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James Baldwin on why he did not join the Nation of Islam also offers one of the most cogent explanations for why political Zionism in its current ultranationalist form has been so damaging to Jewish culture.

"No one seems to know where the Nation of Islam gets its money. A vast amount, of course, is contributed by Negroes, but there are rumors to the effect that people like the Birchites and certain Texas oil millionaires look with favor on the movement. I have no way of knowing whether there is any truth to the rumors, though since these people make such a point of keeping the races separate, I wouldn’t be surprised if for this smoke there was some fire. In any case, during a recent Muslim rally, George Lincoln Rockwell, the chief of the American Nazi party, made a point of contributing about twenty dollars to the cause, and he and Malcolm X decided that, racially speaking, anyway, they were in complete agreement. The glorification of one race and the consequent debasement of another—or others—always has been and always will be a recipe for murder. There is no way around this. If one is permitted to treat any group of people with special disfavor because of their race or the color of their skin, there is no limit to what one will force them to endure, and, since the entire race has been mysteriously indicted, no reason not to attempt to destroy it root and branch. This is precisely what the Nazis attempted. Their only originality lay in the means they used. It is scarcely worthwhile to attempt remembering how many times the sun has looked down on the slaughter of the innocents. I am very much concerned that American Negroes achieve their freedom here in the United States. But I am also concerned for their dignity, for the health of their souls, and must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them. I think I know—we see it around us every day—the spiritual wasteland to which that road leads. It is so simple a fact and one that is so hard, apparently, to grasp: Whoever debases others is debasing himself. That is not a mystical statement but a most realistic one, which is proved by the eyes of any Alabama sheriff—and I would not lik…

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This is a good answer, but I’m worried he’s just going to give the anti-trans people the idea to launch an Islamophobic and antisemitic campaign against circumcision, too.

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One of the biggest misconceptions people in the US seem to have is that legal or illegal status are not moral statuses one achieves by doing things the “proper” way, but simply legal fictions bestowed and revoked by the state at will.

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"White people were, and are, astounded by the holocaust in Germany. They did not know that they could act that way. But I very much doubt whether Black people were astounded—at least, in the same way." - James Baldwin

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🐈‍⬛️כעלעמער קאַץ @orphanim.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Can't "give these guys an inch." It's all about factional fights with these people, and caring about antisemitism puts you on the wrong team. No possibility that maybe Dr. El-Sayed is just a decent person who was genuinely upset by Piker's comments, and made the statement for that reason.

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Reposted by Joel S.

like i try my hardest but even i get pretty pessimistic about it, and i dont want to give into zionist pessimism that we truly are on our own

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Reposted by Joel S.

🐈‍⬛️כעלעמער קאַץ @orphanim.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

and even if we talk about how young progressive Jews are going to shift the conversation in our communities,its not going to happen by being more marginalized, degraded, slandered, and backstabbed by a left that is the only others we can have solidarity with. this partially what happened to the Bund

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Reposted by Joel S.

🐈‍⬛️כעלעמער קאַץ @orphanim.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

his entire career is built on finding things to be inflammatory about. if he didnt nobody would find him entertaining, and thats largely what he does. its a circus.

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Reposted by Joel S.

🐈‍⬛️כעלעמער קאַץ @orphanim.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

some go "oh well Hasan you see distinguishes and says not all Jews here!" ok great awesome 👍 now what is he doing to live up to that? is he genuinely interested in solidarity, or just talking shit from behind a screen in his tailored clothes and mansion

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🐈‍⬛️כעלעמער קאַץ @orphanim.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

this is why when people go "we have to be mean" im in need of a bit more clarification

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🐈‍⬛️כעלעמער קאַץ @orphanim.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

i really really dont like how pop leftism has overlapped with the same social demeanor and rhetoric that used to categorize red hat conservatives and fascists. its sometimes indistinguishable except one has a hammer and sickle or mao picture

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🐈‍⬛️כעלעמער קאַץ @orphanim.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

calling people "inbred" is also not a leftist or progressive praxis, i shouldn't have to explain that.

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🐈‍⬛️כעלעמער קאַץ @orphanim.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

sure right wingers also dont like him, sometimes. that doesnt mean he's automatically righteous. thats just campist nonsense.

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🐈‍⬛️כעלעמער קאַץ @orphanim.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

i dont give a fuck about anything Hasan has to say and anyone who defends him is sus and untrustworthy and willing to hold water for the worst antisemitic excesses on the left

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There is a narrower point to be made about how the fact that the term “genocide” was coined in reference to the Holocaust has exceptionalized Jews in unhelpful ways, even as it was applied to earlier events like the Armenian and Herero-Nama genocides. But that’s not a reason not to use it in Gaza.

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The Nexus Project is a progressive organization that has repeatedly disagreed with the ADL on questions such as whether it is antisemitic to be anti-Zionist or to believe Israel is guilty of genocide. And they, too, are concerned about Piker’s comments here. Nexus is always worth hearing.

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Opinion | From Armenia to Gaza: The language of denial that makes atrocities possible

“Agentless constructions – including passives and sentences built around unaccusative verbs – turn an event into a process that happened by itself, like a change in the weather: "Clashes developed"; "an escalation occurred."” www.haaretz.com/opinion/2026...

haaretz.com

From Nazi 'language rules' to the American military's 'collateral damage' and Israel's 'voluntary migration' policy for Gaza, euphemisms do more than conceal crimes. They allow ordinary people to live...

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Reposted by Joel S.

The other day I saw someone respond to an anti-Zionist Jew who was fretting that someone would firebomb his kid's preschool (and others would justify it) bc it was at a synagogue with an Israeli flag out front by saying that if he didn't want that to happen he should disenroll his child.

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Reposted by Joel S.

It's a classic motte-and-bailey. On the one hand, say you're only targeting a subset of Jews whose "entire identity is Israel", but then define the predicates for tagging a Jew as in the subset as basically any Jew who does something one disagrees with that has an Israel connection.

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Reposted by Joel S.

I'm not sure if there were people who said "X Dem politician not endorsing Biden will eventually lead to people violently attacking American Muslims", but any such people are bad people, and that's true even though I think not endorsing Biden was extremely bad.

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Reposted by Joel S.

The Moss/AES thing is revealing, bc it shows how far forward the alleged trigger is for when Piker says it's Jews fault for "inciting" antisemitism. I *strongly* believe all Dems should endorse AES; Moss is flat wrong not to. But we're still a far cry from "ride or die Bibi".

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Exactly. If you say, "The Al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11/01 led to more Islamophobic violence in the US," this is a descriptive claim which is unfortunately true. But if you say, "Sunni Muslims who don't formally dissociate from al-Qaeda are causing Islamophobia," you are doing something quite different.

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This is the tension between the descriptive role of commentator and the prescriptive role of operative. By saying "Israel increases antisemitism" he gives a permission structure for people not to care about antisemitism, but when called on it, he can retreat to "I'm just describing, not condoning."

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Nothing in this passage from Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent convinces me that he has ever actually read Pascal. Which would actually make him the ideal defender of a certain kind of "Western civilization" fetishism.

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I have said before many times that Nakba denial and Gaza genocide denial should be seen as a moral redline akin to Shoah denial, and I hold to that. But Hasan Piker is a Uyghur genocide denier, which needs to be seen on the Western left as every bit as much of a red line.

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It isn’t true that most American Jews tie their entire identities to Israel, and Piker should know that. But also, if he really believes current political discourse makes antisemitism worse, that should be a case for taking it more seriously. For him, it’s an excuse not to take it seriously.

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Some people apparently believe “Hasan Piker, who has an audience of millions, should do basic research about American Jews and their opinions, based on readily available poll data, before talking about them” is an unreasonable standard. Which is why I find streamers deleterious on our discourse.

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The thing about this is polls consistently show that most American Jews do not define their identities primarily in terms of Israel, but the ones who do are disproportionately represented at orgs like the AJC and ADL. That's bad, but it's worse that Piker is misinforming his large audience that way.

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Report: IDF kills 14-year-old, hangs Israeli flag on mosque in West Bank raids

Antisemitism is very real in the US, and seems to be on the rise. But it does no one any good, least of all Jews, to pretend, as the ADL seems to believe, that antisemitism is the only reason or even the main reason people are horrified by this. www.haaretz.com/west-bank/20...

haaretz.com

A witness said troops opened fire as they withdrew from Nablus' al-Askar camp, killing Islam Ajouri, 14. In a separate raid, soldiers raised an Israeli flag over a mosque in Nur Shams, one of several ...

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I see a lot of Jewish writers argue that Bundism objectively failed because it did not stop Nazism. But if all ideologies are to be assessed by how well they stopped Nazism during World War II, I guess we should all become Stalinists.

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The Decades-Long Effort to Keep the Nazi Pasts of German Politicians Quiet

Thorough investigation of how the US kept the Nazi pasts of many postwar West German politicians quiet, so they could allow anti-Communists to run the West German government. At least 57 ex-Nazis served in the West German Bundestag in 1976. derspiegel.substack.com/p/the-decade...

derspiegel.substack.com

After World War II, the US found itself in possession of millions of NSDAP membership cards, including for politicians who built up democratic West Germany. The most sensitive ones were locked away.

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No one seriously argues that chemists should be spending their time refuting people who believe in phlogiston. The people saying we need to debate the race science charlatans believe race science is legitimate enough to be part of academic discourse, but are unwilling to admit it openly.

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Jewish cemetery in Poland damaged during unsupervised repairs, org. tells 'Post' | The Jerusalem Post

"A bulldozer that entered the Jewish cemetery in Brzesko, Poland, as part of work to renovate a collapsed wall, drove over graves, smashed gravestones, and dug directly into graves without halachic supervision." www.jpost.com/diaspora/ant...

jpost.com

The tractor entered through the main entrance and broke many tombstones on the way to the work area, scattering human bone fragments, J-nerations told the Post.

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Sam Brody @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

There are certainly debates between two positions that are worth having. But the very act of debating implies that there are two sides that have intellectual merit, that are worth seriously engaging. This is why you can’t win a debate with race science people. They win by engaging with them at all.

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Reposted by Joel S.

some debates go on forever, like free will v determinism some debates are settled, like "is the earth round" and "is the human species divisible into hierarchically ordered races" if any crank or fascist can reopen any debate just by being an asshole, there's essentially no such thing as knowledge

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The idea that we need “intellectual diversity” in academia conflicts with the idea that the goal of some fields should be to learn actual truths. We don’t need to hire young earth creationists in geology departments, because the field has taught us young earth creationism is false.

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If you can’t prove why Nazi race theories are good for the Jews, academic freedom is dead. If you can’t prove humoral medicine is real, academic freedom is dead. If chemistry departments don’t employ people who believe in phlogiston, academic freedom is dead.

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The "academic" (and I use the word loosely) responsible for the death of Jason Arday apparently believes in what is basically Nazi race science about Jews, but thinks it's good for the Jews this time.

from Nathan Cofnas: "Ashkenazi IQ is around 110-112 (sorry, J IQ truthers), but Jewish success goes far beyond what can be explained by IQ alone. It does not follow that Jewish intellectual accomplishment is an illusion or due to nepotism. This is an important point that race realists need to understand.

Jews (particularly Ashkenazim) were subject to evolutionary selection pressures—presumably the ability to succeed in white-collar professions and/or Talmudic study—that favored higher general intelligence (g). The same selection pressures would have favored non-g traits and abilities that contribute to success in business or scholarship. Some of these traits and abilities may not be measured by IQ tests.

There are obviously personality differences between Jews and non-Jews. Jews are stereotyped as being, for example, "shrewd," and we know that stereotypes generally have a basis in reality. On average, Jews are better than gentiles at capitalizing on their g. It's not a coincidence that Chris Langan (loser with IQ 200) is a gentile and Stephen Jay Gould (dazzling "genius" with IQ 125) is a Jew.

We see a similar phenomenon with East Asians. A Korean American with an IQ of 105 is way more likely to graduate from college, get a white-collar job, and make a lot of money than his non-Asian/non-Jewish IQ equal. That's not because Koreans are cheaters, but because Korean IQ 105 is different from British IQ 105."

from Nathan Cofnas: "I think high average Jewish IQ may predate the Sephardi/Ashkenazi split.

Sephardim had Ashkenazi-level achievement in Spain. Italian Jews (who belong to a third group) dominated journalism and were wildly overrepresented in academia, the upper echelons of the military, and other high-status professions. When Sephardim came to Britain in the 18th century they produced figures like David Ricardo and Benjamin Disraeli. Maimonides and Moses de León (author of the Zohar) were Sephardim. Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (arguably the most important religious philosopher besides Maimonides) was Italian. Spinoza—the most important pre-20th century secular Jewish philosopher—was Sephardi.

There were historically unique opportunities to manifest genius in early 20th-century America and Western Europe. By that time, the Sephardic population had been decimated through intermarriage (they started mass intermarrying 100 years before Ashkenazim) and the bulk of the population was concentrated in the Ottoman Empire.

Would Einstein have come up with the theory of special relativity if he had been running around Istanbul wearing a fez? Hard to say.

Hopefully will be resolved with ancient DNA."

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Ynet: Mamdani is fueling antisemitic violence, Jewish federation chief says | The Jewish Federations of North America

This is just embarrassing. The Jewish Federations are blaming Mamdani for antisemitic violence committed by people who openly hated Mamdani. www.jewishfederations.org/blog/all/yne... This sort of thing actively undermines the fight against real antisemitism, and makes Jews less safe.

jewishfederations.org

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Silly me, I thought you could volunteer for free.

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Sometimes I think about the giant Tony Soprano statue at the Vilnius train station in Lithuania.

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This feels like every day during the second Trump administration.

Kafka diary: "August 2, 1914: Germany has declared war on Russia. Went swimming in the afternoon."

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