My grandparents fled Holland soon after this photo, abandoning Judaism along with their homeland. The Holocaust must have convinced them Jewishness only means suffering. With love and respect I disagree: it's so much more. So I pick up where they left off, rekindling the flame.
Three years ago today, I posted my account of my 25 years as an anti-Zionist leftist. Today I'm in Israel, supporting the Jewish people in its fight against barbarism. People can change; successes are possible. Am Yisrael chai.
It's been a year since I first lit Chanukah candles. I still feel a bit silly, barely know the difference between a mitzvah and a matzo. But Jews have welcomed me despite everything, and now I'm more determined than ever to stand with the family I nearly lost.
Happy Chanukah.
It sickens me that I used to believe “solidarity with Palestine” was righteous, rather than a thin cover for cheering the murder of Jews. I wish I could do more on this terrible day. But I stand with you, people of Israel.
I was an anti-Zionist for many years. I saw the Star of David desecrated, at protests I thought made me a good person. Now that same Jew-hatred seems stronger than ever; fighting it can feel hopeless. But people can change as I did; light can defeat darkness. Chag sameach.
Amy Eileen Hamm. If you don’t know her name yet, learn it. An astoundingly brave, principled Canadian nurse may lose her job for insisting biological sex is real. Solidarity.
My first week in Jerusalem, I'm awed and humbled by the heroism of Israelis: seemingly ordinary people committing extraordinarily courageous and selfless acts for their country. They must have our support; they must prevail. Their fight against barbarism is one for us all.
I was 14 when I learned I was Jewish. I balked because it seemed the only thing making me Jewish was Mom's murdered relatives. In my secular family, no one suggested it might embody something profound. I now find meaning connecting to past generations, and that's beauty enough.
Happy Chanukah from someone lighting the candles for the first time this year. I’m not entirely sure why I wanted to: to reconnect with my long-lost heritage? To defy antisemitism? Or something else? I’m not sure, but the act is giving me a sense of peace and hope. Chag sameach.
@nytopinion
@peytonology
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed.…History has stopped.” Orwell, 1984
Today: Every notable woman who defied the restrictions on her sex is declared a man.
It only took 75 years for a chunk of society to believe, once again, that genocidal antisemitism is the answer to our problems.
Happy Passover, friends.
“We hate Israel because it’s powerful,” they said. Yet today—with hundreds dead; women raped and defiled; grandmothers and toddlers taken hostage; Israel terrorized—the left can barely contain its glee. They really, simply, just hate Jews.
Trotsky once wrote that a person should never be afraid to go against the stream. I’ve been a Trotskyist and today I’m a Zionist, and the latter takes a lot more courage.
@elicalebon
One more thing today's leftists should know: after Tudeh helped bring Khomeini to power, Khomeini thanked them by having them thrown into prison and executed.
With appreciation,
An ex-Trotskyist who agrees with your every word.
I'm visiting Israel for the first time, as a terrible war is waged against Jews, the West and its ideals. I'm not a believer, but I touched the wall and sent thoughts-- something like a prayer--for the triumph of light over darkness.
The last night of my first year lighting the chanukiah. I want to thank everyone who made me feel so welcome. It’s a long strange road that brought me here, but you took me in. Am Yisrael chai.
For many years, I participated in protests against Israel where the Star of David was the focus of antisemitic abuse. Now I light my menorah in defiance of that hate. But as I’m learning, it‘s so much more than that. Happy Chanukah.
@DrProudman
Gender ideology is a sweeping attack on women’s rights. It denies us even the right to language to describe ourselves. It has also been devastating for gays and lesbians and is destroying the bodies and lives of countless distressed, mostly young people. Think again.
@davidhazony
I know for a fact that people like him don't truly think of Israelis as human. This is why they have no empathy. They consider "Zionistsss" and their state the essence of reaction, the secularist's version of evil. I wonder why?
@tuttleryandavid
Greetings from someone who can relate. I was in a small insular Trotskyist organization for many years and also lost my entire social network—only to discover the outside world seems as dogmatic and illiberal as what I escaped. I hope you find a new place of belonging and peace.
As an anti-Zionist I believed antisemitic things. After breaking from those views I learned all I could about antisemitism, but knew nothing of living Jews-only as victims. I wish I knew how to defeat Jew-hate. But maybe the best answer is here. With the light, not the darkness.
What "Palestinian resistance" are you supporting, leftists? What does it now mean but the rape, kidnapping and murder of random Jews? Hamas is a misogynist, anti-gay death cult based on genocidal antisemitism. Your "resistance" is a fantasy, conjured to cover the purest evil.
@CarolineGlick
Abigail Shrier is a hero. It’s horrific that she‘s encountered such deranged hatred and cancelation attempts not only in the U.S., but now in Israel.
Anti-Zionism is antisemitism. If you think the only state that shouldn’t exist is the Jewish one, you are in the grip of the world‘s oldest hatred. And if you think only the Jews have no right to defend themselves against those trying to destroy them, you abet the purest evil.
@salltweets
We had a good run. Women had our own sports, spaces and a handful of rights for at least five minutes before the demand came to return them to men.
@RAlNBOWRENE
They can’t bear to acknowledge that a woman can be brave, brilliant, heroic, intrepid. If she had these qualities, apparently, she must have been a man.
October 7 intensified my sense of being Jewish. I'd been tentative til then--there's too much I didn't grow up with, don't know. The horrors gave me clarity: my people are under attack; I will be with them. Yet Jewishness isn't just against; it's for. For light, not darkness.
@littelray2
@blablafishcakes
Not quite every aspect. A few womanly experiences they’ll let us have: male violence, rape, menial labor, denigration, domestic servitude, honor killings. Such are the spoils of “cis privilege.”
Two lovely nights in a sukkah made me reflect on my journey from left anti-Zionism. Worried Jews asked how to fight antisemitism today. I wish there were a clear answer, but I think the best one was in that sukkah, with the Jewish people, keeping these ancient ways. Chag sameach.
@yaireinhorn
Thank you. I'm only sorry it took me so long. My visit to Israel, with its extraordinary, life-loving, beautiful people, has only driven home how wrong I was.
Israel is fighting a terrorist organization committed to exterminating Jews, which slaughtered 1400 people on October 7 and is holding over 220 others hostage. If this isn't a just war, no such thing exists.
“in the 1920s and 1930s I had urged European Jews to go to Palestine, I might have helped to save some of the lives that were later to be extinguished in Hitler’s gas chambers.”
From Polish-Jewish Marxist historian Isaac Deutscher. These words should haunt today’s anti-Zionist.
@womensmarch
If you’re enthralled with a movement that denies material reality to claim men can be women; bullies women who object to the erasure of their rights; spreads homophobia; demands the mutilation of children; and smears concerned parents as bigots, you’re doing feminism very wrong.
“I have, of course, long since abandoned my anti-Zionism, which was based on a confidence in the European labour movement, or, more broadly, in European society and civilization, which that society and civilization have not justified. If, instead of arguing against Zionism…
@HannahBerrelli
Spot on. Those who say they just want to bully women are missing the point. Almost no one (and certainly not leftists) acknowledge they want to bully women. By convincing themselves they’re fighting “fascists,“ they can menace women while feeling delightfully righteous.
@MForstater
Beyond the practical concerns, what about the fact that truth matters? How can it be legal, never mind ethical, to demand that people lie about what they see?
When your big defense is "Hamas didn't behead babies--they only murdered them," it's long past time to ask whether you are, in fact, on the right side of history.
@francesweetman
Yes. I’m afraid, however, that if the thought occurs to them it will only strengthen their feeling that—as one charmingly put it to me—“I can’t wait until your generation is dead.” Respect for elders is not their trademark.
@TuttingM
Joan was a courageous, fierce, free-thinking warrior. Therefore Joan couldn’t possibly have been a woman.
Thanks for contributing to the denigration of women,
@The_Globe
.
This is excellent. It’s the universities we can thank for the profundities that men are women, there’s no material difference between humans and fish and, maybe next week, the Earth is flat.
Queer Theory (a branch of a distorted postmodernism, critical theory, that began as a literature trick & infected all fields w/in academia) wormed its way into “social justice activism,” upending every aim that (whatever your view on its merits) was grounded in material reality.
@CEJacksonLaw
Exactly. The intellectual triumph of ivory-tower gurus who deny material reality turns out to have been devastating in the material world. (Who’d a thunk?) It’s like a mad science experiment run amok.
@JewishNewsUK
When biological sex is erased by fiat, women’s sex-based rights vanish and gays and lesbians lose their right to be same-sex attracted. “Transgender” ideology is an assault on the very concept of material reality, which will inevitably harm Jews.
@BADGER1407
@DrProudman
Yes it is. And as they scream ‘Suck my dick’ and call to kill ‘TERFs,’ they insist women are bigots for not wanting them in their bathrooms.
@MarenWalsh63
I’m a lifelong lefty who‘s also done with the Democrats. Yes, I’m worried about what could happen with a Republican victory. But how can we rely on a party that insists we lie about what a woman is, puts male sex offenders in women’s prisons and cheers the mutilation of children?
Life is lived in Tel Aviv, because it must be; it's how they defy the death cult. The war feels a million miles away. But no one, ever, forgets the hostages. Bring them all home now.
Happy Chanukah on the fifth night. I’d hesitated to post my first chanukiah here: it seemed off to share it for likes, and I thought I should meditate over it alone.
I was wrong. The response has warmed me and I’m reminded that Jewishness is meant to be shared. Am Yisrael chai.
For the sixth night of Chanukah I’m sharing an old family photo. My Opa is the boy on the cello, his brother on violin. The girl on the piano, Lucie, was murdered at Auschwitz with my great-grandfather.
I don’t know if they practiced Judaism. But I choose to rekindle the flame.
@nicolelampert
@bariweiss
@nytimes
‘I no longer fit at the Guardian.’ What a sadly accurate comment from the talented and wonderful
@HadleyFreeman
. Jewish women writers who try to take on antisemitism and misogyny are silenced. I wish her the best.
@kylieoralobell
I was there with the small counter-protest. The weirdest bit was when a caravan of cars including two “Free Palestine” limos drove past us, blaring slogans over a bullhorn. Seriously, limousines?
@TheStranger
“Protecting trans rights harms nobody,” they said. Sure. It only harms women and girls. And gays and lesbians. And indoctrinated, mutilated children. And anyone who thinks people should not be forced to deny what they see. Aside from all that, clearly the right side of history.
@CentristWoman
@JohnRaemi
@radfemmaestra
I‘m a longtime socialist and I agree: Marxists can’t embrace such flagrant anti-materialism. Yet almost all “socialists“ today do. Never underestimate the allure of misogyny. Trans activism has given leftists license to degrade women in ways they would otherwise have to renounce.
@StingzVerity
@obsolete__units
He’ll hurt others, never himself. His most recent rant is against women who think they have sex-based rights as fascist agents of, among others, the Mossad. He is a spreader of hate against women and Jews.
@cache_pas
A thousand times yes. The community I looked to all my life to fight injustice are instead feeding misogyny and antisemitism. They have collectively lost their minds.
"There are as many ways to be Jewish as there are Jews." A kind Jew told me this when I first angsted over Jewishness and sadly drove me a bit batty. There must be a common core. We may never agree what it is, but maybe the quarrelsome search is itself Jewishness. Happy Chanukah.
"Woke Antisemitism" by
@DavidLBernstein
is an excellent, necessary book explaining how woke ideology leads to antisemitism. It's also a powerful call for courage. My review (with link!) for
@fathomjournal
.
@girl_synonym
I'm curious that my stance on Hamas isn't considered clear. They are a genocidal antisemitic terror group who must be destroyed. Any other questions?
@Sorelle_Arduino
Oppose gender ideology and ‘trans’ activism, but don’t stigmatise transsexuals who may well disagree with the assault on women’s rights. I’m disturbed by the hostility here against a surgeon who seems to have nothing to do with the woman denied treatment.
So many people just needed a pogrom—slaughtered young festival goers, beheaded babies, murdered Holocaust survivors, raped and kidnapped women and children—to double down on their hatred of Jews.
@KDansky
@MSNBC
@NBCNews
@ABC
@CBSNews
@AP
@washingtonpost
@nytimes
@CNN
How much evidence do you need, mainstream media, before you acknowledge the irreversible harm being done to children and others? I can predict your response to this thoroughly documented piece: “Christian Post: ignore.” You will not be forgotten or forgiven for your actions.
Last month I was in Israel, awed by its wondrous, life-loving people. Now I'm back in America, watching the news, anxious. The West should not punish Israel for fighting terrorism, but that seems to be where we're at. For what it's worth, people of Israel, my heart is with you.
@simonjedge
@DonovanCleckley
@SinclairJM1987
Interesting. I was a Trotskyist too. My former party has held firm against identity politics, as far as I know. Unfortunately that hasn’t prevented them from having a nasty misogynist and antisemitic edge—‘universalism’ wasn’t the salvation it was supposed to be.
@freakychick
@LaGitanaZoraya
@CentristWoman
@JohnRaemi
@radfemmaestra
Trans activism epitomizes what’s sick about capitalism, and the left. Indoctrinating people to spend vast sums of money on drugs and surgery in order to become their “true selves” is making some corporations very rich—and the “anti-capitalist” left hails it as progressive.
@KDansky
I loved the prolonged silence after being asked to explain his position, before hitting on the brilliant riposte of calling his interlocutor a “cunt.” Eloquent.
@cache_pas
You’re right. I’ve used Afghan women to illustrate how mad gender ideology is, and regret it. They are experiencing a level of oppression that defies comprehension. They deserve solidarity in their struggles, not to be exploited for ours.
‘Punch a TERF’ and ‘Smash the Zionists’: how today’s leftist found a way to hate women and Jews and call it ‘social justice activism’.
My latest for
@fathomjournal
.
@SwipeWright
The ominous talk of “moles” and “infiltrators.” The references to “the family” and threats to expel anyone who “aids the enemy.” The shrill message to mobilize and destroy the mortal danger. Classic cult behavior.
Goldsmiths UCU has reaffirmed its support to the student union president who slandered David Hirsh as a ��far right white supremacist‘.
This is a disgusting pack of lies.
@DavidHirsh
is a decent, brave, brilliant fighter against antisemitism. Solidarity.
@tabletmag
@liel
Astonishing. I still identify with “the left,” but nothing I’ve read in years so brilliantly captures the pain and bewilderment of my current impasse—or the emptiness of such categories. Thank you.
@hatpinwoman
It erases her, but I imagine that girl mostly feels confusion and deference. This man is, presumably, a TikTok star with lots of followers while she imagines she’s a nobody. So this movement teaches her to cede her existence to a narcissistic older man and call it “inclusion.”
I'm reading Amos Oz's memoir "A Tale of Love and Darkness" for the third time. If you want one book that shows the justness of Zionism, this is it. It's also one of the most lyrical, heartbreaking, sometimes funny, beautiful stories ever written.
@TullipR
I am so sorry for what you've gone through. So many people think "gender surgery" is okay as long as the person is an adult. Your story proves this medical scandal is also doing huge harm to obviously intelligent, strong-minded adults like you. Thank you for speaking out.
@yelobeli
@daverich1
The book played a huge role in my own journey from ex-Trotskyist Corbyn supporter to opponent of antisemitism. Welcome to the club, Graham.
@VKhaykin
“I’m not targeting them because they’re Jewish. I’m targeting them because they seem to think they have the right to self-determination and to exist.” Sickening.
@STILLTish
It’s a topsy-turvy world where some of the most clear-eyed critics of the medical-industrial complex come from the right, while so-called leftists cheer the mutilation of human bodies for profit. “Anti-capitalists” are the foot soldiers for capitalism at its most depraved.
Hamas terrorists are in Israel, murdering random Jews, and how does Corbyn respond? He calls for a ceasefire and suggests that if not for the occupation, none of this would be happening. To some, the Jews are always to blame.
I stand with Israel.
The unfolding events in Israel and Palestine are deeply alarming.
We need an immediate ceasefire and urgent de-escalation.
And we need a route out of this tragic cycle of violence: ending the occupation is the only means of achieving a just and lasting peace.
@Docstockk
"Intifada." "Victory to the Resistance." "From the River to the Sea." These are calls to attack, drive out or murder Jews "by any means necessary." It doesn't matter if the kids love Jews, or if they're Jewish: they support a violent antisemitic movement. Jews are rightly afraid.
@barry_swift
In other words, a woman with a sign reading “Stop female erasure—Defend female sex-based rights“ was attacked by a baying mob intent on female erasure and denying females’ sex-based rights.
“[Pronouns] are a gateway drug.… A clever rhetorical trick that forces you to concede the argument about women’s spaces before you‘ve even spoken one word of substance.” This is excellent.
@LeiracalMuse
@Esqueer_
I came to be gender critical only last year after some time being vaguely bothered. The final straw came when Lia Thomas smashed records in women’s swimming and I was supposed to ignore the fact he is clearly a man. I read
@Docstockk
’s Material Girls and took it from there.
I contributed The Back Pages to
@tabletmag
's The Scroll today. It's about the antisemitic hate crime that occurred on George Washington University's campus this weekend. Please share.
Throughout the centuries, people of a particular mindset have always had "good reason" to believe the world would be better if it were only rid of The Jews.
No. Calling for the end to Israeli apartheid is not antisemitic, just as calling for an end to South African apartheid wasn’t *bigotry.* Apartheid states do not have any “right” to exist. States don’t have intrinsic rights. People do. And for 75 years, Palestinians have been
"I am appalled that young people, students in the West, are so confused that they are no longer aware of their freedom. That they have apparently lost the ability to distinguish between democracy and dictatorship." Brilliant.
Nobel Prize winner Herta Muller's open letter is a shocking wake-up call to the West on The madness that has gripped parts of Western society since Hamas attacked Israel
@varindeus
Speaking for myself, we were naive. We supported what was supposed to be a just civil rights battle for a vulnerable group, until it finally became clear its aim was to destroy us.
"After the Revolution" by
@NellieBowles
is delightful, compulsively readable and often hilarious, even if reading about our crazy times also tended to make me want to scream. I had the plum assignment of reviewing her book for the
@JewishJournal
.
Women’s rights are being shredded. Gays and lesbians are smeared as bigots for being same-sex attracted. Troubled gay and autistic kids are being sterilized, their bodies irreversibly harmed. The medical-industrial complex is making a killing, however, and that’s the main thing.