#‘’Judaism is ONLY a religion and not a culture or ethnicity so there’s no such thing as a Jewish atheist’’

[elfindreams]

people who intentionally bring up complicated and controversial topics, repeatedly interrupt the other person until they provoke a frustrated reaction, and then pat themselves on the back for being edgy and unafraid to discuss serious issues (while insinuating that the other person is closed-minded and/or afraid to have a debate) are so annoying

[vamptastic]

idk how to explain to people that living in a diaspora sucks and that the prospect of an eternal cycle of expulsions is immensely depressing. i am utterly disgusted by the current actions of the state of israel and basically every single new thing i learn about the founding of israel makes it worse. doesn't make me less sad to let go of the idea of ever living somewhere where i'm not part of a tiny minority in constant risk of danger. even if antisemitism didn't exist it's inherently kind of a bummer to be speaking a different language wearing different clothes and eating different food from everybody around you, forever.

[spacelazarwolf]

something i think gentiles do not get abt judaism is that it’s not a religion in the modern sense. rabbinic judaism as we know it today exists because of the roman destruction of judea and subsequent genocide and expulsion of a huge number of the judeans living there. prior to that, there were judeans who lived outside judea and still participated in many judean practices and followed many judean laws. there was a conversation happening particularly in the rabbinic movement (which was an incredibly small and fringy movement btw) about how to maintain a cohesive identity and community with members of an ethnic group that had stayed in babylon after being released from slavery or had moved to the italian peninsula or to egypt, and that identity was beginning to form. jewish identity was becoming something we might recognize today.

but prior to the roman expulsion and destruction of the temple, that identity had been centered around the land and the temple for very obvious reasons. ancient israel, judea, it was a place and the people who lived there lived under the same governance with the same culture and the same language. it makes sense they’d be a unique ethnic group. another huge part of the identity they’d formed was opposition to occupying forces, greeks, babylonians, assyrians, and finally the romans. eretz yisrael was constantly under occupation. and rebellion was a unifying force for these people. so when suddenly they have no land to defend, no central temple to look toward, suddenly the rabbis’ outlook on “portable judaism” was pretty much the only option if they wanted to remain a coherent group. they started communicating with each other over thousands of miles and multiple continents, discussing how to maintain their identity while in exile. and that is how judaism formed. it wasn’t a belief system that was spread throughout the world like christianity. it was a group of people whose population and homeland was devastated by a brutal occupying force who were trying to hold on to the only thing they had in strange lands where people weren’t always very welcoming: community. particularly in places like eastern and central europe where jews physically looked so different than the rest of the population, their culture was so different, and europeans reacted very violently to that, holding onto their traditions and immersing themselves in the study of how to stay connected is the reason those communities still exist today. they could have just moved to a new place and assimilated into the populations there and we would not have jews today. the reason we have jews today is because of that communal decision, across continents, to stay connected.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

Okay so in the same vein as this post, I want to reality check the people who keep asking (yes I've been this person too, don't @ me) why oh why are Jews the only group leftists are willing to categorically deny self-determination to, and the reason is that most of them are tits deep in Christian supercessionism and don't even know it and have absolutely no desire to change that.

The reason they deny self-determination to Jews is the same reason that they would deny any claim to self-determination of, say, Mormons. If the Mormon church tried to claim Utah because it's the epicenter and birthplace of Mormonism [Edit: apparently the birthplace of Mormonism is western New York and not Utah whoops, but the point stands] and therefore they may as well have an indigenous claim to it, people with brains would rightfully lose their shit.

"But it's a culture too, not just a religion!"

So? Have you met any Mormons and spent time with them? They have their own culture.

"Okay but Jews are an ancient people!"

Please look at the batshit Mormon theological view of the Twelve Tribes and their attitudes towards Native Americans.

"Okay but our history is real!" Yep! These people don't know the first thing about Judaism and Jewish history and don't care.

The reality is that most westerners are hellbent on ignoring Jewish history and ethnoreligious identity because literally all of western civilization is built on Christian supercessionism. Even the people who leave Christianity and hate it (and "all religions") with a violent passion still refuse to engage in learning about Jewish cultural and ethnic history because you cannot do it without engaging the history and texts that they blame as the roots of Christianity and therefore they discredit all of it out of hand.

Obviously they're super fucking wrong about this. You, my fellow yid, and I, both know that. But unraveling the supercessionism means understanding their culpability in Jewish suffering and how they benefit from institutionalized antisemitism.

They are extremely unlikely to do that.

Why? Because if they unlearn Judaism as "just a religion" &/or "Christianity without Jesus" and begin to understand it as an indigenous Levantine group, they then have to reckon with the reality of how much Christianity has stolen from Jews and how much of their hatred for Jews is baked into their western goyische psyche by intentional Christian misunderstandings of Judaism.

Am Yisrael cannot to them be a real people with deep tribal roots and a strong culture, because then they would have to separate Judaism from Christianity and question their assumptions about us and our history.

"But Judaism accepts converts!"

Okay, as someone who "converted," I'm going to say no, not really, actually. Conversion is a convenient shorthand, but it's not accurate. Converting to Judaism means a mutually consensual adoption into the Tribe, after thorough vetting, at least a year of study and perseverance but probably more, and the main, primary promise that you make is about choosing to share the collective fate of the Jewish people. Yes, this adoption and naturalization is through the medium of the spiritual/religious aspect of Jewish identity, but it's way more than that. To be a Jew is to know that I might get stabbed on my walk to shul for being visibly Jewish, and to accept that possibility because the idea of not living as a Jew is worse. Gerim have to be ride or die because a serious chunk of Jewish history is on the "die" side of that equation. You have to be just a little bit nuts voluntarily take on that risk (reminder that I say this as a ger who is happily Jewish) and it must come from a place of profound love for and identification with the Jewish people. And once you join the family, that's it. You don't get to ever stop being a member of the family, even if you become estranged from it.

It's a people, with a deep history and culture, and anyone who joins it takes on both. Obviously your genetic makeup and ancestry don't change, but everything else does.

Understanding that major difference in Judaism in a serious way means that they would have to let go of their world view that their religion and culture are separate, that Christianity intentionally divorced faith from culture in order to acquire as many converts as possible, and then begin to understand how Christianity has shaped their understanding of culture, tradition, what religion is, ethics, and values. And they would have to then make an effort to separate their understanding of Judaism and what they think they know about us from Christianity, however they do or don't relate to it.

[gay-jewish-bucky]

An important thing for allies of the Jewish community to understand:

I commonly see people referring to Judaism as a 'religion' through the same lens that they view Christianity, which is a universal religion, this is a mistake.

Judaism is a semi-closed ethno-religion, it's not simply a religion where only the adherents are called Jews.

Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people; a people who are united by ethnicity, language, culture, cuisine, tradition, shared history, ancestral heritage and so much more, religion is only one facet of it.

To be religiously Jewish you must already be a Jew, either by birth or by conversion (which is a long and difficult process, after which you are counted as ethnically Jewish).

Secular Jews who are not religious in any way are just as Jewish as the most devout Jews.

[edenfenixblogs]

I think that I’ve realized one of the big reasons that antisemites are so anti-Israel—I mean, aside from it being a state where a lot of Jews are.

Israel is a state that protects Jews. It also does a lot of bad things under the Likud government. And it also harms Jews that get in the way of the Likud government. But none of that matters to antisemites.

Because a state is an institution. And the left has been very clear that it’s all about criticizing institutions.

And in the absence of a governing religious body to criticize, the Israeli state is all the leftist antisemites have to criticize.

They can’t seem to fathom that the leadership of Israel is not in anyway synonymous with a religious institution. They cannot seem to fathom that the Likud government isn’t in any way representative of Jewish people as a whole—and not even of Israelis as a whole! (Once again, Israel is a parliamentary system. It’s about who has the largest proportion of votes, not a majority) and that Jews in Israel as well as non-Jews in Israel have a say in who to vote for and often strongly oppose Likud and Netanyahu.

It’s like a whole chunk of otherwise progressive people have been waiting for a way to criticize all Jews by attacking some institution they think speaks for us.

They cannot fathom that we are literally just a small ethnic group with half of our number in one location and would very much like for us and for them to not be victims of violence. That’s the uniting principle.

They’ve continually demonstrated how little they know and understand about Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish history.

I genuinely do not know if they’re aware that there’s no supreme Jewish council or whatever. There’s no Jewish version of the Grand Imam, Grand Ayatollah, Dalai Lama, Celestial Master, or Head/President of the Church.

We don’t even have a main synagogue from which edicts or traditions flow. We did have one. The Wall in Israel was our main institution. But colonizers and invaders destroyed it. And other religions built their institutions on top of it. And the religious governing body of Jews fell apart thousands of years ago.

…so the only thing that holds us together is each other. Rabbis don’t answer to some central authority. We hold traditions together through culture and traditions and connection to our land of origin, like many our even most other indigenous cultures.

But, because there is one (1) place on the entire planet where Jews are a majority of the population and not a minority, suddenly vicious attacks on the character of Jews everywhere are fair game as long as antisemites pretend they are talking about “Israel.” But they aren’t talking about the State of Israel. Because they get mad whenever we tell them to please specify the current government and the Likud party, because they are the ones responsible for carrying out the needless violence.

But they won’t do that. They seem to believe that there is some uniting religious force that exists in the Israeli government. And they seem to think that we are all united by this religious directive of “Zionism.”

That’s the only way any of their criticisms make sense logically. They don’t see themselves as attacking actual humans. They see themselves as attacking institutions. And any Jew who disagrees with them? Well they are just bastards supporting the institution.

But…there is no supreme Jewish institution. It doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist because they destroyed those institutions.

They’re making themselves feel good by thinking attacking Jews is somehow helping free Palestine. But it’s just attacking Jews.

It’s like a weird continuation of supercessionism. They’re projecting their religious structure onto a religion that is fundamentally incompatible with that structure.

[newnitz]

"Zionism is Antisemitism"

This statement pisses me off. I first saw it while arguing on Facebook, but now, with the antizionist hijacking Neil Gaiman's post, I think it's time to address this ridiculous claim once and for all. Let's first define Zionism:

"If you are a Zionist you support genocide" - Is self-determination in our ancestral homeland genocide? If so, then of who? Is there an ethnic group who's reason for existence if denying Jews access to their homeland?

"Jews are by religion stateless" - FALSE. That is the Wandering Jew trope, prescribed TO us by Christians. Jews have lived in Israel CONTINUOUSLY for over 3000 years, in small numbers between 136 and the 1880s. They have been in continuous contact with the Diaspora community throughout, with the Egyptian Diaspora in particular sending funds to rebuild cities that were ransacked by colonizers in the 1600s.

"Zionism is a secular ideology started by an atheist" - first of all, Judaism is an ETHNOreligion, meaning it doesn't require faith to be part of the tribe. Someone who is born Jewish can only leave Judaism if they convert to another religion(which historically meant either leaving for another tribe or participating in imperialist religions, like Tomás de Torquemada). Additionally, a return to Israel is a core part of the Jewish religion, with our ancestor having prayed for a "next year in Jerusalem" for 1700+ years.

"Zionism feeds antisemitism" - No, antisemitism proves the necessity of Zionism. With the existence of a Jewish state, Diaspora Jews aren't at the mercy of the goyim around them, and can coexist as equals. If the goyim can't stand to see Jews as equals, it's not the fault of Zionism. If goyim hold Jews collectively responsible to the actions of each and every Jew, it's not the fault of any one Jew. Stop victim blaming Jews.

"I'm Jewish" - doesn't stop you from having internalized antisemitism. Work on that. We all need to. This applies to ALL Diasporas, to Israelis, to matrilineals, patrilineals, to Jews who's both parents are Jewish, to converts, to everyone. We ALL need to decode the thousands of years worth of cultural osmosis from cultures and religions who's centerpiece is dehumanizing and persecuting us.

[traincat]

i was trying to explain to my mom how the harry potter game is antisemitic (we are not jewish) and she didnt really seem to get it. she was like "i mean if they were wearing yarmulkes i would be like yeah, the goblins are supposed to be jewish". do you know of a good source that i could send her that would break down the jewish stereotypes and how they arent just coincidence? if you dont have a good source dont worry about it but i saw you reblog stuff about it so i thought you might. thank you for your time!

I have a few resources I'm linking in my reply here, but I'm probably not going to be answering other questions about this because, to be honest, as a Jewish person in fandom, it's stressful. I'm reblogging stuff about Hogwarts Legacy because I'm Jewish and the antisemitism in the game is vile to the point where it feels irresponsible for me not to address it in some way, and because it ties into a lot of the other antisemitism I've personally faced in fandom when speaking about anything Jewish. I feel like your mother may have some trouble grasping the antisemitism because she seems to be viewing Judaism solely as a faith, when Judaism is an ethnoreligion -- a religion, an ethnic group, and wide and varied culture, and so stereotypes about Jewish people don't have to involve religious symbols and very often involve specific physical features, ie, big noses. The goblins in Harry Potter are short, ugly, and they have huge noses -- these are all features commonly associated in antisemitic caricature with Ashkenazi Jewish men. The idea that the goblins would only be valid caricatures of Jewish people if they were wearing a specific piece of clothing is troubling because it invokes the yellow stars Jews were made to wear by the Nazis. (For the record, my uncle wears a yarmulke full time, but the other men on my mother's side of the family do not. This does not make them less Jewish.)

But if your mother needs a symbol associated with the Jewish faith to help her understand, it's been noted that the game features a "goblin horn" that is very clearly a shofar, an important piece of Judaica which is used for religious purposes. (There's also a link between the date the horn is given in the game and a very brutal pogrom; more info in the twitter thread linked. If you want to get an idea of how virulent antisemitism is in fandom, the response to this thread and others like it are A Lot.) Like I can't say enough how blatant this is, and the reason it's getting by so many people are 1) a lot of non-Jewish people are at least on a base level, if not actively antisemitic themselves, basically okay with antisemitism, because antisemitism is so present in our culture and 2) uneducated on Jewish matters.

It's also important to note that in the Harry Potter world, goblins are specifically bankers. This is how they are first introduced to readers and this is their primary association in world: the goblins are literally guarding the gates on huge piles of wizard gold. This is an antisemitic stereotype, as Jews are often perceived as being money grubbing and greedy, as well as "secretly controlling" the greater world's wealth. More info in this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_antisemitism. This thread by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg also breaks down the connection between the "greedy Jew" stereotype and the historical precedent for Jewish moneylenders, a profession that was foisted on them because it was distasteful to Christians: https://twitter.com/TheRaDR/status/1057333224538624001. Harry Potter is not unique in these depictions. There is an example of this in, say, Star Trek, where the Ferengi are a race of greedy, money-obsessed aliens who have exaggerated "ugly" features and who are often depicted as oversexed, especially when it comes to women of other, more classically attractive alien races (this is another antisemitic stereotype of Jewish men). But the Ferengi are also all played by Jewish actors, and in the show where they feature most, Deep Space 9, they're protagonists. So while the Ferengi are rooted in antisemitic stereotypes, the involvement of Jewish creatives and their role in the story makes it a more complicated, nuanced situation. This is not what is happening in Hogwarts Legacy.

It's not a coincidence that the goblins in Harry Potter have always been depicted as bankers right from book one. While you can theoretically separate the series from Rowling's transphobia (although, y'know, you shouldn't), the antisemitism is baked into the series. Hogwarts Legacy just takes it to a whole other incredibly overt level. The point of the game is violence against Jews, and we see that because it's revealing just how many people out there are fine with demonizing Jews specifically and the level of violence Jewish people often face in fandom when they speak out about antisemitism.

[naazaif327]

It’s so strange to me seeing people bend over backwards to try claiming that there’s absolutely no connection between TLOU2’s setting and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Like, I absolutely love The Last Of Us from the bottom of my heart, those games and characters will stay with me for the rest of my life, but also it’s just like so clear from any angle that Seattle’s war between the Seraphites and the WLF is just Druckmann’s “progressive liberal” zionist view of the irl occupation.

Like, on the one hand you’ve got the WLF (IDF/Israel), who are clearly criticized as being overly militarized and doing a bit too much torture and dehumanization, but they’re also super diverse and queer-friendly, and they’re very accepting of various different faiths and religions while still being overall pretty secular (this isn’t just me speculating btw, as you pass by you’ll listen to various WLF npcs openly talking about their faith and sexuality). They’ve got a fucked up leadership/governance under their angry ruler Isaac, but they’re good people as individuals, they’re just caught up in a cycle of revenge/violence. They’re mostly made up of people who were oppressed (by FEDRA) before staging an uprising and revolting to take back their land, which they lovingly cultivate and make use of innovative modern technology to make their world better. It’s a perfect metaphor for Israel to a Zionist who truly thinks that he has a nuanced view of a country he loves.

And then you’ve got the Seraphites (Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims), an angry backwards religious cult that hates progress and queerness and religious freedom, it’s members all brainwashed and worshipping a powerful prophet who proved her worth by performing miracles to win military victories for the cause. All of their children either become child soldiers or child brides for the elders. They hate using technology or anything from the modern world, their backwards culture holds them back and makes them socially/militarily weak. They enact violent lynchings against any poor WLF soldier that crosses their path. Besides Lev and Yara, they are a monolith, a people who exist as violent enemies to slaughter or as brainwashed masses to be pitied as they are massacred. Again, a perfect metaphor for both Islam and Palestinians to a man who has only ever seen both groups through the eyes of Israeli propaganda.

Notably, there is of course no apartheid, no checkpoints, no forced migration by one group or another in the history of the conflict (which we slowly learn through notes and diaries and letters scattered throughout the game). The WLF did not slaughter Seraphites in order to steal their homes, did not take their land and murder their families, nor did they force the Seraphites into concentration camps. The WLF has not been policing the Seraphites’ crops, has not been seizing their funds or resources, or poisoning their wells. The Seraphites aren’t trying to reclaim their stolen land or get the boot of the WLF off their neck. There is no actual ongoing reason for the war, the only reason the Seraphites are still fighting is to “get vengeance” and “kill the degenerate Wolves” rather than to live freely, because Druckmann sees this as the root of the Palestinian cause. To him, Palestinians are not fighting because they’re oppressed by Israel but because they hate Israeli culture and Judaism, and because they can’t just let bygones be bygones (the “bygones” in this case being ethnic cleansing). To him, Israel isn’t oppressing Palestinians and profiting off their suffering, Israel is just fighting back against antisemitism and maybe going too far to protect itself.

In the game, both sides were hurt by FEDRA, and then after the WLF defeated FEDRA, the Seraphites randomly pushed into the suburbs to terrorize the citizens there, causing them to rush to join the WLF. From then on both sides in tandem kept attacking and thus escalating conflicts into more and more violence. There is no oppression, no power differential, one side is not living in the forcibly abandoned houses of the other. There is no reason for conflict, only the meaningless violence that would immediately end if we could all just get along and stop trading completely equal blows.

The conflict ends on an uncertain note that nauseatingly mirrors the current reality. After escalating conflicts, the WLF launches a violent all-out attack on the largest Seraphite base, their island, wiping out most of the Seraphites, razing their fields and crops, slaughtering their children, and burning down almost everything the Seraphites spent decades building. The WLF in turn have lost much of their military force, but their homes and their children seem blissfully unharmed at the end of this. The future is uncertain, but it seems that the WLF/IOF is the “winner”. And it’s all very tragic to Druckmann of course, the dead Scars/Arabs are a very sad thing that could have been avoided if everyone just listened and relaxed. Material oppression doesn’t matter, and this could all just be solved by having integrated schools or whatever.

[mylight-png]

Antizionism is Antisemitism

You know what's so very strange? Most people tend to forget that Judaism is an ethnoreligion, but mostly in the direction of forgetting that being Jewish is an ethnicity and not just a religion.

However, what I've noticed is that in the discussion of whether or not antizionism is antisemitism, people tend to go in the opposite direction.

They think that they're not saying "Jews are bad" or making nose/money jokes, so obviously it's fine, right?

It's not fine.

To begin the explanation of why, we first need to establish a definition for "zionism". This is the idea that Jews have the right to self-determination in our indigenous homeland of Israel. No more nor less than that.

So, why is antizionism inherently antisemitic?

This form of antisemitism does not attack Jews from the ethnic or cultural standpoint, but only the religious one. The idea of self-determination in Israel is a core Jewish belief. During the Amidah prayer we turn to face the land we came from. Every year after the Pesach seder we say, "Next year in Jerusalem!" And each winter we celebrate our reclamation of our indigenous land (Judea/Israel) from colonizers (Greeks).

Not all Zionists are Jewish, but a vast majority of Jews are Zionists because it is so important to our religion and identity.

So when people chant "death to Zionists" or "Zionists you can't hide" what they're really saying is "death to Jews who keep the values of their traditional religion" and "Jews who practice Judaism, you can't hide".

By attacking a core Jewish belief, they automatically make most Jews a target.

See the problem? You can't hate a central part of Judaism and then say you don't hate Jews.

Because you do.

If you hate Zionism, you hate Jews who practice Judaism.

And that's antisemitism.

[queenwille]

is it finally time to reveal that one of the main reasons hamas took the chance on october 7th was a political crisis in israel?

i’ll try to make it short for my ADHD sibs in the crowd:

israel had a really tough political crisis between 2019 to 2022, where no elected leader was able to gather a government (men) under the israeli democratic requirements, so it led to 5 elections in 4 years 🫨

when finally netanyahu managed to build a coalition by selling his dignity and the israeli soul to religious extremists (as he always does since he only cares about being on top, no matter what) the very large secular and left public in israel were having non of that.

forward a few months, the extremist criminal members of the coalition tried to pass an absence law that takes the grand jury’s power to overrule the government if needed, which fired up protests and manifests literally EVERYWHERE. public facilities closed down as an act of rebellion, roads were blocked and much more. Galant, the minister of defense, said publicly that the gov really needs to freeze the passing of that law due to valid concerns about the country and its citizens’ safety. due to that comment, netanyahu publicly announced that he’d be firing galant for going against the government’s current agenda. oh boy, the night that happened, all hell broke loose. people literally shot the country down until the late late hours of the night. the lack of freedom of speech was a serious deal breaker (reminder: they have been protesting HARD for W E E K S). many were on reserved duty (it’s when they complete their mandatory service, but come every once in a while for a few days of duty like training or backup and in case of a war, they need to report back to duty when they’re up to date and well trained) said they wouldn’t come to their scheduled duty days under a government that is extremist, not equal (ultra orthodox don’t have to serve as the rest) and doesn’t allow freedom of speech. it was a whole thing, netanyahu changed his tune real fast. you need to understand that for israelis to rebel against their duty is extreme af. military service in israel is mandatory and a valuable part of the soldiers’ culture and identity, it’s not a just job they chose like in many countries.

BACK TO THE AGENDA. hamas documents and recordings revel that they were very much aware of the ongoing civil (and military) crisis and mentioned it as a perfect opportunity to hurt israel.

many of you think that when we identify with the word zionist, it means we agree with everything. the main thing y’all cancel when you call israelis white colonialists, it’s first the rich and diverse population it has. are all christians alike? do all muslims think the same? why is it that when it comes to the jewish people, everyone is so quick to assume we’re all clones? judaism itself has a few ethnicities which is very much a topic on the israeli agenda since like forever. and then you have, as any other religion, religious people and then secular and then people who are in between. that’s all before you mention the 2.5m non jews living in israel.

TL;DR no, not only not all israelis support netanyahu, but you’d actually be surprised how many oppose to his egocentric regime. take the time and ask, don’t just take the easy way out of goysplaining.

[ranahan]

Mandalorian soul(s) & Mando’a words for them

So have you noticed how Mando’a has three different words for a soul or a spirit: manda, kar’am, and runi?

Warnings for lots of speculation and headcanons about Mandalorian religion and spirituality.

What is a soul?

First of all, I want to note that cultures around the world have very different ideas of what the soul is. The Christian idea of an immortal soul that goes to heaven after the body dies is hardly the only or even the most prevalent one. Many cultures believe there are many different kinds of souls and that humans have more than one soul.

I was going to draw examples from earthly cultures and religions, but I just put about 50 posts in my drafts folder and I want to publish this before it disappears in that black hole where no information escapes from. Suffice it to say that people have really different takes on what a soul is. Seriously, look up some examples. Blow your mind a bit.

GFFA of course also has the Force, so who knows what kinds of Force traditions Mandalorians have if any, and how those would affect their views of souls and spirituality. I recently reblogged Izzy’s interesting headcanons about Mandalorians and the Force, if anyone is in need of inspiration.

*maan- ‘original’ & Manda

In the canon dictionary, this root on its own is an adjective:

maan (adj): original, first

That’s “original, first” in the sense of “genuine, true” and given the derivations, the root *maan- at least probably also carries the meaning of “inherent, intrinsic, innate”.

*maan- also appears in words like:

veman (adj): real, genuine

Probably from *vut- ‘special’ + maan. “Really original”.

ramaan (n): death (a neutral term)

Probably from *ram- ‘attack’ + maan, “the original attack(er)” or ram + an, “one who attacks all”. Could be either. I’m more partial to the latter etymology, but I’m putting ramaan here just in case.

I believe that the element *mand- that appears in lots of words like mando, manda, and their derivations, is etymologically maan-ad, which has lost an unstressed vowel. This carries the meaning of ‘first person, original person’ or as a plural, “first/original people” which is actually what a number of earthly peoples call themselves. Like that’s a very, very common etymology for the name of your own tribe.

So I reconstruct *maanad (or the same with a short vowel, *manad) as an archaic word with the meaning of “a mandalorian”. I also reconstruct it with a second meaning of “true self, innate self, inner self”, or a soul in that sense. So then…

manda (n): collective soul

…could be an archaic plural of manad-a, with a lost syllable in the middle which is a really common pattern in Mando’a. Mando’a uses plural as a way to form collective concepts, so this is “all Mandalorian souls”.

So when you have gai bal manda, “name and soul”, or kir’manir ‘to adopt, give a soul to someone’, the soul here is specifically the Mandalorian soul, a partaking of the shared identity.

Kir’manir could also be glossed as “to give an origin”, which in Mandalorian terms is exactly what you are doing when you adopt someone: you take them in as a part of your clan. For Mandalorians who don’t care about bloodlines, this is just as legitimate a tie as being born into a clan: in both cases, you become a part of the shared ancestry and heritage.

This is a headcanon, but the picture I get of Mandalorians is that anyone can be a Mandalorian (if you have mandokar, literally “Mandalorian heart”)—but no one can be a Mandalorian without a clan (it’s in the Resol’nare & and in words like kir’manir). You need to get adopted in order to convert and become a Mandalorian. You need to have a clan to hold up the basic tenets of being a mando’ad. You need to be adopted in order to share in the web of souls that make up the manda. This is a really interesting dichotomy. It makes Mandalorians kind of into an ethnic religion like Judaism, only you don’t need to be born as a Mandalorian, only be adopted as one.

In fact, I think that adopting your biological children is really common if not the norm. If you view the gai bal manda in the light of giving the child a soul and a tie-in to the manda, then gai bal manda is to Mandalorians what baptism is to Christians. You can’t go to the Christian heaven without a baptism, and you can’t reach the manda without gai bal manda. I imagine this is where the fanon of adopting dead children so they don’t have to wander eternally comes from (someone hit me with a name; who came up with that? I love it!).

But also! Mandalorians in general are not depicted as very religious. So I guess this is one belief, but it is probably not shared universally and perhaps not even widely. Maybe it’s an old belief, developed in the aftermath of the Mandalorian Wars, when the tie of the non-Taung to their adopted ancestors was still tenuous, and while they were moving away from the worship of the old gods, religious beliefs of all kinds were still rampant. And in the upheaval before they settled on a new canon, all kinds of beliefs and split-off religious sects sprung up left and right.

kar’am

kar’am (n): breath

Okay, not soul. But I believe this is “breath” in the sense of “spirit” (breath and spirit are connected words in many many many languages). Not breath in the sense of “to breathe” as in the bodily function (that’s haal).

So what kind of a spirit is this? Well, it’s made of two roots: *kar- ‘heart, core’ and *am- ‘change’. Heart for mandalorians is also the seat of knowledge and by extension, consciousness. Change is a loaded concept spiritually.

But the interpretation I want to go with is that change is also considered the true nature of the reality and natural world, and is thus connected to a lot of words that relate to nature and reality. The Aay’han dictionary has aman (n): nature, lit. “one who changes all” and I absolutely adore that. So kar’am would be a more bodily spirit, related to life force, vital force, vitality and physical states. So you could derive words like:

akaan’karam: morale, fighting spirit

to’karam: “together spirit”, the spirit of pulling together for a common cause.

ures kar’am: listless, lifeless

Alternatively, you could derive these form these from oya instead.

Runi

runi (n): soul (poetic only)

My best guess is that this is *run- + nominal suffix -i.

Best I can tell, there are no other words related to it in the dictionary, unless it’s related to the past prefix r’/ru’ and ruug ‘old age’, in which case the sense could be something like “the thing which has gone” as in “the soul has fled”.

So what about the definition? Traviss says “poetic only”, so which poetic sense is she referring to? English (in which the translation is given) has several:

The innate quality that makes something itself, “the soul of (something)”. I would have been tempted to go for this sense, but for me that seems like repeating *maan-. It could of course be that over the time, maan has come to mean Mandalorianness specifically, so runi has acquired this more general sense which maan had originally.

The animating principle, vital force. Already interpreted kar’am this way. And even if I scrapped that interpretation, I’d go with oya instead, not runi.

Embodiment, personification. “You are the very soul of the party.”

Psyche, “body and soul”. Does not seem very “poetic” to me?

Person. “Not a soul.”

A strong positive feeling, inspiration, passion, fervour. Hmm, in Mando’a words like that seem to be derived from oya.

A supernatural spirit.

So which sense was Traviss going for? Shab if I know.

I’ll make a part 2 with some more derived words later, but now I want to post this before going to bed.

[secular-jew]

From my friend Hilde Vertlieb, Philadelphia PA, USA.

Now for a little lesson in actual History

In 622 Ad Mohammed was forced to flee Mecca. He and his band of followers were forced out by the Egyptian Polytheist, who did not recognize Mohammed (who was illiterate), his religion, or his fake prophet status. (By the way, while Egypt did hold Jews as slaves, Egypt did recognize Judaism).

Muhammad landed in Medina. And studied Judaism. At this time he incorporated certain parts of Talmudic Law into his newly invented religion, in the hopes of converting Jews to Islam. But the Jewish tribes of Medina, of which there were three, never accepted him as a prophet, and his Islamic Cult was seen as a religion.

So after 2 year in Medina unable to convert the Jews he declared war on the weakest tribe. Starting with the Murder of Ka'b lbn al-Aschraf.

It was said that in 624 AD, Ka'b In al-Aschraf had gone to Mecca to discover why Mohammed was expelled. And Mohammed had him Beheaded. Al-Ashraf was Chief of the Banu Oaynuqa tribe. Keep in mind Judaism was one of the original Tribal cultures, and Medina was roughly 50% jewish, 25% Christian, and 25% pagan. But he was most threatened by the (then very peaceful) Jews and so began the practice of ethnic cleansing. Muhammad ordered all the Jews killed. But his ally Abdullah In Ubayy intervened. And the Banu Oaynuqa tribe was initially spared and exiled to Edri (now Jordan).

In 625, Muhammad attacked the Banu Nadir tribe. They were date farmers. But again Abdullah In Ubayy intervened. As Muslims were not farmers. They were exiled to Khaybar. But forced to practice their religion in secret. As Mohammed permitted no religion but Islam to exist on the Arabian Peninsula. They were kept as Dhimmis and forced to pay exorbitant taxes ( tribute) to Mohammed and Islam.

Back in Medina, only one of the three Jewish tribes remained, and they were the wine makers. And in 627, after the death of Abdullah Ibn Ubbay, he laid siege to the last tribe. This tribe was absolutely destroyed, driven by Mohammed's blood lust and hatred of Jews. The Children were spared but sold off as slaves. The women were also spared but given to Muslim soldiers as sex slaves. And then Muhammad had all the 700-800 men (basically everyone who exhibited puberty, so mostly 14 and older) decapitated in the Market Place of Medina. It was said the blood of Jews flooded the Market of Medina (Muslims now claim it was a mass suicide, you know since beheading is a common suicide choice). By 627 AD Mohammed had essentially destroyed or enslaved the entire population of Jews of Khaybar (now Medina).

After his death in 637 AD all the surviving Jews were expelled to Mesopotamia, which then the Muslims again invaded, and it became Iraq, and newly created Islamic Jihadis, expelled the Jews once again. The point is NONE OF THE LAND WAS MUSLIM, IT IS ALL OCCUPIED TERRITORY. FROM THE MANY CULTURES ISLAM DESTROYED IN THE NAME OF MUHAMMAD AND THEIR RELIGION. I say give it all back. Stop the spread of this malignancy. And push this crew back to the only ground they can claim, which was the area around a cave near Mecca that Mohammed crawled out of. By the way how did Mecca, the place Mohammad was first expelled, become Islam's most Holy site? Interesting question. because none of that region is the property of Islam. By my primary concern is the Jews. The rightful heirs to not only Israel but apparently, Jordan, since at least 624 AD and Khaybar, and Judea, and on and on. Jews were never the occupiers, they were the indigenous, the ones whose land was occupied.

And when they say Jews don't exist, they are European Colonizers, remember and remind them of Islam's perpetual apartheid in the Middle East that expelled Jews (and Christians and Copts), explaining the diaspora -- and how many Jews ended up in Europe and AS THEY OCCUPIED THE JEWISH HOMELAND. While we are at it, tell the Islamist-majority body of the UN to buzz off. Their phony partitions created this mess, by letting THEIR ANTISEMITISM GUIDE THEIR DECISION TO GIVE AWAY JEWISH LAND TO ARAB OCCUPIERS.

[intosnarkness]

I was raised in a very Christian household, used to get on this website for teenagers and young people to mingle among other people in the faith and I had a friend who was what she called a Messianic Jew. From memory I can’t really remember the differences, I’m strictly just curious. It always fascinates me how different being raised in Jewish household can be compared to Christianity, a lot of similarities but a lottttt more big differences.

I'm not sure what your exact question is here, but I'm going to answer "what is a messianic jew?". If that's not what you meant, please let me know.

Messianic Jews are people who call themselves Jewish while believing that Christ is the Messiah.

And here's why I have a problem with that:

The first thing we have to do is define "jew", which is a lot harder than you think. Jews are an ethnoreligious group. Very simply, that means that to be "Jewish" is both an ethnicity and a religion.

My family is ethnically Ashkenazi Jewish; when we entered the diaspora we went to the Holy Roman Empire, then Germany, and finally settled in Eastern Europe. When my mom did a DNA test, she got "96% Ashkenazi Jewish" on her results. It is a group that can be traced through DNA as well as culture and location. (More about Jewish Ethnic divisions.) You cannot become an Ashkenazi Jew unless you are born as one, just like you cannot become Hispanic or Latino unless you are born as one.

Now, my family is also religiously Jewish, meaning I grew up in Jewish traditions. I went to Hebrew school, I became Bat Mitzvah when I was 13, and I hold Jewish values and a Jewish outlook. Anyone can become a religious Jew through conversion. It's not easy, but it can be done and is done all the time. Once you convert, you are considered no different from people who grew up in the faith, and I was raised that it is forbidden to ever ask if a person is a convert.

So, a religiously Jewish person can be of any ethnicity and an ethnically Jewish person can be any religion. Therefore, it is possible to have a Christian Jew- that is, an ethnically Jewish person who has converted to Christianity. There are actually a lot of these, in no small part due to things like the Spanish Inquisition, which allowed conversion as an alternative to death or exile. It's why people like Madeline Albright are possible; she was raised Roman Catholic and didn't know she was ethnically Jewish until she read about it in the Washington Post.

Okay, so that's our definition of terms. A Jew is someone of the Jewish ethnic group, a person who practices Judaism, or someone who is both.

Now, we have to ask ourselves, what is a Messiah? Messiah, or Moshiach, is a Hebrew word for King. And depending on what kind of Jew you ask, he may or may not be coming. Remember, if you have 5 Jews, you have 6 opinions. We don't agree on much. And for the record, I was taught that it is every Jew's job to make the world as good as possible and get us as close as possible to the Messianic age, because Moshiach will only come when he is no longer needed. This is part of what Tikkun Olam is, literally "repairing the world". But the general thrust is that, if he is coming, Moshiach will rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and usher in an era of peace and prosperity for Jews.

Because Jesus did neither of those things, he does not fit the Jewish requirement to be Moshiach. So Judaism believes that Jesus was a false messiah. He said some good shit, but he wasn't The Guy.

So, a person who believes that Jesus is Moshiach cannot be religiously Jewish. It just doesn't jibe with the rest of it. They can be ethnically Jewish, but that's not in general what Messianic Jews mean.

Now, I also have a knee-jerk "oh fuck that" reaction to messianic Judaism, specifically Jews for Jesus, because they have run themselves for years as a covert conversion front. Cause Jesus is only going to come back when the Jews are all either in Israel, dead, or Christians. So convert 'em. It's deeply unsettling to me. I don't want to call it genocidal, but it does seem to hinge on the destruction of groups of people, so.

IDK if that answers your question, but that's what I've got for now.

[irrealis-mood]

Very long and complicated post about Japan and Judaism/Israel ahead. Please read if you can.

A video of a pro-Israel Japanese demonstration kept popping up and it was making me think and gave me a hefty feeling of worry and skepticism.

I shouldn’t have to preface this also by saying I don’t support the decisions of the Israeli government, but people with no nuance on this site love to think Jews are a monolith, and I don’t want to go into the whole “good Jew bad Jew” “dual loyalty” thing because that’s a WHOLE other thing.

I also preface this by saying that I’m not a Japanese citizen. However, I did live and work in Japan and have been traveling there since 2016 for internships. I do not claim to be an expert on Japan or Jewishness. All that follows is what I experienced as a Jewish person that lived in Japan.

Japan is a country with a very little Jewish population (estimated less than 2000, most of which are not legally considered citizens) with a significant lack of knowledge of actual Jewish people or culture, with very few safe spaces for people who are Jewish to have community. More on this later.

There isn’t a lot of knowledge, among young people especially, about the Holocaust, for instance, that hasn’t been watered down at least a bit, in my experience. This isn’t just a problem with Japan’s comfort with Jewish people and Judaism, but with its own lack of accepting and owning up to its own bloody histories especially during World War II. Whitewashing history isn’t just a Japanese problem obviously, but it’s a pretty egregious one Japan has in respect to mistreating indigenous cultures, ethnic Koreans and what is disgustingly called “comfort women”.

While I was working in Japan I assisted in the set up of a peace exhibit which in part, due to my efforts, discussed the atrocities of the Holocaust and the artwork from the children kept in the Terezin concentration camp. I was in touch with one scholar who was essentially the voice on Japanese knowledge of Terezin. I brought up my Jewishness multiple times, but it always had a feeling it was being brushed over.

A lot of the panels lent to us by her mentioned Judaism only from the idea that we were victims, without discussion of anything about our culture or context. Even when the scholar spoke of the atrocities, Judaism was barely mentioned outside of being a descriptor of something banned from schools, or put into ghettos.

So many people who visited the exhibit knew nothing about Terezin, had never heard of it, never knew the extent of the horrible conditions in the camps. Some reacted openly by sobbing and crying out during her speech, proving the lack of knowledge. I was raised alongside the children of Terezin’s pictures as a young Jewish child; I grew up with stories of the Holocaust and pogroms from such an early age I never had a chance not to know it.

The majority of what I experienced as a Jewish person who has lived in Japan for some time exposed me to the fact that the majority of what touts itself to be pro-Jewish resources is Messianic Judaism, which is not Judaism. Many of the Jewish resources other than that are from Chabads, of which there are maybe a handful scattered around Japan. Even less of these are Jewish community centers or synagogues. A multitude of fringe, new and Christianity based religions that lay claim to Israel do have presences here. Many of those religions, including Messianic Judaism are known to appropriate Hebrew as a “sacred language”.

Antisemitism is rampant in Japan, even if it’s not always outright. Nazi symbolism appears in cosplay and decorations and fashion as an image of “counterculture” or “punk.” When it’s not outright, it’s ignorance and the discussions of new world orders. It’s a common thought that there really aren’t any Jews in Japan.

When I saw that pro-Israel demonstration, I looked for any outward display of Judaism. In Japan there’s a strong possibility that by participating in protests or demos you can get your visa revoked and get deported.

In that demo there was no one wearing kippahs, or tallit. They sang in Hebrew but it didn’t make me feel better. It just made me wonder, where is this coming from? Because if your support of Israel really and truly meant your support of Jewish people, it doesn’t seem like it.

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

When Hollywood erases Jews, also known as modern day “acceptable” antisemitism

Let’s start with some definitions.

Jews - Jewish people, either through religion and/or ethnicity. The reason for the “or” is because many Jews don’t practice Judaism, but they are still 100% as Jewish. And depending on who you ask (2 Jews 3 opinions), when a person converts in they join the tribe and become (for all intents and purposes) ethnically Jewish as well (their kids are ethnically Jewish). All that to say— Being Jewish does not automatically mean a purely religious affiliation.

Antisemitism - Jew hate. There is no hyphen in the word. It does not mean hate against other semantic people, because there are only semantic languages, not groups. This term was coined by the Nazis to make hating Jews sound fancy. If a Jew tells you something is antisemitic, believe them.

“Acceptable” - In this context, this means socially and culturally acceptable. Something that the wider world just goes with and accepts as normalized and just how things are. It doesn’t mean it is right or okay, it purely just means that it is what is accepted by mass amounts of people.

Now, let’s discuss what we know about Jewish actors on TV or in movies.

From the earliest eras of Hollywood, Jews were around. They were founding companies, writing songs, writing scripts, and if they could— acting.

Jewish actors of the time (and into present day) would more often than not have to change their names in order to not reveal their Jewishness. Let me repeat that— Jews were running some studios, but yet Jewish actors still had to pretend to not be Jewish in order to appeal to the audiences. So they did. And they do.

Long before Hollywood’s time, and stretching as far back as ancient theatre and even Shakespearean theatre, Jewish characters were played by someone “dressed Jewish.” Meaning large hooked nose pieces, sleazy clothing, basically the visual representation of antisemitic tropes. This was the Jewish representation happening for centuries. Pure hate live on stage. This happened with minstrel shows for Black characters and Asian characters too. Basically if you weren’t white, you were a stereotype.

This is still true today.

Look at any show/film that has Jewish characters in them. Here’s just a few.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

The Goldbergs

Hollywood

Moon Knight

The Simpsons

New Girl

Transparent

Shiva Baby

These shows all contain stereotypes against Jews, use Jews are the punchline for jokes, only have Jewish characters for jokes, or just don’t include Jewish actors to even play those Jewish roles.

There’s a few things about this:

The Hollywood industry believes Jews only exist when they want them too. Such as for villain, victim, or vaudeville reasons. Example: The evil character is Jewish (that new teen movie I can’t remember the name of where the boy wears a Star of David and is the villain), the victim (every WW2 movie ever), the vaudeville clown (every time there’s a joke about the noses, the banks, the bagels, etc). Jews are so very rarely ever real people.

Not having Jewish actors playing Jewish roles is Jew-face, a term coined by Sarah Silverman. It started out meaning when non-Jewish actors put on a Jewish appearance to play Jewish, but now it just encompasses any non-Jew playing a Jew. Much like how blackface and yellowface and redface are.

Yes. Not casting Jews is a problem. Remember the first definition? It’s an ethnic group. You literally cannot play an ethnicity you are not a part of. It’s literally impossible. An actor cannot change their DNA (see the mention about converts and how they join the tribe therefore are included in any talk of Jewish ethnicity).

I repeat. An actor cannot play an ethnicity they are not. It is impossible. Any actor playing Jewish while not being Jewish themselves is literally erasing a minority ethnicity from the screen. That’s just a fact. Same way it would be if they cast a white actor to play hispanic or asian.

What actors who are cast in roles that are of a differing ethnicity to them do, is they (at the fault of the production) put on stereotypes to represent that ethnicity, because they want to show that this character is a certain way, but can’t do so because the actor is not. And we’re back at the ancient theatre history with actors in prosthetic noses begging for their pound of flesh.

And why is this acceptable to audiences?

Jews are a minority. Like .2% global, minority. There are about 24x as many people following Kim K on Instagram than there are Jews in the world. More people follow antisemites than there are Jews being recorded on census.

Since there are so few Jews in the world at all, people don’t realize that Jewish representation is lacking. Because it’s always lacking. You don’t see what’s not there, and then when there’s non-Jews playing Jews on TV or in movies, it just seems normal.

Most non-Jews (Christians) only view Jews as religion based followers, since that is what they know of their own religions. They are either religious or they have no religious affliction and therefore their ethnicity is wherever they or their parents are from. Their culture is (in the West) Christian-centric even if removed from religion. While Jews, even if not religious, are still Jewish.

So not having real Jews on screen erases an entire ethnic and religious group. But people are okay with it, because they don’t realize what is happening.

There are few explicitly Jewish characters at all, and yet of those roles, less than a quarter of them are played by actual Jewish actors. Of the shows listed above, less than a quarter are Jewish. In the larger Jewish cast shows there are an average of 2 Jewish actors per 10 Jewish characters. Otherwise there are no Jews portraying themselves.

Imagine if this were any other ethnicity. Can you imagine the outcry? Hollywood did. That’s why ScarJo is no longer playing Asian roles, and why they’ve stopped tanning white actors for West Side Story. Yet not even a month ago they announced that Daisy Edgar-Jones (not-Jewish) would be playing Carole King (very Jewish) in her biopic. Where is the outcry from the non-Jews?

I often think about this moment from Hollywood. Patti LuPone portraying Avis (a Jewish Hollywood icon who is fictional but based on real people). Patti, Italian like many famous Jew-face actors are, says this:

Ironic, huh? “Nobody thought a Jewish girl could be a movie star. Nobody thought they were pretty” said by a non-Jewish actress, playing a Jewish role. Seems some people still don’t think Jewish girls could be movie stars.

So again I ask, why is Jew-erasure in the form of not casting Jews as Jews acceptable in society? Why is this form of antisemitism okay?

Because it’s all we’ve known. Because people don’t consider Jews a minority ethnicity the same way they do other groups. Because there are too few Jews to complain about it. Because contrary to belief, Jews don’t run Hollywood. Because nobody thinks Jewish girls are pretty. Because Jews can only serve a Jewish plot, and if a character doesn’t have to be Jewish, it’s erased.

Canon and non-fictional Jews can’t just be erased when you want them to be if it doesn’t fit with your ideas.

Jew-erasure is Jew-hate is antisemitism.

Erasing Jewishness from the screen is erasure. Is hatred. Is antisemitism.

Many just are so used to it, that it doesn’t raise any hairs. But reminder, blackface was common into the 50s and is a disgusting practice. Them taping the corner of actor’s eyes to play Asian, or tanning them to play indigenous, used to be common too. But not anymore. Things change, rightfully so. So why can’t it change for Jews too?

As always, ask questions if you have any. I’m planning on doing another post about this with some additional thoughts at a later date, but my computer is dead so figured I’d get some out now.

Here’s a list of shows with good Jewish rep:

Schitts Creek (Kids are both half-Jewish, Johnny is Sephardic). Made and stars Jewish actors (Eugene and Dan and Sarah, since they explicitly have the characters as both Jewish and Christian I’m giving them a break with Annie). They are normal people doing normal Schitts Creek thangs.

House. Stars Lisa Edelstein as Jewish Lisa Cuddy. There’s only episode that really digs into her being Jewish when it talks about her mom converting to Judaism, but it’s not handled badly. Lisa is just a regular person, her Jewishness is never outwardly a focus, but you know it’s there.

9-1-1 Lone Star. Ronen Rubinstein and Lisa Edelstein. Ronen as TK, Lisa as his mom. In season 1, TK wasn’t explicitly any religion/known ethnicity. But when Lisa was introduced, she came in as a Jewish character and so TK became one too. It was never heavy handed and only really came up a handful of times. All pretty tasteful. Both Ronen and Lisa are Jewish.

Okay nobody is reading this any longer so that’s it for now. Bye!