Tumgik
#research on the jewish question
eretzyisrael · 1 year
Text
By TAMMI ROSSMAN-BENJAMIN
In March 1941, Nazi theorist and ideologue Alfred Rosenberg launched the Institute for Research on the Jewish Question. Its inaugural conference, “Research in the Struggle against World Jewry,” featured talks by many scholars, including the Institute’s director, historian Wilhelm Grau, who concluded that the only viable solution to the Jewish question was for the Jews to disappear.
Rosenberg’s Institute was one of several established to support the Third Reich’s efforts to provide an empirical basis for their anti-Jewish policies. To that end, the scholars affiliated with these institutes endeavored to put in place a new interdisciplinary field of study that would draw on various academic disciplines to promulgate antisemitic scholarship about the Jews.
According to Alan Steinweis’ book, “Studying the Jew: Scholarly Antisemitism in Nazi Germany,” this new brand of scholarship, which he dubs “Nazi Jewish Studies,” demonstrates its practitioners’ “cynical manipulation of scientific knowledge, historical events, religious texts, and statistical data” in the service of “justifying the disenfranchisement, expropriation, and removal of Jews from German society.”
Fast forward to August 2023. 
Two academic leaders of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) – San Francisco State University Professor Rabab Abdulhadi and University of Massachusetts Boston Professor Heike Schotten - co-authored an article explaining why they recently established the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ).
Describing ICSZ as “explicitly anti-Zionist” and “strictly committed to abiding by the BDS picket line,” Abdulhadi and Schotten link their new Institute to “the long history of struggle” against efforts “to conflate Zionist politics and ideology with Jews or Jewishness.”  
In October, the Institute will be holding an inaugural conference entitled “Battling the ‘IHRA definition’: Theory & Activism” to provide academics and activists with tools for delegitimizing the most widely accepted definition of antisemitism, which rightly identifies anti-Zionism as a form of antisemitism, but is being portrayed by conference organizers as “a tool of and a shield for repressive state power.”
20 notes · View notes
16woodsequ · 5 months
Text
I have a writing question for any Jewish followers who feel comfortable answering.
In my fic, Steve is a dog and Bucky has rescued him. Bucky is Jewish and is celebrating Hanukkah. I know Hanukkah candles are supposed to burn all the way down without being blown out.
But I was thinking one of the nights Bucky would go to his parents to celebrate Hanukkah with his family, so I was wondering how this would work.
The menorah is supposed to be lit at sundown, and Bucky wouldn't want to leave lit candles alone with his dog, just in case, so what should he do?
Would he not light his candles the night he goes to his parents? Would he bring his menorah to the party and light them there?
I'm curious what you would do in this situation.
19 notes · View notes
Text
ive absolutely learnt a lot about zionism from consistently researching it more these past few years. i learn new things all the time and my knowledge of the subject is forever improving. however, the more i learn, the more aware i am of how much shit i dont know. at this point in my study of zionism im slowly moving from "vague things i dont understand" to "very specific questions i dont have any answer to". tbh it's so much fun finally having a decent enough grasp on zionism that im able to ask specific questions that can guide my studies. will i actually be able to answer these questions? i have absolutely no idea! ill absolutely try my best though and ill probably come up with a bajillion more questions in the process
8 notes · View notes
Text
Please Jewish side of Tumblr I know this is a broad question but as an outsider I don't want to misinterpret something in my research and draw it incorrectly. When is it applicable to wear a kippah for men and would one wear it while barbecuing and what age do boys start wearing one? Yes I could ask friends this, but I don't want to be annoying. Thank you so much ❤️
28 notes · View notes
stardust-sunset · 1 year
Text
genuine question
does kyle eat kosher? because i know he said his mom packs him kosher lunches and stuff but he was also shown to eat ham and supposedly bacon pancakes from denny’s, so i’m kinda lost, can someone please help
9 notes · View notes
echidnana · 2 years
Text
doing an art history group presentation over last supper by da vinci and uh. some people have interesting perspectives
3 notes · View notes
clamorybus · 11 months
Text
its not fun to talk about, and i feel like such a dick talking about them like this, but it's fucking sickening how easily swayed my parents are
#again they say that i'm a black-and-white thinker but they are so much worse with it than they are#i'm just firm in my beliefs#like my dad was straight up like 'the jewish people have been through a lot and a lot of them are doctors#therefore israel is in the right here' like im not exaggerating that was his view on it#without any deeper thought or reading between the lines on it#my mom was more receptive to my concerns#but she basically let me dictate her opinion on the whole thing because 'you know what you're talking about'#and im genuinely glad she trusts me and values my opinions#but mom. you're fifty years old PLEASE have opinions on things that aren't your daughter's or the news'#i know they don't do the deep political readings that i do; im unemployed and they both work really physically demanding jobs#so of course they don't. its just they don't seem to think very deeply about things and they aren't very curious#to research more about what they're hearing#like a quick glance at the wikipedia page for the history of israel or palestine should be enough fuel to question#the narratives the we're being told#like 'hey europe has a history of ethnic cleansing their colonies maybe that's what THIS european colony is doing'#but whenever the news covers a story about a person being killed by a cop they jump right to 'well yeah lol that's what they get'#even before they hear the full context of the murder. hell the fact that's their first instinct#when hearing about a murder is fucking disgusting. and racist. and terrifying#i love them they are good parents but god damn do i hate them as people. it feels like they have no moral backbone of their own#like p much all i have to do to convince my dad israel is in the wrong is show him#the photos of the irish-palestinian solidarity murals and his pride will tell him to Listen to Our Ancestors#which includes irish people we've never met who're his own age apparently#ofc i don't expect them to be Morally Pure tm or whatever a lot of stuff has to be unlearned but jesus christ TRY. PLEASE#mickey.txt
1 note · View note
redditantisemitism · 9 months
Text
Tumblr media
Love when the antisemites tag their own antisemitism. Let’s break it down.
1. “Jews getting expelled over and over again” is a common antisemitic talking point. On its own it isn’t antisemitic to acknowledge-it’s a historical fact- but as we will soon see, in this context it very much is a sign of antisemitism.
2. The use of the word “you” in “you were expelled” indicates this user is not Jewish.
3.”is it kosher to take any accountability for that” (crippling economies through usury)- here op illustrates that they believe the classic antisemitism that Jews willfully destroy economies through financial manipulation. In actuality, Jews were forced into economic work due to antisemitism, and then were used as scapegoats for economic failure.
4. Note the use of the word “kosher”. When used in this context it’s clearly derisive and meant to be ironic. I’m sure op thinks they’re very witty.
5. “They hate us for no reason”. Victim blaming. Bigotry is never the fault of the victim, and demanding that Jews take “accountability” for the antisemitism we face is yet again an antisemitic talking point. The historical and modern reasons for antisemitism are well documented, especially this specific flavor.
6. This last paragraph is more of the same, this time directly to Jews. “Have you ever thought about what you did to deserve the hate?” Is this paragraph summed up. “There must be some logical reason”-there is. Basic research makes this apparent. However instead op accuses Jews of complacency, subtly implying that it’s intentional, that we want to simply be viewed as victims.
7. Finally, note the tags. Jumblr, Israel tags even though this has nothing to do with Israel, the phrase “am yisrael chai”. Op knows what they’re doing and intentionally wants Jews to see their bigotry, under the thin plausible deniability of “I was just asking a question!” I do not think we should give them that benefit of the doubt. This is blatant antisemitism.
2K notes · View notes
Thinking about how Rick Riordan included a thoroughly researched, nuanced, complicated and likeable Muslim main character in the Magnus Chase series who explained how she squared her Islamic faith with the Norse gods, celebrated the holidays, and observed the traditions... and a throwaway Jewish character in the Trials of Apollo who LITERALLY LIVES IN THE CONTINUATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE and never even comments on that or explains how she feels about that. Lavinia literally serves in the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, which saw action in the First Jewish-Roman War. But no, all we get is her commenting that her rabbi was weirded out by her bringing a girl to her Bat Mitzvah. Plus her wearing a Magen David. That's literally it.
The difference between the effort put into two fairly substantial characters in the Riordanverse is frustrating to no end. It's one of my many problems with the Trials of Apollo series. No discussions of the halachic implications of the Greco-Roman gods existing? How about the fact that she's not matrilineal—did she convert? Is she Reform? Does she feel imposter syndrome? Does she feel that Camp Jupiter is different from the old Roman Empire and its antisemitism? Is she religious or observant? Who knows! The equivalent questions are all answered in Samirah's case, but not Lavinia's.
Are Jews destined to only ever see representation as martyrs in Holocaust fiction or secular Jews who offhandedly mention an ostentatious Bar Mitzvah and Hanukkah?
1K notes · View notes
chanaleah · 26 days
Note
Hello, I'd like to ask a question in good faith about israel/Oct 7
I have seen many Jewish folk and israelis say that Oct 7 was the largest Massacre since the holocaust but from my understanding a significantly larger number of Jewish folk were killed and disappeared during the dirty war in Argentina in the 70s and 80s so I was just wondering I guess about why the dirty war doesn't seem as important as Oct 7 or why barely anyone talks about the dirty war because both events are horrific but I only ever see Oct 7 discussed when it comes to more modern Jewish oppression and history
this is a really interesting question, but I'd actually never heard of the dirty war in Argentina up until this point, so I don't I have the knowledge to answer you.
After some quick reading it seems it might be due to the fact that the dirty war seems to have occured over a long span of time, while October 7th was just one day, but that's just my conclusion after some very surface level research.
I'll tag some people who might be able to answer this better than I can.
@historicity-was-already-taken @homochadensistm @native-n-jewish-thoughts @aqlstar @gay-jewish-bucky @newnitz @spale-vosver @magnetothemagnificent
534 notes · View notes
makingqueerhistory · 2 months
Note
I have a somewhat odd question. In June, I was part of creating an online Pride Shabbat for queer Jews unable or unwilling to go to Pride in their home area due to the rise in antisemitism, and as part of it, I wrote a memorial/Kaddish meditation about queer people across time and space. It’s fair to say I couldn’t have done it without MQH, which featured heavily in my research of historical queer figures.
I want to share the piece on Tumblr because I think some folks with progressive synagogues might like it, or may simply find it personally meaningful. Here comes the question: in any other time, I’d find it absolutely abhorrent to share it without crediting you for the time, love, effort, and care you’ve put into MQH that made my job so much simpler. But times being what they are, I don’t feel it’s right to do so indiscriminately, because I’m all too aware you may face splash damage for being associated with a filthy Bad Jew who doesn’t disavow all of Judaism etc. etc.
As a result, I feel obligated to ask if you’d prefer I omit your name from the post, especially since you’re trying to make MQH financially solvent. Please let me know, so I can decide how to structure my post.
Okay this is a complicated question. I will admit I was initially quite confused by the second paragraph of this, until I checked your blog. I realized quickly that you are refering to the fact that you're a Zionist.
I feel like I have been very public about the fact that I oppose Zionism, but in case I haven't been obvious enough, I want to say it clearly:
I learned about anti-Zionism and the movement to free Palestine from almost exclusively Jewish voices. People who have been referred to as "self-hating" when I post about them. They are voices I didn't seek out for their opinions on Palestine, but who shared their opinions with a level of love and passion that I admire deeply. They have gifted me with time and education, and they are the only reason I believe what I do today. Without these Jewish voices, I do believe I could have lost myself in the deliberate obfuscation that happens around this issue.
All of this being said, yes, please do share that I was able to help share queer stories that informed what you have created. But know, that everything I have made comes from a deep love and passion for justice that includes the Palestinian people.
987 notes · View notes
starscreeam · 1 year
Text
hello. jew here
dont write jewish characters if u know next to nothing about us or our culture/religion pls. if u want to write a jewish character (or any character outside the scope of your personal knowledge, honestly), you MUST take the time to read about us and our beliefs, customs, etc. im not saying u have to be an expert on the torah or the tanakh or the talmud, but u need to do at least the bare minimum. and google isnt always reliable, if u have questions u should carefully analyze which websites u use. or have a jew beta your fic/writing!
im just tired of seeing “this character is jewish :) u can tell because they celebrate hanukkah” and that is it for the jewish characterization. like i get that u ppl know nothing abt judaism except for hanukkah but u HAVE to do better than that. because ur essentially tokenizing the character as ur Jewish Representation and it shows.
again, im not saying ‘dont write that hanukkah scene’, or ‘dont try writing jews at all’.
what i AM saying is that u need to actually do ur part in understanding judaism a little bit more before u decide to write a jewish character. if ur not willing to do the research or ask the questions, dont bother writing us into ur stories.
3K notes · View notes
copperbadge · 4 months
Note
Re: the prices (14 & 88) just fyi, Asians might use 88 in prices because (in Cantonese at least) it’s a pun on ‘prosperity and fortune.’ Never 14, though, that’s a pun for ‘will die.’
Oh yes! I used to do a lot of research on wealth in China (we had a lot of Chinese donors at my last employer) and when I first started doing it I had to have a Chinese colleague explain the numerology to me. I always spot-check for whether the person is in Asia or has a visibly Asian name. (Same as how if someone donates 18 or a multiple of it, I always check for giving to Jewish institutions.)
It's one of those things where you can't automatically assume from an 88 (or a 14, for that matter) that the person in question is a dickhead. Sometimes people are born in 1988 or the number 14 has significance for them, and as someone else pointed out "88" is also the number of keys on a piano, making it meaningful to pianists. But generally speaking if you see that kind of thing and investigate you'll either find something reassuring ("Pianist" in bio) or something more overt ("For the volkische!") pretty quickly.
I mean, you know, some people are closet dickheads, it's not like you can live a life free of doing business with bigots, it's just if it pings the radar as weird, it's good to listen.
608 notes · View notes
pargolettasworld · 2 months
Text
So, because I am incurably, morbidly curious, I watched Jessie Gender's four-hour-and-seventeen-minute-long video on . . . well, the title suggests "Zionism, Antisemitism, and the Left." To her credit, Gender does touch on all three of these topics, though not with the same degree of skill, graciousness, or understanding of the topics at hand. I've just had a very nice dinner, and I'm feeling generous, so let's see how this video stacks up. Strap in. This is going to get long.
I should admit right off the bat that I'm only a casual, occasional watcher of Jessie Gender. I'm not a deep fan, and I'm sure there is Jessie Gender Lore™ out there that I'm not aware of, but I think I've seen enough of her videos to get a general sense of her house style. This video hits a lot of the hallmarks of her style. She speaks very fast and very passionately, occasionally trips over her own words (something that I've done many a time, so I really do feel that), and is inordinately fond of nominalizations. She's especially fond of the word "ostracization," for some reason, which drives me nuts because "ostracism" is right there. So, in style, it appears to hew to the Jessie Gender House Style pretty well.
On to the video itself. The first thing I will observe about it is that it is in every possible way a meeting that could have been an email. There was no need for this to be the same length as the Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). There's a lot of padding, significant digressions, and a certain degree of repetition. It's easy to forget the beginning of the video by the time you're an hour into the thing.
The major question that hangs over this opus is: Why, and for whom, was it made? I'm honestly not sure who the intended audience for this thing is, nor why Gender felt that she had to make it. She alludes in the first half hour to feeling like she's lost the trust and support of some of her Jewish fans/friends/acquaintances/Patreon patrons, and she chalks it up to a previous video that she made (which I have not seen, and which I am not inclined to seek out). But neither the structure nor the thesis nor the conclusion of the video seem like they would win back any of these folks.
I don't think that Jewish viewers are her intended audience -- certainly not with the way she talks about Jews throughout the video. I'm also having a hard time believing that really committed leftists are her audience, either, since I don't think she's really saying much that leftists haven't already heard, or offering new perspectives on her topic(s). And anyone who has made it this far into the year of 5784 and is still undecided about the contemporary iteration of The Jewish Question is probably not going to be interested in sitting through nearly four and a half hours of relentless lecture. So I'm still left wondering why, and for whom, did Jessie Gender make this video?
Gender assures us, her viewers, of several things that are meant to be reassuring. She's done lots and lots of research, for one thing. And she's asked some-of-her-best-friends-who-are-Jewish to be sensitivity readers. We're given to understand that we are hearing the nitpicked, edited, and polished version of the script. I'd hate to see what the first draft looked like . . .
She also tells us that there are going to be lots of Foreign Words And Names, and that she and her mouth-hole have A Hard Time pronouncing Foreign Words And Names. Her loyal staff have made her a pronunciation guide -- which appears to have been used perhaps as a drinks coaster, since there are some howlers here. The Jews originating from the MENA regions are the "Misrai" (Mizrahi) Jews, the first Prime Minister of Israel was "David Ben-Gron" (David Ben-Gurion), the Revisionist Zionist leader was "Zeeeeeeeeev Zarbinsky" (Ze'ev Jabotinsky), and the Palestinian uprisings of 1987 - 1993 and 2000 - 2005 go by the name "Infitada" (Intifada).
You know that phrase "If white people can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Schwarzenegger, they can learn to say [your name from an African or Asian language]?" I agree completely with the conclusion, but I question the premise. Jessie Gender makes me question the premise harder. If she had any real interest in the topic, she would have practiced those names, but I don't think she does, so she didn't.
Moving on to the actual content of the video. It's . . . weird. Jessie Gender begins the video believing that Zionism is an evil force for colonialism, White supremacy, oppression, and genocide. She ends the video believing that Zionism is an evil force for colonialism, White supremacy, oppression, and genocide. But along the way, she's confronted with quite a lot of inconvenient facts that threaten to complicate this perspective.
Gender devotes roughly two hours and fifteen minutes of her video, a smidge over half of the runtime, on three segments that offer a history of Zionism, the iterations of Zionism as a political ideology, and what she calls "Zionism as emotion," which is a condescending way to refer to the importance of Zionism to Jews. I'd guess that her research for these segments might have surprised her. It turns out, per Jessie Gender, that there is both a reason behind and a context for nineteenth-century Zionism, quite a lot of logic behind why the Jews wanted to go to Israel, and ample evidence that a majority of Jews have some kind of stake in both Israel and some variation of Zionism.
The reason I think that this research might have surprised her is that she ends each of these segments with a small diatribe about the evil colonialist, capitalist, oppressive, genocidal force that is Zionism, even as the segments suggest nuance, logic, and reason behind the philosophy. We can't have that on a good lefty video, though, can we? The more Gender confronts evidence that there is more to Zionism than meets her eyes, the more she doubles down, digs in her heels, and refuses to accept even the barest shreds of non-negativity about Zionism. Every now and then, she comes up with a lovely sentence or two that shows some understanding of a Jewish perspective on the world, but then furiously backpedals -- we mustn't forget that this Jewish perspective of oppression, mass murder, and international blame has only led to the Evil Of Zionism, after all.
What's really fascinating is how hard she works to avoid blaming actual Jews for all of this evil. I think she's doing this with the best of intentions. A for effort. C for effect. She wants to make a distinction between "Zionism" and "Judaism," in the sense of "Zionism does not equate to Judaism, so being antisemitic to Judaism because you hate Zionism is bad." She tries so hard that she loses sight of the actual people involved. There are a lot of places where she talks about "Judaism" where what she actually means is "the Jews." Or, as she calls us, "Jewish people." Which isn't bad, and it isn't really wrong, but it doesn't quite communicate the sense of Am Yisrael that is at the heart of Zionism.
In fact, she's so desperate to separate Zionism from Jewish people that she starts to talk about it almost as an individual character in the story, with agency, desires, wishes, and goals of its own, totally disconnected from the people who created it. Zionism demands the genocide of Palestinians, Zionism needs colonialism, Zionism has a nice lunch date with neoliberalism and spends the afternoon browsing department stores with capitalism. In effect, Zionism becomes the dragon, and Gender really wishes that the passive, easily-led Jewish people would unite behind some White Knight and slay the dragon so everyone could be happy and free and leftist. Despite the two hours she spent on her deep dive into the history and meaning of Zionism, she cannot fathom why the Jewish people don't just do this.
I said earlier that quite a lot of this video consists of padding. Gender identifies herself as a lefty anarchist, opposed to nation-states, capitalism, neoliberalism, the United States, the British Empire, Israel, Joe Biden, "Ka-MAH-la" Harris, transphobia in Western societies . . . the usual suspects. Frequently, especially in the back half of the video, she'll wander off into long fantasias about the crimes against liberty perpetrated by the West at large, as well as their character Capitalism, and then remember that this is supposed to be a video about Zionism, and then finish with the equivalent of "Peter Rabbit did sort of that kind of thing, too."
One of the alleged purposes of this video is to discuss Antisemitism On The Left, but Gender . . . pretty much elides doing that. She gets close a couple of times, and she does grudgingly admit that some leftists coming from some branches of leftism might sometimes say things that might be antisemitic, and that's Bad, and it makes Jewish people feel Unsafe and Not Inclined To Agree With Leftists that The Dragon Known As Zionism Must Be Slain Heroically. But don't stress about it. The important thing is that Israel Must Stop Its Genocide and Palestinians Should Have Self-Determination (which is only withheld from them by Israel -- excuse me, by Zionism -- and certainly not by those eminently-justified-if-a-little-uncouth plucky fighters, Hamas.
There are quite a lot of lengthy quotes from Sources, read by guest stars, which is a nice touch to break up the video. The vast majority of these Sources -- especially the ones in the "history of Zionism" segment -- are not actually written by Zionists. You get a lot of academic pontificating about the failures, shortcomings, and nefarious activities of Zionism, but you hear almost nothing from actual Zionists, especially contemporary Zionists. This does not look nearly as good or as well-researched as it's meant to look.
So what do we get in the end, after four hours and seventeen minutes of watching this? Honestly . . . not much. Gender gives enough background on the history of Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish attitudes toward Israel that hardcore leftists watching will be more annoyed than convinced. She condescends to both Jews and Arabs, mentioning repeatedly that she, as a White Gentile, really doesn't have any business butting in on these complex questions -- but that's not going to stop her from butting in like the lefty shiksa she is! She's too mealy-mouthed to come right out and say anything blatantly antisemitic, but disdain for Jewish concepts of homeland, belonging, origin, and self-determination pervade the whole thing.
I don't think that Jessie Gender is an idiot -- she seems to be pretty smart, and has both a firm sense of her own political philosophy and the stick-to-it-ive-ness to do far more research into things like the development of Zionism and the history of antisemitism than one might expect. But the video really is, to bring up a playwright from the hated West, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
447 notes · View notes
infiniteglitterfall · 2 months
Text
I do realize this is a real niche post but I cannot tell you how many damn times over the past 10 months I've seen gentiles tell Jews some version of, "Your own holy book SAYS God doesn't want you to have a country yet!"
Tumblr media
And it's such an incredibly blatant and weirdly specific tell that they're not part of something that grew from progressive grassroots, but something based on right-wing astroturfing.
1. Staying in your own lane is a pretty huge progressive principle.
Telling people in another group that their deity said they couldn't do X is, I think, as far as you can get from your own lane.
2. It's also very clearly Not In Your Own Lane because I've never seen anyone actually be able to EITHER quote the passage they're thinking of, OR cite where it is.
It's purely, "I saw somebody else say this, and it seemed like it would make me win the debate I wasn't invited to."
3. It betrays a complete ignorance of Jewish culture and history.
Seriously? You don't know what you're referencing, its context, or even what it specifically says, but you're... coming to a community that reads and often discusses the entire Torah together each year, at weekly services... who have massive books holding generations of debate about it that it takes 7 years to read, at one page per day....
And saying, "YOUR book told you not to!"
I've been to services where we discussed just one word from the reading the whole time. The etymology. The connotations. The use of it in this passage versus in other passages.
And then there is the famous saying, "Ask two Jews, get three opinions." There is a culture of questioning and discussion and debate throughout Judaism.
You think maybe, in the decades and decades of public discussion about whether to buy land in Eretz Yisrael and move back there; whether it should keep being an individual thing, or keep shifting to intentional community projects; what the risks were; whether it should really be in Argentina or Canada or someplace instead; how this would be received by the Jews and gentiles already there, how to respect their boundaries, how to work with them before and during; and whether ending up with a fuckton of Jews in one place might not be exactly as dangerous for them as it had always been everywhere else....
You think NOBODY brought up anything scriptural? Nobody looked through the Torah, the Nevi'im, the Ketuvim, or the Talmud for any thoughts about any of this?? It took 200 years and some rando in the comments to blow everyone's minds???
4. It relies on an unspoken assumption that people can and should take very literal readings of religious texts and use them to control others.
And a sense of ownership and power over those texts, even without any accompanying knowledge about what they say.
It's kind of a supercessionist know-it-all vibe. It reads like, "I know what you should be doing. Because even if I'm not personally part of a fundamentalist branch of a related religion, the culture I'm rooted in is."
Bonus version I found when I was looking for an example. NOBODY should do this:
Tumblr media
There are a lot of people who pull weird historical claims like "It SAYS Abraham came from Chaldea! That's Iraq!"
Like, first of all, a group is indigenous to a land if it arose as a people and culture there, before (not because of) colonization.
People aren't spontaneously spawning in groups, like "Boom! A new indigenous people just spawned!!"
People come from places. They go places. Sometimes, they gel as a new community and culture. Sometimes, they bop around for a while and eventually assimilate into another group.
Second: THE TORAH IS NOT A HISTORY TEXTBOOK OMFG.
It's an oral history, largely written centuries after the fact.
There is a TON of historical and archaeological research on when and where the Jewish culture originated, how it developed over time, etc. It's extremely well-established.
Nobody has to try to pull what they remember from Sunday school for this argument.
558 notes · View notes
matan4il · 5 months
Text
I think one of the worst things I've heard from the head of Yad Vashem's International Education Department (YV is the Holocaust research and education center dedicated to the Jewish POV during that time, the IED is in charge of seminars for teachers and educators on the subject of the Holocaust from all over the world), is that some teachers and educators are no longer teaching the Holocaust since Oct 7. A part of them decided on this of their own accord, others because they say the students / principals at their schools refuse to have it taught.
It reminded me of that time when in YV's IED survey of UK teachers and educators, many chose to answer the question, "Who was Anne Frank?" with "A girl hiding for her life from the Nazis." When asked about the omission of the specific reason why Anne had to hide (meaning, why did they leave out that she was a Jew and was in danger because of it), their replies indicated that if students hear that Anne Frank was Jewish, then they're no longer interested in learning about her. I'll admit, I was shocked by this. If you leave out that Anne was a victim of specifically antisemitism, because of the students' antisemitism, what are you even teaching them anyway?
Similarly, in YV's IED international surveys of teachers and educators, when asked to choose a definition for what the Holocaust was, the most popular answer is the one that doesn't mention Jews.
Basically, the anti-Israel crowd isn't the start of the All Lives Matter'ing of the Holocaust, erasing Jews out of the story of our own persecution and genocide (which you can see even in the fact that too many don't realize 'The Holocaust' is a term coined to specifically talk about the Nazis' crimes against the Jews, and that there are other terms for the Nazis' crimes against other populations). But the anti-Israel crowd isn't just hijacking the Holocaust, it's also actively weaponizing it to be used against Jews, and it is even actively preventing Holocaust education altogether.
This should infuriate everyone.
(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)
521 notes · View notes