onservantswings

[onservantswings]

-deep breath-

A 'no questions asked' food pantry means no questions asked.

When we're stocking our pantry, we are not looking at a person's clothes or their accessories or what kind of car they drove there in. We are HAPPY to see it BEING USED AT ALL.

I don't know anyone's situation. Maybe they got that designer bag at a thrift shop. Maybe its a knockoff. Maybe it was a gift. Maybe they got it when they had money and now they don't have money. Maybe they're getting stuff for a friend.

Maybe they have plenty of money, don't need to be taking stuff from the pantry, but they are anyway because we said-

NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

Do you know what happens when someone takes from our pantry when they don't need it? We're down one item. But maybe they tell someone that the pantry is there. Or maybe they come back to it when they need it. Or maybe they throw a dollar in the donation box. Or maybe they put an item on the shelf. Or maybe they come to our food drive.

WE DONT CARE.

We don't care who used it.

We care that it was used.

Im not a cop. Don't make me do cop stuff, I wont do it.

[onservantswings]

[onservantswings]

someone else has probably said this, but im realizing with each passing day that one can either be a safe jew or a proud jew. and right now there are no safe jews, so that leaves me with one choice.

am yisrael chai <3

[onservantswings]

[onservantswings]

This is going to be hard for a lot of people to hear but if you want to make your spaces safer for disabled people, then you need to stop assuming malice from every poorly worded post.

A lot of neurodivergencies and disabilities cause people to ramble, lose their train of thought very easily, go on tangents, have disordered thinking, etc. We can get words and names mixed up very easily, lose words entirely, struggle to put our thoughts into actual words that make sense to people, and lose track of conversations. Whether it's from ADHD, psychosis, brain fog, brain damage, or any other condition, thinking and verbalizing ourselves can be really fucking hard.

This isn't malicious. We aren't doing it on purpose to hurt or upset people, and we aren't ignorant about the topic just because we get mixed up. We deserve to have voices, even if we don't always make sense to other people.

[onservantswings]

The age of eligibility for an ABLE account, allowing USAmerican disabled people to save up money without losing their government assistance for having “too much,” is going to go up to cover disabilities diagnosed by age 46 (currently it’s age 26), meaning a much larger number of people will be able to access them. As the article notes, many Americans don’t know these accounts exist, let alone whether they or someone they care for could qualify for one, so please share this information around.

It seems to me it would obviously be better if the “no more than $2000 a month” limit were simply removed and disabled people could have whatever savings accounts they chose, but this is heaps better than nothing.

[onservantswings]

went to the cleveland art museum & they have a maghreb exhibit that was entirely jewish + amazigh art :-) i was really pleasantly surprised

these mitpachat and the b'niqa are 19th century algerian jewish crafted + were my favorites

[onservantswings]

In a protest against censorship, photographer A.L. Schafer staged this iconic photograph in 1934, violating as many rules as possible in one shot.

[onservantswings]

Trust, but verify

btw for anyone with paranoia, anxiety, delusions, etc. when they say “trust your gut”, they’re not talking to you

sincerely, someone who thought my paranoia was my instincts and it made my mental state 100x worse

edit: just to clarify what i mean here is dont blindly trust what you think are your instincts. give it some thought before going with it

[onservantswings]

🏳️‍🌈🇺🇦 Pride march was held in Kyiv, Ukraine for the first time since the beginning of full-scale invasion. It's dangerous for big crowds to gather for a long period of time due to potential russian airstrikes, so the event was smaller and shorter than usual, but still important and powerful.

[onservantswings]

Screenshot of https://www.archives.gov/college-park taken at 7:32 pm UST June 24, 2025

Yes this is autocracy dictator shit. This is now active investment in an ignorant populace. This is anti-intellectualism, and this is dangerous.

So anyway what’s going on with you?

[onservantswings]

Having a thought about how I have seen, recently, so many people insisting that things like posters about the hostages and marches for the hostages in the disapora are a sign of like. Some kind of conspiracy or manipulation.

And how all of these people who think that this is just Jews doing the Jew Thing of Manipulating People and Lying to Get What We Want... Know absolutely NOTHING about us.

The thing I wish every goy would understand. Is that Jews are a people, and we are one people. Every Jew on this earth- whether I know them personally or not. Whether I agree with them or not. Whether I like them or not. Is my FAMILY. All Jews are one people, one family. When one Jew is hurt, we all hurt.

"Until we are all free, we are none of us free" is a quote I see used all the time (or some variation of it). And the quote is from Emma Lazarus. She was speaking about assimilated Jews who were ignoring Eastern European Jews, who were being murdered and tormented in pogroms. Which was unacceptable- because this is how Jews work, as a people.

We are all one people. We are all family. When one Jew is attacked, we are all attacked. When one Jew mourns, we all mourn with them. We are a people bound by a deep sense of connection and love for one another.

So when Jews in the diaspora are talking about the hostages, about the war. About Israel and Israelis. I need you all to understand that this is not simply politics to us. This is not just a political discussion that we are detached from.

This is our family. These are our loved ones and our people. The Jews of the world are one family, and we all must love and look out for one another. THAT is why Jews in the diaspora, and in America, where I am from. Care so deeply. Because those hostages are our family. They are our people. It isn't political manipulation. This isn't some kind of Jewish Sneaky Conspiracy.

It is a family. Begging for the safe return of their loved ones. Begging for the lives of their kin.

[onservantswings]

Thank Hashem

[onservantswings]

Ok so, goy here, & I don't even know what the question I'm asking here is but I'll give you at least something to work with.

I've recently finished rereading Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett, & it's a very good story about personhood if I do say so myself.

The book is about Golems, & a few of the names of the Golems are derived from Yiddish words so obviously there's a lot of Jewish influence but how Jewish is it?

Rating: Jew-ish

First of all, everyone should go read Feet of Clay because it is a fantastic book. Second, golems are always Jewish the way that leprechauns are always Irish— they come from Jewish folklore (look up “the Golem of Prague”) and cannot be truly separated from that context. Third, the golems in Feet of Clay are also definitely fantasy-Jews. 

From my perspective, the golems in Feet of Clay are a good example of cultural appreciation as opposed to cultural appropriation. By giving the golems Yiddish names, Pratchett explicitly recognizes the origin of golems in Ashkenazi Jewish culture, unlike various RPG golems where they are simply co-opting the word to mean “construct” or “fantasy robot,” and where the creator is usually evil. (Don’t get me started on what DnD does with “phylactery.”) It’s fundamental to the golem folktale that it is originally intended for protection, and while the golem of legend does go off the rails, it begins with the best of intentions— which Pratchett pays tribute to in the plot of Feet of Clay. 

One of the in-world broadly known facts about Pratchett’s golems is that they occasionally have holy days on which they won’t do any work but no one else really knows when those days are, which, as I carefully hoard my vacation time to make sure I’ve got enough to take the holidays off, I find hilarious. 

Another moment in Feet of Clay that felt extremely Jewish to me (under the cut as this as it is at the end of the book)

is when Dorfl declares that he’s an atheist, gets hit with a lightning bolt, survives unscathed since he’s made of fireproof clay, and tells the priests that he hardly considers that to be a compelling or logical argument. It bears a striking resemblance to the Talmudic tale of the Oven of Akhnai in which one rabbi’s appeal to divine power for miracles to “prove” he is correct is deemed invalid because miracles are not source-based evidence, they’re just miracles. Truly, a deeply Jewish moment.

Pratchett himself was a staunch atheist who was extremely critical of organized religion, particularly state-sponsored religion. Jewish readers can reasonably have a range of reactions and opinions to his fantasy-Jews (we have another ask about his dwarves in the pipeline), but we sure come off better than his fantasy-Catholics— please see Small Gods for more on that.

[onservantswings]

what the fuck

[onservantswings]

A lot of people think emunah means “believing in G-d.”

It doesn’t.

In Biblical Hebrew, emunah has almost nothing to do with belief as we think of it today.

It’s deeper. More human. And far more beautiful.

A thread 🧵👇 

1/ When we hear “faith,” we think of mental certainty—an internal conviction that something is true.

But Hebrew doesn’t work like that.

Hebrew words aren’t definitions. They’re verbs. They describe movement. Relationships. Action.

And emunah is no exception. 

2/ The root of emunah is אמן (aleph–mem–nun).

You might recognize it from:

→ אמן (amen) → אומן (uman, craftsman) → אימון (imun, training or practice) What do they all have in common? They’re not about belief. They’re about dependability and faithfulness. 

3/ An uman, a craftsman, is someone reliable. Someone whose work you can trust.

Emunat itchem (שמות 17:12) — Aaron and Hur supported Moshe's hands “with emunah.” They didn’t “believe” in his hands. They held them steady. That’s emunah: steadiness. support. trust. 

4/ So when we talk about having emunah in Hashem…

…it’s not about proving G-d exists.

It’s about living as if He’s trustworthy.

→ I lean on Him. → I depend on Him. → I walk with Him even when I don’t have answers. It’s a relationship, not a proof. 

5/ The Rambam does speak of knowing G-d’s existence. But that’s yediat Hashem—knowledge.

Emunah is something else entirely.

It’s the faithfulness of a spouse, a friend, a child—who stays in the relationship even when it’s hard.

That’s the emunah G-d wants from us. 

5/ That’s why Hashem is called “El ne’eman”—a faithful God (Devarim 7:9).

Not just true. But loyal. Steady. Present.

And when we’re asked to have emunah—we’re being invited into that kind of loyalty in return.

A mutual trust, forged over time. 

6/ This means:

🔹 You can have emunah even when you doubt. 🔹 You can have emunah even when you’re angry. 🔹 You can have emunah even when you don’t understand. Because emunah isn’t about being sure. It’s about staying close. That’s faith, Jewishly. 

7/ And maybe that’s why we say “Amen” at the end of every blessing.

Not “I agree.” Not “I believe.” But: “I affirm this with trust.” “I stand with this.” “I am with You, Hashem.”

That one word is an act of emunah. 

8/ So next time someone asks if you “believe in G-d”…

You can answer like a Jew:

“I trust Him.” “I walk with Him.” “I’m still here.” That’s emunah. ❤️‍🔥 

End 🧵

[onservantswings]

I was more or less stunned by what had happened. I had been prepared for criticism and ridicule - I was accustomed to them. But it had never occurred to me that people might want to hound and persecute me for my change in role. I had lived as a woman because that was my social standing, and had been made fun of and called 'half-man', and now when I had faced the situation and righted the grotesquely false position in which I had lived so long, it seemed that the public would damn me because I had once, perforce [by force, by necessity], worn skirts. I tried to get other hospital work. I went to the men who had been my chiefs and told them the truth and asked their aid in securing another position; to a man they turned me down. I tried to get other sorts of work and failed tor the same reason as soon as I gave my name. Then my family employed counsel and instituted proceedings to have my name legally changed; and the medical school from which I had been graduated served notice on us that if we persisted they would rescind my diploma and have me disbarred from practice.

— excerpt from Letter from Alan Hart to Mary Roberts Rinehart, August 3, 1921, on the subject of his transition from female to male and the impact of being publicly outed by a woman who recognized him. Alan Hart was one of the first men to get a hysterectomy in the US, and pioneered the use of X-rays in the diagnosis of tuberculosis, which ended up being crucial to treatment as the disease was asymptomatic early on.