in my heart is the seed of the tree which will be me

Drawing by Klaudia Kiercz-Długołęcka 

Sztetł

Yiddish - שטעטל

English transcription - Shtetl

Meaning - a town

Sztibł

Yiddish - שטיבל‎

English transcription - Shtibl

Meaning - a house or a room used for communal Jewish prayer

Jesziwa

Yiddish - ישיבֿה

English transcription - Yeshiva

Meaning - a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of the Talmud

Mykwa

Yiddish - מיקווה

English transcription - Mikvah

Meaning - a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion to achieve ritual purity

Synagoga (this one is in Polish)

Yiddish - שול

English transcription - shul

Meaning - synagogue

Macewa

Yiddish - מצבֿה

English transcription - Matzevah

met a celebrity without a nose (they're called dolgonosiks(cute version for long-nosed) in russian)

Seven years before Israel’s independence, Arabs carried out a violent pogrom against the ancient Jewish community in Baghdad.

As the pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali collapsed, Iraqi soldiers, police, and local mobs — incited by the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini and fueled by Nazi propaganda — unleashed two days of murder, rape, and looting.

Hundreds of Jews were slaughtered — babies murdered, women raped in front of their families, homes and synagogues burned. Official counts recorded 187 dead, but many estimates put the toll closer to 400, with over 2,000 wounded. Jewish shops were looted, infants were killed, and the streets ran with blood for two full days.

There’s this theory that the Arab and Muslim world only turned on its Jews after Israel declared its independence (as if this is a rational excuse) in 1948. Well the Farhud took place seven years earlier.

This was pure, medieval-style antisemitic violence — Jews targeted simply for being Jews — inspired by Nazi propaganda and the Mufti’s calls to “kill the Jews wherever you find them.”

The British forces nearby delayed intervention, allowing the slaughter to continue.

Long before 1948, long before any “occupation,” Arab and Muslim leaders aligned with Nazi Germany were already carrying out genocidal violence against Jews. The Mufti wasn’t just a collaborator — he helped import Nazi hatred into the Middle East, where it fused with centuries-old local Jew-hatred and never went away.

The hatred and violence against Jews didn’t begin with Israel.

It didn’t begin with “settlements.”

It didn’t begin with “nakba.”

It began with the simple desire to exterminate or expel Jews from lands they had called home for 2,500 years.

(Jewish) pride month day 1: Dana International

Dana International is an Israeli pop singer and LGBTQ+ rights advocate. In 1998, she became the first transgender artist to win the Eurovision song contest. She has performed at many pride events and has advocated for LGBTQ+ rights in Israel and abroad.

Monument in memory of the Jews who were killed in the Farhud which took place in Iraq.  The monument is located in Ramat Gan, Israel; 2010. x

On this day in history, June 1st and 2nd in 1941, the Farhud, a pogrom, took place across Iraq and claimed the lives of over 700 Jewish people with more than a thousand injured.  The Farhud began because of a failed coup from Nazi sympathizing Officers in the Iraqi army.  Nazi Germany had also worked with Arab Nationalists and, through them, spread antisemitic propaganda through both Radio Berlin and local radio stations.  The failed coup, suspected Jewish collusion with British authorities [see antisemitic ‘duel loyalty’ trope], and antisemitic propaganda all mixed to create an explosion of violence against Iraq’s Jewish population - which by 1941 was over 150,000 strong.  The Iraqi Jewish community would all but end with Saddam’s rise to power, as the central government put restrictions on the life of Iraq’s Jewish population starting in 1948. Operation Ezra & Nehemia airlifted 120,000 Iraqi Jews out of the country in 1948 and brought them to Israel.

weevil i saw on my car windshield the other day. (i dropped them politely into the grass, i did not drive off with them)