#as if the us government would ever actually protect jewish people

[sesshomarou]

i have a sickening feeling that once israel ceases to be politically beneficial to western countries the governments will try to use it as a way to once again scapegoat Jewish people

[hero-israel]

As a black person I actually find the logic of many Zionists to be audacious.

My people were sold and kidnapped. We were enslaved for hundreds of years. We had the most despicable things happen to us. I’m sure you may relate, we were put into breeding camps, they used our parts to make clothes and furniture, allegedly they ate us, they tortured us, etc.

There is more than enough proof I am indigenous to Africa hell I found and reconnected with the family one of my ancestors was taken from. I am very lucky.

At no point have I ever thought about going to West Africa and taking the land back, stealing property, imprisoning, and murdering people who’ve lived there for centuries and still live there today. Even though there’s a possibility that they’ve participated in the selling of at least one of my ancestors.

Just because I can trace my heritage there doesn’t suddenly mean I have a claim on the land. I have heard so many Zionist say they belong there more than Palestinians, that there claim on the land is stronger. Maybe it’s not all of them but it is enough to be concerning.

Also bring up Liberia if you want. We didn’t ask for that.

This is a fair critique and it brings up one of the most important aspects of Zionism, and of all Jewish life in the modern era and from now on: that Zionism was always morally RIGHT, but it did not have to be morally NECESSARY.

For decades there was a raging, controversial, legitimately two-sided intracommunity debate over Zionism, like nothing you see among Jews today, memorably portrayed in Chaim Potok's novel "The Chosen" (and subsequent film version). The Reform Jewish Movement, our largest denomination, was governed by an explicitly anti-Zionist platform for over 50 years..... until they changed their minds in 1937. The Jewish people always trace their heritage to Eretz Yisrael, always could claim a rightful place there - but things should never have been allowed to get bad enough, fast enough, that in the truest sense their only choice was to create a state of Israel or die.

As early as 1920, Hitler said his goal was total extermination of the Jews. Nobody cared. America sealed its gates to Jewish immigrants in 1924. Germany began visibly prepping for genocide around 1935, again nobody cared. At Evian 1938 - "the great betrayal" - pretty much every powerful state in the world acknowledged that the Jews were about to be wiped out, and knowing that, refused to allow refugees to enter (except for the Dominican Republic, the mensches). England bowed to Arab terrorism and sealed off immigration to Mandate Palestine - which was a violation of international law under the League of Nations but, again, nobody cared. Nobody, not one single country, fought to protect the Jews or to help them escape. The Allies couldn't be bothered to bomb the tracks into Auschwitz, but they would heroically sink refugee ships. After the war, 250,000 Jews lingered miserably in displaced persons camps for YEARS, with not one single country being willing to admit them, and in nearly all cases there being nothing to return to anyway. There were still Jews kept in Dachau, guarded by Germans, until 1951.

From a 1945 report to Truman: "Many Jewish displaced persons … are living under guard behind barbed-wire fences … including some of the most notorious concentration camps … had no clothing other than their concentration camp garb…. Most of them have been separated three, four or five years and they cannot understand why the liberators should not have undertaken immediately the organized effort to re-unite family groups…. Many of the buildings … are clearly unfit for winter…. [Author contrasted these conditions with the relative normal life led by the nearby German populations and wondered at the contrast] ...We appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them. They are in concentration camps in large numbers under our military guard instead of S.S. troops. One is led to wonder whether the German people, seeing this, are not supposing that we are following or at least condoning Nazi policy...."

Those who attempted to return to their former communities were routinely murdered (seen at the end of "Maus"). There was a massacre of Holocaust survivors in Kiev, Ukraine in September 1945, another in Kielce, Poland in July 1946.

The Jews saw Palestine as their only hope, because it was. And when they saw their enemies there were led by actual red-handed Nazi war criminals, and heard that the stakes were once again their total genocide? Well, that's when you fight.... damn hard... to build the state and the military that will, FOR ONCE, protect you.

You talk about "At no point in my life have I considered claiming a part of Africa and fighting the people who I find there". Well - what if it was extremely obviously that or death?

A popular saying among Jews: "Israel was not created because there was a Holocaust. The Holocaust was created because there was no Israel." It's true - but it should not have been necessary to have an Israel to prevent the Holocaust. The rest of the world should have done that, and they didn't so much fail in preventing it as much as they succeeded in enabling it. You are correct to say that African-Americans did not ask for Liberia. The concept was made up by white people to try to get blacks out of America (though it gained popularity with black people after "milestones" of new cruelty such as the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, and I believe Marcus Garvey is well-liked to this day). Well, Jews did not ask to have no government in the world grant us equality or defend us from genocide. We did not ask to have no choice. And we do not ask for our response to the latest attempted genocide to be condemned by the same nations that enabled the last several.

Today about 90% of Jews are Zionists. Not just out of the everlasting moral principle, but because of the life-or-death reality that when we needed ANY OTHER OPTION TO WORK, NOTHING DID. And since then, there has been even clearer demonstration of the tenuousness of Jewish survival and the depths of inhuman hatred we face from our enemies, as the 3,000-year-old Mizrahi Jewish civilization was successfully uprooted and purged from dozens of countries (which had already been oppressing and massacring them long before Zionism) as collective racial revenge against Israel. The mere fact that that was logistically possible - that it could be done, quickly and repeatedly - speaks worlds about the normalized culture of eliminationism surrounding us. What do you really think are the chances that African-Americans could be altogether physically purged from the USA or some of its states? Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and Eritrea finished their Jews within the last 5 years.

As "critics of Israel" have made it extremely clear that all Jews worldwide remain legitimate targets, that all "colonizers" (unquestionably including Americans like me) "deserve it" ("it" to include infanticide, rape, kidnapping, and mass murder), and as America visibly decays into algorithmic racist authoritarianism and climatic desperation.... you should not expect that 90% to change.

[laineystein]

i personally don’t support war and find blindly serving any military awful. I don’t mean to be rude i just wonder why you think that defending israel is the only way to garuntee jewish safety? that feels like taking responsibility off of other countries and leaving diaspora jews vunerable. im really just anti military but this conflict has been awful and i hope for the safety of all jewish people israelis muslims and palestinians but no safety to a government of right wingers

I admire your bravery in reaching out when I don’t have anon turned on. Few would, so good on you.

First off, I’m not serving blindly. None of the soldiers I’m serving with are serving blindly. We all believe in what we’re doing and we’re going to keep doing it until the mission is done and all of our people are safe again. I could get into the nuances of conscription and reserves but I’m not going to. With confidence, succinctly, none of us are serving blindly. (I’m also employed by the IDF outside of reserves so I assure you that I, in particular, love my army and believe in what we stand for.)

I don’t *think* that defending Israel is the only way to guarantee Jewish safety. I know it is. We are a country surrounded by homicidal antisemites. Hamas has stated that they will continue doing what they did on October 7th until we cease to exist. There is no peace for the Israeli or Palestinian people with Hamas still in power. So we’re destroying their tunnels and we’re rooting them out and we’re here for our hostages. Let’s play devils advocate - if Israel didn’t exist do you all honestly think that Hamas and all other Iran proxies would just allow Jews and the Western world to live in peace? Because they wouldn’t. Y’all should be grateful that we’re here because if we weren’t, they’d be killing Jews elsewhere. Don’t let them fool you into believing this is about land. They. Hate. Jews. And Israel is the only place in the world where Jews can truly defend themselves. My grandfather survived the Holocaust BH and he always says that they didn’t have a way to defend themselves in the camps. They weren’t organized. They didn’t have weapons. They didn’t have the upper hand. Well now we’re organized and we’re armed and we’re trained. Never again will we be helpless - thanks to Israel.

“That feels like taking the responsibility off of other countries” - what responsibility? To protect Jews? To persecute Hamas? Feh! None of that will ever happen. Not once has any other country *saved* the Jewish people. And, actually, often times people are turning a blind eye to our persecution - like most of the world did on and after and ever since October 7th. Like they did during the Holocaust. Like they have every time Hamas and PIJ indiscriminately fire rockets at Israel. As I said, never again will our safety be in anyone else’s hands because the world has shown us time and time again that they do not care.

“Leaving diaspora Jews vulnerable” is an insane way to blame the victim. WE WERE ATTACKED. But do you think we needed to be attacked for people to hate Jews? No, this has just empowered them to do so out loud. There has always been a correlation between anti-Israel hate and violence against Jews in the diaspora. In May of 2021 when 4000+ rockets were fired into Israel, goyim in the diaspora took this as permission to act out their antisemitic fantasies. Again when WE WERE ATTACKED. Don’t forget - People were celebrating our massacre before Israel even set foot in Gaza. Don’t let the world fool you into thinking that Israel defending ourselves has created antisemitism in the diaspora, it’s only encouraged it.

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you are not Jewish. I don’t know how to explain this conflict to you - a conflict I have lived my entire life (like my parents and grandparents before me). I don’t know how to share my pain and grief and the pain and grief of my tribe in a way that will make sense. But I’m done needing to justify my existence as a Jew. Israel is done justifying its existence as the homeland of the Jewish people. History has shown us that our survival is our responsibility and I/we won’t apologize for it. The same people that are too cowardly to stand up for us when our people are killed and raped can keep their mouths shut when we defend ourselves.

And it seems like maybe you didn’t read this post that I shared today which really would have answered a lot of this without me needing to go on a sleep deprived rant.

[edenfenixblogs]

Why do I post so much about antisemitism?

I post about it exactly as often as I experience it

People think antisemitism isn’t real

People think antisemitism isn’t that bad

People think antisemitism is justifiable as long as it is directed toward “bad” Jews. Like any other form of bigotry, it is always bad. Candace Owens has terrible anti-Black, extremely racist opinions. It’s still not OK to hurl racist insults at her. Isis and Hamas are terrorist organizatjons committing terrible crimes against humanity while invoking Islam . It’s still not ok to insult Islam while talking about them or to be racist and Islamophobic toward Muslims or Arabs. Netanyahu is an actual monster whose actions are destroying lives in Palestine, Israel, and worldwide. Jewish West Bank settlers are being extremely hostile, racist, and terrible. It’s still not ok to use antisemitic conspiracies, tropes, or insults against them. Ever. And it’s certainly not ok to use them against ordinary civilians who happen to share a race or religion with the worst people who share those identities.

I want to show all the ways antisemitism hurts.

I want to show how the damage from antisemitism lingers long after the first moment its experienced

I want people to understand that even if I don’t support Netanyahu or the Likud government or the broad actions of the IDF or the indiscriminate bombing of Palestine or the subjugation of Palestinians (and to be very clear—I do not support these things) I’m still allowed to be upset about the global hatred toward Israel right now based solely on the fact that I am Jewish. To say that makes me a supporter of colonialism or genocide is antisemitic. Why? Because half of the Jews in the entire world live in Israel. If half the Muslims in the entire world lived in America or half the Christians in the entire world lived in Japan, then everyone started calling all Christians or Muslims in that country evil/colonizers/oppressors and saying that they should lose protection and citizenship from those places, then it would make sense for all Muslims or Christians around the world to be very upset by that. Not because the Muslims or Christians in those nations are always perfect. But because, hey, seeing that people are perfectly ok condemning half everyone with whom you share a religion will cause you to be sad. And empathetic. And because obviously condemning that many people for anything as if they are all equally responsible is fundamentally wrong. Especially if your only basis for that condemnation is someone’s religion and where they live.

My trauma response is to fawn. To be aggressively kind and complimentary to show I’m not a threat. That I don’t deserve to be hated. That I promise I’m not worth your aggression. This is unhealthy for me personally. This is a bad way to live. This is a disservice to my fellow Jews who don’t deserve to experience antisemitism, regardless of any of their other actions. Instead, I am laying my pain bare for you all to see. I am using my pain to educate you. I am using my desire to help you to keep me patient while I try to educate you while experiencing an endless barrage of hatred all day every day. That hatred is not all violent or aggressive. Very often that hatred is neglect, erasure, and the revocation of societal privileges until I behave in an acceptable manner. But sometimes it is aggressive and violent as well.

People say that I am making a genocide “all about me,” but I’m not. You are. Why do your actions in preventing and fighting an ethnic cleansing on the other side of the world involve causing me emotional pain, social isolation, and ethnoreligous erasure? The problem isn’t that I’m speaking up. It’s that you’re too busy speaking over me to listen to what I’m saying and to stop being harmful.

Because I have the emotional capacity to be patient and to engage when many of my Jewish peers do not. I have the position of relative safety where I can post about these things without facing actual physical harm. Many of my Jewish peers do not. While I would never speak on behalf of other Jews’ opinions, I will certainly speak FOR my fellow Jews. For the dignity, respect, safety, love, and community they all deserve.

Because when this conflict is over or even just calmed down enough to not be at the top of the zeitgeist anymore, I don’t want any of you to have the excuse of saying you didn’t know what you were doing or the harm you were causing. You know. I’m telling you. Repeatedly.

Because despite everything I’ve just written, I know most of you won’t even listen until I confirm that I do support Palestinian self determination, citizenship, equality, and indigeneity. Which I do. I support all those things. I shouldn’t have to in order to avoid antisemitism though.

Because most people in my life have pulled away in this time and if I don’t share my pain here I’ll explode.

Because I have nobody else non-Jewish to share this with. You’ve isolated me. I’m alone. You did this. I could have been marching with you. But you hate me too much to let me fight for a cause we both believe in alongside you. And you aren’t even aware you hate me at all, because it’s so ingrained in you.

[obislittleone]

It has been brought to my attention by a grand total of four people now that a certain shithead in the fandom is trying to dox me yet again. Though I don't care if someone disagrees with me and can move on with my day, someone posting misinformation about my blog and getting others to block me on the account that I am a 'genocide supporter' is not something I will stay silent about.

So, for the last time... here is my stance.

I do NOT support genocide, and will never support the mass killing of innocent people.

I have, and will continue to publicly condemn Bibi Netanyahu for his actions and use of the Israeli government.

I will keep working closely with the organizations I've volunteered for in collecting funds and aid for Palestinian refugees and families still caught in the crossfire.

I will always call out Islamophobia when I see it, as it’s very common in the far right communities on tumblr.

I am a proud zionist, and I want to reiterate yet again that TRADITIONAL JEWISH ZIONISIM DOES NOT EQUATE WITH FAR RIGHT 'ZIONIST' BELIEFS.

Once more, for those confused, here is the jewish meaning of the word zionsim: the belief that the jewish people have a right to self determinate in their homeland (in most charters stated 'to protect themselves from another holocaust') which as you'll notice, does not say anything about an ethnostate or the rights to wipe out innocent civilians in another territory. It quite literally just means that jews existing in Israel get to keep existing and shouldn’t be wiped out either. It's pretty reasonable of a belief if you're not mentally demented.

I have family and friends in Israel, who are not immigrants, and their lineage far surpasses even the concept of Roman mandated Palestine. They are also traditional Jewish zionists, and I completely stand with them. One of my friends was a survivor of the music festival slaughter by Hamas, and her mother was killed.

I will never stop bringing awareness to the hostages remaining in Gaza , and will always call anyone out who says the hostages are, and I quote 'being treated well' by Hamas. They are hostages. They can not leave, a lot of their family members have been killed, and they have to go through this time wondering if they will also die.

I will continue to block people who interact out of poor faith, or are of the mindest that 'these jews aren't on my side, so I'm going to harrass them.' That’s antisemitism, bub...

I can't believe I even have to say this but: newsflash! Israeli citizens are not evil, and are not responsible for their government, as you should be well aware of, at least if you live in america. Another newsflash! You can support the indigenousness of Jews while ALSO supporting the indigenousess of Palestinians!!!

I am so tired of asswipes virtuesignaling on this site, doxxing jews and crying their eyes out about a word they don't even understand, when I live literally done more for Palestinians than they ever have. It's antisemitism at its absolute worst, and it pisses me off to no end.

As I like to say:

Oh brave tumblr goy, what have you done for Palestine today? Because instead of harassing jews and harassing zionists, I sent actual aid to Palestinians.

For those who would like to actually contribute, here are some links to verified organizations (that ensure your donations will not be stolen by Hamas or their sympathizers):

Water For Gaza

World Central Kitchen (provides food directly to citizens without going through Hamas or UNRWA)

Shelter Boxes

And for those who would like to donate to an emergency fund for Israeli citizens being harmed by incoming rockets and attacks near the border, this org is partnering with a few medical associations in Israel to supply more ambulances to the hospitals:

Israeli Ambulances (Magen David Adom Fund)

And for those interested in donating to both Palestinian and Israeli children that have been caught in the crossfire, visit this link:

Save the Children

I may be keeping this as my pinned post for a while, just because my masterlist links haven't been fixed yet, and I need to keep this at the top of my blog for a while.

[wederyed]

im so fucking tired of this rise of "educating people on antisemitism" because i know its not because they fucking care about jews. they are only doing this for propaganda. they are only doing this because that is the only thing isntreal has, the argument that going against isntreal is "antisemetic" when it fucking isnt in fact isntreal itself and the association of jews with that disgusting genocidal colony is antisemetic. they do not give a flying fuck about jews. they only care about us when it benefits them. we are only in the spotlight when it helps someone, whether it be a scapegoat for all their problems or a shield to protect themselves. no government has ever cared about jewish people. we are just propaganda at best and greedy world dominators at worst. "antisemitism education" fuck off and get my peoples name out of your dirty cunt mouths. you monsters have NO FUCKING RIGHT to speak on behalf of me or my jewish brothers sisters and siblings. we would gladly teach about actual antisemetism but they would never allow it because it will reveal the corruption of their precious systems and how the world has kicked the jewish people to the ground every single time. education on antisemitism. suck on a dick and go to hell you cumstains. no one fucking cared about antisemitism when everyone in my class was cracking jokes about the Holocaust during history. no one fucking cared about antisemitism when people were laughing at schindlers list. no one fucking cared about antisemitism when i am called a dirty jew. no one cared when i had to endure disgusting comments about jewish culture and stereotypes being acted out loud without a care. no one cared when literal fucking nazis held protests, no one cared when our temples have been vandilized and reek with death and gunshots and blood, no one fucking cared until we were the key to solving their problems.

[angrybell]

Ok, so this is Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University. She’s the first Black woman to be head of Harvard in its history. And yet for all that, she’s basically your run of the mill bigot that has ruled Harvard for most of its existence.

When the Supreme Court came down with the decision striking down affirmative action as practiced by Harvard (where they discriminated against disfavored minorities to favor other minorities), she didn’t welcome the ruling. Dr. Gay said it was not going to change Harvard’s values.

Harvard gets to be one of the top countries in the US because it’s been around since before th country was founded. With that longevity, comes money and an old boy network that kept Harvard regarded, unfairly, as something special. Its a name. But the part about its brand that has never really changed is that at its core, Harvard loves bigotry. It did have quotas for Jews, deliberately trying to keep them out for decades. It kept the numbers of African Americans to a minimum. There were 3 Black students admitted, on average, to each class between 1890 and 1940. By the 1969, the student body had seen a slight change. Enrollment of African American students in the student body reached 7 percent.

So with this history of being a place that hated to admit Jews and Blacks, you would think they would be doing something to change the culture. All that has really happened is that the culture has changed to being actually worse, thanks to to a healthy dose of progressive intersectionalism. Now, the school is tolerating harassment of its Jewish students by supporters of Hamas (and yes, I take the position that if you are calling for “Free Palestine” and a ceasefire, you are offering your support to Hamas. Own up to it.)

Dr. Gay repeatedly takes the position that the use of phrases like “intifada” and “From the River to the Sea” are personally abhorrent to her but that Harvard seeks to foster free speech. Is an interesting way to phrase it. It’s also, based on her history I believe, absolutely a lie.

Why? Because when Dr. Gay finds something personally abhorrent, she does something about it. She tried to penalize people to the extent she has the power to do so.

For example, let’s take the Winthrop House Dean controversy. In 2019, when Harvey Weinstein started to have criminal legal troubles, one of his defense team was a Harvard faculty member and Dean of Winthrop House, Ronald Sullivan. Gay lead the charge to have Sullivan penalized for defending Weinstein, eventually succeeding in having Sullivan removed as Dean of Winthrop House. Gay didn’t anyone representing Weinstein because she, rightly, found what Weinstein did abhorrent. She then ensured that Harvard penalized Sullivan for Weinstein’s sins and for the unforgivable sin of acting as legal counsel for the man.

So Dr. Gay found it personally abhorrent. When she finds something personally abhorrent, she takes action. And she made sure that a man was penalized by losing his position.

And lets not kid ourselves about Harvard. It’s a name. It is not a place that is welcoming to controversial ideas that deviate from its far left theological position. Conservative voices are barely tolerated when they are allowed to speak at Harvard.

But as of yet, I cannot find an instance when the SJP and/or Muslim Students Association have ever been penalized for what they are saying when it comes to the harassment of Jewish students. I can find videos of pro-Hamas supporters harassing Jewish students who showed support for Israel.

This is not to say I’m abandoning my stance on the 1st Amendment and free speech in general. I hate university speech codes. I think they foster the antisemitism and violent progressive ideas because they are not allowed to be countered. They are being protected by Dr. Gay and her administrators… while using money, tax money, given to them by the government in a variety of ways.

So when Dr. Gay wont come out and condemn the calls for “intifada” or “From the River to the Sea” - because the most she will say is the language is abhorrent, not that it violates Harvard’s speech code, not that it shouldn’t be used, and certainly not that it is being used to bully Jewish students - she may as well be setting off a laser show display that indicates that she approves of the message. She is not a woman who has ever been shy about going after people trying to exercise their free speech that she does not approve of. Even if it means hurting their livelihood.

Dr. Gay performance leads to one conclusion: she is just as much an antisemitic bigot as Lowell was back at the beginning of the last century when he set up the policy to excludes Jews. Dr. Gay seems to want to drive them from the school through antisemitism.

[discuntelysium]

@elohima

imho, the second you turn rbs or comments off, you lose. But there are so many inaccuracies and logical fallacies in your response. Normally i would just let sleeping dogs lie but you’re not the only one who believes this bullshit so i want to respond. 

“Israel is not an apartheid state. you link your articles and resources, but have you ever been to Israel? come visit- it's a beautiful place. talk to arabs living here, in israel- not in the west bank or in gaza, which i never mentioned in my post. ask them how their lives are here.”

This actually made my jaw drop. She said, “Yeah the UN and Amnesty International say it's apartheid but its a beautiful country 🤓”. Everything just flew right over your head, huh? What's the matter, is systemic too big of a word for you? Grab a dictionary and reread what I wrote in my original post, cause there's no way you're stupid enough to believe that this is a valid argument.

You say your argument excludes the West Bank and Gaza? That’s fine. To be clear, you and I both know that Israel is still an apartheid state. There’s something you never mention in any of your posts. Probably because you know that it completely destroys your argument: It’s that your “country” distinguishes between nationality and citizenship.  

Which means that “Arab” citizens do not have the same access that Jewish Israeli citizens do. Because nationality, in Israel is determined by ethnicity, cannot be changed, and this discrimination affects nearly every aspect of Arab-Israeli life. So as you can see, apartheid still exists, even within the green line. 

Let me be clear: when multinational NGOs, multinational IGOs, and human rights groups both in and out side of Israel claim that it is an apartheid state, there is nothing you can say to dispute that. Okay? Nothing. Stop embarrassing yourself. 

“HAMAS is a terrorist organization. they control gaza completely. hamas hides behind children and stores ammunition (that is used against israeli citizens) in the middle of neighborhoods where gazan citizens live: in kindergartens, schools, hospitals and actual buildings where people live.”

But do they, really? 

An investigation done by the BBC found no evidence to corroborate this claim.

An investigation done by the Belfast Telegram found no evidence to corroborate this claim.

An investigation done by Amnesty International found no evidence to corroborate this claim. 

And still, there is no evidence from either side that Hamas is using these “human shields”. 

Furthermore, this kind of logic only serves to dehumanize the Palestinians living in Gaza by making it seem like their deaths are circumstantial; by turning them into accessories to the war; by obfuscating the truth which is, Palestinian people die because Israel carpet bombs them. Because Israel is not targeting Hamas; it’s targeting Palestinians. Because for the past 70 years, Israel has demonstrated a commitment to wiping Palestine off the map completely. 

In fact, Israel is the one who uses Palestinians as human shields; by forcing Palestinian citizens to check homes for traps, or by tying them to tanks to prevent people from throwing rocks. So maybe it’s just a case of projection.  

oh, and by the way, hamas isn't the only terror organization around here. Hezbollah is the one bombing Israeli civilians in the north, so Israel fights back. you know, like every country does, but for some reason we, the one Jewish country in the world, have to justify protecting ourselves from terror.

What does it mean for a settler-colony to ‘protect itself’? Protect itself from whom? The people whose land they took? 

I’m actually genuinely curious as to how you can believe that violence on behalf of the IDF and the Israeli government is an act of self defense. You didn’t respond to anything I said in my first rb about all the palestinians detained in Israeli prisons without trial, do you think that they were put there in self defense? Or the 200+ people killed when Palestinians organized their peaceful march for freedom. Did that stem from the need to protect Israel too? What about when the IDF forces Palestinians to cut down their olive trees, their only source of income, some of which have been in families for generations. What do you say to this? It’s not defense. It’s cruelty. 

And oh my god, stop victimizing yourself. There was massive pushback to the Vietnam War, the war in Afghanistan. Because guess what— most people feel some amount of discomfort at the idea of innocent civilians being killed in their name. There is nothing unique about your country or the situation that it is in right now. It was born out of violence, it maintains itself through violence, and it justifies this violence through the dehumanization of the other. And you are complicit. 

my country was created because this is our land. 

This line of reasoning + the claims to Jewish “indigeneity” are often presented as justification for Israel’s creation. But this is a response to a strawman argument; as if the question of who lives in Palestine just depends on who got there first. Evidently, between the first century and the nineteenth century, people moved in, populations and demographics shifted. Palestine was not “your land”; if it was, there wouldn’t need to be a mass exodus of Palestinians, you fucking dumbass. 

Do you know who really is ‘a people without a land’? African Americans whose ancestors were brought to America as slaves. Romani people, who also faced persecution in Europe and during WWII. Why do you think they aren’t getting their own ethnostate? 

I don’t trust your critical thinking skills, so I’ll just tell you. It’s because giving them an ethnostate doesn’t further western hegemony like the creation of Israel did. The very roots of Israel are steeped in colonialism. It was described as a “colonial project” by Theodore Herzl, one of the founders of zionism. Other notable quotations from proponents of an independent Jewish state in Palestine include, “Zionism is a colonial adventure”; “The Arabs do not want us here because we wish to be the rulers of this land. I will fight for this. I will make sure we are the landlords.”

It’s not “your land”; even modern day politicians know that there is no legal justification for Israel existing. The only people who believe that it does are people like you. 

on November 29th, 1947, the UN suggested establishing two states—one Jewish, one Arab. the jews agreed. the arabs started a war the very next day.

It amazes me how people always manage to learn just enough history to appease their own world-views, nothing more. 

The UN’s suggestion was just that— a suggestion. The UN does not actually have any authority to create states. In fact, the UN committee on Palestine acknowledged that the establishment of Israel had infringed on Palestinian right to self determination.  

You framed this in a way that implies that “the arabs” are to blame because they started the war. Read this very carefully: colonialism is always, always the original act of violence. Everything that happens after-wards is a symptom of that. The UN’s two-state proposal was essentially just asking Palestinians to agree to their own colonization. No peoples should ever be asked to do this. 

why didn't you mention the horrible massacre that happened on October 7th? the citizens kidnapped by hamas?

Because I recognize that this didn’t happen in a bubble. 

Because Hamas was originally funded by Israel. 

Because Hamas attempted to negotiate a peace treaty with Hamas 5 times, and Israel rejected its terms; to free Palestinian prisoners in Israel; to remove Israeli troops from Palestinian territories; to restore Palestinian borders to what they were in 1967. 

Because Hamas began as a peaceful group and radicalized incrementally, and each radicalization occurred directly because of Israeli violence.

Because Israel prefers violence to peace, as has been demonstrated throughout its short and bloody history. 

i will continue to live here- i have no where else to go. this is my home. that is it.

You can do whatever the hell you want. I have no objection to where you live. What I do object to, is the beliefs that you hold about your citizenship, about your country, and about the people that had to be and still are killed and exiled to justify your country’s existence. 

[hungriestofbears]

I am pro Palestine and a Zionist. I believe the right for Palestinian self-determination and condemn Israel's war crimes. I believe Israel has terrorized Palestinians for so long that in many tragic ways, Oct 7 was inevitable. But to deny or even justify Hamas' war crimes against Israeli civilians when it was filmed is just pure hate and ignorance. I believe that Israel at the end of the war needs to fully withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank illegal settlements. I believe Bibi should be tried for his war crimes.

But is it distinctly antisemitic and xenophobic to call all Israelis monsters or nazis. It is antisemitic to call for the dissolution of the state of Israel. The Jews who fled there were refugees fleeing genocide who had nowhere else to go. The blatant acceptance of antisemitism around the world is more proof why Jews only feel safe in Israel. And no your token Jew friend who is anti-Zionist is too secular to feel antisemitism like the more religious people where Judaism takes up more of their lives.

There is so much propaganda and disinformation. If you can clearly see through Israel's lies, why are you so eager to believe Hamas' lies? It's a war. Of course they both lie. But to deny certain truths about Jews and Israel is antisemitic. You choose to remain ignorant to feel better about supporting terrorists. BLM has denounced Hamas. The global council of Imams have denounced them. North Korea and the dictator Khomeini has endorsed them. Hamas is not the future Palestinians deserve. Yes, Israel has hurt Gaza's infrastructure, but at the end of the day, Hamas is in power. They have used their 16 billion dollars of aid NOT in the infrastructure like desalination plants or pipes that Israel built for them - they have filmed themselves digging up those pipes for rockets and bombs. Hamas uses their money for war. They encourage their people to be suicide bombers because they value Jewish death over Palestinian life. If Hamas remains in power, it will be war forever. Palestinians will never have a chance at a stable country or to build up their infrastructure. They can't speak against Hamas or they will be killed. They can't be gay. A third of women are married off before they are 18. Yes, Israel has contributed to the destruction of Palestinian society, but Hamas has not done its duty as the 'democratically elected' leaders.

But if you could not point out the Jordan river on a map before Oct 7th, if you have never stepped foot in the Middle East, if you have never met an Israeli and/or Palestinian - you have the least say in all of this. Focus on your own government. Or the other actual genocides in the world. To frame the use of bombs in a WAR as genocide is blatant Holocaust reversal which is - the word of the day - antisemitic. And if you aren't Jewish and think "you're wrong that's not antisemitic" you would never ever tell another minority group who says something is racist that they're wrong. These are JEWS expressing their lived experiences. Israelis hate their government more than you and dread their IDF service, but it's necessary because Hamas and Hezbollah launch rockets into heavily populated civilian areas ON THE DAILY. Israel has just used their money on infrastructure to protect their civilians.

This question keep repeating in my head, how is it justifiable to kill hostages when they're about to be caught? Why not just leave them behind if they couldn't bring them with? There is no reason. But all I've seen is that "Israel probably killed them" "Hamas didn't do that" Hamas TOOK THEM HOSTAGE. They love killing civilian Israelis. "Hamas treats its hostages well" Eden was 79 lbs when she died. They filmed her. I don't want to get started, but justifying Hamas' actions is not the right thing to do just like justifying Israeli war crimes is not the right thing to do.

The truth is impossible to find nowadays. People want to be polarized and angry. They want to feel morally superior. They want their beliefs justified, not an inconvenient, uncomfortable truth. And the American left is full of antisemites. And Nazis. Your hatred only fuels this war and more people will die. I would say fact check your sources, branch out of your news bubble (Tik Tok isn't trying to feed you the truth, it will feed you misinformation to keep you scrolling for $$$), but I no longer believe people give a shit about truth. Jews have always been easy to hate and I feel stupid for believing people could be better. That things have changed. When Zionists are 90% Jews, your anti Zionism IS antisemitism, God.

I could keep going but I hate how long this is. I'm not looking for people to argue with or "debunk" this or whatever. I'm too exhausted for any arguments anymore. We are all so exhausted.

[sylvielauffeydottir]

Hello, it is I, your friendly neighborhood historian. I am ready to lose followers for this post, but I have two masters degrees in history and one of my focuses has been middle eastern area studies. Furthermore, I’ve been tired of watching the world be reduced to pithy little infographics, and I believe there is no point to my education if I don’t put it to good use. Finally, I am ethnically Asheknazi Jewish. This does not color my opinion in this post — I am in support of either a one or two state solution for Israel and Palestine, depending on the factors determined by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli Government does not speak for me. I hate Netanyahu. A lot. With that said, my family was slaughtered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have stood in front of that memorial wall at the Holocaust memorial in DC for my great uncle Simon and my great uncle Louis and cried as I lit a candle. Louis was a rabbi, and he preached mitzvot and tolerance. He died anyway. 

There’s a great many things I want to say about what is happening in the Middle East right now, but let’s start with some facts. 

In early May, there were talks of a coalition government that might have put together (among other parties, the Knesset is absolutely gigantic and usually has about 11-13 political parties at once) the Yesh Atid, a center-left party, and the United Arab List, a Palestinian party. For the first time, Palestinians would have been members of the Israeli government in their own right. And what happened, all of the sudden? A war broke out. A war that, amazingly, seemed to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal prosecution, despite the fact that he has been under investigation for corruption for some time now and the only thing that is stopping a real investigation is the fact that he is Prime Minister.

Funny how that happened. 

There’s a second thing people ought to know, and it is about Hamas. I’ve found it really disturbing to see people defending Hamas on a world stage because, whether or not people want to believe it, Hamas is a terrorist organization. I’m sorry, but it is. Those are the facts. I’m not being a right wing extremist or even a Republican or whatever else or want to lob at me here. I’m a liberal historian with some facts. They are a terrorist organization, and they don’t care if their people die. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

There are two governments for the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In April 2021, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed planned elections. He said it was because of a dispute amid Israeli-annexed East Jerusalum. He is 85 years old, and his Fatah Party is losing power to Hamas. Everyone knows that. Palestinians know that. 

Here’s the thing about Hamas: they might be terrorists, but aren’t idiots. They understand that they have a frustrated population filled with people who have been brutalized by their neighbors. And they also understand that Israel has something called the iron dome defense system, which means that if you throw a rocket at it, it probably won’t kill anyone (though there have been people in Israel who died, including Holocaust survivors). Israel will, however, retaliate, and when they do, they will kill Palestinian civilians. On a world stage, this looks horrible. The death toll, because Palestinians don’t have the same defense system, is always skewed. Should the Israeli government do that? No. It’s morally repugnant. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s hurting people without the capability to defend themselves. But is Hamas counting on them to for the propaganda? Yeah. Absolutely. They’re literally willing to kill their other people for it.

You know why this works for Hamas? They know that Israel will respond anyway, despite the moral concerns. And if you’re curious why, you can read some books on the matter (Six Days of War by Michael Oren; The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich; Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergmen; Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt; and Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis). The TL;DR, if you aren’t interested in homework, is that Israel believes they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they consider ‘hostile powers.’ And it’s almost entirely to do with the Holocaust. It’s a little David v Goliath. It is, dare I say, complicated.

I’m barely scratching the surface here. 

(We won’t get into this in this post, though if you want to DM me for details, it might be worth knowing that Iran funds Hamas and basically supplies them with all of their weapons, and part of the reason the United States has been so reluctant to engage with this conflict is that Iran is currently in Vienna trying to restore its nuclear deal with western powers. The USA cannot afford to piss off Iran right now, and therefore cannot afford to aggravative Hamas and also needs to rely on Israel to destroy Irani nuclear facilities if the deal goes south. So, you know, there is that).

There are some people who will tell you that criticism of the Israel government is antisemitic. They are almost entirely members of the right wing, evangelical community, and they don’t speak for the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish people and Jewish Americans in particular are criticizing the Israeli government right now. The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel support Palestinian rights and are speaking out about it. And actually, when they talk about it, they are putting themselves in great danger to do so. Because it really isn’t safe to be visibly Jewish right now. People may not want to listen to Jews when they speak about antisemitism or may want to believe that antisemitism ‘isn’t real’ because ‘the Holocaust is over’ but that is absolutely untrue. In 2019, antisemitic hate crimes in the United States reached a high we have never seen before. I remember that, because I was living in London, and I was super scared for my family at the time. Since then, that number has increased by nearly 400% in the last ten days. If you don’t believe me, have some articles about it (one, two, three, four, and five, to name a few). 

I live in New York City, where a man was beaten in Time Square while attending a Free Palestine rally and wearing a kippah. I’m sorry, but being visibly Jewish near a pro-Palestine rally? That was enough to have a bunch of people just start beating on him? I made a previous post detailing how there are Jews being attacked all over the world, and there is a very good timeline of recent hate crimes against Jews that you can find right here. These are Jews, by the way, who have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. They are Americans or Europeans or Canadians who are living their lives. In some cases, they are at pro-Palestine rallies and they are trying to help, but they just look visibly Jewish.  God Forbid we are the wrong ethnicity for your rally, even if we agree.

This is really serious. There are people calling for the death of all Jews. There are people calling for another Holocaust. 

There are 14 million Jews in the world. 14 million. Of 7.6 billion. And you think it isn’t a problem the way people treat us?

Anyway (aside from, you know, compassion), why does this matter? This matters because stuff like this deters Jews who want to be part of the pro-Palestine movement because they are literally scared for their safety. I said this before, and I will say it again: Zionism was, historically speaking, a very unpopular opinion. It was only widespread antisemitic violence (you know, the Holocaust) that made Jews believe there was a necessity for a Jewish state. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that I supported it the abstract idea too.

I grew up in New York City, I am a liberal Jew, and I believe in the rights of marginalized and oppressed people to self-determine worldwide. Growing up, I also fit the profile of what many scholars describe as the self hating Jew, because I believed that, in order to justify myself in American liberal society, I had to hate Israel, and I had to be anti-Zionist by default, even if I didn’t always understand what ‘Zionism’ meant in abstract. Well, I am 27 years old now with two masters degrees in history, and here is what Zionism means to me: I hate the Israeli government. They do not speak for me. But I am not anti-Zionist. I believe in the necessity for a Jewish state — a state where all Jews are welcome, regardless of their background, regardless of their nationality. 

There needs to be a place where Jews, an ethnic minority who are unwelcome in nearly every state in the world, have a place where they are free from persecution — a place where they feel protected. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that place being the place where Jews are ethnically indigenous to. Because believe it or not, whether it is inconvenient, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. I’ve addressed this in this post.

With that said, that doesn’t mean you can kick the Palestinian people out. They are also indigenous to that land, which is addressed in the same post, if you don’t trust me. 

What is incredible to me is that Zionism is defined, by the Oxford English Dixtionary, as “A movement [that called originally for] the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine, and [since 1948] the development of the State of Israel.” Whether we agree with this or not, there were early disagreements about the location of a ‘Jewish state,’ and some, like Maurice de Hirsch, believed it ought to be located in South America, for example. Others believed it should be located in Africa. The point is that the original plans for the Jewish state were about safety. The plan changed because Jews wanted to return to their homeland, the largest project of decolonization and indigenous reclamation ever to be undertaken by an indigenous group. Whether you want to hear that or not, it is true. Read a book or two. Then you might know what I mean.

When people say this is a complicated issue, they aren’t being facetious. They aren’t trying to obfuscate the point. They often aren’t even trying to defend the Israeli government, because I certainly am not — I think they are abhorrent. But there is no future in the Middle East if the Israelis and Palestinians don’t form a state that has an equal right of return and recognizes both of their indigenousness, and that will never happen if people can’t stop throwing vitriolic rhetoric around.  Is the Israeli Government bad? Yes. Are Israeli citizens bad? Largely, no. They want to defend their families, and they want to defend their people. This is basically the same as the fact that Palestinian people aren’t bad, though Hamas often is. And for the love of god, stop defending terrorist organizations. Just stop. They kill their own people for their own power and for their own benefit. 

And yes, one more time, the Israeli government is so, so, so wrong. But god, think about your words, and think about how you are enabling Nazis. The rhetoric the left is using is hurting Jews. I am afraid to leave my house. I’m afraid to identify as Jewish on tumblr. I’m afraid for my family, afraid for my friends. People I know are afraid for me. 

It’s 2021. I am not my great uncle. I cried for him, but I shouldn’t have to die like him. 

Words have consequences. Language has consequences. And genuinely, I do not think everyone is a bad person, so think about what you are putting into the world, because you’d be surprised how often you are doing a Nazi a favor or two. 

Is that really what you want? To do a Nazi a favor or two? I don’t think that you do. I hope you don’t, at least.

That’s all. You know, five thousand words later. But uh, think a little. Please. 

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

Why Wanda's Slavic Accent Matters,

And why it's bad that it's gone.

As I'm sure most of you know, the Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness Trailer just recently dropped.

And while a lot of fans are very excited for the film, one thing that definitely stood out in the trailer was that Wanda's accent was once again, mysteriously gone.

It first disappeared in Infinity War and was also missing in her brief scene in Endgame, but was notably brought back again during the character's time on wandavision. Now it seems to be gone again. I'm sure many of you are aware that this is odd, but probably think it's not too big of a deal.

It IS a big deal, and it's issue is tied directly into what seems to be the main issue with MCU Wanda; erasure.

Let's explain:

Sokovia is obviously a fictional country but it's located in the Baltic States region of Eurasia.

The Baltic genocide perpetrated by Russia was horrific, including labor camps in North Siberia. Russia used the cover of WW2 to begin the horrific genocide knowing that it would go unnoticed and then by the time the rest of world found out there wasn't a lot to be done and it continued on for a long time after the war.

Coupled with the fact that most of the rest of Europe and Asian countries hate Slavs and look down on them, people didn't really care. There also were a lot of Roma refugees in the Baltic region who had fled the Holocaust, and Europeans do still hate the Romani now, but it was so much worse back then.

Comics Wanda and Pietro were the children of Magneto, who everyone knows is Jewish, and a Polish Romani woman named Magda.

Magneto and Magda fled to Sokovia as refugees from the Holocaust. Magneto left Magda and their children there as babies thinking they were safe and left again to continue fighting for the freedom of Jewish and mutant people.

They were not safe, the Baltic Cleansing happened while they were children and they lost their mother and the rest of their Romani family.

It's truly a heartbreaking and horrifying story reflecting the reality of what actually happened to many Roma, Jews, and Slavs.

So for Disney to make a Scarlet witch that is white and non-Jewish and at one point aligned with literal Nazis was bad enough, but now they're also erasing her Slavic heritage.

A lot of people who aren't Eurasian don't know how badly Slavs are treated there. We have a long and bloody history of genocide and mistreatment on multiple fronts. We have to change our name and hide our heritage to travel to other countries in Europe.

They're trying to create this twisted, jaded, and mentally unstable character to be edgy and cool but completely bleeding all the significance and suffering and tragedy out of the character, which was what drove her motivations and made her unstable and not always trust the good guys or the government. Those things are the reason she is the nuanced, complex, damaged character she is.

But Disney ran her through a power washer and bleached out all the real world meaningfulness of the character.

They've basically turned her into a replacement Jean Grey even though she's one of the most prominent respectfully depicted characters to reflect that real world tragedy and come out stronger and a hero and a protector.

Her and her father are a lot alike in wanting to make sure that they protect their people and never let anyone be hurt the way they themselves were hurt again. But now Marvel is even taking away that aspect, using retcons to make them no longer related, making Magneto no longer a Holocaust survivor, etc.

It's very very blatant erasure, racism, antisemitism and xenophobia and nobody calls them out on it.

It's one of the most violently offensive character adaptations there's probably ever been.

[wienerbarnes]

Italian Heart

Pairing: Bucky x Italian!MobBoss!Reader

Word Count: 4,867

Warnings: canon level violence, possible inaccurate italian slang lol

A/N: ive been watching a lot of the sopranos lately and i feel like ive never seen a bucky x mob boss reader au (ive only rlly seen em where buckys the mob boss. if there are ones where reader is the mob boss PLS SEND EM TO ME I BEG) a lot of the slang and mob stuff here is from sopranos bc... im not in the fucking mafia so forgive me anyway enjoy :)<3

MAIN MASTERLIST

Bucky’s never seen a woman quite like yourself.

Dressed in expensive satin and jewelry that hangs between your breasts, an angry look on your face at the fact you’re sitting before him and Sam in an interrogation room in the tower. Freshly done nails, clean and crisp lipstick, spicy perfume, and an expression of annoyance.

As put together as you look, you don’t look like someone to be fucked with. Which, he supposes is good for a mobster; the Boss of Newark.

Looking at you, though, he’d never thought you to be such a figure of intimidation. While the mafia is still alive, despite how the media tries to deny this, he always pictured an old Italian man that chain smokes cigars. He doesn’t think he’s too far off, to his credit; he can smell the remnants of smoke on you.

“Mind if we make this fast? My cousin’s comin’ for dinner and I was gonna make ziti.” You huff, crossing your legs under the table.

“Sounds delicious. Sorry for dragging you all the way out here.” Sam says, a calm look on his face even though he’s well aware of what you’re capable of.

When hunting down the last traces of the super soldier serum, he never thought Nick Fury himself would suggest getting in touch with you. He didn’t think it was worth the time to question how the two of you knew each other.

Theft. Drugs. Murder. Bribery. The list goes on, and there’s not a single thing that ties you to any of it.

A shrug of your shoulders, “So, what exactly is this about?” You ask.

“What is it that you do for a living?” Sam asks.

“I work in waste management.” You respond, a rehearsed answer.

Not exactly a lie, the environmental facility you manage is one of hundreds of covers used by your crew for your crimes. Environmental facilities, deli shops, strip clubs, auto shops. There isn’t a business in Jersey you aren’t tied to.

“Waste management? Like, garbage disposal?” Bucky asks, knowing exactly what it is you do for work.

You smirk, “Yeah, we dispose of garbage sometimes. What’s that got to do with me being here?”

“It’s to my understanding that you’re in the business of… buying and selling things. You and… the people you hang around got a real knack for it.” Sam tells you.

Bucky holds back a roll of his eyes. More like stealing and selling. Expensive Italian suits, antique watches, cars, electronics, illegal cigars. Who knows what else.

“I don’t know where you heard that… but I’m a popular gal, maybe I know a guy who might know a guy. What are you lookin’ for?” You ask.

You know this game, after being in the mob for so long. After being a part of your own crew for years, your patience and hard work paid off, working your way up to a captain and finally a boss. It didn’t take you long to learn in this business that government officials are jokes. Always wanting to bust my balls and then come crying to my corner for help, it’s a bunch of ugatz.

“Serums.” Bucky finally speaks.

A laugh escapes you, “What, like vitamin C?” You teasingly smirk at him.

His chair makes a loud sound in the small room as he pushes it back harshly and stands, resting his hands on the table in between the two of you. You don’t flinch.

“Enough with the bullshit. Super serums. To create super soldiers. We need to get them before they end up in the wrong hands and make a big ass mess.” He snaps at you, but you don’t seem phased in the slightest. In fact, you seem rather amused.

“You must have a lot of agita with all that anger, Sergeant Barnes.”

He doesn’t hold back this time and rolls his eyes before you speak up again, “Your first name is James, isn’t it? Ain’t that Italian?”

“No, it’s English. Or Scottish. Or Jewish - I don’t know, who cares? Are you gonna help us or not?” Bucky takes his seat again, crossing his thick arms over his broad chest.

“What’s in it for me?” You ask, leaning back in your chair.

“Not being arrested for all the shit we know you’re caught up in.” Sam offers.

You roll your own eyes this time, “I’ll take my chances. Thanks for wasting my time, boys, don’t let it happen again.” You stand, prepared to make your way back to the train station to go back to Jersey.

“Wait,” Sam stops you, “What is it that you want?”

You smile innocently and take your seat again, taking a minute to think before answering, “My little sister’s a big fan of yours. I’m sure she and all her friends would think it’s cool if you showed up to her prom as her date.” You wink at Sam.

Silence fills the room as the men think about your request.

“You’re gonna do it, right?” Bucky looks over at him and sees Sam rubbing the crease in between his eyes. He was expecting you to ask for immunity, protection, money, guns. But after hearing your request, he supposes you have enough of all that stuff anyway.

“Man -” Sam begins to refuse.

“Sam, it’s a fucking school dance in exchange for some of the most powerful and sought after serums on the planet - go to the fucking prom.” He tells him, eyebrows scrunching in confusion as to how he would hesitate on something so simple.

“She’s eighteen, so you won’t have any problems with the media or none of that.” You add, the information not really making Sam feel any better.

“Alright, alright, fine. I’ll go to the dance with your sister if you help us get these serums.”

You smile, happy to have done business with the two men, “What information do ya got for me?”

…

Bucky and Sam wait outside a back room in the facility you own. They passed the garbage trucks parked neatly outside, but could hear your screaming and the smell of Cuban cigars as soon as they entered the building.

She’s with a customer, they were told, by someone in your crew, them meeting Bucky’s expectations for mobsters more than you did. None of them ask any questions, but Bucky and Sam aren’t stupid, they’re sure your crew is aware of what’s going on and know the exact reason they’re there.

“You’re a fuckin’ asshole, you know that? The Bible says, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit -”

“You listen to me, you take your Bible and your quotations book and shove it up your fat fucking ass! Now get the fuck out of my face!”

Bucky can’t help but scoff listening to you scream at whoever’s inside. Sam elbows him, silently telling him that now isn’t the time to find your work funny, especially not in front of the rest of your crew.

Bucky knows he’s old-fashioned, and while things that were taboo such as body modifications or certain fashion styles don’t phase him anymore, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to hearing a woman talk like that. He doesn’t think he’s ever even heard anybody talk like you do.

Suddenly a man bursts out of the room, huffing and puffing, and you walk slowly behind him, as if to make sure he makes it outside okay.

“Grab his plate for me, will you?” You say not to anyone in particular, voice smooth and calm as if you hadn’t been yelling and threatening that man’s life for the past twenty minutes.

One of the men from your crew follows outside, seemingly to collect the license plate of the man who just left.

“Nothing’s gonna happen to that guy, right?” Sam asks as he and Bucky enter the room, taking a seat in front of the desk you have in there. He knows there’s no point in asking, that you’ll do whatever you want regardless because it’s obvious you’re passionate about receiving respect, but it was worth a shot.

“Is that what you came all the way to Jersey to ask me? Christ, I’m fuckin’ starving, you boys want anything to eat?” You ask, accent heavy as you reach into the side drawer of your desk and pull out what seems to be some kind of meat wrapped in paper.

“Gabagool?” You offer to them, picking out a slice for yourself and placing it in your mouth.

“Gesundheit.” Sam responds.

“It’s pork, you asshole.”

Bucky silently reaches over and picks off a slice of the cured cold cut, putting the meat in his mouth and savoring the flavor. While he can’t stand the way you make a living or the sailor’s mouth you have, he loves Italian food, and actually chose a neighborhood in New York that has plenty of traditional cold cut markets and restaurants to live in in order to fulfill his cravings.

“There’s a big party staged downtown this weekend, we think that’s when the drop is going to happen.” Sam tells you, bringing the focus to their reason for coming here in the first place.

“I’ll send one of my boys.” You reply in between your chews.

“That wasn’t the deal. The deal was you get the serums.” Bucky speaks up.

“Buck, you know how many people want her dead?” Sam tries to reason.

“What the fuck do I have a crew for then? - No, if pretty boy wants me to do it myself, then I will. The same people that want my head are the same fucks who are terrified to be within twenty feet of me in fear they’ll make eye contact. I’m not scared of nothin’.” You say, narrowing your eyes at Bucky.

“What did you guys come here to talk about?” You ask.

Sam looks confused at your expression, “...To go over the plan? Hash out details? So you know how everything’s gonna go?”

“I’ll be fine; I’ve seen The Godfather once or twice,” You tell him, wrapping up the cappo, after Bucky picks off one last slice, and replacing it in the drawer, “Don’t worry Captain, this ain’t my first rodeo. I’ll get the serums for you.” You open a different drawer and pull out a cigar and a lighter.

Bucky watches as you place the large cigar in between your red-painted lips, bringing the flame of your lighter to the end and hollowing your cheeks until smoke exits from the corner of your mouth. Bucky feels blood travel south as his eyes glaze over your hand grab the cigar out of your mouth and blow out a long string of smoke.

“I guess we’ll be in touch then,” Sam stands and Bucky follows after.

“My sister’s wearing blue, so find yourself a nice tie.” You call out, lifting your feet up to cross them on the desk, dress rising and showing your legs.

Bucky blushes, and then laughs as he exits when he hears you, in a deep and more exaggerated accent than your own, “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in!”

…

The morning of the party, Sam and Bucky pick you up from your house, planning to take you into New York to discuss final details before tonight.

You get in the passenger seat, Sam offering it to you and climbing in the backseat. As Bucky begins to drive off, your phone rings.

“I told you to leave that.” Bucky says, telling you explicitly to leave electronics here to prevent anyone finding out where you are, and also to avoid any distractions.

“Wanted to see what you’d about it, Sarge,” You wink at him, pulling out a flip phone and answering the call.

“Yeah… Uh huh… He what? Are you fucking kidding me?... Alright… Tell him not to move a fucking muscle.” You hang up, slamming the phone closed.

“Stop at the facility for a sec, I gotta take care of something.” Bucky sighs and turns away from the route to head to your facility.

“Bucky’s going to be going with you tonight, by the way, he’ll be in disguise. Just in case anything goes wrong.” Sam tells you, not really caring anymore about having to make a stop for you to take care of whatever business you need to take care of.

Your only response is a hum as Bucky can feel the anger radiating off your now tense body.

You slam the car door shut as Bucky parks behind a garbage truck outside, not even waiting for him to fully put the car in park before you exit.

Him and Sam follow quickly behind you to see what’s going on. You enter through a side door that leads to a large room, a garage for the trucks, Bucky assumes.

There’s a large truck inside, and racks of suits wrapped in plastic scattered around. A younger man stands near the truck as your crew peruses around the racks, he couldn’t be older than twenty-five years old. Your heels click on the ground as you approach, slowing down as you glance between the suits and the young man. Bucky and Sam hang around a few feet behind your trail.

You stop, fuming, staring at the man before you speak, “You wanna tell me what the fuck happened?”

“I -” He begins, but you cut him off, raising an open hand at him.

“Actually, I don’t even want to hear your fucking voice right now. Because if what I heard you did is true; if what you did to Vinny’s guy is true, you’re gonna be a fuck load of trouble.”

“Can I -”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“But -”

“I said shut the fuck up, Christopher! What part of that don’t you understand?” You yell, and even Bucky feels intimidated.

You turn to your crew, “What the fuck happened.” You demand, more than ask.

“Kid says he tried to take the truck, Vinny’s guy had a gun that fell outta the seat, went off, shot him.” One of the men summarizes, not looking up from the rack of suits.

You raise a manicured hand to pinch between your eyes, “You keep me skinny, Christopher, with all the fucking stress you cause me.”

“Would you let me explain?” He tries.

“If you don’t do as I told you and shut your fucking mouth, you’re gonna be buried with two assholes,” You threaten before continuing.

“They were fuckin’ suits! All you had to do was take the truck! How did you fuck that up -” You stop yourself and sigh, attempting to calm yourself down.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna take all this shit, you’re gonna take it back to Vinny, and you’re gonna tell him what happened yourself.” You finish.

“Marone!” He exclaims, rubbing his face with his hands.

“Enough with the theatrics! You’re lucky I don’t put a bullet in your ass! Now, I don’t see you grabbing that rack and that rack and that rack and putting it back in the truck!” You wave your arms around the room.

The kid sighs and begins grabbing the racks one by one and rolling them back in the truck.

“Would it be such a shame if they all went back?” An older man from your crew asks, already wearing one of the expensive suits. You scoff and laugh.

“Bucky, pick yourself somethin’ nice for tonight,'' You turn to face him, and he jumps at the sound of your now calmer voice being directed at him, as opposed to the harsh one used on Christopher, “On me.” You wink.

...

Sam and Bucky sit on the bed and watch as you get ready. A small apartment near the party that’s already been swept for bugs. A favor, you called it, from someone you know.

They don’t question it.

“You and Bucky will go in together and I’ll be waiting at a secondary location watching and listening to everything.”

Bucky can’t tear his eyes away from your dress. A mermaid dress, he thinks it is, black and tight and hugging you in all the right places, curving around your ass and sleeveless at the top, allowing you to show off a nice necklace and your cleavage. It’s an understatement to say that he’ll enjoy accompanying you tonight, even if it’s in a costume.

His mother probably would’ve loved it if he would’ve gotten with someone like you. Someone who loves their family, a spitfire that wouldn’t take any of his shit, and whose god damn gorgeous. She might’ve had to wash your mouth out with soap, though.

“So, why is Bucky goin’ again?”

“Safety.” Bucky answers.

“Is he going for my safety or am I going for his?” You tease, finishing the last few curls of your hair, smoke coming from the iron after each time you pull your hair away from it.

“Once you find our guy, get talking with him and see if you can get him to make you an offer,” He begins.

“One I can’t refuse?”

“Then, you’ll try and get him alone, see if he’ll show you the serums, and once you do, we’ll be taking care of the rest.” Sam finishes explaining.

Bucky plucks a box from his pocket and opens it to reveal a pair of diamond earrings. One, a camera, and the other, a microphone. You’re also given a comm to hide in your ear so both him and Sam can hear everything and you can hear them.

“Easy - peasy.” You respond.

The ballroom is lively, loud music and people everywhere, and Bucky attunes all the action overwhelming him to a sweat and not that fact that you’re pressed up against him, his arm wrapped around your waist.

About a hundred different people come up to greet you, asking about your family, offering you drinks and food. Bucky can see right through all of them though; they’re all putting on the act out of fear. Everyone’s attention is on you, and Bucky’s sure if he wasn’t in disguise right now, no one would even notice.

You bring him to the middle of the crowd and he can’t be surprised when you start to dance with him, pulling at his arms to get him to loosen up. He complies, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you close as the two of you move together.

“I’ll let you know when I spot him.” He tells you, voice causing goosebumps to rise on your neck; goosebumps that he notices but doesn’t point out.

It only takes a song or two before he spots who he’s looking for and sends you over, making sure your com is on, and choosing to stick by the bar, giving him a good view of you and allowing himself a break of having your body pressed against his.

He’s impressed listening to you talk to this guy, voice smooth and sultry, yet still commanding.

He knows there was a lot of talk when you took position as boss; not a lot of people in the mob took you seriously and didn’t think you or a woman in general would be good in that kind of position in power. So, you use that to your advantage to get shit done, and Bucky applauds you for that.

It’s not long before the guy offers to go somewhere more private to discuss business and Bucky follows far behind, Sam praising you through the coms from where he waits in the car outside, watching through the camera in your earring.

Bucky waits outside of a closed office door upstairs, listening to the conversation through the coms but hearing your exclamation through the door when the guys give you his asking price.

“5 mil each?! What do you take me for, some kinda stunad?”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Take it or leave it, yeah, I can put a bullet between your eyes and take it, alright.”

“Stop messing around and take the offer, it’s not real anyway!” Sam tells you, not wanting to lose their chance on the serums.

You ignore him prioritizing your need for respect over the stupid mission, “How do I know these aren’t Kool-Aid pouches poured in glass bottles?”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to test ‘em out for you.” The guy scoffs.

“Stronzo. You’re outta your fucking mind offering me that.”

“I’ll lower the price for you if you give me a little dance, how ‘bout that?”

“Vaffanculo.” You curse at him.

“Up yours, lady!” He yells back, and Sam sees through the camera, he grabs at you.

“Buck, get in there.” Sam tells him, and it only takes Bucky a second to kick open the door.

He’s a bit taken aback when he not only sees the case of serums out on the table, but you holding the man bent over the small table in the middle of the room next to the serums, gun held to the back of his head.

He very quickly decides that you’re fine and moves to grab the serums, closing the case and holding it securely in his left hand.

“Don’t kill the guy.”

You stay silent and Bucky looks at you again. He can almost see the steam coming out of your ears and he notices a small cut on your cheek bone. He looks down to the man’s cowering figure and notices a large ring on his hand.

You mumble something in Italian to the man, a threat of some kind that Bucky can guess given how the man shuts his eyes and shakes a bit under your hold. Sam finally enters the room, military grade handcuffs in hand.

“Feds are on their way, get her out of here.” He tells Bucky.

You slowly lift the gun off the man’s head and stand up straighter, walking over to brush past Bucky in the direction of the back door.

He makes eye contact with Sam and gives him a nod before following after you, watching as you scrunch up the bottom of your dress to replace the gun in an ankle holster. Once outside, he stops you under a street light near the car and raises his hand to look at your cheek.

“We gotta get going,” You swat at his hand.

“You’re still bleeding.” He says, using his thumb to brush away the line of blood, smearing a red tinge on your skin.

He looks into your eyes and for a second he sees the tough exterior drop. The face of someone who got smacked across the cheek all for mouthing off at some asshole.

Your vulnerability doesn’t last long, though, as you sniff and walk towards the car, opening the passenger door and sitting inside before Bucky can make it over there to open the door for you.

The drive back to the apartment is silent, and Bucky doesn’t know what to do or say to fill the silence. Stepping into the apartment, you immediately go to change and collect your things. Bucky moves to the bathroom to look for a first aid kit of some kind.

He meets you in the room and you’re now in cotton pants and a large t-shirt, sandals on your feet showing the bright red color of your toenails and the lines indented in your skin from how tight your heels were. You’re hanging up the dress and zipping it back in the cover when Bucky drops the first aid kit on the bed.

“Christ, it’s only a small cut.” You mumble.

“Just - Let me, would you?”

He takes out the liquid of disinfectant and soaks a cotton pad, cleaning off your cheek bone with it before covering it with healing ointment and a bandaid.

You don’t thank him when he finishes and he huffs as he closes the kit, “When do you drop the act, huh?”

“I don’t.”

“Really?” Bucky asks in annoyed disbelief.

“No. People tend to try and have me whacked when I drop the act.”

He sighs, “So, what, nobody ever takes care of you? Treats you? You don’t have any days off? Time to be yourself?”

“This lifestyle doesn’t really allow me to have days off, Sergeant Barnes.” You snap, gathering the dress in your hands and turning to face him completely.

“Take me home, I’m tired and my feet hurt.”

You leave him in the room and he waits an extra few seconds before dropping the conversation and following you out.

...

Bucky opens the back door to the environmental facility with his right hand and sees the door to your office open, you and your crew sitting together surrounded by cigar smoke and he can hear a TV on.

“Sir, please step into the vehicle.”

“Like the cop would be callin’ this asshole Sir if the fuckin’ cameras weren’t around!” You wave a hand at the TV, not yet seeing Bucky standing there.

He finds it funny that the gnarliest criminals - the literal Mafia - spend their time watching shitty, scripted cop shows.

It’s been about two weeks since the mission with you where you retrieved the serums. Sam went to prom with your sister five days ago, which was hilarious for him, especially when he got photo prints of different sizes in the mail at his apartment. He didn’t bother thinking about how you found his address.

One of the men sitting next to you glances his way and sees him standing there, smirking at the vision of him; hair combed slightly back and to the side, and a large bouquet of flowers in his right hand and a small paper box in his left.

“You got company, Boss.” He says.

You look over to the doorway and your jaw drops in an open-mouthed smile.

“Look at googootz! Now this is a man that knows how to treat a lady, are you boys paying attention?” You tease, scurrying over to him and pinching one of his cheeks, resting your free hand on his large bicep to guide him into the room, the rest of your crew ushering out to give the two of you privacy.

“What’s in the box?”

“Cannoli.”

You throw your head back with an exaggerated moan, “You know the way to an Italian woman’s heart, Sergeant Barnes. What’s with all the gifts?”

“Thought I’d treat you.” Is all his response is.

You narrow your eyes at him and stand up a little straighter, crossing your arms over your chest.

The last conversation before he dropped you off that night hasn’t escaped his mind. He understands the difficulties of life - how it’s hard to find time for yourself among the busy schedule that is existing. He catches himself sometimes, too, forcing his body to run with no sleep, burning through all of his energy until he’s completely drained and blaming it on life.

But life’s not always like that. Life allows for days off. For treats. For a bit of kindness. And Bucky’s come to show you just that.

“What, a beautiful woman like you never received flowers and pastries before?” He says, taking a half-step forward to be close enough to look you closer in the eyes.

“Are you flirting with me?” You whisper in amusement.

His eyes glance away from yours to look down at your red-painted lips. He gives you a shy smirk, really turning up the charm. For a big, bad, boss, you’re pretty easy to break down.

“Let me take you out tonight.”

“Maybe I’ve got plans.”

“Cancel ‘em.”

“What makes you think you’re worth canceling plans for?”

“Why don’t you trust me and find out?”

“You should know by now, Sergeant Barnes, that I don’t trust.”

He doesn’t respond for a moment, setting the box of cannoli on your desk before reaching his now free hand up to your face, using his finger to brush away a stray hair and push it behind your ear.

He then takes a hold of one of your hands, turning it over to place a kiss on the top of it, before wrapping your fingers around the flowers in his other hand, forcing you to take them.

“No restaurant you’ve been to a hundred times over, no drama, no business. Just a man trying to treat a lady.” You look down at the flowers before meeting his eyes again.

“I get to pick the place.”

“No.”

“The kind of food.”

“No.”

“The -”

“No. Let me take care of everything.” Bucky insists, determined to get you to give up control for the first time in what he can only imagine has been a very long time.

Bucky knows better than anyone how terrifying it is to give up control. It was terrifying when he was forced to give up control, his free will taken away from him in the war for decades upon decades, but it’s terrifying even now when he has to do it as a free man. It makes a person vulnerable. When was the last time you were allowed to be vulnerable for somebody?

“I’m gonna pick you up here at six. Wear something nice and leave the executive attitude at home.” He finishes, leaving you with the flowers and cannoli before returning back outside, ignoring the stares he receives from you crew who wait patiently outside your office.

He feels your eyes follow him at the door, and he can’t wait to sweep you off your feet tonight.

[eretzyisrael]

Until recently, the hard sciences proved impregnable to political propaganda and to Soviet-style boycotts and censorship. Not anymore.Op-ed.

From college campuses to medical and mental health professionals, people whose careers are rooted in inquiry and fact are falling over each other to condemn Israel for last month's defensive war against Hamas – and in dreadfully uniform language.

I don't know how to stop the lies about Israeli "massacres" when that lie has now been amplified by professors at so many universities, by the media, by students, as well as in medical and scientific journals.

Physicians, both clinicians and scientific researchers, have also become politicized. According to a surgeon-friend: "I had to quit my women physician Facebook group because of rabid antisemitism in the guise of pro-Palestinian humanism. We formed a separate group called 'physicians against antisemitism that quickly got 1,500 members."'

According to Michael Vanyukov, a geneticist and a professor of pharmaceutical sciences, psychiatry, and human genetics at the University of Pittsburgh:

"I left the totalitarian anti-Semitic Soviet Union 30 years ago...little did I know that the scientific society I would soon join in the United States—Behavior Genetics Association (BGA)...would bring back memories of my old unlamented country. I recently learned that the company's executive committee expressed support for BLM. I was shocked. Not only does BGA have no business getting engaged in partisan politics but the BLM attacks on Jewish institutions were not random...unsurprisingly, the BLM leaders also describe themselves as 'trained Marxists.' Endorsing BLM – a racist Jew-hating group – returns genetics to its ugly history page of ignorance."

To his enormous credit, Vanyukov resigned. Makes perfect sense. We are undergoing the most profound degradation of both experts and of expertise.

For example, in 2010, The Lancet, once a premier journal of medicine, blamed Israel for the alleged increase of "wife beating" in Gaza.

These researchers failed to disclose that their study was funded by the Palestinian National Authority and their data was collected by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Further, they establish no baseline comparison with domestic violence in Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, countries which are not occupied by Israel or the West.

And amid the latest conflict, it published a letter May 19 from Issam Awadallah, of the "Shifa Medical Complex, in Gaza, Palestine." He claims that "this open-air enclave has been under siege for the past 14 years which has left the health system jeopardized by limited resources, failing equipment, and many essential drugs in dangerously low supply."

Blaming Israel for this state of affairs, when fortunes of money are given to Gaza only to disappear into attack tunnel infrastructure while Israel allows all medical imports, is unbalanced and untrue. Every failing in Gaza's infrastructure is due to the Hamas leadership, which has spent 14 years prioritizing its desire to kill Israeli civilians above the basic needs of Palestinian Arabs.

Awadallah repeats Hamas propaganda, including early, inaccurate, and out-of-context Palestinian casualty counts, including children.

The Lancet's role providing a platform for anti-Israel politics is not new. Some Lancet researchers fail to disclose that their funding comes from pro-Palestinian groups, such as Medical Aid for Palestinians and the pro-Palestinian Norwegian Aid Committee, organizations that are hostile to Israel.

What's newsworthy is that, despite pointed rebuttals by the president of the Israel Medical Association and other leading scientists – the Lancet's bias has persisted. Its allegedly "medical" and "scientific" articles routinely cite false information and in a way that conforms to the Hamas-created "lethal narrative" that's been adopted by the Western media.

Even when Lancet's authors are dealing with strictly medical issues in Gaza, they still refer, at least once, to the "oPt," aka, "occupied Palestinian territory" – and this remained true even after Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza.

After publishing an article that condemns Israel-only for suffering in Gaza, The Lancet then goes on to publish an equal number of letters which support and oppose said article. The pro-fact articles have often been published after a struggle and a delay.

What can we say about the once reliable Scientific American, which has now published an article which focuses solely on the "raging mental health crisis," but only in Gaza – not in Israel?

The article, written by psychiatrist Yasser Abu Jamei, the director of the Gaza Community Mental Health program, is accompanied by a photo of people amidst rubble, together with civil defense workers, in the "aftermath of an Israeli bombing raid." Abu Jamei refers to post traumatic stress symptomatology among Palestinian children as a result of Israel's "11-day offensive on the people of the Gaza Strip."

Abu Jamei does not mention the number of casualties and trauma created when hundreds of Hamas rockets fell short and landed on top of Gazans. He has not a word for the mental health issues in Israel due to Hamas's shelling (approximately 20,000 rockets since 2004) of Israeli cities, especially in southern Israel. Abu Jamei cites Gazan "children with poor concentration," "bed-wetting," "irritability," and "night terrors." (We know this is true for the children of southern Israel.)

Amazingly, Abu Jamei cites similarly inaccurate figures just as The Lancet did: "At least 242 people were killed in Gaza including 66 children, 38 women (four pregnant), and 17 elderly people." Not a single terrorist-combatant among them! Further, Abu Jamei saw "six hospitals and 11 clinics (that were) damaged." Not a word about whether Hamas had offices or stored weapons there. Not a word about Hamas's refusal to protect its civilians or its penchant for using them as human shields merely for propaganda purposes. In fact, Hamas is not mentioned at all.

But Hamas chief Yahya al-Sinwar admitted that his terrorist organization embedded its command centers and rocket launchers within civilian structures. It, he acknowledged, is "problematic." And as the names of the dead emerge, we find out a significant proportion of them were Hamas fighters. Hamas said it lost 80 fighters. Israel estimates the number as more than 100.

The head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), in a striking moment of candor, said Israel's bombings in Gaza were "precise."

For acknowledging this reality, Matthias Schmale had to apologize and was removed from his assignment.

On campus, meanwhile, a wing of the union representing "25,000 faculty and staff at City University of New York" voted last week to "condemn the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli state" and demand the school "divest from all companies that aid in Israeli colonization, occupation, and war crimes." At Princeton University, dozens of students, faculty, staff and alumni signed onto an "Open Letter in Support for Palestine."

The poisoned propaganda trickles down to public grade and high school teachers. For example, the Los Angeles Teachers Union hopes to vote on a resolution in September that would "urge the U.S. government to end all aid to Israel. As public school educators in the United States have a special responsibility to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people... because of the $3.8 billion annually that the U.S. government gives to Israel, thus directly using our tax dollars to fund apartheid and war crimes."

Quite ironically, the Los Angeles Board of Education has just made a $30 million deal with Apple to distribute iPads to its students. Yet, a major supplier is using "forced labor from thousands of Uighur (Muslim) workers to make parts for Apple products." Those Uighurs also are subject to torture and held in internment camps where they are "indoctrinated to disavow Islam" by the Chinese government, a new Amnesty International report finds.

No boycott of China is proposed by the union.

The San Francisco teachers union has already called for "essentially the same actions" targeting Israel.

More than 20 years ago, a handful of us saw the tsunami of anti-Israel propaganda coming our way.

We were not heard. Actually, we were heard, and therefore, we were defamed, mocked, censored, and forced to publish in ever-smaller venues, knocked out of the mainstream media. Some of us were fired from our academic jobs.

And now the tsunami is upon us. The incoming president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility of the American Psychological Association is Lara Sheehi. She specializes in "decolonization" and, although she is not an expert in Middle East history, geography, or religion, describes herself as strongly pro-Palestine.

As usual, the propaganda has swiftly unleashed mini-pogroms and major pogroms against Jews around the world. In the diaspora, civilian Jews have no IDF to defend them.

Kathryn Wolf published an article in Tablet in which she eloquently described her "screams" about antisemitism in Durham, N.C. falling "on deaf ears." She concludes, correctly:

"If I have learned anything, it is this: The cavalry is not coming. We are the cavalry."

Phyllis Chesler is an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at the City University of New York (CUNY), and the author of 20 books, including Women and Madness, and A Family Conspiracy: Honor Killings. She is a Senior IPT Fellow, and a Fellow at MEF and ISGAP.

[this-is-a-podcast-fanblog]

hey so - this reply was written by me! I want to expand on this point a little past 280 characters

(when I say podcasts in this essay I’m specifically talking about fiction podcasts)

Podcasts are perhaps the only medium that has absolutely no gatekeeping. Writing books and stories requires help from big publishing houses - even if you self-publish, you’ll need a corporation like Amazon to provide the books for you. I actually have self-published before and I can *assure* you that gatekeeping is still present. TV shows and movies are also created by high-budget studios who re-hire the same famous actors to tell the same stories, except the white boy and girl who fall in love have slightly different lines. 

But podcasts? No barriers. No boundaries. You can get a $30 mic from Amazon, make a free podbean account, and start uploading episodes literally the same day. Sure, for a really high-quality production, you’ll need to invest more time and money, but it’s very doable. 

As such, almost anyone can get into podcasts. It doesn’t matter what you look like, because no one can even see your face. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a fancy degree from a good school. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a huge marketing budget, because if you’re smart with social media and create good content, you can get people to pay *you* for airtime on your show. 

Because the creator pool can be so diverse, it is. And the stories it tells are even more diverse! Want a Jewish gay man of unspecified race in a relationship with a Latinx scientist on the spectrum, who live in a town governed by two black women and populated by literally countless queer characters? You’ve got it! Want a story about a black nonbinary lady with depression who falls in love with an Asian man, who, bonus points, is also a well-written feminine gay man? You get that too! Want a crew of astronauts with women in leadership roles who are well rounded past being just a “strong female character”? Sure thing! A lesbian trucker searching for her wife, and actually having a healthy relationship that isn’t at all fetishized? Podcasts have that! You want shows that *actually* cast queer, trans, and non-white actors? Yes!!! Most popular podcasts do that!! Did you hear that - the *most popular* podcasts are created with diverse acting and creating bodies!!!!!!!

and here’s the part where I get personal. I’m a non-straight woman (I alternate between using the labels “bisexual” “queer” “homoflexible” and sometimes, because it’s quick and I’m mostly attracted to women and straight people don’t understand microlabels, “gay”) with several mental illnesses, including depression. The first podcast I ever listened to was Welcome to Night Vale. When Cecil and Carlos became a couple I almost wept. I had never, ever, had good queer representation in a show, much less two well-written characters I actually felt invested in. When they actually got married, I wept. I lay in my bed and cried for half an hour. I had never thought I would see a healthy gay couple in a show, ever. 

And then I found even more shows - shows like the ones I mentioned above. I found female characters. I found QUEER FEMALE CHARACTERS that I related to! And I found characters with depression written REALISTICALLY! I have never felt so seen!

I have so much love for podcast creators. One of my favorite things about this community is the allyship. People like Fink and Cranor, or the McElroy’s, who understand how important queer representation is, and provide it in abundance. People who validate, protect, and encourage their fans. Podcast fans keep podcast productions growing through Patreon or crowdfunding, and in return podcast creators... well, they rip our hearts out with emotions and eat them in front of us. But we love that!!!!

And this is why I’m so scared of podcasts becoming “mainstream”. Big corporations creating podcasts have nothing to gain from us except listenership. They’ll be sponsored by other large corporations, not fans or indie productions buying airspace. They can be “safe” when it comes to representation, and they probably will be. In short, they don’t have to create art. They can just create okay, nice enough stories. 

Podcasts are revolutionary. Do you know how many times I’ve seen a movie and said “that was a bad movie”? A shit ton of times! Do you know how many times I’ve listened to a podcast and thought “this is a bad podcast”? Never!! (Not fiction, at least - a bunch of “politics and current events” podcasts that I’ve tried turn my stomach). Even if the audio quality isn’t great, it’s always clear that the creators genuinely care about what they are making and the stories they’re telling and they’re not! Just! Adding! Representation! To be woke!

I genuinely might be dead right now if podcasts hadn’t come into my life. Welcome to Night Vale in particular - it has helped me fall asleep on nights when my intrusive thoughts felt like they were tearing me apart. It introduced me to this amazing medium and all the people who are a part of it. I don’t want to see this thing I love so much turned into a profit machine by capitalism. So I’m really, really nervous about podcasts becoming mainstream. 

TL;DR because the podcasting medium has essentially no gatekeeping, it can be very diverse, and it is. This has led to a great fan-creator dynamic of mutual support and created many positive examples of representation. If big studios and corporations are able to produce podcasts on large budgets with little consequence for a bad or boring story, they might drive the art form in a direction that makes it harder for smaller studios or indie creators to get into.

Please share your thoughts about this and also please follow my twitter. 

[tinyshe]

Story at-a-glance

In the spring of 2021, the Biden Administration said it was seriously looking into establishing a vaccine passport system that will allow unvaccinated individuals to be legally treated as second-class citizens

In Israel, vaccine certificates are already required for entry into many public spaces. Activists warn it’s become a two-tiered society where the unvaccinated are ostracized

The public narrative is not only building prejudice against people who refuse to wear masks or get an experimental vaccine, but is also using healthy people as scapegoats from the very beginning, blaming the spread of the virus on asymptomatically infected people

With the rollout of vaccine certificates, we are stepping firmly into discrimination territory. The last step will entail persecution of non-vaccinated individuals. At that point, we will have replicated the Nazi regime’s four-step process of dehumanizing the Jews, which ultimately allowed the genocide to occur

Vaccine passports are about creating justification for segregation, discrimination and elimination of certain groups of people, in this case, people who don’t want to be part of the experimental vaccine program, which identifies them as noncompliant with top-down edicts

This article was previously published on April 6, 2021 and has been updated with new information.

As predicted in 2020, vaccine passports are being rolled out across the world, including the U.S. As reported by Ron Paul in his Liberty Report,1,2 which streamed live March 29, 2021, the Biden Administration said it was "seriously looking into establishing some kind of federal vaccine passport system, where Americans who cannot (or will not) prove to the government they have been jabbed with the experimental vaccine will be legally treated as second-class citizens."

While Biden has yet to formally announce such a program, Paul warns that if it happens, this system "will quickly morph into a copy of China's 'social credit' system, where undesirable behaviors are severely punished." I've been saying the same thing for many months now, and there's every reason to suspect that this is indeed where we're headed.

Indeed, listen to Ilana Rachel Daniel's emotional plea from Jerusalem, Israel, where a "Green Pass" is now required if you want to enter any number of public venues and participate in society. Daniel, who emigrated from the U.S. to Israel 25 years ago, is a health adviser, activist and information officer for a new political human rights party called Rappeh.

The COVID-19 data simply don't support the rollout of this kind of draconian measure. In the absence of a serious, truly massively lethal threat to a major portion of U.S. citizens, having to show vaccine papers in order to travel and enter certain social venues is clearly more about imposing top-down government control than safeguarding public health.

We're Looking at the End of Human Liberty in the West

Mandatory vaccine passports will be massively discriminating, and are quite frankly senseless, considering the so-called COVID-19 "vaccines" don't work like vaccines.

They're designed to lessen symptoms when the inoculated person gets infected, but they do not actually prevent them from getting infected in the first place, and they don't prevent the spread of the virus — which is being proven by the number of fully vaccinated people who not only are coming down with the Delta variant of COVID, but are being told they can spread it to others.

With statistics like this, vaccine passports are nothing but loyalty cards, proving you've submitted to being a lab rat for an experimental injection and nothing more, because in reality, vaccinated individuals are no safer than unvaccinated ones. It's a truly mindboggling ruse, and unless enough people are able to see it for what it is, the world will rather literally be turned into a prison planet.

In Israel … we're hearing from activists that it's a two-tiered society and that basically, activists are ostracized and surveilled continually. It is the end of civil society, and they are trying to roll it out around the world. ~ Naomi Wolf

As noted by former Clinton adviser and author Naomi Wolf, mandatory COVID-19 passports would spell the "end of human liberty in the West." In a March 28, 2021, interview with Fox News' Steve Hilton, she said:3,4

"'Vaccine passport' sounds like a fine thing if you don't understand what those platforms can do. I'm [the] CEO of a tech company, I understand what these platforms can do. It is not about the vaccine, it's not about the virus, it's about your data.

Once this rolls out, you don't have a choice about being part of the system. What people have to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all. It can be merged with your Paypal account, with your digital currency. Microsoft is already talking about merging it with payment plans.

Your network can be sucked up. It geolocates you everywhere you go. You credit history can be included. All of your medical and health history can be included.

This has already happened in Israel, and six months later, we're hearing from activists that it's a two-tiered society and that basically, activists are ostracized and surveilled continually. It is the end of civil society, and they are trying to roll it out around the world.

It is absolutely so much more than a vaccine pass … I cannot stress enough that it has the power to turn off your life, or to turn on your life, to let you engage in society or be marginalized."

Largest Medical Experiment in the History of the World

As noted by Donald Rucker, who led the Trump Administration's health IT office, the individual tracking that goes along with a vaccine passport will also help officials to evaluate the effectiveness and long-term safety of the vaccines. He told The Washington Post:5

"The tracking of vaccinations is not just simply for vaccine passports. The tracking of vaccinations is a broader issue of 'we're giving a novel biologic agent to the entire country,' more or less."

In other words, health officials know full well that this mass vaccination campaign is a roll of the dice. It's the largest medical experiment in the history of the world, and vaccine certificates will allow them to track all of the millions of test subjects. This alone should be cause enough to end all discussions about vaccine mandates, yet the experimental nature of these injections is being completely ignored.

Again, by shaming people who have concerns about participating in a medical experiment and threatening to bar them from society, government officials are proving that this is not for the greater good. It's not about public health. It's about creating loyal subjects — people who are literally willing to sacrifice their lives and the lives of their children at the request of the government, no questions asked.

Vaccinations Are the New 'Purity Test'

Wolf also points out the horrific history of IBM, which developed a similar but less sophisticated system of punch cards that allowed Nazi Germany to create a two-tier society and ultimately facilitated the rounding up of Jews for extermination.

Suffice it to say, some of the most gruesome parts of history are now repeating right before our eyes, and we must not turn away from this ugly truth. Doing so may turn out to be far more lethal than COVID-19 ever was.

The short video above features a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor who compares mask wearing to, as a Jew, having to wear a yellow star to mark their societal status. However, back then, everyone understood what was happening, she says.

At no point were they lied to and told that wearing the star was for their own good, which is what's happening now. So, in that respect, the current situation is far more insidious. She says the "hypocrisy in the public narrative," which claims that we need to wear masks to protect the old, "is absolutely unbearable." "I would love to die in a state [of] freedom," she says, "than live like this."

She adds that at her age, her life expectancy is short, and she would gladly exchange her death for the life and happiness of the next generations. She wants the younger generations to have the freedom "to live their lives, as I have lived mine ... To see people defile their children with masks is something totally unbearable to me," she says. Vaccine credentials, in my view, are even more comparable to the Jewish yellow star, but in reverse.

Not having the certificate will be the yellow star of our day, which will allow business owners, government officials and just about anyone else to treat you like a second-class citizen and deny you access to everything from education, work and travel, to recreation, social engagements and daily commerce — all under the false guise of you being a biological threat to all those who have been vaccinated.

According to the public narrative, vaccine certificates are a key aspect of getting life back to normal, but the reality is the complete converse, as they will usher in a markedly different society that is anything but normal.

Florida Bucks the Trend

As a resident of Florida, I must applaud Gov. Ron DeSantis who announced March 29, 2021,6 that he would issue an executive order forbidding local governments and businesses from requiring vaccine certificates.

He followed up with that order April 2, 2021, saying he was calling on the state legislature to create a measure that will allow him to sign it into law. Unfortunately, U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams issued an injunction August 8, 2021, against enforcing the order; whether DeSantis chooses to fight to keep it is yet to be seen.

"It's completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply participate in normal society," he said at the time he announced the order.

But, no matter what comes of DeSantis' order, other states and countries that do decide on such a requirement are also bound to face the problem of black market vaccination certificates, which have already started emerging.7,8

As reported by the Daily Beast,9,10 a number of health care workers have been caught bragging about forging vaccination cards on their social media channels. Apparently, they have not yet realized the public nature of the internet, but that's beside the point.

In Florida, a man working at a web design company was fired after posting a TikTok video advertising fake vaccine cards,11 and in Israel, where the two-tier society is already forming, a man was arrested for making and selling forged COVID-19 vaccination certificates, which are now required for entry into restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, swimming pools and other public venues throughout the country.12

Around the world, people are also being arrested for administering fake vaccines13,14,15,16,17 and selling bogus COVID-19 tests.18,19

Eugenics and Hygiene Obsessions

While it's often considered bad policy to compare anything to the Nazi regime, the comparisons are growing more readily identifiable by the day, which makes them hard to avoid.

Aside from the parallels that can be drawn between mask wearing and/or vaccine "papers" and the Jewish yellow star, there's the Nazi's four-step process for dehumanizing the Jews,20 — prejudice, scapegoating, discrimination and persecution — a process that indoctrinated the German people into agreeing with, or at least going along with the plan to commit genocide.

In present day, the public narrative is not only building prejudice against people who refuse to wear masks or get an experimental vaccine, but is also using healthy people as scapegoats from the very beginning, blaming the spread of the virus on asymptomatically infected people.

With the rollout of vaccine certificates, we are stepping firmly into discrimination territory. The last step will entail persecution of non-vaccinated individuals. This in and of itself also harkens back to the Nazi regime, which was obsessed with "health guidelines" that eventually led to the mass-purging of "unclean" Jews. As reported by Gina Florio in a December 2020 Evie Magazine article:21

"When Hitler first came to power in Nazi Germany, he kicked off a series of public health schemes. He started by setting up health screenings all over the country, sending vans around to every neighborhood to conduct tuberculosis testing, etc.

Next up was factory cleanliness — he launched a robust campaign encouraging factories to completely revamp their space, thoroughly clean every corner … After the factories, the next mission was cleaning up the asylums …

What started as seemingly innocent or well-meaning public health campaigns quickly spiraled into an extermination of races and groups of people who were considered dirty or disgusting. In short, the beginning of Hitler's reign was a constant expansion of who was contaminated and who was impure …

We're seeing an obsession with covering our faces all the time so we don't spread disease or deadly germs; most public places we walk into won't even allow us to enter without slathering our hands in hand sanitizer; and people act terrified of someone who isn't wearing a mask.

Nobody can say with a straight face that this is normal behavior … We're even seeing people advocate for some kind of tracking device to show that a person is vaccinated or 'clean' enough to enter a venue … Let's hope we can all learn the lessons from the past and we don't witness history repeat itself."

History Is Repeating Itself

Indeed, everyone calling for vaccine certificates — which became part of the public narrative early on in the pandemic — is guilty of following in the well-worn footsteps of this infamous dictator, repeating the very same patterns that were universally condemned after the fall of the Third Reich.

Highlighting them all would be too great a task for one article, so two glaring examples will have to suffice. In December 2020, Andrew Yang, an entrepreneurial attorney with political ambitions, tweeted the following:22

"Is there a way for someone to easily show that they have been vaccinated — like a bar code they can download to their phone? There ought to be … Tough to have mass gatherings like concerts or ballgames without either mass adoption of the vaccine or a means of signaling."

Signaling what, if not your "unclean" biohazard state? In his March 2021 Tweet, law professor, political commentator and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Harry Litman, was more direct about the ill intent behind vaccine certificates, saying:23

"Vaccine passports are a good idea. Among other things, it will single out the still large contingent of people who refuse vaccines, who will be foreclosed from doing a lot of things their peers can do. That should help break the resistance down."

Comments like these demonstrate that vaccine passports are about creating justification for segregation, discrimination and elimination of certain groups of people, in this case, people who don't want to be part of the experimental vaccine program.

The justification is that they're too "unclean," too "unsafe" to freely participate in public society and must therefore be identified and shut out. In reality, it's really about identifying the noncompliant.

During the Nazi reign, those slated for segregation, discrimination and elimination were identified by their affiliation with Judaism (there's controversy as to whether Jewishness is an issue of race, ethnicity, religion, national identity or familial bonds, which you can learn more about on JewInTheCity.com,24 but all were relevant criteria in the Nazi's hunt for Jews).

Today, the global elimination strategy foregoes such identities, and focuses instead on identifying who will go along with the program and who will be a noncompliant troublemaker.

In short, vaccine passports are a device to identify who the loyal subjects of the unelected elite are, and who aren't. Those unwilling to enter the new world of technocratic rule without a fuss are the ones that need to be eliminated, and willingness to be a test subject for an unproven experimental treatment is the litmus test. It's really not more complicated than that.

Are You Ready To Be an Outcast?

This is essentially the conclusion drawn by Mike Whitney as well, detailed in an article25 posted on The Unz Review. I would encourage you to read the entire article as it succinctly summarizes the reasons behind the current censorship.

In his article, he points out that behavioral psychologists have been employed by the government to promote the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and maximize vaccine uptake. They also have a "rapid response team" in place to attack the opinions of those who question the "official narrative."

Mike also highlights a National Institutes of Health report26 titled, "COVID-19 Vaccination Communication: Applying Behavioral and Social Science to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Foster Vaccine Confidence," which lays out the intent to turn vaccine refusers into social outcasts as a tool to coerce compliance.

"This is very scary stuff," Whitney writes.27 "Agents of the state now identify critics of the COVID vaccine as their mortal enemies. How did we get here? And how did we get to the point where the government is targeting people who don't agree with them? This is way beyond Orwell. We have entered some creepy alternate universe …

If behavioral psychologists helped to shape the government's strategy on mass vaccination, then in what other policies were they involved? Were these the 'professionals' who conjured up the pandemic restrictions?

Were the masks, the social distancing and the lockdowns all promoted by 'experts' as a way to undermine normal human relations and inflict the maximum psychological pain on the American people?

Was the intention to create a weak and submissive population that would willingly accept the dismantling of democratic institutions, the dramatic restructuring of the economy, and the imposition of a new political order? These questions need to be answered …

Vaccination looks to be the defining issue of the next few years at least. And those who resist the edicts of the state will increasingly find themselves on the outside; outcasts in their own country."

Will You Obey?

As detailed in an internet blog titled, "Will You Obey the Criminal Authoritarians?" the 1962 Milgram Experiment (embedded above for your convenience), tested the limits of human obedience to authority, proving most people will simply follow orders, even when those orders go against their own sound judgment. They'll commit atrocious acts of violence against others simply because they were told it's OK by an authority figure.

We've already seen examples of this during the past year's mask mandates. Suddenly, people felt empowered to verbally harass, pepper spray and physically attack others simply for not wearing a mask. Families were kicked off planes because their toddlers wouldn't wear a mask. People were even shot for the grievous "crime" of not wearing a mask.

If those things were allowed to happen over mask wearing, one can only imagine what will be tolerated, if not encouraged, when vaccine certificates take full effect. The most obvious answer is to take a firm stand against devolution into inhumanity, regardless of whether you think COVID-19 vaccinations are a good idea or not. The question is, will you? In many ways, the months and years ahead will test the ethics and humanity of every single one of us.

[jewish-privilege]

...As an Ethiopian Jew living in America, it can be frustrating having to constantly feel like your identity is under suspicion by not only other Jews but also people who have absolutely no knowledge of Jews or Judaism. I’ve complained alongside my Moroccan, Yemeni, and Persian friends countless times about the different microaggressions and plain ignorance of our fellow Jews and non-Jews alike; this can range from a friend’s grandparent making an inappropriate remark to being held up at the airport as the TSA agent looks over your last name once again. I remember in eighth grade history class, hearing my teacher profess how “the Holocaust was stupid because Jews are essentially white.” As a young person who still had no clue how to react when an authority figure behaved ignorantly, all I could do was sit there in silence.

I will not be silent any longer.

For a lot of people, the idea of “Jew” equals “white,” and that leads to a range of annoying to downright insulting encounters while navigating the spaces where we should feel we belong.

In America, many of us are faced with the threat of anti-Semitism that scars the whole of our community, but we’re also faced with the ingrained and monstrous beast that is racism. It happens like this: You overhear terms like “shvartze,” the Yiddish word for black that is considered a slur against Black people, whispered while meeting a friend’s extended family. Your mother is harassed by a random security guard as she picks you up from working Sunday school at the J.C.C. The police harass you following a cousin’s bar mitzvah. These are just some of the forms of harassment that I and my loved ones have experienced in spaces where all Jews are supposed to be able to safely congregate. More often than not, members of our communities are put in precarious positions in regards to dealing with bigotry that presents itself in spaces meant to for all Jews.

...Ashkenormativity is a unique form of eurocentrism that has found its way into Jewish culture. In a twisted way, the “whiteness” that became a hallmark of power due to European colonialism has been able to become a boon for white-passing Jews, in particular Ashkenazim. While in much of actual Europe, anti-Semitism is so deeply rooted that even having white skin doesn’t necessarily enable you with privilege, in the unique case of America, it allows for a situational point of privilege that changes based on the whim of the majority. The same way that in so much of society, we have defined white people as the “default” person, a similar sentiment has translated into defining the Ashkenazi as the “normative” Jew.

For Jews of Color — some of whom are Ashkenazi themselves though still face racism based on the color of their skin — we are not only asking for our fellow Jews to use the privilege they do have in non-Jewish society to better the lives of others; we are demanding to be equal members of our own Jewish communities.

This is not only an American issue. In Israel, even though our Jewishness is no longer seen as a threat, we still face the brutal realities of racism. The slayings of Solomon Teka and Yehuda Biadga last year have caused widespread communal outrage and have brought to the forefront the issues of racism and police brutality in Israeli society. Out of the six Ethiopian Israeli men murdered over the last five years, only the death of one was prosecuted and the sentence only carried the weight of three years. It took until this past January for Haymanot Judaism, the religious practices unique to Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), to be fully acknowledged by the Chief Rabbinate as an authentic form of Judaism, despite the ruling of late Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in the early 1970s and decisions made in 2014 to recognize Haymanot Judaism. This means that for the last few decades, many Ethiopian Jews living in Israel either had to convert to Rabbinic Judaism or jump through hoops to be able to engage in major life events like marriage.

Systemic racism from both religious and policing structures in Israel have only worked to attempt to assimilate Ethiopian Jewry in a way that is grossly inappropriate. This includes incidents like the distribution of birth control to Ethiopian women without giving them full disclosure on the effects, throwing out blood donations given by Ethiopians, and sending Ethiopian teens off to boarding schools after settling into Israel. These were all on top of police practices like racial profiling as well as racism from fellow Israelis. Now we are seeing the younger generation taking an active and aggressive stance in protecting themselves and their rights as fellow Israeli citizens against the structures that their own parents couldn’t fight against.

The list of injustices goes on: Out of the many issues of disgusting racism that have occurred against the Mizrahi Jews, one of the most chilling is the disappearances of the over 1000 Yemeni children in the 1950s that until the last two decades went widely under-investigated. Systemic segregation was used as a weapon against many Mizrahi Jews who came to live in Israel. Segregation, religious intolerance, economic inequality, and harassment led to the formation of HaPanterim HaShhorim, the Israeli Black Panthers, in the ’70s to fight against the discrimination faced by Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews. Even today as society improves, there is an education and wealth disparity between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews.

Historically, there has also been a bad habit of the Ashkenazim attempting to triumph their own traditions as greater or more authentic, leading to times when Ethiopian and Indian Jews have been pressured to “convert” as if they weren’t already Jewish.

Even the very way we define Zionism needs to change. Theodor Herzl, the Austrian Jew largely credited as “the father of political Zionism,” was an assimilationist. His viewpoint on what the Jewish state of the future would become was fashioned in a way that only took in the perspective of the non-religious Ashkenazim who frequented his circles. Herzl also supported the Ottoman government against the Armenian rebellion for independence, which resulted in the Armenian genocide.

The issue at the heart of the Zionism that dominates our culture is that the person who we are so quick to give credit to left out a huge portion of our people and didn’t intend on ever including us. Crediting a single person for the dream of Jewish liberation and sovereignty overlooks the fact that our culture, people, and faith thrives because of the fluidity and strength of our many traditions. We should instead credit our families, communities, leaders, and more importantly, ourselves, with the continued survival of our people.

We come from a tradition that calls for us to actively reinterpret what we were left to inherit. For our community to effectively come together, we need to have more hard discussions and push for change. At this point we should not have to ask; we demand our fellow Jews to give us an actual spot at the table.