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unbidden-yidden · 2 months

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I keep toying with writing this, because words are hard and I'm not sure how to fully articulate this thought.

However, it's something I've sensed very deeply and I think it's important to start trying to talk about.

Much has been said about how traumatic Oct. 7th was for Israelis and really Jews the world over, and lots has been said about why that was - from the fact that it happened on what was supposed to be a joyous holiday, the fact that this violence was as barbarous and sadistic as it was, the fact that it drew on deep historical wells of intergenerational trauma, to the fact that it was met with immediate denial, betrayal, and even celebration from supposedly progressive goyim - but something I have not seen much discussion on is how that ongoing denialism and even celebration of the carnage made sure that the trauma stuck.

See the thing is that one of the best predictors of favorable recovery outcomes from trauma is the support the victim receives, especially in the immediate aftermath. Victims with strong support networks, who are believed and whose grievances are taken seriously, recover much faster and much more holistically even from objectively worse traumas than victims who lack support and/or whose traumatic experiences are denied or dismissed. Seems obvious enough, right? That's why advocates for survivors exhort communities to listen to survivors and victims, and to hold space for them. We know what happens when that support is denied.

In some ways, the Jewish people is like a horrible case study in what happens when that denial of support happens - not just on a large scale, but over the course of time through numerous generations. In every generation they come for us, and every generation has the opportunity to step up. And so far, every generation has failed the task. (There are of course, some wonderful individuals who do step up; however they are the exception that proves the rule.)

The sadistic celebration of atrocities committed against Israelis and the denialism were not just unpleasant side concerns - these were active components of the violence.

The bottom line is this: if you deny the atrocities of Oct. 7th and the ongoing hostage crisis or try to excuse or downplay them, you are actively participating in violence against us.

And yes, of course these atrocities do not justify atrocities in return. Yes, of course confirming facts is important. But I think a big part of why we can't "just move on" to talk about other atrocities is because you people have never acknowledged our pain or let us grieve or be human. Not once. And the longer that goes on, the deeper the wound and the longer the road to healing from this trauma gets.

#המצב

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jewelleria · 1 month

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I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be.

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ‘the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate.

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified.

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map.

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle.

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more.

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop.

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments.

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on.

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not.

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways.

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine.

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war.

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this:

I am a Jew.

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love.

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners.

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee!

Then they sent me this:

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die.

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind.

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake.

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired.

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people?

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews.

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like.

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for.

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war.

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why.

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be.

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss

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jewishicequeen · 29 days

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Over 13,000 dead children. Palestine is a massacre.

Go tell that to someone who hasn't literally been burned by their "resistance" as a child.

No other country on earth would react better to having 1200 civilian massacared and more then 200 hostages taken, 134 of them still in captivity, 6 months later. Including kids. Do Kfir and Ariel's life count less for you because they're ginger, or because they're Jewish?

Free palestine from Hamas, and Am Yisrael fucking chai.

#sorry to stop the fun but antisemisites get OFF my blog.#i/p #israel #am yisrael chai #antisemitism #tw middle finger #free palestine from hamas #israel hamas war #המצב

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edenfenixblogs · 5 months

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Lmao

Today is a bad day. I do not have the energy to educate today. So I blocked this person.

But there is something hilariously self-parodying about a person calling themselves “cyber-Christ” using a side blog and a melted Pepe meme face to anonymously harass Jews devoted to achieving peace by demonizing an ideology they misunderstand and accusing Jews of being identical to people who wiped out branches of their family tree and doing all this with the self righteous authority and conviction of those evangelists who corner you on college campuses.

I literally can no longer tell a far leftist for a far right extremist.

And I. Am. So. Fucking. Tired.

Anyway, stop being antisemitic and causing division and instead do something that actually helps. I support Standing Together but there are plenty of great Arab and Israeli joint charities working toward peace. Please, choose from any of the 160 fantastic charities featured as members of AllMEP

Also learn literally anything about the history of Zionism and what you’re criticizing.

#antisemitism #Zionism #anti zionisim #Israel #palestine #i/p #i/p conflict #המצב

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gal-gabot · 22 days

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הבטחתי לעצמי לא לרדת לרמה שלהם,

לא משנה כמה כל אחד מהם יתלהם

אם יגדפו אותי ואת אבות אבותיי

ויגידו שיש לי דם על ידיי

ינסו אותי מהעולם למחוק

וכדי להשפיל, ילכו גם רחוק

ישקרו ויפיצו עוד עלילות דם

ירמזו שאני בעצמי תת-אדם

ולמרות שקשה לי, איתם ובכלל

הבטחתי, תמיד אהייה רמה מעל

#עברית #ישראבלר #המצב #שירה #חזרתי #זה לא קל #בטח עם כל השנאה מסביב #אבל הבטחתי #ואני אעמוד בהבטחה הזו #שיצעקו כמה שהם רוצים #הם לא שווים את הזעם שלי #או שלכם #אנחנו יודעים מי אנחנו #ומה אנחנו שווים #ושהשאר יקפצו

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zonatcannibalism · 3 months

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אין לי מושג מה אתכם אבל לדבר על העובדים כשהמטרה של הסוכנות היא לעזור לפלסטיני הממוצע נותן לי וייבים של שרים שלא סוגרים את החודש

#ישראבלר #חרבות ברזל #המצב

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shinekocreator · 7 days

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#ישראל #המצב

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cinderbagels · 23 days

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טריגרים חדשים מהחצי שנה האחרונה שלא ציפיתי להם:

- המספר 7

- אבטיחים

- המילה river

- אופנועים (האמת לא חדש אבל התגבר)

- טיקטוק

- שבת בבוקר

- המילים "הותר לפרסום"

#ישראבלר #המצב מזופת

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homochadensistm · 3 months

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כל הכבוד לצהל! עכשיו הם רק צריכים לחלץ עוד....2 חטופים ואז זה יתקזז עם הכמות שהם הרגו בטעות!

#ישראל #ישראבלר #שלא תבינו לא נכון זה מבורך שמבצע צבאי שכזה הצליח #אבל זה לא הולך לקרות שוב רוב הסיכויים #ולדעתי זה רק הולך להחמיר את המצב של מי שנשאר

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unbidden-yidden · 3 months

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I'm gonna be honest here: one of the more exhausting parts of the online discourse is how much of a tightrope I am always on, that those of us who care about human rights for all human beings are always on, because any statement made in favor of the "other" side is ripe for tokenism.

I, as a Jew, care about the safety and human rights of Palestinians and Arab Israelis. You will never convince me that there is an ethical way to kill civilians, especially children. You will never convince me that police brutality against citizens marching for their civil rights is necessary. You just can't. And yet I have to be so careful when/where I say that and how I say that, because too often this simple acknowledgement that all people are created in the image of Hashem and should be treated accordingly is ripped out of context and placed between a deluge of other posts denying my people that very same acknowledgement. The number of times I have said these things, only to go into the reblogs and see my words surrounded on all sides with violent antisemitism? I've lost count.

And guess what? It's made me less effective as an advocate, it has actively silenced me from speaking up sometimes, because I refuse to be your "good Jew," your token, somebody whose words can be misconstrued to kasher your vile hatred of my people. And to be very clear: Jewish Israelis are my people just as much as fellow diaspora yidden are, and they deserve better from both goyim and diaspora Jews alike.

And I've seen this go the other way, too: I've seen Palestinian activists and journalists who are trying very hard to balance the values of respecting other people (including Israelis and/or Jews writ large) as fellow human beings with the pain that their people are currently suffering. And I've seen their words ripped out of context and used to excuse more violence against them and their people.

And then there are lots of other people - genuinely well-intentioned people who are trying to learn from me - who keep treating me like I'm some paragon of nuance. I'm trying, truly, but I'm Just Some Guy. You know what I do? It's extremely simple and I promise you can do it too, any of you, if you slow down long enough to think before putting anything out there: "Would I say this about my brother? My mom? My daughter? My people? Would I be happy if the person I loved most on this earth was living under these circumstances and being talked about in whatever way I'm about to speak? Would it feel victim-blaming? Would it feel disrespectful of their struggle or dishonest? Does it ignore their history or trauma? Is it actually helping?" These are the types of questions I try very hard to ask myself every time I post about the conflict, about both sides. I try to talk about this as if the people on both sides were my family. Because truthfully? They are. Am Yisrael is a family, before anything else. Palestinians are our closest cousins. This war is a bloodbath and a tragedy, and everyone is suffering. For those of us who are not living there, please remember this and have some respect.

#המצב #i/p #t-minus 60 minutes before someone l i t e r a l l y does the exact thing I'm on about here

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jewelleria · 24 days

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just coming on here to say that i’m really touched & grateful for the love on this post. when i wrote it, i felt hopeless; i logged off of tumblr for shabbat, dreading the moment i would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. granted, i did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. i read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

(p.s. in light of more recent events and of tomorrow marking six months since 10/7, i might post another essay.)

#המצב #mims on middle east #israel hamas war #i/p conflict #essay writing #writing #jumblr

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jewishicequeen · 17 days

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איראן אם מבטלים לי את הכנס בגלל השטויות שלכם לא אכפת לי מה יש במפעל הטקסטיל בדימונה, אני אזרוק עליכם גרעינים* בעצמי

*חיטה ודגנים נוספים, בהתאם לרוח התקופה

#המצב #איכס איכס איכס אני רוצה עולמותתתתתתת #אני צריכה כנס בבקשה אוף #ישראבלר

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ani-lo-daredevil · 2 months

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כל יום אני נכנסת לטאמבלר. נהנית מתמונות וגיפים של טיילור סוויפט. רואה אנטישמיות, בין אם מי שעוקבת אחריהם ומחכה להזדמנות להגיד "היי סתמו תפה" בפרטי, ובין אם ציונים שמתעצבנים על האנטישמיות. מתעייפת בשתי שניות. יוצאת מטאמבלר.

#עברית #ישראבלר #אני עייפה #מיוצ'ואלס אני אוהבת אתכםן מאוד אבל זה מעייף אותי לראות את האנטישמיות הזאת #זה כל כך מעייף #לבוא לפה לאסקפיזם ולראות בטאג של טיילור סוויפט “ככה היא יכולה להשפיע על המצב בפלסטין!!!!!!”#די. פשוט... די #אני עייפה.#אני לא רוצה את זה יותר

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gal-gabot · 1 month

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רוסיה: אוקראינה היא מדינה נאצית וצריך לחסל אותה.

אינטרנט: מה? לא.

רנדו באינטרנט: ישראל היא מדינה נאצית וצריך לחסל אותה.

אינטרנט: כןןןןןןןןןן! 😍

#לא הבנתי #עברית #ישראבלר #המצב #זה ליטרלי לא צריך לקרות #מה הולך?#סטנדרט כפול #אבל זה כי אנחנו (((מרושעים))) כמובן #אלא מה?#כמובן שלא כל הרוסים אומרים את זה #רק פוטין והגרופיז שלו

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