#But I know the most about Judaism so that’s what I put in the post

[field-s-of-flowers]

Hey. Hey what if one of the OG lyctors was Jewish pre-resurrection. Wouldn’t that be so fucked up

#soph’s posts #The locked tomb #Or another religion besides Christianity. It’d be similarly fucked up #But I know the most about Judaism so that’s what I put in the post #Anyway. I was just thinking about how much M-’s atheism probably meant to her identity #And how John didn’t even think about how she’d feel about being semi-coerced into worshipping a seemingly omnipotent being #Not to mention founding a whole ass planetary society on the worship of that same omnipotent being #And then I started thinking about how important family and memory and rational thought are to Jewish tradition #And how having your memory and life taken from you and replaced by the teachings of a false god that you later have to learn lied to you #Is kind of one of the worst things you could do to a Jew imo #And THEN I started thinking about how the surname Shodash probably comes from Hebrew (sheish means six) #So yeah. My thoughts

[rainbowfractals]

This post is about antisemitism. I'm going to put my cards on the table here. I am not Jewish, I am a Muslim. I have been spending a lot of time in predominantly left and leftist spaces for some years. I've been paying attention to what's being going on on this site too. I think the left, the right no matter what your politics are has a big problem with antisemitism. I've seen people constantly dismiss it, claim it isn't a priority, claim the effects aren't that bad.

Within the last 4 months, I have seen many Jewish people on the Internet , on this site and others leave or take down anything relating to being Jewish because of constant harrasment. This harrasment has had an upsurge but it is not new, I remember hearing the same canards and same false claims years and years ago. I keep seeing people betray a callousness to effects this political enviroment and hostility has on Jewish people.

They refuse to even push back against statements like 'they care more about the jews' or 'being a member of the chosen people means your better than everyone else and they're your slaves', 'there are too many jews in the government', 'there are no palestinians who are of jewish descent, have jewish family members or are jewish and this is propaganda''. I've seen people unable to speak about grief about those they trusted and respected turning out to be antisemites without being harrased over the ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

I've seen a lot of antisemitism in Muslim spaces too, ranging from 'we're tolerant and this is how they repay us', to condenscension to 'some aren't bad but others are bloodthirsty and vengeful', and denial of any antisemitic attacks or crimes done by Muslims. I have also seen attempts to put a stop to this and defend against this and correct misinformation.

But the biggest problem I've seen is that their are a lot of people, who see this is wrong but don't do much about it, or think that it will somehow take away from calling for Palestinian liberation some who have saying this line for years others who have only just started saying it recently. In my experience it is generally not Palestinians saying this who are far more likely to push back against dehumanzing rhetoric than those who say , 'Oh we can't focus it now, Palestinians are dying.' In fact I seen anger against using phrases like 'free palestine' to hurt Jewish people as using the oppression of a people to be antisemities.'

People [in general] keep adding all kinds of caveats 'oh some are good', 'oh some are kids', like acknowledging the humanity of the Jewish people takes the lifeblood away from a Palestinian. In my experience openly saying one should listen to and defend Jewish people and Jewish communities from antisemitism without question is getting increasingly a volatile response. Simply saying that 'Oh what if they're a Zionist?' to just horrific biogtry is antisemitic and you should never deny what's happened to them is bad on that basis. Its used a dogwhistle to justify anything.

And here's the thing, I've spent the last 5 or so years trying to learn all I can about Judaism and Jewish culture, and the dissonance between what I now know and what I see around me has grown very wide. I don't know that much, but I keep seeing the same misinformation and lack of care as to how destructive it is. I keep seeing people assuming that antisemitism is someone else's problem to deal with. I keep seeing all kinds of monolithic, flattening and caricatures that bear no resemblance to the reality.

The most jarring thing was that there are people on this very site that if you had one should support and stand with Jewish people against antisemitism to make a fairer world that had learned a lot about why it is so rampant are now shying away from these statements. Jewish people are spoken about as if one event has obliterated any past or present of discrimination. As if their lives they have led have ceased to exist. The things that caused that atrocity and the current horrors were still around 5, 10 years ago. It wasn't out of nowhere.

I have seen those who have no issue with agreeing with neo-nazis and just violent hate and doxxing and shootings and so on and simply unpersoning Jews in their mind. This has happened many times before and unless there is a big change will happen many times again.

More and more Jewish people are ailenated and leaving places there otherwise went, changing how they live their lives and so on. To all those who are suffering from this. I'm sorry that this happening you shouldn't be treated in such a cruel way.

And to those of us who seen or noticed this withdrawal, we should try to prevent it. Its not enough to say that's wrong to some hateful statements we have work against a hostile and suspicious enviroment this hate flourishes in and give it no air to breathe and to water to drink from.

Antisemitism is not someone else's problem, its all of our problem. We should be vigilant in spotting it and then doing something about it. Many say this but there is a great need for action. Everywhere, on the social media, on the schools and workplaces in the place sof worship in the businesses, in the politics, in the media and so on.

I'm going to say this again, as because I am not Jewish I cannot be claimed to be priveleged and looking for attention by those denying the case. When I say volatile reaction, I mean there are people who viewed me talking about differences in theology between Judaism and Islam and the work of David Bar-Tzur in sign lanaguage interepretation Jewish settings and writings and community work with the Jewish Deaf community and how Judeo-Christian does not exist and is antisemitic and so on.

As first distaste 1 as I spoke to them about it over multiple conversations and was met with increasing hostility and eventually claims that I was following 'degenerates' and that I was too 'kindhearted' and had become 'brainwashed' by 'Zionist media'. Which quickly changed from condescending pity to cold anger when I protested against this. When said I wasn't going to get disclaimers that some 'Jews are bad' all the time whenever I said anything about them and deemed what they were saying to be antisemitic, the conversation devolved from there.

In their eyes I'm object of suspicon for essentially sympathising too much with Jewish people and knowing 'too much'. Yes they considered the amount I knew to be a sign I was brainwashed. It was even insinuated that I lack faith in my own religion and so on. If I didn't like this, I could just walk away and ditch everything I have said and done then keep my head down. But those suffering from antisemitism can't do this as they are being targeted.

That's all I have to say. Please respond if you have anything you'd want to say to me.

This was someone I've known for years who had over time more and more negative reaction, by distaste I mean there was a distinct sense of when I brought the topic up. Perhaps naively I keep trying to talk with them knowing what I know now I would have disengaged sooner and stopping trying act like this was a two-sided good faith discussion earlier, but the past is the past.

I also did not expect this post to get so much traction, I assumed some of my mutuals would read it and it would get some likes and a few reblogs and replies then the attention would leave my blog. I've been reading the responses, thank you for what you've had to say.

Also there are many people doing good work fighting against this in Muslim communities all over, I fear perhaps my original version this post didn't focus on that much, I was talking more about people causing and keeping up this issue.

#antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #muslim #antisemitism in muslim communities #fractal posts

[wiisagi-maiingan]

I have absolutely no faith whatsoever in leftist communities anymore. I don't feel safe around other leftists, not as someone who is intending on being Jewish one day and not as a goy currently who is marginalized in multiple ways.

Years I've spent seeing posts from other goyim about how much they love Judaism, how much they love Jews, how they'll "always stand with their Jewish siblings." What an absolute fucking joke! All those self-congratulatory pats on the back and it's so so obvious how little leftists on this website have actually put in any thought about the realities of antisemitism, how little work they've put into recognizing and tackling their own antisemitism. "Reblog if you would've hidden Jews from the Nazis!!!" but you wouldn't have because it's 2023 and you turned on your Jewish friends and neighbors the moment you had a chance.

How am I supposed to trust leftists again after this? After the months of people spreading blatant conspiracy theories and blood libel? Saying the absolute most vile and evil shit and thinking it's okay because they said "Zionists" and "Israelis" instead of "Jews"? How can I trust leftists to treat ANY marginalized ethnic group with compassion and thoughtfulness even in complicated and horrible situations?

I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to exist in a world where people can and will turn on me and people like me at any moment. I just. Needed to vent, to get people to understand that they aren't just driving out the "evil Zionists" from leftist communities, they're driving out their Jewish allies and their goyische allies who have now seen how easily they'll turn on us too.

#antisemitism

[jessicalprice]

So I've spent a lot of time untangling Christian exegesis of parables and talking about how the way Christians interpret parables almost always ends up being antisemitic.

But aside from how it makes them think about Jews and Judaism and Jewishness, I also want to talk a bit about how it makes them sympathize more with abusers than with victims.

The easy-to-point-to culprit here is the trilogy of parables that culminates in what most Christians know as the Prodigal Son story.

The common interpretation of these parables is that God does (and therefore Christians should) value a repentant sinner over someone who's never sinned.

The problem here isn't the stories themselves--they're pretty enigmatic as far as their actual meanings--but Luke's gloss:

"Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."

(Mark says, "So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost," which is very different.

So on its face, in 2023, that's a blatantly dangerous, abuser-supporting belief. What is it like to be a child sexually abused by your youth pastor and to hear that the fact that he hurt you is part of what makes him somehow spiritually "better" than you?

And we can see it play out in the way Kevin M. Young, a popular progressive pastor on Twitter (who describes himself as "post-evangelical" and was the senior pastor at a Quaker congregation) responded to being told one of his tweets was antisemitic, and then jumped in to support a woman who responded by identifying herself as a fan of John Chrysostom (the literal author of "Against the Jews" and the most antisemitic of the Church Fathers, which is saying something).

I'm not going to transcribe the whole thing, because it's not all that important for what I have to say about this, but I am going to call out a few lines:

"The American Christian approach to t'shuvah sees the victim's spirit, character, and speech as equally important to the offenders. I.e. in Christendom, the victim can exceed the sin of the offender simply by their reaction (if it be in sin or acted in a way that is not Spirit led)."

So, to be clear, if someone assaults you, and you don't meekly forgive them in a "Spirit led" way, you're somehow worse than they are.

The uniquely Christian brain rot here is in seeing every sin as an opportunity for forgiveness. After all, if being a repentant sinner gives you a higher spiritual status--if there's more "rejoicing in Heaven" over you--than that of your victim, then you have to sin to get there. It treats other people as props in your salvation journey, not as fellow humans whose suffering matters. (Combine that with the Christian idea that suffering is somehow virtuous in and of itself, and you've got a very toxic recipe. Not only, by abusing others, are you guaranteeing your own value as a repentant sinner, but you're giving your victim the opportunity to ennoble themselves through suffering.)

Of course, a key word here is repentant. Put a pin in that.

These sort of exchanges on Twitter--a Christian being outright genocidal toward Jews, and a supposedly progressive Christian figure jumping in to defend the Christian, with seemingly no ability to comprehend that the Jews in the conversation are human beings who may have their own trauma around violently antisemitic language, with boundless empathy for the Christian abuser and none for the Jewish targets of their abuse--happen frequently and just as frequently leave Jwitter baffled in addition to angry.

Why all this empathy for the abuser and none for the victims?

I think a lot of this comes out of progressive Christian exegesis of parables, which is frequently looking for the radical "twist" to the story.

E.g. in the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, the assumption is that the audience of the time would have empathized with the Pharisee, and thus the twist is to make them empathize with the tax collector. In the story of the Good Samaritan, the assumption is that they would have seen the Samaritan as a threat, and the twist is to make him the hero.

The thinking goes that the audience would have had empathy for certain groups and none for others, so the stories push them to feel that empathy for the latter, and that this was needed to balance the scales, to make sure everyone was receiving love and empathy and care.

Except that this, in modernity, has the effect of simply reversing the roles, not balancing them. The groups that are assumed to be in good social standing get no empathy, even become the implicit villains, and the groups (supposedly, since this is now a Christian-dominant society) traditionally looked down on get all of it.

That might still be a balancing act if the "looked down on" groups were actually marginalized. But in the Christian imagination, that role is filled by sinners in need of Christian grace, not necessarily demographically marginalized groups.

The idea seems to be that the victims are getting sympathy from elsewhere, so it's the Christian's job to make sure the abuser/sinner gets sympathy too.

But I'll point again to that pesky word "repentant."

Ultimately, when it comes to treatment of Jews and Muslims and anyone else who points out that a Christian has in some way harmed them, Christian sympathy goes immediately to the offender before the offender has even expressed any repentance.

The repentant sinner is so much more valuable, at this point, than their victims that they must be preemptively forgiven, that they are more valuable purely because they now have the potential to repent.

And this seems to be lurking under not just how "progressive" pastors act on Twitter, but in a lot of our cultural narratives around, say, college rapists and their futures, around white people who are publicly called out for racist acts, etc.

#jumblr #tshuvah #christian forgiveness culture

[southaway]

Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof and Tikkun Olam

Long post, buckle up. I have Feelings.

This concept is something I've been turning over in my head for awhile and trying to get the composition right. So I guess a quick history lesson for people who don't know yet (though I feel like it's becoming common knowledge) the comic book industry exists because of Jewish people. DC, Marvel, and everything that came after. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Captain America, and SO many others came from Jewish writers and artists. And try as people might, it is impossible to separate that from these characters. My roommates and I (three Jews and a goy, but like a cool one) are specifically into DC and were talking a while back about the core ideas of Superman and Batman. And yeah, the first things that probably jump to most peoples' heads are maybe hope and fear, justice, maybe the American way or whatever is happening in New Jersey. And yeah, to an extent I think that's right but it's not the whole story. See, what seems clear to us is that Superman and Batman specifically embody two Jewish principles: Tikkun Olam and Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof. A quick-ish and simplified explanation:

Tikkun Olam (Superman) is at the heart of Judaism. It means repairing the world, and while there is a more complex religious and ritualistic meaning, the broad takeaway is that it is our job to make the world a better place. You can't save the world but you have to try. It's hope. While the light is shattered it can be repaired and it is our duty to do what we can, to put good out into the world no matter how large or small. What matters is that you try, you always try.

Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof: Justice, Justice you shall Pursue! (Batman) Another core of Judaism. Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof is not merely the pursuit of justice, but justice for those who need it most. The most vulnerable, the people at the greatest disadvantage, that continue to be hurt the most.

And when Superman and Batman are being written well, written correctly they embody these ideas. These characters and their stories where not created in a vacuum, nothing is. They where made by Jewish men, sons of immigrants. Their ideas of the world and concepts of justice would be inherently Jewish. Tikkun Olam and Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof are the definition of justice and making a better world for Jewish people. These characters and the stories they tell and the ideas they exemplify are and always have been at their heart Jewish. Try as some people might you can't take that away, it is sown into their creation whether you know it or not. We won't be removed from our own narratives.

#dc comics #superman #batman #kal el #bruce wayne #clark kent #kal el is NOT a jesus allegory #he's clearly a moses allegory #judaism #digital art

[jewish-sideblog]

hey, so im Palestinian and a strong activist for my people's liberation. i wanted to ask for some info/advice on avoiding antisemitism in my activism for Palestine. im on anon bc i don't want to be called a racefaker for caring about Jewish ppl. i know antisemitism is on the rise right now (and generally over the past few years) and i want to make sure i'm not unintentionally contributing to it.

Hey there! I wanted to start by genuinely thanking you for asking this question. Partially because I don't actually get any well-intentioned or helpful questions in my inbox anymore, but also because I understand the amount of bravery it takes to reach out with a question like that at a time like this.

Next, I want to apologize to all my followers who hate long posts. Judaism is a very complicated ethnoreligious group, antisemitism is a very complicated form of bigotry, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is arguably the most complicated international issue that has ever existed. I'm going to try to go through everything as succinctly as possible below the cut-- I am also going to ask other Jews to contribute to and make edits to this list as needed.

And finally-- I'm writing this as though I were speaking to someone with very little knowledge of the subject. I understand that as a Palestinian, you probably know a lot about what's going on here. But I want to make sure that I'm covering bases for anybody else who might need to use this post. So if you're like, Yeah, Obviously I Knew That. Please remember that a fuckton of people on tumblr are engaging in Israeli criticism without obviously knowing that.

There are two primary forms of antisemitism in anti-Zionist spaces-- antisemitic conspiracy theory, and criticism of Israel that no other country receives. The first kind is the easiest kind to pick out, and it makes a nice bulleted list, so we'll start there.

Dual Loyalty. A global stereotype that has skyrocketed since the establishment of Israel, but it's been around for a lot longer than that. Simply put, it's the idea that Jews are more loyal to Israel (or some global secret kabal) than we are to the countries we currently reside in. With I/P, it manifests as the idea that All Jews are directly responsible for Israel or the idea that All Jews secretly support Israel. If you see a Jew who isn't directly engaging in I/P topics, don't ask them what their stance is. Plenty of us have never even been to Israel, and it's fucked up to assume that we're all experts in geopolitics.

The Holocaust was a Fabrication or a Lesson. The idea that Jews made up the Shoah has been around since the Shoah was still happening, and it's always been ridiculous. Today, you'll see three primary lines about this. Either it's that Jews made up the Shoah as an excuse to establish Israel, that the Jews deserved the Shoah because of what's happening in Israel today, or that the Jews "should have learned their lesson from the Holocaust" because now Jews are "the new Nazis". Frankly, I wish goyim would stop treating the deaths of millions of Jews like a TV show. Palestinian deaths are genuinely horrible, but this isn't some kind of "narrative parallel" to the Shoah.

The Kazars Theory, or All Jews are White. This is the DNA test nonsense. The idea is that Israel (or Jews at large) are only pretending to be indigenous to the Levant and that secretly Jews as a whole are actually indigenous to Eastern Europe. It's a lie, started by a German professor of Russian history in the early 1800s. Meanwhile, the vast majority of genetic, historical, and archaeological evidence points to Jewish origins in the Israeli/Palestinian region. There have been literal hundreds of genetic studies on this. Most of them suggest that Jews, even "white" Ashkenazim, are nearly genetically identical to Palestinians.

World Domination. The idea that Jews control the world began with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1903. If you're encountering criticism of Israel that suggests that world governments, particularly European or American ones, are being controlled by Jews, you've got yourself antisemitism. White supremacists like to use the term "Zionist Occupied Government" or "ZOG" as shorthand for this conspiracy. The next two points are born out of this same ideology.

Controlling the Media. The idea that Jews are in charge of Hollywood and/or major news organizations around the world. Regarding I/P, I've seen a bunch of people say something like "Western media outlets won't cover this! (Because you know who controls them!)" only to look online and see... Western media outlets covering it. See also: "My source is tiktok! I don't trust the news!" While it's obviously a fair criticism to say that some Western news outlets certainly have a pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian bias, it's certainly not every single one of them. Reuters and the AP are once again my go-to's here.

Controlling the Financial World. I haven't actually seen this come up regarding I/P, but considering how things have been going, it's only a matter of time. We don't control the banks. We don't control the stock market. We're not in charge of American aid being sent to Israel. HaShem knows that if we controlled all the money, I'd certainly be living larger than I am now...

Those Bloodthirsty Jews. This one arguably started with Blood Libel in the 1100s, when Christians started accusing us of stealing and eating their babies. Straight up, I have met Christians who still believe this in 2023. You see this a lot with I/P-- the Al Ahli Hospital is the biggest example. More than a month later, most reliable intelligence organizations agree that a misfired Hamas rocket landed in a parking lot, killing about 100 people. But a ton of people are still saying that Those Bloodthirsty Jews intentionally bombed the hospital dead on, killing 470 people. I want to be clear-- Israel is killing a lot of civilians. But if you see a bandwagon of people focusing on the one group of deaths that Israel probably actually didn't cause? Consider why.

Causing wars, revolutions, and calamities. Hamas has straight-up got this one in their founding charter. No, the Jews are not responsible for any major global conflicts, revolutions, or counter-revolutions that don't directly involve Israel. We didn't do WWII. We didn't do the October Revolution. See above-- we're not secretly plotting massacres on Shabbat. A lot of people are saying that Netanyahu and Likud let Hamas in to justify the invasion of Gaza... I'd be shocked if that was the case. All evidence points to a classic intelligence failure. We're not orchestrating bloodbaths.

Section 2: Criticisms only levelled at Israel

It's important to recognise that Israeli civilians are no more collectively responsible for the actions of the Likud coalition than Palestinians are collectively responsible for the actions of Hamas. No Palestinian deserves to be stripped of their rights to self-determination in their ancestral lands because of the October 7th attack. Likewise, no Chinese person deserves to be displaced from China because of the CCP's human rights violations in Tibet, Uyghur and Hong Kong. No Russian person deserves to be ethnically cleansed from Russia because of the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine. But plenty of people do believe that Jews should be stripped of their rights to self-determination in historically Jewish indigenous lands because of the actions of the Israeli government.

After October 7th, I've seen people argue that Israeli babies deserved to be kidnapped because of their national origin. I've seen people argue that Israeli women deserved to be sexually abused because of their nation of origin. I've seen people argue that the seven million Jews living in their ancestral homeland deserve death or displacement because of their nation of origin. Justifying or allowing brutal harm against people because of their national origin is hateful.

I want to make this part very clear-- I do not have an issue with calling out Israeli war crimes or crimes against humanity. But I do have an issue with treating Jewish civilians differently than civilians of other nations responsible for similar horrors. Amplifying bias against a particular group because of that group's nation of origin is called bigotry. Taking a stand against Israeli settlements in the West Bank is anti-Zionism. Collectivizing the label of "white colonialism", and forcing that label upon refugees forced to move to Israel, or Mizrahim with uninterrupted 8,000-year histories in Israel, is antisemitism.

Part 3: Moving Forward

So where do we go from here? If advocating for the destruction of Israel is advocating for the elimination of Jewish self-determination in our ancestral lands, but advocating in favour of the Israeli government is advocating for the elimination of Palestinian self-determination in your ancestral lands, then we must find some middle ground. A solution that allows seven million Jews and five-and-a-half-million Arabs to share the same holy land, without fear of persecution, displacement, or death. For me, this means a few things.

First of all, the recognition that most Israelis disagree with Netanyahu's approach to Palestine, and most Palestinians disagree with Hamas's approach to Israel. And that brings up a question-- why are Likud and Hamas in charge of Israel and Gaza respectively if most people disagree with them? Without getting into the complicated intricacies of the Knesset and the PNA on an already very long post (and without explaining your own government to you), the simple answer is international funds.

Israeli crimes against Palestinians are bankrolled by American Evangelical Christians, who believe that when Palestine is gone, all the Jews will go to Israel, and Jesus will come back to kill the world's infidels. They actually fucking believe that. Meanwhile, Hamas is bankrolled by Iran, which believes that the more often Jews and Sunni Muslims kill each other, the easier it will be for Iranian Shiite Jihad to take over the world. They actually fucking believe that.

So what steps can we take during our advocacy? Not for the destruction of Israel nor the destruction of Palestine, but for America and Iran to get their noses out of our damn business. I genuinely believe that a defunded Likud and a defunded Hamas will allow Israelis and Palestinians to work together for a peaceful two-state or joint-rule solution. Something that will keep my Palestinian friends from feeling like they can't safely travel from Jaffa to Tel Aviv. Something that will allow my Jewish family to visit and pray at the Cenotaphs of Isaac and Rebecca and the Temple Mount. Something that will let Israeli children from Kibbutz Nirim and Palestinian children from Khan Yunis play on the same playgrounds together, instead of sheltering from missile fire.

Frankly, we nearly had that when the Supreme Muslim Council and the Assembly of Representatives began collaborating against the British Mandate instead of against each other. Clearly, it's possible, we just need to stop being pitted against each other by foreign powers.

[mikkeneko]

I decided to make this its own post for two reasons: one, I didn't want to derail a post that is about Judaism with a discussion of a different faith and two, it was really only one of several posts I've seen recently that stuck out to me as being "man, this is way off-base."

This is not so much about "people are saying mean things about this religion and it hurts my feelings!" but it is definitely about "people are making statements that represent a wildly skewed and inaccurate picture of the reality, and I can't tell whether they're being hyperbolic on purpose or think they're genuinely telling the truth." This is not a question of whether any given church is good or bad; this is a question of whether there is or can be a distinct entity that serves as a single unified church or faith in American Christian tradition (spoiler: No.)

Here's the basic message: Any discussion of "the Christian god" or "the Christian faith" or "American Christianity" needs to be taken with a big honking asterisk that there is no single portrayal of God, or Christianity, or spirituality and faith that conveys accurate information about the entire breadth of American Christianity.

There is no single American Christian Church. None. The single biggest branch of American Christianity, Southern Evangelical Baptist, makes up at its broadest 30% of all American Christians (12% of the overall population.) The rest are split between Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Adventist, Congregationalist, and a dozen other even tinier branches, before you even get into the more far-out variants that people have ongoing arguments as to whether they even really count as "Christian." (LDS, Unitarians, and possibly Mennonites fall into this category.) Most of the major branches share a lot of common ground, but there's an enormous amount of variation -- they disagree widely on concepts such as the existence or nonexistence of Hell; the mechanics of conversion or salvation; the requirements of baptism or confirmation; whether prostylezation is required, encouraged or even permitted; what kind of sexualities are or are not accepted; God as an active or non-active role in the world; how 'sin' works or if it's even a thing; the existence or not of saints; the divinity or not of Christ; or even the idea of an anthropomorphic God at all. Some are progressive, some are fundamentalist, some are fundamentalist in ways that are completely at odds with the popular perception of what those fundaments are. I personally know one Methodist pastor who also believes and teaches about God as a "oneness of the universe" and have met others who conceive of God as "that which spans the space between the limits of our understanding and the limits of our universe." You cannot categorically state that all American Christians share a common notion on any of these topics.

Other statements I've seen recently that just made me go "what? no?"

That the USA was founded by religious extremists and That's Why America is Like That. Only one or two of the original settlements were founded for this purpose. Some were founded with an explicit purpose of total freedom of (or from) religion; others were entrepreneurial ventures with nothing to say on the topic of religion at all. When the guiding documents of the American state were put together the clause of freedom of religion was included front and center precisely because they didn't want religious extremists to be steering the ship.

That the majority of USAmericans are in cults and don't even realize they're in cults. This requires both an extremely broad definition of “cult” (to encompass pretty much any branch of Christianity, not only the more extremely evangelical ones) and severely over-estimates how many people in the US are practicing Christians (less than half.)

That the "Christian God" is intended to function as a "Great Uniter" into which other faiths can be folded; This is not a Protestant thing. Most Protestant faiths are not syncretic to the degree Catholicism is (or at all,) since there wasn't a motivating political entity backing their creeds to make them so. Again: Not all branches of American Protestantism require, encourage, or even permit prostylezation.

On that note: Not all Christians are Catholic. This isn't news, right? People know this, right? This is one of those things that I always assumed was very common knowledge, and was very surprised to run into people who were not aware of this (who either think that all Christians or Catholic, or else that Catholics are not Christian at all, depending on which side of the equation they're approaching from.) Protestant and Catholic Christianity are very very distinct entities both spiritually and politically, and in the USA, Catholic Christianity is a minority religion and is mostly (though not exclusively) practiced in minority demographic communities. Of 46 presidents so far only one has been Catholic, and a lot of the opposition to JFK's appointment was people being suspicious of his Catholicism since it was thought that his loyalty to the Church might supersede his loyalty to the US. American Christianity is mostly Protestant, not Catholic, and Protestant Christianity does not function at all the way Catholicism does. We had a whole Reformation about this. Any take that refers to "The Church" in America as a single united entity that dictates theology to its outreaching branches is... off-base.

What certainly is true is that a number of individual churches in the US have organized around the aim of consolidating social and political power, have worked at advancing their members to positions of power in order to protect and promote their interests, and thus are over-represented and have outsized influence on the political sphere. The ones that do this, as well as the ones that put emphasis on proselytizing and on money-making, tend to self-select for being the most visible and infamous because their business model is expansive by nature. That's certainly the case for the SEB in the American South, or the LDS in Utah. I really get the feeling when people use these broad terms that they are thinking either of the SEB (again, not even a majority among American Protestants!) or of the Catholic church (even less so!)  But not only do not all Americans agree with those beliefs, they don't even agree with each other.

#politics shitshow 2023 #christianity #american christianity

[jewish-vents]

first - i just want to say thank you for making this blog. it’s so important to know that we aren’t alone in the many things we’re experiencing and feeling right now, especially when so many of us have become painfully isolated as of late.

i apologize for how long this one is going to be.

i’ve been feeling so, so alone recently. my tumblr dash has been cut down to just a handful of jewish blogs that i can trust to be kind and understanding and nuanced, but it means that the majority of the content i see is about antisemitism and the war. after a while, it becomes draining to scroll through what feels like endless sadness. i turned to looking at fandom tags instead of following fandom blogs, but it makes me feel equally as insane to click on a blog about race cars and immediately see a post with 60k notes calling what’s happening in gaza “the new holocaust”. i started going back on twitter, but fan accounts on there too are only safe for a day or so before the account owner shares some awful antisemitic tweet from an account known to be an anti-jewish extremist. i went back on instagram briefly, but i was soon afraid to look at people’s stories for fear i’d see something terrible and lose yet another trusted person from my life.

in person, i have to walk by signs saying “zionism = genocide” and hastily scribbled palestinian flags with the colors in the wrong spot on my way to class every day. a wall across from my apartment says “BDS” in giant letters. i haven’t opened my curtains in months because of it. a “protest” of about 25 people stood in the center of campus and yelled and waved their fists in passing students’ faces, so jewish students didn’t go to class on any of the days they gathered. i only have one non jewish friend left at school - the rest abandoned me because i either called them out on antisemitic rhetoric or refused to go along with the idea that anyone, palestinian or israeli, muslim or jewish, is less than human. i had taken several of them along to our hillel’s seder in the past. i don’t know who i can safely go with this year. i have a few jewish friends, of course, but i love bringing goyische friends with little connection to judaism along to experience how joyful and loving jewish holidays can be.

it feels like there is no escape from this fucking war. it sickens me that it’s the only thing people pretend to care about - where is the attention for sudan, ukraine, armenia, uyghurs in china, syria, guyana? how is putting an emoji in your twitter bio or putting a translucent overlay of the palestinian flag on your tumblr icon any sort of real activism? how have we gone from “antisemitism is wrong” to “(((zionists))) control the world media”? it seems like the war is a fandom to these people. it seems like nobody cares enough to fully read and think critically about what they share, let alone do real research beyond looking at an infographic somebody shared on their instagram story. they’ll add on “don’t forget your click today!” to an unrelated twitter thread that went viral, flip the bird at the local starbucks, and put “won’t you free my palestine” on their instagram stories. they’ll anonymously tell a jew online to commit suicide. they’ll feel secure in the knowledge that they’re the perfect leftist, that this is somehow “good trouble”. all this praxis, and nothing to show for it but massive surges in hate crimes against jews. good job, guys! you singlehandedly saved every innocent person in gaza!

it’s isolating. it’s scary. jews can’t mourn. jews can’t be angry. jews can’t disagree. jews can’t suffer. jews can’t be whole, complex people with diverse beliefs and experiences. suffering is a game, and the goal is to hurt the most, scream the most, die the most, all to appease western leftists whose closest connection to war and violence was reading the hunger games in middle school.

i’m tired of it all. i want a peaceful and just resolution to the war. i want the mindless hatred everywhere to stop. i want to be able to scroll through social media and see nothing but fandom. i want to walk through campus with my magen david showing and all the friends i lost by my side on the way to the hillel seder. i want to open my curtains again. i know the experience of one diaspora jew is nothing compared to what people living in israel and palestine are currently going through, yet i still need this all to end. i don’t think any of us can go on like this, but we must, because we have. for thousands of years, we’ve gone on. that still doesn’t mean it has to be this hard all the time.

all i can think is “now we are slaves. next year may we be free.” now we are slaves to hatred and violence and suffering. next year may we all be free. next year may we all be in jerusalem.

.

#jewish vents #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #antisemitism on tumblr #i/p

[sweet-chimera]

TW: Call out post, drama

// Damn we were going to keep it quiet and respectful until this point. because like always. Spork, aka Shiloh can't take accountability and Never does anything wrong despite the fact that this is the what? 6th group of people enmass to cut contact with them? Spork we were being quiet about it for YOUR sake. Cause you're a bad person and we wanted to be done with you. But fine. We'll do it your way. We blocked you because you're a toxic person who threatens to harm yourself when we don't comply to you. Not because of a fake wedding rp event. Content and stories under the cut. Long post trigger warning

And because he named dropped us, potentially to potentially insight violence on us. We'll return the favor. We were willing to just soft block and call it a day but then you do this? We knew you were a karen but come on spork. This is low even for you. For those of you that don't know, Spork aka:

patchiesdoodles, decipheringmadness, cxpescxwlsandcrxmes, ifyouwouldloveme, thegreeksknewthescore, fxllen-cne, thxpatriarch, unforgivendivine, AND the-blackened-dove.

Likes to block evade, exhibit controlling tendencies towards their rp partners, leverage marginalization's to groups that he doesn't belong to to white knight and get his way, tone police, sexually harass people mainly on voice call, guilt trip, bully those that speak out against him, use his partners to harass people who block him, vague posts, gives ultimatums, and threaten self harm when he doesn't get his way.

Lets get this out of the way, My experience with spork

I met spork in the muntain june 2023. And it was one of the most grating experience of my life. At every chance they got they spoke over people, talked openly about their sexual trauma when no one has consented to hearing it. And tone policed me, a cambodian/afro indigenous person from baltimore, for using language that was "Offensive to black people." Only to then lay off after yelling at me for a few minutes. When he found out I was black. (Screen shot of me talking to the mod of the muntain afterwards)

I was off put, and upset. That someone who is this complexion

is tone policing me, AN AFRO INDIGENOUS PERSON WHEN I MAKE NO ATTEMPTS TO HIDE IT. IM BLACK.

But seeing as we're a vastly neuro divergent community. I forgave and forgot because it wasn't worth the fight. it didn't stop them from constantly bringing up sexual or traumatic topics. But at the very least. They were upset at me for using AAVE and saying the N word. A SLUR I CAN USE.

But then later down the line. I talked to the muntain mod about introducing my partners to the rp community and to help the transition go smoothly.

I EVEN WENT INTO VOICE CALL AND BEGGED THEM, SPORK SPECIFICALLY. TO BE ON THEIR BEST BEHAVIOUR.

My girlfriend joined on the 30th and my boyfriend joined on the first.

During the first call on the 30th. Spork dominated the conversation and flirted with my girlfriend infront of me upon finding out we were polyamourus. But for the most part was respectful.

On the voice call on the second. They were racist and immflamatory to my boyfriend. Tao. A native mexican man. Spork claims to be indigenous themself but I have no proof of this. But as we all know, Abrahamic religions have decimated the indigenous populations and caused Alot of harm.

On voice call. Spork brings up their LITERAL JESUS CHRIST muse. And talks about their religious trauma. Tao, also talks about his in the form of a joke. "Oh Jesus sure liked to wash feet huh?" A TRUE FACT. NOT THAT BAD. WE ALL HAVE MADE FUN OF IT.

Here comes white knight Spork, yelling at my partner to not make fun of jewish traditions. Its insensitive and blastephemous. Only to then dominate the conversation to talk about their trans jesus muse who openly talks about being abused by god

(Recap of the voice call i had with the mod)

So spork, a white passing person AT BEST, told my darker complexion NATIVE MEXICAN BOYFRIEND. That he shouldn't make jokes about judaism? When spork is a white satanist? And all abrahamic religions not just Catholicism has caused damage to our populations? You didn't even let him say more then that one joke, you didn't even give him 10 seconds to say is name before dominating the conversation again

Sweetie. 1.) Anyone can criticize and make fun of the bible, the torah, or the Quran. 2.) SAYING JESUS WASHED FEET. WHICH IS TRUE. IS NOT AS INFLAMMATORY. As making a gay trans jesus blog AS A ROLEPLAY CHARACTER. To talk about how god abused him.

And these are just my personal experiences with spork.

WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENED WHEN THEIR FRIEND POLITELY ASKED TO STOP SHIPPING BUT STILL BE FRIENDS?

HMMM. THATS WEIRD. THATS A PRETTY POLITE WAY TO GO ABOUT HAVING A CONVERSATION. BECAUSE CONSENT TAKES TWO PARTIES. WHAT WAS YOUR RESPONSE TO ONE PARTY NOT CONSENTING SO YOU DONT GET YOUR WAY?

OH YEAH.

YOU VAGUE POST ON THE DASH, GUILT TRIP PEOPLE FOR STILL ASSOCIATED WITH VOID (gin-n-chthonic) and get upset when you saw them on your dash because you keep block evading them to see if they were talking about you. YOURE MENTAL HEALTH WAS MESSED UP BECAUSE YOUR FRIEND HAD A POLITE CONVERSATION WITH YOU? ABOUT NOT REAL CHARACTERS? AND YOUR RESPONSE WAS A PUBLIC CALL OUT POST. And then you go around to people like slurk.

Who've you've been codependently abusing for a long time. And try to guilt trip them into blocking void.

Because thats a sound response. AS WELL AS BITCH AND MOAN ABOUT IT IN CALL FOR DAYS. THIS ISN'T EVEN INCLUDING THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE A HABIT OF GETTING YOUR FRIENDS AND PARTNERS TO ATTACK AND OSTRICIZE PEOPLE FOR YOU. Remember when jessica was sick with covid. But you wanted an answer so bad. That you sent your boyfriend after her? CAUSE WE DO.

And how you admitted in voice call that you would type from Boogies account to send people things, speak for him. OR ADMITTED THAT ROLEPLAYING IS A SPIRITUAL THING FOR YOU. How these characters are extension of yourself and if they feel pain or rejected you do? So every time someones muse doesn't want to interact with them. YOU A REAL HUMAN BEING FEEL THE PAIN?

cause we do.

SO LETS RECAP. TLDR;

you give ultimatums

guilt trip

block evade

were openly racist to a mexican indigenous man

hit on my girlfriend infront of me

can't read a room socially

send mobs after people

talk about traumatic shit without peoples consent

overly sexual even when we say we're uncomfortable

fly off the handle and go on public tirades when we try to talk to you, then get surprised when no one wants to talk to you and just quietly exits your life

use your loved ones accounts to talk to people who go nc with you

only white knight and virtue signal when its convenient to you

want to control everyones character and insert your muse into everything but when they don't comply you guilt trip, bitch, give ultimatums, or post publicly about not being loved

you weaponize your marginalization as a trans man but are clearly white passing and command alot of social power from your social media presence

sexually harass people around you

and you tone police the people of color around you when we speak up

WE DIDN'T BLOCK YOU OVER A FAKE RP EVENT. WITH FAKE PEOPLE THAT YOU INSIST ARE REAL. WE REFUSE TO BE AROUND YOU BECAUSE YOU REFUSE TO GET HELP FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH. WE BEGGED YOU TO. AND YOU GUILT TRIP PEOPLE WITH THREATS OF OSTRICHCIZATION AND SELF HARM.

YOU'RE A BAD PERSON SPORK.

#tw: drama #tw: call out post #call out post #drama #patchiesdoodles

[spacelazarwolf]

i had a question about the religion vs tribal post u reblogged earlier. does this mean converts dont have to be particularly religious? or can converts only convert if they want like. the full religious experience (i am wording this very poorly my apologies) like. can someone convert if they want to simply be a jew, and not just because of the religious aspects? idk

the tldr is no, jews by choice don't have to meet any certain level of religious observance to maintain their jewish status post-mikveh. once they've been approved by a beit din and immersed in a mikveh, they are unquestionably jewish.

that being said, i got a little over excited and wrote up a whole thing about the process and legality of jewish conversion so buckle up buttercups.

the process of conversion is long, usually at least one full year, and supervised by a rabbi. the conversion student meets with their sponsoring rabbi throughout the year so the rabbi can monitor their progress and education, assess their motivations and character, offer them guidance and support, and finally to determine when/if they are ready to go before a beit din and complete their conversion. this isn't something the conversion student requests, it's something that can only be approved by their sponsoring rabbi.

the process and expectations, along with what's considered a valid or halachic conversion, differ depending on which community the conversion student is petitioning to join. for example, most orthodox and conservative communities still require circumcision or hatafat dam brit in order for a conversion to be valid while reform and reconstructionist do not. the standards for what it means to commit to living a jewish life will also be different depending on the community. someone who converts with a sephardic rabbi may follow different rabbinic rulings than someone who converted with an ashkenazi rabbi.

once the sponsoring rabbi has determined that the conversion student is genuine and is ready to complete conversion, the conversion student will appear before a beit din which consists of three jews who are educated in jewish law, at least one of whom must be a rabbi. (usually all three are rabbis, but i've been on two beit dins and am definitely not a rabbi.) the beit din then determines if the conversion student is sincere, knowledgeable, and making this decision of their own free will. they may ask the convert some questions to determine their basic knowledge of jewish law, ask the convert to tell them about their journey to judaism and why they want to become jewish, and will very often ask if the convert is fully prepared to join a historically oppressed people. i have been on two beit dins and one question i've asked both times is if they have a support system to help them navigate their new identity and the discrimination they're very likely to face. the crux of the beit din is "do you know what you're getting yourself into?"

if the beit din determines that the convert is not ready, they will turn them away. usually, this means they'll try again in the future, but sometimes the person decides that conversion is not for them. that being said, since the sponsoring rabbi has to determine first if you're ready for the beit din, it's very rare for someone to be turned away at that point. (though my rabbi has some very....odd stories about people who have put on an act for years to convert, only to go on and on about jesus to the beit din. needless to say those people are expeditiously sent away.)

if the answer is yes, the convert will then immerse in a ritual bath called a mikveh. most often people will go to an indoor mikveh, but sometimes converts will opt for a lake, river, ocean, etc. that's deemed acceptable. after they leave the mikveh, they are jewish. they've received their "jewish citizenship" and their status as a member of the jewish people cannot be questioned. (with the caveat that different communities don't always accept conversions from other communities, and there are some that don't accept conversion at all. and of course, just because something is a violation of jewish law doesn't mean people don't still do it. there is still a lot of anti-convert rhetoric within the jewish community that we have to reckon with.)

once someone becomes jewish, it's up to them the kind of life they want to live. if someone underwent an orthodox conversion, it's probably because they wanted to live an orthodox jewish life so it's unlikely they will leave the mikveh and never set foot in a synagogue again, especially considering for orthodox conversion it's generally expected that by the time you go before a beit din you have been living an orthodox jewish life and live in an orthodox jewish community for at least a year. that being said, if they did decide to adjust their observance or find they prefer a different community, or even if they decided they no longer wanted to be observant at all, they would still be jewish according to jewish law. the only time the semantics would change is if they converted to a different religion, in which case most communities would consider them a jewish apostate. if someone converted through a non orthodox community and wanted to join an orthodox jewish community, they would have to undergo an orthodox conversion.

conversion to judaism is compared to naturalization a lot because it's very similar. you go through a process, prove you are ready to be a citizen and are knowledgeable about the country you're petitioning to be a citizen of, then once you gain your citizenship it cannot be revoked, including if you break the law. if you gain your american citizenship under the expectations that you will respect the laws of the land, then run 10 red lights, you're still an american citizen you're just a citizen with 10 traffic tickets. similarly, in my opinion, if you gain your "jewish citizenship" under the expectation that you will follow the laws of the community, then eat a plate of bacon, you're still a jew you're just a jew who has violated halacha. if we wouldn't revoke the jewish status of someone who was born to a jewish family for eating a plate of bacon, i would argue it's similarly inappropriate to try to revoke the jewish status of someone who converted for eating a plate of bacon.

however, there have been instances where a conversion has been retroactively deemed invalid. however, there was, in true jewish fashion, much debate about what could invalidate a conversion. in this essay submitted to and accepted by the rabbinic counsel, the determination was made that if the conversion in question was obtained by deceit and the rabbi and beit din did their due diligence in determining the motives of the conversion student, the conversion can be deemed invalid. if the conversion was obtained by deceit and the rabbi and beit din did not do their due diligence, the conversion remains valid, regardless of the motivations and deceit.

something i see mentioned a lot when it comes to conversion and observance after conversion is the argument that if someone takes on the commandments during their conversion then doesn't follow them, or they are pursuing conversion only to gain and/or weaponize jewish identity, they are deceiving the beit din and therefore their conversion should be invalid. i get the logic, but i also agree with what the above essay has to say. the responsibility lies with the rabbi and beit din to determine the motivations of the convert. the moral failure of deceit can be attributed to the convert, but the legal responsibility still lies with the rabbi and beit din. we can question all day long why someone would want to convert if they aren't going to do x, y, and z, but at the end of the day if a rabbi and beit din have supervised and approved their conversion, it's a done deal. their conversion cannot be revoked by a court of public opinion.

it's something that i think is very difficult to grapple with because i don't think any of us want someone to lie their way into our community. given our history of persecution, i think it's understandable how scary that could be. that being said, conversion is not an issue of morals but of jewish law, so in conclusion of this essay no one asked for, i think that it's not the responsibility of the community at large to determine if someone's conversion is valid or to question they way they live their life. that opens the door to a sort of mob justice that jews by choice already have to deal with constantly. it's the responsibility of the sponsoring rabbi and beit din to determine if the person seeking conversion is a good candidate.

#ask avishai #jewish #jumblr #jewish conversion #JewU

[nonegenderleftpain]

There are few things I hate more than "Jewish ally" anti-theists and atheists that spout complete bullshit about Judaism and our supposed beliefs as though they know better than we do what we believe. When we talk about cultural xtianity, this is the kind of shit we're talking about.

"You might not believe in hell but most Jews do, my ex-xtian interpretation of your holy texts is correct despite thousands of years of information on the subject, here's a video telling you that you're wrong." Spent several posts calling non-religious people "freethinkers," and continuously dodged the question regarding the harm eliminating religion would do to so many cultures. Not to mention going from "I think the world is better without religion" to "you have an anti-xtian bias that I don't like" as though there's not a reason for that.

Ex-xtian atheists - you need to address and unlearn your xtian belief that your way is the only right way. That you are objectively correct and everyone else is just ignorant. That you know better than the religious minorities you are addressing. People like this want an excuse to talk down to religious minorities under the guise of polite language, and if you don't want to be associated with them, you have to put in the work to not be like this. I say this as an ex-Catholic, and a former anti-theist - do better.

If you are making objective assertions about someone else's religion that you have not studied and cannot answer basic questions about, you're not being critical of religion, you're being an atheist supremacist. If you pull a "gods are more harmful than helpful" like this person but cannot tell me the impact of Kali or Sàngó on their respective cultures, you are not being critical, you're ignorant and self-absorbed. If you have not studied religion, you do not know what you are talking about, and if you are only accepting xtian interpretations of other religions as true, even as a basis for hatred of religion, you're just a xtian with a new wallpaper.

If you are advocating for anti-theism, you are advocating for the cultural genocide of hundreds of different cultures around the world. If you are advocating for anti-theism, you are inherently anti-Jew. And if you are talking over Jews when they correct you on your blatant misunderstanding of our culture, only to call us *liars* when we counter your misconceptions, or call out your cherry-picked sources for why you know better than we do, you're not just an asshole, you're an Antisemite.

I took this conversation in good faith, hoping that the ignorance was born from misunderstanding instead of malice. I should not have been so kind. And if you're going to come onto this post and whine and cry about "not all atheists," or "cultural xtianity isn't real," save us both the time and block me. I'm done entertaining atheists that will not acknowledge that y'all don't know better than the religious minorities you are insulting by assuming we're all just blind sheep being lied to by some hierarchy that doesn't exist outside of certain religions. My partner is an atheist. I was for a long time, and I chose to return to religion on my own. I'm still an atheist, but I am also very religious. I'm the "smart Jew" that ex-xtians love to talk about; enlightened and no longer clinging to the supernatural. And I'm telling you that you're a fucking asshole and I associate more with the most spiritual Orthodox Jew than I ever would with someone who thinks atheism makes you superior.

#atheism #atheist #anti theism #anti theist #jumblr #antisemitism #supercessionism #cultural christianity #cultural xtianity #antitheism #anti-theism #religion #religion is a lie #religion is bullshit #jewish stuff

[etz-ashashiyot]

About Me/FAQs

This is a new blog for a new chapter of my life. Starting over is both a little bittersweet and very freeing.

You can call me Avital. I am a non-binary traditional egalitarian Jew living in the US. Any pronouns except they/them are fine. (!היא/את בעברית, בבקשה. תודה)

I really appreciate human interaction. That being the case, if you follow me and I don't already follow you, please send me a DM with the following:

What you want me to call you (internet name, username, nickname, whatever)

What brought you here and made you want to follow me

Something random about you that you feel comfortable sharing (pet pics are always welcome too <3)

I had a whole lot of other rules on my previous blog to weed out the faint of heart, but I genuinely don't know how well that worked, so instead I will simply put roughly the same information below as resources and recommended reading. Fair warning: I will operate from a baseline assumption that you've done the reading and therefore will not be explaining anything in them.

I also had a listing of my firm opinions and other miscellaneous information. That got long and unwieldy, but a lot of people seemed to appreciate it, so I will post roughly the same list under the cut.

The current username refers to my current symbol of a tree of lanterns in the starlight. This is related to my desire to create self-symbolism, old school style (like I really want to create a family crest, a flag, a seal, and other heraldic nonsense. Why? Because it delights me, of course.)

This page is under construction and subject to change at any time.

B'vracha,

Avital

Recommend Reading

For followers who are Christian, were Christian, are non-Jews who grew up in a Christian culture and/or have only learned about Judaism through Christianity, these links are very helpful in unpacking some of the antisemitism you were taught:

Better Parables (specifically the article about Pharisees, but read the rest of the site too, it's great)

Antisemitic readings of the Temple table-flipping incident in the New Testament

The current Israel-Hamas war and just המצב discourse in general require a lot of background knowledge to discuss intelligently, and not just propaganda. There is a LOT of antisemitism in the public around this topic and it is having serious real-world consequences for Jews all over the world. The mis- and disinformation is causing problems for everyone involved. Islamophobia in the West has increased as well. If you're going to engage in this discussion, I am respectfully but forcefully asking you to read the following sources. They are useful regardless of where you fall on that political scale.

There Is No Magic Peace Fairy

Ways to help: [1], [2], [3]

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that

A non-exhaustive list of antisemitic incidents, attacks, and pogroms during [OP's] lifetime

An exceptionally long and thorough explanation of antisemitism and antisemitic violence throughout history

Why The Most Educated People in America Fall for Antisemitic Lies by Dara Horn (tumblr link in case the article link gets broken)

An excellent overview of the basics

This is nowhere near complete information, but it's an important start. I will very likely continue to add resources as they become available and would love to create a primer on this topic more generally.

About the blog:

I’m going to try my best to keep this blog to primarily Judaism, comparative religion and theology, with the occasional side sprinkling of queer & trans stuff, BUT it is absolutely a personal blog at the end of the day.

I talked about Israel and המצב stuff a lot on my previous blog and will likely continue a bit over here too. I welcome a broad swath of opinions, so long as they objectively treat all parties involved as human and deserving of safety, stability, freedom, dignity, and peace. That is apparently a large ask these days, and a not-small part of why I keep talking about this issue. Please be part of the voices that give me hope for the future, okay?

Minors can follow and interact but please keep in mind that I’m probably closer to your parents' age than yours if you do want to interact with me directly.

Interactions:

Rude asks will be deleted. Harassing blogs will be blocked and probably reported.

I consider anything even remotely in the vicinity of trying to proselytize to me to be “harassing,” or at a minimum, rude. Just FYI.

Otherwise, nice interactions are welcomed.

Banter is encouraged; trolling will be ignored

If I don't respond to your interaction, there's a strong chance that I (a) have no idea what to say and am thinking about it, (2) totally meant to respond and just forgot after the notif disappeared, and/or (3) got incredibly busy. It's not personal! Please don't be shy about following up with me if you like. I promise that if we have a problem that is fixable, you'll know. If we have a problem that is not fixable, you'll be blocked.

I am currently learning Ivrit and am delighted to have interactions in Hebrew. Please feel free to message me, reply to posts or reblog, submit asks, etc. in Hebrew and I will do my best to read and respond to it. (Responses will be slower, but not for lack of appreciation of your thoughts!)

Anything else, just ask.

Hard stances:

You're not going to change my mind on these things; I've looked at the evidence, my personal experiences, and thought about them long and hard, and I am not going to be swayed by an internet rando. I can (often, but not always) co-exist just fine with people who I disagree with, but if seeing my posts about this is going to upset you, just do us both a favor and block me now please.

I am deeply distressed at how many people are choosing to live in a "post-factual society" where the truth is based on truthiness vibes and the politics are based on the quippiest of slogans. I don't care who's doing it, misinfo, disinfo, propaganda, atrocity denial, and gaslighting are BAD. There is no nuance here; these are bad things. They are bad if they go against your cause and they are bad if they "support" your cause. No cause is better than the truth.

If we cannot have a discussion where we are operating from the same baseline reality of verifiable facts, we cannot have a productive conversation and I will not engage with you. We can agree or disagree on a lot and that is fine, but facts matter.

If you cannot be reasoned with in accepting verifiable facts as reality, you need help. I'm serious. That is cult behavior. Get off tumblr and get help.

I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people. If you don't see the inherent worth in other human beings' lives, I can't fix that. Go take that struggle to G-d and heal your soul.

Queer might be a slur in the mouths of some people, but my identity isn't. Don't reblog my posts if you're going to tag it with "q slur" or "q word" or censored in some way. I'm not Gay as in "I prioritize cis men over the entire rest of the community" but Queer as in "my personal labels are none of your business but my political stance on queer liberation sure as fuck will be."

I support the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our ancestral homeland of Israel, the same way that I support other indigenous groups' right to self-determination in their ancestral homelands. If you don't, I'm going to need you to examine why Jews should be singled out of every other group to be denied this right or denied support in seeking it. That said, I definitely do not agree with many of the decisions made by the Israeli government, especially (but far from exclusively) regarding their treatment of Palestinians. I think both Jews and Palestinians deserve to live in peace, safety, freedom, dignity, and self-determination for both. No one is going anywhere; any real solution must recognize that. I tend to favor this proposal by A Land for All as an ideal (and given the grassroots nature of this idea, I think it could work pragmatically too, if the political will exists on both sides.)

I waver between calling myself a liberal Zionist and rejecting the Zionist/anti-Zionist dichotomy altogether because it inherently puts the validity of an existing state up for debate rather than looking at real solutions for the future. Bottom line: I'm a humanitarian and a pragmatist, and I care about all the people who call that part of the world home.

🌻 I stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦

Free Iran from the Islamic Republic // Women Life Freedom

Abortion is a human right and should be safe, legal, available on demand, and shameless. It's a necessary medical procedure and it's completely barbaric that we're still talking about it as anything else.

Birth control, abortion, and no-fault divorce are actively positive parts of society and building healthy families.

Transition care is healthcare and also a human right. Allowing people to transition prevents self-harm and suicide, and has an extremely high efficacy rate with an exceptionally low level of risk or regret. We now have well over a century of data on this.

That said, detransitioners who are still supportive of trans people/aren't transphobic are more than welcome here, as any exploratory process deserves the right to say, "Interesting! But nope!"

Transunity, ace/aro positivity, and just inclusionism in general, 100%. Fuck off with anything else.

If you don't vaccinate yourself and your kids for any reason other than medical necessity, and especially if you promote anti-vaxxer views and the associated pseudoscience, you are actively harming the most vulnerable members of society for entirely selfish reasons and that makes you a bad person. I hope your kids bypass you to get vaccinated.

Wear a mask 😷

[jewishvitya]

Hi! Everything I see about this hp game is just worse and worse, but one thing I don’t get is the Sirona Ryan character? I don’t get why that’s bad, but I think it’s maybe because I don’t know how to pronounce it? This game is a trash fire of hate crimes, but I truly, honestly don’t get the name. Could you please explain it? Thank you very much ❤️

I edited that out of my post because I was worried that I'm just being ignorant about it. I still worry that maybe I was wrong to bring it up. So I'll walk you through my logic, but if this is just cultural ignorance on my part, I apologize.

I saw someone on tiktok explain it, and I'll repeat that if you don't mind. There was a joke in a show I never watched (friends? himym? can't remember) where a character meets someone's parent and that parent looks like, you know, the "man in a dress" transphobic gag. And she asks "what's your name?" and the parent says "Amanda." So she goes "Ohhh, of course, A Man DUH."

Amanda is a real name. But it still got used for a transphobic joke.

So. Sirona is a real Celtic name. It's genuinely a beautiful name. And Ryan could have been harmless as a surname. But in the context of a franchise that belongs to the most well known TERF, a franchise that has the repeated problem of names like Kingsley Shacklebolt, and even names like Remus Lupin that are just "I named him what he is," I just don't think they picked this name for harmless reasons. This is the kind of thing you'd avoid when you know you're writing for a franchise where the fans are used to reading into names this way. This is a world where more than one name is an on-the-nose wordplay based on the character's marginalized identity. Why wouldn't people see this as the same thing, with the new writers continuing JKR's pattern?

This is the same game that gave the player character a slave, advertised itself for letting us visit the kitchen with the other happy slaves, and has its entire premise drowning in antisemitism. Like JKR's choices of names, these issues have been criticized for years. The choice to double down on them rather than choose any other story is deliberate. This game is steeped in bigotry, and people are rarely single-issue bigots. They didn't put in a queer character for us, they put in a queer character for an opportunity to hurt us. That's why I said I'm sure they went to a list of names and picked the one that starts with "sir." Like with the ram's horn (which could have been harmless in a different story, since ram's horn instruments aren't exclusive to Judaism) the larger context is what makes it feel targeted.

Again, if this is my cultural ignorance, I apologize. But this is why I found it uncomfortable. Even if I'm wrong to feel this way, I hope you at least understand where it came from.

#riki babbles #hogwarts legacy #sirona ryan #HP #JKR

[prismatic-bell]

ok so this is less a zionism question and more one related to judaism as a whole, but: the hebrew calendar is currently in the year 5784, yeah? but of course, that doesn't necessarily mean jewish history is necessarily over five thousand years old- jesus's birth precedes christianity in its current form by at least a couple of centuries.

but here's the thing- one post, whose actual content i don't recall, happened to mention that jewish history is three thousand years old. This is where my question gets specific enough so that you'd be able to answer it in a tumblr ask.

you see, the author of one of my favourite books of all time, Sun Tzu, is rumored to have served under Hu Lu of the Wu kingdom, which would put his life at about 500-400 b.c.e. Did judaism exist during that time? could Sun Tsu have credibly met a rabbi in his lifetime (ignoring the Huge distance between the levant and china, of course)?

(also, i know like. Very Little about the history of that area so sorry if my question is stupid or offensive in some way. was the Temple already built there and stuff? were there already people keeping kosher? that sort of stuff)

So let’s start here: that post is incorrect. It’s closer to 3500 years, and the reason it’s not more than that is because before that we were still Canaanites. (Torah claims we defeated the Canaanites. The truth is more like “we were a small sect of Canaanites who out-babied all the other Canaanites.”)

As for whether Sun Tzu could have met a rabbi…no, but not because we weren’t around then. Sun Tzu’s life falls smack in the middle of the return to Jerusalem; Judea had an extremely small population at this point (the whole country is estimated at no more than 30,000 people, with only a single city—Jerusalem), but it did exist as a Jewish nation under Persian rule. We were very much around. But rabbinic Judaism—which is the modern form of Judaism, and what people usually mean when they say “Judaism”—didn’t exist until after the fall of the Temple in 70CE led to the end of blood sacrifice, and the beginnings of the concept of what we today call “rabbis” didn’t exist until the mid-100s BCE. We do have some men older than that who we call “rabbi” sometimes in modern discussion, but this isn’t any kind of official title—it’s more a mark of respect for their great wisdom and learning (like having an honorary doctorate degree). Far more commonly, these men are called the sages, or were kings.

That isn’t to say there’s no chance of Sun Tzu having met influential figures in Judaism, however. Torah was first being written down right around the time he lived, and it so happens that a lot of Jews were in Babylon at the time. Depending on how far he traveled (if he did), he could absolutely have met some of the Jewish figures codifying Torah and the Mishnah, and since some of our earliest fragments of Torah are written on papyrus rather than parchment, it’s even possible he read portions of it. This is doubly true because Israel-Judea is a linchpin between three separate continents: Europe, Africa, and Asia-by-way-of-the-south (nobody was crossing the Alps in 400BCE). That’s why our particular patch has been so fought over throughout history—for most of history, he who controlled Jerusalem controlled international trade. Could some of our writings have been included in a trade headed east? Absolutely. It wouldn’t even be that weird for a few stray copies to have not survived—keeping in mind how many more forms of media and record we have today than we’ve had throughout history, and how much easier it is to make those records, it is still estimated that over 99% of all media and records made in human history are permanently lost. Yeah, totally, Sun Tzu could’ve been like “are there wise men in these western countries? Bring me their writings” and read them and gone “huh, neat, I’ll have to think about that” and then because his scrolls got eaten by bugs and he didn’t use MLA format nobody would ever know. It’s extremely likely that’s happened with many writings from many places throughout history. And yes—it’s equally possible that a few stray Jews became merchants or great travelers and made their way to China and we don’t know because their publicity agents sucked. That is, unfortunately, the case with most of history. We find half a dozen puzzle pieces from a picture we know must contain at least five thousand pieces and we’ve got to reconstruct what it looked like and hope a seventh piece turns up somewhere. So is it likely Sun Tzu met Jews? Not at all. Is it impossible? Absolutely not.

Now as for what Jews were doing at the time…first, I’m going to say the idea that ancient Jews all did exactly as Torah said to do all the time is a lovely fairy tale. I think those of us who did most of our study of the ancient world in sixth grade during our Egypt phases tend to forget that then as now, people were people everywhere you went, and “the [insert ancient race here] people believed ________” is a convenient oversimplification. There would have been varying degrees of observance just like there are today, and I suspect that’s even more true in the peasant class; you’re not making your kids go hungry so you can sacrifice an expensive calf. But this WAS the period when we started getting a unified “this is what we are supposed to do, here, we wrote it down for you” practice, so here are some examples:

1) this is the period when the Jewish pantheon—yes, that was a thing—got collapsed into a single god, the one we now call the One G-d, Adonai. (Yes, the one with the Y-name, no, I’m not saying it.) This is why in some portions of Torah G-d is referred to as Elohim—El was originally another god. The “im” ending is a plural.

2) the rules of Temple sacrifice were formally codified. This isn’t to say it was a free-for-all before this time, but your options were…squishier, so to speak.

3) THE RULES OF KASHRUUUUUUUUUT this is when all of that stuff got written down and formalized. Before this things like not eating pork would have existed, but they would have been more of a cultural taboo than a religious law. This probably reflects why some parts of kashrut, or kosher, laws are so weird in Torah. Like—it tells you some birds are kosher and some aren’t, but it’s super vague on which is which. That makes a lot more sense if “everybody knew” what was and wasn’t taboo. Sort of like how if you open a cookbook and see a recipe asking for two eggs you automatically look for a chicken, not a goose.

4) a lot of laws just didn’t exist yet, or didn’t exist in their modern form. For example, the law against mixing meat and dairy at this point applied only to mammals, and it referred only to how it was cooked. You couldn’t cook an animal in its own mother’s milk. If the ancient Judeans had had ancient chicken alfredo, that would’ve been fine. The rabbis of Talmud (by that point they were actual rabbis) expanded this law due to a superseding law whose name I can’t remember at the moment but the idea of that law is “don’t do anything that could look like you’re breaking Jewish law even if you’re not.” Since you can’t necessarily tell what a meat is without tasting it, or what kind of milk a dairy product has come from without tasting it, the expanded law says “just don’t eat meat and dairy together at all, it looks bad.” Other laws that exist now but didn’t then include the creation of an eruv and all laws surrounding Chanukkah, which celebrates events that didn’t occur until the 300s.

So TL; dr: yes, in theory Sun Tzu could have met Jews, or at least read our earliest writings; the Temple existed (although at that precise moment in time it was very small and not at all grand); and the laws of Judaism-as-we-know-it were just being formalized after a thousand years of oral tradition, so we were doing some stuff and not other stuff.

#you ask nina answers #Nina blogs Judaism

[fromgoy2joy]

Hi! I have been off and on about my converion for a few years. My biggest road block is when I am asked by Rabbi’s or others “what is your reason for converting?”. My answers always seem off putting to the asker (jewish theology resonates with me, jewish ancestry, a love for jewish philosophy and torah principles). I wanted to ask how did you answer and navigate this question at the beginning of your journey?

hello hello! This is such a fascinating question that will merit a *long* response, so sit down, make yourself comfortable, get some tea etc. Sorry for making you wait, but I thought this would be a good post for me to reflect on on a Shabbat I can’t observe. (Family thingz and drama eek)

I entered the Jewish community in a somewhat unconventional way. As a college student, I decided to convert after years of thinking about it and a lifetime of longing for it.

I could go into a whole tangent about that, but short story. I’ve always felt pulled to Judaism and I always tried to fix myself into being a good Catholic girl. One of my earliest memories at 6 was being told to name my stuffed monkey after a saint and I chose Moses for her. Because I wanted her (and me) to be Jewish.

So after years of self torment, I entered college, pretty sure that I was going to convert but completely unknowing of how to start. But school started in September- it was all high holidays and that’s like bursting in on Christmas (not accurate portrayal but from a cultural Christian POV.) I kept on making excuses.

It was a little revelation I had to myself on a seemingly innocuous Friday night. That if if all religion is “disproven” tomorrow, I would still want to practice these traditions, and pass it down to my children. I would still want to be apart of this community and follow the philosophies.

That night was October 6th.

Then I woke up on October 7th and my world had completely shaken. I can’t even put the words into how I felt- it was as if I had blown out the candles of a birthday cake joyfully, unknowing of the darkness I was letting in.

I wept at the constantly playing news. I went to memorial services at local synagogues and struggled through (and got better at ) the Hebrew. I stopped all ham consumption and started to attempt at keeping kosher. And I started going to the Jewish life room provided by our university more and more often.

No one would be in there in the odd times I’d come in, but I started to read “Judaism for Dummies” on their somewhat uncomfortable couch. I was delighted to see that it was too simplistic for me, that there was so much I already knew. Then I moved on to the more complex books about Jewish literacy, philosophy and stories to get more well rounded. But that’s a hard place to start where I know about intense philosophical questions but not the Shema.

I really got involved in the community. I went constantly to shabbats, introduced myself to people around and met with leaders. I went to rabbis’ houses and played with their children. I got involved in advocacy. I walked to a minyan on a Friday night a mile off in the rain. I learnt prayers and butchered the pronunciation.

By the time I actually sat down with my converting rabbi, I’d been immersed in Jewish life for around 3 months.

So I covered bases with him- how I felt about Judaism, how I had learnt and practiced my faith in the limited time I had, but most of all how I had gone through hell and back with the Jewish people and how I never wanted to leave them.

(And then I got assigned 600 pages of reading. So success but at what cost? Just kidding just kidding!

My recommendation to you is- as much as you can- immerse yourself in Jewish community. Make it to prayer services. Help out. And if they ask the “who, what, why, where, when” on your conversion, you don’t have to over-explain. Just smile and say “oh it’s a long story, but this feels like home. “

Because that’s what Judaism is to me - and what it sounds like for you too. Home.

You’ll refine your answers to the other hard questions later. It sound like you already have those answers and your “why” .But making yourself at home here is what I’d (from my experience) recommend you focus on.

#fromgoy2joy thoughts #fromgoy2joy asks #jumblr #jewish #jewish convert #ex catholic to jewish convert specifically #tw October 7 #October 7 #jewblr #jewish convert perspective #jewish conversion #jewish conversion journey #jewish joy

[imnotoverlyobsessive]

Don’t Blame My English Blood For This American Heartache

Info, author’s note, etc

AO3 info prologue one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve

All my work is 18.

Summary: Seraphine Malfoy had been raised in California by her Squib parents with no knowledge of her family's magical heritage, though she has received lessons from a local family. When she discovers she’s the sole heir to the Malfoy family, she leaves for England to step into that role. She can handle the balls and the responsibilities and her new family members. The only thing that throws her completely off is the appearance of Death Eater turned war hero Regulus Black, who, despite being ridiculously full of himself, is far too good looking, charming—and far too persistent—for her own good.

Author’s Note:

So you may or may not be aware of this already, but I’ve been working on this for awhile. It’s not done yet, I’m just posting it in honor of Sera’s birthday, which is today. I’m currently working on chapter nine, and I suspect I’ll need at least another three. I’ll be posting every other day, I figure. Also part of the fun of writing this for me was seeing how much stuff I could put in there that would piss off JKR. So the OC is Jewish (her parents converted prior to her birth), and if anybody @s me about how I wrote it incorrectly (I don’t think I did, though) please know that I’m writing her growing up Jewish based how I grew up. You don’t need any understanding of Judaism in order to read the fic, I don’t think. Her best friend is a trans woman, too, which is fun. The trans woman in question is based on my irl best friend, who worked closely with me on “her” character.

Other things to note:

I play it fast and loose with the lore; I change what I don’t like and treat canon as fic inspo. I have indeed read the books, I’ve done tons of research, and I have a family tree made for the fic, same as I always do. I also have every outfit I describe of Sera’s as well as 3D tours of most of the houses described.

Sera was raised entirely separate from Wizarding society, British or US. She has no knowledge of it. This means she’ll use different words for things and spells (relocate instead of apparate, blue animal instead of patronus, that kind of thing). If something seems a little bit odd to you, chances are I explain it later.

Sera does not use a wand. She is not necessarily more powerful than your average witch, it’s just that she learned without one. You may be aware that canonically, Native American witches and wizards (Sera learns from one such family) didn’t use wands, and supposedly their magic was less powerful. I think that’s stupid. If a wand is a lightning rod, that doesn’t mean the lightning isn’t powerful outside of it, it’s just not as concentrated. As a result, the way Sera learned was without a wand but with more force behind each spell. She also learned in Awaswas, the native language of the Uypi tribe (historically they were a tribe living in the Santa Cruz mountains of Northern California, but unfortunately they are extinct now. However, I figure there’s no reason that magical families wouldn’t have been just fine against the colonizers), but she uses nonverbal magic almost exclusively now.

I think that’s everything. If you have any questions, please lmk.

Tag list:

@ellamaianderson @shika1200 @blackqueenstarseed1 @gatoenlaciudad @esmaada @mariaelizabeth21-blog1 @softhecreator @timolaurence @timmymyluv @oddlyenoughiamweird @leecrunchybones @s-we-e-t-t-ea @almostg @leespparker @bubblebuttwade @glizzymcguirex @starberry-cake

To be added, please ask 💗

#my writing #fanfiction #fanfic #fanfics #Harry Potter #mauraders #mauraders era #Regulus black #regulus arcturus black #regulus deserved better #regulus x you #regulus x y/n #regulus x reader #regulus black x female reader #regulus black x y/n #regulus black x reader #regulus black x you #original character #original female character #ofc #fem! OC #fem! of #OC #Regulus x original character #Regulus black x original character #Regulus x original female character #Regulus black x original female character #regulus x oc #regulus black x oc #regulus black smut