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Joel S.

@joelhs.bsky.social
15K followers 3.5K following 13K posts

Frieda Wildy Riggs Chair in Religious Studies & Jewish Studies, Sarah Lawrence College. PhD in Religious Studies, University of Chicago. Globalist Elite, Ruthless Cosmopolitan, and Thing-in-Itself-hating Jew. Husband of @petticoatshrink.bsky.social‬.

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 7m
This sort of rhetoric is how pogroms start.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 2h
I don't know; I feel like it's pretty clear why living under queer-hating fascists would make people less likely to identify publicly as queer.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 3h
It's somehow utterly fitting of the right-wing populist program of "National Conservatism" that it has now culminated in Israel inviting antisemitic far-right activists to Jerusalem to proclaim that Holocaust guilt is over.
Tweet from National Conservatism: "Americans, on the right especially, are exhausted by efforts to use the Holocaust as a moral obligation to support Israel. 

They are unmoved by accusations of anti-Semitism and any hardline approaches to disavow and shame Israel's critics.

— 
@L0m3z
 at NatCon Jerusalem."
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 11h
Everything he is saying here is fully vindicating my belief that we need Religious Studies as an academic discipline to begin to understand the culture surrounding AI, and its millenarian fantasies.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 11h
Setting the bar very high for what academics should do with our sabbaticals.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 21h
Maybe the most culturally connected I feel to Mayor Mamdani is that every single progressive Jew has also been called both a Zionist stooge and a Hamas stooge by people on opposite sides.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 22h
"Without a baseline of agreement that each innocent life is invaluable, and thus that each loss is a tragedy and each murder a crime, we inhabit different moral codes and realities." eladnehorai.substack.com/p/a-life-is-...
eladnehorai.substack.com
A Life Is a Life: Thoughts on the Anniversary of October 7th
Today has become marked by debates over whose life matters more rather than mourning the loss of innocents. And that itself is a tragedy.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
My favorite part of this story is the US ambassador to Greece taking bribes in exchange for getting some guy's lyrics to Kid Rock.
"Guilfoyle’s attorney, Binnall, said: “Ambassador Guilfoyle will never apologize for offering to help shed light on a case in which 1,000 children underwent unnecessary, invasive, and debilitating surgeries at that man’s hands.”

Beyond that, Deters and a local guitarist had written a song called “Kentucky Outlaw,” and wanted Guilfoyle to get the lyrics to country-rapper Kid Rock: “He’s a Kentucky outlaw/He fights the man and refuses to crawl.” "
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Zohran Mamdani is living proof it is possible to be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic, and some antisemitic anti-Zionists AND some right-wing Zionists will never forgive him for that.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
While the Republican Party claims to be the "anti-antisemitism" party when it allows them to attack student protestors and Hasan Piker, we don't talk enough about how their campaign is being funded by a guy who quite literally believes Jews have different DNA. religiondispatches.org/2026/10/06/e...
religiondispatches.org
Elon Musk, the World’s Richest Human, Is a White Supremacist
The latest warning about the Republican Party’s far-right turn has come from the unlikeliest of places: conservative commentator, George W. Bush Chief of Staff, and renowned Republican strategist Karl...
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Since it needs to be said: Anti-Islamic bigotry and anti-Arab racism are very real and deserve to be named and studied and confronted on their own terms. But "antisemitism" never meant "bigotry against Semitic peoples," and saying so is bad historiography.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The term was popularized by Wilhelm Marr in the 1880's, to racialize Jews and to cultivate the idea that he hated Jews on modern scientific racial grounds, not premodern theological grounds. No one *is* a Semite; the term was invented as part of racist pseudoscience. This is ahistorical nonsense.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Mayor Mamdani is actually our most centrist politician, if by that you mean, "Getting absurd and bad-faith criticism from all sides."
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The adage "If you're making both sides angry, you must be doing something right" is overused, but in this case, the fact Mayor Mamdani's statement is angering both those mad he mentioned Israel's genocide in a statement on 10/7, and those mad he is mourning Israeli civilians at all, is... telling.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I wrote about Elon Musk, and why it bothers me that he is still first and foremost described in the media as an entrepreneur, rocketeer, or tech mogul, when the most salient fact about him is that he is now the world's most powerful white supremacist. religiondispatches.org/2026/10/06/e...
religiondispatches.org
Elon Musk, the World’s Richest Human, Is a White Supremacist
The latest warning about the Republican Party’s far-right turn has come from the unlikeliest of places: conservative commentator, George W. Bush Chief of Staff, and renowned Republican strategist Karl...
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
"It's unacceptable to intentionally kill civilians, and no amount of killing civilians justifies intentionally killing more civilians in response" seems like a profoundly easy moral stance to take. And yet...
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
This is the best statement I have seen on this awful day. Condemning the indefensible, genocidal actions of the state of Israel without minimizing or rationalizing the war crimes committed on 10/7 itself.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
No one is represented if your opinion is: 10/7/2023 was one of the worst days, because of the war crimes that day AND the genocide that followed, and no civilian deaths are worth celebrating even if the death tolls are grossly unequal, and there is simply nothing to do today but mourn everyone.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The two events outside groups have planned for our students for 10/7 are: one that glorifies "Resistance," and doesn't understand why many find that offensive on 10/7, and a Hillel event that doesn't understand why only talking about Israelis strikes the world as offensive at this point. Sigh.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I wrote about Elon Musk, and why we need to talk about him first and foremost not as an entrepreneur or rocketeer, but as the world’s most powerful white supremacist. religiondispatches.org/2026/10/06/e...
religiondispatches.org
Elon Musk, the World’s Richest Human, Is a White Supremacist
The latest warning about the Republican Party’s far-right turn has come from the unlikeliest of places: conservative commentator, George W. Bush Chief of Staff, and renowned Republican strategist Karl...
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Not only does the Israeli government not care about the safety of the Diaspora, they are actively willing to cultivate ties to figures who make antisemitism worse around the world, if it enables them to steal more land in the West Bank with global impunity. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
US, Israeli and European far-right figures to gather for conference in Israel
Trump’s counter-terrorism ‘czar’, Sebastian Gorka, was scheduled to speak at conference but White House says he will no longer attend
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Reposted by Joel S.
damniel spookradski @self.agency · 06/10/2026
i cannot stress enough how much israel sees diaspora jewry as an instrument to be exploited and not as members of their extended community to whom allegiance is owed as much as it is demanded
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Other people deemed not too antisemitic for Israel include former Polish President Andrzej Duda, who signed Poland's law preventing inquiry into Polish collaboration during the Holocaust, and who accused his opponent in 2020 of wanting to steal Polish property and give it to the Jews as reparations.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Hans-Georg Maaßen's panel in Israel is entitled "Why Elites Embrace Mass Migration as a Tool of Cultural, Racial, and Political Transformation,” which is a direct shout-out to the classically antisemitic Great Replacement conspiracy, which directly inspired the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Hans-Georg Maaßen was deemed too antisemitic to be part of Germany's domestic intelligence agency. But not too antisemitic to be invited to Israel now to present at a conference of the global right, even though German Jews are complaining. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
US, Israeli and European far-right figures to gather for conference in Israel
Trump’s counter-terrorism ‘czar’, Sebastian Gorka, was scheduled to speak at conference but White House says he will no longer attend
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I feel like he was known for a bit more than just being a televangelist.
NBC News: "Televangelist Jim Bakker dies at age 86"
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Seems like if you're going to make a national story out of Hasan Piker, who campaigned a few times with the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, saying Israel causes antisemitism, you should also make a national story out of the favorite intellectual of the US Vice President supporting Hitler.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
It's easy to imagine someone who believes "it would be wonderful if there could be a state that is both Jewish and democratic, but this one does not seem to be, and if forced to choose, I will prioritize democracy." The "everyone is a shy Zionist" theory fails to account for this.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The "Atlantic" parses the fact 88% of US Jews want Israel to exist as a "Jewish, democratic state" but only 37% identify as Zionist as evidence the word is stigmatized. But some of that 51% might believe Zionism is about prioritizing "Jewish" over "democratic," and oppose it on those grounds.
"And Jews have gotten the message. Last year, the Jewish Federations of North America conducted a public-opinion survey on “Jewish Life Since October 7th.” It found that 88 percent of American and Canadian Jews “believe Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state,” but that only 37 percent were willing to call themselves Zionists. Yet it’s clear that most Jews are not opponents of Zionism—only 7 percent of respondents called themselves anti-Zionists. Their problem is not with the idea of Zionism, but with the term itself."
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Truly incredible that this is how the media is choosing to eulogize the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House in US history, who was a serial sexual abuser of children. For all the talk about "deep state" plots to abuse children, no one even remembers this case.
From CBS News: "Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who represented Illinois for two decades in Congress and was later jailed for violating banking laws, has died."
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The claim from American Jewish organizations that "only 37% of US Jews are Zionists because they're too afraid to identify with the word" always seemed like cope. There's no reason why British Jews should be less scared than American Jews of that word - if anything, the opposite.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This new study of UK Jews showing that 66%, two-thirds, identify as Zionist (www.theguardian.com/news/2026/oc...), makes me more skeptical of claims that only 37% of American Jews identify as Zionists (www.jta.org/2026/02/05/u...) because they're too afraid to do so because the word is stigmatized.
theguardian.com
British Jews more likely to identify as Zionist since 7 October attacks, research finds
Percentage who feel ‘very emotionally attached to Israel’ rose to 51% in June 2025, up 13 points from before Gaza war
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The lefty Jews I know and have spoken to in the UK who are considering leaving the party are not doing so because they love Zionism (those who love Zionism aren't Green in the first place), but to preemptively prevent the threat of being grilled about their shul attendance on Yom Kippur.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Yes, that is exactly what I'm hearing from Jewish Greens. That the party won't just say, "We oppose Zionism as an ideology," but, "Jews can be expelled for attending shuls deemed 'Zionist,' even if they disagree with their shuls on various issues," where Zionist shuls are not clearly defined.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I think you're being a bit obtuse if you look at the fact that the party explicitly refused to say "We won't target individual Jews based on the shuls they attend," and don't conclude, "The goal is to at least leave open the possibility of doing that."
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This was an incredibly easy and cost-free way to send the message that the goal is to target an ideology in Palestine-Israel, and not police religious practice in the UK. And... they failed to take it.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
They specifically voted down an amendment clarifying that the goal of the resolution was *not* to target individual Jews for attending "Zionist" shuls. I found this from multiple people covering the conference. The message that sends seems clear. bsky.app/profile/jhol...
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Which is all a long-winded way of saying: These debates about Zionism and anti-Zionism are mostly unhelpful right now, and I wish everyone could just drop these terms unless speaking historically and talk about their political vision for the future in other terms.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Then, having accepted that definition of Zionism, you are deemed antisemitic if you do not support maintaining a Jewish voting majority in the state of Israel above enfranchising everyone equally, so expressing the binationalist politics of someone like Martin Buber gets you labeled antisemitic.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
And the motte-and-bailey is even worse on the other side: Groups like the ADL start by defining Zionism as something completely generic like "Jewish self-determination," which of course you would be antisemitic if you oppose.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The reason some Jews are so skeptical of criticism of Israel, (and this is explanation and not defense), is that you start with "the Israeli government is racist" and end with what the Green Party actually adopted, which is, "Individual UK Jews can be punished for attending shuls we deem Zionist."
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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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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"Yeah, in Germany today, you can't even support far-right efforts to ban Holocaust memorials without someone calling you a Nazi! What is this country coming to?" (www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...
"But Silke Schutz, 63, a baker who called herself a “staunch AfD voter”, described the Stolpersteine as “a waste of money, regardless of who pays for them”.

“There are so many victims no one cares about,” she said, citing people killed in traffic accidents. “We had nothing to do with the war and at some point it [remembrance] has got to come to an end. But when I express my opinion, I’m insulted as a Nazi.”"
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This is also why the fact that most US academics vote Democratic leads people to conclude, “Academics all agree and are in an ideological monoculture,” and not, “Academics have serious ideological differences but all have no choice to vote for the party that doesn’t openly want to destroy us.”
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It would be better for everyone if resolutions saying “Zionism is racism” also said, for example, “Hindutva is racism” and “Sinhala Buddhist nationalism is racism.” It might make Jews feel less singled out, but it would also force pro-Israel people to defend their ideology on its own terms.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
For those whose families lived through the Jewish traumas of Mitteleuropa, it isn't that esoteric why Zionism was once seen this way, even as it has now become Kahanism. The lesson here is not unique to Zionism, but the opposite - how easily liberation movements become the thing they once hated.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Russia has destroyed one-third of all books printed in Ukraine this year. lithub.com/russia-has-d...
lithub.com
Russia has destroyed “one third of all the books printed in Ukraine this year.”
On September 25, The New York Times reported that Russian drones hit a plant on the edge of Kyiv. That plant was home to a printing press, and millions of children’s books. This attack is but…
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
The Holocaust being defined as the sin of Europe par excellence means Jewish nationalism cannot be a “normal” (albeit dangerous) European nationalism like all others; it is seen by one side as justice, which in turn requires the other side to defeat it to end that guilt. This is bad for everyone.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
We would all have better conversations about Zionism if we viewed it as a nationalism like all others, akin to diaspora Serbian nationalism from Canadian Serbs. Not a civil rights or social justice cause, but also not a way Jewish people are abnormal or ontologically evil.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I once heard someone ask a queer Catholic why he kept attending Church, when they denied the beauty of his relationship. He said, “As hard as it is that my family can’t see all of me, leaving them entirely would be worse.” This is a post about Jews repulsed by the actions of modern state of Israel.
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