Is this anti-semitism?

My secularish Jewish take is that the verse isn’t antisemitic, and the insistence that the verse is tarred by antisemitic association is agenda-led.

I think the verse might make some Jewish (and non-Jewish) people feel uncomfortable. But it’s okay to make people uncomfortable, that’s not the same thing as antisemitism. Additionally if you are an oppressor (whether Jewish or not) and it makes you feel uncomfortable - then good.

My secularish Jewish take is that the verse isn’t antisemitic, and the insistence that the verse is tarred by antisemitic association is agenda-led.

I think the verse might make some Jewish (and non-Jewish) people feel uncomfortable. But it’s okay to make people uncomfortable, that’s not the same thing as antisemitism. Additionally if you are an oppressor (whether Jewish or not) and it makes you feel uncomfortable - then good.

What do people here think of this initiative?

An academic friend of mine is running a series of teach-ins (mostly in east London but occasionally on Zoom) for Jewish people to unlearn the Zionism they've been taught by their family, at school or in other communal spaces.

Mutuals DM me for details. Otherwise please email.

— Rivkah Brown (@rivkahbrown) October 24, 2023

sounds good

And yours are fair too -- I mean there are reasons my wife's family left Israel. And unfortunately there's a kind of vicious cycle that has occurred where people who are less ideologically driven and open to compromise are also less likely to stay there, whereas the ideologically driven are more likely to move there.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Saturday, October 21, 2023 7:19 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

just to continue this conversation from 3 days ago...something that compounds this effect is that Israel allows absolutely no absentee voting, unless you're active duty in the military. So if you get fed up and leave, you lose your vote. There is no moderating effect from the Israeli diaspora.

What do people here think of this initiative?

Rivkah Brown
@rivkahbrown
·
Follow
An academic friend of mine is running a series of teach-ins (mostly in east London but occasionally on Zoom) for Jewish people to unlearn the Zionism they've been taught by their family, at school or in other communal spaces.

Mutuals DM me for details. Otherwise please email.
2:00 AM · Oct 24, 2023

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, October 24, 2023 3:56 AM bookmarkflaglink

For those who don't see Twitter embeds, xyzzz is posting a post from Rivkah Brown.

When I think of Rivkah Brown I seem to recall she deleted a tweet that seemed to celebrate the October 7 massacre. I believe xyzzz knows this.

And to Felicity/others who were troubled by this - idk if you care at this point or it matters (as we'll have different readings on the Z word) but as it makes you stressed out I won't say it on the Israel thread anymore.

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, October 19, 2023 9:41 AM bookmarkflaglink

xyzzz, are you going to be following me around ILX forever on other threads quoting Tweets that use Zionism in that way. I co sider you a friend but it is starting to feel like harassment.

This has nothing to do with you, Felicity. There are more people who post here than you. Obviously, you could comment on Rivkah's initiative, but I am not asking you or anyone in specific to comment.

I did say I won't be saying the Z word but that was a post by Rivkah, who is also a Jewish journalist, and I was wondering about that initiative with her academic colleague, and what people here thought about it.

And, as regards to her previous posting, she posted further to clarify. You may not accept it but there it was. I wouldn't say she supports Hamas.

^ ^ ^

You asked people what they thought.

I am also a person, and I told you what I thought.

But you are saying I am specifically following you around, that this veers on harassment. That's bullshit.

My secularish Jewish take is that the verse isn’t antisemitic, and the insistence that the verse is tarred by antisemitic association is agenda-led.

I think the verse might make some Jewish (and non-Jewish) people feel uncomfortable. But it’s okay to make people uncomfortable, that’s not the same thing as antisemitism. Additionally if you are an oppressor (whether Jewish or not) and it makes you feel uncomfortable - then good.

― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, October 24, 2023 2:04 AM bookmarkflaglink

That's all fair. I don't have a crystallized opinion on it either way.

If you say it is bullshit I believe you xyzzz. I can drop it.

Rivkah Brown is a little online for my liking and reminds me of the tunnel-visioned comrades from my student union who could always be guaranteed to make a bad situation worse, but she's young, she apologised, it's okay to say stupid things, not everyone is Trump. I'm not sure that those unlearning lessons are going to reach useful audiences, but I'd 100% sign up for a "How to argue with a pro-Israeli family member" class.

I don't know who Rivkah Brown is, but imo her post does not appear to be in good faith (if you pardon the pun). I'm all for conversations, but I'm not really for conversion, especially when it starts from a patronizing place.

Funnily enough your mention of "conversion" often speaks to a manner of talk in left-wing circles. So let's not talk communism but how about work, wages, conditions, which can easily go in that kind of direction.

Just see it as politics but it's just not on for many ppl.

Days that my Newham pro-Palestine parents' group went without someone saying something outrageously antisemitic and then doubling down when I (calmly) said I wasn't comfortable with it: Two. (I left and told the admin why)

Two days is a good start.

This Rivkah Brown Tweet has been deleted already. Not sure what to make of this, but yeah . . . doubling down

That tweet got quote tweeted by a few saying it was AS, and she was attacked in strong terms (she takes a lot of shit on twitter generally).

I didn't think it was but it served as the main reason for me to use this thread to ask.

Looks like this is why it was deleted.

Daily Express journo upon seeing a Jew mention another Jew offering to speak to Jews about a Jewish experience:
I MUST HOUND THEM OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE https://t.co/sWb6FpIKWB

— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) October 24, 2023

gross

Looks like this is why it was deleted

xyzzz, a lot of people in this thread don't see Twitter embeds.

Why not try paraphrasing the tweet in your own words?

Why don't they see twitter embeds, is it because they are not on twitter?

I'll paraphrase where I can, but won't do everything.

For those who can't see a journalist from a right-wing newspaper was asking for names of who is behind that initiative.

if you have twitter embed/images/etc disabled on ilx, they show up as plaintext as far as I know. the same as they do if someone deletes the tweet -- the extracted text stays here

Yes. I don't want to speculate, but I've seen several people say they've left or deleted Twitter for various reasons. One of the reasons - again, speculating, not saying this is anyone's reason that is in this thread or lurking in these discussions - is that Elon Musk has tweeted and amplified a number of tweets that are generally agreed to be antisemitic. And it's becoming more of an echo chamber for that. And people may show their disapproval by not giving Twitter the eyeball traffic.

I've read the discussuons in this thread going back several years regarding Jewdas and the Left and the relationship with AS.

I think if you want to have discussions with people about this, it would be helpful to recognize there may be issues even with the platform you're repeatedly citing and also with taking on faith that tweets on there provide a credible or "one true" explanation. It seems like that's how you've framed it by citing that tweet. Not sure if you actually believe that but that's one interpretation.

I think there could be other explanations.

We've already discussed the "river to the sea" chant. How about "glory to our martyrs", which was apparently also projected on the side of a building at GW University last night? That one seems maybe more problematic.

yeah pretty straightforward endorsement of terrorism in this context.

most of the google hits for the phrase that are older than the last 24 hours appear to refer to the war in Eritrea.

Yes. I don't want to speculate, but I've seen several people say they've left or deleted Twitter for various reasons. One of the reasons - again, speculating, not saying this is anyone's reason that is in this thread or lurking in these discussions - is that Elon Musk has tweeted and amplified a number of tweets that are generally agreed to be antisemitic.

I don't know if it's helpful for me to open this can of worms, but there is the context that a lot of the anti-semitic crew Musk loves are also deeply islamophobic and tend towards being pro-Israel from a "defense of the West" pov. Which doesn't deny anything you've said but it's another aspect to take into account.

I just came across a protest irl where people were chanting "Free, free Palestine" which seems fine. But then followed it with "Intifada, Intifada" which I wasn't so sure about.

Follow-up question: if "glory to our martyrs" is projected alongside the "river to sea" phrase, doesn't it imply the "river to sea" phrase, at least in this context, may not be entirely innocuous?

intifada /ĭn″tə-fä′də/
noun

A protracted grassroots campaign of protest and sometimes violent resistance against perceived oppression or military occupation, especially either of two uprisings among Palestinian Arabs in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the first beginning in 1987 and the second in 2000, in protest against Israeli occupation of these territories.

innocuous? it's a war!

like, if Israelis weren't chanting 'death to Hamas' on the reg i'd be kind of shocked, and vice versa

the important thing is to stop the war. then you will have achieved the aim of getting people to stop using offensive slogans which after all is the real problem

yeah, but this is the antisemitism thread, not the stop the war thread. This is where we talk about Bradley Cooper's fake nose.

sorry i got bent out of shape. i just think "glory to our martyrs" is the kind of thing people have said for thousands of years in the middle of a war. it's not great. but i don't see it as antisemitic. i'm sure there are a range of views on this though!

All valid and welcome perspectives.

Getting back to the Rivkah Brown post that was deleted, I think it was posited upthread something to the effect that holding of "Zionist"
or even nationalist beliefs is not limited to Jewish people, and that it is arguably the conflation of Jewish people with Zionist views that is objectionable.

So while I can see other explanations, the aspect of Brown's tweet that seemed eyerolly to me (in the Sarah Silverman sense) was, ok if that's true, if the superset of people who hold Zionist views comprises more people than just Jewish people, and if a subset of Jewish people do not hold Zionist views, then why mention Jewish people at all? Why address that Tweet to Jweish people and imply that the source of Zionism is home, synagogue, family? Why not just say anyone interested in unlearning "Zionism" should dm?

The singling out, shaming, and implication that by default Jewish people need to be reeducated is quite iffy, and that is what I think might have been overlooked.

yeah, but this is the antisemitism thread, not the stop the war thread. This is where we talk about Bradley Cooper's fake nose.

I just came across a protest irl where people were chanting "Free, free Palestine" which seems fine. But then followed it with "Intifada, Intifada" which I wasn't so sure about.

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Wednesday, October 25, 2023 10:49 AM bookmarkflaglink

Follow-up question: if "glory to our martyrs" is projected alongside the "river to sea" phrase, doesn't it imply the "river to sea" phrase, at least in this context, may not be entirely innocuous?

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, October 25, 2023 10:51 AM bookmarkflaglink

Let's say it's not great branding

xpost oh ffs

We've already discussed the "river to the sea" chant. How about "glory to our martyrs", which was apparently also projected on the side of a building at GW University last night? That one seems maybe more problematic.

sound of the thread police

sorry i got bent out of shape. i just think "glory to our martyrs" is the kind of thing people have said for thousands of years in the middle of a war. it's not great. but i don't see it as antisemitic. i'm sure there are a range of views on this though!

It's cool, they're only words, right? ;)

Just cross-referencing a little bit: so when my kid tells me she is sitting at lunch, talking with her friends, and some high school student group starts passing out (unsanctioned, fwiw) flyers with phrases she finds upsetting, I should tell her ...

For the benefit of the twitter holdouts on this thread, we can see the individual tweet you post, but what we can't see are any of the other tweets that it might be in conversation with. If you post a tweet that is intended to be read as part of a thread, we can't see those other tweets unless we go look them up on the sometimes here, sometimes gone Nitter.net.

Example 1

Peace, Man
@p,m
Well, ya wanna know what I think? 1/50

the problem: we never get to find out what the tweeter thinks.

Example 2

Peace, Man
@p,m
25/50 ...and so then I says to Netanyahu, I says...

the problem: what was said before and after that?

Example 3

Peace, Man
@p,m
Replying to @elonmusk
Well, if that's your opinion, you can go ahead and shove it!

the problem: we can't see the opinion that the tweeter was replying about.

Mostly these days, I just ignore the ilx-posted tweets that fall into this criteria. But sometimes people just post a tweet AS their ilx post, as if to say "here it is! the proof of what I've been saying all this time!" If that's your intention, it might be helpful to add a little context, either by writing your own ilx post to accompany the tweet or *shudder* posting each tweet from the thread that you think people would need to understand the context.

Especially when the tweet purports to be a characterization summing up what all the replies were

That post is amazing, peace man. Personally I don’t mind Twitter embeds but the lazy dropping of a (usually provocative or inflammatory) tweet without context or comment is just idle stirring imo? It’s like, I’m so opinionated but I won’t actually tell you what I think, you can just guess through these links. Anyway.

"I *might* be being sarcastic/racist/islamaphobic/antisemitic/transphobic! Who can tell?"

Sorry for pulling focus. I do think the chants is an important discussion

it is arguably the conflation of Jewish people with Zionist views that is objectionable

maxi-xps I know that Jewish people are nowhere near unanimous when it comes to how their relationship to the state of Israel fits with their relationship to Judaism. Unfortunately seven decades of propaganda has encouraged this conflation whenever it was deemed politically expedient for the protection of the state of Israel. For example, the stirring theme from the 1960 movie Exodus explicitly mixes up the two, beginning with the line "This land is mine. God gave this land to me." You aren't responsible for this propaganda, but it happened and it has been remarkably effective in doing that work of conflation.

Setting aside whether that is true, Aimless (i dont have an opinion on that at this time), do you have an opinion on the benefit of asking Jews (and only Jews) if they want to be deprogrammed from Zionism?

Is there a detriment in your mind to addressing it to "Jews" and in your mind would Brown's Tweet have caught the same flack if it had said:

Follow
An academic friend of mine is running a series of teach-ins (mostly in east London but occasionally on Zoom) for people to unlearn the Zionism they've been taught, whether in person, online or otherwise.

Mutuals DM me for details. Otherwise please email.
2:00 AM · Oct 24, 2023