Documenting ganovim goyim

Oh yes nice upside down Hamsa you got there. I forgot cultural appropriation is a “hawt trend”.

The bottom line is that this blog is a lot of work.  It requires a commitment of time and energy to keep up a regular posting schedule, one I’m unable to make, especially not as a volunteer.  If anyone wants to put in the time and labour, I’m happy to have them on board.  If someone wants to pay for goynif to keep running, I’d be delighted to have that, too.  But until that time, until there’s either more help or money to allow me to priority goynif over my paying graduate work and freelancing, this blog will update sporadically at best, whenever I have the time and energy to do so.

As a general rule, we don’t translate Hebrew tattoos for people.

It’s invariably ~sexy and exotic~, likely because most people have no idea what the hell it actually is, or don’t care.  But that’s the goyische way.  Who cares if something is culturally significant if it’s cool and they want it?  I think that’s a tag we’re going to start tracking and paying attention to -- thanks for bringing it up.

The appropriation of Polish goyim of their Jewish past is notable and awful, frankly.  I saw it when I was in Kraków in the early 2000s.  The Jewish ghetto wasn’t in the city, it was across the river where it was more easily liquidated without disturbing the city at large and it hadn’t survived the war, but the set for Schindler’s List had been built in Kraków proper, and the set had been preserved.  So it was the stand-in for the Jewish past that the goyim had destroyed, and it was aimed purely at the tourism market.  The “kosher style” restaurants were dreadful, and totally bastardised the cuisine.  It was an eye-opener -- and it also spoke to the power of the romanticised view of the shtetl, both on Jews and goyim, because really, Kraków’s “Jewish tours” are Disney-fied visions of the past.  It’s Ashkenaziland, and it has as much in common with actual history as a Disney film does.  Considering the brutal way Poles reacted when their Jewish neighbours who had survived the Shoah came home, this eager embrace of Jewish tourist money is even more disgusting, frankly. -Anya

As a writer, here is my advice: Research.  Research, research, research.  Read as much about Nazism, Nazi culture, and the pressure for Jews to convert to Christianity in early 20th century Germany in order to really get in his head.  Make your Nazi main character a complicated person who has to deal with the fact that he has done terrible things in support of an ideology that dehumanises him.  Don’t excuse awful choices as being mind control.  They’re still choices.  Don’t give him a magical way out of consequences because he turns out to be Jewish.  Make the discovery of his Jewishness discordant, troubling, something he struggles with.  Don’t let everyone accept and forgive him.  In other words: don’t let his heritage be his excuse that lets him off the hook for choosing to be a Nazi in the first place.  That’s how you avoid the problem.  You make the consequences be proportional to the choices, and you make those consequences actually play out, not get wrapped up with a tidy bow of “well, I didn’t know how wrong it was, but now I do, so it’s okay that I actively participated in genocide.”  Give everything that happens its weight and due.  Never, ever let your character off the hook for his choices.  And then have multiple people read it, edit it, give you feedback, and listen to their critiques.  Don’t just let people who like you and like the concept work on it.  Do the hard stuff and listen to the feedback that challenges you.  It will be a much better project for it. -Anya

It frequently can be, depending on when and how you wear it.  Calling it a tichel certainly is.  Interacting with other people and not correcting them when they call it a tichel or presume you are Jewish can be.  There are a wealth of Catholic styles of headcoverings, going back to the medieval period.  You don’t need to wear hijab or tichel to cover your hair in a Catholic fashion -- Canon Law hardly demands a tichel, doesn’t demand that all hair be covered, and gives you far more leeway than tznius does for Jewish women.  So before you ask us if tichel-style headcoverings are appropriative for a Catholic, ask yourself why Catholic styles like mantillas and chapel veils aren’t enough for you, and why you’re willing to entertain styles like tichel and hijab that are not your cultural norms in pursuit of something beyond Catholic teaching?

Going to Israel to study when you have an Israeli passport, regardless of how you identify, isn’t cultural appropriation.  Neither is learning Hebrew to get along in Israel, anymore than emigrating to Israel is appropriative.  You’re fine.  (And yes, there are tons of Russian speakers, less so than in the 80s and 90s, but still a bunch!  Still, basic Hebrew is handy.)  

In the future, all asks on this theme are going to be tagged “consult your local rabbinic authority” because ultimately, that is what you need to do.  This is not blowing people off.  This is recognising that guiding people in these matters is the prerogative and responsibility of a local Jewish community and its rabbi, not this blog.

It depends.  If you were raised Jewish, liberal congregations will consider you Jewish.  More conservative/orthodox ones will not.  How you identify is a different story.  As always, if you want to be recognised as Jewish by a local religious community, start with your local rabbinic authority for advice about how to proceed.

The existence of this book -- and its nomination for two (!) awards this year by the Romance Writers of America -- has been going around the author end of Twitter.  This is one of the most gross, most blatant examples of Christian appropriation of Jewishness that I can think of in recent memory.  From the heroine being a “Jewess” named Esther who pretends to convert to Christianity and finds inspiration in the Christian Bibles as she falls in love with the SS officer who runs Theresienstadt to the way Breslin makes Jewish experiences really just metaphors for the grace and forgiveness of Jesus, this book is a trainwreck from start to ugly finish masquerading as a romantic Christian retelling of the Book of Esther.  It’s published by Bethany House, a sub-division of Baker Publishing Group, which is an Evangelical Christian publisher.  That goes a long way to explaining how this hot mess of disgusting appropriation was published in the first place -- because, as Evangelicals understand it, if the “Old Testament” is really about Jesus, then Jewish stories are really about Jesus, so the Holocaust is really about Jesus, as well as the fact that Evangelical Christianity makes no bones about its perception of itself as the “real heirs” to Jesus’s Jewishness, leading them to “reclaim” rabbinic Jewish rituals that they feel ought to be authentic to Jesus by giving them a Christian gloss -- but it does not explain why the RWA thought this book was worth nominating for two awards.  Christian inspirational romance is often full of incredibly dodgy material, as the inexplicably but eternally popular (and incredibly dodgy) book Redeeming Love goes to show -- a Christian retelling of the story of Hosea set in the Old West with a prostitute and a preacher featuring rape and incest, whee! -- but this book is so blatantly awful that it boggles the mind.  It is part and parcel of Christian entitlement to Jewish narratives, Jewish stories, Jewish histories, so long as they can actually silence us, wipe out our voices, and put their own needs and wants in their place.  While Christians have their own Holocaust victims, they always seem to want ours, especially if it means they can get their forgiveness porn and their persecution complex satisfied in one fell swoop.  And, of course, I’m sure that objections to this book will be understood by the author to be really objections to her Christian Faith, rather than to the idea that a Jewish woman could fall in love with and marry the SS officer running the concentration camp where her family is being tortured to death being utterly vile and reprehensible.  After all, it has a 4.5 star rating on GoodReads.

As always, two Jews, three opinions.  But academic study of Yiddish for its own sake does not strike me as appropriation.  Consider your motives and goals carefully, however, and be aware of your privilege as a goy to know Yiddish -- you won’t be treated harshly by other goyim for knowing it, etc.  Awareness and education here, for yourself and for other goyim, are key.

We don’t often publish submissions from submitters who aren’t Jewish.  However, this one is interesting.  You’re right to feel connected and to see yourself as having Jewish ancestry.  That’s a real and valid thing.  Please do study and learn.  Be open and honest with yourself and explore this connection with Judaism.  You don’t have to identify as Jewish to have that connection and to know your own history and the history of your grandfather’s people.  That’s the opposite of appropriation.  That’s exploring your own history and being honest about where your family comes from.  And that is a good thing.

I don’t think so.  But being aware of the origins of superhero comics and the reasons why American Jewish writers developed characters like Superman with his hidden identity and his super powers as a response to the profoundly antisemitic world they lived in is critical for people who want to understand the genre as a whole, however.

Goy is not a slur.  Goy is a Hebrew word.  It means nation.  It is the Hebrew version of the English word Gentile.  It has been used in this way since before the Roman occupation of Israel.  It has 2000 years of history in our language and in our community that you as an outside do not get to police or define for us.  Jews have the right to use our language to talk about ourselves and about the people who have historically oppress us and continue to oppress us.  You don’t have to like it.  But it isn’t changing because you demand it – especially not in a Jewish space.

I see someone can’t be bothered to read anything before spewing the outrage.  Jews of colour exist.  Jews are not “essentially white.”  Goy is the Hebrew word for “nation.”  It means not Jewish.  That’s it.  As for “highly privileged,” I suppose it is a privilege to be the targets of hate crimes!  African-Americans, while suffering from an incredible amount of racism, are not immune from antisemitism if they aren’t Jewish when they fail to understand the multiple oppressions Jews face.  You’ve provided a stunning example of how that happens.  Good job.  Next time, try reading the FAQ before shooting from the hip.