the thing that i think trachtenberg highlights REALLY WELL in jewish magic & superstition is how like… the extent to which european antisemitism is inextricable from the view of ~the jew as a dangerous sorcerer~ renders all the fake “”jewish magic”” which is made up wholesale by gentiles based on their IDEA of what jews do and have access to… it renders all of that basically libel? like
this is not just a case of cultural appropriation. there is a LOT that’s not based in the reality of jewish beliefs & practices AT ALL! so you could be like, well, THAT stuff isn’t appropriated bc it wasn’t jewish to begin with!
and that’s true, it WASN’T ever jewish
it functioned as antisemitic propaganda! like! even if that function was unintentional (which is not always the case!!!!!!!!!!) every single (medieval especially) european document fabricating “”jewish”” magical practices served as evidence for those communities of the foreignness, dangerousness, magicalness, etc, of the jews around them. served as evidence that jews had some kind of special evil powers. served as evidence that jews had some kind of secret relationship with the devil.
those attitudes directly led to violence against jews.
it’s not benign.
YES and this is where the modern-day ceremonial magicians crying “it’s syncretic!” can kiss my ass
culturally-Christian European magicians didn’t just write their spells and sigils in (often fake) Hebrew because they thought it was so cool and they had so much respect for the Jewish tradition they were supposedly “descended from” (…as converts to Christianity, which had already violently removed itself from Judaism centuries before and pretty much immediately set about destroying its “religious ancestor”)
they did it because a) they fetishized Jewish mysticism as exotic otherness and b) Jews were very conveniently located to take the murderous blame from Church officials
oh, you were caught summoning demons? well who put you up to it? the Jews? shocking. let’s kill them.
so no, 95% of Western Esotericism didn’t come from “centuries of blending Christian and Jewish mysticism” it came from Christians LARPing Great Jewish Sorcerers while real Jews died en masse
The inclusion of Chad into the travel ban is the most random and moronic part of that. They’re an ally that we work with on counter-terrorism operations. Now they won’t work with us anymore. Why? Because DHS wanted sample passports from them and they ran out of passport paper. They asked for a week’s extension so they could get more, but were refused, because Trump is more than willing to empower Boko Haram if it helps to build his white ethno-state.
I agree, but did anybody else start reading this post thinking that a frat boy was being excluded from a ski trip for wrecking a hotel room?
so evidently normal guns exist in star wars (called “slugthrowers” because of course) and they’re apparently super broken and extremely useful because they go right through shields designed to deflect energy weapons and if a jedi tries to deflect them with a lightsaber the bullet just melts and turns in to an equally lethal spray of molten metal
imagine you’re the most badass sith in the universe and Some Dude With A Handgun challenges you and you’re just like “heh… primitive weapons… bring it on” and he shoots you and you suddenly get splattered with a shower of molten metal and you fucking Die
you know on top of everything else that’s great about Captain America: The Winter Soldier I genuinely think we have it to thank for the fall (or at least marked decline) of the Loki fandom
no one asked but here’s some elaboration on that:
I don’t know how many of you were active in the MCU fandom in 2012 but the post-Avengers Loki fandom was… you know, pretty much exactly what you’d expect the fandom for a nuanced villain played by a moderately attractive white man.
there was a lot of overlooking the fact that he willingly took part in a plan to enslave the entire human race in favor of fic and art where he was inexplicably an unofficial member of the Avengers. he was shipped with everyone – Tony (based on that one scene where Tony gets Loki’s ego trip), Natasha (entirely based on that one scene where he threatens to kill her and calls her a cunt. never change, fandom), Thor (despite or possibly because of the incest factor), even Darcy Lewis (who was, and to a degree still is, the MCU fandom bicycle, probably owing to the fact that she’s the easiest canon character to write like an oc).
and sweet god, the Loki fandom was desperate to prove he was actually entirely innocent. post-Avengers, my dash was flooded with heartfelt analyses of the most minute moments in the Avengers all attempting to prove that Loki had obviously been tortured and brainwashed into working with the Chitauri and that he wasn’t actually complicit in any of it.
(actually the more I think about it, the more I realize how much the Loki fandom was paving the way fr the Kylo Ren fandom, aka the overpowered white boys throwing murder tantrums fandom, but I digress.)
the Tom Hiddleston thirst was so bad that when Marvel had Tom-Hiddleston-in-character-as-Loki reveal the Thor: The Dark World trailer at SDCC (which, honestly, was pretty cool), I had to read a very serious discussion on my dash about whether or not T-Hiddles got a sexual rush out of it and the probability that he had a boner while he was on stage.
and then. AND THEN. IN 2014, Captain America: The Winter Soldier happened. and specifically, Bucky Barnes happened.
you like murder woobies? well lo and behold, the ultimate murder woobie. he’s canonically brainwashed and irresponsible for his actions, and we even get to see how brutally treated he is right on on screen. (I read a very spot-on analysis somewhere that argues that a big part of what makes Bucky so beloved to female fans is that he’s one of the few male characters to be subjected to the kind of onscreen violation of bodily autonomy that most women live in very real fear of, and I couldn’t agree more.) he desperately wants to be good again and is prevented from doing that by forces beyond his control, which makes it okay to be into him while he’s doing the murder strut down a highway aiming a gun at our heroes, because it’s not like he’s actually a killer. that’s just what he wants to be.
he’s everything that Loki’s fandom wanted Loki to be. and they. jumped. ship.
I’m mean, I’m not saying the Loki fandom is entirely dead. and obviously Bucky isn’t the only contributing factor; fans get older, their interests change, etc. but it’s been almost a month since the Thor: Ragnarok trailer came out, and I’ve seen exactly zero posts about anyone wanting Tom Hiddleston to raw them while wearing that ridiculous horned headband.
and honestly? I think it’s because we got a better murder woobie. thanks, Buck.
see I wanted to talk about this in the original post but thought it was too off topic so thank you for this in
in hindsight, for sure, the Loki fanbase was VERY MUCH the prelude to the Kylo Ren fanbase, and it’s all part of a larger culture of apologizing and idealizing white boys who throw murder tantraums.
but. BUT. there’s at least room to argue that much of the Loki fandom bailed when they got a new character who actually was what they wanted Loki to be.
and then there’s the Kylo Ren fandom, who have actually and literally fabricated an entire past for Kyle (misspelling very intentional) in which he was OBVIOUSLY abused by his parents and uncle and had noooo choice but to slaughter all of his fellow baby Jedi and kill his dad, because he’s a CLEARLY an abuse victim.
when, you know, standing right next to him you have Finn, actual victim of childhood abduction and lifelong abuse, who makes a very clear choice to NOT BE A FUCKING SERIAL KILLER even though it’s the one thing he was raised to be.
and yet. many (not all, I get it, don’t eat me, but MANY) Kylo fans will try to claim that somehow Finn in the real dickbag here.
I’m not saying Bucky would have been received v e r y differently if he wasn’t white, but.
listen. fiction may be fiction, but fiction is created by real, actual people and it has real, actual implications and consequences. fiction does not exist in a bubble of “it doesn’t really matter”, it has never existed in a bubble of “it doesn’t really matter”, and people being critical of fictional works for how they present real, actual things that really, actually happen is important.
“IT’S JUST FICTION” is not a fucking defense. it is not a good excuse. it has never been a good excuse. it will never be a good excuse. creations by real, actual people have real, actual implications in our real, actual world, and if people are critical of some work of fiction, there’s usually a pretty solid reason for that.
fearlessstateofmind backup 