#Hassidic community

[artsmuklermd]

NINE NORTH, 5 STAR Review, Art Smukler, MD, author & psychiatrist

NINE NORTH, 5 STAR Review, Art Smukler, MD, author & psychiatrist

Nine North By Art Smukler November 14, 2022 Reviewed by Angie Mangino, freelance journalist & book reviewer Rating: 5 stars “Two years and one day after Nelson Bennett died, he rose from the dead.” What a powerful way to immerse readers into the story! The author goes on to introduce Jake. “… ‘Nelson!’ Jake yelled. ‘Nelson!’ The man was about fifty feet away – close enough for Jake to…

[infiniteglitterfall]

Uggghhh, what is UP with Canada?!

In Vancouver, the Schara Tzedeck synagogue's windows were smashed on April 19th.

In Toronto on April 19, five windows at the Kehillat Shaarei Torah synagogue were smashed with a hammer.

In Toronto on April 26, someone set a sign on fire at Beth Tikvah Synagogue....

....And again on April 28.

In Toronto in May, Jewish community members started escorting a kid to school because he was being bullied by peers who told him, "We're going to do to you what Hamas did to Israel," pushed him, kicked him, threw stones at him, and told him, "we need to kill you." This had been going on for six months. (His family had gone to both the school and police repeatedly at this point and it had only escalated; the kids throwing stones at him on the way to school was new.)

In Toronto on May 17th, Kehillat Shaarei Torah's windows were smashed again.

On May 25th before dawn, two people shot at Bais Chaya Muska, a Jewish girls' school in Toronto.

On May 29th, in the middle of the night, someone shot at the Belz Yeshiva Ketana school in Montreal.

In Vancouver on May 30, someone poured fuel on the doors of the Schara Tzedeck synagogue, then firebombed them.

In an article on June 7, Rabbi Lisa Grushcow of Emanu-El-Beth Sholom synagogue in Montreal said people have yelled “Hitler was right!” and “Jew!” at her congregants as they arrive for Shabbat services and that Jewish kids are being bullied in local schools.

On June 1 in Toronto, a man smashed the window of the Anshei Minsk synagogue with a rock.

On June 3 in Kitchener, someone smashed the front door of Beth Jacob synagogue.

On June 19th in Montreal, three small bullet-like holes were somehow made in the windows of Falafel Yoni. (I don't know, all the articles go out of their way to say they don't know WHAT made the holes.) Falafel Yoni is owned by a Jewish man who was born in Israel, and has appeared on boycott lists despite the owner never having said anything political about Israel.

On the same day, down the street from Falafel Yoni, someone smashed the windows of a nearby gym whose co-owner is Jewish and had also been born in Israel.

On June 30 in Toronto, someone threw stones at the Pride of Israel synagogue, then at Kehillat Shaarei Torah, smashing windows (again) in the latter.

On the weekend of July 27th, a father and son in Toronto were arrested for planning a terrorist attack and murder on behalf of ISIL, which is wild.

On July 29th, someone torched a bus belonging to the Bobov Hassidic school in Toronto.

And smashed the windows of a DIFFERENT Jewish school in Toronto, Leo Baeck Jewish Day School, and set it on fire.

On July 31 in Toronto, guess which synagogue had three signs set on fire? That's right: Kehillat Shaarei Torah.

Plus one sign set afire at Toronto's Temple Sinai Congregation the same night, presumably by the same arsonist, who might even have been the stone-hurler of June 30.

There are probably ones I missed. Just putting this list together took like three hours, though. I kept having to go, "Wait, surely that can't be the same synagogue AGAIN" and "they only mention the closest major intersection, which one was this?!" and "that can't be a different one, how many windows did they smash??" and go look for more sources. Plus a couple of articles were giving conflicting dates for one of the incidents.

And nobody ever gives actual dates, they just say shit like, "Blah blah blah was reported Monday...." so I have to look at the article date and then look at a damn calendar.

I went back as far as April because everything I found was referring to earlier incidents. Back to April. February and March were relatively quiet, at least in the news. Although interestingly, February is when the most hate crimes in Toronto had been reported, at least as of ... oh, I see.

As of March.

On the bright side, I did discover that Kehillat Shaarei Torah consistently has great jokes on its sign.

[batboyblog]

I keep having an idea for like a Jewish Percy Jackson book series. Basically the idea that Yiddish/Ashkenazi folklore is/was real and like Percy Jackson's greek gods the dybbuks, Golems, demons and all the rest came west to New York City and they're under the city in the subway tunnels and sewers

And I was thinking of two main characters. There's Josh a very modern teenager, who loves ghost hunters, and super natural podcasts and loves his bubbie's stories of Yiddish folklore. He travels into the subway armed with a camera and ghost hunting equipment and comes face to face with....

Yehudah, AKA Hoodie, a young Hassid from Brooklyn. Hoodie's family from hundreds of years have kept the spirts down, fought monsters, and protected the community, first in the old country and now in New York using folk magic and things

Josh is all about science and trying to understand "okay but how does it work?" and Hoodie is very "it's tradition this how its done, please shut up and stop getting in trouble!" A story of two Bar Mitzvah boys studying Torah, dealing with middle school, each other, and being stuck in the tunnels under NYC in the middle of the night facing the horrors

[girlactionfigure]

How a Kabbalist Accidentally Became an Arsonist: A True Tale of the Rabbi who Burned Down the Jewish Ghetto of Frankfurt in 1711 🔥🧵

By 1704, when he was invited to become Chief Rabbi of Frankfurt, Rabbi Naphtali Katz had gained renown throughout Ashkenaz as a Ba'al Shem—a shamanic healer, amulet writer, and kabbalist.

His tenure in Frankfurt was brief. It ended on Jan. 14th, 1711, when a fire spread from his home & reduced the Judengasse—then the largest Jewish community in Germany—to ashes.

He was arrested by German authorities on claims of arson & witchcraft and was held for five months before being exiled from Frankfurt. 

Soon after the fire, this poster was hung by Christians throughout the Judengasse. The left side depicts the Jews fleeing the flames.

The right side reads (in part):  "Alas! The happiest [and] most unhappy day On which at Frankfurt am Main The Jewish quarter having been set ablaze With Rabbi Naphtali the Pole being the cause Within the space of 24 hours burned to the foundations." 

How exactly did Rabbi Naphtali cause this urban wildfire? Johann Jacob Schudt, in his "Jewish Oddities"(1714, Frankfurt) records several rumors. One popular account blamed his kabbalistic malpractice...

"The Rabbi, who was a great kabbalist, had himself set the fire to show his students how he could extinguish the fire...(but) in his haste to put it out he had summoned the Prince of Fire instead of the Prince of Water & that is why the fire grew." Oops! 

This is a painting made by the German Jewish artist Johann Nothnagel entitled, "Rabbi Naphtali Cohen with two Schoolchildren" (1772). It portrays this scene of angelic conjuring & accidental arson. 

The Magen David image before him was part of a popular kabbalistic recipe for extinguishing fires. The radiant and hovering disk = the angelic Prince of Fire. Smoke emerges from the top right & the student's faces flash concern. 

Nothnagel made a copy of this painting a few years later with one significant change: The abstract disk is replaced with a more concrete angelic figure.

Notice how this version has been modeled after another scene of angelic conjuring: Rembradnt's "Faust" (1652).

In a sort of full-circle, Rembrandt was likely modeling his portrait on tropes of Kabbalah popular during his time.

Who is the Prince of Fire (Sa'ar Ha-Esh)? Midrashic sources identify him with the archangel Gabriel. "Michael is the angel of snow and Gabriel of fire; this one does not extinguish that one, and that one does not harm this one." (Shir Ha-Shirim Rabbah 3:11) 

Sefer Ha-Razim, a magic text from the time of the Midrash, identifies two other angelic fire-archons: "Yabniel is in charge of all things concerning the igniting & extinguishing of fire... Deleqiel is in charge of flames of fire, to kindle or quench them."

Rashi (1040-1105) already reports that summoning these angels was uniquely difficult.

Interestingly, a very similar story to Rabbi Naphtali's arson is told about another Ashkenazi Ba'al Shem—The Ba'al Shem Tov/Besht. This version is from "In Praise of the Besht" (Kopust, 1814).

A second version of this story is told by a later hassidic master.

This incident would have occurred not long after 1711 (the Besht is born in 1698 & these tales occur in his youth). And, reportedly, the Besht knew of Rabbi Naphtali & mocked his ascetic model of practical Kabbalah.

The upshot? Don't start a fire to prove you can put it out + When Kabbalah is no longer theoretical but also "practical," its relationship to the elements and society is more acute & mistakes have material & historical consequences.

[determinate-negation]

i know new york being the ancestral homeland of jews is a joke but as a jew from europe it literally feels that way. like i cannot imagine like a whole street written in hebrew. like i want to go there just to see that. i dont think jews inthe united states are aware of how good they have it

i do want to note that america is also a settler colonial state and its only because of specific american aims of the settler project and material realities of the economy and the physical land they were trying to settler that theyve had this “melting pot” ideology where jews were incorporated similarly to italian and irish immigrants, instead of continuing to have deeply ingrained religious and cultural antisemitism like europe. there were in some periods of us history more restrictions on jewish immigration and some institutional barriers for jews, especially before and during ww2, but never to the same degree as europe. although american jews were rarely (if ever, i dont know any examples but there could be some) violent genocidal settlers like the anglos and generally migrated later, we were still settlers searching for economic interests provided by american expansion on native land. that being said were here now and have the status of any other american settler (meaning people who arent indigenous or descended from enslaved people brought here against their will) most indigenous theorists and activists maintain that they want sovereignty, reparations, companies to stop destroying native land, etc, not every american settler to leave. i really believe that the united states also must fall, but i dont think this makes us like not belonging, at least any more than the other settlers.

i just want to say this to explain that my love for new york and the east coast us is complex. objectively the multicultural and cosmopolitan aspects of nyc that make it unique are products of american imperialism– for example nyc is the most linguistically diverse city in the world! over 600 languages are spoken here, including languages that arent spoken anywhere else anymore, but think about why that is. and the flourishing of jewish communities and culture in parts of the us was a product of specific historic processes and policies, and we like any other descendants of settler-immigrants have to grapple with that. i think its possible to oppose and fight against american imperialism and settler colonialism and still deeply appreciate the contradictory aspects of culture in america. (which lbr all the dynamic and interesting and worth preserving things about american culture were not created by anglos, but by outsiders and oppressed people) anyways this is all just to say im really not coming at it from a nationalist perspective but a diaspora perspective but yeah, new york is such a jewish city its genuinely incredible. this is why i especially despise tri state area zionists... youre ignoring that you live in the greatest place in the world for jews. literally the most jewish city in the world. like theres a moving company called schleppers here, yiddish words are part of everyones dialect, you can get the best jewish food everywhere from delis that are like 100 years old, we literally have a truck called the mitzvah tank that chabad drives around and asks people on the street if theyre jewish. the only romaniote synagogue in the western hemisphere is here and they have a greek jewish festival every year (which unfortunately is always covered in israeli flags -_-) the whole foods by one of my work sites had a sign up for yom kippur catering because the neighborhood is so jewish.

jewish culture and history and jews in general are just part of the fabric of life in new york. also whatever street youre talking about was probably written in yiddish since thats what most of the hassidic jews speak here! nyc has the largest concentration of yiddish speakers, which isnt surprising, and its the 8th most spoken language in nyc. theres also a big and still growing bukharian community here too. if you ever can, i really recommend visiting new york. theres so much jewish culture and history here. a lot of american jews live much more isolated, so i cant speak for them, but for many parts of the north east i feel that were lucky. antisemitism exists here but idk ive grown up in pretty jewish areas and never really experienced it. europe sounds legitimately shitty. also... fun fact, netanyahu went to high school in the suburbs outside of philly

^my photos in the lower east side, and heres some photography of hassidic williamsburg too

also williamsburg

[spacelazarwolf]

We should also denote that the lines between Jewish movements are often not as hard and fast as people think (they're thinking of Christian Churches) where I grew up the Synagogue was nominally reform, but because it was the ONLY Synagogue for at least 100 miles everyone went and there were a fair number of people who maybe would have been Orthodox if the option was open. I imagine there are lots of Mod-Orthodox Synagogues across America that are very much the same, the one center of Jewish life in the area so everyone is caught and the temple is maybe a little flexible (as ours was) in style and ritual to accommodate people. Also "Orthodox" covers a lot of ground from Modern Orthodox, while we do really like him very much the only Orthodox Jew I can think of to serve in Congress was Joe Lieberman, a moderate to Conservative Democrat, to Hassidic and Haredi, and idk the numbers but those deeply conservative Communities I think are outnumbered seriously by the Mod-Orthodox who by and large look and act like any average Americans on the street and according to polling are split about 50-50 Democrat-Republican (vs overwhelming Democratic majorities among Reform and Conservative Jews in America)

this!!!!!!

[forthegothicheroine]

New-to-me (horror) movies seen in 2023: The Vigil (2019)

@goryhorroor ’s challenge: Horror that takes place in one location

Yaakov is a formerly Orthodox Jew, but you can never fully leave your religion and culture behind. He attends a discussion group with other ex-Hassids, he speaks Hebrew and Yiddish with old-school Ashkenazi vowels, he remembers the Mourner's Kaddish word for word, and he carries the psychological scars of a violent anti-semitic attack. When he is offered a job as a shomer, wherein he will watch over a shroud-covered body the night before a funeral, he reluctantly agrees and takes along some emergency pills.

It's not going to go well.

The deceased was a Holocaust survivor who was followed by a mazzik, a demon, all the way to America. It's still here, making his body writhe and sending Yakov phone calls that aren't what they seem. The only explanations he can get come from a widow with dementia and a video from a dead man, and the only weapon he has is the wherewithal to say the shema when he is in danger. At least in the last respect, I've been there.

Dave Davis as Yaakov has beautifully mournful eyes, which convey the perfect mix of sorrow and fear and even a little hope. The real star of the film, however, is dead before the start. We see a brief video clip of the late Rubin Litvak, and eventually a flashback of the beginning of his possession, but his trauma, history and love hang heavy over everything.

As they say, "you don't have to be Jewish" to enjoy The Vigil. For the duration of the film, though, at least imagine you are. Imagine the community and its loss, falling back on things you no longer believe in just to survive- and then in a mostly happy ending, still not being up for going to services right now. Just think about it, because Yaakov certainly is.

[ravensvirginity]

I saw this on a post with over 50k notes and honestly, this kind of thing pisses me off. Yiddish is just as much of a real language as English or any other language you can think of. It isn't just a few funny English words like the ones you probably know (shlep, shmuck, nosh, etc). The long dramatic Yiddish insults that get passed around every few years on listicle websites aren't things anyone actually says. Yiddish isn't any better suited for endearment or complaining than literally every other language in existence.

Do you know why so few Jews speak Yiddish today? Before the Holocaust there were 11 million Yiddish speakers worldwide, but after the Holocaust and the assimilation that followed there are now less than a million worldwide. Seeing Yiddish be further reduced to just silly complaining words is kind of heartbreaking to me.

Despite the decline in speakers, Yiddish is nowhere near dead! It's still spoken in Hassidic communities, and more and more secular Jews and non-Jews alike are learning it. You don't have to go through the effort of learning a whole new language, but just respecting it as a language with a rich culture and history is already a step to save it from being forgotten.

[katie-the-bug]

The Mark of the Bees

Title largely unrelated to subject matter (The Mark, book eight of the Left Behind series). I just wanted to say "The Mark of the Bees." And now I have. Thank you for your indulgence.

The characters, in case you've forgotten:

The Tribulation Force: Rayford Steele, pilot; Buck Williams, journalist; Chloe Williams, organizer; Kenny Williams, infant; Tsion Ben-Judah, internet evangelist and ex-rabbi; Chaim Rosenzweig, new Israeli convert; Mac McCullum, backup pilot; Abdullah Smith, backup to the backup pilot; Albie, former black-marketer, espionage expert; David Hassid, IT guy on the inside; Annie Christopher, David's girlfriend; Hattie Durham, bitter ex-girlfriend of the Beast.

The Global Community: Nicolae Carpathia, risen lord and deity of the GC, in other words, the Antichrist; Leon Fortunato, Satan's little helper; Viv Ivins, role unclear.

Okay, so Nicolae's just come back from the dead, but, despite extremely limited changes in demeanor, our lead characters know he's possessed by Satan. Alright, what does this mean for Nicolae himself? Is his soul in Hell? Is he trapped in his body? He had a decent relationship with Satan already; maybe they're copiloting? Stay tuned while I figure out which answer is funniest.

Tsion leads Chaim in Bible study, saying that soon he will be "an expert about our own people," meaning the Jewish people. Because, as we all know, Christians know more about Judaism than Jews do.

Many of the group's capers owe their success to Albie's fake identity as a GC officer. Rayford seeks a similar false identity, hoping that David can get him into the system at a higher rank than Albie. Never mind that Albie has proven himself better at this whole "Impersonating the enemy" business - Rayford's the leader, so he should outrank him in disguise too.

Buck gets a new car, which the narration gushes about. I guess I can't begrudge the authors their hobbies.

Rayford and Albie go looking for Hattie, who wound up in GC custody in the last book. On the way, they find Steve Plank, Buck's old boss who vanished from the story a few books ago. He's wounded and deformed, but he converted and opposes the GC from the inside under a false identity. I suppose the only question now is how he'll really die, given that no character with more than a few pages of relevance can leave the story any other way.

It turns out that Annie was killed in the last book, randomly lightning'd to death by Leon, but we only learn about it now. I think it would have been more impactful for David to see her die at the hands of the enemy rather than finding out about it after the fact, but maybe that's just me.

Hattie becomes a Christian, and I can only assume that her days are numbered now that her ongoing struggle has been resolved.

Tsion, via his blog posts internet transmissions, tells people not to take the titular Mark (of the Beast), despite the threat of death for not doing so, because it will irrevocably damn them to Hell, but he also says that True Christians with the seal of God on their foreheads "will not be able to turn [their] back on Christ." It's never explained what this means for people who might take the Mark. Do you lose your salvation if you take it? Does the Mark not affect the saved? Will the Mark simply not apply itself to a sealed believer? I have many questions and the book is very slow to answer them.

Leon discusses the rollout of the Mark, mentioning that people can choose "design and size" as well as its location. A few preset designs have been mentioned, but I wonder - can you design your own? That'd be kinda fun actually - a visual mark everyone gets, but everyone puts their own spin on it. New worldbuilding idea...

"You can just squeegee me off the floor and pour me down the drain." I will give you no context because it's funnier that way.

Nicolae's office is being renovated, and he asks for several full-length mirrors, because "Why deprive myself of the joy others luxuriate in? They get to look at me whenever they want." I aspire to this level of confidence in my body.

This series has exactly one running joke, and it's at the expense of Abdullah's limited English - he used the word "pout" as an adjective rather than a verb once, and now people ask him if he "is pout." It's funny only by comparison to the rest of the book, but I'll take what I can get.

Apparently "amateur craftsmen in their backyards" are making guillotines for the GC. All I can think of is reddit posts in the woodworking subreddit featuring pictures of cute, intricately decorated guillotines with a blurb about the wood and techniques used and how it'll be donated to the GC.

Buck and Albie, disguised, watch a group of Greek Christians get martyred for not taking the Mark. Too often this series tells without showing, but here we get the experience of watching your comrades die lovingly described to us. More of this please.

The narration refers to people who've taken the Mark as having "ignorantly sealed their fate." This is something I don't understand about whatever brand of Christianity the authors are pushing. In Catholicism, for example, if you commit a mortal sin without knowing it's wrong, your culpability in the eyes of God is reduced and you wouldn't automatically go to Hell if you died right then. But in LaHaye and Jenkins' world, you can do something without knowing it's wrong and God will reject you forever. Catholicism has its issues - why do you think I'm an atheist? - but at the very least its God is understanding of circumstances. The God of Left Behind wants to see people suffer.

Tsion finally reveals why saved Christians can't take the Mark to decieve their enemies and further their cause - God "miraculously overcomes" your self-preservation instincts and provides the "grace and courage" to go to your death. In other words, you can't take the Mark because God will mind-control you to refuse. That's not the answer I was expecting, but okay.

Our new friend Chang, a teenage believer who's about to be employed by the GC, is drugged and given the Mark despite his protests. He is still saved, because he never agreed to take the Mark. You'd think the same logic would apply to people being threatened with death if they don't take the mark, because consent under duress is not consent, but God wants to see people die for him, so Chang gets a special exception.

It's said that "no one would fake the mark of the beast," and it's mentioned that the penalty for doing so is death, but why wouldn't you at least try if the penalty for being caught without a Mark is death anyway? With the GC terrifically understaffed and security at an all-time low, it could buy a disguised believer some time, even if they didn't have the microchip that all marks contain. And there's nothing in the Scriptures that says a fake Mark will damn you.

Well, that was certainly a book. I can only assume the next one will be more frustrating.

[disappointmentthemusical]

anti-zionism is not antisemitic, but that does not preclude anti-zionists being antisemitic

do not allow yourself to be sucked into antisemitic conspiracy theories about the purposes/intent behind the synagogue tunnels. while there are systemic issues within judaic institutions, the hassidic community included, do not allow the injustice of a secular government that bears the star of david to push you into assumptions and stereotypes. even a little research will tell you that the tunnels are about building expansion.

on this note, let us remind ourselves that zionism is rooted in antisemitism. beyond tenants in jewish scriptures, zionism requires the antisemitic belief that jews are not/cannot be loyal to any state/people other than israel and fellow jews. this notion pre-dates the creation of the colonial state of israel. the idea that jews are inherently untrustworthy and traitors has been played up time and time again, most notably pre-WWII to justify laws and policies limiting jewish freedoms and citizenship. for anyone familiar with french history, you will know the role this sentiment played in the Dreyfus Affair, which changed all of europe's relationship with/view of its jewish populations.

the zionist project will soon be used against jews outside of israel. regardless of how the war ends, israel has embedded itself in the world's perception of jewish identity, in one way or another. do not be surprised when politicians and media outlets begin questioning jewish loyalties in the aftermath of the genocide, particularly if western governments are able to hide their participation in the ethnic cleansing of palestinians. if this is reframed as a jewish aggression or an aggression committed solely by israel as Biden and Trudeau and Macron and whoever bravely pleaded with Netanyahu to limit civilian casualties, then imagine how much easier it will be to pose jews as a domestic threat.

[kaalbela]

Mea Shaarim photographed by Alexander Bronfer

Mea Shaarim is one of the oldest Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem outside of Old City walls. Even after almost 150 years of existence, the neighborhood remains unchanged, trying to isolate itself from modern life. With its overwhelmingly Hassidic population, the streets of Mea Shaarim retain the appearance of pre-war Eastern Europe shtetls – and life revolves around prayers and the study of Jewish religious texts. As was in Eastern Europe, Yiddish is the language of choice for everyday communication, keeping Hebrew as a sacred language for religious purpose only. 

[starlightomatic]

Where Chavie Weisberger grew up, the secular world was thought to be sinful—but she was curious about it. The possibility of leaving her community was so extreme that it took years to form in her mind.

Not many people leave ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Most who do try to keep it secret, because, if everyone knew, the marriage prospects of their siblings could be irreparably damaged. The shame of leaving is very great. It is said that anyone who leaves must be a ruined person—penniless, homeless, probably on drugs, maybe a prostitute, living like an animal, for carnal appetites alone, like the goyim, or else mentally ill.

Then, in 2003, Malkie Schwartz, who had left the Lubavitch group in Crown Heights, founded Footsteps, an organization for people who had left Haredi communities. She started it as a support group, but she found that people who had left were usually in need of help with practical things as well: improving their English, since Yiddish was often their first language; figuring out how to go back to school or find work with few secular qualifications; finding somewhere to live. But, as more people defected, communities alarmed by the prospect of so many children lost to Haredism mobilized to keep them. Secular courts were called upon to determine the best interests of children who were being torn between two irreconcilable ways of life: what to one parent was a basic human freedom might be, to the other, a violation of the laws of God. Separating you from the outside world. Teaching you that leaving the group is sinful. Not teaching you how to interact with the outside world. No internet. No tv. No non "religious" studies like math or world history or science. Separating kids from a parent that leaves the group.

Thats a cult, babe. Hassidic cult members are not jewish or normal or good people, lol. They're the former polygamous mormons of the modern world

Thanks for the lecture but I’m second-generation OTD and almost my entire extended family is Chassidish

[mariacallous]

there's a deep vein of.... wanting normalization? with-in American Jewry across all the branches, Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox (the ultras are a different story) and among Orthodox institutions there is often times a blindness "oh if we're on the side of the conservatives and the other religious movements, that means they accept us!" no you'll always be Jews first and everything else second and the first thing can NEVER be forgiven. Also no matter how anti-LGBT you are the fundies and the modern GOP will always believe you're behind a massive grooming plot to make the children gay

on the Hassidic/Haredi community, they see the answer to antisemitism as strict adherence to Torah, if they do everything according to Hashem God will bless them. They view anything that prevents them or circumvents them from living the most frum life they can as what antisemitism is, so you know secular education, equality between men and women, LGBT people maybe have rights and needs, etc (this is an unkind generalization about a life style I in fact have a lot of respect for while also seeing it's problems and this characterizes a common but not universal small mindedness)

I also think that in this case the organization in question is willing to take the gamble in making this a religious freedom (to discriminate) situation and either doesn’t care about the additional impact or figures that as long as they can have things their way it’s worth it to allow more institutions to bypass state laws regarding non-discrimination.

[automatismoateo]

Perspective from an older atheist ... via /r/atheism

Perspective from an older atheist ... I have been an atheist for several decades now. I have lived amongst predominantly Catholic, Mormon, Baptist, Protestant, Apostolic Christian, Hassidic Jew, Orthodox Jew, and Muslim communities. I've discussed, argued, analyzed, and debated religion and "religious truths" with a lot of different people over the years. I even helped a suicidal friend through a crisis of her faith--she retained her Christianity while decoupling hateful beliefs from her "God", and ultimately found a more open, progressive congregation. So I'm not a complete shit heel, either. A couple of pseudo-lessons I've observed in my time: All arguments for/against all religions are repetitive. No religion has advanced our understanding of the universe or the natural world in a millenia. Religions all recycle the same logical fallacies with different magic words, rituals, and strictures. As a result, couter-arguments have not been required to evolve appreciably across the same time span. Nietzsche's "Antichrist" is just as relevant a critique of Christianity today as it was in 1888. The only difference today is that Christianity now has another 150+ years of shitty behavior to further underscore his points. All religions are an invention to establish or wrest control of a group of people, with subsequent iteration of a "god" and the power structure being the conduit of their god's words to the people they want to control. They justify this structure on the premise they cannot trust their fellow human. ALL claims of a supreme being must provide proof. No assumption of truth should be afforded without substantiating evidence. To the extent one tries to disprove their god, the religious adherent only uses your argument (or your lack of convincing) to validate their own position. It doesn't change the fact the magic sky daddy doesn't exist. There is no obligation for anyone to prove to a religious adherent the existence of their god. If I'm being asked to prove it to them, they already do not believe themselves. Religious attempts to present "science" (e.g., Ken Ham banana evolution bullshit, muslim "scholars" attempting to explain anything) are little more than exemplary displays of what Dunning-Krueger looks like in real life. They mimic what they think "science" is, misapply terminology, do none of the actual underlying work, and then justify absurd and ridiculous conclusions. ... In short, sharpen your rhetorical skill set, always strive for logic and reason, and give your religious opponent nothing---make them build their case from the ground, up. None of this "assume Sky Daddy and then solve for X". The purpose of this post is intended to provide some clarity for atheists who may not feel entirely comfortable with expressing/defending their own religious perspective. Just because "Isaac Newton discovered gravity", it doesn't mean gravity didn't exist prior to his discovery. Submitted November 19, 2023 at 02:58PM by SarniltheRed (From Reddit https://ift.tt/UpojHG7)

[girlactionfigure]

Nice try. 

But NOBODY was calling Yusif Pasha Al Khalidi a “#Palestinian” in 1877. 

Let me fill in some other blanks for you.

To be clear, the Ottoman Empire was #Turkish, not #Arab.

Also, while #Herzl built #Zionism into the political powerhouse it became and was a focused, determined, genius who cared about saving his people and doing the actual job of state-building and planning, he was most definitely not the first person to just come up with the idea of Zionism – not even close.

First, Zionism is baked into the #Jewish soul – there has been a yearning to return to #Zion since Emperor Hadrian brought 12 Roman army legions from #Egypt, #Britain, #Syria, and areas of #Judea to finally put down the three-year Bar Kokhba Revolt (the Third Jewish Revolt against the Romans) in 135 CE – after which Hadrian was so embarrassed by the early Jewish victories that he murdered more than 1 million Jews, he outlawed the practice of #Judaism on pain of death, and he renamed our homeland “Syria Palestina” after our ancient, long-extinct enemies – the Aegean “sea people” known as the Philistines.

The Jewish yearning to return is why, ever since then, #Jews have always faced #Jerusalem when we pray, Jews have always said “Next Year in Jerusalem” at the end of every Seder on Passover, Jewish grooms stepped on and broke a glass to signify the destruction of the Temple and to remind us, even in happy times, that we are a scattered people, and it is why we would recite the Psalm, “If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning.”

Also, waves of Jews from Europe frequently made Aliyah and moved back home to Eretz #Israel over the years. For example, in 1211, a group of 300 #French and #English rabbis made Aliyah back to Israel. And more Jews from both #England and #France followed them in 1260.

Nahmanides also made Aliyah in 1267, which then encouraged other Jews join him and together they built the Ramban Synagogue in Jerusalem.

More waves of Aliyah came from #Spain because of the Inquisition starting in 1492 – thousands settled largely in Tzfat (Safed), Tiberias, and Jerusalem.

The 1500s saw waves of additional Aliyah from France, #Germany, #Italy, and other European countries as well as North #Africa – these Jews mostly joined a flourishing Jewish community in Tzfat.

Then, on October 14, 1700, a group of 1,500 Jews from Europe, headed by Rabbi Judah Hasid, made Aliyah and settled in Jerusalem.

1764 saw another organized Aliyah, this time of Hassidic Jews who were led by disciples of Ba’al Shem Tov; and they were followed by more Hassidic Jews in the subsequent years and generations.

Then in 1808, the Perushim – Jewish disciples of Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna – organized an Aliyah and established a community in Jerusalem. Others followed them to Jerusalem, while still others moved to Tzfat, Tiberias, and Jaffa.

Then, in 1830, there was a significant wave of Aliyah of Jews from Germany as well as #Holland and #Hungary.

After the Ottomans retook Jerusalem from Muhammad Ali in 1840, Jewish Aliyah more than doubled in the next four decades since Jerusalem was seen as a safer place to live.

Finally, we get to the first writings of the early pioneers of modern political Zionism. Only neither of the two early Zionist pioneers were named “Theodor Herzl.” 

Modern political Zionism started with the writings of Sephardic Rabbi Judah ben Solomon Chai Alkalai  (LEFT) and Ashkenazic Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (RIGHT) in 1843.

Then in 1852, Alkalai established the Society of the Settlement of Eretz Yisrael in #London, and in 1871 he established a branch of this Society in Jerusalem.

Kalischer’s influence, meanwhile, led Chayyim Lurie to form the Association for the Colonisation of Palestine in Frankfort in 1860, and Kalishcher helped found the Mikveh Israel agricultural school in Eretz Israel in 1870.

Then, still before Herzl, Leon Pinsker published Auto-Emancipation in Germany on January 1, 1882, in which he urged Jews to strive for independence in Eretz Israel.

Meanwhile, the “First Aliyah” of modern political Zionism began in 1882, at a time when fewer than 250,000 #Arabs were living in the Land. About 35,000 Jews moved to Eretz Israel between 1882 and 1903.

It was in 1890 (still pre-Herzl) that publicist Nathan Birnbaum coined the word “Zionism” to describe the Jewish return to Eretz Israel where they could become a “normal” people again and live in their own sovereign nation in the only place on Earth the Jews could call “home.”

Then, finally we get to Theodor Herzl and his famous book Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”) in 1896.

That should clear a few things up.

@CptAllenHistory

[determinate-negation]

ok so by the time I sent the last ask I then saw you answered more questions about these tunnels. ngl I still don't understand anything so maybe I should ask if you recommend any books or documentaries that will be enlightening for people not in the know about hasidic communities (apologies if that's the wrong verbiage)

basically chabad is a very big hasidic movement that has a large presence in nyc, and the rebbe menachem mendel schneerson was a major figure of establishing chabad lubavitch in new york post ww2. an extremist messianic sect within chabad believes that the rebbe is the messiah, and that he didnt actually die. this is technically not recognized by chabad leadership, because it is pretty heretical, and they say its a fringe position, but its definitely a very mainstream belief among chabad in nyc. like you cant walk around the city without seeing these posters up with a photo of schneerson

this thread kind of explains more about the hassidic movement and chabad in nyc

https://x.com/kilovh/status/1744884820780397015?s=46&t=kNkxEGlbDjt69LgNEB9ZBw

dont know any books or documentaries but maybe my followers do