#because I never would have been born if not for this country. my grandparents on my dads side met in the resistance against the british

[thepandalion]

and today in "why is fandom so antisemitic" just blocked two more followers in my sideblog, which makes it about 10 of what would have been almost 35 followers over a couple months. because the "all israelis are evil" bs is really big in mcyt circles.

also haven't watched the new season of hc because I don't want to touch the fandom anymore and enjoying things alone isn't as fun when you know there's a fandom. but also the fandom is full of people that wish I was dead so I dont want to be there either. which means right now the only things in my life are the jewish bloggers I follow (love yall) and doing daily challenges in microsoft solitaire. and university ig but it's the weekend and Im trying not to think about my homework rn

also gave up and made a "btw Im israeli plz stop following me if u want me dead" post on the sideblog. hope it works ig.

[ignisgalaxia]

With the release of Prodigy season 2, the Trek fandom finally has an answer to what Chakotay's native ancestry is. He's Nicarao, a tribe from the western region of Nicaragua who actually share a common ancestry with the Nahua Aztecs of Mexico. The show even mentions the island of Ometepe specifically, which is the largest island in Lake Nicaragua made up of two volcanoes.

The reason this is so important to me is because my dad and his family are from Nicaragua. I’ve been getting more in touch with those roots over the last year or so, and I’ve found it very frustrating how there seems to be no Nica representation in media, at least not in the mainstream. But when I found out that Chakotay was a fellow Nica, I was literally bouncing off the walls. To think, one of my favorite characters has the same ancestry as me (well, almost, but I’ll get to that later)! When I told my dad, he laughed so hard because he never would’ve imagined.

But I haven’t seen a lot of people talking about this aspect. I get it, it’s a minuscule part of the wild ride that was season 2. But I’d really like us as a fandom to discuss this more. I mean, we literally don’t have to guess what tribe he’s from anymore!

So since nobody else has come forward, I am going to claim myself as the only member of the Voyager-Prodigy fandom with actual Nicaraguan ancestry, and am making this post to give firsthand information about the Nicarao and the nation as a whole.

Firstly, some context. My dad was born in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, and lived there with his family until he was 7. Then they fled the country due to the Contra War that was going on. My grandfather was born and raised in Bluefields, a city on the country's Carribean coast, then went to college in Mexico where he met my grandmother. Neither of them are Nicarao, and are in fact very European (the DNA tests proved it). However, when they were all living in Managua, my grandparents had a handful of maids that worked for them (they had six kids they needed some help), and a couple of them were Nicarao. Specifically, they were natives from a village in the nearby mountains. So while I don't have info on natives from Ometepe, I do have some on the people in general.

The maids lived with my dad's family during the week and would go home to their village on the weekends. They primarily spoke Spanish, but he would occasionally catch them speaking in their native tongue which I assume is Nahua.

My dad recounted a time when the maids invited the family to their village for a day trip. He said they were living in Adobe houses and had lots of livestock (cattle, chickens, goats, etc) as well as horses, which he apparently rode for the first time there. He also said most of the natives had two primary weapons: a machete to cut crops and other vegetation, and a 22 single shot rifle. They used the rifles to shoot iguanas off trees. Iguanas and iguana eggs are a delicacy in Nicaragua that the natives are experts at making.

This is a direct quote from my grandmother when I asked her about what she remembered of them:

The people I knew, they were good and hard working people. Smart, happy, funny… they really are sociable, like to talk and say jokes invented with their mind and history. The women were skillful, knew how to survive. They cooked, cleaned, planted crops and vegetables. Good merchants, they really knew how to sell and buy.

I wish I had more info to share, but unfortunately season 2 could not have been released at a worse time because my grandfather has recently begun developing Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia and has been losing his memory over the last few months. Even when my dad and I were with him in May and I asked him to recount his earlier life, he repeated himself a few times since he evidently had forgotten he'd already told us those parts. If I had known how fast he’d be deteriorating, I would’ve started my work sooner.

If I do end up learning anything more from my relatives, I’ll update the post. For now, I hope this is of some use to people. And if anyone has questions about Nicaraguan culture in general, I’ll be happy to pass them along to my dad.

[marsprincess889]

Me getting political

🇬🇪🇪🇺

So, I know I mostly only really talk about vedic astrology here, but I'd like to speak to the very same audience who found and followed me because of that about what's going on in my country. So, followers, dear mutuals, those couple of ppl I know irl who are on here, or someone who randomly found this_please, read and interact. (!!!please)

For context, the vast majority Georgia, mainly gen z, has been protesting a "foreign agents law", which is almost identical to the law that russia passed in 2012 and that has resulted in significant restriction of the freedom of its citizens. So, eurovision, met gala, whatever.... this is the reality my country lives in.

I had no idea so many people from other countries were this misinformed about georgia(in general)? People thinking photos from our massive protests were not from here because we have "police" written in english and not "policija"(which is not a fcking georgian word??????)?

People thinking america funded, I repeat, MASSIVE protests that have been going on for a month(and have also taken place in the march of last year for the same reason), just because some of the protestors wrote signs in english? Like, the sheer idea of that is honestly infuriating.

I don't think anyone who has not lived in Georgia will understand the situation clearly. The government is ordering to beat up peaceful protestors, is using pepper spray on them.... and most of the protestors are teens and young adults, trying to make a better future for themselves and for generations to come, tired of fighting the same fight that their parents and grandparents have fought.

When you are born georgian, patriotism is instilled in you like vow. I was born in 2002, a decade after my country exited the soviet union, fresh out of the notoriously hard and dark 90s(full of poverty and crime), six years before I started school and russia invaded the city of Gori. We learned all the poems and novels of our great writers, learned the stories of them fighting for freedom of speech, for the freedom of our country, our teachers would explain every detail of their astristry and their importance. At some point I think we all got tired of it, no matter how loving and full of care they were, but then I remember the presentation my class did in sixth grade about february of 1921, how Georgia exited the russian empire in 1918 and how the brand new(at the time) constitution was implemented just a few days before the red army came in 1921... MY PARENTS were born when Georgia was in ussr, my mother had to spend her years as a young student in the 90s in constant fear of danger on the streets, our parents saw the worst of it and did everything in their power for us to live in a better environment. But we're first generation in georgia who grew up with internet, who is fluent in internet slang and is way more informed, with a completely different mentality, for whom the decades of oppression is more distant. We know russia is an enemy, we know what our country has gone through, but we are the first gen with the freedom to speak up when yet another attemp to control is made.

We have a very long and rich history and one thing that is clear from it is that we are supernaturally resilient, and our refusal to be subdued has protected not only ourselves, but countries that lie west from us, the countries that make Europe, that we consider ourselves a part of.

My friends know I'm the quickest to say that I feel like I don't belong here(georgia), that I never really connected to what I saw, generally, in my country, but maybe there are thousands like me here. Maybe(100%) the men in power haven't been paying their due respect to my generation and how persistent we have been in our actions and convictions. And maybe, the rest of the world(western countries) have significantly undervalued our importance. We deserve our due, and to me, the least that others can do, is to educate themselves before typing or speaking about us.

We are not a "former soviet country", we are an ancient civilization with an extremely unique culture that has survived to this day, that has protected its customs, identity and the right for freedom, and has been under almost constant threat for losing them. And, once again, if there was any doubt, we are not our government.

I sincerely hope for this to get as many notes or possible, or at least, to reach the right people.

[veryintricaterituals]

I am Jewish, what does that mean?

I was born in Colombia on the 49th anniversary of Hitler's suicide, I was raised here but I lived in Israel for about four years. I am not white, I don't look white, and my first language is Spanish. I came back to Colombia three years ago because of the pandemic.

I grew up Jewish and swallowed all the pro-Israel propaganda, I moved there looking for better opportunities and somewhere safe where I could come out of the closet. It took me less than a month to understand where I really had ended up in. It wasn't so different from my own colonized third world country filled with violence.

I did my best, I voted against the current Israeli government four separate times, I worked with and was great friends with many Palestinians and Arab Israelis (there unfortunately is a difference), I went to protests, I donated blood, I donated food and money. I fucking hate Netanyahu with all my heart.

For two years I taught English at a low income school in Jerusalem where all my students were mizrahi jews (from Arab countries) whose families had been kicked out of various surrounding countries in the 20th century. When I spoke to their parents and grandparents they talked about Iran, Morroco, Egypt, Yemen, with such longing and they brought me the most delicious foods. (Two of my students were killed two weeks ago, kids, barely 18 now, much younger when I taught them, I remember them).

My great grandmother on my mom's side was born in Jerusalem and raised in Egypt until all Jews were expelled and she had to flee with my newborn grandfather. They ended up in Colombia because she spoke ladino (Jewish dialect that is close to Spanish) they were undocumented, without a nationality because Egypt had rejected them, they had to lie and pay for falsified documents in order to get a passport, I still have a Red Cross passport in my house with my grandfather's name that determines he has no home country.

My great grandparents on my dad's side were born and raised in Bielorrusia and had to escape with my newborn paternal grandfather from the progroms after they destroyed their shtetl, they tried to make it to the US but they wouldn't take any more Jews so they ended up in Colombia.

My great grandmother on my paternal side was born in Romania, at the age of 12 she got on a boat with her 15 year old cousin, not knowing where it would take them. Her parents had both died and antisemitism was on the rise. She was so afraid that they were going to send her back that she threw her passport (that said JEW in capital letters) into the sea when they arrived at the port of a country she had never heard of, to this day we don't know when her birthday was.

My maternal grandmother is Colombian, she was born and raised here, Catholic until she converted to marry my grandfather, and yet when I went looking up our family tree I found we came from Sephardic Jews that had been expelled from Spain almost 500 years ago by the inquisition.

There are less than 400 Jews in my city that homes over 4 million people. My synagogue has been closed since October 12th, our president has equated all of Israel with Nazism on multiple occasions in the last few weeks. The kids that go to our tiny Jewish school have stopped wearing the uniform so that they cannot be identified. Ours is one of the countries with the least amount of antisemitism in the world. Someone in my university saw my Magen David necklace and screamed at me to go back where I came from. I went online and saw countless posts telling Israelis to do the same.

I am Jewish, I am latina, I am gay. My story is complicated, my relationship with my community is complicated, my relationship with my country is complicated. My relationship with G-d is complicated, my relationship with Israel is incredibly complicated. My history is complicated.

I am Jewish. What does that mean?

[llyfrenfys]

In which I try not to be That Guy TM when it comes to Irish ancestors: An exploration of ancestry, diaspora and culture

Because of The Horrors TM in my life atm I've been looking into my biological family tree. I'm adopted but estranged from my adoptive family and I never met my biological family since I was adopted just short of my 2nd birthday. I've been tracing my ancestry for about 3 years now and it's genuinely quite stress relieving to me. It's also fun and challenging from a research standpoint - putting together my own family tree gave me the skills to write articles like this one I wrote in 2022 about historical Welsh queer people, for example.

Lately, I've been finding out more about my Irish ancestors while an adoptee (and thus not knowing any of my biological family) - but also doing this as a Celticist and tired of people doing the 'my sister's friend's cousin's father's mother was Irish' thing. This has created an almost unbearable tension between curiosity at my own ancestry while trying not to be That Guy who finds out about one (1) Irish ancestor hundreds of years ago and is weird about it.

Especially since mine are quite distant ancestors - my great, great, great grandparents were born in Dublin and in a tiny village in County Down called Dunnaman (near Kilkeel). However, they were Irish Catholics and emigrated to Liverpool in the 1870s - all of their subsequent children and grandchildren were born in Liverpool and all of the above + great grandchildren were raised Catholic - including my grandmother (who died before I was born). So there was an obvious attempt to maintain that heritage. There's even evidence my great, great, great grandmother at least spoke Irish (which, as she was born in County Down, would have been Ulster Irish).

The problems with uncritically throwing oneself at an ancestor's nationality:

Now, not all North Americans of Irish (or Welsh, Scottish, Italian, Scandinavian, German etc.) descent do this - but there's a very vocal set of North Americans of Irish descent who find awe and interest in their ancestry - which is actually quite a positive thing! - however, due to either temporal or cultural disconnect, they may end up doing or saying things (and not necessarily with bad intentions) which can have a negative impact on the Irish and the Irish language (or [nationality] and [language(s) associated with that nationality].

I'm reminded of the time an American commented on a Welsh language rights post I made in support of Welsh speakers, but they accidentally ended up using a white nationalist slogan by mistake. It can be a minefield - and with regards to Ireland specifically, mistakes like that can be so much worse. To literally give my own (mild) example, today I decided to relearn Irish (since I haven't spoken any in years since being taught basics at undergrad) and picked up a blank notebook I bought at Tesco the other week, while completely forgetting the inside cover of the notebook was orange. I was planning on decorating the notebook anyway and painted it a different colour. While I know that nobody would really hold it against me if I didn't change the colour, I just know that walking around with an orange notebook filled with Irish I'm relearning because of interest in my Catholic ancestors could be a confusing set of messages, at the very least. If you don't understand why this is, look up the meanings of the colours on the flag of Ireland.

Which is to say, even those of us in Northern Europe who have significantly greater physical proximity to Ireland than North America (and therefore should know better) still can and do get things wrong. And not just benignly wrong like in my case.

The tendency for some North Americans of Irish descent (Canada isn't exempt from this) to conflate Irish ancestry with a contemporary connection to the modern countries located on the island of Ireland as a whole can have results ranging from 'a bit weird' to 'jesus fucking christ'. As a Celticist, I've seen far, far too many Americans of Irish descent try to weigh in on modern Irish politics without any background knowledge or tact at all - and naturally they stake their claim on modern Irish politics entirely on the premise of having distant Irish ancestors. Or, even worse, things start to get all phrenological.

'Irish blood' and the nonexistence thereof:

'Irish blood' is continually evoked by some to validate their sense of 'Irishness' and the obsession with '[insert nationality] blood' is a distinctly North American phenomenon- likely related to or an offshoot of the concept of 'blood quantum', in which enrolment into some Native American nations and tribes is determined by how much 'Native blood' a person has. Notably, many people who would ostensibly have been described under this system as 'full blood' were registered by the US as 'half blood'. This is a method of genocide intended to wipe out tribes and nations by imposing strict measures of who does or does not qualify to enrol into a tribe or nation. This concept seems to have been extrapolated over time (in a North American context at least) into the idea of descent from other nationalities' being measured in a similar or adjacent way. This is how you end up with some North Americans declaring they are '1/8 Italian and 1/4 Irish' on their dad's side etc. While in Europe (where these nationalities hail from, crucially) this practice is seen as a really weird way to describe your ancestry. In general, it's simply 'my 4 times grandfather came from Spain' or 'my great great grandfather on my dad's side came from Finland' etc. if it comes up at all. For various political reasons, many Europeans with descent from multiple other European nationalities may choose to omit to mention descent from certain nationalities, especially if in recent history there has been conflict between their birth nation and an ancestor's nation. The most famous example of this is literally the British royal family changing their surname from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the more 'British sounding' Windsor in 1917 due to the onset of the First World War.

Where it gets really weird (and also very offensive and rude) is when cultural stereotypes get invoked alongside the whole 'blood' thing in usually quite damaging and/or disparaging ways. I've seen way too many North Americans of Irish descent claim they're alcoholics because they have 'Irish blood' or even worse, claim it's normal to domestically abuse their spouses because of it!! (Genuine thing I have seen btw). Same goes for claiming to be a naturally good chef because of 'Italian blood' and so on. As a general rule, people from the place where your ancestors were from don't generally like to be inherently be considered drunks or prone to violence due to their nationality. Or have weird and inaccurate idealisms projected onto their language or cuisine.

Aren't there any positives?

It wouldn't be fair to make a post like this without mentioning some of the positives that can come from interest in an Irish ancestor. Like I mentioned at the start of this post, I myself felt inspired to relearn Irish because of my own Irish ancestors. I was taught the Connacht dialect at undergrad, however, since my ancestor was from County Down, I'm going to try and learn Ulster Irish instead. One doesn't need Irish ancestors to learn Irish of course - when I learned I wasn't aware I had any Irish ancestors. But being inspired to learn Irish because of an ancestor can't hurt and directly increases the number of Irish speakers in the world (provided you keep at it). This is a net positive for the language as a whole.

Similarly, people who have educated themselves on Irish politics because of their ancestry and genuinely learned something are also a positive thing to come out of discovering Irish ancestors. In my experience, these people are the kind of people I enjoy talking to about being a Celticist because they actively want to learn and respect the cultures being talked about. Which is huge to me!

Conclusion:

As a Welsh speaker whose national identity is more-or-less Jan Morris-esque, my Irish ancestry is an interesting facet of my ancestry I simply didn't know about before. And being an adopted person, I can sympathise with the general sentiment of a lot of white North Americans of feeling disconnected or alienated from any ancestral heritage. The conditions which create That Guy TM as described above rely on that sense of alienation to propagate a very ineffective, tactless and often very insensitive approach to Irish and other European cultures. But the important thing is that that approach can be challenged by people genuinely interested in their ancestry who are also conscientious of the living versions of the cultures their ancestors hailed from.

For me, that means learning Irish in a dialect my ancestors are likely to have spoken. I also visited the library today to check out some books on the Irish emigration to England and the sociopolitical reasons behind that emigration. I know the broad strokes, but the details are desirable to know to get a better idea of the why and how the country of my birth had a hand in creating the conditions which led my ancestors to emigrate in the first place. I think the world would be a better place if people took the time to understand the history and politics of ancestors which don't share their nationality.

As always, reblogs and thoughts are welcomed and encouraged!

Thank you for reading to the end - and if you'd like to support me, please see my pinned post. Diolch!

[pompadourpink]

hi! in one of your asks you said that you spoke picard, can i ask how you learned it? i know there are a lot of regional languages in france, but that there was a push to only teach french in schools, so would you say most young people who speak a regional language learned it from family/ self taught?

Hello,

I indeed was raised in the North by a family who has been living in the same handful of cities forever (I recently dicovered I had an ancestor in the 1100s called Estiennenon the 1st, Knight of Bersées, a village ten kilometres from my hometown growing up).

Here are the dialects of Metropolitan France (and at the bottom of this page the ones from the former colonies, overseas):

It is true that the government has been trying to unify the language (and the accent) for a long time, claiming their insistance comes from a desire to strengthen the republic instead of accepting what they call communitarianism, which would according to them divide people. It has been a difficult topic for several centuries and as far as I see, most people have integrated the fact that you can speak your dialect at home with your family and your school friends, but it (nor your regional accent) has no place in school (from high school I would say) nor work, and especially not in formal situations.

We are also very attached to etiquette and not afraid of confrontation and what is considered good social behaviour inludes good communication so if you speak like your grandparents, it will most likely be unfortunately side-eyed and sarcasmed out of you during your youth.

I was born in the early 90s and can fully understand Picard. I will use the occasional word or have a shadow of an accent coming out when I am really tired (it was stronger when I was younger), but I do not and have never used it because it was and is still mocked, not only because it is a dialect but it is one from the North, which has a pretty bad reputation overall (think Alabama). I have no intention to teach it to any future children as my knowledge has been rusting since I moved out after high school and there would be no benefit to it outside of being able to understand a few songs, although I still use some of the daily vocabulary.

As for the second part of your question, I have to take a first stop at your mention of "young people" since, outside of certain regions and families that make it a point to share the language with their children, the practice of speaking it at home is getting lost. My parents are mid boomer and early gen X and they naturally adopted my stance growing up to avoid mockery at work, especially while living in other places and it seems to be the case for most people, therefore young children would not be exposed to their regional dialects at home through grandparents anymore, and our current teens are way more interested in learning English anyway.

There are however places that are very proud of their dialects (ones that are essentially some form of bilingualism as they were born of the proximity with another country) and will teach it in a bilingual school French/dialect (such as Alsacien, Breton - which has no direct borders but is Celtic - or Occitan).

However, I would not add Flemish to this list despite its location since Belgium has a French side and a Flamand side who hate each other culturally and linguistically. I was raised near the Belgian border and did not hear or see Flemish until after I started travelling.

Let's look at a few dialects:

And since you specifically asked about the North, here is my shoutout to Jacques Landrecies, the only Picard specialist of the country and a beloved professor when I was a lit student, interviewed towards the end of this video.

Hope this helps! x

Fanmail - masterlist (2016-) - archives - hire me - reviews (2020-) - Drive

[hadesoftheladies]

this week has been emotionally difficult for me. heck, ever since 2020 happened it's been constant coping tbh. i just woke up and watched soldiers fire at red cross medics at parliament. in my city. i just saw dead bodies litter my twitter. fellow countrymen. i am watching women and men choke on teargas. the country may go dark soon because now the the oligarch we call president is treating the protests as a coup. at least one million protestors out in the streets today. several died and more injured. there is going to be a state of emergency declared soon.

do you know what i was doing in 2019? going to movies and seeing all sorts of new places. in just three years, everyone is penny pinching. in just three years, this city full of startups and a rising business sector is set to be reduced to haitian levels of poverty. biden sends our soldiers to fight in a country he destabilized. did i say fight? i meant die :)

at the snap of a white man's fingers. american congressmen were in kenyan parliament. determining what would happen to this country. willing to tank our economy. one my grandparents fought and bled for. one my parents slaved for. my parents should be retiring GODDAMNIT. but we aren't people. we aren't human, and we can starve if IMF gets that one extra dollar.

we've been growing steadily since independence. we were one of the strongest economies in east africa.

and now at the snap of a white man's fingers, we're all going to be reduced to rubbish.

every country that thinks they're stable of their own merit . . . it's not true as long as the west is alive. it's just not true. everything can and will change at the snap of a white man's fingers. conflict and war aren't a matter of culture or complex history or the moral impurity of a populace.

it's just white men making business decisions. you will never be pure or democratic or educated enough to protect yourself from them.

to be born in the global south feels a lot like being a woman in a patriarchy. you just keep getting fucked over, have zero autonomy, and your safety depends on the whims of a man. when he hurts you, it's your fault. when the war starts, it's what did those uncultured black/brown swine do to provoke it? didn't i tell y'all? didn't i tell y'all that palestine, iran, congo, sudan were fucking warnings? haven't we seen how this plays out? it's always their fault. always our fault.

always your fault.

and at that point, all you can do is die or resist.

[fiercynn]

Like my father, I was born a refugee in the Jabalia camp of the Gaza Strip. When I was 10 months old my family moved to the United States. Since then, we have made frequent trips to Gaza. I remember once reaching the Tel Aviv Airport, thinking I was so close to my home in Gaza only to be sent back to Frankfurt the next morning after being detained for several hours by Israeli authorities. I was 11 years old. This was not the first or last time we were denied entry into our homeland. I remember asking my mother why we never visited Jerusalem. I always wanted to pray in the famous and sacred Masjid Al-Aqsa; I wanted to see up close the Dome of the Rock I was so used to seeing on TV and on postcards despite it being hours away from our home in Gaza. My mother explained this concisely by simply stating: “Because we are Palestinian.” [...] I am Palestinian; I am from Huj, yet I am not allowed to visit Palestine. I am not allowed to leave the 136 square mile open-air prison densely populated by 1.7 million people. On the other hand, my Jewish peers in my American high school would come back every summer boasting about their birthright trips. Most of them were born here, and their parents and grandparents were also born in the United States. Many times they were of European descent. However, none of them were actually born in Israel. Until this day I don’t understand how it is their right to visit a country which they have never been to or have never known to be home, but I, who — like so many generations before me — was born in Palestine, am not even allowed to visit my own home. How is it that other kids are getting free trips to travel across the world, yet when I was in the Jabalia refugee camp, I was not allowed to drive a few miles to visit the place where my father’s history yearns to be affirmed? Another “holy” site of sorts, off limits. Where was my birthright? [x]

- suha najjar for the michigan daily on march 12, 2014

[matan4il]

THISTHISTHIS!!!

Like, I personally don't consider myself a "Zionist" in the modern sense. I have several disputes with the secular Herzli-esque Zionist movement (both political and theological), but I certainly wouldn't consider myself an anti-Zionist. I have a lot of respect for much of what the Tzionim have accomplished for the sake of Jews, and for Israel, even if we might disagree over correct methods and motivations.

And I definitely associate myself with the traditional Zion-loving Jewish beliefs (what you called the "Zionist nature of Judaism"). Of course I do. These are core tenants of Judaism that have been around since the days of Avraham, and they're so central that I don't really understand how any Jew couldn't believe them. Wherever in the world we might reside, the piece of land now known as Israel has always been Home.

 אם אשכחך ירושלים תשכח ימיני

Hi, lovely to meet you! ^u^

I wanna reinforce your last paragraph SO MUCH. Judaism is so fundamentally tied to the Land of Israel, to Jews loving it, to sanctifying our bond with this place, and I have always felt exactly that: when I'm abroad, I'm never quite at peace, not until I'm back on Israel's soil, and have that sense of I'm home. And it always makes me so happy whenever I hear from non-Israeli Jews, that they feel something similar when they come to visit Israel. It's what I believe all native people feel when they get to experience standing on their ancestral land, whether they live there or not. It's something that allows us to feel connected, not just to the earth beneath our feet, but also to our ancestors who lived here, and to generations upon generations of our people who yearned to return here.

As for the modern political movement that is Zionism, maybe I'll just mention my personal story. I was born in Communist Romania, at a time when the financial situation was incredibly dire, food was rationed, and generally speaking, the regime had control over everything. Its power over the citizens was limitless, and quite a few people who were a part of this regime, were antisemitic. They used that limitless power to persecute Jews, even as Communism supposedly vowed all its citizens would be treated equally. Some of what was done to my family was actually described by my great uncle, Norman Manea, in his memoir, The Hooligan's Return. My life was in danger at one point. At the time, no citizen of a communist country could leave for a western one, which Israel was. Jews could be jailed for simply expressing the desire to leave for Israel (officially recognized here as "prisoners of Zion"). But in Romania, there was a unique agreement achieved thanks to the chief rabbi of Romanian Jews at the time, Rabbi Rosen (who my grandfather and his brother worked with, so he was also the rabbi who married my parents). Israel paid Communist Romania for every Jew allowed to make aliyah. IDK how much Israel had to pay for my parents, for my grandparents, and for baby me, but I know Romania demanded a higher price for people with higher education, which all of the adults in my family had. Most importantly, being brought to Israel, and getting here proper medical and nutritional care after the regime's antisemitic abuse, saved my life. I celebrate my aliyah day every year as my second birthday, because I got a second chance at life on that day.

And at the end of the day, that's what informs my personal view of Zionism, this personal experience. It leads me to feel that if Zionism saved even one Jewish person, it's the right thing to support it. And Zionism actually saved so many more than that, Jews and non-Jews. It still is! We don't talk about it enough, but when Assad regime in Syria butchered its citizens during the Civil War there, Israel got the last of the Syrian Jews out. When the war between Ukraine and Russia broke out, Israel helped to get out Jews from the war zones in Ukraine, as well as Israeli non-Jews (and even a few Arab friends, including from enemy countries, of Israeli Arabs, who the latter asked for Israel to save), as well as the families of Ukrainian Righteous Among the Nations (non-Jews who risked themselves to save Jewish people during the Holocaust). And when the Houthis, the Yemenite terrorist group funded by Iran, endangered Jews in Yemen, Israel got them out.

No political movement is without fault, obviously. But I think all of the above makes Zionism worthy of support. At least mine.

You said, "These are core tenants of Judaism that have been around since the days of Avraham, and they're so central that I don't really understand how any Jew couldn't believe them."

I agree so much! To remove the many Zionist elements of Judaism, right down to its holy language being Hebrew, which is tied to Israel, is to distort it so much, that it's no longer Judaism.

Whenever I come across an anti-Zionist Jew, I try to keep in mind the following things:

They might be pretending to be Jewish. I've seen more than one anti-Zionist online, claiming they can't be antisemitic, because they're Jewish themselves. Beyond the fact that as a statement, that's NOT true (someone can be gay with internalized homophobia, a woman with internalized misogyny, and in the same way, a Jew who has internalized an antisemitic narrative), it turned out in some cases, it was also factually untrue, as the person was eventually exposed as lying about being Jewish.

This phenomenon has also made it into the news at least twice relatively recently, once when high profile anti-Zionist "Jews" from Germany were exposed as non-Jews.

Another is connected to the Twitter account of "Jewish Voice for Peace," an organization that, despite its title, doesn't actually require its members to be Jewish, but uses its title to present itself as a Jewish organization.

A member who operates the Twitter account of JVP accidentally tweeted from his personal account, and so ended up exposing himself as a Muslim tweeting, "As Jews..."

2. Those who actually are anti-Zionist Jews often turn out to be very disconnected from their Jewish identity, except in order to use it to lend their anti-Zionist statements "more weight." (as if a gay man's homophobia should be listened to more, or be more acceptable, just because it's not homophobia coming from a straight person) A really funny example is Ariel Gold, who keeps trying to flaunt her "Judaism" as meaningful to her identity, but in doing so, keeps accidentally exposing how ignorant she is regarding some really basic Jewish concepts. Like that time she was in Iran, and gushed over a picture she took of a menorah... except she didn't know that a menorah wouldn't have 19 branches. She was just gushing over a random, Iranian candelabra.

3. And then to some anti-Zionist Jews, their Jewish identity does matter, but... the sad thing is, they're either very ignorant over what it entails (so they buy into the antisemitic anti-Zionist narrative without knowing better), or they just don't feel they personally need Israel, so they have no issue being anti-Zionists, to be "good Jews." In this context, I always think about this documentary I saw called "Gay Republicans," where they interviewed an openly gay man, living with his boyfriend, who didn't wanna be a dad himself, so he had no issue insisting that gay people shouldn't be allowed to become parents. I guess some fellow straight republicans would say he's a "good gay."

There's probably more to be said about this, but I think this kind of covers a big part of the people I've come across online. But here's the thing: I believe in the value of Jewish solidarity, I know how many Holocaust survivors talked about how that's what saved them back then, and I am gonna stand by that value, and care so much about the safety and well being of groups 2 and 3, even if they don't give a shit about mine.

Take care, and feel free to write me again, if you feel like chatting some more on this. Chag Sameach and Am Yisrael Chai! xoxox

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

[wroteclassicaly]

i’m here dw <3 i’ve been thinking of the idea of him fucking you and interrogating you hehe. “you wanna cum? you better answer my fuckin’ questions first.” taking total and complete control over you when you’re being difficult is sooooo 💫🫶🏻 He -han

Mr. Tillman loves him some bondage. 🥵

Also… I’m sorry that this took on a mind of its own, and I gave some Headcanons/backstory, that we don’t have yet. I do know Roy is most likely Gator’s dad, because his name is listed as Roy Tillman, so I’m assuming? 😭

Warnings: Language, bondage, edging, possessive Gator, vaginal sex, and use of a sex toy!

~*~

If you told yourself that you never thought about what Gator would, or could do to you with the plethora of binds he kept on him (or in that rust bucket he called a pick-up) — you’d be the biggest liar in the whole entire Midwest. Asking didn’t seem like an option to you, and you weren’t sure if Gator would a) use those specific things on you, or b) think you could handle them. You weren’t the type of girl that he usually took home to bed and be rid of. When you started sleeping together it surprised everyone in town, because let’s face it, word travels when a Tillman is involved in even a spill on aisle twelve. The whispers were more aimed at you, the quiet little mouse that ran the town’s one and only library, and resided on the edge of poverty.

Your grandparent’s lived and died in a trailer, and your dad left with his high-school sweetheart. Your mom had scurried out of town and went further into the country, residing on a farm with her flavor of the last few years. You’d known the Tillman’s since you were born, school mates with Gator, your grandfather working for the city with Roy’s father. It was a weird cycle, things often happening that you didn’t want involved in. So you opted to stay in town in your upstairs studio — charmed by it’s exposed pipes and original hardwood floors — rough, but yours.

Your work was a flight of stairs and down the street — away. You’d pass your favorite diner and the station, both of which Gator always routined in the morning, similar to your own schedule. More often than not, you’d see him clambering from his merlot colored 1948 Ford pickup. He never shut up about restoring the thing, much to Roy’s constant dismay.

“Buy a new one, boy. Waste of time.”

Gator added that to his many blissful defiances towards his father. Ones that could be overlooked. He knew better than to tow the line on the bigger things, even if he was ‘Sheriff’. Still, Gator Tillman did whatever job he was presented with, and he did it well. It followed on the spurs of a roughened elegance, like a soft spicy cologne, the leather of his combat boots, that thick gel he laid his chestnut tresses back with, or the beard burns he decorated along your thighs.

The morning that started it all, is when you’d had some continuous issues with idiot kids breaking into the return box and busting it into dents. Was it a big deal? Not really. But you weren’t about to lose your shitty minimum wage job for childish theatrics, all because your manager was a tight wad, and the town hall was in Roy’s back pocket, unwilling to let funds go for things that weren’t firearms. You hadn’t unlocked the box for returns, and you heard the kids throwing rocks, ramming it with the tires of their bikes —sheer boredom on a summer morning.

Gator was already out there, leaned over the top of a neon green set of handlebars, palm clasped on the pre-teen’s shoulder, shaking his head. The kid was pale, holding up his hands in apology, and turning towards you with glossy eyes. A quiet ‘M’ sorry, M’am.” Had tumbled off his lips. If they hadn’t continuously caused so much damage, you would’ve felt bad for him.

As he rode off into that crisp morning air, you’d turned, only to find the sun illuminating Gator’s enriching chocolate eyes, irises scattered with shards of mossy green and embers of golden flecks, his caramel colored hair slicked back until it looked darker than its natural shade — shining, freckles splattered all over his face and neck, a glimpse of his gold chain peeking out from his navy blue t-shirt, his vest tossed over his loose jean jacket, with his look completed by his thigh holster and weapon — strapped to his gray and black camouflage cargo pants. He drank in your reaction like a man dying of thirst. And the rest became one for the small town history books.

~*~

“Gator, just… fucking… PLEASE —“

A hand that is tainted with the musk of your own arousal, it lays flat over your mouth, his chain dipping between the valley of your perspired-drenched breasts, a brutal thrust delivered. His stubble formed beard, it scratches at your earlobe, his lips whispering out in a tone of mocking. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk unless you have answers for me?”

You mumble against his hand and he reaches back over with a free set of digits, snatching your wand off the table and pressing it back onto your clit. “What’s that, sweetheart? Was that a confession or another mouthy mistake?”

Tears soak your lash line, your cunt dousing him with new waves of cream each time he gives another push. He smirks, eyes blown and receptive, features a lit with mirth. He loves you not giving it up as much as he’s giving it to you. This… interrogation became more than his jealousy. A fun little game that he knew would also test his sanity not to claim you outwardly.

His spit-slick hand leaves your mouth, the vibrator being pulled off as you start to buck into his pelvis. You whine loudly, panting, his hand slapping above up into your bed frame, caging you in beside your cuffed wrists. You’re dripping down his balls and your ass, out of your fucking mind with raw need. You’ll say anything he wants, at this point. His calloused thumb-pad hovers over your clit, lips puffing out another questioning demand. “I asked you who he was and why he thought it was okay to act like your little hero, huh? He sniffin’ around you, wanting to hike up his leg for a piece of territory?”

“I need you, Gator! I want —“

His thumb grazes your clit and presses down… hard, leaving a painful ache snapping inside of your belly, but not enough to give you what you need, simply just encourage its flames. You tighten around him and he pulls out some, shaking his head. “Don’t care what you want. He’s playin’ on my turf, with my bitch. And she’s already been claimed.”

You attempt to twist your hips, but he rises onto his knees, hairy thighs pressed into the underside of your own. He’s in your face again, clicking his tongue to the roof of his mouth. “You wanna cum? You better answer my fuckin’ questions first!”

[motsimages]

I am stuck with this here and the longer I look, the more questions I have. I will make this post here because OP is quite young and it is a silly post after all.

First, it assumes that "your country" now is the same as it was when "great-great grandparents" and the same as "farther back than that". When the reality of most countries is that they've been changing borders.

I am not going further than the 19th Century (great-grandparents time) because things get really interesting before that, amongst other things because Nationalism was a big thing then and it's when governments really tried to make a statement about This Is My Country and when many colonies gained independence. Before the 19th Century, the world as we know it now was completely different and the further back into the past you go, the stranger it gets.

Without leaving Europe, which is what I know better, Germany and Italy had what is called "the unification" in the second half of the 19th Century, which means that before that they weren't what they are now. In recent years, Germany also had the Federal Republic of Germany, which was technically another country which disappeard in 1987. And Yugoslavia became separate countries in 1992. So Yugoslav born singer Zdravko Colic is now Bosnian-Serbian. How would he answer to this? He didn't move. His country changed around him. And he is old, but think of all the 30-35 year-old people who were born in a different country. All the people who never left their native city and who have children born in a different country.

Africa has the before and after Western colonisation to thank for borders and countries and to also complicate this reply. Again, just in the 20th Century, because of colonies, some countries were what is now France, Portugal, UK or Spain. Maybe the status wasn't the same as being born in Europe, but still, a different country.

I don't know how Asia has been in this regard but I bet similar things apply with colonisation between them and then Europeans. Even America (understood as the whole continent, North and South, not just the US) was changing borders up until the 19th Century.

If you go to before the 16th Century, which is when Western colonisation really began to change the shape of the world, it gets even more fun. This would be between" "farther back but I do know when" and "too far back to remember". Without getting into colonies, Spain as a country was formed in the 16th Century. Before Christopher Columbus (and even during his lifetime), it was two separate kingdoms united by the mariage of the king and queen who agreed to send Columbus to America. And that was more or less the looks of everywhere around the time.

And now we reach the difference between "too far back to remember" and "indigenous". Polynesian people remember when they went to certain places, when they reached mainland here and there for thousands of years. Europeans do not. Polynesians are indigenous and Europeans aren't. However, even Europe has indigenous people (because of all the mess with countries and borders).

Many people can actually answer to both of these. The poll assumes that, unless you are indigenous, you are an inmigrant, except indigenous people also travel and migrate and non-indigenous people also stay in the same place. Indigenous is a thing completely unrelated to migration.

There is also the succint assumption (bias, if you will) that people only migrate willingly. Sure, it can be a choice you make for the sake of your family, for a job, for safety and whatnot (how "willingly" that is, it's up to the person), but there is a moment in history when many people were migrated forcibly, so to say, as they were kidnapped and made into slaves.

In short... it's one of those post that feels a bit too white US.

[thebrightestwitchofherage]

December 19th, 73 days since October 7th

TLDR- I am sick of seeing Hamas propaganda here. People here are posting literal blood libels and mistranslated quotes.

After taking a break from social media for the rest of Chanuka, your favorite Zionist is back. Don't worry though, once again, people who never had any interest in this tiny piece of land, continue to tell me, a Jewish Israeli, that I have got my history and facts wrong, while they know better than I do. To that, I have 2 answers: 1. I am just a student who wants to live in peace. I am not a "zionist demon" or a "genocidal killer".

When I call myself a Zionist, all it means is that I'm a Jewish woman who would like to live peacefully in her homeland. I don't inherently support war or death from any side because I am a Zionist. 2. I actually live here, born and raised, and so were my grandparents. How delusional and condescending can you be to suggest that you, a Western person who only found out about this conflict a while ago on Tiktok, know better than an Israeli??? More on double standards Sometimes I wonder why most of you didn’t have such a strong reaction to any other war & civil war going on right now: in Ukraine/ Yemen/Congo and Syria**, etc. Considering the amount of antisemitic hate anons I've received I have a feeling why...

**Which directly affected the lives of most Palestinians.

As I've said in previous posts- It’s easy to throw around big words you don’t understand. There is no apartheid as all Israeli citizens have the same rights. - Gaza is not occupied by Israel- it’s been returned multiple times in history ( just to name a few: 1956,1987,2006...).

*Even when it was under Israel’s control, all it meant was that there were approximately 10 Jewish settlements in Gaza*. The Israeli military presence was to protect those people& prevent terror attacks.

Blood Libels

In addition to the lies and the poor mistranslations from Hebrew, I have also received \ seen an alarming amount of Nazi Propaganda. -you say that you’re anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic, yet you use antisemitic rhetoric…

Comparisons between Israelis and Nazis -Comparing Israelis to Nazis is wrong on so many levels.

In case you aren't aware, the holocaust was a premeditated and carefully planned genocide, that lasted 6 years. 6 MILLION Jews were killed and all of their possessions were stolen. It followed hundreds of years of persecution, violence, and discriminatory laws. They were also starved and enslaved in different sorts of manual labor, in addition to being experimented on. They were held in Ghettos and concentration camps. In the aftermath of the war, Jews were completely driven out of their land and face prosecution across the world to this day. The existence of Israel allows Jews to live free of that. The Israel-Hamas war following October 7th is a war against a terrorist organization that invaded Israel and massacred its civilians. Unfortunately, due to Hamas' tactics, there are a lot of Palestinian civilian casualties. While they are wrong- the treatment of Palestinians and the bombing of Gaza are nothing like what the Nazis did.

Debunking some misconceptions I've seen on Viral posts here: -No, we Jews do not control the media and global banks. At least invent something new, this is giving Medivel blood libels used by the church lol. -We do not go around killing innocent Palestinian babies for fun. We have laws and a moral compass (Shocking I know). We do not go and kidnap people or rape women for fun either. Do you know who does that? Hamas, the terrorist organization. -We're not all white, this conflict does not revolve around race: There are many Jewish Israelis from the same countries that Palestinians originated from (i.e: Egyptian & Jordanian Jews ). -Israelis perceive Palestinians as lesser human'- This claim is usually supported by mistranslation of Hewbew and out-of-context Interviews. The phrase חיות אדם (Chayot Adam, savages, acting like animals) was obviously often used to describe Hamas terrorists who took part in the October 7th masssacre. We do not call or treat Palestinians as "animals" or savages. All of the referenced instances were about those Hamas terrorists.

-There isn't a 'Gaza Ministry of Health', it's all Hamas. The number of Palestinian casualties and other claims they make are not to be trusted. Most of the casualties are terrorists.

So what is my point?

It is important to note that am not ignoring any of the Palestinian deaths. I’m not saying they should die either. Please stop assuming I do!!

All I’m saying is that Israeli victims matter as well. For some reason, some people cannot comprehend that Israeli civilians do not deserve to die just because of where they live.

You wouldn’t call for the death of all Americans/ Europeans/ South Africans etc… while they committed actual genocide & apartheid.

[fairuzfan]

I have a question about passports. Are Palestinians in the WB, Gaza and occupied Jerusalem stateless? I know that Gaza has been under blockade, but how can Palestinians outside of Gaza travel? Do they have a special passport?

God be with Gaza and Palestine. The people are with you.

Hi anon, this is a great question! This is going to be long because it's actually one of the core reason why Israel is an Apartheid state, and contributes to the erasure of Palestinians.

First part of your question: yes, Palestinians are stateless. By definition, that means they often face trouble (click) accessing core state-based rights, like having legal jobs, owning property, being able to do build on property you own, and existing as a person with rights.

Now, since 1948, Palestinians have traveled around the world, there is an international diaspora (click on the "maps" section—although the map is not totally up to date and doesn't have totally complete data). For example, I grew up with many United States born Palestinians, meaning that they automatically are granted citizenship. However, according to international law, as my grandparents are refugees, their refugee status is passed down through generations—meaning that I am also a refugee.

I bring this up to analyze the complicated political status of the Palestinians, and why Palestinians, while citizens of different countries, don't have a clear political identity within the world. And when we get to Palestine itself, the Palestinians there face systematic statelessness enforced on them by the Zionist entity.

Palestinians in Palestine, have a passport... but even then, they aren't allowed to move freely. It does not have the same meaning as most countries' passports, because, as I said, Palestinians have no official state. There are different types of ways that Palestinians can travel depending on where they are from—for example, Palestinians in the West Bank are *not* allowed to use Ben Gurion Airport, and must go through the border to Jordan to use Aaliya to go wherever they want. But they do still have to report that they're leaving into Jordan and say where they're going. Occupied Jerusalem residents can use Ben Gurion but it's not very easy for them and they often face harassment. Gazans basically cannot travel, though, except if authorized access to study abroad and given written permission by the host country, which requires stringent verification and can be taken away at a moment's notice.

This is one of the core attributes of Apartheid—restriction of movement based on ethnic or racial or religious identity. This restriction allows for heavy monitoring of Palestinians, under the guise of "security threats."

Second Part of your question:

I actually had to consult a couple of different people I know who regularly travel to the West Bank, because each part of the territories have different rules. I've never been there so I get regularly confused with which places have which rules. I'm still not sure about the colors of the cards I mention so if someone has been there recently and would like to clarify, feel free to add to the post which cards belong to which.

As a whole, the people in the West Bank and Gaza are not citizens. Some people in Jerusalem do have citizenship, specified with a colored "card." Palestinians call their cards "Haweeyah," or identifications. Citizens also have a different colored license plate which tells the Zionist Entity that the people in the car are citizens. But the very existence of these cards, do not guarantee them rights as a citizen if they are Palestinians, especially if they are not Jewish. Palestinians are often detained without warning (called administrative detainees-click), denied to build on their own property, or even expelled and physically kicked out from their homes without notice, which is what happened in 2021 in Sheikh Jarrah, has happened before, and continues to have happened since.

In theory, these identification cards allow them to travel throughout Occupied Palestine, but they must go through militarized checkpoints where Palestinians are humiliated, tortured, and even murdered by the Zionist Entity. Every Palestinian has to go through these checkpoints, no matter what type of card you have. They are hundreds of them throughout Palestine (someone told me there are 630?), and often, people don't know whether or not they'll actually get through that checkpoint until they've gotten through it. There is no guarantee for Palestinians, no matter if you're a citizen or not, whether you'll even make it out of there alive depending on who's manning the checkpoint. I recommend reading this resource from people in Jerusalem about the checkpoint system and the division of Jerusalem (Al-Quds in arabic) for a much more in depth analysis of the checkpoint system (click).

Now there are other types of cards as well. The card if you're from the West Bank, which we call Ad-Dhuffa, are not citizenship cards but they can allow you to move throughout the territories, albeit still through the checkpoints. The car plates are also a different color noncitizens. They specify that they are residents of the West Bank. These people cannot go into the Zionist Entity freely.

I do want to emphasize though—"citizenship" for those from Jerusalem can be taken away at a moment's notice, especially if the Zionist Entity finds out that people have citizenship elsewhere in an effort to force Palestinians out as much as possible. Most Jews (except for Ethiopians ones, wonder why) are encouraged to immigrate and are automatically given citizenship no matter what other passports they may hold, even paying millions of dollars for them to come to Palestine and settle.

Now it's clear that this is apartheid—the control of movement is one part, and separating even citizens as a second class status that may be taken away is how the Zionist entity encourages ethnic cleansing at a slower scale than the Nakba in '48, but still devastating nonetheless. But that heavy surveillance of movement can even be at a much, much, smaller scale.

I want to focus in on one city in particular in the West Bank—AlKhalil (some may call it Hebron or the Old City). This is the city where my dad's family is from, so I've heard stories about it since I was little.

AlKhalil is a segregated city to the max. Palestinians are not freely allowed to walk through the streets, with some designated as "Jews Only" streets. This means that even if their front door faces the "Jews Only" street, Palestinians can't go through it at risk of being shot by a settler or soldier, so they go climb over leave from the backdoor or even climb over rooftops to leave their houses. Settler Jews, however, are allowed to go anywhere they want, all while carrying heavy artillery and terrorizing Khalili residents.

This also illustrates another part of apartheid USAmerican might be most familiar with—calling imagery Jim Crow Era and sundown towns that still go on today. Fully segregated, prohibited from even walking down streets, Palestinians are denied even core human rights, KNOWING that they're second class residents (not citizens!) that are not even afforded the simple luxury of deciding how they can walk to work or school. In fact, shopkeepers on the ground level install metal nets separating the first and second floors, because the settlers on the second floor often throw trash onto the street or into their windows. There is a literal fence between Israelis and Palestinians with the Palestinians on the bottom.

The material reality of apartheid is segregation and it is justified by the notion of "security measures," but is in fact a concentrated effort to make the lives of Palestinians difficult enough to want to leave as soon as possible. One of the forms of colonialism is the effort to crush hope and make their lives absolutely as unlivable as possible, and if they can get Palestinians to just *leave,* then they can say: "Look! We didn't take it from them! They decided to leave on their own. So we can move in now, and they have no right to come back because, well, they left!" Because of that, apartheid is one of the tools of colonialism to rob the indigenous communities of their land, and is why I wanted to use this question to discuss this.

Thank you for this question, sorry it took so long! Here are some resources I found on Palestinians' experiences:

The weaponization of Jewish identity against Palestinians to expel them from their homes by Mohammed ElKurd (highly recommend): https://mondoweiss.net/2023/09/jewish-settlers-stole-my-house-its-not-my-fault-theyre-jewish/

Checkpoints, Part 1: Severing Jerusalem by JerusalemStory.com: https://www.jerusalemstory.com/en/article/checkpoints-part-1-severing-jerusalem

Mapping Hebron Apartheid: https://www.hebronapartheid.org/

[jewish-vents]

There’s something that has troubled me for awhile…there are a lot of calls online to take Aliyah, and I get it, I really do. I can understand the draw especially with more observant, visibly Jewish people because the targeting has become horrific. The fear is growing, and we are all looking back at history and getting generational Deja vu in a really traumatic fashion. And while I feel zero pressure to move to Israel atm…

But for Jews in the diaspora, I always wonder if there are any that are proud of where they are from, that identify with it as much as they identify being Jewish. We all have been raised to have Israel and Jerusalem in our heart and our soul. But I am as American as I am Jewish. Between both sides of my family, my blood has been in America for close to 150 years (my father’s side is 120, my mother’s side is closer to 150). If you put a picture of any natural landscape in Israel or the skyline of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv with a skyline of my home city and the Adirondacks or the Appalachian mountains, my emotional pull will be towards the latter set of pictures.

I can’t see myself ever moving to Israel. I feel that if my ancestors wanted to go back to our collective roots, they would and they’d brave the tyranny of the Ottomans and the British Occupation along with the genocidal hostility of the Arab nations. But they came to America, so I am American born and bred, as are my parents and my grandparents and my maternal great grandparents.

And I wonder, are there any other Jews that feel this way about their country? Any fellow Americans, any British, Canadian, and Australian Jews? Are there Jews in Europe and South America that feel the same? Where they will always support Israel and its right to exist, but they can never imagine living there and can only see themselves living in the country they are currently from?

I will always support Israel’s right to exist. But I am American as much as I am Jewish, so I will support from across the Atlantic.

anon, I want you to know your feelings are valid, you shouldn't be pressured to make an Aliyah for any reason, just because Israel is a Jewish country doesn't mean all Jews must live there or want to live there.

in Israel, it's a pretty common question to ask people for their ancestry (for like ice breakers), and a lot of people will be able to tell you exactly where their grandparents are from, even if they have a very mixed ancestry. for us, where we came from is not something to be erased, it's a major a part of who we are. we're not just Israeli we're polish, iraqi, yemenite, moroccan, russian, italian, ethiopian, hollandi (dutch?), sabra, etc.

I can't talk for Jews in the diaspora, I believe there would be many people who share your feelings, but I can tell you most Israelis would probably understand your pride in your ancestry.

- 🐬

[writingonleaves]

and there are some days when i think that, somewhere, you're watching - the blue au

universe: the blue au

warnings: cancer, grief, sadness, the usual with anything to do with the blue au's premise lol

title: "chemtrails" by lizzy mcalpine

word count: 1.1k

author's note: lol hey!! there are a million other wips i should be working on but here we are! if you haven't read at least the first part of this au yet, you probs should for context. we are also manifesting here all three hughes brothers make it to the olympics. inspired by the beautiful players tribune article kevin hayes wrote for his late brother jimmy. i thought a lot about which brother would write something like this and ended up settling on quinn <3 enjoy and let me know your thoughts!

*****

The Ones We Play For 

for The Players Tribune 

by Quinn Hughes 

Written February 4, 2026

I’ll never forget the first time I put on a USA jersey for an international competition. 

It was for the 2015 World Under-17 Challenge when I had just turned 16. I didn’t think much of it at the time. The only thing I thought about was playing well, but it was an honor nonetheless. 

Every time you get the opportunity to represent your country in any way, it’s an honor. I know everyone says it, but it’s true. The whole nation is looking at you and cheering you and your teammates on. The playing of the anthem means more than ever. You look at the jersey and feel like you’re part of something bigger.

Next week, hockey at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina will begin. I’ve always dreamed of being about to play at the Olympics, but now that it’s actually here, it’s surreal. 

The team is great, and I feel lucky to even be here. As I look around at my teammates, I feel confident that we can bring home a gold medal. But it’ll take hard work. That’s nothing that we don’t know though. 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to put on the jersey and who we wear it for. Of course, I think I speak for every single person at these Olympics when we say we wear it for our country and the fans watching us, whether here in Italy or back home. 

But we’re all playing for someone in our own support group. The village that has brought each of us here.

First, my parents, who have been there since the very first day. My mom, who taught me how to skate and my dad, who taught me how to see the game. My extended family: my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and family who aren’t technically family but who might as well be. Everyone in my life who’s always offered support and encouraging words, who has sat in cold rinks and watched me play. Whether they’re here in Italy or watching from various parts of the world, I’m playing for them. 

I’m also playing for my brothers, who will be on the ice with me. That’s still crazy for me to think about. We never could’ve imagined this when we were playing mini sticks in the basement as kids. Of course, we dreamed about it. But to see it come to reality? I feel very grateful. In the locker room, I look at Jack on my right and then Luke at my left. We’re playing for each other. 

But most importantly, I’m playing for Miguel Sandoval. 

I don’t talk about Miguel often, but he was one of the most important people in my life. Still is. He met my parents before I was born and automatically became a second father to me. To be honest, I don’t think I talk about him often because it still hurts to think about. 

Miguel was one of my biggest cheerleaders from the beginning. The fact that he’s not alive to see me take the ice next week is, well, it’s a lot of things. Sad is the first word that pops to mind. Unfair is another. The one who was at the rink next to my father in the stands before I even really knew how to play hockey isn’t alive to see me play in the Olympics? There’s no words to describe how devastating that is. 

He never got to see me play in any USA jersey, even though he was always confident I would put one on eventually. He died of pancreatic cancer on New Year’s Day, 2015. 

It’s been over 11 years without him, but he’s still in everything I do. A huge part of the reason I wear 43 is because of him — his birthday is April 3. I still remember his boisterous laugh and his kind eyes. He wrote Jack, Luke and I letters before he died that were specifically addressed to be given to us on our draft days. I still carry mine with me on every road trip. That’s how long and how strongly he believed in us. Somehow, he just knew that we would be drafted long before it happened. 

I have every word of that letter memorized. Sometimes, I trace over his handwriting with my thumb, and it feels like he's still with us.

During his brief battle with cancer, even when his body had almost no strength left, he always greeted us with a smile and an enthusiastic greeting. Even when he was advised not to, he made it to the games he could until his last days. To the very last day, he lived life with the biggest smile on his face.

If anyone should be here to see his “talented boys” take on the ice, it’s him. Not everyone is lucky enough to have someone like Miguel who loved them so unconditionally. I’m grateful for the time I had with him, even if I desperately wish it was more. We weren’t his sons by blood, but he treated us like family. But sometimes life is unfair, and we have to hold on to the fact that everything happens for a reason.

Here’s a reason: Miguel’s wife, Maeve, who is like a second mother to me, will be watching from Boston. Maeve is the best, always keeping it lighthearted and reminding me that life is supposed to be lived to the fullest. She has this youthful energy that’s just so infectious. She’s the one who always reminds me that hockey is supposed to be fun. I wouldn't be half the person I am today without her support.

And then their daughter, Clementine. Clem, I call her. Jack calls her Clee and Luke calls her Clemmy. Clem’s my best friend / older sister — the universal older sister, to be honest. It doesn’t matter if our last names aren’t the same. She’s been there for me ever since I could remember. Even when we were states, sometimes countries, away, I knew that if I called her, she’d always pick up. Currently on the journey to becoming a doctor, Clem is the kindest, most intelligent, most selfless and strongest woman I’ve ever met. She was the one who lost her father, but she made sure that all of us were okay. Even now, she can’t ever seem to take off the big-sister hat. But I wouldn’t have her any other way. 

Miguel, wherever you are, I can tell you a few things. First, I promise that we’re taking care of your wife and daughter as best as we can. We’re gonna try our best to get to the final rounds of this tournament so that they can fly out and watch us play. We love them and they’ll always be family. Second, whenever I feel a bit lost or need to be grounded, I think of you and your calm demeanor and bear hugs. I wish I could have just one more hug. Squeeze you one more time.

Miguel, when I put on that USA jersey and step on the ice, I will be playing for you. Jack, Luke and I will all be skating for you.

We miss you. 

We love you.

This is for you.

Yours, 

Quinn

[snuggerudism]

nights like these, in the august heat | red dirt roads

If Calla had to list her top ten favorite things in this world, sunsets would be number six. Ever since she was a little girl, she’d been fascinated by the blends and varieties of colors they showed. They were different looking every day, and that’s what kept her watching them every night. As she waited outside the airport, she couldn’t help but stare at the one that lit up above the airport building. 

The piece of white cardboard her aunt had shoved into her hand is loosely gripped by her fingers. She protested the idea of her aunt making a sign with their names on it, but her aunt had gently pushed her out the door insisting it was the only way they would know it was her picking them up. In black sharpie, the names SNUGGERUD and CHESLEY are written in big, bold, uppercase letters. She felt silly holding it, and the stares she was receiving from various people didn’t help. 

She wishes she made Annie or Shay come with her. Their presence would calm her nerves, but Shay was studying for a test and Annie was at work. 

Meeting new people wasn’t something Calla was a fan of. Her sister would’ve been a better option to pick up the hockey players, but Cassie was no were to be found, as always. But she promised Aunt Ginny and Uncle Chris she would make them feel at home on the car ride back home, and she intended on keeping that promise. 

Two teenage boys walking toward her snapped her out of her thoughts. She took a moment to compose herself, smoothing out her tank top and adjusting her baseball cap. Aunt Ginny’s words from earlier pop into her mind, and she flashes a bright smile, in order to make the boys feel welcome. 

The two boys stare at the sign as they stand waiting to cross to the truck, and Calla clears her throat. “I’m assuming you're Ryan and Jimmy? Or, are you two random guys who need a ride and are gonna pretend you are?”

The USA hockey sweatshirts the two are wearing already confirmed the answer to her question, but cracking jokes was the way she removed any awkward silence from a conversion. It was her best quality, at least in her opinion. 

“Um,” One of them says, not meeting her eyes. “Is there a back seat? How will one of us sit?” He puts his bags in the tailgate while he waits for an answer from the blonde. 

She laughs for a moment, and the two boys look at her extremely confused. “It’s Uncle Charlie’s old truck. It has one row, but fits three people,” She taps the side of the truck, motioning them into the car. She shuts it, closing the tailgate before getting in the driver's seat. “Alright, if you wanna open the windows, you have to crank the handle down. I suggest doing so, because the AC of this car hasn’t worked since my brother was born. He's 18, so it hasn’t worked for 19 years.” 

The car ride to Northville is filled with Calla asking the boys questions, wanting to get to know them better. She learns the one with the shaggier hair is Jimmy, and the other one is Ryan. She doesn’t say it, but she can’t imagine how hard it is for them to leave their homes and their families.

She could never imagine leaving Michigan. This is where her family was, and would probably always be. 

“Can we play music?” Ryan interrupts her train of thought. She forgot to go through the process of finding the stations that worked before she started driving. Still focusing on the road, she begins pressing various buttons and dials before the sound of country music fills the car.  

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees their faces at the long dirt road ahead of them. There’s a house just down the road, and one directly diagonal from it. “Uncle Charlie said I’m in charge of showing you two the farm chores you’ll do when you’re not at hockey.”

“Farm chores? We’re living on a farm?” Ryan’s face pales.

“Dude,” Jimmy whacks his arm. “I told you we were. I think it’s sick.” Jimmy shoots Calla a smile. 

“My whole family lives on it. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. All in different houses by family.”

“That’s really cool.” Jimmy nods his head.

“We’re actually gonna drive to my Mimi and Pops house. Sunday night is family dinner night, and everyone gets together. You get to meet everyone!”

“Great!” Ryan throws his head back, an annoyed groan slipping out of him. 

“It’ll be fun, Ry.” Jimmy pats his friend's shoulder. 

______________

The best word to describe what Calla pulls into is chaos. There's a number of children running around, clearly a variety of ages. She nearly runs over Willow’s soccer ball, braking just before she popped it. “Watch it Calla.” The 10 year old redhead glares at her as she opens the car door. 

“Sorry Willow. Next time, don’t kick it into the driveway please.”

“There is no driveway Calla. It’s dirt.” She rolls her eyes before stomping off into the backyard. 

Calla turns to the two boys who are amazed at the amount of people at the house. “You’ve never seen a big family before?” She laughs, leading them toward the porch. “The adults are on the back porch, I’ll introduce them fi-”

Before she can finish talking, a football comes flying toward the three of them. They duck, at Calla’s voice urging them too. The football is maybe an inch away from hitting Ryan in the head, but lands behind him. His eyes are wide as three boys stare guiltily at him. “Xander! What did Pop say about throwing the football?” The blonde yells, and the tallest looks visibly scared. 

“Watch where you’re throwing it before throwing it.” He doesn’t meet her eyes, looking at the patch of grass on the dirt road.”

“Right. You almost just gave Ryan a concussion. Now go, and remember the rule,” The three boys attempt to take off, but remember they need the football. “I’m sorry about them. When you’re at this house, always watch for flying balls. They could be anywhere.”

“Noted.” Jimmy shakes his head, stepping inside and looking around. 

“As I was saying, come meet the adults,” Calla opens the patio door, motioning them to come. “Jimmy, Ryan.​​ This is everyone. That’s Aunt Sheila and Uncle Mike, and over there is Auntie Ginny and Uncle Chris, the one’s you’ll be living with, as well as me. Right here is Aunt Sandy, and then at the end is Aunt Colette and Uncle Rick,” She points them out as she introduces them. Both are in shock at the number of aunts and uncles she has. “Aunt Melissa and Uncle Adam are on vacation. You’ll meet them soon.”

“Okay.” Ryan nods his head, soaking up the information. 

“I’ll introduce you guys to the kids next. All my cousins, and Connor, my brother,” She turns her attention to her Auntie Ginny. “Is Cassie here?”

“Nope. She’s at Spencer’s.”

Calla rolls her eyes. Her twin was almost never home anymore, spending every second she had of free time she had with her boyfriend. “That right there is Lucas. He’s 6 and you’ll see him everyday, because he’s Aunt Ginny and Uncle Chris’s. The blonde girl playing with dolls over there is Kendall, and she's four.” At the sound of her name, Kendall snaps her head to look at Calla, and runs toward her. 

“I’m Kendall,” She looks up at Jimmy, a pink cowgirl hat falling off her head. “You should come play with me.” She grabs Jimmy’s hand, trying to pull him with her. 

“Well, she likes you. That’s an accomplishment, because she doesn’t like many people,” Calla chuckles, picking up a baby from the blanket. “This cutie right here is Aubrey, and she's one.” The one year old squishes Calla’s cheeks, then bursts into a fit of giggles when Calla starts tickling her stomach. 

“Dinner’s ready,” Ryan assumes it's Calla’s pop who says that, by the gray hair the man has. “The guests of honor get to make their plates first,” He laughs at the horrified look on Ryan’s face for bringing the attention to him and Jimmy. “Don’t be scared, none of my family bites. Unless you take the last slice of pizza.” He laughs. 

They sit down, and everyone starts filling up their plates. “We’re excited to watch you boys play hockey. You’ll have a whole cheering section at all the games.”

“I’m excited for it too. You all are lovely people.” Ryan says what his mom told him too. He looks at Jimmy, who’s stuffing his face with homemade potato salad. He gives his shoulder a shove, and a ‘really’ look. 

“The food is amazing.” Jimmy says after he swallows his food. Everyone laughs, before digging into their own plates.