You guys are so much fucking harsher with Jewish men about things you'd never complain about a goyische white dude doing or saying I stg. Don't think we don't notice. A Jewish man can say something completely innocuous and goyim will find any reason to be angry about it.

goyim really do *not* realize that Jewish people are perpetually under attack. There's always something, someone, somewhere. And has been for over 2k years. In the end, all of them blend together, and there are no meaningful differences between the attackers. In the end, they're all the same. More people who want us gone.

"Your games read like you have a weird relationship with religion" my relationship with religion is that I grew up with my grandparents constantly trying to convert me to the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they were so bad at it that I ended up becoming an atheist before I entered the first grade. Like, I was not a clever child. Do you know how bad your sales pitch has to be for a five year old to independently conclude your entire worldview is full of shit?

Like, I'm not claiming any special enlightenment here. They totally could have gotten me if their missionary tactics had been even slightly competent. They were given the most softball pitch imaginable – converting a single autistic preschooler who's already predisposed to like and trust them – and straight whiffed it. Nobody involved on either side of that interaction is coming back from that.

You know those classic cartoons where there's this dumb kitten or whatever just ambling down the street, and the villain keeps trying to kill it for some reason, except they're so incompetent that not only does every effort comprehensively fail, the kitten never even notices it's in danger and thinks the villain is a charming and helpful man?

That's my formative experience with the Christian faith in a nutshell.

I'm desperate to know what their actual attempts involved

Bear in mind that I was five years old at the time, so I don't recall a lot of it, but the one thing that really sticks in my mind is an intense preoccupation with emphasising the immorality of "lying down with" someone who isn't your spouse – I clearly remember that was the exact phrase they always used, "lying down with" – paired with an absolute refusal to explain what "lying down with" someone actually entailed. Because, you know, I was five.

(The picture books they used to accompany their proselytizing had lots of illustrations of bronze-skinned people with no shirts on walking around in the desert, and I think that led me to conclude at some point that "lying down with" must involve sunbathing?)

I am trying to imagine just how bonkers your image of someone becomes if you come to the conclusion that they're trying to impart to you the importance that it's immoral to sunbathe and you, specifically you, need to not do it.

In, unless I'm mistaken and thus have misplaced you, Canada???

I'd also like to point out that the obsession with a "natural" penis is antisemitic too.

What defines a "natural" penis is often rooted in antisemitic aesthetics. The Greeks and Romans viewed Jewish men as being less than because their penises were "tampered with". Circumcision-reversal surgery is one of the oldest cosmetic procedures because Jews faced so much ostracization in public spaces that they subjected themselves to surgery just so their penises wouldn't be scrutinized anymore.

There is no "natural" body. Body modification is as old as and possibly even older than humanity. The idea that a body must be "natural" and the discrimination people with "unnatural" bodies face is rooted in millennias-old prejudices and ideologies.

Separating bodies into "natural" and "unnatural" is a tool of fascism and colonialism. Who gets to define what's "natural"? Who gets to define what's "unnatural"? People in power will define their bodies as "natural" and others as "unnatural" to justify their oppressive actions.

Ancient Jewish Cemetery of Gibraltar 🕎

I lighted some candles for the Jewish people buried here between the 18th and 19th century. They tombs are neglected and nobody seems to take care of the site but at least there aren't any broken tombs and you can light candles for free.

I love you Jewish converts

I love you converts of color

I love you queer converts

I love you antizionist converts

I love you atheist converts

Ok yeah you’re a leftist but are you normal about Jews

Guess Chassidic queer people don't exist 🙄

I've faced immense antisemitism from queer gentiles, doesn't mean I'm gonna suddenly be homophobic lmao

And excluding Christians from Pride is also bad, btw.

ngl at this point i feel safer as a queer jew around a pastor in a rainbow stole than i do an edgy antitheist queer person. the former may not fully understand my identity as a queer jew but the latter actively wants my culture and my people gone.

Possibly The most surprising thing I have discovered on the internet is the number of people who will unironically refer to others as "degenerates" without expecting anyone reading this to immediately assume that they are a straight-up fascist

A number of people are reblogging this saying how scary it is that they might unknowingly echo this kind of rhetoric because it's filtered into everyday speech, and like. Yeah, that kind of mostly-innocent mistake is to some extent an inevitable feature of language and the way it passes from person to person, and yeah it can be anxiety-inducing and occasionally mortifying and I do sympathize.

That said.

You potentially being mortified because you accidentally said a nazi word is really beside the point of this post? In fact - and I suggest this as gently as possible - it's a somewhat self-centered response, imho? I wasn't blogging about how disturbing it is to say something embarrassing, I was blogging about how disturbing it is to see fascist ideology getting mainstreamed.

And it is the *ideology* that I find concerning, more than simply the language. Yeah "degenerates" is an incredibly loaded word, and people are well within their rights to direct a hard side-eye (at the least) toward anyone using it. But lbr, even if you could somehow wave a magic wand and erase the historical context that would still be a pretty vicious thing to call someone. Implying or outright stating that someone is subhuman is fascist rhetoric even absent specific fascist terminology. People are in the notes responding with things like "it's not just a synonym for freaks," and okay, but......hot take, you shouldn't be calling anyone a freak either! If you scrub "degenerate" out of your vocabulary but replace it with "freak" used in exactly the same way - other, lesser, outside the boundaries of """normal""" and thus automatically loathsome and/or dangerous - that's not better! If someone is doing bad things, say that. Don't use rhetoric that positions "normal" as "moral." In the first place it's shady as hell ("normal" is a subjective judgment frequently dictated by whoever has the most social power) and in the second place it's not even accurate, plenty of horrible behavior is perfectly normal and societally acceptable.

Anyway I'm sorry if I'm heated about this but the TL;DR is that yeah hearing that word makes every hair on the back of my neck stand up but I'm not actually here to play word cop, I'm here to (1) point out that fascist language filtering into common usage suggests some concerning things about the accompanying fascist ideas, and (2) ask anyone with good intentions to do a little bit of thoughtful self-interrogation about why they feel that is a remotely acceptable way to refer to human beings.

You should read the dictionary more carefully. From your link:

No, fascists did not coin the term. But they have historically really liked slinging it around (and still do currently), because it comes weighted with a lot of judgments about normal vs abnormal, pure vs impure, and when it comes to insults that mesh really neatly with fascist ideology it's hard to beat "you've declined from your noble ancestral state to a corrupt/inferior/primitive form of person (or less-than-person)." That usage of the word by fascists is also in no way "more recent" or purely connected to "the Fox News controversy machine." The Holocaust Memorial Museum has an entry for it in their online glossary of terms and symbols. The Nazis staged an infamous exhibition of """degenerate art""" in 1937, and in Germany that phrase or anything like it is still incredibly loaded.

Furthermore, words have connotations as well as denotations. Dog whistles are a thing. I'm not going to post screenshots because I don't really see the point in subjecting my mutuals to it, but if you go on Twitter and search "degenerate" basically every other post that pops up is virulent frothing-at-the-mouth transphobia. I can't recommend it as light reading, but if you look up alt-right manifestos or incel forums (or even just peruse the angrier comments on a right-leaning news site) you will also find this word getting throw around a hell of a lot. Part of the reason I personally have an immediate flinch response to it is that when I was first finding my way around the web as a kid, "degenerate" was part of the internet vernacular of Stormfront types the way that Pepe memes are popular with alt-right types today.

When I Google the word and do a news search, one of the more recent (3/27/23) articles is about some guy in Kansas who was driving around with a "14 Words By David Lane" decal on his work truck (and who was charged for racially-motivated murder in 2014, incidentally), and when asked for comment responded "I don't care what a bunch of degenerates, Marxists and pedophiles have to say about my work."

TL;DR It is objectively true that if you go around calling people you don't like degenerates then people familiar with fascist rhetoric are probably going to side-eye you - and they have abundant good reasons for doing so.

#''deviation from the norm'' should not be your go-to insult and if it is then you've got serious issues you need to work through

Thanks @spoonie-waagosh for summarizing so pithily

people do a whole lot of fancy mental dancing to keep from confronting how easy, fun, and pleasant it is to be a fascist. it’s very enjoyable to believe you’re rationally, morally, and biologically superior sort of human from your enemies. it’s immediately rewarding to conclude that the people you hate are less human than you are-- some sort of degenerate form of sub-human, or an unfortunately mutated freak. it’s simple and clean to decide that the world needs purging of all undesireables. you’re a good guy. you’re the best kind of person. it’s the dirty, filthy mistakes that pretend to be human--badly!--and infest the world like giant rats that need to be removed from society, for the good of people like you.

believing this feels great. it explains everything. it gives you an explanation for what’s wrong with the world that’s very reasonable to believe and gets you plenty of friends to say.

unfortunately you’re still being a fucking fascist piece of shit, no matter how superior you feel and what a great time you're having with those feelings. and you now deserve at best a scolding and at worst, if you’ve become like this on purpose and are now a serious danger to everyone you so cheerfully hate, a brick upside the head.

the people you hate aren’t subhuman. filthy weirdos actually have the exact same right to live their life and be the way they are as you, and if you try to wipe them out they’re the victims and you’re the monster. it’s a much more complicated and frustrating belief to make your peace with, but you gotta.

Being raised by areligious jews with 0 exposure to christianity outside pop culture is so fun. One time I asked my ex-catholic friend why a picture of jesus had a bristle crown and she looked at me like I was insane. One time I heard someone mention the "lance of longinus" and responded, word for word, "Like from Evangelion?" One time during a history lesson my professor described an important monk and scholar as "Dominican" and I spent the rest of class super confused and hung up on it because I was very sure that the Dominican Republic didn't meaningfully exist as an entity back then, maybe she meant he was a native Taino or something but that's a weird way to say that and I'm pretty sure this was pre- European contact? Really fucks people up when they realize I genuinely have no idea.

@ruthlesslistener

My Jewish mom once asked her friend why some depictions of crucified Jesus have the letters INRI over them and he told her they stood for "I'm Nailed Right In"

jumpscares on Ash Wednesday and asking your friends what’s on their forehead

jumpscares on Ash

Wednesday and asking your friends

what’s on their forehead

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

LGBTQ+ Jewish Resources and Organizations

Happy Pride! Here's a few links I've collected to hopefully reach whoever in the Jewish community may need them. If you're considering donating a bit of money or volunteer time this Pride, please consider looking into these efforts (at your own discretion, as many of these may be local to specific areas). Please feel free to add on to this list, and any queer Jews reading are welcome to link their personal donation posts in the comments.

The SMQN, an organization for LGBTQ+ Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews

Keshet, a group for LGBTQ+ Jews

JQY, a group for LGBTQ+ Jews with a focus on those in Orthodox communities

Queer Jews of Color Resource List (note: this list is way more than just resources, there’s a LOT of helpful stuff in here) JQ International: In their own words, "JQ celebrates the lives of LGBTQ+ Jews and their allies by transforming Jewish communities and ensuring inclusion through community building, educational programs, and support and wellness services, promoting the healthy integration of LGBTQ+ and Jewish identities."

Ritualwell (check out their blessings related to gender identity!) 

Guimel, an LGBTQ+ support group for the Jewish Community in Mexico. The site is in Spanish. I’m not a native speaker, but I was still able to read a little bit of it. 

SVARA: In their own words, “SVARA’s mission is to empower queer and trans people to expand Torah and tradition through the spiritual practice of Talmud study.”

TransTorah is definitely an older website, but there are still some miscellaneous pdfs and resources up on the “Resources” page.

SOJOURN: In their own words, "The Southern Jewish Resource Network for Gender & Sexual Diversity (SOJOURN) is the American South's resource for Jewish & LGBTQ+ programming, education, support, and advocacy."

Whenever I run into people--people who are apparently well-intentioned and trying to be kind and moral--who honestly think that there was no widespread antisemitism before the Nazis, all I can think of is this:

The Wikipedia page for "Timeline of Antisemitism" is so long that they had to give the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries their own subpages for reasons of length, and the 20th century subpage is not inclusive for the Holocaust, which has its own timeline subpage.

But so many people think that antisemitism was invented by the Nazis, and solved by the Allies. And I just want to shake them and educate them.

-Chicago Dyke March kicks out three Jewish women for having a rainbow flag with a Star of David

-DC Dyke March outright bans the Jewish Pride flag

"Who cares if you're Jews?"

Oh, just the people assaulting and attacking us. You know, the folks ensuring that attacks on Jews make up more than half of all religious-based hate crimes.

This is revolutionary y’all. I remember being 13 and refused to go do any ceremony because my parents tried to force me to go through a bar mitzvah. By virtue of the masculine name alone I just couldn’t do it. After that, I felt very alienated from the Jewish community. Having this option is so important for us to repair these binary aspects of our culture (link)

I also had a gender neutral b'nei mitzvah, a two person one actually(me and my twin) last summer. Cool to hear about another person who did it as well.

Sadie Sadie The Rabbi Lady — Jewish drag queen, activist and founding member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence

ph: Jean-Baptiste Carhaix | 1983

Transphobia is Treyf Pride Pin | Limited Edition