Am I A Fandom Blog Or A Jewish Blog? Who Knows!

I was raised completely detached from my matrilineally Jewish heritage. The only thing I know is that they were Eastern European Ashkenazim. My grandmother never talked about her family much because they were really terrible people. I feel like that bled into being ashamed to be Jewish. To the point that my mother identifies as just a white Evangelical... even going as far as getting a Southern Baptist Cross engraved on my grandmother's headstone. She and my sister only care about their Jewishness to play politics. My mom falls in line with whatever Trump is doing, and my sister is an antizionist tankie. I am the only one that cares about keeping our Jewish heritage alive.

I always so out of place and like an imposter. I never got to learn about being Jewish so I'm always playing catch up. Hebrew is, for some reason, more difficult for me to pick up than any other language I've learned. I don't think I will ever be able to come to the bimah and read the Torah on the High Holidays. I don't believe I'll ever hold a bar mitzvah for the same reason.

I don't own a tallis or a kippah. I feel like I don't deserve to. I don't know enough about being Jewish because it was taken from me without ever really knowing. I feel like everyone, especially here can tell that I don't know anything and that's why I feel so alone.

I was raised completely detached from my matrilineally Jewish heritage. The only thing I know is that they were Eastern European Ashkenazim. My grandmother never talked about her family much because they were really terrible people. I feel like that bled into being ashamed to be Jewish. To the point that my mother identifies as just a white Evangelical... even going as far as getting a Southern Baptist Cross engraved on my grandmother's headstone. She and my sister only care about their Jewishness to play politics. My mom falls in line with whatever Trump is doing, and my sister is an antizionist tankie. I am the only one that cares about keeping our Jewish heritage alive.

I always so out of place and like an imposter. I never got to learn about being Jewish so I'm always playing catch up. Hebrew is, for some reason, more difficult for me to pick up than any other language I've learned. I don't think I will ever be able to come to the bimah and read the Torah on the High Holidays. I don't believe I'll ever hold a bar mitzvah for the same reason.

I don't own a tallis or a kippah. I feel like I don't deserve to. I don't know enough about being Jewish because it was taken from me without ever really knowing. I feel like everyone, especially here can tell that I don't know anything and that's why I feel so alone.

You deserve to feel comfortable in Judaism if you want to. You may need to take classes to catch up on the prayers and stuff but you can still do it.

Also, what prompted the Second Intifada (on paper), was that a Jewish politician went to visit the Temple Mount after the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf illegally excavated and dumped over 10 dump-trucks' worth of priceless artifacts within the Temple Mount.

And they slaughtered thousands of our civilians for it.

Fuck this article, but the headline spot on.

A Jewish man merely visiting the holiest place in the entire Jewish religion, that Jews aren't allowed to go near to "respect" the religion that built over it, and that alone prompted slaughtering thousands of our civilians.

And people try to, "Well... both sides" it.

"Wellllll, a Jewish politician visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque made Muslims scared that they'd make changes to it, so you can understand why--"

a) Like when they "made changes" to our holiest site in the world by destroying and dumping tens of tonnes of our holiest artifacts??

b) A Jew visiting a Mosque shouldn't prompt slaughtering thousands of Jews.

I shouldn't have to say that.

And don't, "Well, apartheid--" me:

This was just after the Camp David Summit.

Just after the Israeli government agreed to all of Yassir Araf's demands for Palestinian statehood and then some: All of Gaza, 96% of the West Bank, East Jerusalem as the capitol, plus full monetary reparations for those displaced in 1948 War that they started.

And Arafat responded by not just rejecting statehood, but his Waqf by vandalizing and destroying ten dump-trucks worth of the holiest Jewish artifacts from the holiest Jewish place in the world.

And Jews were (and are) expected to be completely fine with it.

"They destroyed literally tonnes of our holiest artifacts, but we visited their mosque, so it's really all the same."

"They stabbed, shot, and blew up thousands of our civilians across a bloody summer, but one of our guys visited their mosque, so tit-for-tat."

Fuck that.

-

If you disagree with me about any of this, that's fine.

I don't care.

See, the Waqf's illegal excavation of the Temple Mount has a part two: The Temple Mount Sifting Project. We know where all the rubble was dumped, and this organization, with the help of hundreds of thousands of volunteers, has spent decades sifting through it for all the priceless archeological treasures.

But one of the most important elements of an archeological find, perhaps the most important element, is the context. Not only where it was found, but how deep. What was above it? What was it above?

And all of that context was permanently, irrevocably destroyed. If a 3000 year old shard is found, we have to ask: has it been there for three thousand years? Or could it have spent two thousand years elsewhere before being moved?

If the Temple Mount hadn't been desecrated, we'd find that shard in a layer of debris that would prove how long it had been there. But as is, we can't be totally certain. We can't prove it.

I've volunteered with the sifting project twice. The first time, I found a piece of Herodian tile--that is, the specific type of tile that he used in all his major building projects, which we also see at Masada.

I held in my hands corroboration of the contemporary account of Herod renovating the Temple and adding the retaining walls and plaza that are still standing today, the structure the Dome of the Rock was built on.

But that evidence, and every other piece of evidence the project finds, has, and always will have, an asterisk.

A bit of room for doubt that will always be there, because the religious authority descended from the conquerors of the land deliberately destroyed the evidence of the cultural history that predated their presence.

And yet, somehow, we are the real imperialist colonizers, and our presence is the real desecration.

When you factor in the fact that Jews are so so few, the amount of material culture within the archaeological is infinitesimally more finite, especially when compared to say the Roman Empire or the Arab Conquest. The scale and depth of just this incident of Temple Mount looting (note the Jordanian government also did significant damage during their occupation of the West Bank, this is not an isolated incident) is unimaginable.

Also, what prompted the Second Intifada (on paper), was that a Jewish politician went to visit the Temple Mount after the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf illegally excavated and dumped over 10 dump-trucks' worth of priceless artifacts within the Temple Mount.

And they slaughtered thousands of our civilians for it.

Fuck this article, but the headline spot on.

A Jewish man merely visiting the holiest place in the entire Jewish religion, that Jews aren't allowed to go near to "respect" the religion that built over it, and that alone prompted slaughtering thousands of our civilians.

And people try to, "Well... both sides" it.

"Wellllll, a Jewish politician visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque made Muslims scared that they'd make changes to it, so you can understand why--"

a) Like when they "made changes" to our holiest site in the world by destroying and dumping tens of tonnes of our holiest artifacts??

b) A Jew visiting a Mosque shouldn't prompt slaughtering thousands of Jews.

I shouldn't have to say that.

And don't, "Well, apartheid--" me:

This was just after the Camp David Summit.

Just after the Israeli government agreed to all of Yassir Araf's demands for Palestinian statehood and then some: All of Gaza, 96% of the West Bank, East Jerusalem as the capitol, plus full monetary reparations for those displaced in 1948 War that they started.

And Arafat responded by not just rejecting statehood, but his Waqf by vandalizing and destroying ten dump-trucks worth of the holiest Jewish artifacts from the holiest Jewish place in the world.

And Jews were (and are) expected to be completely fine with it.

"They destroyed literally tonnes of our holiest artifacts, but we visited their mosque, so it's really all the same."

"They stabbed, shot, and blew up thousands of our civilians across a bloody summer, but one of our guys visited their mosque, so tit-for-tat."

Fuck that.

-

If you disagree with me about any of this, that's fine.

I don't care.

See, the Waqf's illegal excavation of the Temple Mount has a part two: The Temple Mount Sifting Project. We know where all the rubble was dumped, and this organization, with the help of hundreds of thousands of volunteers, has spent decades sifting through it for all the priceless archeological treasures.

But one of the most important elements of an archeological find, perhaps the most important element, is the context. Not only where it was found, but how deep. What was above it? What was it above?

And all of that context was permanently, irrevocably destroyed. If a 3000 year old shard is found, we have to ask: has it been there for three thousand years? Or could it have spent two thousand years elsewhere before being moved?

If the Temple Mount hadn't been desecrated, we'd find that shard in a layer of debris that would prove how long it had been there. But as is, we can't be totally certain. We can't prove it.

I've volunteered with the sifting project twice. The first time, I found a piece of Herodian tile--that is, the specific type of tile that he used in all his major building projects, which we also see at Masada.

I held in my hands corroboration of the contemporary account of Herod renovating the Temple and adding the retaining walls and plaza that are still standing today, the structure the Dome of the Rock was built on.

But that evidence, and every other piece of evidence the project finds, has, and always will have, an asterisk.

A bit of room for doubt that will always be there, because the religious authority descended from the conquerors of the land deliberately destroyed the evidence of the cultural history that predated their presence.

And yet, somehow, we are the real imperialist colonizers, and our presence is the real desecration.

When you factor in the fact that Jews are so so few, the amount of material culture within the archaeological is infinitesimally more finite, especially when compared to say the Roman Empire or the Arab Conquest. The scale and depth of just this incident of Temple Mount looting (note the Jordanian government also did significant damage during their occupation of the West Bank, this is not an isolated incident) is unimaginable.

And this is going to make a lot of people very angry to hear.

But a lot of y'all on this website are truly deeply genuinely never going to be capable of any kind of real narrative analysis--and I don't mean 'being right all the time' I mean 'meaningfully engaging with the text in any way'--

The match cuts were meticulously designed and put there to communicate something.

The VA's delivery of a line was being directed. Inflection and tone change the meaning of dialogue. This is intentional. There are entire teams of people shaping those choices and deciding which take to use based on what works best for the story.

Information is being revealed in a specific order, on purpose, to craft an emotional arc and guide the audience's understanding.

A character's romantic preferences are only, and SHOULD only be, their primary motivation if the genre is romance. That is why there is a genre called that. Most stories are other genres.

Creators who dislike a character generally give them LESS attention, MORE boring storylines, and LESS screentime.

Sometimes curtains are just blue. But if the shot composition or written narration takes time to HIGHLIGHT, especially more than once, that the curtains are blue, then the blueness of the curtains is by definition narratively important.

"Cite your sources" is not a witch's curse that banishes People With Different Opinions to the shadowrealm of Being Wrong. Someone making points that challenge your perceptions, while including screenshots and explicit examples, cannot be dismissed with "cite your sources" because they are literally doing that. Don't @ me on this one I've seen shit in the wars, y'all.

Failing to understand these things WILL bar you from ever really engaging with or understanding any narrative more complicated than Paw Patrol for the rest of your life.

OP: you guys are never going to be able to meaningfully engage with story and character analysis if you cant understand or aren't willing to even consider the context within writers create their stories and the intention behind characters actions and motivations, which are intentional and complex. Not everything begins and ends with romance and relationships, in fact most stories outside of the romance genre feature more complex themes and motivations than straightforward romance and romantic love. Sorry if that makes you mad.

.... you know I do think there may have been something more significant than romantic attraction motivating this character, who is a violent obsessive stalker. In fact, it could be something a little more... fatal?

The definition itself is incredibly milquetoast and reasonable; anyone pretending otherwise is flat out lying.

Claiming that Arab isn't an ethnicity or religion, so even though Arab empires occupied the region that is now Israel/Palestine, it isn't the same as the Assyrians, Romans, Ottomans, British, Israeli, etc. (and yes, she includes Israelis in the list of occupiers)

Claiming that UN is biased in favor of Israel

Claiming that Zionism (whose definition she quotes from Herzl... Herzl) is predicated on taking the "biblical narrative to heart, uncritically"

Calling Jews "sneaky and underhanded" for using biblical texts (by which she means God promising the land in Jewish religious texts) to justify Zionism

rather than this being intended to hunt down jews (and im not judging anyone who reads it as this way, trust me, my hackles are also very raised) i think this is more of a moment like what dara horn (<3) wrote about; where ppl get so comfortable imagining jews only as this long dead Species that exists only in archives and museums that they genuinely never think to consider how their words would affect a potentially jewish student reading this, bc in these spaces jews are not engaged with as living human beings

this mentality can and often does coexist with active antisemitism, as this sort of crowd fucking loves to wall off part of their personal experiences when engaging with the oLd TeStAmEnT and view those who approach it with a "too religious" (read: not euro-usamerican secular protestant christian) or "too subjective" (former often added with things like critical theories informed by experiences of marginalized communities) as, at best, naive and in need of professional/academic development. so one can be actively antisemitic in one facet of their lives, but once entering the "intro to old testament" classroom, jews cease to be living human beings or potential students, leading to them being surprised, uncomfortable, and/or dismissive when confronted with the fact that their words, actions, and assignments in the classroom has made a jewish student uncomfortable

the most ubiquitous example of this is the topic of the shem hashem. it is impossible to be an "old testament"/"hebrew bible" scholar without being bombarded with the shem hashem every which way. in my cohort a group of students told the "intro to hebrew bible" professor that him saying it so much was making jewish students uncomfortable and he just said "okay" and continued doing it. any conversation about how this makes the field inaccessible and even hostile to jews is met with the sentiment of "well that's the academic standard and if you dont like it you should go to yeshiva" (with the implication that yeshiva study of the tanakh is academically less pure than secular institutions' because it's again "too religious/biased")

Claiming that Arab isn't an ethnicity or religion, so even though Arab empires occupied the region that is now Israel/Palestine, it isn't the same as the Assyrians, Romans, Ottomans, British, Israeli, etc. (and yes, she includes Israelis in the list of occupiers)

Claiming that UN is biased in favor of Israel

Claiming that Zionism (whose definition she quotes from Herzl... Herzl) is predicated on taking the "biblical narrative to heart, uncritically"

Calling Jews "sneaky and underhanded" for using biblical texts (by which she means God promising the land in Jewish religious texts) to justify Zionism

Claiming that Arab isn't an ethnicity or religion, so even though Arab empires occupied the region that is now Israel/Palestine, it isn't the same as the Assyrians, Romans, Ottomans, British, Israeli, etc. (and yes, she includes Israelis in the list of occupiers)

Claiming that UN is biased in favor of Israel

Claiming that Zionism (whose definition she quotes from Herzl... Herzl) is predicated on taking the "biblical narrative to heart, uncritically"

Calling Jews "sneaky and underhanded" for using biblical texts (by which she means God promising the land in Jewish religious texts) to justify Zionism

Claiming that Arab isn't an ethnicity or religion, so even though Arab empires occupied the region that is now Israel/Palestine, it isn't the same as the Assyrians, Romans, Ottomans, British, Israeli, etc. (and yes, she includes Israelis in the list of occupiers)

Claiming that UN is biased in favor of Israel

Claiming that Zionism (whose definition she quotes from Herzl... Herzl) is predicated on taking the "biblical narrative to heart, uncritically"

Calling Jews "sneaky and underhanded" for using biblical texts (by which she means God promising the land in Jewish religious texts) to justify Zionism

Claiming that Arab isn't an ethnicity or religion, so even though Arab empires occupied the region that is now Israel/Palestine, it isn't the same as the Assyrians, Romans, Ottomans, British, Israeli, etc. (and yes, she includes Israelis in the list of occupiers)

Claiming that UN is biased in favor of Israel

Claiming that Zionism (whose definition she quotes from Herzl... Herzl) is predicated on taking the "biblical narrative to heart, uncritically"

Calling Jews "sneaky and underhanded" for using biblical texts (by which she means God promising the land in Jewish religious texts) to justify Zionism

Claiming that Arab isn't an ethnicity or religion, so even though Arab empires occupied the region that is now Israel/Palestine, it isn't the same as the Assyrians, Romans, Ottomans, British, Israeli, etc. (and yes, she includes Israelis in the list of occupiers)

Claiming that UN is biased in favor of Israel

Claiming that Zionism (whose definition she quotes from Herzl... Herzl) is predicated on taking the "biblical narrative to heart, uncritically"

Calling Jews "sneaky and underhanded" for using biblical texts (by which she means God promising the land in Jewish religious texts) to justify Zionism

Claiming that Arab isn't an ethnicity or religion, so even though Arab empires occupied the region that is now Israel/Palestine, it isn't the same as the Assyrians, Romans, Ottomans, British, Israeli, etc. (and yes, she includes Israelis in the list of occupiers)

Claiming that UN is biased in favor of Israel

Claiming that Zionism (whose definition she quotes from Herzl... Herzl) is predicated on taking the "biblical narrative to heart, uncritically"

Calling Jews "sneaky and underhanded" for using biblical texts (by which she means God promising the land in Jewish religious texts) to justify Zionism