London, 7th of October 2023. Waking up, feeling dreadful. Checking my phone. The family group chat is asking about my parents and me. They are asking if I woke up yet, they're asking my Dad for updates. My friend in the UK texted me to ask if I'm ok. My friend in the US texted me to ask if I'm ok. 40 people dead, they say. 40 Israelis and a few tourists, dead. I call my parents. "Mom, what's going on?". Mom says, there has been shootings, and they are waiting for the army to come. Her voice is shaking. I never heard her voice shake before. "Dad, what's going on? Are you ok?" Dad says, don't worry, we are ok, soon the army will come. He is lying, to some extent, he never lies. He wants me to be mentally ok, so he says he's ok when he doesn't feel ok, when he isn't truly safe, but he knows I'm fragile, that's why he's not telling me everything. I respect it so I say "ok, please update me." I look at my boyfriend Zach in bed and say "something really bad had happened in Israel near my parents Kibbutz in the south. I don't really know the details, but I'm going to meet Ella." I know he wouldn't understand, he couldn't understand, there are no words to even attempt to explain. I call Ella. She moved from Kibbutz Gevim to London just last week. She's my only Israeli friend in town. "Ella? We should meet up now" We didn't say why, we didn't know why. We just needed to be together on that day. Central London. We are drinking. The barman looks away when he asks us how our day has been and I ask if he's seen the news. I check my phone obsessively. 121 dead. 140 dead. The number keeps going up, before I have a chance to process. The army didn't come yet. I thought the terrorists were gone by now. I don't know anything. But I'm kinda drunk. I call my family again and again, I check the group chat all of the time. Already people are saying online that this is an act of resistance. Resistance to what? Who even are those strangers? What do they know about my country? Why is the whole world talking about my tiny little Kibbutzim area, my place of peace and calm? Yet, saying things in such a strange tone, with so much misleading sub text? Why are my friends posting things justifying or downplaying the brutality against my own family? Omer is kidnapped, her partner's cousin, my cousin Amit says. Omer Neutra is held hostage. A relative of mine is a hostage. He must come home soon, right? We'll bring him home? Many were taken hostage, we don't know how many yet. I make jewelry, I don't understand. I'm calling Tizian, and Tom, my friends in the US and Germany, as my boyfriend had to go to work, and my other boyfriend doesn't really seem to acknowledge I'm in need of his support on that day and I can't find words to explain. I spend the time until Zach comes home on the phone with my few friends, those who will stay with me from this day onwards. I call my mom, she's still shaking. She says, "the army will come in the next hours." I don't understand why they have not come yet.

8th of October, London. My parents are in Tel Aviv. My brother is so thankful that they are alive and I'm starting to realize that this was in doubt, but still confused. It took about two weeks to understand they could have died that day. More online hate. More and more it's everywhere. Hundreds have died. Over a thousand have died. The rapes, I can't process, my body feels sick, my own rape PTSD is on edge, my severe OCD is starting to obsessively doubt everything. How? Why?

9th of October. Why am I in London. I was looking at flight tickets just a few days ago. So many of my music fans and customers suddenly say my family deserves to die, or sure as hell, my army had no right to respond to this attack. I don't understand why people I trusted want me and my family dead. I don't understand why people I trusted are posting on this event who have not even texted me to check if I'm alive or okay. They are racist. They see me as a lesser person. They are dehuminaizing me. Everyone hates me and my loved ones. Should I hate myself too?

10th Oct onwards. Learning. learning learning and more learning. I know so much more than I have now. Why wasn't I taught about the Farhud, about the massacres against Igbo Jews, and the mechanics of antisemitism worldwide, so I'll have tools to manage my response to it? Now I understand. Online fighting. No one learns. No one cares. Protests, hundreds of thousands of people around the world and in the London streets calling for an intifada. The western queer community overall is not a safe for me anymore.

Vermont. 6th of October 2024. I make jewelry and my small dream business took off, I lost most of my friends. I traveled around the world and still do, yet I became a zionist in love with my homeland and connected with Judaism and my Israeli identity. My parents are grieving, so many deaths of loved ones, friends and their families. The hostages are not all home yet. Omer is not home yet. The hostage girls are still being used as sex slaves as far as we can tell. The war now is with Lebanon's Hezbollah more than Hamas. I was supposed to fly home but I couldn't, the airport closed down. My Dad asked me to stay longer in the states, until the end of the month. I'm happy and in love, I'm heartbroken and devastated. I'm grateful I'm alive, I'm angry that my innocence was stolen from me. I'm not making music yet, although music is my greatest passion and main education, that's what I was doing in London then, but I will get back to it. It's been too hard to make art as emotional as this. I'm not writing much since then. Dad and I speaking about how hard it is to create powerful beauty in times of survival. Jewelry calms me down. There's a river in me, a river of tears I decided to stop crying for the sake of my survival. I survived, after wanting to die for so many months. Antidepressants, I had to, I didn't want to but I had to, and they helped. Ulcerative colitis diagnosis, my body started breaking down due to post traumatic stress. I'm okay now. My mom survived, even if much of her broke on that day. My Dad survived, even though I have never seen a shade of blue as sad as his when he thinks about his students, staff and their families who died a year ago. My brother is strong and we are there for each other. My boyfriends love me. My boyfriends and my family are my everything. I have lost myself entirely. But I have created a better person since then. A bit of light is more powerful than darkness. A Jewish flame is impossible to put away. The diaspora is my family, Israel is my family. We are crying. But we will never stop dancing.

Am Israel chai.
Bring them home, now.

#oct7th #october7th #october7th2023 #antisemitism #jews #jewish #israel #israeli #israelis #zionists #zionism #zionist

ARBEITEN WIE ZOLA

@pbahners Artikel über meine Lesung letzten Freitag im Kulturgut Haus Nottbeck ist seit Sonntag auf faz.net zu lesen.

https://www.mdegens.de/arbeiten-wie-zola/

Jewish civilians can't go into Gaza.
When one black Ethiopian Jew had gone in by mistake, he was taken captive by Hamas.
Gazans frequently work in Israel.
Jewish civilians can't go into area A of the West Bank. When a few went in by driving route mistake, they brutally lynched (more brutal than you can imagine in your worst nightmares).
West Bank Palestinians frequently work in Israel and study in Israeli universities (often on scholarships that Jews don't get).

The land is one Jews have far more distant connection to, an eternal connection we have kept in almost every single holiday we celebrate (yes, almost all Jewish holidays are necessarily zionist holidays and are all about Judea / Israel).

But, even though many are there as a result of brutal Islamic Arab occupations, today Palestinians have a deep connection to the land too and that's valid as well.

So, if the land belongs to both, both people are indigenous to it or are deeply connected to it, and only one is avoided access to it, how could it be that the other is blamed of apartheid?

Not to mention, within Palestinian society abuse of women and children is the norm, killing gay persons and abusing them is the norm (they often move to Israel, as gay refugees). Black Palestinians are literally called "slaves" and often treated that way, living in their own separate territory from all other (brown and white-looking) Palestinians. And Christian Palestinians are slowly disappearing, abuse and killing of them by Muslim civilians is common and Hamas do nothing about it.

All of those are examples of inner apartheid, of inequality, oppression, genocide and race, sex and sexual orientation abuse within Palestinian society.

All of which are illegal to do in Israel and people often go to a lifetime in jail for committing those acts.

Acts of brutal terror are constantly committed by Palestinians and their society adores those who commit such brutality. Acts of terror are also committed by Jewish settlers, although, those are far more rare, illegal and absolutely not supported by the Israeli society. In the end of the day a Palestinian knows he might get beaten up if he accidentally ends up in Jewish territory, or in territories that Jewish settlers are attempting to take. On the other end, Jews know that if they accidentally end up in Palestinian terrorists, they would be kidnapped at best, raped and brutally slaughtered in public at worst (I'll avoid the details here but you should seriously look up the Ramallah lynching).

Hamas leaders are multi billionaires through stealing aid from their suffering people. Israeli leaders are usually just high earning middle class, in some cases millionaires (a reminder that a billion is a thousand times a million).

War, is something Israelis constantly aspire to avoid, teach their children to hope and work for peace in all Jewish schools.
War, is something the Palestinian society often initiates and they teach their children the Hitler book and that their best way to live is by dying while killing Jews.

War, whatsoever, is devastating to both sides and especially for children who are trapped helpless in this situation.

And just to mention 20% of Israeli society, as in, outside of Gaza and the West Bank, is Arab Israelis, Muslim and Christian, with many more being Druze and Bedouin. All equal civilians living in the same country and under the same rules alongside Jewish Israelis. We work together, celebrate holidays and birthdays together, marry each other and so on.

So, why is the Israeli society vilianized worldwide as genocidal colonialists and the Palestinians seen as eternally good doing innocent victims?

Antisemitism. Yes, anti Zionism is antisemitism. Even if your local token Jew said it's not. I'd ask them how much they actually celebrate Jewish holidays (cause of they celebrate even just Passover or Sukkot, they are in fact taking part in zionism).
In fact, the absolute overwhelming majority of Jews agree that antizionism is antisemitism, by all polls, the results are obvious, over 95% agree.

Criticizing the government is not a problem. Criticizing the Jewish settlers is not a problem. That's not antizionism that's just valid criticism as long as it's based on truth.

But,

Denying our connection to the land is denying our Jewish identities, is antisemitism.
Easily believing false facts about the war and obsessively rejecting or doubting true facts that prove the opposite, is antisemitism.
Denying October 7th happened or celebrating it, is antisemitism.
Not believing our raped-by-Palestinian civilians-and-Hamas Jewish women, men, girls and boys, is antisemitism and sexism.
Trying to show our societies as of equal faiths and desires, is an attempt to downplay the brutal truth about Palestinian society and inflate anything bad about Israeli Jewish society, and it's antisemitism.
Fixating on supporting pointing out flaws, mistakes and even intentional injustices committed by Jews, but ignoring or downplaying it when it comes from Muslims, and also ignoring far, far, far more devastating wars in the world while fixating on Israel, such as Sudan, Congo, Ukraine, Pakistan, comfortably forgetting Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and other nations at wars or under terror rules, that cost far far more lives and damage to children and women at the same time of the Israel Palestine current war. That's both antisemitism and a disgusting level of ignorance and of a disconnected nature, living in a little antisemitic bubble ignoring all the world's troubles.
Not asking for my family to be brought home, for all hostages to come home, is antisemitic.

If you let any other minority's majority decide on what is or isn't racist towards them but not Jews, and if you ignore or downplay thousands of percents uprise in antisemitic hate crimes, then even if you're a (token) Jew, you are, in fact, antisemitic.

#israel #bringthemhome #bringthemhomenow #antisemitism

Neu: »Die größte Kraft« von Lovebot @lovebot7000 mit einer Umschlagzeichnung von Charlotte Shulamith Adelt (#SchönerLesen 209)

https://sukultur.de/produkt/lovebot-die-groesste-kraft-sl-209/

Gestern schrieb jemand in meiner Timeline: "Es fühlt sich an als ob ein großer Teil deutschlands komplett der russischen Propagandmaschine verfallen ist."

Ich wiederhole noch einmal meine Antwort (die hier nur kurz und unvollständig sein kann) für alle als Thread:
0/

Der junge #mannliche #poc , der heute gegen 12:45 in den #Promenaden auf dem #Hauptbahnhof #Leipzig auf der mittleren Ebene in Höhe der östlichen Rolltreppe von zwei #security erst ins Gesicht #geschlagen und dann in den Bauch #geboxt wurde, kann sich bei mir melden. Ich stehe als #Zeuge zur Verfügung.

Tut mir leid, dass ich nicht eingreifen konnte. Ich stand auf der Rolltreppe nach oben und eh ich wieder unten war, waren die drei weg. Weder auf der Website des Bahnhofs noch im Gebäude selbst habe ich ein Büro oder so der Security gefunden
Ach ja, bitte teilen!