#latin american jews

[kemetic-dreams]

Surinamese people are people who identify with the country of Suriname. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Surinamese, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Surinamese.

The population of Suriname is made up of various distinguishable ethnic groups:

Indigenous Surinamese, the original inhabitants of Suriname, form 3.7% of the population. The main groups are the Akurio, Arawak, Kalina (Caribs), Tiriyó and Wayana.

Afro-Surinamese form about 37% of the population, and are usually divided into two groups:

The Creoles (15.7%). These are descendants of enslaved Africans who also have some admixture from the European (mostly Dutch), Spanish, Portuguese and Jewish colonists

The Maroons (21.7%). These are descendants of enslaved Africans who managed to escape and set up a living in the Amazon jungle. The two main Maroon tribes are the Aukan and Saramaccans. Other smaller tribes include the Aluku, Paramaccan, Kwinti and Matawai tribe.

Indo-Surinamese form 27% of the population. They are descendants of 19th-century indentured workers from British India, who came to work on the sugar estates of Surinam. They are mostly from the present-day Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh, in Northern India.

Javanese Surinamese, descendants of indentured workers from the Dutch East Indies (present Indonesia) on the island of Java, form 14% of the population.

Chinese Surinamese, mainly descendants of the earliest 19th-century indentured workers. The 1990s and early 21st century saw renewed immigration on a large scale. In the year 2011 there were over 40,000 Chinese in Suriname.

European Surinamese make up 1% of the Surinamese population:

The Boeroes (derived from boer, the Dutch word for "farmer") make up the largest group of European Surinamese. They are descendants of 19th-century immigrant Dutch farmers.

The Portuguese Surinamese from Madeira are descendants of indentured workers from Madeira in 1853.

Lebanese Surinamese, primarily Maronites from Lebanon.

Jews of Sephardic and Ashkenazi origin. In their history, Jodensavanne plays a major role. Many Jews are mixed with other ethnicities.

Multiracial Surinamese form 13.4% of the Surinamese population.

#african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #africans #brownskin #brown skin #afrakans #asians #latin america #south america #jews #sephardic #askenazi #madeira #dutch #taino #native american

[br1ghtestlight]

all my grandparents (and my dad) are immigrants which is extremely standard for non-indigenous ppl in canada. can't even imagine being american and having relatives going back to the 1800s or earlier it must be soo weird. or even ANY relatives living in america before 1960s or 70s like.... idk its just not something that's typical here. it's a newer country on a geopolitical level

#not judging anyone who has family in america older than that it seems pretty normal there #AND america has a much longer history with slaves taken against their will and the latin american countries and mexico #and whatever was going on w/ european migration to new york in the early 1900s #i watched a documentry about the history of jews in america once and i feel like it opened my eyes to Soo much of american history #(and also how recent the holocaust really was) #txt

[technicolorxsn]

someone should by me books I think, just for being a special lil guy

#currently wanting to read open veins of latin america and the price of whiteness: jews race and american identity #im abt to buy open veins but the other is a bit out of my price range rn #also thinking of getting childhoods end or 1q84 #maybe hocus pocus by vonnegut #oh also wanting to get tlt..... #i say all this as if i even have the time to read #ive been borrowing fast food nation for a few weeks now and have made. 0 progress #ha

[waitingonavision]

The Triplets’ B’nai Mitzvah

It’s the PB&J triplets’ birthday and I wasn’t able to prepare any art or fic in time 😭 but... have some more Jewish Madrigals! (Full disclosure: I became b’nai mitzvah this past weekend, at the ripe age of 34, so it’s on my mind.)

Also, since first recorded bat mitzvah ceremony (coming of age for Jewish girls) took place in 1922, in the U.S., I’m being anachronistic by talking about the triplets’ joint b’nai mitzvah. If I wanted to be more true to the time period, I’d talk about Bruno’s bar mitzvah... which I’d still love to do. In this sense, the girls would have their quinceañera, Bruno would have a bar mitzvah.

But! It’s the triplets’ birthday. Therefore, at least in this post, they get to become b’nai mitzvah together.

Their Torah portion was either B’reishit or Vayera, both of which are in the Book of Genesis. (I’d love it if it was B’reishit because that’s literally the “beginning,” the chapters detailing the creation of the world.) Next time I might ask Jared Bush at what time of day the triplets were born, since that would affect their Hebrew birthday and their Torah portion.

Julieta, Pepa, and Bruno were 13 when they became b’nai mitzvah, despite the custom that girls “come of age” at the age of 12.

Bruno still got to lay t’fillin for the first time when he turned 12. He got Pedro’s prayer shawl on the day of the b’nai mitzvah. It looked extra large on him.

The triplets decided to chant Torah in this order: Pepa, Bruno, and Julieta. Bruno didn’t want to go last (actually, he wanted to be between his sisters), and Pepa wanted to go first. Julieta didn’t really have a strong preference.

Bruno’s part of the d’rash (interpretation/discussion of the Torah portion) involved acting out the story. Pepa spoke very passionately about it, and Julieta took an especially studious approach. They read most of the prayers together, or in alternating pairs.

There was a feast afterward, featuring the triplets’ favorite foods!

#encanto #bruno madrigal #julieta madrigal #pepa madrigal #jewish tag #the madrigal triplets #jewish madrigals #feliz cumpleaños #pb&j birthday!! #headcanons #my writing #stuff i've posted #latin american jews ff to fact check me!

[writingwithcolor]

Afro-Latine Jewish woman maintaining cultural connection in an isekai comic

Anonymous asked:

Hello! Mixed Latin American nonbinary Jew here. I'm working on a, relatively light-hearted, isekai-style fantasy comic concept of an afro-latine Jewish lady who gets sent through a portal to a colorful scifi/fantasy land, inhabitated by various imaginary creatures sorta like in Alice in Wonderland. She gains magic powers and goes on adventures, working as a scientist researching the land's magical energy. (some of the local creatures she befriends are entirely original species, and some are inspired by my local folklore, but otherwise I try to avoid culturally coding the creatures since they're mostly nonhuman looking). The story isn't supposed to touch any heavy topics like antisemitism or racism, but I've read about the cultural problems in ""normie protagonist finds a new home in a funky fantasy world"" stories, f.ex. how Harry Potter's narrative basically implies that Muggleborns have to abandon their original cultures in order to successfully integrate into the very prejudiced but ""cooler"" Wizarding World. My original goal was to break the mold that escapism fantasy usually revolves around white protagonists adventuring in heavily Western-inspired fantasy worlds, and poc-coded characters are usually nonhuman creatures or racial stereotypes. However the protagonist girl in my story comes from a loving, latine-jewish human family, and while she regularly visits them on Earth instead of just staying in the fantasy land 24/7, I'm afraid that making her story be about being happy adventuring in a separate imaginary land filled with nonhuman characters might turn into an ""abandon your family and culture"" narrative. Are there any ways how I could avoid this? Maybe making the fantasy land's worldbuilding and designs more Latin American or Jewish inspired and thus resonate more with her cultural background, or making it clear that the land is not ""perfect"" and she still loves her family?

One of the first things that stands out to me is that you haven’t set her up to need to abandon her culture in order to make a life in another place. She has the ability to go home and visit her family, but I also don’t see any reason why, if she lives primarily in the fantasy land, she couldn’t be portrayed as practicing Judaism actively in her new home. It’s true that Judaism isn’t solely defined by religious/cultural practices, but it’s also true that religious/cultural practices are one of the most recognizable and most uniting elements of Jewish identity.

I think it might help in this case to think about Jewish practices in terms of communal versus personal: that is, what are practices she would need to seek out a Jewish community for, and what are practices she can do independently?

Does she control when she is able to visit her family? If so, visiting for Jewish holidays so that she can be at a family meal or holiday services seems like a way to highlight that she is just as connected to her family as someone who moved to a different city might be. If she experiences/has experienced the death of a family member or partner, going home to be with a Jewish community for shiva or to say kaddish on a yahrzeit is another touch (for readers who may be unfamiliar, Jewish mourning practices are intensely communal and are intentional about bringing the mourner into an active support system and slowly reintroducing them to the world, and as such a mourner is likely to spend this time somewhere where they can access and be supported by a Jewish community).

As far as practices she can engage with on her own in the fantasy setting, it would be nice to see her observing Shabbat, either in a traditional way by refraining from adventuring and instead engaging in hospitality and prayer between dusk Friday and sundown Saturday, or in a less-halakhic way if she comes from a Reform or comparatively-assimilated background, by marking Friday sunset with candles, blessings, and a good meal, even if she is intending to continue her research through the next day. She would hardly be the first Jewish person to live in a place without an established Jewish community, and a festive meal can be shared just as happily with non-Jewish friends if they’re griffons and fauns as if they’re Christians and Muslims.

Here’s one idea that I think would be hugely meaningful as a way of establishing both that she intends to make her home long-term in Fantasy World and that she intends to carry Jewish traditions with her into her new life: hang a mezuzah.

Think about it: a mezuzah is the visual marker of a Jewish home, as much to the resident as to a guest. When she is home from her adventures, in her garden cottage or enchanted tower or wherever she returns to between adventures to record and categorize her research, simply showing a mezuzah in the background instantly makes the point both that she is intending to stay, and that this is a Jewish space. If as time goes on she adds other Judaica items to her space, it can add to the sense that her Jewishness is present and alive in this world, simply because she is present and alive in it.

If she doesn’t have a settled space or if you’re not planning on setting any scenes there, having Jewish visual markers on and around her can help, too. For low-hanging fruit, maybe she has a silver Jewish Star or chai necklace that catches the light now and then, but since you’re going for a light, fun vibe, maybe she’s packing her adventuring supplies in a bright-blue vinyl backpack emblazoned with “Temple Shaarei Tzedek Junior Youth Retreat 1998” (am I old? I’m pretty sure there are adults reading this who were in Junior Youth groups in 2003, but I’m willing to bet retreat swag hasn’t changed that much).

I do like the idea of including Latin American and Jewish elements in the worldbuilding, especially as an intentional way to combat the cultural dominance of Western European folklore over fantasy writing, but because your character is from and has access to our world, you have the beautiful opportunity to carry real-world markers of Jewishness with her as well.

-Meir

I adore Meir’s answer, but then, I’m the kind of person to whom “enchanted tower with a mezuzah” as an aesthetic is so near and dear to my heart that I wrote a whole fantasy series about it. Couple of random suggestions: one thing I really enjoy is exposing my gentile friends to Jewish food—I love watching the absolute shock of delirium hit someone’s face the first time they taste my charoseth. Imagine this little bowl of chopped apples and walnuts, looking vaguely dirty because they’re soaked in cinnamon-infused wine, so it’s basically dingy beige slop….so that first bite of sensuous, deep sweetness is a huge surprise. Pick your favorite equivalent and imagine the first time a centaur or a winged princess or whatever other fantasy character tries it at your MC’s behest! (Feeding brisket to dragons would make a great name for…something…)

I don’t think you’re likely to do this anyway but since these are public answers: “fantasy world fun, Jewish upbringing a chore” is a narrative I would not feel at home in or care to read. But that’s a rather predictable remark from me anyway ;)

And of course I support the “the secondary fantasy world is actually Jewish” solution too, having one of my own.

–Shira

#Jumblr #Jewish #Judaism #Afro Latina #Afro Latine #Culture #Jewish culture #Jewish holidays #asks

[germiyahu]

Similarly to the "Jesus was Palestinian!" crowd, I find this phrasing (and I've seen it in so many fandoms and other contexts about portraying Bibical characters I'm not just picking on the thing that it's popular to critique right now):

Kind of annoying? Like "Middle Eastern Jewish" is baffling to me. Is it because the average person thinks Jews are white Americans and they need to specify Middle Eastern = Brown which isn't even always the case, especially when we decenter American conceptualizations of race. But it also very cleanly lops of Middle Eastern-ness, and therefore this implicit Person of Color-ness from Jews as a class?

Some Jews can be Middle Eastern, and therefore brown/indigenous/poc/valid/worthy of protection, but it's not automatic and it's certainly not universal, so any time a Jew is granted this special status it must be verbalized so as not to confuse people. They might think the Jew you're talking about is a colonizer otherwise!

Or is it a way to imply (if not outright say) that there has never been a Jewish state in the region? Any Jews from Jesus' time were just denizens of the Middle East broadly? They had no country of their own, they just existed nebulously scattered throughout among other tribes and tongues and nations? Like if the Hasmonean Dynasty ruled over a polity called Israel I would see how the average Tumblerino would obviously want to avoid alluding to that when talking about New Testament characters/historical figures. But it was called Judea, well Iudaea in Latin. Some Israelis refer to the Hebron region as Judea now but this is not something that most anti-Israel people on Tumblr know about. So it has to be an aversion to admitting that there was a Jewish state in the Levant no matter what it's name was?

And less than 2 centuries later the land was renamed Palestine anyway. They don't even call Biblical characters "Palestinian Jews," at best some people used to call Jesus a Palestinian Jew, but I don't even see that anymore really. He's just "Palestinian" now. So you can be ahistorical when it's Jesus but not for anyone else in these books? Why? What's the point? What's the story what's the vision?

I'm definitely reading too much into this specific post, the worms in my brain sing so sweetly to me, but when these spaces are filled with so much casual disregard and disinterest in Jewish people, their culture, their history, their rights, their dignity, their lives... well maybe it's time to stop just slapping on "JOOISH!" to get sjw points while you're canceling the thing that is cringe.

#antisemitism #hazbin hotel critique #hazbin critical #anti vivziepop #anti hazbin hotel

[mapsontheweb]

Jewish settlement in Latin America in the 19th century

« Histoire universelle des Juifs », Élie Barnavi, Hachette, 1992

by cartesdhistoire

When Latin American states become independent from Spain, they allow non-Catholics to settle on their territory. The first Jewish immigrants originated either from the so-called Portuguese communities of the Antilles, or from Germany, France, England or Morocco. Members of the small community of Curaçao settle in Coro in northern Venezuela: it is where on July 13, 1829, the first Jew is granted, by Simon Bolivar, citizenship of a Latin American country; it is also where the oldest Jewish cemetery of the world is preserved continent, inaugurated no later than 1837.

Arrived individually, scattered across the continent and devoid of community links, European Jews are little different from their compatriots who arrived at the same time as them. It is known that Jews from these countries have been in Brazil since 1808, Mexico since 1830, Peru since 1833, Argentina since 1834 or Chile since 1842. Jewish organizations are created late, and only in large urban centers as in Buenos Aires in 1862.

Young Moroccan Jews migrate to the Amazon at a time of booming rubber production. The first Brazilian synagogue was founded in Belém in 1828.

From the 1880s the immigration of Jews from Russia began. The movement gained momentum in 1891, when the colonization business launched by Baron Maurice de Hirsch in Argentina made Latin America one of the main homes of Jewish immigration. Argentina and Uruguay became important centers of Ashkenazi Judaism until WWI.

The decomposition of the Ottoman Empire causes the migrations of Sephardic populations: Smyrniotic Jews in Buenos Aires (1904, 1910), Macedonian Jews from Monastir in Temuco, Chile (1916).

At the end of WWI, the Latin American diaspora has some 150,000 Jews whose largest community is in Argentina.

#maps #cartesdhistoire #igsourced #jews #latin america #19th century

[rotzaprachim]

anyway! free palestine AND land back. the following post is not to argue against any of this.

but one of my biggest hangups with the zionist/antizionist discourse (and especially the Good Diaspora Jew vs Bad Israeli Jew monolith brought up by MANY people) is the way that it serves to purify or normalise settler colonialism ON turtle island. this is complicated - i think it's a massive problem that jews in the US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, and Aotearoa are all held to account for the actions of the state of israel, and they should not be. i don't want to throw the rest of us under the bus. But i also think it's a massive problem that the discourse that launders israelis as a particularly evil type of settler and then juxtaposes the Good Diasporist Jew (disproportionately ashkenazi, and an english speaker with a Yiddish speaking family history rather than hebrew speaking Israeli jews from a more diverse range of backgrounds/minhagim) frequently ends up ascribing a normalism and moral purity to much larger and more systematically powerful settler states, to the extent i've seen massive amounts of "terra nullis" argumentation over the last couple weeks - landback or land acknowledgement might be nice, but idk, what can i do now?

anyway. i won't name names but this addition to one of my friends' posts kind of exemplifies the issue, which is in no way specific only to jews.

In America we (you and I, white Jews) are settlers because we benefit from the continued displacement of Native Americans and are in a (conditionally, recently) protected ethnic class, but I feel much better about being that kind of settler and making community with Jews and goyim alike and doing what I can not to oppress or be a tool for displacement, than I would being a citizen of Israel when no ancestor of mine has lived there for over 1500 years.

Why do you feel much better? what about "america" makes you feel better? what is different about you living in america than you living in israel? Do you ascribe a moral neutrality to the condition of living in the US that you do not ascribe to living in ha'aretz yisrael as part of the society of medinat yisrael?

Do you consider your actions of "doing what I can not to oppressor or be a tool of displacement" as a settler in the US to be different from the actions of those in Israel? Why?

#Why do you consider yourself morally purer???

[septembriseur]

This obituary for the forger and photographer Adolfo Kaminsky has been making the rounds on Tumblr, and I want to add to it a piece of longform journalism about him that predates his death: “License to Live: The Career of Adolfo Kaminsky.”

What is perhaps most remarkable about Kaminsky is not (only) his work during the Second World War, which reportedly saved the lives of about 14,000 Jews, but his continuation of that work after the war: forging papers for Jewish refugees so they could enter British Palestine (but later rejecting the State of Israel when he saw what it had become), working for Algerian freedom fighters, Vietnam War draft dodgers, African and Latin American liberation movements. He told a French reporter: “Il n'y a rien de plus poreux qu'une frontière et que les idées, elles, n'en ont pas” (There is nothing more porous than a border, and ideas have no such thing), which to me makes clear the fundamental continuity of his work with a larger struggle against border imperialism today. 

I may be kind of working on a nonfiction piece that talks about this a bit. But it was really striking to see people share his obituary while I was also seeing, on the other hand, an outpouring of racism regarding Denmark’s announcement that it would grant asylum to Afghan women and girls on the basis of gender. This is, by the way, a completely meaningless announcement, basically— as this article points out, it affects all of five active active cases and ten cases that will be reopened, because Afghan women and girls can’t get to Denmark to claim asylum. But nevertheless the European racists were out, crying about how the brown people were now going to come turn their countries into brown countries. And it’s just truly incredible to me the vast disconnect that allows a widespread veneration of Kaminsky at the same time as a fundamental rejection of the principles he embodied. You can’t say “Oh, I would have done that if I lived back then” when the same demand is around us all the time now, always. 

[thoughtportal]

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—         Because I was not a socialist.

   Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—         Because I was not a trade unionist.

   Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—         Because I was not a Jew.

   Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

Etymology The term ‘privatizing’ first appeared in English, with quotation marks, in the New York Times, in April 1923, in a translation of a German speech referring to the potential for German state railroads to be bought by American companies.[5] In German, the word Privatisierung has been used since at least the 19th century.[6] Ultimately, the word came to German through French from the Latin privatus.[7]

The term reprivatization, again translated directly from German (Reprivatisierung), was used frequently in the mid-1930s as The Economist reported on Nazi Germany's sale of nationalized banks back to public shareholders following the 1931 economic crisis.[8]

The word became common in the late 1970s and early 1980s as part of UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher's economic policies. She was drawing on the work of the pro-privatization Member of Parliament David Howell, who was himself drawing on the Austrian-American management expert Peter Drucker's 1969 book, The Age of Discontinuity.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization

#tiktok #history #germany #world war II #Etymology #privatisation #socialism #labor unions #trade unions

[matan4il]

Something I see alot of pro- Palestinian people say is that they're annoyed that they get called out for being antisemitic because a)they're not (but they are) and b) it's a tactic to distract from the Palestinian cause. Pretty much saying that I'm not antisemitic but if I am I should get a pass because people are dying.

Which idk maybe it's just me but I don't think that adittude would fly if it was reversed. I mean given how everyone jumps on Israeli or Jewish people who condemn Hamas or say clearly only call Hamas animals by saying these apply to all Palestinians, I don't think these people would be okay with even worse anti-muslium remarks just because people died, so it's OK to say Islamic phobic things.

And the sad thing is the things they're trying to defend saying is shit like disbelieving the rapes or killing of babies, or defending it. It's not even sudle dog whistles, just straight up shit that'd be insulting to say about any attacked peoples. Like people are not nitpicking every little thing as antisemitic.

Hi Nonnie!

You're absolutely right, it wouldn't fly with any other group. I just keep thinking about Jewish kids I met, when they were visiting our Holocaust museum, and they shared how they were attacked by classmates for merely coming to visit their ancestral land. I have NEVER heard of any Latin American kid attacked for simply visiting their ancestral country of Mexico, Chile or Argentina, or attacking African American kids for visiting an African country, no matter what people thought of current governments there.

IDK if you saw it, but the other day, I reblogged a post that dealt with exactly such a person, who said in the tags of their post, that basically antisemitism is fine.

I mean, I think anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic, because it inherently denies the native rights of Jews. The fact that there are so many ways in which anti-Zionism's manifestations are harmful to Jews only makes the point stronger. But the fact that we now got to people openly saying they're antisemitic and it's justified as an anti-Israel weapon shows that this was the truth of anti-Zionism all along.

It is INSANE that they feel comfortable enough to say these things openly. But that's the effect of normalizing antisemitism, so long as it was disguised as anti-Zionism.

I hope you're well! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #israelunderattack #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish

[exhausted-walking-disaster]

I went to my university's (early)Hanukkah party today and the event itself was lively and fun but something happened as I arrived that still bothers me.

The important thing to note is that I am Mexican American, and a student receptionist for the event space that knew I was Mexican American made an offhanded comment that just blows my mind. She had originally asked me if I was Jewish, than she mentioned "but I've seen you at Latine events/organizations on campus, I've never met any Mexican Jewish person before." That in itself isn't that bad in my own opinion, but I tried to politely explain the Jews did indeed end up in Mexico through the Diaspora and there are Mexican Jewish people. I made a comment specifically about how Sephardic Jews ended up in Spain after being in Israel and from there eventually ended up in Mexico, although the Spanish largely either forcefully converted or killed a lot of the Sephardic Jewish people. She proceeded to tell me "Well that means they're not Mexican because they're invaders and we(Mexicans) are indigenous. They can't be both."

This other student is a very vocal political/social justice activist and all I could think in that moment was how could she possibly deny one's ability to be both Mexican and Jewish at the same time? Why was she so quick to want to shut down the statement that Mexican Jewish people even exist? More comments were made and I just felt so uneasy trying to finish signing in for this Hanukkah party that I had really been looking forward to and I just can't really forget the way she could so easily deny my ability to have both identities at the same time.

I suppose I will always struggle with taking pride in both cultures, as time and time again it seems to be something that non-jews can't understand as they mostly view Jews as white Ashkenazism only as well as the Pro-Palestine movement has definitely been bringing some people to believe the idea that all Jews are white and are racist through social media. The only people I can really talk to are my family and other Jewish people but this just felt like such a huge slap in the face as a convert that also struggles with feeling white-washed in Hispanic spaces due to my family living in America for 5 generations and assimilating in a lot of ways. Just venting I guess.

#jumblr #jewish convert #Mexican American #Mexican Jews

[schraubd]

See No IDF Evil

I'm in the throes of grading and I'm traveling for most of the period from now through New Year's. But I did want to quickly (for me; it's all relative) speak a bit about the way the American Jewish community is adopting a "see no evil" approach to IDF activities in the Gaza Strip (and beyond). There are plenty of reports of IDF soldiers targeting non-belligerents. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem just accused IDF snipers of killing two women sheltering in a convent "in cold blood". Reuters claims IDF tank fire deliberately targeted its journalists in circumstances where there were no nearby belligerents. MSF likewise claims Israeli forces deliberately targeted its medical personnel (I remember this one because MSF initially did not accuse any particular party of responsibility, which gives credence to the notion that it was not reflexively lobbing out an allegation but rather actually engaged in some measure of investigation). One could go on. One thing that often isn't part of these conversations is the catastrophically high levels of overt racism that exist towards Arabs in the young (which is to say, military-age) Israeli population. If roughly a third of population from which Israel is drawing its soldiers endorses things like "stripping Arab Israelis of their citizenship" and otherwise endorsing hate against Arabs, it would be stunning if we didn't see significant instances of at the very least indifference towards protecting Arab civilian life, if not outright infliction of war crimes. That'd be true in all circumstances, but particularly in the context of this conflict and the brutal Hamas massacre that precipitated it. Meanwhile, David Ignatius reports what many have seen, which is that soldiers drawn from the more radical parts of the settlement project basically view their IDF service and their status a price tag raiders as more-or-less interchangeable. Given all that, the denialism that IDF forces likely are in a non-trivial number of cases either deliberately attacking protected persons, or at the very least not paying due heed to Palestinian life is absolutely incredible. One place one "pro-Israel" American Jews could retreat to would be to concede abuses may be occurring, but say that they (a) are not policy and (b) should be investigated and punished as appropriate. The first part is likely true (or true-ish; whether the rules of engagement are properly respecting the legal boundaries about proportionality and distinction is an open question). The second part causes problems. Even before the current conflict, it was increasingly apparent that potential war crimes that occur in the midst of combat operations will never be significantly investigated or punished by the Israeli government. Just convicting and then commuting the sentence of Elor Azaria almost ripped the country apart; the current government is full of zealots one whose general approach to vigilante Jewish violence targeting Arabs is to propose giving the perpetrators medals. Nobody actually expects significant or serious Israeli investigations into alleged war crimes committed by its soldiers. But accepting that IDF soldiers likely are, in non-trivial numbers of cases, engaging in criminal conduct towards Palestinians during combat operations would put into stark relief the paucity of actual investigation and punishment, at which point it'd be virtually impossible to defend the Israeli government's conduct. Far easier to take advantage of the fog of war to cover one's eyes to the primary instances of abuse. That such denialism relies on almost impossibly optimistic presuppositions about the IDF's professionalism and its putative status -- more of a slogan than an empirically-testable proposition -- as "the most moral army in the world" is besides the point. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/S4PlMwt

#Israel #Palestine #war crimes

[usaigi]

How MK can be Latino and Jewish: A Guide for Fanfic Writers and RPs

Thank you to @fdelopera for help me with this post

This is my headcanon (the canon in the Usaigi Fanfic Universe) and you're welcome to adapt it for your own works of fiction. Of course, this is not the only explanation and you are free to headcanon however you’d like* ** This is a long post but please read and reblog.

*as long as you’re NOT perpetrating antisemitic and/or racist rhetoric

**if you do use mine I'll be over the moon and would love to read it. Also credit is nice 

In honor of Oscar Isaac’s actual ethnicity(Guatemalan-Cuban) and to stay semi-realistic to actual history, in my hc Elias’s family is mostly Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish from Cuba who left Cuba during the Cuban revolution. Wendy’s family is Ladino(a term in Guatemala for someone who is multiracial with a mix of indigenous and European ancestry. Mestizo in other countries) with Mayan and converso (Sephardic/Crypto) ancestry. Oscar Isaac, in real life, is also Crypto-Jewish (literally, “Hidden-Jewish”) on his father’s side, making him Patrilineal Jewish by descent. His father’s family are descended from Converso Jews who were evicted from Spain in the 1500s. 

Nitpicking Other Fandom Explanations/HCs

I’ve read some fanfics where Wendy is Latina and Elias a non-Latino jew. I personally prefer my explanation because the actor who plays Elias is also Latino. And, (to me) having Wendy be the Latina convert and Elias the (American) Jew plays into the idea that people from Latin America can’t be Jewish, so I personally don’t vibe with that headcanon.  

Both before and during WWII, there was a wave of Jewish refugees who sought asylum in Latin America. I’ve seen other fans suggest that the Spectors could be the descent of these refugees who settled in Argentinian (or another South American country that took in refugees) because “Spector” is an Ashkenazi last name and proceed to imply that they would not be “Latino” by blood. 

Firstly, I’d like to point out that there is no such thing as being “Latino by blood.” In the same sense that you cannot be Canadian or American by blood. First Nations and Native Americans are the only ones able to make that claim but their history and culture existed before the land was called Canada or America. They are Inuit/Navajo/etc by blood, not really Canadian/American by blood. It’s a European idea. “Latino” similarly, is a European word used to describe an ethnicity; it is not a race. (x) So even if the Spectors left Poland/Russia/Europe in 1930s, settled in Argentina, and some generations later MK was born, MK would still be Latino. 

Secondly, while you don’t need to follow my headcanon, if you choose to make Elias 100% ethnically European Jewish(white), I would still encourage you to make Wendy indigenous/multiracial. By making both sides of the family descendants of Jewish refugees from Europe, you’re whitewashing MK. Oscar Isaac is a POC actor, let his character also be POC. Don’t just make the character Latino, let them be brown. 

ok back to me~

On Elias

“The majority of Cuban Jews are descended from European Jews who immigrated in the early 20th century. More than 24,000 Jews lived in Cuba in 1924, and still more immigrated to the country in the 1930s. Following the 1959 communist revolution, 94% of the country's Jews emigrated, most of them to the United States.” (x)

For Elias and his side of the family, him being Cuban makes sense. He could be the descendant of those who left Spain, Turkey, and Eastern Europe due to persecution and intermarried with non-Jewish Tainos/mestizos. Elias would still be Jewish but also have some indigenous ancestry as well. If Elias was in his 20s when he had Marc, his family could have left Cuba in 1959 along with most other Jews and resettled in the States.

Further reading on Jewish Cubans: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cuba-virtual-jewish-history-tour

On Wendy

In my head, Wendy is Ladino with Mayan, European, and conversa(Jews forced to convert to Catholicism) ancestry.

Assuming that Wendy was also in her 20s when she had Marc, she’d have been born and lived through the Guatemalan Civil War/Genocide (1960-1996). For context, with the support of the United States government, the Guatemalan government committed genocide against the Mayan population as well as widespread human rights violations against civilians. Wendy could have immigrated to the US when she was a teenager like many Latine children did (and still do) in order to escape the violence and war. Then, she could have converted back to Judaism, married Elias, then proceed to have Marc and Randall. 

How would the MK System be considered Jewish if Wendy were not raised Jewish, and converted in adulthood?

(by fdelopera)

Most major Jewish denominations in the US will recognize a child as Jewish if the mother converts before marriage. These denominations include Reform (Ashkenazi denomination from Germany), Conservative (Ashkenazi denomination from Russia), and Reconstructionist (Ashkenazi denomination from the United States).

Nowadays, some Orthodox congregations also allow women to convert who weren't raised Jewish, and consider the children to be Jewish, so long as the conversion takes place prior to marriage. (Ultra-Orthodox congregations are still strict about this.)

However, in the 1980s when MK was born, this was not normally the case. In Orthodox communities, it would be unlikely for children to be considered Jewish if the mother was not born Jewish, and there was much less awareness of Crypto-Jewish people from Latam.

There is a "relatively" large Latine Jewish population in Chicago (relative to other Midwestern cities, at least), and because of this, there are several Sephardic synagogues in the Chicago area. The Spectors might have considered joining one of these synagogues as a family. Perhaps Elias grew up in one. However, Sephardic synagogues tend to be nondenominational Orthodox, and as such, they would have been more strict about conversion. It is possible that they would have prevented Wendy from converting, and they might have gatekept Marc and Roro from their Judaism.

Wendy might have decided to convert Reform, since a Reform congregation would recognize her Jewish heritage, and therefore her conversion process would be much easier. Elias might have left his childhood synagogue and followed Wendy to a Reform Temple. (In the show, the Spectors are coded as Reform Jewish, and so this HC works.)

However, Reform congregations were not as used to Latino members in the 1980s and 90s, and so the Spectors would likely have encountered racism in these communities, even though the Reform congregations would have recognized Wendy as Jewish, and made it relatively easy for her to convert. 

So, the family would have experienced possibly less racism in Sephardic synagogues in Chicago, but Wendy might not have been welcomed. They would have been accepted as Jews in the Reform Temples in Chicago, but they likely would have experienced racism.

So, it's another instance of the family being outsiders in their own communities, further marginalizing them. And by extension, marginalizing the MK System and making it difficult for them to participate in both Jewish and Latine communities.

What does this mean for MK system (and by extension Randall)?

The Spectors would likely have been the black sheep in their community.

 Not really fitting in with the Jewish community (since they’re Latino) and not really fitting in with the Latino community (since they’re Jewish). They are Jewish, they are Latino, but not in “the right way.” While I feel like this is important to keep in mind, I would suggest not writing about this particular subject (“gatekeeping”/racism in the Jewish community) unless you are a member of these communities AND you have done your research. By making an auntie in your fic say something racist, you may be contributing to the idea that Jews are racist which could harm them in real life. By making a tia say something anti-Semitic, it could do the same. Even if you're writing angst/drama, I think I’m not the only POC who will say that reading stories about racism isn’t super fun. MK has a shit ton of trauma that you can explore without unintentionally saying negative things about communities you are not a part of. 

But can I write cultural trauma I have a Jewish/Latine beta reader?

Don’t ask Jewish/Latine people to read a fic about our cultural trauma. It’s rude, it’s insensitive, it could be triggering. It’s not POC/Jewish people’s job to tell you when you being offensive. 

I think it’s fine to talk about how they feel like they don’t fit in, but please don’t make your Jewish characters/Latine characters be racist/antisemitic. 

2. Intergenerational Trauma 

At this point, I’m starting to believe it’s impossible to be Indigenous/POC or Jewish (or Autistic) without trauma. All these groups have been victims of hate crime, genocide, and discrimination for most of human history. If Elias’s parents escape a war, that could have affected him. If Wendy lived through war, that most certainly would have affected her. If neither got help, support, or healthy coping skills, that would affect Marc and Randall. This is intergenerational trauma. This is why it’s a cycle. 

Bonus: This is all great, all power and blessed Usaigi, but do I need to talk about all of this in my fanfic?

No, of course not. This is all just for backstory you may want to keep in mind if it’s relevant to your story. If your fic is a fluff piece about Marc and Steven going to the park, totally not relevant. If your fic is a flashback of when the system was younger, may be relevant. 

#moon knight #marc spector #jake lockley #steven grant #layla el faouly #khonshu #moonknight #mk #usaigi speaks #usaigi meta

[germiyahu]

And if you really want me to examine why people in the global south also have such an animosity to Jewish sovereignty in their historic homeland, and seem to give Palestinian Resistance a carte blanche... well I'm definitely not as qualified but fine! I have some theories!

A lot of the Global South are Westerners, kind of. This is especially true for Latin America, and they hate to see it, but a huge proportion of those societies is descended from European settlers, their cultures are heavily influenced by Western cultures. A lot of these countries, especially Latin America (and South Africa too interesting) have also had their own substantial Jewish populations. So if it looks like kind of like a Western society, and it treats its own Jews like a Western society... need I go on?

A lot of the Global South, actually most of it, including the countries that fall in category one, was occupied violently by the West. This created another avenue to transfer Western values onto subjugated populations. And no, don't shake your head at me. You can't claim the GS's homophobia was forced on it by the West and then act like the same wouldn't apply to antisemitism? A lot of the Global South never had significant Jewish populations, that much is true. The concept of antisemitism might feel frivolous and remote to them; why is that our problem? See my own anon. All the same, they were colonized by Jew Haters. At the same time they'd lack exposure to say, Holocaust education, and also have exposure to say, the idea that Jews are overrepresented in global finance.

Even in areas where Western influence was never high historically, even when there are not significant Jewish populations, we live in a modern globalized world where Western culture is a commodity and that commodity makes people money. And people in the Global South consume it. Their conception of the average Jew is probably either an Israeli soldier in some news story about Palestinians being harassed, or a white(ish) American who seems the epitome of privilege to them. They use social media, they see what Americans and Europeans say about Jews. It's very easy to conform to whatever opinions are the loudest and most prevalent.

So a lot of Global South Denizens probably are used to persecuting Jews, expelling or killing Jews, and also dealing with colonial masters who were constantly telling them how Jews cannot be trusted. And for a lot of them, if Jews were present, they were there helping the occupying power, as many Jews were imperial citizens and were present in colonies in various occupations. The Imperial Powers would not have passed up the opportunity to pass the buck to Jews where it was convenient. I see a lot of Algerians excuse their cleansing of Jews as "The Jews were made the middle man by the French colonizers, and they reveled in turning their backs on their Algerian brothers." This excuses violent ethnic cleansing in their minds. Why? Because Western propaganda primed the gun they were already loading.

In essence: I'm not surprised that the Global South is "crying out" for Palestine. All they know about Jews they learned from the West, or they have their own history of violently oppressing Jews. Should any of us be surprised? If you picked anyone in their camp and pitted them against a Jewish state, anywhere in the world, they would still see Jews as a foreign arm of Western Imperial Power, sent by the Man to keep them down. Or the Jews would themselves be the Man I guess. Except then the Jewish claim to indigeneity would not only be more tenuous, it would be ludicrous and false on the face of it.

It's the same reason a lot of people of color in the West identify with Palestinians and the Palestinian struggle. I don't say they do so in error. But I wholeheartedly believe they and a lot of people in the GS are projecting their own societal trauma onto Israel. Obviously Israel is very much doing bad things, so this isn't coming from nothing. But if the vitriolic reactions to Israel and the blind support for literal fascists seem extreme, maybe that's why. They don't care to see the difference between an Israel and a Great Britain or a France. And I'm not saying they have to, but when Jews themselves are also a historically oppressed and nearly wiped out persecuted people, it can come across as fairly gauche to say there's no difference between Israel and Germany, to say that Jews just flat out don't belong in their historic homeland.

There you go, there's my unqualified opinion. Are you happy now?

#israel #palestine #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism

[makethatelevenrings]

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”

that’s an anti semitic dogwhistle fyi no one who supports Palestine supports hamas or uses their slogan that calls for the killing of all jews

it isn’t but thanks for showing YOUR antisemitism! Zionism is inherently antisemitic by ignoring and negating the Jewish diaspora and forcing all Jews to subscribe to the idea that they have to exist as one nation when many, MANY Jewish voices dissent against Israel. And you’re right, I don’t support Hamas. I support the right for Palestinians to live in their homes that were forcefully taken from them, as in the Nakba. Do I agree with Hamas’ methods? Absolutely not.

I do want people to know that I am an American who, albeit educates heavily on the topic of post-WWII colonialist states and American interventionism, I am constantly educating myself. While the scope of my degree and continual focus rests in Central and Latin America, the similarities between Israel’s attempted ethnic cleansing of Palestinians echoes heavily through the Global South who have all experienced the same attempts by western powers.

Furthermore, I find it interesting when you say “no one uses this slogan” when I have heard it frequently at protests all around the world in the past few days. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll change it just for you.

Falasteen hurrah.