Mumsnet could do better (part deux)

[stomachameleon]

Ok I have taken the bait because I think it's important we have somewhere to chat and decompress.

There is an awful lot of name changing going on and we must remember that although it should be, this is not a safe space. We are followed here and that is worth considering (especially if you don't want to be deleted)

I am grateful for all the love and support though and I thank each and every one of you. You are all stronger than you know. I wish I had something profound to say but I don't...: this will have to do!

Part of me thinks Holocaust Remembrance Day should be scrapped and the resources and money redirected towards more effective education. It's just inviting the most grotesque antisemitism and I think it might be harming Jewish people more than providing an opportunity for reflection and comfort. Just feels like it's become a day for really horrible people to abuse both dead and living Jews.

But how do you teach about it in a meaningful way, that gives over the import and the sheer extent of the depravity without traumatising kids? And if you don’t go into the details, then you get the sort of awful disrespectful behaviour you see where people take grinning selfies at auschwitz. Not asking you specifically, just something that seems very challenging.

normally I don’t personally do anything on holocaust Remembrance Day specifically, as I fast on tisha b’av and read/ watch about the holocaust then and I see that as my way of commemorating the holocaust , although family members of mine in past years have participated in the program where you get a yahrtzeit candle and a name to light for, which they share with the family. If I was still in the UK I would consider doing that.

@EllaDisenchanted I hear you. The lack of common decency is astounding.

It's the lack of common decency that is the only reason I'm on here in the first place, to be honest. I was genuinely shocked and horrified at the amount of laughing reactions to every single photo of missing Israelis that was being posted on and after 7th October when everyone was still trying to work out what was actually happening. And the comments like you say with tens of thousands of likes, making fun of the dead, kidnapped, raped and maimed. It was such an utter low point in humanity and I didn't feel brave enough to challenge them on Facebook as it's got my real name on it and I didn't fancy getting a bunch of death threats, so I came here. Then the rallies all over the world shouting death to the Jews, gas the Jews... Ugh. Just, ugh.

@Humdingerydoo that's very moving to read.

@EllaDisenchanted Wish I knew the answer. I can't work out if the scale of Holocaust inversion on Mumsnet alone is suggestive that Holocaust education isn't landing and they don't actually know or understand the finer details, and so it's genuine misplaced ignorance. Or if it's just contrarians who resent us so much that they're hellbent on minimising and distorting what happened because of their own prejudice. It all just feels so 'fingers in ears don't want to hear it'.

I can't wrap my head around the sheer numbers of people I've seen online this weekend mocking the families of Holocaust victims, and with such palpable hatred.

I think one of the best pieces of Holocaust education from my youth was that Schindler's List came out when I was in sixth form. We were studying Un Sac de Billes for French A-level and the teacher told us all to watch it.

I think the impact of that film was huge.

One of the kids at the school I teach at got taken on a trip to Auschwitz and the deal was he had to do a presentation about it on his return. That was organised by some Holocaust remembrance group but I can't remember the details. It was over a decade ago, and I've not heard of similar since.

@etmoiandme I'm grateful I only saw that in the comments on the one video I posted, that shocked me enough.

Is it just becoming more unrelatable as time goes on? I learned about the spanish inqusition, and the marranos, tach v tat, the crusades, clifford's tower, cossack progroms etc and it didn't touch me emotionally in the same way as reading the holocaust diaries. Because I knew holocaust survivors, and because even though the world was different, it was still a lot more relatable to my experience of the world. But the survivors are fewer and fewer, and the world has shifted radically in recent years, and I think younger people maybe can't relate? It's just 'history'?

@noblegiraffe I can't bring myself to watch it, the music is haunting enough. I've heard of education trips, they used to be led by survivors, although I can't imagine that happens much or at all anymore. A trip to Eastern Europe at the end of high school/ seminary (17-18) is very often done in Jewish schools, going to various Jewish cemeteries, and concentration/extermination camps. DH went on the trip twice. I've been to Prague, and the Pinkas synagogue memorial, but not the actual camps.

I think one of the best pieces of Holocaust education from my youth was that Schindler's List came out when I was in sixth form.

Funnily enough I nearly mentioned this earlier. It's an extraordinary film and the educational impact was immeasurable. I suppose we can't rely on someone like Spielberg coming along once in a generation to deliver something so intense and wide reaching though. Films like the recent Winton one are obviously welcome and tell an important story, but they're not so hard-hitting in conveying the horror. And the message we seem to keep getting from certain quarters is that folk are fed up with us apparently 'banging on' about the Holocaust, so I guess there's little appetite for it.

@EllaDisenchanted Yes, I suppose it's like any historical event isn't it, the further removed we are through the passage of time, the less relatable it becomes (and believable for some it seems). Although the commemorations around WW1 are still going strong and are pretty meaningful to a lot of people. I wonder how many more decades it will take for our 'generational trauma' to naturally fizzle out and cease, and along with it a significant driver that currently keeps the Holocaust memory alive.
I've actually been to Krakow but not to Auschwitz. I probably should but if I'm honest I don't particularly want to. Every now and again I go along to the Shoah Memorial in Paris but like you, just don't want to see the camps. I'd like to go to the museum in Amsterdam when it opens.

I see several posters really don't know that under international law there is no such crime as ethnic cleansing.

Just checking in on everyone....

All good here, but that's far easier to say from the UK at the moment. Hope you and @EllaDisenchanted (apologies if I missed anyone else in Israel) are doing ok.

All good here too, feel so much better for taking a break from it all. I've stopped caring that those who are anti-Israel think that they've won by so many of us stepping back. It just doesn't seem to matter, does it? Their propaganda is better than ours and there is so much more of it and so many more people willing to believe it, so just going to leave them to it and go back to enjoying this board and AIBU instead! Much more entertaining, and a good reminder of just how bonkers people on MN really are 😅

How are you @stomachameleon ?

so just going to leave them to it and go back to enjoying this board and AIBU instead!

Same now too for me @Humdingerydoo unless MN actually gets rid of the very obvious antisemites. I thought the feminism board was generally free of them but they turn up there now too, because apparently the literal hundreds of threads on the ME board isn't enough for them to shout at or insult Jews.

That's the problem when antisemitism becomes normalised - it spreads really, really quickly. It has become acceptable to be openly antisemitic and people are taking full advantage of it. I'm sorry it's spread to another board you're on though, it's so sad.

What I think is super creepy is those that chose to come here and read and then replicate their findings on other threads which is not very bright.

(That's not personal it's an observation and f you are offended you probs shouldn't be here)

I have other things on so am avoiding the constant circus that is the ME boards. It's just an echo chamber. Same old same old (in more ways than one)

If I have anything of major concern or info to send I will dm.

Same old same old (in more ways than one)

100%.

I think if MN aren't going to step in then I'm not gonna bother anymore with these boards. There's so much repetitive misinformation, outright lies and disgusting insults now that I rarely look at the threads anymore, let alone post. The ME section has become a vehicle to spread antisemitic hate speech, obsessively so, however couched (or not) the language is.

So back to the nonsense of AIBU it is then! (And obviously this 'semi-safe' board)

Hope you're doing OK @stomachameleon

Yes, a good example of that is the thread I'm linking below and I appear on page 7 to 8 making my points:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/conflict-in-the-middle-east/4996806-israel-hit-squad-kill-3-palestinians-in-west-bank-hospital?page=7

There's a really quick willingness to believe Israel breached IHL straight off the bat when it's not necessarily the case.

That makes it extraordinarily difficult to have good faith debates and discussions.

So, I agree with your assessment, @etmoiandme.

@DownNative Sadly entrenched views don't want factual evidence or even to have a reasoned, non-emotive conversation because if you don't agree with them 100% you're some kind of genocide supporter - which I got called today despite the fact I very deliberately do not share my views on the war! It's all some of them have got. Gaslighting and repetitive 'anti-Zionism is not antisemitism' when it's quite clear it actually is from some posters. And this is why you get shit like this happening

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/29/man-arrested-for-allegedly-brandishing-knife-in-jewish-shop/

What a wasted opportunity for learning from each other and sharing experiences. FWIW I find your posts super interesting.

Thanks @MooseBreath . I’m honestly just very tired.
I can’t face posting much on the board either. it feels pointless and depressing to enter into a discussion when disagreement gets you labelled as genocidal etc.

Outside of mumsnet, I think elicalebon is a good example of someone who I don’t always agree with, but who is able to hold empathy for both parties, and respects the complexity of the situation. Because of that, when she holds Israel accountable, or makes a criticism, I am willing to listen with an open mind, even if I don’t always end up agreeing with her.

Hi all, I have totally left those boards now too. I occasionally look at threads I posted on previously but I'm finding that increasingly I'm not even curious about those. @mnhq 's indifference to the antisemitism there is so shocking and upsetting. I've been a poster on here on and off since I was expecting my nearly 16 yo and it always felt like a safe place - robust, yes, but never harmful. I'm.sorry to say that I no longer feel that to be the case.

I'm hoping it comes from a place of naivety / devil's advocate rather than actual antisemitic views. The former would not be great for a platform of this size, but I suppose marginally better than the latter.

Yes, that's largely been my experience over the years as well as during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Always frustrating when people misrepresent what you say based on pure emotion with little logic behind it.

They've gone quiet in that thread now I posted a certain perspective. I do think a lot of it is rooted in anti-semitism dressed up as anti-zionism. Yet there is a clear overlap between the two modes of behaviour across society generally.

I always like reading your posts also, so it's a shame to see many if you have stopped or hardly post there now.

Best not to do regularly as this conflict is a marathon, not a sprint. 👍

@EllaDisenchanted I follow her on Instagram too. She is very balanced and thoughtful.

I went to a wonderful talk by Douglas Murray last night. Restored my faith in humanity

Apart from the info I have had to my DM has anyone got anything they would like to add?

@Trulywonderful where for art thou?

@noblegiraffe is everything ok?

Have I got anything I'd like to add? Yes, yes I do.

You didn't want Jeremy in his pants, so here's Jeremy in your pants.