history

Jewish, Israelite, and Sephardic histories I keep returning to.

R Shim’on ben Yohai

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Tonight does not mark the passing of R Shim’on ben Yohai – it marks his celebration.

After all the thousands of students of the founding father of the rabbinic movement, R ‘Aqiba, died en masse – he went south and ordained five judges in the sacred law of Israel.

R Shim’on was one of those five.

The Zohar paints a picture of his joy on that day – not only of his coming into his own, of being authorized to give guidance by none other than R ‘Aqiba himself, but of the foundation of Hebrew society being preserved under the threat of empire and colonization, after having suffered wave after wave of destruction.

The Jewish polity survived thanks to R ‘Aqiba – and some would say the Jewish soul survived thanks to R Shim’on.

That’s something to celebrate.

Doña Gracia, Mother of Israel

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Went down the rabbit hole today researching alllllll the links in the chain from the expulsion from Spain in 1492 to the establishment of the state of #Israel in 1948.

I won’t go into all the details in this post – this needs to be a book – but here’s the upshot:

This is not a case of someone starting a project that failed and was picked up three centuries later and brought to fruition… This is someone starting something that continued and grew and eventually attained one of its concrete goals.

Doña Gracia Nasi, born into a culture wrestling with the political implications of being a disenfranchised minority and the national alternatives to perpetual exile and instability, literally started modern #Zionism (defined as the organized movement to reestablish Jewish autonomous society in Israel), developed the Galilean communities into a thriving independent society, and built the political, economic, and social networks that coalesced into what became later known as the Old Yishuv.

The communities that she built spread to Jerusalem and Hebron, absorbed waves of Sepharadi and Maghrebi immigrants, and eventually (re)established the northern coastal cities as Jewish centers. It was the Sepharadi and Maghrebi leaders of these communities who helped the incoming Europeans establish what became known as the New Yishuv.

Theodor Herzl definitely contributed to modern Zionism. He established many effective organizations that exist to this day and translated the Zionist project into the European political language of nation-statism in vogue in his day. But Herzl inherited an intellectual apparatus that originates with Sepharadi rabbis wrestling with the expulsion from Spain and he built on a foundation laid and lived by Sepharadi and Maghrebi immigrants and their descendants. Herzl’s efforts were just one phase in the long story of modern Zionism, and he ultimately did not succeed in creating a state.

It took two world wars, the fall of the Ottoman and British empires, and a genocide, before conditions emerged and international support could be garnered for the creation of a fully autonomous Jewish state in Israel.

Which leads us to an intriguing What If:

If Herzl had never been born, but all the international events of the first half of the twentieth century transpired, would we still have a state?

Maybe. The Old Yishuv was a robust, autonomous society, and in the 20th century it could have conceivably transitioned into a state.

But if Doña Gracia had never been born, could Herzl have done what he did? Could a state have later emerged?

I think the answer is, most likely not.

The truth is, modern Zionism starts with Doña Gracia Nasi:

The mother of the state of Israel.

1492 and Modernity

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Hot Take 🔥🔥🔥 The event that catalyzed the dawn of modernity in general, and of modern Zionism in particular, was the expulsion of the Jewish people from Spain in 1492.

American Fascism Taxonomy

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I guess I still got #TDS. After much back and forth with ChatGPT, eliminating Eurocentric biases, ensuring it was operating from an updated knowledge base, and requesting elaboration on points raised, I found this to be a helpful taxonomy and summary of the uniquely American variant of fascism. There’s no hope for me, friends. It seems my TDS is a lifelong case.

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PART 1 — A Full Taxonomy of MAGA’s Fascist Features and Its Distinctively American Variants

1. Palingenetic Myth (National Rebirth)

Fascist Feature: A narrative of national decay + promised restoration to mythic greatness.

MAGA Expression (general):

– “Make America Great Again” as a rebirth promise.

– Claims that the nation has been “taken,” “corrupted,” or “infected” by traitors.

American Variant:

– The imagined peak is the racialized mid-20th-century order (1950s), with white Christian patriarchal dominance.

– The idea of a “sacred Constitution” needing to be restored to its “true” form—fascism expressed through constitutional fetishism rather than constitutional destruction.

2. Ethno-Religious Peoplehood (“The Real Americans”)

Fascist Feature: The nation is defined as a purified in-group opposed to internal enemies.

MAGA Expression (general):

– Migrants = “invaders.”

– Liberals = “vermin,” “poison,” “traitors.”

– Muslims = security threats.

– Minorities = portrayed as illegitimate beneficiaries of “rigged” democracy.

American Variant:

– White Christian nationalism as the core: to be American is to be white, Christian, culturally conservative.

– Historical racial scripts (Jim Crow, “real America” mythology) embedded in the movement’s identity.

– Evangelical eschatology mapped onto national politics.

3. Leader Cult (Caesarism)

Fascist Feature: One charismatic leader embodies the will of the nation.

MAGA Expression (general):

– Trump positioned as the singular savior.

– Personal loyalty valued over institutions or laws.

American Variant:

– Leader worship expressed through celebrity culture, reality TV aesthetics, and “prosperity gospel” theologies.

– A uniquely American “CEO-leader” archetype blending authoritarianism with business mythology.

4. Anti-Pluralism and Destruction of Democratic Constraints

Fascist Feature: Courts, media, opposition parties seen as illegitimate obstacles.

MAGA Expression (general):

– Attacks on courts, civil service, “deep state,” and independent agencies.

– Efforts to criminalize political opposition.

American Variant:

– Use of federalism to punish blue states.

– Jurisdiction stripping and weaponized administrative purges rather than formal abolition of courts.

– Elections still held but structurally rigged (gerrymandering, voter suppression, election board controls).

5. Normalization of Political Violence

Fascist Feature: Violence (or threat of violence) is treated as legitimate political action.

MAGA Expression (general):

– Praise for attackers.

– Encouragement of mob intimidation.

– Threats against opponents and protesters.

American Variant:

– Violence outsourced to decentralized militias, sheriffs, extremist individuals, and stochastic actors—mirroring American traditions of vigilantism (slave patrols, KKK, lynch mobs), not European party militias.

– Second Amendment mythology as ideological justification.

6. Epistemic Warfare (Reality Control)

Fascist Feature: Propaganda replaces shared truth.

MAGA Expression (general):

– “Big Lie” about elections.

– Delegitimizing science, journalism, academia.

American Variant:

– Use of digital media ecosystems (Fox, OANN, Telegram, etc.).

– Pastoral authority fused with political authority (pastors as political influencers).

– Conspiracy culture (QAnon, apocalyptic evangelism) functioning as a decentralized propaganda engine.

7. Institutional Capture and Long-Term State Transformation

Fascist Feature: Capture of cultural, legal, and administrative institutions in service of the movement.

MAGA Expression (general):

– Turning agencies into tools of personal loyalty.

– Politicized judges.

– Purges of disloyal bureaucrats.

American Variant:

– Use of presidential appointment powers + Senate confirmations to build an ideologically aligned judiciary.

– Christian-nationalist reconstruction of education, museums, and curriculum—using public funding battles instead of a “Ministry of Culture.”

– Expansion of emergency powers using preexisting U.S. statutes (PATRIOT Act logic, Insurrection Act, etc.).

8. Economic Order: Authoritarian Neoliberalism, Not Classical Corporatism

Fascist Feature: Fusion of state and business elites for national projects (in Europe = corporatism).

MAGA Expression (general):

– Favor-trading with aligned corporations.

– Attacks on disloyal firms.

– Protectionism and tariffs.

American Variant:

– No formal corporatist syndicates (Italian style).

Instead: regulatory capture + billionaire alliances + selective state coercion.

– Economic nationalism within a neoliberal framework (unique to U.S. political economy).

9. Sacralization of the State and Nation

Fascist Feature: Politics becomes a quasi-religious project.

MAGA Expression (general):

– Movement symbols, rituals, and mythic narratives.

– Leader as messianic figure.

American Variant:

Fusion with evangelical Christianity.

– The leader portrayed as God’s instrument.

– American exceptionalism repurposed as a nationalist theology.

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PART 2 — Genealogy of American Fascism (Colonial Period → Jim Crow → MAGA)

This traces the organic roots—showing MAGA not as an anomaly but the latest mutation of a deep American lineage.

1. Settler Colonialism and Early Racial Hierarchy (1600s–1800s)

Foundational features:

– Hierarchy between “civilized” settlers and racialized out-groups.

– State-sanctioned paramilitary violence (Indian Wars, militias, slave patrols).

– A mythology of divine mission (“City on a Hill”).

Fascist DNA:
Ethno-religious nationhood + violence as civic duty + mythic destiny.

2. Slavery and the Slave Patrol State (1700s–1865)

– Legal racial caste system.

– Surveillance, policing, and terror built into everyday governance.

– Plantations as proto-totalitarian micro-states.

Fascist DNA:
A racialized police state embedded directly into the structure of “democracy.”

3. Post-Reconstruction “Redemption” (1877–1910s)

After Reconstruction:

– Violent overthrow of multiracial democracy in the South.

– Massive voter suppression.

– Lynching as political/social control.

– “Solid South” = one-party authoritarian system.

Fascist DNA:
Herrenvolk democracy: democracy for the in-group, authoritarianism for the rest.

4. Jim Crow (1890s–1960s)

– Segregation = legal apartheid.

– State-backed racial terror (KKK, sheriffs, police).

– Education, courts, infrastructure explicitly racialized.

Fascist DNA:
Institutionalized ethno-national hierarchy + political violence + state/religious justification.

5. Cold War Anti-Communism (1940s–1960s)

– National Security State expands dramatically.

– Loyalty oaths, surveillance, suppression of dissent.

– McCarthyism models ideological purges in liberal-democratic form.

Fascist DNA:
Ideological purification and state-driven persecution of perceived enemies.

6. Southern Strategy & Christian Nationalism (1968–2000s)

– Fusion of white identity politics with conservative religion.

– Demonization of civil rights, feminism, and multiculturalism.

– Pastors as political mobilizers.

– Replacement-level fears (“white decline,” “losing our country”).

Fascist DNA:
Race + religion + nationalism + apocalyptic moral panic.

7. Post-9/11 Security Structures (2001–2010s)

– Expansion of executive authority.

– Normalization of emergency powers.

– Militarization of police.

– Islam as civilizational enemy.

Fascist DNA:
Permanent emergency logic; domestic militarized control; suspension norms.

8. MAGA (2015–present)

MAGA is not an alien ideology:
It is the crystallization of all these lineages into a single mass-movement form, amplified by digital media and personality cult.

It unites:

– Settler-colonial hierarchy

– Jim Crow racial politics

– Cold War anti-dissident repression

– Evangelical political theology

– Neoliberal oligarchy

– Post-9/11 emergency powers

– A charismatic leader’s personal image

into a coherent American fascism, distinct from but structurally analogous to 20th-century European version

Atheistic Explanation of Jewish Survival

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Allahu Akbar. But also:

“A strong atheistic explanation has to work without invoking chosenness, providence, metaphysics, or teleology, while still accounting for the extraordinary empirical fact-pattern: a tiny, dispersed, repeatedly targeted ethnocultural group not only survives but regenerates political autonomy, cultural creativity, and demographic continuity over multiple millennia.

The best explanation in secular scholarship combines four interacting forces:

1. Covenantal Ethno-Textual Identity (Self-Reinforcing Structure)

From a secular standpoint, the “covenant” is not metaphysical but a uniquely durable cultural technology.

Key features:

– A portable constitution: Torah + halakha function like a constitution that does not depend on land or state structure.
– A text-centered identity: Identity is encoded in textual mastery, not political territory.
– A distributed, ritualized pedagogy: Every household is a micro-school; literacy is a norm.

Why this matters:
Most ancient peoples tied identity to local cults, temples, territorial kingship. Once displaced, they disappeared. Judaism reengineered identity into portable, duplicable, home-scaled institutions.

This is a sociological survival innovation, not a miracle.

2. Decentralized Communal Networks (Horizontal Resilience)

Jewish communities operated as non-state micro-polities: qehilloth, batté din, charitable systems, standardized rituals, and normative law.

Characteristics:

– Leaderless-by-design robustness: No single authority’s destruction could collapse the system.
– Rapid institutional reconstruction in diaspora: A minyan + a scroll = immediate restoration of structure.
– Highly networked long-distance trade and correspondence: This strengthened international solidarity and resource pooling.

Think of it as a resilient “fractal” system: every fragment regenerates the whole.

No divine design needed—just a uniquely adaptive communal architecture producing long-term continuity.

3. Strong Boundary Maintenance Paired with Permeability

From an atheist perspective, Jewish survival requires maintaining identity yet also allowing controlled integration.

Judaism manages this through:

– Clear endogamy norms → slows assimilation.
– Clear ritual boundaries → makes identity legible and persistent.
– Naturalization allowed but regulated → refreshes the population without dissolving coherence.
– High retention under persecution → increases internal solidarity.

Most groups collapse because either:

– identity becomes too loose (assimilates), or
– identity becomes too rigid (cannot replenish members).

Judaism found a rare equilibrium: cohesive but permeable.

4. Cultural Hyper-Adaptability Under Extreme Pressure

Historically measurable traits:

– Literacy rates far above surrounding populations.
– Economic niche flexibility (trade, finance, crafts, scholarship, administration).
– Mastery of local languages + maintenance of Hebrew/Judeo-languages.
– Continuous reinterpretation of law and tradition.
– Intellectual productivity disproportionate to population size.

None of these require divine intervention. They reflect long-term cultural selection pressures: groups that adapted survived; those that didn’t vanished.

Judaism is one of the rare cultures that evolved adaptive plasticity as a core identity trait.

The Emergence of the Jewish State

A secular analysis sees the Jewish state as emerging from:

– Zionist political ideology (a modern nationalism).
– European nationalism and decolonization patterns.
– Hebrew revival as a cultural modernist project.
– Global geopolitical shifts post-WWII.
– Exceptional diasporic resource networks supporting state-building.

The state of Israel, from this view, is not a miracle but the convergence of:

– a people that maintained identity & literacy for millennia
– modern nationalism and colonial retreat
– mass-mobilizing trauma
– global political opportunity windows
– extraordinary diaspora capital (intellectual, financial, relational)

The simplest atheistic explanation at the highest level:

Judaism as a cultural system was repeatedly tested by extreme pressures; the only communities that survived were those with traits that made survival possible. Those traits—literacy, law, communal solidarity, adaptability—compounded over time.

In other words, Judaism is a culturally selected system optimized for long-term endurance.

This does not reduce Jews to biology—it describes memetic, institutional, and cultural selection, not genetic superiority or mystical destiny.

A strong atheistic explanation combines:

1. Portable textual identity and law
2. Decentralized, regenerative communal structures
3. Cohesive-but-permeable boundaries
4. High cultural adaptability to hostile environments
5. Modern political opportunity windows
6. Cultural selection over millennia

None of these require supernatural claims. Yet together, they explain why Judaism—unlike most ancient civilizations—remains alive, coherent, creative, and politically reconstituted.”

Barukh Hashem, who has planted eternal life in our midst and gave us the Torah as a gift of love. Those who embraced and lived the Torah and its culture as a way of life, survived – if not them (genocide, after all), then their descendants. Those who didn’t, remain only as chapters and footnotes in history books.

עם ישראל חי

Both Made-Up Peoples

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I see your “Palestinians/Israelis are a made-up people” and raise you “Palestinians and Israelis are both made-up peoples descended from second commonwealth Israelites”

Loyal to the Nazis

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As MAGA slowly embraces its antisemitic roots, will they lose the Jewish Republican vote? (Relatedly, is “Latinos for Trump” still a thing?)

“Although the fortunes of many have been wiped out, although their professions have been taken away from them, and although they live in a state of rigid suspense and fear of the moment when they will be humiliated, beaten, or imprisoned, a large number of German Jews continue to remain faithful to the fatherland.

A few of them even support the current anti-Semitic National Socialist administration because of the party’s policies on non-racial questions. They applaud the party’s success in uniting the various divergent parts of Germany. They strongly approve Germany’s demands for restoration of the old empire and the rearmament of the country. And in certain of its aspects they even support the current action of the Nazis against their race.”

– Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “Dr. Max Naumann Still Loyal to Nazi Oppressors of His Race; Hits Zionists and Eastern Jews”, August 13, 1933

Beyond Jewish Studies

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I’ll go one step further and argue that the origins and historical trajectories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can not be adequately understood from within the framework of Jewish Studies and require the updated framework of Israelite Studies for proper analysis, explanation, and theory.

Israelite Studies

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Elephantine. Idumea. Himyar. Kaifeng.

Samaritans. Bené Anusím. Bene Israel. Beta Israel. Bene Menashe. Igbo. Qaraites. Amazighs. Palestinians.

Ashkenaz. Sepharad. Teiman. Paras.

Jewish Studies is an outdated discipline.

It’s time to get serious about Israelite Studies.

Igbo Israelites

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The Igbo culture always surprises me.

Today I learned that those Igbos that still pray according to the ways of Omenana, convene an additional service steeped in tradition (after they recite together the tephilloth that they have learned from Jewish sources) with the invocation: “Whom do Igbos serve?” “Yah!”

I don’t think we’re talking about a lost tribe of Israel that wandered en masse across Africa – but an Israelite nucleus that fled (northern?) Israel, migrated through Elephantine westward all the way to the Niger River Basin, where they naturalized/integrated with members of local communities and were supplemented by Jewish Berbers via Mali and Israelite/Jewish merchants from central and east Africa.

According to this theory, the nucleus diverged from Israel and the core community coalesced along the Niger River before the textual revolution of Ezra haSopher and his court in the (later!) Persian period.

Notably, unlike their Nigerian neighbors, the Igbo kept kashruth, family purity, inheritance laws, economic laws, the laws of to’eba and tuma, and male circumcision on the eighth day, just like Israelites.

Most importantly, the Igbos are unique in West Africa in preserving a form of “republicanism” that exhibits the same horizontality in socio-political organization that R José Faur z”l argued is central to Israelite society.

And according to this theory, and unlike their erstwhile Jewish cousins, the Igbos lost Hebrew, the text of the Tora, the Shabbath, the attachment to Israel, and their own history (beyond the popular tradition – “We are Israelites!”).

There remains so much research to be done in Israelite Studies, especially in Africa – anthropological studies, material culture cataloging, archival documentation, genetic sampling and classification.

We need to devote resources to developing a coherent and rigorous picture of Israelite history beyond the Jewish people, in Israel, the Middle East, Africa, and the rest of Asia.