My latest thoughts on my Kal project ….
Why I will never give money to pop-Humanistic Jewish movements like #SHJ – for, sadly, their secular atheism in drag is just another red ribbon Hollywood kabalah or blue ribbon pop-psychology musar movement, the #societyforhumanisticjudaism . If only they could see that they’re religious Judaism, despite this white culture faddism infatuation!
http://www.aniyostsef.com/kahal/2021/03/26/how-i-define-jewish-humanism-and-why-it-is-needed/
How I Define Jewish Humanism and Why It Is Needed
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Jews are not obligated to make friendship efforts with Christians and Muslims, who are the privileged religious oppressors within this world. Jews are obligated by our written words, our Torah, to make friends with the oppressed and the victimized – to stand with them fully in pursuit of צדקה justice! This is the lesson of the פסח pesach story (wrongfully translated as “passover”).
We are still here, upon the land, as Jews to make nations out of the oppressed peoples – not to join in on the privileged peoples’/religions’ oppressing of others! Let’s not forget who we are as a Jewish nation of families. Let’s not make the mistake of being the privileged fundamentalists in this world, like those who stand at the center, in the absolutist heart, of white Christianity and Islam!
Our ethno-religious way of living, our Judaisms, demand better of us.
סדר הפסח שמח!
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“Humanitas meant the development of human virtue, in all its forms, to its fullest extent. The term thus implied not only such qualities as are associated with the modern word humanity — *understanding, benevolence, compassion, mercy* — but also such more assertive characteristics as *fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honour*. Consequently, the possessor of humanitas could not be merely a sedentary and isolated philosopher or man of letters but was of necessity a participant in active life. Just as action without insight was held to be aimless and barbaric, insight without action was rejected as barren and imperfect. Humanitas called for a fine balance of action and contemplation, a balance born not of compromise but of *complementarity*.” – Encyclopaedia Britannica, Humanism, ** emphasis mine
What is “complementarity”? Is it assuming that you’ve understood somebody, when you didn’t take the time to contemplate what this someone actually said (a letters P and G repetitive fault, sadly!)? It is assuming that members are just expressing their atheistic – errr, sorry, “humanistic” self – rather than injecting uninvitedly into conversations, attempting to discourage and shut them down (a letters A and C repetitive fault, sadly!)? No, being complementary is realizing that not all Jews that share your philosophy equally shares your secular/atheistic lifestyle, Society for Humanistic Judaism (presently mis-named)!
Complementary is “mutually supplying each other’s lack” according to Webster’s Dictionary, SHJ. Which is what I was trying to do, by officially joining and revealing my non-theistic Jewishness to members as I naturally Jewishly present! … Only to find that you claim daily to be “Humanistic,” yet your members bullied me regularly online, and I was repeatedly encouraged to go elsewhere – a religious non-theistic humanistic Jew. And your movement leaders whitesplained your members to me, to justify their behaviors, and blamed me for the trouble, because I pressed you to do the right thing about them, … or, a few SHJ leaders, you just refused to even address my complaints about this.
How can you be humanistic as Jews, #SHJ , when your humanistic Jewish movement so quickly chases away and/or silences non-white Jewish members and non-theistic yet religious Jewish members?! How can you be Jewish, #SocietyforHumanisticJudaism , if your first reaction to non-conforming or different looking/behaving/speaking non-theistic Jews is to bully them from the movement, these Jews who are just *being* Jewish?!
The refusal to address and answer these questions that I repeatedly asked shows how unattached you really are as a Jewish movement to the definition of Humanism, and how untouchably indifferent your leadership is to any Jew not atheistic white with a common Jewish background (aka, Ashkenormative). I feel sorry for your movement, for what you’ll unfortunately never be – despite all your forward facing posts sharing Humanistic words that you’re not actually following! For that, your movement is likely to remain small and to remain very predominantly white. And this is so sad – for we see you for what you really are!
White secular Jews, too priviliged in the USA to *actually* listen to Jews of color and to Jews who are religious in behavior, whether theistically or not!
Yes, what you are seeing in the snapshot is only one of what all has actually happened to me on SHJ’s Humanistic Judaism Discussion Facebook Group (HJD) and Gmail listserve. This particular white Caucasity of secular humanistic Jewish privilege happened on A C ‘s watch as an Admin, but he chose in his privileged response to protect SHJ with the following:
“it was the middle of the night … moderating this Facebook discussion group is one of many things we do for our movement 9am-5pm. Demanding our comments on a particular Facebook post is not respectful of our professional movement obligations and contributions.”
When I explained to him that this white bullying started during the Admins’ monitoring hours and further carried on into the morning, he never responded back. None of the Admins of SHJ’s HJD group did! But, P G says that I’m the one with the “problem” that needs fixing, before warning me to never contact the SHJ offices again, protesting the mistreatments. Never once was I actually listened to about the behaviors of atheistic and racist members of SHJ. Their need to keep their “long-time” atheist members (so said the combined leadership of the movement in an email) is far more important, than actually living up to humanistic values – apparently!
So, because I’m herem’d by them, now, all I have is the ability to post my experiences (as a warning to others – other non-theistic religious Jews considering SHJ), and hope that maybe one day the leaders of SHJ might actually listen to the minorities in their midst. I keep posting about SHJ, because I really do hope that they make these needed changes (and, one day, reach out to the rest of us non-theist Jews, … accepting us fully *as we present*!).
Oh, and it is so interesting that Sandra (and, I guess, her Mom) here blamed me for what *she* was doing (Miss ‘I have a black boyfriend/lover/hubby, so I can’t possibly be a racist!’), following the examples of SHJ leadership, obviously – forward any possible potential blame onto the SHJ (also *paid*) member complaintant! … Speaking of which, still waiting for a full refund of my membership, by the way.
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“[In these Western influenced nations,] We are used to thinking of religion as a series of theological propositions that we must accept. But really it is more an experience, a framework for living one’s life. [For examle,] We are often invited in Judaism [- an ethno-religion, that is not theology bound] to playact.
On Yom Kippur, we pretend we are standing before a Divine Tribunal and being judged. On Pesach, we are told to imagine what it was like to be enslaved and then freed. The purpose is not to verify the historical facts but to go through certain experiences that teach us important messages and heighten our religious, spiritual sensitivity.
It is the action, the experience that counts more than the words and the theory.”1
And, this is the difference between an individual salvation religion (Christianity, Islam – both are proselytizing and world conquesting, and Buddhism) and the remaining ethno-national salvation religions (Judaism, Diné Navajo, Yazidis Kurd, Druze, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism Iran, Haipule o Hawai’i, etc., etc., etc.). All the ethno-religions playact their stories, to teach ethnic history, ideology, and spiritual connectiveness. Ethno-religions are not about “faith” theologies, but about “remembrance” of who we are as people throughout the endless generations.
This is why I tell secular Jews that they are blind to the ever-present dangers of Christianity and Islam within this world. Because the full sum purpose of these world-wide conquest religions is to usurp the remaining ethno-religions of the planet, converting their ethno-religious ways of living into “Christianized/Islamized” equivalent forms – all for the purpose of having every human profess “faith” of allegiance and belief to the “demiGod/God” of these religions. Thus, all who are converted – *even if the majority choose to live secularly afterwards* (meaning, not bound by Christian/Islamic religious law) – are *indifferent* to the threat that these two absolutist religions pose to the remaining ethno-religions of the planet.
Nations of families that are still free of this conversion (usually coercively forced upon minorities by their fundamentalist/absolutist devout), and we *want* to stay so free. We are not Mitzrayim (the Christian and Islamic empires, lit. the Egyptian empire), we are yehudim (Jews and those who joined us) in our journey towards self-sovereignty freedom – within and beyond the land of Egypt.
חג פסח שמח!
1 – Dr. Rabbi Jeremy Rosen, A Conduit to the Divine That Enriches Our Lives, https://www.thetorah.com/article/a-seder-without-history-a-conduit-to-the-divine-that-enriches-our-lives
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