Jo Jerrica Decker @Jo@social.diskseven.com

So this came up on the feminist Python meetup yesterday and it is a very fun game for anyone with some Linux knowledge. http://overthewire.org/wargames/bandit I'm playing this since then :D

Hi. If you’re trans, and have or had DVT, I’d really like to chat with you a little. Thanks. #TransHealth #TransHelp

when white Europeans deny Jewish history, they are merely continuing this long history of imperialism that led Jews to become a persecuted minority among them

i can, of course, excuse such sentiments among Palestinians; no one likes their oppressor.

but too often i see such sentiments among white western Europeans, as though they believe that by expressing such sentiments, they are opposing colonialism rather than continuing it.

as well as to show how antisemitic it is when resistance to Zionism centers around denying Jewish history rather than saying that this history does not justify a single thing that Israelis have done to Palestinians

and sadly, lots of people think it's merely "anti-Zionist" to erase Jewish history, and it isn't just that.

of course it's also a very simplified history, and ignores all the good things that came of Jewish interaction with other cultures. still, it's extremely important that people distinguish us from our oppressors and recognize the history behind how we came to live under them. and that was the aim of this long thread. not to celebrate the Jewish diaspora (which I do very often), but to explain how it came about.

as well as the fact that we never became fully accepted/assimilated Europeans and have always been considered outsiders to be tolerated or not tolerated

but this history is important because when you whitewash Jews as "Europeans" this is denying our long history of trauma and denying the reason any of us ever had to move to Europe in the first place

this is independent of Zionism, of course, which i'm unequivocally against. the displacement of the Palestinian people was not OK. the occupation, the wall, etc. are not OK. it's not OK to have a Jewish state in an area that has always had so many people of different ethnic groups, regardless of history. it was probably never OK for a Jewish kingdom to rule over other peoples to begin with.

so this is why a lot of Jews who lived in Europe for a time have a huge problem with being called "Europeans"

How Jews Got to Europe (thread)

(12) only during the Enlightenment were these disabilities gradually removed (legally), in the hopes we would assimilate into the new areligious Revolutionary French rationalist society.

(13) this didn't happen and we remained de facto outsiders. at various points we were reminded that we were outsiders in hate crimes known as pogroms, one of the worst of which was the Holocaust, which also brought about the return of Jewish disabilities for a while

How Jews Got to Europe (thread)

(11) in Europe, we were forced at various points to wear yellow stars, hats, and other things identifying us as Jews, subjecting us to violence and intense trauma. laws called "Jewish disabilities" prevented us from participating fully in society. often we were made to do the jobs that were generally detested but considered necessary by the ruling class - hence we would be easy to sacrifice in bad times.

How Jews Got to Europe (thread)

(8) the large community of Jews displaced to the Frankish and later Holy Roman Empire came to be known as "Ashkenazi"

(9) the large community of Jews displaced to Iberia came to be known as "Sephardi"

(10) many other communities existed throughout the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, etc.. most of the communities remained in touch using Hebrew as a written lingua franca; others became isolated.

How Jews Got to Europe (thread)

(5) some of us moved elsewhere in the MENA, others to Southern Europe and then Gaul (France), others even farther

(6) those of us who remained in Galilee rebelled two more times and most were massacred. the remainder were gradually displaced by Arab Muslims, settling elsewhere in the MENA. a small number of Jewish farmers have never left the land.

(7) Jewish life under Arab rule was undeniably far better than European/Roman rule.

How Jews Got to Europe (thread)

(1) our home was occupied by the Romans

(2) after two failed rebellions, our temple was destroyed and replaced with a temple to Jupiter

(3) after our third failed rebellion we were banned from Jerusalem and forbidden from practicing our religion in the land, and many of us were sold into slavery

(4) a mass exodus began at this point due to intolerable conditions as well as forced expulsions. a minority stayed in Galilee, but most were dispersed