#hey look a work story from me that isnt about antisemitism

[i-aint-even-bovvered]

Story time!

I work at a synagogue that has a summer camp for nursery school and preschool aged kids. It's a really nice program because we have this sort of outdoor adventure space with a garden and what they call a "mud kitchen" which just seems like the most fun a toddler could possibly have during the summer, and I kinda wish I had that growing up, I'm not gonna lie.

Anyway, someone calls in and asks about our summer program. She wants to know the ages it's for and how long the sessions are. Crucially, the ages are toddler and preschool, and we only have one eight week summer session (we don't have four or two week sessions). She says she has a kid going into kindergarten, but maybe she'll sign him up next year.

Before I can explain that, no, unfortunately her son will be too old for our program next year, she says the following:

"I was going to sign him up for this other camp, but the woman creeped me out because they read books about gender identity there."

There is no way this woman would have known that she was on the phone with my nonbinary ass, but she obviously doesn't know anything about our shul, or else she would have read our statement on inclusivity, along with the fact that one of our head Rabbis (they're both women) is gay. My boss literally had me buy a new pride flag for outside since the one we have is fading. I am also not the only nonbinary member of staff.

I put on my best customer service voice and say, "Well, I want to let you know that we are a very inclusive community, and while I can't speak to the kinds of books the children read at camp, I can say we do everything we can to make everyone feel welcome, no matter who they are."

The woman then replies, "I don't think I'm interested anymore," and hangs up.

I hope that kid has an easy time growing up, because damn.

TL;DR: Progressive Judaism is not the place for your transphobia.

[shiinayumi]

I'm back with another unpopular opinion! This is a rant so like..it's long I guess. I am Jewish and also for what it's worth Native American so I have two majors parts of who I am that have faced or continue to face genocidal actions. And I am begging people, Stop. Saying. Attack. On. Titan. Is. Antisemitic. It's not antisemitic or supporting fascism. I can't believe I have to explain this but here we are. Most people who make this claim or support it haven't read the manga which just finished like 2 months ago, and only rely on bad summary or little snippets of shit and all of this started from one person here on tumblr who apparently isn't even Jewish that made the claim it's antisemitic and it blew up and continues to do so. Stop it. I'm not going into full details because plenty of other more eloquent people than me have and shocker, a lot of them are Jewish too. Go to Google, look it up and look on YouTube. Polygon picked the shit up and ran with it for clicks and it hasn't died since. Plenty of other Jewish people have tried to bring this up to be ignored and the other Jews I've seen go along with this idea haven't even friggen read it or not the whole thing. You find out any instance of Marleyns saying the Eldians are responsible for bad things is *gasp* propaganda! Amazing. The story is complex as shit and Isayama shows bad things to get people to understand, war and genocide no matter the reason is fucking bad, Eran is a bad person people admit he's a mentally disturbed pos in the end of the fucking story etc. This isn't a story you can just look at with broadstrokes and hope to completely understand it. It requires understanding of nuance and critical thinking. There are a lot of red herrings and fake outs in the story and a lot of that comes off as attempts to show the story as being like people and people at war, which is that we're super fucking complex and war fucks all of us up. The story has a large overarching message of anti fascism and the actual heros are the "Jews" in the story.

Since it ended I have read through the God damn thing 3 times to make sure of my stances here because hey we all miss shit. It hasn't changed. Also please don't do the "but Jewish caricature Titan cause big nose!" Yea a couple have big noses, becoming a Titan fucks up your body in weird ass ways, so all ways are ok AS LONG AS THE NOSE ISNT TOUCHED? That's ridiculous. Everything else on their body can because weird as fuck except the nose because otherwise Isayama is CLEARLY shitting on us Jews 🙄. Also I stg if anyone calls me a bootlicker or self hating Jew I will reach through the computer and throw moldy Matza at you.

This is a case of people wanting to be the most woke and "helping" minorities that yall are causing more damage than anything. Most people I see lifting this are usually not raising up anything else antisemitic, just this because it's easy and that is performative allyship. This is a hard truth that I had to learn and so do other people, and yall need to hear this, performative alleyship hurts us. Latching yourself onto false shit without thinking hurts us. We don't want it. Latching onto and spreading information without actually looking into things or asking more informed Jewish people, as an example, hurts us. Ignoring us who've read the shit and are trying to tell you that it's wrong hurts us. You're basically crying wolf about a topic but people don't see you crying wolf, they assume us Jews are doing it, and when something actually antisemitic comes up (or any other form of racism for that matter) people fucking ignore us because of this. If you aren't Jewish and you see shit that says it's antisemitic, listen to it, but be willing to listen to all Jews, and unless we ask you to lift us ourselves, stay out of it and stay in your lane. Helping minorities doesn't mean getting out in front of us and speaking OVER us, it means making other listen to US OURSELVES, including you listening to us.

Isayama was also accused of other horrible shit largley starting because someone found a Twitter, assumed it was his with no proof and no real name attachment and because of all of this? He's received horrible death threats and other threats of violence for shit that isn't true and because people jumped the gun.

Too my fellow Jews, I understand why it's scary to see and hear that something is awful and I don't blame you for not reading it because why would we be want to read something and force ourselves too look at a work of fiction that so closely resembles our past, but I am begging you to not listen to random people on the internet spreading false narratives. It's hurting us. This hurts us in so many ways. I'm not asking you to read the manga or watch the anime, I'm just asking that you look at perspectives of other Jews, those of us who have read the material, and our concerns with spreading false narratives of antisemitism, a narrative that I have seen many actual antisemitics latch onto to use against us largley in the way of Jews "being too sensitive and full of shit and we're trying to censor the world blah blah fucking blah".

Please, going forward think critically about the claims you see online. Where are they coming from? Who's saying them? What other motives could they have for doing a thing? Not all motives are pure and in the spirit of raising awareness of actual issues of things like racism and antisemitism, but are to get more sales or views or followers etc. Stop assuming everything you see online to be the gospel truth and that everyone has good intentions. Research research research.