Zionism is Indigenous resistance, and is our Jewish land back movement! We Israelis are a light unto all still surviving Indigenous peoples that decolonization from European and Arab settler Colonialism is indeed possible. We Israelis (Jews, Druze, Bedouin, and Israeli Arabs citizens of Israel) are showing the world what the Indigenous land back movement looks like in applied actions! (Look for more Jewish indigenous teachings, bottom half of this page.)
Saying that Arabs are “indigenous” to Southwest Asia (Colonial “Palestine”) is no different than saying that Europeans and their former African slaves are “indigenous” to Michilimackinac (Colonial “America”)! Both Europeans and Arabs are wannabe aboriginals – through their religion’s conquest of Native lands.
The lie in the Arab Conquistador’s argument for possession of native Israeli and Kurdish peoples’ lands is the mythic fantasy that Jews and Kurds were successfully forced entirely off our lands. Thus, through returning, we are somehow now magically “European colonizers” upon our own Native lands. Hint, neither Jews nor Kurds are a European people, despite our light skin colors! And nevermind easily verifiable historical facts:
We Jews have had a nonstop 3,800 physical presence upon our land of Israel, despite every single European and Arab attempted ethnic cleansing and Apartheid upon the land of Israel (what only non-Indigenous call “Palestine”) to make it Colonial Christian or Colonial Islam land. For two decades MENA Jews fought the post-WW1 British-Arab militarized occupiers of the land of Israel, and in 1948 we successfully forcibly decolonized our land and reestablished Jewish self-sovereignty upon our Jewish Israel.
If you stopped looking at just Israelis, then you’d notice that the Kurds and Assyrians are also militarily freedom fighting for the liberation of their lands, too, like Israel is forced to do for our continued sovereign independence. Jews are indigenous to Israel, hence our Southwest Asia people’s Indigenous resistance to Arab settler Colonialism!
By stopping arms shipments to Israel, Joe Biden is simply trying to win re-election, through placating the anti-Israel citizens of the United States to get the votes necessary. May he succeed! Yet, this requires him to prove – yet again – to Indigenous Israelis (Jews, Druze, Bedouin, and Israeli Arabs) and all watching Arab-European occupied Indigenous peoples that a Colonial nation cannot be trusted to keep their treaties.
Which we Israelis already knew, considering how the United States has been UNRWA funding Arab settler occupation and terrorisms upon our 1948 forcibly decolonized land of Israel, while selling weapons and support to Indigenous Israelis so that we may defend ourselves from this UNRWA 6 decades of Arab (self-named in 1964) “Palestinian” occupation and terrorisms upon our Southwest Asia Indigenous lands of Israel and Kurdistan!
Do you know that these post-WW1 Arab “Palestinian” racistly violent settler occupiers have depravedly killed 300,000 Indigenous Kurds since 1920, and kidnapped many Kurdish women to be slaves to rich UNRWA funded Arab Conquistadors upon Southwest Asia? Of course, not! If there is no rebellious Jews freedom fighting for the liberation of our land, then there is no worldwide news! Sadly, only Arab-European Colonial lives matter upon this planet Earth.
From the river to the sea, Israel and Kurdistan will one day be free, yes – of your UNRWA funded post-WW1 Colonial “Palestine” occupation and terrorisms upon our Southwest Asia Indigenous peoples’ lands!
Zuheir Mohsen, زهير محسن, PLO leader, 1977: “There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are part of one people, the Arab nation. Look, I have relatives with Palestinian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Syrian citizenships. We are one people. Only for political reasons do we carefully subscribe to our Palestinian identity. Indeed, it is of national importance for the Arabs to encourage the existence of the Palestinians in the face of Zionism [Jewish forced decolonization of a third of the land of Israel from British-Arab occupation in 1948 for non-Arab Jewish sovereignty]. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity is only there for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new means of continuing the struggle against Israel [her very decolonized existence] and for Arab unity…. Once we have acquired all our rights in all of Palestine, we must not delay for a moment the reunification of Jordan and Palestine.” – quoted in “Wij zijn alleen Palestijn om politieke reden,” Dutch newspaper Trouw, March 31, 1977, Zuheir Mohsen, زهير محسن, Palestinian leader of (pro-Syria) As-Sa’iqa Ba’athist faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) between 1971 and 1979
North Vietnamese communist General Vo Nguyen Giap, whom Yasser Arafat met several times, once explained to the Arab Palestinians why their KGB invented, funded, and supported anti-Israel propaganda campaigns and acts of terrorisms have not uprooted the Israelis from the land of Israel:
“The Palestinians are always coming here and saying to me, ‘You expelled the French and the Americans. How do we expel the Jews?’ I tell them that the French went back to France and the Americans to America. But the Jews have nowhere to go. You will not expel them.” … Exactly! Jews are from Judea and Samaria, the land of Israel!
The Arab “Palestinian people” is a Soviet Union 1964 invented settler occupation force upon 1948 forcibly decolonized Indigenous Israel. Both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas were recruited by the KGB to lead this fictitious people, as a terroristic influence campaign to destabilize Israeli democracy, security, and support.
Easily verifiable historical facts really do matter!
Bassem Eid is a Palestinian human rights activist. He lives in the West Bank. He would like USA African Americans and student protestors to listen to our Southwest Asia voices:
“By rejecting ceasefire after ceasefire – regardless of recent stunts – Hamas has not only endangered the lives of Palestinians and Israelis alike, but also manipulated the deteriorating humanitarian situation to its advantage. Each refusal to engage in peaceful negotiations has been a calculated decision to sustain conflict and suffering, primarily aimed at garnering international sympathy through the lens of victimhood…
There is a troubling tendency in international media and some political circles to equate the actions of the IDF with those of Hamas. This false equivalence not only distorts the reality on the ground but also undermines the legitimate security concerns of both Israel and the ordinary Palestinians who reject terrorism. It is crucial to differentiate between a sovereign nation’s right to defend its citizens and terrorist acts that target innocent civilians.”
https://www.newsweek.com/hamas-blame-israels-rafah-operation-opinion-1898572
Bassem Eid, an Arab Palestinian human rights activist, understands Jewish Indigenous resistance!
Nasreen Yousef, a Druze woman, Youssef Elziadna, a Bedouin man, Rabbi Shahar Botzhek, a Jewish man, and nine other Oct 7th heroes who rescued Israeli lives from the Arab Palestinian depravedly inhumane terrorist attack are selected for lighting the Israeli Independence day torches. “This is our country and we will continue to protect it,” said Israeli Druze citizen Nasreen Yousef – absolutely!
Nasreen Yousef helped to prevent a bloodbath in her community on the southern Gaza border on October 7 by using her native Arabic to convince terrorists that she would give them money and smuggle them out, while she gathered critical intelligence and passed it to the IDF.
Youssef Elziadna, a minibus driver from Rahat who saved 30 people from the Nova Festival while one member of his Bedouin family was killed and four were abducted.
Rabbi Shahar Botzhek from Ofakim fought against Hamas terrorists even after being injured; and Rami Davidian from Moshav Patish led Nova Festival rescue missions on October 7 that saved over 700 people.
The Independence Day ceremony traditionally features a torch-lighting portion in which 12 Israelis who are considered exemplary citizens are chosen to light a torch.
This year’s torch lighters were selected for their “heroism” on or in relation to October 7, when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking 252 hostages.
Too many non-Jews base their hatred for Israel upon the 1970’s KGB invented lie of Jews being “colonizers” upon our own ancestral land of Judea and Samaria, the land of Israel. And this why too many non-Jews support Arab (self-named since 1964) “Palestinian” political land-squatting settlers upon our 1948 forcibly decolonized Indigenous Israeli land, and also support Arab Palestinian and Islamic HAMAS terrorisms upon our native Israeli peoples (Jews, Druze, Bedouin, and Israeli Arabs, who are all citizens of our democratic nation of Israel).
Because the citizens of European and Arab Colonial nations have been thoroughly indoctrinated into this anti-Indigenous erasure of Jews and Kurds from our historic Colonial “Palestine”, we Indigenous Jews are repeatedly having to correct the individuals who (mostly) unknowingly spread these lies. And most are not willing to hear our Indigenous voice – though we try to educate this human world on who is a Jew, who are not Jews, and what Jews actually are (not a “religion”, but a people with an ethno-religion).
Indigenous Peoples are defined by Indigenous laws. Those who have been legally adopted into our Jewish people, they are Jews and allowed to marry Jews, regardless of their former “genealogy”. … It’s no different than Pueblo or Anishinaabe Native tribes that are occupied by the United States intermarrying with Jews, and these Jews and their children are fully legally Pueblo or Anishinaabe members. It’s no different than Africans who fled slavery and were accepted as members of a few First Nation tribes, thus they and their descendants are adopted First Nation members. … As a non-Jew, what gives you the right to have “doubts about the genealogy of some segments of the Jewish people”? Other than your privileged Colonial social supremacy.
——- (We apologize that this post will become longer for this, BUT … this is vitally important education for the sake of planetary human PEACE on Earth!) ——-
We Jews/Israelis also get accused by non-Jews in the Arab and European successfully colonized diasporas of avoiding DNA tests – and, especially, within Israel – because somehow the results of such tests would invalidate our 3,800 year history and presence as Jews upon Judea and Samaria, the land of Israel. At least, so believes the citizens indoctrinated into this stupidity within the present Arab and European Colonial nations, many of which occupy Indigenous nations’ lands. This ignorance arises all because most Jews were ethnically cleansed from our land of Israel into the Arab and European Colonial diasporas, and had to aliyah, “return”, to the land of Israel from exile.
LOL! You’re still not listening to Indigenous peoples, European and Arab Conquistadors upon Native peoples’ lands worldwide! Let’s address the mi-used for antisemitic racism DNA claims:
DNA testing is only reliable to a certain point of collected comparable data. This is why people are seeing their results change with every update to companies’ databases. Thus, DNA science is only useful – even in Israel, an Indigenous Jewish nation – for specific applications that are reliable anywhere else upon this planet Earth. Here and ONLY here is where DNA tests are “reliable”:
1 – The Y-haplogroup and mtDNA haplogroup, which can be used for paternal/maternal descendant testing (or individual identification with comparable samples, when the whole strand is analyzed for matching data)- but not useful for determining legal Indigenous people status (like “who is a Jew?”).
2 – There are specific subclaves of Y and mt DNA that directly mark a connection to Sephardi Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, and Mizrahi Jews – and this is not useable in determining present legal Jewish status, but is useable as evidence for petition for legal Jewish status.
3 – In the ever changing admixtures, from contact with other peoples, for some of us there are percentages that never change – no matter how much additional data is added to companies’ databases – and the reason for this is that these reliable admixture patterns show a specific set of families’ direction of migration around this planet – but this is not useful for determining legal Jewish status.
Besides these 3 aspects of DNA testing, the science is unreliable because it is ever advancing. It is a glimpse into the history of humanity, but DNA science is not the entire encyclopedia set. Further, Jewish halachot (Jewish people’s law) on who is a descendant of the Canaan people known as Jews and who is not predates by three millennia 20th century CE European invented DNA science. So, go home anti-Indigenous racists for Colonial Allah, Christ and, now, Marx oppressively violent ruling dominionism upon all Indigenous Peoples’ lands worldwide!
One last point,… This is precisely why the Lebanese people, who retain the strongest genetic link to the Canaanite people, are no longer Canaanites and are modern day Arab Colonizers upon Southwest Asia Indigenous peoples’ lands. If you speak the Colonizer’s language, worship the Colonizer’s god(s), and support the Colonizer’s culture and governments upon Native lands, then you are a Colonizer regardless of your ancestry. This applies whether you are on Southwest Asia region lands or on Michilimackinac continent land (what Colonizers named “America”).
——- (Final thought, specifically for the USA, Canada, and Mexico readers of this post!) ——-
For citizens of the United States who are reading this post: Not all “indigenous” by ancestry are still part of the Indigenous peoples of Michilimackinac – aka, Colonial “America”. Why? You, now, already know the answer to this question. (If you don’t understand “why”, please, read again from the top of this post!) As well, some Indigenous peoples who are living upon Michilimackinac within the Colonial Mexico, United States, and Canada nations are Indigenous refugees upon Turtle Island land, courtesy of the worldwide European and Arab Conquistadors upon planet Earth!
For example, the special bond between Indigenous Jews/Israelis and Michilimackinac Native nations (that is occupied by Colonial “America”) has a history tied directly to the chasing of Jews from out of the Iberian Peninsula by European Christian Conquistadors in the 1400’s. Does this ring a historical bell?!
For Sephardi Jews, those who fled the Conquistadors to the “American” continents, we were welcomed into Native tribes, fought the Conquistadors with them, intermarried with Michilimackinac Indigenous, and became treaty Chiefs between the “white man” and Native tribes. Since, I said “Chief”, one Sephardi Jew was chosen by a Michilimackinac Native tribe to be their federally recognized nation’s Chief. Look it up!
This is why Michilimackinac Indigenous nations support Jewish students who are simply trying to get an education upon USA “higher education” university campuses. Indigenous peoples who are occupied by socially privileged “white”, “black”, and “brown” Conquistadors do not harm other Indigenous peoples. That is what citizens of European and Arab Colonial nations do to all Native peoples planet Earth wide! We Native peoples – regardless of continent or island – are true “allies” for each other’s decolonization causes.
Jewish students are welcome on Native land! Native men believe Israeli women!
Now, let’s get more ethnic by focusing now on Jewish indigenous beliefs and stories!
This is Indigenous!!! Yehuda Becher was on his way to the NOVA music festival, singing in Canaanite Hebrew while driving his car. Arab Palestinian HAMAS terrorists murdered him this same day. Look at what he was chanting in our native people’s Hebrew!
He is not wearing kipa nor sudra (our indigenous Judean people’s head covering), he is not wearing tzitzit (our indigenous Judean people’s amulets) – the protective sacred garments of our people, that attunes us to our relationship with the G-d of the land of Israel. He cuts his pe’ot (his long braids of hair). BUT, he is singing the native Canaanite Hebrew words of our people!
This is what a Jew is! Because of the ha’galut ha’aruchah, the 1,800 year exile into the non-Israel worldwide diasporas – for way TOO many Jews! And you still don’t know it? You’re very difficult to educate! So, you assume to know who and what a Jew is – as a NON-Jew?! Without our Indigenous language, an Indigenous people dies. But, Jews have faithfully kept our native Canaan Hebrew language alive – as first words for our children and last words for our grey-haired!
This Jew was on his way to the Nova festival when he recorded this. The Nova festival was about dancing for shalom – for peace! This Jew, he was murdered by the Arab “Palestinian” Conquistadors – fortunately not gang-raped and physically mutilated while alive, like too many Indigenous Israeli women (Jewish and Israeli Arab women).
Yes, these post-1948 politically land-squatting Arab terrorists for HAMAS upon our 1948 forcibly decolonized Indigenous Israeli nation – who most specifically targeted and murdered their ONLY Israeli kibbutzim supporters in Israel (who were FOR their “national independence” cause) – do not respect the native peoples of this Southwest Asia region of lands! This genocide, another Shoah upon the Jewish people of Israel, happened to all Jews worldwide on October 7th, 2023.
We are all a piece of G-d! This is authentic Jewish belief, whether upon Israel or in the worldwide diasporas.
“The Jewish tradition maintains that in messianic times there will and should be Gentiles – people who are not members of the Jewish people and do not follow our ethno-religious path. The existence of those who are not Jewish is not merely a concession to facts on the ground, but part of the Jewish ideal, wherein all – Jew and Gentile alike – worship the single Creator god differently and distinctly, each in their own mode of worship. For Jews, we make blessings as a mode of reverence. Indeed, the Talmud insists that in messianic times “conversion” into Judaism will not exist: Jews and Gentiles will peacefully coexist upon respective lands.” – Rabbi Yehonatán
בהנחל עליון גוים בהפרידו בני אדם יצב גבלת עמים למספר בני אלוהים: כי חלק י-הוה עמו יעקב חבל נחלתו:
When Elyon (the Most High god) apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; Y-HWH’s own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share. – D’varim 32:8-9
And in a warning passage of what the consequences will be, if Israel places another people’s god (even in an image/name form) before the face of Y-HWH:
כהוַיֵּֽלְכ֗וּ וַיַּֽעַבְדוּ֙ אֱלֹהִ֣ים אֲחֵרִ֔ים וַיִּשְׁתַּֽחֲו֖וּ לָהֶ֑ם אֱלֹהִים֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר לֹֽא־יְדָע֔וּם וְלֹ֥א חָלַ֖ק לָהֶֽם:
For they (Israel) went and served other gods, prostrating themselves to these gods which they had not known, and which he (Y-HWH) had not apportioned to them. – D’varim 29:25
We Southwest Asia native peoples – Jews, Kurds, Balochs, Assyrians, ethnic Persians, etc – who maintain gan eyden for our future generations will survive all efforts to erase our Indigenous founding events – which is the reason and basis for Torah upon this planet Earth.
All Native peoples, including Jews, recognize that humans by nature are sexually fluid by the Creator’s design. Meaning, that humans are not limited in erotic attraction to only the opposite gender, and that humans are not all representative in nature according to their birthed gender.
In Torah, you find stories that demonstrate this understanding of fluidity that doesn’t fit “the norm” (the relationship between David and Jonathan comes right to mind!), and you have laws that define specific instances where this fluidity is not Torah socially acceptable.
Jews have a saying, “Torah is a tree of life. You embrace it so that you may live.” Live and not die, by this embracing.
The Torah does not and has never prohibited homosexuality! Despite what modern religious interpretations (can’t call it translations!) say that Torah says. The modern idea that Torah prohibits “homosexuality” is very recent (literally, within the last 150 years). So, let’s learn together what Torah actually teaches in our Jewish Canaanite Hebrew language, and how this was transformed into the present prohibition of homosexuality in general.
Rabbi Yehuda ha’Nasi taught: “the word to’eva: You are straying after it [to’e ata bah]” – meaning that “you are straying from your wife to be with another man.” – Nedarim 51a
Our Jewish Torah has no concept of there being a “homosexual” man and woman upon this planet Earth. It is emphatically assumed within Torah that men and women are inherently “fluid” in sexual and gender orientation. Meaning, that certain laws need to be made – specifically, mostly for males – that ensure both a successful national cohesion (“love your neighbor as yourself”) and ensures social justice (“love your G-d”).
The purpose of Torah mitzvot – our Jewish laws that were established by the Creator, Y-HWH, and are maintained by Jews through our courts of law – is to fulfill this divine mandate, so that our people who are indigenous to Judea and Samaria, the land of Israel, are k’doshim, “sanctified”, before Y-HWH and survive l’dor v’dor (generation upon generation) until “skies and land are no more”.
Here is the Torah laws, in our Canaanite Hebrew language, regarding male to male sexual intimacy ONLY – yes, women are totally ignored and not bound legally in any way in their sexual fluidity (within Torah!):
עֶרְוַ֥ת אָבִ֛יךָ וְעֶרְוַ֥ת אִמְּךָ֖ לֹ֣א תְגַלֵּ֑ה אִמְּךָ֣ הִ֔וא לֹ֥א תְגַלֶּ֖ה עֶרְוָתָֽהּ:
You will not have sex with your father nor have sex with your mother; she is your mother, you shall not expose her genitals. – Vayikra 18:7 (emphasis is placed on the mother)
עֶרְוַ֥ת אֲחִֽי־אָבִ֖יךָ לֹ֣א תְגַלֵּ֑ה אֶל־אִשְׁתּוֹ֙ לֹ֣א תִקְרָ֔ב דֹּדָֽתְךָ֖ הִֽוא:
You will not have sex with your father’s brother; you will not come near his wife, she is your aunt. – Vayikra 18:14
וְאֶ֨ת־זָכָ֔ר לֹ֥א תִשְׁכַּ֖ב מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אִשָּׁ֑ה תּֽוֹעֵבָ֖ה הִֽוא:
You will not have sex with a male (on) bed of wife, this is an abhorrence. – Vayikra 18:22 (20:13 repeats this law, with a penalty of death directly attached)
Note, that Vayikra 18:22’s legal prohibition parallels directly with the only other place that this unusual plural noun, mish’k’vei, is found within our Jewish Torah:
כִּ֥י עָלִ֖יתָ מִשְׁכְּבֵ֣י אָבִ֑יךָ אָ֥ז חִלַּ֖לְתָּ יְצוּעִ֥י עָלָֽה
For you went upon your father’s bed, then you defiled who lays upon my bed. – Bereshit 49:4
The Torah only speaks of three specific forbidden homogenital (“homosexual”) acts and they only apply to men (males) – no sex with uncle, no sex with father and, married men, no sex with a male on your wife’s bed!
Now, a question: Why are Jews in more insular Jewish communities permitted to wear women’s clothing on the festival of Purim? The answer: Because Torah mitzvot does not prohibit this. So, then, what exactly does Torah prohibit regarding gender “crossdressing”?!
לֹא־יִֽהְיֶ֤ה כְלִי־גֶ֨בֶר֙ עַל־אִשָּׁ֔ה וְלֹֽא־יִלְבַּ֥שׁ גֶּ֖בֶר שִׂמְלַ֣ת אִשָּׁ֑ה כִּ֧י תֽוֹעֲבַ֛ת יְהֹוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֶי֖ךָ כָּל־עֹ֥שֵׂה אֵֽלֶּה:
There will be no item (keli) of a manly man (gever, a warrior/leader) on a woman (ishah), and a manly man (gever, a warrior/leader) will not wear a (lost in time unique to women) outer garment (simlah) of a woman (ishah); for abhorrent to Y-HWH your god whoever does this. – D’varim 22:5
Do WE Jews need to remind you, European Christian and Arab Muslim colonized world, about our Indigenous Judean people’s ways and beliefs?! You can quote as many successfully colonized Jews who subscribe to your bigotries and racisms all you want, BUT there will always be what Ashkenazi Jews call the פּינטעלע ייִד (“pintele yid”), “the Jewish spark”, the Indigenous Jews amongst our Canaan Judean people!
Now, HOW did “this” turn into “that” over time?! It’s really simple actually. The Jewish people got invaded by the Greek Palestinians – AGAIN – this time to occupy ALL of Israel and turn us into Greeks. Because Greek adult males were totally comfortable with exchanging education and status advantages with young males through sexual favors in return, the proto-rabbis turned “mish’k’vei” into a euphemism of “lyings of” (woman), based upon root word relationship. This is the basis for modern Judaism’s (Christian and Islam Colonial influenced) prohibition of homosexuality in general.
Be sanctified, NOT “holy”. Torah is rooted in the present, in everyday life, not in some lofty theology. Not sure how to live a sanctified/sacred life? Learn with this Rabbi’s post! (Picture above, cherubim on the ark that Y-HWH rides upon, down and up between land and his palace in the skies.)
Rabbi Ysoscher Katz wrote, “Tomorrow morning, during kri’at haTorah, we will hear God’s plea: kedoshim tihiyu, please be holy!
Modern Jewry’s response to this solicitous request, however, has been tepid, to some degree because we misconstrue what God requests from us.
Kedoshim tihiyu is usually translated as: you should be HOLY. But that is incorrect. The proper translation is: you should be SACRED. God commands us to live sacred lives, not that we should become a holy people.
The difference between holy and sacred is significant.
To be holy is to circumvent corporality and avoid it, whereas sacredness requires us to embrace our physicality and sanctify it. And we are asked to do the latter, to pursue sacredness, not that we should be holy.
Holiness is God’s domain. God is devoid of corporality and, therefore, is innately Kadosh; we are not. (Nor do we want to be!) We are corporeal beings and can never achieve all-encompassing holiness. Instead we are exhorted to sacralize our physicality by identifying the divinity embedded within the corporal.
The Talmud, as a matter of fact, says so rather explicitly; that sacredness springs from within the corporeal.
The rabbis (Sotah 17a) say איש ואשה שכינה שרויה ביניהם, that God is at the center of our pursuit of intimacy. Chazal believed that God can be found right there, in the middle of the spousal sensual encounter. Essentially they’re saying that Kedusha is immanent. Holiness is achieved by immersing ourselves in materiality and sanctifying it.
The rewards of such an orientation, however, are not just spiritual, there is also a practical benefit for living such a life. Encountering the transcendental within the material creates a momentary “temple in time,” wherein we are caressed by the divine and embraced by it. That caress, in turn, generates an emotionally electrifying touch whose power stays with us for a while. It is an island of mental rest in the midst of the choppy tides of life.
Heed the call: Ve’anshai kodesh tihiyun li; ואנשי קודש תהיון לי. In the words of the Kotzker z”l: בי מענטשליך הייליג, sanctify your humanity; sprinkle your material pursuits with a modicum of sanctity. Eat and drink with holiness, pursue intimacy with kedusha, find the kedusha in friendships, in the chirping of a bird, the music of the waves and anywhere else you can see it. If you look hard enough, you will find it almost everywhere.
Shabbat Kadosh Shalom u’mevoroch!”
A story about Turtles and humans, shared by a Jew living upon Turtle Island (Michilimackinac, what Arab-European Conquistadors call “America”).
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz wrote, “On Friday afternoon, we rescued a huge tortoise walking down our road and had a delightful Shabbos with him. We named him Mikey (for the Ninja Turtle Michelangelo).
But are turtles really fighting ninjas?
Here’s a little Torah from the Lubavitcher chassidim:
“When turtles are threatened, they either leave the area or protect themselves inside their shells, rather than fighting back. The Torah says, ‘You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18). When someone offends you or hurts you, sometimes it is a good idea to respond with love and end the fight by not fighting back.”
May we all have the wisdom to know when to defend ourselves (physically & emotionally) and when to de-escalate. Thank you, sweet turtle, for teaching us to develop protective shells that can help us heal relationships.
(and b’H, we have now found the owner – a nice Jewish woman down the block & the tortoise’s name is Tess, shockingly, not a ninja turtle at all & perhaps offended or at least irritated by the assumption that she was one, given the Torah she taught us).”
META Description : Zionism is Jewish Indigenous resistance! We Israelis are showing what the land back movement looks like in applied actions!
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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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