CarwilBJ's avatarCarwilBJ's Twitter Archive—№ 35,752

    1. Doing some background research as I'm writing about my Jewish ancestors in Poland, and bumping into a series of figures in both Internationalist and Zionist traditions, all no doubt shaped by the traumas of Russian Empire pogroms as well as the Nazi genocide…
  1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
    I grew up reading the rationalist lessons drawn by Charles K Bliss about both Soviet and Nazi propaganda, which led him to try to make a universal language of simple recognizable symbols. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blissymbols Bliss was imprisoned in both Buchenwald and the Shanghai Ghetto.
    1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
      Białystok, closer to my family's path, was the home of L. L. Zamenhof, the Polish-Jewish inventor of Esperanto. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof
      1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
        Meanwhile, Avraham Stern of the infamous Zionist Stern Gang/LEHI was from Suwalki, like my great grandparents. kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/suwalki/history.htm
        1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
          And before becoming theoretical reference point for Revisionist Zionism, Ze'ev Jabotinsky helped expose Russian organization of the Bialystok Pogrom en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bia%C5%82ystok_pogrom
          1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
            One key takeaway, by centering our story of Jewish trauma (from which universalism and Zionism were two natural responses) on the Nazi regime, we're understating the degree to which mid-century Jews were reacting not just to the Shoah, but to Russian antisemitism.
            1. …in reply to @CarwilBJ
              The fact that enduring ultraviolence can be linked biographically to an uncompromising willingness to inflict it should encourage us to read Hamas founder al-Rantisi's biography more compassionately. palestinechronicle.com/khan-yunis-rememberingthe-forgotten-palestinian-massacre/