i would like to annotate a debate happening on here today to add that nearly all synagogues/temples display an Israeli flag and often other stuff about supporting Israel, but there's no way to do annotations so i'm just watching it all go by

i've had part or full time jobs in eight synagogues of several denominations and i've prayed in countless additional ones. they all had the flags. just seems like an important bit of context that many people don't seem to realize

it's wrong to fly these flags. deeply wrong and immoral, as well as just clueless in many cases. it's also wrong to fly the US flag which was also on display in all these synagogues. i've often wished for an intra community Bree Newsome moment where the flags are taken down

i love my local jewish community (that i haven't seen irl in 6 months sigh) that rejects zionism/nationalism. i no longer have to make the teeth gritting choice that i did have to make for many years of either having community or rejecting the avodah zarah of these fucking flags

anyhow idk if there's a point in trying to say if it was right or not or strategic. it's just gonna happen, as more people catch on to apartheid. it makes me sad bc i know why these flags stay up & how difficult of a governance question it is to get them down

so it's weird on the one hand to feel no sympathy & even deep simmering anger that i've had all my adult life at these institutions that endorse genocide from the most sanctified spaces like it's nothing. & otoh to be like, i don't really want every synagogue to get spray painted

and then my final thought that gets appended to literally everything i say and do about jewishness is that the far right is on the march and it almost never, ever benefits any of us, especially jews, to say any of this. whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent