flamingOTD

If you can simplify and clarify your questions it’s hard to read them between your ALL CAPS personal insults when trying to have a grounded philosophical discussion.

You continue to equate my thinking with “shallowness” “evil” “vile” and “danger”

People who equate questioning with danger usually:

Confuse safety with control

Confuse unity with obedience

Confuse certainty with morality

I ask you to consider that your worldview is being limited by your imagination. Honestly without a source I’d still have solid arguments, having outside sources that confirm genocide certainly help. But even to the naked eye the issue is blatantly awful.

I realize the Jewish people have been hurt by Palestenians, and the world as a whole. I realize they see they’re work as protecting Jews from people who want them dead. I realize this is a rational response to a people, our people, who have suffered deep generational trauma.

And I also realize that it is that generational trauma and deep fear of outsiders as well as narrow world views lacking empathy and imagination of what others lives and perspectives are like, that can prevent us from actually seeing the harm we are causing.

I’m advocating for a world where the Jewish people actually live up to our title. A light onto the nations. Not a continuation of the world’s awful dynamics. The palestenian genocide is not unique to the Jewish people. Nor is it even mostly there fault honestly I see this as a US funded project led and enabled by US support.

I hope very soon we can see the problematic abusive system we have allowed ourselves to be a part of in the name of our own safety.

Curious, if you were not Jewish and you knew the Torah was not true. Lets say you had a bas kol from shamayim telling you the Torah wasn’t true, would you still support the idea of Israel?

Like from the perspective of the world, we are using an ancient religious text to justify the genocide of an indigenous group of people. We certainly wouldn’t be the first group to do this (see manifest destiny and many others).

Like without the Truth of the Torah by our sides is this truly the best way for Jews to be safe? with a random country in the middle east that we once had connection to? Like we werent the only ones who lived there. At no point was this land officially “ours for eternity” beyond of course the guarantee from the Torah.

But for those that don’t believe in the Torah, you must be able to see how they see things. Even if this was just for Jewish saftey, why would any non jew think to prioritize Jewish saftey if it mean genociding another oppressed group. There must be better ways to insure Jewish saftey that doesnt include Palestenian murder and continued displacement.

And now we don’t have to move out the current Jews, one state is a viable option. The Palestenians are not looking just to harm us. They want a home and rights. That makes sense. Anyone would want that. Including us or anyone else.

Yes I have. Initially I held that I could change minds through posts on this forum. I know have serious doubts in that position. Ultimately, I still hold hope that the posts don’t just influence those who respond, but those silent readers not posting. So I guess you never know.

@SquareRoot

Using caps does not undue wealth disparity, nor make your statements more true.

There is an amazing cartoon
It has an old man with a giant plate a of cookies
a construction worker with one cookie
and a migrant with no cookies

The Old man with the giant plate of cookies looks at the construction worker and says
“that migrant wants to steal your cookie!”

To blame rising costs of living, health care and groceries on migrants, is grossly missing the roots of the problem.
There is a deep disparity of wealth and resources in this country.

Imagine the resources we have in the US are like an island with a waterfall.
Naturally everyone would come to the waterfall for water to drink.
Then certain people build pipes on the waterfall, preventing access to others, and hoarding the water
they call it “maintaining the waterfall” and then charge a tax to get water from them
Some can afford it
others can’t and are left needing assistance to get funds and access to the waterfall
Others have come from around the world too, as these people piping the water, have also piped the waterfalls of their island nations

Suddenly the water hoarders start increasing prices for water
and the middle group is having trouble affording it already and feeling the pressure
And then the water hoarders also start telling the middle group
“its because of all those hand outs we are giving the poor and the migrants”
and they convince the middle group to hate on the migrants and the poor
literally doing their bidding for them.

So instead of the middle class being justifiably angry at the water hoarders
they punch down, and blame those on the bottom for daring to be in need

There is a very important psychological concept in enmeshed narcissistic hierarchical systems called DARVO

Deny
Attack
Reverse
Victim
Offender

The quotes about “buying the bias of whatever you are fed” I mean c’mon here. Thats literally you.
Your denying the reality of palestenian suffering
attacking me for suggesting it
and reversing who the victim and the offender are
Oh let me play a sad song on the worlds smallest violin for the poor Zionist state, FUNDED WITH BILLIONS OF US DOLLARS.

Regarding the questions about a Jew in a Palestinian town and a Palestinian in a Jewish one, your comments are totally off base. Palestine (or what the Zionists are calling Israel), has been turned into a ethno-supremist state favoring Jewish lives over all others. It erases the the history of the Arab muslims and Christians and others, who lived there prior to the Zionist rule. Palestinians are not safe in any Israeli town. Their rights have been stripped, and their land stolen. Palestinians are not safe from Israelis anywhere in Palestine! Not even in the area still being called “theirs” that is really just an open air prison.

I think one of the major things being missed here is the idea of systemic violence. Just because it’s done by a government and with laws and court approvals, doesn’t make it okay. The Israeli government and army, funded and supported with billions from the US, has systemically erased and genocided the Palestinian people. Just because its not with gas chambers, doesn’t make it not genocide.

I mean someone in this chat literally said they pray for the destruction of Muslims. I mean c’mon now. The Muslims are not the enemy of the Jews. Our real enemy is hierarchical power systems that treat human lives as an after thought. That is what got us in the Holocaust, that has what has got us throughout our history.

I am not denying Muslims were at points in power and performed these abuses. I am not denying the deeply problematic ideologies in the Koran. I could say the same for many Christian ideologies too which have been responsible for the loss of countless Jewish lives. But to pray for the deaths of “Christians and Muslims” when many of them basically share our same values is ludicrous and deeply Islamaphobic.

The name calling doesnt stop. Calling me “Achmed” (which is totally arab-phobic and offensive as an arab jew)

Also assuming my level of practice of the religion based on the words i’m using as critique. Words that describe horrific behavior of individuals and systems. Instead of focusing on how to make this olam better, your focus is discrediting me, and any other criticizer of this anti-Torah agenda.

Can’t i just be a yid who is disheartened by what she is seeing. Devastated by our inaction here.

Excusing the murder of these kids as “Human shields” seriously? With this example? Even the genocidal IDF didn’t use that excuse here, they just said they crossed an invisible line they weren’t supposed to (nor was it clearly marked and they were 8 and 10 years old).

Not all mainstream media has it wrong. Yes lots of it is problematic, but we can’t just write off whatever suits our narrative better. You can excuse the “other side” of ding this too. I get it. But honestly what are the agendas here? what does the mainstream media have against Israel? why would they want to criticize it, if it was truly doing such good. You know most Palestinian supporters say the media favors Israel. I think stats back that up. According to the dataset, New York Times uses “Israel” in headlines over “Palestine” at a ratio of 187 to 1.

I’d hope as “religious” jews (or whatever it is you call yourselves) you wouldn’t support genocidal policies, that defend a made up US satellite state, that puts Jewish lives at risk daily and brings a bad name onto all of klal yisrael.

Honestly tho this is getting tiring. I feel like I’m working up against a brick wall here. I guess maybe you can help me understand your position better.

Do you hold that this is helping us prepare for the coming of mashiach? is it bringing us closer?
Or do you just hold that Jewish people are already there so we need to defend them?
Or do you think that Hamas is genuinely dangerous and needs to be wiped out? If so, should it be a Jewish imperative to wipe out every terrorist threat around the world? Like with guns? Or just the threats that seem target us? When does this stop?
And how do you see the civilians there in Gaza? Are they just “future hamas?” Do they have any humanity. Are we punishing them for their future sins? Is this okay?

Also in all this, how do you feel about Jews in the US in general. Are we obliged to move right now? What would be the onus of that motivation? Do you feel its because its dangerous here? are we truly safer there? Does being there not invite more harm? How do we balance this?

Also how do you feel about the religious stance (or lack of one) of the Zionist government.

Genuinely curious.

Evil, retarded mad woman here.

While we are arguing the IDF keeps killing. Recently it was Fadi and Jumaa. An 8 year old and a 10 year old gathering wood for their family. Their father is paralyzed and wheel chair bound and was at home preparing breakfast for them. They blew the kids to bits with a drone strike. Horrific.

If their names were Mendi and Yischak would you guys care more? Would you see the hatred fueling this genocide. This is not Torah. This is not how people acting in the name of Hashem should behave. If there is a genocidal dangerous ideology here, brainwashing children to become senseless murderers of civilians, it would be called Zionism.

I am not defending Islam or Hamas. I find them also deeply problematic in their ideologies. I also realize that we arent debating here about the merits of Islam or Hamas. We are debating if maintaining this Zionist state is what the Torah, and Hashem would be asking us to be doing right now.

And for me, i find the logic difficult to sit with. Does having a country benefit the Jewish people, perhaps in some aspects, but all too many have to die defending it, and have to die to make space for it. And ultimately the whole thing is one giant global chillul Hashem. This is not the Torah way. This cannot be.

Very much agree with Kingdavid on the importance of communities where emotional honest is welcomed, particularly for young people.

Understanding the bio-psycho-social model of psychological symptomology has deeply helped me in this regard.

Basically ailments from addiction to schizophrenia, come from a mix of biological factors, upbringing and care (or lack there of), experience of trauma, and other societal factors like what we as a community make space for also other factors like how race, age, gender etc impact this… its all layered together and all happening at once.

To assign medication alone to treat this, can be in some cases not enough, and in many cases, actually lead to us missing the actual issue.
The symptoms often act like keys, guides for us to understand the actual challenges this human is experiencing.

I realize meds deeply help people, not here to shame that, but medication is WAY overprescribed. And psychiatrists way undertrained on actually seeing the WHOLE person. Good psychiatrists exist but few and far between.

We see similar problems in the psychology field, rooted in the ancient disease model, that sees people as more illness then neshama.

We need to see the full person. In their context. It is not nature, not nurture, but both and all at the same time.

Quick example. Addiction can come from covering up emotional pain. Treatment cannot just focus on taking away the substance. If anything, the key to healing, lies within the urges to use. It is what they LOVE about the substance, that can help us learn about what they are so deeply seeking, and so deeply missing in their lives, or areas of hurt that deeply need healing.

There is a great model for this in addiction called Harm Reduction Psychotherapy by Dr. Andrew Tatarsky. Powerful stuff. Highly recommend checking out.

I have only stated a perspective on Zionism and I have had my Jewish lineage questioned, I’ve been accused of being a Jew hater, a Muslim, a non-jew, and told I’m going to gehenom.

Not once did I name call, or poke fun of you, or question your Jewishness, only stated perspectives.

In logic what your doing is called “ad hominem” when you focus your attack on my character instead of focusing on the issue at hand that I am raising.

I’ve also been called “he” multiple times, I’ll have you know you are debating with a woman.

And a woman who knows her stuff b’h.

Zionism as it is today is not inherently part of Jewish beliefs. If anything it is against those beliefs. Rav Avigdor Miller was strongly against this “atheist” state and encouraged flag burning.

Zionism is a nationalist supremest ideology. It serves the goals of the US and US christians more than it does Jews. If anything it puts Jewish lives at risk.

Beyond that it is murdering countless Palestinians, humans, children. Not all Hamas! They are bombing school, hospitals, creating starvation campaigns. We treat our animals better that Israel is treating the Palestinians (who you insist on calling the “local arabs.”)

Hello! There were people who lived in the land of Israel before the Zionist movement began. Large swaths of them. Arab Jews, muslims and christians. And the Zionist movement aimed to change that. To wipe the face of the map of the “bad human product” sitting in the land. These were people, families, communities, moved by force or threat from their homes and not allowed to return.

And yet any American with a dream can get a slice of land in Palestine. White Americans who ARE safe in the US can just pick up and go to a land that isn’t there’s and hasn’t been for milenia and claim it as their “birthright.” While Palestinians sit in an open air prison, in horrific conditions, not made that way because of tunnels or Hamas, but because of Israeli blockades among other factors. All funded of course by US and all in the interest of the US and their allies. This has almost nothing to do with Judaism, it’s a convient excuse for the west to claim a strategic land and military base. And cover up their genocide and defend any criticism of it with the claim of antisemitism.

This is not a Jewish state. This is a genocidal nationalist movement made to further US global interests. And now we are losing Jewish lives and wasting time we could be learning Torah and doing actual mitzvos talking about this
But here I am, because honestly I do see this as a mitvza, to bring people to see the light here. It’s deeply upsetting how far klal yisrael has gone off the derech on this issue. Ready to defend a literal genocide. For what??? Hashem protects we don’t need the murderous IDF.

@yankel berelI

Blatant lies?

Multiple agencies outside and inside of Israel have named this as a genocide. Not sure where the lie is?

@Square_root

Those are important resources and I appreciate the thorough rebuttal.

I will say that our own Torah contains some not so flattering lines about how we think of goyim and what will occur to the surrounding nations.

While perhaps it’s not as explicit, there are those that can take the lines in our Torah and say that they are supremest and view Jews as superior life forms and goyim as akin to animals. There are also those that can say we have direct Torah commandments to take that land for ourselves, and that Zionism as a whole is a genocidal religious Torah based ideology.

We do not explicitly say we want to “kill all muslims” in our Torah (although many in Israel do talk about killing the arabs which is disturbing when you think of the existence of Arab Jews).
Still many times Palestinians have been compared to Amalek, a group we are clearly instructed to wipe out in its entirety (ie. Religiously motivated genocide).

As well the current situation is not one in witch their goals are to wipe us out. The people of Gaza are having their food, health care, housing and education systems threatened and destroyed. Your naming one bombing in 1994, this is constant daily bombardment coming from the Zionist side. This is a human rights issue. And there have been countless violations here of Torah law and international law.

It is also clear that one nation has immensely more funding, support and power. Despite the fear mongering about the safety of Jews in the US, the US government continues to fund Israel well disproportionally to Palestine (billions per year vs millions). This is not just Trump, Biden and other neo-liberal Democrats did the same.

While it’s possible (albeit unlikely) that the socialist parties in the US around the world cut funding to this genocide, it is clear their policies and ideologies are about supporting the vulnerable, not harming yidden.

@yankel berel

I am unsure the connection your trying to make
The Houthi’s had nothing to do with South African apartheid
Nor is the existence (or non existence) of Jew-hatred within that community relevant to this discussion.
If the parallel you were trying to make was that “black south africans didn’t hate whites like Hamas hates jews”
I would combat that (or at least the perspective of that), strongly.
White’s in apartheid South Africa were TERRIFIED of what integration of the blacks would be like if integrated into their society
They feared crime, violence, and revenge, after years of oppression.
While certainly said years of oppression created some (understandable) sense of hostility between the Black community of South Africa and their White abusers, these fears were mostly UNFOUNDED, and ultimately did not result in nearly the damage feared upon integration. For the most part integration in South Africa has been a very successful endeavor for all involved.

If this story sounds familiar its why the comparisons are often made.
On one hand you have a supremest state, that fears the people they oppressed will revolt if there is every an attempt at integration (one state one vote)

Hamas does not explicitly “hate jews” if they did they would be sponsoring international violence against Jewish people. They (understandably) harbor (in my opinion) righteous anger against their Israeli genociders. The same way we “hate” Nazis. Is it wrong for a Jew to hate a Nazi? Especially a Jew who survived (or is currently surviving) the holocaust. This is an active genocide, and totally anti-torah values.

For the Jewish nishamot, and the human beings that Hashem created that live in Palestine (including babies and children of all ages), this is an issue that is pressing and needs to be resolved as soon as possible. For the safety of everyone involved.

@MacherBoy Exactly! This is the question here we are talking about it. Is this safe for yiddim to even discuss openly?

THIS IS OUR BIGGEST CRISIS RIGHT NOW MAMASH
The more I looked into it, one of the major reasons for OTD was not participating in the mamash murderous genocidal anti-torah israeli army (as horrific as it is) but more so that people (in the IDF, in yeshiva or wherever) have too much access to the internet which tells them things like “the actual history of Judiasm” saying terrible things like moshe rabienu “likely never existed” and that “the torah is a book of myths”
I can’t sleep thinking just how close people are to accessing this stuff. Two clicks and a google away. Anyone who can get there hand on a smartphone has AI or “Apirkores Incorporated” on their phone ready to answer them. I’m scared about the future of klal yisrael.

I’m confused here. Isn’t socialism just focused on housing food and healthcare? Like providing basic needs for people. And what happened to loving the ger?

Just because some piece of paper says their illegal? Did all our ancestors get to every safe haven “legally” while fleeing the Holocaust or other violence. Haven’t we seen the horrors of various countries turning away Jewish migrants seeking safety after the Holocaust?

These are not yiddim, but what if they are wouldn’t we protect them? Even if not they are still Ben Adam no? Part of the niflas haborei? Does the abeishter check their papers in shamayim?

I don’t want at the end of my life to get to the heavenly courts and hear that I refused to help people hungry, homeless and looking for work and a safe place to stay. And the conditions they send these people to chas v shalom we shouldn’t ever see this.

And you’ll say “these are murders and criminals” I’m not so sure if the facts agree with your feelings there. Lots of these people have not committed any crazy crimes. They said many things about yiddim in the shoah too …

And with what the US did to many of these countries they came from historically, Hashem yishmor. I realize a lot of people with these opinions are anti-torah, but my allegiance is not to democrat or socialist or to the arsot habrit, it’s to Emes!

Honestly I’m glad the US is protecting us yiddim now but with policies like this we could be next! My allegiance is to the abeishter and protecting his creations. Not to any country or party!

@kingdavid
I’m trying to chap what you’re saying, but I’m getting nervous, mamash.

If we say every “feeling” teenagers have is from Hashem and needs to be talked about openly in schools so they don’t feel shame… that’s a very slippery slope, no? Because today it’s “natural” — tomorrow the same logic gets used for all kinds of feelings we shouldn’t even mention.

And you’re saying silence is dangerous… does that mean we have to start giving everyone chinuch about all their feelings now? Even the ones we don’t talk about in normal homes??

I deeply feel these feelings should not be talked about in schools, and i don’t know anywhere. How are we really going to distinguish between “normal feelings” and this shtus being spoken about by “modern therapists” they certainly don’t distinguish between them. According to them “gay or lesbian feelings don’t go away,” and neither does “gender dysphoria” or whatever they are calling it, and that it “cannot be channeled” as your saying. The “only effective treatment” is chas’v shalom is letting them “live their truth” and things like “Gender affirming care.” They say the “affirming surgeries have only a 1% regret rate” and that this approach is “evidenced based” and that “any attempt to guide people to channel these feelings is dangerous, and can have potentially devastating mental health outcomes.” Mishugas. My heart breaks from what they are calling care these days. Mamash i pray for these poor confused yidden daily.

And so you go and tell one bas torah her feelings are normal to share, and encourage sharing, but what do we do when she shares feelings like this? What do we tell her? Did Hashem not make her this way? And if he did, what do we say its “yetzer hara” or a “nisayon”? Apparently they call that “systemic religious abuse” in modern therapy or wherever else it is your learning the “compassionate” language you are using. You make it sound nice but its mamash dangerous the ideas we are putting in their head with approaches like yours.

“Natural Teenage attraction” “Normal feelings” How do we stop this once we start “validating.” You think they’ll stop at just Torah approved feelings, Its frightening honestly. Hashem should have rachmanus on klal yisrael.

Whats so bad is it opens a door of communication with ANYONE chas v’shalom
a window that allows you to explore your emotions with other people
God forbid, maybe even find out that you have FEELINGS!
“Feelings of an almost human nature” – Rav Shalom Barrett z’l in his famous writings HaKotel

With texting you can talk to anyone, about anything, at any time
without supervision from parents, rabbeim, and other authority figures
The risks here should be obvious
you can’t trust yourself to navigate this world without proper guidance chas v’shalom this can be very dangerous
for obvious reasons like tniuz and worse
but even further, chas v’shalom you don’t know what people may text you
information your rabbeim never approved
even if you only text mamash helegeh yidden
maybe they went OTD,
maybe they don’t even know their sharing dangerous information for proper yiddin
god forbid information about anti-torah topics, (the LGBwatevers)
before long you may come to even stop believing in torah moshe m’sinai chas v’shalom these apikores’ should rot in gehenom
how dare they make people question the emes of the torah
and actually look into the historical “facts”
mamash todays world is scary.
yidden are three google clicks away from accessing “information” about the “actual historical origins” of the torah
it is truly frightening what can happen Hashem yishmor

With Hashem’s help you will avoid texting and the perils above, much hatzlacha the world is. a crazy place today