Jew Here With A Friendly Reminder That:

Hello, you have shared previously that you use mb/fc for how factual/biased media sources are, and charity navigator for rating charities. These are very helpful (thanks!), and I was wondering if you have any other resources for finding out the reliability of organizations (like BDS and Standing Together) or information sites (like the Jewish Virtual Library). I understand that at some point I need to be able to figure out the trustworthiness of organizations/sites on my own (do you have additional advice for that, the “Consuming News and Media, Avoid Misinformation” ALLMEP post was helpful!). For now it is still a struggle though, so I wanted to ask if you knew of any resources that rates organization/sites such as these.

It's gonna be a little bit of a struggle always, unfortunately. But it gets easier with practice. I think most of my thoughts and resources can be found under my #media literacy tag. But I also super encourage my followers to add resources of their own. Personally I'm inclined to trust resources from goyische and Jewish allies for peace from whom I reblog frequently and who have demonstrated excellent media literacy in the past. In particular, @faggotry-enjoyer @arandomshotinthedark @comradevo @wyf-of-bathe and @gehe-lihiyot-androgynos-varda spring to mind first, but I know I'm forgetting at least one vital friend and contributor (please forgive me). If they or anyone else wishes to provide their recommendations on this post, please feel free to do so. If you, @jellymarbles, wish to ask my opinion on a source you're unsure about, I'll do my best to provide an honest and balanced answer. I'll also tell you if I simply don't have the knowledge or ability to determine if that source is trustworthy and will attempt to find someone who is.

I'm so proud of you and all the work you have done to grow as a person for the benefit of so many groups (Muslim, Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab) of which you are not a part. It makes so much of a difference. If everyone was more like you, the world would be a much better and more peaceful place. Bless you and thank you.

my favourite cousins (rtte edition)

Of course you don’t. Free college might hinder the school-to-prison pipeline your  prison owning donors depend on

Ah, that answers a lot of questions thank you.

A little while ago you reblogged(?) a post about not using certain monsters because they belong to certain cultures unless you belong to those cultures - I’m not trying to be offensive or ignorant, I was just wondering, if enough research is done and appropriate respect is taken to those origins, is it ok to use them? I mean, is there something to be said about sharing parts of stories? Is it any different than using monsters from Greek mythology?

You’re referring to this post.

It’s complicated, but it boils down to “Since so often the research isn’t done and appropriate respect isn’t given to the originating cultures, it is better to err on the side of caution; as part of that, abstain from using those entities (especially as they’re typically presented in pop culture), and instead use these substitutes.” 

I mean, is there something to be said about sharing parts of stories?

Yes, there is something to be said about sharing–when it’s shared by someone who it belongs to.  Otherwise, it’s theft.  And cultural theft–of dominant cultures taking the “fun bits” of cultures that they find interesting and discarding the rest–is a massive problem right now.  

Let me give an example that’s particular to my culture.  My culture is Jewish–or, speaking more specifically, Rabbinic Judaism, which developed from Pharisaic Judaism after the destruction of the Holy Temple by Rome almost two millennia ago.  For the last 1900 years, my culture has been living in diaspora at the (dubious) mercy of gentiles, and we’ve developed a wide array of religiously and culturally meaningful rituals, stories, foods and so forth.  These cultural artifacts are ours, and I can say without hyperbole that we have been brutalized and killed for practicing these parts of our culture.  We have paid, in blood and lives, for our right to these practices as part of who we are.

Now, after centuries of having killed us for our culture, Christians are instead stealing bits of Rabbinic Judaism’s cultural practices for themselves.  Christian “Seders” at Passover are a thing.  Christians write thinkpieces on why they should celebrate Channukah.  After centuries of persecuting Jews for practicing Judaism, It’s considered cute and trendy to take the “fun bits” of Judaism for themselves.  (And that’s not even touching “Messianic judaism” and it’s wholesale theft of Rabbinic Judaism’s cultural practices in an effort to convert Jews by trickery).  

Imagine how I feel about that sort of theft, seeing it again and again and again…

So you’re asking me if you can use the Golem in your stories?

Well, why should you?  Do you know that the Golem was made as a protector by the head rabbi of Prague to protect the Jewish community against the Christian community during a period of repeated accusations of Blood Libel?  That it was essentially made as a defender that wouldn’t abandon us, that wouldn’t take our money and turn on us like mercenaries did, when the mobs came with torches and knives to kill the Jews who they believed were kidnapping Christian children to use their blood?  That it was a story told by Jewish parents to Jewish children that we would have a magical bulwark to stand between us and a world that wanted to kill us in horrible fashions?  

Why should you take that and get to turn it into a generic constructed monster built by a wizard as a dumb defender of his wizard’s tower when there is a perfectly acceptable substitute in the form of elementals, which don’t have that baggage of coming from an abused culture watching the stories that they’ve kept for themselves be torn away from them and used for the enjoyment of the people who persecuted them?  Why do you have to take it?  Why does your desire for it outweigh our wish that you leave it to us?

As for the difference with the Greeks–while the Greek pagans are making a comeback, the original religion of the Greeks has been destroyed and paved over with Christianity.  There’s a fundamental difference between taking from a dead culture and a living persecuted one.  

What about the Jews?

If you're a Palestinian peace activist who advocates for the destruction of Israel, then let me give you a little history lesson.

In the late 1940s, after the UN partition plan was a guaranteed outcome for the territory. Many Arab nations in north Africa and the middle east went through massive waves of pogroms which were supported by the governments of these nations. They kicked out the native Jewish minority of their nations in the 100s of 1000s. These Jews are known as "Mizrachi" Jews, which is a name for the Jews who lived in the middle east and north Africa, they are descendants of Jews who had lived in the middle east and north Africa.

These are the nations which kicked out their Jewish populations, and how many they brutally expelled after massive waves of pogroms:

Morocco: 18,000 Jews expelled

Algeria: approx. 140,000 Jews expelled

Tunisia: 103,500 Jews expelled

Libya: approx. 35,000 Jews expelled

Iraq: 100,000 Jews expelled

Syria: 30,000 Jews expelled

Yemen: 62,500 Jews expelled

Oman: 5,000 Jews expelled

Iran: 150,000 Jews expelled (10 remain today)

Egypt: 75,000 Jews expelled

Pakistan: 2,000 Jews expelled

Afghanistan: 5,000 (only 1 left)

Why is it only "Zionist atrocities" which you all try to spread false news about? Why do you turn a blind eye to the atrocities which the Arab nations committed?

As of today, 50% of Israel's population are Mizrachi and are descendants of middle eastern Jews. Therefore making the stereotype that Israel is a white colonialist state false.

Don't blame Israel for simply existing. Blame the rest of the middle east and north Africa for making it necessary for Israel to exist.

They start war, we win war, they complain, we get human rights allegations, repeat.

UNRWA gets decimated by community notes, how long can they keep their mask on?

Links:

Reuters

Gaza headmaster was Islamic Jihad "rocket-maker"

By day, Awad al-Qiq was a respected science teacher and headmaster at a United Nations school in the Gaza Strip. By night, Palestinian milit

UN Watch

Report: U.N. Teachers Celebrated Hamas Massacre - UN Watch

Report PDF: UNRWA: Hate Starts Here WASHINGTON, November 6, 2023 — As war wages on between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, a watchdog group is rel

Washington Examiner

UN Palestinian agency looking into claim teacher held Israeli hostage in attic

The United Nations's agency in the Palestinian territories is aware of and attempting to get to the bottom of a claim that one of its teache

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it'll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I'd recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn't read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can't for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You'll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It's genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.

60 Awesome Search Engines for Serious Writers

I gues they don't get kicked out for showing the star of David and do kick out any antisemitic people.

where all my queer and trans jews DREADING PRIDE MONTH WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO