I remember this article well from when you first brought out in the Judean People’s Front, Liza! Masha Gessen is a traitor to the Jewish people who repeats blood libels and Hamas propaganda on the regular. Okay, so let’s take her claims one by one. Israel is committing genocide she says. BS! The IDF has the lowest combatant to civilian killed ratio in the history of warfare. They go above and beyond to protect Palestinian civilians. If you want to see a genocide how about the one that’s been going on for 20 years now in Sudan perpetrated by Arabs on black Africans? How about the slaughter of Christians in Northern Nigeria? How about the genocide of the Royhinga Muslims in Burma?
Israel an apartheid state? Did you seriously just compare a liberal democracy and a multicultural society where all have equal rights to one of the most evil regimes in history? Minorities had no rights at all and faced brutal repression in Apartheid South Africa. Israel by contrast gave equal rights to its two million Arab citizens. The Druze, Circassians and Bedouin have long enjoyed close ties with the Jews of the holy land. Israel has opened its doors to the Black Hebrew Israelites, African-American Christians, Ukrainian refugees, Syrian refugee children, and African asylum seekers. Israel is home to white-passing, black, brown, yellow, and red Jews.
Meanwhile, Masha Gessen makes no mention at all of Hamas’ heinous crimes on October 7th. Hamas burned whole families alive, ransacked and looted Kibbutzims, shot up playgrounds, cut foreign worker’s heads off, kidnapped hundreds of civilians, molested children, raped young women alive and dead, shot dogs in the head for fun, and did bloody pogroms against Jews just to name a FEW of the horrific crimes that took place on October 7th. Gessen never says a word about any of this. Her silence is absolutely deafening. She forgets the struggles of her own people.
People I think forget that despite their promises of equality for all, the Soviet Union was NOT a multicultural paradise. Liza’s family was harassed, terrorized, discriminated against, and even murdered by the state because they were Jews. Josef Stalin was a notorious antisemite. By the way, the Soviet state was also racist, ethnocentric, sexist, and homophobic too. African students who came to the USSR to study were harassed, called racial slurs, bullied, and even physically assaulted by their Soviet peers and everyday Soviet people. There is even one case of a student from Ghana being stabbed to death by a Soviet citizen because he was dating a Soviet woman. Soviet women who had mixed-race children with African men weren’t allowed to move back to Africa with their lovers and were either pressured to have an abortion or give their baby up for adoption and were labeled prostitutes by society for falling in love with black men.
The USSR also very much had a “white man’s burden” kind of attitude towards the people from the Caucasuses. Those who weren’t Ethnic Russians were never allowed to rise to the top in the Politburo. How many Ukrainian, Belarusian, Asiatic, Cossack, Azerbaijani, Lithuanian, or Latvian PMs did the Soviet Union have? None. Same with women, name one female Soviet premier, I’ll wait. Women in Soviet society were subject to rigid traditional gender roles, restricted to certain career fields and bore the brunt of household and childcare responsibilities.
Gay men in the Soviet Union were thrown in prison and lesbians were social ostracized and subject to medicalization. Soviet women discovered to be lesbians were sent to mental institutions. Disabled people in Soviet Russia were stigmatized and marginalized, were excluded from education, employment and public life and categorized them based on how “useful” for society. None of this is even to mention all the ethnic groups Stalin had deported. Returning to the plight of Soviet Jews, they faced open discrimination such as Liza’s grandmother who wasn’t able to get a position as a professor until a gentile vouched for her. Soviet Jews were spied on by the KGB when they attended synagogue. They were accused of being disloyal to the state if they expressed Zionism sympathies. Soviet Jews who tried to emigrate to Israel known as Refuseniks were denied and they had to fight for decades to get that right. Masha has forgotten what her ancestors had to go through in one of the most ferociously antisemitic countries in the world. For G**sake this is the country where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was written, is she not aware of this? Oh by the way, Masha, you’re welcome for not getting killed by Iranian nuclear weapons as Israel badly damaged and set back years the Iranian nuclear program in Operation Rising Lion.
Both Brezhnev and Khrushchev were born in Ukraine. Brezhnev considered himself Ukrainian, surrounded himself with people from Dnepropetrovks (now Dnipro). Ukrainian was casually spoken at Staraya Square during both of them running the country. Gorbachev's mom was Ukrainian. He grew up mostly with her parents, speaking Ukrainian, that's why he spoke Russian with Ukrainian accent (Brezhnev too, by the way). In 1984, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky was a serious contender for General Secretary post.
The recognition of antisemitism is passed down from generation to generation. It's probably one big reason we've survived as a people all these years. It's tragic when that chain is broken. I think about how many generations worked to keep it intact for me.
As is the embracing of the Jews which was done in my family by our mother: “Be good to the Jewish kids at school as they are God’s chosen people.” That is a direct quote from my mom.
It is difficult to be proud of who you are if you don’t know who you are. Shifting identities is a sign of mental illness, imo. Maybe I am wrong but it seems to me that not accepting biology is a problem.
On the Doctor’s Plot: had Stalin not died, it probably would have been the kickoff of a large-scale anti-Jewish persecution of some sort. The Soviets’ m.o. at that point was to gin up some accusation against a small group of co-ethnics or other identifiable group, then “discover” increasingly wider groups of co-conspirators, until they took measures against the entire population as unreliable. What this could have meant for the USSR’s Jews, given the historical depth and viciousness of Russian antisemitism (considerably worse than Germany’s), is an open question, but it wouldn’t have been good. Stalin’s death was very, as they say, Good for the Jews.
I am always sad when there is quarrel among Jews, especially Russian-speaking Jews. I did respect Masha Gessen. For more on her views of herself as nonbinary person, you can hear her interview with Yuri Dud here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0oRii7zV9A. Her reasoning made sense, and was quite informative. It is in Russian, but I think there are English subtitles.
Also, I think there is stupid linkage, for whatever crazy reason, between left and anti-Zionism. Insane.
Left Zionism was always a bigger part of the movement. I am a proud left Zionist in the tradition of Golda Meir and Louis Brandeis.
The tragedy of Masha Gessen is that she apparently believes Jewish people all over the world wouldn't be threatened anymore if Israel is totally erased or if they still were, that would be okay. Iran wants to erase Israel and then America. If America gets erased there won't be any New Yorker around to publish antisemitic articles in unless it believes it will be allowed to continue publishing with virtually no subscriber base or advertising. She doesn't get or care that ultimately everyone is being threatened whenever antisemitism is encouraged.
from the egalitarian perspecitive it is extractable; that perhaps exactly 28 individuals - amongst them university and collegiate professors : profaned a stratagema too obviate the authenticity of the press (throng) identity, of the first amendment; which is the identity of 'treason-fortë' (or protests). And obfiuscated the promised collegiate discourse of entertainment of knowledge which exculpates the pluralistic & plutocratic assembly of colleges in denomination and society : that would explain that the amount of force those students used which was within their right too demand treason-fortë from any government of the revolution as citizens of the united states in an egalitarian non-democratic epoch; should be suspense upon those governments taking a financial repair of estates against an injustice. this swept the entire globe instead successfully decieving the whole world into believing that they have no right too impute & render assistance too starving and innocent victims of slaughter and warfare who are likely the victims of ulterior deception as well as effective & oppressive deception which created a global synchronization that expels a utility for ignorance over the mass-deaths of children and the tactical utilization of collateral damage. this could have been prohibited or totally mitigated if those 28 individuals did not decieve innocent students in their mode of responsibility and oppourtunity too educate them properly about a noble egalitarian & non-democratic authority they possessed to do a thing which would've been effective or utilitas for our entire well-being. They, should be sent too prison for encouraging those students too use their voice and their elevated status, stupidly; which again : they encouraged stupidity globally, sacrificing the integrity of those students' actions.
I remember this article well from when you first brought out in the Judean People’s Front, Liza! Masha Gessen is a traitor to the Jewish people who repeats blood libels and Hamas propaganda on the regular. Okay, so let’s take her claims one by one. Israel is committing genocide she says. BS! The IDF has the lowest combatant to civilian killed ratio in the history of warfare. They go above and beyond to protect Palestinian civilians. If you want to see a genocide how about the one that’s been going on for 20 years now in Sudan perpetrated by Arabs on black Africans? How about the slaughter of Christians in Northern Nigeria? How about the genocide of the Royhinga Muslims in Burma?
Israel an apartheid state? Did you seriously just compare a liberal democracy and a multicultural society where all have equal rights to one of the most evil regimes in history? Minorities had no rights at all and faced brutal repression in Apartheid South Africa. Israel by contrast gave equal rights to its two million Arab citizens. The Druze, Circassians and Bedouin have long enjoyed close ties with the Jews of the holy land. Israel has opened its doors to the Black Hebrew Israelites, African-American Christians, Ukrainian refugees, Syrian refugee children, and African asylum seekers. Israel is home to white-passing, black, brown, yellow, and red Jews.
Meanwhile, Masha Gessen makes no mention at all of Hamas’ heinous crimes on October 7th. Hamas burned whole families alive, ransacked and looted Kibbutzims, shot up playgrounds, cut foreign worker’s heads off, kidnapped hundreds of civilians, molested children, raped young women alive and dead, shot dogs in the head for fun, and did bloody pogroms against Jews just to name a FEW of the horrific crimes that took place on October 7th. Gessen never says a word about any of this. Her silence is absolutely deafening. She forgets the struggles of her own people.
People I think forget that despite their promises of equality for all, the Soviet Union was NOT a multicultural paradise. Liza’s family was harassed, terrorized, discriminated against, and even murdered by the state because they were Jews. Josef Stalin was a notorious antisemite. By the way, the Soviet state was also racist, ethnocentric, sexist, and homophobic too. African students who came to the USSR to study were harassed, called racial slurs, bullied, and even physically assaulted by their Soviet peers and everyday Soviet people. There is even one case of a student from Ghana being stabbed to death by a Soviet citizen because he was dating a Soviet woman. Soviet women who had mixed-race children with African men weren’t allowed to move back to Africa with their lovers and were either pressured to have an abortion or give their baby up for adoption and were labeled prostitutes by society for falling in love with black men.
The USSR also very much had a “white man’s burden” kind of attitude towards the people from the Caucasuses. Those who weren’t Ethnic Russians were never allowed to rise to the top in the Politburo. How many Ukrainian, Belarusian, Asiatic, Cossack, Azerbaijani, Lithuanian, or Latvian PMs did the Soviet Union have? None. Same with women, name one female Soviet premier, I’ll wait. Women in Soviet society were subject to rigid traditional gender roles, restricted to certain career fields and bore the brunt of household and childcare responsibilities.
Gay men in the Soviet Union were thrown in prison and lesbians were social ostracized and subject to medicalization. Soviet women discovered to be lesbians were sent to mental institutions. Disabled people in Soviet Russia were stigmatized and marginalized, were excluded from education, employment and public life and categorized them based on how “useful” for society. None of this is even to mention all the ethnic groups Stalin had deported. Returning to the plight of Soviet Jews, they faced open discrimination such as Liza’s grandmother who wasn’t able to get a position as a professor until a gentile vouched for her. Soviet Jews were spied on by the KGB when they attended synagogue. They were accused of being disloyal to the state if they expressed Zionism sympathies. Soviet Jews who tried to emigrate to Israel known as Refuseniks were denied and they had to fight for decades to get that right. Masha has forgotten what her ancestors had to go through in one of the most ferociously antisemitic countries in the world. For G**sake this is the country where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was written, is she not aware of this? Oh by the way, Masha, you’re welcome for not getting killed by Iranian nuclear weapons as Israel badly damaged and set back years the Iranian nuclear program in Operation Rising Lion.
Both Brezhnev and Khrushchev were born in Ukraine. Brezhnev considered himself Ukrainian, surrounded himself with people from Dnepropetrovks (now Dnipro). Ukrainian was casually spoken at Staraya Square during both of them running the country. Gorbachev's mom was Ukrainian. He grew up mostly with her parents, speaking Ukrainian, that's why he spoke Russian with Ukrainian accent (Brezhnev too, by the way). In 1984, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky was a serious contender for General Secretary post.
The recognition of antisemitism is passed down from generation to generation. It's probably one big reason we've survived as a people all these years. It's tragic when that chain is broken. I think about how many generations worked to keep it intact for me.
As is the embracing of the Jews which was done in my family by our mother: “Be good to the Jewish kids at school as they are God’s chosen people.” That is a direct quote from my mom.
"Recognition of antisemitism." Broken chain. As usual, David, you've given us food for thought.
Perhaps Masha Gessen is not proud of who she is, as her identity keeps revolving.
It is difficult to be proud of who you are if you don’t know who you are. Shifting identities is a sign of mental illness, imo. Maybe I am wrong but it seems to me that not accepting biology is a problem.
On the Doctor’s Plot: had Stalin not died, it probably would have been the kickoff of a large-scale anti-Jewish persecution of some sort. The Soviets’ m.o. at that point was to gin up some accusation against a small group of co-ethnics or other identifiable group, then “discover” increasingly wider groups of co-conspirators, until they took measures against the entire population as unreliable. What this could have meant for the USSR’s Jews, given the historical depth and viciousness of Russian antisemitism (considerably worse than Germany’s), is an open question, but it wouldn’t have been good. Stalin’s death was very, as they say, Good for the Jews.
I am always sad when there is quarrel among Jews, especially Russian-speaking Jews. I did respect Masha Gessen. For more on her views of herself as nonbinary person, you can hear her interview with Yuri Dud here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0oRii7zV9A. Her reasoning made sense, and was quite informative. It is in Russian, but I think there are English subtitles.
Also, I think there is stupid linkage, for whatever crazy reason, between left and anti-Zionism. Insane.
Left Zionism was always a bigger part of the movement. I am a proud left Zionist in the tradition of Golda Meir and Louis Brandeis.
Liza, it is bad manners to link in a comment, but I have written a love song to Israeli Russian Jews that you and your followers might enjoy. https://www.pisgahsite.com/p/the-flying-bottles-of-romema
Outstanding post Liza. - Jim
The tragedy of Masha Gessen is that she apparently believes Jewish people all over the world wouldn't be threatened anymore if Israel is totally erased or if they still were, that would be okay. Iran wants to erase Israel and then America. If America gets erased there won't be any New Yorker around to publish antisemitic articles in unless it believes it will be allowed to continue publishing with virtually no subscriber base or advertising. She doesn't get or care that ultimately everyone is being threatened whenever antisemitism is encouraged.
from the egalitarian perspecitive it is extractable; that perhaps exactly 28 individuals - amongst them university and collegiate professors : profaned a stratagema too obviate the authenticity of the press (throng) identity, of the first amendment; which is the identity of 'treason-fortë' (or protests). And obfiuscated the promised collegiate discourse of entertainment of knowledge which exculpates the pluralistic & plutocratic assembly of colleges in denomination and society : that would explain that the amount of force those students used which was within their right too demand treason-fortë from any government of the revolution as citizens of the united states in an egalitarian non-democratic epoch; should be suspense upon those governments taking a financial repair of estates against an injustice. this swept the entire globe instead successfully decieving the whole world into believing that they have no right too impute & render assistance too starving and innocent victims of slaughter and warfare who are likely the victims of ulterior deception as well as effective & oppressive deception which created a global synchronization that expels a utility for ignorance over the mass-deaths of children and the tactical utilization of collateral damage. this could have been prohibited or totally mitigated if those 28 individuals did not decieve innocent students in their mode of responsibility and oppourtunity too educate them properly about a noble egalitarian & non-democratic authority they possessed to do a thing which would've been effective or utilitas for our entire well-being. They, should be sent too prison for encouraging those students too use their voice and their elevated status, stupidly; which again : they encouraged stupidity globally, sacrificing the integrity of those students' actions.
im so sorry i cant stan' typøs