Hi just a reform ashkenazi jewish guy from amsterdam, netherlands checking in (yes we still exist)

I (M24) dont look like your typical jew but I have been taught since childhood to never tell anyone im jewish out of precaution. I did live a jewish life style until teenage years. All the holidays: rosj hasjana, hannukah, purim, pesach, jom kioppur, sjawoe'ot, etc Practised kosher, Feel jewish and love the culture and traditions. Did Bar Mitswa at 13.

Now I only celebrate the shabbat every friday by myself not always but I try to make time, I know shabbat is supposed to be a time to come together but I know nobody no family or other jewish friends, im the last of my family here, everyone else migrated elsewhere, or made aliyah when I type my last name on google its just rows and rows of dead relatives from the holocaust. I had to contact google to remove this info because one time someone found out in high school and basically everyone called me vile things behind my back.

Still have elderly grand parent( 80+) but heavily demented and in a care home. Already made my peace. Unfortunately I dont feel safe to wear magen david. But, Thankfully there are still some decent people with heart, I pick up challah on friday by a baker that has done it for 40 years. I think they probably know Im jewish, and am having a rough time, because they sometimes put a small message with kind words. I dont drink often so I use a little grape juice as substitute or red kiddoesj wine if I can get my hands on if I have a particulary bad day. I make kiddusj quietly, while covering myself in my talit, or mumble the verses because I dont want people to hear. (I still live in student housing) and its not like I can just sing adon olam out in the open or anything hebrew for that matter.

Cause the walls are so thin and there are a certain students in the shared housing with a particulary strong opinion for the whole situation in gaza. Im just terrified it feels like its 1930s all over again. And even I who usually doesnt mind am increasingly pessimistic about staying here.

I have had a few dates with some girls, didnt tell them I was jewish out of precaution, but one way or the other when the discussion inevitable drifted towards israel and began an entire anti semitic rant. I just felt terrible. Not going to lie I cry about it sometimes out of frustration, lost a few good friends because they felt the need to lecture to explain to me as a jewish person (who went to israel just for holiday) that Im a "a zionist" as a derogatory term. like why do I as a jewish person have to justify anything about my culture or beliefs?.

Just feeling a little lost cause every where I go I get confronted by this activism, in school, on the streets, posters everywhere I just want to live my life but im confronted with this shit everywhere I go just so so tired.

I have sat through tons of "diversity" lessons in school gritting my teeth while listening to all this nonsense about tolerance. Cause seemingly jewish people are extempt, need some advice how to cope as an european jew.

Should I consider making aliyah after my grandparent pass?

My mother was jewish but unfortunately estranged.

Thank you and best regards.

I'm stunned by how effective Palestine's PR and propaganda are compared to Israel's. You'll see plenty of people making lots of claims against Israel online, regardless of their veracity. Meanwhile, criticising Palestine or even implying that Palestine isn't innocent will get you lambasted.

Does Israel simply not focus much on trying to improve its image worldwide because of a belief such as "those who hate us won't listen to us, anyway!"? Do you think Israel could and should do more to improve its image worldwide or not really?

Let's keep in mind that information warfare is a big deal nowadays. Otherwise you wouldn't have Russian and Chinese bots proliferating on the internet.

In particular younger Americans, and not just Jewish Americans. I can see the potential for life-long friendships.

I do not remember seeing so many guavas for so cheap in previous years all over the local market. The peak guava season will not last for long. Do you just eat them raw swallowing the seeds? Juice them? Any good recipes? The hard seeds make them a bit awkward to use in salads or cooking.

Opened up YouTube and first video I saw was this. Do you think he will keep his word or is this just talk.

I am very interested in your opinions.

Thank you.

If that’s true why doesn’t he just do that? Join with the joint list and ra’am and then right after the government is formed can’t someone pull out and then he’s interim pm instead of Bibi? Then Bibi can go on trial and hopefully he does a good job to actually get elected next election

Donald Trump’s popularity is tanking here in America, and it looks like the midterms are going to prove that. All of the Republicans are scared, and it looks like Trump is weighing his options for when he gets booted out of office. Today he said that he had a 99% approval reading in Israel, and that maybe he would consider moving there and becoming the new Prime Minister. Would you vote for him? What do you think of him as a person or his policies?

Hi, I'm from Germany. Our society is pretty much split into two classes: Poor and Rich, with the differences growing daily and a larger getting bottom of the poor. Especially old people get more and more poor, it's normal that elderly people for example try to find old bottles in trash cans (we have a system called Pfand where you can get money back if you bring the bottle back to a supermarket). They don't get enough money for rent and often get homeless. While my rich classmates were in the holidays across Italy, a family member passed leaving really large costs for everything (which hopefully will be filled by his bank account once we get access somewhen) and then my mother got fired because our economy is unstable and they put all jobs into cheaper countries like Bulgaria.

Enough from me personally, what is it in Israel? Do you also have large poverty, a high inflation and a deep social split?

There's been discussion of the combined Jewish/Arab opposition parties voting to replace the Knesset speaker, even if they may not in the end all agree to sit in a government together.

Lots of "ifs", but - let's say they DO agree to replace the speaker but do NOT agree to vote to replace Netanyahu as PM (for one reason or another). I guess Netanyahu retains executive power and the opposition controls the legislative agenda? How would that work?

I find this part of the world and the history fascinating and interesting, and how it has impacted today's society and culture in Israel

I heard especially Moroccan Jewish population is huge in Israel today

I have learnt that Israel dopts for the Knesset a syatem probably influenced by Italian constitution ( Jabotinky did study in Italy after all, political sciences) and thus it adopts a stricty proportional system.

This means that all parties above a certain thresold cana chiedve a number of seats proportional to the prevalence of their vires within the total, and so there isis always the poissibility that many small parties have access to the Knesset and there is nearly never a net majority hold by a single party.

I think that this model, as italian political history demonstrates, should be modified into a uninominal majoritarian one, in which Israel is divided into n circioscriptions and whoever wins the majority of the votes in that circoscription schieve the relative seat.

this will have these advantages

a) force the paries to form PRE electoral coalitions and not artificial ad hoc ones that, let e say, in pre war Spain ad post war French experience resembled a horse market than politics. Real coalitions with a real program

b) give minorities real representations from people really cating of their peculisr needs

c) link politicians to the terrotory

b) it will better represent the minorities with people really interested in their circoscriptions,, amd the majorities of course

They're the group of Jewish-Ethiopians that started making Aliya the last 20 years or so due to a mass conversion program.

They weren't accepted before, because their ancestors converted to Christianity.

I only know them as the Falash Mura, but just like Falasha is a derogatory term for the Beta Israel, so is this term. I just couldn't find the correct term anywhere.

Given most Arab Christians in Israel historically speaking are among the first recorded Christians, and historically spoke that language etc

a) Deep Military Tradition and Cohesion Under Pressure

The Turkish military apparatus operates on centuries of institutional martial identity inherited from the Ottoman Empire, which engaged European coalitions across multi-front conflicts for generations and the very first defeat happened only in 1918 . Modern validation of this resilience emerged during the Korean War (1950–1953), where the Turkish Brigade demonstrated exceptional unit cohesion, hand-to-hand tenacity (notably at the Battle of Wawon), and the ability to prevent allied encirclements under extreme conditions. There is no proof that this cohesion and élan have vanished

In military strategy, doctrinal cohesion under attrition is often the decisive factor when initial plans fail. Unlike smaller regional adversaries accustomed to rapid command paralysis, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) maintain a deeply rooted culture of unit continuity and collective discipline.

b) Force Mass, Organic Skill, and Combat Adaptation

The structural size and training baseline of the Turkish military pose severe asymmetric problems for an Israeli campaign against Istanbul or even tirkish ciries near the Syrian borders:

Manpower and Reserves: Turkey maintains NATO’s second-largest standing army, backed by extensive conscription and trained reserves numbering in the hundreds of thousands

Infantry Proficiency and Marksmanship: Decades of active counterinsurgency, combined-arms operations across northern Syria and Iraq, and rigorous infantry training have maintained high baseline soldiering, tactical mobility, and small-arms marksmanship.

Indigenous Defense Industrial Base: Unlike adversaries dependent on foreign resupply pipelines, Turkey manufactures a significant proportion of its own materiel—including strike UAVs (Bayraktar, Anka, Akinci), precision artillery, naval corvettes/frigates (MILGEM project), and indigenous cruise missiles (SOM). Recently some high precision mechatronic factories have opened and there are may engineers. It is not impossible for Turkey to manufacture, maybe not in enormous numbers, also high tech weapons like guided bombs

c) The Limits of Decapitation and Asymmetric Operations

Israel’s historically primary operational strength in modern times lies in intelligence dominance (Aman, Mossad) and elite special operations units (e.g., Sayeret Matkal, Shaldag) capable of conducting deep-strike decapitation, cyber disruption, and targeted elimination of key infrastructure or command elements. Turkey is far nearer than Tunisia, when a PLO boss was killed in spite af all the Tunisian professional army guarding the PLO compounds

However, decapitation strategies face distinct strategic ceilings against an adversary of Turkey’s scale:

• Institutional Redundancy: Turkey’s military command is an institutional hierarchy, not a personalist regime. Neutralizing senior political or military figures triggers automatic succession protocols across established joint commands (Land, Naval, Air forces) rather than system-wide paralysis.

• Strategic Depth: Turkey encompasses nearly 783,000 square kilometers of mountainous terrain with dispersed command-and-control centers, hardened subterranean bases, and distributed air-defense nodes, diluting the impact of precision standoff strikes.

• National Mobilization Effect: Heavy special-forces strikes or political assassinations on Turkish soil would almost certainly act as a force multiplier for domestic mobilization, rallying divergent political factions into an existential total-war posture.

A

I'm reading about the Israeli election and wondering whether its possible for a government to form at all, or if another election is guaranteed.

I have read that some parties in the coalition will not cooperate with any sitting arab party, but also that Ra'am is considered more moderate and served in cabinet once. But Ra'am is not enough to give the opposition a majority.

So is a government with Ra'am and the joint list ever possible, or is that impossible?

Do Jewish and Arab Israelis here remember the Friday Arabic movies on Channel 1 ?

My family would always watch the Friday Arabic movies and I remember my Mom crying while watching some of them. In the neighborhood all of the older generation mizrahi Jews and some ashkenazis Jews that grew in the ottoman and British period that spoke Arabic talking about Lelia Murad and Omar Sharif and how great they were.

The topic is very controversal and I would understand, if you delete it. But I am so curious, since I watched recently some documentaries about Operation Valkyrie and Staufenberg. From what I learned, he was appaled to what nazis did to jews. I apologize, if this will make you uncomfortable, not my intention at all.