This weekend I was schmoozing at an event when some guy asked me what kind of history I study. I said “I’m currently researching the role of gender in Jewish emigration out of the Third Reich,” and he replied “oh you just threw gender in there for fun, huh?” and shot me what he clearly thought to be a charming smile.
The reality is that most of our understandings of history revolve around what men were doing. But by paying attention to the other half of humanity our understanding of history can be radically altered.
For example, with Jewish emigration out of the Third Reich it is just kind of assumed that it was a decision made by a man, and the rest of his family just followed him out of danger. But that is completely inaccurate. Women, constrained to the private social sphere to varying extents, were the first to notice the rise in social anti-Semitism in the beginning of Hitler’s rule. They were the ones to notice their friends pulling away and their social networks coming apart. They were the first to sense the danger.
German Jewish men tended to work in industries which were historically heavily Jewish, thus keeping them from directly experiencing this “social death.” These women would warn their husbands and urge them to begin the emigration process, and often their husbands would overlook or undervalue their concerns (“you’re just being hysterical” etc). After the Nuremberg Laws were passed, and after even more so after Kristallnacht, it fell to women to free their husbands from concentration camps, to run businesses, and to wade through the emigration process.
The fact that the Nazis initially focused their efforts on Jewish men meant that it fell to Jewish women to take charge of the family and plan their escape. In one case, a woman had her husband freed from a camp (to do so, she had to present emigration papers which were not easy to procure), and casually informed him that she had arranged their transport to Shanghai. Her husband—so traumatized from the camp—made no argument. Just by looking at what women were doing, our understanding of this era of Jewish history is changed.
I have read an article arguing that the Renaissance only existed for men, and that women did not undergo this cultural change. The writings of female loyalists in the American Revolutionary period add much needed nuance to our understanding of this period. The character of Jewish liberalism in the first half of the twentieth century is a direct result of the education and socialization of Jewish women. I can give you more examples, but I think you get the point.
So, you wanna understand history? Then you gotta remember the ladies (and not just the privileged ones).
Holy fuck. I was raised Jewish— with female Rabbis, even!— and I did not hear about any of this. Gender studies are important.
“so you just threw gender in there for fun” ffs i hope you poured his drink down his pants
I actually studied this in one of my classes last semester. It was beyond fascinating.
There was one woman who begged her husband for months to leave Germany. When he refused to listen to her, she refused to get into bed with him at night, instead kneeling down in front of him and begging him to listen to her, or if he wouldn’t listen to her, to at least tell her who he would listen to. He gave her the name of a close, trusted male friend. She went and found that friend, convinced him of the need to get the hell out of Europe, and then brought him home. Thankfully, her husband finally saw sense and moved their family to Palestine.
Another woman had a bit more control over her own situation (she was a lawyer). She had read Mein Kampf when it was first published and saw the writing on the wall. She asked her husband to leave Europe, but he didn’t want to leave his (very good) job and told her that he had faith in his countrymen not to allow an evil man to have his way. She sent their children to a boarding school in England, but stayed in Germany by her husband’s side. Once it was clear that if they stayed in Germany they were going to die, he fled to France but was quickly captured and killed. His wife, however, joined the French Resistance and was active for over a year before being captured and sent to Auschwitz.
(This is probably my favorite of these stories) The third story is about a young woman who saved her fiance and his father after Kristallnacht. She was at home when the soldiers came, but her fiance was working late in his shop. Worried for him, she snuck out (in the middle of all the chaos) to make sure he was alright. She found him cowering (quite understandably) in the back of his shop and then dragged him out, hoping to escape the violence. Unfortunately, they were stopped and he, along with hundreds of other men, was taken to a concentration camp. She was eventually told that she would have to go to the camp in person to free him, and so she did. Unfortunately, the only way she could get there was on a bus that was filled with SS men; she spent the entire trip smiling and flirting with them so that they would never suspect that she wasn’t supposed to be there. When she got to the camp, she convinced whoever was in charge to release her fiance. She then took him to another camp and managed to get her father-in-law to be released. Her father-in-law was a rabbi, so she grabbed a couple or witnesses and made him perform their marriage ceremony right then and there so that it would be easier for her to get her now-husband out of the country, which she did withing a few months. This woman was so bad ass that not only was her story passed around resistance circles, even the SS men told it to each other and honoured her courage.
The moral of these stories is that men tend to trust their governments to take care of them because they always have; women know that our governments will screw us over because they always have.
Another interesting tidbit is that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Kristallnacht is a term that historians came up with after the fact, and was not what the event was actually called at the time. It’s likely that the event was actually called was (I’m sorry that I can’t remember the German word for it but it translates to) night of the feathers, because that, instead of broken glass, is the image that stuck in people’s minds because the soldiers also went into people’s homes and destroyed their bedding, throwing the feathers from pillows and blankets into the air. What does it say that in our history we have taken away the focus of the event from the more domestic, traditionally feminine, realms, and placed it in the business, traditionally masculine, realms?
Badass women and interesting commentary. Though I would argue that “Night of Broken Glass" includes both the personal and the private spheres. It was called Kristallnacht by the Nazis, which led to Jewish survivors referring to it as the November Pogrom until the term “Kristallnacht" was reclaimed, as such.
None of this runs directly counter to your fascinating commentary, though.
READ THIS.
i also wanna mention the women who were part of churchill’s special operations executive/SOE, whose task, as he put it, was to “set europe ablaze.”
because they were women they could go undercover much more easily compared to men, and parachuted down into enemy lines in france to push the allied resistence armies there! 39 of them went to france to do this and 15 were executed, with a few others sent to concentration camps.
(another thing to mention, though it diverts from the jewish theme of the post, was that women were responsible in britain for taking over all of the men’s jobs, they were in munitions factories working on weaponry, they built/tested and flew spitfires – the most iconic aircraft of the entire war – and did the same for the massive bomber aircrafts – i.e the lancaster bombers, one of the most successful of the bombers during the night blitz – not to mention they endured the blitz every single night (luckily there ARE books all about this, i.e. spitfire women of ww2 by giles whittell and im certain theres one on bomber women too, and on specific agents of churchill though i dont know their exact titles)
not forgetting that these women were the FIRST to receive equal pay to men in britain!
seriously ALL of these women mentioned in this whole post deserve to be talked about and TAUGHT in schools as PART of the ww2 topic that barely mentions them because they did just as much as the soldiers who fought on the front lines.
@legohlas first of all i read your notes. you got this babe. glad you contributed.
second of all, YAS I LOVE THESE WOMEN. I’ve written about two SOE agents, and another woman who fought with the Jewish underground in Warsaw, if you’re interested:
shoutout to 10th century norway for having the only medieval penal code (gulaþinglög) i’ve read that not only doesn’t suggest you torture people but explicitly says tortured confessions are made out of fear and you should specifically not listen to them. good job 10th century norway
also shoutout to tumblr mobile for letting me blog exclusively in hot pink
A new novel series about Kyoshi has been announced! The first book in the “epic YA saga”, The Rise of Kyoshi, is hitting shelves in July 2019!!
This is a big surprise and a very welcome one at that! The author is F.C. Yee with Mike DiMartino consulting, and the series will tentatively be (for now) two books long, and cover, as the title suggests, the rise of the Earth Kingdom Avatar we all know and love, with this synopsis to go on so far:
“The first of two novels based on Kyoshi, The Rise of Kyoshi maps her journey from a girl of humble origins to the merciless pursuer of justice who is still feared and admired centuries after she became the Avatar.”
The senior vice president of the publisher for the books had this to say:
“Bringing Kyoshi’s previously untold story to life in original novels will be a major pop culture event, not only for fans of the show, but also for readers hungry for a new epic YA saga. The Rise of Kyoshi has all the hallmarks of what YA readers love — bold storytelling set in a rich landscape with a strong heroine at the forefront!”
This is a really cool development for the franchise and will hopefully open up the avenue for more books about different time periods and characters from the world of Avatar, something we’ve been asking for for a long time!
The Rise of Kyoshi is 336 pages long, it’s coming out in July 2019, and it can be preordered here.
At long last, The Chosen One has been discovered. Working as a cashier. With no interest in doing anything even slightly more difficult.
yeah because there is nothing more difficult than retail
tbh anyone who works/has worked retail would see the chance to go around saving the world in ways that could potentially kill them as a welcome vacation
“Does the position of Chosen One offer health benefits of any kind?”
“Well, our ragtag gang of world-saving underdogs has a doctor on-team.”
“Do I have to pay her out of pocket, is what I’m asking.”
“Gosh no! She’s an idealist, you don’t pay her at all!”
“Oh! That’s nice. But then I guess there’s no paycheck.”
“I mean, the secret cabal that dispenses our orders does make sure we have enough money to feed ourselves and keep a roof over our secret lair and such.”
“Hourly?”
“Hourly what?”
“Like have you guys ever had to punch a time clock?”
“We once had to dismantle a sinister time-freezing device in the shape of a clock….otherwise no.”
“Sold. Off we go.”
“do i have to be nice to people who are yelling at me?”
“we’re the good guys, you can’t kill random civilians just because they’re mean!”
“kill?? no, i mean, can i tell them off.”
“well, sure, of course.”
*rips name tag off shirt and tosses it over shoulder* “i’m your huckleberry.”
Okay but Ego was super impressed about hearing that Peter could hold an Infnity Stone, even for a couple minutes, and said he had to be his son, had to be a Celestia to survive that.
Well Jane was possed by one for a few day, so who the Hell is she related too?
Low-key, since she a Peter are basically the same age, I’m gonna headcanon now Ego got busy with some other Earth lady (you can say Ego loves Meredith, but I mean, cheating is a thing, and how much love do we really think that psycopathic planet really had in him). And, also, like, her mom died of cancer in the comics when she was nine, just like with Peter in the movies, I’m just saying. They’re totally half siblings, fight me.
An explanation for why Yondu didn’t go pick her up along with Peter though, is maybe he told Ego he’d only pick up one kid at a time (since Ravagers apparently aren’t even supposed to deal with kids at all), and then while he had Peter, figured out what was happening to Ego’s kids, so obviously didn’t go back to Earth at any point to have gotten her.
This theory is incredibly intriguing. Now I’m trying to remember if we ever learned anything about Jane’s father….
Only, I think, that he was friends with Selvig, and (maybe) a scientist too (in the comics he’s a plumber),
But I dont think its a stretch to imagine Jane’s mom could have thought she’d never see Ego again, and when she ended up with another guy, that guy was around for her and Jane, and became Jane’s father and who she called dad regardless of blood relation.
(Ive been thinking about this theory non-stop since I thought of it last night. Could you imagine how dumb Odin would feel realised he didn’t think a Celestial was worthy of his Son)
Considering how Odin treated his own second son and underestimated him at everything, it’s definitely not something he would have anticipated.
My goodness, does it make sense though. Jane Foster as half Celestial. I’m taking this theory now. That’s incredible. That would also make her and Peter Quill half siblings. Peter Quill would have a sister haha.
Could you imagine after everyone found out and they’re just looking between Peter and Jane like “how?”
But also, I think Jane would be the younger sister, and we know Peter’s all about Classic Family Tropes (Play catch with his dad lmao) so he’d totally be all over Thor when he finds out they used to date, like “Don’t even look at my sister dude, you lost all privilege when you broke her heart!”
“she broke up with me!”
“You abandond her to go planet hopping!”
“Because your girlfriend dad was trying to murder the universe!”
(Nebula and Loki in the back ground like “i hate this family so much”)
tora42's nonsensne 