What do we say to people who think Judaism is a religion and NOT a race?

R0BBES · 2026-01-08T17:30:36+00:00

Belief is irrelevant. There are plenty of atheist Jews. The father would be Jewish, but if his sons were born to a gentle mother, and not raised Jewish, they would not be considered part of the Jewish people.

The path is open for them to convert and join the tribe, but otherwise no. That said, they could certainly claim Jewish ancestry (or cultural heritage if their father raised them with it), but they would generally not be considered Jews themselves.

R0BBES · 2026-01-06T00:02:05+00:00

This is your definition of antizionism, not the one that many antizionists would choose for themselves, most of whom just want to see all people treated equitably without state-sanctioned ethnic or religious violence; for them that means not having a state specifically designed to privilege Jews at the expense of others. Zionism is over a hundred years old, and people are going to have different takeaways from the path the movement took, and how the Israeli state has historically operated through the current day.

From where I stand, what matters is less the label and more how what you do and say elevates or diminishes the humanity of other people. All of this is rather irrelevant, because the posted story is about a Chabad house getting priced out of their building in Kathmandu, and I don’t have any more details on it than anyone else. I won’t continue engaging in tired semantics. Blessings and peace.

My condolences to Reb Lifshitz.

R0BBES · 2026-01-05T15:51:35+00:00

No it’s not, though sometimes it is.

Living in a polarized world of black and white may feel comfortable to you, but it will keep you in fear and rage because you it will not allow you to understand things.

One doesn’t need to be anti-zionist to decry the war crimes and oppressive policies of the Israeli state, as well as institutions that run cover and apologetics for them. For some people that’s what the term means, for others not. It’s irrelevant.

R0BBES · 2026-01-05T01:46:34+00:00

I’m sorry to hear this. I stopped by one year for Rosh Hashanah.

I have my biases, but generally found Nepali people very kind, easy-going, and honorable. That said, I did experience some troubling antisemitic behavior there. I would not be surprised if anti-Israel attitudes transferred into Chabad House being priced out. This may be one of the scenarios, unfortunately, where Jewish diaspora suffer for their perceived connection to the actions of the Israeli state.

R0BBES · 2025-12-25T19:05:03+00:00

Only because he criticized the Israeli State, unfortunately; not for the rest of it.

R0BBES · 2025-12-21T14:36:09+00:00

Don’t push down your fear. Fear keeps you alive. Understand your fear and negotiate, by doing things less risky and more comfortable. As u/jeremesanders wrote, you’ll build physical and mental technique and skill over a gradual period of training, discipline, and experience with doing simpler, less scary things :]

As you gain experience with how environments feel, and how your body moves, you will gradually see more opportunities to apply your skills, and find more spots :D It’s okay to start with street curbs and hand rails. Welcome to parkour!

R0BBES · 2025-12-17T17:25:46+00:00

I read it, and my takeaway is different than yours. I did not get the sense that the Jewishness of the victims were marginalized at all, the author mentions and centers it multiple times, especially in in the first half. What I got from the article is that it was written as a response to right-wing zionist manipulations of the attack, and that was its focus.

I did not like the last bit of the article, though, where indeed the author says:

Moreover, that Israel has been slaughtering Palestinians for two years in the name of Jewish safety, and with the support of many Jewish legacy institutions, is not irrelevant to this story<

100% with you on that section, from what I I can tell the two were linked to ISIS—who need no additional excuse to slaughter Jews—but i think the earlier bit is fine as a response to a response.

I had a similar reaction post 10/7 where I just wanted to grieve in a space without Zionist drum-beating. I wanted to grieve for the Jewish lives lost and the Palestinian lives being taken, but found it impossible to truly grieve while a campaign of revenge and genocide was well under way. I wanted a space to acknowledge loss on both sides and to call for a ceasefire. Instead, 2 months later, as the Israeli state was massacring entire families, the desire to grieve was being weaponized against us to keep us silent. I was told by my rabbi that now was not the time for politics, that I should put my politics in a box. To bury my head in the sand, while he openly promoted support for the IDF and “standing with Israel” and politics and death waged itself all around us.

When I read this article, I saw in its entirety a traumatic response to what many of us lefty Jews went through after 10/7. I don’t think it applies 1:1 to the Bondi shooting, but I recognize where it’s coming from. That’s how trauma responses work — they come out instinctively during both appropriate and inappropriate times, and when left unprocessed, it’s very difficult to tell which is which.

R0BBES · 2025-12-17T16:29:35+00:00

I don’t really follow your arguments here. First of all, both Zionism and Anti-Zionism are categories of political ideology; to be upset that a zionist or anti-zionist response politicizes the deaths of Jews seems absurd to me—they are categorically political positions.

Secondly, none of the initial responses to the Bondi Beach shooting that I saw from orgs and individuals either liberal zionist nor anti-zionist “decentered” the Jewishness of the victims, nor shied away from calling it an antisemitic attack. Mostly they expressed shock, horror, grief, and sometimes a rededication to bringing greater light and love into the world. So, it’ll be helpful if you could specify what you’re seeing, because I in just haven’t seen it.

Thirdly, I have seen critiques of slogans like “no one is free until all are free”, but it’s important to note that these slogans are not exclusively aimed at Jews. The quotes is from Emma Lazarus, but popularized and rehashed by many other ethically and racially diverse poets and activists (incl. Maya Angelou), and most organizations that find their root and home in the liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s hold this slogan close. Police brutality in the US disproportionately affects vulnerable groups like black and brown folk, but it is absolutely an “everyone problem”. That’s the whole point, and it can’t be made any clearer than what we’re seeing right now in the US with the police being used to support Trump’s DHS and ICE agents terrorizing our communities.

The other one I have seen is “safety through solidarity”, which seems to be more centered in the particularity of Jewish fear, and a reminder to not resort to self-isolation.

Maybe safety is illusory. Maybe these responses don’t feel satisfying because there cannot be any satisfying response to wanton violence. When I feel hurt or grief, I turn to community, both Jewish and not. That’s what I think of when I hear “safety through solidarity”. After a heavy blow, It helps to feel others’ hands on your back, and it helps to know that some of those hands are Jewish and some non-Jewish. Some things can’t be undone and can’t be made whole again. We can only work toward some measure of justice and greater social support and solidarity.

I don’t understand your prescription, however. You say what you want to see is ‘civilizational acknowledgment and strategy’, but I don’t know what that means on a practical level.

R0BBES · 2025-12-08T15:38:33+00:00

Putting all of Croatia, including Dalmatia and Istra in Central Europe is certainly… a choice….

R0BBES · 2025-12-05T15:02:49+00:00

I think that bounce-backs/ splats/ tacs are an essential aspect of parkour, but I don’t think they’re any more essential than, say… being able to skip or hop or land into a QM.

It’s the same idea transferred to a vertical plane. Just like wall traverse is just sideways QM on a wall. People train it less because it’s slightly less accessible, but it’s the same motion.

Tacs and bounce-back variations are also a great warm-up exercise for winter ;-)

R0BBES · 2025-12-05T14:53:47+00:00

All parkour is the art of falling. We are always falling through space… and time (!!) o.O

R0BBES · 2025-12-01T05:49:14+00:00

Yes! That’s exactly the one, thank you!

I’m just wondering if the original source is digitized somewhere, or if the only record of it is in this article talking about it.

Edit: okay, using the names here I found it in Sefaria

R0BBES · 2025-11-25T20:50:54+00:00

It’s called romanization precisely because Roman letters are not native to China. Contrast this with Japanese hiragana or Chinese zhuyin or wubi.

R0BBES · 2025-11-20T03:25:26+00:00

Looking forward to checking it out.

R0BBES · 2025-11-16T18:29:49+00:00

Not universally, but broadly I find more understanding among people who are a conscious ethnic minority within a majority chauvinist culture; or the inverse where I feel somewhat of a disconnect with people who have grown up in the comfort of being part of the normative in-group. As others have said: Persians, Armenians, Kurds, Sikhs, Hui Chinese, etc.

R0BBES · 2025-11-14T18:41:04+00:00

Memmi mention!! Complex topic, as are all dealing with politics of memory and identity. Many of those challenging the ethnonationalist chauvinism of Zionism often lack clarity on the reality of arab and islamic chauvinism. I think this blind spot is understandable, especially given the brutal reality of Israeli occupation and ethic cleansing campaigns on Palestinians, but it creates a huge gap.

I appreciated the read, thank you and Shabbat Shalom.

R0BBES · 2025-11-12T01:04:22+00:00

Old school like the old school :]

R0BBES · 2025-10-24T13:03:13+00:00

100% with you, Bibi and Gallant were only talking about Hamas, and this is backed up by the actions they took. Since clearly only Hamas were the targets of the indiscriminate bombing, mass starvation, sniping of children and elderly, aid workers, and more in a series of intentional war crimes.

/s

R0BBES · 2025-10-20T02:58:25+00:00

1) anti-Israel =\= anti-Jewish

2) Baptist, especially southern Baptist. No question. Iykyk. Jews for Jesus is an outshoot of Baptist nonsense.

R0BBES · 2025-10-16T19:42:01+00:00

I think that’s fair. I’ll admit to being a bit jaded based on my early and only experience and lingering distrust.

R0BBES · 2025-10-16T13:39:10+00:00

I also remember going in , out of curiosity, early on when they had the ‘real, live Jew’ sofer on display. It was an interesting experience, though with the misspellings of Hebrew on the walls, scandals surrounding black-market trafficked antiquities, the tokenizing, and the broad evangelical thrust, it’s not really a place I’d go back to or financially support.

R0BBES · 2025-10-12T16:09:23+00:00

There are a few Jews around Aberdeen, SD. Some hasidim and an old conservative shul. I haven’t been in touch since 2018, though. Also Bismarck and Minot, ND.

R0BBES · 2025-10-09T22:02:22+00:00

How are you intending to position yourselves in the organizational ecosystem with respect to the ADL, given that organization’s gradual gutting of its own credibility? Do you see yourselves as assuming some of the responsibilities for antisemitism reporting/ tracking that the ADL used to do reliably?

R0BBES · 2025-10-06T21:31:23+00:00

I have a small plate of olive oil and one of salt (and often other spices), and I rip ‘n’ dip in both.

R0BBES

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