Part of our justifiable horror at the Holocaust is the industrialisation of genocide. What should be our reaction to this?
So the way the IDF chose targets was (1) an AI spat out tens of thousands of names of potential Hamas members; (2) those people's homes were made bombing targets; (3) no one bothered to review any of it or even see if the person was home; (4) the potential for civilian casualties didn't matter.
The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local C...
As always, let me know if you need help accessing.
New article alert! "Commanding the Queen: Agency and Gender Roles in the Book of Esther," in the Religion and Gender special issue "Beneath the Surface: Gender and Agency in Religious Contexts in Antiquity." brill.com/view/journal...
It's heeeere! Join me on Zoom for the launch party on April 17, 4:30pm EST; register at bit.ly/BrownsmithBo....
#Purim#fanfictiontheconversation.com/purims-origi...
Whether thousands of years ago or right now, fans have always created new stories based on familiar characters, weaving their own experiences into the tale.
Two final links: one to my own article, and one to an important piece connecting Purim and Gaza: theconversation.com/purims-origi...www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...
To deny that both of these can coexist is to conflate the Israeli government with the Jewish people, which is its own flavor of antisemitism.
But also, I see it as a both/and. We can and should read the slaughter in the book of Esther in the light of the horrors in Gaza. AND we also need to recognize that the book of Esther has historically provided hope and joy and resistance to a marginalized community.
I saw an online comment on my recent Purim article, upset about the fact that I'm talking about "yay fan fiction" while genocide is going on. And I really do empathize with this critique. Maybe I should've added a comment—or maybe a throwaway comment would have trivialized the tragedy of it.
More hype for my upcoming book! The hybrid event will be on April 17 at 4:30pm EST, and registration for Zoom is now open at bit.ly/BrownsmithBo... . Please join me to chat about how metaphors of food underlie some of the Bible's grimmest stories.
