Every single time I hear someone referring to a Jewish person as ‘white’ another little piece of my soul dies.
As a non-American Jew, the first time I ever heard Jews being referred to as white was when I was a full grown adult watching an American reality show. I FOR REAL thought they were making that shit up in order to generate buzz and get people talking about the controversy! That’s how foreign the notion was to me. Imagine my shock and horror to discover that THIS IS A COMMON MISCONCEPTION IN THE UNITED STATES.
It’s the way that referring to Jews as ‘white’ ERASES white people’s antisemitism, it erases our persecution at the hands of white people, it erases our suffering, it erases the OTHERING that Jews had suffered for CENTURIES from actual white people.
Based on what the skin tone of some Jews in a few places might afford them SO LONG AS NO ONE KNOWS THEY’RE JEWISH.
If you have to hide your real identity in order to enjoy the privileges of being perceived as white, YOU’RE NOT WHITE (this is true for Jews just like it is true for other white-passing People of Color).
White passing is not the same as white.
WHITE PASSING IS NOT THE SAME AS WHITE.
Jews are NOT white. Not a single one of us. Not even the ones who can pass as white, let alone all of the Jews who can’t.
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It is really sort of incredible to me how antisemitism can supersede every other principle someone professes to hold. No matter how progressive, no matter how committed to human rights, no matter how open-minded and accepting and caring someone thinks they are...
No matter how much they think they've abandoned their Christian upbringing, no matter how much they think they've shed their parents' biases, no matter how much they pride themselves on being able to hold multiple truths or having solidarity with other marginalized identities...
It always, always comes back to the same old shit.
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While "people don't say this about other marginalized groups" is generally not useful, as many people do say those things and more, I also don't think it's unfair to acknowledge that there are plenty of people on this website and in other generally progressive spaces who do try to watch themselves and do profess to be concerned about offending others and looking for their own unconscious biases who have outright and openly decided that they are not going to listen to Jewish people about anything, and further are not even going to pretend to do so, and in fact believe that this is the progressive position to hold.
I don't think it's dismissive of other kinds of bigotry for Jewish people to see the disconnect with people in their own political circles and point it out.
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Sometimes I accidentally break out of my Tumblr Curated Experience bubble of Jews and I see what’s actually going on in the main part of this site. Posts with hundreds of thousands of notes with such blatant Jew hating whistles (I refuse to call them dogwhistles at this point they’re so clear), stuff that’s ripped straight from the Protocols and Mein Kampf. If you think I’m exaggerating on that, trust me, I’m not— I haven’t read either of the full texts, but I’ve read extracts, and frankly the shit here is indistinguishable from it. I’ll be having a good day, a day where I believe that maybe people are going to wake up in a couple years and realise how horrible this is, a day where I think that maybe one day I’ll be able to trust goyim again, and then that delusion just gets shattered as soon as I see what’s really out there
I don’t know what to do anymore. I thought as time went on and people got bored of their pet activism, things would get better, but it seems like it’s gone in the opposite direction— everyone online has been radicalised into hating Jews. The young western left have become straight up Nazis with a thin coat of progressive paint, and it’s only going to get worse because nobody is willing to listen to Jews. Honestly, I should just delete my account, but I’m not going to purely out of spite. But being online— not just on tumblr, it’s inescapable— as a Jew is willingly engaging in massive amounts of emotional harm
עם ישראל חי. Thats the only thing keeping me going. We will outlive this. We will outlive you
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Thinking about if Bruce was Jewish again.
In Judaism, burying someone is one of the greatest mitzvot of all. A lot of Jewish people bury their own loved ones, whether symbolically by helping shovel the first few bits of dirt, or the entire grave.
Burying someone is considered so great a mitzvah because it is one that cannot ever be repaid.
If Bruce was Jewish, he probably buried Jason himself, or with Alfred’s help. It had to happen within 48 hours of Jason’s death.
And then! Jason came back. Does that render the mitzvah null? How does that affect his yartzheit? I have so many questions.
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Daaaayuuum
(Image description: Twitter post by David Simon @AoDespair quoting Stephen Miller @StephenM
Stephen Miller: "Speaking as a Jew: ADL is NOT a Jewish organization. It is an ultra-left activist org that pushes radical transgenderism, border erasure, police dismantlement, and the demolition of free speech-deploying rank...."
David Simon: "Speaking as another Jew: you're a fucking shande and if there were only nine of us gathered and it was the morning of my father's yahrzeit and you stumbled in and promised to just sit in the corner and shut up, I'd say sorry, no, we don't have a minyan."
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Hello hello, sending hugs as always!
I was hoping you maybe be able to give me some inspiration for a small series of food photos I'm assembling for Channukah! I'm doing an 8 part series celebrating the different groups within Judaism to 1. Be loudly and proudly Jewish at this current time, and 2. raise awareness for non-ashki Jews. In the UK it's super hard to find many non ashki peeps which makes it hard to chat to people about other classic Channukah foods, but I was wondering if you knew of any particularly good ones (that aren't latke or sufganiyot)? Would hugely appreciate any suggestions you have!!
Hi darling, sending you the biggest hugs right back! <3
Oooh, Hanukkah foods! I'm not gonna lie, some of my fave Jewish foods come from this holiday. With your permission, I'll give a small introduction, just for anyone reading, who might be unfamiliar with Hanukkah, and curious... and also talk about some of the lesser known Hanukkah food traditions among European Jews, too.
So during Hanukkah, we celebrate a miracle that happened with the oil at the Temple in Jerusalem. After the Jews defeated the occupying Greek forces that had desecrated our Temple, we wanted to light again the eternal flame of the Menorah (the Temple candelabra) with olive oil, but after the destruction caused by the Greek forces, there was only enough left for one day, and it would take 8 days to get more oil. The miracle is that somehow, that small amount of oil lasted for the whole 8 days, meaning the light didn't go out again. To remember this miracle, we eat food fried in oil! Being Jewish is so good for your health. XD
In shops and bakeries around Israel, there are already sufganiot being sold. They are YUMMY, and while some people call them "the Jewish donuts," I can say that after having eaten American donuts, I def think sufganiot are way yummier (in part 'coz they're not as "heavy" because the dough it's made of is fluffier? More... airy? Not sure how to say it, but I hope you get the idea). Also, you don't get robbed, because someone made a hole in the middle of the sufgania, taking out nearly half of it. The traditional type has strawberry jam injected inside, and sugar powder on top, but in Israel there are some crazy fancy kinds, and every year they seem to become more extravagant.
Traditional sufganiot (you can see a bit of the jam on top, but half the fun is biting and getting to the "treasure" of lots of jam at the center of the sufgania):
Fancy sufganiot:
Then there's the latkes, or as they're called in Hebrew, levivot. They're like savoury pancakes made out of potatoes, and obviously they're fried in oil.
In many Jewish communities, there was a custom of giving kids special pocket money for Hanukkah. In Israel, this "money" is given in the form of chocolate "coins." I freaking loved this as a kid! It was fun unwrapping the "coins," eating the chocolate, and then (assuming I was careful when peeling them off), make a collection of the different "coins," or just play with the wrap.
Greek Jews used to make a bread from potatoes and yogurt:
Georgian Jews made levivot out of corn flour (sometimes filled with cheese), or out of potatoes AND nuts, giving it the shape of a big omelette. Here's the corn flour version:
Czech Jews had a custom saying goose is the best meat, so for Hanukkah, they often ate goose related dishes. For example, they would make levivot from potatoes, eggs, sugar, lemon and goose fat.
French and Swiss Jews would make levivot out of apples.
The Jews of Iraq, Algeria and Buchara (which is in Uzbekistan) used to put the Hanukkah pocket money for the kids inside honey cakes. In Algeria and Buchara they also sometimes made levivot with meat added inside.
The Jews of Romania and Austria used to light potato Hanukkah candles! This was likely because they were so poor. Still, a pretty cool thing, when you can light your candle, and eat it (or at least a part of it), too.
In northern Africa, Jews used to make a type of cookie called Debla (sometimes nicknamed "dough roses"), which originated in Libya. They're usually eaten with a sweet syrup. It's more of a Purim dish (the equivalent of Hamantaschen), but was sometimes prepared for Hanukkah as well. Traditional Debla:
And a slightly "fancier" Israeli version:
Okay, maybe my fave Hanukkah dish! It's called sfinge (the 'ge' is pronounced like in "sponge"), and it's basically the Moroccan sufgania, which later became popular among Tunisia and Libya Jews, too. It can be round with a hole in the middle, it can be in the shape of a ball, while Libyan Jews make it flat. It's eaten with either honey or sugar powder, but again, in Israel fancier versions developed... I'm not a great cook, so IDK to explain why, but it's even fluffier than the sufgania, and that's why it's my personal fave.
Traditional sfinge with honey:
With sugar powder:
Israelis always having to make everything fancier:
They even made a savoury version of flat sfinge...
I hope this helps! Have a wonderful day, darling! xoxox
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