#synagouges

[girlactionfigure]

[doyouknowthisjewishcharacter]

Do you know this Jewish character?

[eretzyisrael]

[religiousqueer-culture-is]

Religous queer culture is meeting a 52 year old trans guy at synagouge and having to hug him because it reminds you that despite everything and everyone you can and will be happy

that’s awesome!!

and hell yeah. No matter what, we persevere like we always have as queer people and as Jewish people

Anyways, queer Jewish culture is…

[infiniteglitterfall]

the worst part about the i/p discourse

it's NOT the posters of Nazis with the swastikas on their flags replaced by stars of david. or the pages and pages of blood libel conspiracy theories in instagram posts about why local pride organizers are such big meanies. or the newfound insistence that jews just exaggerate and make up antisemitic incidents to smear the pro-palestine movement....

it's the fact that every. single. time. i try to post anything about any of these things, i end up in a rabbit hole SO DEEP IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET TO THE BOTTOM.

Yesterday, I saw a --

YOU SEE? I went to Reddit for a second to find the link to the post about the Melbourne protest this week that had people carrying the Nazi-star-of-David posters. But first, I saw a post that began, "All I see on social media and the news is more and more attacks. Who beat up a Jewish family here, who stabbed a 1 year old in front of a synagouge. Those are two examples, I've lost track of all of the other ones."

and I was like, SOMEONE STABBED A ONE YEAR OLD IN FRONT OF A SYNAGOGUE?!?!

And I started to look that up. AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Two days ago, I saw an article about Cincinnati Socialists setting up a table at North Kentucky Pride without asking, it sounds like, to hand out flyers saying the war in Gaza was Netanyahu's "Final Solution" for Palestinians. Cincinnati Pride organizers alerted the NKY Pride organizers, who kicked them out.

I was like, "okay, well, let's see what Cincinnati Socialists say about it." Then I discovered that their instagram not only "names and shames" the two Cincy Pride organizers and one NKY organizer. Which led to the Cincy ones getting so much harassment and violent threats that they resigned....

But also has a related post that goes on for pages and pages of pure blood libel.

So then I sat there fact-checking all their blood libel and finding out that not only was it untrue and impossible, but half the stuff they referenced didn't even exist.

Then I ended up fact-checking things in the "article" that they'd clearly used as their source. Fact-checking things I found while fact-checking those.

Trying to write a Facebook post about how fucked up it all was. Giving up on the Facebook post after several hours because it made more sense to write it on Tumblr, or at least to write it on Tumblr FIRST.

Then I'm also looking at the post they made "naming and shaming" the organizers, which is like... "the Cincy ones are partners! two days after Hamas's incredibly violent and brutal massacre, one of them changed his profile picture to a photo of them honeymooning IN ISRAEL two years ago! they did it through some group that COVERS A LOT OF THE COSTS FOR HONEYMOONS IN ISRAEL!!!!" and "the other one went to a protest of Hamas's massacre!!! with a sign saying to free the hostages!!!"

oh no. the fucking horror. truly how did these genocidal monsters even end up on the pride organizing committee. this is a shanda scandal.

then I'm responding to people's comments, trying to talk them down from horrible positions. telling people things like, "I know it's asking a LOT, but if people could grasp the idea that "going to Israel for your honeymoon" ISN'T "committing genocide," it would be really great. Or that wanting the hostages freed is actually something that both Israeli AND GAZAN protests have called for, and it's only Westerners who are opposed to it. Or that in fact, saying you "Stand with Israel," a few days after an incredibly brutal attack that burned multiple towns to the ground in one day, killed entire families and their pets, an attack which Hamas has promised to repeat "again and again and again" till Israel is violently destroyed... is opposing that attack, NOT calling for genocide."

then i'm like, "oh, i should edit these images to show the correct info, and i can explain that I drew arrows and added the correct info!" so then i'm doing that and working on writing alt text, and holy shit??? how many fucking hours??? did i spend on this?????? just because i read a frigging reddit post that linked to an article about it?????????

and like. i can go through and debunk all that shit in the comments. (and did. i responded to every single comment that believed this shit.) but ultimately, everyone who pulls this shit has way more reach than I do.

just. like. THAT'S ONE ORG IN ONE PLACE. And it was bad enough that I persevered and finished debunking it and commenting on it today and started telling people about it. Do you even know how many more of those I've seen?! How many I would see if I looked for them on purpose?!

The tsunami of deliberate disinformation is SO FUCKING BAD. All of it is SO FUCKING LAYERED. In any single bullshit post, there are SO MANY horrifically bad and wrong assumptions. So many of them are DESIGNED, BY HAMAS, to lead people down the path to "All Zionists should die! Israel should be violently destroyed!"

There were so many comments on a "Free Palestine Melbourne" group's instagram post (Sydney? Could've been Sydney) asking, pointedly, how many Jews are Zionists. What percentage of Jews are Zionists, again?

One (1) had a response telling them it doesn't matter what the percentage is, no percentage would justify collective punishment of Jews.

The rest all said things like, "Too many."

It feels like constantly being lied to. Just constantly being lied to about things I have looked up and verified myself from solid sources, now and in the past, by people I counted as my community.

Then just now I opened Instagram because I hadn't taken screenshots of a couple of the pics I wanted to add. And I'm hit with these:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by jewsinschool (@jewsinschool)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish on Campus (@jewishoncampus)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jewish and Proud (@jewishpridealways)

Then some brighter posts (including one of a baby bat!!) and then a post which sums up a lot of what I'm feeling right now.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jess Cook (@jessicagcoook)

It's like, yes, that, plus the uncomfortable sense that some people are getting thisclose to going, "Most Jews are Zionists anyway, so YEAH, I DO think most Jews deserve to die."

[skopostheorie]

Been thinking abt ur headcanons so much anyway. Peasley takes Mario and Luigi to the mosque to pray when theyre visiting the Beanbean kingdom. And they take him to their synagouge to pray when he's in the Mushroom kingdom.

LITERALLY !!!!!!!! AUUUGHHH!!!!!😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[xclowniex]

About your last post,

I agree with you the hypocrisy in left spaces is so disgusting.

While the far right is disgustingly bad at least they honest about their hateful ways so I can stay away and not interact and block.

The far left will try to gaslight you into thinking that they don’t hate you but than spew and do the most antisemitic things and when you bring it up to them they try to band backwards to justify what they did and gaslight you again.

It’s the hypocrisy

The same thing with Taylor swift concert, the same people that cheered on the 2 music festivals massacres on Oct 7

(yes, we need to remember that while small there was another music festival the same time as The Nova and they were close to each other)

are now outraged about the fact that a terror organization tried to target them.

(Which I’m glad it didn’t, I’m glad it didn’t happened and the police captured them before their plan was set in motion. I’m not here to celebrate deaths I’m sick of violence)

I can’t stand the hypocrisy of it I’m so sick of it.

this is what Israelis and Jews means when they say that trying to globalize the intifada is a bad thing; that encouraging such violence acts is not good.

I’m sorry this is so messy I can’t seems to put my thoughts into words and it’s all came into jumbled mess.

nah its not messy ur alg.

yessss 100%. Its crazy how people are thinking that violence is the answer. I feel like a lot of people wanting to "globalize the intifada" just don't understand A) how killing people is bad full stop and B) it will harm a lot more people than they want.

Like what do these people think will happen? Are they only going to globalize the intifada against "zionist" institutions? Because if so I gurantee you and veeryone that synagouges will be targeted. If it's a general anti western civilisation thing, cool a lot of people are going to be royaly screwed over. Imagine all the people whose work will be disrupted, which means they might not be able to make rent, pay bill. buy food, buy medication that they need. How the wreckage will make shit inaccessable to disabled folk. How it is going to affect hospitals with a huge surge of patients.

And like, it could very well happen. You have a group of people calling themselves the Hinds Hall militants. Which is also weird because I thought these people were anti military and then are now trying to create their own military, which is again, leftist hypocracy.

[thestrangerinyourmidst]

One thing that struck me at my intro to judaism course today as we were learning about zionism was that my shul's cantor made it clear to us that we are not required to be zionists to become Jewish.

One accusation I've had thrown at my rabbi and my congregation by multiple people is that they are just telling us (conversion students) Israeli propaganda. Which in itself is problematic because it feeds the antisemetic "Jews are liars and manipulators and can't be trusted" trope, but it also shows a fundamental lack of understanding in the way a synagouge functions. There is no preacher who tells you "this is what we believe" the Rabbi or another member of the congregation may present to the congregation something that they personally got out of the text, but won't force you to believe that. Similarly, members of the congregation are likely to want you to join in on discussions and debates about any number of topics but won't force you to believe what they believe. The ability to learn, understand, and make an informed decision is highly valued, especially in the reform/progressive movements.

I used to be a bit of a hamasnik (thankfully a nonconfrontational and nonviolent one) and it was a combination of learning Jewish history, talking to people who have lived in Israel or have family in Israel, and hearing live updates about the hostages, combined with a non-threatening and non-confrontational environment where I was never forced to submit to frivolous morality tests or risk being shunned from my community that made me realise I can actually think for myself.

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

Breaking down the Comics: Writing a legend, building a history.

Today we aren't reviewing an issue of Moon Knight. Today we are going to talk about something important.

So who wrote Moon Knight?

"Easy!", you might say. "Doug Moench!"

Sure. But you'd be surprised to find that it's not as much as you'd think.

Doug Moench wrote issues 1-15, 17-26, 28-33.

He returns in 1998 for a 4 issue mini seires Vol 3 "Resurrection Wars" which revives Marc Spector, who had been killed off in the previous volume.

He continues in 1999 with Vol 4, another 4 issue mini series "High Strangers/Strangeness" which won an award for favorite limited series.

He also wrote werewolf by Night, which gave us the first iteration of Moon Knight. An instantly popular character that made appearances in other comics like "The Hulk" before he was given his own comic.

He had time to work on the designs with Bill Sienkiewicz. They built up the weapons, the costume, the cab, and the copter.

He also built up the side characters of Gena, Gena's two boys, Crawley, Frenchie, Detective Flint, and Marlene.

He set the ground rules:

Moon Knight system is Jewish.

Marc, Jake, and Steven are a part of a system and are not one man pretending to be someone else

Jake is the one that is friendly and loves being with the people.

Steven is posh, collected, and takes care of things.

Marc is the one with experience, has the skills needed to get things done, and holds all the pain.

They are former Mercenaries who did terrible things and have deep guilt.

Khonshu resurrected them to act as Moon Knight

They strive to protect any who would come to them for help that perhaps might not get it elsewhere

I would even argue that he was building up to the fact that Moon Knight himself was his own form of alter but it has since been glossed over and replaced with the idea that Marc is most often the one under the mask.

Pretty simple rules to follow to make it a Moon Knight comics, but you'd be surprised what some writers have done with it.

These comics were written long before DID was acknowledged and the different forms of PTSD and Dissociation were defined.

And yet, here we stand with a traumazied man from Chicago slowly working through a freshly cognizant system and trying to figure out how three (four) people can work together towards not just a life, but life as a superhero who wants to help people.

Further more, an odd thing happened in this.

We had a comic that often focused more on mental health than on super powers, heroics, or villains.

More often than not, we watched Marc, Jake, and Steven struggle with themselves and one another. We watched stories unfold from the villain's point of view, often just being ordinary people pushed too far by a system that failed them.

More so, we watched Moon Knight sympathise with these villains.

How often he let them walk away or he let them kill their abusers, wondering if he was doing wrong himself.

How can he help when sometimes the help he offers is not what is needed?

We even watched him fail. We saw him lose his temper and cause damage. We saw him curl into a ball and break. We saw him get lost in his own nightmares and dissociative fuges.

Moench stepped forward and often handled current events with raw emotion. We saw his characters cry over the loss of public iconic figures. We watched people struggling as they returned from war. We saw child abuse and poverty. We watched economic struggles with classism and we watched people struggle to deal with grief.

We even watched them deal with antisemitism over and over again. How many times were the victims of his stories Jewish and trying to survive in America? What about the story that took place with the mass shooting in the Synagoug? We heard stories of Generational trauma as elders struggled with survival after the Holocaust.

Moon Knight was a unique comic unlike any other I've ever come across. For it's time and for it's topics at the time. What's more, this comic continued.

It was no 'special of the week' comic and spanned multiple years as they grew.

What do we know about Moench? Who did he write this comic for?

The Moon Knight in the Were Wolf by Night certainly didn't have all this depth. He was just a man dressed in silver, fighting a monster and ultimately choosing the side of the monster.

Moench himself was from Chicago. He knew what it was like to live in the city and see the fall of factories and hard times on the streets. We know he witnessed the times of Vietnam veterans being forgotten and abused. He witnessed a lot of changes happening in the world and the places he was writing about.

He wrote about what spoke to him and what he saw around him.

And in his stories, there often were no clear heroes, winners, or villains.

But there was one issue that he chose to add into this comic that was already filled with so many things that other comics avoided.

Moon Knight wasn't written as Jewish in that one shot cameo. He wasn't written with DID either, but I'll get to that.

There are interviews of Doug admitting that "I didn't say, 'I'm going to sit down and create a Jewish character.'"

In fact, he picked a name and later found out it was a Jewish name. This made him do research. Not just into Judaism, but into the areas that Marc Spector fought in and where his family came from.

Do you have any idea how many writers of that time and our current time simply slap the label of "Jewish" on a character and refuse to actually look into what makes them Jewish?

I can't say how much he researched and how much he got wrong or right, but I do know that when he did choose to dive into topics that touched on certain issues, he handled them with a grace that is often overlooked.

The writer that came after Moench? Alan Zelenetz, a former Jewish day school principal from Brooklyn.

Zelenetz had been acting as an editor for a bit before he took a look at Moench's early start.

And it was in Issue 37 and 38 where we get the real backstory of Marc Spector. A man running from his Rabbi father.

Marc now became the son of an Orthodox Rabbi who had been forced to flee Czechoslovakia after the Nazi invasion.

Here, we get the story of Marc running to the Marines. Running to the mercenaries, and running from home. Perhaps even, running from G-d.

Zelenetz wanted to lean into the Jewish past and Jewish story. He explored themes of using a holy book to create a villain while playing with Jewish myths. He also explored Antisemitism without toning it down or hiding it under comic bookish villainy. He portrayed Moon Knight facing white supremacist vandalizing a Jewish Cemetery. He showed Moon Knight saving the Torah from a Synagogue fire. He also showed a strained relationship and the question of Moon Knight finding his own relationship in what he does with his father's views.

Alan Zelenetz edited/wrote shorts for issues 18, 21–22, 27, 32, Then wrote the whole story for issues 36–38.

Zelenetz voiced that he was looking to add some Jewish representation into his workforce and perhaps into the comic industry at the time. Considering his background, perhaps he was the only one at the time that had the proper knowledge to play with things the way that he did in the story of Elias Spector's death and Marc Spector's pain.

He did not stick around with Moon Knight for long after. Though, he admits that he wanted to play with the fact that Khonshu was an Egyptian god and Marc was from such a Jewish background. I am sad we didn't get to see that story.

After that, Moon Knight's original 1980s run was finished. The question of what to do with Moon Knight, where to take him, and who would take up the mantle of writing him now lay in the hands of Marvel.

Many failed after this. They failed to keep the heart of what Moon Knight stood for and who Moon Knight was. His Jewishness was forgotten and his mental health became a joke.

Not to say all of them failed. There are a few shining stars that gleamed in the darkness and I like to think that it was these moments that kept Moon Knight going all these years.

Moench didn't set out to write a story about mental health, and yet his approach is the most real I've seen. Hardly a shining picture of perfect representation, there is still something there in watching the character almost seem to push back against the unintended desire to push him into a corner.

No matter how often Jake and Steven and Moon Knight were seen as Marc pretending to be someone else, there was always ALWAYS that correction. Always that push back.

Call it the writer's curse of characters misbehaving and taking on a life of their own, but perhaps there was something more there. Perhaps he felt the weight of time and cry of the suppressed and overlooked.

So many of his stories danced the line of "I can't say it because it will get edited out by the big wigs at Marvel, but if you would just look... Just look over here for just a moment..."

And years upon years later, a writer did see the whispers there and said "I see the story of pain. I see the cry of mental health." Lemire told the story that Moench couldn't and from that, we are still pushing forward with McKay.

And more, perhaps we will see the Jewish story that hides in all that also get a spotlight again.

In the era of big battles, cross-over events, explosions, and super villains cackling about domination... I still look back at Stained Glass Scarlet, The Druid, the Music Box, And Colloquy.

As I finish the original 1980s run, I brace myself to dive into what comes next.

I think I'm trying to find where and how the original run ventured so far into the dark and insulting territory it did and the journey back into a revival that now means so much to so many.

In a way, perhaps it mirrors a journey into our own mental health. How easy it is to become lost in what everyone around you tells you that you are and how you are supposed to be until your own doubt sets in to drown you. Perhaps it is the journey of Moon Knight's character emerging from this to find a path to healing that is what kept us here so long.

[docholligay]

Number one: I want that suit. i've always said grey is the best color for a suit, as it's easy to dress up or down.

Number two: Of course it was much easier to 'pass' back then, because people were not LOOKING. It's easy to conceal something if no one is trying to figure it out. And clearly this is a thing people did, but it wasn't, you know, a thing people did. This was not something people thought about in their day to day lives. Until very recently, the same was largely true here, before all this culture war horseshit started and people in rural Montana became aware that trans was a thing you could be.

Years ago, my buddy came out and his folks passed the whole thing off as some sort of recently-discovered birth defect. They got away with it!!! His wife is a straight woman, and will get offended to be called otherwise, though of course she knows he's trans, she just...doesn't parse that as a secret third thing. He's a man, she only likes men, end of fucking story. She is a rural gal. The world is different when no one is looking.

I get in trouble every time I say this because we are on the terminally online no nuance website, but there is safety in invisibility. Everything is a tradeoff. I am not a visible Jew. Goyim cannot conceive of a redheaded blue eyed Jew despite looking exactly like my great grandmother from the goddamn shtetl. I have a very plain last name. I enjoy MUCH more safety because no one has a reason to look askance at me. I have to visibly out myself as Jewish. And there is the annoyance of walking into any given synagouge and people going, "Oh are you really Jewish", and that DOES annoy me but you know what I do not getting yelled at or sneered at for showing up with dark eyes and a big nose with the last name Hirschenbaum-Cohenowitzman. Life is a tradeoff, and there is a luck to being able to choose your moment. YOu can hate that, and me, all you fuckin want, but it is true.

She is so much safer because no one has any fucking idea that woman can just put on a suit and walk the streets lowering her voice. That does not strike people as a thing to even look for.

[nootthereststop]

Pt. 3 pookies sorry it i cant spell even thoigh english is my first language my typing is AWFUL.

Falsettos commentary: Trina edition

So i think its really understated the impact of religion on all the characters not just jason?

I would like to preface this post by saying this isnt a post about the flaws of religion, i have no problem with religion and i believe that it can be a lovely thing to be religious in some form if one is so inclined, scincere apologies if i mischaracterize any aspects of judaisim in this post, ive tried to educate myself on the little i do cover in this but i understand it would likely not be accurate, if i have said anything that doesnt seem right please let me know so i can fix it!

We see (especially in act two) how the cast is not very enamoured by the idea of religion in lines like "this is so much crap, throw a simple party, religions just a trap to ensnare the weak and the dumb" "(days like this) we ALMOST believe in god ect"

Trina is in my opinion most affected by a jewish upbringing. We see that in the expectations placed on her by her mother and father "i was sure growing up i would live the life my mother assumed id live, very jewish, very middleclass, and very straight" and of course her father indirectly forcing her into her first marraige which ended in divorce. A major aspect of the show is highlighting the glaring flaws in everyday people; how we manipulate and lie, "we are manipulating people and we need to know our worst sides arent ignored" . We see one of trinas "flaws" to be what she frames as some level of sexual frustration/ dependency, as alot of im breaking down explores her (lack of an) intimite relationship and the strain this puts on her, as her mind consistently defaults for sexual refrences and innuendos, sometimes to the point of objectifying herself, (something that we also see alot consistently throughout the show) "whos lusty and requires a fling with a female thing" "me im just a freak who needs it maybe every other week". As im not personally jewish I am very uneducated on jewish practices and belief systems HOWEVER many religions tend to have a very negative standing on sexual intimacy for the express purpouse of pleasure. This appears to cause trina to objectify herself as well as conform to the societal roles assigned to her, despite not really seeming to enforce them on others "he decides the role to assume". We see the pressure to conform to religious practices when jason doesnt want a bar mitzfah "not with g-ns but k-ll your mother rather than humiliate her" despite not really seeming to visit a synagouge or encourage aspects of religion such as prayer onto jason. I think this shows how her eeligion is so deeply engrained these practices are no more than habit and how disconnected she truly is from that religion

[doyouknowthisjewishcharacter]

Do you know this Jewish character?

[nullb1rdbones]

me, internally: oh god oh fuck what if they think i'm a threat and dont let me in

the 6'2 security officer in front of my synagouge, trying to figure out if i'm a boy or a girl:

[settraone]

No. I will not show sympathy for a religion who would hang me from a crane if they ever had the majority in the West and did a great deed to exterminate non muslims in the middle east. No I will not cancel the gay jew who can't even be safe in the USA because synagouge shootings are a thing and byler saved me. Go fuck yourself and stop playing the victim. There are 56 islamic nations and they all are an example why religious not jobs should be dismantled from political power.

[hiveswap]

So in my hometown there's this synagouge that got converted into a furiture store and i just saw 3 orthodox jewish men outside it so i wonder if they were just random people visiting or if there's going to be something done to it? I always thought it was a shame that it's being used as a store

[transsexula]

Liberals and leftists need to stop making the mistake of generalizing when we speak about Jewish people, zionists, and the acts of terror perpetuated against Palestinians.

There's a post going around that generally speaks of protesting at synagogues. Without giving context, we don't know the specific protest they are talking about is a protest movement that followed a touring illegal auction preformed by zionist Israelis who were selling stolen land.

I'm not here to speculate or fight about OPs intentions by making their post. This isn't even entirely about THAT post. It's just one that really solidified for me this problem, the problem being our biggest issue in the movement.

Lumping every Jewish person in with zionists. This is a continuing act of zionist terror. Jewish people, as a whole, are not fucking responsible for what a small settler state is doing. Many Jewish people are actively fighting against zionist campaigns. Creating posts that have this narrative (Example being the protesting outside a synagouge post. What synagouge? Any synagouge?) Only creates blurred, hazy areas where antisemites feel comfortable making themselves at home.

As someone who's been far more IRL recently, I've been, let's call it, mistaken for a Jewish person. I wear a pentagram. Not everyone seems to know what a pentagram is. In fact, I've almost been assaulted by someone who thought my pentagram was a star of David. I've been verbally harassed by others who have had the same misconception about simply what religion I follow.

Yall motherfuckers will go on and on about how we need to understand that not all Muslims, not all hijabi, not all(insert group often targeted in the US due to political termoil and fear mongering) but so few of you will stop to recognize that Jewish people need the same advocacy. We need better sense as a community around how we treat groups of people. If we lump every Jewish person, every synagouge, together into one evil pile........ how are we better than zionists in their rhetoric? How can we do the same thing to Jewish people that we've protested against for others?

We cannot allow the flourishing of antisemitism within these spaces.