“If Arabs acknowledge that Judeans have indigenous rights to self determination, they’d have to then acknowledge the same for all the other peoples they’ve colonized eg. the Kurds, the Amazighs, the Yezidi, the Druze, the Armenian, the Assyrian, etc etc etc. The Judeans are a loose thread threatening to unravel the entire Arab League. I would love to see all the indigenous peoples unite and fight for their self determination – Judeans, Kurds, Assyrians, Yezidi, Amazighs, Iranians etc.” – Jordana Anne This is the ONLY path towards peace on Arab and European occupied lands!
The path to peace is too easy! Arab settlers, STOP shooting at the Indigenous peoples that you colonized for Colonial Allah and Christ!!! Stop murdering Indigenous Israelis and Kurds, and there will be peace and security upon Colonial “Palestine”! United Nations, STOP UNRWA funding this post-WW1 European established Arab settler Colonialism and terrorisms upon our Southwest Asia Indigenous peoples’ lands!!!
JIMENA – Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa shared, “We are horrified and heartbroken by Hezbollah’s murder of twelve innocent Druze children who were simply playing soccer and having fun outside.
When will the West wake up to the violence and aspirational ethnic cleansing of indigenous Middle Eastern minority groups by the Islamic republic regime and Qatar?
Islamist extremism must be condemned by all those with a conscience, including by those in the highest offices of power in the USA and beyond.
We pray for the lives of all innocents in the Levant – the land of our ancestors and our eternal home.”
Colonial “Palestine” upon the Southwest Asia Indigenous peoples’ lands of Israel and Kurdistan is no different than Colonial “America” upon the First Nations continent of Michilimackinac. Racist anti-Indigenous settler Colonialism, whether Christian or Muslim, whether Arab/European or successfully colonized formerly indigenous, is always a crime against all still surviving Indigenous humanity. For the sake of peace and security for all peoples worldwide, why not THIS instead:
Demand that the United Nations of Arab-European Colonial nations force still occupying Christian, Muslim, and Marxist nations (and wannabe nations) that are occupying and terrorizing Indigenous peoples upon our lands to allow Native peoples to peacefully and securely decolonize amongst your Colonial nations. Starting with the Southwest Asia Israeli and Kurdish peoples amongst the post-WW1 European established Arab Colonial nations of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq.
In other words, for the sake of worldwide peace and security,… No more violently racist land-squatting upon Native peoples’ lands to deny our still surviving Indigenous Peoples our peaceful and secure decolonization amongst your European and Arab Conquistador nations!
Listen,… For most of successfully European and Arab colonized humanity, there was a time when YOUR ancestors embraced their beautiful, intelligent, and sacred ethno-religions, too. Then the Christianized European Conquistadors came and stole you or stole this heritage from you – forcing your peoples to convert to Colonial Christianity. Then came the Islamized Arab Conquistadors – who still enslave Africans to this very day, because the Quran’s Allah allows for this – and they tell you to “revert” to a religion that is not your peoples’ ethno-religions.
Those amongst you, not knowing your ancestors ways, believe the Arabs and convert to Colonial Islam in the same way you were forced to convert to Colonial Christianity.
A Colonizer is a Colonizer regardless of ancestry, once indoctrinated into Colonial Christianity, Islam, and Marxism. We Native peoples just want to remain unassimilated and self sovereign upon our lands, too! Why is this so hard for “American” and “Palestinian” Conquistadors to understand?
Easily verifiable historical facts really do matter, except to those that believe in European and Arab Colonial-justifying history revisionisms.
Snapshot – Recently murdered Israeli Druze children, by Hezbollah rockets. If ONLY the world of humans gave a damn about still surviving Indigenous children – worldwide – like they do about Colonial “Palestinian” children in the Arab occupied Gaza and “West Bank”!
Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem – Indigenous Coalition for Israel shared about the above snapshot, “These people are so ignorant. They don’t seem to understand that they are affirming the indigeneity of the Jews by using the word Zion. The Jewish connection to Zion is an expression of indigeneity. It is their ancient maunga.
ZION is a hill and fortress in Jerusalem.
The name Zion was first used for the Jebusite fortress (“the stronghold of Zion”), on the southeast of Jerusalem, below the Ophel and the Temple Mount. (10th century BCE)
On its capture by King David it was renamed “City of David”.
In poetry Zion was used for the whole of Jerusalem
Daughter of Zion” referred to the city and its inhabitants.
Zion often referred to Judea or the people of Judea.
Sometimes Zion referred simply to the Temple Mount and it was this use that became the regular one by the Maccabean period, when the Temple Mount was called “Mountain of Zion”
By Josephus’ time “the stronghold” of Zion included the sites identified at present with Mt. Zion, as well as David’s Tower.
By the first century C.E. the whole of that elevation, called Mt. Zion, was surrounded by a wall, part of which (in the southwest section) lay under the present city wall and part (its northern line) ran along the present King David Street, while the eastern wall ran through the present Jewish quarter.
This is real #jewishindigeneity #jewish #indigenous #zion #zionism.”
As the Weizmann Foundation commented, “Same goes for the name “al-Kuds”, the arab name for Jeruzalem (hebrew: ier shalem = whole city or city of peace, wholeness being peace) which literally is a translation of the hebrew name HaKadusha, meaning The Holy (city).
Ignorance is one of the roots of all the lies and necessary to rewrite history. This requires total ignorance of the masses in order to establish a new narrative (i.e. brainwash). It all starts with a blatant but deliberate lack of education.”
We Israelis want what is best for all Indigenous peoples worldwide. Not just for Israel alone, or just Israel and Kurdistan alone. We want all settler Colonialism to end upon European and Arab colonized native lands! We only want our respective Indigenous nations to be peacefully secure and self-sovereign amongst the Colonial nations that have been established by Christianity and Islam.
In Southwest Asia, these Islamic Colonizers are Arab “Palestine”, Iran, and Turkey. Upon the continent of Michilimackinac, these Christian Colonizers are the United States of “America”, Canada, and Mexico.
The United States is the biggest nation upon our planet Earth – thus, the superpower in land mass, physical resources, and number of citizens to tax and utilize for domestic and foreign purposes. And this MAGA white Christian nationalist movement literally threatens the survival of Michilimackinac Indigenous upon their “America”-occupied lands. And, worse, it threatens any chance we Israelis and Kurds have to end the post-WW1 European established and UNRWA funded Arab Colonial occupations upon our lands of Israel and Kurdistan.
Wake up, successfully colonized USA Jews! Iran is using you “Americans” like “useful idiots”, on both the political Right and the political Left. So, our native SWANA voices will be heard on USA social media! Because you are being blinded to reality by these Colonial politics. Protecting Israel will not happen, if you do Russia’s and Iran’s bidding to bring down the United States of America!
“The Zionist goal gives us an actual opportunity to put into practice, through a viable solution of the Jewish-Arab problem, those principles of tolerance and justice that we owe primarily to our prophets. I am convinced that the living transmission of those principles is the most important thing in Judaism…. To be a Jew, after all, means first of all, to acknowledge and follow in practice those fundamentals in humaneness laid down in the Bible: fundamentals without which no sound and happy community of men can exist.” – Albert Einstein, a Jew from the European diaspora, with a colonized perspective on restored Israel sovereignty and the meaning of Zionism (in other words, Einstein had a whitewashed perspective that excludes MENA Jewish presence and active resolute MENA Jew Zionism that preceded the birth of faux “Father” Theodor Herzl)
All too often in Western nations, you will see Jews committing acts of self-belittling in their comedy routines, and these moments almost always have to do with being Jewish by inheritance. A question: Is this an act of humility? An act of not bringing attention to yourself? Or is such self-belittling the result of 1,600 years of exile, pogroms, dhimmi status, and attempted genocides upon our people?
This Jew on Instagram, linked below, is doing the EXACT OPPOSITE in his comedy routine. Yohay Sponder is bragging about Jews and our intelligence and our achievements! In a way, he is a comedic version of Itamar ben G’vir. Yet his comedy act begs a question in a USA tour environment:
Is his act a lack of humility? An act of boasting by bringing attention to oneself? Or is he just being a “proud Jew” for the sake of all marginalized Jews worldwide? More importantly, how does his comedic behavior benefit all OTHER socially voiceless Indigenous peoples, who are still surviving modern European/Christian and Arab/Muslim colonization upon Southwest Asia and elsewhere?
The answer to these questions should be very obvious. It depends! It depends on how you define “humility”. And, amongst Jews, what your theology/ideology is for your specific native Jewish community. Halacha, “the way” of our people, is what defines us as Jews, regardless of communal “theology”. Halacha is a path with many curves and dividing channels, very much like rivers that are collecting the sky-rain and bringing it to the ocean. Thus halacha brings us Jews, ultimately, all back to our Jew’s ways.
What is this mitzvah of having humility? Of “not bringing attention to yourself”, whether as an individual or as a SWANA people still living in exile, in an authentic native Jewish understanding? (Israel, post-1948, is still demonstrably Arab/European occupied land, not fully decolonized, yet!) The Torah of our ancestors is itself full of “bragging”, from a non-Jew’s perspective, yet it is all about living a national life of humility amongst the nations. Being the example settler without being the undisciplined tyrant.
As Sephardi Rabbi Chaim Jachter teaches, “Humility is not denying reality. It is acknowledging who you are [within reality] and what you have done [within this world]…. If humility is not acting like you are less than you really are [the act of self-belittling], what is it? Humility is not mentioning your successes unless it is warranted.”
In other words, referring to Yohay Sponder’s emphatically Jew-positive comedy act, “He is not bragging, he is on a mission, and stating his responsibilities and achievements is the quickest way to succeed.”
Rav Jachter was actually talking about Moses when he said this. How, within our Torah, Moses proclaimed his great achievements to the people of Israel in one pasuk, then belittled himself before Y-HWH about his very achievements!
This is humility! This is the Jewish derech, “path”. All still surviving Indigenous peoples around this world, listen and learn! Especially, if you are in nations that allow social minority critique of the social majority!!!
What many of us wish most is that Jews, Kurds, ethnic Persians (etc, etc, etc) were able to have such discussions – in this comedy form – in Arab/Islamic nations, and NOT fear being targeted for death (ours and our family members) afterwards for pointing out minority peoples’ achievements and talents within this Christian, Muslim, and Marxist colonized world!
Yohay Sponder – THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK 📚 I am coming to America 🇺🇸 you guys. This September – DM me your email and city for ‘first to know’ tickets and specials.
Knowing how little this grassroots only page gets shared – allies leave a comment or make a share! Zioness Movement Indigenous Bridges A Wider Bridge The RiverWinds JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa etc, etc!
And Y-HWH spoke to Moshe to say / “וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר י-הוה אֶל־משֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר”…. On this Shabbat that births the new moon of Av, we Jews read parashat matot and masei – “tribes” and “journeys”. It is the last set of devarim, “words”, that precedes the original devarim, “torah” scroll, for our Moab founded native people. Moab existed in the land of the peoples of Canaan, from which Jews of the established land of Israel sprung forth from the soil – meaning, we are a “branch” within the SWANA peoples’ “tree of life”. We will explain further, here, so keep reading!
Chodesh Yerechi Av / חוֹדֶשׁ יְרֵחִי אָב
Sunday, 4 August 2024 / 29 Tamuz 5784
Rosh Chodesh Av / רֹאשׁ חוֹדֶשׁ אָב
Monday, 5 August 2024 / 1 Av 5784
Huledet ha’Yare’ach / הולדת הירח
The birth of the new moon and new month!
“Take revenge for the children of Israel against the Midianites; afterwards you will be gathered to your people.” / בנְקֹ֗ם נִקְמַת֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל מֵאֵ֖ת הַמִּדְיָנִ֑ים אַחַ֖ר תֵּֽאָסֵ֥ף אֶל־עַמֶּֽיךָ:
“And Moses spoke to the people, saying, ‘Arm from among you men for the army, that they can be against Midian, and carry out the revenge of the Lord against Midian. ‘ ” / וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר משֶׁה֙ אֶל־הָעָ֣ם לֵאמֹ֔ר הֵחָֽלְצ֧וּ מֵֽאִתְּכֶ֛ם אֲנָשִׁ֖ים לַצָּבָ֑א וְיִֽהְיוּ֙ עַל־מִדְיָ֔ן לָתֵ֥ת נִקְמַת־יְהֹוָ֖ה בְּמִדְיָֽן:
“A thousand for each tribe, a thousand for each tribe, from all the tribes of Israel you shall send into the army.” / אֶ֚לֶף לַמַּטֶּ֔ה אֶ֖לֶף לַמַּטֶּ֑ה לְכֹל֙ מַטּ֣וֹת יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל תִּשְׁלְח֖וּ לַצָּבָֽא:
Indigenous peoples worldwide know that to survive as an Indigenous people requires being militaristic and resolute about Indigenous people’s land rights, as it has been established in antiquity by the land’s god-King. And, especially so, in our 21st century “A.D.” of the Gregorian calendar age – for the rest of us non-Christians, the “CE” period of human history.
All Indigenous peoples know that there are always a people, nation, or colonizing religion that wants to replace you upon your land, and call it theirs! And, for some, to call yours – culture, writings, ancestors, names and places, etc. – theirs in all aspects of appropriation.
Matot / מַטּ֣וֹת! Let’s look at this word just a little bit closer. First, it is a plural. Second, it is feminine, like yisrael / יִשְׂרָאֵל when not facing other peoples/nations (masculine), but when facing the Creator god Y-HWH / י-הוה (feminine, the “bride of Y-HWH”). The singular is mateh / מַטֶּה, which means, literally, a “branch” or a “rod” from a root that is within the ground. Third, mateh / מַטֶּה is from the linguistic root natah / נָטָה, which means to “stretch out”, to “spread out” naturally, to “bend” as necessary to survive!
Now, we can get to this Shabbat Av 2024 teaching for the new moon, a time of great suffering for Jews worldwide, not just within Israel:
“Take revenge for the children of Israel against the Midianites”… Wasn’t Moshe in several versions of the same story in our Jewish torah (the “teaching/law”) a shepherd man for a Midianite priest, whom he had no quarrel with in ideology or belief? Moshe, a shepherd man who was called upon by Y-HWH to be the leader of “let my people go” from the present regional colonizer of the people of Canaan, known as Mitzrayim (Egypt)?
Moshe, who somehow survived being a “male” Jew/Israeli newborn that is floating down the river and is saved by an Egyptian woman, under a decree of all Jew “males” must die, who somehow becomes an Egyptian of prominence over his own? Who rebels (masculine), by killing an Egyptian for whipping the hardworking resolute Israeli people and, then, flees Egypt to become a subservient shepherd of a Midianite priest (feminine, an adopted daughter?).
If you’re lost at this point, then you are, probably, not a Jew! Regardless what you call yourself. As a native Judean people, we live within ambiguity and embrace this. Our Jewish people’s Talmud should be an example of this to all peoples upon this planet, that we collectively call “Earth”!
Egyptians and Babylonians (aka, Persians) – even Assyrians – used to be good neighbors to the Canaan peoples of Moab, Judah-Israel, Edom, Phoenicians (who are the “Canaanites” in our Jewish people’s torah), and Ammonites. And even when, at times, we Canaan peoples were not good neighbors to each other! Then, aspirations for other peoples lands, not just one’s own, took place targeting our lands in Southwest Asia.
“Afterwards you will be gathered to your people.”…. If you don’t understand easily verifiable history, then you don’t understand present world events, whether BCE or CE! Just a flat fact of human reality. The word matot / מַטּ֣וֹת! Let’s look at this word just a little bit closer. The singular is mateh / מַטֶּה, which means, literally, a “branch” or a “rod” from a root that is within the ground. All Indigenous peoples worldwide are rooted into their grounds – their lands of origin – even when being forcibly uprooted and transported to another people’s grounds.
So long as an Indigenous people’s language, stories, laws, and written connection to the ancestors exist among the people, there is no way to uproot us from our lands of birth as a people. We are our people’s tree of life! So, for the sake of peace and security for all peoples upon this planet Earth – our shared planet Earth – STOP trying!!! Christians, Muslims, and Marxists, “let our peoples go”! Let us still surviving Indigenous peoples, planet Earth wide, decolonize peacefully and securely amongst your Colonial nations – as equals to your Colonial voices.
Let us all bring peace and security to this planet Earth for all nefesh sake – now, in 2024 CE. Let’s evolve!
Knowing how little this grassroots only page gets shared – allies leave a comment or make a share! Zioness Movement Indigenous Bridges A Wider Bridge The RiverWinds JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa , etc, etc!
Rabbi Ysoscher Katz shared, “”God is Egalitarian, it’s mankind that creates fictitious hierarchical categories.” So we are told by this week’s Midrash Halakha.
The daughters of Tzelofchad felt the denial of their inheritance right is a product of artificial man-made sexisim. They therefore turned to God to rectify that discriminatory decree. And God indeed did reject the gendered hierarchy of inheritance laws (at least somewhat).
In the words of the Sifrei:
“When the daughters of Tzelofchad heard that the land was being divided according to the tribes, and not being given to the women, they gathered together to think of an idea (of how to approach this). They said, “The mercy of God is not like the mercy of flesh and blood, for by flesh and blood there is more mercy for males than for women, but for The One Who spoke, and created the world, it is not this way, as He has mercy on males and females as it says ‘and His mercy is on ALL of his creatures’ “
Now you ask, why then are there other areas in the Torah where God does seem to condone gendered hierarchies? That is indeed a good question which we need to grapple with. Be that as it may, our parsha gives us at least an inkling that God isn’t fully on board with traditional sexisim.
Shabbat shalom, sheket ve’naim!”
The word “Moors (Moroccan)” is a Christian quasi-racial category not too dissimilar from “Iudaeus (Jew)” and “black” American. Moors are an ethnic people designation that is based on their Muslims status and are a combination of successfully Islamized Amazigh mixed with Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian indigenous of the Iberian Peninsula.
After the Arab conquest of North Africa and forced conversion of the various indigenous Amazigh peoples to Islam, the Muslim Amazigh army conquered and successfully Islamized the Iberian Peninsula during the 711 CE Umayyad Caliphate conquest of Hispania. Sephardi Jews in the Iberian Peninsula diaspora were spared forced Islamization, but were render dhimmi status under Muslim rule.
Then, the European Christians dedicated themselves to conquering the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim kingdoms, 722 CE through 1492 CE. Thus, the term “Moors” was born and applies to all Muslims of the Hispania, regardless of skin colors and physical looks. But, most specifically, the term Moors refers to the Muslim Amazigh colonizers of the Iberian Peninsula. Now, who are the Amazigh peoples?
The Amazigh are the Indigenous peoples from the Nile River to the Maghreb that the Semitic Egyptian settlers were the first to write about – think, Numidia and Mauretania kingdoms of North Africa. Amazigh are a variety of distinct ethnic groups with their own languages, and were given the pejorative name “Beber” by the Arabs that colonized North Africa for Islam.
The Kabyle people are one of the few Amazigh peoples in North Africa that successfully remained independent, during the successive rules by the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Byzantines (Christians), the Vandals, and the Ottoman Turks. The ethno-religions of the Amazigh, before contact with Christianity and Islam, were locally developed and based in ancestor veneration, polytheism, and animism.
With much of North Africa being desert, many Saharan Amazigh resemble the peoples of South Africa in looks. And in the Fertile Crescent part of North Africa, many Maghreb Amazigh peoples look like the Iberian Peninsula indigenous peoples that the Islamized Amazigh conquered for Arabia’s Umayyad Caliphate. The Amazigh are mostly ancient pre-“civilization” peoples (“Stone Age” tribes), descended from the Iberomaurusian and Capsian cultures, that settled the North African region.
The “Moors”, who do not speak a native Afroasiatic language of North Africa (rather, they speak Colonial Arabic), are as diversified in their looks as an ethnic grouping of peoples by Muslim status. The Moors of North Africa differ little in physical appearance from that of Moors in southern Europe, and also differ little in physical appearance from that of still surviving native Amazigh. Very much like the Mexicanos of the European colonized and Christianized continent of Colonial “America”.
“Some of us Native peoples are diaspora. So, Colonial politics IS our politics, too! For what happens in Colonial nations affects ALL still surviving Indigenous peoples worldwide.
Respects for the great achiever, POTUS Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. And I would have voted for him again! BUT, as many of us politics watchers have been saying for months, he will not win re-election this time and has to drop out! I, personally, wanted Kamala Harris for president in 2020 and, thankfully, I was WRONG about this. Joe Biden was the RIGHT choice at that time, and he has PROVED it! But,…
It’s now 2024! And even more Gen Xers, along with Independent voters and the younger generations, are demanding a more representative POTUS. And Joe Biden did the right thing, politically, to step out of the 2024 political race and endorse Kamala Harris for POTUS.
Even Joe Biden’s campaign’s polling showed Joe Biden losing massively to 34 times convicted felon Donald J Trump in 2024, since the missed assassination attempt on Trump’s life. The narrative needed to change VERY quickly, and my fear is that Biden didn’t pass the torch soon enough! But,…
As Joe Biden is, he is politically smarter than all the rest of us, being elected into federal offices for decades. Because he didn’t bow out before criminal Donald J Trump chose his extremist VP choice “Vance” with no Executive experience, Biden opened the door for another Obama type upset by endorsing Kamala Harris!
History demonstrates that Donald J Trump loses repeatedly to women who challenge his privileged status and, especially, to black women who challenge him! And all it takes for a contested POTUS election process is for enough swing voters to be attracted to the new candidate on the ticket who meets the needs of voters in the battleground states.
Add to this that women USA wide, regardless of skin color, who have been fueling Democratic wins since 2020, are laser focused on their bodily rights…. The new prosecutor of criminal Donald J Trump is in town. The local races in contested States are deeply relieved over this fresh breeze flowing through their States!
The stakes for the USA in 2024 are now clear to all citizens. A “blue wave” that has NOT been promised or expected BUT is coming – Executive, House, and Senate – OR a painfully slow end to the United States as the entire world has known it – PRIOR – to Barack Obama’s election as POTUS, our first Gen X achievement.”
A Jew who still lives in the diaspora, hoping to make a difference upon this planet Earth.
Where is this ashen horse that looks like a corpse, representing death and pestilence, in the 2024 Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony? Anyone, please?!
“Then I looked and saw a pale green-gray horse. Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed close behind. And they were given authority over a fourth of the land, to kill by sword, by famine, by plague, and by the beasts of the land.” – Revelation 6:8
Was this Revelation “scripture” a prophetic imagining of the soon to be in future history European Christian Crusades – a history that is to come upon a “fourth of the land” – the continents of Southwest Asia and Southern Europe? Anyone, please?!
Or was this Jewish written book, written during the time of the “Beast”s dominion, actually referring to the polytheistic Roman Empire with its violently oppressive expansive grasp on power towards henotheistic indigenous peoples – who are refusing to worship Rome’s other gods?
If you are not an indigenous of Southwest Asia or well studied in the history of Southwest Asia, then perhaps you might want to shut up and take a front row seat, and LEARN about the writings that you use to justify your hateful theological bigotry TOWARDS others. Not everything presented in this human world – that is NOT Christian – is about YOU, Christians!
Christians really have no idea how much their Colonial Christ religion is based upon Greek and Roman polytheism! So much so, that for the first several centuries of Roman Christianity, the Church and their Christians encouraged both the worshipping of “Christ” AND the Roman Emperor and family.
Here in 2024 CE, Christian and Muslim fragility shows itself again, when non-Christians/Muslims display Indigenous ethno-religious art and culture! The continued expressions of the still not yet assimilated “pagans/infidels”.
LOL! This 2024 assumed “Last Supper” is a parody upon the Feast of the Gods, angry 😡 theology absolutists. We will survive you 😊, all still surviving Native ethno-religions upon this planet Earth.
Korey Wheatley, French language and art teacher, shared – “Last night at the Opening Ceremonies of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, the “Feast of the Gods” — artistic expression combined with Greek mythology — was depicted in one segment of the spectacle. The ancient Olympics originated in Greece, hence the mythological reference.
The Louvre nearby is a wealth of centuries of art, and the Bacchanalian revelry scene last night featuring French singer Philippe Katherine included depictions of “Lady Liberty” (with a DIADEM, not a halo, sporting 7 spikes that represent the 7 continents and based on the Delacroix painting in the Louvre “Liberty Leading the People”), as well as Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic.
In order to show everyone in the scene, it is a common artistic device to place them on one side of a long table (which here is actually a runway) or in an opened position. Draped clothing has been worn since the dawn of time, so this fits with a relaxed celebration tone being conveyed. Since the message was about unity and diversity, this placement showed each individual; thus, the focus from the artist on what is important to take from the image is clear. Art is open to interpretation, but not to be confused with the artist’s intent.
Additionally, nudity is not the same as porn, something that many other countries and cultures understand, unlike puritanical nations that have to sexualize everything involving an unclothed body. The Ancient Olympics in Greece had the athletes compete without a stitch on.
The organizers built almost every moment as a reference to a part of French history and culture; whether or not it suited your taste was not considered. This was an homage to all things French, and all in a country that has absolute separation of church and state.
There are currently videos aplenty that explain each tableau—from the French Revolution’s execution of Marie Antoinette and a song sung by the “sans culottes” during that time interpreted by a heavy metal band, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, the invention of the hot air balloon, parkour, Truffaut’s ménage à trois in the film “Jules and Jim”, the opera La Bohème, Paris as one of the fashion and art capitals of the world, the Louvre with a stolen Mona Lisa by the Minions (little-known fact that one director is French), a Jules Verne-style submarine, the Gallo-Roman goddess of the Seine—Sequana—on a white horse, Aya Nakamura in front of the Bibliothèque Nationale reiterating the global impact of the language, Céline Dion (Québécoise) singing a song by the beloved artist Édith Piaf, etc.
For 30 years, I ingrained into my French students not only skills in speaking French, but also a love and respect for art, history, and culture. To me, those are life skills, as so many proved to me last night when they contacted me to say they were watching the ceremonies and loved that they recognized so much. The Arts must not be removed in schools, and this performance proved it.
I am always trying to post positive things on my page, but this is a gentle reminder to make sure to fact check before clutching your pearls and displaying blatant ignorance. Most of you know that I don’t like to rock the boat, so it has taken a lot for me to write a post like this.
There are so many references to DaVinci’s “Last Supper” in pop culture that seem to go unnoticed or get a pass (Google “the Last Supper depicted in pop culture” for those examples). Last night was not a reference to it. Some have chosen to crop a still taken of the performance, causing “forced perspective”, as the rest of the scene doesn’t suit their narrative.
Art is open to interpretation, but back it up with the origin of the piece in order to have an intelligent and respectful conversation with others.
If you don’t want to acknowledge the facts about this, then either scroll past or snooze/unfollow me…but by all means, educate yourself before condemning a reference to art, history, and the symbolism of a celebration, which was the intent of this scene.
Also, remember that we are on a planet with a diverse population and that will never change. To assume that everyone holds your belief system is naive and self-serving. Stay in your lane.
Was this performance appealing to all who viewed it? Of course not. Art is like that. If you didn’t like it, simply move on and live your best life.
My hope is that the background provided in my post will promote a healthy, respectful debate and discussion of cultural differences and maybe provide a way to educate others about thinking globally.
To disagree is part of who we are as humans, but to ignore facts that provide context and then continue to perpetuate falsehoods and cherry pick to suit an agenda is adding fuel to the fire that many are trying to extinguish.
You can disagree with something, by all means, but to impose your value system on others when offended by a global performance intended for millions of all races, religions, and nationalities is counterproductive for all.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES: Below is singer Philippe Katherine’s (Dionysus in blue) interview about the event. It is in French, so if you understand French, you will find him very funny and honest about the fact that the artistic director had no religious motivation, just acceptance and peace.
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/jan-hermansz-van-bijlert-le-festin-des-dieux-the-feast-of-the-gods
UPDATE:
At 2:06 in this video, Jolly states that it is a pagan feast that he was displaying and the idea of unity.
I know that it’s in French, but that is him stating it unequivocally. There are news outlets that are spinning it and not showing or quoting him directly.
“Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the [Paris Olympics 2024] opening ceremony, defended the production when asked at a news conference Saturday about some of the backlash. Jolly said he was unaware of the criticism and wanted to display “inclusion.”
“When we want to include everyone and not exclude anyone, questions are raised,” he said at an International Olympic Committee media briefing.
“Our subject was not to be subversive. We never wanted to be subversive. We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together,” he continued. “We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that. In France, we have freedom of creation, artistic freedom. We are lucky in France to live in a free country. I didn’t have any specific messages that I wanted to deliver. In France, we are republic, we have the right to love whom we want, we have the right not to be worshippers, we have a lot of rights in France, and this is what I wanted to convey.” NBC News, 27 July 2024″
This meme about the Jew versus the Muslim, where is it wrong?! Seriously? Like Christianity, Islam is a conquering religion based on theology absolutisms.
Jews, like the Kurds, are a European/Christian and Arab/Muslim colonized Southwest Asia Indigenous people. We are the last surviving people of Canaan, who are still speaking our Canaanite Hebrew, still preserving the Canaan pantheon in our ancestors’ Torah writings, and still maintaining a non-stop presence upon our land of Canaan Israel in order to fulfill our land, civil, and ritual obligations to the land’s god-King, Y-HWH.
When was the last time that Jews actually conquested or conquered – please, in easily verifiable historical facts – the lands around our land of Israel for Y-HWH’s ruling dominionism upon all Indigenous peoples lands worldwide? When was the last time that Native peoples worldwide complained about Jewish colonization of their lands, as they struggle to survive overwhelming colonial assimilation?
Seriously! Outside of stupidly racist and/or ignorant antisemitic (aka, anti-Indigenous racist) conspiracy theories,… When was the last time that Jews were accused of colonizing any land outside of our Judean ancestral land of Israel?
What we Jews are known for, like so many other Christian and Muslim colonized Indigenous peoples, is the following:
Our “Nobel prizes”, creative inventions, and technological achievements for sustainable planetary living. Our resolute devotion to preserving our people’s and other peoples’ lived histories, culture, and native/indigenous ways of life – our collective human languages and stories! Our devotion to a peaceful and secure world of human beings, where our politics and religious beliefs do not cause harm to social justice for all nefesh upon this planet Earth. Our Y-HWH demanded insistence upon an economy that supports the least of us – including the land that provides for us – so that, despite their circumstances, they are not living in suffering poverty!
The Africans stolen from Africa and sold to European Christian slave masters and land owners – European colonizers who engaged in an insurrection from their own government over having to pay taxes – know firsthand what it means to build a colonial occupied land from the ground up into an influence-able world “superpower” nation. Where did “whites”, European Christians, get most of their technological and cultural achievements?! Seriously! Enough with the European/Christian and Arab/Muslim colonial racism, already!!!
So, here we go,… the second half of the shared snapshot meme. Like in Colonial “America” 🇺🇸, like in Colonial Palestine – now represented by the colonial flag 🇵🇸 and used to mean this 🔱 – since colonial Roman times, “Syria-Palaestina”. No, successfully colonized humans, please begin to listen! Arabs and Muslims did NOT create modern mathematics and engineering before Christian Europe, any more than “white” Christians created the United States of colonial “America”. A SWANA Indigenous Kurd gave this contribution to the world.
It was the forcibly assimilated Indigenous Peoples of these lands – worldwide – that created the present human world of planetary Earth, under violently racist Colonial dominionism ☪️ and manipulation ✝️ for Colonial nations’ gains – whether it be Arab/Muslim or European/Christian, and their modern colonial offshoot, Marxism. Prove us still surviving Indigenous peoples, planet Earth wide, wrong about this, without reaching into colonial history revisionisms. Seriously!
All still surviving Indigenous peoples upon this planet Earth, PLEASE, keep doing as we pesky and colonially inconvenient still unassimilated Jews are doing. SURVIVE in language, culture, and in ethno-religion – intact – until humanity learns to live peacefully and securely in diversity! Do not capitulate, rather forcibly recreate! Time is on our side. And, truly, it is so sad that we have to fight our human brothers and sisters to ensure this!!!
Christianity and Islam is built on dead colonized human bodies, whereas as Judaism is built on native intelligence exploration and peace!
META Description : Christianity and Islam is built on dead human beings, whereas Judaism is built on intellect empowerment and peace!
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Link to the book directly below. Touch the cover!
Read this book and you won’t disparage the Jewish people nor Israel ever again! This book exposes the Colonial lie of false equivalency between Jews (Indigenous Judeans of the land of Israel) and Christians and Muslims (world colonizing European and Arab religions), that have been assimilating Indigenous lands worldwide for 1,600 years in the names of Jewish ancestors. Zionism is the Jewish people’s “land back” movement. Israel’s successful full decolonization is every Indigenous People’s/Nation’s hope!
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