So! Allow me tell you why I’m seething over this in two parts!
Part I
First of all, let’s get specific about what this means: They explicitly want to exclude Hillel. To vaguely phrase it as “all Zionist-related groups” is just a dogwhistle for Hillel. And look, there are legitimate reasons to be opposed to Hillel as a national organisation, especially when it comes to their stance on Israel. I personally do not believe Hillel should have any stance on Israel at all, because it’s meant to be a home for all Jewish students, and that includes Jews of varying political and religious opinions. I would love to see Hillel abandon its present stance, and I know there are Jewish students all over the place working on making that more of reality as I sit here typing this.
But here’s the thing: Regardless of Hillel’s bad policy on this issue, it’s still overwhelmingly the centre for Jewish life at nearly every college and university in the United States. It just is. So the message quickly becomes an ultimatum—from gentiles—that any Jew who wants to be considered progressive must completely divest themselves from the existing Jewish community and only engage with other approved Jewish individuals in order to be considered ideologically pure. It doesn’t matter if Hillel is your only option for getting Kosher food, attending services, being with other Jewish people, etc. It’s #bad and if you engage with it, then so are you.
Now, would be bad enough just on the principal that gentiles shouldn’t dictate how Jews access Jewish life and Judaism, but in light of all the drama with the Women’s March Organisers, this whole thing becomes even more offensive and absurd. Because when Tamika Mallory (along with Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez) refused to denounce Louis Farrakhan’s comments about Jews and LGBTQ+ people, the following was said: “I don’t agree with everything that Minister Farrakhan said about Jews or women or gay people…[but I hope that Jewish and LGBTQ+ people] will also take the time to understand why I have partnered with the Nation of Islam and been in that space for almost 30 years.” Basically: “He has some bad ideas, but I think his group does enough good for my communities at large that I am willing to overlook it.” So then why aren’t Jewish groups afforded the same nuance? Why is it only Jews who are being held to a standard of unattainable perfection, while everyone else gets to be messy and flawed?
They’re so quick to say “It’s not anti-Semitism because opposing Israel isn’t the same as being anti-Semitic!” and like…it’s not always the same as being anti-Semitic, but you have to fucking do it right, and my goyim, you ARE NOT. Gentiles holding Jews to different standards from everyone else, asking Jews to prove themselves from cutting ties with campus Jewish life, and generally just trying to define anti-Semitism as non-Jews? Like, it doesn’t even matter what your Israel stance actually is; your praxis is already inherently anti-Semitic all on its fucking own.
Part II
The article notes that the statement calling for Hillel to be excluded said the following:
“Black folks and other People of Color have a long-standing history of standing in solidarity with Palestinian folks,” the statement reads. “The quotidian experiences of Palestinians include a long history of dealing with violence, colonization (particularly through land dispossession), and oppression. We cannot in good conscience advocate for our own liberation without being mindful of the current and historical liberation struggles of others locally, nationally, and globally.”
Later on, the statement added that The Drylongso Collective was focused on “anti-Black and anti-Brown racism at Cal Poly.”
“To attempt to decenter Blackness from our discussion by focusing on an accusation of anti-Semitism based on a false equivalency of Zionism and Judaism is deeply disturbing and speaks of not only the lack for anti-Semitic acts committed by non-Black/Brown students but also of the coalition work that remains to be done,” the statement reads.
Okay, so let me stop y’all right fucking there with this reminder:
JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST
Like, not only does this statement completely overlook the fact that over half of all Israelis are either Black or Brown, which demonstrates a total lack of understanding about who Israelis are, thus utterly disqualifying these students from really having any opinion on the state as an entity all, but FUCKING HELL, does it really go out of its way to way absolutely erase Black and Brown Jews existing in their own corner of the diaspora. They mention the ‘struggles of others locally, nationally, and globally’ in the same breath that they imply that Black and Brown people are a wholly separate entity from Jews, and then go on to preemptively accuse Jewish people of derailing the conversation to be about themselves, shifting the focus away from Black and Brown people, when again JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST.
How much chutzpah does one have to possess to be able to simultaneously erase all Black and Brown Jews whilst also demanding that they stop engaging with Judaism unless it’s entirely on your uninformed gentile terms?
I am so sick of discourse that paints Judaism as whiteness, not only because it misses the point of how anti-Semitism has operated as a racial hatred for centuries, but also because it always ends of with Jews of Colour being attacked and harassed by people who claim to fight for, well, People of Colour. Just like how the CDM organisers revelled in the “white tears” of the Iranian Jew they ejected from their march, and the trans Indian Jewish reporter they got fired from her job, these organisers would have you believe that Jewishness, in and of itself (and unless otherwise proven on an individual basis through a series of loyalty tests), is whiteness, perhaps even whiteness in its very worst form. And I don’t know how much of that outlook is due to ignorance and how much of it is due to blatant hatred, but it’s anti-Semitic no matter which way you spin it, and I’m so fucking tired of watching people who think they’re progressive swallowing conspiracy theories from the pages of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as if it wasn’t already trite Jew-hating bullshit when it was first published in 1903.
I am so sick of discourse that paints Judaism as whiteness, not only because it misses the point of how anti-Semitism has operated as a racial hatred for centuries
[…]
these organisers would have you believe that Jewishness, in and of itself (and unless otherwise proven on an individual basis through a series of loyalty tests), is whiteness, perhaps even whiteness in its very worst form.
Not going back to reblogging critical stuff, but there’s a paper about this phenomenon that you can read right here. It’s long, but a worthy read, even though I don’t agree with everything it says about Jews and whiteness.
@ xtian atheists who come onto posts about the Holocaust all “hurr durr well why do you j00z still believe in G-d if so many of you fucking died? G-d let you die, G-d is evil and doesn’t exist, why you still worship old man with beard in the sky?”
Two things. One, you have NO understanding of how Jewish culture and Judaism works. And yes, I am calling you xtian atheists, because you are approaching the concept of religion from the model of Christianity, and are therefore poorly equipped to understand anything about Jewish text, culture, and religion. Two- you are an asshole and I hope a rat shits in your mouth while you sleep.
As my aunt says- “Ale tseyn zoln dir aroysfaln, nor eyner zol dir blaybn af tsonveytik”. May all your teeth fall out, except one to give you a toothache.
Ontario PC leadership candidate Doug Ford recently accepted endorsements from a pair of controversial pastors with a history of preaching hate.
Charles McVety and Paul Melnichuk, two pastors with a well-documented track record promoting homophobia and anti-Semitism, are singing Ford’s praises as he works to lock-down the support of Ontario’s social conservative fringe.
McVety, president of the Canada Christian College and the far-right Institute for Canadian Values, called on his followers to buy PC memberships and cast votes for Ford – someone he describes as a “faithful man.”
“The leadership will be won by just a few thousand votes,” McVety told his Facebook followers this week. “You and your friends can make a difference as we see our land healed.”
I learned in a history class that because Einstein was an immigrant none
of the US (white) colleges or universities would let him join their
faculty but black colleges and universities welcomed his brilliance with
open arms.
it wasn’t because Einstein was an immigrant, it was because he was Jewish
jews try and explain how intergenerational trauma works and functions in our families + communities and white gentiles r still like “so you get intergenerational trauma when anything bad has previously happened to any group of people like you??”
like i don’t know how to get y’all to stop wrapping your head around how these kinds of numbers affect a marginalized group:
a third of all Jews on the FACE OF THE EARTH died within a few years
like there’s just such a comprehensive failure to understand or empathize with what exactly that means. how many communities were destroyed, how many families were destroyed, how our languages were destroyed because most of the speakers were murdered, how many children grew up in the wake of this trauma, what it’s like to try and parent in the aftermath of a genocide that kills a third of your people (two thirds of all european Jews!), what it’s like to have the spectre of this hung over your head every single day from childhood
There’s this complete disconnect that a lot of non-Jewish gadje have about exactly what the Samudaripen (Holocaust) DID to our two populations. Like, there are entire subgroups that just don’t exist anymore… Seeing these numbers makes my heart hurt.
Nostalgia for Jews is a well-documented phenomenon in Eastern Europe, with cultural and even substantial commercial aspects.
In Ukraine, so-called Jewish-themed restaurants with pork-heavy menus compete for tourists, while figurines of Jews are sold at markets as good luck charms. In Poland, graffiti reading “I miss you, Jew” have become a common sight.
Beyond the kitsch, Jewish cultural festivals draw large non-Jewish audiences in Krakow, Warsaw and Budapest.
Some credit this trend to a feeling of loss over the near annihilation of once-vibrant Jewish communities. Others trace it a desire to reconnect with the pre-Soviet past.
But even against this backdrop, the fake Jewish wedding that was held Saturday in the village of Radzanów, 80 miles northeast of Warsaw, stands out as a remarkable affair.
Make-believe Jewish weddings — a regular educational event in Spain and Portugal, where nostalgia for nearly-extinct Jewish communities is also prevalent — are rare in Poland (locals in the village of Bobowa organized one in 2013). Even rarer are enactments as well-produced as the one in Radzanow.
Organized by the Radzanovia Association, a cultural group promoting Polish heritage, the event featured a few dozen non-Jewish volunteers, men and women, dressed in traditional haredi costumes. Some men wore fake beards and side curls – including ones that didn’t match their natural hair color.
Portraying the groom was Piotr Czaplicki, a journalist for the Radia dla Ciebie station. Czaplicki, who is not Jewish, got under a chuppah – the canopy used in traditional Jewish weddings — together with his make-believe bride, Julia Brzezińska, a local resident. They were “wed” by a fake rabbi in a show before villagers, whom the event’s organizers sought to teach about Jewish traditions.
To Jonny Daniels, the London-born founder of From the Depths, which promotes Holocaust commemoration in Poland, events like the one in Radzanów are “some kind of therapy taking place all over the country.”
But the event’s producer, Agnieszka Rychcik-Nowakowska, sees it as a way of commemorating the hundreds of Jews who had accounted for approximately half of her village’s population before the Holocaust.
“We want to remember all those homes of all pre-war Jews, who lived a peaceful life punctuated by the rhythm of holidays, family celebrations and more mundane events,” she told the news site Nasza Mlawa.
Jews first settled in Radzanów in 1710, and at their peak numbered about 500. By September 1939, when the Germans took over, the population had dipped below 300. Nearly all who remained would be sent to the Mlawa ghetto, never to return.
“We remember those who lived here before us and entered the memory of our grandmothers and grandparents. It was so recently,” said Rychcik-Nowakowska.
Elsewhere in Europe, Jewish-themed festivals are more common , bringing together hundreds of participants. There too, Jewish-themed events are held in the absence of a living, breathing Jewish community thanks to nostalgia and a desire to generate tourism revenue.
But in Spain and Portugal, for example, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were oppressed 500 years ago during the Inquisition, the passage of time has made goodwill gestures toward Jews less complicated than in the east. In 2013, Spain and Portugal even passed laws granting citizenship to descendants of Sephardic Jews – a move whose generosity contrasts sharply with the refusal by Poland and other East European countries to offer even partial restitution for property that was stolen from Jewish communities.
At the fake wedding in Radzanów, organizers turned to Teresa Wrońska, an actress from the Jewish Theater in Warsaw, to assure the wedding’s authenticity. She choreographed the entire affair — from the signing of the ketubah (the Jewish marriage contract) to the traditional Jewish music played by a band of locals and musicians from the capital.
Even the POLIN Jewish museum of Warsaw was consulted in staging the event, according to Nasza Mlawa.
The wedding is not the only attempt by Radzanów locals to reconnect with their village’s lost Jewish heritage. Last year, a high school student from the region, Cuba Balinski, initiated a project aimed at rededicating and reopening the village’s abandoned synagogue – a small but beautiful Moorish-style building that miraculously survived the Nazi occupation.
Balinski, who has secured the cooperation of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland for his project but is still looking for investors, is adamant about restoring the synagogue to a house of worship rather than having it turn into museum.
“If there is no Torah in the synagogue, than it is still just a building,” he told the news site Gosc Plocki. “But if we bring the holy book back, it will come back to life.”
I find this to be fetishizing a memory. If they cared about Jews, they’d do the work to interact with those of us still living.
Jews who engage in respectability politics are so fucking tiring. If you see other Jews reacting to antisemitism and your immediate reaction is, “they’re being overdramatic, they’re being mean, they’re being harsh” then you have got more work to do internally. You can disagree with how other Jews handle situations – believe me, there have been plenty of interactions I’ve had where, looking back, I wish I had done it differently – but it’s not your right to judge whether or not they had a right to respond that way. This respectability politics is entirely based on the idea that these oppressive systems are actually just a series of “kind of bad” interpersonal interactions, when in reality they are pervasive, coercive, and dehumanizing systems. Intention =/= impact.
I notice this especially with Jews who grew up in urban/suburban enclaves with large Jewish populations versus those of us who grew up amongst gentiles. It’s a lot easier to overlook or excuse microaggressions when you haven’t been personally forced to contend with them on hostile territory your whole life.
if elon musk implies that a single party owns the media and his entire fanbase in unison goes “oh its the jews. you’re talking about the jews” and elon doesn’t address that by going “screamingkermit.jpg it’s not fucking jews you piece of shit antisemitists” but rather sits there like “…… ;)” you don’t get to say that Tumblr is projecting by implying that he claims that jews control the media. had he thought differently he would definitely notice the replies and pull up another tweet to straighten things out, which he didn’t, because his fanbase realized exactly what he meant. that’s how dogwhistling works. wheres your Logic you weird reddit rejects stuck in the notes of that post yapping like you shit your brains out years ago
On this day, 22 May 1920, the anti-Semitic hoax document the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was printed by auto industry mogul Henry Ford in the Dearborn Independent, inaugurating a policy of anti-semitism in that paper. The paper was sold in all Ford outlets, and had a circulation of 700,000. For his efforts, Henry Ford was later presented with the Grand Cross Of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle by Adolf Hitler, the highest Nazi order which could be awarded to a non-German. More info about Ford and other big corporations helping the Nazis in this excellent article: https://ift.tt/20t0EmYhttps://ift.tt/2s33CFv
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