#i am jewish. my entire family is jewish. i want to see palestine free. and i have SEEN how the jewish community gets conflated with israel | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jyndor · 6 months

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im the anon you told to fuck off here to say thank you.

i had read about terrorist organizations using that slogan and i had a gut reaction. im a jew and i fear for both muslims and jews with everything that is going on right now. because i read what you wrote and i researched again and i see where propaganda got the better of me (even if those words have been used by terrorists). and i see time and time again where propaganda gets the better of most of us on something as fast paced as the internet.

as i read i remembered. the naz*s took a symbol that was once peaceful and turned it into something the world cannot look at the same way ever again-entirely their fault not the fault of the original culture from which the symbol came.

i dont want to see that happen with words that are truly important and stand for something i do believe in which to be clear: is a free and peaceful palestine where no one has to live in fear.

in saying what i did based off of a gut reaction i made a mistake. i did the same thing i hate from others on the internet which is speaking on an issue before doing further research and i am ashamed of that.

but i am also committed to learning and doing better tomorrow. no one can become an expert in any part of this as quickly as plenty have claimed to. im writing this to share my perspective and as a reminder of fallibility for whatever that is worth.

i think its important for ensuring we dont become what we wish to stand against.

thanks again for sharing your research. you told me to fuck off but ill sign off by wishing you well

anon I'm shook no okay so hold! on the fucking off pls do not fuck off I recant the fucking off. its how I handle anons (I'll explain later) until yall prove you're not trolling or bots or whatever.

it's worth a LOT. like really it's worth a lot. Unfuck off, I would love more people in my orbit who don't just critically engage with criticism but also go on to look into it for themselves. instead of just taking my or someone else's word for it. I try to do that myself because I can be such a fucknugget and sometimes need a good smack lol.

I just want to say I'm sorry that you're experiencing the fear you're experiencing. and um I have jewish cousins and family who I am scared for always, I try not to bring them up bc it feels kind of gross in this context but yeah, I don't want to invalidate your fears.

I mean what the n*zis did with that symbol is a whole other thing and I don't feel like I should speak on it other than to say fuck n*zis they ruin everything they touch. I liken this more to the way that black lives matter gets misconstrued because I know more about the history of that phrase than I do about that symbol you're talking about. I also don't like to bring up n*zism in the context of israel/palestine because actually almost every time I have seen that comparison with israel, it is a cheap shot at jewish people. Like in a youtube comments section or something, not thoughtful discourse - because tbh these are very, very different situations and the comparisons could be made of almost any other genocide, but like the commenter knows it's a painful thing for jewish people and so like I said, it's a cheap shot that's easy to take and says more about them than it does about palestinian liberation or israeli apartheid.

I know plenty of anti-zionist jewish people do actually talk about the shoah in the context of why they support palestinian rights but for me it just doesn't feel right.

and yeah i understand falling for shit - I've done it, it's easy as hell to read something and feel like it's right, like yeah I personally don't actually say from the river to the sea all that often, you won't find it as a tag on my blog because I think it's best coming from palestinians?

you're totally right - no one can possibly learn the history quickly. It's taken me 16 years to feel like I am actually relatively well versed in the history and I'm not even well versed, I'm just decently versed lol. and if you add into it the propaganda that we've all been told for years, and then the added generational trauma you have? of course it's hard to fight gut reactions because often they're somewhat based in experiences we've had or others have had.

the reason I told you as an anon to fuck off is because of my history and views towards anonymous asks more than anything else, btw. THAT is a gut reaction but it is also informed by my experiences. I hope this maybe explains why I may sometimes come off a little harsh towards anons (and why I decided to turn them off - until rebelcaptain secret santa forced me to open them back up lol).

so I used to love to keep anonymous on because I know that a lot of people don't feel comfortable reaching out for a number of reasons and I wanted to remain accessible as a user of this shithole site lol. however what happens is sometimes, a lot of times, people will just be saying anything. and then they'll say "I'm an x person and y is true" and often people getting those anons will be really well-meaning and just accept it at face value. because genuinely so many people want to be on the side of marginalized groups and want to be good allies. and so shitty people will just be saying bullshit about whatever, and people who may not understand the details of whatever situation anon is talking about will say, "oh shit I didn't realize that! Thanks for educating me!"

and often it is legit! and it's also important to remember that no group is monolithic, so if an anon comes into my ask box saying that they are from, idk let's say, venezuela. i don't know a whole lot about venezuela. I know there is a lot of propaganda and shit from the us, and I know that there are class dynamics and racial dynamics that I vaguely understand because I have a relatively okay understanding of the entire region but it's not good enough to hold up more than a little bit under any kind of actual pressure like being told something by someone who claims to be venezuelan and says that everyone is actually indigenous (which i do understand to be indigenous erasure), and so it would be more comfortable for me to just say, "okay thanks for the info, my bad!" etc etc etc which... okay but like what if they're not venezuelan? what if they are and they're actually just anti-indigenous? what if they're a right-winger or a bot or idk just wrong lol. some people can be just incorrect without it being disinformation, right? so if I post that without any pushback or skepticism, I'm now spreading misinformation that is used to harm indigenous people.

so for me, because anons necessarily get to hide their identities more than even these already relatively anonymous social media accounts do, my policy has always been to handle them with skepticism and frankly to assume the worst.

not everyone does that and also like I don't have a big following but I don't have a TINY following either so I do feel some responsibility to provide accurate information. and that's just from years of experience and not always doing that lol.

anyway sorry for being long-winded, and thank you for reading what I wrote and more importantly for not just taking what I said at face value but for doing the research yourself. that's what is most important.

#asks #answered #anonymous #palestine #antisemitism

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yautjalover · 6 months

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First off, if you’re not in the right mental state right now and are unable to handle talk of dark, triggering topics then please come back later or keep scrolling. Please take care of yourselves. The world is a dark and scary place at times and I care about the well-being of other people to warn you ahead of time. This is also for the folks who just want the comfy escape of fandom. You don’t have to engage with politics if you don’t want to, so here is this warning. ☺️

I get it. Enjoy Yautja ya’ll. ❤️

The TDLR of this post is Free Palestine and just me ranting about the media lying and my anger at injustice.

Love you guys. ❤️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve been relatively forgetful of Tumblr lately, and for good reason. My focus has been shifted on my writing and current events that are unfolding on a massive scale. I have followed the events occurring in Palestine for about ten years, rallying for their freedom from the Zionist colonial settler state.

I will in no shape ever support apartheid and genocide, nor ethnic cleansing. It’s monstrous and there’s no excuse whatsoever to justify it. There is no whataboutism, period. You can’t justify the murder and targeted attacks of civilians. I’m also thoroughly disgusted in the government, good ole USA, and the media for continuing to peddle the outright proven lies the IDF and Israel say. They’re not even being quiet about wanting to commit genocide!

If you disagree with reality, then this ain’t the blog for you!

Supporting people who have been oppressed for 75 fucking years isn’t anti-semitism—that’s the propaganda speaking and isn’t factual. Talk with real anti-Zionist Jewish people and they will agree that what’s happening is monstrous and they don’t support it. I stand in solidarity with the oppressed. I do not represent my country’s backing of this fuckshit. I have, and will continue, to defend people’s right to peace and freedom over this heinous bullshit.

I’ve cried more than I ever have seeing LITTLE KIDS digging in the rubble of their home to find their family without a tear in their eyes because what Israel is doing is NORMAL FOR THEM.

I HATE to bring real world events and politics to fandom, but it intersects with our daily lives and the world around us. I disagree with connecting the real world with fandom being a bad thing. I have LONG been an activist for justice in my personal life, and I will continue to do so. It’s who I am and I will always fight for the world to be a better place.

No, I am not “Anti-Semitic”. There is decades of research backing the evil that is being perpetrated by Israeli occupying forces.

Please take the time to do independent research and listen to Palestinian voices and Jewish people who say that this doesn’t represent Judaism. Please do not send hate to Jewish friends or people you don’t know. Please do not send hate to Palestinian or Arab friends or people you don’t know.

I grew up in Post-9/11 America and it’s all happening again. I remember it clearly. The media is doing what it does best. Pitting good well-meaning people against each other with their lies. :/ Please, please, take the time to talk and meet with people and find the humanity in one another. I beg you.

We all want the same things.

Peace and safety.

I’m horrified that my hard earned tax dollars are funding this genocide and they’re saying “we can afford it” when they can’t bother to pass Affordable Healthcare for All, actually fix this corporate greed of artificially inflating prices, they can’t bother to help our veterans who are ending their lives daily because our government turns their backs on them, they continue to harm and demonize black and indigenous people, ignore entirely the missing and murdered indigenous women and children, put literal children in fucking cages instead of stopping the destabilization of the global South (South America+), do nothing to defend our most vulnerable citizens such as LGBTQ+ kids and adults, refused to codify the right to reproductive healthcare, and expect US to pay for ANOTHER WAR that has nothing to do with our own perceived “freedom”.

I wish I could hug every person who’s suffering and solve all their problems. I, too, am struggling, more these days, we ALL are, but I sincerely hope that GOOD WILL PREVAIL.

It has to, right?

I love you guys, all you faceless folks behind your screens and stuff. We don’t personally know each other, but I see you and I hear you.

I pray for the people who are being killed in the darkness, the Congolese who are being murdered for metal that’s used in our tech, and every other person fighting for their basic right to PEACE and a fulfilled life where they are safe! Everyone deserves that! One day the world will be a better place and I hope our actions and fight for it will come true. I wish for our distant future folks to look back and see that we tried, as best as we could, and gave a shit.

If you have made it this far, thank you for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day. I wish you a cold pillow, your shower to always be the perfect temperature, the commute to be easy and traffic free, and that every good boy and girl cat and dog gives you the snuggles that you need.

Peace be upon you guys. ❤️

#yautjalover #I’ve been so emotional and for a good reason #free palestine #justice for EVERYONE #peace and love #take care of yourselves

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gvftea · 5 months

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as an israeli fan, i am disgusted by this fandom. i understand that everyone is more liberal and being pro-palestine goes hand in hand, however i am seeing posts saying “what if they came out in support of israel 🤢”

i personally know people who were murdered on october 7th, there are still hundreds of hostages being held in gaza, we can only pray to Hashem that they are alive, and even if they are not, all we want is to bring them home so that they can rest in a grave.

the “peaceful army” should know that israel wants peace, i would love for the palestinians to live in harmony with us, and if you ask any israeli, they feel the same way. all we want is PEACE. Israel is the only democracy in the middle east, seeing how half of the people here are part of the lgbt community, you would be accepted with loving arms by israel.

hamas is blocking aid, killing its own people by using them as human shields, murdering innocent israelis because they are jewish !!!!!!! in sydney at a pro-palestine march they were yelling gas the jews !!!! synagogues are being destroyed !!!! we are contemplating taking our mezuzah off (placed on the doorframe and its purpose is to bless the house) because there is someone in my area going around and threatening families. every time i enter my house i touch it so i feel connected to Hashem, not only me but my entire family and we are thinking of taking it off for our own safety, i am the granddaughter of holocaust survivors and this is exactly how it started.

all we want is to free all the hostages and to take hamas down indefinitely. we want the palestinians to come live in harmony with us, and we want to live a quiet peaceful life. the jewish people are in danger, i have to hide my star of david necklace every time i go in public, this is my faith, this is who i am.

as the “peaceful army”, who should stand for nothing but peace, it seems like everyone is doing the opposite. if you are angry at the number of dead palestinians but not angry at the number of dead and kidnapped israelis, you should rethink and do some major research before you go and spew hateful rhetoric regarding the beautiful state of Israel. 💙

עם ישראל חי !!!

#greta van fleet #gvf #josh gvf #sam gvf #jake gvf #josh kiszka #danny wagner #danny gvf #jake kiszka #sam kiskza

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unearthlydream · 6 months

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hmmmmm i just lost so much respect for the majority of my co-workers....... one of my mentors who shaped me into the professional i am today too. this shit is insane.

i had rant typed in the tags but it was dumb long and it would be better to just drop this shit here.

we are sitting in a meeting talking about the “israel gaza war” (bullshit name, it's a genocide, but continue) and this bitch has the audacity to say that Palestine doesn't exist.

talking about how fearful she is of something happening and worrying about her family and children because she is jewish.... in america....

be so fucking for real right now. YOU'RE worried about your children and family??? what about the mothers digging their babies out of rubble??? the mothers who aren't even here anymore so their children must dig themselves out. the men doing their best to help recover bodies only to uncover that of a loved one.

talking about Palestinian students having a mental health crisis amidst all of this and just.... brushing it to the side like their lives and experiences mean absolutely nothing

talking about how throwing around terms like settler is 'dangerous' and that people aren't qualified to speak on the issue...

as if the black and brown people they're referring to know nothing of apartheid. of genocide and discrimination and targeted harassment from an oppressive class of people????

and then one of my bosses opens his big white ass mouth to say "Gazans only have support on social media because they won the game

'they only have support because they played the social media game better and got to the masses first'

talking about how college aged people are the bulk of people advocating for a free Palestine. and that their age somehow makes them unintelligent or unable to see the facts at hand (which as an aside how do you work for a UNIVERSITY and feel this way about college aged kids? Making fun of them constantly as they struggle to live in this oppressive world. it's disgusting).

CONTINUALLY referring to this genocide as a war. it's not a war when only one party has a nationally backed army

fuck you AND your war. fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you

i was already thinking about quitting but i can't stay here. i can't be here.

our Palestinian students are aching. they just wanted to be acknowledged in the same way that the single Israeli student was acknowledged when the uni sent out a message on oct 8.

but that's too much. they're aggressive. FUCK YOU go to hell holy fuck

and then my one shit ass coworker who i already don't like brings up “oh well they faked the hospital bombing” “hamas did the hospital bombing” WE WORK IN THE MEDIA !!!! HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE MEDIA LITERACY????

it makes me sick. it makes me actually ill. i thought i was safe with all of these people. i thought these people were /good/ and /just/

i thought they at least had the brains to see past the blatant propaganda but they're all sipping the same shitty fucking kool aid.

the only one i like.... can kinda maybe forgive is my single jewish coworker. because i fucking get it. waking up to the fact that you've been lied to for so fucking long is HARD!! i know. i've had to do it regarding the racism and homophobia and other conservative backwash that was force fed to me

but like.... you have to do it. you have to unpack it and you have to face those uncomfortable truths and you have to stop being so SELFISH in the way you think about things.

i thought she was better than this. i thought she was better. i'm so devastated honestly.

Free Palestine. From the river to the fucking sea. There is no peace with a two state solution. They have stolen land just as all colonial powers have done before them and they are exterminating an entire culture of people.

and if you're scared of giving sovereignty back to Palestinians... unpack that. Why are you scared??? are you afraid that they'll treat you the same ruthless, cruel way you treated them?

And even if they do. Who do you have to blame?

it's crazy to support Islamophobia out of a fear for antisemitism.

Free Palestine. Shout it from the rooftops. Call your representatives. Every day more and more people will die and it's all of our burden to bear if we do nothing but sit by and watch.

#personal

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sylvielauffeydottir · 3 years

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Hello, it is I, your friendly neighborhood historian. I am ready to lose followers for this post, but I have two masters degrees in history and one of my focuses has been middle eastern area studies. Furthermore, I’ve been tired of watching the world be reduced to pithy little infographics, and I believe there is no point to my education if I don’t put it to good use. Finally, I am ethnically Asheknazi Jewish. This does not color my opinion in this post — I am in support of either a one or two state solution for Israel and Palestine, depending on the factors determined by the Palestinian Authority, and the Israeli Government does not speak for me. I hate Netanyahu. A lot. With that said, my family was slaughtered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I have stood in front of that memorial wall at the Holocaust memorial in DC for my great uncle Simon and my great uncle Louis and cried as I lit a candle. Louis was a rabbi, and he preached mitzvot and tolerance. He died anyway.

There’s a great many things I want to say about what is happening in the Middle East right now, but let’s start with some facts.

In early May, there were talks of a coalition government that might have put together (among other parties, the Knesset is absolutely gigantic and usually has about 11-13 political parties at once) the Yesh Atid, a center-left party, and the United Arab List, a Palestinian party. For the first time, Palestinians would have been members of the Israeli government in their own right. And what happened, all of the sudden? A war broke out. A war that, amazingly, seemed to shield Benjamin Netanyahu from criminal prosecution, despite the fact that he has been under investigation for corruption for some time now and the only thing that is stopping a real investigation is the fact that he is Prime Minister.

Funny how that happened.

There’s a second thing people ought to know, and it is about Hamas. I’ve found it really disturbing to see people defending Hamas on a world stage because, whether or not people want to believe it, Hamas is a terrorist organization. I’m sorry, but it is. Those are the facts. I’m not being a right wing extremist or even a Republican or whatever else or want to lob at me here. I’m a liberal historian with some facts. They are a terrorist organization, and they don’t care if their people die.

Here’s what you need to know:

There are two governments for the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza. In April 2021, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas postponed planned elections. He said it was because of a dispute amid Israeli-annexed East Jerusalum. He is 85 years old, and his Fatah Party is losing power to Hamas. Everyone knows that. Palestinians know that.

Here’s the thing about Hamas: they might be terrorists, but aren’t idiots. They understand that they have a frustrated population filled with people who have been brutalized by their neighbors. And they also understand that Israel has something called the iron dome defense system, which means that if you throw a rocket at it, it probably won’t kill anyone (though there have been people in Israel who died, including Holocaust survivors). Israel will, however, retaliate, and when they do, they will kill Palestinian civilians. On a world stage, this looks horrible. The death toll, because Palestinians don’t have the same defense system, is always skewed. Should the Israeli government do that? No. It’s morally repugnant. It’s wrong. It’s unfair. It’s hurting people without the capability to defend themselves. But is Hamas counting on them to for the propaganda? Yeah. Absolutely. They’re literally willing to kill their other people for it.

You know why this works for Hamas? They know that Israel will respond anyway, despite the moral concerns. And if you’re curious why, you can read some books on the matter (Six Days of War by Michael Oren; The Yom Kippur War by Abraham Rabinovich; Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergmen; Antisemitism by Deborah Lipstadt; and Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis). The TL;DR, if you aren’t interested in homework, is that Israel believes they have no choice but to defend themselves against what they consider ‘hostile powers.’ And it’s almost entirely to do with the Holocaust. It’s a little David v Goliath. It is, dare I say, complicated.

I’m barely scratching the surface here.

(We won’t get into this in this post, though if you want to DM me for details, it might be worth knowing that Iran funds Hamas and basically supplies them with all of their weapons, and part of the reason the United States has been so reluctant to engage with this conflict is that Iran is currently in Vienna trying to restore its nuclear deal with western powers. The USA cannot afford to piss off Iran right now, and therefore cannot afford to aggravative Hamas and also needs to rely on Israel to destroy Irani nuclear facilities if the deal goes south. So, you know, there is that).

There are some people who will tell you that criticism of the Israel government is antisemitic. They are almost entirely members of the right wing, evangelical community, and they don’t speak for the Jewish community. The majority of Jewish people and Jewish Americans in particular are criticizing the Israeli government right now. The majority of Jewish people in the diaspora and in Israel support Palestinian rights and are speaking out about it. And actually, when they talk about it, they are putting themselves in great danger to do so. Because it really isn’t safe to be visibly Jewish right now. People may not want to listen to Jews when they speak about antisemitism or may want to believe that antisemitism ‘isn’t real’ because ‘the Holocaust is over’ but that is absolutely untrue. In 2019, antisemitic hate crimes in the United States reached a high we have never seen before. I remember that, because I was living in London, and I was super scared for my family at the time. Since then, that number has increased by nearly 400% in the last ten days. If you don’t believe me, have some articles about it (one, two, three, four, and five, to name a few).

I live in New York City, where a man was beaten in Time Square while attending a Free Palestine rally and wearing a kippah. I’m sorry, but being visibly Jewish near a pro-Palestine rally? That was enough to have a bunch of people just start beating on him? I made a previous post detailing how there are Jews being attacked all over the world, and there is a very good timeline of recent hate crimes against Jews that you can find right here. These are Jews, by the way, who have nothing to do with Israel or Palestine. They are Americans or Europeans or Canadians who are living their lives. In some cases, they are at pro-Palestine rallies and they are trying to help, but they just look visibly Jewish. God Forbid we are the wrong ethnicity for your rally, even if we agree.

This is really serious. There are people calling for the death of all Jews. There are people calling for another Holocaust.

There are 14 million Jews in the world. 14 million. Of 7.6 billion. And you think it isn’t a problem the way people treat us?

Anyway (aside from, you know, compassion), why does this matter? This matters because stuff like this deters Jews who want to be part of the pro-Palestine movement because they are literally scared for their safety. I said this before, and I will say it again: Zionism was, historically speaking, a very unpopular opinion. It was only widespread antisemitic violence (you know, the Holocaust) that made Jews believe there was a necessity for a Jewish state. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that I supported it the abstract idea too.

I grew up in New York City, I am a liberal Jew, and I believe in the rights of marginalized and oppressed people to self-determine worldwide. Growing up, I also fit the profile of what many scholars describe as the self hating Jew, because I believed that, in order to justify myself in American liberal society, I had to hate Israel, and I had to be anti-Zionist by default, even if I didn’t always understand what ‘Zionism’ meant in abstract. Well, I am 27 years old now with two masters degrees in history, and here is what Zionism means to me: I hate the Israeli government. They do not speak for me. But I am not anti-Zionist. I believe in the necessity for a Jewish state — a state where all Jews are welcome, regardless of their background, regardless of their nationality.

There needs to be a place where Jews, an ethnic minority who are unwelcome in nearly every state in the world, have a place where they are free from persecution — a place where they feel protected. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that place being the place where Jews are ethnically indigenous to. Because believe it or not, whether it is inconvenient, Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. I’ve addressed this in this post.

With that said, that doesn’t mean you can kick the Palestinian people out. They are also indigenous to that land, which is addressed in the same post, if you don’t trust me.

What is incredible to me is that Zionism is defined, by the Oxford English Dixtionary, as “A movement [that called originally for] the reestablishment of a Jewish nationhood in Palestine, and [since 1948] the development of the State of Israel.” Whether we agree with this or not, there were early disagreements about the location of a ‘Jewish state,’ and some, like Maurice de Hirsch, believed it ought to be located in South America, for example. Others believed it should be located in Africa. The point is that the original plans for the Jewish state were about safety. The plan changed because Jews wanted to return to their homeland, the largest project of decolonization and indigenous reclamation ever to be undertaken by an indigenous group. Whether you want to hear that or not, it is true. Read a book or two. Then you might know what I mean.

When people say this is a complicated issue, they aren’t being facetious. They aren’t trying to obfuscate the point. They often aren’t even trying to defend the Israeli government, because I certainly am not — I think they are abhorrent. But there is no future in the Middle East if the Israelis and Palestinians don’t form a state that has an equal right of return and recognizes both of their indigenousness, and that will never happen if people can’t stop throwing vitriolic rhetoric around. Is the Israeli Government bad? Yes. Are Israeli citizens bad? Largely, no. They want to defend their families, and they want to defend their people. This is basically the same as the fact that Palestinian people aren’t bad, though Hamas often is. And for the love of god, stop defending terrorist organizations. Just stop. They kill their own people for their own power and for their own benefit.

And yes, one more time, the Israeli government is so, so, so wrong. But god, think about your words, and think about how you are enabling Nazis. The rhetoric the left is using is hurting Jews. I am afraid to leave my house. I’m afraid to identify as Jewish on tumblr. I’m afraid for my family, afraid for my friends. People I know are afraid for me.

It’s 2021. I am not my great uncle. I cried for him, but I shouldn’t have to die like him.

Words have consequences. Language has consequences. And genuinely, I do not think everyone is a bad person, so think about what you are putting into the world, because you’d be surprised how often you are doing a Nazi a favor or two.

Is that really what you want? To do a Nazi a favor or two? I don’t think that you do. I hope you don’t, at least.

That’s all. You know, five thousand words later. But uh, think a little. Please.

#jumblr #free palestine #zionism #gaza #signal boost #antisemitism #jew tag

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nickyhemmick · 3 years

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A Very Stressed American Jew here again,

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to respond to my ask and yes, I’m someone who loves hearing as many perspectives as possible so I’d love some sources from you. I also very much appreciate the fact you are being very careful to only reblog posts that are anti Israel, not antisemetic (which is frankly a breath of fresh air, the internet has been a bit exhaustingly full of both antisemitic & Islamaphobic content these past feel days as I bet you’ve seen)

I’ve also been to Israel on a Birthright trip. We met people who ( both Palestinian and Israeli) on various sides of the conflict and learned a ton about it, from both perspectives which I was lucky to have the opportunity to do. We even went a little into the Gaza Strip to talk to these people running a pro Palestine peace movement and it was so important to me hearing those stories.

I never said they were on equal footing militarily, they definitely are not, Israel definitely has that advantage. But you are incorrect about Israel always being the aggressor since 1948,they’ve defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Isreal is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack.

I 100% agree that there are too many people who are compliant with the mistreatment of many Palestinians! I’m not anti #freepalestine at all! I get why that is a thing. But I also stand with Israel( but that does not mean I condone every action they take. ) Overall I think the situation is extremely complicated and some sort of compromise should be reached.

It’s just been very frustrating to see so many people reblog things on a situation just bashing Israel because so many others are doing it. Especially when then don’t know what they are talking about or using big buzz words that they don’t know what they mean, or spreading misinformation. It’s been on both sides and has been very very draining. I just want peace and some sort of solution. It makes me extremely happy you know what you are talking about and can debate politely yet happily about it. The internet has been so ‘ either agree with me 100% or you a bad person’ about this so it’s refreshing to see you are not like that.

I’ve done a lot of research into it from as many perspectives as I can get my hands on.

Some extremest Israelis are hurting Palestinians

Some extremest Palestinians are hurting Israelis

Both sides are throwing rockets at each other and it’s terrifying.

Both sides claim the other side is brainwashed

There is so much biased propaganda out there on both ends it’s hard to know what is truly happening.

I know people living in Israel who have sent me videos they’ve taken of rockets flying over there heads and I’m so scared for them. I’m so scared for all the innocent people caught in the crossfire on both sides.

Thank you for a more nuanced response and I’d love some of your sources,

A Very Stressed American Jew

Hi anon,

I wasn’t going to respond to this until after my math final tomorrow but I’ve spent the past two days thinking of your ask and the things I wish to articulate in my answer.

I am going to start here: how can you say you support Israel but say you are also pro-free Palestine (as in, you said you are not anti free Palestine). In my opinion, these two ideas cannot coexist. Simply because, the entire establishment of Israel has been on violent, racist, colonial grounds.

(Super long post under here guys)

You said you don’t support all Israel’s actions, and definitely, just because you support something doesn’t mean you can’t criticize it. However, in my opinion, if you do not support Israel’s actions against Palestinians there’s not much left to support? I admit this is a very biased view as I am Palestinian, but many things that people support about Israel have existed before its creation: as in, these are things and qualities that have existed in Judaism and are not due to “Israeli culture.” There is no Israeli culture. There’s Jewish culture--100%. But there is no Israeli culture, because Israel does not only steal Palestinian land, but Palestinian culture, too. Such as claiming Levant food is Israeli; hummus, ful, falafel, shawarma. I mentioned food from this article I know is culturally and traditionally of the Levant, and has been for centuries, it is not something that has come to culinary creation in the past 73 years.

I do not think this is a complicated issue. I said that in the previous ask and I’ll say that again. Saying it is a complicated issue is trivializing the deaths of innocent Palestinians, the violent dispossession our ancestors endured, and the apartheid they live under. I hope if anything comes from this discussion it is you removing the “it’s a complicated issue” phrase from your vernacular.

This is not complicated. A journalist reporting the death of martyrs only to discover that of them include two of his brothers is not complicated. The asymmetry of Israel vs Palestinian armed forces is not complicated, nor is the asymmetry in Israeli vs Palestinian suffering (which I will get to later). It is not complicated. Destroying the graves of martyred Palestinians (or just in general, the graves of the dead) is not complicated. Little children being pulled from the rubble, children being forced to comfort one another as they are covered in the ashes of their decimated homes, attacking unarmed citizens in peaceful demonstrations (you can find videos before this attack where they were playing with kites and balloons), destroying an international media office and refusing to allow journalists to retrieve the work they are spending every waking hour documenting but claiming it was because it was a hide out for a “Hamas base,” fathers who are trying to cheer their frightened children up only to end up dead the next day, while many Israeli have the privilege and the option to go to hotel-like bomb shelters is not complicated.

This brings me to my next point: the suffering of Palestinians cannot be compared to the inconvenience of Israeli’s. On one side, you have children who are happy to have saved their fish in the face of their homes and lives being decimated behind them to Israeli’s in Tel Aviv having to cut their beach day short to get to bomb shelters. You have mothers and fathers ready to set their lives down for their children to save them from bombs to Israeli’s enjoying their brunch only after making sure there are bomb shelters there. You have Palestinian children being murdered to blocking out the sound of sirens in the safety of your bomb shelters. (The first picture of the Palestinian child is not from footage of the recent problems). You have the baby lone survivor of a whole family recovered from rubble. His whole family, gone, before he ever had the chance to realize that he even exists, while Israeli’s decide to flee out of the country,(Translate the caption from Twitter, it checks out), or have to leave the shower due to sirens. Who is really suffering?

I won’t sit here and pretend like the thought of rockets flying over my head, no matter which side I am on, is not terrifying. It is. It’s scary to just think about. But Israeli’s have protection beyond Palestinian’s, they have sirens to warn them (Israel does not always warn Palestinian building members that it is about to be bombed), they have the Iron Dome, they have simply the threat of nuclear power (which I am not saying Israel would use, but the simple fact they have it would make me feel a lot better if I were an Israeli citizen) and they have bomb shelters. What do Palestinians have? Hamas? That smuggles its weapons through the ocean? That only ever reacts to the action Israel instigates? And yet Gazans are branded terrorists and that it is their fault that they “elected” a terrorist organization that only was ever created due to no protection from any armed country? (There are so many links I want to add in this paragraph but it is simply impossible for me to add everything I want, a lot of what I’m referring to can either be found through a Google search, or you can stalk my Twitter account, all that I am posting now is about Palestine, and will include sources of things I cannot add in just this one post.)

Look, I see myself in the genocide happening in Palestine right now. I see myself in this ten year-old girl. In this three year old girl. I see me and my family in videos of cars being attacked in Ramallah and Sheikh Jarrah (I cannot find the Ramallah video, should be somewhere on my Twitter), I see my father in the countless videos of fathers crying out for their children, of kissing the corpse of their loved ones (again, translate the Tweet, the man holding the body is saying “just one kiss”). I see my grandfather in videos like this (old footage). I see my younger brother, I see my grandmother, my mother, my aunts and uncles and cousins. I see myself and my life and my family were my father not lucky enough to get a scholarship to the UK and out of Palestine, were my maternal grandfather not been lucky enough to make it to a refugee camp and build a life in Jordan. I have an unbelievable amount of privilege to be born into the life I was born in to, in terms of I do not have the threat of bombs and violent dispossession around me, and I do not even live in the US. I have privilege and sheer luck that my parents were able to go to the US so that me and my brothers can be born, because now I have both the protection of the most powerful country in the world while at the same time being part of a people to have suffered so generously the past seventy-three years.

On the other hand, you saying that Israel has “defended themselves about as often as they’ve attacked. Israel is a small country comparatively to the ones surrounding it, so it makes sense it defends itself heavily in case of an attack,” I offer you this question: why are they using military grade guns and stun grenades in mosques to “defend” themselves from rocks? And before you mention that Hamas hit Tel Aviv, I remind you that Hamas did that due to the violence in the Al-Aqsa mosque square and the attempted ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah. The violence didn’t begin with us; the violence was brought out of Palestinians in resistance to the generations of oppression we have endured and the attack on Palestinian Muslims during the holiest night of Ramadan. Hamas has since asked for a ceasefire multiple times and Israel is refusing. New reports say there is a possibility of a ceasefire in the coming days, but Israel could have decided this a long time ago and spared many lives. (Remember, no matter what resistance we make, Israel is the one in power).

Israel has been the aggressor since 1948. Just read up about the Nakba! 700k Palestinian families were dispossessed violently. The only reason Israel was established at all was because it simply declared it was now a country and the US and many other countries recognized it as such. (Of course, there are many other historical details here, like the British Mandate of Palestine, the Balfour Declaration, the Oslo Accords and many others. I am aware of them but these are for a different post all together). My paternal grandfather was a little younger than me when Israel as a state was created. The hostility that followed was due to this independent declaration being listened to over Palestinian voices.

Here is a very, very simplified analogy, one that can also answer some people’s questions as to why Palestinians (not Arabs, we are Palestinian before we are Arab) did not like what happened in 1948 and why they refused a two-state solution (that Israel was never going to go through with anyway). (I am also aware other Arab nations got involved, and that is perhaps what you mean when you said they had to defend themselves, but my response to that would still be we didn't start it, that we only responded to it).

Let’s say you are a farmer. You have many fields of trees, ones you have taken shelter under from the sun since you were a child, or hid behind when you wanted to avoid your parents when you misbehaved. You have seen your trees grow from a seed, to a sprout, to a flower, to a large, beautiful tree with fruits the size of a fist. You pluck the fruits from one tree, and make a jam from it. I don’t know how to make jam but I know it takes a lot of energy. So, you make this jam and from it, produce a lovely, mouth-watering pie. Once it has cooled from the oven, you take it with you outside your balcony just so that you can admire the years, months, weeks and hours this one pie has taken to be created. Suddenly, a stranger walks past and yells to you, “That pie looks delicious, I want it!” And you, shocked at their boldness but ready to share, say, “I will give you a bite.” But the stranger says, “No! I do not want a bite or a slice or whatever you want to offer me, I want the pie!” And they grab it from you. You and the stranger start screaming at one another about who the pie is for, who is allowed to decide what happens to it, and who you can share it with. Then, another stranger comes by and says, “Why all the problems? Let’s cut the pie in half and the both of you can share it!” But why should you, who has spent years cultivating the fruit and grain inside this pie, share it? Why should you give up half of the 100% that you already owned? Of what you already had? So you disagree, and now a crowd has formed around you. “What’s the problem?” someone in the crowd calls. “They don’t want to share their pie!” another voice says. Then you become branded a selfish, mean bastard. Again, this is a super simplified analogy, so don’t take it too seriously, but I am trying to show you why Israel is the aggressor.

In addition, I do not know too much about the Birthright program, just that American Jewish people are sent to Israel, all expenses paid. I tried my best to find the Twitter thread but I read it so long ago, about an American Jewish person who went on their trip and they talked about the propaganda that they were exposed to on that trip. I can’t say for sure that it is true, because I haven’t been on it and never will, but that is the first thing I thought of when you mentioned your Birthright trip. Either way, I think it is still great you went and saw the country. However, I must ask you this: are the people you met ones you, yourself, sought out, or ones you were organized to meet?

Now, I haven’t been to Gaza, so I don’t know what you really saw or didn’t, but did you speak to Palestinians who lost their homes to airstrikes? Did you speak to siblings, parents or children of loved ones who had been lost beneath the rubble of buildings and towers? Outside of Gaza, did you speak to Palestinians that live in poor quarters? Ones who have been victims of an IDF soldier shooting them, or who have family members who have died from such attacks? Did they take you guys to Ramallah, to Nablus, to Beit-Imreen, to Jenin, to small villages in the West Bank, far away from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv? Did you speak to people there? Ask them their stories? Because if you did I have a very hard time believing you still think Israel is “defending” itself.

I’ve been to Jerusalem, many times, even Tel Aviv and Jaffa and Haifa. All the times I visited Dome of the Rock there were IDF soldiers with huge guns strapped to their person, standing menacingly outside the courtyard. For what? Genuinely, genuinely for what? It is nothing but an intimidation tactic. The same way we are not allowed in through the airport. If you could see the struggle some Palestinians actually go through just to get into Palestine, through the land border, you would be disgusted. I love Palestine, it is my ancestry land, it is my culture and tradition. But I always hated going to visit because I knew the way to getting there would be hell.

My father worked in Tel Aviv through the first Intifada. My maternal grandfather was forced out of his home in the Nakba and was forced to leave behind his belongings and the orange trees that have been in his family for generations. Hell, the town they lived in was destroyed! It doesn’t exist anymore except in the memories of my aunts and uncles, who never even saw it, but just heard of it from their father!

I’m not saying there aren’t Palestinians who are racist and anti-Semitic (though, tbh, I will direct you here for that) and who support Hamas in killing Israeli’s, but talking about how there are many “extremist” Palestinians who are hurting Israeli’s and in the next line say there are extremist Israeli’s who are hurting Palestinians is not correct. There are extremist Israeli’s killing, lynching, stealing the houses of Palestinians, and there are Palestinians who are fed up and fighting back. (I am not talking about Hamas vs the IDF here, I am talking about the citizens). I have not seen one reported death of an Israeli due to Palestinian violence (if you have, from a trusted source, send it to me), but I have seen countless of the other way around. I have seen images of charred little bodies, of a baby being dug out of the rubble, of a child’s body that had been so mutilated that you can literally see the insides of their body coming out. (I don’t know if it’s on my Twitter, I didn’t want to save that shit). If this was my country I would be absolutely ashamed of myself and my people and what they are doing in the name of my protection. So you have to forgive me, and forgive other Palestinians, who don’t give a fuck about Israeli’s having anxiety over rockets flying over their heads when we see these images. Where is the protection of our kids? Why does no one seem to mention them except when mentioning the poor, innocent ones in Israel? At least more than the majority of them have their parents to comfort and rock them. At least many of them will probably be saved of ever having to be beneath the rubble of a destroyed building, or digging in it, to hope to find the parts of their parents or siblings just so that they can bury them. Just the links from the start of my answer is enough to support what I am saying.

I have soooo much more I can say, like how Israel uses religion to distort the image of what’s going on (tbh, just check my Twitter for that: language is EVERYTHING), but you didn’t mention religion in any of this and so I won’t either. The only reason I decided to respond to you in such length was because you have been one of the few respectful anons in my inbox in the past few years of me being on here talking about Israel, so I appreciate that from you.

As promised, some more sources: decolonizepalestine is a good place to start if you haven’t used it already, it has reading materials, myth busting, and more. Here is a map list of destroyed localities from pre-1948 until 2017, run by two anti-Zionist Israelis. Here and here are the articles I promised of a former IDF soldier-turned Palestinian activist, I read these two last year in June and remember coming out much more informed than before I read them. I suggest looking into the writer and his organization, which, if I remember correctly, collects accounts from previous IDF soldiers. I would suggest not to follow Israel and the IDF accounts on any platform, or any Israel times newspaper, simply because they will not tell you the truth. In fairness, you do not have to follow any Palestinian Authority accounts (which I am not even sure there are), but to follow on-ground Palestinians like Mohammed El-Kurd, who has been speaking out since he was 12 (he is now 22) and he is part of the families in Sheikh Jarrah. I have noticed that this and this account have been translating Arabic headlines and tweets for non-Arabic speakers, I have just started following this person but their bio says they are a Palestinian Jewish person so I am interested in their view of things. You can also follow Israeli’s on-ground and see their perspective on things, but I would also advise to compare the Palestinian and Israeli side of things from the people, and critically analyze the language used in each case. Also, this article references Jewish scholars opposed to the occupation (I have not looked into them myself but I plan to after my exams), and Norman Finklestein is another great Jewish scholar to look into if you haven’t. Twitter is better than Instagram and Facebook, so I would stick to getting live-info from there, Twitter does not censor Palestinian content as much as Insta and Facebook so you’re more likely to see things there.

I will end this by saying I personally do not see any other option for peace than to give Palestinians our land back. Whether we may be Muslim, Jewish or Christian, it has always been and will always be our land. I only hope to see it free in my lifetime.

Free Palestine.

#palestine #israel #west bank #tala gets asks #anon #whew this ask took me like 2-3 hours to respond to #pls read it even if ure not the anon #lots of good links and info #palestine tag #anon there are more reading lists in my #to read #and palestine tag tags #check my likes on twitter too if u decide btw not just what i retweet #like also: imagine palestinians around palestine and the world who are simply waiting to hear if their relatives are dead or alive or #have been striked from a rocket. like i can see my father worried abt his friend in gaza rn like any day #now he can just never hear back from him and have to guess hes dead somewhere beneath the rubble #and israelis are anxious at the rocket sounds? good for them but again that shows the asymmetry in #palestinian vs israeli suffering #and by ‘good for them’ i mean good that thats what theyre worried abt compared to palestinians #my aunt is in sheikh jarrah #my cousin lives right by the al aqsa square #again theres so much more i couldve mentioned and talked abt but theres just so much #theres so many LAYERS i wld say but not that its complicated #and definitely theres more i need to learn and read and watch dont get me wrong! i am not a fountain of knowledge by all means!!!!

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ruminativerabbi · 3 years

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Vulnerability

Vulnerability has a bad rep in our world. In fact, what we all long for is precisely the opposite: to feel invulnerable, impervious to incoming danger, safe and secure not only when we hide under our beds in the dark of night but when we are out and about in the world. But we—speaking of society as a whole but also of us ourselves as individuals—we may have moved a bit quickly in that regard and not sufficiently thoughtfully. Being paralyzed with fear about dangers that are highly unlikely to come our way—that kind of vulnerability is definitely something negative that all who can should avoid. But owning up to the vulnerability that inheres in the human condition itself is in a different category entirely. As this last pandemic year has taught us all too well, it is only a sign of maturity and self-awareness to own up to the degree to which we can fall prey to a virus so tiny that you’d need an electron microscope to see it at all and to behave accordingly. And waving away that danger as fake news because you don’t choose to acknowledge your own vulnerability is not a sign of courage or valor, but of lunacy born of a witch’s brew of foolishness, naiveté, and arrogance.

As I prepared myself for surgery last week, I was feeling exceedingly vulnerable. I lay in bed at night talking to my heart, asking why it wasn’t just doing its thing properly on its own, why it was intent on betraying me after all these years of me not burdening it by smoking cigarettes or consuming huge quantities of trans fat. Didn’t I deserve better? I certainly thought I did! But now that the whole procedure is behind me and I’m feeling healthy and fortunate to live in an age of miracles (and if having a non-functioning valve in your heart replaced without them having to open your chest and then being sent home the next day to recuperate doesn’t qualify as a miracle, then what would?)—now that all that is behind me, I see that intense vulnerability that I was feeling in the days leading up to last Thursday in a much less negative light. Yes, there are people who live in terror of an asteroid colliding with the Earth. (For NASA’s own statement about the likelihood of that happening, click here. We’re apparently good for at least the next couple of centuries.) But that’s not the kind of slightly obsessive vulnerability I want to promote as healthy and sane, but rather the kind that speaks not to fantasy but to reality. To the fact that our hearts are not made of steel and that our bones really do crack quite easily. To the fact that, despite all we do to suggest that the opposite is true, we are mortal beings lucky to be gifted with a few score years to wander the earth, to do whatever good we can, to leave behind some sort of legacy for our descendants to contemplate positively once we ourselves are no longer around to be contemplated in person. Feeling vulnerable because the human condition is vulnerability itself—that isn’t craziness or obsessivity, just an honest appraisal of how things are in this world we all share for as long as we do.

These were the thoughts I had in mind as I read the report in the paper the other day about people coming to shul last Shabbat on 16th Avenue in Boro Park last week only to be greeted by men gathered in front of the synagogue screaming “Kill the Jews” and “Free Palestine.” Which kind of vulnerable did those people feel, I wonder—the silly kind (because there weren’t that many hooligans in front of the synagogue, because the cops showed up almost instantly, because the bad guys didn’t actually have guns with them or bombs, and because they fled the scene once they realized how completely outnumbered they were about to become) or the wise kind rooted in a fully rational appraisal of how things are in this world we share with so many who seem to feel entirely justified in their bigotry and prejudice and who appear mostly to have no problem putting both on full display for all to admire? (For an account of the Boro Park incident, click here.) I’m hardly an alarmist who sees a pogrom around every corner. But, of course, it’s hardly an example of alarmism to be alarmed when truly alarming things happen. Maybe I’ve read too many books about Germany in the 1930s. Or maybe not.

We have entered into a new stage, a dangerous and upsetting one. At first, the stories appeared random. A twenty-nine-year-old man wearing a kippah was beat up in Times Square as he tried to make his way to a pro-Israel rally. Then, a day or two later, a group of thugs wearing keffiyehs invaded a restaurant on 40th Street and started spitting on patrons they suspected of being Jewish. Next we heard about people being attacked in the Diamond District on 47th Street, where it isn’t ever hard to come across some Jewish businesspeople or shoppers. Two days later we were back in Times Square, this time watching footage of a Jewish man being knocked to the ground and beaten in front of the TKTS buttke where they used to sell last-minute tickets to unsold-out Broadway shows when the theaters were open. Nor is this just a New York thing: the police in L.A. are currently investigating an attack on outside diners at a Japanese restaurant as an anti-Semitic hate crime that occurred the same day that a family of four was terrorized in Bal Harbour, Florida, by a group of men threatening to rape the wife and daughter and yelling “Die Jews” and “Free Palestine” at them. I could go on. There have been similar incidents in New Jersey, Illinois, Utah, Arizona, and several other states. And although I’m focused here mostly on American incidents, the rise in this kind of hate crime is not specifically an American phenomenon: we’ve read of similar, even worse, incidents just lately in London, in Germany, and in Italy.

The question is how to respond, not whether we should. The fantasy that complaining only makes things worse needs to be laid to rest permanently and irrevocably. (The Jewish community could learn a good lesson in that regard from Black America, where it was once also imagined that responding publicly to racism would only make things worse. It’s hard to imagine any Black citizens putting that argument forth today, yet I hear it from Jewish Americans regularly.) Nor can we allow ourselves the luxury of imagining that this dramatic uptick in anti-Jewish violence is “about” Israel. Israel’s recent war with Hamas was, in my opinion, entirely justified. I can see how people might feel otherwise, and even strongly so. But I know too much history—and specifically too much Jewish history—to indulge in the fantasy that anti-Semitism is “about” anything other than the hatred of Jewish people, Judaism, and Jewishness itself. No matter how many shows an actor appears in, he’s the same person under all of the costumes he gets paid to wear on stage.

I myself have lived a blessed life. Born just eight and a half years after the Nazis were murdering up to twelve thousand people a day at Auschwitz, I have hardly ever encountered real anti-Semitism directed directly at me personally. (And I speak as someone who spent several years living in Germany in the 1980s.) Nonetheless, sensitivity to anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence is the hallmark of my Jewishness, the foundation upon which my eager willingness to live my life as a public, fully-identified, and unambiguously-identifiable Jewish person rests. And that is why I am disinclined to wave away the latest series of anti-Semitic incidents in New York and elsewhere as a random set of creepy one-time events—nor would anyone describe that way who has ever read a book about the history of anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism. For people eager to dine at my table, I recommend Walter Laqueurs’s The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day as your appetizer, Léon Poliakov’s four-volume History of Anti-Semitism as your main course with a side serving of David Nirenberg’s Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition. For dessert, I recommend Deborah Lipstadt’s Antisemitism: Here and Now. I can promise you that you won’t be hungry when you’re done.

There have been encouraging signs too, of course. President Biden has spoken out sharply and strongly against the uptick in anti-Semitic incidents, calling them despicable and condemning them unequivocally as “hateful behavior.” We have heard similarly supportive rhetoric from Governor Cuomo, Mayor Di Blasio, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand. So that’s good. But will any of the actual sonim out to harm Jews hold back because of a presidential tweet or a senatorial press release? On the other hand, there were seventeen thousand tweets disseminated by Twitter last week that contained some version of the words “Hitler was right.” Just wait until they find out that the President considers them despicable!

I don’t mean to sound unhappy that supportive, unambiguous language denouncing anti-Semitism has emanated from the highest offices in the land. Just to the contrary, I am thrilled that our leadership has spoken out so boldly and clearly. But I also don’t imagine it will matter until it is deemed just as unacceptable to speak disparagingly about Jews in public as it is—at least in all places that decent people gather and live—to espouse hate-fueled violence against Black people or Asian-Americans, or any other American minority. And that will take—at least in some quarters—a sea change of attitude that can only be accomplished through the kind of ongoing educative process capable of moving society forward. How to do that, I’m not sure. But I am sure that that is the challenge the new normal has laid at our feet. And I am as sure about that as I am that these recent incidents, for all they come dressed up as part of the Israeli-Palestinian controversy, have nothing at all to do with Middle Eastern politics and everything to do with the unique place anti-Jewishness continues to occupy in Western culture as the one remaining version of bigotry to which otherwise normal and nice people can still openly subscribe without suffering much for their views. Or at all.

#anti-semitism #anti-Judaism #anti-Jewishness

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asmakahf · 3 years

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Shortest , Simplest Makeup Tutorial

All of us have heard jokes about women taking hours to put on makeup, jokes about wash her face and you will see a different person or taking a shot at a good-looking woman by telling her to remove her 1 kg makeup! No matter how derogatory it may sound there is truth in those jokes.

I came to know about it after seeing several women who literally look like a different person without makeup. The difference is so clear that you can't identify them. My personal experience with makeup goes back to my childhood when I wanted to follow an older cousin who was known to look perfect in marriage functions. She lived far away so we only got to meet at family gatherings so I hadn't seen her without make-up. Then they stayed with us on one occasion and I saw her without makeup! she looked nothing like what she looked in functions. My whole impression of her was changed. She was wearing a sort of mask, a mask that she thought was better than her real face. In that instance, I decided am never wearing that mask. I thought do I want someone to change their impression of me from good to O O in few seconds? I also noticed her and other women on social media today, their entire body language, confidence level and demeanor depends on and changes with makeup. I just wonder why don't these women look at men, how free they are.

Time changes but men don't. The way they conduct themselves is pretty much unchanged since centuries and we women have changed for worse.

Looking good doesn't mean making your face a canvas. A canvas has no face, it needs to change to look attractive, it has no individuality and it has no meaning without brush and paint. if you observe women who do artistic makeup, their no-makeup face goes from normal to dry to dehydrated to worn out. Then they have an identity crisis and extreme anxiety when any amount of makeup doesn't give them the look they desire or once had. What follows is nonstop spending on expensive and painful beauty treatments that have to be repeated monthly/yearly.

We also have celebrities and influencers who look the same with or without makeup. Ladies ask them how can you look so beautiful without any makeup and the answer is those are the women who don't do artistic makeup! that's the reason they look pretty much the same at home or functions! So ladies and Gentlemen stop going into things that are temporary, don't give anything fruitful and demand hard work and money and take away your natural beauty and more money.

If anyone has to like YOU, he/she should like your morning face. Your face is you, the Mirror of your personality. Your whole life depends on who likes you and you alone, without any accessory or foundation or lip color. The most important thing is your health, physically and mentally. your facial skin is much more thinner and sensitive than the rest of your body. To take care of it the lesser you touch the better. Less is more. Wearing masks makes your mood into a pendulum and results in impressions on people that can change any time and so will their feelings and rapport.

We made feminism which was supposed to be about us into a concept that's about men(what will attract them or compete with them in their areas) and a concept that keeps adding to our pressures-the pressure to look slim, the pressure to Have enhanced/sharp facial features, the pressure to glow and look good. With each pressure, a product is introduced and soon it becomes a part of our life. These products should be in the trash but women have gone to extremes to be able to buy them! Smart men use women to earn money from them through products that make women attractive in the eyes of men! These products turn women into a product that's cheaper than those products!

Marketing of these products gave rise to female-oriented careers that further pressurize women!

Nothing wrong with using day creams and a little powder that gets cleaned with a normal face wash. We must concentrate on skin care. Real skincare is dead cheap, easy, and everlasting.

Let's stop wearing mask-like Zionist govt which shows off a city like tel aviv and if you go deeper you see the real face - Palestine, where idf carries most brutal mass harassment, illegal detentions, official kidnapping of infants, kids, and senior citizens. West wears the makeup of human rights protection and snatches those very rights as per convenience.

isreali govt wears make-up of being Jews protectors while filling young Jewish minds with poison and hatred and denying them rights to live a normal life. As we speak idf is illegally taking away traditional family homes from Palestinians with full support from the USA, Europe, and now 4 Arab countries that gave a new wave of confidence to idf by saying we no more have any problem with the Israeli govt thereby acknowledging that the basic rights of Palestinians never deserved attention and when they did have a problem they had it in vain!

No amount of makeup can make them look good.

Antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, allegations of terrorism on innocent people asking for rights/justice/equality/freedom- are all forms of artistic makeup done by evil forces, touch up is done regularly by media AND boosted by Social media owners.

#social anxiety #makeup #beauttiful girls #palestine #skincare products #wrinkles #botox #social media

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schraubd · 5 years

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Collected Thoughts on Excluding Omar and Tlaib

I've got another kidney stone. It struck on Monday, and then I felt pain Tuesday, Wednesday, and today. Thursday was my only pain-free day this week, and I have to assume that was the universe balancing the scales and recognizing that the Israeli government's truly terrible decision to exclude Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) from the country was plenty enough aggravation on its own. I went on a pretty vigorous tweet storm all through yesterday. Below I bullet point most of what I expressed on that site (which, as you may know, I've taken "private"), but my main takeaway is this: There's no serious case that either Congresswoman present a security threat to Israel (I've seen some people insinuate that they might incite a riot at the Temple Mount which -- I'm not sure I can physically roll my eyes hard enough). In practice, the "risk" Omar and Tlaib present is simply that they will hear mean things about Israel and then say their own mean things about Israel. That's the locus of the complaint about the "balance" of the trip; that's the locus of the accusation that they merely want to rabble-rouse. What people are concerned about is they will go to the West Bank, hear people saying mean things about Israel, and repeat those mean things back to American audiences. But -- and I mean this in all earnestness -- so what? So what if that's what happens? To be clear: I don't think Omar and Tlaib were coming just to say mean things about Israel. But even if they were -- there's no security threat. The state will survive (how pathetic would it be if it crumbled?). It'd be speech. It'd be discourse. That's the price of living in a liberal, free society. Sometimes people say mean things about you. Sometimes those mean things are unfair. Sometimes those mean things are entirely fair. Whatever. It comes with the territory (pun initially not intended, but I'll own it now). It's not a valid basis for a travel ban. It used to be that Israel was emphatic that "come see us and you'll think better of us". Now Israel is terrified that if people come see them--at least, see them unchaperoned, without a constant guiding hand ensuring they see only the choice parts--they'll think of worse of them. That's the sign of a society in decay. To be sure, I think Omar and Tlaib probably would come away from their visit with a rather grim appraisal of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. But then, there's ample basis to appraise that treatment grimly--there's no inherent foul there. People can come to the West Bank and be honestly appalled by what they see. Only police states confuse "people saying mean things" with security threats. A free society can survive--and perhaps even learn from--critics giving it grim appraisals. People talk a huge game about how Omar and Tlaib could "learn" from their trip to Israel and Palestine -- and no doubt they could. But the flip side is that Israel, too, can learn from the testimony of Palestinians laboring under occupation, and from efforts to bring that testimony to the fore. It is wrong -- not to mention insulting -- to treat discourse about Israel/Palestine as if it were a one-way street, where wise, omniscient Israeli/Jewish teachers dribble knowledge onto benighted, ignorant Muslims and Arabs. Below is a recap of my other collected thoughts on the matter (many but not all of which were on Twitter):

This was a terrible and unjustified decision. Let's lead off with that and give it its own bullet point all to itself.

There is no reason to think that this decision was "what Omar and Tlaib wanted" since it made Israel look authoritarian and repressive. That is projection, to avoid speaking the more uncomfortable conclusion that "Omar and Tlaib might have had a point" in suggesting Israel acts in an authoritarian and repressive fashion.

I neither think this decision was solely Trump's doing -- Israel "caving" to his pressure -- nor do I think he played no role in the decision. I think he successfully convinced Netanyahu to do something that he already kind of wanted to do in the first place, even knowing it probably was a bad idea. Trump was like the frat boy friend egging his buddy into doing another shot flight. That Bibi was probably dimly aware it wasn't the wisest decision in the world doesn't mean that he wasn't ultimately fulfilling his own desires. Ultimately, this was a decision of Israel's right-wing government and they deserve to take the full brunt of punishment for it.

I understand why everyone is calling this "counterproductive" from Israel, since it will undoubtedly give a huge boost to the BDS movement. But, as I wrote in the Lara Alqasem case, that really depends on what Israel is trying to "produce". In many ways, Bibi benefits from an ascendant BDS movement, just as they benefit from him; and he likewise benefits from a world divided between conservatives who love everything he does and liberals who loathe him. So the fact that this decision puts wind in the sails of BDS, while further lashing Israel to a purely right-wing mast and alienating it from erstwhile progressive allies, is not necessarily a miscalculation -- it's the intended and desired effect.

On that note, remember the other day when 21 Israeli MKs wrote to Congress and said that a two-state solution was "more dangerous" than BDS? Well, if you ever wanted an example of what it looks like to trade "increased BDS support" for "kneecapping two-state solution support", this was it (even though Tlaib isn't a two-stater -- Omar is -- this act was aimed like a laser at the most prominent base of support for two-stateism in America: that is, Democrats).

On the other hand, shouldn't these right-wing Israelis be more excited to welcome Tlaib than most other Congresspeople? After all, she opposes the "dangerous" two-state solution! Oh wait, I forgot: in her one-state world, everyone gets to vote. That won't do at all, will it?

I love Emma Goldberg description of how Israel will slide away from liberal democracy via Hemingway's description of how he went bankrupt: "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." And by love, I mean it gives me a sick feeling of recognition in my stomach.

Justifying the ban on the grounds that Omar and Tlaib's visit wasn't "balanced" because they weren't meeting with Israeli or Palestinian government figures, only NGOs, and these are bad NGOs -- spare me. To tell visiting U.S. politicians "you can come, but only if you speak with the 'right' people/visit the 'right' sites/speak the 'correct' words" sounds like something you'd hear from the North Korean embassy. Omar and Tlaib should be entitled to visit with whomever they want to visit, and come to whatever conclusions they end up coming to. If those conclusions are unfair, we should trust the ability to defeat them with more speech, not enforced silence. But again: we can't conflate "unfair" with "critical". It's entirely feasible that a fair-minded individual hearing testimony from West Bank Palestinians will come to a sharply critical conclusion.

Some of the attacks on the NGOs Omar and Tlaib were scheduled to meet with are the usual chad gadya (has a leader who's linked to a group which kicked the dog ....) nonsense, but there are some groups with some genuinely bad history. I've consequently seen people suggest that we need to also hold Omar and Tlaib accountable for their part in this fiasco for meeting with members of those groups. Fair enough: I'm happy to hold them accountable, weighted and prioritized in proportion to their relative culpability. In keeping with that metric, I might get around to returning to criticizing their draft itinerary sometime in 2035.

Fine, one more thing on the itinerary: Am I correct in reading it as taking Omar and Tlaib either solely or primarily to the West Bank and East Jerusalem? If so, it's entirely understandable why they'd refer to those locales as "Palestine".

Rep. Tlaib initially applied for a humanitarian waiver to visit her family, which was approved, but then she backed out given the conditions the Israeli government was going to impose on the visit (basically, not engaging in "boycott activities"). The usual suspects are crowing: she cares less about her family than she does about boycotting! I say (a) Rep. Tlaib is well within her rights to not prostrate herself to the dictates of a foreign government seeking to humiliate her, and (b) what about the past few days gives anyone the confidence in the Israeli government's ability to fairly adjudge what qualifies as a "boycott activity"?

The argument that Israel, as a sovereign state, has a "right" to exclude whomever it wants substitutes a juridical argument for an ethical (and practical) one. Sovereign states are formally empowered to do all sorts of terrible and/or stupid things. This was one of them. Hearing nominal anti-BDS folks make this claim -- which could as easily be applied to "universities and academics have the right to collaborate (or not) with whomever they want to" is probably causing another kidney stone to develop as we speak.

The other thing is that Israel is proving itself completely incapable of exercising this "right" in a reasonable manner that distinguishes between genuine threats to national security and unhappiness that people sometimes come to Israel and then say mean things. One of the reasons we liberals seek to limit unchecked government power is precisely because of the suspicion that it won't be exercised responsibly or non-arbitrarily.

Of course, the fact that Israel also exercises the practical authority to exclude people not just from Israel-proper, but the West Bank as well, gives lie to the notion that Palestinians even conceptually could have their right to self-determination vindicated solely by voting in PA elections.

Silver lining: pretty much the entirety of the American Jewish establishment -- AIPAC, AJC, ADL, J Street, Simon Wiesenthal Center -- came out against this decision. Huzzah for that.

Tarnish on even that silver lining: the Conference of President's weak-sauce statement on the matter. "Many of the organizations expressed disagreement with the government’s decision", but "Ultimately, the government of Israel made its assessment of the countervailing arguments and acted upon their conclusion." Really, that's what you're giving us? It's amazing how the Conference doesn't care about the "consensus" of the Jewish community when that consensus is a progressive one.

When a prominent member of or institution associated with an outgroup does something awful, it is natural for members of that outgroup to feel acutely vulnerable. In part, that's because they know that this awfulness will be wielded against them; in part, that's because frequently they have feelings for or connections to the target person and institution, and it is painful to see them act in such a terrible fashion. Of course, that feeling of vulnerability needn't and shouldn't be the primary story as compared to those directly victimized by the awful behavior. But it is not per se wrong, or "centering", to acknowledge and validate the existence of the sentiment; nor is such an acknowledgment necessarily one that stands in competition with recognizing the direct damage of the instigating act.

The next time a Democrat occupies the Oval Office, I have to wonder what sort of penance is going to be demanded from the Israeli government for years upon years of insult and humiliation. It's not going to be back to as it was before. It's not even going to back as it was in the Obama administration. Democrats will -- rightfully -- insist that Israel pay a price for what it's been doing these past four (if not twelve) years. The flipside of recognizing the importance of preserving Israel as a bipartisan issue is that Israel aligning itself fully and completely with the Republican Party is going to come at a cost. It will be interesting to consider what that cost will be.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2ZcVv85

#Ilhan Omar #Israel #Palestine #Rashida Tlaib

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palestinianliberator · 7 years

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koshersexfantasy

so making Aliyah during Birthright isn’t smart bc I already paid the housing deposit and (by that time) the tuition for next year. I might as well stay here until next summer BUT then my parents will have “wasted” money for tuition for me SO I might as well wait until after I graduate, which is the smartest option? I think bc then I’ll have a degree in government and international relations, which I’m hoping will help me land a job there even tho it’s another country. Also if I make Aliyah now I have 24 months of IDF service (which I am totally fine with) and it gets smaller as I age, which I’m also fine with but I was thinking that if I join the IDF I’ll have more of a chance of landing a job, I believe… I’m trying to work all this out without telling my family members and most of my friends bc if I tell my family, they’ll get pissed bc they’ll see it as me wasting my career and most of my friends hate Israel (well one does and the rest are tired of hearing her bitch at me about it) and also I’m pretty sure my bf wouldn’t support my decision So while I’m in Israel I’m going to talk about it with my Israeli family and see what they think (my uncle married a woman who made Aliyah around my age) so then I’ll be able to get more info and I’ll probably talk to some recruiters while I’m there I also don’t want to deal with the social media backlash of moving to another country bc ppl are going to ask why and there’s so many reasons but one of the main ones is “the antisemitism and blatant Christian normativity/ superiority complex here gets on my nerves” and I feel like that’s not an acceptable answer you know, and then also people already hold me accountable for literally everything israel does once they find out I’m Israeli and I don’t want that to be multiplied by ten I’m still seriously considering making Aliyah though

palestinianliberator

Funny that “…blatant Christian normativity/superiority complex here gets on my nerves” while the Israeli superiority complex and erasure of Palestinian culture and identity doesn’t~

I’d comment on the irony but oh well

koshersexfantasy

Funny that 1-you thought my post was an open invitation to comment on, when it wasn’t 2- Your comment is coming off as “The Jewish normative culture in the state famously labeled as the Jewish State is annoying and Palestinian culture is being erased even though I know you didn’t say anything about the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.” So I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but the demographics of the State of Israel is very diverse. One fifth of Israelis are not raised in Jewish homes, and that does not account for those who identify as non-religious. Israel pays money to help institute Sharia courts, sends aid to imams and other Islamic institutions, and there’s the case in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, there is the Muslim Quarter (which is the bigger piece of Jerusalem and much bigger than the Jewish Quarter), the Jewish Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter. As someone who has been there during Ramadan, I can certify that all Muslim holidays are respected and observances are allowed for- sometimes even state-wide (look at the markets on Fridays, for example). Also, I’m not sure if the Palestinians you are referring to are in the West Bank or in Gaza. Israel left Gaza in 2005 and instead of instituting any sort of functional government, Hamas took over and uses Gaza as a rocket launch center, committing many human rights abuses. Israel sends aid and supplies to Gaza while providing health care for those injured in the crossfire for free. If you’re referring to the West Bank, I’d focus on the schools that the PA provides, which recently denied UNWRA funding because, in order to get the funding, the schools would have to stop teaching suicide terrorism and terrorism in general as something to be glorified. So if a culture that glorifies suicide terrorism, car ramming, and stabbing random people is being quashed, I don’t see why you’re fighting for it, as that would effectively state that you support state-sanctioned terror and terrorism in general. You could also look at the recent arrest of a cancer patient coming out of Gaza who had tried to smuggle in explosives. If the culture you want to preserve preaches sick people, women, or children smuggling explosives, I think that says a lot more about you than it does me.

(I’m making the post like this because the moron blocked me after spouting complete lies....typical)

Your post is full of bullshit and was tagged with Palestine, so yeah I couldn’t care less about you not extending me a personal invitation to comment on it. It’s typical for Israelis to leave Palestinians out of the conversation anyways.

And you can interpret it as you wish, but the fact remains that Israel is only in the place that it is through the ethnic cleansing and slaughter of Palestinians during its founding, as well as the ongoing apartheid & settler colonialism that sees our homes destroyed and our land stolen.

The irony here is hilarious to me because you speak of how you’ve been to Jerusalem during Ramadan...whereas despite the fact that both my parents were born in Jerusalem, none of our family is allowed to set foot there without sneaking in [which isn’t too difficult given how inept Israeli soldiers tend to be].

Your claim about the PA and terrorism taught in schools is nothing but a backwards, racist lie. For starters, the part about funding being denied is just entirely untrue and I don’t even know where you pulled that from. Second, as someone who went to school in the West Bank [where we learned about the holocaust and were taught in religion class about all major religions and that to kill anyone in the name of religion is the ultimate sin and spent our time writing letters to pen-pals around the world], /no/ textbooks me or my family ever used had any ounce of what you claim they have in them. Furthermore, a freaking US State Department study concluded that Palestinian textbooks feature no “incitement against Jews” or “promotion of terror”, but again, I wouldn’t expect someone so in love and brainwashed by Israel to accept facts, or even the word of someone who has lived through what you’re trying to speak about.

I won’t even comment on your blatantly racist remarks about Palestinian culture, as they are both untrue and seeped in such great amounts of your typical racist Israeli dogma that I’d have better luck arguing with a literal pile of shit.

#Palestine #Israel #koshersexfantasy

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jordanrosenburg · 7 years

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My Week in Israel

Most students go home to work, catch up with friends and family, and relax over their winter breaks from college. I did all of those things, but not every student has a chance to go over seas on a free trip. I am Jewish, and therefore I have the birthright to visit my homeland of Israel.

In October 2016, my older sister and I began our application process with URJ Kesher, and in November it was confirmed that we were accepted to go on our birthright trip.

DAY ONE:

We flew out of JFK International Airport on Sunday, January 15th at 10:50 pm, and landed in Israel at 4 pm. Thirty-two Americans waited for their tour-guide. We were also greeted by Israeli soldiers, who I initially thought would be with us for extra protection. This was not the case.

The eight Israelis were there to experience birthright with us. They each got a week off from the army to go on this journey with us. A lot of people have preconceived notions about what Israel is like. I felt completely safe the whole time. We had a security guard with us the whole time, and he was one of the nicest people I have ever met. There aren’t bombs going off every second, and there aren’t military people walking the streets with guns. In fact, if you didn’t know that Israel was in a controversial area of the world, you would think it was one of the most peaceful places on Earth.

The weather was gorgeous the entire time, or at least I thought so. I am originally from Boston, so going from 20 degree weather to 60 degree weather made it feel like Spring time. This was cold for the Israelis, and for some of the Americans who were from down south/the west.

The first three days were jam packed. We had a lot to cover in seven days. The first night we did a lot of stuff to get to know one another, that I was expecting.

DAY TWO:

The next morning we were up early, and we wouldn’t be returning to a hotel until two days later. The food for breakfast was interesting. There was pasta with sauce, different kinds of salads, fish, dessert, and much more. They had eggs and cereal and toast as well. I will say that everything I ate tasted totally fresh and delicious.

After breakfast, we hopped on the bus, and headed to the old city of Jerusalem.

I was literally walking on history, thousand year old ruins were before me. We were able to see King David’s temple, and walk where our ancestors walked. Our tour guide was absolutely incredible. He would explain the history of where we were, and then connect it to why it is important today, and explain why we tell these stories.

We walked a little further, and we found ourselves at the Western Wall.

This was an extremely emotional experience for me. I wrote a personal note, and was able to put it in the wall. I touched the wall and really felt the energy run through my body. I felt truly blessed to be at one of the holiest sights in the world.

Then we got a lunch break. We got to walk around for a bit, and I tried falafel for the first time. It was absolutely delicious. After that, we took a two hour bus ride out to the desert. We stayed with the Bedouin people and experienced their hospitality.

The first thing we did there was ride camels.

Riding a camel is an odd experience. I don’t like roller coasters, and the way the camel had to get up off the ground scared me a little. I was only on it for twenty minutes, but at least I can say I rode a camel in the desert.

Later that night, we got to meditate under the stars with no light pollution. I’ve never seen a more beautiful sky. After that we ate a Moroccan style dinner and it was so delicious. Eating real pita in the Middle East is oddly satisfying.

After dinner, we played a bunch of games that the Israelis had to come up with for us. We played a name game, they taught us Israeli slang, and a couple other games that had some meaning behind them. When the games were done, we all sat behind a fire, talked, and played some music. It was a great way for us to get to know each other even better. We had to be up at 5am the next day, so I called it a night around 11. We all slept in this big tent on these little mattresses. We were given sleeping bags as well. I was smart enough to take a sleeping pill, so once I fell asleep, I stayed knocked out until my alarm went off. It was very cold in the tent, and a lot of people did not sleep well.

DAY THREE:

I remember hearing a lot of different alarms go off that morning. My sister, who slept next to me, stayed sound asleep. I gave her a little nudge and I told her it was time to get up.

We were up so early because we would taking a hike up to Masada to watch the sunrise. The actual hike up was only about twenty minutes. It was a little bit of a struggle for me, but I felt really good once I made it to the top. It was a little cloudy, but we all still saw the sun rise together.

Masada is an extremely important place for the Jewish people. It was where King Herod built his home. It was where the Jews tried to fight off the Romans. It was one of the few times in history that the Jews really fought back, using their brawn instead of brain. After our tour guide explained all of that to us, we took a group picture:

Then we walked around the ruins and got to see a lot of really cool architecture. We walked through King Herod’s actual bathhouse. which he based off of a Roman bathhouse. It was cool to see how he lived.

Walking and seeing the desert was incredible. It looked like a much larger version of the grand canyon. It looked like it could go on forever.

It was time to hike back down the mountain to go get a much deserved breakfast. But this would not be twenty minutes like before. Instead, we took a snake trail back down which took over an hour. The rocks were really rubbly so of course I slipped and fell right on my knee. I didn’t get seriously hurt, but it was sore for the next couple of days. Luckily one of my friends was walking next to me, and he helped me up, and made sure I didn’t slip all the way down the mountain. I heard my sister yell a little further up, “Are you okay?!”, and I yelled back, “Yes! Be careful!!”.

We ate breakfast at a hostel/resort and it was absolutely incredible. This time they had fried eggs on toast and potato filled pastries. There was still dessert and salad stuff, so that really must be the culture.

After breakfast we had some time to rest up on the bus, we were headed for the Dead Sea. When we got there, we stopped at a factory. This factory makes organic creams, gels, washes, etc all from the natural minerals, clays, and water found at the Dead Sea. So we each bought a little something before driving down to the private beach.

Here’s what you do at the Dead Sea: you rub the clay all over you that you find in the shallow part of the water (it helps make your skin soft and smooth), and then you go in the water. They have rules there, however, no swimming on your stomach and no splashing. Why? Because there is so much salt in the water that it would burn your eyes and if you drank like a cup of it, you would die. Magic happens when you lay on your back though. You float. Any person can float in the Dead Sea due to all of the salt. We were all laughing and freaking out, because a lot of us don’t usually float in water.

We had a long bus ride back to Jerusalem. I could not wait to take a real shower. I rinsed off at the bathhouse at the beach, but the Dead Sea leaves you feeling a little slimy. So we all took our showers, changed our clothes, and headed down for dinner. This consisted of more pasta, salad, and bread.

DAY FOUR:

This was the toughest day of all. We got up early, had breakfast and packed all of our stuff up. Then we had a political discussion as a group. We talked about Israel and Palestine and what the fight was really over. I won’t get into everything that was discussed, but I have a much better understanding of both sides of the conflict now.

All of the Israelis had to be dressed in their uniforms this day. We were going to Mount Herzl which is a large, beautiful cemetery where important leaders and veterans are berried. When we got there, our tour guide asked us what Americans do on Memorial Day. A lot of them said they party and get drunk. I sat there with another girl, disgusted. She saw that I kept shaking my head, and she asked me if I had any family in the military, and I said yes, but that wasn’t why I was so disgusted. For the Israelis, their Memorial Day isn’t about celebration, it’s actually quite somber. Since everyone in Israel has to join the army, that means they probably had a family member or close friend die in the war. Back here in America, if you don’t know someone personally, you probably have a friend of a friend of a friend. The Israelis use their Memorial Day as another day to grieve and mourn, not drink and party and have cook outs. We also talked about how in America, Memorial Day is commercialized, and that also makes me sick. Stores have big super sales because they know everyone has the day off. That’s not what our people died for, in my opinion.

After we discussed all of that, our tour guide explained who Herzl was, and why he was so important. He was the first big leader of the Zionist movement, so his grave is at the top of the mountain, and his children are berried right next to him. Our tour guide took us to where a lot of the presidents and prime ministers of Israel were berried and their importance. Then we went to the veterans part of the cemetery. I felt something strong in the pit of my stomach.

The last time I was at a veterans cemetery was over the summer, in Sarasota, Florida. My papa passed away, and it was, and still is, extremely hard for me. So being back in such a sacred, beautiful place, put those awful memories back in my head.

Before we walked to the graves, our security guard wanted to read us a story that he translated for us. It was about a man named Jon, and how Jon would never get to do basically anything again. This got to me. I cried the whole time he read the story. All I could think of was my papa. No, he was not a young man who died in battle. He lived through his time in the service, and lived a long, happy life. But, he would never get to meet my boyfriend, he would never get to see me get married (some day), he wouldn’t get to come to my college graduation. Even though I feel his spirit with me, and I know he’s watching over me, I would obviously still rather him be physically here. I would give anything to hold his hand one last time.

After our security guard finished, I asked a friend for a tissue, and ran over to my sister. I gave her hand a squeeze, and kept walking. All of the Israelis had a story to tell that day, each one of them more heart-wrenching than the last. We all cried that morning. Out of respect of where we were, I did not take any pictures, but believe me when I tell you, it is absolutely breath-taking.

We took a break from the heavy stuff, and got to walk around a market place in the new city of Jerusalem for lunch. One of the Israeli girls took a few of us to her favorite pasta place. You could choose from a list of pastas, sauces, and whatever you wanted in it. It was a very delicious, and filling lunch. It reminded me of something I would eat in America, and it almost made me feel a little better. Plus it was nice to have a break from my usual lunch, falafel and pita/hummus.

Walking around the market place gave me some perspective, and I’ve been telling this story to everyone because my ignorance, in this moment, was pretty funny. So, my sister and one of our new friends and I were walking, and we walked by a wine and cheese shop, so I say, “Oh my gosh! Look, they have a wine and cheese store here?! We have those! That is so crazy.” And behind me I hear one of the Israeli boys laughing, and I turn around and say, “Wow, that must’ve sounded stupid, of course you have stuff like that here.” And he said, “Yeah, and the best part is, you can even buy stuff with actual money, you don’t even have to trade your camel.” This made all of us laugh, so for the rest of the trip, that was our joke. Anytime we saw something we have back in America, we would joke about it with him. And he would say something funny like “Yeah, we actually have things here, it’s not just desert people.” But it really was funny because they don’t teach us how modern everything is there. It kind of looks like Florida or New York, depending on the area that you are in.

Play time was over after lunch, our next stop was the Holocaust Museum, once again, I did not take any pictures out of respect. Every inch of this place had some sort of significance. The architecture of the inside of the museum had significance. The woman who explained everything to us did a fantastic job as well. Everything she talked about, I had basically already learned, but there were a lot of small details that I had never learned that she brought up. There were also a lot of screens set up so you could listen to survivor stories.

I’m not going to discuss everything I saw at the museum because I just can’t do a lot of it justice, but I want to talk about the room they have at the end. At the end of the tour there is a big dome shaped room. When you look up, there are pictures of those who died. And around you are shelves of black books filled with 4 million people’s names. These are the recorded people who died in the Holocaust. There are also empty shelves for the other 2 million people they don’t have the names of. This room is chilling, and should remind us: NEVER AGAIN.

I didn’t think the day would get much heavier, but I was wrong. That night we all learned about this database that if you swab your cheeks, you can be matched with another Jewish person, and you can either give them your blood or your stem cells. A woman who had leukemia spoke about how she matched with someone from a birthright trip, and it saved her life. So I swabbed my cheeks, and now I’m in the database. This was my mitzvah for the trip.

After having such a heavy day, we were able to have a little dance party in one of the rooms in the hostel we were staying in. It was a lot of fun. We were all able to unwind after a somber day. It also gave me time to talk more to the Israelis about their every day life. One of them told me he was self conscious about his English. Let me tell you, all of the Israelis were very easy to understand, and their English was incredible. He said the hardest part was understanding some of our slang, and when we were being sarcastic due to our tones. I loved listening to them talk about their lives and the way they grew up.

DAY FIVE:

This was one of the first days we did not have to be up super early, and I was grateful for the extra sleep. However, my throat started feeling sore, and I ended up having an awful head cold for the next three days.

At this point and for the rest of trip, we would be in Tel A’viv. After breakfast, and a brief history lesson from a university professor (he gave an in depth lecture about how/why the Middle East got divided up the way it did) we got on the bus, and headed to a place called Jaffa (a town right outside Tel A’viv).

As you can see, it was a gorgeous day out. We got to walk around there for a little bit, these pictures are actually at a historical sight. We were sitting and standing on thousand year old steps!

Then we got to go to this giant market place in Tel A’viv. The girl in the picture above stuck with me (after I asked her to be my shopping buddy) and she helped me haggle in hebrew. We had a nice lunch together and I got her perspective on what it’s like to grow up in Israel and deal with what they deal with everyday. I had such a wonderful day with her, and it was one of my highlights from the trip.

That night, we all got together to do Shabbat. I grew up going to a conservative temple where the Cantor would chant the prayers from the torah. This trip, however, was reform, not conservative, which means we had a reform Shabbat. The only difference really is that the prayers are sang to a different tune played by a guitar. It was sort of tough for me because I knew all of the prayers, but I kept getting tripped up by the different tunes. This was also another time that I cried on this trip. During the service you say a prayer if you are mourning someone, and the minute the woman who was studying to be a rabbi spoke up about this, I began thinking of my papa. He was my nannie’s second husband, but was around ten years before I was born, so he’s always been my grandfather. He was catholic, so when he left us, we had a catholic ceremony for him, I never got to pray for him in hebrew. I looked over, and saw that my sister was crying, so I went over to her in the middle of the prayer, and we held each other and we cried. I didn’t care that people were looking at us, we needed each other. Later on, one of the Israeli boys told me that was a very beautiful and powerful moment, and he enjoyed watching us comfort each other. I was happy to know us getting emotional didn’t weird anyone out like I thought. That moment gave me a little bit of closure, getting to pray for him the way I knew how.

You’re not really supposed to do much on Shabbat, so after dinner, we all hung out and played games and listened to music. We also had a mini talent show which was very entertaining to watch. Since I wasn’t feeling well, I went up to bed after hanging out for only a little while. I also spent most of the time talking to my boyfriend on the phone when I could have been a little more social, but with the time difference I took any chance I could to hear his voice.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

DAY SIX:

Another morning we got to sleep in a little late. I even slept through breakfast. This was the worst day of my head cold, I did not want to get out of bed, but I did. We concluded our Shabbat service, and by the time we did that, we went down to lunch, and I made sure to have some orange juice.

This was a very chill day. We went for a walk, and saw a couple more sights, and we got a chance to grab some ice cream which I had been craving. Everyone was really excited for the night to come. We’d be going to a dinner and then to a night club. So everyone got dressed up.

We broke off into groups when it came to dinner time, some people got sushi, some people got pizza, and of course my group just had to go to a hummus and pita place where I ate falafel for the fifteenth time, but it was still fun.

We were told to meet at a corner so we could all get into the club together, and of course we had to take another group picture.

This is one of my favorite pictures of a few of us, I can’t really explain why, but I just love it.

The club was so cool! One of the Israelis set it up for us, he knew the owner so we got these wristbands, and anytime we ordered a drink we would get a free shot with it. We even got the whole upstairs pretty much to ourselves. They played really awesome music too. Lots of killer throwbacks and stuff from now. They even played the “Friends” theme song and we all freaked out.

Did you really go to the club if you didn’t take some selfies to document it?

We had to leave a little after midnight which was sort of lame because we were all having such a great time. A lot of people stayed up late that night, but of course, I still wasn’t feeling well, so I socialized for like twenty minutes when we got back, and then I went to bed.

DAY SEVEN:

We got up early, it was the last day of the trip. The week flew by insanely fast, and even though we were trying to have fun throughout the day, the sadness of having to leave kept creeping into the backs of our heads.

We got to walk around Tel A’viv a little more, back near Jaffa. We got to walk closer by the water, and the view was just beautiful.

Then we went to a farmer’s market, where I got a very fresh fruit smoothie. My friends went to get more falafel and I just couldn’t do it. One of the Israelis went with me to get the smoothie, he also wasn’t feeling the falafel.

After lunch, we got to go to this really cool building where the CEO of birthright was, and we got to learn about a lot of the technology that was invented in Israel, they are super advanced over there!

When we were done with all of that, we went back to the hostel for the last time. We sat in one big circle, and the CEO of birthright sat with us. We went over all of the stuff we did throughout the week, and then we had to fill out a couple of surveys. Our last task was to go around and talk about our expectations of the trip, and our highlights of the trip. I talked about how it was such a good surprise to see how safe and normal everything was there. It was also a good surprise to see that the Israelis were silly just like us. At the end of the day, their still young and trying to have as much fun as possible like the rest of us. They aren’t these overly serious military people like I thought. My highlight was when my sister and I came together at the Shabbat service, and of course I cried when I brought that up, and I remember there was an Israeli sitting between my sister and I. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a little squeeze, and my sister and I held hands. I truly felt like we were all one big family.

Our last meal was burgers and fries, super American. The goodbye at the airport was bittersweet. This was where the Israelis had to leave us. Once again, I cried. I wish I had had more time with them. They were all so wonderful and I really wanted to keep getting to know them. I became friends with all of them on Facebook, but that didn’t make me feel much better.

We got our boarding passes, walked through the airport, and got on our plane back to America. After we had all gotten through customs, we had another goodbye. A bunch of Americans sharing tearful goodbyes after such an important journey. We were all friends on Facebook, and some were even already talking about setting up a reunion. This was such an amazing group of people and I’ll never forget any of them.

My sister and I made a quick pit stop to change, and then we went to find our dad, who was waiting for us. We ran to him and we hugged, and after being on an 11 hour flight, we now had a four hour car ride from New York to Boston.

POST TRIP THOUGHTS:

I am so incredibly glad that I went on this trip. I am also thankful birthright offers seven day trips, they used only offer ten day trips. I was happy to return home, but at the same time, I wish I was still there. I would love to go back some day. My new Israeli friends said we could call them anytime if we returned and they would tell us where to stay and where to go. Being able to go on this trip that was basically free was so worth while, and life changing. It made me think about a lot of things in my personal life and the world around me. I’ve always been proud of being Jewish, and I always thought I was a good Jew. Being able to be with only Jewish people was nice for a change. I go to a college in New Hampshire, so there aren’t a ton of Jewish people around. This trip reaffirmed that my heritage is a good one. I wouldn’t be who I am now if I wasn’t Jewish. The stories of my people are important, not that I ever thought they weren’t. But hearing those stories in basically the same places they happened, being immersed in that history is something I will never forget. I’ll go back to Israel again some day. Being able to take this journey with my older sister was also something I am grateful for. We aren’t super close, but now we have this. We shared this trip with one another, and that’s really important to me. I don’t think I would have been able to do this without her. Being able to grab her hand, or lean on her when I needed to meant more to me than she’ll know.

For those of you who are Jewish, and are of age for a birthright trip, I strongly suggest you go. Just do it. Fill out the application. You won’t regret it.

#israel #birthright #go kesher #urj kesher #masada #tel aviv #jaffa #jewish #jerusalem #the western wall #market place #trip #journey

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babbushka · 3 years

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hey!! i know that you’re jewish and i was wondering what your opinion on the israel-palestine conflict was? i’m sorry for bringing politics to this probable safe place for some, but i’m really passionate on hearing about jewish and muslim opinions on the conflict. a lot of my jewish mutuals tell me that opposing israel is anti-semetic, and that being pro palestine is wrong and that i should be ashamed of my beliefs (as a pro palestine muslim myself), but i just wanted to know your opinion since you are a jewish creator whose opinions i hold as valuable! is it really anti-semetic to be anti-israel, and is it bad that i am a pro palestinian woman?

hope this isnt too dark or deep! im just really passionate and would love to hear your opinion!

xoxo!!

Hello! I have a very long answer to this, which I'll put underneath the cut so that anyone who wants to read why your other Jewish mutuals might say that it's antisemitic to oppose Israel, and the long complicated history of it all, but if you don't want to read the super long version, here's my TLDR:

I personally am extremely against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. I don't believe it is a "conflict," but rather an imperialist attack on Palestinian lives by the Israeli government. I believe we need to put political pressure on the Israeli government by means of putting political pressure on the United States' government, who supplies them with weapons and $$ to continue their occupation. And I wholly, completely, and proudly support my Muslim brothers and sisters, as well as the Arab-Jewish population living in Jerusalem.

(a much longer and deeper explanation under the cut for those who are interested)

One of the reasons why this is such a touchy topic for many Jewish people (whether they're pro-Israel or anti-Israel) is because the Jewish community across the globe has been raised to believe that Israel is our first, last, and sometimes only place of safety. The Jewish population of the world belongs to something called the Diaspora, which is the word used to describe a large population who have been forcibly removed en masse from their home country. Many African-Americans are also part of their own Diaspora, as a result from slavery.

But unlike the African-American Diaspora, Jewish people have throughout history been either forcibly removed from their homelands, enslaved, or executed en masse for being Jewish, for thousands of years. And for much of our history, it felt as though there was nowhere for us to belong, until Israel.

So there's a lot of national pride tied up with Israel for many people, and for good reason. Israel provided the Jewish Diaspora a place that they can finally call home without fear of expulsion, genocide, or discrimination -- and in the Holy Land no less. According to the Law of Return, if you can prove you are Jewish (usually by blood relatives) then you automatically qualify for citizenship, so Israel, for many many years, became a haven for Jewish people longing to put down roots that they never were able to before because, well, we just kept getting murdered.

HOWEVER, what is happening right now in Israel is not a Jewish-motivated problem. It is an imperialism-motivated problem. The actions of the Israeli government actually go directly against Jewish ethics, morals, and teachings. I want to make it very very clear that this is a Government using its power to forcibly remove a people from their homeland -- the very same thing that other countries have done to us. It's hypocritical, but it's also just plain wrong.

So for that reason, it is not antisemitic to criticize Israel. In fact, when governments commit heinous acts, we must call them out, regardless of who the country is. The problem is, many non-Jewish people see these acts and associate them with the Jewish Diaspora, and they take that as an excuse to commit hate crimes against Jewish people all around the globe (we're currently seeing a huge spike in antisemitic attacks in America, London, Paris, and Germany).

So it's understandable for Jewish people to say that criticism against Israel = criticism against Jewish people = antisemitism. You can criticize Israel without criticizing Jewish people, and you should. That is not antisemitic, that is just calling out a government for the crimes they are committing.

What is antisemitic (and I mean this in no way shape or form to be an attack on your question, I am merely trying to shed light on this issue!!) in addition to blaming Israel's problems or the occuption on Jewish people across the globe, is assuming that every Jewish person you know has an educated opinion on what's happening with Israel and Palestine.

For many Jewish people, especially American Jews, we have no connection to Israel at all (my family for example is entirely of Russian, Polish, and Czech descent, but we've been living in America for at least 100 years). Questions like these can also veer into the antisemitic belief of "dual citizenship", which is the false notion that American Jews have a secret loyalty to Israel and aren't True Americans. Jewish people have to work so hard to avoid getting hate crime-d in our own countries as it is, adding the extra pressure of responsibility for another country's acts really gets exhausting.

While I am more than happy to share my opinions because I know that I have a platform and I want to use my space for good, I am not a news correspondent, or a journalist, nor am I working in a political position. I am just a girl who lives in South Florida who happens to be Jewish, you know? I know a lot of Jewish people who don't know anything about what's going on in Israel or Palestine, because people can't be expected to have an encyclopedic understanding of all the problems of countries across the globe.

But what I do know, and what I hope that you take away from all this, is that the actions of the Israeli government need to be condemned, stopped, and that peace needs to exist.

It is not wrong to be Pro-Palestine, and it is not wrong to criticize a government. What is antisemitic is blame all Jewish people around the globe, attacking Jewish people, or using nazi rhetoric and propaganda to enact violence against Jewish people, in response to this government's actions.

I can't speak for other Jewish people, and their relationship to Israel is their own. But for me, personally, I stand by the Jewish mitzvah of Tikkun Olam in regards to the liberation of Palestine -- that is, I believe no one is free until we are all free.

I hope that this helped in some way, and I'm sending you all my love!

#i have no idea how to tag this #but i hope that this helps in some small way

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