r/JewsOfConscience Free Discussion Thread

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[u/Adept_Thanks_6993]

I'm going to be in Ireland to spend time with my partner's family. I'm not referring to the culture war bullshit about Ireland being antisemitic. I love Ireland. That being said, I'm pretty sure I'll be the only Jew in my partner's village. So Hanukkah will be a bit lonely

[u/crumpledcactus → u/Adept_Thanks_6993]

It might be your solemn duty to make latkes in Ireland. Yes, Ireland has had potatoes for some 300 years or so, but have they had a latke?

[u/Adept_Thanks_6993 → u/crumpledcactus]

Yes. They call it boxty

[u/BarGroundbreaking862]

I want to thank you,my Jewish friends, for taking a stand. I will continue to fight antisemitism every chance I get. May we all live in peace.

-a Muslim friend/brother

[u/conscience_journey → u/BarGroundbreaking862]

Sending love back, أخي.

[u/accidentalrorschach → u/BarGroundbreaking862]

Thank you so much for being here with us! We are with you too!

[u/Greatsayain]

I'm seeing more and worse antisemitism on X recently. Like completely unabashed holocaust denial, blaming jews for the downfall of current societies and previous societies, using other ethnic groups to disrupt countries we live in. They really like making fun of shoes in holocaust museums. I have a thread saved that made me make this post but I'm hesistant to link it. But it starts with, I'm paraphrasing, "if they thought they could get away with the 40 beheaded babies lie today, what did they try to get away with before cellphones and social media" Is it selfish to even worry about this? Is this recency bias and they have always been this bad and it just didn't show up on my feed until now, or is it really getting worse?

[u/valonianfool]

I just want to vent that I hate that there are so many hatesubs that spread anti-Palestinian bigotry. They show up if you search for "Palestinian" and one has about 20k members. Its completely vile, but i hope I can vent here.

I remember seeing a post showing a Palestinian bedouin woman in the occupied WB throwing stones at settlers, and the comments are saying they hope to turn the public's opinion towards settlers and that its unacceptable to "stone jews". Except settlers arent attacked for being jewish but for being colonialist terrorist.

[u/turtledovefairy7]

I have started studying other diasporic languages of the Jewish people. I really want to connect more with Jewish history and culture from all over the world and not only with that of my direct ancestors, even if I can’t advance in the same rhythm everywhere beyond the languages I picked up earlier. The full extent of our history attracts me so much more than the abandonment of our communities for the instrumentalized ideal of a more homogenized nationalization of a colonial state. For me our diasporic variation is so beautiful! and it would have been even more so if it were allowed to thrive without discrimination to its full potential. Although, of course, we ultimately were shaped by everything we went through, even surviving antisemitism and all the tragedies that fell over us were an integral part of our history like it ended up happening the real world.

[u/valonianfool]

Is it OK to vent here about hasbara Ive seen?

[u/crumpledcactus → u/valonianfool]

As long as it doesn't become subreddit drama, yes. Personally, I've seen some vile antisemitic hate speech about 6 months back. But, they conflated Jewishness with Israel. Out of curiousity, I clicked on the persons profile. Frequent poster to r-Israel. The Hasbara contractee forgot to switch from their personal account to their Hasbara account. I now know what everyone suspects: Israel willfully spreads antisemitic hatred, endangers us all, and pretends to be the victim.

[u/jeff_dosso]

A lefty Jewish who never posted or commented in my FB thread on my post about the genocide in Gaza finally commented to defend Zionism.

The post was saying all the ills perpetrated by Israel. "Zionism is..." * Starvation * Imprisonment * Ethnic cleansing * Scholasticide

.... and so on for 12 more bas things.

And then she writes "https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/zionism Regardless of current politics and actions, definitions matter. Also, the Jewish people are the Indigenous people of this region."

I'm just ... bewildered.

Like I guess technically she's correct. What I posted is more actions that fall as a consequence of that ideology. But.... really? This is the only thing you decided to speak up on?

Just wondering what else she'll defend and if I should engage her on it.

I guess there could be such a thing of an anti-Israel zionist where you come to the Holy Land as an immigrant, not a coloniser. Or post-Zionist Israel where one recognizes the Palestinians are more indigenous then a Jewish who moved recently New York.

I'm surprised how much the indigenaity is defended by the few left leaning Jewish people I know.

Not sure if I oppened a can of worms there with the topic of Zionism or indigenaity.

Personally I don't care who is more indigenous. I care about minimizing landlessness, statelessness, homelessness and loss of life.

So to some up 1. Do you think I should respond to this person? 2. If so, suggestions of how are welcomed. 3. Are there variations of anti-Israel zionism that exist and are accepted here? 4. Is the notion of Jewish indigeniaty still accpeted in anti-Zionist circles or outright rejected? 5. Should I make this a post or am I going to get tol much anger and vitriol?

[u/specialistsets → u/jeff_dosso]

I guess there could be such a thing of an anti-Israel zionist where you come to the Holy Land as an immigrant, not a coloniser. 

"anti-Israel Zionist" is an inherent contradiction, they are opposing ideologies. But there has always been non-Zionist Jews immigrating to Palestine and Israel, for example ultra-Orthodox who believe it is a mitzvah to live in the Land of Israel, or people from countries with political or economic instability who qualify to immigrate but aren't driven by Zionism as an ideology.

Or post-Zionist Israel where one recognizes the Palestinians are more indigenous then a Jewish who moved recently New York.

I know this is a thought exercise, but immigrants to Israel from the US are a very small demographic and include the non-Zionist ultra-Orthodox mentioned above who immigrate for religious reasons.

[u/MississippiYid → u/jeff_dosso]

You could definitely respond by saying “I never said they weren’t” and probably make it known that has nothing to do with atrocities being committed against Palestinians, but it’s ultimately up to you. Many times it’s just a waste of breath on another human who is also wasting oxygen that should be reserved for people with a heart. Your call though, but they love to say something totally irrelevant to the argument as if “Jews from Judea” is a got ya response to genocide. Edited to add: as far an indigenous claims go I think most of us who are anti Zionist don’t really give af that we had some ancestors who were forced out thousands of years ago. The culture of my ancestors was formed and thrived in central and Eastern Europe. We developed language, food, and music, and gave our own contribution to Judaism. I give respect to the place it all began but let’s be honest anyone today pretending their culture is even remotely similar ancient Israelites is off their rocker. Aside from religious rites and rituals there’s not much I could tell you about my ancestors who lived in Judea.

[u/valonianfool]

Ive seen a post on tumblr where the OP states that "jews have as much reason to be suspicious of anti-zionism as Palestinians have of zionism, since for the former it has often meant jews being harassed, attacked and losing their jobs and for the latter it has meant their dispossession, forced removal and genocide". I feel that the OP has some liberal zionist sympathies, but at least they admit that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.

What are some opinions on the statement above?

[u/valonianfool]

I still feel harrowed from an event that happened months ago, when I made the mistake of trying to debate a zionist after seeing a post listing supposed examples of hypocrisy from the pro-Palestinian movement.

The OP attacked and insulted me, but what really caused me distress is because they were a hypocritical ass who while claiming to stand in solidarity with indigenous people, support the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians, and promote racist, colonialist narratives.

After I brought up how fellahin (Palestinian subsistence farmers) have cultivated the land for centuries they called me "gross" for implying that "indigenous status can be obtained through farming" and how European farmers are still colonists despite farming the land. They claim that the fellahin and all arabs in Israel are "colonizers".

They called me an "antisemite" because I pointed out that for most parts of history during muslim rule, jewish life was peaceful and how the one massacre against jews they brought up in the post-the Hebron massacre-was motivated in part by Palestinian farmers becoming disenfranchised because of land sales to the JNF, claiming I'm somehow "excusing anti-jewish oppression".

However, their stance is hypocritical: while acknowledging it was unfair for the palestinian farmers who became landless and impoverished, they excuse it with "it was normal practice at the time" for absentee landlords to rent out and sell land, and how the landlords who sold land to the settlers were landlords in neighboring countries.

So according to them, injustice towards jews can never be excused or viewed in context to give a more nuanced picture, but injustice towards Palestinians is excusable.

I'm just really angry to the point of seeing red that this person is claiming that the people who've been dispossessed and colonized are the "colonizers", and how they don't understand what "indigenous" means at all despite claiming to support indigenous rights, as well as the blatant double standard of justifying injustice towards Palestinians with "it was OK at the time" but jews being unequal under the law isn't acceptable.

[u/sudo_apt-get_intrnet → u/valonianfool]

Honestly its rarely worth debating longer-term Jewish/Palestine history with Zionists, and almost never if you yourself are a gentile.

Debating indigenousness is not worth it here. Once you start you end up asking questions that really have no place in the conversation. Things like: how many generations does it take for the Palestinian Diaspora to no longer be considered indigenous to Palestine? What percent "purity" does someone's blood need to be to be considered a true, native Palestinian, especially when the UN definition applies unconditionally from patrilineal descent? How long until a white American whose family came to North America during the 1500s and has been farming continuously since then as "indigenous"? All of these questions are important when discussing who is and isn't indigenous to the region and also completely irrelevant to the ongoing atrocities in the region.

Debating the morality of the events in the region's history is also irrelevant. Did Jews have it better under Muslim rule than European rule? On average, sure. Were they equal to the Muslims? Definitely not. Was the idea of equality even really a thing in the Ottoman Empire pre-Zionism? Not really. Were there massacres and instances of antisemitism and anti-Jewish attacks pre-Zionism in the Ottoman Empire? Yes; see the Damascus Affair or the multiple sackings of Safed/Tzfat.

The Ottoman Empire was quasi-feudal, with lard scale pseudo-lords ruling over large amounts of land farmed by tenants living there for generations. Does that generational tenancy give them extra moral rights over that land, even if they don't have many legal rights? Debatable. Was it legal for land was purchased from a lord to be suddenly converted into an owner-operated/Jewish-operated farm, evicting the previous tenants who were there for hundreds of years? Yup. Was it right? Depends on your point of view.

What was the point of the last 2 paragraphs? Specifically, that one can start debating the legality and morality of pre-48 Palestine/Jewish history all you want and still have it be completely irrelevant to the question of Israel/Palestine. Zionists aren't evil because they took advantage of the historical legal system, and the Palestinians/Ottomans aren't evil because they didn't fully invest in equality amongst people significantly before Europe and the US. Israel is evil because it is currently, actively committing genocide against the Palestinians, and currently, actively denying them their rights to self-determination.

[u/specialistsets → u/valonianfool]

the one massacre against jews they brought up in the post-the Hebron massacre-was motivated in part by Palestinian farmers becoming disenfranchised because of land sales to the JNF

This isn't considered a motivation of the 1929 Hebron massacre, it was spurred by rumors that Zionists were planning to imminently overtake Al-Aqsa. And the victims in Hebron, both Sephardi and Ashkenazi, were not Zionists.

[u/valonianfool → u/specialistsets]

Yes I agree that its terrible what happened regardless, but would you dispute that the motivations behind the Hebron massacre was complex? It was due to Palestinian fears of being colonized.

[u/specialistsets → u/valonianfool]

Tensions had been growing since the establishment of the British Mandate and the huge increase in Jewish immigration that it facilitated. But the Hebron massacre was fueled by unfounded rumors that had originated in Jerusalem, and the resulting hysteria that spread from it.