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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 1h

I've studied Zionism and taught it in the Jewish community at a high school level. No one in the community whom I've ever encountered speaks about it in the terms you are using.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 1h

My household was able to get into a middle income unit in Downtown Silver Spring a number of years ago (we left NJ for 8 years but it always pulls you back) The best aspect of the program in MoCo is that once you are in it is okay to earn a certain % above the threshold, which itself goes up w/COL

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 1h

It's a huge issue with any means testing - there are always going to be people and households who make too much but also not enough. A huge issue with FEDERAL programs is that the cutoff is the cutoff, which can mean popping in and out of qualification constantly and having to reapply. (More>>)

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 2h

Nope, Jewish. It is what it is.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 3h

The last guy I argued with about this fact spent every other post telling me how ignorant I am of Jewish text, tefillah, and Jewish history.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 3h

But Zionism was a very new take on that yearning. What came before is vital to the development of Zionism, but it wasn't the same thing. No one could have written Auto-Emancipation before the 19th century; it wouldn't have made sense.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 3h

Thanks for the correction - I overstated my case because I am very aware of the second half of your response. (Hope that you had a good chag!)

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 13h

It's been a while. I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Oct 6th 2026 (Medium), in 03:32 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 cluesbysam.com

cluesbysam.com

Clues by Sam

A daily logic puzzle where you deduce who is a criminal!

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 14h

Add in that the mainstream Jewish community has been telling anyone to the left of AIPAC to STFU and that they aren't Zionist enough for nearly 20 years now. Maybe a lot of Jews are finally deciding that the mainstream institutions are correct, but not the way the institutions want.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 14h

Well, you would need something stronger than anecdotes to make that argument. My FB feed is heavily pro-Israel/Zionist. The same stories tend to circulate among my friends and follows for days at a time making it seem like a given issue is much more pervasive than it actually is.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 14h

I was just discussing these points with someone else. The following is based on other results from the same survey as the 37/88 split is from: bsky.app/profile/eita...

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 15h

Also, have you *read* the Talmud? How broad the approaches to Jewish observance and though can get? This is what we DO.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 15h

It's not that hard so far. We don't have flags on the bimah, the rabbi generally doesn't talk about Israel in her sermons, and we've been able to make a couple of smart decisions about events that outside groups ask us to promote. Is it sustainable? Who knows, we're small and just over a year old.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 16h

I'm talking about synagogues, federations, and Hillels - the orgs that make up the backbone of American Judaism. I think that their collective 20 year message of "you call yourself Zionists, but you really aren't" is finally resulting in a lot of Jews responding "ok, then I'm not".

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 16h

None of this is new; instead it's been intensified in a post 10/7 Jewish community. I can list multiple examples from the past two decades of mainstream American Jewish institutions shutting their doors to speakers and organizations who were Zionist but left wing. (More>>>)

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 16h

Overall, the typical American Jewish institution is a lot more comfortable making space for a hardliner - say a Ben Gvir supporter - than for someone who isn't anti-Zionist but who believes that Gaza is a genocide (like 50% of the no label group). (More>>)

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 16h

You also have 49% saying that the "community doesn't allow for nuanced conversation" and 35% saying that if their views were known they wouldn't be welcome in their community. In my experience the "nuanced conversation" group rarely includes members of the "not hardline enough" group. (More>>>)

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 16h

39% say community is too hardline but 34% it isn't hardline *enough*. It's reasonable to assume that the group that want a more hardline approach make up a large proportion of the ones who identify as Zionist, possibly pushing the other group away from the term. (More>>>)

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 17h

Did you also go through the "Israel conversations" deck? I think that it helps inform some of the responses in the Zionism deck, especially how Jews are seeing all this reflected in our institutions.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 17h

A few minutes ago every #Yankees fan was yelling at their TV "It's only a double! It's only a double!"

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 18h

I think that you'll find useful info in the decks that JFNA put together when they reported the numbers.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 18h

I think that the opposite is happening - people are forming opinions on Israel, especially Gaza, and then experiencing a disconnect when they see the statements and actions of mainstream institutions. You follow the below link to data and decide for yourself (read the two Israel decks)

jewishdatabank.org

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 18h

The debates surrounding the meaning of Zionism, anti-Zionism, etc

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 18h

Our disagreement is over whether this disconnect is because of outside pressure making "Zionism" a dirty word or whether it is Jews looking at Israel's current behavior, looking at the behavior of our mainstream institutions, and deciding for themselves that they aren't comfortable with that ID.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 18h

I think that you've both lost the thread of what this discussion is about AND have become unnecessarily defensive. Your response here makes no sense in the context of trying to understand why nearly 90% of American Jews favor a Jewish state but only 37% call themselves Zionists. (More>>>)

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Lux 🌸 Alptraum @luxalptraum.com · 05/10/2026

I just feel like so much of how people talk about consequences for rapists just reveals the poverty of imagination and lack of understanding of how ill-equipped the criminal justice system is to handle something like rape

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 19h

There are a number of other choices besides (1) buy the book new for $$$ (2) pirate the book or (3) don't learn. You are presenting a false choice here and as a result making a bad argument. (If you didn't learn that theft is wrong while growing up I can't help you there.)

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 19h

"imo a person should be allowed to pirate all their textbooks because they want to learn from them. and a person should be able to download every book in the world because they want to write a future novel." So strive for that world, but in the here and now both things are (a) theft and (b) wrong.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 19h

I feel like I would really enjoy D&D - I'm beginning to get involved with a group that meets every other week at a local library but beyond that every local game I've found is $15 to $25 a session at a gaming store, which I can't justify right now. I feel like online could be a good opportunity.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 19h

Sitting here chuckling and my wife has no idea why.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 19h

Any time I've tried discord I've found it utterly overwhelming, especially visually. I lose track of what's happening so quickly.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 19h

I've my whole life interacting with institutional Judaism as both an insider and an outsider - I'm confident in my assessment of what's going on in the community. You don't agree? It is what it is.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 19h

Formal definitions are irrelevant here - it's a mix of what they call out, what they are silent on, and yes, when they do and don't level accusations of antisemitism.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 19h

Josh Marshall has written some interesting essays about this exact sort of backlash. A lot of it is paywalled (and Talking Points Memo is worth every penny btw) but here's one from early September about the phenomenon: talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/is-th...

talkingpointsmemo.com

Is the Data Center Backlash Just NIMBY Run Amok?

In response to my post about this data center backlash outside of...

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 20h

If there's a transcript or human generated summary I'll read it, but I'm not putting time into listening to a podcast to understand your point.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 20h

I wrote this in response to someone else and I stand by it - maybe some of this is outside pressure but an ideological disconnect over Israel between the average American Jew and our mainstream institutions has been building for years. bsky.app/profile/eita...

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 20h

(reposting with an edit) As a side issue, I think that this response to SA survivors also removes all of their agency in deciding whether to engage with their attacker in any way in the future. (Not remotely as important as what you are pointing out)

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 21h

Not all bad things have a US origin. Ghettos existed in Europe centuries before the Nazis used them. Yes there was junk race science in the US, but PLENTY of it had a European origin Hitler's lawyers got some ideas for Nuremberg laws from Jim Crow, but apart from that little was direct influence.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 21h

There was no major Dem GOTV operation in NJ in '24 - can't speak for the other states. If someone had actually invested here I don't think the slide would have been nearly as pronounced. 0 political advertising for anyone outside the Philly media market. GOTV efforts were about door knocking in PA

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Two Questions @twoquestions.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

These people have buffer-overflowed into gutter bigotry without noticing.

Only The West => US => Democratic Party => Hillary Clinton Has Agency

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 21h

The only ones with agency in the world are the people and institutions I dislike. Everyone else is an NPC.

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Lux 🌸 Alptraum @luxalptraum.com · 23h

I don't wish sexual assault or IPV or any form of abuse on anyone, the same way I don't wish a broken leg or cancer or mental illness on anyone, but I also don't think that people who live with any of these realities are somehow permanently ruined the way people talk about SA/DV survivors.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 23h

My whole point is that there's an entire swath of American Jews who are rejecting the framing of our mainstream institutions. Therefore the distinction indeed does matter when they choose not to call themselves Zionist even when they support a theoretical state of Israel that doesn't currently exist

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 23h

Sometimes the cameras are wrong, maybe because of calibration, maybe because there are Street lines that were never repainted after repaving. Still, I think it's a much better system than the Police pulling people over alternative.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I can't comment on philosophy because I have no expertise in that area. I have at least some expertise in the history and continued development of Zionism. The divisions matter because knowing which flavor a given Israeli party is part of tells us a LOT about how they will govern.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I saw the Hadestown tour there, and if I begin going to shows again (disability + cost a barrier) then I will always check to see what they have. What an incredible venue!

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

MD's system isn't perfect, but it cuts down immensely on police interactions and has made school and construction zones a LOT safer for the people in them.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I disagree with this assertion - if someone understands the definition of Zionism to be the one adopted by the ADL and UJA, which means broadly supporting any actions Israel takes in the name of "security", then it is reasonable to still want a Jewish/democratic state while rejecting the label.

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Strong Jersey איתן @eitang.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I have found them helpful as the board member of a shul that says the Zionist prayers after Torah reading but is also trying to be a welcoming space for all Jews regardless of their relationship with and approach to Israel.

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

"The version of Zionism the Israeli government put forward is racist" is a completely defensible and true statement. But that's not what the resolution says, is it?

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