r/JewsOfConscience • u/AutoModerator • Sep 18 '24
AAJ "Ask A Jew" Wednesday
It's everyone's favorite day of the week, "Ask A (Anti-Zionist) Jew" Wednesday! Ask whatever you want to know, within the sub rules, notably that this is not a debate sub and do not import drama from other subreddits. That aside, have fun! We love to dialogue with our non-Jewish siblings.
Please remember to pick an appropriate user-flair in order to participate! Thanks!
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u/Ygrile Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
No questions, the world is an exhausting place and I want to thank you all here for being an ocean of decency and sanity. Lebanese lurker, I never comment out of respect, but I'm exhausted today after all the hate coming from all sides commenting on the pagers explosions, so I'm just sending love, and much respect for your vocal opposition to hate, from all sides.
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u/conscience_journey Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 18 '24
Be safe sibling. I am horrified by the latest attacks in Lebanon.
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Sep 18 '24
In the name of the Merciful One I hope all whom you know are safe and unharmed.
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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 20 '24
I am so sorry about what has been happening there. I think you should feel free to comment here, dialogue between us important and helpful!
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u/Ygrile Non-Jewish Ally Sep 22 '24
Thank you 🙏 The situation is insane here, and most people online are too extremist, I try to stay away to avoid all that negativity...
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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 23 '24
I heard what happened in Lebanon over the weekend. I hope you and your friends and family are safe.
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u/After-Trouble-7907 Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
Not really related to Judaism, but I have a question for a Hebrew speaker. Is there a word or short phrase in Hebrew that conveys the idea of taking something dead or dormant and causing it to spring forth with life once again? And, if so, could you please tell me what it is in English spelling and how to pronounce it. Thank you in advance. Shalom Shalom.
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Sep 19 '24
[deleted]
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u/After-Trouble-7907 Non-Jewish Ally Sep 20 '24 edited Sep 20 '24
Like a person whose life is going nowhere, just waiting to die, being given new life and purpose and starting to show results. Does T’chiyas HaMeisim fit, or is there something better?
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u/Kreyl Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
Thanks for these threads! I've wanted to ask clarification on something that I felt was an inherently antisemitic argument to me (I called it out as such and reported the post for antisemitism)... but I suppose I'd appreciate confirmation? And this is probably the place I trust best to confirm. I don't seriously expect to hear "yes that was totally fine," I don't want to present this as if it's an AITA post where the poster is clearly in the right and just wants headpats and cookies. I guess I'd just never seen this particular angle on antisemitism before (I presume it's an old one), and I do have a small but lingering minor social desire to check with somebody and be like "I read this right, yes?" So yeah, this seems like the place for that.
The thing that I saw was a comic being shared by a leftist account; I don't recall the exact wording, but it very explicitly, like, not at all subtext, compared Jewish people believing they are the chosen people to Nazis believing that they are the master race because of their skin.
This one struck me as inherently antisemitic, for one because while I feel like comparisons between the Israeli government and Nazis might sometimes be appropriate, it comes off to me like hitting below the belt. I'd rather call out the abuses without bringing in direct comparisons to Nazi Germany. For another, while I don't know the different schools of answers myself, there's guaranteed to be thousands of years of Jewish philosophy that would have been tackling exactly the question of what it means to be a chosen people.
The only justification I could see for the comparison, if I was going to try to be as charitable as humanly possible, is that maybe some miniscule number of people have interpreted it in a supremacist way. Perhaps Netanyahu and people in change of the Israeli military think that way, I don't know. Maybe not even them. But to casually equate all Judaism to white supremacy is way, WAY the fuck out of line.
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u/douglasstoll Reconstructionist Sep 18 '24
But to casually equate all Judaism to white supremacy is way, WAY the fuck out of line.
Correct.
Perhaps Netanyahu and people in change of the Israeli military think that way, I don't know.
They do. Jewish Supremacy is a very real phenomenon, and it is currently a driving force within Israel. Ben-Gvir's political party is literally called "Jewish Power." Many of these folks either directly or indirectly follow the ideology of Meir Kahane, an avowed racist and supremacist who championed terrorism. Kahane and others like him do indeed build their ideology on th doctrine of "chosenness."
For myself, this is why I am such a fan of Mordecai Kaplan, whose conception of chosenness is essentially the opposite, he starts from a position that he would never deny any other people a relationship with the divine where they also feel "chosen."
It is worth pointing out that Kaplan's idea is still a minority view, and it is also worth pointing out that the prevailing view of "chosenness" is often described succinctly as "chosen to do the dishes" as opposed to "chosen to be seen as better-than," and this is a logical internal view due to the challenges inherent to Jewish religious practice. It's hard to be Jewish (in Russia, yo. [Community? Fiddler Please? No?])
As for the comparisons with Nazi ideology, it does indeed get tricky. When a Jewish person or otherwise learned and sensitive person makes the comparison, I find myself given to listening and considering; after all the ideologies on display in the government of the legal state of Israel are undeniably fascist, undeniably supremacist, undeniably racist, and just as much an incoherent mess of tangled unlogic meant to support an ultimate cause of power through violence.
The Nazis were unique among fascist genocidaires in their industrial approach. Where they excelled in bringing victims to the point of violence, Israel is similarly yet conversely excelling in bringing violence to their victims.
When anyone, especially non-Jews (had to delete 'goyim' there, apologies) make blanket generalizations about ALL Jews and all of Judaism being the same as Nazi ideology, that is dehumanizing and dangerous, and plays directly into the hands of the ruling interests of the state of Israel.
Your instinct is correct, I think, at least to my limited perspective. The comic as you described certainly seems problematic and given to dehumanizing and demonizing Jews.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Sep 18 '24
"Chosenness" has been thoroughly misunderstood and abused by non-Jews for a very long time. The traditional Jewish understanding of being the "Chosen People" is not about reward or privilege, but burden and responsibility. The Israelites were chosen by God to have extra rules, obligations, standards, and a relationship with God that requires hard work and, in many ways, personal sacrifice. You will find religious Jews who believe that by fulfilling those obligations they achieve a certain "special" status in the eyes of God, but I would never call that supremacist.
As it relates to Zionism, "chosenness" was never a stated motive of mainstream Zionist ideology as the early political Zionists were secular, and the early religious Zionists viewed living in the Land of Israel as a privilege, not a right. The brand of Jewish chauvinism that you see from the likes of Ben-Gvir is a very modern turn, and I don't think it has been studied enough to really understand where it comes from. Most of Israeli society, both secular and traditional, do not believe that simply being Jewish grants inherent special rights.
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u/sar662 Jewish Sep 18 '24
to casually equate all Judaism to white supremacy is way, WAY the fuck out of line.
Yes it is and thank you for seeing that.
Yes, the Jewish tradition has a concept of a unique relationship with God but the majority of our tradition does not infer from that an inferiority of people who are not Jews. (If you want to dive into it, it's a larger discussion that you might do better with on a Jewish theology sub. )1
u/Kreyl Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
Thank you, yeah I expect it'd be an enormous topic of discussion! I appreciate the response. ❤️
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u/lilleff512 Jewish Sep 18 '24
Yes, you read that right. "Chosen people" refers to Jews (who can be Israeli or non-Israeli), not to Israelis (who can be Jewish or non-Jewish). Saying that Zionists are Nazis or that Israel is like Nazi Germany is one thing. Saying that Jews are Nazis is an entirely different thing. Invoking Judaism in one's attacks against Israel is antisemitic. You're supposed to criticize the state, not the religion. Otherwise the saying that "anti-Zionism isn't antisemitism" doesn't hold up.
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u/Kreyl Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
That's how I've been dividing it, thank you for the confirmation. ❤️
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
Yeah, it's straight up Goyim Defense League-level antisemitic bullshit. Antisemites have been misconstruing this one for over a thousand years.
Here's the deal: in Judaism, to be chosen is to have a set of extra obligations, it is not a license. It is also a matter of religious contractual law, it is not a matter of inheritance -- matrilineage governs who is obligated to the mitzvot through no act of their own. Someone with a Jewish father but a non-Jewish mother isn't automatically obligated to the mitzvot, instead somebody has to do something to bring them into the covenant. Otherwise they're not expected to perform the 613 commandments, to refrain from mixing meat and dairy, and to fast on yom kippur. Why this is such a big deal for people who don't even believe in God or the mitzvot is quite frankly beyond me.
And here's how it works. We have Judith and we have Christopher. Judith has a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. Judith is not chosen, she is not a Jew. Christopher has two non-Jewish parents, wasn't raised Jewish, but vowed before a rabbinic court of law to undertake performance of the covenant. He has studied some Jewish law, he was ritually circumcised or had blood drawn in symbolism thereof, and he immersed in a mikvah. He is chosen, he is a Jew, he is obligated to build a sukkah and shake a lulav in it, he is obligated to refrain from eating chametz over pesach, he is obligated to fast on yom kippur, he is obligated not to perform any of the 39 categories of forbidden activity on Shabbat, and what is his reward for this in this world? He can be called to the Torah to bless the reading of a section of a parshah; he can have the Chief Rabbinate of Zionistan tell him his conversion is invalid because Jupiter was ascendant in the third house when one of the members of the rabbinic court that oversaw his conversion once picked up a ham sandwich; and tattooed, pork-eating Israelis can tell him he's not really a Jew because he thinks that rape and murder is wrong.
Does this sound like the theory of a biologically superior Master Race to you?
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u/watermelongrapes Non-religious, raised Jewish Sep 20 '24
Maybe I’m not the right person to answer this, because although I was raised Jewish, I only identify with it in that I was raised Jewish and might do some holidays with my family, so I don’t really consider myself Jewish anymore, or what defines whether someone is or not. But I think it is comparable, both are beliefs based on supremacy of their group over others. It definitely comparable and I don’t think it’s antisemetic. Not all Jewish people actually believe they are the “chosen people” but it is a part of the religion, so yeah, it does have a bit similar to the nazi ideology.
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u/tracksnsnacks Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
I was raised Catholic but discovered my Ashkenazi heritage some years ago (my paternal grandfather was Jewish, although he was never in our lives). I never thought deeply into it until after 07/10. Since then, I've been feeling more and more of an affinity to Judaism and Jewishness in general. This has coincided with a strong belief in Palestinian liberation and a strong aversion to the actions of the state of Israel. All of this is very confusing, conflicting and alienating, as I'm not part of any Jewish community. I wondered if anyone had any words of wisdom for this particular identity crisis? :)
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u/ApplesauceFuckface Ashkenazi Sep 19 '24
Can you explain what you mean by "affinity to Judaism and Jewishness in general"?
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u/tracksnsnacks Non-Jewish Ally Sep 19 '24
I've been reading more about Judaism in a religious sense and then Ashkenazi culture more broadly. Getting in touch with a part of myself I never knew existed for so many years and learning that my ancestors fled pogroms. This has emerged during a time when my closest Jewish friends have abandoned me and branded me a bigot for not being a raging ultra-zionist, basically.
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u/ApplesauceFuckface Ashkenazi Sep 20 '24
Thanks for expanding on that. I don't know if these count as "words of wisdom" but if you keep reading about Judaism and Jewish history you'll see that it's full of debate, dissent, and harsh accusations like blasphemy or idolatry being hurled at one another. I'm not saying that the way your Jewish (former?) friends treated you is right, but it is on some level par for the course.
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u/tracksnsnacks Non-Jewish Ally Sep 20 '24
Thanks for your words - definitely wise ones. And I'd never thought of it that way, so it's nice to gain different perspectives and have these issues reframed. I'm hoping families and friends can mend broken bonds one day. For that though, I think many people will have a lot of reflecting and soul searching to do once the dust settles on this carnage.
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u/inbetweensound Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 19 '24
I’ve been reading more about Judaism in a religious sense and then Ashkenazi culture more broadly. Getting in touch with a part of myself I never knew existed for so many years and learning that my ancestors fled pogroms. This has emerged during a time when my closest Jewish friends have abandoned me and branded me a bigot for not being a raging ultra-zionist, basically.
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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 20 '24
So according to Jewish law, you are not Jewish unless your mother is Jewish. Now I'm not saying that to discourage you from learning about Judaism, but to say that if you feel pressure to support Israel because of your background, then the same forces of orthodox Jewish belief wouldn't consider you Jewish anyway, so there is no need to feel conflicted.
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u/tracksnsnacks Non-Jewish Ally Sep 20 '24
Thanks for the input. I'm aware I'm not Jewish by any definition (hence the flair). I don't feel pressured to support Israel because of my heritage (although funnily enough, I would qualify for citizenship under the law of return - not that I'd want it). It's that whole "Jewish enough for H*tler but not Jewish communities by and large - and then your closest Jewish peeps disown you for not supporting the so-called Jewish state in its maniacal onslaught" kinda disjointedness. Idk - it's hard to explain.
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u/watermelongrapes Non-religious, raised Jewish Sep 18 '24
Are there any Israelis on this sub?
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u/Yerushalmii Israeli for One State Sep 18 '24
Me
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u/watermelongrapes Non-religious, raised Jewish Sep 20 '24
Do you feel alone in your point of view or do you have many friends that agree with you? What is it like to be in Israel for you?
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u/Borderlessbass Israeli Sep 18 '24
Yes
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u/watermelongrapes Non-religious, raised Jewish Sep 20 '24
Do you feel alone in your point of view or do you have many friends that agree with you? What is it like to be in Israel for you?
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u/balsambrot Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 19 '24
Yes
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u/watermelongrapes Non-religious, raised Jewish Sep 20 '24
Do you feel alone in your point of view or do you have many friends that agree with you? What is it like to be in Israel for you?
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Sep 19 '24
Yes
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u/watermelongrapes Non-religious, raised Jewish Sep 20 '24
Do you feel alone in your point of view or do you have many friends that agree with you? What is it like to be in Israel for you?
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Sep 20 '24
I actually moved to the US before middle school and haven’t lived in Israel since. I only go back for weddings, births, bar-mitzvahs, and funerals.
I am a member of this organisation and would encourage all anti-Zionist Israelis living in the US and Canada to check it out
https://actionnetwork.org/groups/shoresh-the-anti-zionist-israeli-movement-in-us
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u/demureape Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
for religious jews, has this past year shaken your view of your religion? do you feel more or less religious? have recent events made you want to learn more about torah judaism or even islam?
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u/douglasstoll Reconstructionist Sep 18 '24
For me it was the opposite. I am much more religious and observant.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Sep 18 '24
Zionism is not about religion, it was founded as a secular political movement. Anecdotally I have seen both Zionists and anti-Zionists embrace Judaism more in the past year. As an aside, "Torah Judaism" isn't a thing, it is a catchphrase used by many different Orthodox groups to refer to their own view of authentic/acceptable Judaism. There is a group that has been active on social media that uses the term to refer to theological anti-Zionism, but there are many other Orthodox groups who use the term in ways that are unrelated to Zionism.
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u/demureape Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
i thought that torah jews do not treat the written collections of the oral tradition in the Talmud as binding.
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Sep 19 '24
You’re thinking of the Karaite Jews, who are a very small ethno-religious group (less than 40,000 in the world). It has long been debated if they are a separate “Judaic religion” or if they are a sect within Judaism. Generally speaking, most Jews accept the Karaites as members of the Jewish People, and the child of a Karaite mother is regarded as halakhically (lawfully) Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate
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u/xGentian_violet Non-Jewish Atheist, Anti-Zionist Oct 30 '24
If Karaites arent Jews because they arent rabbinical that would make anything before the Second Temple and anything during the Second Temple that wasn’t the Pharisees not Judaism as well, which is a bold idea.
Seems like karaites have traditions pretty similar to the Saduccee sect.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Sep 18 '24
Orthodox Jews believe the Oral Tradition is binding and use the phrase "Torah" to include the Talmud and all Rabbinic teachings. Reform Judaism does not view the Talmud as binding.
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u/ezkori Ashkenazi, American, raised in orthodoxy, currently cultural Sep 18 '24
Nope- the groups you are thinking of are either the Samaritans, a sister religion of Judaism that predates the Talmud, or Karaite Judaism which is an offshoot of Judaism
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Sep 19 '24
For me, it did the exact opposite. I was actually quite secular when I was a Zionist. But I’ve become more observant as I’ve become more anti-Zionist. Tho this process started around 2018 for me, 10.7 just led me to dive further into Torah.
Becoming more observant has actually made it easier to establish relationships with Muslims and Arab Christians as they tend to be more observant. Learning more about Islam has helped as well
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Sep 20 '24
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u/romanticaro Ashkenazi Sep 18 '24
i was already becoming more observant, but post oct. 7 made me feel lost in my community and drove me to find a new one.
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
It's caused me to discard my previous live-and-let-live approach toward Zionism, and it is now clear to me that Zionism is avodah zarah and that for Judaism to live, Zionism must die. It's caused me to have to come to grips, and then come to terms, with the fact that Israelis are not Jews.
And with that has come a feeling of immense freedom: it's strongly implied by Israelis that we're lesser Jews, there's a subtle and sometimes not so subtle message that all (Jewish) roads lead to Tel Aviv, and it's outright stated we cannot trust our neighbors. Jewish history shows that is not true, that being persecuted for being Jews is rare outside of Christendom, and that my parents' own grandparents lived at a time when Arabs were a people Jews took refuge amongst. A pox on Zionistan and their blood is on their own heads.
The Jewish world is much smaller than I thought it was a year ago, but more open, too, if that makes sense. I no longer have to make excuses, to myself or to others, about a bunch of Godless, land-stealing, child-murdering Yarpies.
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u/conscience_journey Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 18 '24
I disagree about Israelis/Zionists not being Jews. They are Jews, but they certainly are disobeying the commands of our faith. That makes them wicked, but not less Jewish.
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Sep 18 '24
They're not disobeying the commands of Judaism, they don't believe in it at all. Either they are atheists, or they are Religious Zionists and manage to be even worse -- according to them the Book of Joshua overrides the Torah.
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u/inex_frami Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
how do you respond to the zionist rhetoric on the pogroms in Palestine before the creation of Israel?
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u/lilleff512 Jewish Sep 18 '24
Can you be more specific? Which rhetoric are you talking about?
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u/inex_frami Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
well, the rhetoric of countering that pro Palestine crowd uses that Palestine was a somewhat peaceful place before zionism
I guess the perspective/reasoning goes along the lines of "see? zionism saves Jews, and they were oppressed in Palestine as well"
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u/lilleff512 Jewish Sep 19 '24
Well there's no denying that there were anti-Jewish pogroms in Palestine during the British Mandate era, but does that mean that establishing a Jewish majority state is the way to prevent violent attacks against Jews? The Second Intifada and 10/7 would beg to differ. The death toll from the 1929 Hebron Massacre is less than a tenth of the death toll from 10/7.
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u/ArmyOfMemories Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 19 '24
One of the reasons for the 2nd Intifada was the massacre committed by Baruch Goldstein against Palestinian civilians.
There have been multiple massacres or pogroms committed by Israeli soldiers and/or settlers.
Yehuda Shaul explains that Hamas began using suicide bombing in response to the massacre.
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u/Thisisme8719 Arab Jew Sep 20 '24
And also when they started launching suicide attacks against civilians inside Israel's borders with the Afula bombing. In the past, groups like CAMERA have attacked people for pointing this strategic shift following Goldstein's terrorism. But they erase the fact that Mehola is not inside Israel. It's a settlement.
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Sep 18 '24
If that were true, the Old Yishuv wouldn't have been stridently opposed to the Zionists, to the point that the Zionists roughed them up.
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u/inex_frami Non-Jewish Ally Sep 19 '24
never heard about that, care to elaborate? Im sorry if I'm annoying, just genuinely curious
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Sep 19 '24
The Old Yishuv were the Jews who had moved to Palestine in the centuries prior to Zionism, often as the result of expulsions by the Christians. They were opposed to Zionists because they understood (just like the Palestinians did) that the Zionists' goal was to destroy Palestine. I want to say it was the late 1920s or in the 1930s that one of the Zionist colonial terrorist militias (either the Haganah or Irgun, their merger is what made the IDF) attacked members of the Old Yishuv in Jerusalem -- my memory's a little hazy, but I want to say it was partly because they were siding with the Palestinians.
Anyhow, this is part of the reason why some descendants of the Old Yishuv, the contemporary Haredim, do not serve in the IDF.
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u/inex_frami Non-Jewish Ally Sep 19 '24
I can't seem to find any sources for Zionists attacking the Old Yishuv (not that i don't trust you)
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Sep 24 '24
You’ll not be able to find sources on that because the Old Yishuv is actually a very broad term that doesn’t well explain the Jewish community in Palestine pre late 19th century Zionist movement.
I tried to explain this in detail in this comment from a different thread
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24
You mean the ones that were incited by the Zionists' 30 year campaign of collecting money via the Jewish National Fund so they could pay the Effendis (the urban elites) a 25x to 80x premium on land, knowing full well and relying on that the Effendis would fall over themselves to evict the Fellahin (the tenant farmers and peasants) by force?
"Oh no, it's the inevitable consequences of my own actions!"
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u/inex_frami Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
the Zionists usually start with 1834 in Safed
or even earlier, 1517
keep in mind, I'm not agreeing with justifying any sort of ethno - supremacy as a result of these, nor am I a zionist
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Sep 18 '24
The Zionists are liars, and they're exploiting the Liberalist ideas you've been brought up with that ideas are the motive force of historical development. They are not. The motor of history is the ways we produce and reproduce the needs of real life: food, water, clothing, shelter, and so on.
The ideas are irrelevant -- or more accurately, are historically contingent.
The Zionist State is the product of a specific political project, and that political project started no earlier than 1890. I would not even connect it with the so-called First Aliyah and the "settlements" or "colonies" (these are of a kind, it seems, with the Utopian intentional communities common in the 19th century) funded by Baron Rothschild. It uses ideological continuity as a disguise but is different in kind -- you can start tracing out the historical lines if you take as a starting point that Zionistan wasn't a "good thing" that at some point "went wrong", but what we are seeing now is what it has always been, just moreso.
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u/inex_frami Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
care to elaborate?
im genuinely curious
or could you suggest some literature?
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u/Saul_al-Rakoun Conservadox & Marxist Sep 18 '24
It's not easy to get your hands on, but Zionism: False Messiah by Weinstock is very good, even if it repeats Abram Leon's incorrect notions about the Jewish Question.
Read what you can from Matzpen, they're a good starting point.
Believe me, I spent months trying to prove there was even the faintest shred of support for the Zionist narrative and, frankly, there isn't.
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u/VisiteProlongee Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
Which Israeli medias would you suggest me after +972 Magazine and Haaretz?
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Sep 18 '24
I am a transgender man looking to convert. If I do not have gender confirmation surgery, would I be able to find a rabbinic surgeon to perform the bris on my natal anatomy?
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u/valonianfool Anti-Zionist Sep 19 '24
I've seen a post on tumblr saying that a large reason for why there are so many "liberal fandom zionists" with horribly racist takes on Palestinians is because of philosemitism in online spaces-treating judaism as the "pure" religion which is inherently progressive, causing many exvangelical teenagers and young adults to convert because they think Judaism is queer-friendly while taking with them the racist and islamophobia they were raised with.
I want to ask for opinions on how accurate this take is.
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u/allneonunlike Ashkenazi Sep 19 '24 edited Sep 19 '24
I haven’t seen the phenomenon of baby zionists on tumblr, but I haven’t been in those spaces in a few years.
Tumblr fandom has always had a ton of progressive Jews whose main focus when writing about Judaism is tikkun olam. My guess would be that any baby converts would also seek out progressive Judaism and end up in spaces like this one of Jewish Currents, but idk, I think Israel is a very large blind spot for progressive Jews in general.
I’ve seen the exvangelical to queer puritan pipeline cause major damage in young queer people who are emerging from Christian upbringings without deprogramming themselves from Evangelical beliefs about punishment, purity, sin, etc. So this stuff does happen with tumblr acting as a radicalization pipeline for queer puritan movements.
I only know of exactly one queer convert to masorti Judaism though, and I would be surprised if it’s happening in any kind of serious numbers. I guess it’s possible, but my first assumption would be that the “liberal fandom zionists” are not converts, but the large population of young Jews who were raised as progressive on everything but Palestine. I think the demographic majority of Jews are liberal zionists in some form, like Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s family, Berkeley progressives who have spoken out against the genocide, and wanted a Palestinian speaker at the DNC, but still moved their family to Israel and enrolled their kids in the IDF.
I guess my question is, why would anyone assume these young people are converts, rather than the current majority of Jewish people who support Israel in some form?
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u/TurkeyFisher Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 20 '24
Tumblr likes to take a few examples assume it's a widespread issue. I think overall this is a pretty minor impact. Just think about the numbers- there are very few Jewish converts every year compared to other religions. Of those, how many of them are converting because they see Judaism as queer friendly, and then of those people how many are islamaphobic? I doubt it has nearly as much impact as the many older liberal Zionist Jews.
There has been a big push in the last 70 years to popularize the idea of the Judeo-Christian tradition so that Christians can feel better about the holocaust and have an excuse to stop being antisemitic. I think that probably has more of an impact.
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u/salkhan Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
After the comments of the head Rabbi in France, telling Israel to 'finish the job', how important is the head Rabbi to the wider Jewish community? I know Judaism takes very diverse forms, so I wonder how much he speaks for the wider community.
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u/specialistsets Non-denominational Sep 18 '24
It is a ceremonial role that doesn't confer any special authority. The Jewish community in France is known for being very politically conservative and very pro-Israel, so I don't think most would have taken issue with his statements.
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u/Thisisme8719 Arab Jew Sep 18 '24
In the Orthodox or traditional world, not very important. They're usually as important as their literary output makes them, whether it's legalistic (like Ovadia Yosef) or other genres (like commentaries, sermons, ethics, and however hashkafah should be translated [it's not really formally philosophical] etc) like Jonathan Sacks. The Chief Rabbi status itself doesn't hold that much weight.
Outside of the Orthodox world, then it's really meaningless, if not hostile3
u/allneonunlike Ashkenazi Sep 18 '24
I’ve never heard of this guy before even though my family is from Paris, and I imagine that’s true of the majority of the diaspora Jews. We’re not a hierarchical community like Catholicism or Eastern Orthodox, while it’s a major problem that we have any religious figures at all saying stuff like this, this French rabbi doesn’t speak for anybody but his own community.
Some Jewish religious denominations like Conservative/Masorti rabbis are organized, and there has been a lot of pressure on rabbis to stop speaking out about Palestine, I know at least one has left Conservative Judaism and others have been threatened with expulsion. They support Israel, which isn’t good, but their official line is still not the kind of hardline, genocidal evil we’re seeing from this french Rabbi.
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Sep 18 '24
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u/ContentChecker Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 18 '24
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u/valonianfool Anti-Zionist Sep 19 '24
I want to ask antizionist jewish ppl on their opinions on the West-Bank settlements: while I know they are deeply unethical, I want to hear an elaborate criticism on the reasons why theyre harmful
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u/Thisisme8719 Arab Jew Sep 19 '24
There are a few reasons why they're harmful. The obstruction of territorial contiguity which causes difficulty traveling even short distances without having to wait at a checkpoint; the expropriation of natural resources like agricultural and grazing land and water to benefit Israelis and settlers at the expense of Palestinians (though I guess the occupation alone could suffice for water expropriation); the expropriation of private property or public land on which settlements are built which excludes Palestinians from using them which wouldn't be sustainable if Israel didn't have people living on that land etc. The separate legal systems between Israelis and Palestinians are also inherent in the settlement enterprise - it'd be hard to imagine hundreds of thousands of settlers living in the West Bank if they were also under martial law.
Other mechanisms of Israeli domination in the territories, like control over the border with Jordan and the economy of Palestine, don't really depend on the settlements. Israel was able to do all of that back when the settlement enterprise was still small.1
u/valonianfool Anti-Zionist Sep 30 '24
Thanks. Ive had the misfortune of seating a zionist who justified the occupation of the wb with the Oslo accords, if its ok can I ask for your opinion on that too?
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u/Thisisme8719 Arab Jew Sep 30 '24
The Oslo Accords were terrible agreements.
But even setting that aside, what about it? Oslo II was supposed to be implemented within 5 years and should have finished in 2000. Instead, "facts on the ground" continued in East Jerusalem and Area C, which were supposed to be negotiated over, even though it didn't formally preclude settlement expansion or new ones (now, thanks to the ICJ's ruling, the PLO have some legitimacy to say they don't have to compromise on any settlement remaining outside of the Green Line); Area B is barely under Palestinian civil control (do the cops do anything about the settler violence there?); Israel repeatedly goes into Area A; Israel has destroyed buildings in Areas B and A; they withhold tax money that they collect for the PA; they don't grant as deep access to territorial waters in Gaza as stipulated by Oslo (if anyone wants to claim it still applies there); they didn't allow election polling in East Jerusalem in 2021 etc. So Israel's not even sticking to their own responsibilities agreed to in Oslo II.
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u/inex_frami Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
how do you respond to the zionist rhetoric on the pogroms in Palestine before the creation of Israel?
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u/demureape Non-Jewish Ally Sep 18 '24
for religious jews, has this past year shaken your view of your religion? do you feel more or less religious? have recent events made you want to learn more about torah judaism or even islam?
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u/ContentChecker Jewish Anti-Zionist Sep 18 '24
Reminder to pick an appropriate user-flair in order to participate. Thanks!