Yesterday there was a march in honour of the victims of hate.

It was a pretty standard turn out for the March we were a little less than 100 people, made up of Trans folk and their Cissy Allies (hello there).
The march was set to start on the street of the shooting in August, which made the whole situation a whole lot more loaded emotionally of course.

The way to the march was a bloody disaster, you see, there was a different demonstration happening along the same main streets and we had to wait for it to pass.
The police was all set for that demonstration and basically decided that they would use the same personnel and the same garrisons for both marches.

One march was for Trans awareness, basically.
The other was for protesting the cut of the Disability Pension for IDF Veterans.

Yeah.
Talk about a "clash of civilisations" - one portion of the population that isn't drafted and another that pays the price for it.
*sigh*

As I said, getting to our march was a bloody disaster because the police garrisoned a bunch of main streets which we had to drive through, we also had to drive through the stragglers of the disabled vets march.

We drove through the entirety of central Tel Aviv on the busiest evening of the week, on the evening of a demo that nobody gave a shit about.
Two demos that nobody gave a shit about.

I didn't see anything other than Updates (as in not actual reporting) on the online mainstream news websites.

Of course, once we got to the Gay Community centre the police told us to go through the back so that we don't disturb the other demo.
Even when they're being fucked over by because they're disabled, there's still a hierarchy.

Both population are silenced and made invisible.
Both population intersect - I wouldn't be surprised if there were vets there who were Trans and there was certainly more than one marcher with us who had mechanic (crutches, wheelchair) aid.

Both populations are fucked over.

Still, it was obvious who were more respected by the police - the Disabled Vets didn't "chose" to be freaks and they're "genuinely" screwed over by the government.
Of course.

Sometimes I really feel the people in power just look down on us, eat and throw the crumbs down to see the fights brew.
It's depressing.

She gets to keep her medal.

More on this and other crap tomorrow, because folks... this is not just about Semenya.

This morning I got an apology from a class-mate.

I was honestly speechless.

Last week in class, Intro to Anthropology Exercise, in which spirits rose because were were discussing polygamy, marriage and all that.
The article we read had a description of a polygamous household of the Tib [sp?] tribe in an Anfircan country that may or may not still exist - the article is from the late 50's if I'm not mistaken - in which the Wives (who call each other Sister) tell the anthropologist that they take care of each other, help each other out with their children.
The first wife is "given" to the husband by her father, all the other consequent wives the First Wife choses.

I'm like, human commodification, not so different from traditional marriages in Judaism (well, contemporary ones in these parts, the woman doesn't even get to look at the Ketubah - marriage contract).

Any way - I was shocked that so many of my female class-mates said that they were really convinced by the women living in a polygamous house-hold, that they wouldn't mind having that kind of sisterhood.

In my mind I'm went: OMG! WHAT?!?! Do you not see!?!?

What I said was: Hello, human commodification!
And some guy replied: You're really exaggerating! You know that's what they say about Marriage in Judaism?
I replied: Yes, that's why a bride costs 2 cents (2 prutot), because she isn't being bought!

He went on a bit about how what marriage was and wasn't, while I'm being called out on being waaaaaay radical about marriage.

Bullshit, of course.

Any way, today the guy with whom I argued last week apologized for his attitude and for being over aggressive.

See me be gobsmacked!

I told a friend about this this morning and she said don't let it get it out that men who behave nicely make you speechless.
Funny, haha.
I'm just not used to twenty-something men (sometimes boys) to actually take responsibility for stuff said in class.
No doubt he thought he was doing the gentlemanly thing, which I'm cool with when it is sans condescension and patronising (I can be a gentleman too!) - but wow, it was just so weird.

Regardless, it's weird being in this class, where I feel I'm gaining new perspective! But damn am I ahead of the class when it comes to theory and critical thought. I'm not bragging here - I'm a bloody Third Year taking an intro class... *sigh* Well, that's the cake I baked from the eggs that I broke.

Quoi?
What kind of internet user thinks up these questions?

In short, I wouldn't ban any book. Really. No, not even The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, not Mein Kampf, not Huckleberry Finn.
Not any hate-mongering, free-love-ing, right wing, left wing... what have you.

That doesn't mean I'm not going to tell the kid who may or may not be interested in a book to be aware that every book presents and represents a certain stand-point and that it's usually better to be not take every piece of writing at face value.

Literary merit is for book critics, not for critical analysis.

I'd prefer to steer teens towards work that doesn't implicitly (or explicitly) state that some people are more human than others - because that would just make me a hypocrite. But I think that disallowing those subjects simply make it harder to fight and oppose the ideas and ideals which exist - having them where you can see them, makes it easier to argue and fight against.

That's what I think.

I've just come home from viewing the most recent Doctor Who special The Waters of Mars.

In a word: Damn! (or *squee*!!!)

In many more words: ( Here be spoilers, enter at your own risk )

I hope that wasn't too incoherent!
I will try gather more and better thoughts on this over the next few days.

In the meantime *fangrrl SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

lishablog asked me five questions... these are my answers:

( When did you decide to study Women's Studies? )

( Are you planning to continue on in academia, or do you have other plans after you get your BA? )

( What is it you like most about Israel? )

( You've talked before about bisexuals being the invisible group in the queer community. Do you feel disconnected from the community in general if you aren't in a relationship with a woman at that time? )

( Do you believe that it's possible to wipe out white privilege and create a truly equal society? (If yes, what do you think would move us toward that goal?) )

If you wanna do this meme, well, you know the drill.

I just donated to the Organisation for Transformative Works.

This is part of fan and Internet history keeping and making.

I think being a part of it is awesome!



Good god, I've even posted a Cat!Macro in this honour.

Hopefully I'll find the time to do more than just vote and donate - volunteering is fun!

There is water on the Moon.

Now that, is News.

Last night I nearly had an argument with my parents, in which I was almost accused, again, of hating Israel.

Why?

Because I don't consider Iran to be an existential thread upon me or my nation.

Why?

Iran has bigger problems, like a civil uprising that's barely being reported now a days - unless it's a foreign national caught in the local politics. The fact that Iran is surrounded by American (and other Western) troops, in Iraq and Afghanistan - Yesterday was Armistice Day and I didn't mention it, because it's not a day commemorated here. We didn't "exist" during the Great War or the Second World War and we have our own military memorial days.
Not to mention Pakistan which really does have nuclear capabilities and appears to have a happy trigger finger.

Ahmadinejad finds Israel, like many other Muslim and Arab nations, an easy Scapegoat - it's part of our Status as Jews, I suppose.

I asked my parental units if they thought Iran was a big cohesive homogeneous nation? The answer was "Yes".
I called Bullshit and they knew that what they had said was not true, but the argument of "Iranian Aggression" doesn't fly when all of the above in taken into account.

I sincerely hope that not everyone thinks Israel is a bunch of Avigdor Liberman's (our Foreign Minister) and Bibi Netanyahu's (our Prime Minister).
Iran is too used as a scapegoat in order to deflect from our own huge problems - like the fact that 1 in 4 Israelis lives in poverty. That public housing is denied to mixed families. That the Settlements are a criminal issue and not just a "National" one.
Just to mention a few of Israel's "Problems".

But that's all small potatoes when we, Israel, an allegedly nuclear nation the tiny nation surrounded by enemies (with whom we are thinking about "peace agreements"... sorta) is being threatened by a politically unstable, non-nuclear and already sanctioned country.

Yeah, I'm feeling safe with Big Brother in this oh so tolerant and enlightened Jewish-Democracy.

Today I accompanied a friend to one of the most expensive malls in the country - it's a five minute walk from the Uni campus - which is situated in one of the most up market neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv.

Completely unexpectedly, I bought shoes.
I do not simply walk into a shop and buy things on the spot.
It's simply something I do not do.

But for these, I was willing to be spontaneous.
They are, in the words of my father, Zooty!

Add to that, that I tried on pants I haven't fitted into for the past two years and they looked awesome!
I'm feeling pretty good.
In that utterly shallow, I really should be beyond this sort of sizeist thinking, kind of way.

Follow the link! Admire those puppies!

Happy November 9th to all of you!

I was four when the Berlin Wall came down and I did not know until much-much later in life what that meant. What the "Iron Curtain" was, what the Eastern Bloc was, or any of that.
I do know that about two years later, when I was in 2nd grade, there were a tonne of new kids in my school with "weird" names and "weird" accents and I was so happy!
'Cause of my own weird name (though I don't speak Hebrew in a non-Israeli accent).

Sonya, Yuri, Misha, Sasha, Anna, Oleg, Kiril... so many pretty names. Yes, I like Russian names, it's what made "Crime and Punishment" bearable for a large portion of the book.

I am digressing.
Back on topic.

The Berlin Wall both when it stood and after it fall was a symbol of arbitrary divisions and unfair conquest; of geopolitics run amok!; of lives broken and torn apart; of a world made up of checkpoints, collaborators and coercion.

Sounds familiar.

No doubt the Separation Wall that has been partially built along the borders between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (it's not, in fact built along the recognised 1967 borders, which is one of the major problems) has been compared to the Berlin Wall - as oppressive acts committed by oppressors.
Though with 20 years hindsight, it's clear that the Fall of the Wall was a precursor to a time of a great ambiguity - Divided We Fall. What exactly does being United mean?
The Legacy of 1989 Is Still Up for Debate (NYTimes Article).

Last Friday, I mentioned that a section of the Separation wall was broken down by demonstrators. Indeed they did it in honour of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

WATCH: Protesters breach West Bank separation barrier.

(Once the demonstrators were dispersed, it was re-built. But you can't take away from the euphoria that moment brought)

The Fall of the Wall was the end of an era, it was the beginning of a new World order. We are still shaping it, our times are in flux and, just for the melodrama, we have the power.

Via rm I discovered the comm kinkfreezone and friends... for a fanfic comm that allows high ratings on the fics and includes Slash, Het and Gen; I have never in my whole on-line life seen a more sex-negative fic community.

Wanting to have a community and specific requirements on fic is fine, fun and dandy. Honestly, it is. Wanting to exclude certain criteria that you and others would rather not read, very fine, your prerogative.
That's not the issue.

The issue is with language and the so-called binary of Vanilla and Kink.

For a more lighthearted, yet not, commentary on the list of kinks NOT permitted you can read thingswithwings' entry here. The comments are hilarious.

But oh, where to start... hmm, possibly from the most offensive one: ( So as not to eat your f-list )

Voice fetishization (cracking or broken; husky, low, throaty; purring; accents; whispering close to someone's ear).
Fucking hell! Involuntary reaction is not a kink. No, really. This is possibly the most absurd (not offensive, I've listed things I found particularly offensive) criterion on this list.

That whole list needs a serious language editor, a workshop in sex-positivism and just a little shake-up when it comes to Vanilla/Kink binary - here's a secret... it's NOT!).

Enjoy mocking the whole thing.

Edited to Add: Amazing what going to bed will do.
My comment in now deleted, as are all the other critical comments made on the post - I restrained myself a lot and wanted to be respectful, I may have failed a tad.
Here's my comment for keeps:

This list has extremely problematic and prejudicial language.
Perhaps if you edited it, it would read differently, but as it stands, this is offensive to a whole slew of people who you included as a kink.
Some of these aren't even kinks but literary tropes!
Trope=/=Kink, please learn the difference.

Also, including involuntary bodily reactions? Please, get a clue - also the inclusion of "accents", "uncircumcised penises", "homosocial environmental", "nautical themes", "exoticism" and a big portion of "gender themes" just to name a few is downright, and here are heavy words, racist, xenophobic and over-all queerphobic in general.

Fetishising Vanilla is also a kink, you know.
As I said, get a clue.

I understand and respect the want of specific kind of fic, but that toes a line that isn't just about criteria... this is exclusionary in the extreme.

Here is the Mod's reply:

WOW am I getting sick of repeating myself. Had you actually READ the damn post you would see RIGHT AT THE TOP!!! that it is, in fact, a list of KINKS, TROPES AND CLICHES from fandom!

You can go GET A CLUE sweetheart and get the fuck out of my community.

For serious.
The post itself has been updated, because you know, instead of trying to make the comm a little more inclusive - let's just be all the more offensive and delete the things I dun like!
How dare people get offended and say something about it! Sheesh!

Comic books came to me at a time in which I was searching for belief.

Between the ages of 13 to 15 I was going through a Wiccan/Pagan phase, sad but true, I lived the stereotype. I even have a paper diary in which I wrote down my teenage angst and rage at not being able to be polytheist, not realising I didn't actually believe in any god - because the gods are stories to me.

Mythology, the stories of why we are, who we are; that was what attracted me to the Bible stories, the cosmology of Life after Death in ancient Egypt and incestuous love affairs of ancient Greece.

I can't remember what motivated me to explore religions outside Judaism (I loved the myths before I understood that god was supposed to be more than just a character in a book), possibly because I found and still find, going to shul incredibly boring.
The liturgy can be lovely, but I can't stand the thought of being there just because of (cue the Fiddler) Tradition.

At around that time I was reading Terry Pratchett and found that the philosophy he espouses in Pyramids and Small Gods sat very well with me and my apathetic-yet-literary pursuits.
I also found Good Omens and wasn't that a delight for me, receiving validation in my dislike of religion and being critical of belief at the time¹.
I had no clue who Neil Gaiman was.
I found out.
Enter the Sandman.
It took me four years to collect all ten volumes, as a teen my funds were lacking, of course, so I begged for early birthday presents, loaned money from my brother, just to get my hands on the next Sandman books.
When I realised that Sandman operated in the same world (though a different plain) as DC comics - I began to read Batman again.
Batman, whose villains are so much like himself... he even "dates" them - costume fetish? You bet!

I can now see, looking back and thinking critically upon that very apathetic time of my life, that my need for religion, the search for something bigger than myself - was the search for stories that were bigger than my life... and there ain't nothing bigger than the Endless, the Justice League, the X-Men, V and even the all too fallible Watchmen - post-humanism... oh yes. Now that's transcendent.

I remember reading Season of Mists at 18 and feeling as though my ideas regarding all the gods, faith and world order, laid out in front of me... in vivid colour².

I read "Concerning Mammoths, and Falling Walls" again (the third chapter in Brief Lives) not long after the second Lebanon War and the line Death (our friend, our constant companion in Life) says to the very long-lived man who asks "...I did okay, didn't I?" concerning how long he lived, she says:
"You got a lifetime. No more. No less."

That sentence has been resonating in me for the past three years. It comforts me when I think of my mortality, because we live as long as we do.
And that's it.

Having recently read Gaiman's rendition on the "death of Batman" in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" that line echoed in my mind.
It echoes all the time.

Though slash fiction were my main source of understanding "alternative" sexuality and the fact that I, myself, was not straight, comics empowered me in being outwardly weird - I like the colours... in comics even black is bright.
The dynamics of gender in comics are far more complex that what people think - sure, it's busty women in skin tight (or barely there) costumes and it's muscled men in skin tight (there are bulges) costumes.
You can learn so much about what is idealised and why by reading these people who still hark from that time of pulp-fiction and illicit magazines.

I'm writing this whole spiel because Blognewsarama (my main comic oriented news site) plugged this website:

The A-Z LGBT Comic Book Character Superlist, which is freakin' awesome! This website Queersupe appears to be that much more extensive, in-depth and analytical.

Works for me! Go and explore.

And just to keep with the theme of this somewhat sombre entry; comic books (along with my search for faith through religion) enabled me to doubt, ask questions about the veracity of the stories we tell ourselves (all are real of course) and the ideals upon which they are supported... helped me learn about myself and the stories that make my world the way it is.

Footnotes
(1) I'd just like y'all to know that it took me a long time to come to the conclusion that agnosto-atheism was the best place for me, I really wanted to have some kind of faith that was bigger than me. But my identification with being Jewish is too strong, though historical, cultural and ethnic - religion is a composite in that, and despite being a complete heretic... I cannot remove it from me entirely.
Back to text.

(2)For a long time Bast and Anubis were my closest companions in my dreams and I even bought two little figurines of them... they sit along with the other statuettes in my room, that I collected over the years. I once used them in a ceremony with a bunch of friends - I was still trying to be of belief, faith and religion, but inwardly I was already gone. A hypocritical portion of my life, without a doubt.
Back to text.

Today, at the weekly protest in the village on Nialin, demonstrators broke down a section of the wall:


( More under the cut )

That is so amazing and encouraging, the significance of it being so close to the date of the fall of the Berlin wall is just... poetic.

I was sitting at the bus station minding my own business.

A man of about 50-55 comes towards me and asks if it's all right if he smokes. I thought it was very (see, overly, for the society we live in) polite of him to ask and said "sure".

This was quite obviously a ploy.

He begins to tell me a story.

"I just couldn't sit at the other bus station. There was a girl there; dressed far too revealingly for me, her chest hanging out and short pants".

I'm staring at him as though he's grown an extra head. Instead his beard, peyot, kipah (yarmulke/skull cap) and tzitzit become glaringly obvious props for his forthcoming tale and story.

In my head, I'm screaming: "Why? Why is this man talking to me and regaling to me this bullshit story!?"

He continues (sans my loud thoughts that this man is a religious nut): "I ask [the aforementioned girl] do you believe in G-d?"

In my mind: "Mercy!"

He tells her words: "'Yes' she says and I ask you [that is, me and the universe in general most likely] if she's have said 'yes, but I sin', I could live with that... But dressed the way she is... how can she say that!?".

Meanwhile, I'm trying to understand why this woman (if she indeed exists outside this man's narrative) engaged with this man, seeing as I was doing my best to Not Engage with this person and his irrational tirade about how this woman's dress somehow marks her heretic - obviously I'm the best audience ever! What with my long jeans, trainers, long-sleeved shirt and high necked top underneath it.
If only we were telepathic, nay?

He goes: "She tells me her beliefs are simple. How can creation be simple?!"

How I wished I had a desk on which to bash my head and his continuously!

Throughout this entire time I'm dying for a bus, any bus to arrive to take one of us away! I'm also silent, grimacing from time to time and keeping away from him as much as possible while not leaving the bus stop - I really did not feel safe enough to tell to STFU... perhaps if there was another person there I would have told him to stop bothering me... but *Gah*, the situation just really did not encourage aggressive-aggression and I went for body-language instead.

"Creation can't be simple" this man says, "I tell her [still this very-well-could-be-fictional-girl] 'that table? You see it? Someone designed it, yes?' she replied 'yes'. So no tell me G-d doesn't exist!"

I was ready to throw up on him. I had been feeling queasy regardless, but I could have blown chunks over this.

He continued with this line of talk and thought for a good ten minutes, in addition going on to inform me that the Bible predicted Swine 'flu (o_O) and that according to Rabbi What-ever-the-fuck 14,5-and something are going to die because that's the Gimatric interpretation of the Hebrew letters of Swine 'flu (which are שפעת חזירים).

I actaully breathed a sigh of relief when his bus arrived and he was out of my life.

It was just too odd. I don't think I'd ever been proselytised to before. Obviously him asking me if he could smoke was a ploy to start engaging me in conversation.
Good tactic.

I now have a funny anecdote about Jewish fundamentalists... who are so different from all the other ones you encounter in the street (much to our annoyance)

---

Off Topic, but related to the fact that I'm home and talking about this.
I'm feeling queasy and at the last minute decided not to go the talk tonight, because I'd rather not be sick in front of people.
I'm disappointed, but hopefully I'll be able to catch the DAM people at a later date during their visit in the region.

Hey folks,

Go blow shit up for justice!

Sincerely,

Your queer feminist anti-militarist anarcho-socialist grrl.

I believe in peace... Bitch!

Dialogues Against Militarism have arrived to Be'er Shevah and tomorrow they're speaking at the Tel-Aviv infoshop, Salon Mazal.

I'm really really hoping I can make it and not drop dead from my freakishly long day at Uni tomorrow.

Wow.

Maine.

Just another place in the US in which people get to decide who has civil rights, who has the right to humanity and who gets a say in people's lives.

It looks like it's down hill from there, because my friends that is not democracy. Democracy is not just "Majority Rules", it's also "Defense of the Minority".
The minority populations are supposed to be accorded with the same rights and obligations under the law as citizens.
If you require the same obligations, but not the rights accorded, then those are no longer rights.

They are privileges.

My heart goes out to my LGBTQ brothers, sisters and sibs in Maine and the US in general.

I can only hope things will get better and that those cowardly referendums and votes are repealed in some way and will no longer be able to affect your lives.

Same goes to Virginians and the people of New-Jersey - it would appear that the rhetoric of fear reigns strong in light of Obama.

Episode 3

Fuck.
Me.

This is bloody brilliant!