Not Anonymous

It's Erev Pesach (Passover Eve, for you my most beloved gentile readers) and with it come all my feelings of self doubt, waning self worth and over all loneliness.

I thought I'd be used to it by now. But alas, it is the same with every major Holiday that includes a long meal and adherence to a thousand year old tradition. Tradition that has changed many times over, but for this queer lady feels as suffocating as the dust storms that come with the season.

In America there's a cute tradition that is kind of mocked here. Adding an orange to the Seder plate to be inclusive of the LGBT people of the Jewish tribe. As you can read from the column it's been misinterpreted regarding the inclusion of women.

Which in Israel should be a thing when you consider the fact that Jewish women cannot practice freedom of religion.

But I digress, as it had not been my intention to talk about the broader politics of the holiday also known as the holiday of freedom and liberation.

I have to practice the age old tradition foisted on Jewish women known as Shalom Bayit, meaning "Peace in the Home". It is usually talked about married life and the onus of the wife to make sure the marriage is sustained and kept stable, no matter what.

Don't rock of the boat.

I've come to despise the word peace. It is of no value and meaning to me. There's a phenomenon that happens when you read or hear a word repeated over and over again in different contexts and it reaches a degree of saturation that makes you sick of it.

It's called semantic satiation. I am sick of peace.

I recently read Sarah Schulman's book Israel/Palestine and the Queer International, which I whole heartedly recommend, as I would anything by Sarah. None of the material is new to me, but the framing is fascinating and poignant and shows the degrees of separation between the facts on the ground when it comes to the Occupation and the way the average Israeli (and those who hear only Israeli facts) perceives the "situation".

Israelis for years have been calling the systemic oppression and annexation of land the "Situation". As though it is temporary. As though it is something outside our control.

As I read the chronicle of Sarah's journey from ignorant American Jew to Palestine solidarity activist my heart felt heavier and heavier.

One of the feminist and lesbian activists that Sarah quotes in the book is asked by an Israeli man, "But how will there be peace?"

She replied rather poignantly, "I don't want peace, I want freedom and justice."

I can safely that I don't want peace either and feel as light as a feather.

Tumblr crossover

No sirens today.

A bus exploded in Tel Aviv.

I'm fine and no one I know, as far as I'm aware, was among the injured.

I'll have some more to say later, most likely.

I'm just... really tired right now.

I mean, a bus blew up in Tel Aviv.

This...

I don't know.

To anyone and everyone who is (re)blogging or (re)posting or (re)tweeting pictures of dead or injured children (or anyone) connected to the current violence raging in Israel/Palestine, please stop.

Please stop spreading images of the worst time in someone's life.

Please stop spreading images of salacious violence.

Please stop spreading images of death that are used as propaganda.

Please stop enabling the callous and cynical use of pain and suffering.

Please stop enabling the media to be a source of death pornography.

The use of dead children to create sympathy says more about you, than about anything else.

I ask this, not because I am a sensitive and delicate flower who cannot abide the image of blood or of poor dead babies. No, it is because I despise the use of pain and suffering of real people as an attempt to manipulate my emotions.

I hope the worst time of your lives aren't used so callously.

"So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as our impotence. To that extent, it can be (for all our good intentions) an impertinent- if not inappropriate- response."

Susan Sontag, "Regarding the Pain of Others"

Orginally posted on my tumblr. Twice.

If you follow international news about the Middle East, you will know that there has been an escalation of violence between Hamas and the IDF in the Gaza strip. You will also know, that there was an exchange of fire between Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights for the first time since 1973.

Very likely, this is spillover from the civil war and not actually intended for us, but you know, we fired warning shots back.

All of the above made think of the song "Love Is All Around" by The Troggs:


Only with alternate lyrics, which you can read under the cut.

Come on everyone, sing it with me. Consider this my pre-Local-Elections fanfare and transformative art, the prosody is a bit meh with my changes, but you'll cut me some slack on that one, right?

( War Is All Around )

We're not.

Organizers of the pro-Palestinian campaign said that more than 1,500 foreigners from at least 15 countries had planned to travel to Bethlehem in the West Bank for what they described as a week of peaceful activities in solidarity with the Palestinians.
[...]
Israel had provided the airlines with the names of hundreds of people whom the government said would face immediate deportation. Once notified, the airlines would bear the responsibility and cost of flying the passengers back to their point of departure.

By early Sunday afternoon, 17 suspected activists had been refused entry, the Interior Ministry said, among them 15 French nationals, a Portuguese and a Canadian.
[...]

Emphasis mine.

The article mentioned an official letter that came out of the Israeli Prime Minister's office that was given to activists who did manage to land and enter Israel.

The gist of it, that there are more worthy causes like in Syria, Gaza and Iran and they suggest they go help with the "real problem of the region".

Here is a copy of the letter* handed out to the activists.



Footnote:
*This letter is a work of satire, not written by me. Whoever wrote it, is a genius.

Just because Israel doesn't automatically persecute gay men, lesbian women, bisexual people and trans people, mean that Israel is so bloody progressive when it comes to LGBT rights.

As regular readers know, I've been pretty vigilant about the way the LGBT community is being used as a way to cover up the disastrous human rights violations Israel commits on a daily basis, not only to the various ethnic minorities, but to LGBT people - a minority that crosses ethnic and religious "divides".

"Pinkwashing" isn't new, but it's getting a lot of news due to the fact that Israel's "re-branding" is, hah, failing.

Back in November, Sarah Schulman wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about this strategy that Israel uses, through its foreign ministry, its tourist industry - don't you know that Americans voted Tel Aviv as the best Gay city in the world! - and just plain flinging all those wonderful "rights" us queers have in the Holy land. Excuse me, I must go vomit.

Taking all that into account - the fact that there is this constant push and pull regarding Israel's image as a liberal oasis in a desert of religious conservatism - people seem to forget that all those "rights" lovingly bestowed onto the gay community (and yes, there is a big difference between the gay men and every other group put together in the alphabet soup of LGBT) are not presented accurately to the world, or more to the point to the United States.

A recent pinkwashing op-ed by a fellow by the name of Scott Piro wrote that:

Israel is the only Middle Eastern country where people are not persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

He then lays out the "facts" about Israeli LGBT life:
Israel has passed anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTs.

Formal laws, do not rights make. Not to mention that women still receive 75% of the average salary as opposed to men. Consider a two women house-hold, when both women work in what is considered a "second-salary slot".
I can't even begin to tell you how fucked transgender people are when it comes to labour, because no one will fucking hire them - trans people are not protected under anti-discrimination laws with regards to the work place - putting that T in LGBT, launders the reality of trans people in Israel, who I can safely say are the most fucked over group under the queer umbrella.
Unless they also happen to be Palestinian. More on that, in a bit.
And sure, businesses are not allowed to discriminate against same-sex couples or people who have a gender non-conforming appearance, but hey, if you're a religious institution you most certainly can!
That's just the tip, of course.

Israel Recognizes same-sex marriages performed abroad.
No, Israel does not. It writes on the ID card "married" for couples who got married in a country where same-sex marriage is legal, because international law requires that there be equal status in all documents. The fact is, if you are same-sex couple and you got married in, say, Canada (like many of the wealthier gays and lesbians do), your status will be written, but not recognised and you have the same rights as a registered co-habitated or common-law married couple.

So, uh, you can scratch that off the list.

Israel has legalized LGBT adoption rights.
The supreme court allowed one lesbian couple to cross-adopt each other's biological children. It is a legal precedent, like most LGBT "rights" in Israel, as opposed to actual pro-active legislation.

Can this horse get any higher?

LGBT soldiers serve openly in all military branches, including special units; discrimination is prohibited.
Only Americans find this special. Seriously. Just because you had DADT for too fucking long (read, at all) doesn't mean that the fact that LGB (if you are a T and are out you will most likely be exempt from military service for reasons relating to mental health. Snack on that.) serve "openly" make the IDF in any way progressive. Considering the fact that the IDF is growing more religiously conservative as we speak and has rabbis telling soldiers to not hear a woman sing on pain of death, I can't see the fact that some boys and girls in certain units are out (you are not likely to be out in a cambat unit, as opposed to an intel unit, for instance) make the army liberal.

And in any event, why would we want to emulate a militaristic, hierarchical, masculine-supremacist, racist and patriarchal institution?

Same-sex couples have the same inheritance rights as heterosexual, married couples.
Wrong again. Inheritance rights for unmarried, common-law married or co-habitating couples relies on drawing up official papers and making your spouse your beneficiary, unlike heterosexual married couples, where it is automatic.

So you see folks. We may not be the worst, but really, when you compare us to actual Western countries (because we pretend to be one), we are not in the best shape. In other words, it's really easy to compare us to countries where things are really bad and come out looking quite good.

Also, of course, all this is related to Jewish LGB(T) people in Israel. The fact is, Israel uses the hard won fights the LGBT community has wrought throughout the years in order to cover up the fact that it violates international law and human rights in the West Bank, Gaza and in Israel proper - where is the help for Palestinian LGBT's in the West Bank and Gaza? There is a reason Israel based Palestinian queer groups like Aswat and Al-Qaws are critical of the mainstream and Jewish LGBT community for lapping up the fact that we are being used as a fig leaf for Israel's human rights violations.

Don't tell me Israel is a "queer oasis".

It occurred to me that my previous post was a whole lot of whine and cheese about a life, in which, I really don't have all that much to complain about.

(BIG WARNING:Graphic Pictures of Wounds and Violence)

I mean, why complain about a leaky toilet when the IDF shoots a protester at point blank with a grenade launcher, subsequently kills him and proceed to attack the funeral procession.

Don't talk to me about the most moral army in the world, 'kay?

Speaking of fallacious images. Did you know that Israel is the best place to be gay in the Middle East? No, really, it is.

We have rights, and parties, and freedom of expression and places in which we can gather safely!

Oh, wait.

Considering what happened in 2009 at the LGBT youth club and the fact that the people who come to the Tel-Aviv LGBT centre and the park in which it is situated are routinely assaulted, the whole, "it's goo to be gay in Israel" stance is more dissonant than ever before.

My age is showing, because what I consider a "gay park" is not what they mean in the article.

Especially when you consider the fact that pinkwashing as a propaganda tactic is at an all time low. At least, I hope my fellow siblings aren't as gullible as the Foreign Office would like to believe.

I've spoken about Pinkwashing before and last month the whole shebang was blown out of the water by Sarah Schulman who posted a brilliant op-ed in the New York Times titled Israel and 'Pinkwashing', in which she writes:

[...]
In 2005, with help from American marketing executives, the Israeli government began a marketing campaign, “Brand Israel,” aimed at men ages 18 to 34. The campaign, as reported by The Jewish Daily Forward, sought to depict Israel as “relevant and modern.” The government later expanded the marketing plan by harnessing the gay community to reposition its global image.
[...]
The growing global gay movement against the Israeli occupation has named these tactics “pinkwashing”: a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life. Aeyal Gross, a professor of law at Tel Aviv University, argues that “gay rights have essentially become a public-relations tool,” even though “conservative and especially religious politicians remain fiercely homophobic.”

'nuff said, really.

[Sexy!Roommate]: I need a pen, a pen that works that will make everything better.

Melody Pond: Do you want a sword instead?

[Sexy!Roommate]: I want a democracy!

Melody Pond: Tough luck, baby!

---

More on the above, later. Now, I'm out the door!

It's probably significant that I'm writing a navel gazing religion thing post-Days of Awe and Yom Kippur, which this year failed to move me as in previous cycles.

It may have to do with the fact that my outside world stress exacerbated my inner world stress. I'll (very very probably, but nothing is signed yet and until then I'm not willing to say live or die) move out by the end of the month. It's going to be the first time living outside of my parents house other then those six months in the US where I lived with my sisters (and had zero expenses).

I don't have a job lined up yet and university is starting... about the same time I'm setting up shop with my room mate (thank god for her, I don't think I would have managed to do anything if it wasn't for her holding my hand throughout this whole thing).

Add to that a "mild" brain meltdown and it's been fucking peachy.

What's all that got to do with religion? Nothing, really, but it seems a good opportunity to talk about things.

Those of you who read me on a regular basis know that I'm atheist, but I also that being Jewish is an important part of my identity. It's a cultural thing, a history thing... a people thing.

Due to the aforementioned life changes I can't say I felt the liturgy flow over me like it usually does. Not even the best Cantor on earth (the only reason I emerge once a year for Yom Kippur to go to shul - Bar/Bat Mitvahs and baby namings don't count) got me feeling that sense of belonging and history I usually feel on Yom Kippur when I stand with the rest of my family and listen to the whole congregation sing the dirge about removing the promises and vows we made the previous year.

Maybe it was due to being stressed about the fact that I'm a sleep away from sighing a binding contract, or that I'm going heading on an entirely new path, one I was not utterly convinced I was going to be on this year.

I've mentioned the brain meltdown, yes?

Not to mention the fact that politically speaking being Jewish puts me squarely in the bad guy's shoes this time around, what with Muslim and Christian graves desecrated over the holy day weekend.

I'm sure "G-d" approved of that bullshit.

So yeah, my "people".

Not feeling the connection that much lately.

Then again, in a new development The courts approve the registration of "no religion" for author Yoram Kaniuk, which would be grand, if religion was actually stated on our ID cards as "religion". It's not, it is stated under nationality - oh, didn't you know that there's no such thing as an "Israeli" nationality. I think if there was, or if there had been, it would have solved a whole lot of things.

But you know, Jewish demographic panic and all that.

I'm bothered that this is what my Judaism is reduced to, and that it's controlled by a Rabbinical court that, well, hates the idea of me.

Ironically, my Jewishness if far more diaspora like than ever, and me? I was born here and I don't really want to leave - despite the fact that some of my closest friends are telling me to join them when they leave.

*clings*

I'm so much more upset about this than I thought I would be.

Two years after fatal shooting, Tel Aviv gay youth club faces closure.

It's pretty much a slap in the face from the municipality towards the LGBT community in Tel-Aviv.

They'll spend obscene amounts of money of a Pride Parade, in which more people from abroad participated than locals from outside of Tel-Aviv if reports are to be believed.

It was supposed to be a safe place for queer youth, it stopped being that and has since become a memorial and I'm so sad to see it go.

Goes to show what the most liberal city in Israel thinks of its gay youth.

Excuse me while I go cry a bit.