the mere concept of “normalizing israelis” is so fucking crazily evil i have no idea how anyone could say that and think they are “just antizionist not antisemitic” like that’s actual fucking nazi shit upgraded with tik tok buzz words. like since when do we talk about “normalizing” actual groups of real life people??? it’s fucking vile they want to strip us of humanity and totally shun us from society and then they attack us for wanting self determination and community

(hope its ok im reblogging with this) THANK YOU. this original post could have been worded better i admit but in case anyone has no idea what i was talking about, ive seen a bunch of antisemites say things like "talking to an israeli person normalizes israelis and israel as a country" and people basically saying that if you even acknowledge an israeli person who exists you are "normalizing israelis and support genocide" its crazy shit. its literally the kind of thing hasan piker has been saying (link to post with screenshot) - actual quote: “All jokes aside, Gal Gadot serves an important role in normalizing Israel as not a fascist ethno-state, but instead a place where a lot of beautiful women come from. And those beautiful women happen to serve in the IDF, because there’s also this weird sexualization of the forces as well that takes place, and it plays another role in normalizing Israel and its activities and actions, and whitewashing it.” (source)

like literally weve gotten to the point where an actress' nationality means she is sexualizing her country's military and everything they have ever done wrong???????? theres like ten layers of misogyny and xenophobia wrapped up in this one.

its so ass backwards that we now see people who proclaim themselves to be progressive people who care about humanity to suddenly decide that extreme xenophobia, sexual harassment, and straight up text book nazism is now justified as long as its against someone from a country they dislike. imagine for a moment that someone said having a conversation with a mexican person is "normalizing mexicans". imagine saying that being friends with a gay person is "normalizing the gays". arent we supposed to be against extreme social isolation based on a persons identity??????

now to bring up the BDS thing. this is so fucking frustrating to me. again, they want to fully isolate israelis and by extension literally any jew anywhere as we have seen time and time again. the thing about BDS is that its literally ALL PERFORMATIVE!!!!!!! they boycott any business that they even THINK might POSSIBLY be (((zionist))) and yet that energy is completely gone the moment the israeli product in question is life saving medical technology and medications. these people will say that israeli doctors finding an affective treatment for lymphoma is pinkwashing whitewashing sciencewashing whatever the hell washing israel. they hate israeli people so fucking much that they think theres an evil plan by (((them))) behind curing fucking cancer. and yet i fully believe that if they were in the emergency room with a life threatening medical issue, they wouldnt be asking the doctor if the technology used to keep them alive "supports genocide" or not.

and i also want to bring up the mapping project. this is something i cant believe we dont talk about very much. i am not going to link their official site here but i have read through it. instead, heres the overview from the ADL:

FAQs on the Boston Mapping Project | ADL

it is literally a map of every single "zionist" institution in Massachusetts. this includes jewish nonprofit orgs, jewish schools (yes, including ones for actual kids), medical schools & medical institutions. the language used on the site is straight out of the protocols and mein kampf. they literally say an education program for teenagers contributes to "ecological apartheid". the funniest part is that they have a ton of land acknowledgements on the site and keep comparing palestine to native tribes in their area. and idk any native ppl reading this are free to correct me, but somethings telling me that the people in those groups probably dont want their names attached to an organization that literally wants to purge the country of anything remotely jewish. i am not going to get into jewish indigeneity here because im sick of explaining it. jews are indigenous. we did not colonize our own ancestral homeland.

anyway, suggested reading:

List of Israeli inventions and discoveries - Wikipedia

The top 64 innovations developed in Israel - Unpacked

(i better see the bds people boycott cherry tomatoes.)

am yisrael chai zona

I don’t know if anyone here has noticed but UKIP has just changed their logo…

Follower cleanse!

Am Yisrael Chai!

Free Palestine from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Give them democracy.

Woman Life Freedom. Free Iran!

Free Ukraine! Russia is a terrorist state.

Free Kurdistan!

Free Sudan!

Free Tibet!

Romani people are still oppressed.

ICE are murderers, and the US immigration system needs to be dismantled entirely.

Trans women are women, trans men are men, and non-binary people are non-binary.

Intersex people deserve to be respected and given proper medical care. And intersex issues need to be discussed in their own context without connecting them to trans people.

Sex work is real work. We need to protect the people who choose to go into sex work while protecting the victims of trafficking. The only way to protect people who want to leave sex work is to protect people who want to be in sex work.

Vaccines are good and should be mandatory with rare, medical exemptions.

People know themselves best and can define their identities best. Don't tell people how they should call themselves. If someone isn't causing active harm, they're fine. Just let people live and stop worrying about he/him lesbians or whatever. Let people choose their own pronouns.

All human beings are equally valuable. All human beings deserve human rights. Yes, even those people.

Over TWO NIGHTS

The protests have been going on for two weeks, and thats the estimate for two nights.

I'm curious. Tag this with your sexuality and what your favorite M/F ship is.

Civil rights pioneer

Claudette Colvin, whose 1955 arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus helped spark the modern civil rights movement, has died. She was 86.

Her death was announced Tuesday by the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation. Ashley D. Roseboro of the organization confirmed she died in Texas.

Colvin was arrested months before Rosa Parks gained international fame before refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus.

#antisemitism#the IHRA definition is extremely reasonable and the degree to which it is being demonized is horrifying4

Yeah. It's being demonized because it gets in the way of antisemites harassing, intimidating, discriminating against, hurting and otherwise being racist to Jews. And they hate that.

I have said before that I don't believe America is a fascist state even if Republicans desperately want it to be and I stand by that but I DO think that we are careening in that direction so much faster than most of us were anticipating.

I will also remind people that no one ever thinks that their country will become fascist or fall to a dictatorship until it actually happens. The US is not magically immune to dictatorships just because one hasn't happened here yet and the idea that we are, that we can depend fully on the government that is quickly proving itself either hopeless or complicit to protect us, is extremely dangerous.

watching people on this post give the absolute worst advice about photos at protests is why I play avoid-the-camera so diligently and I am prepared to smash cameras at all times

part of my role is going to people and gently saying "hey please stop taking photos of people without their consent. that can be dangerous for the people in the photos and you were asked not to at the start of the rally/march" and I have had people threaten to punch me over it so........

just stop taking photos. I don't care if they're "just for you" or if you "plan to redact them" you have no idea what situation someone is in and your photos will never be secure. if you want to take a photo just ask people in it first.

and of course they're always like "well what about those people taking photos" and I explain that "those people are known to our community and know who does and doesn't want a photo. people have already consented or not consented at past events to that person's photos and they know this" or "thanks for pointing that out I will talk to them too because they also should not be taking photos." this also, of course, does not solve the conflict and they continue taking photos anyways.

I have my own tactics for stopping photos when someone refuses that don't involve smashing cameras but they tend to escalate things anyways.

just stop. I'm so tired. just stop.

ALSO, JUST FOR THE RECORD!!!! If you are refusing to stop taking photos of people you look like a cop.

via Guardians of Nature 

#on the one hand yeah that's neat and all#but on the other hand#I am in fact allergic to the mold that grows on dead leaves#so I will be removing them from my vicinity#for the sake of my health

If you have access to a local woodland, dump the leaves there.I you don't, look into how to donate leaves in your area so they can naturally decompose )(as opposed to being shredded and then burned.)

Raking is actually CONSIDERABLY WORSE for mold allergies! The vast majority of mold growth is happening underneath that top layer, where there's a lot of trapped moisture that is speading up mold and decay. That also means that the mold is mostly trapped underneath and will die off as the leaves decay into spring. When the leaves are raked, it agitates all those mold spores and sends them flying into the air and in your lungs, along with spreading to surfaces that they otherwise wouldn't have touched.

My mom's own mold allergies have become a lot easier to handle since we stopped raking leaves because the air around our home is no longer flooded with mold spores during fall. If it's at all possible for you, leaving the leaves (no pun intended) alone will likely be much better for your health, along with being better for the environment and your yard :)

Hey. Schools don't want you to know this but you can soften a stick of butter and mix it with whatever herbs or seasonings you want, then you can put it on any foods at any time. Meat, potatoes, any veggies actually, bread, etc.

Mix a stick of butter with a shitton of garlic powder and your favorite herb blend (I like herbs de provence but even just oregano and parsley is great), slather it generously on some bread, pop it in the oven until it's golden and as crispy as you want, and you've got garlic bread! Take this knowledge and be free.

You can also make sweet butter spreads using things like cinnamon, sugar, maple syrup, and fruit jams as a delicious topping for pancakes, scones, or whatever you want to slather butter on.

my synagogue was set on fire last night during Shabbat at 3:00 AM in an arsonist attack.

no one was injured, which i am extremely grateful for. they have several security cameras, so there is a suspect in custody. the details and motivation haven't been shared, but it can be reasonably assumed to be a hate crime.

this was the first synagogue established in the state, the only one that's not hours away, and certainly the largest in the area. two Torah scrolls are destroyed beyond repair, 5 are damaged. the library where children have religious school and morning Shabbat service is held has been completely burnt down, much of that section of the building that's left is covered in soot and ash. the administrative offices were also lost.

our Tree of Life, which was for important life events like bar/bat/b'nei mitzvahs, was destroyed. i was just looking at it this past Tuesday while waiting for a meeting with my rabbi. it was dozens of bronze plaques in the shape of leaves with commemorations on them placed above a trunk. there is a photo of the wreckage that makes me cry every time i look at it.

we have a rescued scroll from Nazi-era Czechoslovakia (it is thankfully unharmed). we have a Holocaust memorial garden. we have names of dead loved ones displayed. memories in and on the walls. there are so many deeply meaningful and largely irreplaceable things here.

my rabbi was out of state for the last several days. i cannot imagine how he's feeling.

im fucking pissed at the police department. they said that they would patrol the grounds more often in light of the worldwide rise in antisemitism. I have not personally seen them once. they let the only area for our community to gather be set on fire.

i am exhausted. i am angry. i am thankful it is not any worse, because it easily could have been, but tonight i am grieving that little library full of vintage Jewish books.

The same Synogogue was also bombed in 1967. This is the best article I could find so far this soon after the fire.

yes, this is my synagogue. Beth Israel Congregation was firebombed by the KKK in 1967 along with the rabbi's house because he was an outspoken supporter of civil rights for Black Americans.

here are some photos of the aftermath of the most recent fire:

I have been asked about fundraising, so I will be providing a link to donations.

Please help us rebuild if you can.

hey!! yes, JPD is useless. the FBI, ATF, Joint Terrorism Task Force, along with I believe possibly a division of Homeland Security (?) are all involved in the case. as I understand it, the FBI automatically gets involved when reports of a place of worship being intentionally damaged are made.

a primary suspect has already been identified and arrested. details are not being officially made public at the moment, although I've seen unsourced information on a couple articles (namely Mississippi Today) claiming that it is a 19 y/o white supremacist man.

UPDATE: i can now confidently confirm the identity of the perpetrator as Stephen Spencer Pittman, a 19 year old Nazi as I mentioned. He was texting the whole thing to his dad over text while he was committing the crime (who reported it to the FBI), and then went to the hospital for his burns (because he accidentally doused his legs in gasoline like a fucking idiot) where he was promptly arrested.

They also mention that a citywide prayer service for Beth Israel will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at Thalia Mara Hall in downtown Jackson if anyone wants to attend.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but the idea that you can make a little mistake while doing your taxes and then go to jail for it is mostly not a thing. If you make a mistake on your taxes you'll get a letter in the mail that says 'hey you made a mistake on your taxes' and then you can fix it (source: I have made mistakes on my taxes, international tax treaties are complicated). The only time people typically go to jail for tax stuff is if they commit massive intentional (or negligent, like if they run a business and never consult any expert on how payroll taxes work) fraud over a long period of time.

There's basically no way for a person new to doing taxes - and presumably not handling a lot of money - to accidentally fuck up those taxes in a way that's going to end with that person in jail.

No citizens of any country are somehow inherently bad or evil because of their government. Full stop. That includes Russian citizens, Israeli citizens, Palestinian citizens, Chinese citizens, Iranian citizens, North Korean citizens, etc.

Everyone in this world is just living their lives, each with their own complex needs and desires and interests and emotions. They all have hobbies and friends and families and favorite foods. They all have their own motivations and varying political opinions and views on their governments. They all weigh the risks of standing out or speaking up and they all make their own decisions about that.

They all fear the same in times of danger. They all feel grief and pain and terror the same. They all love and hate and bleed the same.

They are people. They are no different from anyone else, they are not monsters or caricatures or nameless bodies in videos. Complexity and humanity are not exclusive to your country, to people like you.

Gisella Perl was forced to work as a doctor in Auschwitz concentration camp during the holocaust.

She was ordered to report ever pregnant women do the physician Dr. Josef Mengele, who would then use the women for cruel experiments (e.g. vivisections) before killing them.

She saved hundreds of women by performing abortions on them before their pregnancy was discovered, without having access to basic medical supplies. She became known as the “Angel of Auschwitz”.

After being rescued from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp she tried to commit suicide, but survived, recovered and kept working as a gynecologist, delivering more than 3000 babies.

I want to nail this to the forehead of every anti-abortionist who uses the word “Holocaust” when talking about legal abortions.