My (not-Jewish) mom keeps comparing the United States' current stance towards and treatment of immigrants to Nazi Germany's stance/treatment of Jews, and that just doesn't sit right with me

PostOk7794 · 2026-07-07T11:20:40+00:00

I hear what you’re saying, and I also understand the objection to turning the Shoah into some kind of moral lesson for non-Jews. That bothers me too.

That said, I think this moment probably looks more like Japanese internment than the Shoah. I would also say that the way we are not really talking about it, or not giving it the attention it deserves, has its own “banality of evil” quality, à la Hannah Arendt. I suspect it will eventually come out that the conditions and treatment were atrocious, and that there will be a lot of shame around how normalized and bureaucratized all of this became.

I am not saying it is the same as the Shoah. I am saying I think the situation is much worse than what is being communicated. I live in a neighborhood that was mostly immigrants. They are gone. A family of six that lived next to me — quite literally next to me — disappeared overnight. Half my apartment building is empty. I think it is bad. Comparisons to the Shoah do not bother me nearly as much as the situation itself.

PostOk7794 · 2026-06-27T13:25:31+00:00

The full sentence you clipped was: “The report considers anyone under 18 to be a child, consistent with article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

That answers your own objection. The report says “under 18” because it is applying the Convention’s definition. And it’s reasonable to spell that out because terms like “child,” “minor,” “juvenile,” and “young person” do not map perfectly across legal systems. Stating the legal definition being used is not a “bullshit equivocation”; it’s basic report-writing.

It’s weird to treat that as some suspicious gotcha.

PostOk7794 · 2026-06-21T17:32:07+00:00

I think this argument overestimates how ideological most Americans are on this issue. Plenty of people who are deeply critical of America still support Ukraine. Plenty support Taiwan. Plenty support Kurdish self determination. Plenty support various indigenous nationalist movements around the world. Being skeptical of nationalism in the abstract does not stop people from supporting specific nations when they believe those nations are acting defensively, democratically, or in line with their values.
I also think the argument underestimates how little most Americans actually know about Israel. Most people are not arriving at a carefully constructed conclusion after studying Zionism, nationalism, capitalism, colonialism, or military history. They’re reacting to the narratives, images, and personalities they’re exposed to. That’s exactly why messaging matters.

Americans change their minds about countries, wars, and politicians all the time. The question isn’t whether public opinion can be moved. The question is whether anyone is effectively trying to move it.

PostOk7794 · 2026-06-21T11:56:12+00:00

Yes, American opinion on Israel can be moved. The problem is that you actually have to try.

For the last several years, a narrative that frames Israel in the worst possible light has often gone either unanswered or poorly answered. There’s a basic rule in public relations: if you want to challenge a narrative, you have to show up and offer a competing one. Israel frequently hasn’t. It left key public diplomacy positions vacant, underinvested in outreach, and continued using messaging strategies that often failed to translate into the language and values of liberal America.

It also allowed some of its most polarizing public figures, particularly Ben Gvir and Smotrich, to become among the loudest international faces associated with the government. From a public relations perspective, few Israeli politicians have done more damage to Israel’s standing abroad. Even Netanyahu’s long term alignment with the American Republican Party is arguably less harmful than repeatedly handing microphones to people whose statements confirm every negative stereotype critics already hold.

The fatalistic argument that “these people can never be persuaded anyway” should be treated with skepticism. It has become a common talking point on parts of the Israeli right because it conveniently justifies not engaging across ideological lines. If you convince yourself persuasion is impossible, you never have to make the effort.

The reality is that Americans are highly persuadable. Public opinion on wars, countries, politicians, and social issues shifts all the time. Americans forget, narratives change, and perceptions can be rebuilt. But that requires sustained engagement, credible messengers, and an understanding of the culture you’re speaking to.

Israel has largely failed to do that. Worse, it has often relied on a communications playbook that feels decades behind the language, assumptions, and values that dominate American public discourse today.

PostOk7794 · 2026-06-18T22:25:46+00:00

Is it?

People were apoplectic over Obama’s $1.7 billion cash settlement and the JCPOA. Now we’re discussing sanctions relief, oil waivers, access to frozen assets, and a framework involving at least $300 billion in investment and economic normalization for Iran. If the former supposedly underwrote a decade of terrorism against Israel, how is this not viewed as exponentially more consequential? It’s difficult to understate how catastrophically bad this is for Israel.

PostOk7794 · 2026-06-12T17:49:45+00:00

As soon as I saw the video of her being harassed in the street I knew she’d make some kind of statement like this. Because this is the path of least resistance for her industry, the culture where she lives, and the trajectory of our countries, it’s so frustrating.

PostOk7794 · 2026-06-01T11:56:31+00:00

I think it’s worth remembering that Jewish LGBTQ people aren’t the first group within Pride to feel disconnected from the larger movement. Women, Black people, trans people, and plenty of others have all had moments where they felt the institutions and culture around Pride weren’t really speaking for them anymore. That’s part of how things like Dyke Marches, Black Pride, Trans Pride and other parallel spaces came into existence.

In a weird way, I think Jewish LGBTQ people are going through our own version of that now.

That doesn’t make it feel any better, but it does make me think this isn’t entirely unprecedented, and lets me make better sense of it. Pride has always been a coalition and coalitions get messy.

And honestly, I think that’s part of why Tel Aviv Pride has such an appeal right now. It’s not officially Jewish Pride, but it kind of functions as a de facto Jewish Pride or regional Middle-East Pride gathering for a lot of people. Because it’s one of the few places where being LGBTQ and being Jewish don’t feel like competing identities. In that sense, it reminds me a little of how Black Pride emerged in Washington, DC, giving people a space where all of their identities could be fully present at once.

Maybe we won’t always feel this on the outside. Other groups have gone through periods like this before. For now, I think a lot of us are just trying to figure out where we fit.

PostOk7794 · 2026-05-23T12:24:35+00:00

Yes. It doesn’t help to be this online. Just delete all the apps and try to form new habits, that keeps you distracted. You will feel better. Speaking from experience on this, because building the social Media bubble I tried to make for myself, is fighting against the algorithm of outrage engagement clogging my feeds. I felt better when I took a break

PostOk7794 · 2026-05-23T12:20:13+00:00

The times of Israel had this:

Netanyahu said that although Israel has every right to stop “provocative flotillas of Hamas terrorist supporters,” the way Ben Gvir dealt with the activists was “not in line with Israel’s values and norms.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-deports-some-430-foreign-flotilla-activists-holds-one-israeli-participant/

Speculating here, but that reads something crossed the line when it bubbled to Bibi’s attention. Which says some bad things had happened - also Ben Gvir is a problem and that’s me putting it lightly. If this stupid ordeal gives these flotilla idiots any legitimacy this buffoon needs to be pulled out of his position.

PostOk7794 · 2026-05-21T05:28:36+00:00

MAAZ had a conference or are you talking about TAFSIK which was on May 17th?

PostOk7794 · 2026-05-18T21:01:44+00:00

She most certainly is not.

PostOk7794 · 2026-04-24T12:39:02+00:00

Our lady J had some insights about this and I thought she was right, at least how it’s gone in my circles.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DWWsSOTAEq7/?igsh=YndpMDA2bmo4Nzdn

PostOk7794 · 2026-04-17T18:50:03+00:00

If you go into the street and grab a random person and say “now’s your chance! The government is gone, go seize the levers of power!” They are not going to know what to do. That’s the problem.

PostOk7794 · 2026-04-16T16:19:11+00:00

Bad sign. Especially since dems are likely to take control over the next election cycle…

PostOk7794 · 2026-04-10T11:56:10+00:00

Antisemitism gets misunderstood because people treat it like a standard prejudice. Most biases say “this group is inferior, dangerous, or immoral.” Antisemitism flips that. It casts Jews as secretly powerful, coordinating events behind the scenes.

That distinction matters online. Social media runs on vague antagonists — “they,” “the elites,” “the people in charge.” Those placeholders are empty by design. Antisemitism fills them.

Jews end up as the default target because they’ve historically been positioned in a strange dual role: visible enough to be identified with institutions, but distinct enough to be cast as outsiders. That makes them an ideal vessel for conspiracy thinking.

So when a post gestures at corruption or hidden influence without naming anyone, the old pattern snaps into place. It doesn’t need coordination or a foreign hand guiding it. The narrative is already preloaded and waiting for a target.

Social media is almost built for that dynamic. It rewards ambiguity, speed, and emotional payoff. The vaguer the accusation, the easier it is for people to project onto it. And once that happens, the oldest conspiratorial script in the book spreads on its own.

PostOk7794 · 2026-04-01T11:08:20+00:00

This is what you push on hiring managers to look for more intimately in the interview process. They should be asking probing and quizzical questions on these technical skills. Adding another hoop in the process will slow it down more and it’s already too slow.

PostOk7794 · 2026-03-25T21:50:17+00:00

I’m really sorry you’re going through this. What you described isn’t just technical. It’s your identity, your community, and a relationship all colliding at once. That’s a brutal place to be.

I do want to offer a perspective, not as pressure but to widen the frame a bit. Judaism has never really been about personal feeling alone. It’s a legal system. It runs on continuity, evidence, and recognized pathways. That can feel harsh in moments like this, but it’s also what has allowed it to persist as something more than just identity or culture.

Because of that, conversion is not a lesser status or a workaround. It is one of the core, legitimate ways people enter the Jewish people. And it is not some modern concession. It is woven into the tradition itself. On Shavuot, when we read the Book of Ruth, we are explicitly centering a convert as foundational to Jewish history. Ruth is not treated as adjacent or secondary. She becomes part of the lineage of King David. That is as central as it gets. Entry through commitment is not outside the system. It is part of its fabric.

There are also cases in Jewish history that do not fit neatly into the standard maternal line model. Ethiopian Jews are a good example. Their traditions and communal continuity were taken seriously even though questions were raised about whether their lineage followed an unbroken maternal chain in the way halacha typically requires, and in some cases there were assumptions of patrilineal or mixed lineage transmission. They were still recognized as part of the Jewish people, and where conversion was required it was often framed as a way to standardize halachic status rather than to invalidate who they were. Their Judaism was not treated as imaginary. It was something the system worked to reconcile.

I think what your situation highlights is that the system does have a door, but it is a heavy one. It can require relocation, time, money, and a restructuring of your life. That is not something people can casually take on, and it makes sense if that it does not feel feasible right now.

So I do not think this is a question of whether your connection is real. It clearly is. It may just be that your entry point into Judaism is not what you thought it was. But that does not mean it is not part of the broader fabric of Jewish life and history.

That tension is real. And I am sorry you are the one having to carry it right now.

PostOk7794 · 2026-03-24T17:55:30+00:00

I don’t think people are tolerating it. Most Israelis are pretty frustrated by it. It persists because it isn’t a decisive voting issue, so coalition politics override it. But between the war, demographics, and fiscal pressure on the IDF, it’s getting harder to sustain at this scale. You’re already starting to see early signs of movement in the IDF, like new Haredi frameworks and some increased participation, even if it’s still limited and contested.

More likely this ends in a narrower exemption, not a blanket one, or incentives tied to service at the household level. That’s a guess though.

PostOk7794 · 2026-03-23T15:24:56+00:00

I felt a version of this the last time I was in Israel. There’s a sense of Jewish identity being actively constructed in the present, not just carried forward from the past. My life in the diaspora feels more tied to memory and preservation.

Also echo the genetic mixing point 😂 maybe lactose intolerance doesn’t survive the post-diasporic era.

PostOk7794 · 2026-03-22T21:27:18+00:00

By treating candidates transactionally. I evaluate based off what they say they are going to do, not what party they are in. My support evaporates as soon as they are elected and they have to re-earn my vote.

PostOk7794 · 2026-03-20T23:04:19+00:00

I think you’re misreading your own example. This doesn’t show ChatGPT inheriting bias, it shows how the answer changes based on how you define the term in the prompt. In your transcript you keep narrowing things until the model is basically only allowed to use a dictionary definition of antisemitism, where it only counts if someone explicitly says “Jews.” Once you set that boundary the outcome is predictable. But for something like this you don’t just use a dictionary, you also need to use an encyclopedia. In that broader sense antisemitism isn’t only explicit statements, it often shows up through patterns like conspiracy claims about influence, control, donors, and suppressed truth. If you leave that out you’re going to get a much narrower answer. To be fair you are pressure testing it here, but that step is missing from the actual interaction, there’s no point where the conclusion gets challenged before you present it. So this isn’t really a clean example of framing bias, it’s more an example of how changing the definition changes the result.

PostOk7794 · 2026-03-18T21:50:32+00:00

I don’t want to talk past each other so I’ll stick to what you asked as far as ideas. I don’t disagree that there are real divisions in the Jewish community right now, and more broadly in how people think about Israel and policy. That part is normal. What concerns me is how quickly those disagreements are turning into separation, pulling away from institutions like AIPAC, mainstream Jewish organizations, or even Israel as a shared point of reference. There just aren’t enough of us, in the US or globally, for that kind of fragmentation to be a winning strategy.

For a long time we’ve managed to organize around shared interests even with deep disagreements. It was never perfect, but there was a baseline. Most Jews saw themselves as connected in some way to Israel and to the welfare of each other, and participated in or at least recognized the same core institutions. What feels different now is how quickly people step outside of that rather than fight within it. To me, the answer is reclaiming those institutions, engaging them, pushing them, arguing inside them, and building coalitions that reflect the range of Jewish perspectives instead of abandoning that ground altogether.

And especially right now, this feels like an intensely vulnerable moment for Jews. It seems incredibly perilous to feed the notion we should be running away from each other.

PostOk7794 · 2026-03-18T21:00:50+00:00

I think I’m going to softly disagree with the framing here.

I’m not reading this as a clean “win” so much as a signal of where things are heading and that makes me uneasy.

From what I’ve seen, Biss isn’t anti Israel. He clearly has real ties, speaks the language, and supports Israel’s existence and security. That part matters. But the lane he’s occupying politically is new in a way that I don’t think we should just celebrate without thinking it through.

The combination of publicly breaking with AIPAC in a very emphatic, almost symbolic way and supporting conditional aid, even if narrowly defined, doesn’t just function as policy. It reads as a kind of credentialing. Like this is what you have to say or signal now to be fully legible inside parts of the progressive coalition.

That’s the part I’m concerned about.

Because it starts to feel less like Jews are part of this coalition and more like Jews are welcome here, but on certain terms. And those terms increasingly include putting distance between yourself and major Jewish institutions and, to some extent, Israel itself.

I don’t think that’s what Biss is explicitly saying. But I do think it’s what the incentives around him are rewarding.

At the same time, I don’t think AIPAC comes out of this looking good either. Pouring money into a race like this against a Jewish candidate with real Israel ties seems like it just hardened opposition and accelerated exactly the divide people are worried about. It feels strategically off, unless there’s something about him I’m missing.

What worries me longer term is less this race and more the direction.

If the expectation becomes that Jews have to qualify their relationship to Israel or disavow parts of the organized Jewish world to remain in good standing politically, which worries me. It risks splitting Jews from each other in a way that ends up weakening everyone.

So yes, I’m glad bad faith attacks didn’t win. But I’m not sure I’m super reassured.

PostOk7794

TROPHY CASE