Listen to the Rain

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.[...]

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.[...]

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D."
-Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45

You can't make this stuff up!
Token anti-Israel Jews were holding a Torah reading before a rally with Rashida Talib. Watch her drop her voice to a whisper TWICE when she awkwardly gets to the text, "to you and to your descendants will I give all these lands (Israel)..." pic.twitter.com/vc1obYgLpC

— Lazer Cohen (@Lazer_Cohen) November 19, 2023

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

sashagee

"Meanwhile, the officials of the king of Aram advised him, “Their gods are gods of the hills. That is why they were too strong for us. But if we fight them on the plains, surely we will be stronger than they."
-1 Kings 20:23

Divisions provided by Waddle Dee, Waddle Doo, and Kirby, in ascending order of spiritual elevation.

gothiklezmer

Rabbi Gamliel: "From the walls of your house it is apparent that you are a blacksmith"
Rabbi Yehoshua: "Woe unto a generation that you are its leader as you are unaware of the difficulties of Torah scholars, how they make a living and how they feed themselves."

"Rav said to him: Kahana, you are here? Leave, as this is an undesirable mode of behavior. Rav Kahana said to him: It is Torah, and I must learn."

hillel.wayne

thosesocks

gothiklezmer

meowtima

koppel

"Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die."
- Alfred Tennyson, Ring Out, Wild Bells

• Ravens: Ravens are treif, obviously, but there's more than that. Noah sent out a raven first when the waters were receding, and then was forced to send out a dove when the raven never returned (Genesis 8:7). Midrash states that this was because the raven spent the whole time eating the corpses of the dead, which, metal. 🤘🏻 The ravens also brought food and drink to Elijah in the wilderness (1 Kings 17:6), indicating they are companions of the outcast, the voices in the wilderness.


• Fringed Shawls: I'm thinking black, or black and white, or black and dark blue, with a fringe on the end to evoke the tallit.


• Torn Clothing: In addition to the association with decay, this is explicitly funereal in Judaism. It's traditional to rend your clothing (קריעה keriah) on hearing of a death, dating back to Tanakh (Genesis 37:34, II Samuel 1:11), so wearing torn clothing all the time would indicate that death is always on your mind.


• The Moon: Night, obviously, but the sages also wrote that the moon and sun were originally of equal stature and size, but the moon complained to G-d about not being given a pre-eminent place. For her hubris, she was demoted to the lesser of the two, but provided with the stars as a slight compensation (Chullin 60b). Again, outcast, associated with night. There's some traditions that associate the moon with sin and redemption as well--it waxes and wanes just as people commit transgressions and then atone.


• Owls: Owls are associated with Lilith, visible in Isaiah 34:14 where the word variously translated as "night creature," "night bird," or "screech owl" is לילית lilit, "Lilith." The name Lilith itself is cognate with the word לילה laylah, "Night." Lilith has a lot of transgressive associations--she was Adam's first wife but refused to submit to him, she flies through the night attacking children in vengeance for G-d's slaying of her own children, and chose exile and the power of night over a diminished place in the hierarchy.


• Biblical Quotes: A lot of quotes from Tanakh are extremely goth. Take Isaiah 64:6:

  All of us have become like one who is unclean,
  and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
  we all shrivel up like a leaf,
  and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

  I'd definitely get that in Hebrew on a shawl or clothing somewhere. Pick something appropriate about mourning (Psalm 137), blood (Deuteronomy 12:23), vengeance (Jeremiah 46:10), bitterness and sorrow (Job 10), desolation (Lamentations 1), or death (Ecclesiastes 8:8) and go to town.


• Candles: I mean, we light candles at sundown, drink wine, and eat bread and salt every Friday. That's already pretty goth--it's not really much of a stretch.


• The Evil Eye: The hamsa is a common Middle Eastern symbol to ward off the Evil Eye, and you can still find older people who say kein ayin hara after complimenting someone in order to prevent the Evil Eye from falling on the focus of their compliments. I'm envisioning something like a Nazar amulet, but cracked, or with a red eye instead of blue, or one that's crying.
  
  I should say that I honestly wouldn't be comfortable doing this one , but it certainly fits. I'd be more likely to wear a hamsa straight, which evokes the kind of spooky supernatural aesthetic a lot of goths like (at least in America--they're everyday items in Israel) without explicitly inviting bad luck on yourself. I've thought about getting gloves with hamsas on the back. Someday.


• The Seal of Solomon: By this I mean the six-pointed star versions, not the later versions by Christian writers. The main distinguishing point from the Magen David is that the Seal of Solomon has interlaced triangles (in order to confuse demons), whereas the Magen David has overlapping triangles--at least in the past, though that distinction isn't really followed anymore. Even a Magen David can work if it's a little different--I have one that's done in Celtic-style interwoven knotwork, and I found this design modeled after bones with a bit of searching.


• Layers: I'm thinking here of reinterpreted tzniut, the way there's a lot of Victorian fashion among goths. Something like dark mori would work for women--no one could say that someone wearing a long skirt, stockings, boots, a blouse, a cardigan, a shawl, and gloves was dressed immodestly. For men it's a little harder, but still possible.


• Serpents: The serpent of Genesis 3 is the obvious inspiration here. It specifically says that the serpent is more crafty than any other creature, but there's no real motivation for its discussion with Eve given. Or is there? Genesis 2 says that after G-d said Adam needed a companion that the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky were brought to him, and only when none of them were found suitable did G-d make Eve. So the serpent was jealous--and possibly, according to the sages, asking a question: "What makes you so different from us, that none of us were suitable as a companion for you? Are you so far above us? What is the line between us that neither of us can cross?"
  
  Plus, the serpent was right. Eve says that if she eats the fruit she will die, and the serpent says that no, her eyes will open and she'll gain wisdom. Secret wisdom, forbidden truths, knowledge that other people shy away from--those are goth. (suggested by gothiklezmer)