Conversation between me, and another high educated Jewish women whose opinions I respect

There's the question. Not just for Jews, but for everyone involved in, or concerned with this conflict. How do we move forward if multiple sides of the room dispute the veracity of such basic statements as:

-Jews are a globally oppressed minority ethnic group, the hatred of which is deeply embedded in Western thought and rhetoric.

-The Naqba was a period of ethnic cleansing in which the government and military of the new State of Israel expelled Palestinian Arabs from their homes and property; a dispossession and a series of events which continue to traumatize and negatively impact the lives and livelihoods of Palestinians.

-The Holocaust was a traumatic event in the history of the Jewish people, the legacy of which is embedded in the psyches, world views, and collective trauma of the Jewish people, and invariably impacts how this group views global issues.

-Palestinian Arabs had a full developed sense of identity and statehood before the British Empire fucked off, and made their discomfort with increasing Jewish emigration clear to the British before the outbreak of the Second World War.

-Jews had nowhere to go before, during, or really, after the Holocaust; and the governments of many Arab States ethnically cleaned their own ancient Jewish communities in retribution for the creation of the State of Israel.

-The State of Israel does not exist because the Holocaust happened, or as an "apology" for said event.

THIS POST COMPRISES A SERIES OF RHETORICAL QUESTIONS MEANT TO MAKE US APPRECIATE THE DEPTHS OF THE DISCURSIVE PROBLEMS HERE; NOT A POST FOR "DISCOURSE" AND HATEFUL, AGGRESSIVE SHIT.

If you feel you have to do that, copy & paste into your own separate post.

itsybitsylemonsqueezy: #yep even these statements are frustrating for some #and even if you accept all of them #you immediately see the conflicts and discrepancies in different perspectives #how disagreements can so easily arise #add to that investment and you quickly have an extra impass #I know the popular take right now is that this is easy #I don't think it is #this is painful and complicated and horrific #and the answer isn't do nothing #but it probably isn't shout out people trying to help and trying to understand

VERY FUCKING WELL SAID.

it's very literally one of, if not the most, complex geopolitical situations of all time.

Like, I’m racking my brains trying to think of one of equal complexity, but I’m coming up blank. Though some of the geo-political situations in parts of the Caucasus and Central Africa are extremely challenging, but then, I haven’t spent more than a decade studying parts of those histories.

*points* this is why I'm being pretty quiet right now, because this situation is quite fucked up enough without trying to stick my dick in it, too.

I make one exception, which is to flip off the British--because the mess surrounding the Balfour Declaration, in which within three fucking years the British promised the region to both Arab-nationalist groups within Palestine and to Jews and also, secretly, declared its own control over the area while partitioning up the Ottoman Empire with France. At no point did it actually tell any of these parties what they were doing or communicate directly about any of the others. Essentially, what it did was lie to Arab nationalist groups about its intentions to hand the region over to them in exchange for WWI support, secretly claim to a peer and ally that it intended to retain control over the region, and then seize on the area as a great place to stick all those inconvenient Jews without having to, like, keep or aid any of them itself.

I cannot emphasize enough how incredibly at fault the British Empire is for huge swathes of this mess as it relates directly to Palestine. (I also cannot emphasize enough how much the British Empire lying to other groups in similar ways when it was convenient to themselves outright created helpful little imbroglios like the Rwandan genocide later on. And that was in a region where there weren't hugely long-standing conflicts or massive bad feelings between various parties before the British Empire swanned on in.)

It's not so much that that fixes things now, you understand. It's not as if England the UK has exactly covered itself in geopolitical glory in the subsequent century or anything. But while we're arguing about who is colonializing whom and why, I do think it is incredibly important to understand and recognize that there is in fact a single group who took this incredible powderkeg of a situation and made it unspeakably worse as a direct function of their colonialist interests and project, and I think we should also be keeping that in mind. Decolonialization doesn't mean that we all just immediately forget about previous colonial occupation and let the literal colonial powers get off without comment.

(Also to the influence of American Dominionist conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists making absolutely everything worse in perpetuity, because it suits their apocalyptic vision of heavenly rapture to see Jews entangled in perpetual war in the Middle East. I am not joking about this, and this group has also been directly inflaming tensions in the region for decades.)

You know how they say, in a chaotic, tense situation, look for the helpers to understand what to do? Well, I think it is fair to insist that anyone who wants to declare the obvious answer to Israel/Palestine relations also look for the harm sources closer to home and start interrogating what we intend to do about those, too. If the solution to Israel and Palestine is so easy and clear, surely resolving Dominionist theology and its direct impacts at home should be equally clear and obvious. Right? Right?

Daaaamn this is a good take.

I went to an interfaith training recently.

In related news, I found out that I am willing to tackle two rabbis, a priest, a pastor, and a Hindu leader to win in musical chairs.

aroace nonbinary people you are everything to me. shout out to the bitches who just said "nah i'm not doing any of that"

If you're looking for a good, centralized collection of fundraisers for people and organizations doing on-the-ground work in Minnesota right now, someone on Bluesky put together a great resource hub for things like food support, rent relief, mutual aid, and immigrants' rights centers that I'd really love to see spread around.

And if you're local to the Twin Cities, there's a "Take Action" section with links to ways to get active, as well as some resource guides for legal observers, etc.

Those of us here in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and the metro area appreciate every bit of support we can get right now, especially with the federal government cutting off things like SNAP benefits for Minnesotans and threatening further retaliation. Keep us in your thoughts, and maybe pick a cause to support, if you can.

Reblogging to add that the person who put this together has turned it into a full-fledged website, if that's any easier to spread around!

The Invisible Pressure: Asexuality, Relationships, and Consent

There is an insidious, quiet violence that asexual people, particularly sex-repulsed aces, are subjected to in relationships. It’s not loud. It doesn’t always look like abuse. Sometimes, it’s dressed up in the language of “compromise”. Sometimes, it’s even endorsed by therapists and relationship “experts.”

But at the root of it is this one idea: That sex is the cornerstone of every valid relationship. That if you don’t want sex, something is wrong with you. That your partner is entitled to sex. That you, as an asexual person, owe it to them because that’s “just how relationships work.”

Asexual people are constantly navigating a world that tells us our love is incomplete unless it includes sex. That our boundaries are just hurdles to be negotiated. And that if we’re not careful, we’ll be the one accused of being selfish or withholding.

And the truth is, this pressure doesn’t only happen in unhealthy relationships. It can exist even in good ones. Even in the ones where your partner is kind and respectful and never once demands anything of you. Even when your partner is loving, patient, supportive—the ideal partner. The pressure doesn’t just vanish because the person next to you is good. Because the pressure isn’t coming from them: it’s coming from the world around you.

So even in the safest relationships, we still carry that fear. That if we say no too often, too permanently, we’ll eventually be left behind—not because our partner is cruel, but because we were never what society told them to want. And that’s what makes the pressure so hard to name, so hard to fight. So easy to internalize.

Then, even the most well-meaning conversations about consent often fail us. Why? Because while people are taught to respect a “no” in the moment, there’s still the underlying assumption that “no” is temporary. That eventually, we’ll change our minds. That if someone is patient, kind, persistent enough—we’ll come around. But some of us don’t. Some of us never want sex. Not now. Not later. Not eventually. And the idea that permanent or indefinite boundaries are abnormal is what pushes so many asexual people into violating their own comfort to meet someone else’s expectations.

It’s a form of slow coercion, cloaked in the language of compromise.

And when asexual people bring this into therapy—when we try to advocate for ourselves—we’re often met with therapists who have internalized the same cultural script. A script that says “sex is a need and part of a healthy relationship”. We’re encouraged to meet halfway.

But “halfway” always seems to mean giving up your boundaries to preserve the relationship.

Where is the room for our needs? For the idea that sex is not an automatic default but a choice, one that should never be coerced—whether overtly or through guilt, shame, or the threat of abandonment?

Too often, asexual people are pressured into saying yes to things we don’t want. Not because we’re comfortable with it. Not because our desires have changed. But because we’re terrified of being left. Because we’ve been taught that we’re the broken one. That we’re the reason the relationship is “failing.”

We are not broken. We are not selfish. And sex is not the sole measure of love, intimacy, or commitment. A relationship without sex is still a real relationship.

Consent only means something when it includes the possibility of permanent, indefinite boundaries. If “no” isn’t allowed to be forever, it was never truly respected to begin with.

a trend ive noticed a lot ever since the boom in antizionism's popularity is that if anything ever happens to align with israeli interests, it's immediately part of a conspiracy in which the israelis manipulated X into doing their dirty work for them. i've seen this a lot in how american and british antizionists blame israel for america invading iraq after 9/11, despite sharon advising bush against it, because bibi happened to be in favor of it. trump cracking down on student protestors who are non-citizens was also treated like israel's doing despite this being something trump planned on doing from the get go. now ppl are blaming israel for civil unrest and protests in iran because israel is also against iran's current leadership so surely this must be their fault!!!

Only Israel has agency; everyone else is incapable of making decisions or having ideas.

Anyone who dares to speak out against islamofaschist dictatorships?

100% certified mossad agent.

Or a cyborg reptilian bee, according to detective Crusty Owens' nightly inception-investigation.

Like Goldie Ghamari said: "I'm mossad, you are mossad, we all are mossad..."

So don't listen to Iranian women who have been risking their life to speak out against Khomeini for years, no no no...

Listen to Cucker Qatarson, Chunky Yoghurt and Dhimmi Kasparian, they know so much better than the actual people of Iran...

i don't know if accidentally giving your cat a wig when you cuddle them is a plus side or down side of having long hair

i just want to say something to non-jewish allies. yes. it is shocking and terrifying to see this rise in antisemitism in real time, to finally understand how people turned on jews. i really appreciate that you understand that now.

however, i want you to think about it in this sort of perspective: i grew up hearing about how my great grandparents had to escape the pogroms as refugees. i grew up knowing what the shoah was. and i truly thought, yes, here in modern day america, i would be safe and people wouldn't abandon me for being a jew. but still. in the back of my head i knew.

in high school, all my friends knew i was jewish. my bullies also knew i was jewish. i graduated a few months before the october 7th attack. i remember that day very well. it was so fucking shocking and i couldnt stop looking. i had grown up knowing people did these things to us, and yet. it fundamentally changed me as a person. it felt like i had seen this before. it felt like i was seeing exactly what my great grandfather saw before he hid away in a wagon and escaped to america. i felt like i was reliving my ancestors memories. because it was so fucking familiar. it was traumatic for me, even here in america. (i do not say this to take away from people who actually experienced the attack.)

and then there was the silence. the fact that nobody even reached out to my family to see if we were okay. the fact that not one of my friends from high school even CONSIDERED asking me if i was okay. the fact i was expected to go on with my life. and i did. i took a gap year, worked a minimum wage retail job, read books and thought a lot about life. but i still think about it every day. i think about the fact that not even 12 hours after the attack began, there were people in my home state organizing protests in support of the group who just murdered 1200 of my people.

how are you supposed to go on like that? knowing that people CELEBRATE when your family members are slaughtered and kidnapped?

the violence was expected. the support of it was not. it was jarring and terrible. and yet it felt so familiar to me. ive been here before. ive seen this before. these memories are embedded in me.

i want you to think about what its like to read through over a thousand names to make sure none of them are people you know. and i want you to know, i felt zero relief knowing none of my family was killed. because it felt like every one of those names was my family. these people were my family. my tribe. my people. some of them were the friends or parents or cousins of people i grew up with, of extended family. but it doesnt matter. we feel these things as a community.

the pure loneliness and helplessness i felt was crushing. not just because people were celebrating the deaths of my people. not just because they were murdering and assaulting jews all over the world. but because i knew that this was not new. i have been here before. we have been here before. it was not just hatred and isolation and fear. this was my very real life-long fears, my parents' very real life-long fears, their parents', and then their parents' parents' lived experiences.

this was getting to experience the thing i feared. i knew they would turn on me and they did. i cry about it a lot.

we want to feel safe in this world, and yet, we don't. we're told to go back to where we came from, but when we do, we're told to leave, to go back to poland, where they killed 90% of their jews. we're told that we deserve to be massacred because we want safety. because we want to finally be free from oppressive and horrific treatment in nearly every place we go. we are villainized for wanting to be seen as real people rather than poor, helpless little political tokens. they universalize our tragedies and then say we are overreacting about said tragedies. our pain is not real to them. it is simply a metaphor. they excuse all the horrific, violent, humiliating, isolating, treatment towards us. they always find a reason to say we deserve it. they say we should learn a lesson from it.

and god forbid we tell them that we're sick of it.

so to the start of this post. non-jewish allies, i really, truly appreciate you and the fact you are willing to stand with us, despite us being a tiny minority. you are brave to put yourself out there. to even associate with us. but we are so tired, so, so tired. this is what we experience every single generation. these are things we are hypervigilant about. we tell people what's happening when we start to see the signs. i want more people to listen.

please, check in on the jewish people in your life when terrible things are happening. work to root out antisemitism in your community. educate people in your life who spread misinformation. we cannot stop this hatred alone.

sorry if this is lame and incoherent i hope it makes sense. im just. so exhausted.

This was a print I uploaded to 7-11 in Japan. I was inspired by the “BEWARE OF THE MALE DEER” signs in Nara hehe

now remember, "kink" is to "fetish" as "poisonous" is to "venomous"

*hands you a knife*

you know what to do. we're all counting on you.

(link)

Link to artist's youtube for anyone who wants it:

There is no point of disability where everyone takes you seriously. There is no right way to be disabled. You will always be accused of "not being disabled enough", "not really being disabled", or "being so disabled you can't expect to count as a person". Kill the idea that if only you were disabled like that instead of like this, you wouldn't be facing ableism. None of us actually have it easy.

i think it's really fun when a rly specific trope is super popular in one particular medium but in other ones it's just totally unheard of. it's the time knife. visual novel players are suuuuper used to death games but many others encountered them for the first time in squid games. the other day my mom showed me all excited the summary of a super original novel she found and it was about a girl who got reincarnated as the main character in her favorite fantasy book

what the fuck is a time knife

Saw a comment that said “Kafka just needed estrogen” and I’m really begging everyone to remember that the emasculation of Jewish men is such a core aspect of antisemitism that people used to believe Jewish men secretly menstruated. Yeah it’s fun to make lighthearted trans jokes and all, but that^ is not a neutral statement. Also you will never actually be able to understand anything about Franz Kafka or his writings unless you’re taking his Jewishness into account. Just a heads up

This post has kind of taken off so I just wanted to add some thoughts:

- I personally have nothing against egg/estrogen jokes in a broader sense, bc I do think it’s usually obvious that they’re meant to be tongue-in-cheek and not taken literally, although it’s maybe wise to be careful about applying it to real people; like, it’s different to make that joke on tumblr where a celebrity is unlikely to ever see it than to say it to their face or smthing. Likewise, Kafka himself is obviously never going to see that joke, so it’s not like he can be personally affected by it, but bc it plays into a stereotype steeped in ancient hatred, its in bad taste regardless.

- I want to be careful here just bc I think all of tumblr but also jumblr in particular can at times be easily polarized against transfems, for a variety of different reasons. And I don’t want this post to be an excuse for that. When transfem people make egg/estrogen jokes it’s generally meant in good faith and with a desire to just be silly/see themselves represented/normalize the idea of being transfem in the first place. You’re allowed to feel how you feel about those jokes; and I would generally say if someone tells you outright those jokes make them uncomfortable, then probably don’t use them around them out of respect. But I rlly don’t want those jokes to be painted as something purposefully malicious that transfems run around doing bc they hate masculinity or smthing.

- The thing w Franz Kafka’s Jewishness being erased is like, that’s a potentially upsetting thing to see done to any famous Jewish person, right; but it also has to do with how integral his Jewishness is to his work in particular. Like there are plenty of (esp modern) Jewish authors whose work isn’t necessarily super influenced by their Jewishness, and you wouldn’t necessarily need to know about that part of their life to walk away with a fairly competent understanding of their writing. But that’s just not the case with Kafka, bc all of his major works really deeply integrate his experiences with antisemitism as a Jew in early 20th century Europe. I think it also just stings particularly badly to see his Jewishness overlooked when you know, say, how much he liked Yiddish, or the fact that all three of his sisters died in the Holocaust.

- Some people for whom this is new information are talking about characters and OCs who are Jewish and the potential for seeing them as queered/feminine and how that might be wrong; and while I’m no expert in any of this, as I’m still learning every day myself, I do think there definitely are ways to explore femininity and queerness in male Jewish characters that are nuanced and not offensive, and also, ofc! There’s plenty of real transfem and queer and gnc Jewish ppl, and they have their own complex experiences. I think just being aware of stereotypes and able to check yourself and listen to queer Jews is important, and tbh the most consistent thing you’ll probably hear from queer/trans Jewish ppl talking about their experiences is just the feeling that their queerness and Jewishness can’t be separated, bc their Jewishness fundamentally affects the ways in which their queerness is perceived.

gay jewish man chiming in

this is not meant with malice toward trans women. i know a lot of gay/bi men who are more feminine in one way or another who have had “egg” jokes made to them and have expressed privately that this really bothered them or made them insecure. it’s not about being upset with the idea of being a trans woman- its the idea that a man being feminine makes someone else think its okay to emasculate them further and suggest they might actually not be a man at all. they often don’t feel they can publicly express how much the jokes bother them because they are “just jokes” and “not meant in a bad way” or out of fear they might be accused of transmisogyny.

i believe both intent and impact matter here. the intent may not be to cause harm but the impact is still harmful.

there is nothing wrong with being a trans women. i think suggesting a man is not really a man because he is feminine is wrong and reinforces gender stereotypes. because there is also nothing wrong with being a feminine man. a feminine man does not need to be changed. he can just be.

so imo this being applied to Kafka isn’t just wrong because he is jewish it’s wrong, period. yes there is an extra layer to it because of gendered aspects of antisemitism, but that’s not the sole issue here.