Notices by Itamar Turner-Trauring (itamarst@better.boston)

I have received an email with subject "Cheese inquiry". It says:

"We are an importer and distributor of cheese and related products, etc, serving HK, Macau and Mainland China. We would like to know more about your company's brands and prices, and hope to have the opportunity to cooperate with you."

Now I'm worried I sleep-walk and make cheddar at night and that's why I'm so tired today.

Mary Eddy Baker, founder of Christian Science, lived in a series of houses over the course of her life, and they're preserved as historical sites you can visit. There are photos here, in reverse chronological order: https://www.longyear.org/visit/historic-houses/

If you look at the progression of photos from oldest (the last one) to newest (the first), it's pretty clear that Christian Science was a very _lucrative_ endeavor...

This is amazing, a poetic reinterpretation of The DaVinci Code: https://dadavincicode.tumblr.com/

Been thinking about Israel; I left 20+ years ago, so my perspective on how it's changed isn't particularly informed. But I notice continuities, and one that isn't really talked about a lot is the deep influence of militarism.

As https://newprofile.org/en/ puts it, Israel is "an army with a state."

For a sense of scale, 40% of men are drafted to the military, 33% of women. Focus only on Jewish Israelis, and it's 58% and 49%. (As of 2019: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-09-06/ty-article/.premium/most-israelis-dont-serve-in-the-army-but-its-still-the-right-solution-for-now/0000017f-ef20-da6f-a77f-ff2eea550000).

1/n

Middle-class American 12th graders might be figuring out if and where they're going to college. When I was going to high school in Israel, the question was where you would serve in the military.

A key difference between Zionist Jewish political parties and non-Zionist Jewish parties is that the voters of the former serve in the military. Culturally the IDF is the key Zionist institution: whether one regards oneself as "left-wing" or "right-wing", military service is a fundamental premise.

2/n

Militarism as a key cultural value means Israeli Jews are compelled to participate in war crimes, and compelled to support really stupid strategy. It's very difficult for them to articulate non-military strategies. Former generals often go into politics, so politicians lack any larger perspective too (Rabin being an exception).

For the right, this isn't a problem. For the left, it means they will say they support peace even as they personally destroy any chance of that happening.

4/n

On the one hand, serving in the military is a key cultural value for most Israeli Jews.

On the other, the military's strategy involves massive use of retaliatory force. A decade or two ago a general explained that for every rocket Hamas shot at Israel (not very effective rockets, killing a civilian or wounding a couple), Israel would level a whole building. So a military doctrine that results in massive civilian casualties. War crimes, but also bad strategy (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/middle-east-robert-pape).

3/n

A current major issue in Israeli politics is getting rid of military exemption for Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men. Secular Israeli Jews feel there is so much need for military action (==war crimes) that it's unfair that the burden isn't shared by Ultra-Orthodox men.

Insofar as Israeli Jews oppose the war now, it's because it's failed to return any hostages.

War crimes, and the fact that military action keeps failing over and over, is never mentioned; militarism is too fundamental of a value.

5/n

2/ - The anthem explicitly omits non-Jews.

- All that ethnic cleansing when Israel was started? Can't mention that.

- The Jewish Israeli town (segregation! it's the norm!) I grew up in banned Arabs from their country club pool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokhav_Ya%27ir

- The town was named after the founder of a Jewish freedom fighting/terrorist group (depends who you ask), who in 1941 tried to cut a deal with the Nazis during WW2 against the British. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Stern

1/ So apparently my representative in Congress, Katherine Clark, thinks that I, a Jew who is also a citizen of Israel, am an antisemite. Can't really express how angry I am right now.

Specifically, I'm an antisemite If I point out that:

- Israel has a segregated school system that massively underfunds Arab citizens, by design.

- Jews can't marry non-Jews in Israel (I couldn't have married my now-wife there!).

- Israel has an apartheid system in the occupied territories.

From Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on the mainstreaming of ethnic cleansing among Israeli Zionists: “The idea of expelling Arabs to other countries was once linked to Meir Kahane and other far-right radicals, and thus considered anathema by most Israelis. Now, to the delight of right-wingers, the idea is gaining traction as a ‘moral' solution to the war”

https://archive.li/P0zwO with original source at
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-17/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/israeli-rightists-are-trying-to-reframe-a-gaza-population-transfer-as-a-moral-act/0000018b-d914-d423-affb-fbb7ddd30000