There are n*zis on campus rn and a student brought out like a 1997 boombox and started blasting Taking The Hobbits to Isengard every time they tried to say something.
“Those who do not share our genes -THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS – THE MASTER RACE – TO ISENGARD TO ISENGARD – AND I BELIEVE –
THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE-”
Chaotic good
In Jewish tradition, one of our holidays is called Purim. It celebrates the defeat of an antisemitic political advisor to a king who liked to prowl the streets ranting his hatred. Part of the story of Purim involves the people being ranted at inventing a special kind of noisemaker to drown him out.
Basically what I’m saying is this student is following a grand tradition whether they realize it or not and they should be proud.
petition to add Taking the Hobbits to Isengard to Purim. like groggers are cool and all, but autotuned Orlando Bloom. come on.
he didn’t “ like to prowl the streets ranting his hatred.”! he planned a genocide against the Jewish people because they weren’t “profitable” (sounds familiar?)
we sound the groggers whenever his name is mentioned because we don’t want his legacy to live on. some people also write his name on the soles of their shoes so that they’ll be stepping on him every step they take.
we – and by this i mean ‘people targeted by nazis’, but mostly jews, because i am a jew and that’s where my experience lies – we did not want to end up in a scenario where the highlight of our day could be some guy getting punched. in fact, that’s kind of ghoulish.
like, ok. i am pretty much the worst kind of bleeding-heart, dyed-in-the-wool pacifist you will ever meet, when circumstances allow me to be. i don’t, personally, want to kill nazis; i just want nazis to stop being nazis. ideally, the world would work like it did in my 10-year-old fantasies, where i could walk up to a nazi and be like “jews are people,” and he would be like “holy shit!!! mind blown” and stop being a nazi and we’d sit down and have a deep philosophical discussion.
but real nazis have this unfortunate, terrifying habit of continuing to be nazis. when you hit them with intellectual debate, or reason, or “tolerance”, or “just giving them a chance”, or “compromise”, or any of that shit. they continue to be nazis, which means they still want to wipe out me and my people, and many other swathes of people as well.
which is why i understand people who want to kill nazis. or, in a milder variation, punch them.
i wish they would stop being nazis but they wish i would die. when you, historically, adhere to an ideology that advocates mass murder past the point of any nonviolent resistance, you have forfeited your right to a fair debate. you have forfeited your right to any response but self-defense that is as violent as whatever you make necessary.
nazis forfeited their right to nice counter-tactics long ago, and jews know this.
there’s another reason, too, why i whooped at that video. not because someone was getting hurt – don’t be dense. as i said, that’s ghoulish. we did not want to end up with our livelihood as a people so threatened that violent self-defense makes us cheer. can you think about that for a second? can you think about the kind of corner we’re backed into, here? it’s not a natural state of being. it’s a place where most people, as far as we can tell, truly do not give a shit if we live or die, because they’re talking about “tolerating” people whose ideology involves straight-up killing us. and so if we see somebody punch a nazi, it’s evidence: that person in the black mask, they’re on my side.
there is one person who recognizes the nazi as a mortal threat, which means they recognize that jews are people. that people of color are people. that any of the groups threatened by nazis deserve to have their fear recognized.
and every time you, a moderate liberal, a white goy, wring your hands about a nazi getting punched, about violent tactics, about fighting hate with hate, you push us further and further into the corner where we have to cheer at that. it’s sheer relief, at somebody recognizing the terror enough to punch back.
so no, we weren’t born bloodthirsty, just salivating at the chance to kick a nazi in the balls. we got driven here reluctantly, by history, to a place where violence in our defense can make us weep with gratitude. you drove us here.
“we got driven here reluctantly, by history, to a place where violence in our defense can make us weep with gratitude” !!!!!!!!!
this evening there was a terror attack in tel aviv. it was at a popular open market and food hall. i have been there often. one of my close friends, who some of you know as @frightened nearly died.
i have no words. i have never in my life been so close to terror before. i am so deeply shaken by what i have just read about linda’s experience. i want everyone in the world to read and understand and have compassion. but failing that, i will share it with you all.
I want to tell you about my night. It’s going to be in the news for a little while, and I want to remember it as it happened, not as the security camera footage shows. This is for me, but it’s also for you. Especially if you live in a place where these things barely make the news.
I was supposed to stay on base all weekend and for the holiday, so I wanted a night out with Jordan. We settled on Benedict at Sarona, a 15-minute walk from our apartment. When we got there, they asked if we wanted a table outside or inside. It was hot, and we decided on inside, even if it meant waiting an extra couple of minutes for a table to clear out. We were seated by the wall, glass from ceiling to floor. It was nice.
We sat, we ate. It was good. We heard this popping noise. At first, I thought it was an electrical problem. Then the screaming started, and the people running past our window. I saw a man. I do not remember the man, but I remember the gun held by the man. It was bright silver, and because I worked on a video about them once, I knew it was a Carlo Gustav rifle. There was fire coming from the barrel, and it was red, and it made the gun even more silver, and I did not notice that he was wearing black and white. He was on the other side of the window, four feet away, separated by glass. Very quickly, everyone at the restaurant either ran or fell to the ground. Jordan ran, I fell to the ground. You don’t coordinate these things.
I lied there, facing away from the window. I really hoped he wouldn’t come into the restaurant or shoot at the glass wall. If he did, I would die. My breathing was steady, and I noticed that the floor was wet, which was unpleasant, but not, you know, the worst part.
After the sounds of the shooting grew softer, someone from the restaurant shouted that we all need to run to the back in case they return, or enter the restaurant. I did. I ran, and I hoped he wasn’t still there outside, the gun and the man holding it. If he was, he could shoot me.
The people in the back of the restaurant – everyone who had been in the restaurant – were staring at me, and I looked down and saw that I was covered in blood. I had fallen on my chin. It was my own.
Jordan found me and cleaned off the blood. We hugged a lot. We told each other “I love you.” We called our families. I left a lot of voice messages.
When the police and Magen David Adom gave us the all-clear, we started to leave. We were “in shock,” which we didn’t feel like we were, because shock is a very calm feeling, actually. They loaded us onto an ambulance. They took us to the hospital. A physician’s assistant took my vital signs. He had an Arab name. A doctor glued my chin back up, and they had us see a psychiatrist, who was very nice and made us laugh.
We’re home now.
I saw that they’re handing out candies in Hebron. I’m scared to read the American headlines, or any news at all. They kept playing the footage in the hospital waiting room. The terrorists are younger than me. They’re heroes back home.
I’m thinking about all the “devil’s advocates” I’ve known, the “they have no other venues for protest” camp, the “it’s justifiable in a conflict like this” college students I shared desks with. Please consider, if you’ve read this far: if we hadn’t sat outside, if the shooters came into the restaurant, if one had turned slightly to the left and fired, I would be dead right now. I don’t care what “side” you’re on. I don’t care about your politics. If you care about me, call out terror for what it is. Call men shooting at screaming civillians who are running for their lives terrorism. Tell the people you know that it’s never okay to target innocent men, women, and children, even if you don’t like where they live. Stand up for the people who didn’t want to wait, for the people who said “the weather is nice, let’s sit outside,” for the four people who will never come home again after tonight. Stand up for the workers, the parents, the grandparents, the friends, the off-duty soldiers who laid there on the floor and breathed softly, praying the glass would hold. Stand up to anyone who says my life isn’t worth it. Because when they say it, I’ve learned, they mean it.
I’m alive. I’m alive. The world is beautiful, and I’m alive.
יום ירושלים שמח! לשנה הבאה בירושלים הבנויה!
one of the great things about being Jewish is learning Jewish history, because you get to learn the history of a lot of countries! in my years in high school i learned the history of Germany,Poland, Russia, Hungary, Yemen, Iran,america, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel etc… and i think that’s really cool! (…. i have a history test soon in case you were wondering what brought that up…)
Our mishlochei manot! i realy like how they turned out!!!
Naama's blog 