Chevre,
I begin with Chevre for a reason. It's a word that doesn't translate exactly into English -- the translation loses some nuance -- but it essentially refers to a community, frequently closely knit, that gathers together for some essential task. Over at Street Prophets, a group of us have been discussing for the past week or so the creation of a general Jewish group here at Daily Kos. We were a little hesitant to do it for a variety of reasons, but ultimately decided it was worth the effort.
This is the essential task for which I began with chevre.
Accordingly, we would like to introduce you to the Elders of Zion.
Why "Elders of Zion"?
The reference invoked by our chosen group name certainly had something to do with its selection. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a text prepared some time between 1897 and 1903 by the Secret Police of Czarist Russia. It was a forgery intended to show the world that the Jews had a sinister plot for global domination; the text purported to be the minutes of a meeting of leaders of the Jewish community -- the "Elders of Zion" -- in which they discussed their plot. The Protocols were popularized in the United States by noted rabid antisemite Henry Ford and remain a central element of the "thought" of the Christian Identity movement. They also featured prominently in the writings and speeches of Adolph Hitler. Indeed, there has hardly been a conspiracy theory about the Jews in the past 100 years that didn't use the Protocols for inspiration in some way, and when antisemitic comments or diaries show up on Daily Kos, they frequently feature central ideas of the Protocols. And in such circumstances, it is common for we Jewish kossacks to mock the antisemitic posters by providing elaborate details of our imaginary plots and referring to ourselves as "Elders of Zion" (and even that sometimes is played up to great effect). Essentially, we appropriate the label for our own ends and turn a vile false accusation into a badge of pride.
Once again, we're appropriating the epithet for our own ends.
Who We Are
We are Jews, proud and unapologetic. We practice our faith the way we see fit, not the way antisemites, the ignorant, fundamentalists of all stripes, or others who would wish us ill would like to pretend we do. Some of us are very religiously observant, others are deeply secular; Jewish identity is highly salient for some of us and just one identity among many for others. But all of us here are progressive Jews -- there are certainly conservative Jews (lower case C, not to be confused with upper case C Conservative Jews, who are members of a specific denomination of American Judaism), but they're not making a habit of stopping by a progressive, Democratic blog like Daily Kos. And although we recognize that there are many paths to progressive ideology, many of which have nothing to do with religion or ethnicity, we identify our ethnoreligious identity as inherent to our progressive worldview.
Group Content
General Jewish Interest
First and foremost, this group is dedicated to issues of interest to the Jewish community: Jewish religion, ethnicity, history, culture, language, cuisine, music, literature, and identity. If it's something that would be of general interest to the Jewish community, we're interested.
And because we have our own languages, we'll sometimes use words that won't be familiar to our readers, often from Hebrew or Yiddish. Those of us who have been around at Street Prophets for a while know a lot of the jargon already, but we'll make a concerted effort to translate into English any word that might be unfamiliar. And if we forget, just give us a gentle reminder -- we'll get it right sooner than later.
Divrei Torah
The topic that precipitated the discussion about forming a general Jewish interest group was the weekly series of divrei Torah that we post over at Street Prophets. A d'var Torah (divrei Torah is the plural form) is like a homily. It's a commentary on a portion of text, typically but not always from the Torah. (Traditionally, Jews read a portion of the Torah every week in public as part of our liturgy such that we read the entire thing over the course of the year.) Our commentaries typically reflect our values, and as I noted above, we're a progressive bunch. We refuse to accept the fundamentalist readings of our sacred texts that zealots of all varieties would seek to impose on us. We read progressive values in our sacred texts, which we read much as we would read any other kind of literature -- for nuance and subtext (what we might call drash) and not for its simplest, most basic, most literal meaning (what we might call p'shat). Given the proliferation of groups catering to all sorts of interests here, we thought this series would fit nicely into a group catering to general Jewish interest.
Israel
We are interested in Israel only insofar as it is the ancestral and cultural homeland of the Jewish people and a major center of the world's Jewish population. If you want to talk primarily about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, there are other groups for that.
This group is not the place for whatever I/P pie fight you want to start. It is not a group about Zionism or anti-Zionism. If you want to talk acrimoniously about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, regardless of the target of your anger, you're not welcome here.
This group is not the place to post that Israel is always right and the Palestinians are always wrong. If that's the kind of group you want, we can give you some general directions of where to go; I believe the Southern Poverty Law Center keeps pretty decent listings of such groups. But the same applies if you've come here to deny the historic ties between the Land of Israel and the Jewish people. Let this excerpt from a d'var Torah I wrote in July be the final word on where we stand:
We frequently hear people claim, thinking that they're defending Israel, that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, or that there wasn't such thing as a Palestinian until 1967.
This claim is a vicious lie. It is hate speech. Its sole purpose is to claim that only Israel has legitimate claims and complaints. It is patently unhelpful and exceedingly hurtful, and no one who genuinely cares about peace accepts it.
And it has an equivalent lie. There are also those who say that contemporary Jews are not descended from the ancient Israelites, but rather from the Khazars, a Turkic nation that existed from the 7th-10th centuries in what is today Northern Turkey and a host of Eastern European nations. This position was popularized at first by Ernest Renan, a French philosopher whose writings were very influential in a 19th century social movement founded and promoted by Wilhelm Marr -- the Antisemiten-Liga. The fallacy of Khazar descent came to America through The Dearborn Independent, a rag made famous for the rabid antisemitism of its publisher, Henry Ford. Today, it is a staple of the notoriously antisemitic Christian Identity movement. There has never been any evidence behind the theory, and it has been thoroughly refuted via genetic testing.
All of which is to say that a person who promotes this claim today is an antisemite... It is a vicious lie. It is hate speech. Its sole purpose is to claim that Jews are nothing but colonial interlopers who have no legitimate claim to the land of Israel and no legitimate cause to complain about any insult or injury done to them as a result of their political sovereignty there. It is patently unhelpful and exceedingly hurtful, and no one who genuinely cares about peace accepts it. And if you think it is merely an anti-Israel claim, you are sorely deluded.
Antisemitism
Speaking of which, this group will inevitably deal with issues of antisemitism. We may even decide to publish diaries we deem to be antisemitic in order to bring them to the attention of the chevre. But if you're interested in joining so you can post antisemitic conspiracy theories or whatever the latest lie is circulating on the internet, you're not welcome here. We don't care if "some of your best friends are Jewish," or if "you don't hate Jews, you just hate..." some category of your own imagining that actually -- shock of shocks -- consists of "the Jews."
We're not going to tolerate it. No decent person would. And, as any good chevre would, we're going to provide the safety in numbers that makes it easier to fight antisemitism.
And we will fight it. We've spent a lot of time focusing on antisemitism within this site lately because antisemitism ebbs and flows at Daily Kos and it's been on the upswing lately, but no matter what you might hear from right-wingers, there's far more of it outside the progressive community than inside it. And make no mistake about it, the people expending the most energy and resources promoting antisemitism are also promoting other extremist right-wing ideas. Fighting antisemitism means fighting those ideas too, and even if fighting bigotry wasn't worthy of discussion on a site like this, fighting right-wing extremists is exactly what we do here when it's all said and done.
Other topics
One of my best friends, a sociologist, is frequently asked to define sociology, which is sort of a fuzzy subject to a lot of people. He has two responses, akin to what I described as possible readings of our sacred texts in the section on divrei Torah above -- the p'shat response (simplistic) and the drash response (nuanced).
The p'shat -- "Sociology is what sociologists do." The drash, of course, is much more complicated; sociology is the study of human behavior in all its myriad forms, and as such, it is far more complex than most people give it credit for.
Judaism is the same way. The p'shat is that Judaism is what Jews think, do, feel, believe, and practice. The drash is so much more complicated. Virtually any topic can be given a Jewish flavor, so virtually any topic might be appropriate for this group. With 4000 years of history, tradition, and interpretation and reinterpretation of all that has gone before, there is nothing new to Judaism under the sun (and even that reference comes from our sacred texts). Everything is an iteration of something else. So consider this a challenge: come up with a new twist on something, anything, from a Jewish perspective. (Or, at least, a new twist for the chevre.)
Who is welcome to join?
Just about anyone is welcome to join as a member of the group. You don't have to be Jewish, or even know very much about Jews or Judaism. You just have to be interested in learning about Jews and Judaism from the chevre. It's a good group of people with a diverse set of experiences and an awful lot to teach and share with each other.
Some structural stuff
As the nominal "founder" of the group, I'm a BlogAdmin. BlogAdmins basically can do anything -- publish content to the group, edit the group page, add new members, set permissions for members, etc. There will be a few others with that role too; if you'd like to be one of them, send me a message through the Daily Kos system (i.e., click on your username, then "messages," then "new message" and send it to me like you would an e-mail).
I hope some folks will also be willing to serve as BlogEditors. BlogEditors can't add or remove members or change members' permissions, but they can publish content to the group from the queue, or schedule something to be published automatically at a time of their choosing. (Members/contributors can put content in the queue, but can't publish it to the group, either manually or by timer.) Personally, I hate to see diaries languishing in the queue for hours on end. If it's in the queue and you think it's worthy of the group, go ahead and publish it.
And speaking of publishing content, here are a few suggested rules (borrowed from one of my other groups, Massachusetts Kosmopolitans) for BlogAdmins and BlogEditors (and others too):
- BlogAdmins and BlogEditors are permitted to edit diaries, even those written by other people. Don't edit a diary without the permission or request of the author. And even if you do have permission, make it absolutely clear what part you wrote and what part is from the original diarist.
- Don't send spam to the group. Either the electronic kind or the food-like substance. They're both annoying and the latter isn't kosher. Stay on-topic -- if the message isn't about something of general Jewish interest, it doesn't belong.
- Don't harass or stalk anyone in the messages. Or the diaries. Or in real life. Seriously, that's very creepy behavior and we won't tolerate it.
- There's room for disagreement over what constitutes "general Jewish interest." David Ben Gurion was famous for saying that where there are two Jews, there are three opinions. (He was also famous for other things.) What constitutes "general Jewish interest" to one person may not for another. But some things won't be tolerated no matter how much someone might argue they do constitute "general Jewish interest" -- read above in the diary if you don't understand what I mean.
Dealing with trolls (added 4/3/11)
As we expected -- as happens any and every time a diary dealing with Jews or Judaism draws more than token attention around here -- we got some trolls. The admins of the group have discussed the matter and decided on the following rules for dealing with them:
Certain kinds of trolling, like blatant antisemitism, get no warning -- the trolls and anyone sick enough to uprate them get troll rated immediately. The admins of the site don't seem inclined to do much about bigots since the transition, so this will have to do for now. Don't hesitate or wait for someone else to start dispensing donuts.
As for violations of group rules, kos has addressed this himself, and it is clear that groups can set their own reasonable rules consistent with the site's overall rules. So here's what we're going to do:
We're going to include a warning at the top of every diary including the rules we've outlined above. Violators -- like known trolls who insist on turning anything about Jews or Judaism into I/P pie fights -- will receive a single warning. After that, they get troll rated. As kos himself said:
...I've seen how the most informative, well-mannered user can become a raging asshole in an, say, I-P diary. So if a user is being consistently abusive in a group (say an atheist disrupting a religion-centric group, or vice-a-versa), then what's stopping group members from troll rating that user? And that user can then a) keep trolling that group until she is autobanned, or 2) stop visiting that group.
The autoban isn't likely to happen given the amen chorus, but we'll deal with that issue later.
A final note
This isn't an autocracy. One of the reasons we discussed forming this group for almost two weeks is because we wanted it to be a group endeavor. We even voted on the group name. We're looking to build a community here. We'll do things the way the chevre wants things to be done.
UPDATE: Folks, my wife, who is pregnant, is asking for dinner, so I have to step away for a bit. If you want to join the group or help run it, just send me a message and I'll add you as soon as I have a chance.