Fakeman is a robot in thigamajig skin.

You're all living a lie.

Illusions within delusions

Drugged by cultists for a fight the death

Love camouflaging under strife.

indeed they were all in disguises

concocted by black rainbows.

THEY WERE MY GAY DINOSAURS ALL ALONG FUCK YOU UBISOFT!

Something always bugged me about the MCU deciding to still have Jane's hair turn blonde when she became Thor, even though she's played by Natalie Portman, a Jewish woman, when there's a history of Eurocentric beauty ideals being forced upon Jewish people, especially Jewish women.......

So, I decided....what if in an alternate universe, Jane Foster was Jewish? Instead of becoming some Norse god, she would be a superhero inspired by the Maccabees. The hammer theme is still there! Her Hebrew name would be Yehudit, after the Yehudit who killed Holofernes, and whose story is culturally associated with the Chanukah story. And of course her hair doesn't turn blonde.

So yeah.

My piece is inspired by Patrick Brown's official Marvel artwork of Thor.

[id in alt text]

Actually that may be too harsh to Jesus. He was a Rabbi after all, and what I've learned is that the Rabbis haaaaated the Maccabees. And can you blame them? The Maccabees and their weird incestuous jumbled up quasi theocratic mess was directly responsible for the Roman usurpation of Judea.

So it's not a surprise that a Pharisee like Jesus would view armed revolt as futile and only leading to disarray, and that the Kingdom of God was the only true state to aspire to and to wait for. But, as it was just Purim... I don't know, sitting on your hands and waiting for God to save you isn't exactly the only way to do things in Judaism now is it?

[ x ]

The 7 Holy Maccabean Martyrs

Rojudean Rabbit the Maccabunny @p-pooky

The Odd Etymology of macabre

I recently learned the etymology of ‘Macabre’, and it is too great not to share.

‘Macabre’ comes from ‘Maccabee’. As in the ones from Hanukah.  Y’see, back in the day people put on shows/plays about the events in the book of Maccabee. Part of that play was a dance sequence depicting the Greeks torturing the Maccabees (Not for anti-Semitic reasons, just because it occured in the story and for some odd reason they thought it should be a musical scene).

In France this scene was called  “dance Maccabee” or “danse macabre” (spelling not being crazy important in medieval france). Possibly the first use of the term was in Latin “Machabaeorum chorea”. 

In any case the sequence was relatively horrifying, and so the term ‘macabre’ came to mean anything horrifying or gruesome.  

This gives 3 takeaways:  1) Goth Chanukah makes perfect sense 2) The ‘R’ in ‘macabre’ should be silent (both pronunciations are officially acceptable). 3) Etymology is fun! (but that is a bit of a given.

Also: Source1 Source2 Source3

(There is another explanation, but it seems less accepted and less fun so I have decided to ignore it)

Wake, Israel, wake! Recall The glorious Maccabean rage, the sire heroic, hoary gray, his five fold lion lineage: The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God, the Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.

From Mizpeh’s mountain ridge they saw Jerusalem’s empty streets, her shrine laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law, with idol and with pagan sign. Mourners in tattered black were there, with ashes sprinkled on their hair.

Then from the stony peak there rang a blast to ope the graves: down poured the Maccabean clan who sang their battle-anthem to the Lord. Five heroes lead, and following, see, ten thousand rush to victory!

Oh for Jerusalem’s trumpet now, to blow a blast of shattering power, to wake the sleepers high and low, and rouse them to the urgent hour! No hand for vengeance - but to save, a million naked swords should wave.

Oh deem not dead that martial fire, say not the mystic flame is spent! With Moses’ law and David’s lyre, your ancient strength remains unbent. Let but an Ezra rise anew, to raise the Banner of the Jew!

A rag, a mock at first - erelong, when men have bled and women wept, to guard its precious folds from wrong, even they who shrunk, even they who slept, shall leap to bless it, and to save. Strike! For the brave revere the brave!

-Banner of the Jew, Emma Lazarus 1882

233 years after the Maccabees freed their homeland of oppressive colonisers, Israel was once again invaded and colonised - this time by Rome. Unfortunately this part of the story doesn’t have a happy ending. In the year 69 CE the Romans would burn the Beys HaMikdash and forcibly expel the Jews from Israel, beginning nearly 2,000 years of exile for the Jewish people. This Roman victory was immortalizes on the Arch of Titus - which depicts the plunder of the Temple. Most notably, it shows the Romans carrying off the golden menorah rebuilt by the Hasmoneans. The arch faces in towards Rome to show the victors carrying their spoils from Jerusalem to Rome, and the Jews of Rome had always had the custom that they would never walk under the arch depicting the greatest tragedy in Jewish history.

But, the story does ultimately have a happy ending - about two thousand years later the descendants of those Jews who instituted the custom to never walk under the Arch of Titus gathered to do just that. On 5 Iyar 5708 / 14 May 1948 the Jewish community of Rome gathered at the arch of Titus to walk through it for the first time - backwards - toward Jerusalem, away from Rome. After 2,000 years the exile was ending. And when the newly re-born country of Israel needed a symbol, the very image of the menorah from the Arch of Titus was what was chosen. An image meant to show our downfall is now a symbol of the greatest victory for the Jewish community since the Maccabees. This is Chanukah.

Tom and Miles with Hugo at the Studio.

New piece of false history I just invented to help me cope with being both a Jew and a genderqueer MCR/Smiths fan:

Joan of Arc was a Maccabee

Question: is the Book of the Maccabees included in the Deuteronomy or is it completely separate?

nah, Maccabees is its own thing, totally separate from Deuteronomy.

x