Mikey: Are you sure you want to do this?
Leo: Cause we can tell you right now it’s a bad idea.
Raph: Awe, c’mon guys, it’s not that bad
Donnie: No, No. I agree. Don’t date me. I’m terrible.
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I have what’s going to be a really unpopular take but please just hear me out. Lately a lot of fellow Jewish bloggers on this website have (rightfully!!) been getting annoyed by random people going into their inboxes and asking if they’re Zionist, how they feel about Israel, etc. And I totally empathize with that because I’m an anti-Zionist Jew so I spend a lot of time correcting people’s assumptions that I must support Israel because I’m Jewish. Furthermore, I want Zionism to stop being seen as a central, undeniable part of being Jewish because that makes Jews like me feel pretty unwelcome. And I am aware that those asks often accuse us of dual loyalty, an antisemitic stereotype. So I’m not saying bloggers should have to answer those asks, or that they can’t get mad about them.
However, I think bloggers are wrong when they say that they can’t affect or change what happens in Israel because they’re American Jews (or otherwise diasporic, but it is almost always Americans who say this), not Israeli Jews.
Look. It’s one thing if you just don’t want to get involved (although I am totally judging you). But I can name a billion different ways American Jews have changed things in Israel, and stuff we can do right now! For example:
- protesting our tax dollars paying for weapons and bombs Israel uses to kill Palestinians, by pressuring our elected representatives, senators, and president into taking a stand against Israel
- supporting the Not on Our Dime Act, which is aiming to prohibit tax-deductible donations from being used to fund illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank
- working to change Jewish studies curriculum and summer camp + youth group programming to provide kids and students with more options than just Zionism, and a more complete + less biased education about Israel
- no tech for apartheid: Jewish Google workers protesting against Project Nimbus, which helps the Israeli government with surveillance of Palestinians
- using our position to educate people and make our opinions heard, so we don’t let Jewish Zionist organizations speak for us all and influence what gentiles think about Israel and current-day antisemitism
- I have my own opinions about the recent protests over Netanyahu’s judicial reform, but lots of American Jews supported them and they were definitely effective
- and that’s just a few of the many ways I’ve seen American Jews work towards creating real change in Israel. are we the only ones who can do this? no. but gentiles can’t shape the future of the American Jewish community, which altogether has quite a lot of influence in Israel. only we can do those things.
Saying that as American Jews our voices and actions don’t matter when it comes to Israel is actually such a weak, lame-ass excuse for refusing to take a stance for or against Israel. This isn’t something we get to be neutral about; silence equals support for Zionism.
That being said, I can’t control what individual people do. If you seriously want to refuse to support Palestine, fine. Whatever. Just please stop using “American Jews can’t help anyways!” as your excuse when that’s such a blatantly false claim.
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“it’s not about kink” always feels soooo unaware an interpretation to me when it comes to a lot of stuff discussion around the american legal system and being lgbt+ and our overlap with kink communities.
even if you are as vanilla as it gets insofar as gay rights goes, many an average bigot thinks being lgbt+ is a kink. no matter what. they’re not even like, “They’re born that way,” level.
that’s literally why those bigots call it a ‘lifestyle choice,’ in a similar way you hear that phrasing used with like, a full time submissive. to them you choose to be gay because they conceive being gay or trans (or even in the dangerous ‘tainted by proximity’ ballpark) as innately a kink thing and also “unnatural” in the same way as kinks. (all the vocabulary choices are coming together, do you notice.)
that’s also why being gay is “inappropriate around children” even as far as bringing it up. because it’s a kink to them. you might as well be going around in a full latex suit to them.
those bigots thinks all of us are a kink. not even uncommon thought in many areas of the US.
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