Homophobic anti-Semites hit Roslindale parking lot with flyers

listing every organization that is even remotely "Jewish" is not equal to anti Zionist and anti-settler, but is equal to anti-Semitic.

Note that the list of ills they assign to these organizations includes things like US police violence, gentrification, etc. This goes into full-blown conspiracy theorist territory.

They write: "Our interactive map illustrates some ways in which institutional support for the colonization of Palestine is structurally tied to policing and systemic white supremacy here where we live, and to US imperialist projects in other countries," The Mapping Project wrote. "Our map also shows the connections between harms such as privatization and medical apartheid, which are often facilitated by universities and their corporate partners."

From the JCRC/CJP/ADL response (see first comment): "Virtually every Jewish organization in the Commonwealth, along with its leadership, is listed in this map along with the relationships of each to civic, governmental, university and other community organizations. Whether those relationships were cultivated by the Jewish institution or the community organization, the underlying messages are clear: Jews are responsible for the ills of our community and if you maintain your relationship with Jewish organizations, you will share that responsibility. It is a list with names and organizations to be shunned, isolated and disenfranchised. And it draws on age-old antisemitic tropes that are all too clear to our community: Jewish wealth, control and conspiracies."

As a queer person with mental health credentials, I would absolutely say that not being able to take the perspective of others, control impulses, disagree constructively, etc. are very much markers of poor mental health (if we are talking about all humans in terms of having varying degrees of mental illness and mental wellness at any given time).

However, it's problematic to just say "bigots are mentally ill," because we as a society associate the designation of "mentally ill people" with a demographic of folks who have significant and obvious psychiatric disabilities, and most folks in that group aren't hurting anyone and don't need to be associated with yet another societal ill that most of them have nothing to do with.

Bigotry is a social illness. But it is also supported and enhanced by individual circumstances which themselves can constitute contributing factors to poor mental health.

But hatred of a group is not a necessary condition of human psychology. Despite it's Biblical and historical precedents (genocide and the Bible are not strangers) the hatred as a human emotion is not necessary; rage as a way to live is to necessary.

By addressing the social and economic factors, at a rational level, we can do better for ourselves.

Perhaps what is a needed is a social DSM. It's a start. But after a few thousand years where war, legal mass murder has always been acceptable (and continues in Russian mass murder of Ukrainians). Same for bigotry in this nation. Same for the political bullying that has always been part of this nation.

By calling poor mental-social health what it is at least that identifies the problem not a moral problem but as a practical problem that can be addressed.

The willingness of people such as McConnell and Graham and their cohorts to support an environment of fear and paranoia is representative of the mental illness. Yes, I am claiming that people who want a culture of fear are themselves socially-mentally ill. Even if they are simply invidividuals who lust for power, the lust itself indicates a kind of addiction. Addiction to drugs or behaviors is still addiction.

the Gay teenagers who were strangled to death in Iraq by pulling their bodies up, via ropes, using construction equipment. The people whose hands are surgically removed because they are convicted of theft. But these deaths and mailings were legally authorized events of murder and violence.

Sainthood does not exist at the level of nation-states. It's always been a dog eat dog world where power, dominance, control are what matter most. No nation is without blood on its hands.

Modern Israel is not the holy Israel of the ancient past. But to condemn Israel when oppression is the norm in the Middle East sounds more like a specific kind fo condemnation. One that is beyond anti-Semitism and indicates a subtle anti-Jewish feeling. I've met enough bigoted Jews and self-hating Jews (and self hating Gays, and self hating Blacks) to know not to preclude that self-hate can occur in the most subtle of ways.

There are things we know. A state that is physically split into two sections can not function. Afghanistan and Bangledesh, among other examples are proof that for a nation state to exist it needs to be a whole single entity. Israel is not composed of only Jews. While there are Jewish bigots Israel as a political entity is not just Jewish. But to pretend that a two state solution is possible when the nation of Palestine is physically separated is fantasy and disengenuous.

It would be far better for Israel to expand to include Palestine. Although that might elicit a fear of Muslims ultimately exceeding the population of Jews in Israel. But that is a fear, not reality. First end the use of Palestinians as proxies for violent Muslim regimes such as Iran.

Palestinians are tools used by Arab states to maintain a continuous disruptive entity to the existence of a Jewish state and a disruptive entity to the existence of a democratic nation. Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. are funded by oppressive states and used to maintain a warm war against Israel because they don't want a state that is Jewish or democratic in the midst.

Want to solve the problems of Palestine? Stop Arab nations from using Palestinians to act as their proxies in maintaining a constant state of threat to all Israelis.