#Make Pogrom Great Again !

[lepartidelamort]

La télévision belge stoppe la diffusion de l’Eurovision lors du passage de la chanteuse d’Israël

La télévision publique flamande a agi en urgence contre l’opération de propagande juive à l’Eurovision.

Ces juifs chantent pendant qu’ils exterminent des civils innocents.

Ces juifs sont des démons.

En démocratie, la liberté des uns s’arrêtent là où commence la suprématie juive.

Les Européens ne sont pas autorisés à arborer des drapeaux palestiniens à l’Eurovision. C’est là que leur liberté prend fin. Tout le monde apporte un grand drapeau pour la finale.

La juive qui représente le régime génocidaire de Tel Aviv en Belgique est folle de rage.

#VRT Honte à vous

Ne serait-ce que pour contrer ces gens méprisables qui ont pris l’espace télévisuel pour diffuser des mensonges anti-Israël aux téléspectateurs du concours de l’#Eurovision.

Votez #14 pour Eden.

Les juifs s’assurent que les plus belles juives les représentent à l’étranger.

On imagine pas la télévision française s’aventurer à une telle action.

La formidable Greta Thunberg a dit les mots justes.

Pourquoi les juifs peuvent-ils participer à l’Eurovision tandis que la Russie en est exclue, alors qu’ils sont en train de perpétrer un génocide ?

Poser la question, c’est y répondre : les juifs contrôlent le système occidental.

Avec la nouvelle phase du génocide qui a débuté à Rafah, les démocraties vont se retrouver dans une situation intenable. Leurs discours sur le « droit international » n’aura plus aucune crédibilité.

Démocratie Participative

[perfectlyvalid49]

On being Jewish, and traumatized (It’s been 5 months and I want to talk):

Judaism is a joyous religion. So much of our daily practice is to focus us on the things that are good. I know that there’s a joke that all our holidays can be summed up as “they tried to kill us. We survived – let’s eat!”, and you might think that holidays focused on attempts at killing us might be somber, but they’re really not. Most are celebrated in the sense of, “we’re still here, let’s have a party!” When I think about practicing Judaism, the things I think about make me happy.

But I think a lot of non-Jews don’t necessarily see Judaism the same way. I think in part it’s because we do like to kvetch, but I think a lot of it is because from the outside it’s harder to see the joy, and very easy to see the long history of suffering that has been enacted on the Jewish people. From the inside, it’s very much, “we’re still here, let’s party” and from the outside it’s, “how many times have they tried to kill you? Why are you celebrating? They tried to KILL YOU!”

And I want to start with that because a lot of the rest of this is going to be negative. And I don’t want people to read it and wonder why I still want to be Jewish. I want to be Jewish because it makes me happy. My problem isn’t with being Jewish, it’s with how Jews are treated.

What I really wanted to write about is being Jewish and the trauma that’s involved with that right now.

First, I want to talk about Israeli Jews. I can’t say much here because I’m not Israeli, nor do I have any close friends or family that are Israeli. But if I’m going to be talking about the trauma Jews are experiencing right now, I can’t not mention the fact that Israeli Jews (and Israelis that aren’t Jewish as well, but that’s not my focus here) are dealing with massive amounts of it right now. It’s a tiny country – virtually everyone has a friend or family member that was killed or kidnapped, or knows someone who does. Thousands of rockets have been fired at Israel in the last few months – think about the fact that the Iron Dome exists and why it needs to. Terror attacks are ongoing; I feel like there’s been at least one every week since October. Thousands of people are displaced from their homes, either because of the rocket fire, or because their homes and communities were physically destroyed in the largest pogrom in recent history – the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust ended. If that’s not trauma inducing, I don’t know what is.

And there is, of course, the generational trauma. And I think Jewish generational trauma is interesting because it’s so layered. Because it’s not just the result of one trauma passed down through the generations. Every 50-100 years, antisemitism intensifies, and so very frequently the people experiencing a traumatic event were already suffering from the generational trauma that their grandparents or great grandparents lived through. And those elders were holding the generational trauma from the time before that. And so on.

And because it happens so regularly, there’s always someone in the community that remembers the last time. We are never allowed the luxury of imagining that we are safe. We know what happened before, and we know that it happened again and again and again. And so we know that it only makes sense to assume it will happen in the future. The trauma response is valid. I live in America because my great grandparents lived in Russia and they knew when it was time to get the hell out in the 1900s. And the reason they knew that is because their grandparents remembered the results of the blood libels in the 1850s. How can we heal when the scar tissue keeps us safe?

I look around now and wonder if we’ll need to run. We have a plan. I repeat, my family has a plan for what to do if we need to flee the country due to religious persecution. How can that possibly be normal? And yet, all the Jewish families I know have similar plans. It is normal if you’re Jewish. Every once in a while I see someone who isn’t Jewish talk about making plans to leave because they’re LGBTQ or some other minority and the question always seems to be, “should I make a plan?” It astounds me every time. The Jewish answer is that you need to have a plan and the only question is, “when should I act?” Sometimes our Jewish friends discuss it at play dates. Where will you go? What are the triggers to leave? No one wants to go any earlier then they have to. Everyone knows what the price of holding off too long might be.

I want to keep my children safe. When do I induct them into the club? When do I let my sweet, innocent kids know that some people will hate them for being Jewish? When do I teach them the skills my parents and grandparents taught me? How to pass as white, how to pass as Christian, knowing when to keep your mouth shut about what you believe. When do I tell them about the Holocaust and teach them the game “would this person hide me?” How hard do I have to work to remind them that while you want to believe that a person would hide you, statistically, most people you know would not have? Who is this more traumatic for? Them, to learn that there is hatred in the world and it is directed at them, or me, to have to drive some of the innocence out of my own children’s eyes in order to make sure they are prepared to meet the reality of the world?

And the reality of the world is that it is FULL of antisemitism. There’s a lot of…I guess I’d call it mild antisemitism that’s always present that you just kinda learn to ignore. It’s the sort of stuff that non-Jews might not even recognize as antisemitic until you explain it to them, just little micro-aggressions that you do your best to ignore because you know that the people doing it don’t necessarily mean it, it’s just the culture we live in. It can still hurt though. I like to compare it to a bruise: you can mostly ignore it, but every once in a while something (more blatant antisemitism) will put a bit to much pressure on it and you remember that you were already hurting this whole time.

On top of the background antisemitism, there’s more intense stuff. And usually the most intense, mask off antisemitism comes from the right. This makes sense, in that a lot of right politics are essentially about hating the “other” and what are Jews if not Western civilizations oldest type of “other”? On the one hand, I’ve always been fortunate enough to live in relatively liberal areas so this sort of antisemitism has felt far away and impersonal – they hate everybody, and I’m just part of everybody. On the other hand, until recently I’ve always considered this the most dangerous source of antisemitism. This is the antisemitism that leads to hate crimes, that leads to synagogue shootings. This is the reason why my synagogue is built so that there is a long driveway before you can even see the building, and that driveway is filled with police on the high holidays. This is the reason why my husband and I were scared to hang a mezuzah in our first apartment (and second, and third). For a long time, this was the antisemitism that made me afraid.

But the left has a problem with antisemitism too. And it has always been there. Where the right hates the “other”, the left hates the “privileged/elite/oppressors.” It’s the exact same thing, just dressed up with different words. They all mean “other” and “other” means “Jew.” It hurts more coming from the left though. A lot of Jewish philosophy leans left. A lot of Jews lean left. So when the left decides to hate us, it isn’t a random stranger, it’s a friend, and it feels like a betrayal.

One of the people I follow works for Yad Vashem, and a few weeks ago she mentioned a video they have with testimonies from people who came to Israel after Kristallnacht, with an unofficial title of “The blow came from within.” The idea is that to non-German Jews, the Holocaust was something done by strangers. It was still terrible, but it is easier to bear the hate of a stranger – it’s not personal. But to German Jews, the Holocaust was a betrayal. It wasn’t done by strangers, it was done by coworkers, and neighbors and people they thought were friends. It was done by people who knew them, and still looked at them and said, “less than human.” And because of this sense of betrayal, German survivors, or Germans who managed to get out before they got rounded up, had a very different experience than other Holocaust victims.

And I feel like a lot of left leaning Jews are having a similar experience now. People that we’ve marched with or organized with, or even just mutuals that we’ve thought of as friends are now going on about how Jews are evil. They repeat antisemitic talking points from the Nazis and from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and when we point out that those ideas have only led to Jewish death in the past they don’t care. And if someone you thought of as a friend thinks of you this way, what do you think a stranger might think? Might do?

The Jews are fucking terrified. I’ve seen a post going around that basically wonders if this was what it was like for our ancestors – when things got bad enough to see what was coming but before it was too late to run? And we can see what’s coming. History tells us that they way people are talking and acting only leads to one place. I’m a millennial – when I was a kid the grandparents at my synagogue made sure the kids knew – this is what it looked like before, this is what you need to watch out for, this is when you need to run. I wonder where to run to. It feels like nowhere is safe.

I feel like I’ve been lucky in all this. I don’t live in Israel. I have family and acquaintances who do, but no one I’m particularly close to. Everyone I know in real life has either been sane or at least silent about all of this (the internet has been significantly worse, but when it comes to hate, the internet is always worse). I live in a relatively liberal area – there’s always been antisemitism around anyway, but it’s mostly just been swastikas on flyers, or people advocating for BDS, not anything that’s made me actually worry for my safety. But in the last 5 months there have been bomb threats at my synagogue, and just last week a kid got beat up for being Jewish at our local high school. He doesn’t want to report it. He’s worried it will make it worse.

I bought a Magen David to wear in November. At the time it seemed like the best way to fight antisemitism was to be visibly Jewish, to show that we’re just normal people like everyone else. Plus, I figured that if me being Jewish was going to be a problem for someone, then I would make it a problem right away and not waste time. I’ve worn it almost constantly since, but the one time I took it off was when I burnt my finger in December and had to go to urgent care. I didn’t think about it too much when I did it, but I thought about it for a long time after – I didn’t feel good about having made that choice.

The conclusion I came to is that the training that my elders had been so careful to instill in me kicked in. I was hurt, and scared, and the voice inside my head that sounds like my grandmother said, “don’t give them a reason to be bad to you. Fight when you’re well, but for now – survive.” It still felt cowardly, but it was also a connection to my ancestors who heeded the same voice well enough to survive. And it enrages me that that voice has been necessary in the past. And it enrages me that things are bad enough now that my instinct is that I need to hide who I am to receive appropriate medical care.

I wish I had some sort of final thought to tie this all together other than, “this sucks and I hate it,” but I really don’t. I could call for people to examine their antisemitic biases, but I’m not foolish enough to think that this will reach the people who need to do so. I could wish for a future where everything I’ve talked about here exists only in history books, and the Jewish experience is no longer tied to feeling this pain, but that’s basically wishing for the moshiach, and I’m not going to hold my breath.

I guess I’ll end it with the thought that through all of this hate and pain and fear, we’re still here. And we’re still joyful as well. As much as so many people have tried over literally THOUSANDS of years to eradicate us, I’m still here, I’m still Jewish, and being Jewish still makes me happy.

Am Yisrael Chai.

[storiesfromgaza]

You MUST READ and disseminate the resignation letter of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which speaks of a comprehensive plan for annihilation/genocide.

This resignation letter and message were written three days before the Jabaliya Massacre, in which many children and women tragically lost their lives!

You can read it from the image, or I will provide you with the text below to make it easier for you to read.

28 October 2023 Dear High Commissioner, This will be my last official communication to you as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me. I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations, it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives of prevention of mass atrocites, of protection of the vulnerable, and of accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of the UN. High Commissioner, we are failing again. As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules. This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations to ensure respect" for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel's atrocities. Volker Turk, High Commissioner for Human Rights Palais Wilson, Geneva

[still-searching-for-something]

I saw someone else make this comparison, so I can't claim credit, but Tumblr has low-key spontaneously recreated the ghetto, hasn't it?

Like, we have our own little area of Tumblr safe for us, #jumblr, and our conversations in it don't penetrate out of jumblr. The rest of the site is rabidly anti-Jewish and even just being a openly jewish blog that rarely discusses Jewish or Israeli issues outside of jumblr is enough to get "from the river to the sea 🇵🇸" or "kys zionazi scum" in your comments and asks. And every now and again, Tumblr users will get antsy and cope by marching around in jumblr spamming antisemitic BS until the jumblr tag is trending.

Like, what's next? Will we start developing our own slang and inside jokes and eventually recreate the story of Judeo-Roman? It's not a one to one analogy, of course, antisemitic Tumblr users spamming antisemitic messages and harassing Jews online is a hell of a lot less destructive than the pogroms of the old country, it's just darkly amusing to me that the self-proclaimed leftist progressives on the queer website have--probably without even realizing it--resurrected and digitized the medieval Jewish ghettos.

Like, great job guys--so progressive and antiracist of you.

[matan4il]

Today marks 100 years since Hitler's first attempt to take over Germany by force, and 85 years since Kristallnacht, the Nazi-orchestrated pogrom that really forced Jews to realize how great the danger posed to them in Europe was.

A few years ago, I made a post with some of the updated data from research conducted in recent years, but this year, after the massacre of Oct 7, most of what I wrote doesn't feel relevant in the same way.

I'm thinking of this...

Up until that pogrom, it was a negligible Jewish minority that realized they HAD to get out, if they wanted to survive. Afterwards, as ALL Jews tried to flee, the world basically closed its doors to the Jewish refugees. Of those who got out in time, some found refuge in Israel, those who were lucky enough not to be blocked by the British, who were ruling this land at the time.

I've researched Jewish families' stories, and how they were torn apart. One youngster gets it and leaves in time. His elderly parents don't know how to start over in a different place, when being German was so embedded in their identity. They end up taking their own lives. These two single sisters make it to Israel. Their nephew writes them in Hebrew that he had dreamed at night of the whole family joining them in the Jewish homeland. He and his parents are murdered in shooting pits in Riga. A Zionist boyfriend makes it out. His girlfriend, trapped in the Lodz Ghetto, thinks back to his stories about Yossef Trumpeldor, a Jewish man who died in northern Israel in 1920, defending his community from Arab attackers, and whose last words were, "It's good to die for our country." She cries. "That's what I wanted, to die with dignity while fighting, not like this, like a human rag." She survives and joins him in Israel. To some people, she's an evil colonizer, whose rape and murder they are capable of justifying. They do so while quoting Elie Wiesel's words, about the importance of speaking up, because silence only never helps the oppressed. They're co-opting Wiesel's words, a Holocaust survivor himself, who was a Zionist, and extremely critical of Hamas.

Story after story, it's all the same. In families or communities that were split, those who got to Israel survived. For those who remained or tried a different escape route, most didn't make it (like Anne Frank's family, who fled Germany, tried to make it to the US or Cuba, were turned away repeatedly, and ended up going into hiding in the Netherlands... with only Anne's father surviving).

I am thinking about how, if there had been a State of Israel, a safe haven for Jews, that would automatically take them in when they needed to get away from the Nazis, we estimate that at least a million and a half Jews would have been saved.

I am thinking about how, there would have been a Jewish state to bomb the gas chambers in Auschwitz and save at least half a million Jews from them, instead of uselessly begging the allied leaders to.

I am thinking about how, if the allied leaders would have taken into account the political profit from cultivating an alliance with the Jewish state, that could have provided the political motivation to their begging Jewish citizens a different answer, and they would have actually done something to save at least some of the Jews.

I am thinking about how, for 80 years or so, the world has been chanting, "Never again," but when Hamas terrorists massacred the biggest number of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust, too many couldn't even condemn it. I'm thinking about how, when some justify the massacre of Israeli Jews, including Holocaust survivors and their families, most people don't tell them off. When Israel fights back to protect the rest of its population, as it swore it would (yes, "Never again" also means the right to self defense), the world condemns it, vilifying the Jews again, by depicting Israel's response as nothing but blood lust and a desire for revenge. I'm thinking... this is why we have to have Israel. So we never again are dependent on the silent world to defend our right to live. So that implementing "Never again" is never a question of whether non-Jews did more than recite the words emptily.

The massacre that took place on Oct 7 was horrific. But we saw the repetitive nature, the scale, the wide geographical spread, and the industrial nature of countless massacres that happened when there was no Israel to respond, and when no one was defending the Jews.

From 1851 (when Rabbi Avraham Shlomo Zalman Zoref was murdered on his way to synagogue in Jerusalem) to this day, less Jews died in the Arab-Israeli conflict than during just two days in the Nazi shooting pit of Baby Yar, on Sep 29 and 30, 1941. In Israel, the memorial days for the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and for the people we lost in the Israeli-Arab conflict, are observed one week apart. The way that many here put here, the latter is to remember the price of having a state, and the former is to remember the price of not having one.

You don't have to agree with this POV. But when you look at the poisonous atmosphere cultivated online, including on Tumblr, where the Hamas massacre has been justified, or denied, or simply didn't merit a reaction, when you see how the global rise in antisemitism goes without much discussion, when you see people justifying violence towards Jews, based on a false narrative that erases entire chunks of Jewish history, at least understand where people who embrace this POV come from.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[stromuprisahat]

This country, the Darkling shouted. They can’t even let you fake your death in peace!

I knew that the more powerful Grisha were said to live long lives, and Darklings were the most powerful of them all.

Shadow and Bone- Chapter 3

“How old are you? ... Because I’ve heard stories about you since I was a child, but you don’t look much older than I am. ... If you don’t want to answer me, just say so.”

“I don’t want to answer you.”

“Oh.”

Then he sighed and said, “One hundred and twenty. Give or take.”

“They said you were the strongest Darkling in generations.”

“I didn’t ask you for flattery.”

Shadow and Bone- Chapter 5

Just how fucked Ravka is, if the Darkling can’t even risk change of aliases?

“The world is changing, Alina. Muskets and rifles are just the beginning. I’ve seen the weapons they’re developing in Kerch and Fjerda. The age of Grisha power is coming to an end.”

That situation’s too unstable to fake his death and try to establish himself all over again?

Let’s say the weaponry’s a matter of last decade or so. What was it before?

“Do you know the story of Andrei Zhirov?” 

“The revolutionary?” 

Zhirov had been a radical in Nikolai’s grandfather’s time. 

A grin ghosted over Dominik’s blood-flecked lips. “When they tried to hang him for treason, the rope broke and he rolled into the ditch the soldiers had dug for his grave.” 

Nikolai tried to smile. “I never heard that story.” 

Dominik nodded. “This country, Zhirov shouted. They can’t even hang a man right.”

King of Scars- Chapter 12

“Nikolai’s granfather’s time” would be some twenty, thirty years ago? Assuming the royals hurry to ensure the succession ASAP...

There’s been a suggestion somewhere, that Grisha could’ve been used to subdue the uprising. Even if that wasn’t the case, as we can clearly see throughout the books, crises are great times to re-awake some nice anti-Grisha hatred. Failed attempt to improve situation of Ravkan people would likely cause some displeasure, and who better to aim that at, than the Crown’s fancy serfs? You can’t harm the King, but you can kick his toys.

The “Last” official Darkling lived as long as he did to keep an eye on Ravkan masses. He might be hated, he might be blamed for every possible misfortune, but he’s also feared enough to make people think twice before crossing him.

The minute he’s out of picture- anti-Grisha pogroms begin.

To quote show!Aleksander, when he was still allowed some braincells:

Our enemies are threatened by your mere existence. But Ravka can only stand up to them if we present a united front. And there is talk of uprising in the West, led by our. esteemed First Army General. Our own people, turning their backs on us. I have been fighting this war alone for so long. I have buried so many good soldiers. Friends. The coffers are running dry, the noose tightens... and our own people are turning against Grisha, just as their kin once did.

[sethshead]

"Simon Schama in the Financial Times, Oct. 13, 2023:

"Confronted with enormity: murdered infants, abducted grandmothers, slaughtered villagers, lusty chants of 'gas the Jews' at the Free Palestine demonstration in Sydney, mere words feel like weak carriers of so much horror and sorrow. Journalistic bloviation on the cause of this and the effect of that seems an indecency, at least until the bodies are gathered and returned to families. So context me no contexts, analyse me no analyses, suspend your partially informed diagnoses; leave off your strenuous efforts at even-handedness. Let us be, to grieve, rage, weep; say the mourners’ kaddish.

"Perhaps images, then, not words? Of terrified young people who in a trice went from dancing to frantic running in a futile attempt to escape the spray of bullets; of a kibbutz dog shot as it emerged from a house (that must have helped Free Palestine); a young woman with bloody marks staining her sweatpants as she is bundled away by captors; a knife lying on a sofa in the kibbutz Be’eri, where 10 per cent of the population were killed; or visual evidence of 'resistance' like the video of Mor Bayder’s murdered grandmother uploaded by her killers to Mor’s Facebook page.

"Sympathy, for the moment, abounds, for as the writer Dara Horn pointed out in the title of her unsparing book of essays, People Love Dead Jews; living ones, especially should we have the temerity to defend ourselves, not so much. There is, rightly, sympathy too for the Palestinians of Gaza who are also victims and prisoners of Hamas and do not deserve to be punished for the wickedness perpetrated by their fanatical tyrants, nor for the delusion that the deaths of Jewish families will make Israel disappear.

"We do not disappear. But we do suffer. The great Columbia University historian Salo Wittmayer Baron spent his career inveighing against the fatalism of what he called 'the lachrymose conception' of Jewish history. I myself have made an effort to go with the positive: to celebrate the poetry, music, religious and secular literature of the diaspora; to think about Jewish history with the human smoke of Auschwitz blown away by time and education.

"But this now seems an idle hope. From reports all over the world in the days following the massacres last weekend, it is obvious that the spectacle of dead Jews can still excite, rather than restrain, antisemitism.

"Apparently it still needs saying that Zionism is not the cause, but the consequence, of perennial, dehumanising, antisemitism. The massacre of Jews not only long predates Zionism but is a constant fact of diaspora existence. Jews were attacked and exterminated in both the Muslim and Christian medieval worlds: six thousand butchered in Fez in 1033; thousands more in Almoravid Granada in 1066; the entire community of York in 1190. A friend of mine, currently in Spain, tells me almost all of the rarefied intellectuals she has encountered have been adamant that the victims were to blame, which, given the murder of thousands of Jews in 1391, is a bit rich.

"Nor was this persecution really about religion. Survivors who converted were, for all their professions of Christian faith, still tortured and burnt alive by an Inquisition suspicious that their blood was too impure for salvation. So Jews have been murdered for being too separate and murdered for being not separate enough. They were killed in vast numbers by Cossacks in 1648; by Russian pogroms in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1899 an anti-Dreyfusard journal asked its readers what they would like to do with Jews. The responses were enthusiastic and ingenious: use them as targets for new artillery, turn them into dog food and, needless to say, gas them.

"In the face of lethal peril, help has been conditional. Children were rescued by the Kindertransport on condition of being separated from their parents, many of whom they would never see again. A conference on 'refugees' was held in Bermuda in 1943, when the Final Solution was known, basically on condition the word 'Jew' was never mentioned. It was this lose/lose situation that moved Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, prophetic about a coming annihilation, to insist that in the end Jews must count only on themselves for their protection.

"That core Zionist article of faith collapsed last Saturday, not least because of the Netanyahu government’s obstinate refusal to listen to Israel’s security chiefs, who warned him that the safety of the country was being imperilled by policies that were dangerously divisive. Whatever the immediate unity of the country, his days as prime minister are numbered and his legacy will forever be this catastrophe. But that inevitable departure will not staunch the tears, bring back the dead or heal the trauma. And should there be a ground invasion, innocent Palestinian and Jewish lives will pay a terrible price, not that Hamas cares about either.

"But Israel will survive, revive. If only because, even in this dreadful extremity, one text from Deuteronomy, 30. 19 lies at the indefatigably beating heart of Jewish history:

"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."

h/t Shoshana Hantman

[eretzyisrael]

by MARK GOLDFEDER AND GABE GROISMAN

Even in her non-apology, Jayapal cannot help but take swipe after swipe at the Israeli government, who "make it extremely difficult" to achieve peace. In the entire "apology" there is not a single mention of any of the actual challenges that the Israelis currently face. Not a single mention or acknowledgement of incessant terror attacks that target innocent men, women, and children, supported by a 'peace partner' (the Palestinian Authority) that literally pays the terrorists to kill Israeli civilians. In Jayapal's statement, and clearly in her mind, there are not two sides to this conflict, just innocent Palestinians who are suffering and racist Israelis who are making their lives miserable.

As she made clear in her statement, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict the only "pain and hurt" Jayapal can conceive of as it relates to "Israelis and their Jewish diaspora community" (to contrast with the Palestinian's sense of despair and wish for equal rights) is that they must still be reeling "from the trauma of pogroms and persecution, the Holocaust, and continuing antisemitism and hate violence." Again, there is no mention of the terrorist groups that shoot and bomb Israeli cities incessantly, targeting innocent Israeli and Arab men, women, and children; or of the cold-blooded killers that stalk the streets of the historic Jewish homeland with knives and axes, or ram its citizens with cars.

To be clear, we soundly reject Jayapal's "apology." Her statement is part and parcel of a growing movement within the progressive left wing of the Democrat Party, which no American should support, no matter their race, religion or party affiliation. Jayapal and her friends have a history of reflexively criticizing Israel without actually knowing the facts, or caring about the context. Studies have shown that their brand of inflammatory, discriminatory, antisemitic rhetoric often leads directly to antisemitic violence, yet they continue to try and infuse the national conversation with their reckless and demonstrably dangerous lies.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hello! I am Filipino (Kapampangan) and my family used to be very close to their animist/polytheistic roots but are no longer due to the genocide of our indigenous culture/peoples. I am very passionate about anti-colonialism (and the revival of culture, including religion) because of how it affected my life (and many before me), and I really like your blog! I find much joy in that people are willing to stand up against the squashing of other cultures simply because they do not fit the "ideal" or "aesthetic". Because I am not Greek, I would like the opinion of someone who does come from that culture on religion specifically. Would it be okay that people like me who aren't Greek worship the Greek pantheon/participate in Hellenic Polytheism? I was learning about polytheism in context of my own ancestry, and along the way, I came to learning of Hellenic, Egyptian, and Hindu, among other religions. The more I learn on Hellenic Polytheism, the more I believe in Orphic teachings as they just make sense to me. If it would be okay, how would I do so in a way that isn't harmful? What sources would you say are best? If not, I completely respect that. I understand how it is to deal with misrepresentation of your home culture/religion, and I don't want to contribute to all the cultural appropriation of Greek culture. Thank you !!

Hello! Thank you for opening up with your story and it was great learning about your experience and your thoughts💙 I know the internet connects everyone from all places on earth but if you think about it we are pretty far away from each other, and it makes me so happy that a person from so far away found joy in what I keep!

Most importantly, I feel it's so touching that a Kapampangan Filipino would say to a Macedonian Greek "I have found my spiritual way in your ancient gods* and the Orphic beliefs". What are the odds of this happening during the last thousands of years of human history! (There are some Filipino immigrants in Greece but the odds of this specific discussion happening are slim.) I miiight be getting a bit emotional about it, but again... what are the odds!

*We still refer to our ancient gods as "our gods" although nearly all of us are baptized Orthodox :p

Greeks don't mind if non-Greeks worship the Greek gods. While the Greek gods have a Greek cultural identity (Greeks literally believed they descended from these gods as a nation) there was never any point in restricting the worship of these gods to people from other regions. There are no such limitations in the ancient texts or rules of the religion.

To be faaaair, there are so many times many Greeks think "just don't touch the damned thing because there's a 99% chance you're gonna fandomize it or treat it like a doll play with a dash of Evangelical upbringing" but that's another problem and it comes down to attitudes 😂 There is this 1% of people who want to be respectful and research as much as they can, so we get very excited about this authentic cultural contact!

If you're here for long you've probably realized that Greeks could relate to some experiences of cultural erasure and prosecution + genocide of the Kapampangan people. You would have seen the post about the Ottoman Empire posts, the genocide, the anti-Greek sentiments, the pogroms etc. (And how we are pretty much dead in the eyes of many Western nations who don't even know what language we speak in Greece and call Greek a "dead language", but I digress 😂) I know our histories are not the exact same. But I appreciate how your message showed our shared goal.

For starters, you can check my f.a.q. page , you can check my tags #hellenic polytheism , #greek gods, #greek mythology, #ancient greece #zeus and hera, #hades and persephone, #xenoi doing bs , #greek speaks , and #hellenismos (which is an incorrect tag the way I use it, but I keep it for people who don't know it's better to avoid using it xD) There are lots of discussions there that will probably shed light on the opinions of Greeks and how inaccurately Greek culture is seen through a Western lens. The material is a lot but it will be a good start, and the posts have various moods.

I understand that you have some experience with cultural erasure, and perhaps some experience with outsiders adopting animist practices in disrespectful ways. You could use this experience to pin down the details of your learning path. I don't imply that you would cause any disrespect. To be honest, I already see that you are approaching the entry to the practice in the healthiest way!

What I am saying is that you could check for potential gaps in your understanding by examining how people misunderstood Greek symbolism or beliefs because of cultural differences. (I would do the same if I attempted to practice a faith foreign to me because I also have my own cultural lenses on)

Depending on where someone comes from, they might see the Greek gods as too cruel, or too soft, or too distant from humans, and the reason for this different POV (even if this POV sounds bonkers :p) is always interesting to investigate. So you can later bridge the gap based on what characteristics might be different between your culture and the ancient and modern Greek culture. This whole advice section might make more sense if you read the posts in the tags #zeus and hera and #hades and persephone .

But definitely start with ancient Greek texts as your guide! Any type of Greek text that mentions the gods. Be careful with ancient Roman texts, as they are later, and especially with whatever Ovid has written.

I'm sure you have already thought "I should approach the ancient Greek religion as I'd like a foreigner approaching my ancestral beliefs" and that would be just right! In addition to that, I would urge you to follow the ancient Greek texts but also look at what the modern Greeks are doing. Many of our rituals and religious philosophy have carried on to our Christianity, so they have evolved, in a way.

This is a bit tricky course because, obviously, you don't want to become a Christian Orthodox, and you still want to retain some ancient Greek practices which might not be used today. Reading a bit on Christian Orthodox practices might give an insight into this evolution so if you want to check it out read the tag #greek orthodox and #greek culture. Chances are, you are familiar with Catholicism but there are differences with Orthodoxy. Since our saints have replaced the ancient gods and their domains (Panagia for Aphrodite, Agios Giorgios for Ares and Athena, Agios Haralampos for Asclepios), seeing how we approach these saints might give an insight into how we used to approach the ancient gods.

As an example of being "out of touch" I bring up the traditional ritualistic cleansing before entering Greek a temple (Polytheistic and Christian). Many westerners have analyzed the concept of "miasma" greatly, writing very long posts and intricate explanations about this. Meanwhile Greeks are like "guys don't stress too much about it. Just don't be dirty or a biohazard to others while entering a temple. It's common sense" xD I don't blame anyone for wanting to be as accurate as possible but sometimes checking in with the locals simplifies things :P

Veiling in Greek temples, both Polytheistic and Christian is an element we ditched as a nation since we have come to associate veiling with a type of purity that works as an oppressive force. Of course our priests, monks and nuns are still extremely covered and modest but the average Greek thinks this is not a practical way to live.

In any case, you will worship in 2023 and not in 300 BCE, so you don't have to follow all the rules of 300 BCE. This post is a small window into what the few Hellenic Polytheists in Greece do in their worship. And you don't need to use the ancient forms of Greek words. We still use them, so you can use their sliiiightly different 2023 forms. No deity will judge you if you use the Greek terms of your time :p (it's not necessary to use Greek words if an equivalent exists in your language)

I think it would keep you "in touch" if you maintain a decent relationship with today's Greek culture while practicing the ancient Greek religion. The ancient religion and culture are not a forgotten part of us. By researching Greece you may find ways to combine the new and the old ways of worship. In Greek tradition all inanimate nature is alive and, as in our ancient epics, the mountains and soil and trees, etc, are still entities that speak to us. The ancient nature - and death - deities also exist in our recent tradition.

As a last point, also based on "I should approach the ancient Greek religion as I'd like a foreigner approaching my ancestral beliefs": You can make a checklist with basic concepts and how they are different in the culture you know compared to the Greek (ancient and modern) culture.

E.g. What are the cleansing rituals? What is a "respectful" attire? When do they eat fish? How important are the dead to them? How many days, months and years have to pass before the next remembrance ritual? Do they address their dead? What offerings do they make to them? What are the seasonal festivals? What's their relationships with trees and mountains? What types of incense and alcohol do they use in their rituals?

That's all I can think of now! I am not an expert and I don't know everything - I am not the absolute Truth - but I hope I helped. I'm sure you'll have lots of things to work on but I am sure it will be a fulfilling journey. Don't hesitate to send more questions if you think that I can help with anything. Many Greeks follow this blog so they can write opinions and suggestions as well.

Farewell and have lots of success with your endeavour! 💙

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Peter Juul

Published: Nov 28, 2023

More than twenty years ago, the philosopher Michael Walzer famously asked whether or not there could be a “decent left.” After seeing the left’s reaction to the heinous October 7 terrorist atrocities in Israel, the answer is clearly no, there is no decent left—and we shouldn’t expect one to come into being any time soon.

It seemed that this indecent left had gone into remission with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Outside a subset of inveterate anti-American ideologues, it was left to self-proclaimed realists to make the case for letting Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine stand—or, failing that, negotiate a settlement that would reward the Kremlin with chunks of Ukrainian territory. Indeed, a number of individuals affiliated with the so-called “restraint” school of foreign policy disassociated themselves from their erstwhile comrades while Democratic political leaders brutally smacked down half-baked calls from progressives to negotiate away Ukrainian sovereignty on terms favorable to Vladimir Putin.

But the indecent left roared back to life with a vengeance almost immediately after October 7, excusing and “contextualizing”—and sometimes outright denying—deliberate mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of ordinary Israeli civilians and foreigners. Outright anti-Semitism permeated the indecent left’s reaction to the Hamas terror attacks from the start, with a number of left-wing activists, academics, and intellectuals alike either celebrating or apologizing for the pogrom as soon as it occurred. At best, the left issued impotent calls for an immediate ceasefire that amounted to demands that Israel do nothing after 1,200 of its citizens were brutally massacred and another 240 or so taken hostage by Hamas and its allies.

If anything, the pathologies Walzer described two decades ago have only gotten worse. This is not a political movement that wants to think seriously or coherently about the war between Israel and Hamas or foreign policy and armed conflict more generally; as Walzer wrote twenty years ago, “ideologically primed leftists were likely to think that they already understood whatever needed to be understood.” An epidemic of denial has characterized the indecent left’s response to October 7, one marked by three great refusals.

A refusal to deal with the problem at hand: what to do about Hamas?

Many ceasefire calls mean well: ordinary people are understandably appalled by the death and destruction and quite reasonably just want it to stop. While this humanitarian sentiment is commendable, it fails to address the question at the heart of the current conflict: what to do about Hamas in the wake of October 7? Other much-touted ceasefire calls from politicians like Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) essentially amount to terms of surrender for Hamas—immediate release of all hostages, giving up arms, and relinquishing control over Gaza. Likewise, the hostage release deal the Biden administration and Middle East partners brokered between Israel and Hamas only temporarily pauses the fighting.

Most immediate ceasefire calls coming from the indecent left essentially call for Israel to do nothing in response to October 7. Occasionally they come with provisions requiring Hamas release the hostages it took during its attack, but typically they amount to demands for a unilateral Israeli ceasefire without any explicit reciprocity from Hamas to, say, stop firing rockets into Israeli cities. Worse, they fail to take into account repeated threats by Hamas leaders to carry out October 7-style pogroms over and over again, much less the terrorist group’s long-standing, recently restated objective of destroying Israel itself. Since October 7, it’s obvious that many on the indecent left would have no problem with that outcome.

When asked what Israel—or America and the world at large—should do about Hamas after the cruelty of October 7, the indecent left’s repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire make clear that its answer is, at best, “nothing.” There may not be any good answers to this question, but “nothing” remains a grossly inadequate response.

A neo-Orientalist refusal to take either Palestinians or Israelis seriously

By and large, the indecent left has also demonstrated a remarkable lack of curiosity about either Palestinian or Israeli society and politics. It’s part and parcel of what TLP’s Brian Katulis dubbed neo-Orientalism: the use of nations and people overseas as props in America’s own domestic political debates. In particular, the indecent left spouts simplistic slogans while it professes “great concern and sympathy for the people of the region, while remaining largely indifferent to the diversity of backgrounds and perspectives within particular countries and societies.” That’s especially acute when it comes to discussions of Israel and the Palestinians, where the indecent left attempts to force the conflict into its own parochial ideological frameworks of “decolonization,” “white supremacy,” and “systemic racism.”

In other words, the indecent left thinks it already knows everything it needs to know about any given conflict—and especially any conflict that involves Israel. While “decolonization” provides the indecent left with a marginally coherent ideological framework, it amounts to little more than a “historically nonsensical” but nonetheless toxic stew of Soviet-era propaganda, half-baked academic theories, and contemporary identity politics. That includes the vogue to blame anything and everything on a mystical, all-pervasive white supremacy of which Israeli Jews somehow bizarrely partake. Why should the indecent left engage with the particularities of Palestinian politics or even give so much as a second glance to Israeli society when its ideology already gives it all the answers it needs?

As a result, the indecent left engages very little with actual Palestinian politics and society. It refuses to grant Palestinians any real agency and therefore refuses to acknowledge any real politics among Palestinians themselves, much less the fact that Hamas has repeatedly put forward an openly genocidal program or that it violently suppresses dissent among the Palestinians under its authority. Instead, many on the left fantasize about a single binational state in what was once the British Mandate of Palestine—something few Palestinians actually favor. Other leftists endorse slogans calling for a single Palestinian Arab state, but either way few of them actually delve into the complex power dynamics within Palestinian society—including those factions that don’t respect the basic rights and freedoms of a wide range of people.

If indecent leftists generally fail to engage with Palestinian politics and society in any meaningful way, they actively avoid any sort of real engagement with—or even understanding—of Israeli society and politics. At best, the indecent left ignores Israeli society and politics; at worst, it views Israeli society as somehow counterfeit. Other segments of the indecent left, especially in academia, actively discourage any engagement with Israelis and Israeli institutions. With zero understanding of Israeli society and politics, it cannot understand Israeli fears or motivations in any real way. The indecent left doesn’t know anything about Israeli society, and it doesn’t want to know anything about it.

A refusal to make elementary—if difficult—moral and ethical distinctions

In its rhetoric and analysis of the war between Israel and Hamas, the indecent left frequently equates the deliberate and premeditated murder, rape, and kidnapping of ordinary civilians with the inadvertent and unintentional deaths of civilians in what appear to be otherwise legitimate and legal military operations. Here as elsewhere, the left refuses to make what Walzer calls “one of the most basic and best understood moral distinctions: between premeditated murder and unintended killing.” At some fundamental level, many on the indecent left understand this distinction—as seen by the strenuous effort to portray just about any and every Israeli military action as unlawful and illegitimate by definition.

It may well be the case that the Israeli military has played fast and loose with the laws of war or committed war crimes in its war against Hamas. The sheer amount of ordnance dropped on Gaza between October 7 and the start of the Israeli ground offensive roughly three weeks later remains stunning—but it’s not necessarily illegal. It’s entirely legitimate and very much appropriate to question how well or how seriously the Israeli military takes its obligations to protect civilians, but as Walzer points out it’s impossible for any military to fight a war without putting civilians at risk. The Israeli military can and should probably do a better job protecting civilians, but it’s unrealistic to expect any war to end with zero civilian casualties.

By contrast, the indecent left remains either silent or in denial about blatant Hamas war crimes. It’s been an open secret for well over a decade that Hamas uses hospitals, schools, mosques, and other protected civilian buildings and facilities as command centers and bases for operations against Israel; sources ranging from the New York Times and PBS to non-governmental organizations typically unsympathetic to Israel like Amnesty International and even UNRWA attest to this fact. It’s not surprising to see the maze of tunnels uncovered beneath the Shifa hospital complex, nor is it shocking to see that Hamas brought hostages seized on October 7 to this medical facility. These Hamas abuses don’t even cover the deliberate and premeditated targeting of civilians for murder and rape on October 7 itself.

Then there’s the moral equivalence many on the indecent left have drawn between Israeli hostages held by Hamas and Palestinians jailed by Israel. There are many flaws and abuses in the way Israel treats detained Palestinians (particularly in East Jerusalem and the West Bank), but it’s hard to know what drives people to try and establish a moral equivalence between a four-year-old abducted by Hamas after terrorists killed her parents and a failed car bomber. However, that’s typical of an indecent left that tears down posters of hostages held by Hamas after October 7.

In its failure to make difficult but necessary moral distinctions, the indecent left contributes in its own way to the erosion of both the laws of war and the idea of crimes against humanity. It diminishes the force of both while giving the perpetrators of actual war crimes and atrocities effective political and moral cover. If there are no relevant distinctions between legal and legitimate actions in war and illegal and illegitimate ones—much less between legal and legitimate military operations and deliberate atrocities like October 7—it simply makes war even more brutal and appalling crimes against humanity more likely.

* * *

The pathologies of the indecent left burst out into the open once again after October 7, but they’ve been present in large swathes of the left for decades now. It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that these pathologies are inherent to and embedded in the left, and that no amount of argumentation or persuasion will eliminate or mitigate them. There are many decent leftists, but there is no decent left.

What should liberals and decent leftists do, then?

First, recognize that the indecent left is not your friend in any way, shape, or form. Indeed, the indecent left sees liberals and decent leftists—not conservatives or right-wing populists—as its primary adversaries. Even when there are ostensible areas of agreement, the underlying analysis and motivations and goals of the indecent left stand at odds with those of the broader center-left. It may not seem like much, but it’s important for mainstream liberals and decent leftists to understand this basic fact.

As a corollary, it’s important to note that the indecent left remains a small faction in American politics—it’s a paper tiger that garners excessive attention through activity on social media platforms and destructive political tactics. Different polls use different definitions and give different results, but the “progressive left” amounted to just six percent of the population in a 2021 Pew poll and eight percent in the 2018 Hidden Tribes poll.

Next, quarantine the indecent left. Much as mainstream liberals and decent leftists did in the late 1940s, today’s liberals and decent leftists must establish intellectual and political firewalls against the indecent left. That’s easier said than done, especially given the structure of contemporary center-left politics; unions and political parties that once filtered out bad-faith actors and indecent politics have weakened enormously in the intervening decades. Many of the same problems that plague domestic politics—an overreliance on college-educated professionals from foundation-funded non-profit institutions to staff government offices and agencies, for instance—likewise make it more difficult to combat indecent leftists on foreign policy.

Finally, liberals and the decent left need to articulate their own vision of foreign policy. The Biden administration and others on the mainstream center-left have been slowly groping their way toward this vision, particularly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But liberals and the decent left need to accelerate their own efforts to establish a foreign policy that stands in opposition not only to the indecent left but the isolationist America First right and the technocratic approach of the post-Cold War era. It’s an urgent task that can no longer be postponed.

Liberals and decent leftists did it once before, albeit under vastly different circumstances. But that should give us hope that we can do it again today.

[jewishvitya]

Can't remember if I ranted about it before, but I thought about it and got annoyed all over again.

There was this skit that went:

What your therapist says: "have you heard about generational trauma?"

What they mean: "your family is the problem."

And it's just one example, the video had several versions of this joke. But this part is such a misrepresentation of what generational trauma can mean. Generational trauma isn't just trauma caused by a previous generation, it's trauma carried over through generations.

My great grandfather was a holocaust survivor who lived through the camps. And after surviving them, he had nightmares and he was restless and he had anger issues. Our family always acknowledged and discussed the abuse, but never blamed him for what we saw as symptoms of PTSD. I grew up with that mix of compassion and understanding that he couldn't help his explosive trauma responses, but it didn't make them okay.

My grandparents also survived the holocaust, and they were kids at the time. They had to do better. And they did. But there was still trauma. Both the war and the abuse. Shame over our Jewish heritage. A desire to create distance from it and assimilate, become less of a target. Looking at visibly religious Jews and going "they're the reason it happened." Because they insist on being different. And there was fear and abuse that came with that.

And then the next generation reconnected to Judaism. That's my mom. She told me "I tried to do better than my parents, and you'll do better than I did." I'd call her a cycle breaker, only I don't entirely see it that way. Her hard work didn't make the trauma just vanish. It lives in me. But it's not as heavy.

My family carries trauma from centuries of persecution, pogroms and genocides. My family isn't "the problem." There's nothing wrong with my family. Not any more that there's something wrong with a person who can't walk steadily on a broken leg. It's just human.

I'm not saying it can never be the case that a family is the problem, but saying "generational trauma = your family is the problem" as if that's the default meaning, is blaming survivors for being wounded.

There's a very different kind of trauma that comes from broad societal harm, and I feel like people from families that don't carry this can't imagine what it's like.

It's not the past generations' fault that my family traumatized. Each of them did the best they could with what they had, and that's the tradition I'm continuing.

[lepartidelamort]

Après une nouvelle victoire de la Palestine à l’ONU, les juifs dénoncent le « retour d’Hitler »

On peine à croire que les juifs ont créé et utilisé Hollywood avec succès pendant plus d’un siècle.

Leur niveau est tout simplement désastreux.

Hier, l’ONU a voté en faveur de l’élévation du statut d’observateur de la Palestine, un moyen pour les palestiniens d’acquérir plus de visibilité lors des débats.

La réponse des génocidaires juifs a consisté à se donner en spectacle en parlant d’Hitler.

C’est aussi chiant que le douzième film de Star Wars.

La charte en question est d’ailleurs un tissu d’absurdités antifascistes rédigées par des juifs, des démocrates et des communistes durant la dernière guerre mondiale. Elle est de pure inspiration sémitique et expressément rédigée contre le National-Socialisme, c’est-à-dire l’homme blanc.

Les juifs veulent broyer l’humanité, comme à Gaza

Et les juifs en sont réduits à la broyer parce qu’elle ne va pas encore assez loin en faveur de la dictature planétaire qu’ils veulent instaurer avec l’aide de leur golem américain.

Maintenant, plus que jamais, l’héroïque résistance palestinienne contribue à la destruction de l’ordre juif.

Une aussi solide amitié ne saurait se démentir.

Pour l’humanité blanche, la guerre de libération palestinienne, de par ses implications historiques et géopolitiques, est un moment clef. Vaincus, les juifs et leurs démocraties ne pourront plus exercer la tyrannie qu’ils exercent actuellement.

C’est certainement contre-intuitif pour nous qui sommes largement submergés de musulmans, mais c’est la réalité, car ce ne sont pas les musulmans qui nous gouvernent, mais les juifs et leur démocratie sans lesquels il n’y aurait pas d’islamisation en premier lieu.

Le dévoilement est désormais acté.

Gloire au front antijuif !

Démocratie Participative

[jacensolodjo]

ID: picture of a list of the Jewish death toll broken down by country. The important information is Poland has a 2.93 million victim count while Ukraine tucked under the Soviet Union heading has 680,000.

Note: the text at the bottom left is for a different display.

Another shift working the Holocaust Museum another chance for me to take pictures to make a point.

Notice the death toll. I don't mean in total. I mean how many in each place. Poland is first. But look who is second. Ukraine.

680,000 Ukrainian Jews. And this is just official from the Holocaust. There are thousands more dead from pogroms and Soviet massacres.

Ukraine has been bled and bled again. Over and over. By both the Soviet Union and the Nazis. Whether for just the singular crime of being Ukrainian or for the double crime of Ukr and Jew. And make no mistake, there were literal plans in place by the Nazis for what to do with the Slavic peoples. Any and all Slavic peoples. It is why Operation Barbarossa went ahead. It is why Slavic folks were shot after they were used up. The best a Slavic person could hope for under nazi rule would have been slave. This is what the plans called for. Kill like 90% of the population and use the rest for slave labor.

So sure there were eastern European nazi collabs. But remember how many died. And how few actually collaborated once it became clear the nazis were not there to save people from communism despite their propaganda saying just that. (Also, people miss the fact that they called it Jew Bolshevism aka judeo-bolshevism. They blamed the Jews for communism which conflated jews with communism when in fact communism murdered a lot of Jews. And we see echoes of that now. Like. Y'all will literally sit there telling me anti communism is antisemitic. And not even seem to get you're regurgiating nazi propaganda but in diferent wrapping. There is nothing to be gained by equating jews with communism. I have met many jews who had family flee communism but i have not met a single jew that is vehemently pro communism. I'm not saying they don't exist, just that it is very rare. Because we all know exactly who communism harmed because in actuality communism could never play nice with Judaism. They do not mesh at all. We were all exposed to the 'russia/soviet union is a jewish utopia' thing but I promise that was incorrect. )

ID: pictures of multiple propaganda posters translated into Russian. Text on the top left says: Nazi propaganda posters meant to convince Europeans of the dangers of Jewish capitalist, communist, and masonic world conspiracy. End ID.

Related: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lost family in the Holocaust (a couple of great uncles i believe). He isn't alone. You will find the same story many places. And still we have people claiming ukrs are all nazis and Russia has the right of it. As if it didn't bleed Ukrainian jews as well. As if it isn't doing so right now. On every Shabbat, on every holiday, Ukrainian Jews have bled and/or died.

Semi related: just because a few Jews have played Nazis on screen (Taika Waititi, half the cast of Hogan's Heroes, Charlie Chaplin, a bunch of other folks too I'm sure) it doesn't mean it is somehow possible for a nazi to be a jew for real. And vice versa. We see this brought up so often and it makes my brain hurt. Like seriously your best defense when we say Zelenskyy is a Ukrainian Jew is that he is a nazi anyway? It is completely illogical. A jew can be self hating, but it is simply not possible for them to be a nazi. They can collaborate with nazis but at the end of the day they are the only people you can give collab credit to rather than just 'people who help nazis are nazis'. It is impossible no matter how self hating. Along with that you had a lot of people in ghettos who tried to save who they could by 'befriending' nazis. Technically collab, but not quite malicious. But at the end of the day a Jewish nazi cannot exist.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, proud Ukrainian Jew, cannot be a Nazi. Neither can the Prime Minister, Denys Shmyhal, who is also *gasp* Jewish (Shmyhal is a slavic form of 'ishmael/shmael' in fact). Literally the main reason people were unsure about Zelenskyy at first is they were afraid if he fucked up, he would be the cause for antisemitic pogroms in retaliation. (which is not the same as saying there's a bunch of Nazis in Ukraine. You don't have to be a nazi to be antisemitic and to blame Jews for shit.) No matter how you look at it, every explanation for the invasion and war are bunk. This one just makes my head hurt especially bad.

[cryingyetcourageous]

nice. a nazi joke. another hetalia fan that's an antisemite. nothing to see here.

[[??? ??????? ??????????

Anon. Buddy. Pal.

I am a Jewish woman, working at a Jewish institution, with a job specializing in preserving Jewish literature, and I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors (dad's side) and pogrom survivors (mom's side). Please do not call me, a literal Jewish person, an Antisemite???

For anyone who didn't see, THIS is what it's in reference to.

It was a joke about the Latvian language more than anything. I guess I could have deleted the ask, but I gotta admit, I find it funny, too! It is not making light of any serious issues! It's literally just "golly gee, these words translate into something that sounds questionable in English" and seeing as it's such a common observation/joke, I figured it would be best to respond! And, again, it's funny! It's funny in the same way that "End speed in Danish can be translated to fart slut" is funny.

Please don't go around accusing people of things. Seriously, it's great to keep an eye out for hate speech, but jumping to attack people helps no one and, in fact, makes it a lot harder to have our voices heard when there's actual trouble going on. Like, even if I wasn't Jewish, I feel like people should be allowed to make jokes and trust that others will politely start a discussion if there are worries about insensitivities. ]]

[blackcur-rants]

Luz Noceda sat by herself at the bus stop, crying and covered in bruises. She clutched her copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird” close to her chest, raging softly but fiercely at how much the cruel, indifferent bigots depicted in Harper Lee’s prose reminded her so much of all the people who laughed at and hurt her and Mami and how both Atticus and Mami had good, strong names derived from the Roman myths Papa used to read to her. 

(“Don’t cry, Luz” she said to herself, “Don’t cry. You don’t want to give people any more reason to make fun of you”). 

The bus seemed to take forever on that misty, moist afternoon that felt like it was about to rain but never did. The willow trees swayed softly in the wind, and the mist almost made the small town of Gravesfield, Connecticut feel as if it were a magician’s illusion ready to dissipate at the slightest touch. Luz wished the whole world would melt away and reveal something…anything…that was better than this Hell of a world where a bloated TV mogul of the kind Azura would have blasted into cinders in an instant could win huge portions of America over to his side, while Papi was gone from this world. 

Luz began to cry like she had last cried during the week when she was sitting Shiva for Papi. Why was the world so unfair? Why couldn’t Papi have been there to protect and hold her like he did when he was alive? Why would G-d allow any of this to happen?

(Why did the Lord create me as I am?)

Luz’s tears were interrupted by the feeling of a hand upon her shoulder. She cringed a little, scared to see who it was who was touching her. 

As it happened, when Luz looked to her side to see who it was, she saw a tall White woman with an aquiline nose sticking out of a gaunt, angular face. Her blonde hair extended down to her shoulders and smelt of the cornfields and sunflowers Luz had heard existed out in the Midwest, but Luz could tell it was dyed rather than naturally being that way, and her dark brown eyes were piercing but warm. 

“Great book you have there” the stranger said, “I read it for the first time when I was your age”. 

“Was it something the teacher gave you?” Luz asked.

“No” the woman chuckled, “I read it for fun. Same time I was getting really into Twain, King, McDowell, and Fitzgerald. Also Dickens”.

“I’ve heard of Dickens” Luz said, “Dad really loved this book of his called ‘Two Cities’ or something like that”.

“Tale of Two Cities” the woman responded, “Can’t blame him. It’s a really fun one, easily my second fave after the Expectations-Copperfield double team. God those two guys are so in love. Your father had good taste, Luz”.

“Huh?” Luz asked, “How’d you know my name?”

“Sorry” the tall woman said as she stumbled over her words, “I…have a bad habit of guessing people’s names too early. What’s your name?”

“Luz Isabela Noceda” Luz sighed out sadly. 

“That’s a pretty name” the woman said, “Sounds Spanish”.

“Sephardic, actually” Luz chuckled, pleased at the compliment, “My dad was from Puerto Rico while Mami’s parents came here from the Dominican Republic”.

“So I’m assuming your family fled from the Spanish Inquisition in the 1400s just as my ex-boyfriend and his current flame had ancestors who fled from the Tsars and their accursed pogroms in the 1800s” the tall woman said, practically spitting out the words as if she was casting contempt upon both Pope Sixtus IV and Tsar Aleksandr III. 

“Yeah, that’s true” Luz said, “Think they fled with some other families with names like Galante and Toledano and Margalit and de la Vega and Madrigal and Rivera. It’s like we’ve never belonged anywhere”. 

“I sometimes feel that way about myself, to be quite honest” the tall woman responded, “The man who begat me…he was a harsh, cruel man who kept me isolated from my mother and preferred to keep me in a boarding school rather than taking care of me. It was a hard experience, but I eventually escaped from that hellish domicile and I found my true father who loved me for who I was”.

Luz tried once again to hold back tears, and was only stopped from breaking down into uncontrollable sobs when the tall woman put her hand on Luz’s shoulders once again. 

“You miss your own father, don’t you?” the tall woman asked, “He meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”.

“Si” Luz sobbed, “He and Mami are the only people I’ve ever met who understand me. I just feel so…alone…without him. It’s like the entire world is just…trapped in permanent eclipse”.

“Like that one kingdom in the third Azura book” the tall woman said, “I forget what it was called, though. It’s been a while since I read through those tomes and I forget a lot of how they went”.

“Grahanir” Luz said at last, “Grahanir was that kingdom’s name. It was shrouded under the vision of an eternal eclipse by a demonic lord named Roshvar because it wouldn’t give him love and tribute and worship, but Azura put a stop to that when she slew Lord Roshvar in battle and drove his ghost into the wilderness”. 

“Very good, little one” the tall woman said, “You have such a great memory”.

“Only for things I’m super into, though” Luz said, “When I’m not into a subject, it all flows out of my brain like water from a leaky dam”.

“I’m a little like that” the tall woman said, “Ask me about the intricacies of child psychology or the history of the Revolutionary War or cross-dimensional mathematics and I’m practically a super-computer. Ask me to understand why Putin is the way he is and I’m totally lost at sea”. 

Luz chuckled to herself, amused at the soft flippancy of the woman’s tone of voice. 

“Why are you so amazing…and I am not?” Luz asked, “You seem to know so much about the world and how to deal with your problems, and I’m such a loser who can’t do anything right other than edit together clips of ‘Monster Slayer Academia’ and ‘Spirit Devourer’ to rock songs and Broadway show tunes. And you seem to have crossed dimensions in your time”.

“Like I said” the tall woman answered back, “I’m not any more special than anyone else. I’ve never travelled much further than Spain and England in my time, I certainly couldn’t explain every intricacy of modern politics or economics to you even if I tried as hard as I could, and personally, I like to think that everyone in the whole entire world is special in their own way. That includes both me and you, and it’s not just a fancy way of saying that nobody is special, Luz”. 

With that, the tall woman gestured for Luz to kneel upon the ground as she herself did the same.

“Listen Luz” the tall woman said, wiping the tears out of Luz’s eyes, “I know it seems scary. I know it seems like this horror of grief and torment will never end, I know it seems like everything is so hopeless and bleak and the world is a hollow, horrible lie and that G-d has rejected you and left you to flounder, but keep your dream alive. That’s how the strong survive, little one”.

“What do you mean by that?” Luz asked.

“I mean that…” the tall woman answered, “One day, you will found people who are just like you and your parents. You’ll find people who love you as you are, people who won’t look down at you for your oddness or your neurodivergence. You’ll find that there are people who will lay down their lives for you and do anything to protect you from the people who want to hurt you. And the light that is your truest self, it will shine forth out of darkness and will melt away all of the ice that is this grief, and you, my child…will blossom into a new life and the fires of your mind and of your heart will warm and nurture others just as they warmed and nurtured you. And when you finally find true love…”

“Will we dance all night like Azura did with Prince Olivier!?” Luz asked.

“No” the tall woman chuckled, “but you will spread your wings and do a thousand things neither of you have ever done before!”.

Luz smiled again and kept holding onto the tall woman’s hand.

“What you and your true love will do together, however” the tall woman continued, “nothing will come between you, not even the powers of the earth or the stars above. For your love will burn so strong that even the most fearsome monsters of this or any other world will tremble to see it. And you will live together for many years and have strong and happy children who will make their Abuela and the spirit of their Abuelo as proud as you have. And when it is time, you and your love will fall asleep together under the most beautiful tree in the entire world and pass together into the Worlds Beyond, safe in the knowledge that you left behind a better world for those who will come after you”.

With those words having been concluded, Luz leapt into the tall woman’s arms and gave her the type of hug usually reserved solely for Mami and Papi. The tall woman was uncertain how to respond at first, until at last she gave in and wrapped her own arms around Luz’s tiny body as if she was hugging her own father back home in Indiana.

Thirty-five minutes later, the tall woman had carried Luz home in her arms before placing her down when they got home to the Noceda residence and knock knock knocking on the door. Camila had been so happy to see Luz that she and her daughter had hugged each other for five-and-a-half minutes straight before Camila and the tall woman had had a nice, long conversation about how Luz was such a great kid. The three women had tacos for dinner together that evening and discussed Mami’s veterinary work and something about old TV shows and movies before the tall woman had excused herself from the table at the end of the meal, saying that she had to be somewhere else and was just passing through Gravesfield on her way to a conference call in New York City. Luz and Mami were there to wave goodbye to her as she started to walk off into the mist and fog shrouding Gravesfield like a funerary veil. 

“Wait a minute, Señora” Camila Antonia Marchena-Noceda asked the tall woman just as she was about to leave town for other places, “What exactly did you say your name was again?”.

“Hopper” the tall woman said at last, “My name is Doctor Jane Elizabeth Hopper”. 

If the answers that I'm looking for are right before my eyes, gently, please just tell me that they are...

-Hirahara Ayaka

Keep your dream alive,

Dreaming is still how the strong survive

-Howard Ashman

A dream that will need

All the love you can give

Every day of your life

For as long as you live

Climb every mountain

Ford every stream

Follow every rainbow

'Till you find your place

-Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

[thornfield13713]

It is kind of a shame that you can't give the report to Piper and let it end up on the front page of Publick Occurrences. Sure, it'd probably give the game away pretty spectacularly, and lead to getting kicked out of the Institute, but what a way to do it.

As for the report itself...

...this is almost an itemised list of ways to piss Georgia off. Starting with the not-particularly-veiled requests for the assassination of her lover and one of her best friends and ending with going after the Slog, which is one of her favourite of all the settlements partnered with the Minutemen. She's not supposed to have favourites, she knows, but the Slog is...nice. Homey. She has friends there, likes petting their cats (they have four of them, in my playthrough), has a great deal of respect for Wiseman and she wants to see them succeed. And she certainly doesn't think they're looking for a way back to Diamond City, now they have their farm and...frankly, I'm not sure, in their place, that I'd ever be able to live alongside the people of Diamond City ever again without constant fear of another pogrom.

So, yeah, this report definitely isn't making it back to Ayo. And may end up in Publick Occurrences at some point once it's no longer a threat to Georgia's cover, because while she might want him to get away from the Institute, she definitely doesn't want Mayor McDonough in any sort of position of power.