A friendly reminder to my gentile friends re: Charlottesville

prismatic-bell:

There are a bunch of posts going around about donating to local Charlottesville charities in the face of the hate march, and I think this is a great idea.

Do you wanna know an even better idea?

Donate in multiples of $18.

Here, I’ll explain!

Hebrew is a numeric language. That is, all of its words have a numeric value. If you’ve ever seen the movie π, by Darren Aronofsky, there’s a great scene with a Chasidic Jew who explains a little about this and shares a word problem that hinges on it. So there are lots of puns and things that don’t translate, because, well, even if English had numeric values, we can’t guarantee they’d be the same, you know?

So, let’s take a second and talk about chai. Not the tea, the Hebrew word:
חי. Those of you who followed my conversion may know this is also (part of) my Hebrew name, in its feminine form:
חייה. It means “life.” Chai, you can imagine, is a great word! Lots of kids named Chaim (male) or Chaya (female). “L’chaim,” or “to life,” is the traditional Jewish toast. Our most important holiday, Yom Kippur, features a greeting that translates to “may you be inscribed in the Book of Life.” We talk a lot about chai.

And chai, as you may have guessed, has a numeric value of 18.

It’s a very common Jewish practice to give cash gifts in multiples of $18. For Chanukkah last year I donated $36 to my nieces’ Hebrew school, $18 for each of them, without even a moment’s thought to sync up “what I can afford” with “what’s appropriate and meaningful.” My temple does their donation forms in multiples of $18, with a couple of nominally-normal numbers like $50. It’s one of those cool little cultural things. And I promise you, if Charlottesville gets flooded with $18 donations, the white supremacists and Nazis setting up camp there will notice, and they will know what it means.

Fight the 1488 with the 18.

Fight hate with life.

(Non-Jews, feel free to reblog and share this to other platforms. In fact I genuinely and unironically hope you do, because I’d love to see this take off among gentile donators who want a great, nonviolent way to offer a one-two punch.)

wingydings:

I know I don’t talk about my Jewishness a lot but I hope all my Jewish family, friends, and followers are safe in these trying times, and that they know it is ok to take a break if they need to from the media. I know how terrifying it is to watch people actively spew vitriol towards you but remember you are loved and you do not deserve their hatred.

Non Jews (Goyim); feel free to reblog this and please support your Jewish friends

tikkunolamorgtfo:

I don’t know how to explain to goyim that calling out anti-Semitism is not about hurt feelings or crocodile tears and everything to do with the fear of history repeating itself in the form of angry mobs hellbent on attacking Jewish people.

I don’t know how to explain that I am not calling Jay-Z out because I want to silence Black artists; I’m calling him out because I’m genuinely afraid that his false accusation about Jews owning all the property in America will result in people across the nation blaming Jews for the evils of the world and then inciting pogroms (violent mob attacks) against Jewish people.

I don’t know how to explain that I’m not calling out CDM because I don’t care about the liberation of Palestinians; I’m calling them out because I’m worried that if we allow non-Jews to police our beliefs and define for us what our ancient symbols mean, that it could ultimately lead to any displays of public Jewishness being deemed questionable or offensive, which could eventually end in violence against any Jews who are openly Jewish at public events.

I don’t know how to explain to goyim that nearly every Jewish person in the world either grew up with a relative who had to flee their home in the middle of the night because of this type of violence, or they actually experienced this trauma themselves. I don’t know how to tell them that this is an ingrained trauma in almost every existing Jewish family, and that it has been repeated every few generations across the globe since we entered the Diaspora nearly 2,000 years ago.

I don’t know how to explain that when people say almost the exact types of things that were shouted at my relatives by white Russian nationalists as they burned their villages to the ground that it doesn’t matter if you say you’re a progressive or an anti-racist, or you’re also marginalized in some way, because all I hear are the same words people have said to Jews for centuries before physically assaulting them, and I’m worried you’re going to eventually going to assault me, too.

I don’t know how to explain that if goyim read our history they might understand that we Jews have been used as scapegoats for the world’s evils everywhere on the planet from Lithuania to Ethiopia, and that regardless of our standing in society or our level of assimilation, that it’s always ended with our expulsion or murder or both.

I don’t know how to explain that I’m not trying to be petty or “take up space in the movement,” or draw attention away from other causes, but that I’m only asking for you to examine your words and actions now, while I still hope there’s time to pull out the seeds of anti-Semitism that have been planted, because I am literally afraid that if I don’t, you or somebody like you will ultimately be at my doorstep shouting “It’s their fault! Get them! Kill the Jews!”

I don’t know how to explain that I’m afraid you might believe the vitriol behind your words one day enough to kill me.