphale would've invented the blender right then and there, just to skirt the rules of what counts as 'eating'.

Crowley and Aziraphale know where to find each other... firmly on their own side.

They could've just walked in the front door, but that would've been so much less dramatic. Anyway, we all know Shadwell would be the kind of person to destroy a demon through sheer incompetence, no wonder poor Aziraphale was so worried about Crowley's safety during the 'caper'.

I headcanon the stars Crowley created as an angel to have a mind of their own. And they are getting rather impatient.

A little Haloween special. I figured that when Crowley takes a long nap, occasionally that pesky heart will forget to beat, and Aziraphale has to go find his demon.

A Christmas/Hanukkah special. Crowley and Aziraphale meet Uriel and Little Ash, the good and the bad angel of their little shtetl, who are study partners (chavrusas) and the heroes of the book 'When the angels left the old country'.

Good Omens fanart:

January:

Angel kisses

February:

And the rainbow burns

Date night (gif)

March:

An evening at St.James Park

Flying

Waiting for the rain to stop (gif)

April:

Passover

Here's my 2023 recap, if you want to see more:

Anyway, I wish you all a happy 2025. May this new year surprise us in good ways.

[secular-jew]

While there were periods of tolerance with Jews in Islamic-populated and controlled regions of the Middle East & North Africa (MENA), let this chronology disavow any notion that Islam treated its Jewish neighbors "well."

The list of massacres of Jews throughout all of Europe largely at the hands of Christianity, is equally, if not even more exhaustive.

But for Jews in MENA, it all started with Muhammad, who gave birth to concept of regularly demonizing and terrorizing, the majority and minority Jewish communities, often ending in outright theft of property, and then rape and murder of those folks who would not "submit."

The horrific attacks on Oct 7, 2023, all filmed for the world to see (because Islamists now publicly revel in their barbarity of infidels), was just one in a long list of 100+ of atrocities at the hands of Muhammad and his followers:

622 - 627: Ethnic cleansing of Jews (who comprised roughly 50% of the population of Medina) carried out by Muhammad and his Jihadis. Over 800 Jewish men and boys (based on a pubic hair check), were killed by beheading. Women were forced into sexual slavery, and the children were given to Islamic Jihadis as slaves. Mohammad force-married Safiyyah, after murdering her husband and father.

629: 1st Alexandria Massacres of Jews, Egypt.

622 - 634: Exterminations of Arabian Jewish tribes.

1106: Ali Ibn Yousef Ibn Tashifin of Marrakesh decrees death penalty for any local Jew, including his Jewish Physician, and as well as his Jewish military general.

1033: 1st massacre of Jews in Fez, Morocco.

1148: Almohadin of Morocco gives Jews the choice of converting to Islam, or expulsion.

1066: Granada Massacre of Jews, Muslim-occupied Spain.

1165 - 1178: Jews of Yemen given the choice (under new constitution) to either convert to Islam or die.

1165: Chief Rabbi of the Maghreb was publicly burnt alive. The Rambam (Maimonides, Moses ben Maimon), forced to flee Spain to Egypt.

1220: Tens of thousands of Jews massacred by Muslims Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, after being blamed for Mongol invasion.

1270: Sultan Baibars of Egypt resolved to burn all the Jews, a ditch having been dug for that purpose; but at the last moment he repented, and instead exacted a heavy tribute, during the collection of which many perished.

1276: 2nd Fez Pogrom (massacre) against Jews in Morocco

1385: Khorasan Massacres against Jews in Iran

1438: 1st Mellah Ghetto massacres against Jews in Morocco

1465: 3rd Fez Pogrom against Jews in Morocco, leaving only 11 Jews left alive

1517: 1st Safed Pogrom in Muslim Ottoman controlled Judea

1517: 1st Hebron Pogrom in Muslim-controlled Judea, by occupying Ottomans

1517: Marsa ibn Ghazi Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Libya

1577: Passover Massacre throughout the Ottoman Empire

1588 - 1629: Mahalay Pogroms of Jews in Iran

1630 - 1700: Yemenite Jews considered 2nd class citizens and subjugated under strict Shi'ite 'dhimmi' rules

1660: 2nd Judean Pogrom, in Safed Israel (Ottoman-controlled Palestine)

1670: Expulsion of Mawza Jews in Yemen

1679 - 1680: Massacres of Jews in Sanaa, Yemen

1747: Massacres of the Jews of Mashhad, Iran

1785: Pogrom of Libyan Jews in Ottoman-controlled Tripoli, Libya

1790 - 92: Tetuan Pogrom. Morocco (Jews of Tetuuan stripped naked, and lined up for Muslim perverts)

1800: Decree passed in Yemen, criminalizing Jews from wearing clothing that is new or good, or from riding mules or donkeys. Jews were also rounded up for long marches naked through the Roob al Khali dessert

1805: 1st Algiers Massacre/Pogrom of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Algeria

1808: 2nd Ghetto Massacres in Mellah, Morocco

1815: 2nd Algiers massacres/pogroms of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Algeria

1820: Sahalu Lobiant Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1828: Baghdad massacres/pogroms of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Iraq

1830: 3rd massacre/pogrom of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Algiers, Algeria

1830: Ethnic cleansing of Jews in Tabriz, Iran

1834: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Hebron, Judea

1834: Massacre/pogrom of Safed Jews in Ottoman-controlled Palestine/Judea

1839: Massacre of the Mashadi Jews in Iran

1840: Damascus Affair following first of many blood libels against Jews in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1844: 1st Cairo Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Egypt.

1847: Dayr al-Qamar massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Lebanon

1847: Ethnic cleansing of the Jews in Jerusalem, Ottoman-controlled Palestine

1848: 1st Damascus massacre/pogrom, in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1850: 1st Aleppo massacre/pogrom of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1860: 2nd Damascus massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1862: 1st Beirut massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Lebanon

1866: Massacre of Jews by Ottomans Kuzguncuk, Turkey

1867: Massacre of Jews by Ottomans in Barfurush, Turkey

1868: Massacre of Jews by Ottomans in Eyub, Turkey

1869: Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Tunis, Tunisia

1869: Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Sfax, Tunisia

1864 - 1880: Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Marrakesh, Morocco

1870: 2nd Alexandria Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Egypt

1870: 1st Istanbul massacre of Jews in Ottoman Turkey

1871: 1st Damanhur Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Egypt

1872: Massacre of Jews by Ottomans in Edirne, Turkey

1872: 1st Massacre of Jews by Ottomans in Izmir, Turkey

1873: 2nd Damanhur Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Egypt

1874: 2nd Izmir massacre of Jews in Turkey

1874: 2nd massacre of Jews in Istanbul Turkey

1874: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Beirut, Lebanon

1875: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Aleppo, Syria

1875: Massacre of Jews in Djerba Island, Ottoman-controlled Tunisia

1877: 3rd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Damanhur, Egypt

1877: Masaacres of Jews in Mansura, Ottoman-controlled Egypt

1882: Masacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Homs, Syria

1882: 3rd Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Alexandria, Egypt.

1890: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Cairo, Egypt.

1890: 3rd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Damascus, Syria.

1890: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Tunis, Tunisia

1891: 4th massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Damanahur, Egypt.

1897: Targeted murder of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Tripolitania, Libya.

1903 &1907: Masaacres of Hews in Ottoman-controlled Taza & Settat, Morocco.

1901 - 1902: 3rd set of massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Cairo, Egypt.

1901 - 1907: 4th set of Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Alexandria, Egypt.

1903: 1st massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Port Sa'id, Egypt.

1903 - 1940: Series of massacres in Taza and Settat, Morocco.

1907: Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Casablanca, Morocco.

1908: 2nd Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Port Said, Egypt.

1910: Blood libel against Jews in Shiraz, Iran.

1911: Masaacre of Jews by Muslims in Shiraz, Iran.

1912: 4th massacre in Ottoman-controlled Fez, Morocco.

1917: Baghdad Iraq Jews murdered by Ottomans.

1918 - 1948: Yemen passes a law criminalizing the raising of a Jewish orphan in Yemen.

1920: Massacres of Jews in Irbid Jordan (British mandate Palestine).

1920 - 1930: Arab riots resulting in hundreds of Jewish deaths, British mandate Palestine.

1921: 1st Jaffa (Israel) riots, British mandate Palestine.

1922: Massacres of Jews in Djerba, Tunisia.

1928: Jewish orphans sold into slavery, and forced toonvert to Islam by Muslim Brotherhood, Yemen.

1929: 3rd Hebron (Israel) massacre of Jews by Arabs in British mandate Palestine.

1929 3rd massacre of Jews by Arabs in Safed (Israel), British mandate Palestine.

1933: 2nd Jaffa (Israel) riots, British mandate Palestine.

1934: Massacre of Jews in Thrace, Turkey.

1936: 3rd riots by Arabs against Jews in Jaffa (Israel), British mandate Palestine.

1941: Masaacres of Jews in Farhud, Iraq.

1942: Muslim leader Grand Mufti collaboration with the Nazis, playing a major role in the final solution.

1938 - 1945: Full alliance and collaboration by Arabs with the Nazis in attacking and murdering Jews in the Middle East and Africa.

1945: 4th massacre of Jews by Muslims in Cairo, Egypt.

1945: Masaacre of Jews in Tripolitania, Libya.

1947: Masaacre of Jews by Muslims in Aden, Yemen.

2023: Massacre, rape, torture and kidnapping of ~1,500 Israelis (mostly Jews) by Muslims in numerous towns throughout southern Israel

[divinum-pacis]

A man prays as people take part in a traditional Passover sacrifice ceremony at Mount Gerizim in Nablus, May 3, 2023. REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta

[girlactionfigure]

🟪ANOTHER DEAL? CROSSING OPENING? - Real time from Israel  

✡️Erev Shabbat - Parshat Bo - Exodus 10:1 - 13:16 - The last three of the Ten Plagues are visited on Egypt: a swarm of locusts devours all the crops and greenery; a thick, palpable darkness envelops the land; and all the firstborn of Egypt are killed at the stroke of midnight of the 15th of the month of Nissan.

G‑d commands the first mitzvah to be given to the people of Israel: to establish a calendar based on the monthly rebirth of the moon. The Israelites are also instructed to bring a “Passover offering” to G‑d: a lamb or kid goat is to be slaughtered, and its blood sprinkled on the doorposts and lintel of every Israelite home, so that G‑d should pass over these homes when He comes to kill the Egyptian firstborn.

▪️ON THE LEV TAHOR JEWISH CULT - Guatemalan police and Interpol arrested Aharon Teller, leader of the.Lev Tahor sect, in the capital yesterday on suspicion of human trafficking and forced marriage of minors.  The cult previously fled the US and fled Israel after their practices were challenged.

▪️FREED HOSTAGE ARBEL YEHUD SAYS.. “what we saw today in the parade of armed terrorists, is only a tenth of their evil."

▪️PRESIDENT TRUMP.. on Egypt and Jordan's refusal to accept Gazans into their countries: They will do it. We do a lot for them and they will do it.

▪️OPENING OF THE RAFAH EGYPT-GAZA BORDER CROSSING?  According to the agreement with Hamas, the Rafah crossing is supposed to open today, after the release of the soldiers and civilians. However, following the difficult images from the release of Arbel Yehud and Gadi Mozes, Israel is considering not opening the crossing if the images are repeated (on Saturday).

Thousands of Egyptian protesters on their way to the Rafah Gaza-Egypt crossing to protest the migration of Gazans to their country.

▪️THE HERO SOLDIER WHO FELL.. (in our previous report) in battle in Samaria: Liam Hazi, 20, from Rosh Ha-Ayin.  May his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, and may G-d avenge his blood!

🎗️ANOTHER DEAL?  Report that a round-about deal is on the table: the release of Elizabeth Tsurkov from captivity by Iraqi Hezbollah battalions, in exchange for the release of Lebanese Hezbollah members captured by Israel during the war.

Elizabeth is a Middle East researcher by profession, with Russian-Israeli citizenship. On her own initiative, she flew to Iraq from Russia where she was kidnapped by Hezbollah-Iraq in March 2023.

♦️JENIN - yesterday heavy exchanges of fire between terrorists and IDF forces.  Arab media reported that a certain IDF force was ambushed at the location.

♦️SHECHEM - Qassem Aklik, a terrorist who was involved in planning and promoting terrorist attacks against Israeli targets, was eliminated Thursday by security forces.

♦️GUSH ETZION - IDF forces identified terrorists throwing Molotov cocktails from the direction of the Al-Khader village towards Highway 60. The fighters fired at the terrorists in response and identified casualties.

[pargolettasworld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wx73V1OsiE

At the moment, 20 May, 2025, we are in the period of the Jewish year where we count the Omer.  What is the Omer? you may ask.  And why should it be counted?  Good questions!  And the great British composer Samuel Alman is entirely ready to explain this to you.  He gives you a very thorough explanation -- this piece is nine and a half minutes long, of which a full six and a half minutes are given over to the preamble, explaining what the Omer is.

The short version is this:  Shavuot is, among other things, a harvest festival.  Before there were almanacs or reliable wall calendars or date reminders on your phone, people kept track of time in rather specialized units.  It generally happens that the best time to start the summer wheat harvest is seven weeks after the beginning of Passover.  So we have a tradition of counting these forty-nine days -- you start on the second day of Passover -- and when we have counted the full Omer, it’s Shavuot, and time to harvest the wheat.  (And receive the Torah and study it all night and eat cheesecake general delicious dairy products.)  To help us keep track of the Omer, we have a little bracha, a formula that we say.  “Today is X days, which is Y weeks and Z days of the Omer.”

This setting ends with it being the very first day of the Omer (when this video was originally posted in 2023), so it does make sense to use Alman’s exceptionally Fancy™ composition.  After all, you’re going to be at this process for almost two months.  You want to get a good running start at it!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Kate Cohen

Published: Oct 3, 2023

I like to say that my kids made me an atheist. But really what they did was make me honest.

I was raised Jewish — with Sabbath prayers and religious school, a bat mitzvah and a Jewish wedding. But I don’t remember ever truly believing that God was out there listening to me sing songs of praise.

I thought of God as a human invention: a character, a concept, a carry-over from an ancient time.

I thought of him as a fiction.

Today I realize that means I’m an atheist. It’s not complicated. My (non)belief derives naturally from a few basic observations:

The Greek myths are obviously stories. The Norse myths are obviously stories. L. Ron Hubbard obviously made that stuff up. Extrapolate.

The holy books underpinning some of the bigger theistic religions are riddled with “facts” now disproved by science and “morality” now disavowed by modern adherents. Extrapolate.

Life is confusing and death is scary. Naturally, humans want to believe that someone capable is in charge and that we continue to live after we die. But wanting doesn’t make it so.

Child rape. War. Etc.

And yet, when I was younger, I would never have called myself an atheist — not on a survey, not to my family, not even to myself.

Being an “atheist,” at least according to popular culture, seems to require so much work. You have to complain to the school board about the Pledge of Allegiance, stamp over “In God We Trust” on all your paper money and convince Grandma not to go to church. You have to be PhD-from-Oxford smart, irritated by Christmas and shruggingly unmoved by Michelangelo’s “Pietà.” That isn’t me — but those are the stereotypes.

And then there are the data.Studies have shown that many, many Americans don’t trust atheists. They don’t want to vote for atheists, and they don’t want their children to marry atheists. Researchers have found that even atheists presume serial killers are more likely to be atheist than not.

Given all this, it’s not hard to see why atheists often prefer to keep quiet about it. Why I kept quiet. I wanted to be liked!

But when I had children — when it hit me that I was responsible for teaching my children everything — I wanted, above all, to tell them the truth.

Their first atheist lesson was completely impromptu. Noah was 5, Jesse was 3, and we were sitting on the couch before bed reading from “D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths,” a holdover from my childhood bookshelf. One of the boys asked what a “myth” was, and I told them it was a story about how the world works. People used to believe that these gods were in charge of what happened on Earth, and these stories helped explain things they didn’t understand, like winter or stars or thunder. “See” — I flipped ahead and found a picture — ��Zeus has a thunderbolt.”

“They don’t believe them anymore?” No, I said. That’s why they call it “myth.” When people still believe it, they call it “religion.” Like the stories about God and Moses that we read at Passover or the ones about Jesus and Christmas.

The little pajama-clad bodies nodded, and on we read.

That was it — the big moment. It was probably also the easiest moment.

Before one son became preoccupied with death. Before the other son had to decide whether to be bar mitzvahed. Before my daughter looked up from her math homework one day to ask, “How do we know there’s no God?”

Religion offers ready-made answers to our most difficult questions. It gives people ways to mark time, celebrate and mourn. Once I vowed not to teach my children anything I did not personally believe, I had to come up with new answers. But I discovered as I went what most parents discover: You can figure it out as you go.

Establishing a habit of honesty did not sap the delight from my children’s lives or destroy their moral compass. I suspect it made my family closer than we would have been had my husband and I pretended to our children that we believed in things we did not. We sowed honesty and reaped trust — along with intellectual challenge, emotional sustenance and joy.

Those are all personal rewards. But there are political rewards as well.

My children know how to distinguish fact from fiction — which is harder for children raised religious. They don’t assume conventional wisdom is true and they do expect arguments to be based on evidence. Which means they have the skills to be engaged, informed and savvy citizens.

We need citizens like that.

Lies, lying and disinformation suffuse mainstream politics as never before. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 29 percent of Americans believe that President Biden was not legitimately elected, a total composed of those who think there is solid evidence of fraud (22 percent) and those who think there isn’t (7 percent). I don’t know which is worse: believing there to be evidence of fraud when even the Trump campaign can’t find any or asserting the election was stolen even though you know there’s no proof.

Meanwhile, we are just beginning to grasp that artificial intelligence could develop an almost limitless power to deceive — threatening the ability of even the most alert citizen to discern what’s real.

We need Americans who demand — as atheists do — that truth claims be tethered to fact. We need Americans who understand — as atheists do — that the future of the world is in our hands. And in this particular political moment, we need Americans to stand up to Christian nationalists who are using their growing political and judicial power to take away our rights. Atheists can do that.

Fortunately, there are a lot of atheists in the United States — probably far more than you think.

[ Ellen Weinstein for The Washington Post ]

Some people say they believe in God, but not the kind favored by monotheistic religions — a conscious supreme being with powers of intercession or creation. When they say “God,” they mean cosmic oneness or astonishing coincidences. They mean that sense of smallness-within-largeness they’ve felt while standing on the shore of the ocean or holding a newborn baby or hearing the final measures of Chopin’s “Fantaisie-Impromptu.”

So, why do those people use the word “God” at all? The philosopher Daniel C. Dennett argues in “Breaking the Spell”that since we know we’re supposed to believe in God, when we don’t believe in a supernatural being we give the name instead to things we do believe in, such as transcendent moments of human connection.

Whatever the case, in 2022, Gallup found that 81 percent of Americans believe in God, the lowest percentage yet recorded. This year, when it gave respondents the option of saying they’re not sure, it found that only 74 percent believe in God, 14 percent weren’t sure, and 12 percent did not believe.

Not believing in God — that’s the very definition of atheism. But when people go around counting atheists, the number they come up with is far lower than that. The most recent number from Pew Research Center is 4 percent.

What’s with the gap? That’s anti-atheist stigma (and pro-belief bias) at work. Everybody’s keeping quiet, because everybody wants to be liked. Some researchers, recognizing this problem, developed a workaround.

In 2017, psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle tried to estimate the prevalence of atheism in the United States using a technique called “unmatched count”: They asked two groups, of 1,000 respondents each, how many statements were true among a list of statements. The lists were identical except that one of them included the statement “I believe in God.” By comparing the numbers, the researchers could then estimate the percentage of atheists without ever asking a direct question. They came up with around 26 percent.

If that’s true or even close, there are more atheists in the United States than Catholics.

Do you know what some of those atheists call themselves? Catholics. And Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists. General Social Survey data back this up: Among religious Americans, only 64 percent are certain about the existence of God. Hidden atheists can be found not just among the “nones,” as they’re called — the religiously unaffiliated — but also in America’s churches, mosques and synagogues.

“If you added up all the nominal Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. — those who are religious in name only,” Harvard humanist chaplain Greg M. Epstein writes in “Good Without God,”“you really might get the largest denomination in the world.”

Atheists are everywhere. And we are unusually disposed to getting stuff done.

I used to say, when people asked me what atheists do believe, that it was simple: Atheists believe that God is a human invention.

But now, I think it’s more than that.

If you are an atheist — if you do not believe in a Supreme Being — you can be moral or not, mindful or not, clever or not, hopeful or not. Clearly, you can keep going to church. But, by definition, you cannot believe that God is in charge. You must give up the notion of God’s will, God’s purpose, God’s mysterious ways.

In some ways, this makes life easier. You don’t have to work out why God might cause or ignore suffering, what parts of this broken world are God’s plan, or what work is his to do and what is yours.

But you also don’t get to leave things up to God. Atheists must accept that people are allowing — we are allowing — women to die in childbirth, children to go hungry, men to buy guns that can slaughter dozens of people in minutes. Atheists believe people organized the world as it is now, and only people can make it better.

No wonder we are “the most politically active group in American politics today,” according to political scientist Ryan Burge, interpreting data from the Cooperative Election Study.

That’s right: Atheists take more political action — donating to campaigns, protesting, attending meetings, working for politicians — than any other “religious” group. And we vote. In his study on this data, sociologist Evan Stewart noted that atheists were about 30 percent more likely to vote than religiously affiliated respondents.

We also vote far more than most religiously unaffiliated people. That’s what distinguishes atheists from the “nones” — and what I didn’t realize at first.

Atheists haven’t just checked out of organized religion. (Indeed, we may not have.) We haven’t just rejected belief in God. (Though, obviously, that’s the starting point.) Where atheism becomes a definite stance rather than a lack of direction, a positive belief and not just a negative one, is in our understanding that, without a higher power, we need human power to change the world.

I want to be clear: There are clergy members and congregations all across this country working to do good, not waiting for God to answer their prayers or assuming that God meant for the globe to get hotter. You don’t have to be an atheist to conduct yourself as if people are responsible for the world they live in — you just have to act like an atheist, by taking matters into your own hands.

Countless good people of faith do just that. But one thing they can’t do as well as atheists is push back against the outsize cultural and political power of religion itself.

That power is crushing some of our most vulnerable citizens. And I don’t mean my fellow atheists. Atheists, it’s true, are subject to discrimination and scapegoating; somehow we’re to blame for moral chaos, mass shootings and whatever the “trans cult” is. Yes, we are technically barred from serving as jurors in the state of Maryland or joining a Boy Scout troop anywhere, but we do not, as a group, suffer anything like the prejudice that, say, LGBTQ+ people face. It’s not even close.

Peel back the layers of discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, though, and you find religion. Peel back the layers of control over women’s bodies — from dress codes that punish girls for male desire all the way to the Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade — and you find religion. Often, there isn’t much peeling to do. According to the bill itself, Missouri’s total abortion ban was created “in recognition that Almighty God is the author of life.” Say what, now?

Peel back the layers of abstinence-only or marriage-centered or anti-homosexual sex education and you find religion. “Don’t say gay” laws, laws denying trans kids medical care, school-library book bans and even efforts to suppress the teaching of inconvenient historical facts — motivated by religion.

And when religion loses a fight and progress wins instead? Religion then claims it’s not subject to the resulting laws. “Religious belief” is — more and more, at the state and federal levels — a way to sidestep advances the country makes in civil rights, human rights and public health.

In 45 states and D.C., parents can get religious exemptions from laws that require schoolchildren to be vaccinated. Seven states allow pharmacists to refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions because of their religious beliefs. Every business with a federal contract has to comply with federal nondiscrimination rules — unless it’s a religious organization. Every employer that provides health insurance has to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate — unless it’s, say, a craft supply store with Christian owners.

Case by case, law by law, our country’s commitment to the first right enumerated in our Bill of Rights — “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” — is faltering. The Supreme Court has ruled that the citizens of Maine have to pay for parochial school, that a high school football coach should be free to lead a prayer on the 50-yard line, that a potential wedding website designer can reject potential same-sex clients. This past summer, Oklahoma approved the nation’s first publicly funded religious school. This fall, Texas began allowing schools to employ clergy members in place of guidance counselors.

You don’t have to be an atheist to worry about the structural integrity of Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation between Church & State.” You don’t have to be an atheist to think that religion should not shape public policy or that believers should have to follow the laws that everyone else does. You don’t have to be an atheist to see that Christian nationalists are using “religious liberty” to perpetuate much of the discrimination Americans suffer today.

But atheists can do one thing about the country’s drift into theocracy that our religious neighbors won’t: We can tell people we don’t believe in God. The more people who do that, the more we normalize atheism in America, the easier it will be — for both politicians and the general public — to usher religion back out of our laws.

Okay, but should you say you’re an atheist even if you believe in “God” as the power of nature or something like that?

Yes. It does no one any favors — not the country, not your neighbors — to say you believe in God metaphorically when there are plenty of people out there who literally believe that God is looking down from heaven deciding which of us to cast into hell.

In fact, when certain believers wield enough political power to turn their God’s presumed preferences into law, I would say it’s dangerous to claim you believe in “God” when what you actually believe in is awe or wonder. (Your “God is love” only lends validity and power to their “God hates gays.”)

So ask yourself: Do I think a supernatural being is in charge of the universe?

If you answer “no,” you’re an atheist. That’s it — you’re done.

But if you go further: You’ll be doing something good for your country.

When I started raising my kids as atheists, I wasn’t particularly honest with the rest of the world. I wasn’t everybody’s mom, right? Plus, I had to get along with other people. Young parents need community, and I was afraid to risk alienating new parent friends by being honest about being — looks both ways, lowers voice — an atheist.

But, in addition to making me be honest inside our home, my children pushed me to start being honest on the outside. In part, I wanted to set an example for them, and in part, I wanted to help change the world they would face.

It shouldn’t be hard to say you don’t believe in God. It shouldn’t be shocking or shameful. I know that I’m moral and respectful and friendly. And the more I say to people that I’m an atheist — me, the mom who taught the kindergarten class about baking with yeast and brought the killer cupcakes to the bake sale — the more people will stop assuming that being an atheist means being … a serial killer.

And then? The more I say I’m an atheist, the more other people will feel comfortable calling themselves atheists. And the stigma will gradually dissolve.

Can you imagine? If we all knew how many of us there are?

It would give everyone permission to be honest with their kids and their friends, to grapple with big questions without having to hold on to beliefs they never embraced.

And it would take away permission, too. Permission to pass laws (or grant exemptions to laws) based on the presumed desires of a fictional creation. Permission to be cruel to fellow human beings based on Bible verses. Permission to eschew political action in favor of “thoughts and prayers.”

I understand that, to many people, this might sound difficult or risky. It took me years to declare myself an atheist, and I was raised Reform Jewish, I live in the Northeast, I’m White, I work at home, and my family and friends are a liberal bunch. The stakes were low for me. For some, I fully concede, the stakes are too high.

If you think you’d lose your job or put your children at risk of harassment for declaring your atheism, you get a pass. If you would be risking physical harm, don’t speak out. If you’re an atheist running for school board somewhere that book bans are on the agenda, then feel free to keep it quiet, and God bless.

But for everyone else who doesn’t believe in God and hasn’t said so? Consider that your honesty will allow others to be honest, and that your reticence encourages others to keep quiet. Consider that the longer everyone keeps quiet, the longer religion has political and cultural license to hurt people. Consider that the United States — to survive as a secular democracy — needs you now more than ever.

And the next time you find yourself tempted to pretend that you believe in God? Tell the truth instead.

[haveyoureadthismcytfic]

Summary:

Letters between Wilbur and Tommy, about Passover and narrow places. For my MCYT Passover 2023 Event.

Author: @atthebell

Note from Submitter: "Rare Jewish representation and so exquisite that I think of it always."

[mariacallous]

Around this time last year, as then-U.S. President Joe Biden was outlining possible terms for a cease-fire in Gaza, an Israeli defense official explained to me why the military supported a pause in the fighting. The reason had little to do with the combat itself. Instead, a cease-fire offered a chance to restore the social contract between the state and the Israeli public, including the understanding that Israel should only wage wars that serve the public good and always prioritize the release of captive soldiers and civilians.

These days, as Israel marks 18 months of war in Gaza, that unwritten agreement is a dead letter. It was steadily undermined by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who chose to press on with the fighting despite mounting evidence that his war aims were unachievable—and finally shredded by his decision in March to unilaterally scrap the cease-fire with Hamas. That brief truce, brokered by the United States in January, had freed 33 hostages and held out the possibility of further releases. Instead, Israeli assaults on Gaza are back with a vengeance.

Netanyahu now vows to continue the fighting until Hamas is defeated. (Israeli bombardments have already destroyed much of Gaza but not Hamas.) But Israeli reservists are reeling from multiple combat tours since Oct. 7, 2023, and families of the hostages feel their loved ones have been abandoned. In late April, Netanyahu rejected a proposal by Hamas to free the remaining hostages in exchange for an end to the war—prompting an extraordinary response from the mother of one hostage. “Before you send your son to war, face the reality,” said Anat Angrest, addressing other parents who had gathered at a demonstration in Tel Aviv and showing a photo of her son, who was captured on Oct. 7. “Look at how my son has been abandoned and is now being sacrificed. Look, mother, at how instead of ending the war and getting my son home, they are sending your son to fight a war that is endangering them both.” This is precisely what the army hoped to avoid.

The result of all this is a domestic backlash against the war that is broader than anything Israel has seen since Oct. 7.

It started with a letter signed by nearly 1,000 mostly retired Israeli Air Force reservists in early April, just before the Passover holiday. “This war primarily serves political and personal interests, not national security interests,” the letter read. “The continued war does not help to achieve any of the war goals and will lead to the killing of hostages, IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers, and innocent civilians and further erode reservist forces.” Air Force commander Tomer Bar and IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, who had tried to thwart publication of the letter, discharged the active-duty reservists who signed it. Within days, thousands more signed similar letters, including former heads of Mossad, members of special forces, Navy officers, and cyberwarfare and military intelligence teams, including hundreds who are in active reserve duty. Other letters have been issued by health care professionals, academics, and artists.

To be clear, the backlash is decidedly not a response to Israel’s excessive use of force that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. (Although it is noteworthy that Moshe Yaalon, a hawkish politician and former military chief, described Israeli actions in northern Gaza this year as “ethnic cleansing” and condemned the state for sending soldiers to “kill babies in Gaza.”) It is mainly about prioritizing the hostages—even if it means ending the war. It is also—or perhaps primarily—a vote of no confidence in the Netanyahu government, which many Israelis believe is perpetuating the war in order to remain in power.

Polls have shown for months now that a solid majority of Israelis—even among those who voted for the Netanyahu coalition—support ending the war to release the hostages. Most Israelis understand by now that military operations aimed at freeing the hostages are more likely to get them killed. A majority now supports an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, even if this leaves a vastly diminished Hamas in control for the time being.

The significance of this backlash isn’t just in the number of people calling for an end to the war but also in the titles some of them hold. Prominent members of Israel’s security elite are among those publicly accusing Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners of sacrificing the hostages for political ends. In other words, this government is waging the current phase of the war in Gaza without broad public backing and against the better judgment of people who devoted their lives to the country’s security. For Israel, that is a first.

This backlash coincides with a separate but related crisis: a growing shortage of reservists. According to multiple press reports, there has been a 50 percent drop in the rate that reservists are showing up for duty since Israel resumed hostilities in March. Most Israelis are conscripted at age 18 for two to three years and perform compulsory reserve duty until age 40. Their reasons for staying away this time are varied. They include family demands, war fatigue, and especially their financial situation. (75 percent of reservists surveyed in February said the long months spent fighting in Gaza harmed them financially, and 41 percent reported that they were either fired or left their jobs.) But some are refusing for ideological reasons—whether because they distrust this government, doubt that further military operations will bring back the hostages, resent that ultra-Orthodox Jews remain exempt from army service, worry about being incriminated for war crimes, or indeed because they morally oppose how Israel has conducted the war.

This soft refusal to serve—whether for political, ideological, or personal reasons—could force the government to adapt its approach in Gaza. It might not happen overnight. But if Israel moves to take full control over all aspects of life in Gaza and resettle Israelis there, as Netanyahu’s coalition partners demand, the manpower challenge will likely grow. The government might be banking on the idea that military service remains sacrosanct and ultimately reservists will show up. Failing that, the military could be forced to pull troops from other fronts, including Lebanon, Syria, and even the West Bank.

In the long term, a trend toward dissent could have significant ramifications for the country. The Israeli military has been a “people’s army” since its inception, relying on reservists to fight short, decisive wars. In countries that depend on reservist armies, governments must take public sentiment into account. As Netanyahu’s government continues to neglect the hostages and prolong the war, the backlash is likely to grow.

[beardedmrbean]

The NYPD is beefing up security at synagogues ahead of Passover, citing alarming data that revealed 62% of all hate crimes in the city target Jews — leading Commissioner Jessica Tisch to ensure that “no one should feel afraid to worship.”

“As always, we are increasing patrols around synagogues, so you can expect to see uniformed deployments at dedicated houses of worship,” the top cop said at a press conference with Mayor Eric Adams and other officials Wednesday ahead of the Jewish holiday that begins on April 12 and continues through April 20.

“No one should feel afraid to worship. No community should feel like a target.”

The shocking uptick in anti-Jewish crimes “jump off the page as the single largest category of hate, at an astounding 62% of the total,” Deputy Inspector Gary Marcus, commanding officer of NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force, said.

Well over half of all hate crimes in New York City are perpetrated against Jews,” he added.

The trend of antisemitic hate crimes rose 7% year-over-year in 2024 — with 345 anti-Jewish incidents reported, according to NYPD data. Those numbers indicated Jews were targeted in 54% of all hate crimes in 2024.

A Jewish Columbia University student was the victim of two anti-Jewish attacks in 2024 — most recently in December, when anti-Israel protester Tarek Bazrouk allegedly punched him in the face and called him a Nazi outside the Morningside Heights school.

In September, a Jewish barber in Yonkers was allegedly stabbed with his own scissors after raging about the war in Gaza, shouting, “I want to kill you, you f–king Jew.”

On Oct. 17, a vandal scrawled a swastika on the Second Avenue Deli, writing, “Israeli pride” underneath.

Mayor Adams also spoke on Wednesday of the rise in hate crimes against Jews since the October 7th, 2023 attacks.

“This is an important time for the Jewish community… Oct. 7, when we saw probably a second holocaust that impacted the Jewish community,” Adams said at the press conference.

“We want to let you know loudly and clearly, just as we do at every Passover, we want to have the police that are there, but we need you to be our eyes and ears. If you see something, say something, do something,” Hizzoner added.

“It’s imperative that we continue the partnership of how we combine ourselves with more enforcing community, with community that we support, to serve and protect.”

[mcyt-passover-event]

mcyt passover idea: philza minecraft angel of death is THAT angel of death. anyways have a nice day everyone

That was one of our prompts in 2023! And it's definitely an idea we'll bring back for this year

[eretzyisrael]

Good News From Israel

In the 27th Apr 25 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:

Bereaved Israeli family has joyful reunion with pet dog.

UK journalist praises emergency treatment from Israeli medical system.

Israeli Arabs educate Londoners about the war.

Israeli scientists work at the speed of light.

Israel gives good investment returns for American aid.

Sporting success for Israelis at gymnastics, soccer, and basketball.

Blessings of peace proclaimed at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Read More: Good News from Israel

My newsletter of 23rd Sep 2023 was titled "Happy Returns", marking the beginning of the Jewish Year 5783. Two weeks later (Oct 7th 2023) the happiness was shattered. This week, despite the war and existential threats to the Jewish State, the optimistic outlook means Israel's 77th Birthday should be celebrated in a happier atmosphere.

In the latest newsletter: - Recent medical innovations are returning hundreds of wounded Israel soldiers and civilians back to health. - Evacuees are returning to previously abandoned Kibbutzim and towns. - The US can certainly be happy about the return of investment on the aid it gives Israel. - Rental car giant Hertz is happy that Israeli AI technology is inspecting its returned vehicles. - The only black flamingo in the world made a happy return to Eilat on its way to Europe. - Happy returns from Israeli medal-winning gymnasts and tourists returning to Israeli national heritage sites. Plus many more.

Finally, see the happiness of the family from Kibbutz Nir Oz as their beloved pet dog is returned to them by an IDF soldier who found her in Gaza.

The photo is of our happy return to Jerusalem for Pesach (Passover) this year after a two-year gap.