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whencartoonsruletheworld · 1 year

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funniest disney history facts i can think of atm

literally EVERYBODY thought the lion king was gonna flop and pocahontas would be their greatest movie ever made. people begged to ditch lion king and work on pocahontas.

the reason robin hood ends so abruptly is that there was an actual ending planned and storyboarded but the crew spent too long arguing about everyone’s fursonas to finish animating it

madam mim was way less comedic in the original book but because her character was too similar to maleficent (who was in their latest film at the time), the sword and the stone crew decided to differentiate her by making her fucking hilarious

when making a goofy movie, jeffrey katzenberg (studio chairman at the time) told bill farmer to give goofy “a normal voice.” farmer, who had been voicing goofy for eight years at that point, including in the goof troop show that a goofy movie was a sequel to, was very confused. after making an attempt they decided to scrap that note completely.

as of march 2023, farmer is still voicing goofy, and tony anselmo has been voicing donald since 1986. the 2017 reboot of ducktales, which was slated as “wanting to do for donald what goofy movie did for goofy,” featured both actors as those characters; they had also been doing the voices for the original ducktales and goof troop/goofy movie. all the times goofy and donald interact in the 2017 ducktales however, donald was voiced by guest star don cheadle as a joke

current voice of mickey mouse bret iwan has stated that he has attempted to play kingdom hearts and did not do well

disneyland’s current world of color halloween overlay features a plot that is basically “the disney villains simultaneously adopt a goth kid” and i love it

people will make jokes about “well math says that the beast would’ve been 11 when he was cursed” well that was actually the original intent, but a flashback scene of baby beast was scrapped because he looked “too much like eddie munster”

when disney sent a representative to pixar to check on toy story production, she was like “this is all great! what style of music are you thinking” and they were like “for what” “for the songs” “we uh. we weren’t gonna have. any songs” and she went dead silent and then went “i have to make a call” and left the room

saludos amigos and the three caballeros were made as ww2 propaganda. the government commissioned disney to make movies to make latin america like them so that they wouldnt side with the nazis and provide them an in to invade, and latin america really liked donald duck so

saludos amigos was apparently the first time many usamericans realized that latin american people were like. people. film historian alfred charles richard jr said that the film “did more to cement a community of interest between peoples of the americas in a few months than the state department had in fifty years”

while latin america generally liked both films, chilean cartoonist rené rios boettiger fucking hated the chilean segment of saludos amigos, seeing the main character of pedro the plane as a weakass bitch, so in response he created condorito, the most popular comic character in all of latin america

disney wanted to adapt ts eliot’s old possum’s book of practical cats. his widow adamantly refused, and then sold the rights to andrew lloyd webber bc he wanted to make it sexy and she said “tom would’ve liked that”

in case you haven’t seen the defunctland, walt disney wanted epcot to be a futuristic utopia where he was basically the dictator. then he died so they just made it another theme park

speaking of defunctland the first defunctland video was on disneyworld’s alien attraction and please watch it. please it’s so funny

after the huge failure of the black cauldron disney was going to shut down its animation department. the department tried to convince them to keep them alive by showing them the one scene they had finished for the next movie– the mouse burlesque from the great mouse detective. it worked

the only attraction the black cauldron ever got was in tokyo disneyland where they put a tour under cinderella’s castle where everyone had to escape the disney villains trying to kill them, only to end at the horned king and the cauldron, who would try to sacrifice them to satan. this tour was popular but was closed in the early 2000s as the tunnels didn’t fit earthquake regulations and i want it in disneyworld so bad

walt disney once referred to his unionizing workers, led by goofy’s creator art babbitt, as “commie sons of bitches,” and i want a mickey build-a-bear that calls me a commie son-of-a-bitch whenever i squeeze its paw

#disney #disney history #mine

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bill-the-dog-for-the-check · 3 months

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I want to go back to how things were.

I want to go back to when I believed that the progressives were on the right side of history, fighting against oppression in all its forms, and had critical thinking, honest compassion, and understanding in a way that the right--inundated with racist conspiracy theories and absurd lies--did not.

In many ways, I'm a perfect demographic fit in the pro-Palestine circles. I'm bisexual. I'm a young university student who's been progressive for as long as he knew what progressivism was, and I never experienced genuine economic insecurity or wondered if I'd eat that night. In another timeline, maybe I'd be there marching and shouting their horrible slogans. But there's one, teeny little thing that ruins it, which makes me fall through the cracks and renders me politically homeless, outcast by the progressive left and the MAGA right.

I'm a Jew.

And I'm trying so, so hard to hold compassion for the suffering of minorities who have not extended us that same compassion. I'm trying to maintain my progressivist urge to go out and help minorities in solidarity, but it's so hard when they make it clear that they hate us and want our state dead and gone. I supported BLM, but Al Sharpton, Leonard Jeffries, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Louis Farrakhan, Malcom X, Jesse Jackson and many others either were or are wildly antisemitic, especially Sharpton and Walker, and so are the BLM movement's leaders, who openly sneered at Jews for being shocked by them by announcing, "I guess their activism was just transactional. How (((Zionist))) of them!"

And the queer community forced me out of their ranks for merely questioning whether the war in Gaza is a genocide, for pushing back against them saying that Hamas is fighting oppression. And spread antisemitic lies about me, claims of harassment and supporting genocide to my friends because I dared to question them. And they've chosen to side with those who would throw both of us off roofs for being queer. Cast out by the outcasts.

Like, what do I do? Our only allies are Hindus, Iranians, Kurds, Republicans, and Christian Zionists (respect to all of these groups for that... even you Republicans. This is one of our only points of agreement). That's literally it. No loud show of from indigenous nations supporting what is effectively the most successful anticolonial land back movement in human history. No push from "antiracist progressives" against rising antisemitism and genocidal terrorism from a reactionary fundamentalist group against a historically discriminated group.

And they aren't even just leaning back and being silent--many members of these groups are being actively antisemitic--especially the progressive left, which has morphed into the most antisemitic mainstream political movement since the Nazis. Instead, we're 'Zionazis' and genocidal colonizers who aren't even oppressed anyway, that's just evil Jewish Zionist lies designed to stoke sympathy for their unrelentingly evil nature, which we can't even help. The notion that Jews are intrinsically predisposed to evil acts and deception--never heard that one before.

So now, when I look at pictures of Pride Parades, a celebration of an identity of which I am a part and would have previously killed to attend--I wonder... would I be allowed to hold up a rainbow flag with a Magen David on it? If I asked any of their views on the state of Israel, what will they say? What about on Zionists who support its existence? Would all parts of my identity be respected, valued, and celebrated? Or would I be forced to leave the Star of David flag at home, pretend I don't notice their antisemitic views, and pass the litmus test of disavowing Israel before being accepted?

I feel suspicious and wary of the very community which I am 'supposed' to belong in. I feel uncomfortable. I hate, hate, hate that I feel this way. That I've become more closed, more cynical, more angry. Those of us who fall through the cracks, who hold multiple marginalized identities--queer and Jewish, black and Jewish, Indigenous and Jewish--we are ignored and silenced, our voices and experiences entirely spat upon as being a front for 'Zionist crimes' or whatever new buzzwords they create.

I've decided that first and foremost, I am Jewish. The me that was proud to be a part of the queer community is dead. I want to support the progressive causes of antiracism and social justice, but they hate us. They want us dead. They wouldn't view my participation as being a genuine gesture of solidarity, but an evil Jew Zionist seeking to con them and co-opt support in order to aid our evil apartheid genocidal settler-colonialist white supremacist illegitimate entity in a land that should really be given to Hamas anyway.

How am I supposed to hold space for other minorities when nobody is holding space for us right now?

#antisemitism #jewish #jumblr #leftist antisemitism #left wing antisemitism #jewblr #antizionism #progressivism

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germiyahu · 5 months

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I still think about that girl who accidentally talked to Nazis at a Palestine rally. It's been dissected and memed to death already, but one point of her bafflingly long essay sticks out to me and I haven't seen people really talk about that aspect of it.

She mentioned her burning need to finally do something about Gaza, that's why she's taking a stand and organizing and getting out there and protesting, right? And yet she starts her essay mentioning that she has KLANSMEN in her extended family and they're a deeply entrenched part of the South where she lives. And I just nodded skeptically because wait wait wait wait wait!

You mean to tell me that a war happening a world away, which does not affect you aside from how much social clout you'll have among your online leftie friends, is important enough to start protesting and organizing and "resisting" for. But you have done nothing about the Klan?? That's just presented as a status quo, they've always existed where you live and always will. Sorry that's just how it is now let's move on?

You could be actually trying to dismantle the KKK in your region, for what little you can actually contribute to that, it's still much more tangible and direct than marching up to a Jewish owned business and shouting "From the River to the Sea!" I think it really speaks to something about White American Leftists. I'm not sure what yet, but I'll let you know. Maybe it's their delusion that they're not "safe," combating injustice so they pick on Israel because truly Israel and Israelis do not care about them. They're gnats.

But according to these WALs, a Jewish state, flawed as it is, merely existing and engaging in combat with its hostile neighbors, is more of a threat, more of a yearning cry for justice, than the Ku Klux Klan?? I know those creeps haven't just been idling by twiddling their thumbs in the post Obama era either. After Charlottesville? No no no, you just don't want to confront your own complicity in White Supremacy (considering you have family in the Klan??). You don't want to disrupt the tenuous truce between the various political factions of your family at Thanksgiving.

But you're gung-ho full steam ahead calling for the largest Jewish community on Earth to lose their sovereignty and possibly their homes, maybe even their lives, and you just don't see an issue with that. You're delusional, you're narcissistic, and you're lazy and immature. You're every bit as pathetic as your conservative father tells you you are.

#israel #leftist antisemitism #antisemitism #racism #white supremacy

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smilingwithfangs · 4 months

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you’re not antisemitic, but you dont have any problem with Jordan being on what was once the British Palestine. you’re not antisemitic, but you comment “free Palestine” on every jewish post you see. you’re not antisemitic, but aljazeera is your only source of information. You’re not antisemitic, but you point at the biggest group of jewish people who believe Palestinian ethnic cleansing will come from god one day, and say it’s okay to make your claims because they support it currently. you’re not violently pushing your agenda, but you do comment on every post of hair covering that they are stealing from or must convert to islam.

you’re not violently pushing your agenda, but you dont let other keep or form their own opinions. you’re not violently pushing your agenda, but let me remind you that if you’re at a march and there’s a nazi flag raised, you're at a nazi march.

if you truly believe all israeli and zionist people hate all Palestinians and wish for their death, you should find some humanity in yourself, and apply it to your critical thinking and to how you picture jews and israeli people. To be honest, I’ve met some outright outrageous people, who do believe so, but they will make infinitely less difference in the world than all those i know who wish for peace, safety and statehood for Palestinians. That’s because all those who want this war to be over, and changes to be made are far more reasonable, coherent and critical than those who want otherwise, and those who believe all of the jews and zionists in the world want otherwise. Of all the jewish, muslim or Arabic people i met while traveling all over Israel, none were as aggressive, dogmatic or self serious as half the people on this website. If you feel comfortable telling someone to k*ll them selves over an opinion, info or understanding that you do not share, ask yourself what would your mother say, and go for a walk. Because in the grand scheme of things, your discussion wont make a difference, itll just be bullet points on your bad karma.

#jumblr #palestine #free palestine #free palestine from hamas

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menlove · 6 months

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like yes "from the river to the sea" is not antisemitic and neither is protesting "jewish businesses" if that business happens to be a weapons manufacturer

but yall seem to think that those two things are the only things people are talking about when we say leftists are being antisemitic rn

like sure fine that's great! but are you

spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories (ie "israelis are stealing unborn babies out of palestinian women and burning them/eating them/using them in xyz ways" w 0 backup yes I've seen that)? connecting absolutely everything to zionists and saying they run the world/media/banks? making random connections to this situation w no proof? (just saw someone say puerto rico getting rid of its stray cat population "has ties to 🍉" like yall need to get serious)

are you saying "idk I just can't trust anyone wearing a star of david now like at this point the star of david is basically a swastika :/ you shouldn't use it"?

are you responding to the list of celebrities who support israel with "well this isn't surprising, hollywood is jewish"?

are you saying israel and every israeli should be destroyed? not "from the river to the sea" or that israel shouldn't exist as a state but I've seen multiple popular leftists saying "idc if the entire place gets bombed and everyone dies" like you realize that includes innocent civilians and people protesting their government and non-jews as well right? like you are advocating for genocide in response to genocide and at this point yall just want more violence, not justice.

are you saying antisemitism isn't a real problem anymore? or like everyone's favorite celebrity rn susan sarandan said "now jews know what muslims feel like" as if antisemitism and islamphobia don't go hand in hand? are you saying antisemitism is a "sad interpersonal problem but not systemic"? are you saying that during the holocaust the jews should have found an alternative to israel (true) by "civil resistance" implying that no jews resisted during the holocaust and that the holocaust was somehow the fault of the jews for not doing enough for themselves? are you saying that anyone bringing up your antisemitism rn needs to shut up bc "it's not about you" because you can't comprehend that people can care about multiple things at once?

are you asking every jew you meet where they stand on palestine and accusing every single jew you disagree with about literally anything of being a zionist? are you calling jews zionists who are just scared of rising antisemitism rn? are you using "zionist" as a placeholder for "jew" bc you can immediately say you're talking about zionists and not jews even if the post has nothing to do w zionism and only judaism?

are you agreeing with and marching with nazis and white supremacists and not realizing?

are you making jews afraid to attend pro-palestine protests because they're getting harassed? and yes this happens at pro-israel protests too but this is a post aimed at pro-palestine leftists bc I am one and that is my audience

are you acting, in general, like the actions of a shitty government and shitty people equate to the beliefs of every single jew on earth? are you making posts comparing judaism to christianity bc of this? saying jews have a history of violence and conquest on par w christianity when it's quite literally just israel and in the rest of history for the last SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS jews have been anything BUT a world power? do you not hear the parallels to antisemitic conspiracy when you insist on this? outside of israel, what instances can you think of where judaism has been a historically violent and oppressive religion? spoiler: it's not, israel is the baby of colonial interests and thus follows their pattern. it's not because of judaism

are you tolerating and okay with people shouting blatantly antisemitic things at jewish people bc they're shitty people? like think of it this way would you be fine w a bunch of straight people shouting "faggot" at a white gay republican? or a racial slur at a republican of color? would either of those things be fine? no? then aiming actual blatant antisemitism at a zionist is not okay either. you can shout all manner of things at them that don't involve antisemitic phrases, remarks, and threats.

#antisemitism tw #long post #like I'm tired

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fdelopera · 24 days

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Never Again is NOW

This evening marks the beginning of Yom HaShoah. This Jewish holiday and Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Yom HaShoah is different than International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we mourn the 6 million Jews, as well as the Romani and all the others who were systematically slaughtered by the Nazis during World War II.

Yom HaShoah is the day for Jews mourn our dead and to remember the Jews who heroically fought back against the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. We mourn the 6 million Jews who were murdered the LAST time the entire world was infected by the mind-virus of Jew-hate.

In the midst of this current global tidal wave of Jew-hate, we Jews say NEVER AGAIN. Never again is NOW.

youtube

And a reminder to non-Jews who might try to steal this phrase:

Never Again is a Jewish phrase. Period. It doesn’t belong to non-Jews.

Never Again refers to the Shoah, and to the THOUSANDS of years of violent Jew-hatred we have endured before then.

Never Again states that we Jews will NEVER AGAIN be slaughtered by the millions.

If you are a goy, and you use this phrase for any other purpose, you are engaging in cultural appropriation.

You are appropriating Jewish trauma and pain that IS NOT YOURS.

Unless you are willing to shoulder the burden of 3500+ years of Jewish history, you do NOT get to use this phrase.

If you steal Never Again for any other context, all you are doing is broadcasting that you are a Jew-hating bigot who engages in Holocaust Inversion.

And you can take your antisemitic bigotry and go fuck off into the sun.

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, borei p’ri hagafen.

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’ratza vanu, v’shabbat kod’sho b’ahava uv’ratzon hinchilanu, zikaron l’ma’aseh b’reishit. Ki hu yom t’chila l’mikra-ay kodesh, zaycher l’tziat mitzrayim. Ki vanu vacharta v’otanu kidashta mikol ha’amim. V’shabbat kod-shi-cha b’ahava uv’ratzon hinchal tanu. Baruch ata Adonai, mi’kadesh ha Shabbat.

(Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.

Blessed are you, Lord our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, how has sanctified us with his commandments and favored us, and given us in love and favor his holy Shabbat as an inheritance, as a remembrance of the act of creation. For this day is the beginning of all holy days, a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt. For you have chosen us and you have blessed us from among all the nations. And you have bequeathed us your holy Shabbat in love and favor. Blessed are you, Lord, who sanctifies Shabbat.)

Feel this, to all those races, colors, and creeds, every man bleeds

For the countless victims and all the families of the murdered, tortured, enslaved

Raped, robbed and persecuted — Never Again

To the men, women, and children who died in their struggle to live

Never to be forgotten, Reuven Ben Menachem, yo…

My own blood dragged through the mud

Perished in my heart, still cherished and loved

Stripped of our pride, everything we lived for

Families cried, there's nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide

Tossed to the side, access denied

6 million died, for what?

Yo, a man shot dead in his back

Helpless women and children under constant attack

For no reason 'til the next season and we still bleeding

Yo it's freezing and men burn in Hell, some for squeezing

No hope for a remedy, nothing to believe

Moving targets who walk with the star on their sleeve

Forever marked with a number tattooed to your body

Late night, eyes closed, clutched to my shotty

Having visions, flashes of death camps and prisons

No provisions, deceived by the Devil's decisions

Forced into a slave, death before dishonor

For those men who were brave, shot and sent to their grave

Can't awaken, it's too late, everything's been taken

I'm shaken, family, history in the making

Never again shall we march like sheep to the slaughter

Never again shall we sit and take orders

Stripped of our culture, robbed of our name

Raped of our freedom and thrown into the flames

Forced from our families, taken from our homes

Removed from our G-d then burned of our bones

Never again, never again, shall we march like sheep to the slaughter

Never again leave our sons and daughters

Stripped of our culture, robbed of our name

(Never again) Raped of our freedom and thrown into the flames

Forced from our families, taken from our homes

Removed from our G-d and everything we own (Never again)

Some fled through the rumors of wars

But most left for dead, few escaped to the shores

With just one loaf of bread, banished

Called in for questioning and vanished, never to be seen again

I can't express the pain, that was felt in the train

To Auschwitz, tears poured down like rain

Naked, face to face with the master race

Hatred, blood, and David, my heart belongs to God and stays sacred

Rabbis and priests, disabled individuals

The poor, the scholars — all labeled common criminals

Mass extermination, total annihilation

Shipped into the ghetto and prepared for liquidation

Tortured and starved, innocent experiments

Stripped down and carved up or gassed to death

The last hour, I smelled the flowers

Flashbacks of family then sent to the showers

Powerless, undressed, women with babies clumped tight to their chest — crying

Who would've guessed — dying

Another life lost, count the cost

Another body gas-burned and tossed in the Holocaust

Never again shall we march like sheep to the slaughter

Never again leave our sons and daughters

Stripped of our culture, robbed of our name

Raped of our freedom and thrown into the flames

Forced from our families, taken from our homes

Removed from our G-d and everything we own

Never again, never again, shall we march like sheep to the slaughter

Never again shall we sit and take orders

Stripped of our culture, robbed of our name

(Never again) Raped of our freedom and thrown into the flames

Forced from our families, taken from our homes

Removed from our G-d then burned of our bones (Never again)

Never Again. Never Again.

From the USA to Afghanistan

From Israel to Pakistan

From Iraq to Iran

To Russia, Poland, and France

From China over to Japan

Worldwide

Never Again

Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad

(“Hear O Yisrael, the Lord is our G-d, the Lord is One.” The Shema is the most important prayer in Judaism. It is the declaration of our faith in one G-d. Jews say the Shema prayer every day, in the morning and evening. And we also say the Shema before we die.)

FIRE!

*GUNSHOT*

#jumblr #jewish history #yom hashoah #warsaw ghetto uprising #never again #never forget #never again is now #NOTE: I report and block antisemites. If any antisemites comment on this post you will be reported and blocked. You have been warned.#Youtube

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gingerswagfreckles · 6 months

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"I don't hate Jews, just Zionists!!" Yeah the problem with this statement is that you guys have expanded the definition of "Zionist" to include every Jewish person on the entire fucking planet. The number of times I have seen the sentiment that anything short of celebrating religious extremist terrorist attacks constitutes supporting Israel in the past month and a half is completely insane. Jews are not obligated to support a militia that had the total extermination of our people as a stated goal in their foundational charter until 2017. We aren't obligated to support an organization who's leaders publicly called for the extermination of Jews as recently as 2019, and who's governing bodies still include those same members. We aren't obligated to support and participate in our own oppression in order for our pro-Palestinian activism to be valid.

"I don't hate Jews, just Zionists." This means nothing if your only definition of a "good Jew" is one who will sit up like a dog and bark on your command. One who doesn't call out antisemitism and who will cheer along side you so-called "leftists" as you throw your support behind an organization who is as explicitly antisemetic as the Nazis were in pre-WW2 Germany.

I am not a Zionist. I have donated as much money as I can afford towards relief efforts and have marched within the crowds of protesters in the streets calling for a ceasefire. I was almost arrested by the NYPD at the Jewish Voices for Peace rally at Grand Central station. And yet I have had the word "Zionist" thrown in my face so many times in the past few weeks, over and over, by a bunch of white fucking gentiles who cry about how they're being "silenced" when Jews call out their antisemitism.

"I don't hate Jews, just Zionists." A good 80% of you do hate Jews. You do hate Jews. If you classify any Jew who won't celebrate explicitly antisemitic terrorist attacks as a "Zionist," I'm sorry to tell you but you do hate Jews. Because that's all of us. Fuck you guys, honestly. None of you have ever cared about anything but chasing online leftist clout.

#gingerswagfreckles #israel #palestine #israel palestine war #israel palestine conflict #israel hamas war #i/p #i/p war #i/p conflict #jewblr #jumblr #ive been doing better at staying off tumblr but jesus seeing how ppl are #accusing the **zionists** of getting that incredibly antisemitic actress fired is too much #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism

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girlactionfigure · 10 days

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Jewish Defiance

Below is the speech I gave at a tiny, spirited protest of Jews - and their allies - who faced off a vast, snarling, swarm of pro-Hamas racists marching through London. Thank you to the organisers and those who turn up every week to show the indomitable defiance of the few.

This is a nice day out, isn’t it? What a lovely day out? Isn’t it nice to shlep into London when we could be doing anything else? We all really wanna be doing this on a weekend, don’t we? It ain’t what I want to be doing with my life. I don’t want to be here. I don’t think any of us wanna be here. These idiots are making us waste our time. But you wanna know what’s even more stupid? They’re wasting their time because they are not going to win. The State of Israel and the Jewish people are not going anywhere. We haven’t gone anywhere for three and a half thousand years. We’ve seen off the Romans, the Babylonians, the Nazis. We’ve outlasted all of them. And we’ll outlast these schmucks. Because antisemitic movements don’t have a long shelf life. History is not kind to the antisemite. And neither should we be. Any antisemite who transgresses should be made to suffer within the full scope of the law. They should be made to suffer consequences, socially, occupationally, legally.

Let’s be clear about who they are. We are not the same as them. They are fakes and frauds. Their calls for “ceasefire” aren’t about peace? You’re not for peace if you’re for globalising the intifada. You’re not for peace, if you’re calling for a Palestine from the river to the sea. You’re not for peace if you ignore, justify or excuse Hamas and their rocket attacks and their acts of terrorism against the Jewish People. You’re not for peace if you don’t condemn Hezbollah for firing rockets. You’re not for peace, if you don’t condemn the theocratic, Mullah regime of Iran and their complicity in all of this. You’re not for peace if you haven’t been calling for the complete and unconditional return of the hostages since day one.

If these liars on the streets of London were for peace they would be marching with Palestinian AND Israeli flags. But they aren’t. If they were for peace they would be screaming for the end of Hamas - a criminal rape gang of Islamic fundamentalists dedicated to jihad and the total extermination of all non-muslims. But they aren’t. These liars, these frauds, these Jew haters feign their tears and call for a ceasefire when the rapists Hamas are under the cosh, but they cheer when Israel is attacked. Sod them.

We on the other hand ARE for peace. There is no Jew that doesn’t want a world of peace and love. But you can’t shake hands with someone who’s trying to punch you in the face. And that is all our enemy does. Since Israel’s inception we have extended our hand in peace. But we have been met with punches, and knives, and rocks, and bullets, and car rammings, and rockets, and bombs, and rape, and torture, and murder and kidnapping. And if the world just expects us to take that. And to smile. And to say thank you world for allowing us to be murdered - then sod them. We are not the world’s punching bag, and we will not be sacrificed because of the non-Jewish world’s problems, or because of a superior, supercilious and utterly misplaced notion that they somehow own us and can dictate to Jews who we are, how we must live and how we are to die.

No one else decides our destiny. We do. When our destiny was in the hands of the world - the world bullied and slaughtered us. Zionism liberated us from the shackles of an abusive relationship with the world. And no one gets to tell us we go back into that relationship. The dynamic has changed. Get used to it. Zionism is the self-determination movement of the Jewish people. It is OUR liberation movement. Not yours. It is OUR civil rights movement. Not yours. The minute a non-Jew tries to define who the Jews are, or define Zionism or control our story - they prove exactly why we need Zionism - to liberate us - from them.

And like an abusive partner, many in the world can’t handle us being free. They can’t handle seeing us happy, thriving and getting on with our lives. Antisemites in Europe and America can’t handle seeing a Jewish minority making choices for themselves when they believe that they, the oh so cultured and civilised non-Jewish world, knows best. And antisemites in the muslim world can’t handle seeing a Jewish minority thrive outside the totalitarian confines of Islamic theocracy.

And so they come after us. Wanting to enslave us again. Not gonna happen. We will never be second class citizens or dhimmi again. And if you don’t like it that we fight back - good. I’m glad you don’t like it. Fuck around and find out. We’ll go as long as we need to.

And let me reiterate here: Jews don’t want violence. There are a million things we’d rather do. You are stopping us from achieving our full potential by making us have to fight you. We don’t want to spill blood. Jewish laws reiterate relentlessly the sanctity of blood. And then there was King David - who wasn’t allowed to build the Temple, because his hands were tainted with blood and the wars he had to fight. We are Jews and we wanna do good shit. We want to make advances in art, science and medicine for the good that it brings and for the joy of simply enriching our knowledge of this world.

Jews do not want war. But be under no illusion, if you bring it to us we will give you a war. Because there IS a time for war just as there’s a time for peace. And the time for war is when THEY come to kill us. Don’t fuck with Israel. Because our ancestors weren’t just shepherds and prophets and judges - they were warriors. And what was in them is in us. And just as they gave hell and triumphed over their enemies - we will give our enemies hell and we will triumph and we will win and then we will laugh and we will sing and we will dance - and with a bit of luck - we will make love and create more Jewish babies.

Look at the idiots out there who want to destroy us. They have to sing repetitive rhymes en masse - like morons in a cult - because they’re scared to be individuals. They’re scared to think for themselves. Scared to speak for themselves. They’re scared to be different. They’re scared to stand alone. They need nursery rhymes because they’re scared to engage in the complexities of an imperfect world. They’re morons.

Look at the numbers they have to gather in to feel brave enough to chant what they think? To shout that they want jihad and to kill every Jew between the river and the sea?

People who gather in that volume in order to shout at Jews are scared of Jews - and they should be. Because we’re fucking awesome. Being small in number is not a weakness. It is our superpower. It’s always been the Jewish superpower. It gives each of us ten times the resilience of those who rely on numbers. Never forget, no matter how surrounded you feel, strength is not in numbers, it is in your soul, it is in your heart and it’s in your resourcefulness. And we’ve got all of that. We are small in number but the things we’re each capable of are mighty. So go out every day and be mighty.

And don’t ever forget what Hamas did and what these people support. Darkness. They support darkness. There has never been more moral clarity to a fight than the one we face. What Hamas did on October 7th - demons from hell would ask them to be their teachers. And Hamas promise to do it again and again. A ceasefire is not peace. It’s a downpayment on future blood shed. It’s an investment in future war. The first step for the Middle East to even have a chance of peace is for Hamas to be gone.

Hamas are not the same civilisation as us. No peace can be made with them or anyone who thinks like them.

Our civilisation is worth protecting because it offers something good. The next time you’re in Jerusalem go and visit the Kingdom of David and you will see how precarious our origins were and how miraculous it is that we are still here and the responsibility we have to protect ourselves. David’s Kingdom was tiny. A tiny hillside that offered something new. A small outpost of light in a sea of darkness. It offered a revolution. It rejected what surrounded us. And what were we rejecting? We were rejecting the cruelty of those who engaged in child sacrifice. We were rejecting those who worshipped Moloch and set their own children on fire.

Now look at what’s happening today! Nothing has changed.

We’re facing an enemy who still sacrifice children. Deliberately. In Hamas we have an enemy who encourage their children to die, to blow themselves up, to set themselves on fire, to become so-called martyrs and shaheeds. We face an enemy whose parents praise Allah if one of their children blows themselves up with a suicide bomb to kill other children. We face an enemy that teaches their children in kindergartens, in schools, in mosques and in the home to die. We face an enemy that deliberately hides behind its own, and prevents them from seeking safety, so that they can be harmed in a war that THEY started. We should have no ambiguity and no doubt that we are on the side of good, and that good must triumph. Not just for us, but for this planet, lest that the ancient darkness faced by King David conquer every hillside and plunge the whole world into a night without end.

I want to leave you now with something important. The most important thing. What’s going on with our cruel and wicked enemies is deadly - but it’s also theatre. It’s designed to be a spectacle that scares you. It’s designed to make you crumble inside, give up and walk away. But it’s clear from your presence here today that you will not. And that none of you ever will. I wanna say that you are all fucking brilliant. All of you. You don’t even realise how brilliant you are. Seven months into the most disgusting war against us and here you all are standing tall, not backing down, ready to go on for as long as you need to. You are epic Jews, equal to any Jews of the past.

And don’t let the world spin your heads. Because mark these words: this is the best time to be a Jew in 2000 years. It is the best time to be a Jew in 2000 years. Because we’ve always had enemies. There have always been those who’ve risen up to kill us. But this time, this time we have the State of Israel. The Jewish People are home. They are in their indigenous homeland and they will never be uprooted again.

And because we have the State of Israel we will never be as vulnerable as our ancestors. As bad as things sometimes feel we will never know how vulnerable they felt when the rug was pulled from their feet. And they would be SO happy for us. We are the luckiest Jews in 2000 years. With Israel we can defend ourselves. We can fight back. We have an army. We have infrastructure. We have technology. For the first time in 2000 years the Jews can truly fight back. And if our enemies wanna bring it, they will know we can fight.

So you can be anxious now and then. But never, ever give in to fear.

In this life you can be scared. You can be messed up. You can even be fucked up. But the most important thing is to show up. Always show up and give a good account of yourself and with God’s grace we will always triumph. God bless you. Baruch HaShem.

LEE KERN

#Jewish Defiance

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a-very-tired-jew · 28 days

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They let X happen, why are they doing Y?!

So this is an argument I see in some form in Leftist spaces regarding the response of college campuses to protestors in recent days. Often it's used as "Sure, they'll let neo-Nazis on campus with no problem, but the moment we have a peaceful protest they call the cops." Except here's the problem. It's not a peaceful protest. It's also not a one time thing like the neo-Nazis. Every campus I have ever worked at or attended has had neo-Nazis show up and march around. They were booed and counter-protested. They stood there grinning with their slogans, took their pictures, and then went on their way to post on the internet about how they "owned the libs". Neo-Nazis do not have a prolonged presence on campus and they do not protest weekly for 6 months straight at campuses across the country. Sometimes there's altercations and violence, and sometimes there's not. Usually it makes the news in some capacity and that's it. Compare this to the Western Activists who have been protesting since October. Many campuses have seen weekly, if not daily, protests where protestors have held signs supporting terrorist groups, justified the actions of 10/7, chanted antisemitic rhetoric, and engaged in a whole host of concerning activities that have continued to escalate in some way. This escalation has culminated in different ways across these campuses but has resulted in Jewish students being attacked, Jewish dorms and student centers being defaced, bomb threats, attempted arson, stabbings, and so on... All of which has now led to these same groups, whose members have committed the aforementioned actions in some capacity, to established encampments on their college campuses. Think about that. Your peaceful protests are more violent that neo-Nazis showing up to college campuses. That's why the police have been deployed. You can delude yourselves all you want, but there are clear incidents over the course of these 6 months that show why this is happening, and you have no one to blame but yourselves. We have told you since the beginning that you need to address the antisemitism and radicalization present in your movement, but instead you ignored Jews and claimed Zionists were using claims of antisemitism as a "weapon to silence criticism of Israel". Well, it turns out we were right and your movement is now regarded as a violently antisemitic one by the authorities. Instead of accepting this and correcting it, you have continued to blame Jews Zionists. I would not be surprised if we see this escalate further into violent protests with things like cocktails being thrown, and even then I know you will blame the Jews Zionists for your own actions. Take a step back, breath, and think. Your peaceful protests are more violent than neo-Nazi protests. A Jew should not be saying this. A Jew should not be going "hey, those neo-Nazis? Actually less violent than what's going on right now." It should not take a Jew to point out the sheer ridiculousness of this entire situation. That should be a red flag that something is very, very wrong.

#jumblr #leftist antisemitism #activism #israel #palestine #Columbia #College protests #neo-Nazis are more peaceful than these peaceful protestors

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ohsalome · 1 year

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I often hear comments about Crimea and the other territories occupied by Russia being the “price of peace” in Ukraine. I, like many Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, know that rewarding aggression and brutal occupation does not bring peace.

Crimea is not Russian to be “given back” to Russia. It never was. It never will be.

It is the homeland that has been repeatedly, brutally taken from us; it is the homeland we will not stop fighting for.

My grandmother, Shevkiye, was just 11 years old when on May 18, 1944, Soviet soldiers barged into her home at five o’clock in the morning. World War II was still raging and the Soviet regime had just accused the Crimean Tatars of collaborating with the enemy, the German Nazis – a baseless allegation that led to the unimaginable horror of genocide by deportation.

My great-grandfather was at the front, fighting those same Nazis whom he was accused of collaborating with. So the Soviet soldiers found at home just his wife and four children – the youngest one only a few months old. The soldiers gave them 15 minutes to gather their belongings and did not stop hitting my great-grandmother with their guns as she struggled to pack.

They marched them out of the house and – along with other families from their home village of Ayserez – hoarded loaded them onto a train meant for transporting cattle. The wagons were packed with people and there were no toilets on them; people struggled to breathe. No food or water was provided on the long journey, during which my grandmother’s family remained unaware of their destination.

Exhausted and starved, they focused solely on survival as hunger and disease killed many along the way. One of the most traumatising memories of the journey for my grandmother was witnessing a pregnant woman give birth on the train and then pass away shortly after. A Soviet soldier threw her body out of the wagon while the train kept moving.

After 20 days on the train, they finally arrived at Golodnaya Steppe station in the Mirzachul region of Uzbekistan, where they were unceremoniously unloaded onto a scorching hot platform. With no money or support, they struggled to survive in this unknown land.

They settled in a dilapidated barrack with no roof, windows, or doors. Their food consisted of grass, nettle, potato peels, and rotten potatoes; their drinking water came from irrigation ditches and often caused dysentery. There was no medical assistance available; the Soviet authorities clearly wanted as many Crimean Tatars to die as possible.

The forced deportation of the Crimean Tatars to Central Asia resulted in the death of 46 percent of the population, leaving a gaping wound in the hearts of those who survived. It was the culmination of a century and a half of deliberate and systematic destruction of the Crimean Tatar people, heritage and culture after the subjugation of the Crimean state by Russian imperial forces in the late 18th century. It is on this obliteration of the Crimean Tatars that the bloody myth of Crimea as a “Russian territory” was built.

#ukraine #russia #crimea #crimean tatars #qirim #qirimlar #russian imperialism #imperialism #genocide

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hero-israel · 6 months

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During Nuremberg Trial testimony, the prosecutor pressed Einsatzgruppen commander Otto Ohlendorf: “You were going out to shoot down defenseless people. Now, didn’t the question of the morality of that enter your mind?” Ohlendorf referred to the Allied bombings of Germany as a context:

I am not in a position to isolate this occurrence from the occurrences of 1943, 1944, and 1945 where with my own hands I took children and women out of the burning asphalt myself, and with my own hands I took big blocks of stone from the stomachs of pregnant women; and with my own eyes I saw 60,000 people die within 24 hours.

A judge immediately pointed out that his own killing spree preceded those bombings. But this would become known as the “Dresden defense,” to which Ohlendorf resorted still another time, in this exchange:

Ohlendorf: I have seen very many children killed in this war through air attacks, for the security of other nations, and orders were carried out to bomb, no matter whether many children were killed or not. Q: Now, I think we are getting somewhere, Mr. Ohlendorf. You saw German children killed by Allied bombers and that is what you are referring to? Ohlendorf: Yes, I have seen it. Q: Do you attempt to draw a moral comparison between the bomber who drops bombs hoping that it will not kill children and yourself who shot children deliberately? Is that a fair moral comparison ? Ohlendorf: I cannot imagine that those planes which systematically covered a city that was a fortified city, square meter for square meter, with incendiaries and explosive bombs and again with phosphorus bombs, and this done from block to block, and then as I have seen it in Dresden likewise the squares where the civilian population had fled to—that these men could possibly hope not to kill any civilian population, and no children.

Ohlendorf thought this defense so powerful that he invoked it yet another time:

The fact that individual men killed civilians face to face is looked upon as terrible and is pictured as specially gruesome because the order was clearly given to kill these people; but I cannot morally evaluate a deed any better, a deed which makes it possible, by pushing a button, to kill a much larger number of civilians, men, women, and children.

(The chief prosecutor, an American, called this particular iteration “exactly what a fanatical pseudo-intellectual SS-man might well believe.”)

At Nuremberg, this sort of tu quoque defense (“I shouldn’t be punished because they did it too”) wasn’t admissible. Still, in the verdict of the Einsatzgruppen Trial, the judges chose to refute it. “It was submitted,” the judges wrote, “that the defendants must be exonerated from the charge of killing civilian populations since every Allied nation brought about the death of noncombatants through the instrumentality of bombing.” The judges would have none of it:

A city is bombed for tactical purposes… it inevitably happens that nonmilitary persons are killed. This is an incident, a grave incident to be sure, but an unavoidable corollary of battle action. The civilians are not individualized. The bomb falls, it is aimed at the railroad yards, houses along the tracks are hit and many of their occupants killed. But that is entirely different, both in fact and in law, from an armed force marching up to these same railroad tracks, entering those houses abutting thereon, dragging out the men, women and children and shooting them.

The tribunal sentenced Ohlendorf to death. He was hanged in June 1951.

“In the last analysis”

Nuremberg enforced a fundamental distinction. All civilian lives are equal, but not so all ways of taking them. The deliberate and purposeful killing of civilians is a crime; not so the taking of civilian lives that is undesired, unintended, but unavoidable. The errors made by a bomber squadron cannot be deducted from the murders committed by a death squad. It’s a difference compounded many times over when those civilian men, women, and children are subjected to torture, rape, and mutilation before their murder. To borrow Khalidi’s phrase, “in the last analysis,” this distinction is what separates modern civilization from its predecessors.

More disturbing is the thought that it separates the contemporary West from its peers. Otto Ohlendorf and the regime he served did all they could to conceal their deeds from Western eyes. Nazi Germany still operated in a West founded on Enlightenment values. So massive a violation of a shared patrimony needed to be hidden from view.

In contrast, Hamas initially sought to publicize its deeds, assuming they would win applause, admiration, or at least tacit acceptance in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Here they succeeded beyond their expectations. The many millions who don’t share the West’s patrimony, and who know next to nothing about the Holocaust or Nuremberg, do see things as Khalidi says they see them. (So, too, does a sliver of alienated opinion in the West, where such views are cultivated and celebrated.)

Finally, and still more disturbing, is the fact that Ohlendorf’s defense has been revived to frame the massacre of Jews.

#Hamas #Palestine #Nuremberg trials #Dresden defense #Israel #leftist antisemitism #jumblr #war crimes #genocide #crimes against humanity

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thats-very-like-a-whale · 6 months

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OK very big content warning: a lot of discussion of Nazis and the Holocaust.

I think one of the reasons people have such a hard time understanding that they're being antisemitic is that they've dehumanized the concept of antisemitism so much that they think it can only be done by, like, Nazis.

It's much much easier to believe that as long as they're not literally Nazis, then they're not being antisemitic. Sure, there's rising antisemitism these days. Sure, there's people calling to “gas the Jews”. Sure, there's people stabbing Jews in their homes and spray-painting swastikas on their doors. But those are Nazis. I only tear down posters of kidnapped children, and complain about the massive “Jewish influence” on the media, and call for the dissolution of the Israel because of my hatred for “Zionists”. I'm not a Nazi, so I'm not an antisemite.

And I think this is largely because it's very easy to dehumanize Nazis. By making them out to be non-human, you can easily disconnect yourself from them. The Nazis were monsters, but I'm a person with a moral compass so I couldn't possibly be similar to them. So I can't possibly be an antisemite.

Dan Pagis was an Israeli poet and survivor of the Belzec concentration camp. In his poem “Witness” (“עדות”), Pagis wrote:

לא לא: הם בהחלט / היו בני אדם: מדים, מגפים. / איך להסביר: הם נבראו בצלם. / אני הייתי צל. / לי היה בורא אחר / והוא בחסדו לא השאיר בי מה שימות / ... / עשן אל עשן כל יכול / שאין לו גוף ודמות

My translation:

No, no: they definitely were human beings. Uniforms, boots. How can I explain: they were created b’tzelem*. I was a shadow. I had a different creator. And he, in his kindness, didn't leave anything in me to die... smoke unto omnipotent smoke that has no body or form.

(*In the Tanakh, when Hashem creates the first man and the first woman, it says that they are created “b’tzelem Elohim” (“בצלם אלוהים”). The best translation for this is probably “in God’s image”.)

The people wearing the boots and the uniforms were people. The people who tattooed numbers on our arms and made us dig our own mass graves and threw us into the gas chambers and the ovens were people. The Nazis, who murdered six million Jewish people, including most of my extended family, in camps and in mass graves, were human beings. Modern Nazis, who march with swastikas and chant for the genocide of the Jewish people, are human beings. And antisemites ARE HUMAN BEINGS, as much as you'd like to believe that they aren't. As much as you'd like to believe you could never become like them, because you're human and they aren't.

So no, you are not immune to antisemitism. People just like you can be and are antisemites. It is your duty to understand that, and fight that, and watch your fucking actions.

Am Yisrael Chai. 🇮🇱❤️

#jumblr #israel #war #israel palestine conflict #ישראבלר #antisemitism #antisemitism tw #shoah #jewish history #holocaust #zionism #judaism

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intersectionalpraxis · 6 months

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I need more people to understand the gravity of this.

⚠️Content warning: mentions of Nazism and the Holocaust⚠️

Zionism and Fascism -sometimes the lines blur.

We have yet another haunting display of (neo)Nazis marching out in the open -something we have seen an increase of across the globe (but especially in Western and European countries) over the past decade, and has especially heightened during the pandemic with recruitment being done online very quickly, alarmingly so [The Southern Poverty Law Center is a great resource to continue your research on this as well].

We have seen an increase in young white men being radicalized and joining (neo)Nazi groups and many extremist white supremacist affiliations because they see everyone who does not look like them as a threat, and they have been historically and are currently violent and murderous.

For those of you who still think Israel is in the right, despite being an occupational force breaking COUNTLESS international laws and has been ethnically cleansing Palestinian people for decades and has been mass accelerating a genocide against Palestinian people since October 7th of this year... please take a look at these (neo)Nazis, -with whom operate under the belief that they are a superior race, and invoke ultranationalism, racism, and xenophobia to normalize their dangerous and oppressive rhetoric -and with whom vilify, threaten, and perhaps actually harm ANYONE who tells their their ideologies are violent and depraved... think about these parallels to the 'goals' of Zionism, please.

You have Nazis out at the same time as Zionists are... each, respectively so, filled with genocidal apologists... it's terrifying.

To the Israeli Jewish people who support Israel; to those who see Palestinian people as a direct threat to their safety and security -I'd check your own neighborhoods first. Because THIS is what anti-Zionist Israeli Jewish people and pro-Palestinian liberation Jewish people and activists all around the world have been saying all along -and so many of you are still SO ignorant to the real dangers -real Nazis and white supremacist terrorist groups that do active harm... and it's just so disturbing.

I was also going to post this earlier today (I wrote this the other day then THIS happened):

Auschwitz Memorial... just supported the genocide of millions of Palestinian people. They regurgitated Israeli propaganda and lies, called Israel the sole and perpetual victims despite being a violent settler colonial force, with whom has used weapons of mass destruction against defenseless civilians. Israel has committed and is committing war crimes, and is NOT self-defending -they are executing a Zionist plan which involves ethnically cleansing Palestinian people... and the audacity to say Hamas is exploiting the 'people of Gaza,' when Israel uses Hamas as an excuse to BOMB the hell out of everything in sight, and kill over 12,000 Palestinian people... it's just... how out of touch of reality are these privileged and bigoted people?

In the span of a few days, seeing Nazis take to the streets, and the Auschwitz Memorial is more preoccupied with this... I'm baffled.

End the occupation, ceasefire now, and free Palestine!

#feminist #feminism #israel is an apartheid state #palestine #social justice #freepalastine🇵🇸#free gaza #free palestine #israel is committing genocide #anti zionisim #history #israeli settlers #israel is a terrorist state #israeli apartheid #settler colonialism

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the-garbanzo-annex-jr · 1 month

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Along the lines of two billboards placed earlier in the month on I-275 highway—west of Dearborn, Mich.—by the local branch of the Zionist Organization of America, a new sign was placed on US-23 near Ann Arbor on April 22, calling for the University of Michigan to “Stop Jew Hatred on Campus.”

It comes in the wake of threats, harassment, intimidation and discrimination against Jewish students at the public institution.

“The university has failed to respond to concerned students, parents and alumni who have contacted U of M, urging that it take action to stop violations of their own code of conduct and infractions of the law. We put up the billboard in hopes of getting their attention,” said Sheldon Freilich, president of ZOA-Michigan. “It’s time for enforcement—there must be serious consequences for those breaking the law and inciting antisemitism.”

Following the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, ZOA-Michigan said it has received numerous complaints from U of M students who fear for their safety. The situation has been exacerbated, it added, by pro-Hamas demonstrations on campus and in campus buildings calling for the end of Israel and the genocide of Jews, often punctuated by Nazi symbols and slogans.

In the weeks leading up to finals and graduation, antisemitic hostilities have reached a dangerous pitch.

Senior Salma Hamamy, a 22-year-old Palestinian American and the president of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), stated on her Instagram page on March 22: “Until my last breath, I will utter death to every single individual who supports the Zionist state. Death and more. Death and worse.”

She was arrested in November at an anti-Israel sit-in at the office of the university’s president, Santo Ono, and in February was part of a stand-off with riot police near Detroit at a campaign event for U.S. President Joe Biden. This week, she was one part of the pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas activists that set up a tent encampment on school grounds.

In January, the University of Michigan honored Hamamy and SAFE with the 2024 Spirit of MLK Jr. Award for “exemplifying Dr. King’s leadership and extraordinary vision.”

In the last two months alone, two federal civil-rights complaints have been filed against U of M for failing to safeguard Jewish students.

#u of m #university of michigan #salma hamamy #spirit of mlk jr award #safe #dearborn #dearborn michigan

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zvaigzdelasas · 8 months

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While most Ukrainians battled against Germany during the war, it’s well known that the western region of the country collaborated with the Third Reich — and that thousands of those involved were allowed to resettle in Canada. [...]

When Anthony Rota, [...] introduced Hunka during Zelenskyy’s Sept. 22 visit, he called him a “veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today.”

And Hunka made the argument himself after Russia invaded his homeland last year. “In the last war, I joined the Ukrainian underground to fight Russia, so I was fighting the same people they’re fighting now,” he told a reporter covering a peace vigil in North Bay, Ontario, in March 2022. “Nothing has changed there. The same enemy. First Stalin was there and now this idiot,” he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. [...]

In a post for the SS Galichina veterans’ blog Combatant News, Hunka wrote that 1941 to 1943 — after Germany invaded Ukraine and before Hunka enlisted — were the happiest years of his life. He also recalled eagerly awaiting “the legendary German knights” to come and attack “the hated Poles,” using a slur for Polish people, in 1939.

Captioned photos from the blog show Hunka during SS artillery training in Munich in December 1943 and in Poland around the time of a visit by Nazi mastermind Heinrich Himmler. “I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles … I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway,” Himmler said during that visit, according to several historical accounts. Now, the Polish minister of education is looking into whether Hunka can be extradited and prosecuted for what happened during the war.[...]

[After the war,] Hunka made his living in the aircraft industry, working his way up to inspector at DeHavilland Aircraft in Toronto. After retirement, he visited Ukraine nearly every year, according to a profile of him in a University of Alberta newsletter announcing the donation made in his honor by his sons. The profile said he also served as president of the parish council of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Catholic Church in Thornhill, Ontario.[...]

In his mea culpa, Rota made it sound like Hunka was a constituent from his district [...] whom he did not know much about. “This initiative was entirely my own,“ Rota said[...]

But Rejean Venne, an independent Canadian journalist, wrote in his Substack newsletter this week that Rota and Hunka family members have had numerous chances to cross paths over the years. Among Venne’s examples:

- One of Hunka’s sons, Martin, was chief financial officer of Redpath Mining, a multinational corporation headquartered in Rota’s district. Redpath has contributed to Rota’s campaigns and Rota has provided government funding for recreational facilities operated by Redpath. (The company did not respond to inquiries from the Forward made Thursday.)

- Martin Hunka has also served as chair of the board of trustees for North Bay Hospital, which is located in Rota’s district and which Rota has supported. Hunka’s name can no longer be found on the hospital’s website and social media posts. (The hospital did not respond to a request for comment emailed Thursday.)

- North Bay Pride, an LGBTQ+ organization, gave an award to Rota nine months after Yaroslav’s granddaughter Leshya Lecappelain joined its board of directors. In 2022 and 2023, North Bay Pride received more than $100,000 in funding from Rota. (Asked about this, a spokesperson for North Bay Pride said Lecappelain had not been on its board for several years.)

“Rota’s response that this was a last-minute request doesn’t add up,” Venne said in an email interview. “The Hunka family appears well connected in Rota’s district.”

The Forward could not determine whether Hunka and Rota met before he was honored at Parliament. Rota and others at the House of Commons did not respond to several requests for comment sent Wednesday and Thursday. Efforts to reach Yaroslav, Martin and Peter Hunka, Lecappelain and other members of the family for comment were also unsuccessful.[...]

On Wednesday, the University of Alberta said it would return the CA$30,000 endowment that Hunka’s sons donated in 2019 in their father’s honor. The money was intended to fund research at the school’s Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies. But Per Anders Rudling, a university alumnus and expert on Ukrainian nationalism who teaches at Sweden’s Lund University, said the Hunka fund is just “the top of an iceberg.” In an email to the Forward, Rudling said the University of Alberta has “much larger endowments” honoring other figures connected to the Waffen SS unit. The “most problematic,” he said, is the Volodymyr and Daria Kubijovych Memorial Endowment Fund [Editors note: archive link - also "matched two-to-one by the Government of Alberta"] At CA$450,000 — about $334,000 — it’s 15 times larger than the Hunka fund the university is returning.[...] In a Facebook post Thursday, Rudling also questioned university endowments named for other Galichina Division veterans, including Roman Kolisnyk, Levko Babij and Edward Brodacky. Pointing to research he published in The Journal of Slavic Military Studies [Editors note: 1, 2], Rudling said, “I have tried to raise this issue in the past, to no avail.”

Asked about Rudling’s concerns, Michael Brown, a spokesperson for the University of Alberta, reiterated a statement in which interim provost Verna Yiu said the school is “reviewing its general naming policies and procedures, including those for endowments, to ensure alignment with our values.” Yiu also expressed the school’s “commitment to address anti-Semitism in any of its manifestations, including the ways in which the Holocaust continues to resonate in the present.” The honors given to SS Galichina fighters extend beyond academia. One of the University of Alberta’s endowments is for its former chancellor Peter Savaryn, another SS Galichina member. In 1987, Savaryn was awarded the Order of Canada, among the nation’s highest honors, bestowed by Canada’s governor general, the representative of the British Crown. Mary Simon, the current governor general, has condemned the Hunka scandal as “a shock and an embarrassment.”[...]

When the Hunka endowment was announced in 2020, the university said it would fund research on two “leaders of the underground Ukrainian Catholic Church,” Cardinal Josyf Slipyj and Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. (A metropolitan is akin to a bishop.) Slipyi was a deputy in Ukraine’s 1941 self-proclaimed government, which pledged to work closely with Germany under Hitler’s leadership. Slipyi also assigned chaplains to SS Galichina and celebrated the unit’s inaugural Mass. After the war, the Soviets sent him to gulag prison camps. But Sheptytsky’s legacy is layered [sic]. He helped “dozens of Jews find refuge in his monasteries and even in his own home,” according to Yad Vashem, while also supporting “the German army as the savior of the Ukrainians from the Soviets.”

Harvard University also houses a Ukrainian Research Institute. Asked, after Alberta’s announcement, whether that institute’s funding would be scrutinized for Nazi ties, the university said in a statement that the institute had never received money from the Hunkas, nor had it received donations designated for research related to SS Galichina. Harvard did, however, in 1974 establish a fellowship and faculty position in European studies with money from a foundation named for Alfred Krupp, who was convicted of war crimes for using slave laborers from Auschwitz to build and work in a factory.[...]

In Canada, questions about the Ukrainian immigrants’ past dogged them for decades, and in 1985, the country launched a Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, known as the Deschênes Commission. Investigators were mostly limited to considering evidence gathered in Canada, and ultimately they came to the controversial conclusion that the Galichina Division “should not be indicted as a group” and that “mere membership” in the division was insufficient to justify prosecution or revoke citizenship.

This week, as Trudeau apologized for the Hunka salute, B’nai Brith Canada called for the full release of the commission’s report, which had been heavily redacted, along with other Holocaust-era records, in order to “restore public trust in our institutions.” “Canadians deserve to know the full extent to which Nazi war criminals were permitted to settle in this country after the war,” the group said Tuesday[...]

Why would Hunka’s family risk his humiliation, at age 98, by putting him under a spotlight? Did they not realize how his military record would be perceived and portrayed? “It’s arrogance. It’s not naiveté,” said Jack Porter, a research associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and himself a Jewish child survivor of the Holocaust, born in Ukraine. “They know what their father did,” he said. “It’s hubris, it’s chutzpah. They rationalize that these men were fighting communism. If a few Jews were killed, they also were communists.”[...]

More than 2.5 million Ukrainians died fighting against Germany. “There were many good Ukrainians; they should not all be stigmatized,” he said.

But he said veterans who fought under the Nazis like Hunka and his compatriots have been emboldened by the whitewashing of their history, especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. “They’ve been hiding in plain sight,” he said. “They’ve been there for 60 years and nobody has touched them, so of course they feel OK.”

29 Sep 23

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