Malificandy - Salt, Spite, & Everything Slight

"call me crazy wednesday, but you keep giving me these signals"

the signals in question:

No surprise to anyone paying attention: a new report in The Telegraph today confirms the BBC’s blatant bias against Israel, with skewed coverage since October 7th.

People consume this news like it’s coming from an impartial source— clearly, it’s not. The real question is: how much longer will we tolerate biased reporting that fuels hate and distorts the truth?

Were you surprised? Let me know

Hen Mazzig

A few days ago, in my quest to fight the antisemitism that lifted its head around the world following the massacre of October 7th, I stumbled upon a clip from a UN assembly where the speaker asked a simple question-

Dear Arab world, where are your Jews?

A lot of people think that Israeli roots come from Europe exclusively. But in fact, Jewish people were hunted in all corners of this world. In Europe, of course, but also in Asia, Africa and other places all over the planet.

My grandma is an Iraqi Jew. Iraqi Jewish community is one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world, being the direct descendants of the Babylonian exile Jews, so ancient it is an exile mentioned in the Bible.

Recent studies, in which DNA retrieved from canaanite burial lands was compared to current populations in the area of ancient Canaan, has found that Iraqi Jews share the highest similarity to canaanite DNA out of all Jewish communities, more than 50% of the DNA on average.

All the beautiful, peaceful Jewish communities of the Arab world were wiped out in the blink of an eye.

The Arabic world has never treated their Jewish communities as equal citizens, oftentimes robbing them of any rights and performing violent acts of genocide against them (check 'Farhud' on Google).

But their voice was silenced once they fled to Israel.

So I decided to recap my grandma's story in the comments of the clip:

Soon after, many Jewish people with Arabic, or 'Mizrahi' heritage, shared their stories as well:

Jewish people all over the planet were driven out of their homes, ethnically cleansed by their neighbors, rulers, and governments.

We are still not welcome in most of the countries of the Arab world. Unable to see glimpses of our history.

My grandma still wishes she could see the house she grew up in. Holding the memories, but unable to set foot in that land, because she would be executed.

Nevertheless, she's not a refugee. She might've fled to Israel, but in Israel, her family got equal rights as citizens, and she built a house on a land she now calls her home.

Don't erase my grandma's story. Don't erase the Jewish ethnic cleansing that brought her to seek a safe haven in Israel.

Israel is a home for more than half of the Jewish people on this planet. Out of the ~8,000,000 Jews who live in Israel, there are about ~2,500,000 Jews of Mizrahi heritage.

And as Golda Meir once said: "our secret weapon is that we have nowhere else to go."

The sheer number of kids who are straight up putting their real names and ages and location in their bios like "Natasha | 14 | Minor | New York, NY!" and occasionally putting their actual school or city in their tags just terrifies me like no stop stop stop remove that right now I cannot emphasize how unsafe that is for you I am begging you for your sake remove thst shit right now

#relatable

I think one of the most important things most goyim don't understand about Judaism is that there's a process for forgiveness, but forgiveness isn't required. And even then, the process of teshuvah requires more than just a simple apology.

It requires that one recognize that they have done something wrong, it requires that one regrets those actions, it requires that one strives to do better, it requires that one changes themselves to be a better person as to not repeat the mistake, it requires one to face the person they have wronged, admit their misdeeds, and declare their intention to do better.

If the offender's apology isn't serious enough, they repeat the same offending deeds, or something else happens where it's clear the apology was not sincere or the offender hasn't taken concrete steps to become a better person, forgiveness isn't required.

And even in the case where the apology is seen as sincere enough, the minimum required amount of forgiveness is "mechilah," which simply forgives a debt (physical or metaphorical) that is owed because of the offending actions. But the crime still exists. The crime is still there.

And EVEN THEN, one is not halachically obligated to offer mechilah. They may be morally obligated to as a sign of good faith, but in no way are they required to.

This is Jewish forgiveness. It is a process that takes time, energy, and trust. Sometimes, it's not granted, but when it is, it's granted because there is faith that the offender will become a better person and not repeat the crimes of their past, at least not intentionally (although that is a whole other topic).

For the Nonnie who asked me to share some of the response to the performative "all eyes on Rafah" campaign, I hope it's okay if I add to the two images you sent me, and turn to the people sharing that AI generated image...

If all eyes are on Rafah, are you seeing Hamas' abuse, torture and even killing of its own Gazan civilians?

("Resistance is justified when people are occupied!" Cool cool, but what kind of a "resistance" attacks its own people?)

If all eyes are on Rafah, where were your eyes on Oct 7?

If all eyes are on Rafah, 'coz Gazan kids being burned alive (by Hamas, even though Israel got falsely blamed for it) is so unacceptable, then where were your eyes when our kids were burned alive by Hamas? In the pic: 2 years old Omer Siman Tov, who was deliberately burned alive by Hamas terrorists together with his entire family, his parents and two older sisters, in their own home.

If all eyes are on Rafah, do you see Kfir Bibas, kidnapped at the age of 9 months together with both his parents and his 4 years old brother Ariel? Kfir is the youngest hostage in the world ever (second youngest ever was Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., who was kidnapped at 20 months old in 1932).

If all eyes are on Rafah, are you seeing our other molested hostages?

If all eyes are on Rafah, are you seeing Hamas' rocket launchers which continuously operate and target our civilians from there? (note the dates vary from Dec 7, 2023 to May 26, 2024)

If all eyes are on Rafah, where the IDF did strike and kill two senior Hamas leaders, Yassin Rabia and Khaled Najjar, near (but not at) a shelter tent camp, are you seeing that Hamas deliberately chooses to risk its own civilians by having its leaders carry out consultation meetings so close to regular people?

If all eyes are on Rafah, why did you see the rescue of two of our elderly hostages (and the killing of the terrorists who tried to prevent the success of this operation) as a massacre? And why did you claim this was Israel invading Rafah back on Feb 12 already, when the actual ground operation in that city only started in May?

If all eyes are on Rafah because you care about the Palestinians so much, where were your eyes when Palestinians were endangered and killed by fellow Arabs?

If all eyes are on Rafah, where almost a million people have been evacuated by May 20 already, then whose eyes are on Sudan, Congo, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Ukraine among other places, where the murders of hundreds of thousands in each (and altogether, millions) is being carried on unchallenged? Where are the campaigns for the people whose slaughter you can't weaponize against the Jewish state?

If you shared that graphic, but didn't do anything about any of the other things listed in this post, you don't actually care. You just want to seem as if you do.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

I'm an American national married to a German citizen and living in southwestern Germany. I am also a Jew who is the grandchild of four Holocaust survivors. I work for a local school as a teacher and afterschool helper.

In both the town I live in and the town I work in, there are remnants of Jewish life from before the Holocaust, but it is highly likely that I am the only Jew to set foot in either town in the present day.

Tomorrow is October 7th, 2024.

So what am I doing?

Tomorrow, I am bringing a few hundred honeycake muffins to work. They were made using my grandmother's recipe. I will be sharing them with my students and the rest of the school, for a sweet new year for them.

A recipe that the Nazis did their best to wipe out...

being shared by a Jewish teacher in a German school...

on the anniversary of the largest single massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Because we Are Still Here, and we will dance again. We shall share food, and kindness, and traditions, again.

Am Yisrael Chai