No, I think I'll bring her in Monday, with Finn for his appointments

[conuly]

Better than worrying.

****

X in old alphabet books

Things that should happen in a Sci-Fi story with a Universal Translator

In Safety Towns and Traffic Gardens, Kids Rule the Streets

Martin Parr's Soviet space dog collection – in pictures

My Love Letter to Fanfiction: Or, how fanfiction is the turducken of literature and a lot more important to (some) WOC than you probably think

"My obsession with old Kool-Aid packets takes me to strange places." (More Kool-Aid links in the comments.)

Shield Your Cables From Fraying & Tearing With These Fun Protectors (Adorable, but do they work?)

New York could become first city to provide abortion funding

It’s Just A Swipe Away

Love isn’t what it was

Why Don't Americans Use Their Parks At Night?

Your Cheap-Ass Bee House Is Probably Killing the Bees

The Stonewall Riots Didn’t Start the Gay Rights Movement

Blood Feasts and Roach Vacuums: The Life of an Urban Pest Scientist

The Death Of The Family Secret

Britain's mixed-race GI babies want to know why they were given away

What does it mean to be genetically Jewish? (1. Is this accurately reported and 2. if so, this is fucked up, right? If nothing else, it doesn't seem to demonstrate a sophisticated grasp of statistics)

“When They See Us” Shows How Black Slang Was Criminalized For The Central Park 5 & It Still Is Today

How Defective Guns Became the Only Product That Can’t Be Recalled

Hong Kong leader suspends extradition bill amid protest pressure

The kidnapped Yazidi children who don’t want to be rescued from ISIS

In hot water? Study says warming may reduce sea life by 17%

Heavy rains are on the rise around the world. Here's why.

Tripoli's children struggle to study as war reaches the capital

“We’re Living in Horror:” Civilians Are Bearing the Brunt of Libya’s Civil War

Ugandan medics now tackling Ebola say they lack supplies

How YouTube Became a Breeding Ground for a Diabolical Lizard Cult

Comments

[siderea]

What does it mean to be genetically Jewish? (1. Is this accurately reported and 2. if so, this is fucked up, right? If nothing else, it doesn't seem to demonstrate a sophisticated grasp of statistics)

Re 2: No. And no.

DO NOT apply Christian ideas of religion to Judaism. Judaism has as an article of faith no different than the belief among Christians that Jesus rose from the dead that membership in the religion is not open to anyone, and either you inherit it from your mother or you convert.

You don't have to like it. But that is the mainstream belief among Jews and you do not get to say you respect Jews or Judaism if you do not respect that.

And given that is what that religion believes, the use of a specific mitochondrial DNA variant that has a better than 95% association with having a (specific ethnicity) Jewish mother as proof one had a Jewish mother and thereby fulfills Jewish religious requirements for membership, is actually a mercy.

As to the idea that acknowledging that we Ashkenazi are an actual endogenous ethnicity with a specific genetic heritage is some how racist? Yeah, colorblindness worked out so smashingly well for African Americans, let's do that again. That will totally protect us from the Nazis this time, sure you bet.

[conuly]

Is that mitochondrial variant that widespread among Ashkenazi Jews? 99% chance that if you have it means you have Ashkenazi heritage is not the same as 99% chance of the reverse, that you'll have it if you have a Jewish mother. And if we're assuming the latter based on the former then there's a serious issue with the grasp of statistics and how it applies to genetic testing, potentially leading to a lot of false negatives.

[siderea]

...did you not read the damned article? Which described it as being exclusively for the former? To rule people in? And expicitly said that when used religiously is as a test of last resort for undocumented people?

[gingicat]

I am the daughter of a female Jewish convert with Scottish ancestry buried centuries ago, and therefore I can’t possibly have this mitochondrial variation. I’ve already been told I’m not Jewish because it was a Reform conversion that didn’t include a mikvah. And my kids won’t be able to emigrate to Israel either. My son would like to be a parent someday; I guess if he could plan that his kids would be able to emigrate to Israel without him.

[siderea]

Right. And this has nothing to do with you. You know who else this has nothing to do with? Anyone of Sephardi, Mizrachi, Beta, or any other Jewish heritage. Did you not read the article?

[gingicat]

I did read the article. To me, it says that Russian Jews are not the only ones getting screwed. It is also triggering my “you can never be really Jewish and shouldn’t try” memories.

[gingicat]

To put it another way, the Orthodox rabbinate is continuing to screw over people who don’t fit their definition.

[lavendertook]

This.

I'm sorry you got the "you aren't Jewish enough" crap. *hugs* My brother got that crap from a friend when he was a kid because we didn't go to synagogue or practice the religion. Yay group hazing! /-:

[adrian_turtle]

I haven't studied that part of Talmud yet, but I am dubious about the idea that Judaism requires rejecting anybody who is undocumented. I do not tell the story of how our people ran away in such a hurry they did not have time for their bread to rise, carrying only the ketubot of their parents and grandparents. I've heard stories of brave people running into burning buildings to save Torah scrolls or books of the Talmud. Not ketubot. We are people who flee oppression, sometimes at a moment's notice. That's a big part of why Israel HAS the Law of Return.

I have a problem with maintaining a system that is fundamentally upgefucked, and allowing exceptions for people of a particular racial group. Not sephardim or mizrachi. Not the descendents of converts.

I'm not personally harmed by this. Exactly. I have no desire to move to Israel. My mother's mother used to be named Sara Cohen, though if my mother had any Jewish documentation it would have been lost when the basement flooded. But her father was orphaned before he was 5 and raised by his father's second wife. She was an Ashkenazi Jew. His father was Jewish, at least by the Tsar's standards. His mother might or might not have converted to Judaism, but grandpa didn't remember her at all. (It was a tragic love story involving the Russian-Japanese War and the Great Flu. My family got awfully sloppy about official rules and documentation when somebody needed to be taken care of.)

[conuly]

I believe I've been told that the typical opinion is that if somebody says they're a Jew you should just believe them, but I don't know how accurate that is.

[oursin]

I was at the launch for Lucy Bland's book on the 'brown babies' this week, and there were so many of the people she'd interviewed and their families present, and they were so pleased that that story was getting out there and were buying copies (she'd negotiated a special launch discount) for themselves and for family and friends. But such terrible sad stories, even when sometimes they'd been able, late in life and thanks to DNA testing, to find lost parents.

[nocowardsoul]

What, no X is for Xebec?

[larryhammer]

Apparently not (which is good news for me as that's totally the X word for my alphabet of sailing ships book).