I’m struck. Part of me is genuinely shocked that a goy is that cut up at not being able to follow an internet blog that isn’t meant for them, especially since they are allegedly “curious.” Another part of me is humiliated and horrified that goyim are still patrolling and surveilling this space for the express purpose of treating us like lab rats for their “stories” and “characters”. Part of me is interested by the idea that goyim (or any privileged group) feels they must be given the right to educate themselves about a marginalized or targeted group and the oppression they face. Part of me is open-mouthed aghast at the patronizing inherent in “Something to consider.” “You should learn how to better coddle me. You should learn how to make me comfortable in your spaces. You need to learn the proper ways to butcher your culture and make it palatable enough for me to violate and water down for me and my goyische friends.” Obviously this person’s response is, “That wasn’t my intent,” if they care at all. Such an interesting study. I mostly wanted to share this to demonstrate to other Jewish people that it’s ok to feel hurt when your boundaries are transgressed and to express those feelings, and to warn people that there’s definitely quite a few goyim hanging around surveilling these spaces, and also to issue a brief response to this Anon:
Jewish people are getting fucking murdered and this is what you’re fucking doing. Go the fuck outside sometime, you collaborator piece of shit. “I WAS going to follow” then perish.
Not to mention there are spaces that focus on learning about Judaism that aren’t this specific blog. There are sites like chabad.org that give basic info and there are tumblrs like @jewish-education and @yidquotes that have more advanced info and don’t say that gentiles can’t follow.
I mean OP probably shouldn’t be writing Jewish characters anyway if they’re going to act so entitled but their concern trolling looks even more obtuse and nasty considering that any person who genuinely wants resources has other options.
I’m a little ticked with a lot of this right now. And since I’ve been @ here I’m going to insert myself into this conversation. Putting two hats on at once here as a writer and a Jewish person. Jumblr and writeblr should read all of it, but some paragraphs are to one of the other of you:
To writeblr: Research is great. Research is awesome. Research is necessary for good writing and a societal shedding of -isms. Do it where you’re welcome and will best be able to learn.
To jumblr: Writers do research not because minority people or characters are lab rats, but because they need some help learning to understand a life and worldview different than their own. And it’s great when writers make diverse characters/worlds. Sometimes the only place folks will meet someone Jewish (or of another minority group) is in the pages of a book. Let’s make sure those characters are done well.
To writeblr: You should be respectful and do research in places where folks are chill with it. No group is required to let you in to all of their spaces. Some of them are exclusively for intragroup conversations or are intragroup safe spaces. I feel like many of y’all know this by now? I hope.
To jumblr: It’s okay for us on jumblr to get angry and feel threatened when folks cross one of the boundaries we’ve put up (especially when we’ve often got good reasons to put them up!).
But jumblrites need to remember that making sure writers do their job right is mutually beneficial. Given, this anon doesn’t seem (at least from this snippet) like someone who would do a good job no matter what we did…But if a writer approached y’all politely, with a genuine desire to do things right by all of us, I’d hope that (given the energy and ability) you would be willing to help:
A polite, genuine request could have been “I’m trying to learn about x because I’m working on a [piece of writing, etc.]. I came across your blog and know it isn’t for me, but would you be willing help me find some places I can go to learn about x?”
I’d caution people from using my @jewish-education (or even @yidquotes?) to learn how to write a Jewish character. We just mostly don’t post about the lives and opinions of your “average” (lol) Jewish person. (I mean maybe some of my blog’s #jewish identity tag??) Chabad is good to know about traditional, Hasidic practice, but it won’t teach you how [random Jewish character] lives.
I’d recommend following personal blogs (on tumblr/beyond that are chill with random gentiles reading), reading published works by and about Jewish folks, and relying on writing advice blogs with Jewish mods when questions come up. If you have Jewish people irl who are willing to talk to you, that’s a great resource too. I am open to (some) personal-ish jewish life/identity questions over messaging. I am also willing recommend books or use my blog as a platform to ask followers for books recs (I haven’t read everything). Me and I think my end of jumblr will talk books ‘til the cows come home.
Hey I get being ticked off for being @’d and would that I could prevent it from happening. I get that your intentions are good so I just want to let you know that the impact is that your response comes off as dismissive. Obviously you care about educating about Judaism and Jewish culture – same here. But the conversation around Jewish-only spaces and the fact that goyim feel continually entitled to those spaces is supposed to be the focus here, not the ethics of writing about minorities.
Not to mention that it comes off extra dismissive, considering I’m also a Jewish writer, so it really bothers me that you feel the need to explain why writers do research. Nowhere did I say I didn’t understand why writers research, and nowhere am I talking about intentions of goyische writers researching Jewish culture. I was specifically talking about the impact that such a message left on me, which was it does make me feel surveilled and like a lab rat, and I’m not the only person who has gotten a message like this and feels this way. This is besides the fact that you should not research people on tumblr! Tumblr should not be your go to source for information about any marginalized group, for so, so many reasons! Any serious writer who is willing to put in the time it takes to research knows this.
“Let’s make sure these characters are done well” “making sure writers do their job right is mutually beneficial” – here’s the thing. I have zero interest in putting the needs of goyische writers writing about Jewish culture before the needs of actual real living breathing Jewish people. I’m also not interested in putting them ahead of Jewish writers who should get first priority when it comes to attention and support when writing Jewish characters. Goyische writers will never be able to write Jewish characters as well as Jewish people do. Support Jews writing about Jews, support targeted communities writing about their own struggles.
I appreciate you acknowledging that this education takes energy that not everyone has. I just want you to know that after reading your comments I’m feeling like I’m a bad person if I don’t personally educate every goy who wants to include their token Jew in a story.
“I feel like many of y’all know this by now” they obviously don’t. They obviously don’t know and/or don’t care about knowing and understanding. So it really worries me why you would give them the benefit of a doubt over trying to understand my response. Your response really comes off as encouraging, I got the sense that you want to suspend judgment and operate under an assumption of good character. That’s an awesome policy to have. My only issue in this case is that this Anon has shown they aren’t operating under good faith.
Not to mention that none of this touches on the fact that this blog is a Jewish-only space – the Anon had no right to send the message in the first place, regardless of intention or content. The fact that that never came up in your response bothers me. “I know your blog isn’t for me but-” why go any further? Why disrespect someone’s boundaries like that? Everyone should be able to set their own boundaries and have them be respected, especially by privileged individuals.
Again, I’m sorry that you were pulled into this, especially considering how triggering antisemitic content can be – I intentionally don’t tag people who I don’t know for sure are ok with it, and I’d encourage everyone to follow this policy. At the same time, I felt really upset reading this response, which presumed a whole lot about my experience and knowledge. I realize that wasn’t the intention, so I’m just sharing the impact it made with me. Much respect for the work you do on here (and likely off here as well).
I apologize deeply for tagging. That was an error and I shouldn’t have done it without permission.
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