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Recently Youtube's algorithm really wants me to watch Schindler's List and I never had so the other night I sat down and actually watched it.

Having a lot of thoughts about it but a major one I keep coming back to is how even an immensely and deeply flawed human being can go against "just following orders" and instead put in the work to actually help.

It may never be fully enough. It may never save as many as you'd hoped. But when you have a choice to either follow orders or save your fellow humans in front of you, I hope you choose the latter.

Schindler died in poverty. He was not a renown war hero nor was he at all famous or widely beloved. But he saw that he could help, even in some small way, and so he helped.

He was a Nazi who saw what the Nazis were doing to Jews and said no more. Enough. If I can even spare those under my charge, maybe a few extras, then at least I will have tried to do something about this.

I think a lot of people do not fancy this type of activism. It is messy, dangerous, and often completely thankless. Schindler survived as long as he did after the war due to those he saved helping him with donations. He was not popular in his hometown due to his association with Nazis, he was not popular in Germany, he was not popular in Argentina. His businesses all failed. His wife left him. A movie about his deeds was released several years after his death, where he would receive none of the benefits. He went to prison multiple times for simply refusing to hate Jews.

I think a lot of people like to think they're activists, but are sorely unprepared for doing this type of work, and then in truth become activists in name only. This is hard work. But without him, another thousand or so people would be on that death toll.

He took his position of extreme power- a Nazi owning a factory almost entirely operated by Jews, making oodles of money off that cheap slave labor- and said you know what? No. I'm not doing that. I can't save everyone, but as long as they are within my factory, you will not kill my workers. As long as I'm here you aren't harming one hair on the head of any Jew under my care. You're not sending or keeping them in Auschwitz. You're not randomly executing them for entertainment. They're people. You're not murdering them.

"Just following orders" they say. But they didn't have to. They could have helped. They could have did what he did, look around and say "what the fuck am I doing here", and stop. He did. They could have. They didn't.

Zionists want you to conflate Judaism and Zionism. Zionists want you to believe that Judaism cannot exist without Zionism and that all Jews are Zionists. Zionism would have Jews believe that a Jewish state is the only way that they can be safe from antisemitism and will point to any instance of antisemitism as proof that Zionism is the solution- so Zionism wants gentiles to be antisemitic in their support of Palestine. They want you to conflate all Jews with Zionism and the state of Israel, and they want you to treat all Jews regardless of political affiliation as the face of Israel. Antizionist Jews exist, and incidences of antisemitism ostensibly acting against Zionism will not help dismantle the forces propping Zionism up.

Don't do their work for them.

so uh

for 1. most people are gonna take advantage of black friday and wont see your specific niche tumblr post, I hate to say it

2. the us isnt running out of money for war any time soon, so...

3. this is just antisemitism???????? all we need is some (((echoes))) around the us and israel and then I'd have no reason to suspect otherwise from op...............

Neil cussing out people in polish is canon thank you goodnight. Ja pierdole kurwa tak. Hissing cat neil confirmed.

oh my god. thinking about the byers being jewish again. thinking about a little will acting out and drawing the passover story with joyce narrating and jonathan giggling along. thinking about the potential future of byers-wheeler passovers. thinking about mike writing their haggadah and inserting little jokes and meaningful reflections about their experience with the apocalypse. thinking about when everyone has kids, mike and nancy and el searching for the afikoman along side them because they never got to when they were younger. omg thinking about will and mike turning the passover story into a dnd campaign!! introducing their kids to both dnd and the history of will’s people!! sorry im absolutely insane about this!!!!

HELLO JEWISH PEOPLE. what shoes do you wear on yom kippur. pick the option that’s closest and feel free to elaborate in the tags!

also feel free to share if you go to shul on yom kippur and what your observance looks like!

not much patience or sympathy anymore for jews without a direct connection to the state of israel (mostly usamericans) who complain when we get asked about our opinions on palestine and the israeli occupation. obviously that can be done with antisemitic intent (bad) and i know we are not in control of or responsible for the israeli government and it is easy to feel that we are being unfairly blamed for actions that are not ours but 1) everyone should support palestinian liberation as a moral baseline; 2) wont speak for everyone but i personally do not want or need genocide apologists for friends comrades etc.; 3) there is meaning and power in jews specifically actively loudly and openly being pro-palestine. when atrocities are carried out in our name (literally using the name of our people; opening their arms to us through birthright while removing palestinians violently from their homes and denying them the right of reentry and free movement) it is our responsibility to stand against that as much as we are able.

Hi us jews are not specifically obligated to prevent genocide because we "know how it feels". Everyone are obligated to prevent genocide because they're fucking human.

hello! i had a quick question

so deuteronomy 18:14 mentions practicing magic and divination as not being allowed but, isnt prayer magical in itself? are we not practicing some form of divination when we celebrate our Lord (in our silly rituals and practices)? any thoughts on this?

thats all! have a blessed day!

Good question, beloved!

The differences between prayer and magic and worship and divination and ritual and practice are largely cultural and informed by our associations with a religion/culture/ethnicity. Ancient indigenous religions are often seen as primitive and naive for instance, more aligned with magic than "proper" religion, and newer religious practices are dismissed as "made-up." There's also inter-religious accusations that go on—think about how some Protestants describe Catholic rituals. And then there's people who are anti-religion in general, and see any spirituality as silly magical beliefs.

I would say we can make a distinction, however, between treating prayer as magic and treating prayer as worship and connection. If I believe saying this prayer ten times will heal my illness, this to me seems more of a magic spell than a prayer. Now anyone is welcome to believe in magic spells, but nonetheless I prefer prayer as a purposeful entering into God's presence, perhaps seeking specific blessings, but with no formula or assumption of a specific outcome.

If divination is gaining insight through religious practice, then definitely lots of Christians practice that. When people reduce practice to figuring out the future or interpreting signs or asking God for proof, I see a formulaic religion rather than a connecting one. I think we can definitely look at our practice and ask if we're treating it as a formula/spell. But my definitions of these words (and what I look for in religion) may differ from yours, and obviously a lot of this is cultural. I'm using "magic" to describe things I connect with less than "prayer," but this is arbitrary, and many people would consider my definition of prayer to be magical as well. 

All that said, I'm not sure any of this has much to do with Deuteronomy, so I'll also talk about the verse you brought up. Jewish law is always interesting to bring up in Christian circles, and we should acknowledge that we do not have the history of interpretation/relationship that Judaism has with it. We do have a relational history with it, but it's very different and doesn't align with the people who compiled these laws.  (Is this appropriation? Many would say yes, in the sense that Christianity inherently is. That's a whole nother conversation.) There are many Christian attitudes toward Jewish law—for me, it is a valuing of what I believe God gave to humans, with an acknowledgement that I am not the intended audience and am not called to follow it, but rather to honor it. The law's focus on justice and worship matters to me, albeit in a very different way than both its original audience and current Judaism.

Deuteronomy 18 bans occult practices by specifically referencing the nations/cultures around ancient Israel. It is comparing ancient Jewish practice to its contemporaries. Many biblical laws, in fact, exist as a way of differentiating Israel from other cultures, and many of the moral laws are in response to practices they would have seen around them. There's a huge focus on being set apart, on practicing a religion that doesn't look like anything else. That's not to say they're random—in fact, they're very specific.

I've said the difference between religion and magic is cultural, and Deuteronomy lays this out perfectly. From a modern lens, animal sacrifice to achieve forgiveness may seem primitive, like a magic spell. And yet, magic spells are prohibited. To them, it obviously wasn't sorcery—it was religious practice.

We do have specific practices that are condemned, like interpreting omens or consulting the dead, but there are plenty of those things (or at least things adjacent to those things) in the Bible. The implication is always don't do these things like those other people. You're an Israelite, not a Canaanite. You don't eat those things or dress that way or do those things in your temple because God wants you to commit yourself specifically to a new way of doing things. 

What does this mean to us, though? Canaanite paganism isn't practiced anymore, as far as I know. In our time and place, there's more of an awareness of respecting others' cultures and religions, even when we don't understand them. So what does it mean to honor a law that condemns magic in 2024?

Although you could investigate how you treat prayer/ritual, the relevant question to me in light of Deuteronomy isn't really "Is prayer inherently magical?" but "Am I being purposeful rather than conforming to those around me? Am I honoring the specific ways Christianity exists? Is my practice relevant to my beliefs, or could it be anyone's? Is it obvious through my rituals that I am a follower of Jesus?" I don't mean you have to advertise (Jesus actually specifically taught against that), but why are you Christian and not anything else? Is Jesus at the center of your practice? 

These ideas are very relevant to me in the US, surrounded by conservatism/evangelicalism—I don't want my faith to look like theirs. Maybe both our practices look like magic to an outsider, but I know how mine is different. (I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal here—it's all a journey, and I won't pretend I know the "right way" to do things, but I strive towards a practice that causes less harm than theirs.)

To conclude: whatever your prayers/rituals are like, honor God through them. Don't fall into formulas or assumptions, but allow space for God to change you until you are fundamentally at odds with those who use God for evil. In a world of empire and capitalism and conservatism and violence, find a new way of doing things. Look more like God than the world; set apart your life. Paul tells us (Romans 13:8) that love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. I wouldn't worry about whether your prayer looks like magic, but about whether it looks like love.  

<3 Johanna

ive gotten a bunch of followers lately bc of certain posts and i have a much bigger following than i am used to. i try not to post a lot about current politics bc this website is a shitshow when it comes to talking about politics with nuance, so i will make my points clear and in a dialectical way. multiple truths do and have to exist at once and acknowledging that is essential to understanding anything.

i do not support the Israeli government, i hate Netanyahu and i want him dead

you should learn what "zionism" means before you decide it means "Jews i dont like"

you should fact check everything and examine why is is being posted the way it is. there is motive behind every post, examine that.

you are not immune to propaganda

the Palestinian people deserve safety and to live without oppression

call out antisemitism and islamophobia whenever you see it

listen to Jewish people and Muslims when they call out bigotry without getting defensive

listen to people when they talk about their own experiences without getting defensive in general

only people who experience the oppression can define it, if you are not in that group you cannot define it for them

check your sources

learn what dogwhistles are and call them out when you see them

dont take everything in bad faith if its not warranted

its really weird to interrogate random Jewish people who are not affiliated with Israel in anyway what their opinions on zionism is

dont be racist, dont be antisemitic, dont be islamophobic, its literally not hard

dont be a jerk

doomscrolling doesn't help. being sad isnt activism.

the world is so full of negativity, uplift others in your political activism. uplift oppressed groups instead of wasting all your energy on hating the oppressors. share their art, give money to charities, offer kindness in a world that wont do the same

be decent to each other

antagonists do not need redemption arcs to be enjoyed and appreciated as characters, and so many people misconstrue what “redemption” actually looks like anyways. bcus they use the christian/catholic ideas of repentance and forgiveness (constant guilt & suffering, self-flagellation, if you arent forgiven then you cant be redeemed, etc etc)

it's exhausting being palestinian right now.

watching the news is like watching a deadly car wreck - i want to look away but i can't. i'm not sure how much more of the vitriol i can take. i don't know how much longer i can stand and watch as people argue whether people like me deserve to live. whether we deserve to exist on a strip of land that has so much history to me and my family. my grandfather, who was kicked out of haifa 80 years ago. my mother and father, who were born on the wrong side of the wall. and myself, and all the generations to come, who are scoffed at and treated worse than dogs by a government that assumes we are all terrorists. a government that has denied us basic life necessities like water. that has denied us our dignity. all because of who we are.

i cant stand watching the news, which has put the hamasi scumbags and all other palestinians in the same category, furthering the agenda that all palestinians are terrorists. i am tired of being grouped with so-called freedom fighters who do not have my best interests in mind, whose actions i never support and never will support. i hate that not supporting hamas comes with the assumption that i am in support of the israeli-led genocide against my people. i hate that there is no middle ground, and that i must defend myself at every corner, to palestinian and israeli people alike. that i must defend my palestinian existence to zealous anglo-saxon christian friends and condemn my overzealous liberal friends for supporting a terror group. i have no allies, no one who understands me, no one who has TRIED to understand me.

but, then again, how will anyone understand this? how can i blame anyone for this? they don't know any better. i wish they knew better. i wish to be understood. but i also don't want people to understand. i don't want people to wake up every day afraid that their family is gone. i don't want people to worry about whether their family can recieve life saving treatment daily while people debate whether your family even deserves to live.

most of all, i hate how isolated i feel. it seems like everyone i talk to about my hurt has to prove just how politically correct they are, ignoring what i am saying in favor of dehumanizing me further by displaying peacock tailed "support" - support that is all for show with no subtance or nuance. no one is truly listening or trying to understand me. every day i wake up and wish i didnt have to live in this world anymore. every day i go to work and feel detached from the people around me, wishing i could be as blissfully ignorant as they are. every day i fight with the hopelessness and distress as i watch the genocide unfold while grappling with how privileged i am for not being subject to the horrors myself.

i am tired.

As we gather around as Jews, we are taught this:

As the Jews finished crossing the parted sea, the angels wanted to start to sing about (Praise) the water collapsing on Pharohs soldiers.

G-D was enraged by the angels. As even Pharohs people were also G-Ds children.

My grandmother taught me that G-D loves all of his children, and we are all seen as human. We make mistakes, we fight, we argue, but being human is to err. It is not us as humans to judge another human.

Every time I was a child, I would fight with a cousin, and my grandmother reminded us of this. We were going to be related, so we might as well get along and get it over sooner than later.

uh oh I want to say something controversial