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Reconstruction of Pre-Pottery Neolithic B housing in Aşıklı Höyük, modern Turkey.

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Lost at sea, by Marek Rużyk 2007

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Gisela Delpho.

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So, I'm Beta Israel, or an Ethiopian Jew. Many people only know that there are Ethiopian Jews in Israel because of that one headline:

"Israel forcibly sterilizes Ethiopian Jewish Women"

I would like to say that this story is a thorny and painful topic in the community, especially because it is used as a cudgel to demonize both us and Israel without actually allowing Ethiopian Jews to contribute to such discussions.

This point is brought up often when discussing racism in Israel. Newspapers have reported it, activists have brought it up, and it is all over social media. The narrative has even gone so far that some people claim that Israel is currently sterilizing Beta Israeli women.

First off, there was never any kind of attempt by Israel to get rid of us through sterilization or reduce our population. As of 2024, there are approximately 160,000 of us living in Israel. 8,000 arrived during Operation Moses, and 14,000 arrived during Operation Solomon. Again, massive population increase.

Additionally, said women were never sterilized. Birth control falls under 4 general categories. Natural birth control, oral contraceptives, long-acting reversible contraception, and sterilization. All except for sterilization are reversible. The birth control important to this discussion is Depo-Provera, which is temporary.

Depo Provera has almost no long-lasting effects, needs to be renewed every 12-13 weeks to be effective, and no matter how long you have taken it, you will be able to conceive after stopping the shot. These were the injections given to Ethiopian Jewish women. But why were they given the contraceptives?

Ethiopian Jews came to Israel through transit camps, which are temporary refugee camps. There are many reasons why a refugee camp has a need for birth control. High maternal and infant mortality rates, the absence of gynecologists, high sexual violence, and little to no postpartum care are just a few of them.

There was no evidence that women at the transit camps were threatened into getting these injections. However, they were almost certainly pressured into doing so, because, keep in mind, there just weren't enough resources to take care of these women if they did get pregnant. In most cases, the women were informed that they were getting these injections, but access to Amharic translators were in short supply.

Since many women didn't understand exactly what they were being given, as soon as they figured out, they complained. Israel immediately stopped giving the injections out and started new guidance to make sure that patients had a full understanding of all medicine given.

Was what happened a violation of rights that never should have happened? Yes. Was it a massive mistake on the part of the Israeli government? Yes. Was it anywhere near as evil as whatever people are trying to make it sound like online? No.

Stop using us to make your points when you clearly don't care about our issues. You can criticize the Israeli government, please do, without spreading misinformation and lies about us. You can criticize Israel without bringing up the 'sterilization' every time you see us on social media. When you do these things, you are being both anti Black and antisemitic. Try to learn about us past this controversy, in fact, try to learn about any of the many, many Jewish communities in different countries. I guarantee you'll learn something.

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a boop from a california harbor seal 🦭 | jays_visions on ig

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Whenever somebody new follows me, I go to their page, bring up the archive, and look up what they were posting on October 8th, 2023.

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What does that have to do with him being Jewish? I am also an atheist Jew.

So Tom Lehrer was Jewish, and you will see a lot of Jews, and people who know about Judaism saying, may his memory be a blessing, or z''l, which is short for the same phrase in Hebrew. and, in fact, I said may his memory be a blessing on another post. but there is another saying that is often said by Jews to mark a death, which I feel is much more appropriate. That phrase is Baruch dayan ha'emet, meaning "Blessed is the true judge." Baruch dayan ha'emet is often abbreviated as BDE.

I can't think of anyone who would more appreciate the double meaning in BDE than Tom Lehrer, or anyone who embodied the other meaning of BDE more.

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So Tom Lehrer was Jewish, and you will see a lot of Jews, and people who know about Judaism saying, may his memory be a blessing, or z''l, which is short for the same phrase in Hebrew. and, in fact, I said may his memory be a blessing on another post. but there is another saying that is often said by Jews to mark a death, which I feel is much more appropriate. That phrase is Baruch dayan ha'emet, meaning "Blessed is the true judge." Baruch dayan ha'emet is often abbreviated as BDE.

I can't think of anyone who would more appreciate the double meaning in BDE than Tom Lehrer, or anyone who embodied the other meaning of BDE more.

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Okay, answer time.

#1 is true. In my defense, I lived in rural Southern California, on the edge of plague country, and we had psas at school about how to avoid plague, lyme disease, and rocky mountain spotted fever. Consequently my mother's response was not, "of course, you don't have to plague, sweetie," it was "everyone in your school has the flu, and your lymph nodes aren't swelling." To be perfectly fair though, I have OCD and germophobia, which was particularly acute when I was in elementary and middle school, and I could absolutely have convinced myself that I had the plague, even if I lived nowhere near any plague reservoirs. Did I mention that I moved to the heart of plague country, and now live in the high desert of New Mexico? Frankly it's amazing I don't manage to convince myself I have plague more often.

#2 is also true. I got E.coli back in 2017, and developed dysentery from it. Most bactetial dysentery is caused by bacteria in the genus Shigella, but you can also get it from E.coli, and I was just lucky, I guess. Very unpleasent experience. 0/10, do not reccomend. I'm also kind of shocked more people don't remember it because I actually posted about it at the time on my other blog.

And so of course #3 is not true, but it's based on a funny true story. So, back when my mom was in nursing school, there was a bit of a spike in rabies in South Florida, where she lived. My mom was eating lunch outside with a classmate, and there was a squirrel nearby, acting very strangely for some reason. Probably not rabies, but we don't actually know why, and it probably was a little bit sick and a little bit habituated to humans and yeah, it gave my mom the creeps, and she decided to get as far away from it as possible. She went to explain this to her classmate, who was not a native English speaker, and she told him, "Be careful, it might be rabid."

The poor guy looked at her, baffled, and responded, "No, it squirrel." Their budding friendship was cut off in an instant as he faced the prospect that she was clearly an idiot who couldn't tell the difference between squirrel and a rabbit, and also thought rabbits were something to be afraid of.

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Fog.

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May his memory be a blessing. my two favorite songs by tom lehrer are "The Vatican Rag" and "Wernher von Braun":

Rest in peace to a legend

Lived to 97 years old, invented the Jello Shot, Wrote some of the best satire I’ve ever heard.

“If after hearing my songs just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend or perhaps to strike a loved one it will all have been worth the while.” - Tom Lehrer

Listen to Poisoning Pigeons in The Park, Listen to The Elements, Listen to The Masochism Tango. His contributions shall not be forgotten.

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8 hours left.

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Ruins of the legendary Roman Forum, view from above

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One day left

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Cape Disappointment, Washington

Karsten Winegeart

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Venus with as much water as on the Earth

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I feel like the Jewish community slags off on Ashkenazi food way too much. I love latkes, bagels and lox, and (unsweet) gefilte fish, and horseraddish, and kreplach, and matzo ball soup, coconut macaroons, and chopped liver, and borscht and babka and seeded rye bread and rugelach, and cholent and Ashkenazi charoset, and apple cake, and brisket, and hamantashen, and they aren't weird gross or bad.

They are, in many cases, the foods of terrible poverty in a resource poor countryside, where fruit and vegetables were limited in variety and hard to come by. Ashkenazi food is full of tremendous creativity and a drive to make time and care makeup for poor and limited ingredients, and then, for the Ashkenazi Jews that came to America and found a measure of prosperity, a passionate desire to make use of the sudden abundance at their disposal.

It'a good food and I love it.