#Orthodox Jews Excluded

[spacelazarwolf]

Hey, I saw a post from another tumblr user that you are a Zionist and spreading false info about Jewish people being excluded from pride parades and I don't know what a Zionist is (they just said it was nationalist) but I enjoy your blog and wanted to ask you about it directly to understand better whats going on if thats okay? Im not anonymous in case you want to privately answer or tell me youd not want to discuss. 💕

first, i wanna thank you for being respectful about this, and for asking this off anon. this tells me you're asking in good faith, so i'm happy to answer.

i've had to state numerous times on my blog that i'm not a zionist bc people love to slap that label on any jew they disagree with, which is exactly what's happening in this situation. they disagreed with what i said about a lot of jews not feeling comfortable at pride because of the pervasive antisemitism in queer spaces, and several queer events banning the jewish pride flag because it "looked too similar to the israeli flag" and decided that made me a zionist. it happens a lot bc ppl know that that word is very taboo in activist spaces, and labeling you a zionist is a surefire way to get you kicked out of a lot of progressive circles. interestingly (said with a huge dollop of sarcasm) this rarely happens to gentiles.

zionist is also a pretty useless word for determining what someone actually believes, because depending on who you ask their ideologies can range from "i think that jewish people should be able to live in the land that is currently israel and palestine alongside palestinians and other indigenous groups" to "i think that only jews should get to live in that area and we should kick everyone else out." and as you can imagine, there's lots of people like me who agree with the first statement but vehemently disagree with the second. it's become somewhat of a dogwhistle, to the point that alt righters popularized "zio" as a slur, which was then picked up by leftists (because there is also a huge problem with antisemitism in leftist and non palestinian gentile-dominated antizionist spaces.) one of the events i mentioned in the first paragraph deleted a tweet using this slur.

the person you're probably talking about also claimed that i, a genderqueer trans man, am a misogynist, because i said that jewish masculinity is very culturally different from white masculinity and that i find a lot of comfort in it. they cited a bunch of problems with misogyny within the orthodox community, despite the fact i'm not orthodox or even ashkenazi. what it boiled down to is that they disagree with the takes i have on anti transmasculinity, and they needed something else to pin it on.

so in the future, if you see someone accusing a jew of being a zionist, take everything they have to say with a bucket full of salt and do as you did with this ask and go ask the person what they actually believe. sometimes you'll find their beliefs actually don't line up with your morals and you can unfollow, but the vast majority of the time you'll find that they just said something someone didn't like and it was the easiest way to discredit them.

in general, i don't share my opinions about zionism/antizionism on tumblr because that's not what my blog is centered on, and also i oppose the expectation that jews should have to disclose our opinions on zionism in order for gentiles to determine whether or not we are worth listening to. i also have a lot of thoughts abt how the focus on anti-anything makes it easier for activists to weaponize that activism against marginalized people, but that's an entirely different post.

anyway, i hope that answers your question, and i will probably pin this ask somewhere on my blog since i have been asked this a few times now and it seems unavoidable since ppl just won't drop it.

[adhdnojutsu]

Uchihas are Jew-coded

Preface: I'm Jewish. As with all marginalized minorities, outsiders are welcome to listen, ask questions etc. but not talk over or goysplain us. This applies especially to challenging our indigeneity. Which is not in "Gobacktoeurope"...

Obito

I first started headcanoning this after seeing Obito's Kamui dimension. His panic room looks a lot like the Holocaust memorial in Berlin.

He also said this to Rin:

Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a): “Whoever saves a single life is considered by scripture to have saved the whole world.'

Tikkun Olam: if I ruled the world...

Jews have a collective imperative of Tikkun Olam, aka fixing the world. Obito's and Madara's drive to do so means little on the face since many anime villains have this goal, but given the previous things mentioned, this looks like part of a pattern. Itachi and Sasuke, too, wanted to shoulder the weight of the world to make it a better place. Even if it meant the whole world hating you - like the whole world has hated and still hates Jews.

Let's delve deeper into that hatred, shall we? The anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that we secretly run the world is directly tied to our imperative to fix it. You can't fix anything without power and influence. In fact, the whole notion of Tikkun Olam being our job, may strike Gentiles as conceited and inspire hatred. Obito and Madara needed to "run the world" in order to "fix it" and were happy to accept that this meant being hated.

This "Jews control the world" conspiracy theory connects seamlessly to Konoha's suspicion of the clan conspiring to take over and using the Sharingan, a trait unique to the Uchiha, to control tailed beasts in order to execute such a take-over. Kotoamatsukami is the ultimate parallel to Jews secretly controlling the media, and with them, public opinion (but not in our favour?).

Just like the Sharingan, Jews have, or are accused of having, singular qualities that facilitate our rise to power. This is because Judaism is a closed (ethno)religion and opting in (converting), having interfaith families etc. is discouraged. In some ultra-Orthodox communities, this is taken quite far... Let's just say that Uchiha wives, too, take their husband's last name, but Mikoto Uchiha looks like Sasuke looks like Izuna... go figure. Of course, in the case of Jews, this quality is not so much a gate-kept genetic trait, as a gravitation towards intellectual and influential professions passed down through generations. This is a direct result of anti-Semitic policy though: often being excluded from handicraft etc, Jews shifted the focus to administrative, financial and legal sectors. Jews are also traditionally studious, so our apparent domination of the Noble Prize is a result of this.

But no matter the cause of our success in certain areas, it would obviously have Gentiles eyeing us with suspicion. Why is a single ethnoreligious minority so prominently represented in positions of influence and acclaim? What might we be plotting? Why shouldn't we be plotting, since we ARE - allegedly - conniving, manipulative and greedy? Better get rid of us. Remember: Nazis hated Jews and were scared of arts and literature. Being Jewish and being an intellectual are, if you ask anti-Semites, shortcuts to power. You know who else hates books and Jews? Every single terrorist organization, be it Taliban, Hamas, ISIS,... Anti-intellectuals are often anti-Semites. Education is power. Jews love education. Terrorist regimes hate smart subjects. Ignorance is cheaper than bullets, after all.

Ghetto Uprising/Beware the Beginnings

The clan suspected the compound was just the beginning. Although the discrimination the Uchiha actually suffered - a compound, which all the other clans got, too, and surveillance - was not comparable to the Warsaw Ghetto or any other real world segregation, Fugaku and other clan members expected it to take a turn for the worse if ignored. And in order to prevent another Holocaust, you must recognize and fight the beginnings.

These beginnings are upon us once more. Anti-Semitism has been skyrocketing, and blaming Israel, a single, far-away country, is dishonest, considering:

Palestinians have massacred Jews decades before there even was a state of Israel; what Nakba was their excuse in 1922? What Nakba was there in Iran?

Jews are entitled to Israeli citizenship, all moving expenses paid, so why do many live in Diaspora? Could it be that they do not wish to be involved with the state of Israel? So why take it out on them, unless one already hated Jews?

The most recent rise in anti-Semitism didn't follow Israel's bombardment of Gaza, but the DAY of Hamas' mass rapes, mutilations, torture, and murder of 1000+ Jews on October 7. People who don't usually praise children, including those of "colonizers", getting slaughtered and mutilated, suddenly praised exactly that. These people have always been anti-Semitic and found an excuse to be loud about it by weaponizing Palestinian suffering, which they only care about because Jews are the culprit. Proof: Houthis are starving Muslim children in Yemen, China oppresses Uyghur Muslims, Assad gassed Muslims, America bombed Muslims for 20 years, but - crickets. Think about it.

Likewise, the Narutoverse counterpart of the Nazis or Hamas, Tobirama and his acolytes, have found many a lazy excuse, most notably the Kyuubi attack. They suspected an Uchiha, and little did they know they were right, except, just like Netanyahu and the people under his command, a single deranged Obito did not represent a critical mass of Uchihas. And yet, the clan, just as world Jewry, faced collective punishment. The Narutoverse Nazis were frothing at the mouth for an excuse for decades, and notable Uchiha individuals kept delivering, not least because their own incompetence, just like Netanyahu's, allowed things to get that far to begin with.

Isobu

Doesn't Isobu look a lot like shellfish? And isn't he why Rin killed herself? Rin was Obito's everything and she died because of this monster. Not that it was Isobu's fault, but still. Jews aren't allowed to eat shellfish. Obito has every reason to hate shellfish for the mere memory that stuff evokes. I know it's a bit of a reach, but again, patterns.

Dress Codes

For a proud, prominent clan with a bit of a superiority complex for their gate-kept characteristics, the Uchiha sure dress very modestly, the women even more so. In fact, they might just be the least flashy of all Konoha communities. The muted colours and baggy cuts scream "modesty". If you've ever wandered an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood, you'll see the women tend to wear long, plain skirts, long, tight sleeves, ultra-conservative shoes, and plain, long or covered hair.

Mikoto fits right in, but so do other Uchiha women. Izumi is a bit "daring" with her sleeveless look, but her overall style still fits. Nobody in that clan seems to have much vanity, while the general population of Konoha and the Narutoverse at large, is a lot more individualistic.

"This guy just slaughtered the whole police force, let's throw a kunai at him and see what happens" bless her little heart

Flag Infestation

Uchihas have no chill when it comes to plastering their logo everywhere in their compound. They were driven out of the general public and are doubling down on pride as a result. Same applies to Jews in the safety of our indigenous homeland (the Jewish Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem predates Islam, born in modern Saudi Arabia, by many centuries, so don't Gobacktoeurope me).

Oh, and a Nazi found an excuse to ghetto them up, assigned some of them authority to keep their own in check (Sonderkommando/"Konoha" military police), then got rid of them all and managed to sell it as a necessary evil.

[schraubd]

Jews Against Jews Who Discriminate

This is an interesting story about a New Jersey kosher bakery who refused to bake rainbow-frosted cupcakes because the baker decided Pride-themed events violated his conception of Jewish values. This decision, in turn, has led to a furious backlash from the rest of the local Jewish community, who are livid that the baker is citing Jewish values as justification for homophobic discrimination:

Multiple rabbis have accused the baker of bigotry, and some local Jews are boycotting his shop. The area’s Jewish federation privately said it would stop buying from Mittel before publicly walking back its position. And Eshel, an advocacy group for LGBTQ Orthodox Jews and their families, announced an “ally training” in West Orange this coming Sunday in response to the incident.

[....] 

The issue blew up as other rabbis in the area learned about what happened and commented publicly.

“When we refuse basic Jewish services to members of our community who are articulating who they are, we are excluding and dividing,” wrote Robert Tobin, rabbi of the Conservative B’nai Shalom in West Orange, in a blog post on June 22. He highlighted the Conservative movement’s recent strides toward LGBTQ inclusion, and an interpretation of the Torah that holds “humans are created in the image of God with a variety of potential gender identities and with the possibility of gender fluidity.” Tobin also reportedly addressed the incident in a sermon, according to the New Jersey Jewish News.

David Vaisberg, senior rabbi at the independent Temple B’nei Abraham in Livingston, New Jersey, tweeted that he was “so disappointed” in the bakery, which is located in a strip mall next to a kosher Chinese restaurant.

“They make great baked goods but have shown themselves to be against the LGBTQ+ in canceling orders of rainbow baked goods in Pride month,” he wrote, adding that he was letting the bakery know why they had lost his business and advised followers to “please do the same.” 

This reminded me of a working paper I heard about from years back (which I don't believe has been published, unfortunately), where the author asked Jewish, Christian, and Muslim respondents to give their views regarding government accommodations for Jewish, Christian, or Muslim business owners who for religious reasons did not want to serve gay customers. The most fascinating finding, as I recall, was that Jews were least likely to support an accommodation if they were told it was a Jewish business seeking to discriminate.

At one level, that was a surprising finding -- we'd naturally expect Jews (like all other groups) to display some level of in-group bias, being more sympathetic to claims made by their coreligionists. But on another level, this result made perfect sense to me. Ask me in the abstract about whether business owners can claim a religious exemption from having to serve gay customers, and I'll generally answer no, but I'll acknowledge the important religious freedom and pluralism concerns blah blah blah. 

But if somebody asks to do that while carrying my flag and representing my people? Oh, hell no. Screw that guy. You get your ass back into line and stop embarrassing the tribe with your homophobic nonsense. And I suspect something similar is going on in this community of New Jersey Jews.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/MnOubxC

[david-goldrock]

The following is a song I love

It's a song about stereotypes and embracing complexities

the stereotypes are Israeli stereotypes, so near the ones that won't make sense, imma put an explanation in squigely brackets

[Verse 1] How easy it is to flow with the brain in automatic conditioning that do not require you to work hard Only to tag and bark, incite and sacrifice (something to a god) To the rating idols (also fake gods), items with full strength Everything is already arranged in our heads drawer by drawer- No, we cannot allow reality to prevent us from seeing that

Every leftist is a traitor Every Arab is a suicide terrorist Every haredi (ultra-Orthodox) robes in daylight {the Haredi population in Israel is often criticized for taking egregious amounts of money while they don't serve in the army and many don't work, that is often called שוד = robbery in daylight} And all the settlers murdered Rabin {After the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, many settlers were blamed for the assassination, both because they were a part of the demonstrations against him and the fact Yigal Amir, the assassinator, was a settler} All of Tel Aviv is vegan {Tel Aviv is the city with the most vegans in the world} All of Netivot is traditional- down to earth {I don't know this stereotype tbh} All the religious are primitive with a tassel and while doing so, they erased Darwin

[Chorus] Do not lock me up in any cage Don't summarize me on Wikipedia I am everything, I am nothing Infinite light clothed in a body So don't lock me up in any cage

[House 2] Call me Don Quixote who dares to challenge Put a bounty on my head and a guillotine in the square The demons their time had passed And the king is naked Erase everything you knew about me until today No, I am not the settler, not a representative of God Not a dos (slur for religious people) that excludes women Not a bridge between the sectors {Hanan Ben-Ari, the singer and songwriter, is often called "a bridge between the (secular and religious) sectors" because he is a figure both sectors feel attached and connected to} May The sectors burn, May the prejudices burn And everyone will have a chance to write their own story

Because if everything is visible and known in advance cliché by cliché No, we cannot allow reality to prevent us from seeing that Every Mizrahi is oppressed, Every secular is a dirty infidel All the women should be in the kitchen And all the Russians are in love with Stalin {which is the wildest stereotype on the list because, come on, they hate him so much} All the endings have ended {a hebrew saying meaning all hope is lost, a sentiment the singer despises} Every member of the Knesset is a pot of vermin All Ethiopians run (well) and those who don't, sing with Raychel {a joke about people who say they are not racist, and then talk about the Idan Raychel project, in which many ethiopian jews sang with him.}

[Chorus] Do not lock me up in any cage Don't summarize me on Wikipedia I am everything, I am nothing Infinite light clothed in a body So don't lock me up in any cage

[bridge] A day will come one day A day will come one day

[chorus/outro] A day will come and you will not be lock me up in any cage You won't summarize me on Wikipedia I am everything, I am nothing I came naked and I such I will return So don't put me in any cage Do not put me in any cage

This is just for the irony

[probablyasocialecologist]

Enforcing categories of exclusion is key to the management of the Palestinian population. It realizes what Veracini calls “transfer by conceptual displacement,” one of the many forms of elimination. The Indigenous are “disappeared” through denying their indigeneity, and therefore their national rights, their claims to the country or even a history and culture of their own. Rather than enacting laws and policies that discriminate against “non-Jews,” it is enough to enact laws and policies that merely affirm Jewish rights and entitlements. Non-Jews are excluded by implication. Neither the Ottomans nor the British had ever found it necessary to offset “Arabs” with other exclusive categories, like “non-Jews.” After 1948, Zionists invented yet more categories of exclusion: “absentees,” “refugees,” Druse versus Arabs (depending on service in the Israel Defense Forces, IDF), Israeli citizens and real (Zionist) citizens. The most “Zionist” election ever took place in March 2020, where all the Jewish parties agreed to exclude the Joint Arab List from government because only “Zionist Jews” were acceptable political partners. Categories of inclusion play a complementary role. Although most ultra-orthodox Jews are anti-Zionist, do not recognize the secular state of Israel and refuse to serve in the army, as Jews they cannot be denied equal civil, political or economic rights or political legitimacy.

Jeff Halper, Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State  

[eye-in-hand]

orthodox jews be like: we're the ones that have kept Judaism alive for so long, we're the ones that uphold the traditions better than anyone else

orthodox jews: anyways so if you're in this branch of Judaism, or if your mother wasn't a jew, or, etc etc - you're not a real Jew

well yeah when you exclude everyone but yourselves ofc you're the only ones keeping it alive lmfao wtf is this logic

[fierceawakening]

So this is going around:

And I don't want to derail or belittle the excitement of the people sharing this as a wonderful thing. I agree that it is.

However, I am making my own post to note this:

Queerness is a fraught subject in modern Orthodoxy, whose adherents generally abide by halacha — Jewish law — and engage fully with secular society, unlike Haredi Jews who tend to live in insular communities. A pair of verses in Leviticus explicitly prohibiting male gay sex provide Biblical pretext for excluding queer people, and Yeshiva University — Rabbi Brick’s alma mater — has made national headlines over the past two years for refusing to recognize its LGBTQ+ student club. A gay Orthodox man who was ousted from his Florida shul early this year took to picketing outside it. The clinical director of an advocacy group called Jewish Queer Youth says that among the 2,000 young people from Orthodox families it has served since 2016, some 70% have considered suicide. One, a YU graduate like Brick, died by suicide this summer, just before the Shabbat when the portion of Leviticus with the prohibition against gay male sex would be read.

and

He is also single, and declined to say whether he plans to date — or whether he thinks people can pursue same-sex relationships within the bounds of halacha. That silence may be helping him win — for now — tolerance among his colleagues. After all, a 2022 white paper on welcoming queer Orthodox Jews begins its second paragraph, “Our starting point as Orthodox Jews is clear: Sexual relations between people of the same sex is forbidden.” But Brick much prefers to talk — and teach — about other things. He has developed a series of lesson plans that consider halachic issues for queer Jews, and is teaching them to his high school students. And they have nothing to do with sex. “What’s missing in the world is not another person trying to re-understand this verse in Leviticus,” Brick said. “That’s a closed book. We know what it means, we know what it stands for. But talking about queer experiences is not as two-dimensional as talking about the permissibility or non-permissibility of very specific sex acts. There is a lot more to a person — a lot more to these questions — that is worth exploring.”

I do not ever want to hear "It's just Christians" ever again.

I have seen the Tumblr posts that just say "oh, you're a little unclean after gay sex, it's no big." I am glad to see them, but that isn't what this looks like it says at all.

So while I'm sure I will see "only Christians are Like That, because Christianity is uniquely authoritarian" again...

...this is me officially putting "maybe don't" in writing, so I can point people at it when they do this thing again.

[hindahoney]

I have a really really stupid question but please bare with me.

So I'm a gentile and been curious about Judaism for a while now, and because of my current living situation, I can't officially convert, but after researching it, I've started to believe in the religion itself. I know it's SO SO stupid since I'm a gentile, but I want to know your thoughts on it. Is it ok that I have those beliefs despite being unable to practice or should I stop until I get my new place and officially convert? I really hope this makes sense cuz I wanna be respectful. Genuinely.

This isn't stupid at all! You're allowed to believe in our religion! Like you said, you just can't practice Jewish laws and rituals, but you can still follow the seven noahide laws. The seven noahide laws are meant for the nations to follow. Here they are:

- Establish courts of law and ensure justice in our world

With every act of kindness and justice we are helping to repair the world and establish harmony. This includes keeping the laws of whatever land we are in.

- Don’t curse God.

- Do not practice idolatry.

You don't have to just know God, but you also have to disregard other gods.

- Do not eat from a still living animal.

This is to show respect for all of His creatures and not be unnecessarily cruel.

- Do not engage in illicit sexuality.

"Noahides are prohibited from engaging in six illicit sexual relationships: with one’s mother, with one’s father’s wife, with another man’s wife, with his sister from the same mother, in a male homosexual union, and with an animal as it says, ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father…’ this refers to his father’s wife; ‘and his mother…” refers to the mother; ‘and cling to his wife…’ and not another’s wife; ‘wife…’ and not a homosexual union; ‘and become one flesh‘ (Genesis 2:24) excluding animals… (Maimonides, Laws of Kings, 9:5)

The Torah prohibits male homosexuality, but not female interestingly. Shomer negiah does not apply between two women either. However, personally I don't see a problem with any sexuality or gender expression. This is a passage I have struggled with. Don't fret too much if this is not a law you can follow.  While we don't know how exactly He will judge us, we believe he takes into account the totality of circumstances. Violating this law because you love someone of the same sex is not the same as committing incest or bestiality.

You will find in most Jewish communities that this is not a problem and that most people won't judge or ostracize you for your sexuality. This is a more common issue in orthodox communities, however the orthodox Jews that I have spoken to have told me they are of the opinion nobody can follow all of the laws 100% of the time, and that being in a same sex relationship is not any worse than other violations.  In any case it is not anyone's place to judge you and use scripture against you.

- Do not participate in bloodshed

- Do not rob.

This includes kidnapping

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 17, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 18, 2023

In an NPR piece yesterday, Bill Chappell noted that “the war between Israel and Hamas is being fought, in part, through disinformation and competing claims.” 

Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s leadership team currently in Qatar, told Ben Hubbard and Maria Abi-Habib of the New York Times that Hamas’s goal in their attack of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists crossed from Gaza into Israel and tortured and killed about 1,200 people, taking another 240 hostage, was to make sure the region did not settle into a status quo that excluded the Palestinians. 

In 2020 the Palestinians were excluded from discussions about the Abraham Accords negotiated by then-president Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner that normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (and later Morocco). More recently, Saudi Arabia and Israel were in talks with the United States about normalizing relations.   

Al-Hayya told the reporters that in order to “change the entire equation and not just have a clash,” Hamas leaders intended to commit “a great act” that Israel would respond to with fury. “[W]ithout a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” al-Hayya said, but “[w]e had to tell people that the Palestinian cause would not die.” 

“Hamas’s goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such,” al-Hayya said. “This battle was not because we wanted fuel or laborers,” he added. “It did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation.”

Hamas media adviser Taher El-Nounou told the reporters: “I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us.”

Hamas could be pretty certain that Israel would retaliate with a heavy hand. The governing coalition that took power at the end of 2022 is a far-right coalition, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to hold that coalition together to stay in power, not least because he faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.   

Once it took power, Netanyahu’s government announced that expanding Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank was a priority, vowing to annex the occupied territory. It also endorsed discrimination against LGBTQ people and called for generous payments to ultra-Orthodox men so they could engage in religious study rather than work. It also tried to push through changes to the judicial system to give far more power to the government. 

From January 7 until October 7, 2023, protesters turned out in the streets in huge numbers. With the attack, Israelis have come together until the crisis is resolved.

Netanyahu’s ability to stay in power depended in large part on his promises that he would keep Israelis safe. The events of October 7 on his watch—the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust—shattered that guarantee. Polls show that Israelis blame his government, and three quarters of them think he should resign. Sixty-four percent think the country should hold an election immediately after the war. 

Immediately after the attack, on October 7, Netanyahu vowed “mighty vengeance” against Hamas, and Israeli airstrikes began to pound Gaza. On October 8, Israel formally declared war. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the country’s retaliation would “change the reality on the ground in Gaza for the next 50 years,” and on October 9 he announced “a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed…. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Israel and the U.S. have strong historic and economic ties: as Nicole Narea points out in Vox in a review of their history together, the U.S. has also traditionally seen Israel as an important strategic ally as it stabilizes the Middle East, helping to maintain the supply of Middle Eastern oil that the global economy needs. That strategic importance has only grown as the U.S. seeks to normalize ties around the region to form a united front against Iran.

For Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and other envoys, then, it appeared the first priority after the October 7 attack was to keep the conflict from spreading. Biden made it very clear that the U.S. would stand behind Israel should Iran, which backs Hamas, be considering moving in. He warned: “[T]o any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t.”

The movement of two U.S. carrier groups to the region appears so far to be helping to achieve that goal. While Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon and Yemen’s Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Israel since October 7, Iran’s leaders have said they will not join Hamas’s fight and are hoping only to use the conflict as leverage against the U.S.

Militias have fired at least 55 rocket and drone strikes at U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since October 7 without killing any U.S. soldiers. In retaliation, the U.S. has launched three airstrikes against militia installations in Syria, killing up to seven men (the military assesses there were not women or children in the vicinity) in the third strike on Sunday. The U.S. keeps roughly 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 troops in Iraq to work with local forces to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State.

At the same time that Biden emphasized Israel’s right to respond to Hamas’s attack and demanded the return of the hostages, he also called for humanitarian aid to Gaza through Egypt and warned Netanyahu to stay within the laws of war.

Rounds of diplomacy by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who flew to Israel and Jordan initially on October 11 and has gone back repeatedly, as well as by Biden, who has both visited the region—his second trip to a war zone—and constantly worked the phones, and other envoys, started humanitarian convoys moving into Gaza with a single 20-truck convoy on October 21. By early November, over 100 trucks a day were entering Gaza, the number the United Nations says is the minimum needed. Yesterday the Israeli war cabinet agreed to allow two tankers of fuel a day into Gaza after the U.N. said it couldn’t deliver aid because it had run out of fuel. 

The U.S. has insisted from the start that Israel’s military decisions must not go beyond the laws of war. Israeli officials say they are staying within the law, yet an estimated 11,000 civilians and Hamas fighters (the numbers are not separated out) have died. Gaza has been crushed into rubble by airstrikes, and more than a million people are homeless. That carnage has sparked protests around the world along with calls for a cease-fire, which Israel rejects. 

It has also sparked extreme Islamophobia and antisemitism exacerbated by social media. In the immediate aftermath of October 7, Islamophobia inspired a Chicago man to stab a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy to death; more recently, antisemitism has jumped more than 900% on X (formerly Twitter). On Wednesday, Elon Musk agreed with a virulently antisemitic post on X. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates responded: “We condemn this abhorrent promotion of Antisemitic and racist hate in the strongest terms, which runs against our core values as Americans.” Advertisers, including IBM and Apple, announced they would no longer advertise on Musk’s platform.

While calling for humanitarian pauses in the fighting, the Biden administration has continued to focus on getting the hostages out and has rejected calls for a cease-fire, saying such a break would only allow Hamas to regroup. In The Atlantic on November 14, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who negotiated a 2012 cease-fire between Hamas and Israel only to see Hamas violate that agreement two years later, explained that cease-fires have only kicked the can down the road. “Israel’s policy since 2009 of containing rather than destroying Hamas has failed,” she said.  

Clinton called for the destruction of Hamas on the one hand and “a new strategy and new leadership” for Israel on the other. “Instead of the current ultra-right-wing government, it will need a government of national unity that’s rooted in the center of Israeli politics and can make the hard choices ahead,” she wrote. 

Central to those choices is the long-neglected two-state solution that would establish a Palestinian state. Biden and Blinken and a number of Arab governments have backed the idea, but to many observers it seems impossible to pull off. Still, at the same time Clinton’s article appeared, King Abdullah II of Jordan published his own op-ed in the Washington Post  titled: “A two-state solution would be a victory for our common humanity.”

“[L]et’s start with some basic reality,” he wrote. “The fact is that the thousands of victims across Israel, Gaza and the West Bank have been overwhelmingly civilians…. Leaders everywhere have the responsibility to face the full reality of this crisis, as ugly as it is. Only by anchoring ourselves to the concrete facts that have brought us to this point will we be able to change the increasingly dangerous direction of our world…. 

“If the status quo continues, the days ahead will be driven by an ongoing war of narratives over who is entitled to hate more and kill more. Sinister political agendas and ideologies will attempt to exploit religion. Extremism, vengeance and persecution will deepen not only in the region but also around the world…. It is up to responsible leaders to deliver results, starting now.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[sunglassesbot]

My buddy pointed me to to an article in a very liberal Jewish newspaper. He's, like, a semi-practicing Orthodox Jew and an outspoken supporter of Israel and this paper was very anti-zionist.

Now, glossing over discussion of where–and to what degree–anti-zionism intersects with anti-semitism, what interested me about this article was that it postulated that indigeneity was either determined in 1492, with the European “discovery” of the new world, or shortly there afterwards. 

Of course, this definition excludes some groups who you would typically think of as being indigenous, most notably some Southern African ethnic groups who did not arrive in what is presently considered their Homeland until after 1492. However, contrary to what certain extremists would tell you, they were there before the Afrikaners arrived. But, I don't think this was the general intention of the article and I suspect the author wasn't acquainted with the various squabbles about indigeneity in South Africa as the article seemed to be written with the Levant in mind. 

Nonetheless, I keep thinking of that article because it reveals that there's not really a standard view of indigeneity, or what benefits and rights indigeneity entitles a people to. 

There is another definition for indigeneity of which I have heard; that a people is indigenous to the land in which it underwent ethnogenesis. Ethnogenesis is, of course, the creation of an ethnic group. Aside from the obvious difficulties–defining an ethnic group and defining ethnogenesis–there are serious issues with this definition. The Afrikaners are generally considered to have experienced ethnogenesis in Africa. This is surprising because Afrikaners are largely of Dutch and French descent, their ancestors arriving as settlers in what is now South Africa. This credible claim of indigeneity is often seized upon by certain extremists to claim that the Afrikaners have a right to a racially, or at least ethnically, homogeneous independent state. This claim is, at best, highly dubious because South Africa is populated by many different ethnic groups and the Afrikaners do not comprise a majority population anywhere geographically with the exception of some very small areas. There is also a lot to be said for the idea that the Afrikaner identity is intrinsically exclusionary as individuals of mixed race are often not considered Afrikaners. 

More importantly, the way we think about indigeneity is often shaped by the assumptions of 18th century nationalism, where the norm is homogeneous nation states occupying cleanly divided territories. In reality, different ethnic groups often occupy the same territory without a majority ethnic group.

Anyway, I don't really know what the point of this post is.

[beardedmrbean]

A federal judge has ruled that former Ald. Edward Burke’s allegedly insensitive comments on wiretaps about Jewish lawyers can be heard by the jury at his upcoming corruption trial.

Burke’s attorneys had argued vehemently to exclude statements the powerful ex-alderman made on the recordings about the Jewish heritage of the developer of the Old Post Office, whom Burke was allegedly pushing to hire his private law firm for property tax work.

Letting the jury hear the remarks would be highly prejudicial in light of the terrorist attacks on Israel earlier this month and the ongoing situation in Gaza, the defense team told U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall.

“Given the heightened sense of alarm” after the Hamas attacks, “any member of the jury sympathetic toward what the Jewish people have endured might find Mr. Burke’s comments to be particularly distasteful” and unfairly hold it against him, argued Burke attorney Kimberly Rhum at an Oct. 16 pretrial hearing.

In her ruling posted Saturday, however, Kendall wrote that the comments were highly probative of the allegations that Burke was “leveraging official action” to muscle the developer, Harry Skydell, into hiring his firm.

The judge also said “sympathy is not universal” when it comes to Israel, noting there has been a documented rise in anti-Semitic incidents following the Hamas attack.

“Now, as ever, prejudices may cut in any direction,” Kendall wrote. “The court will instruct the jury not to make decisions based on sympathy or prejudice.”

According to prosecutors, Burke made comments to his colleague, then-Ald. Daniel Solis, about Skydell’s Jewish heritage possibly hindering their business relationship.

Referring to difficulties he was having getting the developer’s support, Burke allegedly told Solis, “Yeah, but part of it could be that, that black hat. They only want to deal with Jews,” according to court records.

“You really think so?” Solis asked.

“They’re orthodox Jews,” Burke allegedly responded.

In another conversation, Burke allegedly told Solis, “Well, you know as well as I do, Jews are Jews and they’ll deal with Jews to the exclusion of everybody else unless... unless there’s a reason for them to use a Christian,” Burke allegedly said.

Unbeknownst to Burke, Solis was cooperating with investigators and secretly recorded the conversations.

Burke, 79, was originally charged in a criminal complaint in January 2019, weeks after the FBI raided his City Hall office suite. He was indicted four months later on 14 counts including racketeering, federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity.

The 59-page indictment outlined a series of schemes in which Burke allegedly tried to muscle developers into hiring his law firm, Klafter & Burke, to appeal their property taxes. Among the projects Burke tried to capitalize on was the massive $800 million renovation of the Old Post Office in the West Loop, according to the charges.

Also charged was Burke’s longtime aide, Peter Andrews, who was accused of assisting the alderman in attempting to shake down two business owners seeking to renovate a Burger King restaurant in the 14th Ward.

The indictment also accused developer Charles Cui of hiring Burke’s law firm in exchange for the alderman’s help with a sign permit and financing deal for a project in the Portage Park neighborhood.

All three have pleaded not guilty. The trial is expected to last up to six weeks.

[glosackmd]

NYC100830/Tefillin............ by a Psychiatrist's view Via Flickr: Tefillin are a set of small black leather boxes with leather straps containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah. Tefillin are worn by adult Jews during weekday morning prayers. In Orthodox and traditional communities, they are worn solely by men, while some Reform and Conservative (Masorti) communities allow them to be worn by both men and women. By traditional Jewish Law (halacha), women are exempt from most time-dependent positive commandments. Fifty years ago, Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Rebbe, instructed young rabbinical students to approach random New Yorkers with the question, "Are you Jewish?" The question, though provocative, was also regarded as necessary if Jews were to be saved from secularism. At the time, memories of the Holocaust were fresh, and antisemitism was a fact of American life — as was assimilation. So, members of the Chabad movement hit the streets of New York in vehicles used for outreach and education, called "mitzvah tanks." The men of the mitzvah tank endure a daily tide of indifference, and occasional derision ("Get a day job" is a favorite of hecklers, said Posner). It tends to put off feminist Jews, as women are excluded from the ancient rituals that take place inside the tanks, such as the wearing or laying of tefillin. Speaking of Judaism, Antisemitism is on the rise in North America and around the world, Violent attacks on Jewish institutions and Jews are also increasing. @ Union Square In ManHatTan Photography’s new conscience linktr.ee/GlennLosack linktr.ee/GlennLosack

[apenitentialprayer]

Salam! (I really do hope this question is not offensive, it’s just an observation from my part :) )

I saw someone say we could ask questions on abrahamic religions here and i’m really curious about something. I’m muslim but i’ve always wondered why modern day muslims and jews take the head coverings and modesty to the maximum, while from what i have seen; modern day christians (not everywhere of course! I’d say excluding african countries) don’t?

muslim women sometimes tend have the niqab/hijab on, jewish women tend to wear the wigs and face coverings a lot too, but i don’t see lots of christian women wear anything face / hair restricting, is christianity less strict on that aspect? or does it not have that aspect at all? Thank you! and i hope my question doesn’t come out as rude or offensive, i am really sorry if it does, love all my christian brothers and sisters!

وَعَلَيْكُمُ ٱلسَّلَامُ!

This is not an offensive question at all, but I wish I could answer it better than I actually can. I think that the best I can say is that it seems to mostly be a cultural development of the last century, and that in large sections of the world head-veiling is still the normative, if not mandated, practice. Mennonites, Orthodox Christians, and Jehovah's Witnesses, among others, often require headcoverings at the very least while attending religious services. Most mainline Protestants and Catholics (in the United States, at least) have largely abandoned the practice, but it is seeing a bit of a revival.

Maybe someone with a bit more knowledge on the topic will pipe in, though.

[monologuerhead]

Christian Discourses of Identity Formation

Although ancient Christianity was theologically diverse and sociologically multiform, participating actively in ancient urban pluralism, the fourth and fifth centuries witnessed the formation and consolidation of a more uniform Christianity, under the guiding eyes of Christian emperors. A church headed by bishops, defined by creed and canon, and unified by increasingly standardized liturgical practices won out and for a time claimed the title of orthodoxy for itself. Although powerful controversies continued to mark the period and uniformity was never truly achieved, Christianity nonetheless attained a kind of stable and monolithic unity under episcopal authority and imperial patronage that had not existed before Constantine’s conversion in the early fourth century. 

Chief among its theological, political, and rhetorical tools was the capacity to brand opponents as heretics. Le Boulluec has suggested that the ecclesiastical capacity to enforce penitential discipline and excommunication, to define ritual purity and morality, and to defend the integrity and authenticity of doctrine against dissent progressively worked to consolidate ecclesiastical unity. The representation of heresy as a general and timeless notion became such a powerful tool in this cause that merely invoking it was sufficient to produce reprobation and exclusion.

A second powerful, largely unrecognized tool was the rhetorical consolidation of manifold ancient religious practices into three mutually exclusive groups: Jews, Christians, and pagans. These categories became further reified in later centuries and continue to operate almost automatically in contemporary historiography, reinscribing and naturalizing the rhetoric of fourth- and fifth-century orthodoxy into a seemingly common-sense division of ancient religious life. Their tenacity demonstrates the success of Christian rhetoric in dominating the politics of religious identity up to our own day. Rather than assume that such categories represent historical givens, we need to ask how they were formed, what work they did, in whose interests they operated, and what was at stake.

The primary challenge for Christian self-definition was sameness, whether distinguishing the orthodox from heretics or Christians from non-Christians. Although the goal was to minimize actual differences within the group while maximizing the differences with outsiders, ironically the strategies were more or less the same, because in order to exclude Christian views the polemicists opposed, they needed to make their competitors look like outsiders, not insiders. Real differences had to be fully exploited and even exaggerated, while similarities were best overlooked altogether or portrayed as malicious or superficial imitation. The polemicists succeeded so well that for us the terms “orthodoxy” and “heresy” imply only difference, not similarity. 

Someone will rightly point out that the problems of internal Christian dispute were in fact matters of difference, True, but for distinguishing heretics from the orthodox, the pressing problem was that early Christians were all basing their theological positions on revelation from Jesus Christ. When they read Scripture and reproduced various streams of the ancient intellectual tradition, they used very similar hermeneutical methods, such as allegory, typology, and midrashic retelling. It was not that the theologies were the same, but that the intellectual bases and discursive strategies for making truth claims were remarkable similar. Given that there was no universally recognized episcopal hierarchy, common creed, or New Testament canon in the first centuries, it was not easy to adjudicate whose Christology or whose reading of scripture was right. It was this problem that the early polemicists took on. They developed a few distinctive and powerful rhetorical strategies to argue that they, and they alone, understood the revelation of Christ and interpreted Scripture correctly.

What Is Gnosticism? 

Karen L King

[laivindur]

"Last week the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision that Lorie Smith, a Colorado-based Christian graphic artist and web designer, did not have to create content that violated her beliefs. In response, Clara Jeffery, editor-in-chief of Mother Jones, tweeted, “perhaps gay stylists, designers, caterers, and planners should start withholding services from Christian conservatives and see where that goes.”

After all, Jeffery reasoned, if a Christian can create content for a gay couple, surely gay professionals can decline services to Christian conservatives.

More extreme was the reaction of actor Michael Imperioli who posted on Instagram,

“I’ve decided to forbid bigots and homophobes from watching The Sopranos, The White Lotus, Goodfellas or any movie or TV show I’ve been in. Thank you Supreme Court for allowing me to discriminate and exclude those who I don’t agree with and am opposed to. USA! USA!”

In her strong dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that,

“Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.” And she claimed that the ruling comes amid a “backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities.”

Many headlines reflected similar sentiments, such as this one posted on the UK Guardian: “US supreme court strikes blow against LGBTQ+ rights with Colorado ruling.”

In reality, the ruling did no such thing, and Justice Neil Gorsuch was right to challenge Justice Sotomayor’s arguments.

He stated that Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion “reimagines the facts” from “top to bottom.” He also argued that she failed to answer the fundamental question of, “Can a State force someone who provides her own expressive services to abandon her conscience and speak its preferred message instead?”

In his view, what Justice Sotomayor was arguing for was for the court to allow the government to force an individual to “speak contrary to her beliefs on a significant issue of personal conviction.” This is clearly a violation of our most fundamental Constitutional rights.

That’s why law professor Jonathan Turley described the Supreme Court decision as an “amazing moment” in history with regard to the First Amendment. And he rightly pointed out that the decision had nothing to do with discrimination, since Smith freely served a wide range of customers, including those who identified as LGBTQ.

As Turley noted, cases such as these “do not change the public accommodation laws. You cannot be refused to go into stores and buy items that are pre-made, for example, based on your race or your status.”

But if someone wants to compel you to create something contrary to your convictions, the state cannot compel you to do so.

That is exactly what Colorado law was trying to do, and the Court, by a ruling of 6-3, shut that unjust law down.

Kristen Waggoner, CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom, and Erin Hawley, an ADF attorney, echoed Turley’s sentiments, writing,

“The Supreme Court’s decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis is a crucial victory for every American regardless of their religious, political, or ideological views. In that case, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the most fundamental of civil liberties—that the government may not tell people what to think or say.”

As for the counter-argument raised by Jeffery’s and others, I’d love to hear their answer to these simple questions.

Should a gay web designer be compelled by the state to design a website for a counseling service that helps people overcome same-sex attractions?

Should an Orthodox Jewish web designer be compelled by the state to design a website for Jews for Jesus?

Should an atheist web designer be compelled by the state to design a website called “Answering Atheism”?

Should a trans-identified web designer be compelled by the state to design a website on the dangers of hormone therapy and sex-change surgery?

Should a Muslim web designer be compelled by the state to design a website for a meat service specializing in pork products?

Should an African American web designer be compelled by the state to design a website selling Confederate flags?

Should a Christian web designer be compelled by the state to design an “Adultery Hookup” website?

Should any web designer be compelled by the state to design a pornography website?

If Jeffery or Imperioli were website designers, should the state be able to compel them to create pro-Trump content for a Republican lobbyist? Or content stating that he won the 2020 elections?

The answer to all these questions is obvious: none of these people should be compelled to create content that violates their beliefs or convictions. The state clearly has no right to compel them to do so.

And what about a gay-owned T-shirt company? Should they be compelled by the state to design a t-shirt with the words, “God does not recognize same-sex marriage”? Should a Christian-owned printing company be compelled by the state to design flyers for a Satan conference? The list goes on and on, and in every case, the answer is an obvious “No!”

But should these same individuals or companies be allowed to refuse general services to someone because they are gay or trans or Jewish or Muslim or Christian or Black or White?

Obviously not.

That’s why some of the Christians who have come under attack in recent years had served LGBTQ+ customers for years. Some of them even had LGBTQ+ employees. But when it came to creating artistic content that violated their beliefs (such as creating a wedding cake or designing a floral arrangement for a same-sex ceremony), they declined. And for that, they were dragged into court, with their lives turned upside down. (See here and here for prime examples.)

In the same way, if a gay person said to Lorie Smith, “I’m Tony and I’m gay, and I’d like you to create a website for my window cleaning company,” it would be illegal (not to say unchristian and unethical) for her to say, “No, I won’t do that because you’re gay.”

But if Tony said, “I’m Tony and I’m transgender, and I’d like you to create a website for my children’s books that are designed to help kids recognize their hidden trans identity,” it would be legal (and Christian and ethical) for her to politely decline.

That’s why the Supreme Court’s decision should have been 9-0, applauded by people from all backgrounds.

The fact that it was 6-3, with many Americans outraged over the ruling, reminds us of just how confused our nation has become.

May truth and sanity prevail."

Dr. Michael Brown

[melitaafterfeather]

None of the old systems is good whichever way you take someone else is earning.

I don't take all system neither repeat any. I take new approaches till old people die.

Younger generation grows and change things. Just educate your children do not rely on entertainment media and titles.

Which system excludes Islamists nigers jews orthodox Catholics atheists?

I'll take the system which is genuine.

I am better being a citizen than a leader at this time. Old perverts entertainers want to save themselves.

🤺🇬🇧