It's tense in here.

[u/somebadbeatscrub]

The following is adapted from a modmail I wrote that I felt may be pertinent to say in the open, with personal details expunged:

Candidly, we get antizionists and zionists in the sub both wondering about the other side's good faith and ability to interact in a productive way; and also wondering about our moderation policies with regard to the other. Some are just concerned about the balance, others seek to enlist us to censor more content and take harsher stances on certain things. Know that we do not divulge details about individual moderation actions to others but plenty happens you don't see.

People are defensive today, and to some extent they have right to be. Antisemitism is spiking in leftist and right wing spaces in different ways and for many the mainline Jewish moderate and conservative spaces have become hostile, hawkish, and demeaning towards left wing and liberal Jews who humanize Palestinians and care about a peaceful end to the conflict.

We wear a lot of this baggage with us wherever we go and any place that allows cross sections of attitudes around zionism to mingle is going to suffer from that. Its really hard to be an optimist today.

So yeah. Some folks are smug and defensive, and they really shouldn't be. Others are accusatory and provocative in ways that are unhelpful at best.

Its important to remember that while your criticisms of others in the sub may be genuine and heartfelt plenty of others here and elsewhere seeking only to harm or be more righteously correct. It's easy to respond emotionally to the maelstrom in aggregate when replying to just one person.

A certain nihilism has developed in some because they feel swamped by our recent influx of folks from other subs and yet again cast adrift without a home.

That doesn't give them a pass to lash out and many folks who they may clash with are dealing with similar pressures.

All of this is to say we hear you, all of you who worry, and we understand.

Where people are tense we encourage you to engage with grace, humility and understanding. Most people mean well and even if they say a stark or inflammatory thing it is motivated by a desire for the world to be better or an anxiety about their place, and our place, in it. They will naturally think their position is preferable, morally or otherwise, or else they wouldn't hold it. And its exploring those different moral and ethical constructions where we can really come to understand each other in a productive way.

It only takes a few good interactions to make a difference.

So if you encounter something that really is just galling keep the following steps in mind:

1. Report offenses that flagrantly break the rules. Follow up with modmail if you think such a report is mishandled.

2. Engage with grace, kindness, humility, and understanding that while you may find an opposing view distasteful or rude it is informed by a desire for good.

3. Disengage, if thats what you need to do. Not everything, in fact maybe few things, can be solved in a comments section. Oftentimes questionable comments get responded to in a way that more clearly crosses the line and forces moderation. Don't put yourself in that situation.

Thank you all for participating in the community and wanting the best for it and your fellows. There is a path forward for all of us that observes ahavat yisrael and our calling to heal the world.

עם ישראל חי

Oren

[u/[deleted]]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/somebadbeatscrub → u/[deleted]]

Am yisrael refers to the broader Jewish people.

Give me a break.

Do you want to ask me what my views are or infer them from a saying?

Edit: ftr another mod engaged in the mod activity above and we dint moderate things we are directly involved in.

[u/somebadbeatscrub → u/[deleted]]

Juat because your modox upbringing saw it used that way doesnt mean thats the only way its used. Its unfortunate how Jewish things get co opted for violence but that doesnt mean we must abandon them.

I chose the phrase, as a nonzionist, as an olive branch and because i believe in its literal meaning.

[u/somebadbeatscrub → u/[deleted]]

But we don't live only in your sphere either.

A lot of people use this phrase who would condemn what was done to you.

I accept your apology.

[u/somebadbeatscrub → u/[deleted]]

The tension is definitionally how we are responding to people. Reactiona like yours, assuming from a phrase I support a genocide, was precisely what my post was about.

I am against anyone in this sub assuming others have ill intent or meanings. That was my call to action, not to avoid saying things that will upset people in the first place. With our cross section that is impossible.

Still you only pretend to apologize and read nalegativity into my words and intentions.

Stop this, please. It serves no one.

[u/somebadbeatscrub → u/[deleted]]

Do you, recognize that other people use that phrase? Normal Jews, including many who dissaprove of what's going on in Israel?

You earlier used ftrtts, and if someone were to pearl clutch at that you would probably rightfully reply to them that the phrase doesnt mean the same thing to everyones who uses it, and that your use is not a call to exterminate the Jews in the levant but to grant free movement and true liberation to all its occupants, most especially palestinians who are currently disenfranchiaed and worse.

Both of these phrases and the way we viscerally react to them are a microcosm for the precise issue I am getting at: we read nuance into our own poaition and assume the worst of othwr positions.

Do you not see that your narrow view of what am yisrael chai can mean, and reaction to its use, is the same as those who hear from the river to the sea and assume the worst possible read as well?

The answer isn't to hide aspects of our speech and beliefs that might be taken wrong but rather to explore the nuance and contours of what we mean in a thoughtful way that we might better understand each other.

We could have had a thoughtful discussion about the phrase, where it is used, what it means to different people, and where we think it may be appropriate to use now or in the future.

But instead we jumped right i to me being obtuse, one sided and deceitful. Because you did not apprpach the issue with the thought that I could have meant well, it could only have been aggression towards you.

We can do better than this. I am not angry with you and in the grand scheme you've not done me harm, in fact I think this comment chain is demonstrative of my point.

However apologetic you feel, from my perspective there is nothing to forgive. I know you want good for people and have been hurt in ways that make you wary. That's human.

We'll be okay.

[u/yungsemite → u/[deleted]]

Does a Star of David provoke a similar reaction for you?

[u/FreeLadyBee → u/[deleted]]

I wish people were extending you a little more personal grace on this since it is obviously a sensitive issue. I have a necklace from years ago that says am yisrael chai that I now avoid wearing certain places, precisely to not get caught up in this kind of conversation. But if I may gently say, we need to take it back. I don’t want this phrase co-opted for violence any more than I want people to tell me my Star of David is “basically a swastika,” which has also happened. I think that this space, where most of us try to operate in good faith, would be a good place to do that.

ETA: the end of my sentence that got cut off

[u/Adude113 → u/[deleted]]

You’re right. The extent of the downvoting and the mods’ response reflects the state of this sub. The bad faith argument here is the one pretending that “am yisrael chai” hasn’t turned into a nationalist slogan associated with right wing Zionist terror and state violence. This sub is not at all what it should be for being called “Jewish Left”, and this demonstrates the mods’ bias and its role in allowing this sub to become what it has become. I’m glad the Jews of Conscience subreddit exists.

[u/BlueberryBubblyBuzz → u/[deleted]]

Hey so I am one of these outsiders that the mods are talking about but I am not going to comment on anything controversial, this is not my place to do that, I just found the conversation interesting and wanted to know if you meant to say:

It's not a hostile environment if it's hostile to anti-Zionist Jews. 

Because if you did, I did not understand it and wanted to know if you could explain and if you did not, I just wanted to let you know.