#Judaism / There Are No Lights in War: We Need a Different Religious Language (Ariel Schwartz [January 16, 2024])
Ariel Schwartz comes from a right-wing, religious Zionist family, in the political dialing areas of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. He studied at the Etzion Yeshiva, in southern Mount Hebron, and during his regular service in the settlements in the West Bank, he asked himself who those stateless Palestinians were, "who live under the daily rule of the IDF." These questions caused him to become a left-wing activist.
He tells #Haaretz […] "They took from me the thing most precious to me, my faith, and directed it against me. As religious people, we believe that our tradition demands a different moral stance, one that can restrain the war instead of fueling it."
[…] An example of this can be found in the recent words of R. Amihai Friedman, the rabbi of the Nahal brigade’s training base: “I sit and imagine that in these days there are no casualties, hostages, or injured,” he told his soldiers. “And the second I remove them from the screen, I’m left with what is maybe the happiest month in my life since I was born.”[1]
[…] R. Friedman’s words give rise to a harsh realization: around us is a religious world that is happy, in many respects, about the current war.
[…] Thus, for example, writes R. Yigal Levinstein in the pamphlet He Leaps Up Like a Lion: On the Exaltation of the Spirit and the Special Level of Life During Times of War that saw light in the situation: “The war is not a marginal thing, and we should not view it as a ‘mistake’ or a ‘mishap’ which we would have preferred to avoid. The war is a great thing and, at the end of the day, brings a great message to humanity on its wings.”[2]
[…] According to R. Levinstein, the greatness of the war is rooted in the fact that it is one of those extraordinary moments in which “the inner soul shines in all its vitality.” Indeed, for the individual, the war is a difficult event, but at the national level it calls forth great moments in which the people of Israel “reveals from within itself its mighty heights of life.”
[…] Widening segments of the contemporary religious community are seeking to wrap the war in a halo of enchantment and holiness and turn it pleasant, ideal, and even joyous from an emotional perspective. In furtherance of this aestheticization and idealization, there are those who seek to remove any ethical brakes from the war. They call for us not to differentiate between blood and blood and condone any action done in its framework. These conceptions treat the spirit of battle as the climax of the revelation of the human spirit, but within this, implicitly, it is as though they require war to happen again and again, so that this “spirit of battle” may be revealed. In light of this attempt, we must seek a different religious language―one that remembers that the Jewish horizon is not war but peace, that the goal of the Jewish nation’s existence on this land is not “to shorten the life of man but to lengthen,” and that ethical conduct even in times of war is the soul of our religious tradition.
so much coverage on met gala but they’ll try hard to hide that there is a huge crowd of #protestors outside the met rn in support of #palestine that have been marching across the city all day. meanwhile #israel is bombing and enacting their invasion on #rafah as we speak
Today's review! The Sins on Their Bones by Laura R. Samotin:
"A dark themed story infused with Jewish folklore... magic, demons, secrets, violence, abuse, gore, romance and true love, along with a raft of other emotions. I highly recommend The Sins on Their Bones." ...
Militarized police officers assaulting, on camera, an unarmed 65-year-old woman, Annalise Orleck, who also happens to be Chair of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth, is ensuring Jewish safety on campus.
#Passover 2024 / Time for Exodus from Zionism (Naomi Klein)
#Zionism is a "false idol" that has betrayed core #Jewish values of justice, emancipation, and liberation and turned the biblical story of the “Promised Land” into a justification for "colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide" against Palestinians. Naomi Klein calls for liberating #Judaism from the #ethnostate of Zionism, which wants Jews to live in perpetual fear.
We cannot talk about Passover, a holiday celebrating Jewish liberation, without talking about the extreme violence and dispossession carried out against Palestinians at this very moment in the name of the Jewish people.
I’ve translated below the words of Simon Assoun, who organizes with me as part of Tsedek!, a collective of decolonial Jews in France. Simon’s words exactly convey my feelings at this time.
Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox — which this year is on March 31. Here's a story from @TheConversationUS about the origin of the word "Easter," its connection to the Jewish festival of Passover, and why it changed from a day of heavy drinking and merrymaking (as it was until the 19th century) to a family occasion.
#Wikipedia / Controversy over "Redemption of Captives" Entry on Wikipedia Amid Efforts to Sway Public Opinion
The demand for the return of the Israeli captives held by Hamas for 150 days has led to an embarrassing war around the value of "redemption of captives" (Hebrew: פידון שבויים) on the Wikipedia. Until recently, the entry dealing with the commandment of returning captives focused on #Maimonides' interpretation that "there is no greater commandment than the redemption of captives." However, observant surfers noticed that since October 26th, the entry has been changed several times, and qualifications to the commandment were introduced - in what appears to be an attempt to sway public opinion.
"With its added translations from Arabic into Hebrew, the astrolabe closely recalls the recommendations prescribed by the Spanish Jewish polymath Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1167) in the earliest surviving treatise on the astrolabe in the Hebrew language written in 1146 precisely in Verona."
I'm playing around again with some possibilities for a Humanistic Jewish blessing for enjoying #cannabis (for those for whom it is safe and legal to do so).
I would appreciate any input from #Hebrew language fluent folks, but also by any liturgists out there, as I know just enough Hebrew (mostly in transliteration) to make a mess of things.
[…] The former head of the Rabbinate Department in the #IDF, Lieutenant Colonel Rabbi Eyal Krim, was asked in the past if it is permitted for an IDF soldier to rape a woman during wartime. Instead of an unequivocal "no", he explained that in such times one must take into consideration the difficulties of the fighters.
Are these the people the IDF appoints as spiritual authorities?
[…] Rabbi Krim was essentially asked if IDF soldiers are permitted to rape girls during wartime. He answered that as part of maintaining the army's fighting capability and the soldiers' morale, it is permitted to "breach" modesty and #Kashrut fences, so that it is permitted to eat prey and satisfy the evil inclination through laying with good-looking gentile women against their will, "out of consideration for the difficulties of the fighters and for the overall success."
Call me crazy, but I don't think #Israel and #AIPAC constantly crying wolf over #antisemitism is going to be a good thing for American Jews in the long run.
Two months into a war with Hamas, the faces of Israelis taken hostage to Gaza still appear on individual posters plastered across Jerusalem bus stops and flashed across buildings.
Hanukkah starts at sundown today. Here are photos of Jewish communities gathering around the world to celebrate the start of the eight-day "festival of lights."
"It is about the Land according to the redefined Judaism that emerged in the centuries following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. This Judaism replaced the temple cult with Torah study - a study that pertained in part to that very temple cult, that became a portable homeland, and that reconfigured the Land."
"It is about the Land according to the redefined Judaism that emerged in the centuries following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. This Judaism replaced the temple cult with Torah study - a study that pertained in part to that very temple cult, that became a portable homeland, and that reconfigured the Land."
"Studying texts from the cities and countryside and tracking developments over time, Alstola shows that there was notable diversity in the Judeans’ socio-economic status and integration into Babylonian society."
Alstola, T. (19 Dec. 2019). Judeans in Babylonia, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. Available From: Brill https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004365421 [Accessed 29 April 2024]
Hanukkah in wartime: Israelis take stock two months on ( www.reuters.com )
Two months into a war with Hamas, the faces of Israelis taken hostage to Gaza still appear on individual posters plastered across Jerusalem bus stops and flashed across buildings.