shelvesofsiddurim

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Jew-hate really does make you STUPID.

These antisemitic terrorist wannabes cheer for the Islamic FUCKING Regime that brutally murders women like Jina Amini for the "crime" of showing her hair, all because the Islamic Regime's stated goal is murdering more Jews than Adolf Hitler was able to slaughter.

May the Iranian people soon be FREE of this hideous Regime that has hijacked their country for the last 46 years.

FREE IRAN

[shelvesofsiddurim]

You really thought you did something there with your response, didn't you mate?

There is no "same standard" in this equation. Israel bombed hospitals and camps that have been used by Hamas to house weapons and other military targets. Iran targeted a hospital that has no military presence.

If there was a "same standard," then antisemitic leftists and antizionists like yourself would be condemning Iran instead of celebrating their strikes.

I thought the one point we could all agree on was that bombing places like hospitals was bad.

I guess the antizionist and antisemitic leftist crowd makes an exception though when the victims are Israeli, even if there's a possibility that the Israelis in question could be Arab. Because, you know, there are Arab Israelis.

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Iranian photographer Hossein Fatemi, offers a glimpse of an entirely different side to Iran than the image usually broadcasted by domestic and foreign media. In his photo series An Iranian Journey, many of the photographs reveal an Iran that most people never see, presenting an eye-opening look at the amazing diversity and contrasts that exist in the country.

[shelvesofsiddurim]

"[G-d] does not care about humanity at all"

If that were the case, then G-d wouldn't have rebuked the angels for trying to sing in celebration as the Egyptians drowned in the Sea of Reeds.

Also Torah makes it pretty clear that human sacrifice is unacceptable to G-d

help

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Even if a Jewish person were to assimilate and give up their Jewishness, they would still be Jewish in the eyes of antisemites because a Jew is always a Jew.

We can talk about how there’s definitely a racism/Islamaphobia issue in a lot of Jewish communities without…*flips through notebook* literal saying Jewish people should assimilate and give up their Jewishness (ie cultural genocide)

These antisemites are getting way too comfortable and I don’t like it

[shelvesofsiddurim]

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Pro-tip: your resistance movement might have an antisemitism problem if the Jews in your city are afraid to go out tomorrow.

[shelvesofsiddurim]

I was called a genocide denier for *checks notes* telling some fans to stop being bigoted towards Jews.

"Hey it's really important to not target a minority with dehumanization and bigotry-"

"GENOCIDE DENIER!"

It's the exact same silencing tactic the Right has used for decades now. Be loud and obnoxious in the face of facts and when you're confronted on your shitty behavior. Yell some buzzword, make wild accusations, beat your chest.

You're right - that is the exact same silencing  tactic. 

This has a name.

It's called Moral Bludgeoning.

It's using a false binary morality as a tool to gain an advantage in a disagreement, rather than engaging in reasoned discourse.

The goal of the tactic isn't truth, understanding, or justice. It's enforcing obedience. Control through social punishment.

You said something they found threatening - that people in a supposedly righteous movement were behaving in a way that was, in fact, bigoted.

Grappling with that would require introspection, accountability, and nuance...and their movement punishes those things. 

You were pointing out information which doesn't fit into their binary, the binary which assures them they're good people. They needed to shut you up fast before they risked feeling less than utterly righteous. 

The people doing this often aren't stupid , but they're always frightened.

They're terrified of complexity which kiddies the narrative.

Terrified of being cast out of their peer group for failing to adhere to the narrative.

Terrified of losing control of the narrative, because most of them derive their sense of personal legitimacy from the narrative.

So they flatten. Nuance becomes complicity. Dissent becomes betrayal. Complexity or moral ambiguity become denial.

You're also right that Moral Bludgeoning is used by both the right and the left. 

Both extremes use it to keep the middle silent. 

On the far Right, you see this play out in culture war accusations:

Criticize police abuse? You must be a Marxist anarchist terrorist!

Question US military spending? You hate America!

Say trans people should have rights? You're grooming children.

On the far Left, it’s the same energy, but different buzzwords:

Ask for civility toward Jewish people? You're a genocide apologist.

Note that Hamas isn't progressive? You’re a racist colonialist.

Point out antisemitism in "anti-Zionist" spaces? You're weaponizing your trauma to silence Palestinians.

It's never about the truth, it's about making the social cost of nuance unbearable. 

Tactics like Moral Bludgeoning are enforcement mechanisms of rigid ideologies. 

Healthy movements can tolerate disagreement, but ideologically rigid movements (right or left!) treat any deviation as a threat.

That's why you'll hear the same people screaming about "freedom of speech" one minute, then shrieking “DENIER” the next.

It's not even really hypocrisy in their minds, because they believe their cause grants them moral supremacy which entitles them to do almost anything. And that includes the entitlement to silence you in the name of righteous justice...and be as antisemtic as they like.

The real power of this tactic is in how it bypasses reasoning entirely and goes straight to two of our most powerful emotions: shame and fear. 

You nailed this too:

"Be loud and obnoxious in the face of facts..." 

That's exactly the tactic. The louder and more confident the accusation, the more it floods the emotional bandwidth of the conversation, making any reasoned dialogue impossible.

It works because people fear social isolation more than factual errors. No one wants to be the next target, so the mob roars together to drown you out.

The tragedy is that you were trying to do what they claim to care about. 

You didn't defend war crimes or deny suffering. 

You were doing the thing that movements need in order to remain sane: holding your own side accountable to its stated values.

Movements sometimes die from internal intolerance and ideological purity tests.

I think this is part of why the SDS movement of the 60s and 70s fizzled out. I think Occupy Wall Street fell victim to endless internal policing around privilege, language, and ideological orthodoxy and meetings devolved into ritual purity checks instead of coming up with and promoting actual policy ideas. I think this is a good explanation for what brought about the Reign of Terror in France.

The inability to tolerate nuance is where intellectual rot begins.

The people who did this to you aren't fighting oppression. They're just enforcing ideological purity at the expense of reality. It's an old and stupid game.

Can I tell you, though, how much I appreciate this Ask?

It's more evidence that there are many in the large middle who are repulsed by both ends of the Horseshoe. There are many who still care about evidence, reason, pragmatism, and avoiding ideological groupthink. 

There are still people who know that justice requires complexity. There are still people who don't think standing up against antisemitism is something to be ashamed of. 

Thinking critically and voicing those thoughts makes you feel like a threat to people on either far end of the political spectrum, all who rely on false binaries and performative loyalty.

So keep doing it.

Let them rage. Let them shriek their buzzwords. Just hold the line. 

You saw clearly and quickly that this was not about justice, it was about obedience...and you didn't bend the knee.

Do you have any idea how much that pisses them off?

Well done, Anon.

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Jews will not replace us (white supremacists who think jews fake being white to take over the white race) vs jews will not replace us (thinking jews are pretending to be a targeted minority to take away from the real sufferers) crowd

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Thank gd Shabbat is almost here

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Decorative illustrations from an Ashkenazic prayer book according to the German rite. Originally, published in 1614. 

[shelvesofsiddurim]

when ppl hc a fandom character as muslim: omgggg slay 😍😍

when ppl hc a fandom character as jewish: ugh ew. take that shit somewhere else

.

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Iran and Israel: an ancient friendship

THE OLDEST DIASPORA

The origins of the Jewish Diaspora can be traced back to modern-day Iran and Iraq. In 587 BCE, the Babylonian Empire conquered the Kingdom of Judah and exiled about 25% of the Judahite (i.e. Jewish) population to Babylon. While the story of the Babylonian Exile is depicted in the Tanakh (i.e. Hebrew Bible), it’s important to note that extensive archeological evidence and Babylonian sources confirm its veracity. 

In 539 BCE, Babylon fell to the Persian Empire, under the command of the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great. That same year,Cyrus liberated the Jewish captives and allowed them to return to the Land of Israel. He also ordered the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.Approximately 50,000 Jews returned to their homeland; others stayed behind in Iran and Iraq. This marked the beginning of the long, fruitful relationship between the Jews and the Persians.

Biblical historians largely agree that the Torah was compiled as a single cohesive text in Babylon. Some historians date the canonization of the Torah to the Persian period, since the Persians were known to impose policies of nationalized law codes to the ethnic groups under their domain.

THE (FIRST) GOLDEN AGE

For centuries, the Jewish community in Iran flourished under Persian rule. In fact, the period between 247 BCE-633 CE was a golden age of Persian Jewry. 

It’s estimated that Jews amounted to 10-20% of the population in Iran. They lived in peace and enjoyed many freedoms; for example, they had their own courts and institutions providing autonomy over their own communal affairs.

The Babylonian Talmud – a collection of rabbinical writings that provide commentary and interpretation of the Torah - was written between the third and sixth centuries CE, during the golden age of Persian Jewry. 

The golden age came to an end in 633 CE, with the Islamic conquest of Persia. Jews became dhimmis, or second-class citizens subject to extra taxation and discriminatory policies.

ANCIENT PERSIAN "ZIONISM"

Zionism is the Jewish movement for self-determination in the Land of Israel. Though it originated as a political movement in the 19thcentury, it is a movement rooted in three millennia of Jewish history.

As mentioned in slide 3, King Cyrus liberated the Jewish captives in Babylon and supported the reconstruction of the destroyed Jewish Temple. In fact, the term “Zionism” derives from the “Return to Zion,” when the freed captives returned to Jerusalem in 539 BCE.

Lesser known is the fact that just over 1000 years after the Return to Zion, the Persians once again supported the Jewish struggle for self-determination in the Land of Israel. In 614 CE, the Persian king Khosrau II assigned the conquest of the Land of Israel, then under Byzantine rule, to his Persian Jewish troops as a reward for their loyalty. The Persian Jews were enthusiastically joined by the local Jews in Palestine.Together, the Persians, Persian Jews, and Jews of Palestine briefly overthrew the Byzantines and Jerusalem returned to Jewish rule until 617 CE.

THE (SECOND) GOLDEN AGE

After the Islamic conquest of Persia, the situation for Jews in Iran was marked by periods of tolerance and peaceful coexistence and periods of terrible oppression and persecution. 

Then came the Pahlavi Dynasty, known as the (second) golden age of Persian Jewry. It was during this time – particularly under the rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941-1979) – that Jewish life in Iran flourished, with the Jewish community enjoying unprecedented social, economic, and cultural mobility. 

Israel and Iran also enjoyed positive relations. In fact, Iran was the second Muslim-majority country to recognize the State of Israel. In the 1960s and 1970s, Iran supplied Israel with oil and the Israeli airline, El Al, operated direct flights from Tel Aviv to Tehran.

Iran-Israel relations crashed following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.60,000-70,000 Jews – out of a total population of 80,000 – fled Iran after the Islamic Republic rose to power.

A COMMON ENEMY

According to Iranian-American policy analyst Karim Sadjapour, the three ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic are “compulsory hijab, death to America, and death to Israel.”

For 46 years, the Islamic Republic has surrounded the State of Israel with its proxy armies – including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ansar Allah (the Houthis), and more – with the stated goal of annihilating the Jewish state. Additionally, the Islamic Republic has directed hundreds of terrorist attacks against Jews in the Diaspora, the deadliest of which was the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, killing 85 people. 

Despite decades of regime propaganda, Iranians largely also consider the Islamic Republic their enemy. According to a comprehensive 2022 Gamaan (Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran) poll, 81% of Iranians inside Iran and 99% of Iranians outside of Iran oppose the Islamic Republic.

rootsmetals

ngl I had absolutely zero plans to write a post 4ish weeks postpartum but the Middle East had other ideas I guess! since my day is 99% sleep deprivation, trying to get baby to sleep, changing diapers, feeding baby, washing bottles, etc I’m leaving the comments closed because I just don’t have the capacity to moderate and ensure the discussion remains respectful 🙃 I just want to remind everyone that Iranians and Jews are NOT enemies. 🦁 My heart is absolutely broken for the people of Iran and Israel and I pray this nightmare comes to an end soon.

[shelvesofsiddurim]

I have to wonder, why do antizionists try to push so hard for Jewish assimilation.

I have seen so many comments saying "go back to poland/germany/ukraine" or "you should change your name back to your real polish/german name" or "mizrahi and/sephardi Jews are just arabs who don't want to be arabs" or "yiddish/[insert other diaspora language] is the REAL Jewish language" or "stop speaking Hebrew because it is traumatising to Palestinians"

and I have to ask. why is it that just as Jewish culture is allowed to re-establish itself free from the confines of diaspora that has held it down for 2000 years, that 'leftists' are coming out of the woodwork and demanding that Jews assimilate. Why does Jews reclaiming their ancestry, their language and culture, offend you so much?

[shelvesofsiddurim]

I thought the one point we could all agree on was that bombing places like hospitals was bad.

I guess the antizionist and antisemitic leftist crowd makes an exception though when the victims are Israeli, even if there's a possibility that the Israelis in question could be Arab. Because, you know, there are Arab Israelis.

[shelvesofsiddurim]

Fellas is it pinkwashing if [checks notes] queer Jews just...exist and have civil rights?

Not only are there queer Jews in Israel, there are Ethiopian Jews, Sephardi Jews, Mizrachi Jews, Asian Jews, and Arabs in Israel. None of those groups qualify as "white."

I like it when everyone gathers to celebrate whenever the Tel Aviv colony gets bombed

[shelvesofsiddurim]

According to the people behind the antizionist siddurim (and honestly, a good chunk of the antizionist and pro-Hamas camp), yes.

fellas is it prejudiced & discriminatory to prioritize your family over people who aren’t part of your family