historicity-was-already-taken:
“I’m gonna go rogue and publish on a popular press with no peer review process HOW U LIKE ME NOW”
Stuff angry PhD’s say:
“I’m gonna go rogue and self-publish this on the net and it’ll go viral, Dr. Jack! LOOKIN’ GOOD AND FEELIN’ GORGEOUS, HON’
Let’s start our own rogue publication.
historicity-was-already-taken:
there was a jewish enlightenment?I would like to hear more…OH MY GOD I JUST WROTE A PAPER ON THE JEWISH ENLIGHTENMENT WOO
Awesome! What did you talk about/argue?
Does anyone else dislike the term anti-Semite? It feels like such a misnomer, because Jews aren’t the only Semites. Jews make up only a tiny fraction of those who would be considered Semites, so why did this term come into being in the first…
If you want to use it, then by all means use it. Hell, I’m probably not going to stop using it either because the reaction has been so negative to my suggestion. I just find the word itself to be annoying. I do think that a word for it should exist because it’s still a real phenomenon, and I did offer an alternative. Why are people acting as if I’m saying that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist?
People (including myself) are responding negatively because you claim to write a Jewish history blog, are using the url “fuckyeahjewishistory,” and are displaying willful ignorance about a basic tenet of the field you are implicitly claiming (by virtue of your url) some level of mastery over.
How am I claiming willful ignorance if you don’t mind me asking?
Multiple people explained to you the historical context and realities surrounding that term and you ignored these explanations with “well it annoys me,” and reductionist comparisons to other forms of oppression. We’re not making arguments. We’re telling you basic historical facts. You say you’re 18 and trying to learn more about the field you blog about? Then listen to the people who know more than you.
Look I don’t like to pull rank, as such. It’s tacky and that kind of thing is bullshit online. But here’s the thing. You’re 18 and want to learn more about Jewish history as per your about me section. I’m almost 24, I’m getting my MA in Jewish history (en route to a PhD) and am paid to teach history to people your age. You learn by listening to and reading the words of people who know more than you, not by sticking your fingers in your ears and saying “no I disagree because it’s annoying.”
It’s okay for there to be people who know more than you—without them, how would you learn? That’s how I learn: by listening and reading and critically interacting with knowledge created by people who know more than me. And I would venture to say that I know more than you about anti-Semitism, and the people who wrote these books know waaaaay more than me:
http://historicity-was-already-taken.tumblr.com/Further%20Reading#Jewish%20History
I’d start with the Laqueur.
Does anyone else dislike the term anti-Semite? It feels like such a misnomer, because Jews aren’t the only Semites. Jews make up only a tiny fraction of those who would be considered Semites, so why did this term come into being in the first…
If you want to use it, then by all means use it. Hell, I’m probably not going to stop using it either because the reaction has been so negative to my suggestion. I just find the word itself to be annoying. I do think that a word for it should exist because it’s still a real phenomenon, and I did offer an alternative. Why are people acting as if I’m saying that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist?
People (including myself) are responding negatively because you claim to write a Jewish history blog, are using the url “fuckyeahjewishistory,” and are displaying willful ignorance about a basic tenet of the field you are implicitly claiming (by virtue of your url) some level of mastery over.
historicity-was-already-taken:
This combined version of my previous posts on this community was written for and is cross-posted to Beyond Victoriana. This post also contains some information not included in previous posts; this community is the subject of my MA thesis, so I will always have more to add. In fact, even…
Relevant to my current project, actually!
Cool! What are you working on?
#NeverForget
That’s the shit that pisses me off
Only a lot
How about you assholes reblogging this stop fucking shitting on Jewish people in order to make a point about (horrific) contemporary American attitudes towards the history of slavery. Believe it or not, ~The Jews~ are not in charge of erasing the horror of slavery from American historical memory. That’s on the white gentile men who stole this land and built the US on top of it.
And bee tee dubs, Jews are constantly told to stop “whining about the Holocaust,” to get over it, and to stop oppressing the other victims with our grief.
So fuck this, fuck Oppression Olympics, and fuck this boringass Jew blaming.
(Source: floacist)
Anyone surprised? Because I’m certainly not.
FDR was actually a pretty terrible person. As was JFK.
Okay I have seen this post everywhere and I have tried so hard to not comment on it but I am going to.
FDR was a very private man about so many things. He was a master politician. One of his biggest faults was never being completely open with even his closest advisors. Because of this, you can find evidence to support this article and evidence to refute it.
For example, Felix Frankfurter was a Jew, and he was appointed to the Supreme Court by FDR. FDR’s appointments to high offices were 15% Jewish when Jews made up a very small percent of the population.
Felix Frankfurter himself once said that FDR was not personally anti-Semitic, but he did not protect Jews as much as he probably should.
I think that this article does a very balanced job: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007411
FDR was a great politician and he did a lot for the US and for Europe during his time in office. But he was far from a perfect person. He had a lot of prejudices and he was a womanizer.
A lot of people are like that. A lot of politicians are like that. It’s perfectly fine. My problem is when certain historians and media outlets glorify these people (FDR, JFK, Reagan) as ideal beings. They are not. They’re human like the rest of us. Celebrate the achievements, not the person.
I know all that. I know that his actions were anti-Semitic. But I hate when people are so judgmental about him pretty much being like every other white Protestant male at the time. I don’t think it’s fair to call him a terrible person just because of that.
And millions of innocent human beings died because of his and his WASP cadre’s brand of anti-Semitism. It’s one thing to situate Roosevelt within his historical context, fine. But don’t you dare tell people that they’re being ~unfair~ for saying that his anti-Semitism, and his obvious turning a blind eye towards Breckenridge Long’s policies qualifies him as a terrible person. It fucking does.
And speaking of the New Deal, you know it was designed to reinforce the white male patriarchy, right? Women and people of color were actively fucked by New Deal legislation. Anyone who fit outside the male breadwinner norm was actively fucked by it. Sure that makes sense within its context, and sure New Deal legislation did a lot of fantastic things, at least for a while, but that doesn’t make it okay, and that doesn’t mean that people can’t say “Hey this isn’t okay.”
Actively examining racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, etc in ~revered~ historical acts and/or figures is necessary. Because shit can’t be dismantled if we pretend that systemic bigotry just magically appeared one day. History is complex and nuanced and you don’t get to silence people, especially members of historically marginalized groups, who are responding to that nuance.
I don’t know what your level of education is, but if you want to read some legit (as in peer reviewed) history books about these issues, I can provide you with some titles.
(Source: the-liberty-republican)
Anyone surprised? Because I’m certainly not.
I hate your white faves, America
And the Evian Conference was a fucking joke. I literally cried while reading the Evian Conference chapter of None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948.
For those who have never heard of it, the Evian Conference was an international conference called by Roosevelt in 1938 with the intent to develop an international response to the Jewish refugee crisis. Or at least that was the PR. In reality, it basically provided an official stage for the international community to be like “Sorry we can’t take any Jewish refugees.”
The Dominican Republic was pretty much the only one to offer to take Jewish refugees.
This reminds me of that time I was doing some research for my BA thesis and tried to interview an old man from my grandpa’s village in South Italy about life in 1940: he claimed, among several other things, that the USA entered the war because FDR was a Jew himself and, in the name of the world Zionist interests, wanted to take revenge upon Germany.
I would smirk at the irony, if I weren’t busy screaming inwardly.
Oy gevalt. I mean. Not surprising or anything (and interesting as a commentary on memory et al). But oy.
(Source: the-liberty-republican)
Anyone surprised? Because I’m certainly not.
I hate your white faves, America
And the Evian Conference was a fucking joke. I literally cried while reading the Evian Conference chapter of None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948.
For those who have never heard of it, the Evian Conference was an international conference called by Roosevelt in 1938 with the intent to develop an international response to the Jewish refugee crisis. Or at least that was the PR. In reality, it basically provided an official stage for the international community to be like “Sorry we can’t take any Jewish refugees.”
The Dominican Republic was pretty much the only one to offer to take Jewish refugees.
(Source: the-liberty-republican)
Allison Levine: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai: 1938-1949
historicity-was-already-taken:
This combined version of my previous posts on this community was written for and is cross-posted to Beyond Victoriana. This post also contains some information…
Oh my god you are fabulous. Would it be a pain to email the high res versions to historicitywasalreadytaken@gmail.com?
