mi ani? ma ani?

like my people, my

thoughts
poems
head
love
history

all are scattered.

and now that my matriarch is dead,

what
where
who

am i?

why did you leave me like this?
i don’t feel ready.

antisemitism: the “acceptable” discrimination

The problem is that we don’t like to think of oppression of Jewish people to be a huge problem because we like to think of Jews as doing economically well compared to other ethnic minorities in the United States. From this idea emerges the common stereotype of the rich, greedy Jew. From there, the stereotype grows and the fear of Jew spreads. Jews are disloyal and only out for themselves. Jews control the media, so Jews are to blame for everything that’s wrong with society. In fact, they are responsible for the destruction of society, because they control the government and all businesses! Jews are an inferior race. Jews are responsible for disease, like the Black Plague. Jews are vulgar and will rape your children. All Jews have horns on their head because they are the Devil. Jews are responsible for 9/11. Jews only create trouble wherever they go, and Hitler may have had the right idea. (That was an anonymous message I actually received.) Actually, the Holocaust didn’t really happen; Jews are just exaggerating to gain world sympathy. The world would be better off if Jews didn’t exist. Jews are evil — they killed Jesus!

Are you starting to see where the problem is? These stereotypes separate Jews from the rest of society. Jews effectively become The Other. We are not necessarily perceived as white (or black or brown or whatever skin color we are): we are Jews. Evil. Subhuman. And it grows violent quickly. Think about it: if you believe these things and were working alongside a Jewish person, would you trust them? Would you feel justified in anything negative said or done against a Jewish person?

Until antisemitism stops existing completely, it is always something that we should be concerned about. The history of the Jewish people has shown us how quickly simple dislike can turn violent.

—Jackie Klein, Feminspire.com

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Jesus meant absolutely nothing to the Jewish people

he is completely and utterly irrelevant to Judaism and Jewish culture

Christians: please stop appropriating our culture for the sake of your faith

you have your own beautiful and interesting practices and traditions

it is unnecessary and harmful to steal what little culture we have left, after centuries and centuries of subjugation, torture, isolation, murder, rape, and forced conversion to your faith simply because we are not what you are.

there are more posts about christianity than Judaism in the Jewish tags, please do not have such a completely overinflated sense of self-importance, please leave the Jewish people, and our culture and practices, alone.

“the jews” don’t run shit

they say “the jews run hollywood” and don’t believe us when we tell them that most jews who ARE in hollywood could only make it there by changing their names to sound less jewish

does that sound right to u?

…what ARE you??

it’s the searching that lets me know…

their eyes seek to justify their understanding of what i am.

they aren’t looking at me, seeing me, they are trying to search through me.

i’m not a person, to them, i’m a puzzle.

so call me a kike today,

and a white oppressor tomorrow,

because it was never about me anyway.

as if u knew anything

I wish so much that I could say,

“no one can take your truth away from you”

but the truth is,

that isn’t true.

they take my truth away from me

in small increments

every day.

they make me question myself

my identity

my thoughts

my beliefs.

they tell me that I am not real,

that my reality is a fiction.

I try so hard to hold on to my truth,

but the truth is that I’m afraid

it might already be gone.

my identity is not a math problem

my identity is not a math problem

it cannot be reduced

or tokenized to fit your specific agenda

it cannot be quantified

to make you feel more comfortable, there are no degrees of my identity, I am whole

it requires no proof

or explanation, my existence is elegant proof enough of the beauty and wholeness of my identity

it cannot be divided

into parts for you to dissect and try to understand piece by piece, my identity is whole in itself and cannot be any other way

it is no mystery or puzzle to be solved

my identity is not for you in any way, it is for me and for my brothers and sisters only

my identity is not a math problem.

ask (from my personal blog)

lungbox.tumblr.com: tevye am i a ba d jew for abandoning my jewishness because everyone around me convinced me i didnt want it. what do i do now. i am so sad and lost and im afraid im not trying hard enough bc i don tknow where to start

friend i have been in the same boat for a long time tbh this tumblr has been a HUGE part of me 1. coming back to my jewishness and 2. establishing/updating a jewish identity that’s my own

i am sad, i am lost, im afraid too. im also excited and ecstatic to grow into what ive come to love. i didnt love my jewishness for a really long time and i didnt understand it and i just wanted to be “normal” ie. white christian.

we all have different stories but we all have a lot of similarities too and thats why i wanted to post this publicly cause since i started this tumblr ive received an alarming number of messages like this

u arent a bad jew bb there is no such thing

i feel like that so often, im a bad jew, im not jewish enough, im whatever…

fuck that

FUCK IT. it isnt easy to be a jew and we need to support each other to make it better – fuck quantifying and qualifying our jewishness. we might be different but we’re jews, and a jew is a jew is a jew. fuck anyone who wants to take that away from us or diminish its importance.

“my identity is not a math problem” is a poem i wrote sort of about this.

all facets of our identity are cumulative and the result of a life-long process… it’s ok to explore and be confused and unsure about our identity ❤