#being Jewish in America
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This is not a perfect analogy but I am making it anyway to try to convey what being online has been like for me lately.
Seeing people say "Oh, Jews are fine, I just hate zionists!" is like seeing "Oh, women are fine, I just hate feminists!"
Zionism and feminism are both very broad socio-political movements that have changed focus over time, that ostensibly have some very basic core tenets but you really need to ask the specific person you're talking to how they personally define it to be sure.
Both have been subject to legitimate criticism, and hostile reactionary bullshit. Had waves, sub-movements, splinters, people with damn near opposite views sharing the term and people with seemingly identical views rejecting it.
You can give working, broad definitions like these:
Feminism is the belief that all people should be treated equally regardless of gender, with a focus on women's rights due to systemic oppression.
Zionism is the belief that all peoples have the right to self determination and safety, with a focus on Jewish people finding it in Israel.
You can also give different definitions! Many people give different definitions! Many people also hold these beliefs but use different names for them for various reasons.
There are self-described zionists who are jingoistic, racist, etc, and who attribute those attitudes to their zionism. Just as there are feminists who are misandrist, bio-essentialist, transphobic, homophobic, and so on, who attribute those attitudes to their feminism.
There are also incredibly selfless, compassionate activists working for positive change in the world who consider themselves zionists and feminists.
It has been very jarring to see people, who I respect, uncritically reblogging posts or headlines that use "zionists" as a stand in for "bad people", just as jarring as it would be to see them sharing things that use "feminists" that way. Especially when those posts contain easily debunked conspiracy theories that I know you'd have seen right through if the OP said "Jews" but because they said "zionists" you swallowed it whole.
I am not asking anyone to stop sharing important information, petitions, news articles, resources, and so on. I am asking you to slow down and stop spreading inflammatory language that paints a broad socio-political movement for Jewish self-determination as inherently bad. The same way I would ask you not to spread inflammatory language that paints gender equality & women's liberation as inherently bad.
If the information is important, please look for other, more neutrally worded posts. Or verify the links yourself and make a fresh post! There is no situation online in which the only way to share information must be to spread such language.
#antisemitism#being critical of zionism is not automatically antisemitic#just as criticizing the feminist movement is not inherently misogynistic#but the way a LOT of people have been talking lately...it has been indistinguishable#please slow down#being Jewish in America#and online#I have so many filters and yet I cannot escape this even in fandom spaces#''Jews control the media'' repackaged as ''zionists'' or ''the Israeli government'' has been the one I've seen the most#but there's been some outright blood libel too#and of course the usual banking bullshit#when you accept a term like this as synonymous with ''bad people'' you swallow the lies more easily! you swallow the exaggerations!#you fact check less! you reblog from psyops and bigots who've found keywords!#and it doesn't have to be this way#please stop making it be this way#editing tags to add#zionism#I think I left it off originally to stay out of the tracked tags
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So like just like.
Just to be clear.
In light of all of the wild stuff Ye has said, and the fact that it’s called a whole bunch of asshole N*zi groups to action.
Jews make up 2.4% ish of America’s population.
And we hold very little power.
Like.
I need you to understand.
That we don’t control the money.
And we don’t control the media.
And like.
I don’t even get high holy days off of work without taking leave.
And we only have like a little endcap at the Target every year at Hanukkah that has like...some sad little menorahs, and some really wild blue and white shit that has so little to do with the traditions of that holiday that it’s funny.
I found a really nice Menorah in the Halloween section at Target this year.
We don’t control anything.
You’d think they’d be like “HERE IS A FESTIVE HIGH SIDED PAN TO FRY YOUR FOOD IN FOR YOUR FRYING YOUR FOOD HOLIDAY!” But no. Target can’t even do that. They care so little.
That they will give you a Mensch on a Bench.
A MENSCh on a BENCH that is literally just.
Has nothing to do with Hanukkah.
They will try to sell us Hanukkah BUSHES even though there is a whole ass other holiday that has a BUSH IN IT. ACTUALLY LIKE TWO. Because you’ve got the burning bush at Passover and then growth and greenery during Sukot-
I give up.
I give up.
‘I give up.
I can’t.
I can’t anymore.
Like.
Literally all they have to do is grab a few high sided, nice frying pans from their kitchenware section and put them on the Hanukkah endcap AND IT WOULD BE PLENTY ACCURATE.
“HERE YOU GO GUYS HAPPY FRYING!”
But no.
No.
Can’t be fucked.
God dammit.
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you motherfuckers have no concept of what "land back" or "decolonize" even mean. you're too busy demonizing entire groups of people, terrified, shitting yourselves, that they'll do even half of the horrors to you that you've done to them for decades or centuries. this shit comes off as hella racist for real. you hate arabs so much. you hate first nations people so much. you hate black people so much. even if you sympathize with them, you can't fucking bear the idea of them gaining freedom, independence, autonomy, safety, because you're so, so scared they'll hurt you back and cause chaos in the streets. these same people who just want to rebuild. who just want to go home. who just want to see their families again. who just want food. who just want medical care. who just want dry, warm shelter. you're so focused on the ideas of colonization, of "us vs. them", of one people displacing the other for a state to exist, that you cannot comprehend coexistence, and your only idea of peace is if an entire group of people were just gone and dead.
grow the fuck up. for the love of GOD, grow the fuck up.
#eli talks#rant#i just watched a video shared by someone i'd been following a while denying the genocide occuring in gaza entirely#are you kidding. are you fucking kidding me.#the video was trying to run with the idea that “from the river to the sea” means jewish people will be expelled from the region#no the fuck it does not you stupid motherfucker that's NOT what decolonization is#anyway. land back. decolonize. from the river to the sea. peace and love on planet earth.#stop razing olive trees. stop scorching the earth. stop bombing hospitals and schools. stop destroying the sea.#if i have to see another palestinian child undergo anesthesia-free amputation im going to start being physically fucking violent#if i have to see another mother with blood on her hands wailing and begging for her child to come back im going to start burning shit#one day all the people of palestine will be free. muslims and jews and christians and all and none.#one day all the people of sudan will be free. all the people in the congo will be free. all the peoples in the americas will be free.#and all the other occupied places suffering genocides and ethnic cleansings that the news neglects to mention. theyll be free too.
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Do I or do I not want to make Tom Kazansky a Soviet immigrant
#tom kazansky#iceman#jewish tom kazansky#there was a huge influx of Soviet Jews coming to America in the 70s#maybe he was a teen in the 70s and his family immigrated to a major US city from somewhere in Russia or Ukraine#and felt really isolated in America because of his accent so he got rid of it the more time he spent in America#also tried to hide being Jewish because he was bullied for it in the old country#then he decided that being in the navy would be cool so he went to the academy#by the time that happened he completely shed his accent and never told anyone he's Jewish#his accent occasionally comes out when he's stressed or upset#idk just a thought#some of these headcanons were also inspired by my family's experiences as Soviet Jewish immigrants#top gun 1986#top gun maverick
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it boggles my mind that there are people who haven't spend the last six months worried about the fast rising increase in antisemitism
#i literally cannot sleep some nights because of it!#(like right now)#and i know that isn't healthy but i can't stop!#because i don't understand how people can just not care about jews being attacked and murdered!#especially people who call themselves leftists or feminists!#and i'm not even jewish! and germany isn't even the worst rn when it comes to jew hatred!#like i look at america and the uk and go 'jesus fucking christ what is happening'!!#anyway i must try to sleep#and hope to one day wake up in a better world#antisemitism tw
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PORTRAYALS OF PALESTINIAN X JEWISH LOVE STORIES IN BRAZILIAN TELENOVELAS
@professorlehnsherr-almashy @princesssarisa @themousefromfantasyland @lord-antihero @gravedangerahead
@tamisdava2 @faintingheroine
So, as many brazilians, I grew up with telenovelas as the main source of national enternainment.
An interesting characteristic of brazilian telenovelas (specially the ones produced by the channel Rede Globo, the most powerfull TV channel in the country) is that, besides the extra production value that can go to cinematic levels, above the usual budget of other latin american telenovelas or british and US american soap operas, is that they experiment with mixing the escapist love story with discussions of serious real life topics in the side plots: politics, street crime, drugs, mental ilness,domestic violence, sexuality, etc. are themes frequently explored in brazilian telenovelas.
In recent years, there were also international real life topics incorporated to telenovela plots, besides the brazilian reality, including, more recently, two attempts of exploring the Israel x Palestine in love stories between born in imigrant families from those two regions.
One a late night telenovela, the other an evening telenovela.
I would like to present the resume of them here, and how they were received by audiences at the time:
Pérsio and Rebeca (Amor a Vida, 2013-14)
2013's Amor a Vida (Love for Life) included the subplot of the romance between medicine doctors Pérsio (Mouhamed Harfouch), of palestinian origin, and Rebeca (Paula Braum), of jewish origin. The two originally entered in frequent verbal fights before becoming a couple, and when they did, it started as a secret to Rebeca's family, and there was a period they expent broken up because the character of Pérsio revealed that he had a past as a member of a terrorist cell and considered being a bomb man before coming to work in Brazil as a doctor.
But eventually they reunited.
When it camed to reception of this subplot, the average brazilian viewer wasn't much involved because there were already a lot of other subplots to be invested in (particularlly the romance two male character that became the first kiss between two man in a mainstream telenovela), and some leftist groups who were acompanying this story interested in how it would explore this real life conflict were left disapointed, repudiating the reveal of Pérsio as a former terrorist as stereotypical and feeling that it simplified too much the complexity of the real conflict between Israel x Palestine.
Ali and Sara (Órfãos da Terra, 2019)
2019's Órfãos da Terra (Orphans of the Earth) was a telenovela of the 18:00 p.m time spot that experimented in exploring the theme of refugees who were coming in mass to Brazil (particularly from Siria, during the height of the US x Siria warn news) and their descendants. One the plots included inside in this theme was the love story between Ali (also played by Mouhamed Harfouch), the owner of a restaurant, and Sara (Verônica Debom), a customer who learns belly dance with Ali's sister Muna (Lola Fanucci).
Ali was the grandson of the palestinian imigrant Mamede (Flávio Migliaccio), who had lost his home in Gaza during the destruction caused by the Israeli Army.
Sara was the granddaughter of the jewish imigrant Boris (Osmar Prado), daughter of the flower shop owner Eva (Betty Gofman) and sister of Davi (Vitor Thiré), a young woman who was serving in the israeli army due to the encouragement of his grandfather, and against the will of his mother and sister.
The old patriarchs Boris and Mamede were neighbors, and started the story hating each other so much that they wouldn't bear the interactions between their dogs, even less so the romance between their grandchildren.
Sara at first pretended to be a gentile, thinking that Ali would reject her if he knew she was jewish, but that didn't happened: the two kept the relationship strong after she told the truth, and had the support of Sara's mother and Sara's and Ali's siblings to be together.
Despite their grandparents schemes to separate the two and make marry people of shared cultural background (which provided a light hearted comedy), Sara and Ali fortunally got happily married.
The two families ended supporting each other trough sad moments, like Davi's death while serving in the Israeli Army and Mamede's development of Alzheimer's when, and had happy moments like Ali and Sara welcoming twin children.
Unlike the more controversial aproach of 2013's Amor a Vida, the portrayal of the love story between a Palestinian and an Arab in Órfãos da Terra was much better received by audiences and critics, by the levity and the respect in wich the two groups were portrayed, without either being villanized, and the strong trust between the two characters that became the couple.
#politics#arab representation#jewish representation#telenovelas#what i grew up watching#being a child in latin america
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CONTACT YOUR GOVERNMENT AND DEMAND A CEASEFIRE FOR PALESTINE
For Eu look up:
Voices in Europe for peace
For Usa look up:
US campaign for Palestinian rights
BOYCOTT FOR PALESTINE
FOA (Friends of Al-Aqsa) have organized a boycott in support of palestine. Here are the key companies to boycott:
HP (Hewlett Packard)
Coca-Cola
PUMA
Any produce labelled 'made in Israel'
(Please help to spread the word by sending this copypasta to as many blogs as you can OR going to FOAs website where you can find posters to download and print out)
ive already been contacting my govt and boycotting, thanks
#gasp.txt#if this is because i dont have a ton of posts abt palestine on my blog recently its bc#there is a lot of skewing and misinfo being spread#and a lot of posts that arent really helpful or have any info or news#and a lot of posts that are just thinly veiled antisemitism#so im trying to be very very careful abt what i do reblog#i am 100% free palestine#now and forever#but we also kind of have to acknowledge that some of us are saying and posting some fucked up shit.#even if we say it is in the name of a good cause#it aint right!#the yemen boat heist for example.#it was captured by houthis who are explicitly generally antisemitic#the crew isnt israeli#its a civilian mercantile craft#the houthi slogan is literally#God Is Great Death to America Death to Israel Curse on the Jews Victory to Islam.#the yemeni jewish community has been persecuted by them#idk. i want to be careful and cognizant and reasonable
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So I can't reply to @phoenixyfriend having replied to my reblog because either they've blocked me or they don't do DMs with non-mutuals despite suggesting that as a preferable forum for disagreement, but in brief:
My reblog was 'necessary' within the very limited definition of that word that applies to fandom blogging because that post was not a post About Tony Stark. I don't engage with posts About Tony Stark or most characters in general that I disagree with, in general! It's rude and life is too short.
That post, however, was not about Tony. It was a conversation between bloggers asserting an argument for why people who don't agree with your headcanons are morally inferior and have Bad Corrupt Motives.
"What does it say that Steve is, in fandom, often considered a better/more qualified speaker on the topic of chronic illness and disability than Tony" and "these people would rather listen to the white, able-bodied guy than the person actually forced to live with the consequences of life-long disability" and "viewers with that perspective continue to see his disability as a sign that he's still a bad person, because he hasn't 'earned' a cure the way Steve did."
(Which again is wild as a take because Iron Man 3 has tony 'earn' his way out of both physical damage and PTSD through willpower and smartness in the ending montage, because inspiration porn doesn't work if you stay damaged.)
It was a post about the fandom. Accusing other actual human beings of being morally at fault for how they interpreted the marvel cinematic universe.
Not like, an intense horrible attack post as these things go, but it still wasn't about characters. It was about other fans. That is different from talking about characters! Your post was about how it's sus and shameful for people to disagree with you, not about your actual positions and why they're right. Let alone about the character. That doesn't fall under the curtain of 'don't start shit' because shit was already started.
Like I don't have any Avengers fic, haven't been in the fandom for several years, and I was still sitting here scrolling my dash getting these Bad Person Motives assigned to me just for thinking one character was more meaningful disability representation, that I would be interested in hearing from on the subject, than another.
You made inflammatory statements about other actual people in a public forum, where it could be predicted they would see it.
And then flew off the handle when someone went over your post asserting their alternate perspective, carefully avoiding attacking you personally or assigning you evil motives, which would have been incredibly easy except it's a shitty way to interact so no, and speaking only in general terms about things they found personally annoying.
If you can't deal with people reblogging your posts to argue that you're being unfair, then maybe don't post about how other people only disagree with you about your blorbos because you are a better human being than those people. I mean.
#hoc est meum#i would say 'you can dish it out but you can't take it'#except i went out of my way to not say the kinds of manipulative leading things-about-you that your post consisted of#so you didn't even get your own medicine#otoh it was a reply on your post so returning your attitude in kind would have been shitty behavior#which is why i didn't do it#but come ON#also wrt tony being jewish in mcu#i think i do remember the scene in agent carter you're talking about#but it just consisted of the use of some yiddish#i grew up speaking that much yiddish because my mom's from manhattan#i think that only rises to the level of coded#and also it's in agent carter and doesn't count for like#overall fandom character understanding trends#since it's in an obscure spinoff and doesn't apply to the average fan's understanding of tony#who isn't even CODED anything but White Guy in the main films#and that's on purpose#this is aside from the serious complexity surrounding#'does having a jewish dad in america make you non-white?'#like this is a complex piece of analysis that cannot be squashed down into the flat statement 'this is not a white character'#anyway for fuck's sake#take your weird power-trippy martyr complex and let us part ways#i don't normally see there as being a Choice Between stark and rogers#on account of how they offer fans wildly different things#so no argument about how tony is Entitled to be centered in conversation about anything#including disability#is likely to move me very far because that's not really relevant to how i conceptualize these blorbos#but i fully support your right to make such arguments#assertions about the motives of people who don't like your blorbo and why they're Bad Person Motives however#are a different kind of argument
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People are really out here defending Candace Owens for criticizing Israel and it is insane to me. No, criticizing Israel - particularly in this moment where Palestinians are being killed in the most brutal of ways, is not wrong. But that's not why this lady is criticizing Israel.
However, this is the same woman who said Hitler was only bad because he wanted to expand beyond Germany and who openly supported a president who campaigned on fighting "radical Islamic terror" just a few years ago. This lady is not concerned about preserving international peace or defending Palestinians or Muslims, and neither are the other conservatives who are criticizing Israel, like Tucker Carlson - who also has a history of making bigoted comments regarding Muslims and Islam.
These people are only criticizing Israel now because they recognize that there is a growing schism within American politics because of America's relationship with Israel, which has split the conservative side into two groups - conservatives who support Israel because of concerns around American national defense, religion and 'supporting Jewish people' and conservatives who don't support Israel because they associate the existence of Israel with the existence of Jewish people in general...and they really don't like Jewish people.
People like Candace Owens, and other far-right conservatives personalities speak more to that second group.
It's also a growing part of the conservative view on foreign policy to criticize any foreign aid, even despite the reasons why that foreign aid is being given, as seen with American foreign aid to Ukraine.
#holding Israel accountable for what is being done to Palestinians is genuine endeavor#especially when America is helping Israel to kill people#but there are bad faith political actors who are exploiting criticism of Israel in order to pander to their audiences#someone who is reporting daily on Palestinians getting killed by Israeli forces#is way different from someone like Candace Owens#like this lady literally asked “Why are the Jews so special?” regarding Israel's actions#when a lot of Jewish people have busted their ass to make it clear that they do not support what Israel is doing to Palestinians#THIS BLOG IS NOT PRO ANTISEMITISM#antisemites dni#palestine#political discourse#candace owens#I typically try to ignore her#but I had to say something because this irks me so much
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Happy Hanukkah! I went to an outdoor menorah lighting at the local city hall today.
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We're starting to really talk about how oppression affects people on an epigenetic level for those victimized
We need to also look at how epigenetics are affected in oppressors and white supremacy
Because how in the hell you're gonna go to a South Asian country as a refugee from Europe and start tryna throw a fucking "white only" party and hating on the native people like what the fuck
#and something about Israelis being accepted as 'white' in some way#yet not all Jewish people would be accepted as white (even ones who are pale but have specific features)#especially when anti Zionist it's like they wouldn't get that access to whiteness#and you know it's cuz of white supremacy but I mean like how it's passed down#how it affects the emotional and psychological aspects#you know like how white women learn to utilize white tears to place harm on POC#and it can be regardless of their additional identities or political views#and they'd use it ANYWHERE like in America at a resort in Mexico against a black person in South Africa#idk I'm cooking but y'all see what I'm saying??
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the main tumblr zionist argument being shit like 'why are you even talking abt palestine when you're from EGYPT' is crazy. white ppl and their henchmen of any color/background really, at their core, can't comprehend caring about something when there's no direct benefit back to you. nevermind that the human rights for one group of people is human rights for EVERYONE
#2p**chy is really weird like what does a country's population of jewish ppl have to do w whether or not they have a right to not want#whole families and bloodlines and universities and teachers and doctors and hospitals bombed all to hell just for existing?#but all problems are connected#even if isntreal wasnt being paid thru leeching money from america#and isntreal tactics are coming here#even if alllll of that wasnt happening everyone should care abt ppl being wiped off the map hello
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Really frustrating when people will be like “genocide is bad” and then zionists will come out like “that’s antisemetic” cuz like…that’s not a good look for you
#love and support Jewish people so much#and recognize that not all Jewish people are Zionists that support Israel’s genocide#but theyre drive to equate not supporting genocide with antisemetism is numbing people to what antisemitism is#and making it harder to call out when someone IS being antisemetic#which is Not Good when we are literally dealing with actual nazis in America#i swear most of these people aren’t actually zionists and are just antisemites using this to make Jewish people look bad#cuz there is no way you are THIS bad at propaganda#Im sure this all has been said before but god the world is so fucked right now#it was bad enough with all the other shit going on and now this#It’s really making everything so overwhelming and unbearable#It’s literally so easy to just not kill people and not be a bigot#and YET
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I always forget buckys name is actually James and now i cant stop thinking about Steve only calling him James in a mock teasing/mock scolding context, or to just fuck with people who only know him as Bucky
I honestly don't think Steve could make himself refer to Bucky as anything but Buck/Bucky like if Bucky bet him he couldn't refer to him as James for a day Steve would lose that bet within minutes ('Hey Buh-FUCK, shit, damnit!' 'Called it! Pay up, punk.')
And no way Bucky would stand for Steve scolding him as 'James', either; he's just gunna clap back with an impeccable impression of Steve's Irish mum calling him Steven GraNT Rogers when he's in trouble, (eg. on days with a Y in the name) What's Steve gunna do? Mope at him? Mope at him with his big sad blue cow eyes?
On the other hand, it would be hysterical if Steve called him 'James' in bed one day accidentally and Bucky was like 'who the FUCK is J-oh...'
Hilarious thought: a Modern Bucky telling his ONSs his name is James (because he thinks it's sexier-sounding). So if someone approaches him in public yelling 'James!' he knows where they met him...
He only realises his mistake once he starts also going by James at work, when someone approaches calling him that while dressed in business attire and he's stuck having to do 4d mental chess to find out where he knows them from before he embarrasses himself.
#hey nonny#toAyourQ#dat's me#bucky barnes#bucky meta#meta#mcu#mcu meta#alternatively: my personal jewish-romanian!bucky headcanon...#= him being originally named eg. iacob yochanan#changing it to james buchanan when he comes to america#and only finding out about the lame president much later#he's just grateful his nickname is based on buchanan not yochanan#cuz for a while there it looked like he was gunna be nicknamed 'yucky'#release the cracken#yet each man queues the thing he loves
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when this barbarity one day ends—and it will. it will—i don't want to hear one fucking word about antisemitism within the arab community. i don't want to hear one word about the human rights those countries lack. i don't want to hear it. i don't want to fucking hear it.
#vent post#mari talks#im so fucking angry. i could write for so so long.#literally the only pr israel has left is its being a 'jewish' homeland#if it was american and british or some kind of evangelical christian colony#IF IT WAS MUSLIM LMFAO#the arguments that white western liberals cry of 'but the antisemitisim :(' would literally carry no merit#bc everyone understands when its a historically colonial nation doing the colonising#and theyre quite happy to be antisemitic in their own countries mind you!!#but when its arab and brown people they hate EVEN MORE#THATS when the white guilt flares up. bc we had nothing to do with ww2 or the holocaust. its all them.#THATS when the guilt flares up strong enough to justify genocide#and somehow. everyone understand when our regions hate america and britain and the colonial powers#but people are STILL going 'omg the arabs are saying antisemitic things....' when it comes to the colonial power of israel#OF COURSE THEY ARE YOU FUCK. THE GOVERNMENT IS EXTERMINATING PEOPLE IN THE NAME OF JUDAISM#WHAT IS A PERMANENTLY TRAUMATISED POPULATION MEANT TO DO?#GO ONLINE AND DECONSTRUCT THEIR BIASES?#THEY CANT FUCKING DO THAT! THEIR INTERNET IS CUT OFF! THEIR FAMILIES ARE *DEAD!*#im gonna be quite now. feel free to reply or whatever ill decide if i want this rebloggable
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SEPHARDIC BNEI ANUSIM IN BRAZILIAN TELENOVELAS AND MINISSERIES
@themousefromfantasyland @gravedangerahead @tamisdava2 @princesssarisa @professorlehnsherr-almashy @the-blue-fairie @amalthea9 @faintingheroine @budcortfancam
A Converso, Marrano, New Christian, Crypto-Jew: these terms are intermittently applied to the men and women of 15th-17th century Spain and Portugal whose identities lingered somewhere between Jews and Christians. In most cases, multiple labels can be used to describe the same individuals, because the boundaries between their identities were porous. For both contemporary observers and for modern historians, the label used reveals more about the labeler than about the phenomenon described.
Jews first settled in the Iberian Peninsula, (the region now known as Spain and Portugal) before the arrival of the Phoenicians in about 900 BCE. Jewish merchants settled along the coast of Spain during the time of King Solomon when this region was called Tarsus, or Tarshish. Iberia was referred to as Sefarad by its Jewish inhabitants and Hispania by the Romans from which the name “Spain” was later derived. More Jews immigrated after the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem. When the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, there were already large well-established Jewish settlements throughout Iberia.
The first recorded persecution of Jews in Spain began about 489 CE when Jews were forbidden to marry non-Jews or to hold public office, and any children already born of inter-marriage were forcibly baptized into the Catholic Church.
From this time forward, the Iberian Jews were periodically subjected to progressively worse persecution until finally from 653 to 672 CE, Jews were beheaded, burned alive, or stoned to death for the crime of relapsing from forced conversion to Catholicism back into Judaism. It was during the period of 489 to 711, under Frankish and Visigothic rule, that Crypto Jews (Secret Jews) first emerged as a large group.
In 711 CE the Moors of northern Africa conquered the region and there resulted approximately three hundred years of what is known as the “Golden Age of Tolerance,” when the Muslim rulers coexisted with Jews and Christians. Non-Muslim people were allowed great freedom as long as they paid a special tax, to which the Jews gladly agreed. Jewish art, music, medicine, education and religious study flourished, and the Jewish population increased greatly and prospered, many Jews becoming fabulously rich and famous.
During the Golden Age, Spain became the world center for Talmudic Studies, with some of the world’s most famous rabbinical academies. Some of the greatest Jewish scholars lived in Moorish Spain during the years of transition just after the end of this period of time. Rabbi Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra was born in Tudela, Spain, in 1089. He was a poet, mathematician, grammarian, astronomer, commentator of Torah and philosopher. Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, known as “The Rambam” or “Maimonides,” was born in Cordoba, Spain, in 1135, and earned his living as a physician. He is most famous for his codification of Jewish law, entitled Mishne Torah, and for his philosophical work Guide for the Perplexed. Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, known as “The Ramban,” was born in 1194. He, like Maimonides, was a physician and scholar who was the first to incorporate Cabala, or Jewish mysticism, into the Torah teaching, and was a strong proponent of taking possession of the land of Israel. Jews and Crypto Jews flourished in relative peace and plenty, enjoying the Golden Age and the free exchange of ideas, a relatively high level of education for that time in the world, and the benefits from living among Torah and Talmudic scholars. Cities such as Lucena, Granada and Tarragona were populated by Jews magnificently wealthy in culture and material goods.
However, the so-called Golden Age in Spain was also marked by occasional violent upheavals and political turmoil that affected the Jews and Crypto Jews, who were subject to the whims of the frequently changing governments. For example, violence erupted in 1002, when two politically powerful and wealthy Muslims fought to rule Granada; unfortunately the Jews had backed the loser and suffered from Muslim suspicion thereafter. In 1066 a Jewish chief minister of Granada was crucified, followed by the slaughter of more than 1500 Jewish families. The original Moorish dynasty was overpowered by the fanatical Muslim Almoravides in 1086, who were in turn overpowered by the even more fanatical Muslim Almohades from Morocco in 1112. By 1149 the Almohades had overrun the entire peninsula which had become fragmented into about twelve small kingdoms. The lack of centralized control caused constant power struggles among neighboring kingdoms, such that the Almohades were unable to gain a strong hold on the peninsula.
Although the Jews had coexisted relatively peacefully with the Muslims, the Catholics bitterly resented the loss of Christian control of the peninsula since 711 and had perpetuated unrest and uprisings, and by 1212, outright rebellion. The centuries-long “Reconquista,” or reconquest, of the entire region was considered a holy obligation. Unfortunately, to the Christians, the Jews were identified with the death of their Christ and with the Muslim rulers under whom the Jews had enjoyed privilege and power. Also during this period of time, the Black Plague was ravaging Europe, killing as many as one in every four people, but far fewer of the Jewish population. Relatively few Jews died from the Plague perhaps because of better hygiene. Jews washed their hands before eating bread, bathed weekly prior to Shabbat and before holidays, washed their clothing regularly, maintained sanitary households (especially the kitchen and toilet facilities), consumed only fresh and kosher meats from healthy animals, were required to be distant from sewage and other forms of uncleanliness when reading Torah, and buried their dead within twenty four hours. All of these practices in combination with segregated all-Jewish neighborhoods provided some measure of protection from the Plague, albeit not total immunity. The Catholics did not observe such hygienic lifestyles, and seldom washed or bathed. The Catholics hated the Jews for their apparent immunity to the Plague, and widely believed the canard that the Jews were the source of the “Black Death” by poisoning wells.
The Catholics united against the Muslims who were absorbed in fighting one another and slowly took over most of the small kingdoms, one by one. Catholic rule was not kind to the Jews. Widespread pogroms in 1391 resulted in the deaths of fifty thousand Jews, such that, in fear for their lives, tens of thousands converted to Catholicism. These people were called “Conversos” (converts), “New Christians”, and “Maranos” (a derogatory term meaning “pig people.”) In 1412, the Laws of Catalina were promulgated, which excluded Jews from any economic interchange with Christians. From this time until the Edict of Expulsion in 1492, Jews were strictly confined to ghettos and had to wear identification badges prominent on the outside of their clothing. Hard-pressed to survive, many Jews, perhaps as many as 600,000, converted to Christianity by the end of the fifteenth century. Many of the New Christians were in reality Crypto Jews, outwardly Christians, but tenaciously and secretly practicing Judaism.
The Spanish Edict of Expulsion of 1492 stated that all Jews must leave the country. Those who stayed faced the Inquisition. A small number fled to Italy, Amsterdam, and the Americas, but most went to neighboring Portugal. When the Inquisition came to Portugal in 1496, the Jews were forced to leave, convert, or die. Of those Conversos who opted not to emigrate, many, if not most, were murdered by the “Holy” Inquisition. By 1500, estimates of as few as 40,000 and of more than 200,000 Jews were forced to leave the Iberian Peninsula. Exact numbers are not available because many of the Crypto Jewish family names had been changed after the pogroms of the 1300s in anticipation of future persecution.
The Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition continued for three hundred and fifty years. Accurate recorded accounts of the names, numbers, dates and punishments were kept by the officers of the Inquisition, such that today anyone who cares to recount the horrors may read of them. Of those Jews and Crypto Jews who chose to not leave, or could not afford to leave the Iberian Peninsula, many later bought passage or a commission on a sailing ship bound for safer destinations, preferably as far as possible from the nearest Office of the Inquisition.
Some purchased the proper documentation for “temporary” (which frequently became permanent) business trips to Italy or Germany, whereas poorer people fled to the north through the mountains and into France. Entire communities of “Portuguese Christians” were documented in southern France, while others continued northward to Amsterdam, England, Scandinavia, and eastward to the German provinces, Austria, Hungary and Poland. In most of these European destinations, these “Portuguese Christians” eventually revealed their true identity as Jews, and then subsequently blended into the established Jewish populations; thus, we do not find long histories of Crypto Judaism throughout Europe.
Many Jews and Crypto Jews immigrated to the New World, now known as the Americas, or the Western Hemisphere. Their choices were limited to the colonies of Spain and Portugal, so that when the Inquisition came to Peru in 1570, to Mexico in 1571, and to Cartagena in 1610, these same people were forced again to choose to convert or to die. The Inquisition spread throughout what is now the southern United States of America, Mexico, Central and South America, the islands of the Caribbean, and Cuba. No Jew or "Converso" was safe from suspicion, accusation and persecution, thus the numbers of Crypto Jews swelled to encompass almost all people of Jewish descent. The experience of the Crypto Jews in the Western Hemisphere was a litany of suffering, continual fear, social, political, professional, and religious suppression and murder. As late as the 1850s the Inquisition was finally officially ended in Mexico, and elsewhere a little sooner; however, overt discrimination and random incidents of lynching and murder continued until well into the 1950s in what we now call "Latin America".
The final result of approximately one thousand years of persecution and murder of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews (minus the three hundred years of the "Golden Age") caused many families who immigrated to the New World to become Crypto Jewish, while living their public lives as Catholics. In the Americas, some of the Crypto Jews reverted to being openly Jewish, only to find a few years later that the Inquisition had followed them to their new homes, and they were forced to go back into hiding again. All of these people, the "Conversos" or "New Christians", were forced to submit to Catholicism, thus in Hebrew they are referred to as the "Anusim" or "those who were forced."
It has been approximately fifteen-hundred years since the emergence of Crypto Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, and five-hundred years since Crypto Judaism moved to the Americas. Today we find a large Crypto Jewish presence throughout the Western Hemisphere. No one knows for sure how many there really are, however in Brazil alone an estimated 10 to 25% of the total population are Crypto Jews, which translates to 15 to 40 million people.
Some period setting audiovisual productions in Brazil took interest in the history of the Anusim during the colonial period, and two teleivision productions included Anusim characters as main figures in their narratives.
Xica da Silva (1996-97)
This telenovela produded by Rede Manchete, set in 18th century Brazil, told the story of Xica da Silva, a black woman who was born in Brazil and was enslaved, until a white and rich portuguese man named João Fernandes fell in love with her, made her his lover and gave her freedom, making her one of the most rich and powerfull people of Arraial of Tijuco (now the city od Diamantina, Minas Gerais).
Among the side characters who were part of Xica da Silva and João Fernandes's story, were the Pereira family, who were jewish people that came from Portugal to Brazil hoping to escape the Inquisition, and were atracted to the Arraial of Tijuco because of the diamonds that were found there.
Teodoro (António Marques) was the patriarch, Guiomar (Lídia Franco) was his wife (who threw tantrums when she saw a slave naked) and Joaquina (Rosa Castro André) and Graça (Anabela Teixeira) were his daughters.
Both sisters were in love with the gentile travelling merchant Felix (Jayme Periard) who, despite loving Graça, is forced by tradition to marry Joaquina (in a plot inspired by the hebrew tale of how Laban tricked Jacob to marry Leah, despite having promised the hand of Rachel).
Like most characters in the narrative, being to the historical period being portrayed on screen, the Pereiras were slave owners, and Teodoro sexually abuses Fatima (Ilea Ferraz), one of the black woman who is enslaved in his house, and this results in the conception of an illegitimate child.
Later, when Fatima falls in love with another enslaved black man named Jerônimo (Alexandre Moreno) the two join forces to find a plan to take revenge on the Pereira family and get their freedom.
This plan takes form during the visit of a representative of the Inquisition to Arraial of Tijuco: The two reveal to the Inquisitor that the Pereiras had a 7-pointed candlestick (which the representative recognizes as a description of the jewish menorah), hidden in a chest.
At the end of the telenovela, the Pereiras are put under arrest by orders of the Inquisitor, who will take them to trial in Portugal. Felix comes to rescue one of the women, and the baby he had with Joaquina. Joaquina is to ill to run with him trough the woods, so she sends her sister Graça (who she always knew was Felix's true love) to go with him and her child, and Guiomar asks her son-in-law to take away the family's menorah, so her grandson will always remember his jewish origin.
Xica da Silva was a story of black and gray morality: most characters were capable of being simpathetic, and also held prejudiced beliefs and take part in cruel acts, because those were normalized by the political system, rather than a question of individual morals.
This ambiguity was also shown in the Pereiras, who were both victims of opression for being targets of antisemitism, and perpetrators of opression for participating in the widespread enslavement of black people, when owning slaves was considered prestigious and respectable.
A Muralha (2000)
In the year of 2000, during the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the portuguese squad to brazilian shores (which started the proccess of colonization), Rede Globo produced a minisseries set in the early 17th century called A Muralha (literal translation The Wall, titled The Conquest for international markets) , based on a novel written by Dinah Silveira de Queiroz, that told about the everyday life of the people who lived trough the proccess of colonization, economic exploitation and territorial expansion led by the portuguese and their descendants born here, during the period known as "Bandeiras".
The point of view which we followed those stories was primarily of the women living through that period, and one of these women was the portuguese jewish Dona Ana Cardoso (Letícia Sabatella), who arrives in Brazil to get in an arranged marriage to Dom Jerônimo Taveira (Tarcísio Meira).
Dona Ana owes a moral debt to Dom Jerônimo: he is the brother of the inquisitor who saved her father from death in Portugal. Falsely converted to Catholicism and originally resigned to her fate, Dona Ana's resignation is put into question when she is courted by the rich merchant Dom Guilherme Shetz, a libertine man who lives in harmony with nature and the Indigenous people.
The man who marries Dona Ana, Dom Jerônimo, knows how to be a scoundrel and a pretender before the authorities, but he does not respect them, and he is foolish towards the priests, but in reality he is a cruel man, who imprisons Ana on his property to satisfy his most perverse desires.
After denouncing several residents to the Inquisition for alleged heresy, Dom Jerônimo orders the arrest of those who defy his authority, including Ana and Guilherme. To everyone's astonishment, everyone is condemned to the stake. But Guilherme stabs the villain, who ends up dead in one of the fires he lit himself.
Ana and Guilherme run to live in a cabin built in the woods, and end the story living happy, expecting their first child.
Another jewish character present in the narrative was the jolly Master Davidão (Pedro Paulo Rangel): whereas Ana is more resignated, Master Davidão, while also being carefull in hiding his jewish faith, is more confident and optimistic, not letting himself be afrayed of those in power.
His joifull personality and kidness eventually win the love of Antônia Brites (Claudia Ohana), a former prostitute who came to Brazil in search of a happy marriage, and at the end, having also survived the rage of Dom Jerônimo, the two get married.
While Davidão and Ana refused to convert to Christianity, Simão (Paulo José) was an Anusin who fully embraced it years prior, having become a priest and acting as a leader of the Jesuit Order that comes to the colonies to convert the natives.
His position was in a complex middle ground: While he really believed in Christianity as the only path to salvation, he also called out those who, like Dom Jerônimo and the Inquisition, wanted to impose it trough violence, and frequented acted as a healer and confident of Dona Ana in the moments where she was enduring abuse.
Whereas Xica da Silva was more dark and dealt in black-and-gray morality, A Muralha had more heroic characters, who represented the views on the search for social progress among those who viewed religious and racial hierarchy as natural.
#judaism#jewish representation#the history side of tumblr#brazil#telenovelas#being a child in latin america
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