#jewish memory

[historicity-was-already-taken]

re: October 7

Regardless of what idiots who think Hamas is a fun progressive resistance org have to say, the fact is that the October 7 massacre is going to be something Jews talk about, mourn, and commemorate for the next X,000 years. Long after there is a place called Israel, and a group called Hamas--and frankly, anything resembling the world as we know it today--there will be Jews taking a moment to commemorate the events of October 7, 2023.

And that's not even a FUCK THE HATERS AM YISRAEL CHAI statement. It's not a pro-Israel statement or an anti-Israel statement or a pro-Palestine statement or an anti-Palestine statement or a Whatever Simplistic Binaries We've Tried to Impose on This Situation statement. It's not even a political statement.

Speaking as a Jewish Historian, the Jews are a people with a long memory. We still commemorate revolts and massacres and attempted massacres of the Jewish people that went down over 2500 years ago like they happened yesterday. It's not an accident that, when the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising went down, the Zionist participants* immediately drew parallels between themselves and the crazy fucking patriarchal spouse and child-murdering zealots who held out against the Romans at Masada in 74 CE. Jews forget nothing, from the Babylonian Exile, to the Crusade-era massacres, to Jednabwe.

Jewish memory is hardly an impeccable source of historical knowledge (see Yerushalmi's Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory); but we forget nothing. We will remember October 7, and some day we’ll probably have a commemorative cookie about it. It will be the subject of books and dissertations, and studies of post-Holocaust and post-modern anti-Semitism. The Jews will insist on learning from this, about this, and re-interpreting this. Forever.

Civilizations, groups, nations; they can keep hating and trying to destroy the Jewish people; but 2000, 3000 years from now, it will be by the grace of Jewish ethnoreligious memory traditions that anyone will remember their names.

*it was staged and carried out by the Jewish Fighting Organization, which was a politically pluralistic org. Everyone from the anti-Zionist Bund to the centrist General Zionists belong to it. Except for the Revisionists lol

ETA: This post is not a secret rhetorical tool to express stealth support for Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Or any level of support for violence against Palestinians. Ever. I hate that I even have to add that; but like I said: anti-Semitism's gone pomo.

Also, my mental soundtrack while writing this post.

[chanaleah]

in light of the disgusting photo of shani louk winning an award, with her not even mentioned, i thought it was important to share photos of her when she was still alive. she was beautiful.

may her memory be a blessing.

[girlactionfigure]

This is a good time to remind you that Palestinian children get cancer treatment in Israel. 

Oh? Didn’t know that? Now you do. 

Screaming into the windows of a hospital treating cancer patients isn’t going to do anything for Palestinians. But I can promise that it will make us hate all of you even more than we do. And that’s hard. Because I’m at the max already. 

loganlevkoff

[genderoutlaws]

With full and heavy hearts, we want to share with you all that Shatzi Weisberger, The People's Bubbie, 92-year-old antizionist Jew, lesbian, abolitionist, nurse, and lifelong organizer died last night.

We love you so much, Shatzi. We'll keep fighting like hell in your honor. ❤️

(via peoplesbubbie on twitter)

[nonbinary-vents]

Saw a post recently from @jewish-sideblog recently about how people view the scope of the shoah and it kind of solidified something that's been bothering me for a while now. I think one thing that goyim fundamentally don't understand about the shoah is that it had huge effects on Jewish communities in the whole world, not just Europe, and not just during the genocide itself. Like, two of my grandparents were born and grew up in the British mandate. Amin Al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem at the time, literally met up with Hitler to discuss the implementation of the shoah and a possible final solution in the Arab world. He also barred Jews from escaping to the mandate. If the shoah had just gone on a little longer, that part of my family would probably have been murdered

The shoah had gigantic ripples in the Middle East. Without it, the Mirzachi expulsion wouldn’t have been able to happen. And the expulsion still affects Mizrachim today. Most of us have bad family stories, most of us can't even visit the places we spent the diaspora in. The highest number of Jews in Islamic MENA countries is 10,000 in Iran, the place my family is from, where there used to be 100,000. In the Arab states it is so much worse, with the highest being around 1,00, but most countries having less than 50

That’s just one example, but there’s many more. This stuff went so far as to affect Ethiopia, which expelled its ancient community of Jews (or, at the very least, banned them from practicing or teaching Hebrew). Even years after the shoah, it caused so much suffering for Jews everywhere, wether Nazi countries or not. Frankly, it’s kind of baffling to realise that most people think it was a self contained event, when it was literally the climax of thousands upon thousands of years of violent and vitriolic Jew hatred— of course it would ripple. The shoah was an earth shattering event that changed Jews forever, it is something that every Jew, even ones who thankfully had no ancestors murdered because of it, feels so horrible deeply. Everyone, everyone, not just the Nazis, not just the Axis, was a part of it

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

Today, January 27, 2024, is Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the 6 million jewish people and other minorities who were victims of the Holocaust. This day always brings feelings of sorrow, loss, anger, fear, and resilience to the Jewish community, yet increased antisemitism from 2023-2024 will likely make those feelings even stronger.

If you can do nothing else, please reach out to a jewish friend or family member and show them that you care. A few kind words can go a long way.

If you are able to, consider donating to The Blue Card. They focus on providing aid to Holocaust survivors in Israel, including fulfilling medical needs, accessibility needs, providing food, helping with financial assistance, etc. They have been supported by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The second link also includes a list of resources for Holocaust survivors and their families and ways that people can help them. It is focused on resources in the USA, but there are some resources outside of the USA as well.

https://bluecardfund.org/

https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-survivors/resources

I am so, so proud of every Jewish person today just for living. We will not forget the atrocities that we went through and we will not let anyone else forget. Never again will this happen. Am yisrael chai ✡

[healingordestroying]

Today, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember the 6 million Jews, and millions more, who lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis.

As antisemitism rears its ugly head once again, and especially as we grapple with the atrocities of the October 7th Hamas massacre, we must speak out and send a clear message against hatred and terror to ensure that Never Again means something.

In the face of darkness, be the light.

[t4tozier]

maggie and went tried so hard to teach richie the prayer for hanukkah and he just could not get it. stan sat with him and repeated it over and over so patiently and helped him learn the english translation so it was easier for him to understand and he learned it in a week. by the way.

[coochiequeens]

Never forget and never forget that the first victims of Auschwitz were young women.

When Nazi Germany occupied much of Poland at the outbreak of World War II, the parents of Erna and Fela Dranger sent their daughters over the border from their home in Tylicz to the eastern Slovakian town of Humenné. Their cousin Dina Dranger went with them. Erna, 20, and Fela and Dina, both 18, found jobs and settled in with the local Humenné Jewish community. At some point, Fela moved on to the Slovakian capital of Bratislava with a friend.

The girls’ parents thought they had sent their daughters to safety. But on March 25, 1942, Erna and Dina were among the nearly 1,000 teenage girls and unmarried young women deported on the first official transport of Jews to Auschwitz.

Told by Slovakian authorities that they would be going away to do government work service for just a few months, the Jewish girls and women were actually sold to the Germans by the the Slovaks for 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece as slave labor.

Erna Dranger (Courtesy of Heather Dune Macadam)

Fela Dranger (Courtesy of Heather Dune Macadam)

Very few of the 997 girls on that first transport — or any of the other early transports — survived the more than three hellish years until the end of the war. Erna, Fela and Dina Dranger beat the odds, with the sisters going on to raise families in Israel and their cousin Dina settling in France.

The story of what happened to these and the other women on the first transports to Auschwitz is told in “999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz,” a compelling new book by Heather Dune Macadam. (The Nazis had planned to deport 999 Jewish women on the initial transport, but Macadam discovered typos on the list — now held in the Yad Vashem archives — making the actual tally 997.)

See rest of article

[historicity-was-already-taken]

The weirdest thing about Holocaust memory is how people who are not Jewish or do not interact with that community think that all Jews, especially descendants of survivors, emerge into adulthood fully informed about the Holocaust, genocide, dangers of the nation-State, propaganda, impacts of generational trauma, etc.

We don’t. Jews are just people who can choose to read up on their pasts, and choose not to. Like you; like literally anyone. Learning from the past is difficult and painful for everyone, and few humans are bad enough heavy metal bitches to be comfortable with the cognitive dissonance true learning can bring about.

Jews are not exceptional. The only people who seem to think we are, are the groups who have concocted weird bullshit about us over the last ~3000 years.

[thegaycousin-upgrade]

Reminder that while war is doomed to be accompanied by tragedy, the loss is still tragic.

I mourn every Israeli who was killed

I mourn every Israeli who was kidnapped

I mourn every Israeli the was r@ped

I mourn every Israeli who lived and lives in fear

I mourn every Israeli who lost someone close to them.

I mourn every innocent Palestinian who was killed.

I mourn every innocent Palestinian who did not get the help they needed.

I mourn every Palestinian who felt unsafe and still does.

I mourn every Palestinian who lost a loved one.

I mourn every Jew who lost the feeling of safety due to a rise in antisemitism

I mourn every Arab who lost the feeling of safety due to a rise in Islamophobia.

I mourn every loss that came from this war, and is yet to come. Whether they were inevitable or unnecessary, they were a loss.

I mourn each one deeply.

If you see someone mourning online, do not comment harsh or contradictory comments. No matter the reason the loss is tragic, and on either side denying it does no good.

May the memory of all innocent people be a blessing.

You needn’t be on my side for me to mourn for you.

[magnetothemagnificent]

The world diaspora was coined to describe the Jewish exile, but I think even "diaspora" isn't enough to conceptualize all the exiles and expulsions and genocides we've endured as a people.

We don't just have one diaspora.

It started with the first Beit HaMikdash being destroyed by the Babylonians. That was the first major diaspora.

Then the second Beit HaMikdash was destroyed by the Romans. That was the second major diaspora.

But that wasn't the end of the displacement of the Jewish people.

For every country that has expelled its Jews, that's another diaspora. Another traumatic event in our great cultural memory.

First there was England. Then all the other European countries followed suit. Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy.....and the middle ages aren't even over yet.

Jews fled to other countries, who tolerated them at best for a few hundred years, and then those countries too expelled them.

Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, centuries of Jewish culture wiped out in years of pogroms.

Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Algeria, Yemen....once beacons of Jewish life now have barely any Jews left alive to their names.

Jews from around the world expelled and carted around like cattle, wandering from place to place because our homes are constantly taken.

The Wandering Jew doesn't wander because he has no choice, he wanders because nowhere is safe for him to stay.

The Jewish cultural memory is marked by repeated traumatization. We don't even have time to recover before we're struck again and again.

No, we're not just one diaspora. Not just one exile. Not just one traumatic event.

Can you imagine what this kind of repeated trauma does to a person? To a people?

Gentiles like to treat us with suspicion because we're so wary, too slow to trust, but if they spent even a second in our shoes, they would know why we're so scared all the time. Because they made us scared. Our hesitancy is our survival.

[my-jewish-life]

Today is the holocaust Remembrance day, and the hate is still growing.

Never again!

[thatjewishzionistscout]

An Indian national was recently killed in Israel by a Hezballoh rocket.

He noting to do with what Israel is doing in Gaza, he just wanted to provide for his family and killed for it.

He left behind a five year old daughter and a seven month pregnant wife.

Fuck terror.