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   Mordecai Martin (mordecaimartin@rage.love)'s status on Tuesday, 10-Oct-2023 04:55:03 JST Mordecai Martin

   I was asked why I as a translator of Yiddish, as a writer who works with his Jewish ancestors, why do I only post Free Palestine, why don't I post about the horrors being faced by fellow Jews in this war. It was a bad faith question, meant to rile me. But I'm thinking it over. I've talked elsewhere about why I think it is necessary to stand for a Free Palestine, a goal for the Holy Land that we are far short of, and I fear is growing more distant with this war. I've talked about how shameful I find the actions of the so-called "Jewish" state of Israel. So I'd like to just reflect on what my Yiddish work has to do with any of this, why spending time with my ancestors in that form leads me to the position I find myself in.

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     Mordecai Martin (mordecaimartin@rage.love)'s status on Tuesday, 10-Oct-2023 04:55:56 JST Mordecai Martin

     in reply to

     In doing this, I want to avoid twisting or turning Yiddish into something it is not. Yiddish is NOT an "inherent" or even conditional language of resistance to Zionism, despite others using it as such. It IS an Ashkenazi Jewish language, and as such, has been used for just about every type of Ashkenazi Jewish thought, including Zionism

     I guess what Yiddish is to me, with my dusty old books and scanned decaying newspapers, is a language of the dead. And what are the Dead to this conversation of Israel and Palestine? What they often are: An inheritance, a warning. But to me, they are more. They are my family. I am at home with my dead. Sometimes more than I am with the living. Sometimes, I think my clinical anxiety is a way of bridging that gap, every fear a wish. I think about horrible things happening to myself and others, so that we might . . . be more comfortable with each other. Because the dead are comfortable. They do not complain, nor do they praise. They say what they've said and stick with it. They are as happy or dismayed of us as we imagine they might be. Indeed, they are often creatures of our imagination, our ancestors.

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     Mordecai Martin (mordecaimartin@rage.love)'s status on Tuesday, 10-Oct-2023 04:56:20 JST Mordecai Martin

     in reply to

     The question I was asked was roughly "can you not spare a thought for the Jewish descendants of the ancestors you write so lovingly of?" And the truth is I can and do. I am that descendant. Sometimes I think I think in Yiddish because it's yet another way to think of myself.

     This is all getting very solipsistic. What does thinking of myself, or the dead, or Yiddish, none of which are synonyms for each other, have to do with my position on Palestine, and why it must be free?

     When I think of the dead, I think they want better for me and mine. That means a Free Palestine. When I think for myself, I know that I must break with the foolish Zionism that I was taught. That means a Free Palestine. As for Yiddish? Well Yiddish was the language of a world that suffered innumerable losses, never to be regained, when its speakers were kept in an open air prison and then decimated by a military regime. So that too, leads me to say Free Palestine.

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     GNU Too (gnu2@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Tuesday, 10-Oct-2023 07:44:36 JST GNU Too

     in reply to
     @MordecaiMartin Palestine is an artificial entity that does not exist in nature. All INDIVIDUALS should be free.