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pressure bursts pipes, but it also makes diamonds.
“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
“How come when we read the Bible, we always read it as being the oppressed and not the oppressor?
Because if you can become aware of someone’s experience, it allows you to be more compassionate.
Seeing all people as worthy of our compassion expands our capacity to create lasting change. And then suddenly the world is a much kinder, more tolerant, more beautiful place.
Jews are just over 2 percent of the US population, but they are the target of 63 percent of religion-based attacks.
I was eventually fired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over my criticism of certain policies he was going to enact—which I was okay with, as it made no difference to my advocacy.
ethno-religion. Meaning being Jewish is not solely about being observant or practicing daily rituals. It’s about a shared story and history, a shared culture, and a shared ancestral homeland—in Hebrew, it’s an Am and Uma, a peoplehood and a nation.
Judaism is a religion, a culture, and an ethnicity; it’s a belief system, a tradition, and a bloodline. In one way or another, it can be all those things. Every Jew Jews differently.
We know, objectively, historically, and scientifically, that Israel, the birthplace of Judaism, existed somewhere between 1200 and 1400 BCE. We know that Judaism gave us this radical idea of a relationship between one person and one God.
“The world stands upon three things: the Torah, work, and charity.” על שלשה דברים העולם עומד ,על התורה ועל העבודה ועל גמילות חסדים Some modern scholars interpret this to mean that Judaism is, in a nutshell: study, practicing that study in real life, and being good to others.II
The day you’re born, the day you get married, and the day you die—there’s a practice for that. What foods you eat and in which order, how exactly to consummate your relationship, even pooping (and giving gratitude for it!)—Judaism has a say in that, too. Because the more present you are—with yourself, with your spouse, with your family, with your community—the more connected you become to who you are. And the more you understand yourself, the more you understand the world and God (whatever that happens to look like for you).
There is a lot to Judaism that makes it special and unique,
It’s a decentralized religion. Meaning you don’t really need a single designated place, such as a synagogue, to practice it.
It emphasizes community.
mourner’s prayer we say after someone dies, require that ten people, or a minyan, be present; nine other people who can say “Amen; I see you in your pain; I see you in your grief.”
It celebrates nature.
Also, we’re moon people. Our calendar is guided by the lunar cycle, with each new moon marking a new beginning.
It evolves as we do. Even though every branch or denomination of Judaism is different, what they all have in common is change.
It’s a big tent. As in, no matter who you’re married to, how often (or not often at all) you go to synagogue, or which Jewish laws you observe, there’s still a place for you under the big Jewish tent.
I, on the other hand, was taught that everything needs to be questioned in order to be better understood, even stories from the Bible. I was taught to always ask questions, always doubt, and—if there’s another point of view to be had—always argue. As I grew up, I learned that the entire Jewish culture is built on these qualities and that they go back to the foundation of our religion.
“Judaism is an extraordinarily this-worldly, this-life-focused religion.”
“If we are to come close to God, if we are to really grow as human beings, if we are to make a difference to the world, then let’s do it here. Here and now, not in some other world, in some other life.”
A more appropriate and nuanced concept for understanding how all Jews are related is that of an ethno-religion, which is a vast group of people who do happen to share a distinctive culture, ancestry, belief system, and/or language.
Communities were advised against keeping up their mezuzahs (small cases containing traditional prayer scrolls) on their doorways during Halloween; the Israeli government issued an international travel advisory suggesting that Jewish travelers avoid displaying any sign of their Jewish or Israeli identity for their own safety; synagogues and religious schools have had to hire extra security to guard the entrances and students have been advised not to play outside; Jews everywhere have been making sure their passports are up to date; and I’ve been asked by far too many friends: “Where will we go
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When you assume that all Jews are white and/or privileged, you erase an entire people’s history. It also makes it a lot easier to assume the worst about Jews.
So, by the Early Middle Ages, no one was shocked when Church leaders distorted Old Testament verses to teach their disciples that Jews were direct descendants of the mega horn-bearer himself, Satan.I
What they did have, though, was thousands of years of culture, tradition, and dedication—not to money, not to global domination, but to the sacredness of education and family values and community.
Back in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Church interpreted the Bible as saying that one should not charge interest on money loaned. The Talmud, however, allowed it so long as the money was lent from Jews to non-Jews.I Especially when it was absolutely necessary for making ends meet, the Talmudic Sages cosigned.
When Jews started becoming more prominent as bankers and lawyers—jobs that were uniquely available to them as an antisemitic side effect that we’ll get into in a minute—the imagery of Shylock and the money-loving Jew was already firmly implanted in the collective consciousness, informing people’s opinions about Jews, whether they knew it or not.
Well, because many Jews couldn’t own land, they moved to cities where they could continue practicing moneylending and trade, in addition to emerging professions like law. Similarly, many Jews got into theater to make a living, since it was considered “unsuitable” for white Christians.
When more Jews started heading west to California in the first couple decades of the 1900s because there was a booming Jewish community there and booming antisemitism on the East Coast, they brought this enterprising spirit with them. Since diversity hires weren’t a thing at the few non-Jewish movie studios such as Disney, they slowly but surely built their own—Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Loew’s, and Universal.
Jews having all the power. To which I have two things to say: 1. We have it because we built it! Because we had no other choice! Fair and square. And 2. Overrepresentation is not control. In any industry. Jews holding prominent positions is not this white-knuckled grip on all the power. Nor is it a plot to replace the influence of the entire white majority (aka the neo-fascist “Great Replacement Theory”).
but again, we try to hide it because the idea of Jews having too much control has been a very, very convenient reason to kill us.
Kyrie is back to playing basketball, Adidas is back to selling Yeezys, and Prince Harry is on Netflix.
Despite the fact that we’ve made some incredible achievements that seem unlikely from a small group of people who, until the past seventy-five years, have not had the consistent freedom to own a home, live where they want, hold any job they want, have equal citizenship, get elected to office, or live day to day without the fear of being murdered. We are still plagued by the biologically ingrained fear of being rounded up for that success. Because every single Jewish person is a descendant of someone who was sitting in a kitchen somewhere in the world, looked around at the family, and said, “We
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The thing to understand about antisemitism is that it evolves and changes with the times. It is sometimes hard to spot or hidden from view, but it always leads to the same conclusion: Jews are to blame for society’s problems.
Rhineland Massacres, mobs of French and German Christians pillaged Jewish homes for valuables to “fund the Crusades,” and mass murdered the Jews on their way out. In fact, you can trace a straight line from this moment in antisemitic European history all the way through to the Holocaust.
Well, we all know how much America likes to “borrow” culture, and antisemitism is no exception. By the time Jews started arriving in large numbers at Ellis Island in the early 1900s, thousands of years of tropes showed up with them: that Jews are conspiring to take over the world. That they are dirty and disease-spreading. That they are clannish, disloyal, and can’t be trusted. That they are money-hungry and greedy. Which explains why, as we fast-forward to the present, the entire buffet is still being served.
OCTOBER 8TH
October 8th. I mean the day after 3,000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and butchered 1,200 people—the largest number of Jews in one day since the Holocaust—and took more than 240 hostages, including babies and the elderly.
Instead, on October 8th, before Israel had taken a single action against Hamas, drowning out any condolence, support, and outrage Jews received from some allies were cheers. People rallied and chanted in the name of “Palestinian liberation,” in the name of “freedom fighting,” and in the name of the dissolution of Israel.
I am not suggesting that the Israeli government is beyond reproach and not to be criticized. But the criticism of a government is not the same as denying a country’s right to exist, and it is certainly not the same as extending equal vitriol for a government’s actions to an entire group of people, many of whom do not reside there. And that of course also goes for Palestinians, who are not all responsible for the actions of their government, Hamas.
What we saw on October 8th was the activation of approximately thirty years of well-coordinated anti-Israel rhetoric and bias.
It’s why we were so shaken by October 7th. It wasn’t solely because so many Jews had been mutilated, raped, and slaughtered; it was also because it was part of a larger chain of events: anti-Jewish scapegoating, followed by an anti-Jewish movement, followed by anti-Jewish violence.
No, the Holocaust was the result of years of persecuting Jews in Germany and other parts of Europe in a slowly escalating way. There was a subtle shift in language, insinuating that it was the Jews—as some of the bank owners and some of the members of the government—who were to blame for Germany’s loss of World War I, tanking economy, weak leadership, unpleasant state of international affairs, and struggling national identity.
As we speak, thirty-three states do not require Holocaust curricula in public schools because it might cause “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress.” For the record, these are the same reasons cited behind anti–critical race theory laws, or laws that forbid teaching students about institutionalized racism, such as Texas’s 2021 House Bill 3979.
Pre-1933: The Making of a Nazi
Germany gets crushed.
Allied Powers (primarily France, Great Britain, the Russian Empire, Italy, Japan, and the United States)
