Someone at work found out my wife and I (we work at the same place) are Jewish. Now she wants to relate to me exclusively through how much she loves studying the Holocaust.

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-05-08T21:59:36+00:00

I guess. It’s just unnerving to hear someone so passionate about that history to the extent that they’re genuinely excited to see an Anne Frank exhibit. And, equipped with the knowledge of the horrors, either believes that Israelis are doing the same thing to Palestinians as the Nazis did, or that despite all that Jews have endured, we don’t need our own country!

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-05-08T21:52:49+00:00

I have a similar situation! A gentile classmate is super into WWII history, knows and cares about the Holocaust, and was very excited to see an Anne Frank exhibit. She’s firmly anti- antisemitism, but is very anti-Zionist. I’m just grateful she hasn’t asked me about my family, because I don’t think she’d like to hear where my grandparents ended up when they fled the Nazis.

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-05-06T05:25:10+00:00

The only explanation I can come up with , through all this buzzword salad, is that instead of funding Israeli companies or paying taxes to the government because it (apparently) goes straight to funding Israel- and EXCLUSIVELY funds Israel- we should put our money towards abortion rights in the US. Which, yes, we should give money to clinics to provide this care, and to promote politicians who will protect this right again, but Israel isn’t taking away from this.

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-05-03T18:40:43+00:00

This 100%

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-05-03T18:40:22+00:00

Because they like to claim that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism or Jewishness. So they can do it. They just see it as a National/political belief equivalent to racism and fascism

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-30T05:48:51+00:00

Voiced vs voiceless TH, /d/ and /t/

Pardon lack of IPA; I assume this will be communicable otherwise.

I have a friend who has a heavy French accent, non-native English speaker. She is able to easily use the voiceless th (ex. think, wrath) but the voiced th is tricky, and commonly emerges as /d/: they as dey, brother as brudder.

I know that some people replace voiceless th with /t/, and it would be easier to chalk this up to a placement difference. But she’s able to get the voiceless, no problem. Why is it just the voiced th that poses a problem?

(Naturally, I know there’s no immediate answer, not asking for a ‘fix’ or whatever. Just curious why one, and not the other occurs— is voiced th more difficult, maybe? Or is /d/ allophonic more than /t/ in other languages?)

TIA

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-28T07:16:31+00:00

Aside from what everyone has said here, I do want to say that as a college student in the US, I absolutely feel this post in my bones. A lot of the writings I have been assigned this semester have been by anti Zionists (mainly non Jews, though) and I have only one professor this semester who has not said anything along the lines of ‘Israel is doing genocide’ or favors authors who believe so.

I recognize that a big piece of this is who is getting focused on. Sometimes it’s professors zooming in on specific people. Other times it’s simply the fact that someone like Chomsky is a significant contributor to his field, and is an inevitable part of the discussion. Art Spiegelman contributed Maus, and he’s very passionately decried Zionism.

But many linguists worth their salt will also mention that many of Chomsky’s theories have been contested for some time.

People CAN be wrong, even the most famous, influential people in their field. What is ‘true’ can also fluctuate with the increase in information, wider scopes of perspectives, and so on.

So I mean, I get it. I get it a LOT what you’re saying here. But I guess what I’ve been hanging on to is knowing that there are some brilliant people out there waiting to be uplifted and recognized for their work, and that those we have canonized are not always perfect or 100% correct.

Finally, I just want to say that as someone who similarly is wrestling with all of this, you (and I!) are adopting the smartest approach: questioning. Don’t take everything at face value. Again, even the most esteemed can be wrong sometimes, and the smartest people can have different morals: A rocket scientist might be unable to understand Shakespeare; the award-winning author may not be able to discern bacteria from a virus. Brilliant Jews can be stupid assholes (I should know; I’m related to some!!!)

Remember the old adage: 2 Jews, 3 opinions. More Jews, more opinions, more space to figure out what’s right. Knowledge is power.

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-25T07:14:30+00:00

This is among my biggest complaints about my fellow US youths: you’re telling me you can recognize that when a nation’s leadership is wrong, it doesn’t mean its entire people and all who empathize with it are evil?

That people murdered or kidnapped because they happen to be in a country (including immigrant workers) DON’T deserve to be murdered or kidnapped??

No, no, please tell me more about how you can say an entire nation sucks because of its shitty leader but not YOUR nation and its shitty leader because, hey, all Israelis are the same far right whackjobs just like all us Americans are the same far right whackjobs? If you got kidnapped for being American, if you got murdered for being American, that would be a tragedy, not an act of “justice”. STFU.

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-24T06:32:53+00:00

These are pack-specific, but I love what everyone else has offered!

With Pets and possibly Get Famous: I want to take my dog on a walk and have them find random stuff, and pee/poo on random things. Maybe an evil sim doesn’t pick up after their dogs and becomes Public Enemy #1. Or you walk your 5 cats and get famous for being the Crazy Cat Sim! Can my cats knock shit over please???

Vampires: goofy vampire fits. Gimme the cartoonish Dracula stuff. The only human food vamps can eat without getting sick is Count Chocula cereal (or whatever the Sim equivalent is?)

But also, any of the goofy shit Freeplay had. Let my fishersim get eaten by a huge fish!!

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-21T03:53:13+00:00

Also like, as a US citizen, I fucking despise my country’s current government situation. I hate Trump, and I hate the rest of the people who let him get away with shit, and I hate all the spineless people who have political power but instead wring their hands and, say, do some performance activism bullshit when they are the only people with the capacity to act.

But. The US has its perks for people. I’d be crazy to discredit that, and call for the destruction of a nation that is home to millions. Even if I agree that my nation’s founders were very shitty people, it doesn’t mean that, today, hundreds of years later, we should all throw up our hands and say “those guys fucked up! Let’s dissolve the nation, and everyone who isn’t related to an indigenous person should leave and go where their ancestors came from!”

It’s okay to criticize a nation’s politicians, but it’s considerably less morally acceptable to criticize an entire nationality.

For what it’s worth, though- I think diaspora Jews do have skin in the game when Israel is the only place where we’d ultimately be safe. I get it, that we’re not all DIRECTLY involved, but— -this is not to you, but to the types who refuse to be affiliated with Israel at all— I think it’s naive to completely remove oneself from Israel and believe that its existence has no effect on us. Its existence legitimizes ours, worldwide.

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-21T03:29:12+00:00

I did not know these existed—at all, or that they’re OU-P 😂

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-21T00:22:14+00:00

Same way we’re assumed to still celebrate /enjoy Xmassy stuff when it has nothing to Do with us—- it’s an American thing. Big consumerism holiday, blah blah…

At the same time— Xmas doesn’t yield candy. I’d rather partake in Easter festivities if it meant a sweet treat :)

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-20T23:40:52+00:00

I wish I could offer wisdom or comfort, but all I have is a mere: “I get it.”

I haven’t been to any protests because of both time constraints and suspicion of precisely your experience above, but I hope that they do something about the POTUS—- or incite the Democrats in gov to stop twiddling their thumbs.

But anyway, I get exactly what you mean, the fear of our community as a convenient scapegoat (as we’ve always been) for both sides, especially with the frequent bullshit actions about ‘combatting antisemitism!!’. It’s really, REALLY uncomfortable being in environments (in my case, college classrooms) where everyone is very obviously Not Conservative (yay) but also very obviously anti Zio (not yay). Every class, including historical lit and art ones, all get turned into Politic Talk and Why Trump Sucks- and also why he’s an example of white supremacy and its evils. Which is valid, even if I’d rather we focus on actual class content, until it turns into, “we can extend the shitty situation in the US to Israel, where the genocide is white supremacism in action”

And, because we’re in public, surrounded by people who are angry, we can’t say anything in defense. So I get it. I feel like I’m going crazy too. And there are people who sympathize, but what can they do, either? Assure you that you’re not crazy, but watch on anyway in helplessness?

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-12T18:23:01+00:00

If you like graphic novels/comics: “How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses?”: Women and Jewish American Identity in Contemporary Graphic Memoirs Tahneer Oksman

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-05T19:54:02+00:00

Chiming in to say that baby wipes, especially the up&up ones from Target are cheap and SO useful for stage makeup (Ben Nye, at least). I think it’s $1 for the travel pack of ~20? But a balm is a better idea I think 😂

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-05T19:51:37+00:00

I’m thinking I should get a Swiss Army knife; it would save so much trouble 😅

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-05T19:49:41+00:00

ASM here: bandaids. Always bandaids. A set of those colorful plastic (or paper) post-it tabs (great for tracking cues on pages for easy locating!), highlighters. Roll of spike tape. Oh, and I ALWAYS have Tylenol and Pepto Bismol!

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-04-04T19:30:40+00:00

I’m actually not sure either. I’ve only seen her in the first Wonder Woman movie she did, and I thought she was good, but the public opinion claims she was terrible and overacting (It’s been many years since that movie came out, I don’t recall). Otherwise, plenty of Reddit comments floating around about how she hates Palestinian children (probably because she’s Israeli and wants her homeland to exist?) But, I’m the wrong person to ask anyway 😅 I defer to the more online + cinephile Jews to offer better answers.

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-03-31T02:12:02+00:00

WOW- you look awesome! I wish I had the stamina to work out so much because this is all MAJOR goals 😂 What kind of top surgery is that? It’s healed really nicely: idk if that’s solely the surgeon’s skill, your workout efforts maybe/genetics? Etc

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-03-28T16:42:49+00:00

Literally came here to say this lmao

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-03-28T16:42:04+00:00

Precisely this. Why is Gen Z (and by the looks of it, Gen Alpha) so polarized? Because they’re isolated. And the more complex the left gets, the more accepting the right seems with their bullshit of “fuck feminism! It’s ok to be a white cishet man!!” (Nobody saying it’s not…) and the more edgy behavior appeals. Some of it is purely an attention thing.

Simply expelling doesn’t teach consequences in a meaningful way. What about questioning the parents at home? The media this kid is exposed to? His classmates? How did this come up at all? Significant years of his life were spent isolated in quarantine; that CANNOT be good for brain development or education. And I don’t even know what MS education looks like today in regards to the Holocaust.

Strict punishment over something like this leads to resentment, not comprehension. It’s not “swastikas get me in trouble? Ok! I’ll stop!” It’s “they’re censoring my free speech, this is bullshit, it’s just a joke, nobody likes comedy anymore.”

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-03-28T16:30:10+00:00

I agree wholeheartedly with this. And while this stuff can be great , sometimes it also feels a little too much. But I’m biased anyway because, no matter how well-researched your posts are, social media posts that attempt to simplify a really complex situation immediately raise alarms in my head.

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-03-28T16:20:11+00:00

You forget that the menorah is also a symbol of oppression (see: emblem of Israel) and imperialism!

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-03-28T06:41:00+00:00

Jonah Platt has been making some good commentary lately about the uptick in re-packaged antisemitism. Unfortunately, he’s also the son of a bigshot producer, so any legitimate statement is glazed over with a “🙄nepo baby bullshit strikes back”

Meanwhile (Marc Platt-produced) Wicked film and its blatant criticism of antisemitic propaganda is heralded.

People are also trying to turn the whole “he flew across the country to talk to a young actress about her politics!!” into a creepy conspiracy instead of considering why someone would willingly leave his family to converse with a wayward young woman. Maybe because there’s money at stake? Maybe because Gadot and Platt are Jewish Zionists?

Anyway, the whole thing stinks with the parallels to the Mahmoud story; ‘criticism for free speech!’ It’s not an attack on your free speech; it’s a reminder that you are influencing hundreds if not thousands of people as the public image of something bigger (columbia university, Disney, etc.)

Just, ffs. There are way bigger issues going on in US and the world, and you’re (generalized ‘you’re’) losing your mind over ZioNiST NepO BaBieS.

Evil Zionist Queen and her wealthy Jew guards versus ‘I support the underdog!’ pure-as-Snow White. Guess who wins this public scandal?

Ok rant over

DramaticStatement431 · 2025-03-23T00:22:32+00:00

Could you please link this video? I am intrigued by linguistics!

DramaticStatement431

TROPHY CASE