r/JewsOfConscience • u/jryan102 Ashkenazi • Oct 27 '24
Discussion At a Jewish Wedding…
I’m currently outside of the wedding venue. I had to step out because they handed out little Israeli flags on the dance floor as party favors. The utter disregard and nonchalance these people display when celebrating a genocidal nation is baffling. It made me so physically ill and upset that I had to step out. Maybe I’m dramatic or I drank too much but it brought me to tears. There are real, innocent people dying and these people are celebrating their killers at some random party and for what?
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u/redpandarising Anti-Zionist Ally Oct 27 '24
😔 sorry you're dealing with this. My cousin cut me off "from serious conversations" for being "pro-terrorist". We're not even Jewish, or Christian. Crazy-making times for sure. Posting/sending solidarity 🤝
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u/isawasin Non-Jewish Ally Oct 27 '24
Your cousin is afraid of her own shadow. The shadow of her responsibilities and her own complicity.
It's going to be maybe a strange way to argue my position, but this period of 'body positivity' and 'sex positivity' that we're working through right now feels very intermediary to me. Like, it has to be. It's a reactive position. Oppositional to a well-entrenched "negativity" that absolutely deserves to be opposed, but it can't be the end point. We have to want to reach a place of neutrality. Where beauty standards run a very distant second to the recognition that they are as subjective as musical taste and have zero bearing on worth as a person. Where the idea that you can look at a fat neckbeard in a fedora or a woman who's inflated her lips and tits and seriously believe you have a right to infer whether or not they're someone your life would be richer for knowing is an indictment of self.
Anyway, I say all this because what's happening in (not just) Gaza feels like a very stark turning point, universally. The 'information age' has given way to the 'age of complicity.' We're too connected for ignorance to be an excuse, and we all implicitly know this.
We know Israel, the US and their partners are doing to the Palestinians. What Israel, the UAE and their partners are doing in Sudan. What is happening in the DRC. What Indonesia is doing in West Papua. And maybe you're not actually familiar or well versed in each of those endemic injustices (I'm not posturing as an expert of any of them) but we all - here - acknowledge the rationale that make petty much all systems of exploitation and injustice: profit. An economic system where the wealth does trickle down, whether we are willing to admit it or not. Because you either live in the part of the apple logo where the bite is taken out, or you don't. And, in that analogy, the logo should be 80% bite.
The 'developed world' can't contribute to turning things around without being willing to make what will feel like massive sacrifices. And if we can't work through this age of complicity without living up to our own we deserve everything we get.
This desperate position is made all the more tragic in that the vast majority of us hold little to no power. At least individually, there's very little we can do. But the least we can do (what we have to do first in any case, and what your cousin and so many people are too weak and afraid to do) is be honest about what we're facing. About the world we've built. The world we were told was being built for us.
We can't be honest because it complicates things to a terrifying degree. It challenges everything people feel they know about themselves. Who they are. An identity that is so inextricably wrapped up in political/national, etc. identities whose implicit appeal lies in the fact that they come pre-packaged. You don't need to think. You don't need to engage. Just vote (in the US sense) for who you're supposed to every four years, and you're good, everything else is taken care of.
Taking actual responsibility. The work of actual agency. The reality that these things (fucking genocide!) that we don't actively oppose and frustrate are the things that we acede to benefiting from, if even only tangentially, this is what you're cousin would rather demonise you than face.
I don't know. I've seen the insides of too many dead babies.
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u/redpandarising Anti-Zionist Ally Oct 29 '24
My cousin is an idiot, and a man (perhaps that's redundant... J/k I'm just being a radical for a second)
I agree with all of this. Palestinian freedom is a threat to global capitalist hegemony, and so is stability in the DRC, West Papua, Sudan etc. Personally I am ready to throw off the chains.
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u/bearoscuro Non-Jewish Ally Oct 27 '24
How well do you know the couple? This might be a "put the breadsticks into your purse and leave" situation if you can get away with it 😔
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u/jryan102 Ashkenazi Oct 27 '24
Couple is close family. Entire immediate and extended family is here. Leaving is not an option.
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u/bearoscuro Non-Jewish Ally Oct 27 '24
Nightmare party situation... hopefully the food is good at least, and maybe you can hide in a bathroom or something if it gets excessive 😭
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u/cutmesomeflax Anti-Zionist Oct 27 '24
Your response is very normal. That's how I would respond, and I'm Jewish. I doubt any family of mine would be inviting me to a wedding anytime soon though
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u/thug_nificent Oct 27 '24
In a few decades time, this will be a crazy story you recount that the young’ins won’t believe. Stay strong ♥️
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u/NewRollingWhizTicks Oct 27 '24
You think that's bad? My very close family friends brought an IDF soldier to their wedding and before the ceremony the Rabbi pointed him out like some hero and everyone started applauding him. He was sitting in my row. I almost retched.
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u/jryan102 Ashkenazi Oct 27 '24
There were (former?) IDF soldiers there. Quite a few. Mentions of Israel in the bride’s father’s speech.
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u/isawasin Non-Jewish Ally Oct 27 '24
It's been 7 hours since you made your post. Consider this a welfare check, OP. How are you doing?
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u/Snoo53248 Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 27 '24
sending solidarity as an antizionist in a close-knit very Zionist family. currently on vacation with them and oof. one of my cousins who is here just went on birthright. yeah, just. like three months ago. everything you're feeling is real ❤️
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u/Efficient_Leg_5331 Oct 27 '24
This is horrible. I'd suggest you leave. If I was you, and since I'm petty and loud, I'd throw the flag in the trash and make sure multiple people can see me do that and walk out lol. It's important we make people like these uncomfortable.
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u/jryan102 Ashkenazi Oct 27 '24
Have no way to leave even if I wanted go. Came with my family and I’m related to one of the couple.
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u/Efficient_Leg_5331 Oct 27 '24
I'm so sorry :( Maybe sit away from the scene and keep yourself busy on your phone and not participate as a form of silent protest.
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u/jryan102 Ashkenazi Oct 27 '24
Luckily we’re all seated for dinner. I stayed away from the dance floor for the most part when that was going on. It’s quieted down now but the place, my table included, is covered in little Israeli flags. I’m in the US and I’d find it weird to have US flags at your wedding, let alone Israeli ones.
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u/Welcomefriend2023 Post-Zionist Oct 27 '24
And yet zionists screech, "Why do antizionist protesters wave Palestinian flags at protests? Why no American flags?"
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u/Beneficial_Voice_504 Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24
These are difficult and lonely times. Stay strong!
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u/cupcakefascism Jewish Communist Oct 27 '24
Treat Zionists like the fascists they are, don’t go to their weddings.
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u/GreenIndigoBlue Oct 27 '24
I think you’re reaction is perfectly normal for a human being with empathy and an understanding of what Israel is. Not melodramatic at all. The appropriate emotional response.
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u/aintnothhing Oct 27 '24
If a situation like that arises you are totally within your rights to leave - you shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable and it’s very tone deaf to do that. Worse case scenario say you’re feeling ill or have something urgent to do with work
Imagine any other wedding where one person was from France or Thailand or Mexico, I could never imagine flags of those countries being handed out, maybe some music or food to represent the culture but strange behaviour to have flag especially when the country is literally committing war crimes
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u/onlyonthetoilet Oct 27 '24
I feel you- was at a Jewish wedding on October 7th (they invited settlers to the wedding in Poland) and I quickly found out everyone in the room was a scary Zionist. It took them all of three seconds to start saying “this is our 9/11,” my partner and I just had to immediately leave.
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u/wiggles1984 Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 27 '24
I'm so sorry this happened to you, I empathise as much of my family are the same. My Mother attended the wedding of my cousin and my cousin's new husband is violently pro Israel. Her solution was to drop a gummy, and just drift away rather than deal with all the speeches and cheers for Israel. What made it funnier is my Mother has never done anything of the sort before but she was so upset and disgusted that she felt she had no choice but check out. I had been invited but living in North Wales and with work couldn't come, sounds like I didn't miss much. It's a nightmare right now, it feels like the fascists are winning and the fear that has infested the Jewish community since October 7th has pushed normally reasonable people to act in ways contrary to their nature. It reminds me of the USA post 9/11, hatred and fear were just under the skin. Like us anti-war protestors were considered terrorist sympathisers and naïve fools. Now I don't know anyone who supported the wars, even though I knew people who supported the wars if you follow me. I wonder if in 10 years we will be in the same place here and all our pro Zionist family members will all be denying their involvement or support of the massacres in Gaza and the illegal invasion of Lebanon?
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u/Teimywimey Jewish Anti-Zionist Oct 27 '24
Weddings are a lot at the best of times, but this takes it to another level. My condolences. I hope that you'll to find space to breathe while you're there, and that you'll be able to leave at a good time. You've got this
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u/Ok_Editor_710 Non-denominational Oct 27 '24
The Nazis did the same very things. See "Zone of Interest" if you want to get sicker, sorry.
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u/Welcomefriend2023 Post-Zionist Oct 27 '24
Political zionist ideology is the modern golden calf. It has replaced Judaism for these people.
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u/International_Ad1909 Oct 27 '24
Do you have anyone at the party who shares your values that you can couple up with and distance yourself from other people at the party? A family member or friend perhaps?