https://freedomnews.org.uk/2024/11/21/book-review-safety-through-solidarity/

Insomnia

I'd like it not to be related to last year's massacre and the subsequent usual outrageous Israeli weaponization of Jewish grief, but I'm certain it is. Fuck Netanyahoo, his enablers, arms dealers, allies, and supporters around the world. But of course it's not just him and his partisans; it's every xtian zionist anti-Muslim who believes that all the Jews have to be gathered in the Unholy Land before the toad from Nazareth returns to massacre whoever doesn't accept him; it's every vulgar Antideutsch; it's every liberal or progressive zionist who believes that a less right-wing government will be better; it's every traumatized Jew who believes that Jewish military and paramilitary might equals Jewish safety (many of whom harbor their own idiotic messianic delusions); it's every Jew-baiter and Jew-hater who fuels Jewish paranoia (even as the dangers are real) by reducing geopolitics to an evil unique to Jews; it's every person who ignores, minimizes, excuses, and/or denies Palestinian suffering -- or even worse, revels in it. Ceasefire and hostage exchange is the bare minimum.

as an anthropologist: Graeber claimed (in his "Fragments") that he was pretty much the first actual anarchist anthropologist, despite the work of Harold Barclay and James C Scott, and the radical anti-tankie marxists Stanley Diamond and Pierre Clastres. so, arrogant and ignorant at the same time.

for his sweeping (and totally unreadable vanity project "Direct Action"), he reports as a participant-observer on the strategies and tactics of various anarchist and anarchist-influenced activist groups; many of the people he participated with and observed were not informed that their conversations and activities would be documented in a book. so, questionable ethics.

as a revolutionary tourist: like that other fool Milstein (and plenty of others, including a good personal friend of mine), Graeber was completely taken in by the PR handlers of the YPG when visiting Rojava. his paeans to the "Rojava Revolution" with their empty comparisons are painful to read for anyone who actually knows about the revolutionary projects of anarchists throughout the 20th century, like the Makhnovshchina, the various communes in pre-Mao China, the original Zapatistas, and the collectives in the Spanish Revolution. totally unlike the aforementioned examples, Rojava has no agricultural or industrial base to collectivize into economic self-management. the only aspects of life in Rojava that appear to be horizontal are the militias; while crucial for the defense of revolutionary experiments, the independent existence of militias is never sufficient for the flowering of such experiments. in most cases of anarchist and anarchist-influenced social revolution, militias arose AFTER the collectivization and self-management of agricultural and/or industrial areas. so, upside-down historian.

his campaigning for Corbyn was a colossal embarrassment for anyone familiar with the long-standing anarchist position on electoral politics (hint: anarchists are not in favor of parliamentarism). he should have known this already after writing a book called "Direct Action" -- which is the exact opposite of electoral action. plus, the fact that Corbyn did exhibit some soft antisemitism could never be admitted by Graeber or most other Jewish pro-Corbyn people. compounding the embarrassment is the fact that as a non-UK citizen, he wasn't even able to do what he encouraged others to do. so, shallow understanding of antisemitism, and shallow understanding of the role of parliamentarianism in propping up industrial capitalism.

as an anarchist: he didn't understand why anarchists are opposed to electoral politics; he didn't understand how he wasn't the first anarchist anthropologist; he didn't understand that the slogan he helped popularize ("We Are the 99%") is a majoritarian deception perpetrated by pro-capitalist populists who instinctively accept that landlords and cops are or can be our comrades in the struggle against a handful of "bad" capitalists. he didn't understand that going against the mainstream (in the case of his co-authored ode to urbanism, "The Dawn of Everything") often just makes you look foolish rather than radical. so, bad anarchist.

eagerly anticipating the flurry of downvotes from the anti-intellectual mob.

says on the tin, looking for a haggadah that anyone recommends, doesn't have to be 100% anti/non (like I don't think prayers necessarily have to be altered because they can be looked at certain ways) but something along those lines or something any of yall just recommend (i put my faith in you). if your recommendation is short or has options for a shorter service that's extra helpful. I know a queer antizionist haggadah went around a few years ago so if anyone has that id appreciate it!

Looking for Jewish anarchist zines!! In whatever language. Help me out <33

https://www.aftoleksi.gr/2023/11/04/voices-for-an-israel-palestine-confederation/

https://freedomnews.org.uk/2023/11/22/common-arab-jewish-struggles-in-the-past-present-interview-with-george-mehrabian/

https://anarcomuk.uk/2024/01/07/israel-and-anti-militarism/

I haven’t checked for old posts here that cover this, so apologies if it’s a rerun. I’m putting links to places to purchase, but I’m sure at least some of these are free if you look online.

A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement by James Horrox (Author); Uri Gordon (Foreword): https://www.akpress.org/livingrevolution.html

No Masters but God: Portraits of anarcho-Judaism by Hayyim Rothman: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526149039/

Revolutionary Yiddishland: A History of Jewish Radicalism by Alain Brossat and Sylvie Klingberg Translated by David Fernbach: https://www.versobooks.com/products/254-revolutionary-yiddishland

Immigrants against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America by Kenyon Zimmer: https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p080920

Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s by Eliyahu Stern: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300221800/jewish-materialism/

Gustav Landauer: Anarchist and Jew Edited by: Paul Mendes-Flohr and Anya Mali In collaboration with: Hanna Delf von Wolzogen: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110368598/html

Paths in Utopia by Martin Buber: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/martin-buber-paths-in-utopia-en

Liberating Society from the State and Other Writings: A Political Reader Author: Erich Mühsam • Editor: Gabriel Kuhn: https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=249

Please add your picks!

(Not finding any easily accessible videos online, but if you dig it’s probably around)

Paul Goodman, whose best-selling 'Growing Up Absurd' made him the philosopher of the New Left in the 1960s, was also a brilliant poet, out queer (and family man) in the 1940s, radical pacifist and visionary. His ideas and stubborn integrity helped many find a moral compass in the '60's -- and can do so again today.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1748158/

Dramatically portrays immigrant life in the United States as seen through the eyes of the sweatshop workers who made up the Jewish anarchist movement.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1051227/