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Bedside Notepad

@jessicalprice / jessicalprice.tumblr.com

Tabletop gaming project manager, former Microsoft Games Studio writer/narrative producer, Midwestern expatriate, editrix, and internet wanderer.
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reblogged

I can’t get over how the students at Columbia screamed “Go back to Poland” to American Jews. Not even Israelis (though that wouldn’t be okay either). American fucking Jews.

Way to tell me that you don’t want me in your country and think my family and I would be better off dead. You’re such an activist, gleefully screaming for the ethnic cleansing of your country’s own populations.

Get absolutely fucked, you monsters.

So my family of American Jews are actually from Poland (although the town my mother's family is from is now in Ukraine due to Soviet border-fuckery). But my father's family is from a city called Lodz. We were bakers there. The building we owned is still there at Targowa 67. You can see it on Google Maps. The city now owns it.

Back in the 1990s, we made inquiries about reclaiming it...

And the city told us that if we tried, "We would not be able to guarantee your safety when you are physically present."

Whether that's a warning or a subtle threat is up for debate, but hey, we got the message either way that Jews Are Not Welcome In Poland.

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psychologeek

Columbia: Go Back To Poland!

Poland:

This is your daily reminder that in Poland, it's still illegal to mention that the polish were anything but poor victims of the nazis.

This is your daily reminder that many polish were, in fact, pretty happy in this part of the Nazi ideology, and even Partizans (who fought the Nazis) would occasionally bring the jews they found tho the local police in exchange for a Kilo of sugar.

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reblogged

Saw this the other day and just

I've never once found Yoshke relatable before but there's a first time for everything I guess

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reblogged

For those who missed it, a Jewish man was threatened with arrest in London this weekend for being "openly Jewish" (that's a quote form the policeman who stopped him) while being near a pro-palestinian protest. He was then abused and harassed by protestors. The policeman said that the man's presence could lead to a "breach of the peace"

The police proceeded to release the most victim blamey apology I've ever seen - one so bad that they then had to withdraw it and issue a second apology

The original apology talks about a "new trend of those opposed to the main protests appearing alongside the route to express their views", and "knowing their presence is provocative".

The guy the police stopped was literally walking in London post shul. Not on a counter demonstration, not on a free the hostages demo, or a pro Israel demo. He was just there, and wearing a kippah.

Like I'm sorry but saying Jews being obviously Jewish is causing a breach of the peace when near a pro-palestinian protest makes it very clear that the police know that these are not actually peaceful.

I'm sure a huge number of people on these demos are not actually antisemites and have no intention to harm Jews, however herd mentality can make even the most reasonable person into a bigot, and frankly if people are afraid to stand against the antisemites, it shows that they now how dangerous the people around them are - so WHY are they still there?

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newnitz

I don't really see people talking about how cultural Christianity is applied to Jews.

In Christianity, Jews are the people who rejected and betrayed Jesus and are punished with statelessness and destitution, whose only redemption is accepting the Messiah and the Son of God. This is the basis of several antisemitic tropes, most prominently deception, religious supercessionism and the Wandering Jew.

In cultural Christianity, these tropes are considered tenants of Judaism rather than Christianity, as Judaism is considered Christianity without Jesus.

Christians see themselves as tortured saints, persecuted for spreading the truth of Jesus and God across the globe. Missionaries who go to non-Christian lands to try and get the people to convert by fearmongering with damnation to Hell see themselves as victims when they're rebuffed and asked to stop.

Cultural Christian non-Christians are usually atheists and adherents of folk religion revivalist movements who have suffered religious abuse, as many sects of Christianity normalize emotional abuse by instilling inherent guilt in the Original Sin and even physical abuse in "Spare the rod; spoil the child". These cultural Christians see the millennia of antisemitism and roll their eyes, to them we're just another sect of delusional religious people with a persecution complex.

To become a Christian all you need to do is accept the Father Son and Holy Spirit, to affirm your beliefs and confess your sins. To become a Jew you are either born a Jew, or you learn the Jewish culture and religion for months on end and must live half a year under the strictest restrictions of the Jewish lifestyle to show commitment. That is the difference between a universal religion and an ethnoreligion.

In a Culturally Christian world there is no room for ethnoreligions, and they do not exist. All religions are about your faith and which God(s) you believe in. So in a Cultural Christian's eyes, a country of Jews is a country that holds one faith supreme above all others and conditions rights with conversion, as that's how Christian countries have historically been.

Christianity's common ground with Jews comes from the Roman Empire appropriating the religion from the Cult of Jesus, and making it more appealing to the masses by introducing Greco-Roman and Germanic folk religion aspects into it. Xmas is Yule but with Jesus, Easter is a fertility holiday but with Jesus and so on. In the eyes of the Cultural Christian, Christianity and Judaism are two once-antagonistic sects of the same religion, no different than Catholics and Protestants.

Cultural Christianity erases and appropriates Judaism and is as inherently hateful of Jews as religious Christianity.

Now, when it comes to the elephant in the room: Islam.

Islam, like Christianity, is a universal religion. You must believe in Allah and accept the prophets, which include both Jesus and Muhammad. It is no more inherently violent than Christianity, though it's no less. In the Christian's eyes, Islam is the competitor, the enemy. The Muslims conquered Christian lands and converted them, and they've fought holy wars against one another throughout the Middle Ages.

To become a Muslim the Cultural Christian doesn't need to unlearn any of the core tenets of their culture. They can simply apply it to Islam.

Which is why many Cultural Christians, damaged by Christianity, are sympathetic to Islam. And since Muslims and Jews are no longer on good terms, they use this sympathy to give themselves a free pass to be antisemitic. Whether Muslims check their converts for bigotry, allow it or are powerless to stop them, that's another issue.

Jews are not diet Christians. We have less in common with you than you have with Muslims. Unlearn Christian cultural appropriation.

And no, I don't care that it's "offensive" to associate you with Christianity due to the religious abuse you endured. You still see the world through a Christian lens.

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trudgemank99

Another day any idiot bitching about so called “cultural Christian atheists”. Like you’re cheering on a genocide in Palestine right now but it’s totally us who’s the problem!!

Fuck you!!!

Also, you don’t know me or what lens I see the world in so maybe don’t try defining my lived experiences for me, you fucking turd!!!

How the fuck do you see a post about antisemitism and Christianity, a post that never mentioned Palestine, something which should have nothing to do with the genocide going on in Palestine, and accuse OP of supporting said genocide.

This is what we mean when we say the anti-Israel movement is being used as a cover for antisemitism for a lot of people, many of whom do not care at all about Palestinian lives. When you are making posts talking against antisemitism your enemy, you are an antisemite.

See a post about antisemitism and crying Gaza is kind of like seeing a post about islamophobia and crying 9/11 or seeing a post about colonialism in Japan and crying Nanking. The victims of violence are not gotchas to use against people fighting for their rights.

Also going to point out that there are more Zionist Christians in America than there are Zionist jews.

Because Zionist are fascists and fascists shouldn’t be allowed to speak!!!

My guy this isn't a post that has anything to do with Zionism. I am antizionist, I believe what's going on in Gaza is a genocide being committed by Israel too.

You are using the word 'Zionism' the same way that nazis use it; as a code for anything Jewish, and especially Jews fighting for their rights.

When you invoke Palestine to spread antisemitism you are doing the same thing as Islamophobes who invoke terrorism to justify their bigotry.

My guy, I don’t fucking care!! You don’t get to support a genocide and have peace. Ever!! Even if you’re talking about “antisemitism” you don’t get to say a fucking thing!!! I don’t fucking care what antisemitism any ziony is facing right now. Cry me a fucking river!!!

But also this post specifically mentions so called “culturally Christian atheists” a term many atheists like myself despise and are highly critical of. Anyone who uses it is automatically on my shit list. The last sentence of this post even say they don’t care how we find it offensive and try to tell us what “lens” we see the world in. As if they have any fucking place to tell us how we see the world.

If you’re not going to care about us, and talk over us and our lived experiences you bet your ass I’m not gonna be nice to you and derail the whole fucking post!!

You're "critical" of cultural christianity while exemplifying cultural christianity.

I think antisemites such as yourself, which you just proved by blasting antizionists that called you out on using "Zionist" as codeword for "Jew", shouldn't be allowed to speak either. But I don't see anyone shutting you up, so I'll just show how big a clown you're being instead.

Buddy! You are a Zionist. I’m my eyes you’re a fascist. I don’t have to answer to fascists!!! Fuck off filthy ziony !!!

No thanks, it's funnier to watch you throw a tantrum while making our point for us, about how cultural christians use leftist causes as a few pass to side with the likes of David Duke. Because that's what your are - a cultural christian. You've never deprogrammed Christian tropes like replacement theory, blood libel, deicide, treacherous Jews and most of all, religious supercessionism, which you prove by equating an ethnoreligion with universal religions.

I love how calling out Zionists for committing genocide is “throwing a tantrum”. Like buddy, I think you’re just trying to make yourself feel better about cheering on the deaths of Palestinians. Like I might be an asshole but this is the IDF right now!!!

When you stand with Israel this is what you sand with!!!

I’m against the country that does this!!

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greentrapped

Nobody is standing with Israel in this post. People are standing with jewish people facing ridicule for being jewish. Actions of the country are not actions of the ethnicity. Do you see someone talk about racism against the Chinese and think "They support China!" because you cannot comprehend that actions of a country are not actions of the citizens who live there/originate from there?

I don’t give a fuck about this post!! If Jews are posting shit that says they stand with Israel, as this Jew does, then I dot want to hear how much antisemitism they face! In fact I love it!! If you support a genocide you deserve to have bigotry hurled your way!! Jews being trolled online is ducking nothing to what they support!! Maybe not every Jew supports the Palestinian genocide but e you the do that it’s a ducking problem. So Jews getting excluded is alright with me. Over 35,000 Palestinians are dead but we have to be nice to the Jews who cheer it on?? Fuck that and fuck Jews!! Jews are scum!!!

If someone supports what Israel is doing, then berate them for that. Not for being a Jew.

I believe in a diversity of tactics

No, you believe that someone holding the wrong opinion makes them exempt from basic human decency. You literally called us all scum because of what you think me being a Zionist means. Several antizionist Jews here called you out on that but you don't care because you won't let anyone revoke your cultural christianity bestowed "right" to be antisemitic.

If your “wrong opinion” is a full blown genocide then you bet your ass you’re exempt from human decency!!! Like what part of “Israel is committing genocide” do you filthy Jews not understand?!?! Sorry but supporting genocide is 1 million times worse than using antisemitic slurs!! Jews can shut the fuck up!!!

Because apparently you deserve “human decency” but the people of Palestine deserve bombs and famine!!

The “human decency” Israel is showing Palestinians. But you’re more upset that I’m using slurs!!

“You filthy Jews”? Holy fuck yeah no that’s just straight up nazi talk.

When we talk about how neo-Nazis are co-opting support for Palestinians…

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bademjanboy

i really wish…i can share the warmth i feel when i’m at synagogue with other people at the least i want non-jews to hear our worship and how beautiful it is i think it would change a lot

if you’ve never heard a jewish prayer please just take a little time out of your day to listen:

non-jews you are encouraged to listen and reblog this!

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reblogged

"lol jews find so many loopholes in their own religion they must hate being jewish" damn just say you're uncreative and have never examined your own religious texts further than the exact words written down on the paper. just say you take everything at face value and you never enjoy reading between the lines to gain a new understanding of something. it's ok, we all see it already

The biggest stumbling block for Christians (practicing and cultural/former) in regards to understanding Jews seems to be this weird inability to understand that it’s possible to love a text and take it seriously and still have a playful relationship to it.

Like, they don’t understand play at ALL.

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xclowniex
Anonymous asked:

you were asking to be called a zio. Don't wear a star of david if you can't handle it.

This one sounds kinda familiar I wonder where I've heard it before?

Oh that's right! "Women don't dress in a revealing way or else you're asking to be SA'd/raped"

The thing is, with both how you dress and wearing a magen david, it's not the wearer who made the decision to be harmed, it was the perpetrator who decided to take the action of harm.

Whilst dressing not revealing and not wearing a magen david do prevent experience harm, do you not think that the burden should fall on the person doing the harm? Do you not think that as a society we should be moving towards not shaming victims and instead punishing perpetrators?

Also - I can handle it. I was making a post about an experience to prove a point

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“you were asking to be called a slur coined by the KKK for wearing the universal symbol of your people and faith” anon you’re a disgusting and disgraceful person for this, try working on your prejudices and do better

The masks are coming off hard.

The Star of David isn’t a symbol of the modern State of Israel. It’s on Israel’s flag because it’s a symbol of the Jewish people.

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kosher-salt

"The Left is no longer safe, and the Right never was."

I see this sentiment often from progressive Jews (so most of us in some way). Let me be very clear. The left was never safe either.

Do you think that so many people were radicalized overnight? That on the early morning of October 7, leftists across the West opened their phones and in that moment became antisemites, able to fall for the clearest of propaganda and simultaneously cheer on and deny Jewish suffering?

The left was always capable of this. They only began to clearly enunciate how bloodthirsty and how fundamentalist they were out loud when the right minority was targeted. Their exception, so they can still enjoy the luxury of ganging up on an 'underdog' usually reserved for the right.

October 7th could have been last January 7th. It could have been in 2018. It could have been in 2006 if social media algorithms were as developed, and would have had the same response.

The left has never been safe. They've just been easier to ignore.

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fdelopera

This is true. I did voter registrations and GOTV on the University of Pittsburgh campus in 2016, and the sheer number of Leftist university students who told me that they wanted Trump to win... Not because they agreed with his policies, but because they thought he would "bring the Revolution."

No, you idiot children, all he brought was a disastrous response to Covid. And he also brought his stated campaign promise to pack the Supreme Court with conservative justices, specifically so the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade and strip us of our reproductive rights.

I tried explaining to these idiot Leftists how the Supreme Court works, because despite being whole-ass college students they had never taken a civics class before, but they didn't want to believe that Trump would pack the Supreme Court if given the chance. And now, here we are, fighting for our basic rights to bodily autonomy.

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kizunatallis

The types of "accelerationist" leftists who think Trump or some other right wing president will radicalize people into a revolution be like

I once took a political science class in college, an older student in a class of early 20 somethings. We were given a quiz, to identify various countries that had been in the news on a map.

Most of the students though Iraq was actually South Africa, Venezuela was Turkey, and Australia was somewhere in the vicinity of Siberia.

So I am not surprised at all that teens and early 20s people today have no clue as to how the political system works and harbor these delusional notions of some grand, glorious Revolution happening that they are perfectly fine sacrificing poor people, religious minorities, and women for.

Okay, but “find the country on an unlabeled map” and “understand issues currently affecting it” have been shown time and time again to be an inaccurate (and highly ableist!) method of evaluating understanding of current events, so I’m pretty uncomfortable with using this anecdote to symbolize anything.

And if Boomers going down the Qanon rabbit hole have shown us anything, it’s also not tied specifically to youth.

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kosher-salt

"The Left is no longer safe, and the Right never was."

I see this sentiment often from progressive Jews (so most of us in some way). Let me be very clear. The left was never safe either.

Do you think that so many people were radicalized overnight? That on the early morning of October 7, leftists across the West opened their phones and in that moment became antisemites, able to fall for the clearest of propaganda and simultaneously cheer on and deny Jewish suffering?

The left was always capable of this. They only began to clearly enunciate how bloodthirsty and how fundamentalist they were out loud when the right minority was targeted. Their exception, so they can still enjoy the luxury of ganging up on an 'underdog' usually reserved for the right.

October 7th could have been last January 7th. It could have been in 2018. It could have been in 2006 if social media algorithms were as developed, and would have had the same response.

The left has never been safe. They've just been easier to ignore.

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fdelopera

This is true. I did voter registrations and GOTV on the University of Pittsburgh campus in 2016, and the sheer number of Leftist university students who told me that they wanted Trump to win... Not because they agreed with his policies, but because they thought he would "bring the Revolution."

No, you idiot children, all he brought was a disastrous response to Covid. And he also brought his stated campaign promise to pack the Supreme Court with conservative justices, specifically so the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade and strip us of our reproductive rights.

I tried explaining to these idiot Leftists how the Supreme Court works, because despite being whole-ass college students they had never taken a civics class before, but they didn't want to believe that Trump would pack the Supreme Court if given the chance. And now, here we are, fighting for our basic rights to bodily autonomy.

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kizunatallis

The types of "accelerationist" leftists who think Trump or some other right wing president will radicalize people into a revolution be like

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reblogged
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kosher-salt

"The Left is no longer safe, and the Right never was."

I see this sentiment often from progressive Jews (so most of us in some way). Let me be very clear. The left was never safe either.

Do you think that so many people were radicalized overnight? That on the early morning of October 7, leftists across the West opened their phones and in that moment became antisemites, able to fall for the clearest of propaganda and simultaneously cheer on and deny Jewish suffering?

The left was always capable of this. They only began to clearly enunciate how bloodthirsty and how fundamentalist they were out loud when the right minority was targeted. Their exception, so they can still enjoy the luxury of ganging up on an 'underdog' usually reserved for the right.

October 7th could have been last January 7th. It could have been in 2018. It could have been in 2006 if social media algorithms were as developed, and would have had the same response.

The left has never been safe. They've just been easier to ignore.

While I can admit that I lean towards conservative, I also can admit that there are extremists there of course and they are becoming louder and more popular because leftists have pushed so hard for so long that they've decided to stop being nice.

There used to be a word called compromise. It wasn't a dirty word or considered "talking to the enemy" - it was how so many people from different cultures and walks of life could live in the same country, if one side was firm in a belief and the other had opposition to it, instead of insisting that side was a literal fascist Nazi, they would find a way to talk through it.

Because expecting everyone who doesn't agree with you to just stop resisting when you want to make extreme changes that go against their beliefs is called a dictatorship and you are a fascist that doesn't actually want everyone to have a say. You only want people that agree with you to have a say.

When you get off the Internet and go outside, you realize most people are normal. They don't actually care about what the person next to them is doing. Sadly, the upcoming generations aren't going to be like that because they have been glued to social media since birth. But anyone in their 20s and older are generally not extremists.

Sadly, the loudest from both sides are the most insane.

I say all this in a round-a-bout way to say. You think the right isn't safe because you've been told that. Consider for a moment, not being a conservative, but just talking to some with an open mind now that you are realizing that they have been right that the left is actually anti-american.

I love my country, even if it isn't perfect. That is what leftists hate about a lot of us. Because I know how lucky I am to live here. Even if there is so much I wish I could fix overnight. I'd rather live here than anywhere else.

Nah. Conservatives always wanted the same things Trumpists want. Reagan and his ilk just didn’t feel empowered, in the wake of the civil rights era, to be as open in their violent white supremacy.

So they used “polite” language to build a world in which they could feel comfortable saying it out loud.

I have issues with very real antisemitism on the left, but don’t you dare pretend cops beating Black kids to death for breathing and most conservatives cheering them on and the rest of y’all who “lean conservative” Homer Simpsoning quietly into the nearest bushes so you don’t have to say out loud whether you agree or disagree was somehow a reaction to the left yelling at you.

Don’t you dare pretend that Charlottesville and Tree of Life and Poway were just that you were forced to become neo-Nazis because some kids on the internet called you Nazis.

Miss me with this bullshit.

It’s still the right that kills Jews in the US, that forces your disgusting misogyny and queerphobia and oligarchy on us.

As I keep saying, the Right will succeed in killing Jews, and the Left will explain why we deserved it, but don’t mistake that for those two things being equal harm.

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people are really out here confusing “hearing about this made me feel feelings” with “I care about this cause”

American culture actively works to stunt our relationship to our own emotions so much that we don’t understand activism or even investment

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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.

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reblogged

Yeah so I need to learn to just stop going on Twitter but this specific tweet pisses me off

Fuck you

Anyone who believes this? Fuck you

This is literally Nazi rhetoric. You are saying that Jews will just kill anything they can, because they want to, because they want to rule the world

THIS IS LITERAL NAZI TALKING POINTS

"the Jews won't stop at Palestine!!! They're gonna go attack some place else, just because they can, because they're EVILLL!! It's not enough to just free Palestine, we must have a *final solution* so the world will be free of evil!!!!"

Actually fuck anyone who believes this

"punch Nazis" YEAH RIGHT

You're the fucking Nazis and yet you act like you still care about Jews

I would feel safer around a proud Hamas member.

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obazervazi

Some common leftist beliefs

I've been seeing some peculiar beliefs in leftist spaces recently.

• Nazis are literally subhuman and deserve to die.

• Zionism is a Nazi movement

• All Jews are secretly zionists

To an outside observer, these beliefs can look innocent (I am far too guilty of number 1, honestly) but the problem is a lot of people believe all three. By the transitive property, they believe that all Jews are subhuman and deserve to die. That is a very familiar and terrifying sentiment to us Jews.

Be careful dehumanizing literally anyone. Once you accept that Nazis, or pedophiles, or other evil people are subhuman, your definition of "Nazi" can be expanded. It can even be expanded to include groups that were originally targeted in the Holocaust. Do better.

I mean, dehumanizing anyone is also bad because it divides the world into Evil People I Am Nothing Like and Good People Who Would Never Do Anything Like That which… isn’t great for self-awareness and understanding the ways in which you may be complicit in harm without recognizing it.

It’s what leads to the reaction that accusing someone of being antisemitic/racist/misogynist/etc. is a worse harm than saying or doing something antisemitic/racist/misogynist/etc.

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reblogged

thinking about how utterly and completely and uniformly ashkenazi worldwide judaism really seems to be, and especially how current antisemitism focuses a lot on ashkenazi judaism and its stereotypes -

and the stark contrast with judaism inside israel... mizrahi judaism (which is on itself extremely generalizing - yemeni judaism and iraqi judaism and persian judaism and turkish judaism and libyan judaism and syrian judaism and the 100 other shades of mizrahi jewish cultures, each standing on its own, rich and unique), then ethiopian judaism, kurdish jews, sephardi jews, indian jews, old yishuv jews - it is so colorful, and it's everywhere. and each community stands on its own but they mix together with each other and compliment each other because they're all different flavors of the same people. so everywhere you see people put hummus and amba on their schnitzel and listen to shlomo artzi while going out for sabich/listen to zohar argov while going out for friday schnitzel challa (you wouldn't believe all the ways you can eat schnitzel) and put matza ball soup in bowls decorated with khamsas and evil eyes and everyone craves piping hot jachnun on saturday morning (gosh, jewish culture has really got a lot to do with food, doesn't it? or maybe i'm just hungry).

literally the majority of jews in israel are mizrahi. and the percentage of mixed mizrahi-ashkenazi families is massive too.

and no, it's not all butterflies and sunshine, inter-jewish racism exists and it's ugly and prevalent and a central topic in israeli socio-political discussions and activism. but still, israeli jewish culture is still SO global... sometimes i look at the way people (especially antisemites but not only them) present judaism - all ashkenazi and pale and solemn - and it just seems so damn... stale. (the fact that i'm ashkenazi myself makes it even more bizarre, and obviously ironic, but i'm very secular from a very secular household so we never really cared much about our own ashkenazism).

jewish culture really deserves better than any of that.

We’re just going to ignore the large, old, thriving Sephardic communities in the US, I guess.

(Not to mention that “I hate the way antisemites and Jews alike present Ashkenazi culture as pale & stale & monolithic” + “and it kinda is” + “how dare you say I am saying that” is like Trumpian levels of shameless gaslighting.)

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batboyblog

The Goyim are fucking wild, the way I would have dumped that casserole over that woman's head, also divorce that wife.

holy fuck i hate evangelicals so much

The wife is an antisemite and this guy needs to divorce her, holy crap.

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anyroads

I've been seeing posts about stuff like this lately and what I haven't seen enough of is clear statements about:

The point of kashrut is not that something will happen. That's a Christian framing. Christianity posits sin as something that has a direct effect. Judaism doesn't.

Kashrut is centered around the idea of intent. It is a practice. Feeding an uknowing person who holds by kashrut (at whatever level, in whatever way) food that violates their practice does not unleash some kind of wrath of God on them. It is, however, a violation of their trust, and of their practice. It has self-imposed consequences. The entire premise of "I will feed this person a thing they refuse to eat to show them that it's fine" is not only unethical, but it has nothing to do with the cause/effect of that person's choices and perspective religiously or culturally. (It also should be unnecessary to point out that the consequences of violating a dietary restriction are often not immediate, and feeding someone a food they aren't used to eating can cause problems many hours later.)

Judaism approaches the commandments and the mitzvot (or religious obligations) from the perspective of those that are between man and God, and those that are between man and man. Kashrut is between man and God, ie. each individual has to make decisions for themselves and those decisions are between them and God (or not, in the case of atheist Jews), and no one else. There is no place for another person to intercede, and if they do, the consequences will be in the affected person's conscience and emotional soul. (Which also means that from a Jewish perspective, these in-laws were positing themselves as God, which I'm pretty sure is also not something Evangelicals are fine with, let alone Jews.)

When it comes to kashrut, like I said, the framing is centered on intent. For example, kashrut requires leafy greens to be checked for bugs, because bugs are not kosher. If a person does their due diligence to check for bugs and finds none, and ends up eating one that they unintentionally missed, they have not violated kashrut. However, if a person does not check for bugs and eats a leafy green, even if it has no bugs on it they have violated kashrut because they didn't check.

The thing is, an example like the above AITA is not in violation of kashrut, but the person affected nevertheless felt violated themselves, and likely guilty and possibly tainted. And while they don't have to, a lot of people in this situation still do feel this way, and that's natural. Many rabbis will say that to resolve that guilt you can do teshuvah, whether it's through davening or tzeddakah or both. (I think Chabad.org has a page on this specific issue but tbh I don't feel like linking to them for a number of reasons so feel free to do your own research or talk to your friendly neighborhood rabbi.)

So for any Evangelicals who want to feed Jewish (or Muslim) people food that violates their religious practice just to prove a point, maybe just cut out the middleman, don't mess with people's food, and donate to your local homeless shelter instead (but not the Salvation Army).

This is important.

I don’t believe I’m going to hell if I eat pork. I don’t believe G-d will punish me if I eat pork. I don’t need anyone to “prove” to me that it’s okay to eat pork.

(Although I’ll note that if you don’t eat pork for a long time, and then you do, it can have very unpleasant effects on your digestive system, so doing this to someone is harmful in a myriad of ways.)

I’m not afraid to eat pork: I choose not to eat it. I find the idea of eating it distasteful and a violation of my ethics and identity. It’s not about being afraid of divine wrath.

But I fear that’s too nuanced for the average Christian to understand.

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2peachy

Elica is an Iranian activist and lawyer, for some perspective on why and how she knows and cares so deeply about pan-islamism.

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