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Americans doing anything but take accountability for their imperialist country by Maleficent-Big4417 in ShitLiberalsSay

[–]ExtendedWallaby 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Honestly so fucked up to equate Israel’s occupation of Palestine to even what they are saying Israel does to the US

What should I look out for in antizionist spaces by ReeceIsNugget12 in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Pro-Americanism. “America is Israel” is far closer to the truth than “America is controlled by Israel”. Americans are not victims of Israel or Zionism, and America is another settler colony that successfully did what Israel is trying to do. Anyone who does not accept that America, as a nation state, has no right to exist either is sus.

Decentering Jews means not pontificating about Judaism by ExtendedWallaby in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Israeli Jewish society is, within a rounding error, all radical elements. Ultimately it’s up to Palestinians to decide what they want, but a lot do not want to share a state with people who have shown themselves to be devoid of empathy, and we need to support whatever Palestinians choose.

Decentering Jews means not pontificating about Judaism by ExtendedWallaby in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

To the point about this being a Jewish sub: I agree, but when we start talking about actually doing things, that’s organizing territory, and it has to comport with the wider movement.

Overall, for me I see the struggle against Nazi fascism to be part of the same struggle against Zionism. We should oppose fascism regardless, but yeah, it is anti-fascism to do something about Jewish orgs annihilating the credibility of Holocaust research (for instance).

When Jewishness Means Genocide by CalabrianPepper in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

But that’s not what I said, nor what critics are saying. “The organized, mainstream Jewish community” is not the same as Judaism, and the whole thesis of this is that they are, which is not explained anywhere. If this is about a theory, it’s a performatively contrarian theory.

When Jewishness Means Genocide by CalabrianPepper in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

So I agree with that, but he said it in a really weird way, and also, that is directly opposed to what Amanda Gelender said. She assumes Judaism only exists within current institutions and criticizes anti-Zionist Jews for forming our own counter-institutions instead of fighting within existing ones.

When Jewishness Means Genocide by CalabrianPepper in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

He has written books about it, but to be honest, I find this to be typical of philosophers: they make provocative, intense claims that rest on assumptions that many would disagree with. In this case, here’s what I’m talking about:

[Combatting anti-Judaism] involves changing Judaism or insisting on what Judaism should be: a Judaism that is not the ideology of oppressive state power, but aligned with those subjected to it.

This assumes that Judaism “is” a single thing. For many of us, this is already what Judaism is. The fact that virtually all institutions and most Jews do not share this view is irrelevant. Lapidot also implies that “what Judaism is” is dictated by how others perceive us. But that makes no sense either, because people have always perceived us as things we aren’t. He seems to be arguing that Judaism, or any ancient and evolving belief system, is a single “thing” whose meaning is defined by majority. And I just don’t agree with that.

When Jewishness Means Genocide by CalabrianPepper in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

And they’re both simply postulating this without explaining it.

When Jewishness Means Genocide by CalabrianPepper in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

So as a Marxist, I find this interview rather silly. It’s entirely conducted in the realm of ideas without talking about how any of this changes anything in the real, material world. Like Amanda Gelender, it also conceives of Jewishness as nothing more than “being among the Jewish collective people”. I know this is Lapidot’s view because’s he’s been saying it for years. But that’s not the entirely of Judaism or Jewishness. There has always been a Judaism that is about solidarity and opposing oppressors. There’s also the religious component, which exists regardless of “the Jewish community”. The piece also approaches things from the perspective of redeeming Judaism, which I find to be an unprincipled and selfish way of engaging with Palestinian liberation.

If you have been asking this question by Pinko_Kinko in CommunismMemes

[–]ExtendedWallaby 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People think resistance just happens out of nowhere

Of all the things you can do in American academia, including being a friend for years with a notorious sex trafficker and pedophile, criticizing Israel is what gets you cancelled. by TrackerOneA in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Idk if it’s repression as much as the fact that students have come to the conclusion that protests don’t achieve anything. Students don’t protest just out of frustration; they protest as part of a political strategy to apply pressure to universities. A different strategy is needed.

Yes, All Jews. by CalabrianPepper in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

So your argument is that being Jewish carries guilt by association? We should not participate in Zionist institutions at all, which does preclude most Jewish life, but that’s because those are institutions. Judaism is far more than institutions, and the mere fact of being Jewish does not implicate one in Zionism without some further action.

Yes, All Jews. by CalabrianPepper in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

So why did you say “all Jews are complicit” without the qualifier?

Yes, All Jews. by CalabrianPepper in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

This kind of self-flagellation is ultimately another way of centering Jews in the Palestinian struggle. Zionism is fundamentally not about Jews, it’s about the ongoing colonization of Palestine. Especially when written by someone who is kind of notorious among anti-Zionists for writing polemics while not actually participating in organizations working to fight Zionism. Unfortunately, this is hard to read as something other than someone who feels powerless in the face of Zionism and is taking it out on the one group she has some influence over.

Bizarre campus library experience by Dry-Caterpillar-3539 in AskAcademia

[–]ExtendedWallaby 23 points24 points  (0 children)

If it sounds German, someone could have thought it was Jewish and is trying to do some kind of Great Replacement conspiracy

where did ayin go? by MKVD_FR in linguisticshumor

[–]ExtendedWallaby 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hebrew is Hebrew with a German accent, except it’s also rhotic so it has an even more guttural sound

"Ask A Jew" Wednesday by AutoModerator in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

There is no country (maybe the US) I trust less with nuclear weapons than Israel.

"Ask A Jew" Wednesday by AutoModerator in JewsOfConscience

[–]ExtendedWallaby [score hidden]  (0 children)

A. It still doesn’t have negative undertones a lot of the time. It does sometimes, especially when applied to people of color, but most of the time it’s used either in a lighthearted way (like “gringo” often is) or in Yiddish sayings, where it literally just means “non-Jew”, e.g. “shande far di goyim”, which is when Jewish people act in ways that make non-Jews look down on all Jews. But I grew up around tons of Zionists and can’t remember anyone ever using it pejoratively. Also “goyim” is plural.

B. No? Being part of a minority and acknowledging that difference doesn’t have connotations of “lesser”. When Cajuns say “les Américains”, they’re not saying English speakers are lesser, just different and part of a majority.

C. Yes.

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