"REEL AROUND THE FOUNTAIN (AND INBOX)"
I will post my Saturday playlist in a moment. First I have something to get off my chest. Grab a cocktail, this is a fucking monologue.
I know it is Shabbes. This cannot wait. A friend and I were talking recently about how it seems like the past year has held more anti-semitism. Maybe. Or maybe we're just noticing it more for one reason or another. Well, the year wasn't finished with me just yet.
I am Jewish. I am a writer. Sometimes, those two things come together. Sometimes they do not, but sometimes they indeed do. For a lit mag I'm helping launch, a posted a "seeking submissions" ad on Craigslist a few months ago. And the ad was flagged and removed within hours.
I am putting together a Virtual Chanukah Book Tour with Jewish bloggers, so I again posted an ad on Craigslist. It was a polite ad, a funny ad. An ad that, I thought, converyed a sense of lightheartedness and the promise of a little holiday adventure. And, in less than 24 hours, it was flagged and removed by the Craigslist community.
I see Christians posting calls for their own bloggers and writers for various projects and those posts don't get taken down. I don't know if they get hate mail or what (more on that in a moment), but the posts certainly don't get voted off the island.
Most distrubing of all, this time, my inbox was flooded with hate mail. By email, by total strangers, my rep (also Jewish) and I were called everything from "whores of Zion" (the word you want is sharmutah for future reference. Handily enough, if you are hatin' on anyone who isn't white and protestant, you can use the word in Arabic, too.), "stupid apes and pigs" and "religious zealot cunts". Let's share.
Whores of zion! Organize your racist hate-gathering somewhere else. Like Europe!
Man, that's a pretty good first impression. Aren't you contradicting yourself by using the word Zion? Anyone?
Jewish dogs r stupid apes and pigs. Death to the Jew! Religious zealot cunts!"
Now, is that any way to talk to a lady on Shabbes?
End the oppressive tyranny over peace-loving Palestinian women and children. Keep your zyonist [sic] bullshit to yourself. I boycott you."
That's cool. Can I boycott you back? You don't seem like anyone I'd want to hang out with anyhow.
"Jews like you are killing this world, American jobs, American values and made this war. Educate yourself you dumb fuck:
(deleted link to a popular bandwagon organization)
Peace now!"
Tsk, tsk I wonder if he knows the funding and leadership sources of his beloved organization...? I'd bet not.
"At least you are honest about being JEW. Nancy Pelosi is another lying JEW who just got caught."
Haha, that one is my absolute favorite. Nancy Pelosi is apparently related to an Argentinian Jewish family. Big fucking deal.
No, wait, actually this on is really my favorite. I should probably call the cops on this asswipe, but non-POP email address aren't really traceable.
"Rape and beating zionists won't make them go away but you don't need put bullshit out into cyber."
C'mon! If you're going to insult me and threaten to rape and beat and such, the least you could do is check for usage accuracy.
Keep Christ in Christmas! Making christmas into so-called Huanakkah [sic] only dizolves [sic] decent Christian foundations of hope."
Whaaaaaa?
Enough.
Really.
There was many others, but they make my head hurt. Shame on these writers. It is one thing to stand up for what you believe in, but the way to work for change is in making a distinction between constructive versus destructive and putting your efforts to the constructive. Construct the positive changes you believe in rather than just spend your lives trying to thwart others. Live like your goals are already met. Construct rahter than tear down. That's all.
Shame on Craigslist for pulling down a totally harmless post. The post, for the record, only read something like:
"Jewish author seeks Jewish bloggers for fun Chanukah writing project."
Pretty harmless. Pretty constructive.
I'll put up my playlist later. I think we can all guess the theme.
Good Shabbes. I mean that.
16 comments:
I'm sure that those people had their Jew hatin' glasses on and read an ad that said, "Zionists Opressors Unite! Recreate Hanukah on your blog! Down with the modern Hellenists! Show 'em your Maccabees!"
Oh wait, that's a little too much history for these folks, maybe they read:
"Fuck Bill O'Reilly and his Christmas Bandwagon! Show 'em that you want no Christ in their Christmas by participating in a Hanukah Writing Project!"
I don't understand people. *sigh* The shame is that this is the CL system...
In other news, there is a PR biz called Jewswire. They won't pull your stuff for being Jewish.
Oy, bubbie, I am so sorry.
the anti-Semitism abounds these days. I see it and feel it, too.
I am deeply concerned that you were flagged and removed twice by craigslist, especially when I see ads for Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and other religious writers posted and never flagged. Hating Jews is a very hip, now, happening thing. Not that it ever went out of style—of course. It’s just way more en vogue these days. it's all very sad and heart breaking. Not to be victimee because our people aren’t. In my opinion, we are the embodiment of perseverance. Sadly, the Jews have always been blamed for so many of the world’s ills and wrongdoings.
->"Jewish dogs r stupid apes and pigs. Death to the Jew! Religious zealot cunts!"
->AG: Now, is that any way to talk to a lady on Shabbes?
->Amy… SO FUNNY!!!!
I can’t believe he’s calling my Louie Vincenzo Schwartz a stupid ape and a pig.
Good Shabbes
Wow. All I can say is wow. I am constantly shocked by how hate-filled and, well, stupid other people can be. I'm really sorry you've gotten all those hate emails. What is wrong with people?
And I don't understand why Craigslist would pull your ad down if they allow similar posts by Christians. Definitely not fair.
At any rate, shabbat shalom. Or, given that it's mid-afternoon, shavua tov is more appropriate.
wow thats strange, well maybe not, i dont know but I am still in!
Hahaha, Leahleh, oy, I needed that laugh. "Show 'em your Maccabees!"
I laughed because it made me imagine a Jewish Mardi Gras parade (Purim parade...?) where "WOOHOO FRUM LAADIES! SHOW ME YOUR MACCABBES, YIDDISHE MAMA!!!!!!!" is shouted from floats!
[0ofoo[o[0po0o0o
(um, my cat just walked across my keypad and typed that. I'm sure it's very profound in felinese)
(Oh, then he barfed on the floor. Nice.)
Thanks for chiming in, ladies. Craziness. Oy.
I don't know what the right words are ... I am depressed, I am sorry, I am appalled.
I am a Christian ... the follower of a Jewish carpenter. Any Christian who reads the Bible will find that Christ stands for unconditional love. We are all children of the God of Abraham. The link between our people is irrefutable. Based on the Bible the Jewish people and the followers of Christ are tied together to the end of time.
Your book is our book. Jews are a limb and we are a branch off that limb. We are fed from the same root, the same one that anchors us all.
If someone has an issue with this please feel free to rant at me on my blog.
Damn the Internet. The lone bastion that our media controlling tentacles have yet to ensnare!
Every response written so well...what can I say? This shit blows my mind. I was at the store not long ago buying Christmas cards, Hanukah cards, and generic "holiday" cards. A little batch for each group of people I know to wish them peace and happiness. And I don't think twice about it, it's what I do to celebrate the differences in my life. The differences that make the world go 'round. So sad, just so very sad.
I wonder if there's more hate or just more places and ways to voice one's hate these days. Not to mention that you're higher profile this year, Amy, than you were, say, pre-3FW and therefore more available for hatin'-on.
Why oh why does it seem to be our nature to be so spiteful and fearful of anything "Other"? Why are we so prone as a species to remain ignorant and un-budging in our views? I don't understand it. The tendancy of humans to be hateful is one of my own personal reasons for being so conflicted spiritually. It's hard for me to get on board with anything religion-wise when I feel like it's an innate feature of our kind to think as a herd and act in ignorance and downright meanness.
One constant in the world is that hateful assholes abound. Unfortunately our people have been and will continue to be a target. No reason to believe this will end. It's what we live with and part of what makes us who we are. It's in our genetic code. So then, it stands that craigslist, as great a service as it is (I just bought NFL tickets at face value!!!!) cannot protect us.
It is always nice to feel all that love. Fuck em.
Delurking to say ugh. Our family is not religious but our daughter has gone to the JCC preschool and afterschool program since she was almost 3 (she is now almost 6). We also belong to the J. for the pool because it is a half mile from our house (it truly is our community center). Our city is the smallest in the country to support a JCC In its own facility. We LOVE it, we love the people, we love the philosophy. We went from indifferent to really enjoying the JCC and I get livid when I hear anti-semitic sentiment because it is just such BS. I would keep putting up ads over and over knowing they would get flagged. Screw em.
One of my wishes for you when you were born was to grow up to be open minded. To look at the world and wonder. To really find out about people and things. Unfortunately, not all the world thinks like me and this world is full to the brim with just plain ignorant people. They are usually told what to think and how to think it and when to think it. Never to wonder and certainly never to accept anything that might be different. To them, difference is to be feared and mocked. How sad for them that they will always have such little bitty brains.
To a large part of the population, the world is all about THEM! Never mind that the things they do or say hurts or offends others,because their feelings are the only ones that count! As long as they can get in your face and scream things at you, okay!
There has and always will be Hatred, Jealousy, Stupidity, Ignorance, Anti-Semitism, Racism, etc. It is part of who we are. What a wonderful place the world would be if these kinds of things never existed. How different it all would be.
Christians and Jews are joined at the hip until the end. When that end comes, whatever form it might take, it will suddenly be perfectly clear to everyone that all of the petty differences that seemed so vast, really didn't matter after all. Unconditional love and respect will abound. The really sad thing is that we will have wasted so much time and energy hating each other, when God really wanted us to love each other.
I hope you get a response from craigslist. I can't wait to see what their reasoning is.
Love,
Mom
P.S. You have a great bunch of Friends! I am glad they are there for you.
It would be depressing if it wasn't so unsurprising.
Thank god the Craig's List community has taken a break from trolling for ads from teenage prostitutes long enough to bring the heavy hand of pietistic justice down on a Jewish writer.
I don't know if it's antisemitism that's on the rise, or just a general hatred of anybody who might think or act differently.
Is it shocking that the same people most intent on banning gay marriage are stuck in loveless, emotionally-repressed, taking-the-"sex"-out-of-"heterosexual" relationships? ("What? Some gay dude that I'll never meet, in a city that I'll never visit, wants to commit to his partner in a union that will have absolutely no effect on my life whatsoever? I won't stand for it!") And it's a safe bet that anybody intent on lashing out again "Huanakkah" is probably too busy buying "Touch Me Inappropriately" Elmo dolls for their functionally retarded children to be bothered with taking a long, hard look at why they celebrate Christmas in the first place, outside of their bite-sized "It's a Wonderful Life" platitudes.
The world would be a better fucking place if we stopped worrying about what other people were doing and just focused on our own goddamn lives.
It's okay if they think we're going to hell. The trouble starts when they try to save us. Just be a good person and live according to your values, and if the rest of us "sinners" end up burning eternally in some Christian hell, we'll only have ourselves to blame.
The moral hypocrisy makes the veins on my head start throbbing. I forget, what part of the Sermon on the Mount mentioned raping zionists? Did that come before or after the part about the meek inheriting the earth?
It reminds me of a t-shirt I saw not long ago: "Jesus would slap the shit out of you." It's funny because it's true.
Or as Woody Allen once wrote, "If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he would never stop throwing up."
Merry Christmas, you fucking tartuffes!
Scary times that we live. Most frightening, perhaps, is how blissfully ignorant we tend to be right now, and allow anti-Zionist views to mask as anything but old school anti-semtism, only now practiced by the extreme left. Not to use this as an attempt to pimp my own blog, but check out some of these pics from one particularly lovely "peace" rally this past summer:
http://rationalleftist.blogspot.com/2006/08/subliminal-fascism.html
That is so bizarre.
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