They did the thing

(((Powerful people)))

I am once again asking you, people of Bluesky, to please not try to make every single post by a Jew about Palestine. What’s happening must be talked about. And is being talked about. And Jews are entitled to engage in their Judaism in other ways as well.

I’d like to toot my own horn and say that I blew Shofar pretty decently over Rosh Hashanah.

Maimonides on “wokeness”: www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Tora...

This source sheet presents the sources for why many have the custom to wear a new suit or eat a new fruit on the second night of Rosh Hashanah: www.sefaria.org/sheets/79348...

This source sheet is on the idea of Shofar as both a cry and a wake up call: www.sefaria.org/sheets/43316...

Here are some of my Sefaria source sheets on Rosh Hashanah: The first is on the Rosh Hashanah simanim: www.sefaria.org/sheets/79306...

Facts don’t care about your feelings.

My article from Fragments by @truahrabbis.bsky.social discussing voting and democracy from a analytical Halakhic perspective: truah.org/resources/fr...

This is a generous thread about what "antisemitism" means. But sadly, most people who say "antisemitism doesn't just refer to Jews so it's not just about Jews / X person can't be an antisemite" do not care about antisemitism. They just want to deflect and divert any discussion of antisemitism.

Some people on the left think just repeating “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism” frees them from the work of thinking critically about what is and is not antisemitic. And a whole lot of people on the right think being a strong Zionist functions as a “get out of antisemitism free card.”

The true statement is "Anti-Zionism is not synonymous with antisemitism, and it is possible to have a principled critique of Zionism that is not antisemitic. But anti-Zionism can also easily intersect with antisemitism, and calls to 'hunt down Zionists' in Europe clearly cross that line."

This is the nuance lost by both the organizations that say "anti-Zionism is antisemitism" in all cases, and those on the other side who say "anti-Zionism is not antisemitism." Critiques of Israeli statehood made in Palestine are *very* different from calls to "hunt down Zionists" in European cities.

Protesting an anti-war Israeli academic using misogyny and antisemitism will definitely somehow fix this www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/n...

An important teaching about leadership in today’s #dafyomi : www.sefaria.org/Horayot.10b.2

LOL, imagine being someone who claims to be historically literate (Hazony) who is then surprised that your right wing nationalist movement has attracted some antisemites.

Hadn't read it yet. But yes, an actual sincere apology that doesn't hedge on requiring *every* Jew to individually prove to you that they're sufficiently against Israel before they're allowed to talk about antisemitism would be good.

"Only the PC police care about antisemitism, which is actually fine in 2025 because of Zionism." This is what a lot of people in my replies sound like today.

A lot of people on the extremely online left right now seem to interpret "Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism" to mean "all antisemitism is actually fine if you just say it's anti-Zionism."

I’m enjoying the people in the replies proving the point.

If you, an atheist, make a statement about religion as a whole, & someone from a non-Christian religion says, "Actually, we don't believe that or practice that way," the correct response is, "Huh, I didn't realize that," & NOT "nuh-uh, you're in denial about your own faith that I've never studied."

I’m setting the over/under for “Pharisees” references at 51.

Me, for two days straight: I think it is always bad to do ethnic cleansing, no matter who is being cleansed "Progressive" gentiles, for two days straight: why do you love genocide so much?

This structurally forces them into an intense and largely ahistorical Islamophobia, as the only place to offload ontological anti-Judaism without implicating the Christians they want to claim as political allies today.

A major obstacle for folks attempting to defend democracy is that a perfectly accurate description of what Trump is attempting sounds like hysterical conspiracy theorizing to a lot of people. We default to “c’mon, that can’t happen here”—which is exactly why it can.

Obama got attacked as a socialist or communist because he said entrepreneurs were helped by government building infrastructure and educating folks. Now Trump is literally making the U.S. a part owner of private companies.

My mentions are filled with people simultaneously insisting that no one on the left is saying my Israeli Jewish loved ones are all genocidal Nazis who deserve to be harmed unless they leave, and also people saying exactly that about my Israeli Jewish loved ones. All because I dared to criticize DSA.

Should be easy to criticise Israeli policy normally, and yet so many fail to do that.

a very bleak development in terms of my view of the world in the last few years has been both ‘the Israeli govt is much worse than I thought and deserves an enormous amount of criticism’ and ‘yeah a lot of people geniunely are just low-grade antisemitic’ both apparently being true.

With the horrors of what the Israeli govt is doing, there is an audience for Israel-critical political and media figures. You would rather that audience be served by someone like Mamdani, who distinguishes between Jews and the state of Israel, and not the people who are likely to come in after him.

And on Israel-Palestine, I am never sure if I am going to encounter someone who thinks Israel is committing genocide (as I do) but still envisions some kind of federated long-term political settlement, or someone who openly supports Hamas and is happy to tell every Jew in I-P to return to Poland.

People treat "Zionism is not Judaism" or "Antizionism is not antisemitism" as incantations. Leo Frank trutherism isn't antisemitic, because Israel exists 100 years later?

I increasingly feel left-leaning Americans who feel righteous about yelling at random Jews about Israel are just using antisemitism to avoid facing up to the responsibility Americans have to stop the horrible things that *our* United States government is doing.

Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, but I’m seeing a really troubling amount of people who are convinced that antisemitism is anti-Zionism

I have some bad news for you about the histories of a lot of the other constructs we define as "world religions."

I understand the sense in which she meant it here and I suspect many people are ignorant enough to agree with her but truly, truly revealing to see someone utilize “That’s right, even the KKK sided against the Jew!” as a trump card

I hope everyone on the "left" defending Leo Frank trutherism knows that one of the most high-profile figures associated with this particular antisemitic conspiracism is a deputy Pentagon press secretary for the Trump administration: www.timesofisrael.com/deputy-penta...

Jews who take issue with you endorsing and promoting revisionist history literally championed by neo-Nazis and the KKK about the lynching of an American Jew in Atlanta, Georgia 33 years before Israel even existed aren’t engaged in “liberal Zionist tone policing”

I’m in there.

It's wild to me that in the US, "supporting the hostages" is still code for supporting the Gaza war, while meanwhile in Israel, hostage families are literally shutting down the country to try to stop the war.

There are cities in both of those states with much higher crime rates per capita than Washington, DC has, but, of course, this has nothing to do with crime rates.

Re-posting my Shiur for @uriltzedek.bsky.social arguing that humanitarian aid must be allowed into Gaza according to Jewish law: youtu.be/QgRTwNFNzfI?...

Last night I gave a shiur for @uriltzedek.bsky.social on my Halakhic argument against Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war. Here is the YouTube link: (Note: this shiur was focused on reading the sources in the original Hebrew, so difficult to follow for the uninitiated: youtu.be/QgRTwNFNzfI

Arrested for… … Starting a beef… Ok, I’ll show myself out #dadjokes

Last night I gave a shiur for @uriltzedek.bsky.social on my Halakhic argument against Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war. Here is the YouTube link: (Note: this shiur was focused on reading the sources in the original Hebrew, so difficult to follow for the uninitiated: youtu.be/QgRTwNFNzfI

In an hour and a half!

Republicans, January 19th, 2025: This government overreach is outrageous, we must protect states' rights! Republicans, January 20th, 2025: We absolutely HAVE to federalize every police department in the country.