I don’t think most non-Jews understand how disappointed we are in the left right now. How completely abandoned we’ve become. How our contributions to progress for other groups have been erased or disavowed or hidden. How the actual tangible things that Jews have contributed to black rights and civil rights are being ignored. How we’re being told we contribute and have contributed nothing.

How we are being told that the world has been kind to us when it never has. As if my mom didn’t grow up getting called a Kike and getting beat up for being Jewish. How I thought I had friends until I caught them saying “xyz was beautiful until Jews showed up.” How people told me I was pretty “for a Jew.” How I grew up hearing stories about bombs being set off in Israel in buses and markets. How I couldn’t even go two weeks without hearing that and how nobody cared and somehow, every time that happened, the whole world became more hostile to me for some reason.

I just don’t understand. I don’t understand what leftists are doing. Or why. I hate that I have to say—of course, I support a free and self determined Palestine (which I truly do)—in order for you to decide I’m worthy of care and support.

We showed up for you. All of you. And the entire movement is abandoning us at best or targeting us at worst. Celebrating our deaths. Saying we deserved it. How are we supposed to trust you ever again? How are we supposed to feel safe ever again?

A very few select people who are in my life have taken the chance to actually learn about and dismantle their own unconscious antisemitism during this time. And I’m eternally grateful for them. But most people haven’t reached out at all. Most people are still sharing hateful things that could get me hurt and they don’t care. Most people Reblogging my posts are still Jews. Because we are alone. And it sucks. You need to be as loud about antisemitism as you are about Palestine or you’re an antisemite (unless you’re Arab/Muslim/Palestinian—I totally get that these groups are also doing damage control in their own communities just like Jews are).

But we are all in tremendous pain right now.

This moment will pass. And when it does, I will remember how many people let me down. I will remember that when I needed support more than I’ve ever needed it in my life, people fucking vanished. They pretended violence against my people wasn’t happening. They ignored and rewrote the history of Israel to suit their own narratives.

You don’t know what it feels like to be hated this much for opposite things. PoC hate us for being too white. White supremacists hate us for not being white enough. Europeans hate us for being middle eastern. Middle easterners hate us for being western/European. Everyone hates us for being settlers but continually kicks us out of their countries so that we have to settle somewhere else.

I saw a post going around from a Black person who said that the reason he and his fellow black activists go protest for Palestinians instead of fighting antisemitism (as if it’s a binary, which it’s not) is that Jews don’t show up. Muslims and Palestinians do. And honestly? Fuck that guy. Heather Heyer died standing shoulder to shoulder against racism in 2017. [CORRECTION: When I first wrote this post I was under the impression that Heather Heyer was Jewish. I want to correct to avoid spreading misinfo. She was just the first (and incorrect) Jewish civil rights activist I thought of. However there are plenty of other actual Jewish civil rights activists to choose from. If you have reblogged this post from me, please feel free to add a link to the permalink version of this post with my correction to your reblog.]I have devoted substantial time and effort and money that I don’t even get paid a lot of because I don’t get paid a living wage. I have continually reached out to PoC people in my life of all religions to ask how they are doing and what I could be doing to help more—both for them personally and how they would best like me to help their community. I have elevated their voices at every opportunity. And not one person I checked in with has done the same for me or for my community.

And it’s bone chilling. It’s awful. And it’s even worse knowing that when it’s over, people will want to go back to normal. They won’t apologize. They won’t self reflect. They’ll just live their lives, maybe a little more aware of how much they hate us and completely indifferent to the harm they’ve caused us. How disposable they made us feel. And the thing is…it’s not hard for you to know. You just have to ask.

Too many people are cowards. Too many people care about looking good than actually learning something or making the world better. And to those people: you should be ashamed of yourself.

I don’t have any hate in my heart. Truly. Not a drop for any group of people. But I have a tremendous lack of trust that anyone would actually lift a finger to keep me safe.

This is just terminology but regarding asking goyim to ID ourselves as such, may I ask if there's a specific reason you prefer that phrasing? Asking because I've previously heard that hearing someone self-describe as goyische can be a bit jarring due to Connotations from white supremacists "reclaiming" the term (scarequotes bc that's obviously not how reclamation works) so I'm wondering if you have an alternate perspective I should be taking into account or if it's just like, personal preference/not that deep.

Ah! @faggotry-enjoyer, My friend! I did not see this message from you until today! My deepest apologies!

I didn’t mean that every goy had to specifically call themselves goy. I’m just descended from Hungarian, Russian, French, and Mongolian Yiddish speakers and that’s more familiar a term to me than “gentiles.”

Personally, I’ve always found “gentiles” a little awkward as a term anyway. As I’ve stated repeatedly, goy is a fully neutral word with no positive or negative connotations. But the word “gentile” seems to have a weirdly positive connotation that I find off-putting. It seems far too close to the word “gentility” for me.

It feels like “gentile” is a person of “the gentility,” thus inherently socially, behaviorally, and aesthetically superior to non-gentiles (aka Jews). Perhaps this is just because of my relationship to Hebrew (and its use of root constructions that convey connotations in the base structure of the word) that this seems to be a term that is inherently critical of Jews in a pretty blatant way. But it always seems just…idk. Uncomfortable for me to use I guess. It feels like I’m putting myself down to elevate someone else and acknowledging their inherent superiority over me.

That said, I am in no way suggesting that this is how all Jews relate to this word. I have studied Hebrew since I was very young (I’m not a fluent speaker anymore, but I was once), and I’m a writer and love words and etymologies. It is extremely likely that I am thinking more about this than someone else would or does.

So, I say goy because it is the most neutral to me. It doesn’t convey that I’m better than a goy or that a goy is better than me.

When I said “goyim identify yourself as such,” I meant more generally, “if you’re not Jewish, please indicate that in your reblog or tags when reblogging from a Jewish person.”

And to anyone who is new to my blog, the reason I asked goyim to do this is because Jews feel very alone and hated right now and a very easy way to help us feel better is to just let us know that someone outside of our community sees and hears us. It so very often feels like we are shouting from inside a soundproof room and we can only hear and be heard by each other.

There are so very few Jews left in the world. It is simply impossible for us to survive if we advocate for ourselves alone. We need goyische voices alongside our own if we hope to be heard at all amongst those who outnumber us.

One thing about Jewish culture though, we all disagree a lot about a lot of things. Someone probably does find it offensive to self-label as a goy. Someone else probably finds it offensive to reject the idea of self-labeling as a goy.

However, by and large, I think most Jews won’t be concerned that you’re appropriating our language and culture if you are using our language to identify yourself as someone who supports our culture. Yiddish isn’t a religious language, but a cultural one. While Judaism is a closed-practice religion, Yiddish is the language of our culture in exile. It is the language we used while existing in a goyische world that was and remains hostile toward Jews.

I think, personally, that if you’re not using our language to demean us, it’s not off limits. Like, call yourself a goy! You are one! It’s not a bad thing! But, like, don’t call Jews you disagree with schmucks or something like that. And, obviously, if someone is antisemitic then I do not want them using Yiddish at all.

If someone wants to condemn our culture, then I loathe the idea of them picking out the parts they can use for their own purposes. If you reject an entire culture, you do not get access to the parts of that culture you like, imho.

So, I guess (in answer to your question) it is personal preference but is also that deep. Jewish culture is old, deep, and complex. I'd never speak for other Jews, and I'm sure plenty disagree with me on this. But I have personally never heard of a Jewish person offended that a goy calls themselves a goy. Personally, I find it endearing.