Tag: jewish history

philosopherking1887:

eliannaeldari replied to your post “How can you come from a monotheistic family and have a deep…”

(1/7) Um, no, we never ever ever believed in the validity of multiple Gods as an aspect of our religion, though paganism was definitely a problem for us in biblical times. There are multiple stories of god breaking idols, etc, but that’s intended to demonstrate that they were just “ivory and wood, silver and marble”, “eyes that do not see, lips that do not speak, and ears that do not hear”. This whole thing is seriously misguided, I’m sorry. Taika seems to have followed

(2/7) A charachterization closer to that described in the eddas than in the comics, but that’s probably due to him just going ahead and reading the eddas. They aren’t all that hard to get a hold of. 

(3/7) I know very little about Islam, but while in Judaism god is described as jealous, it’s never “of other Gods”, it’s more like possessive. According to Judaism, there are no other Gods, and large factions of Judaism don’t believe in any non-god supernatural forces whatsoever. Christianity is mostly only considered monothiest by Christians, and while some Jewish sages say that it is, plenty say that it’s polythiesm, especially Catholicism and any involving the Trinity or

(4/7) Saints. We aren’t even allowed to pray in a church- aren’t even really supposed to go in them, though many people are lax about that. Mosques, on the other hand, we’re allowed to pray in- though are not supposed to take part in Muslim services. We have hymns and descriptions and poetry and legal writings from before Jesus was even a glimmer in his parents’ eyes about the oneness, unity, and lone existence of god. That doesn’t mean that Jews back then followed the

(5/7) Mitzvot/rules any more than they/,we do now, but that’s entirely different than claiming that *as a matter if religion* we acknowledged foreign Gods.

(6/7) We say, three times a day, (plus it’s supposed to be the last thing we say before we die) “hear Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one”. 

(7/7) God absolutely doesn’t want us wasting our time and efforts worshipping God’s that don’t exist, instead of following his commandments. That’s made pretty damn clear. Now, to be honest, *I believe in a “clockmaker” god, and am no longer orthodox*. But I couldn’t let this lie, as it’s very misinformed and misleading. I assume that OP simply didn’t have as much information, and was writing in good faith, but that doesn’t mean that the analysis is based in fact. 

OK, first of all, @eliannaeldari – I am Jewish. Not religiously, anymore, but by heritage and upbringing. But I grew up Reform Jewish, in a family and a congregation that respected secular academic scholarship… and of course I’m in academia now, studying a period in history when secular Biblical scholarship and history was a relatively new thing that was (along with Darwin) contributing to Europe’s religious crisis.

My information – coming from the cantor at the synagogue where I grew up, as well as from interacting with scholars of Jewish history in religious studies departments – is that very early Judaism embraced monolatry, the worship of only one god, rather than monotheism, the belief in the existence of only one god. I was under the impression that that was the scholarly consensus. The Jewish Virtual Library concurs; the Wikipedia article on monolatry cites a number of scholars who defend this thesis; My Jewish Learning, a site for prospective converts, teaches the controversy (so to speak), but only cites two scholars who hold that Judaism was monotheistic from the beginning.

So no, I was not claiming that we ever “believed in the validity of multiple Gods as an aspect of our religion.” It is not clear whether by validity you meant “actual existence” or “worth and acceptable worship.” The concept of monolatry indicates that there is an important distinction. The idea is that while there are other gods, they are other people’s gods, not ours. It’s fine if those other people worship them; we are not allowed to.

Some poking around suggests that I was mistaken about the timing of the shift from monolatry to monotheism, so thanks for questioning me on that. The various sources I’ve come across all seem to put the date around the time of the Babylonian exile, so 6th century BCE (here’s another one that’s clearly written). Deuteronomy, in which the text of the Sh’ma is found, was mostly composed in the 7th century BCE, and partly during the exile. There’s some speculation that monotheism developed as a response by the educated elite to the cataclysm of exile, and some that Persian Zoroastrianism may have been a relevant influence.

It must have been a trend: Greek religion was also showing monotheistic drift by the time of Plato and Socrates (5th century BCE); many gods were still officially recognized, but Zeus was definitely expanding in importance and starting to take on those omni- characteristics that predominate in philosophical monotheism. I was aware that Greek philosophy influenced the early development of Christian theology, and I had thought that was where principled monotheism had come from; it looks like monotheism was an earlier development, and it was more philosophical theology – issues like the problem of evil, which may or may not have originated with Epicurus – that came from the Greeks. And that might have entered Judaism directly, without being mediated by Christianity.

I don’t want to get into the issue of whether Christianity is “really” monotheistic with the trinity and the saints and all that. Syncretism, appealing to local pagans, whatever. The moral landscape of Christianity is distinctively monotheistic: there is one source of goodness and power, and any conflicting forces are (a) evil and (b) ultimately subordinate. The pagan worldview recognizes multiple competing forces, and while different groups of people may have different divine allegiances, it’s not really a matter of “good” vs. “evil.” The Trojan War as related in the Iliad is a case in point: different gods took different sides, and the Trojans were still regarded as noble and heroic, even though the perspective was Greek. One thing Judaism has in common with various pagan religions (and some but not all forms of Zoroastrianism, apparently) but not with Christianity and Islam is the absence of proselytism. It is kind of unusual for a monotheistic religion to be tribal rather than universalistic… but I guess since Judaism doesn’t really have a concept of “salvation” it might not matter that much.

Addendum: I also don’t give a crap about whether Taika gave a more accurate representation of the Norse gods. That wasn’t, as I understood it, the goal of the MCU Thor movies. I doubt very much that he’s read the Eddas but the writers of “Thor 1” and “The Avengers” hadn’t. (Markus & McFeely are another story.) If that’s what he was aiming for, he did the wrong assignment. But I also doubt very much that he had any such aim in mind.

eliannaeldari replied to your post “How can you come from a monotheistic family and have a deep…”

(1/7) Um, no, we never ever ever believed in the validity of multiple Gods as an aspect of our religion, though paganism was definitely a problem for us in biblical times. There are multiple stories of god breaking idols, etc, but that’s intended to demonstrate that they were just “ivory and wood, silver and marble”, “eyes that do not see, lips that do not speak, and ears that do not hear”. This whole thing is seriously misguided, I’m sorry. Taika seems to have followed

(2/7) A charachterization closer to that described in the eddas than in the comics, but that’s probably due to him just going ahead and reading the eddas. They aren’t all that hard to get a hold of. 

(3/7) I know very little about Islam, but while in Judaism god is described as jealous, it’s never “of other Gods”, it’s more like possessive. According to Judaism, there are no other Gods, and large factions of Judaism don’t believe in any non-god supernatural forces whatsoever. Christianity is mostly only considered monothiest by Christians, and while some Jewish sages say that it is, plenty say that it’s polythiesm, especially Catholicism and any involving the Trinity or

(4/7) Saints. We aren’t even allowed to pray in a church- aren’t even really supposed to go in them, though many people are lax about that. Mosques, on the other hand, we’re allowed to pray in- though are not supposed to take part in Muslim services. We have hymns and descriptions and poetry and legal writings from before Jesus was even a glimmer in his parents’ eyes about the oneness, unity, and lone existence of god. That doesn’t mean that Jews back then followed the

(5/7) Mitzvot/rules any more than they/,we do now, but that’s entirely different than claiming that *as a matter if religion* we acknowledged foreign Gods.

(6/7) We say, three times a day, (plus it’s supposed to be the last thing we say before we die) “hear Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one”. 

(7/7) God absolutely doesn’t want us wasting our time and efforts worshipping God’s that don’t exist, instead of following his commandments. That’s made pretty damn clear. Now, to be honest, *I believe in a “clockmaker” god, and am no longer orthodox*. But I couldn’t let this lie, as it’s very misinformed and misleading. I assume that OP simply didn’t have as much information, and was writing in good faith, but that doesn’t mean that the analysis is based in fact. 

OK, first of all, @eliannaeldari – I am Jewish. Not religiously, anymore, but by heritage and upbringing. But I grew up Reform Jewish, in a family and a congregation that respected secular academic scholarship… and of course I’m in academia now, studying a period in history when secular Biblical scholarship and history was a relatively new thing that was (along with Darwin) contributing to Europe’s religious crisis.

My information – coming from the cantor at the synagogue where I grew up, as well as from interacting with scholars of Jewish history in religious studies departments – is that very early Judaism embraced monolatry, the worship of only one god, rather than monotheism, the belief in the existence of only one god. I was under the impression that that was the scholarly consensus. The Jewish Virtual Library concurs; the Wikipedia article on monolatry cites a number of scholars who defend this thesis; My Jewish Learning, a site for prospective converts, teaches the controversy (so to speak), but only cites two scholars who hold that Judaism was monotheistic from the beginning.

So no, I was not claiming that we ever “believed in the validity of multiple Gods as an aspect of our religion.” It is not clear whether by validity you meant “actual existence” or “worth and acceptable worship.” The concept of monolatry indicates that there is an important distinction. The idea is that while there are other gods, they are other people’s gods, not ours. It’s fine if those other people worship them; we are not allowed to.

Some poking around suggests that I was mistaken about the timing of the shift from monolatry to monotheism, so thanks for questioning me on that. The various sources I’ve come across all seem to put the date around the time of the Babylonian exile, so 6th century BCE (here’s another one that’s clearly written). Deuteronomy, in which the text of the Sh’ma is found, was mostly composed in the 7th century BCE, and partly during the exile. There’s some speculation that monotheism developed as a response by the educated elite to the cataclysm of exile, and some that Persian Zoroastrianism may have been a relevant influence.

It must have been a trend: Greek religion was also showing monotheistic drift by the time of Plato and Socrates (5th century BCE); many gods were still officially recognized, but Zeus was definitely expanding in importance and starting to take on those omni- characteristics that predominate in philosophical monotheism. I was aware that Greek philosophy influenced the early development of Christian theology, and I had thought that was where principled monotheism had come from; it looks like monotheism was an earlier development, and it was more philosophical theology – issues like the problem of evil, which may or may not have originated with Epicurus – that came from the Greeks. And that might have entered Judaism directly, without being mediated by Christianity.

I don’t want to get into the issue of whether Christianity is “really” monotheistic with the trinity and the saints and all that. Syncretism, appealing to local pagans, whatever. The moral landscape of Christianity is distinctively monotheistic: there is one source of goodness and power, and any conflicting forces are (a) evil and (b) ultimately subordinate. The pagan worldview recognizes multiple competing forces, and while different groups of people may have different divine allegiances, it’s not really a matter of “good” vs. “evil.” The Trojan War as related in the Iliad is a case in point: different gods took different sides, and the Trojans were still regarded as noble and heroic, even though the perspective was Greek. One thing Judaism has in common with various pagan religions (and some but not all forms of Zoroastrianism, apparently) but not with Christianity and Islam is the absence of proselytism. It is kind of unusual for a monotheistic religion to be tribal rather than universalistic… but I guess since Judaism doesn’t really have a concept of “salvation” it might not matter that much.

How can you come from a monotheistic family and have a deep understanding of polytheism?

philosopherking1887:

For background, this is in reference to (my bitching about) the post claiming that Taika Waititi has a better understanding of the gods of Norse mythology than Bad White Christian Joss Whedon, first (presumably) because he’s Maori and therefore closer to paganism (never mind that a significant proportion of the Maori population has been Christian since the 19th century), and then, according to a later commenter, because he’s Jewish (on his mother’s side) and therefore has a more down-to-earth conception of God.

This is not completely crazy, because while Judaism only recognizes one god, it has not always been strictly monotheistic in the sense in which Christianity and Islam are. According to ancient Jewish religion, the gods of other tribes/nations do exist, but we only worship one god, and there’s only one god worth worshiping, because he’s cooler than all the other gods (he created the world, so there) and can kick their asses any day. (There’s actually a story about that in First Samuel, when the Ark gets stolen and put in a Philistine temple and God comes out at night and breaks the idol of their god.) That’s why the Hebrew Bible says all that stuff about God being “a jealous god”; that wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense if God just didn’t want us wasting our time praying to gods that don’t exist. God has a personality, and it’s not always perfect; he’s jealous, he’s vengeful, he gets angry easily.

Since then, Judaism has become more properly monotheistic under the influence of Christianity in Europe and Islam under the medieval Caliphate (Maimonides, one of the most important Jewish theologians, lived in Caliphate-ruled Spain and wrote in Arabic. Sometimes empires can be cool). The God of Judaism has gotten closer to the omnipotent, omniscient, unfailingly benevolent God of philosophical monotheism, which runs you into the problem of evil… and that has definitely been a problem in Jewish history, especially recently. The main respect in which Judaism differs from Christianity (I don’t know about Islam) is that it doesn’t emphasize how sinful and unworthy human beings are compared to God. Sure, there’s some of that “what are we that You should take notice of us?” stuff in the psalms… but the fact remains that God has not only taken notice of us, but made an agreement with us on more or less equal terms; that’s what the covenant is. Paul claimed that the whole point of the covenant was to demonstrate that human beings are incapable of living up to God’s standards of goodness on their own, which is why they needed God to step in and save them (from Himself, apparently). Jews don’t buy that. Yes, it’s hard to do what God demands of us. Try anyway. When you mess up, apologize to God and to the people you’ve wronged, then try again.

I’m honestly not sure what any of that has to do with Taika Waititi’s and Joss Whedon’s portrayal of Thor and Loki, except that maybe someone raised Jewish is used to the idea of a god being an asshole and going overboard on punishing people (*cough*electrocution*cough*), which God definitely does in the Books of Moses. But rabbinic Judaism is as likely to try to justify that as Christianity is. And also I just don’t think it’s true that Whedon was trying to portray Thor as a perfect Christ figure and Loki as a completely evil Satan. European Christian culture has evolved; we have Milton’s Satan, we have Goethe’s Mephistopheles, we have flawed and human versions of Jesus. Whedon is well-read and educated; he refers to existentialist philosophy and the canon of great Western literature – including pre-Christian classical literature – in his work. If all people are seeing is a simplistic black and white Jesus vs. Satan, that’s their problem, not his.

I spent way too long writing this little essay, so I’m reblogging it in hopes that someone will actually see it.

How can you come from a monotheistic family and have a deep understanding of polytheism?

For background, this is in reference to (my bitching about) the post claiming that Taika Waititi has a better understanding of the gods of Norse mythology than Bad White Christian Joss Whedon, first (presumably) because he’s Maori and therefore closer to paganism (never mind that a significant proportion of the Maori population has been Christian since the 19th century), and then, according to a later commenter, because he’s Jewish (on his mother’s side) and therefore has a more down-to-earth conception of God.

This is not completely crazy, because while Judaism only recognizes one god, it has not always been strictly monotheistic in the sense in which Christianity and Islam are. According to ancient Jewish religion, the gods of other tribes/nations do exist, but we only worship one god, and there’s only one god worth worshiping, because he’s cooler than all the other gods (he created the world, so there) and can kick their asses any day. (There’s actually a story about that in First Samuel, when the Ark gets stolen and put in a Philistine temple and God comes out at night and breaks the idol of their god.) That’s why the Hebrew Bible says all that stuff about God being “a jealous god”; that wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense if God just didn’t want us wasting our time praying to gods that don’t exist. God has a personality, and it’s not always perfect; he’s jealous, he’s vengeful, he gets angry easily.

Since then, Judaism has become more properly monotheistic under the influence of Christianity in Europe and Islam under the medieval Caliphate (Maimonides, one of the most important Jewish theologians, lived in Caliphate-ruled Spain and wrote in Arabic. Sometimes empires can be cool). The God of Judaism has gotten closer to the omnipotent, omniscient, unfailingly benevolent God of philosophical monotheism, which runs you into the problem of evil… and that has definitely been a problem in Jewish history, especially recently. The main respect in which Judaism differs from Christianity (I don’t know about Islam) is that it doesn’t emphasize how sinful and unworthy human beings are compared to God. Sure, there’s some of that “what are we that You should take notice of us?” stuff in the psalms… but the fact remains that God has not only taken notice of us, but made an agreement with us on more or less equal terms; that’s what the covenant is. Paul claimed that the whole point of the covenant was to demonstrate that human beings are incapable of living up to God’s standards of goodness on their own, which is why they needed God to step in and save them (from Himself, apparently). Jews don’t buy that. Yes, it’s hard to do what God demands of us. Try anyway. When you mess up, apologize to God and to the people you’ve wronged, then try again.

I’m honestly not sure what any of that has to do with Taika Waititi’s and Joss Whedon’s portrayal of Thor and Loki, except that maybe someone raised Jewish is used to the idea of a god being an asshole and going overboard on punishing people (*cough*electrocution*cough*), which God definitely does in the Books of Moses. But rabbinic Judaism is as likely to try to justify that as Christianity is. And also I just don’t think it’s true that Whedon was trying to portray Thor as a perfect Christ figure and Loki as a completely evil Satan. European Christian culture has evolved; we have Milton’s Satan, we have Goethe’s Mephistopheles, we have flawed and human versions of Jesus. Whedon is well-read and educated; he refers to existentialist philosophy and the canon of great Western literature – including pre-Christian classical literature – in his work. If all people are seeing is a simplistic black and white Jesus vs. Satan, that’s their problem, not his.

tikkunolamorgtfo:

unaligned-valkyrie:

jessicamiriamdrew:

tikkunolamorgtfo:

panarchie:

unaligned-valkyrie:

So people are saying that Ruby Rose doesn’t identify as a lesbian (she’s very gay as far as I know) and isn’t Jewish so therefore shouldn’t play Batwoman. What the actual fuck. Can people please stop being offended just for the sake of being offended. Sure, whitewashing is an issue in Hollywood, and it’s something that needs to change. But, NEWSFLASH, someone’s religion doesn’t dictate whether or not they can play a character of that religion. 

This whole being offended by something because you feel like you should be offended is ridiculous. Actors are actors, they play a part. It doesn’t matter if they have the same religious background as that character, it doesn’t matter if they share the same sexuality of that character. They’re actors, they pretend, that’s literally their job. 

I’m not Jewish so it’s not my place to comment on this but maybe @tikkunolamorgtfo or @fromchaostocosmos could weigh in?

@unaligned-valkyrie, this is not simply an issue of “religion.” The Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group, i.e. “an ethnic group whose members are also unified by a common religious background.” Note the word “also” in that description—because unlike with Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc. you can be ethnically Jewish without practicing Judaism as a religion. We’re demanding accurate cultural representation for our ethnic group, and the ability to be the centre of our own narratives. 

This isn’t “being offended for the sake of being offended.” Most Jewish characters are not presently played by Jews, which denies us the right to be present and visible in our own stories. I have never seen an adaptation of Anne Frank with a Jewish actress playing the role. Films about anti-semitism often star gentile actors. The message is that our culture and history is only important insofar as it can be commodified and used to entertain gentiles, but that we’re still not actually welcome when it comes to taking part in the sharing of our own narratives. 

Also, while we’re on the subject of acting and the co-opting of Jewish stories for non-Jewish audiences, like…do y’all realise that Jewish people can tell when somebody playing a Jew isn’t Jewish about 98% of the time and that it ruins the film/show/play for us? Yeah, it’s an actor’s job to act, but I’ve seen precious few gentiles do Jewish convincingly. You butcher our languages, our mannerisms, and our general cultural outlook the majority of the time, either completely missing what defines us or reducing us to base stereotypes. 

Sure, you can’t tell; you’re a gentile. Somebody saying “Oh I’m Jewish, this is my menorah!” is probably enough for you to buy the performance hook, line, and sinker. But us? WE CAN TELL, and sorry, but a piece of media featuring a Jewish character in a way where the person portraying them obviously doesn’t understand Jews is fucking alienating, and again: WE DESERVE NOT TO BE ALIENATED FROM STORIES THAT ARE ABOUT US. 

Like FFS we’re a tiny group that’s been shat upon for 2,000 years, can’t you guys just let us have a little bit of joy once in a while? 

we want to play our roles. i want to see a jewish lesbian character on tv and know that the actress has similar experiences to the character because she’s jewish and a lesbian. i want to go ‘hey, that actress has similar experiences to me!’ people hate me for not being straight, sure, but they also hate me, probably more so!, for being jewish. the two are deeply entwined and influence each other.

you can’t separate kate’s jewish identity from her lesbian identity. her jewishness is a key component.

we deserve to have iconically jewish characters played by jewish actors. we deserve to see ourselves in our stories.

I see now that the wording of my original post was wrong, and I am completely open to being educated. The ‘offended about being offended’ part wasn’t actually about the religious side of it, that was more to do with the sexuality. Yes, you should want to see yourselves in stories, and I obviously have no issue with that at all, but attacking the actress for being cast in the role (which people have to the point that she has quit twitter) isn’t the right way to go about it. 

Like I said, I’m open to being educated about things that I can’t know about as I’m not Jewish, so I’m learning on that point.

Thank you for listening. 

I mean, you *could* know that being Jewish is as much about ethnicity as about religion without being Jewish… but most Americans don’t. This is at least partly due to a successful effort in the U.S. by Reform Judaism, a movement that started in 19th-century Germany, to reframe Judaism as a religion like any other. They wanted Jews in Germany to be considered “Germans of the Mosaic faith.” We all know how well that went over in Germany… or maybe we don’t, if we think the Holocaust was a matter of religious rather than racial hatred.

In the 19th and even the mid-20th century, it made sense for Jews to try to be seen as just another flavor of white people, entitled to the same religious toleration that was enshrined in the First Amendment because of Europe’s wars between different denominations of Christianity. In the age of identity politics, when people are increasingly reckoning with the history of racism in the modern world, that story about what it means to be Jewish obscures important facets of our history. It also dangerously obscures the importance of antisemitism in the worldview of white supremacists active now in the United States. If you don’t realize that antisemitism is a kind of racism, not a kind of religious prejudice, then it makes no sense. Why are white supremacists always going on about power being concentrated in the hands of Jews, if Jews are mostly just white people who happen to have a different religion? (Other than that stuff about Jews promoting multiculturalism, which would seem kinda random if you don’t realize that they don’t consider Jews to be white.)

In the past, I haven’t much minded non-Jewish actors being cast as Jewish characters. Sir Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender as Magneto is hardly an insult. And most Americans can’t tell the difference. But apparently we do need to start insisting on the ethnic dimension of Jewish identity. I look pretty white, for most purposes, but I’ve been identified as Jewish by non-Jews I’ve never met on the basis of facial features. That wouldn’t happen if Judaism was just another religion.

tikkunolamorgtfo:

“If you’re in a space where you’re feeling uncomfortable, it’s not our job to make you comfortable,” [Sarsour] said. “It’s your job to reflect and say, ‘What is it about the space that’s making me feel uncomfortable? What is it about this particular form of injustice that’s making me feel uncomfortable? Why would a Jewish American feel alienated by speaking about the atrocities and human rights violations that the Israeli government is committing against Palestinian people,” Sarsour asked the audience. “Why would it make you uncomfortable?”

Well, Linda, I’ll fucking tell you! Most of us are actually not uncomfortable talking about the human rights violations Israel is committing against the Palestinian people—like, at all! What we are uncomfortable with is the way you frame the discussion so that Jews are depicted as a non-indigenous group of White McWhite people who just showed up one day and stole land from the Palestinians for kicks, rather than as another equally indigenous group who the Romans expelled, leading to a diasporic existence that saw us repeatedly exiled and murdered for 2,000 in countries all over the world because we were outsiders from the Levant. We aren’t uncomfortable acknowledging that Israel’s policies are heinous, and there are plenty of us who are even comfortable thinking of an alternative to Israel in which both peoples live side by side, BUT—that future where the peoples exist in a unified state can’t fucking exist if you refuse to recognise the Jewish people for who we actually are. Acting like Jews are Afrikaners 2.0 instead of understanding our history and our traumas and our peoplehood is not a foundation on which you can build mutual respect and coexistence. We’re “uncomfortable” in your spaces because you actively rewrite our history to fit your own narrative instead of respecting our identity as a people. In your spaces, everyone has a right to define their oppression and identity except for the Jews. 

Honestly, the fact that this whole thing is framed in the context of “Maybe you should examine why having your privilege called out makes you uncomfortable” is just another example of why we feel we don’t belong in your spaces. Because you’re equating us with supremacy in the same breath that you’re supposedly condemning the Nazis outside yelling “Jews will not divide us!” You see us being actively targeted, yet you leave us out of your activism because it doesn’t fit your I/P narrative. We’re fucking uncomfortable because when you’re not willing to take Jewish people at their word regarding their life experiences, you’re not willing to stand up for us or include us in your movements. This isn’t about glossing over the atrocities in Palestine. This is about you disliking Jews unless they let you define for them what it means to be Jewish. 

And we have a word for people like that: It’s antisemite. 

Or maybe, since these people deny the premise of antisemitism that Jews are a Semitic people – sharing language, ethnic heritage, and place of origin with other Middle Eastern and North African groups – we should go back to basics and call them what they are at bottom: Jew-haters.

A notorious pogrom spawned some long-running myths. This historian is dispelling them.

littlegoythings:

There was a time when “Kishinev” was all you had to say. The three days of brutal anti-Jewish violence in 1903 in the capital city of present-day Moldova introduced the world to a new word — pogrom — and for years afterward colored the way Jews and others viewed Jewish life in the Russian empire. 

Through dedicated research in several countries and as many languages, including a fortuitous gift of astonishing handwritten documents from the most notorious anti-Semite in late tsarist-era Kishinev, the Stanford University historian has shown us an early example of the power of the press, brought to light the story of a San Francisco Jewish woman instrumental in forming the NAACP, built an ironclad case for the true authorship of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” and explained how the fallout from this tragic tale gave rise to the myth of the weak Diaspora Jew that persists to this day.

Oh hey, I took a class on modern Jewish history from Steve Zipperstein.

A notorious pogrom spawned some long-running myths. This historian is dispelling them.

It’s that time again.

half-sassed:

Springtime. The Paschal season. Aviv.

The season of rebirth, renewal, and too much bleeping rain.

The time of flowers blooming, bears waking, trees budding, eggs hatching, and Jews frantically cleaning their homes and screaming this crucial message into the void:

No, Christians, you should not have Passover seders.

“But why?” comes the eternal reply. “The Old Testament is part of our tradition too! Jesus celebrated Passover! Why can’t we?”

Read on, and I’ll tell you.

Keep reading