My grandparents didn't want to be converted

I wrote this for that other site (posted here), where a ridiculous number of people are attacking us for complaining about this issue. Because there's nothing wrong with wiping away any semblance of Jewish identity from the earth, even from dead people, right? Fucking idiots. Anyway, wherever it refers to "this site," it's that site, not The Progressive Zionist.

My friend Mets102 has posted a couple of diaries recently about Mormons converting dead Jews to their faith, including Daniel Pearl, who was murdered for no reason other than that he was a Jew, and survivors and victims of the Holocaust, including such notables as Anne Frank and the families of Elie Wiesel and Simon Wiesenthal.

All four of my grandparents were posthumously converted too. They were all Holocaust survivors, each of whom had a very large extended family before the Holocaust. Between them, they had but a single living relative after the Holocaust.

And repeatedly, Mets102 and I and several other Jews who have a problem with this have been told we're whining, or "feigning anger," or crying over something that doesn't matter, or complaining for the sake of complaining, or otherwise making a big deal about nothing.

So first, a brief message to many (if not all) of those people who have said some version of this:

Go. Fuck. Yourself. Preferably with a rusty metal implement.

Yes, I know saying that will turn some of you off. I couldn't care less if that bothers you, though, not if you're going to side with the folks saying this doesn't matter.

My grandparents, as I said, were all Holocaust survivors whose entire families were wiped out. My grandparents lived as Jews, they were proud to be Jews, and they went to their graves as Jews. Their relatives who died in the Holocaust were murdered for no reason other than that they were Jews. And indeed, we Jews have a long history of being sent to our deaths for no reason other than that we are Jews and someone else gets it into their head that their religion makes it ok to wipe us off the face of the earth.

We Jews also have a long history of being forced by members of other faiths to abandon our Jewish identity and convert to their faith. They think they're doing us a favor, that they're saving our souls. Because, of course, all Jews are condemned to burn in hell for all eternity. (I can't tell you how many times I've heard that from people who can only be described as "Christian-of-a-certain-variety." Never mind that Jesus was a Jew, and if you insist that all Jews are condemned to burn in hell for all eternity, well, I can't imagine condemning your savior to eternal hellfire would score you any points in the afterlife. But I digress.)

There's something these oppressors of Jews have in common, whether they prefer to murder us all for no reason other than that we are Jews or whether they prefer to harass us or even force us to convert to their faiths when we would not choose to do so on our own. Both groups have decided that there is something so superior about their ideology that makes it not only acceptable but even a moral imperative to wipe any semblance of Jewish identity off the face of the earth.

It really doesn't take a genius to see this for the antisemitism that it is.

And now we have this specific group of assholes who have decided that it's not only acceptable but even a moral imperative to wipe any semblance of Jewish identity even among dead Jews off the face of the earth via this forced conversion of the dead. (Do you want to dispute my characterization of this naarishkeit as "forced conversion"? Hate to break it to you, but when you convert someone who didn't give their consent, that's forced.)

And yet we Jews who voice our displeasure at this are told we're whining. We're feigning anger. We're crying over something that doesn't matter. We're complaining for the sake of complaining. We're making a big deal about nothing.

Which is why I suggest to those of you who say such things that you go fuck yourself with a rusty metal implement.

All too frequently, Jews on this site who complain about antisemitism are told that we're making a big deal about something that doesn't matter, or that the antisemitism we're complaining about isn't antisemitism at all, so we should just sit down and shut the fuck up about it already.

Who the fuck decided that converting Jews to another faith without their permission isn't antisemitic? Who the fuck decided that imposing your faith on another group of people just because you believe your faith is superior isn't a big deal? (Or is it only not a big deal when we're just talking about Jewish victims, living or dead?)

And on a personal level, who the fuck gave you the right to decide that the forcible conversion of my grandparents -- something that they never would have acceded to under any circumstances -- is no big deal, or that complaining about it is just so much faux outrage?

What gives you the right to decide what we as Jews find offensive to us? What gives you the right to tell me that my grandparents' names and legacies aren't threatened when someone substitutes their parochial religious ideology for what my grandparents wanted and lived?

I don't know, maybe you simply don't get it. Maybe you don't understand that, like any other group, there are certain things that are just sacred to Jews, and that attacking those things the way the Mormons who are posthumously and forcibly converting our people to their faith are doing isn't acceptable under any circumstances -- and so much more so when they've admitted wrongdoing for this exact same behavior in the past, they're repeatedly apologized for it, and yet they keep doing the exact same behavior for which they so falsely apologized in the first place.

Maybe this doesn't hurt you, but there are plenty of us who are hurt by it. Just because you aren't hurt doesn't make it ok. And when you so dickishly claim that we are whining, feigning anger, crying over something that doesn't matter, complaining for the sake of complaining, or otherwise making a big deal about nothing, at best you're being an ignorant twit. But you're also defending antisemitism, and there is simply no excuse for that.

So if it's just a matter of ignorance, try learning something instead of insulting us for having the audacity to complain about antisemitism to which you were blind. Ask us why it bothers us rather than imposing your uninformed and obnoxious judgment upon us.

But if it's not just ignorance? Find yourself a rusty implement, putz, and get to work.

BREAKING: UNVERIFIED - Wikileaks - reporting Israel Destroyed Iranina Nuke Facility

This morning I woke up, opened up my Facebook and saw this staring at me from an Israeli Friend of mine. So... I had to check it out.
Yep, you read that headline right. No snark here. Wikileaks released a report claiming that Israeli and Kurdish Fighters destroyed the Iranian Nuclear Facility where weapons were being developed
According to Haaretz:

The mega-leaks website, WikiLeaks, has partnered with the hackers cooperative Anonymous, to publish internal emails of the American strategic intelligence company Stratfor. In one of the hacked emails, Stratfor officials discuss information obtained from one of their sources who reports that Israeli commandos, in cooperation with Kurdish fighters, have destroyed Iranian nuclear installations.....

....In one of the emails from November 2011, Startfor officials discuss the explosion at an Iranian missile base near Tehran and quote a source who "was asked what he thought of reports that the Israelis were preparing a military offensive against Iran. Response: I think this is a diversion. The Israelis already destroyed all the Iranian nuclear infrastructure on the ground weeks ago."

One company analyst responded dismissively to the possibility of an Israeli attack having already taken place, asking: "How and when did the Israelis destroy the infra on the ground?"

According to Wikileaks there is much more too this story, involving Oil prices, military alliances and so forth with regards to Russia, the E.U. and India.

In the email, an Israeli intelligence source was asked about Defense Minister Ehud Barak's comment "the more the merrier" following the mysterious explosion that killed at least 17 people at an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base near Tehran in November 2011. At the time, Iran claimed the blast was an accident, but US blogger Richard Silverstein said that Israel was the mastermind.

"I think this is a diversion. The Israelis already destroyed all the Iranian nuclear infrastructure on the ground weeks ago," said the Israeli source. "The current 'let's bomb Iran' campaign was ordered by the EU leaders to divert the public attention from their at home financial problems."....

Stratfor - the company who's email has been hacked said the following:

Some of the emails being published "may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic," the company statement said.

According to the leaked emails, Europe and China would suffer from an Israeli attack on Iran (according to wikileaks) but that the Saudis and the Russians would benefit greatly. One can see the Saudi's but the Russians?
Again, this is an unverified report. HOWEVER, in any case it boxes Iran in a serious way. If they act on or accept this report, it means they acknowledge that they were indeed developing a nuclear weapon in a direct contradiction to their claims of the opposite. IF however, they deny this happened and that there was simply an attack on a Revolutionary Guard base then they are admitting to the world that Israeli and Kurdish forces were able to penetrate their most secure compound and wreck havoc. So much for their bellicose threats of retaliation, not too mention what message this sends to the Iranian People.

It will be interesting what Julian Assange says this afternoon when the documents are fully released.

"Progressive Except for Palestine"

One of the more annoying habits common to members of the anti-Israel movement is their moral posturing; an example of which is the term "PEP", which translates into English as 'Progressive Except for Palestine'. It's applied to anyone who does not share their views at the pitch and volume they favor, eleven on a scale of ten.

The underlying assumption, of course, is that there is only one acceptable Progressive position on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and they conveniently happen to hold it. The rather unsubtle implication is that the rest of the Progressive movement is a churning heap of reactionary neanderthals in sore need of enlightenment, to bring us more in line with their views on the subject. Which, coincidentally, is The Most Important Political Issue™ of recorded history, characterized by barbarism on a scale humanity has never seen. The Sack of Rome? Peanuts, and probably a Zionist conspiracy avant la lettre to boot.

Well, how about No?

I would imagine that Progressive values include honesty. That, unfortunately, is not something commonly in evidence in said movement. If you want to argue the destruction of the state of Israel, fine. That is, obviously, a morally abhorrent goal, but it's a free country, and people can hold whatever vacuous or cruel views they please. The problem is, of course, that they never admit - except by accident - that this, the end of the Jewish state, is indeed the goal. Call them what they are, anti-Israel, and watch the hackles rise and the outraged sputtering begin. It is, after all, only about the poor Palestinians, groaning under the uniquely heavy Israeli yoke, and their inalienable rights.

Except that it's not. Leaving aside the fact that there could have been a Palestinian state since 1947, had it not been for that awkward lost war, I'd warrant that the people who really sincerely care about their rights in the Western movement concerned with them are in a minority, vastly outnumbered by, to give the baby a name, people who happen to hate Jews. If it were otherwise, they'd expend some time on, say, the intolerable conditions in refugee camps in Lebanon, or even on the continued existence of these camps. But they don't, because there is no injustice worth debating unless it can be blamed on the Jews.

This is the real problem the overwhelming majority of Americans have with those people who think the Evils of Zionism™ are something you can chat about at a cocktail party. As a people, we are not actually all ignorant mouth-breathers. Some, yes, but overall, we have functioning bullshit detectors.

But the real point is this: there will always be hateful or dishonest people in any political movement. Human nature, I suppose. That's no excuse, however, for the anti-Israel movement, which is riddled with both, and seems completely unconcerned with what to the rest of us, Progressive or otherwise, is glaringly obvious.

This is the reason - not hasbara, of which there is far less than some claim, or anti-Arab racism, or a nefarious conspiracy of the Zionist media, or anything else - why people who throw around the term PEP are shunned by the mainstream Progressive movement and the American People at large. Because there is too much hate, a very old one that many of us recognize. No massaging of polls or any number of flash mobs in Grand Central will change that.

The losers in this game, of course, are as always and ever the Palestinians themselves. They have rights and deserve their own state. They are, however, ill-served by condescending whackadoodles who see a conspiracy under every rock, think anti-Semitism isn't that much of a problem, alienate the mainstream of American society, and are kept at significantly more than arm's length by the only force that might be of use to them, the Progressive Movement itself.

Monday Open Thread

Because we need more of these!

BDS Wins(tm) again!

Or not...

Oh, >Feijoada.

Eat it!

The first judicial ruling on the tangled mess regarding Olympia Co-op's boycott is due today.

Meanwhile, here in Portland at 4:10 AM Pacific this morning (I'll be back on East Coast time in 17 days!) it's 1986 again. Fuck yeah!

What's Cooking?

If you ask me, we need some open threads here. And I'm all about good food. And it's the weekend. So let's have some fun and see if this flies!

I am leaving Portland in just under 19 days now, moving cross-country again. Back east to Philadelphia this time. Although I've never had too much of a pantry*, my last couple of weeks here I'm going to be focused on using up everything I have, so I can move as lightly (and as easily) as possible.

Found a jar of tomato sauce which was gifted to me last Fall by a friend from her garden bounty, and I just so happened to also have two eggs left over from the last farmers' market I hit two weeks ago. My first thought? Shakshouka! So I did a simple version of that for my (very) late lunch an hour or so ago. Just poached the eggs in the sauce with roughly a quarter of an onion (diced), a couple pinches of ground cumin (I never measure when sprinkling - baking is chemistry, but cooking is art!), along with the end of a medium-ish baguette I had lying around from the Vietnamese bakery down the street on the side.

Ideally, I would have included something spicy (peppers!) in the sauce, but again I'm pretty much running low on everything right now (by design) and just winging stuff. And it's not exactly the season for that here, either. But it was still a great lunch, regardless. Anyway.

So what'cha cookin?

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*Shame on me! I will build quite an impressive one in Philadelphia though, since for the first time in my life I will have an actual backyard (not too much space - it's pretty much just a 72-square foot concrete pad tucked behind a North Philly rowhouse; but it's all mine and I plan to grow vertically, and have room for a grill and a smoker back there this summer, too!)

Hey Republicans... YOU OWN THIS!

Cross Posted at Daily Kos

Last nights Republican Arizona debate was truly a Wacktastic event. The candidates covered a gamut of subjects in what might be the Wackiest event I think I have ever heard.

First - if you want some real laughs... Here is the transcript of the debate. Read it and laugh or weep (I am still trying to figure out what to do). Either way - here are some of the gems....

First we have Former Governor Mitt Romney suggesting we use the Saudi Arabians and Turks to arm the Syrian Rebels to help overthrow the Government of Bashir Assad.

We need to work with — with Saudi Arabia and with Turkey to say, you guys provide the kind of weaponry that’s needed to help the rebels inside Syria. This is a critical time for us.

So let's see... we want to give the Wahabite Government of Saudi Arabia money or weapons to influence the overthrow of the Damascus Regime. The same Wahabite Sect that spawned Al-Qaeda, the same Wahabite Sect that runs one of the most backward regimes in the world - we want to have them surrounding our friends in Israel and Jordan? Yeah.... that makes sense. How in G-d's name does that make the situation any better than it is now.

OR... we want Turkey, a country that openly trades with Iran and has become increasingly hostile to both Israel and the U.S. to be sponsoring this change. Okie dokie, that too makes sense (well not really unless you live in the bizarro world that the Republicans seem to be inhabiting).

Of course the biggest FAIL line of the night.... goes to Newt Gingrich who said this:

And I agree with — with Senator Santorum’s point. This is an administration which, as long as you’re America’s enemy, you’re safe.

Perhaps we should ask Osama Bin Laden and a large former portion of the Al-Qaeda leadership about that... Oh wait, we can't - they're dead. Whoops.

But lets not forget "the Mad Elf" and noted racist Ron Paul with this pearl of wisdom:

The Iranians can’t possibly attack anybody. And we’re worrying about the possibility of one nuclear weapon.

Okay, why worry about just one bomb, I mean what can just one little nuke do... And hey Iran can't attack anyone anyway because we have them surrounded. I guess Mr. Paul has never heard of using proxies in war or using these modern things called Missiles. Someone might want to let him in on this. Perhaps our friends on the right who call Mr. Paul a "staunch ally of Israel" or "simply misunderstood:" can clear up just how this total unconcern can translate into "staunch ally".

But there was much, much more and on different subjects. Here, we once again have Mr. Paul on immigration:

Why is it if an illegal comes across the border and they go on private property, why isn’t that trespassing? And why don’t you have the right to stop it?

Gee, I wonder what Congressman Paul is really saying.... No, actually I don't wonder at all. We all see the "No Trespassing signs" that are posted (usually with pictures of a Gun) - so what does he mean "why don't you have a right to stop it"? Individuals do have a right to stop trespassing particularly if they see someone sneaking over the border. They can call the Border Patrol, or Police - THAT is what they can do.

Ok, so outside of advocating "stopping trespassing" another pearl of wisdom from the Congressman:

But once again, the question is, if you voted for Planned Parenthood like the senator has, you voted for birth control pills. And you literally, because funds are fungible, you literally vote for abortions because Planned Parenthood gets the money — “Oh, I’ll buy birth control pills,” but then they have the money left over to do the abortion.

Thus, in Congressman Paul's world if you support Planned Parenthood and you buy birth control pills then really you are funding and supporting abortion. Of course, for Congressman Paul and his associates, this exercise in illogic escapes them. Here is Rick Santorum on the same issue:

"Over 40 percent of children born in America are born out of wedlock. How can a country survive if children are being raised in homes where it’s so much harder to succeed economically? "

And Mitt Romney:

"Because these kids are raised in poverty in many cases, they’re in abusive settings. The likelihood of them being able to finish high school or college drops dramatically in single-family homes. And we haven’t been willing to talk about this."

And this lack of sensibility in a nutshell is where the Republicans and their candidates COMPLETELY FAIL.... They oppose Birth Control and education about Birth Control as well as groups that promote Birth Control and yet they whine about how there are so many unwanted pregnancies and abortions - THE VERY THING THAT BIRTH CONTROL PREVENTS!!!!

Do they think by teaching morality in schools they are really going to cut down on sex? Apparently they do.

So for those who support Republicans or those who suffer ODS and refuse to support President Obama in 2012.... You own this. This is your future. This is what you are voting for or advocating for when you argue against the President's re-election. Now, dissenters will say "Oh no.. I am just sending the President a message" or "Oh no, I don't support any of this". Well.. newsflash... These are the guys that WILL get elected if you vote against the President OR simply don't vote.

One may disagree with President Obama on issues - I certainly have complaints on a number of things (mostly related to the economy and the lack of focus on economic justice), but, I have no illusions regarding what would be happening if the President had not been elected and I have no illusions about what will happen if he is not re-elected. So, is he the perfect candidate... no but, he is a darn good candidate AND he is a whole lot better than those running against him.

Good News: Derangers Out of Touch On Israel, Iran

A quick bit of good news to end the week. A poll has come out from Gallup exploring Americans' views of various other countries.

The poll has confirmed that the loud voices we know from places such as Daily Kos, where people feel an intense love for the Iranian regime, and an obsessive, deranged hatred for Israel, are very much in the minority in this country.

Iran is the least popular country of the 23 included in the survey, with only a 10% favorability rating in Americans' minds, even below such luminaries as North Korea and Iraq. On the other hand, Israel has a 71% favorability rating, which is pretty darn good, although coming in behind major American allies Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, Japan, France, and, curiously, India.

It is interesting to see socialist-ish Canada with a 96% favorability rating, and even the cliche right wing villain and tourist-abusing France coming in at 75%. In general, it seems that in spite of both right wing and far left deranger propaganda, Americans have pretty good taste when it comes to other countries.