Job Chapter 19
Thinking about Ex-Friends on the 17th of Tammuz
How long will Job's friends crush him with words? Isn't G-d's wrath enough? Does Bildad think that he's helping? This isn't an intervention. Sorrow is lonely, but it's even more dire when your friends are hateful.
I met her as one of the Goth punks in the Minneapolis. I published her story in Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre. We remained online friends after I moved to New York and she moved to St. Cloud. In that Republican town, she remained stubbornly committed to reproductive freedom, food security and LGBT rights. I respected her. Until October 7, she never posted about world conflicts where the U.S. wasn't directly involved. Not even a Uyghurs meme. As soon as Israel went to war, she started posting the Hamas memes. One said “you don't have be a Middle East expert to know that Israel is wrong.” She posted memes trying to convince herself that she wasn't antisemitic. I challenged her to pay attention to any conflict besides Israel. We are no longer friends.
The last time I wrote about this chapter, Simchat Torah had just ended. Simchat Torah is the happiest Jewish holiday, a culmination of the High Holidays where we celebrate the Torah. Hamas chose that day to commit mass murder. They filmed themselves raping teenagers. They took hostages; many are dead or still in Gaza. Leftist social media cheered. Breadtube celebrated.
He was a comic book writer who explored the intersection of black science fiction and Queer identity. Before October, he was editing a science fiction book called Cybear Punk. After October 7, he daily posted the usual “Zionism is white supremacy, Israel is a colonizer ethnoste” bullshit. One of his friends, Jordan Vaughan, outright celebrated the rape and murder of Shani Louk. I tried to stay friends but it wasn't worth the effort. Finally, I just commented “Palestine is a bullshit colonizer fantasy for Nazis” and let him block me.
Wasn't October 7 enough? Did they all have to hold rallies on October 8 to condemn Israel? Couldn't the Harvard Nazis have waited a couple days before making their same old idiotic “Zionism is racism” public statements? Even before the IDF struck back at Hamas, the leftist Nazis were accusing Israel of genocide. Goebbels showed that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will accept it. The Ivy League Nazis would have made Goebbels proud. Israel minimizes civilian casualties with precision targeting and war zone evacuations. Hamas hides in schools and stores weapons in UNRWA facilities. They even bomb hospitals and blame Israel. But why bother with facts? Why would anyone actually care about the people who are fighting and dying in this war? Screaming “genocide” is way more fun, especially when you can score points against evangelical Christians.
He is a supportive writer. He encourages other writers. He's fun to drink with at conventions. I stopped talking to him after the 2016 election because he made a point of not voting and then wrote a bullshit statement encouraging horror writers to take inspiration from Trump in the same way Reagan inspired 1980s artists. I said it was bullshit, but I wished him well. Recently, he wrote an article congratulating himself for including trans characters in a book. As a statement of purpose he claimed to be moderate in all ways. One example of his moderate stance was that he supported Israel self-defense, but believed that Netanyahu and the IDF were committing genocide. So Israel should defend itself by sending strongly worded letters to the UN? Apologizing to the terrorists and asking them politely to not repeat October 7? Giving up Jerusalem in exchange for three of the hostages? In another year, I might give him the benefit of the doubt, but I'm tired of lying motherfuckers accusing Israel of genocide. I'm sick of bystanders swallowing these lies without question. I no longer wish him well.
Today is the 17th of Tammuz. This is the fast day that begins the Three Weeks that culminate in Tisha B'Av, the saddest day of the Jewish year. These weeks commemorate the colonizers' invasion of Jerusalem and the destruction of the first Temple, and every tragedy since that day including massacres, Masada, pogroms, the destruction of the second Temple, the Bar Kochba revolt, etc. On Tisha B'Av, we fast, sit on low chairs, refrain from greetings and read Eicha (Lamentations). The Three Weeks is a time when we refrain from pleasurable activities such as live music and hot baths. We mourn. We remember the Temple. We lament our lost sovereignty. We weep for the Jews that we've lost because of Temple's fall.
She was a great writer and a better friend. She helped me when I was going through hard emotional times. I checked on her. When she first started posting about the Middle East, her posts were about how we should care about everyone. Then she started to take sides. Her memes got troubling. When her Jewish friends pointed out the implications of some posts, she freaked out and claimed that she was being accused of antisemitism. She didn't care about her Jewish friends. She only cared about her hurt feelings. After that week, she got worse. When I blocked her, I sent her a note saying that I hope that we can be friends again after the war is over. I don't think that's going to happen.
The Three Weeks are going to be strange this year. We've been in mourning since October. Some Jews have renounced Israel to please their goyish friends. Most of us have lost friends. We've seen posters of the hostages torn down. We've read Israel described as an “ethnostate” (as opposed to Syria, China, Iran?). Our allies have turned against us. The Democratic Socialists of America have turned rancid, claiming that even sympathy towards October 7 rape victims is an admission of Zionism. So much for universal healthcare and reproductive rights.
She would mock Facebook request from people who knew that she was an author but didn't know her sympathies. Almost every day, she'd talk about blocking gun nuts, trad wives and libertarians. Then one day, she blocked a guy for a host of sins including conspiracy theories and Trump love, but the worst sin was Zionism. She said “He's also a Zionist and not a polite one but a crazy one.” I gave her the benefit of the doubt. There are Zionists (usually Christian Zionists) who oppose every peace initiative and want Israel to conquer the entire Middle East. Then she complained about people calling her a Hamas fan over another issue. I did point out that she has used Zionist as an insult. She blocked me.
In this chapter, Job becomes a metaphor for the Jewish people. Job is hated. His wife doesn't talk to him. His children despise him. His servants ignore him. Read Job as just some guy and these statements make no sense. In the first chapter, his servants and his children died. As a metaphor, it makes sense. We've lost so much. Our history is full of pogroms, genocide and forced conversion. Yet we are still here. Maybe one of these centuries, we will get to live our lives without having to prove that we are survivors.
We were friends because we liked to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We'd run into each other at conventions. Then he started dating a tanky. I was happy that he had found someone, but his boyfriend was a Tulsi Gabbard fan. This year, his Eurovision posts got political as he refused to write out the word Israel. When he posted about the Irish singer, I laughed about that singer crying about Israel getting in the Finals. He was a good friend once. I don't miss him.
Job outright begs for pity. Why does Job have to beg for pity? Isn't Bildad his friend? Shouldn't Bildad be sympathetic by default? It's the 17th of Tammuz. It's October the 257th. Have we not suffered enough? How long must we argue for our right to exist? If the goyim want to punish us, can't they just wax nostalgic for the Nazis and Cossacks. In the 1910s, Russia encouraged the Cossacks to invade shtetls, rape, murder and steal. We didn't have Israel then. We couldn't fight back. Had Jews fought back, “well meaning allies” would have accused us of genocide. How dare Jews fight back? How dare Jews defend themselves? How dare Jews return to the land stolen by the Romans and occupied by the Ottomans? On the 17th of Tammuz we begin the mourning. We lost our land to the colonizers but we never forgot it. On Tisha B'Av we remember the Temple. Some day we will rebuild it. Maybe not this year. Imperialists built a mosque on its space.
He wasn't a friend, more of an acquaintance. He married an ex-girlfriend, even though she could do better. October rendered him smug and repetitive. He loved to repeat that Israel was an Apartheid state, ignoring the Israeli Arabs who have full rights and responsibilities. He was talking about the Arabs in Judea and Samaria who never wanted to be Israeli citizens and actively sabotaged the Palestinian state that they claimed to want. He got very boring. I blocked him.
Chapter 19 gets meta towards the end. Job wishes for someone to write down his words for posterity. Mission accomplished. As a metaphor, Job knows that written words have power. The Bible has sustained the Jewish people for centuries. Jew haters have produced rival texts – Tacitus histories, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Al Jazeera, Martin Luther's pamphlets, Salon, Mein Kampf – in order to destroy us. The goyim use words like Zionist and Jew as insults. Had Anne Frank lived, many of her readers would turn on her. They would hate her, call her a Zionist.
Dr. Ruth Westheimer spoke at my synagogue for Israeli Independence Day. She talked about the 1948 war. After the Nazis murdered her family, she went to Israel and trained in the IDF as a sniper. A bomb hit her unit and she spent the rest of the war in a coma. Then she asked the members of an Orthodox synagogue if anyone had any sex questions. She actually expected someone to raise their hand and ask about fisting. Even I'm not that brave. Nobody was going to ask sex questions because we would all see each other the next week. And the week after that. She made things very awkward. She died recently. She was cool.
As the chapter ends, Job echoes the chapters of Eicha. Job is sad. His friends have abandoned him. Only Job knows that he's innocent. He will see redemption. Things will get better. Even as his friends persecute him, they will also face judgment. You can't get away with it forever. G-d may seem distant. Some days it feels like there's no mercy left. Other days, Ebrahim Raisi's helicopter crashes into a mountain. Job's enemies will repent or disappear. G-d does eventually come to our aid. Rome fell. The Nazis died. The Cossacks are still living in fucking Russia. The IDF has already killed major Hamas and Hezbollah operatives including Mohammad Deif. Yahya Sinwar will soon join him. We have many enemies in the world – Columbia grad students, Putin, the Iranian mullahs, the Houthis, Mia Khalifa and Noam Chomsky.
Job understands that nothing lasts forever. Some day, redemption will come. Same goes for us Jews. We will see the Third Temple. Our enemies will die angry. Until that day, we observe the Three Weeks.
Piss off your remaining leftist friends. Donate to AIPAC.
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This mirrors my experience. Heartbreaking.
Wow.