Tag: Israel

Posted in Antisemitism, Hannukah, Judiasm

You’d Think After 5786 Years They Would Give Up

Posted on by debthumanblog

There were armed guards. There was enhanced police protection. Guards and police scanning the rooftops in search of snipers. Scanning the crowd of families looking for terrorists.

I wasn’t in a war zone. I was at a public Hanukkah celebration in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The day after a terrorist attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia. Before I left, I told Jim that I’d leave the celebration at the first sign of trouble. We both knew that I meant I’d leave when the first bullet struck.

People have been trying to wipe out the Jews for 5786 years. We are still here.

Hanukkah is the celebration of a tiny band of warriors defeating a huge army. A celebration when we threw them out of our temple, cleaned out their gods, and consecrated the temple. When we took back what is ours. The Torah. The right to study Torah. The right to pray. The right to be Jewish. There’s an eternal light in temples that must never be extinguished. Today, that light is electric. Then, the light was oil. But there was only enough oil for one day. Some went off in search of the proper oil. It took them eight days to get the oil and come back to the temple. That one day’s worth of oil lasted eight days.

Hanukkah is when I remember we are still here. We have never been defeated. We survived the Spanish Inquisition. We survived the Holocaust. We survived Hamas and Hezbollah. We survived being shut out of neighborhoods and jobs. My great-great-grandparents lived by the rule of never doing anything in public that would cause someone to think they were Jewish. They lived in secret because they lived beyond the Pale of Settlement. We’ve had setbacks, but we are still here. We have a homeland. Even in the middle of a war, Israel is still the only place on the planet where it’s safe to be a Jew. We are a mighty, tiny group. 0.2% of the world’s population. Since the beginning, we have had to fight for our right to exist.

When was the last time you went to a Christmas party and there were armed guards, extra police scanning the crowd looking for terrorists. Scanning the rooftops looking for snipers. Trying to stop trouble before the first bullet flew.

Posted in Antisemitism

Fighting A Losing Battle Against Terrorism

Posted on by debthumanblog

I went to the farmers market Saturday morning. During the market, terrorists paraded up and down the street. Idiots conned into believing Israel is the enemy chanted globalize the infatada. Let’s look at history. In 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza. In 2006, the people of Gaza voted to have Hamas run their government. Israel offered Hamas 95% of what Hamas asked for – a result any intelligent negotiator would consider a major win and accept – Hamas refused the offer. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched an unprovoked attack on Israel. Israel fought back. Per the head of Hamas, the point of the attack was to kill Jews and obliterate Israel.

Students for Justice in Palestine sounds innocent enough. It’s not. It’s a terrorist organization. Their express purpose, according to the people who run the organization, is to kill Jews and obliterate Israel. Yet these people are on college campuses all across the US. Would any college allow an organization whose express purpose is to kill Blacks and obliterate (choose any country in Africa)? Nope.

And so the idiots and terrorists marched down the street. I stood there screaming: Am Yisrael chai! (the people of Israel live) while pumping my fist in the air. I said that the next time I come to the market I’m bring a Super Soaker to fire at these jerks. I was told just don’t do it in front of the market management. As much as I’d love super soaking these people, I think that could be construed as a battery – an illegal act.

Perhaps instead, I’ll just stand I the middle of the street and block the parade. That’s not a crime. I’ll forgo the Super Soaker. Brandishing said Super Soaker can be considered an assault. It will be just me, my walker and my service dog.

Posted in Uncategorized

It didn’t quite go as planned

Posted on by debthumanblog

This semester, the painting class was about identity. I spent the semester painting about child abuse. For the final project, we had to do a painting only we could do. So I did a quilt. About being Jewish.

After the disastrous election, I saw a design in my. head: a Star of David and a hammer. In the Hanukkah story, the Jews were ruled by a powerful, evil king. Jews who didn’t pray to the collection of the king’s gods were killed. Finally, Judah had enough. He gathered a band of warriors and they defeated the king’s vast army. End of rule by evil king. Judah was called Judah the Maccabee. Maccabee means hammer.

I thought about how people have been trying to wipe us out for about 6000 years. So far, they’ve failed. I saw my quilt as an expression of hope and perseverance. Since October 7, 2023, the Anti-Defamation League has received reports of more than 10,000 acts of antisemitism. Jews on college campuses have been physically attacked, muzazahs have been ripped off dormitory door posts, hamas supporters have called for the elimination of Israel and the killing of Jews. This is nothing new. We are still here.

I used matching thread to write out my feelings because I wanted people to look at my work. “We are still here” “Am Yisrael chai” (it means the people of Israel live and it’s a battle cry). The shin (Hebrew letter) has an “sh” sound and is frequently put on a mezuzah. It’s the first letter of the prayer: Listen Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. That’s what set us apart from all the other nations which had many gods.

“Fighting for our right to exist”

My family hid. I refuse to hide.

This was the first time I had used my embroidery machine with a quilt. It was an interesting experience trying to get everything straight. I didn’t always succeed.

I looked forward to the final critique until the day of the critique when I received an email saying my class would be combined with another painting class for final critique. That means we would rush through each person’s work. No one would have the opportunity to really look at my work and see what’s there. No one would get to hear my reason for using the images I used. I was horribly depressed and sent my teacher an email explaining why I wasn’t going to be attending critique. That was last Thursday. I haven’t heard from my teacher and I don’t expect to ever hear from him.

I’m depressed enough that I’m not looking forward to taking another painting class. Actually, I’m not looking forward to much of anything.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-best-of-christmas-gifts-quilters.html

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

Posted in Uncategorized

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.

Posted in Uncategorized

What a long, strange trip it’s been…

Posted on by debthumanblog

“But if you’ve got a warrant, I guess you’re gonna come in…” My all-time favorite line in a song.

It has been a long, strange trip. I’m 72. I never thought about being this old. Now that I am this old, it feels like turning 40. That was the year I was convinced I could do anything I put my mind to. That conviction returned when I turned 70. When I turned 50, I went a little crazy and got my belly button pierced. When I turned 60, I realized I wasn’t going to live forever and the depressed funk lasted about three years. Now, I’m back to being convinced I can do anything I put my mind to. I like that attitude.

“How terribly strange to be 70…” No, actually it isn’t strange at all. I started the decade by falling into a pile of cactus needles. The vertigo that had started five months earlier started to shrink my life. Nine months later, the vertigo had been banished and I banished the walker. Now, I want to put my body back together. Sounds easy, but when one is battling depression, it’s about as easy as climbing a rock wall without technical climbing gear.

Lately, I’ve been dissatisfied with my art. I cannot paint realistically. It won’t come out of my hand. And so my painting doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen in a museum. I tell myself that’s because I’m painting what’s inside of me and it’s coming out in my own style. It’s my style. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. So why does this bother me?

I’m dissatisfied with my writing. I’ve finished a short story about being suicidal, suicide, and the misery that’s left behind. Suicide is when you take all the crap in your life and give it to those who mourn your passing. Maybe that’s the point of suicide. It reminds us to be compassionate. For a couple weeks anyway.

I write weird. The words come from deep inside and come out of my hand in weird ways. I play with capitalization. I play with ideas. I give up. My work is seen through Jewish eyes and I am incapable of seeing the world any other way. I think about Chaim Potok, Naomi Reagan, Marc Chigall. They see (and saw) the world through Jewish eyes.

My art is tempered by my history. This semester, all of my painting is about child abuse. I didn’t plan it that way. What’s coming out of my hand is what’s inside of me. One painting is not exactly a family tree. It’s a family pasture. All sheep. The female sheep are bleeding from their abortions. My father is leaving the frame just as he left my life. I’m the black sheep in the middle. I bought some yarn spun from the fleece of a black sheep when we were in the Falkland Islands. The yarn is the most gorgeous shade of chocolate with highlights and life. I may be the black sheep, but I’m the one able to give the most beautiful yarn. The painting I’m about to start is about my entire childhood. All 3 years 11 months of it. That’s how long my childhood lasted so I don’t need a very big canvas. One part of the painting is about a Yiddish word. I know what the word means, but I don’t know the English translation. I have a collection of words I only know in Yiddish or bastardized German but I don’t know the English words.

There’s one more painting this semester. I don’t know what it will look like. Maybe it will depict feeling adrift. I miss being Jewish, but I can’t bring myself to go back to the reform temple in town. I’m appalled by the rabbi’s response to antisemitism on the local university campus and by the mismanagement of money by the board of trustees. The reform temple has sunk to charging for darned near everything. We were supposed to make hamantaschen and bring them to the temple for a Purim party. And we were expected to pay $7 each to attend the party. My temple dues were arbitrarily raised. When I complained and said I wouldn’t pay the increased dues, I got no response. They got no money from me.

We have two choices where I live: reform and Chabad. Chabad is orthodox. They are different. Only 64 women rabbis around the world are orthodox. The rest of the women rabbis are reform. Women hold no position of leadership in Chabad. We all sit where we want in a reform temple. Women on the left, men on the right and a wall between them in Chabad. We might distract the men. That smacks of blame the victim. My view? If he can’t keep it in his pants, that’s not my problem – it’s his problem. Women have sexuality and are attracted to and distracted by men. Except in an orthodox temple where we are supposed to pop out kid after kid after kid and be happy with that. We don’t speak. We don’t teach. We don’t lead. We are relegated to being behind the curtain or sitting on the other side of the wall. I did not stop shaving my legs for four years just so I could have fewer choices in life. Yet I like and respect the Chabad rabbi. I took a class last spring and will be taking another next month. I like the rabbi’s approach to teaching. But I don’t fit in orthodox Judaism. There’s no third choice.

I remember a conversation I had with a guidance counselor when I was about 14 – many years before I knew I was Jewish. I told the guidance counselor I wanted to be a rabbi. He said it wasn’t allowed.

It was only natural that a Jewish woman wrote, The Feminine Mystique.