Lux Alptraum לקס אלפטראום
@luxalptraum.com
Journalist, author, podcaster, bon vivant.
לפעמים אני כותבת בעברית כי אני לומדת עברית ורוצה להשתפר. תיקונים מדוברי עברית תמיד מוערכים.
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It bothers me a lot because it always seems to imply that the world was better when the Jew knew his place
Like don’t get me wrong, I’m bizarrely optimistic and geared towards working for peace and justice and universal human rights, but there are only so many times I can hear about how Jews did great in the pre-Israel Muslim world from someone who doesn’t know what a dhimmi is
One of the reasons I have become more Hobbesian in my age is because every time someone points to a “golden era” of peace and human cooperation that supposedly existed in the past they always seem to edit out the struggles of a group whose suffering that peace and prosperity was built on
I have fond memories of Christmas with my grandma, but it was also *her* holiday that my family was participating and not *my* holiday
Oh, ha, my mom was raised Catholic (tho converted) so while I never had Christmas at home I did travel to my Catholic grandma’s to do Christmas with her, which is what adds complexity to my story.
I drew those for my Bat Mitzvah invites! (Yes I designed my own cards)
I mean in the US there is very little bar to celebrating Christmas if one wants to. The issue is the extreme pressure to participate even if you don’t.
אוקיי: *אתמול* לא קיבלתי את היוגורט הכי טוב. אבל *היום* כן אקבל במבה וביסלי. אז, יש לי סיבה טובה ללכת למנהטן.
Not irrelevant at all and a very good example of why I feel very weird when people try to de-Jewify the show
This isn’t a response to anyone in particular, it’s just a take I see periodically when people are trying to frame Fiddler as “universal,” esp when talking about its popularity with non-Jews
It’s a take I see periodically, esp when non-Jews perform the show; people will use a line like that to talk about why it’s big countries where there are no Jews
It’s a take I see periodically, esp when non-Jews perform the show; people will use a line like that to talk about why it’s big countries where there are no Jews
The loss of a traditional way of life that’s documented in the story doesn’t happen because of immigration but rather a range of other, more complex social factors, and then the musical ends with ethnic cleansing.
“Fiddler on the Roof is a universal immigrant story” is a bizarre thing to say given that it’s not really about immigration
Also Shintoism is structured very differently from other religions!
Yeah I mean Halloween is hated by hardcore Christians and Valentine’s just feels like a greeting card company holiday at this point
These arguments don’t make Christmas “secular” or “universal,” they simply mean pagans and Japanese people have similar celebrations to what Christians do
It’s very weird to me when people whip out “Christmas isn’t Christian, it’s pagan” or “Christmas isn’t Christian, it’s big in Japan” as tho I’m a Japanese pagan
I wore a Magen David necklace for a while — I think it was a Bat Mitzvah present — and it’s in my senior yearbook portrait, but I lost it at some point, sadly. I don’t know if I would get another because I don’t want people assuming it’s me being pro-Israel (sigh) but I do want a Jewish necklace.
I also wrote a letter to the local (very small town) newspaper saying that schools should not have Christmas trees or Christmas celebrations when I was probably 7.
I got a lot of this from my parents, but I was also very put off by the “Christmas is for everyone” vibe.
The really complicated wrinkle here is I am always happy to go to the personal Christmas celebrations of family and friends — the same way a non-Jewish friend might attend my family’s seder. I just don’t like the culture of MANDATORY participation.
My aversion to Christmas has always been … a challenge … in my romantic relationships; I don’t think I was ever fully able to verbalize that I associate Santa hats with being bullied as a kid
To this day I hate Santa hats
When I was a kid I “protested” other kids wearing Santa hats in school by wearing a kippah once, and then also briefly wore a shirt that said SuperJew. I was not popular!
I had a period where I looked back on that moment as cringe, but now I think that little girl was making good points.
When I was a kid I “protested” other kids wearing Santa hats in school by wearing a kippah once, and then also briefly wore a shirt that said SuperJew. I was not popular!
I had a period where I looked back on that moment as cringe, but now I think that little girl was making good points.
Like, most of Israel is *highly* segregated — people openly talk about “Arab villages” and “Jewish villages” and “mixed cities” — and that’s *completely* separate from the accusations of apartheid, which are primarily about the occupation of the West Bank.
Israel is also geographically small enough that that means less than it would in the US.
“Metro area” is doing a lot of work here though; the metro area isn’t identical to Tel Aviv.
But I feel like it works in part because he probably started with a baseline of “the Muslims hate freedom and gays” instilled in him post-9/11
It’s times like this that I remember that part of why things like “freedom of speech” and “right to peacefully assemble” are in the US Constitution is because we splintered off from the UK. (Not that we’re doing great in terms of protecting protests these days.)
This is staggering. Jailed for walking slowly down a road in London for a climate protest and in court they were not allowed to mention climate change as justification for their action. The UK is an authoritarian state. #UKpol www.theguardian.com/uk-news/arti...
UK climate activists convicted in first trial of new anti-protest laws
Phoebe Plummer, Chiara Sarti and Daniel Hall took part in protest march last year in Just Stop Oil campaign
www.theguardian.comIt’s not uncommon to hear people — even non-Jews — talk about how they love Israel because they spent time in Tel Aviv and it was amazing and cosmopolitan and liberal, not realizing that this is like spending time in New York City and concluding all of America loves public transportation.
Poor guy, only a net gain of 100k followers due to his rabidly pro-Israel videos. He is truly suffering for his stances. www.haaretz.com/life/2024-03...
(I can also understand pro-Israel influencers like Mansor Ashkar, because as an Israeli Druze he is working through his own shit and has skin in the game)
When Jews are doing the hardcore Zionist shit I find it gross but can at least point to, for instance, the extensive history of violent antisemitism and current state of global antisemitism to explain why some of my people turn violent and bigoted in fear. But a non-Jewish pro-Israel influencer?????
I don’t like to make assumptions about people’s Jewishness based on name or appearance but something just seemed off about him and I checked and… nope, not Jewish, real but “you don’t even go here” energy
One of the biggest moments of cognitive dissonance for me over the past few months was when one of my right wing Zionist cousins posted in shock that she couldn’t believe this college student had been shot as though she would not be defending his murder if he were a few thousand miles away.
This is a very good read: www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/o...
Opinion | I Was Shot in Vermont. What if It Had Been in the West Bank?
The dehumanization of Palestinians has become a norm.
www.nytimes.comGiven that Israel doesn’t allow for absentee voting, leaving the country means voiding your ability to vote for leadership. I have no idea what the actual demographic breakdowns are but I’d be curious to know if there’s more left or right sentiment among expats.
Okay actually one more point on this — I think my parents’ story is illustrative of something bigger, which is that, in Israel at least, the right wing tilt can become self reinforcing as people with political objections and the ability to leave… leave