Month: November 2024

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Art From My Heart

Posted on by debthumanblog

I am devastated by the election results. I am frightened by the election results. The last time the narcissistic sociopath was in office, every hate group in the country came out of the closet. Suddenly, hate became a national value to be celebrated. This culminated in an armed attempt to overthrow the government on January 6, 2021.

The Anti-Defamation League received more than 10,000 reports of antisemitic acts since October 7, 2023. Jewish students are not safe on college campuses. It’s going to get worse.

After the election, I saw a quilted piece in my head. My painting teacher said our final assignment was to make a painting only we could create.

Deb: Does it have to have paint?

Teacher: It has to have pigment and a binder. That’s paint.

Deb: That’s also fabric dye.

My teacher has agreed to accept a quilted piece.

I had picked out fabric when I picked up my sewing machine. It needed to be serviced and lots of lint was removed from deep in the guts of the machine. I’m good for another year.

These are the fabrics I picked out. The purple is going to be the background. The yellow will be for the images and the binding.

I laid out the pieces.

I’m letting it sit for a while. I want to make sure I’ve got the pieces the right size. The appliqué in the middle is something I bought on sale from 1-800-dreidle. When I ordered it, I had no idea what I would do with it. I’m thinking it would go with with this design. I’m thinking I will need to make the star and the hammer smaller. They seem out of proportion with the appliqué.

It’s not really a Hanukkah quilt even though I’m using Hanukkah imagery. In 164 BCE, Judah the Maccabee gathered a handful of warriors and led the fight against a mighty army, Judah won. The temple was cleaned out, the eternal light was lit, and someone was sent to buy olive oil. It took eight days for the person to find, buy and return with the olive oil. Meanwhile, there was just enough oil in the temple to keep the light lit for one day. That little bit of oil lasted for eight days.

Maccabee means hammer, which is why there’s a hammer in the design. I saw the quilt as a symbol of how people have been trying to wipe us out for nearly 6000 years. We are still here. We’ve always been a tiny minority. We are still here. The quilt expresses my hope that we will again prevail. We will triumph over antisemitism again. Jewish students will no longer be attacked on college campuses. I won’t have to be on the receiving end of hate crimes any more.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

My store Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

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Please God, don’t let the narcissistic sociopath win the election.

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’m having election anxiety. I grew up in the 60’s, but I had never seen the kind of hatred and divisiveness that has plagued this country since 2017 when the narcissistic sociopath was inaugurated. Since then, he has said there are good Nazis (there are, but they are all dead), and Hezbollah is smart. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization running Lebanon at the moment. But he claims to be a friend to the Jews. Yeah, the kind of friend Hitler was. Which is fitting because he publicly wished he had the generals Hitler had.

I’ve seen the peaceful transition of power turn into a violent, vicious riot later termed as “hugs” by the sociopath.

I’ve seen the blatant rise of antisemitism since October 7, 2023. Between October 7, 2023 and October 6, 2024, the Anti-Defamation League received more than 10,000 reports of antisemitism. Those are only the incidents that were reported. ADL has uncovered encouraging emails to the bigots encamped on college campuses coming from the ayatollah in Iran. Iran is also financing some of the encampments.

There’s a terrorist cell, calling for students to join them, on the campus of New Mexico State University. Who are these terrorists? Students for Justice in Palestine. Sounds like an okay group, right? It’s not okay. The group has encouraged and participated in antisemitic acts, and attacks on Jews across the campuses in the US.

I bring my service dog with me to my writing class. My writing was to be critiqued on October 7, 2024. I had to leave my dog home because I was afraid for her safety. I was terrified for my safety.

Today, I discovered that SUNY Buffalo, where I went to law school, has a group of bigoted students calling for the expulsion and firing of all students and faculties engaged in zionism. Out of all the antisemitic acts I’ve read about in the past year, this one hurt the most. Hillel and Chabad had a large presence on campus. I remember buying food from the kosher kitchen on campus. They had incredible knishes.

Zionism is merely the belief that Jews need a homeland and Israel has a right to exist. In the early 20th century, Zionists collected money from congregations around the world and bought land in Israel. I’ll type that again, they bought land in Israel. The land they were able to buy was swamp land. The early settlers brought in eucalyptus trees to drain the swamps naturally. They farmed the reclaimed land and built a country. During WWII, England, which ran Palestine and bought oil from Arab countries, severely restricted the number of Jews allowed to immigrate. WWII would have been different if European Jews had a place to go.

Israel has been forced to fight a war on three fronts. Remember, Israel was attacked. Israel was not the aggressor. Israel is fighting for the right to exist. It is not safe to be Jewish in the US now. If the narcissistic sociopath wins, it will be far worse than it is now.