Category: Uncategorized

hi, i’m sorry if this has been asked but in your powerpoint you said that the tumblr sj community is guilty of antisemitism. what kind of things has it done? also, i love your blog!

progressivejudaism:

shoshanah-ben-hohim:

wolfayal:

beyondthetaffrail:

returnofthejudai:

debigotizer:

I’ll take this one since I’m the blog’s resident Jew.  Oy vey, where do I start…

  • SJ community loves to police Jewish identity and silence actual Jews when they talk about their own identities.  This usually happens in context of either “Are Jews White?” or “Jewishness is just a religion” conversations.  In reality, Jews are an ethnoreligious group that ethnically originated in the middle east, and while some ethnic Jews have light skin, it’s actually due to centuries of forced assimilation in European and Slavic countries through rape, which is a big reason why Jewishness is matrilineal.  Furthermore, there exist Jews who do not look white at all.  There are black, brown, and asian Jews who are all ethnically Jewish, and these conversations erase them.
  • “Jewish privilege”.  Fact: It’s not a thing.  It’s actually a very common anti-semitic trope that says that Jews run everything so they are not oppressed.  Jews are oppressed, and face anti-semitic violence.
  • “Anti-semitism is not just about Jews, there are other semitic people.” While yea, there are other semitic people, the term “anti-semitism” was created by Germans in the 19th century to refer specifically to the hatred of Jews because it sounded more scientific.
  • Blaming anti-semitic violence in Europe on the actions of Israel.  I see this literally every single day on this site, and it’s very upsetting.  Jews that live in the diaspora are not responsible for Israel’s actions, and especially should not be suffering at the hands of white people in Europe under the guise of anti-zionism.  
  • Finally, and this is a big pet peeve of mine.  The only people I ever see reblogging posts about anti-semitism are other Jews.  Even a lot of my non-Jewish followers will reblog posts about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. but ignore posts about anti-semitism, and that as a Jew makes me feel unsafe. 

That’s enough for now.  If you’re interested in learning more about Jewish identity and anti-semitism, you are welcome to check out my personal blog: yochevedke.  I discuss that stuff a lot.  

-Yeva

Another Jew reblogging about anti-semitism. I’ve seen some increase in concern about this from goyim, but it’s been slow going. Hopefully we’ll pick up a big head of steam soon.

“The only people I ever see reblogging posts about anti-semitism are other Jews. Even a lot of my non-Jewish followers will reblog posts about racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. but ignore posts about anti-semitism, and that as a Jew makes me feel unsafe.”

the amount with which this point in particular resonates with me is unreal

The bold is especially important.

I don’t think I suffer a lot from anti-Semitism, and I certainly don’t face anything close to the degree of oppression that many of my peers have to face because of their gender and sexual identity and the color of their skin. That being said, The previous posters are absolutely right on all counts.

Again, The only people I ever see reblogging posts about anti-Semitism are other Jews, while many blogs I follow reblog every post under the sun relating to racism, sexism, and homophobia. This issue has on occasion made me feel pretty isolated, because I have seen a lot of people reblogging posts related to recents events in Gaza that reflected extremely anti-Israel points of view. There’s nothing wrong with that, people have every right to hold those opinions, and I even share some of them. However, as the original poster said, a lot of recent anti-Semitic violence in Europe stems from the the willingness of anti-Israel Europeans to hold Jews in the Diaspora responsible for the actions of the state of Israel. This is not ok. This is anti-Semitism, and this is part of what American Jews are seeing as anti-Semitic in what tumblr users say and do.

The average American Jew on tumblr doesn’t think “I support what Israel is doing in Gaza, and the horrible things people say about Israel are anti-Semitic attacks”.

The average American Jew on tumblr thinks “I don’t support what Israel is doing in Gaza, and even though there wasn’t a single popular protest in Europe over civilian deaths in Syria, Libya, or elsewhere in the Middle East caused government violence, but as soon as Israel did it Europe was outraged, and tumblr exploded with anti-Israel posts covering the protests and Israel’s actions.”

Fantastic points. Bravo everyone.

I, as a non-Jewish person, probably don’t reblog enough about anti-semitism, so here’s a great post from Jewish tumblr peeps with some excellent points about anti-semitism and systematic opression of Jewish folks, so, read up, folks.

elodieunderglass:

kounttrapula:

‘Rat Park’ –Stuart McMillen

You’ll never think about drug addiction the same way again after reading this comic.

What I found absolutely impressive and stunning about this comic is the way the artist explained the identification and elimination of the confounding factors in the Rat Park study. This is one of the hardest parts of experiments to explain to the public, and I think it was just brilliantly done.

seananmcguire:

animatedamerican:

animatedamerican:

So @your-biology-is-wrong wrote this excellent post, which attracted some wrongheaded comments and a lengthy, well-documented, frankly stunning rebuttal by @millenniumvulcan.  I recommend you go read them.

But the whole conversation got me thinking.

I’ve been saying for some years now that we’re teaching science terribly wrong in schools, and quite possibly the wrongest thing we’re doing is making no distinction between “facts about the universe that we have observed” and “categories and models that we have constructed in order to organize the facts we have observed”.

Essentially, kids are being taught that “cats are mammals” is the same kind of scientific fact as “cats give birth to live young,” and it isn’t.  At all.

Which is why we get discussions like the one linked above.  Or like the ones about Pluto being declared a dwarf planet instead of a planet, where people assert that the change in nomenclature is because “we understand better now what a planet is” and not because we’ve chosen to narrow the definition to (disputably) better organize our constructed categories of Things In Space.  Or, for that matter, like the ones that call out “scientific error” in the Bible by citing references to calling a bat a “bird,” or calling a whale a “fish,” as though the classification system we use today is objective scientific fact instead of constructed model.

Because nobody is teaching kids how to tell the difference, or even that there is a difference.

@fredweasleyfreak said: i am very confused. giving birth to live young is a criteria for being a mammal? so what is wrong with teaching them both as scientific fact? 

What’s wrong with it is that the definition of mammal isn’t scientific fact, it’s nomenclature.  Which is to say, a thing we made up as a way of organizing scientific facts.

“Does/does not give birth to live young” is observed data.  “Mammal” is a name we attached to a particular collection of observed data.

They’re both facts, but they’re not the same kind of fact at all.  And in most grade-school science classes, they’re taught as though they are.  To the point where it can be really difficult for most of us who were taught that way to get our heads around the difference.

Also, giving birth to live young is NOT a criteria for being a mammal.  There are egg-laying mammals.  We thought, at one point, that all mammals must give birth to live young; then we found mammals that didn’t.  Our understanding of the natural world is constantly changing, because of discoveries just like this one.

Yep, Australia has egg-laying mammals!

Also some reptiles give birth to live young, here – see, blue-tongued skinks.

Seriously, go look blueys up, they’re adorable. They’re like the labradors of the reptile world.