#My rabbi wrote this!!

[leverage-ot3]

not going to give the blog any attention or time of day but this is your reminder that the leverage crew would never be zionists or support israel whatsoever

I wasn't going to engage with it because I value my mental health but yeah. absolutely fucking NOT

y'all really think that this group of people that actively go out of their way to go against the rich and powerful, who make it their goal to help people that are oppressed, devalued by society and taken advantage by those more powerful would at all EVER align themselves with israel? bffrrn

I'm going to go off for a few paragraphs about why this is such a horrendously ridiculous and delusional idea, but I'm not going to clog up your dash so it's going under the cut. I want to respect people who already participate in activism and need fandom space for lighter things

tw for discussion of the atrocities and war crimes happening in palestine

over 25 THOUSAND innocent people have died as a result of israeli terror the last few months alone. over 10 thousand children. entire family lines have been erased from the world forever- grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren all martyred, often together as they are sheltering from bombs and bullets until they are murdered by soldiers that laugh as they shoot and detonate bombs.

you really think that eliot 'I adopt every child I see' spencer would support a regime that let a child stay trapped in a car where her family members were martyred, not let paramedics in for days and then when they finally let the paramedics approach they kill both her AND the EMS? you think he would stand with the government that arrests children as young as 6 years old for *checks hand* being terrorists (because what fucking 6 year old is a terrorist let alone any kind of national threat. they're fucking SIX). that snipes children for throwing rocks at tanks and their apartheid walls

he and all of them would weep at the picture released the other day of the little girl handing from rubble with her legs blown off.

all of them would be horrified of the bombardment that has murdered tens of thousands of innocent civilians, women, children, men, elderly alike with no fucking care. that shoots people with their hands up waving white flags. that bulldozes graveyards and digs up bodies and probably steals organs from they dying and deceased. that bombs hospitals, governmental and archival buildings, mosques, churches, holy sites, schools and universities. whose soldiers have a trend where they go through women's underwear drawers and make lewd comments about their lingerie and how kinky they must be. who make tiktoks of them playing in decimated playgrounds and signing their children's names on bombs. who force parents to collect pieces of their children in plastic bags because they have been blown apart by relentless bombing. who shoot a grandmother holding a child's hand. who murdered a woman that dared say that she was older than the 'state' of israel.

the fact that you're posting this as israel relentlessly bombs rafa, the place they were told would be the only safe place to be, where 1.6 million people are living in tents living off animal feed because no sufficient humanitarian aid (if any) has been let through

these people that advocate for comeuppance and exposing wrongs would not support a regime that actively targets and murders journalists and their entire families.

you really think any of them would actively support a genocidal sociopathic government? fucking delusional

to a certain extent, I know that people want to keep fandom and advocacy spaces separate and I acknowledge and relate to that- when we are logged on every moment of the day we sometimes need to take breaks and engage with something else for our mental health. I need that too. and there is a very thin line when you try to apply fandom to current events because in all honesty, making headcanons about how your faves would react to X horrendous event can come off as extremely tone-deaf. I get you love your blorbos (I do too!), but actual people are suffering and it can come off as disingenuous to a lot of folks when you try to talk about your characters instead of the very real harm that is going on. HOWEVER, the other account posted in the leverage tag that the crew would be zionists and started that discourse and since it was already out there in our space I wanted to make sure that people know that this blog does not support that whatsoever.

and before this gets misconstrued: antizionism is not antisemitism. I have a lot of love for my jewish friends and followers, but saying that we can't be critical of war crimes and incessant aggression because it is a jewish state is fucking ridiculous. we should be able to hold any and all governments accountable when they do bad things (this absolutely also means I think we should hold the US accountable for enabling them and I live here. every country that is complicit needs to face consequences). saying that israel is exempt from criticism because jewish people deserve a right to a homeland isn't a great take. I completely understand fear of antisemitism and discrimination, but at some point we have to think critically and acknowledge that people are dying by the thousands and standing up for that and calling out atrocities takes precedence. jewish voices for peace has some really good content about this topic

anyways there's a random blog out there posting about how your faves are zionists splattering their rancid sponge and I want to make sure my stance on this subject is very clear: fuck israel, free palestine, and no one is free until everyone is free

#i got really fucking angry and this was kind of cathartic but honestly i'm just really fucking tired of this shit #thank u digitaldiscipline for talking me out of reblogging it with a response because that would just give the blog more undeserved attenti #free palestine #palestine #gaza #anti zionisim #fuck israel #fuck isntreal #leverage #leverage redemption #your fave is NOT a zionist #tw war crimes #also raf 'splattering their rancid sponge' is such an iconic phrase thank u for sharing that w me #I'm not going to talk about my real-life activism for privacy and security reasons but I regularly interact with people from jvp #and they are super awesome and lovely and courageous people #i really respect them. they are treated so awful in my area when we have protests at city hall from local rabbis. it takes a LOT of courage #ALSO there is a lot to be said about eliot as a character and how he isn't the best person but for the sake of him loving children i wrote #it that way. also hardison would be disappointed in you for supporting israel #mine

[danddamage]

#chanukahproject #This is the menorah my Rabbi gave me after I finished my conversion (well. After I signed the Certificate) #(get your shit together DAVID) #He very publicly gave me a set of beeswax candles and was VERY surprised to hear that I didn't have a menorah to fit them #I had a mini-norah and a candelabra that happened to have nine branches but mom and I were saving up for a really nice one #So he 'stole' one from the Sisterhood gift shop #Wrote his name on a post it that said he'd bring a check when they were open on Sunday #All of my menorahs are my favorite but this one is SPECIAL

[imarvelatthestars]

aalar [v. AH-lar] - to feel

Pairings: The Armorer x gn!Reader

Content: sfw - no warnings! just a little romantic drabble, some soft pining, set at some point before mando s3

Life is not easy for Mandalorians these days - not that it ever has been and it certainly is better now than it was under the Empire, but the change in regime has not changed the realities of living in a diaspora. She misses home. She misses when the Great Forge was still alight, as now its fire only resides within her heart. She misses her mother and the wisdom she carried, the wisdom passed down to her. Oddly enough, she even misses pog soup. These are things she feels keenly, but more than that, stranger than that, is the thing she feels for you.

She does not fully know how to quantify this feeling. It is... affection, she thinks, though not the kind she is familiar with. Not the affection of a buir and their ad, nor friend for a friend, but something more. It burns the brightest and hottest when you speak passionately about the things you research late into the night.

Ancient Mandalorians not even the most orthodox among them knows much about, tales of Jedi from the very birth of the Republic, mystical Nightsisters and their curious ways, cultures so distant that they are little more than fractured memories in the subconscious of the galaxy. They fascinate you, trigger minute connections within your mind that she can only guess at, and this in turn fascinates her. Your intelligence is captivating, refreshing. Like a spring of water in the desert.

She wonders what else you think of, dream of. Do you dream? Do you let your mind wander as she does, albeit rarely and in the dark of the night when no one can hear her breath catch as she ponders the mystery that is her affection for you? Are you even aware of her beyond her basic communal functions?

She sighs and her helmet drops a hair. It is pointless to think such things. Paths like these can only lead to self-ruin and she knows better. Her duty is to the Covert first, to their hearts and minds, their runi and wellbeing. But still, she wonders. What if her duty were to you as well, not as part of the Covert but as simply hers?

This is what she feels and although she does not understand it, she accepts it. This is a part of her now and it will grow as she does. She only hopes she will one day find the opportunity to tell you.

mando'a translations:

buir - parent

ad - child

runi - soul (poetic)

star wars taglist: @moodymisty @dystopicjumpsuit @clonemedickix @wizardofrozz @anxiouspineapple99 @multi-fan-dom-madness @deejadabbles

#the armorer x reader #the armorer x you #star wars #the armorer #the mandalorian #x reader #me peddling my space rabbi armorer agenda all over again in the middle of some romance ig #not that it's very blatant here but i wrote with the blatant intention of it anyway

[corvidcrybaby]

I must know more about Judah and Rabbi Loew! Please tell me who they're all about. What are their connections to Zemira?

EEEEE TYSM FOR THE ASK I'M SO SORRY FOR THE LATE ASS RESPONSE.......!!! I'm glad someone finds them interesting, they're easily the hardest part of Lesions of a Different Kind to write but I find them so deeply moving and fun to explore. I'm gonna copypaste some info from a fucking essay I wrote a friend regarding Judah.

JUDAH

Judah the Hammer is based directly off of the real historical figure of Judah Maccabee, the inspired guerrilla commander who was the mastermind behind much of the Jewish victories during the Maccabean Revolt. This was a real historical event in the 160's BC which saw a Judean revolt oust the Hellenic Seleucid Empire from its control over Judea, and an end to their Hellenization policies which threatened to erase the lion's share of Jewish traditions and identity at the time. The holiday of Hanukkah commemorates this story and the miracle of the oil.

In my Hellsing fic, Judah is the primary antagonist. Rather than dying in his suicide charge at Elasa, this version of Judah was turned into a vampire, and still walks the Earth. This event thoroughly shattered his worldview and his understanding of his role in it. As the antag, he forms an important foil with Alucard, because Alucard did much the same shit that Judah did - guerrilla warfare waged against a larger, more powerful empire, complete with being remembered as a total brute of a man - with the major difference being that Judah's war was victorious. He just didn't get to live to see it.

When I set out to design the prime antag for Lesions it was a tough call. I knew I wanted it to be an 'ancient world' vampire, and I wanted to keep up the trend of a historical figure being a vampire such as with Alucard and Erzsebet - which, yes, I like Hirano's other project Drifters quite a lot, don't @ me LOL. But then I also decided I wanted it to be personal to Zemira in some way, shape or form in such a way that would challenge her in a meaningful way and also be her worst nightmare incarnate. I was really hesitant to go there with this character for obvious reasons, but then I remembered that part of why I love Hellsing so much is that it isn't afraid to go there and tackle the uncomfortable topics in these big grandiose orgies of violence and philosophizing and grand tragedy. And I got to wondering about the dynamics between a medieval warlord like Vlad III and a warlord from antiquity like Judah Maccabee and how they would differ and relate to and from one another, and decided that that topic and the way people lionize historical figures and re-interpret them to fit the needs of their time. I've always found that topic intriguing as a historian because I first and foremost consider it folly, no matter what argument you're trying to make with them. But on the other hand, these were real people whose actions shaped the world we live in now, and I suppose I wanted to explore with the horrific matrix we call vampirism might do to a man like Judah, and how it would highlight and distort his character traits. I also, of course, wanted to make him a foil that Alucard could face down that would enhance his appreciation for Zemira's traits that are so distinctly hers (her rebellious attitude, her tenacious-to-the-point-of-stupidity tendencies, her disregard for power structures that don't respect her, et cetera) while also giving Zemira a "this you???" kind of antag that will make her question herself and grow into a stronger person.

Judah is an embodiment of Jewish rage. All the trauma, all the anger, all the suffering and all the cruel irony of two thousand years of antisemitism coalesced onto the shoulders of a single man. A man who, to his own community, is controversial and complicated. A cautionary tale to some, an inspiration to others. Sometimes for good reasons, other times for bad - but always drawing from the same core story of who Judah the Hammer was and what he did.

So from the time of his turning, Judah took it upon himself to wander the Earth as a foul-tempered arbiter of retribution for the horrors the Gentile world inflicts onto Jews. For every Jew murdered in a hate crime, he would take the life of a Gentile - with a particular hyperfixation on Europeans, as these were his sworn enemy in life, and that hatred extends particularly to Christianity, who he views as the torchbearers of Hellenic influence and outright calls them cultists; he's definitely disappeared plenty of villages throughout the rest of the world, mind you, definitely destroyed some mosques, but his main tunnelvision is upon Europe. I feel like if he were to put forward an insane Old Man Conspiracy Theory, it would be that Jesus was actually a Hellenized Jew or some shit like that and therefore a Greek and therefore the enemy. He is an ancient vampire and every bit the giga-powerful behemoth you'd expect from a being his age, but he chafes at the body he inhabits and has never fully accepted that he is what he is now (meaning he and Zemira both know what it's like to exist in a body that isn't home to them). He exists in the role of a spirit of temptation, but is in fact ace, and generally hates being touched. Oftentimes he wouldn't even kill for food, and in fact, still despises drinking blood and has never truly acclimated to it, only drinking from people he considered deplorable enough to take into himself and weaponize against their kindred, be it as a thrall or as something to simply sustain his existence. He prefers to carry and eat bones, as he dislikes waste and excess, and considers drinking blood to be a gross indulgence.

Is he grandiose, or pathetic? Tragic hero, or petty opportunist? DId he truly take up this mantle of being a spirit of vengeance out of a belief it was G-d's intention for him, or did he window-shop a hypothesis for an event (his turning) that he had no control over and traumatized him deeper than he could ever hope to recover from? Is he to blame for his callous reduction of peoples' lives to political 'gotchas', or is that a product of his time that anyone on a high horse about their morals would have fallen into as well? Does his vampirism make him a monster, or was he monstrous before an infectious Nosferatu's fangs got anywhere near him?

There aren't a lot of clear answers in the text about this because I mostly use him to pose difficult questions to the cast of Lesions, and how they react to him determines much of who and what they are. He's extremely difficult to write well and I've rewritten his scenes more often than any other characters, but I love him.

Yet even with all this grim characterization, Judah is a character that is just an endless blast to write for and daydream about. Whereas Alucard is all pomp and circumstance, elegance and dramatism, Judah is rugged, foul-mouthed just like Zemi, and with a crotchety old man mean streak a mile wide. When he moves about, his body acts like it's being controlled by a drunken puppeteer - very 'HOW DO I DRIVE THIS THING???' energy, because vampirism in Hellsing is often framed in Christian terms. Therefore, as a Jew, it's really hard for him to acclimate to it, and his fight scenes have major Drunk Monk energy. The text calls him "a boulder of a man" as opposed to Alucard's gracile and lanky build, and is shorter than him at six-foot-even (since people used to be smaller in the ancient world, generally).

He's an angry old man, he's a dude who's sad that his little brother died in front of him, he's your orthodox uncle with a bad attitude who tries to corner you at the family function to tell you how you're off the derech, he's Oscar the Grouch in vampire form, and his fight scenes are shockingly violent. Alucard kills people and makes a spectacle of it, but Judah's kills read like you found a video of a guy bludgeoning a fellow inmate to death with a lead pipe in a high-security prison that got released on Liveleak or something.

Also, my voiceclaim for him is Brok from God of War: Ragnarok.

He's a dick, but it's hard to look away whenever he's talking. And I love him for it. <3

RABBI LOEW

Shifting gears here, Rabbi Loew is, much like Judah, the very same Rabbi Loew as the real person who is fabled to have created the legendary Golem of Prague - in my Hellsing fic, he's done just that, and still resides in what looks to be a decrepit old mansion in Prague, but will reveal itself as a safe haven for Jews who are in a bad spot. He's essentially the Prophet Elijah figure of the story - he appears to people along with his golem in scenarios where they are deeply and truly lost and in need of guidance, giving them a comforting nudge in the direction they need. He's a repository for endless depths of knowledge, and opposed to the rest of the Hellsing cast who are so fond of carrying themselves with over-the-top aesthetic maximalism, Rabbi Loew is very simple, very soft-spoken, and although he can absolutely get angry and does so in the story, he hardly ever raises his voice. He's part of an important web of foils that includes Rabbi Loew & his golem (simply named Guard in the text) versus Integra and Alucard, as well as how he represents a defunct, dead-in-the-water version of the Integra/Alucard boss and servant bond due to his complicated and fraught relationship with Judah.

Rabbi Loew actually contributed some of magical binding seals used to tie Alucard to the Hellsing family, which furthers the golem parallel so core to the story. But the elephant in the room here is that Rabbi Loew does not have Judah bound in a similar manner. Judah comes and goes from the mansion in Prague at random. Usually, he swings by just to rest for a bit, and maybe pick a few obnoxious arguments with Rabbi Loew. There is a great deal of uncertainty in how they interact. On the one hand, Judah is four times Rabbi Loew's age, but the latter actually looks like an old man, where as Judah looks around his mid-to-late-fifties, and is found of calling him "Old Guy." Rabbi Loew is, well, a fucking Rabbi, and therefore commands a certain kind of deference and respect amongst most Jews, especially as a legendary figure - but Judah is a figure even more legendary in Jewish history, and comes from a time in which Rabbinic Judaism was not the standard (Second Temple Judaism, to be specific), thus meaning they are separated by time in more ways than one. I think secretly both persons look to the other for inspiration, but are always saddened and frustrated by what they find. Judah finds Rabbi Loew to be overly passive and toothless, despite their first meeting being Rabbi Loew coming upon the Hammer brutalizing and torturing a Cossack to death in a shockingly violent manner, and saying "Not that I'm opposed to cracking a few skulls when push comes to shove, but don't you think this is a bit much?" And despite Judah's dislike for the old Rabbi's attitude, he often finds himself yielding when Rabbi Loew checks him on his brutality. But when his Rabbi isn't around, Judah continues on his usual sporadic outbursts of vengeful violence on Gentile communities, believing that if he was cursed with vampirism, then he must become like one of the Plagues of Egypt itself. HaShem did terrible things in the name of justice then, and Judah sees himself as one of those further terrible necessities, instead of his own person.

Rabbi Loew hates this.

Rabbi Loew looks at Judah and thinks of how much good a person like him could do with the mind-blowing powers of vampirism at his disposal. The lives he could save, the atrocities he could prevent, the connections he could build and foster, if he so chose to do so. But Judah doesn't do that. Judah is resigned to being the Hammer of Israel, the Lion of Judea, the Beast of the Levant. He is so deep in a haze of dissociation that he sometimes believes everything around him is the nightmarish hallucination of a dying man (as though he's on an acid trip that never ended) that he doesn't at all consider that maybe he could make this extended lifespan of his mean something. He doesn't consider that wandering the Earth and murdering Gentiles to "keep the score even" isn't actually helpful. He thinks it's beyond his purview. And Rabbi Loew can't help but keep trying to Uncle Iroh this touchy motherfucker into a healthier headspace, but I think both men know that the old Rabbi doesn't have what it takes to truly get through to Judah. And so, detente. They share space and company and do care for one another, but it's a doomed friendship that can't go much deeper than that.

Because at the end of the day, just like any real Rabbi, Rabbi Loew is just a man. There are bells and whistles that call it into question (such as his unnatural long life, which I won't address here due to spoilers), but he's just an old fellow, doing his best to make the world a slightly less cruel place.

He gets the least engagement, but I love him too.

#THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE ASK I WROTE A WHOLE ACADEMIC ESSAY BAHAHAHAHA I HOPE THIS ISN'T TOO MUCH TO THROW IN YOUR FACE #hellsing #hellsing fanfiction #hellsing oc #my ocs #lesions of a different kind #rabbi loew #judah the hammer #hellsing fanart #ask box

[ofpd]

lent a precocious child my copy of les mis and she's reading it in the other room and most important commentary so far is "is everyone in this family named jean??"

#yes. #txt #i wasnt sure if i wanted to bring it home for thanksgiving weekend but now im so glad i did #also she's been enjoying my annotations #apparently at one point i wrote ''just like rabbi akiva'' (i think about jvj learning to read at age 40) #and she was like ''omg that is like rabbi akiva''

[koshercosplay]

chapter five of no rabbis on a pirate ship is up! go read and enjoy, and don't forget to let me know what you think!

#wheeeeeee #sorry it's been so long since the last update! #but I'm so excited to share more of this story with you all #I have plannnnnns #👀 #ofmd #our flag means death #no rabbis on a pirate ship #update #my writing #our flag means gay #jewish headcanons #fun fact I wrote the first two sections of this chapter while dealing with a high fever #and I think you can tell lmao

[ckcthonic]

I have trembled before G-d in lonely adoration. At threadbare hours of the morning, During a merciless storm that dared bend the trees. I prayed to my G-d. I pray to my G-d, but I do not pray to yours. I have fallen in love with the G-d of Moses, of Abraham, of Isaac. The G-d of thunder, of justice, of duty to the sick. I keep Them with me, and go on in the world carrying Their duty. But what of your G-d? Does He not tell you of your duty to the subjugated, to the oppressed, to the helpless? Who is this G-d you pray to, that - you use His name to justify the killing of men, of women, of children? In the name of your LORD, you kill countless. You orphan countless. You leave them to become carrion, unable to return to the Earth. You use your G-d to justify this endless hunger for blood, And carefully conceal your lust for power in the filthy cloak of righteousness. You worship the death machine.

G-d is not smiling upon you. And one day, They will drown you in the blood you have spilled. It will fill your houses, and you will choke on it. You may not feel the endless weight of your guilt, but you will surely be crushed by it. G-d does not tolerate idolatry.

#fragments #you get my writing. once. #read that article i reblogged on main and had to dig this one up #because it really resonated with me. i wrote this back at the start in october and thought about submitting it somewhere but got scared #i have strong feelings about how zionists use their faith to justify genocide #how could you? how could you do this? #and i wonder of the zionists at my temple. i hope they are starting to realize what's actually happening #and i hope they feel incredibly fucking guilty. #i shook with rage when i found out my rabbi supported the genocide. and dared to present herself as an authority for questions #so i wrote this about it.

[cryptotheism]

What would be a good semi-obscure occultist for a character to name-drop to show they're into occultism that would read as authentic and impressive to a reader who is themselves an expert? (One of my pet peeves is characters who are supposed to be experts in something but only reference the most 101-level version of it that the author picked up doing research on Wikipedia.)

Now THIS I can answer.

Lodovico Lazzarelli. Weirdo Italian poet magician preacher. First Renaissance westerner to self identify as a Hermetic. He's pretty obscure because his work still hasn't been translated into English. Though that would imply your character can read Latin.

OH OH OH

Yohannan Alemanno. He was one of Pico Della Mirandola's hebrew teachers. Dude was a rabbi, a kabbalist, an alchemist, and a straight up full-throated unabashed astral magician, in Italy in the 1480s, which takes some brass fuckin balls. Dude was an odd duck. He wrote largely in Hebrew, and some in Latin.

[hopelesslyromanticshark]

Hiii! How are you?? Omg thanks for writing for Jason the lack of fics for him is actually concerning??? Anyway if you feel like it and want to, would you write hc (or whatever u r feeling) about Jason x daughter of Dionysus reader?? I just think it would be a fun dynamic!! Hope you’re having a nice day!!

⋆⭒˚.⋆ jason grace x daughter of dionysus! reader hcs

content: jason grace x daughter of dionysus! reader hcs warning: language and very short :( author's note: i believe i have now officially wrote daughter of dionysus for all of them??? maybe i haven't now that i actually think about it but at this point i might as well ride mr.d's d since him and i are so close like ig i'm having all these daughters????

you guys only met because you literally ran into him

you were running from the demeter kids after accidently overgrowing the strawberries

you didn't understand why it was such a bit deal, but they were starting to foam at the mouth so you took off running

then you saw the blonde roman boy you'd only ever heard off and quickly changed direction towards him

"hey, sparky! wanna help a damsel in distress?!" she called to him, quickly dodging behind his build, using him as a barrier between herself and the rabid demeter kids

jason just stood there, very confused, twisting to see you as you peeked out from behind his waist

"hi," he laughs lightly as your eyes lift to meet him, hair falling in your face and a friendly smile gracing your lips

"hey yourself."

IT WAS THE START OF SOMETHING MAGIC

also, all the demeter kids got rabbis shots that day for uh...unrelated reasons

so after you and jason start dating, you proudly bring jason to your father, presenting him like a prized pig

"he looks very sweet, my dear, but...did you have to pick the roman one? couldn't you find a nice greek boy?"

"DAD!" you argued, before leaning towards him, hissing out, "that's gotta be, like, racist or something. knock it off."

"i'm sorry but back in my day-"

"BACK IN YOUR DAY WAS BEFORE FUCKING BRICK ROADS-"

"YEAH AND I WOULDN'T BE CAUGTH DEAD WITH A ROMAN."

"PLEASE YOU'D SCREW ANYTHING THAT MOVED"

"eh, that was up for debate sometimes."

"not helping your case. like, at all."

you loosen that boy up, which he desperately needs

bro be marching to the bathroom and your just like '??just walk??'

he legit cannot just walk anywhere

shoulder's back, chin up, feet rolling heel to toe, bros got a metronome in his mind

drive you crazy, so you try to trip him up on purpose

you just start walking fast then slow then fast then your skipping and now you're doing imaginary hopscotch

he finds it hard to keep up with all the mental steps and then he's walking like a normal person

you always find great joy in stripping him of his roman trauma

you like to believe that life was meant to be lived for the thrill of it all

every little and huge thing

from doing the laundry to flying to your favorite place in the whole world

there was joy and freedom to be found in all of it, surely

and once jason started dating you, he started to see it too

like, for example, the way plants seemed to lean towards you wherever you went, nearly as entranced as he was

or the way you seem to bring a fun side out of him that he's never seen before but is grateful that you've shown him how to have fun

oh, how about the fact that you hum the song you used to learn how to tie your shoes still to this day

or the fact that you can't go a day without taking a picture of the people you love, you're side of your cabin a splattering of pictures of every person you've ever known

castor's photos have since been put into protective frames and becoming your prized possessions

jason loved seeing the world through your eyes, seeing all it had to offer, all the love and passion that led to every invention or every flower growing out of the ground

he thought you a religion, a set of rules to follow and live by, something virtuous that he'd never fully grasp

and he was quickly becoming a devoted priest for you and you alone, his godly girl

jason would give up elysium or whatever waited for him if it meant he could go where you go

#postcards from covey ౨ৎ #all my love ౨ৎ #pjo #pjo fandom #heroes of olympus x reader #hoo #jason grace #jason grace x reader

[girlactionfigure]

“Chanukah, 5692. 'Judea dies', thus says the banner. 'Judea will live forever', thus respond the lights”.

A Jewish Hanukkah menorah defies the Nazi swastika, 1931

It was the eighth night of Chanukah in Kiel, Germany, a small town with a Jewish population of 500. That year, 1931, the last night Chanukah fell on Friday evening, and Rabbi Akiva Boruch Posner, spiritual leader of the town was hurrying to light the Menorah before the Shabbat set in.

Directly across the Posner’s home stood the Nazi headquarters in Kiel, displaying the dreaded Nazi Party flag in the cold December night. With the eight lights of the Menorah glowing brightly in her window, Rabbi Posner’s wife, Rachel, snapped a photo of the Menorah and captured the Nazi building and flag in the background.

She wrote a few lines in German on the back of the photo. “Chanukah, 5692. ‘Judea dies’, thus says the banner. ‘Judea will live forever’, thus respond the lights.”

The image, freezing in time a notorious piece of the past, has grown to become an iconic part of history for the Jewish community. But until just recently, not much was known about the origins of the photo.

Both the menorah and photo survived World War II, with the Hanukkah finding its way to Yad Vashem through the loan of Yehudah Mansbuch. Mansbuch is the grandson of the woman who took the picture, and he retains the original snapshot.

When Yad Vashem was putting together its plans to open the Holocaust History Museum, a team of researchers set out to learn more about this famous photo. Their inquiries led to Mansbuch, who explained how his grandmother and grandfather had lived under Nazi oppression in Kiel, Germany, eventually fleeing to then-Palestine in 1934.

Yehudah Mansbuch, the grandson of the family who took the photo, remembers:

“It was on a Friday afternoon right before Shabbat that this photo was taken. My grandmother realized that this was a historic photo, and she wrote on the back of the photo that ‘their flag wishes to see the death of Judah, but Judah will always survive, and our light will outlast their flag.’ My grandfather, the rabbi of the Kiel community, was making many speeches, both to Jews and Germans. To the Germans he warned that the road they were embarking on was not good for Jews or Germans, and to the Jews he warned that something terrible was brewing, and they would do well to leave Germany. My grandfather fled Germany in 1933, and moved to Israel. His community came to the train station to see him off, and before departed he urged his people to flee Germany while there’s still time.”

The couple’s prescience saved an entire community; only eight of the five hundred Jews perished in the Holocaust, with the rest fleeing before the systematic slaughter began. Today, Yehudah Mansbuch lives in Haifa (Israel) with his family. Each Hanukkah, Yad Vashem returns the now famous menorah to the family, who light the candles for eight nights before returning the piece of history back to the Holocaust trust.

“Death to Judah,” the flag says – “Judah will live forever!” the light answers.

#Hanukkah #Judaism #Jewish

[kippah-for-lemon]

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO,

a neighborhood science teacher asked if I believed that the Genesis account of creation was true. I answered, yes. Great, he said. Would I like to speak to his class about my understanding of creation? This modern-day John Scopes thought he was inviting a modern-day William Jennings Bryan to reenact the classic duel.

However, I told the class that while I believed the Genesis account of creation to be true, I also believed the scientific theory of evolution to be true. My response was greeted by puzzlement on the part of twenty-five eighth graders and disappointment on the part of their teacher. I went on to explain that science is one of humanity's great truth traditions, and religion is another. The two have threatened each other since well before the theories of Charles Darwin were formulated. But they needn't be engaged in such a heated rivalry because their goals are so different.

Science can help us understand how the world was created, but it can't tell us why it was created. And religion has no business telling us how the world was created, but we desperately need it to help us under- stand why we're here.

Genesis doesn't discuss the survival of the fittest, but, as you well know, Darwin's scientific creation story does. That story's operativeprinciple of the survival of the fittest became known as Social Darwinism, which taught that only the truly gifted deserve to survive. It is unfortunate that this teaching has become an axiom of modern life. In contrast, our Jewish tradition has always taught that we are responsible for the survival of the least fit: the orphan, the poor, the lonely, and the stranger, to name just a few. And in Genesis 1:27 we are told that every single human being is divinely gifted and deserving of dignity. The opening of Genesis tells about the creation by God of a universe of harmony, balance, and beauty, formed from soupy chaos, tohu vavohu. It is the most profound story we know, and it reminds us why we are here. It sets forth our work, and our challenge. But is the story true?

Regretfully I must admit that the story is not true, or at least not yet. When will it be true? When we accept our responsibility as God's partners in creating the world described in Genesis.

-Rabbi Rick Jacobs (b. 1955)

An excerpt from my Temple's Rosh Hashanah prayer book. Under the cut is just a testimony from me but feel free to reblog for the quote alone.

It really stuck with me because I was raised Protestant. I even attended a private Christian (nondenominational) school for three years. Sixth through 8th grade (for non-Americans, I was the ages of 11-14 give or take).

I was taught that evolution wasn't real. I wrote an 8 page essay on why Charles Darwin was wrong and that The Bible was correct. Little did I know I actually did believe in evolution, and so did most of my peers as I reasoned that over a long time of adaptations maybe there could be a different species

I was shell shocked when I switched to a public high school (14 years old) and flat out told evolution was true (or well as true as a scientific theory can get). I lost my trust for authority, and I realized how damaging my education had been.

I'm AFAB, and so I was taught my responsibility was to be quiet and to please my husband. I often asked far too many questions, especially when it came to the teachings of the Bible, to the extent my own teachers, men and women who were supposed to nurture my curiosity and be my guide into the world, shunned me.

Starting my Jewish journey, I sobbed. I sobbed after the first service I went to. It's so different from what I had been through before. I'm so glad I'm allowed to ask questions and it's even encouraged. I'm glad the Torah is scrutinized and we are encouraged to study the book and even admit when G-d has done wrong.

My partner, knowing my past, pointed this specific excerpt out to me. I had to fight back tears. I feel so loved and welcomed in Judaism.

"...Jewish tradition has always taught that we are responsible for the survival of the least fit: the orphan, the poor, the lonely, and the stranger, to name just a few. And in Genesis 1:27 we are told that every single human being is divinely gifted and deserving of dignity."

#jumblr #jew #jewish #rosh hashanah #Rabbi Rick Jacobs #jewish tumblr #jew convert #jewish convert #jewish pride #jewish joy

[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

[ghostscribble]

Since zionists are so quick to decide who is and isnt antisemite lets talk about the fella who came up with zionism.

Now who was he? Theodor Herzl. A dude who was (what it seems) against Judaism.

"What, though, does the average Israeli citizen know about Herzl? Not a lot, I suspect. Do they know he was reprimanded by his rabbi in Vienna for celebrating Christmas with a Christmas tree? Do they know he refused to have his son, Hans, circumcised? That his first solution to ‘the Jewish problem’ was a mass conversion of Austrian Jews to Catholicism? ‘It should be done on a Sunday, in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, in the middle of the day, with music and pride, publicly,’ he wrote."

"There’s an amusing youtube video in which a journalist presents a number of Israeli students with a quote from Herzl and asks who they thought wrote it. Every one of them says Hitler. They are shocked to discover the truth; the Herzl they’d learned about in school could not have written such an antisemitic statement. This is the quote: AN EXCELLENT IDEA ENTERS MY MIND — TO ATTRACT OUTRIGHT ANTI-SEMITES AND MAKE THEM DESTROYERS OF JEWISH WEALTH."

""Some thirty or forty ugly little Jews and Jewesses. No consoling sight.” Clearly Herzl didn’t like Jews much."

So either all zionists got trolled HARD by him OR yall are aware of this shit and are actually antisemites yourselves but only use Judaism as a shield.

#free palestine #israhell #palestine #gaza #free gaza #israel #fuck israel #boycott israel #israel is a terrorist state #stop israel

[schraubd]

Jews Against Jews Who Discriminate

This is an interesting story about a New Jersey kosher bakery who refused to bake rainbow-frosted cupcakes because the baker decided Pride-themed events violated his conception of Jewish values. This decision, in turn, has led to a furious backlash from the rest of the local Jewish community, who are livid that the baker is citing Jewish values as justification for homophobic discrimination:

Multiple rabbis have accused the baker of bigotry, and some local Jews are boycotting his shop. The area’s Jewish federation privately said it would stop buying from Mittel before publicly walking back its position. And Eshel, an advocacy group for LGBTQ Orthodox Jews and their families, announced an “ally training” in West Orange this coming Sunday in response to the incident.

[....] 

The issue blew up as other rabbis in the area learned about what happened and commented publicly.

“When we refuse basic Jewish services to members of our community who are articulating who they are, we are excluding and dividing,” wrote Robert Tobin, rabbi of the Conservative B’nai Shalom in West Orange, in a blog post on June 22. He highlighted the Conservative movement’s recent strides toward LGBTQ inclusion, and an interpretation of the Torah that holds “humans are created in the image of God with a variety of potential gender identities and with the possibility of gender fluidity.” Tobin also reportedly addressed the incident in a sermon, according to the New Jersey Jewish News.

David Vaisberg, senior rabbi at the independent Temple B’nei Abraham in Livingston, New Jersey, tweeted that he was “so disappointed” in the bakery, which is located in a strip mall next to a kosher Chinese restaurant.

“They make great baked goods but have shown themselves to be against the LGBTQ+ in canceling orders of rainbow baked goods in Pride month,” he wrote, adding that he was letting the bakery know why they had lost his business and advised followers to “please do the same.” 

This reminded me of a working paper I heard about from years back (which I don't believe has been published, unfortunately), where the author asked Jewish, Christian, and Muslim respondents to give their views regarding government accommodations for Jewish, Christian, or Muslim business owners who for religious reasons did not want to serve gay customers. The most fascinating finding, as I recall, was that Jews were least likely to support an accommodation if they were told it was a Jewish business seeking to discriminate.

At one level, that was a surprising finding -- we'd naturally expect Jews (like all other groups) to display some level of in-group bias, being more sympathetic to claims made by their coreligionists. But on another level, this result made perfect sense to me. Ask me in the abstract about whether business owners can claim a religious exemption from having to serve gay customers, and I'll generally answer no, but I'll acknowledge the important religious freedom and pluralism concerns blah blah blah. 

But if somebody asks to do that while carrying my flag and representing my people? Oh, hell no. Screw that guy. You get your ass back into line and stop embarrassing the tribe with your homophobic nonsense. And I suspect something similar is going on in this community of New Jersey Jews.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/MnOubxC

#discrimination #homophobia #Jews #New Jersey

[ofpd]

parashas vayetzei really has everything like aphrodisiacs and unrequited love and sisters fighting over a man and sort of even male prostitution it's crazy. these are all even within one scene i forget what else happens

#i should reread it #txt #also she's been enjoying my annotations #apparently at one point i wrote ''just like rabbi akiva'' (i think about jvj learning to read at age 40) #and she was like ''omg that is like rabbi akiva''

[torchflies]

Chapter 2 is up! ❤️ — edited 4/23/24

“He reaches out a hand in a sudden spark of loneliness, fumbling around in the sea of fabric and buttons that span their father’s broad chest — still wearing the black ribbon that Rabbi had torn for him — before he finally finds Tomek’s, his brother’s identical little fingers raised and fluttering about too.

They had both been reaching out, but still missed each other every time they tried to meet.

It’s almost prophetic in a way: how hard they stretched, bumped, and fumbled to find one another, only to miss again and again by trying so hard.

Sometimes, as they will learn with time, life teaches that you can try so hard, hold on so tight, that the very thing you’re trying so hard to keep — doesn’t stay.”

(The life and times of The Kazansky Twins).

I wrote a new thing! Iceman gets an identical twin brother, a little sister and a history that he has to reckon with.

#jewish tom iceman kazansky #jewish iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #top gun #icemav #read the tags #Polish Tom Iceman Kazansky #historical events through the eyes of children #I don't own these images #86 flyboys #mike viper metcalf #ron slider kerner #nick goose bradshaw #carole bradshaw #top gun 1986 #top gun fanfic #top gun fandom #top gun rewrite #Kit writes stuff