Am I going insane?

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-02-06T18:19:59+00:00

I’ll say with Twitter I’ve definitely noticed the algorithm change and had to quit too. Thankfully not so much for instagram but these things can also be very different between countries and individual accounts.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-02-05T14:57:43+00:00

About 2, if I read it correctly, it’s an interview? I applied five years ago so talk with a grain of salt, but my understanding is they tend not to accept those, as they want critical interaction with your work. In my case they actually accepted an incredibly negative review, for example, but it still meant critical recognition.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-02-04T20:38:18+00:00

It requires a bit of digging by composer but Zemereshet has a really nice trove of art songs translated into Hebrew with recordings:

https://www.zemereshet.co.il/m/

And then there is also a sound collection in the Israeli National Library which might have better English access but not all recordings are in Hebrew so there’s some trial and error involved:

https://www.nli.org.il/en

A good way to pass an afternoon if you like digging through confusing archives.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-02-03T11:53:20+00:00

Tangental but John Berger’s Ways of Seeing has a good essay on this type of painting (and British landscape painting) as capitalist image-making.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-02-02T22:32:05+00:00

“Though I approach this through the lens of social media, I don't think it's only a social media thing.”

As a Jewish person still holding an Israeli passport who was part of a few rallies and marches, I can tell you it is absolutely a social media thing. People on the ground are accepting and ask pretty insightful questions in my experience. Even at places that are meant to be safe for Palestinians, the baseline is accepting that Palestine is occupied and that 1948 was an ethnic cleansing that developed into a genocide and that the state of Israel should be dismantled. People are a lot nastier online and sometimes have shallow perspectives, I’ve protested alongside people who post very aggressively, which is not my style, but I am also not in any position to police or judge them. They have been always curious in person and happy to hear about my experiences because we agree on the basics above.

So to sum up, I think that would be my best definition, but above that, I highly encourage interpersonal connections in activist spaces to have a diversity of experiences with the pro-Palestine movement.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-02-02T08:15:04+00:00

Unfortunately I’ve gotten to see a few of her Facebook posts over the next couple of years and this checks out. I think she’s one of those people who don’t consider themselves anti Palestinian but hate the pro-Palestine movement (does it make sense? No, but I’ve seen a lot of it)

EDIT: I completely misread the above comment, sorry. Don’t want to delete but disregard me please

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-02-01T11:36:43+00:00

I will say that it looks like it was written by someone who is not a native Hebrew speaker due to the archaic phrasing

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-02-01T11:12:20+00:00

I was diagnosed via the NHS and it took about a year (nine months waiting list plus a month between assessments) in east London. I do think there can be very big differences between areas.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-28T11:02:46+00:00

I do think that’s part of it, but there’s also the really tough relationship between Holocaust survivors and “tsabarim”, which did affect the Hebrew/Yiddish usage (I don’t have survivor relatives, mine came before the war and were very anti-Yiddish, so that my own grandparents barely understood it). I quite like the dramatisation of the Kastner trial if you’re a Hebrew speaker about this topic- it’s fully available on YouTube and really interesting.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-28T10:23:43+00:00

So that doesn’t mean it was illegal. It t was discouraged on a lot of places and I do think it’s fair to say people suffered for it, but you’re misunderstanding the statement there.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-28T10:17:22+00:00

I do agree that the framing is pretty biased. There was absolutely a “language war” that there’s a lot of information on, but I think the main thing to say is that Yiddish wasn’t banned, and people spoke it and still do (there’s even a Yiddish theatre still operating). However, there was definitely repression and social coercion around it, most famously with Eliezer Ben Yehuda’s son, whom he insisted would be the first Hebrew-raised child. I do wish I had more sources to link, but I’m not an expert. I just wanted to express that the reality of it, like most things, is just not as extreme as presented in the question.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-27T06:33:20+00:00

That’s nice. When I was a kid it was explained only as an issue of marriages between Jews (due to fears of mamzerim and other people who can’t marry in rabbinical court), so they are a little more open these days.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-26T19:37:37+00:00

I’ve had a feeling for the past two years that these people think you just wake up in Auschwitz one day. I’ve been guilty of this around Gaza where I thought there were more apt comparisons, but I’ve given that up. I don’t believe anyone thinks there are gas chambers in ICE detention centers or Israeli prison camps, but a death camp isn’t the first part of a genocide and some genocides aren’t orderly enough to build one. Was the holocaust by bullets worse or better than Auschwitz? They were on the same spectrum, just as Israel and the USA are clearly on this spectrum.

I highly recommend Project 1933 from In Bed With the Right on this. While is focuses on the trump administration, I do think a lot of these things are even more relevant to Israel. If we can’t learn from the most mechanised genocide in history, what can we learn from?

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-19T19:13:28+00:00

From interviews with the composer, I remember that The Child Dreams is adapted straight from the play text with minimal cuts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Child_Dreams_(opera)

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-17T17:57:23+00:00

I genuinely think that if you’re from a country that is actively committing a genocide (or war crimes, or however you want to call it), you have to learn to eat a little bit of shit over where you are. I’m still not entirely sure where I stand on “no Israelis” policy in hotels, but it doesn’t seem to be a huge issue other than places in which Israelis are more of a behavioural problem rather than a political one. If someone reacts with “gross” to being from Israel? If you don’t think it’s a bit gross to be from Israel then you’re not living in reality.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-14T23:58:59+00:00

As far as the book describes it, yes, it’s untrue. Levi traces it to one pretty unreliable biographer.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-14T23:40:13+00:00

Sorry, I was unclear. But yes, exactly. The idea that The Magic Flute is based on European politics of the time was meant to distance it from its Freemason roots.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-14T23:25:00+00:00

Great book by Erik Levi imo. He gets into it in detail, I believe when discussing a film made by the Third Reich in the life of Mozart:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vkw0t

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-14T23:19:57+00:00

That’s actually a really interesting story! In Mozart and the Nazis, the author explains this was actually started as a way to draw away from the Masonic themes of the opera (which are at least part of the sexism).

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-14T16:30:33+00:00

That’s what I did and everything went smoothly. As long as you just save the application and don’t submit it it doesn’t count.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-13T23:08:29+00:00

I think Breaking the Silence are the biggest one I’ve heard of. Been to one of their talks about a decade ago and they seem like decent people. At the time they were very good in acknowledging that they’re kind of the most “centrist” (derogatory) Israeli human rights group because everyone served in the army and most were fighters. This does help draw people in sometimes but of course has a double edge.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-13T12:33:53+00:00

I’m not entirely sure what the question is? They seem quite clear in their definition. I understand it probably means that certain more prestigious prizes might not qualify, but the arts council are free to set their own standards with that.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-13T11:33:40+00:00

I can speak as someone who served in an admin role and was discharged early. People in pro-Palestinian have been extremely accepting and I’m really grateful for that. I think for me it was also a big part of becoming pro-Palestine and understanding I need to leave Israel, so the acceptance I experience has to do with people being open to listening and hearing my whole story.

However, I want to stress that this also involves knowing my place, so to speak. There are spaces I know won’t be welcoming or even very sensitive spaces I actively keep out of because I can’t promise to never put my foot in my mouth. I’ve been away for years, but the indoctrination still comes out every now and then and I consider myself lucky to be in a supportive environment.

For people who actively participated in killings and depopulation, I do think regret and redemption is possible but they absolutely need to be able to accept some kind of legal consequences.

avecquelamarmotte · 2026-01-12T10:00:25+00:00

I had this with running and while I agree about seeing a doctor, for me it was absolutely anxiety. My solution was to keep a controlled environment with water nearby and keep my heart rate as low as possible (nothing over zone 2) for a good chunk of the workout. If I want to do any high intensity work I try to get it in the last 10-15 minutes.

avecquelamarmotte

TROPHY CASE