HEY JEWS

From a Smithsonian Folklife article “The modern potato latke was not inevitable “

While the incorporation of the potato in European diets introduced Jewish home cooks to a new potential ingredient for their latkes, the invention of Crisco in 1911 spurred further cooking options. In Eastern Europe, latkes were historically fried in schmaltz, rendered poultry fat. Observant Jews following the laws of kashrut do not eat meat and dairy products in the same meal, so latkes cooked in schmaltz could only be eaten alongside meat or non-dairy dishes. Crisco is made from vegetable oils and seeds, and thus is parve (neither meat nor dairy). Thanks to this technological change, Jewish cooks had the option of frying and eating latkes in a new way

https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/foodways-holidays-hanukkah-latkes?fbclid=IwAR0qg6QMc25A1tJEBcMmaWMsH7lqwuNVWYNYjFqSnkouV2mwlH7Zf2YDdI0

I am now thinking about how delicious a schmaltz-fried latke must be

Yesterday my daughter told me a teacher of hers wished her and another Jewish student a "Happy Seventh Night!" My daughter told the teacher it wasn't the seventh night, it was the third. The teacher furrowed her brow, said oh, then asked, well, doesn't Hanukkah last seven nights? And my daughter said ... no.

Another Jewish student in a different class was asked by a classmate if she was from Israel. The girl said no. The other kid then followed up with "but aren't you Jewish?" And the first said yeah. And the other kid asked "but how could you be Jewish if you're not from Israel?" (This is 9th grade, btw, not 1st grade). The first girl said you don't have to be from Israel to be Jewish, her family was mostly from Poland, and the second kid, shocked, said "Poland? But Poland isn't a Jewish country!"

Then there was an online discussion my kid saw, so buyer beware, but the gist was someone was convinced Hanukkah had something to do with Hitler, and a person righteously corrected them and explained that, no, Hanukkah had nothing to do with Hitler. Hanukkah was about something that happened thousands of years ago, whereas Hitler had to do with the Holocaust ... "in the '90s."

Last was my same daughter's objection to people that say "Happy Hanukkah, to all that celebrate." And she was super annoyed, because no one ever says "Merry Christmas, to all that celebrate." It's always for non-Christian holidays, and it comes off sooooo patronizing.

Anyway. Happy Hanukkah.

no one ever says "Merry Christmas, to all that celebrate.

I do!

happy samhain, to all who slaughter livestock

hag sameach to all, even the losers and the haters

more latke history:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/the-great-latke-lie/420018/

I always assumed it was different in other parts of North America but after growing up in BC I am never shocked by gentile ignorance of even the most basic facts about Judaism

gotta whole latke love

Huh:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/dec/25/bambi-cute-lovable-vulnerable-or-a-dark-parable-of-antisemitic-terror?fbclid=IwAR3rte1amicW2qK0nkL54vbMpPxmoRuP9Z3s8c9Ap2PPlSImEiPxrCzA6Kc

It’s a saccharine sweet story about a young deer who finds love and friendship in a forest. But the original tale of Bambi, adapted by Disney in 1942, has much darker beginnings as an existential novel about persecution and antisemitism in 1920s Austria.

Now, a new translation seeks to reassert the rightful place of Felix Salten’s 1923 masterpiece in adult literature and shine a light on how Salten was trying to warn the world that Jews would be terrorised, dehumanised and murdered in the years to come. Far from being a children’s story, Bambi was actually a parable about the inhumane treatment and dangerous precariousness of Jews and other minorities in what was then an increasingly fascist world, the new translation will show.

In 1935, the book was banned by the Nazis, who saw it as a political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe and burned it as Jewish propaganda. “The darker side of Bambi has always been there,” said Jack Zipes, professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota and translator of the forthcoming book.

Shana Tova.

Zooming Romemu Brooklyn service as I like the Rabbi who used to be near me at 6th & I in Washington DC

Rabbinical lol this morning: "Today we are celebrating the creation of the world 5783 years ago. Of course, some of those years were much longer than others. Like the last two."

Ha.

The rabbi in the service I viewed addressed that joke's concept in a more serious way and noted that someone said he was very negative. He asserted that is just how things are, and that despite all the painful negativity around us, we have to work on changing ourselves for the better and that the atmosphere around us would eventually change but we need to be patient. He quoted a Fugees lyric as part of this sermon (while acknowledging that might date him)

which lyric?

there's a latke cart near my house so i thought i'd go out there to celebrate the high holy days. i asked them to give me the most popular thing on their menu. they gave me a bacon latke.

not really a big jewish population around these parts, i don't think.

"The latkes here are treyf... and the portions, oy, so small!"

whoopsie

KFC’s German branch has apologized for seeming to encourage its customers to mark the anniversary of Kristallnacht — the notorious Nazi pogrom against Jews — by eating chicken, saying that a promotional message was sent in error as a result of an automated push notification.

The pogrom that began on Nov. 9, 1938, is known as the night of broken glass, and is widely commemorated as the start of the Holocaust. It was a coordinated assault on German Jews and their homes, businesses and synagogues. On Wednesday, KFC Germany sent a message to users of its app with the title “Anniversary of the Reich’s pogrom night,” according to reports in the German news media and screen shots of the promotion that circulated widely on Twitter. The message invited customers to enjoy “tender cheese with crispy chicken.”

Someone just plugged holidays.xml in there without checking and fired some marketing interns

Hey Jews. How y'all doin'? I most assuredly am not looking to turn this into yet another political thread discussing you-know-what, but thought it might be a good space to share a bit about where I'm holding these days.

I think I'm on the very extreme end of Jewishly-engaged ilxors - my kids go to a Jewish school, the vast majority of people we see socially are Jewish, and my partner is, uh, the director of our synagogue. We live in about as progressive a community as you can find outside of the most urban of areas (we're not urban) and shit has been pretty crazy here. Our rabbi stepped down about 4 months ago to take a different job, and the search for a new one is nascent, so there is a decidedly inconvenient vacuum of leadership at the synagogue. A sizeable portion of our community not only proudly identifies as anti-Zionist, but would probably say that this is a central pillar of their Jewish identity, driven by values like human rights and moral courage. This faction -- which, while it skews quite a bit younger than I, includes a number of our friends -- has been protesting for a ceasefire, getting arrested doing so, and drafting language about the occupation for our community leaders to consider incorporating into their own statements. Simultaneously, like probably any synagogue, we have plenty of folks demanding public declarations of unconditional support for Israel, questioning where our Israeli flag is (it, alongside our US flag, came down during some minor renovation a few years ago and sneakily hasn't gone back up), and generally finding bogeymen in any criticism of Israel. Oh yes and also there are quite a few Israeli expats in the congregation, including a guy who grew up in Kfar Aza and had several cousins and close childhood family friends murdered and other cousins currently being held hostage. Along with a few other people at the synagogue, my wife has been thrust into the position of making statements, trying to hold the community together, and being consulted by any number of local civic leaders. Let's just say she's been working a lot of late nights, and absorbing a lot of abuse.

I haven't been engaging in the political discussion here on ilx, and have been trying my damnedest to stay out of it in other forums as well, both online and irl. I've just had way too many experiences where both parties come into an interaction looking for and taking for granted that they will find support and solidarity, and instead come out feeling more alone and alienated after someone says the ever so slightly wrong thing that makes it clear you don't see 100% eye-to-eye. Instead, I've been working really hard to (a) stay humble, (b) put the value of human life above all else when compelled to figure out how I feel, and (c) recognize that whatever self-righteous, vitriolic, cocksure arguments people make are actually driven by the roiling emotions this situation is dredging up. Pain, sadness, confusion, anger, trauma. I am a therapist so it is pretty on brand for me to "focus on the feelings" rather than the content of what people say, but I do believe that that's where solidarity is to be found, and it doesn't seem like division and bitterness are doing us any favors getting towards any positive outcomes.

Not sure if I'm even looking for anything by posting this, other than getting it out of my head and articulated. But it has felt impossible to find spaces that aren't going to politicize whatever someone says and try to shift you left or right to fill a role. If others are finding it as daunting to hold and articulate a nuanced perspective that doesn't fit into the prescribed boxes, in social spaces, I welcome your solidarity! Bonus if said experience is informed by being a Jew. ilx has very slowly over the past few years turned me from an exclusive internet lurker into an occasional poster, and I have a lot of respect for the level of discourse here, self-deprecating "new board description"-type comments notwithstanding. So I have a little spark of hope that I can say this stuff here and get responses without it degenerating. But if this goes unnoticed, that's ok too, feels good just to get it out.

tl;dr: it's hard out here for a Jew in October 2023.

Thank you for posting. Sincere and heartfelt, I wish the best things for you and your community

lovely post.

I also really appreciate the quality of discussion on this board at times like this. And I'm glad I'm not responsible for crafting any sort of public-facing statement - leading a synagogue in Oct 2023 must be a thankless task.

Thank you both <3

Wonderful, sustaining post Laurel. I would say “thank you” but only if it were multiplied a thousand times

I've just had way too many experiences where both parties come into an interaction looking for and taking for granted that they will find support and solidarity, and instead come out feeling more alone and alienated after someone says the ever so slightly wrong thing that makes it clear you don't see 100% eye-to-eye.

I feel this very, very hard. You are not alone.

Bonus if said experience is informed by being a Jew.

Omg, I feel this so hard. You have no idea.

I will just add that I think people may underrate how difficult it is to be receptive to information that conflicts with your previously held notions when emotions are high. Also, having a lot of people yelling at you because you did not word things in exactly the right way or you did not pick up on someone's sarcastic quip just multiplies the difficulty.

I'm not Jewish but I am constantly mistaken for being Jewish, which is close enough right? jk

What you say about your synagogue reminds me of family, in that you're sort of stuck with each other, and love each other, and political events can expose faultlines that seem unbridgeable, yet you have to find a way of living with them.. Perhaps this is a model for the world??

What a lovely and thoughtful post, I would love for you say more down the line, if you feel like it.

I think defensiveness, unprocessed anger and getting things wrong are a natural part human relating, and we shouldn't be ashamed of messing things up, but it takes a lot of practice (or a lucky good temperament) to get past those things -- and "having time to get past things" can feel like a luxury or an impossibility when you're stressed or it feels like you're under siege.

I love that therapist phrase "rupture and repair" (I'm a Jewish trainee therapist, it turns out) and I wish it was a bigger part of the current therapy-speak-vogue (as opposed to overvaluing narcissistic self-belief).

Yes, very good post. Sometimes Judaism and being Jewish is complicated. I'm not even sure all four of us in my immediate family are on the same page about a lot of things. This past Yom Kippur (for non-Jews, or anyone, this was back at the end of September), our Rabbi's sermon was almost entirely focused on the dangerous rightward swing of Israel, and those at the other end of the political spectrum (including many of his fellow activist friends in Israel) pushing back. And yet, he has many friends there now, many in danger, some of whom may be dead. How do you process that conflict, that duality? It's hard. Many of us are, in his words, "fine but not really OK."

I'm bringing all this up not to be political, but just to affirm, yeah, sometimes, even often, Judaism and being Jewish is complicated, and when I encounter debates (on ILX, in real life, anywhere) that start from a position of absolute certainty and conviction, I sometimes find it alienating, at best. And yeah, said experience is informed by being a Jew.

Per Tracer, my synagogue honestly does feel like a second family to me, with my membership/association predicated almost entirely on those feelings rather than the pull of religion, specifically. When we hear certain jokes or references, we understand. When they have to remind everyone at services where the emergency exits are, or where the children in babysitting will be lead to safety, or which doors to the building to use because of heightened security concerns, we all understand. When a Temple member tells the story of why she swims every day - because her mother escaped from the Nazis in Hungary by diving into a river in the dead of winter and somehow making it to freedom with a bullet in her back - we understand that, too.

When my older daughter was applying to colleges, a significant Jewish population was important to her, because of the comfort that community provides. She may not agree with everyone, she may not like everyone, but she knows they (we) share many similar experiences and stories, and given the anxieties of life (let alone anxiety in times of acute crisis) that provides her a sense of security she does not always find elsewhere.  

I admittedly feel a bit alone lately, although at least my wife sees things similarly to me. I got briefly roped into this chat group of local Jews, which I was hoping was going to be positive because my town tends to be very liberal to left and I figured there would be more complexity to the discussion, but it's just a lot of "Look at what this professor said!" Eventually it devolved into a kind of campaign against our village's mayor for not making a statement in support of the 10/7 victims. I suspect her sympathies are more pro-Palestinian and I honestly do not care. This is a village of 8,000 people with a commuter train station and a small downtown. I do not need our mayor to take any overt stance on Israel-Palestine and I kind of am glad she doesn't. Several people in the group kept asking that anyone seeking to campaign against the mayor (who, fwiw, I don't even like that much for more localized reasons) keep it in a separate group that they had created since not everyone was interested in joining that fight. They kept doing it over and over again and they were dominating the conversation and I finally just left.

I am sympathetic to but can't really align myself with the Free Palestine movement for reasons I don't want to get into in order to avoid a political debate in this thread. I feel a lot of pain watching what is happening in Gaza but also feel that pain over what happened in Israel is being denied under various academic-sounding justifications. I suppose Palestinians would say the same has always been done to them.

My personality has always been allergic to being a joiner and going along with any party line, which leaves me as sort of an island. I grew up conservative Jewish and I'm the son of a cantor. Jewishness and synagoguge were a huge part of my life growing up, and I don't actually have any ill feeling toward that, in fact I have felt the urge to reconnect with it in recent years. The prominence of zionism in synagogues has complicated that for me, as has my allergy to stuff that feels "clubby" like youth groups when I was younger, Hillel in college, and today any sort of Jewish group putting on officious vigils and rallies. I find Jewish Voice for Peace simplistic and weird tbh. I saw them wearing talit and blowing shofars in the capital, like a cartoon of Judaism with no context.

thanks everyone, the responses means a lot.

Part of what's so exhaustingly intense is that people engaged on all sides/perspectives seem to believe that their cause is infinitely important and righteous, and this belief is reinforced in a completely unmitigated way by their respective media bubbles. Aside from how incompatible with humility and fallibility that is on principle, it makes the expression of any other opinion look beyond the pale, and needless to say shuts down any sort of dialogue or connection.

Love you, Jews! I got your back! Stay strong!

Sincerely, the dopey goy with Jewish friends and family

I have zero useful info to convey here but just want to recognize that the posts above have really struck a chord (with this non jew who found her spouse on JDate and iirc started this thread ages ago lol).

And ditto what Scott said!

Part of what's so exhaustingly intense is that people engaged on all sides/perspectives seem to believe that their cause is infinitely important and righteous, and this belief is reinforced in a completely unmitigated way by their respective media bubbles. Aside from how incompatible with humility and fallibility that is on principle, it makes the expression of any other opinion look beyond the pale, and needless to say shuts down any sort of dialogue or connection.

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Tuesday, October 24, 2023 8:40 AM bookmarkflaglink

This is a very good point. When I was more naïve I used to think of "righteousness" as a good thing. Then I saw how righteousness turns to justified. And how justified turns to intolerant.

So I have developed kind of a fear of extremely self-righteous or self-justified people, and I try very hard not to become what I despise- intolerant.

Anyway I think this revive came at an extremely good time and I appreciate all the positivity within it.

good posts, all. a lot of my feelings are echoed here. i have typed up and deleted many social media posts in response to the discourse, and ultimately have declined to say anything at all, in support of israel or palestine. it just isn't worth it. i feel what i feel, and that is gonna have to be enough.

here's what i've been very close to posting: the first was a message about the bloodthirstiness and dehumanization of palestinians i've been seeing on the feeds of nominally liberal jewish folks, the second was a message asking american jews to take a step back and think about who is really in the most danger right now. hint: they don't live in the new york metropolitan area.

but ultimately, i didn't want to add to the noise, or start a hostile conversation that might cause some real life blowback for me, my wife, my mom & dad, etc.

I mentioned Jonathan Katz's substack posts in the other thread, but today he posted a personal essay on how his views on Israel and Palestine evolved since childhood through his years in school (encompassing a residency in Israel) and his current profession and newfound fatherhood, growing more complicated and despondent.

FWIW, I've always been an observer on the outside - I grew up with many Jewish friends, so much that I was really green in terms of how much anti-semitism there was in the world and how very few actually identify as being Jewish (as a child, I just presumed there was any many Jewish Americans as Christians). I didn't know anyone who Muslim until college, and over the course of those four years, I became close friends with many from different countries, and in most cases they were the first people I knew from their homelands. (When 90% of what you "knew" about Iran came from idiotic comedies and action films, it really is an eye opener when you engage in the real world.) Given the world events of the past 20 years and grieving over one of my own friends killed in the Middle East has turned me into a likely pacifist. I can't say for sure - I never thought of identifying myself as one and keep thinking there may be a scenario where I would stray from that philosophy - but it's come to the point that whenever I process these things they seem very present rather than distant, and I find an unshakeable disbelief in both violence and revenge. I feel more and more alone in this for a lot of reasons, but I relate to a lot of Katz's expressed feelings - for whatever reason, that brings some measure of hope even if it's cloaked in a lack of faith that the winds will shift towards peace.

*there was as many

*who was Muslim
*engage with
*World events of the past 23 years

sorry, too many typos

very sorry for your friend.

That Katz piece was very good, thanks.

yes, I have been looking for exactly that, thank you.

Agreed, can identify with being raised with unquestioning Zionism and a very antiseptic story of Israel, and the mounting degrees of disillusionment over the years (I never went on the trip though).

another goy checking in. it's just... so hard watching this unfold. the... i don't say anything because i don't know what to say, who i'm talking to and why. i don't... like, my personal opinions about a war half the world over, what does it matter? who cares, you know, what i think? it's the people i know, and i don't think i personally know any jewish people who think that what israel's leaders are doing is right, or _justified_. or at least, nobody who's willing to speak up to justify what the israeli leadership is doing.

muslims get called "terrorists", jewish people get called... i don't even know, i don't pay that much attention. people say things about the people i know, things that aren't true.

i grew up in northern new jersey, and anti-semitism seemed so... stupid. there was anti-semitism. i heard once that an entire boy scout troop quit when they found out that someone in their troop was jewish. it seemed so profoundly ignorant and self-defeating. like, what the fuck did they think? where did they think they were living? i didn't understand why _anybody_ would hate jews. jewish people were just an ordinary, everday part of my life.

i've moved a lot and i'm still surprised that it's not like that most places. a lot of places, everything people know about judaism is filtered through the lens of israeli politics. when i lived in indianapolis, i heard that some people called the part of town where most of the jewish people lived, around 71st and meridian, the "gaza strip". i was still trying to wrap my head around the idea that there was a _part of town_ where most of the jewish people lived.

i still knew a couple jewish people in indianapolis, visited the synagogue near 71st and meridian. they stood out, unlike in new jersey, but they were still part of my everyday life. i moved out here to pdx and just... nothing. the absolute ignorance people have here about jewish people is pretty amazing. there used to be a latke food cart near where i live. i went there on rosh hashanah last year and asked them what their most popular latke was. "the bacon latke", they said. that's how much most people around here understand about judaism.

these days i know a fair few jewish people. it comes up sometimes. when people are multiply marginalized, there tends to be overlap. i saw this one lady give a class at she bop, she had this rad tattoo that's a combination of the star of david and the trans symbol. she's studying to be a rabbi, i hear. i think that's cool. why shouldn't she be? kalonymus ben kalonymus was a rabbi. there are probably jewish people in pdx who aren't queer, but i don't think i've ever met any of them. i get the impression that all of the jewish people out here are also queer.

i don't know. i think jewish people are awesome. i think judaism, this sounds weird, i think judaism is awesome. because it's complicated. because there's so much to it. i don't understand why so many people act like it isn't.

There are about 50,000 Jews in Portland! Roughly 3 times as many as in Indianapolis.

There are about 50,000 Jews in Portland! Roughly 3 times as many as in Indianapolis.

― Guayaquil (eephus!)

yeah, but how many of them are straight? :)

What I've noticed in recent times is this tendency on the part of certain people to consistently be, "this isn't anti semitic and here's why" anytime anything is professed that might actually really be a bit anti-semitic.

a kid at my son's school told some Israeli kids he was in conflict with that he supported Hamas. It didn't go over well. My son knows him pretty well and it's tough for him, considering his mom's family and their history. He carries my Irish last name and I've told him he'll likely unfortunately hear things from people in the future who wouldn't know he's Jewish, and it might hurt. He understands it. He loves everyone though, amazing how well he sees both sides at age 12.

As an Irish Catholic dude I don't have the same perspective but I'll admit some anger and hurt over a few callous-seeming posts on the Israel threads in the wake of the Hamas attack and the Israeli response. A couple things felt a bit coded to me.

Yeah. I'm not wasting my time arguing about it anymore, but definitely felt that way. I liked the Katz piece and related to some of it but don't fully buy into the settler colonialist framework/analysis. I think that any side in a war has its apologetics, and that's understandable. I don't have to adopt them though.

The way I see it, everything that's happening is bigger than me, including the narrative shifts. Some of those narrative shifts are understandable. I don't have the energy to play whack-a-mole with every piece of rhetoric that rubs me the wrong way. In extreme cases I'll call it out.

Never a good sign when we get an email from the high school emphasizing that "derogatory or hateful speech has no place in our school and will not be tolerated. Every student deserves a safe, welcoming place in which to learn, and we condemn antisemitic and Islamophobic speech and acts."

I am just frustrated with the sheer number of articles, posts, etc. that purport to say what it's like to be Jewish or how "your Jewish friends" are feeling or "Why Jews are *xxxxx* right now" -- there are lots of Jews, and lots of ways Jewish people can feel, and something deep in me rises up in revolt when I see a bulletin that asserts ANYTHING collectively on our behalf