zinjkitty

[zinjkitty]

Modern antisemites really don't have anything original. This is just a remix of a Nazi classic:

[zinjkitty]

Here's a list of organizations within Israel doing good work to document and resist the occupation and oppression of Palestinians. I highly recommend following them.

Standing Together

An organization of Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel that has been advocating for ceasefire and promotes a vision of Palestinian-Jewish coexistance.

Radical Bloc

A group that organizes weekly pro-ceasefire protests in Tel Aviv, even in the face of police harassment.

B'tselem

An organization that documents Israel's oppression of Palestinians, from the war in Gaza to settler violence and continued dispossession in the West Bank. "B'tselem" means "in the image" referencing the Jewish concept that every human is made in the image of God.

Zochrot

An organization whose main goal is educate the Israeli public about the Nakba, despite the lengths Israel has gone to hide it from view. "Zochrot" means "rememberers."

Breaking the Silence

An organization that collects testimonies of current and IDF soldiers of the things they witness and perpetrated.

This Is Not An Ulpan

A co-op language school for Hebrew and Arabic run by Palestinian and Jewish educators that also posts information about the situation from a radical perspective.

Mesarvot Network

An organization that supports young Israeli who want to refuse being draft into the IDF. "Mesarvot" means "refusers."

Parents' Circle

A peace organization comprised of family members of Israelis and Palestinians killed in the conflict.

[zinjkitty]

wistfully remembering how people (pretended they) cared about antisemitism when it was primarily coming from the right. like there are pre-2023 posts with tens of thousands of notes about antisemitism. now any mention of the existence of antisemitism (when its worse than it ever was) doesn’t breach containment outside of jewish circles. its almost funny how quickly people stopped caring when it was inconvenient.

[zinjkitty]

Yesterday-

My very nice wonderful friend - hey!! I got you a cinnamon roll in because Passover ends tonight! (Hands me a Tupperware box). Just like you did for me and Iftar!

Me- thank you!! I love you!!! (Grips her shoulder.) you own this cinnamon roll until sundown tonight. Do you understand?

Friend- what?

Me- this cinnamon roll, in all technicalities, is in your possession until then. Then, I’ll Venmo you a penny to buy them. Are we in agreement ?

Friend- of course

Me- thankyouiloveyousomuch.

[zinjkitty]

In April alone, the phrase "Hitler was right" gained traction across multiple social media platforms.

Jew hatred has become socially acceptable once again, and Holocaust survivors have spoken out about how today’s antisemitism echoes their childhood experiences.

With Holocaust remembrance day around the corner, the promise of “Never Again” feels more urgent than ever.

[zinjkitty]

Source

The article this X thread was created from is at the Washington Free Beacon.

[zinjkitty]

“I hate Israel/Zionists because they’re white colonizers!”

No, that’s not why, because you have never in your life directed this much hatred toward actual white colonizers. You have never protested or boycotted or ostracized or harassed any actual white colonizers the way you do Jews.

[zinjkitty]

Oh my god, once again reminding people that Jews in the SWANA region being scared of being murdered if Israel is dismantled are not comparable to white Americans and Canadians being scared of indigenous sovereignty. The entire world, and that includes Muslim countries, has a very very long history of violently expelling and brutally murdering its Jewish communities; Israel itself has many, many refugees and descendents of refugees from other countries in Asia and Africa, countries that do not want those people back.

The comparison to white North Americans is absurd, cruel, and ahistorical; the claim that Jewish people lived in happiness and peace and safety in SWANA countries before Israel's founding is a complete fabrication and blatant victim blaming. Many of the countries surrounding Israel and throughout the SWANA region have Jewish populations that can literally be counted on one hand and that isn't because people just abandoned their homes and friends and communities to move to Israel for funsies, it's because many of them were brutally murdered or expelled from their homes, with the rest fleeing out of fear for when they would be next.

I am saying this as a Native person who is 100% in favor of indigenous sovereignty in my home country and who is fully against the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government. If you cannot acknowledge how antisemitism is still very much alive and an active danger to Jewish people all across the world and how many people fled to Israel specifically to escape violence, then you really cannot have any sort of meaningful conversation about Israel.

[zinjkitty]

I love us.

I love giggling in private messages during zoom Torah study with another queer woman because we’re 12 years old and studying the Song of Songs.

I love sitting in someone’s living room watching the Prince of Egypt and we keep pausing it because someone in the room has a Point and we need to discuss it. And it takes us four hours to watch a two hour film.

I love Hillel sandwiches. I really do.

I love these silly arguments over frog vs frogs and even more so because I know that our rabbis and sages have been arguing about this for literally centuries.

I love that I cry during l’cha dodi every fucking time. Doesn’t matter the tune. Every. Time.

I love that I can say the words “erotic love is holy and sacred too” in a zoom room full of old people and none of them shut down the conversation.

I love that we have a holiday that traditionally means you study Torah all night long.

I love that we have another one that celebrates we got to the end of Torah. Let’s have a dance party and start over!

I love swaying while I pray.

I love that I can disagree with my good friend on fundamentals of our religion and that’s a good thing.

I love that I’m starting to be able to make connections with strangers and say “oh! I know xyz! Do you know abc?”

So many more things but overall. I love us. I love being a part of Judaism. I love being allowed to be here and invited in.

[zinjkitty]

Been seeing a whole lot of excuses lately for people using violently antisemitic language/images. Oh they didn’t know and oh they didn’t mean it like that about calling for intifada, from the river to the sea, the red hand pins, Hamas paraglider imagery, AK-47 imagery, death to Israel, death to Zionists, resistance by any means necessary (referring to terrorism), resistance (referring to terrorism) is justified when people are occupied, etc etc etc.

So let me say this:

1. Many of the people using these phrases and images knew exactly what they meant and/or insinuated.

2. Even if some people genuinely didn’t know, Jews have been explaining over and over again why these are antisemitic.

3. Upon being informed, the perpetrators of these calls to and support for terrorism never change their chants, their signs, their speeches, their posts. They double down. It’s almost like they do, in fact, support terrorism and only retain the barest veneer of plausible deniability in order to avoid legal consequence and to gaslight Jews. Funny, that.

[zinjkitty]

I sat next to the protest today.

I wrote fan-fiction about two gay jewish dads raising children to the play list of the chant- "No peace on stolen land!" on an American college campus. It isn't a name brand one either, nor does it have any legitimate ties to Israel. The anger is just there- it has rotten these future doctors, nurses, teachers, and members of society.

I don't even know what to call their demonstration- it was a tizzy of a Jew hatred affair. At points, there were empathetic statements about Gazans and their suffering. Then outright support of Hamas and violent resistance against all colonizers. Then this bizarre fixation on antisemitism while explaining the globalists are behind everything.

"Antisemitism doesn't exist. Not in the modern day," A professor gloated over a microphone in front of the library. "It's a weaponized concept, that's prevents us from getting actual places- ignore anyone who tells you otherwise."

"How can we be antisemitic?" A pasty white girl wearing a red Jordanian keffiyeh gloats five minutes later. "Palestinians are the actual semites."

"there is only one solution!" The crowd of over 50 students and faculty cried, over and over.

"Been there, done that," I thought, then added a reference to a mezuza in the fourth paragraph.

Two other Jewish students passed where I was parked out, hunching and trying to be as innocuous as possible. We laughed together at my predicament, where I am willingly hearing this bullshit and feeling so amused by this.

"Am I crazy? For sitting here?" I asked them. My friends shook their heads.

"We did the same last week- it's an amazing experience, isn't it?”

We all cackled hysterically again. They left to study for finals. Two minutes later, I learned from the current speaker that “Zionism” is behind everything bad in this world.

Forty-five minutes in, a boy I recognized joined me on my lonely bench. He came from a very secular Jewish family and had joined Hillel recently to learn more about his culture. His first Seder was two nights ago.

He sat next to me, heavy like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. There was just this despondent look on his face. I couldn’t describe it anyone else, but just sheer hopelessness personified.

“They hate us. I can’t believe how much they hate us.” He said in greeting.

And for the first time all day, I had no snarky response or glib. All I could do was stare out into the crowd, and sigh.

[zinjkitty]

Story Time: Get a load of what happened to me at Starbucks today.

There’s a running joke among people who know me personally that I unwittingly go out in public with a sign on my forehead stating “I Am Non-Threatening. Come Talk To Me.” Because if there’s a chance a bizarre conversation with a total stranger is going to happen, I’m typically the person it happens to.

Some context: I have been pretty darn sick this week. (It’s not Coronavirus, don’t worry.) Since the work in my queue for my day job is comprised entirely of audio narration right now, and I currently sound like a waterlogged Demi Moore, I haven’t been able to work these last couple of days. As a result, I’ve been using my down time to knock out as much of Manu’s redesign as possible. Today, to ensure I didn’t spend the day languishing in sinus misery, I medicated the crap out of myself and took Manu to the Starbucks down the block from my son’s day care.

I hit the bathroom, then picked an empty table, but as soon as I sat down with my venti Comfort Tea and started tweaking the inks on my iPad, I felt the eyes of the man next to me looking over my shoulder.

When I looked up, he had his phone out. “I’m sorry,” he said (in a thick accent I couldn’t place geographically), “I don’t want to disturb. I notice you art. You are artist!”

I tried to smile. “Yes, I’m... Well, I’m trying to be,” I croaked.

He leaned in, like he was sharing a secret.

“I am artist, too.”

He stuck out his hand.

I gently took it, grateful for the bathroom trip I just took in which I washed the scourge off of my fingers.

“Can I?” he asked, holding his phone up.

“Take a picture? Uh... sure,” I said. It’s not like he would be able to steal Manu out from under me or anything, I figured. The panel I was tweaking was magnified out to Guam.

“I am artist. Architect and Designer,” he clarified while he steadied his phone over my iPad. “I am Ilker. What is your name?”

“I’m Venessa” I said, trying to be polite. This, I thought warily, is precisely how I get myself into trouble. I’m too damn nice.

“You know, I come to America twenty years ago from Turkey...”

I put down my stylus. This was going to be a while.

“I like Turkey,” he explained. “I like the country and I like the people. But I am artist. I am not... religious man.”

I nodded.

“I told my wife I was going to go to America and she said, “what are you going to do? You don’t have job! You don’t have money! No Visa!” And I said, “I am artist and architect. I will paint and sell my paintings.

“So I come to America alone. To New York City. I sit outside, and I paint. And people, they liked my paintings. They bought them. This one for $30, that one for $50.

“One day, a man comes over to me and he say, “I like your painting. I see you are also architect.” And he gives me his number and asks me to go to meeting at his office. Because he wants to offer me a job. He starts to talk about a building contract.

“I tell him I don’t know anything about contracts. I have no Visa. I am not American citizen. But he says, “That’s okay. I will take care of everything. You will have nothing to worry about.” And this man, he gave me a job. $173,000 a year. And my wife, he gave her a job too. She was project assistant. I bring her and my two daughters over from Turkey.”

“Wow,” I said, not fully believing the veracity of what sounded like a full-on immigration fairy tale.

“Here,” said Ilker, unlocking his phone and opening up his Facebook app. “I show you my work.” He paused and looked up at me. “I am interrupting. You don’t mind?”

At this point, I was invested. I had to see. Because whatever he was about to show me would either prove or disprove this yarn he was spinning. “Please,” I said, gesturing for him to go ahead.

He opened his photos and my jaw dropped. His work... was UNREAL.

“This is building I designed on Madison Ave.... And this one in Chelsea...”

Holy crap. I had just been to Chelsea with my sister last month on a trip to see a broadway show. I had crossed the intersection of the building he was, at this moment, telling me he designed.

He flipped through more buildings. These, he’d designed in Washington, DC. In Bethesda. In Arlington. All beautiful, streamlined, modern structures I had visited and parked my car in front of. He told me he did much of his concept work freehand. That he worked exclusively in natural media. His preferred media was pen, ink, watercolors, and chalks.

Between photos of his wife and daughters, he went on to show me photos from the RUSSIAN EXHIBITION OF HIS ARCHITECTURE ARTWORK.

Y’all, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe the talent I was sitting next to. Scattered among these gloriously rendered images of some of the most beautiful building concepts I’d ever seen were paintings of scenes in Central Park, the National Mall, and nudes from a life-drawing session he attends from time to time.

When he was done flipping through his phone, he looked at me and smiled. “I hope you don’t mind that I interrupt you. I show you all this because what you are doing is very good. And you should be encouraged. To draw is to make beauty.”

I nodded, a lump in my throat. “Thank you,” I managed. “Your work is astonishing. I don’t even know what to say. What is your name again?”

He held out his hand once more. “Ilker Kocahan,” he said. “I am getting more coffee. Can I get you one?”

I looked at my still-full venti cup. “No thank you. But here, please take my card.”

He held my dinky business card like I’d handed him a treasure and thanked me.

Then Ilker got his coffee, and left the coffee shop.

At some point in his ramblings he talked about America as a place of dreams. How he credits this country with helping him rise to the top of his field where he is now able to sell his paintings for $800-$1000 a piece now that he’s retired. My heart ached to hear him talk about that, knowing how our leadership’s positions on immigrants have taken such a dark and horrifying turn.

Imagine the buildings and museums and public places that would never have been if a business man in the park hadn’t lifted up a Turkish painter who spoke little English.

And now that painter was paying it forward on me.

I still feel pretty darn sick. I’ve still got body aches and a nose that has taken the rest of my face hostage.

But today was a really good day. And I just wanted to share it with you in case you are looking for reasons to keep drawing/painting/dancing/writing. It all counts and it is all good.

If you would like to see Ilker Kocohan’s work, please click here.

[zinjkitty]

BEHOLD, TUMBLR LEFTISM

"Punch a Nazi!"

"Zionists are Nazis!"

"All Jews are Zionists!"

"Punch a Jew! I'm not antisemitic though uwu"

"And don't forget to wish the good Jews Happy Chanukah this year! #HappyHolidaysForEVERYONE"

(Credit to the original author who was too worried about reprisals to post.)

[zinjkitty]

Penguin falls down resulting in best sound ever [x]

[zinjkitty]

Honestly I think it’s so funny that in the Marvel universe, when someone’s really smart, they have like eight to twelve doctorates and they finished high school at age twelve.

And then over in the DC universe it’s like. This is Tim Drake. He’s a genius. He keeps cloning his loved ones. He dropped out of highschool. Over there is Barry Allen. He can reverse engineer a spaceship in less than a minute. He is such a good chemist he’s still going to be known as the best chemist in 4,000 years. He has a bachelor’s degree.

[zinjkitty]

Rating the birds in my backyard by tendency toward violence

Northern Cardinal, 4/10

I'm sometimes worried the male is sexually harassing the female but I'm pretty sure they're just doing some elaborate public pickup roleplay. The rest of us didn't agree to participate in your kink, guys.

American Robin, 1/10

Literally just some dude hanging out. Never bothered anyone but worms. Big fan of the way you just stand there in the middle of the grass like you forgot what you were supposed to be doing.

House Sparrow, 10/10

You're a gang. You're participating in gang violence. There's ten billion of you living in a single wood pile and it's been civil war for three years now. When will the bloodshed end?

Tufted Titmouse, 1/10

A shy baby. A pretty little guy. I saw you on the neighbor's garage roof and time stopped. There were anime sparkles around you. Come back.

European Starling, 9/10

Why is it always you? Listen, I know, I KNOW the sparrows are the problem, and YET. When the fighting starts, it's always you in the middle of it, provoking them and then screaming like you're an innocent bystander defending yourself. I'm onto you.

Carolina Wren, 3/10

This rating is not for physical violence, which you don't engage in, but for your role as an incurable narc. A tattle tale. I know they're fighting again, okay? I see it. Our yard has been a warzone for years, you don't have to make a big announcement every time someone misbehaves.

Eastern Wood-Peewee, 0/10

If this were "birds who think they're better than everyone else," you'd get 10/10.

Red-bellied Woodpecker, 6/10

It's a utility pole. It's not a tree. You're surrounded by trees that are full of bugs. But there you are, on the utility pole. Committing vandalism.

American Crow, unrated

For who am I to cast judgment on the actions of La Famiglia? I assume you are doing what is best for the neighborhood. If I could, though, without criticism, make a single observation. That when large numbers of you gather in the ominous dead cottonwood - no? No, you're right. None of my business.

Great Crested Flycatcher, 5/10

Frankly, I think you could be doing more. I think your name implies a great potential. I think you should massacre the insects. I think your beak should drip with viscera.

Stay tuned for more criminal activity!

[zinjkitty]

Reblog for a bigger sample size.

Say in the tags what you voted for and if you live in or outside of the US