#Jewish Learning Institute

[valiumvenus]

In the name of my friends, I am asking for help:

"Please SIGN and SHARE this petition against censorship at the University of Vienna! Give us back our lectures on Palestine!" 🇵🇸🕊️

TLDR: The University of Vienna is canceling lectures about Palestine, and disinviting scholars who have a pro-Palestinian stance; please sign & share the petition to show people everywhere care. The students' demands are listed in the petition. Anyone can sign.

Censorship surrounding topics of Palestine is nothing new - but in the last few months there has been an alarming increase in censorship, where artists have their exhibitions shut down, universities are setting up barriers to knowledge about Palestine, highly unserious articles with very serious accusations about academics are popping up, ... Now two lectures on Palestine were canceled, and another scholar was just uninvited for what he posted on his social media (pro-Palestinian content). A previous protest letter from the academic community was ignored by the University, and a recent sit-in there was met with an unnecessarily high number of police who intimidated the small group of protesters. That is the only reaction anti-Zionist protests yield. -> more info in the petition link

Why/How does the University of Vienna do this? Basically, any public criticism of the Israeli government is misconstrued as antisemitism. Then, the University disinvites the academics in question and cancels lectures, or forces lecturers to "adjust" their content. Scholars are being muzzled. The University doesn't want its students to learn about various perspectives on Palestine. Mind you, this is a public institution we're talking about.

The petition is intended to show the University that people disapprove of these practices. The argument of "safety" is brought up all the time, but at the same time, the University gladly erects barriers between their students and the valuable knowledge that would foster critical thinking and understanding. Palestinians are directly affected by this deadly apathy, and Muslim and Jewish people everywhere suffer from heightened antisemitism and islamophobia fueled by misinformation and myths. And at the end of the day, censorship is nothing but bad academic practice. It is an attempt to shape the minds of students by making information harder to access and to exclude scholars who talk about/are from Palestine. It's discrimination against Palestinians and it's shameless instrumentalization of Jewish trauma.

Anybody who is concerned can sign. Please share widely with any and all communities! The petition should go international! Every signature counts.

Say NO to all barriers to knowledge. 🇵🇸🕊️

[slyandthefamilybook]

look dawg, the destruction of Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute was an important moment in the Holocaust, but I feel like ever since goyische tumblr learned about it it's literally all they talk about. People have just instantly latched onto it because it's something that makes them feel connected. "Those famous pictures of Nazi book burnings are them burning gay and trans research" comes off as less of recontextualizing history and more of "omg that's me! I'm famous!". The fact that it's brought up in every conversation about the Holocaust now, even when the discussion is about the specific persecution of other groups, is highly suspect. When Jews talk about the Holocaust, we don't view the victims as people like us. They are us. They're our parents and grandparents, our great- uncles and aunts. In every generation we must see ourselves as if we left Egypt

JKR is engaging in Holocaust denial, but it's a soft sort of denial. Someone told her the Nazis hated trans people, and she responded "nuh-uh" because she didn't want to believe trans people have been around for that long. It's bad, sure, but we already knew she was a shitty person. I think it's a better opportunity to discuss the process of radicalization and closed-loop ideological thinking than to shit on the internet's favorite punching bag with your new favorite factoid. Jews right now are experiencing violent antisemitism. Bomb threats, death threats, rape threats have become the norm for a lot of us, but I have yet to see that discussed with the same fervor as JKR being shitty for the gajillionth time. If you truly want to make yourself a part of the living history of the Holocaust, you have to understand how to fight for what's important. You have to learn how to protect what you love, not just destroy what you hate. It's very important not to lose the plot here

It's crucial that we remember that the book burnings were primarily about Jews. Joseph Goebbels proclaimed in Berlin "The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. The breakthrough of the German revolution has again cleared the way on the German path...The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character." The German Student Union described book burnings as a "response to a worldwide Jewish smear campaign against Germany and an affirmation of traditional German values." Science, study, reason, progress were all seen as Jewish plots to destroy society (wonder where else we've seen that). Magnus Hirschfeld was persecuted because he was gay and his Institute was full of gay and trans people, yes. But it was also because he was a Jew, and a man of science who was pushing the boundaries of medical care for LGBT people. Just. something to think about

[unsolicited-opinions]

Leftist antisemitism is a symptom - American Jews and the Illiberal Left

TLDR: I think we would be wise to stop regarding leftist antisemitism only in its own context and habitually recognize it is a part of a larger issue, the rise of the illiberal left.

Why are Jews are the most reliable supporters of Liberal policies and politicians in modern American history?

Haviv Rettig Gur seems to suggest that Jews in the US, recognizing that Liberal values resulted in their (imperfect but historic) emancipation in the US, became perhaps the most Liberal people ever. They understood that US Liberal values were what made Jews relatively safe in the US, and offered them opportunities which had been denied to them everywhere else.

When previously did a head of state speak to Jews the way George Washington did?

Gur suggests that this is why American Jews have historically been so invested in the struggle of black folks in the US. When I say invested, I'm talking about facts like these:

- Henry Moscowitz was one of the founders of the NAACP.

- Kivie Kaplan, a vice-chairman of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now called the Union for Reform Judaism), served as the national president of the NAACP from 1966 to 1975.

- From 1910 to 1940, more than 2,000 primary and secondary schools and 20 Black colleges (including Howard, Dillard and Fisk universities) were established in whole or in part by contributions from Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. At the height of the so-called "Rosenwald schools," nearly 40 percent of Black people in the south were educated at one of these institutions.

- Jews made up half of the young people who participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964.

- Leaders of the Reform Movement were arrested with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964 after a challenge to racial segregation in public accommodations.

- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King in his 1965 March on Selma.

- The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were drafted in the conference room of Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, under the aegis of the Leadership Conference, which for decades was located in the RAC's building.

When I was a child and asked my mother why Jews seemed overwhelmingly to be Democrats, I was told "because of FDR and the Civil Rights movement." That's not wrong, in Gur's framing, but perhaps a more shallow response than the question deserves.

In Gur's framing, US Jews realized that the promises of Liberalism, over and over, no matter how much they delivered for other peoples, did not deliver for black Americans.

Gur suggests that US Jews worked to see that change for their black co-citizens because if American Liberalism didn't deliver for black Americans what it appeared to promise to all Americans, the sense of safety, security, and belonging which Jews felt in the US was an illusion.

US Jews believed that we had common cause with non-Jewish American Liberals. We thought non-Jewish liberals believed what we believed about universal civil rights, pluralism, enlightenment values and enlightenment reason. When Jews saw the "In this House We Believe" signs on our neighbors' lawns, We felt comforted because those beliefs are also our beliefs.

We thought, for instance, that our non-Jewish friends agreed that Liberal democracies were better for human rights than any form of government in the history of human societies. We thought they agreed that religious, racial, and ethnic intolerance were social ills which needed to be fought with information. We thought they valued data, reason, and reliable sources.

Since 10/7/23, we've been learning that we were mistaken. We've seen gentiles who we thought shared our values seem to discard those values.

We saw college educated friends share antisemitic (and alarmingly familiar) conspiracy theories about Israeli puppetry of US politics and the return of Nazi and Soviet antisemitic slogans/images.

We've seen highly educated "Liberals" preach ahistoric nonsense denying that the Jewish people are from the Levant and willfully ignoring the huge swaths of historical fact which don't support their favored narrative.

We've seen friends rage against "globalists" and "Zionists," when what they mean is 'Jews'.

We've seen people who we thought were allies against all forms of racism justify their racism towards Jews as righteous through specious reasoning like 'I don't hate Jews, just the 97% of Jews who believe that Jews should have self-determination in their homeland.'

We've been told that we cannot ask them to temper their use of antisemitic tropes, because doing so "weaponizes" concerns about antisemitism to obstruct them from their righteous crusade against the most evil nation on earth...which happens to be the only Jewish nation.

Despite this, about 80% of Jewish voters voted for Harris over Trump.

I think US Jews will continue to be Liberals, because Liberal values are dear to us and aligned with our values as Jews, as a historically oppressed minority, and as Americans who see more clearly than some others the gap between the promise of American liberalism and its long-delayed universal delivery.

The problem, I think, is in how many of our former friends simply aren't Liberals any longer.

I think Jews in the US need to spend a good deal more time scrutinizing the illiberal left.

Nine days after the attacks of 10/7/23, Jonathan Chait wrote:

Writers like Michelle Goldberg, Julia Ioffe, and my colleague Eric Levitz, all of whom rank among the writers I most admire, have written anguished columns about the alienation of Jewish progressives from the far left. I think all their points are totally correct. But I find the frame of their response too narrow. They are treating apologias for Hamas as a factually or logically flawed application of left-wing ideals. I believe, to the contrary, that Hamas defenders are applying their own principles correctly. The problem is the principles themselves.

...

Liberals believe political rights are universal. Basic principles like democracy, free speech, and human rights apply equally to all people, without regard to the content of their political values. (This of course very much includes Palestinians, who deserve the same rights as Jews or any other people, and whose humanity is habitually ignored by Israeli conservatives and their American allies.) A liberal would abhor the use of political violence or repression, however evil the targets.

...

The illiberal left believes treating everybody equally, when the power is so unequal, merely serves to maintain existing structures of power. It follows from their critique that the legitimacy of a tactic can only be assessed with reference to whether it is being used by the oppressor or the oppressed. Is it okay for, say, a mob of protesters to shout down a lecture? Liberals would say no. Illiberal leftists would need to know who was the speaker and who was the mob before they could answer.

...

One observation I’ve shared with many analysts well to my left is that the debate over this illiberalism and the social norms it has spawned — demands for deference in the name of allyship, describing opposing ideas as a form of harm, and so on — has tracked an older debate within the left over communism. Communism provided real-world evidence of how an ideology that denies political rights to anybody deemed to be the oppressor laid the theoretical groundwork for repression and murder.

There have been conscious echoes of this old divide in the current dispute over Hamas. The left-wing historian Gabriel Winant has a column in Dissent urging progressives not to mourn dead Israeli civilians because that sentiment will be used to advance the Zionist project. Winant sounds eerily like an old communist fellow traveler explaining that the murders of the kulaks or the Hungarian nationalists are the necessary price of defending the revolution. “The impulse, repeatedly called ‘humane’ over the past week, to find peace by acknowledging equally the losses on all sides rests on a fantasy that mourning can be depoliticized,” he argues, calling such soft-minded sentiment “a new Red Scare.” Making the perfect omelette always requires some broken eggs in the form of innocent people who made the historical error of belonging to, or perhaps being born into, an enemy class.

But more than three decades have passed since the Soviet Union existed or China’s government was recognizably Marxist. And so the liberal warning about the threat of left-wing illiberalism seemed abstract and bloodless. On October 7, it suddenly became bloody and concrete. It didn’t happen here, of course. The shock of it was that many leftists revealed just how far they would be willing to follow their principles. “People have repeated over and over again over the last few days that you ‘cannot tell Palestinians how to resist,’” notes (without contradicting the sentiment) Arielle Angel, editor-in-chief of the left-wing Jewish Currents. Concepts like this, treating the self-appointed representative of any oppressed group as beyond criticism, are banal on the left. Yet for some progressive Jews, it is shocking to see it extended to the slaughter of babies, even though that is its logical endpoint. The radical rhetoric of decolonization, with its glaring absence of any limiting principles, was not just a rhetorical cover to bully some hapless school administrator into changing the curriculum. Phrases like “by any means necessary” were not just figures of speech. Any means included any means, very much including murder.

Both Julia Ioffe and Eric Levitz have pointed out that decolonization logic ignores the fact that half of Israel’s Jewish population does not have European origins and came to Israel after suffering the same ethnic cleansing as the Palestinians. This is correct. But what if it weren’t? If every Israeli Jew descended from Ashkenazi stock, would it be okay to shoot their babies?

The problem is much greater than leftist antisemitism. The illiberal left has become nearly as great a threat to Liberalism as the far right.

It is often the case that a movement’s treatment of Jews serves as a broader indicator of its health. It’s not an accident that the Republican Party has become more attractive to antisemites as it has grown more paranoid and authoritarian. What the far left revealed about its disposition toward Jews is not just a warning for the Jews but a warning for all progressives who care about democracy and humanity. The pro-Hamas left is not merely indicating an indifference toward Jews. It is revealing the illiberal left’s inherent cruelty, repression, and inhumanity.

I'm annoyed that it is has taken me so long to catch on and alarmed by the implications.

I am, however, very proud of my 14yo, who sums up her experience trying to respectfully disagree with leftists this way:

"They're allergic to nuance."

[jewish-sideblog]

I think people forget that the Nazis never said they were the bad guys. If someone says, hey, I’m evil! You don’t let them take over your country. They presented themselves as scientific, not hateful. By their own account, they were progressives, and the superiority of White Europe over the other races was a proven and immutable fact. They had scientists and archaeologists and historians to prove it. They didn’t tell people they wanted to kill the Jews because they were hateful. They manufactured evidence to frame us for very real tragedies, and they had methodological research to prove that we were genetically predisposed to misconduct. Wouldn’t you believe that?

Hollywood has spent the last 80 years portraying the Nazis as an obvious and intimidating evil. That’s a good thing in some ways, because we want general audiences to recognize that they were evil. But we also want them to be able to recognize how and why they came to power. Not by self-describing themselves as an evil empire, but by convincing people that they were the good guys and the saviors. They hosted the Olympics. Several European countries capitulated and volunteered themselves to the Empire. There were American and British Fascist Parties. They had broad public support. Hollywood never shows that part, so general audiences never learn to recognize the actual signs of antisemitism.

People today think they can’t possibly be antisemitic, because they’re leftist! They abhor bigotry! They could never comprehend Nazi ideology coming from the mouth of a bisexual college student wearing a graphic tee and jeans. How could they? The only depiction of antisemites they’ve ever seen have been gaunt, pale, middle-aged men in black leather trench coats with skulls on their caps.

If the Nazis time-travelled from the 1930s and wanted to take power now, they’d change their original tactics, but not by much. They would target countries suffering from an identity crisis and an economic collapse. They would portray themselves as the pinnacle of what that society considers progressive. Back then, it was race science. These days it’s performative wokeness. Once they’d garnered enough respect and reputation, they’d begin manufacturing propaganda and lies to manipulate people’s anger and fears at a single target— Jews.

If the Nazis made an actual return, they wouldn’t look like neo-Nazis. They wouldn’t be nearly as obvious about their hatred. Their evil wouldn’t give them yellow eyes, and no suspenseful music would play when they walked in the room. They’d be friendly. They’d look like you. They would learn what things your community fears and what things you already hate. They would lie and fabricate evidence to connect the rich elites and the imperialists you revile to a single source of unequivocal Jewish evil. It wouldn’t be hard— they already have two-thousand years of institutional antisemitism they can rely on to paint their picture.

If you’re curious why antisemitism today is coming from grassroots organizations, young, liberal college campuses, suburban neighborhoods with pride flags and All Are Welcome Here signs? That’s why. It’s because, as a global society, we’ve forgotten that the world didn’t used to see the Nazis as bad guys. And what is forgotten about history is doomed to be repeated.

[etz-ashashiyot]

The thing is that there is nothing Jews can do to stop antisemitism, just like there is nothing a victim can do to stop the abuse or a bullied child can do to stop the bully or any other minority can do to stop bigotry against them. We cannot control anyone else's behavior or attitudes towards us. The only thing we can do is to take reasonable steps to protect ourselves, whether those are institutional, by taking reasonable precautions to avoid dangerous people and places as much as possible, and to fight back when it is not.

But even if we batten the hatches, put up hardcore security systems at our institutions and events, remove as many visible cultural symbols as possible, don't stay out late at night or walk alone on Shabbos, even if every building has a bomb shelter and locked doors and every Jewish leader receives active shooter and counterterrorism training, even if we put armed guards at the entrances of every shul and JCC and Jewish day school and retirement home and Holocaust museum, even if we build our own country and army or alternatively reject that country vehemently, even if we are as nice as possible to everyone we meet and give tzedakah and commit to every progressive cause and stand in solidarity with every other minority, even if we demonstrate that we are just like them and/or that we are willing to just totally do our own thing, even if we give and give and give and give some more—

We can't make them hate us less or try to harm us less.

All we can do is mitigate the harm by avoiding what we can and defending ourselves against what we can't, and refusing to give up who we are in the process.

We can't make you be better people. That is what I have learned over the last 10 months.

[storiesfromgaza]

Today, I learned about something terrible, and I want to explain it further here or in a video, but I can't quite imagine what I read, really.

Israel has the world's largest skin bank for the treatment of burns, skin cancer, and other conditions. However, in a 2009 documentary, it was revealed that most of the skin in the bank isn't from Israelis but rather from Palestinians, taken from "unidentified" or "not subjected to forensic autopsy to determine the cause of death" martyrs.

An article emerged around the same time, in which the head of the forensic medicine institute exposed Israel for allegedly killing and harvesting organs from Palestinian individuals without their or their families' consent. Reports at that time suggested that people from Gaza and the West Bank were being arrested, and their bodies returned with missing organs. Article Link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/israeli-pathologists-harvested-organs

Why the Jewish people don't register themselves as donors before they pass away, for instance, and allow their organs to be taken from them after they pass away? In the Jewish faith (as well as in Islam), the body is supposed to be returned to its Creator as intact as possible. Israel is aware of this in Islam, but as we've seen, they don't seem to regard them as anything other than animals...

[mariacallous]

Three major Jewish religious denominations are suing the Department of Homeland Security to stop immigration raids at houses of worship.

The suit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., was brought by dozens of religious groups including the governing bodies of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements. The other groups represent a range of Christian denominations. They are challenging the Trump administration’s reversal of an order that prohibited Immigration and Customs Enforcement from operating in “sensitive locations” such as churches and synagogues.

The order means that undocumented immigrants fearing arrest can no longer seek sanctuary at houses of worship. Tuesday’s lawsuit hopes to restore the “sensitive locations” policy.

“The new policy thus greenlights enforcement actions that could interrupt religious services in furtherance of the Administration’s mass deportation plans,” reads a press release about the lawsuit, which was filed by Georgetown University’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.

Through the order, the statement added, “the government is interfering with their religious activities and their ability to fulfill their religious mandate to welcome and serve immigrants.”

During Trump’s first term, a number of synagogues sheltered immigrants at risk of deportation, and a broad range of Jewish groups spoke out or took action against his immigration restrictions. Some of those coalitions are mobilizing now, as Trump places a broad immigration crackdown at the center of his agenda. Tuesday’s lawsuit follows a letter signed by dozens of groups — including the leadership of the same three movements — opposing Trump’s planned mass deportations.

“Throughout Jewish history, we have known the hardship and persecution of living as immigrants,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who helms the Union for Reform Judaism, said in a statement. “We are inspired by those experiences across the generations, as well as the repeated biblical commandment to welcome the stranger, to ensure that our congregations remain places where immigrants — including those who may be undocumented — can enter to worship, seek pastoral counsel, learn, socialize, obtain needed services and support, or to act as caregivers for those who do.”

The lawsuit comes on the heels of another suit in which HIAS, the Jewish refugee aid and advocacy group, partnered with other resettlement agencies to challenge the Trump administration’s suspension of refugee resettlement.

[wowgrim]

Allegations of Antisemitism & Anti-Israel Bias at the United Nations

Articles about United Nations getting rid of Alice Wairimu Nderitu, its Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, after she concluded Israel wasn't committing genocide and published a paper on how to use the term accurately:

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-u-ns-anti-israel-genocide-purge-c8feef1a

UNRWA links to Hamas:

Other articles:

https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/united-nations-israel-and-anti-semitism

[blackstarlineage]

Black Parenting from a Garveyite Perspective: Raising a Physically, Mentally, and Economically Empowered Generation

From a Garveyite perspective, parenting is not just about raising children—it is about nation-building. Marcus Garvey believed that the survival and liberation of Black people depended on how the next generation was trained, educated, and prepared for self-reliance. This means that Black parents have a sacred duty to raise strong, disciplined, self-sufficient, and Pan-African-minded children who can continue the fight for global Black empowerment.

However, today, many Black families face challenges caused by centuries of systemic oppression, miseducation, and economic exploitation, making it difficult to pass down Garvey’s principles. The failure to properly prepare Black children for independence has led to cycles of dependency, confusion, and weakness that prevent true liberation.

This analysis will explore:

The role of physical discipline and structure in Garveyite parenting.

The importance of instilling self-reliance and economic independence in Black children.

Why Black parents must raise their children with an African-centered identity.

How modern influences (media, school systems, and Western ideologies) weaken Black parenting.

The Garveyite solution to rebuilding Black family structures for true empowerment.

1. The Role of Physical Discipline and Structure in Garveyite Parenting

Discipline, structure, and responsibility are essential in Garveyite parenting. A weak and undisciplined generation cannot lead a revolution, which is why Garvey believed in raising strong-willed, courageous, and self-controlled Black children.

A. Black Children Must Be Raised for Leadership, Not Servitude

The Western world conditions Black children to be obedient workers, not self-sufficient leaders.

Black parents must train their children to think critically, take responsibility, and reject laziness and dependency.

This requires strong parental guidance, discipline, and clear expectations from a young age.

Example: Garvey’s own mother, Sarah Jane Richards, raised him with strict discipline and a sense of duty, shaping him into a leader.

B. The Decline of Strong Parenting and the Rise of Western “Softness”

Many Black parents have adopted European parenting styles that promote excessive leniency, entitlement, and emotional weakness.

Modern Western culture discourages physical discipline, labelling it as “abuse,” while white society continues to use institutional discipline (prisons, policing, military training) to control Black populations.

Without strong discipline at home, Black children grow up unprepared for the real world and fall into criminal, economic, or social traps designed by white supremacy.

Example: Studies show that Black boys raised without firm discipline and strong father figures are more likely to end up in the prison system, dead, or economically disadvantaged.

Key Takeaway: Garveyite parenting requires structure, discipline, and responsibility—raising children to be leaders, not victims.

2. Teaching Black Children Self-Reliance and Economic Independence

Garveyism teaches that Black people must own and control their own wealth, yet many Black families fail to pass down economic education to their children.

A. Black Parents Must Teach Economic Survival Early

Most Black children are raised to become workers for white-owned businesses instead of entrepreneurs and investors.

Garveyite parenting requires that children learn financial literacy, business skills, and self-reliance from an early age.

Black parents must reject the culture of excessive consumerism (spending on designer brands, entertainment, and materialism) and teach wealth-building strategies.

Example: The Jewish, Chinese, and Indian communities prioritize economic education and family wealth-building, while Black communities often focus on short-term spending rather than long-term ownership.

B. The Lack of Black-Owned Institutions and the Generational Wealth Gap

Most Black children grow up without seeing Black-owned banks, businesses, or institutions, making them mentally conditioned to depend on white-owned systems.

Black parents must expose their children to successful Black entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who prove that self-reliance is possible.

Example: Marcus Garvey built the Negro Factories Corporation and Black Star Line to show Black people they could own and operate their own industries—a lesson that must be passed down.

Key Takeaway: Black parents must prepare their children to be job creators, not job seekers. Economic independence starts at home.

3. Raising Children with an African-Centered Identity

Western education systems indoctrinate Black children to see themselves as inferior, which is why Garveyism demands that Black parents take control of their children’s cultural education.

A. The Importance of Teaching African History and Pride

Many Black children do not know their history beyond slavery because schools deliberately erase African civilizations, heroes, and contributions.

Black parents must counteract this by educating their children about African greatness, Pan-Africanism, and revolutionary Black leaders.

A child who knows their roots can not be mentally enslaved.

Example: Garvey established the Negro World newspaper and UNIA youth programs to educate Black children about their heritage and global struggle.

B. Rejecting European Beauty Standards and Cultural Conditioning

Many Black parents fail to teach their children to love their natural African features, leading to self-hate and colorism.

The media bombards Black youth with white beauty standards, making them reject their natural skin, hair, and African identity.

Black parents must actively reinforce self-love, African beauty, and pride in Blackness from childhood.

Example: The Natural Hair Movement and African fashion revival are examples of Black parents pushing back against European beauty norms.

Key Takeaway: If Black children do not know their history and identity, they will forever be slaves to Western definitions of success and beauty.

4. The Threat of Media and Western Education on Black Parenting

Garvey understood that Black children’s minds are being shaped by white-controlled institutions, including:

Schools that teach false history and discourage Black children from embracing their own culture.

Media that promotes negative stereotypes of Black people, leading to internalized self-hate and destructive behavior.

Social media and entertainment that push hyper-consumerism, promiscuity, violence, and superficial values.

Example: Many Black parents allow hip-hop, Hollywood, and white-washed education systems to raise their children instead of teaching them African-centered values at home.

Key Takeaway: Black parents must control the messages their children receive, or white supremacy will do it for them.

5. The Garveyite Solution to Black Parenting and Nation-Building

To reverse the decline of strong Black parenting, Garveyism provides the following solutions:

Establish Black homeschooling networks – Remove Black children from white-controlled education and teach them the truth.

Strengthen Black family structures – Promote stable Black marriages, fatherhood, and community-based child-rearing.

Teach economic empowerment from childhood – Give children real financial education, entrepreneurship skills, and wealth-building knowledge.

Reject Western culture’s negative influences – Control media exposure, reinforce African values, and protect Black children from harmful ideologies.

Raise Black children to be Pan-African revolutionaries – Train them to fight for Black self-determination, just as Garvey’s UNIA trained youth in leadership.

Final Takeaway: Garveyite parenting is about building warriors, not weaklings. If Black parents do not prepare their children for power, white supremacy will prepare them for failure.

Conclusion: Parenting is Nation-Building

Marcus Garvey’s vision of a strong, united Black nation depends on how Black parents raise their children. Without disciplined, self-reliant, and Pan-African-minded youth, Black people will remain at the mercy of white oppression.

The future of Black power begins at home.

As Garvey said:

"The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind."

The time to reclaim Black parenting as a revolutionary act is NOW.

[eretzyisrael]

by Seth Mandel

In early 2009, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a fiery post about the world’s “pornographic” obsession with anything that can be labeled Jewish moral failure. Goldberg specifically mentioned Hamas’s parading of dead Palestinian babies:

“Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I’ll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble — and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I’ve seen in my life. And it’s typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they’d learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.”

I recount all this because—as Oct. 7, 2023 and its aftermath showed—the amount of support for Hamas and the obsession with demonizing the Jews, all with the willing collaboration of the media, is a song played on repeat. The details get worse, sure: Both Hamas and the Western media reached new depths of depravity in their own ways over these past 16 months. Hamas’s supporters in the West, meanwhile, gathered in celebration of evil in unprecedented numbers.

One does not want to believe that all or most of these people know what it is they are supporting. One does not want to believe that members of the media are aware of the egregious ethics breaches their outlets routinely engage in. One does not want to believe that the only way to put a stop to this long-running cycle of horror is to destroy Hamas.

But we are now nearly two decades into the era inaugurated by Hezbollah and Hamas in 2006. Supporters of Hamas didn’t abandon their cause when they saw Hamasniks dancing around with the dead bodies of captive children, because it’s what one expects of Hamas. News organizations didn’t institute reforms in 2006 precisely because they expected to be using those same tactics again and again. And Hamas itself is immune to change.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Michael Rubin

Hamas paraded three Israeli hostages before cameras prior to turning them over to the Red Cross on Feb. 8. The three were emaciated like concentration camp survivors. They may have been the lucky ones. Hamas meanwhile delays the release of a dual Russian-Israeli citizen due to his health. The hostages did not learn about the deaths of their loved ones on Oct. 7, 2023, until their release. Nor was the starvation of prisoners the only Holocaust parallel. Just as the Nazis did, Hamas executed special needs children and babies it had seized during its invasion of Israel.

Biden’s team recognized but would not lift a finger to rectify the ICRC’s Jewish exception, even though several of those hostages were Americans.

A core function of the International Committee of the Red Cross is to visit and monitor prisoners. Historically, the ICRC would visit Israeli prisons. After it neglected to visit Jewish hostages in Gaza, Israel suspended its access. That the Red Cross made a greater issue about such suspensions while Hamas tortured, abused, starved, and, in some cases, executed Jewish civilians in its custody suggests that the Red Cross considers the welfare of Jews to be an exception to its mission.

Less than two weeks after Hamas seized more than 200 men, women, and children, President Joe Biden said, “I asked Israel that the global community demand that the International Red Cross be able to visit hostages. I just demanded that the United States fully — a just demand that the United States fully supports.”

Yet, when Israel made the demand and Hamas rejected it, the White House continued channeling hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to ICRC. The message was clear: Biden’s team recognized but would not lift a finger to rectify the ICRC’s Jewish exception, even though several of those hostages were Americans.

Had Biden withheld funding to the ICRC until the group visited all hostages, Mirjana Spoljaric, a Swiss diplomat who heads the group, may not have been so willing to throw Jews under the bus for the sake of the group’s good relations with Hamas. Instead, the group continues to allow Hamas to subject Jewish women to harassment and abuse upon their release. Moral clarity and backbones matter.

Alas, the ICRC’s willingness to sacrifice its mission upon its antipathy toward Jews is not a one-time occurrence. It took the ICRC headquarters more than 75 years to recognize Israel’s Magen David Adom’s chapter because of objections over its Jewish star. It had no trouble recognizing the Islamic Red Crescent, however.

Nor is the ICRC alone. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency effectively became an enabler of Hamas terrorism, if not a Hamas arm. Its employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Its hospitals doubled as Hamas command posts. And released hostages said they were kept at times in UNRWA facilities. Yet, its commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini, an ICRC leadership alum, deflects criticism and accountability. Instead, he seemingly embraces the ICRC’s Jewish exception.

ICRC rot runs deeper. Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, cited ICRC’s Israel denunciations to justify her own advocacy for Hamas.

Antisemitism remains the world’s oldest hatred, and Jews are the canary in the coal mine. Antisemitism’s victims are not just Jewish, however. The institutional antisemitism and embrace of a Jewish exception in international organizations such as the ICRC and the U.N. erode their moral standing.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen was right when, in 2023, he said the Red Cross had “no right to exist” if it did not visit the hostages in Gaza. His only error was he did not go far enough. The moral bankruptcy not only of the ICRC but also of organizations ranging from UNRWA to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund raises questions about whether it is time to cull them.

[theoutcastrogue]

A handful of people in Pompeii that were killed by the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 are not who experts thought they were, according to a team of researchers that recently collected DNA from the individuals’ remains. The team’s findings—published today in Current Biology—spotlight previous incorrect conclusions about relationships between the residents of Pompeii and reveals new insights about the demographics of the Ancient Roman port city. “We show that the large genetic diversity with significant influences from the Eastern Mediterranean was not only a phenomenon in the metropolis of Rome during Imperial times but extends to the much smaller city of Pompeii, which underscores the cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic nature of Roman society,” said Alissa Mittnik, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Harvard University, and co-author of the study [...] Demographically, the team found that five individuals in Pompeii weren’t so genetically associated with modern-day Italians and Imperial-period Etruscans as they were to groups from the eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, and North Africa—specifically North African Jewish populations. Pompeii was an important port in first-century Rome, so it’s not a huge surprise that it had representation from across the Mediterranean—but the genetic stories of the studied individuals verifies it. [...] “This study illustrates how unreliable narratives based on limited evidence can be, often reflecting the worldview of the researchers at the time.” One particularly famous set of remains revisited by the team is that of an adult with a golden bracelet and a child—the child being on the adult’s lap. Long interpreted as a mother and child, the remains actually belong to an unrelated male and a child.

"Unrelated." This gutted me, for some reason. Reminded me of Watchmen and what I think are some of the most memorable panels in the history of comics.

There's a catastrophe, a colossal explosion, a disaster that we know claims the lives of millions. We know it's happening, we know there's a "psychic shockwave" involved. And there's two people we've been casually following from the start of the story, ordinary people in the street, unlike all those costumed heroes running around. They're not very good and they're not very bad. They're just people. One is an old man running a news-stand, the other is a young kid who reads pirate comics. They don't like each other. They're rude to each other, generation gap and all. Two minutes ago they learned they share a name, and managed to share an almost kind word, and they're about to start fighting again. They're just people, right? And then the disaster happens. We don't see it yet. The blood and gore will be witnessed in the next issue. For now, the background fades to white, and we only see them.

They drop what they're holding, they hug, the old man puts his arms protectively around the young kid, and they fade. They fade into the shape of the Watchmen logo, ubiquitous throughout the comic, and then they fade out. White panel. There's nothing left. And off-panel, the Ozymandias quote.

Watchmen primarily aimed to evoke nuclear war, and the "psychic shockwave" clearly stands for the blast of a thermonuclear explosion. What makes the sequence gut-wrenching is the hug (so tender and so futile), the fade-to-white (a negative space so understated and so enormous), and the penultimate panel: an after-image frozen in time, declaring forever "once there were people here". Just like the plaster casts of Pompeii, just like the stones of Hiroshima.

Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945: the shadow of a person who was disintegrated at the moment of the blast. The steps and the wall were burned white, except the portion that was shielded by the person's body. (These steps were cut out and are now inside the Hiroshima Peace Park museum.) Photo by Yoshito Matsushige, whose films were confiscated and didn't get printed until the U.S. occupation ended in Japan in April 1952.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Hey, non-jewish person here. I spend over a year on twitter seeing people throw around the word "zionist" at anyone they didn't like because of their stand on I/P. I had never heard or read that word in my life, and while I never used it against anyone ever, I also never looked up what it meant. I thought the context cues of it often being next to things like "genocide supporter" were enough to come to the conclusion that it was something bad. It's only now that I've joined tumblr that I'm realizing things are not that plain and simple.

I want to learn, but I don't know where to start, and I will admite that part of me is afraid of falling for "pro-israel propaganda". My first instinct was to go to wikipedia, but I've read on here that certain pages on this topic have been edited and tampered with? I'm just very lost and I don't know how to feel about this whole matter, but like I said, I want to learn.

Dear gentile reader,

it’s literally just means a Jew who believes the state of Israel should exist, in practice it means “any politically outspoken religious jew who I will silence by implying they’re a murderer because I see them as a threat”

thanks for waking up to the fact that your cult lied to you and you were radicalized

here’s how this happened

here is a great long masterpost to get you started on pro Palestine activism that isn’t antisemitic

Thanks for wanting to educate yourself,

Cecil

[will-o-the-witch]

Do you have any good resources for learning about Ashkenazi folk practice? I'm Jewish and have been interested to learn more about it and dip my toes in, but it can be kind of difficult to find good resources. Thus far I have found Ashkenazi Herbalism and The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, but was unsure what else was out there.

I'm glad you asked

Here's a free online course from the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research specifically about Ashkenazi folk pratice.

I've been meaning to take it myself once I have a little more time.

[edenfenixblogs]

okay this is a bit of a random question, and please feel free to ignore it for whatever reason! and please forgive any clumsy wording, i promise i'm asking just from curiosity and without any malice.

i know in jewish culture the mother is the one who sort of 'transfers jewishness' to the children, so i was wondering what would happen if a jewish trans man had a baby? would the kids be considered jewish or, because he's a father, would it be different?

lastly, i just wanted to thank you for all of your posts. i learn so much from you, and it always makes me smile when i see one of your art or tree posts!

What a great ask!!!! Thank you so much for your kind words!!!! It makes the stressful parts worth it. 😊🩵🩵

So, first off, I’m no rabbi or even a religious scholar. I’m just a Jew who likes being a Jew.

But here is my take that other Jews are free to add onto or provide sources on.

But there is no Jewish High Authority. There’s no, like, Jewish pope to sit around and let Jews know they’ve Done Jewish Wrong. Judaism is a cultural of mutual acceptance based on the totality of shared cultural wisdom and understanding.

So, a person cannot just decide “I’m Jewish now” and be Jewish. Jews as a community must accept them into our tribe after they’ve demonstrated an understanding of and commitment to our broad understanding of life. Jews also don’t have sects. We have different branches or streams of belief ranging from humanist to ultraorthadox, but we are all equally Jewish. We don’t even all believe in G-d. Our core values revolve around how we treat one another and are nuanced, which is why becoming a Jew is a process.

With that in mind, with the exception of a few very strictly outlier cases, matrilineal passage of religion is more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule.

I could be wrong as it’s been awhile since I learned this and may have some details mixed up, but I believe that the matrilineal passage of culture was partially instituted due to the frequent rape of Jewish women. As a community, we consider a child born to a Jewish woman to be as much a part of our community as any other member of our community, regardless of who fathered that child. Likewise, we take communal responsibility and cultural claim to that child. Someone cannot rape a Jewish woman and the take her child from her to be raised as non-Jewish that is an affront to us.

Other reasons I’ve heard for why Jews pass religion through mothers is due to equality. Matrilineal passage of culture is only one part of passing Judaism across generations. Jews get the religion from their mother and their tribe from their father. There used to be 12 tribes named after all of Jacob’s sons. But those were mostly scattered/lost over persecution and diaspora. Now there are only three (depending on how you break it down. It gets complicated LOL): Yisrael, Levi, and Cohen. Most Jews are tribe of Yisrael. I am tribe of Yisrael because my father is tribe of Yisrael. When you convert to Judaism you also become tribe of Yisrael. My mother is a Levite (tribe of Levi) because her father was a Levite. Historically, Levites played an important role in the Old Temple in Jerusalem as well as other culturally distinct duties ranging from everything from maintaining the temple itself, education of the Jewish community, singing in the old temple, serving as judges, and serving as guards of the temple. In diaspora and in times of strife in the biblical era, Levites also helped keep Jewish communities together and safe.

The remaining tribe is Kohanim. This group is believed to be directly descended from Aaron, Moses’s brother and therefore descended from all the priests of the temple in the biblical era.

It is possible that the Levites and Kohanim were able to maintain their tribal lineage patrilineally due to their status as leaders in early diaspora and therefore being able to maintain their roles in diasporic Jewish communities longer. I simply don’t know. But I do know that the culture is what mothers traditionally pass down and the duties and history of the tribe is passed down via the fathers. When both parents are Jewish, what matters is that each parent passes an important aspect of cultural identity on to their children.

But none of this is compulsory or set in stone.

And I will again say that my understanding of it all may be fundamentally flawed in some way, because of how unimportant it is to me personally. I mean, I think it’s cool that my mom can trace our lineage back so far. And even some DNA tests done several years ago have confirmed that my mom is descended from an actual Talmudic scholar which is fun to know. I think it’s cool that my ancestors were biblical nerds and judges and that my grandfather was a lawyer and that my skill that benefits the Jewish community during times of strife in diaspora seems to be education and outreach. I like that I personally seem to excel at issues related to judgment and education and community cohesion, because it is so in line with the history of my ancestors as determined by cultural norms as well as DNA. It also makes me sad that diaspora has taken away some of that cultural heritage from other Jewish tribes.

But it doesn’t actually have anything to do with how Jewish we are OR how important or valid we are to or within the Jewish community. These are rules/guidelines that were developed with the goal of maintaining identity and culture despite immense hardship. These are rules/guidelines meant to strengthen our community. But they were never (as far as I understand it all) meant to EXCLUDE anyone.

And here’s the thing: a slang way Jews have of referring to one another is as “members of the tribe.” Because beyond Yisrael or Levi or Kohen, we are all JEWS. We are all a member of the same tribe, and that tribe is Judaism.

Is the trans man Jewish? Have he and his partner (if he chooses to have a partner) agreed to raise their child Jewish? Then congratulations to them and their Jewish baby!!!

If one parent is a Levite or a Kohen and the other is another tribe, I’ll let them and rabbi decide how to sort that out. But even then it wouldn’t likely be viewed as a matter of contention but more as a fun Talmudic riddle to explore.

TL;DR: Patrilineal Jews are just as Jewish as any other Jew. And trans men are men. Beyond that, everything else is Talmudic nuanced debate.