I know it's unfair and even cheap to meet someone's arguments with a crack about their appearance, but sometimes it's relevant, and as they say, A picture is worth a thousand words: Take one look at Masha "M." Gessen and you can see a deeply unhappy person whose misshapen soul peers out through a misshapen body.
As the author points out, misshapen Masha refutes her entire prior career by suddenly becoming a cynical skeptic about rape claims, which I thought were sacrosanct when it comes to tearing down the "patriarchy", but become disputed when made by a Jew on the receiving end of Hamas brutality; then she also mocks Jewish students about their safety concerns, when of course "Safety" has been the paramount value of academia for at least the past decade, evoked when black or gay kids feel threatened (even by an essay), but now suddenly scrutinized when done on behalf of Jews.
But really the most repulsive thing about Masha by far (besides her hatred for her own people) is her grotesque comparison of Israel and Nazi Germany, a foul performance of moral inversion practiced by all Islamo-Leftists in their deranged campaign to erase the evil Zionist entity.
Why make this grotesque comparison, which can be unraveled in a moment's thought? (Hamas could surrender and end all violence but for the Jewish victims of the Nazis there was no escape from death, Israel is trying to protect its people from terrorists but the Nazis had a total monopoly on violence, and it's not Jews who have genocidal dreams but the Palestinians etc etc) Because the goal here isn't reasoned debate, compromise, trying to find some path toward peaceful coexistence, it's to incite total hatred for Israel in the reader, render it as the epitome of all evil and to strip Jews of all claims to deserving of protection and to living safely in their own homeland.
Something uglier than any face happens to Jewish intellectuals when they renounce their birth faith to be baptized in the Leftist faith (Communism, Socialism etc): they suddenly become the most vociferous enemies of their own people, they feel the need to prove their moral supreriority and devotion to universal humanitarianism by denoucing Jews for parochialism, tribalism, and they hate Israel even more than Hamas does.
The psychology of the Leftist Jew is too twisted to explore here, but if I had to sum it up quickly I'd say: they prefer their Jews weak, helpless, homeless, a strong proud Jew fills them with shame, their real devotion is to their self-image as Defenders of the Oppressed Victim, and they're happy to support the murder of their own people to maintain this self-image.
Very well said. She brings to mind Otto Weininger, another deeply unhappy Jew who fulminated against Judaism, capitalism, and femininity. He killed himself at 23 and later, his work provided fodder for Nazi propaganda.
I can only add one thing - Gessen is not a good writer. I've read three of her books, and the best of the bunch was Never Remember (apropos!), which consisted mainly of photos evoking Stalin's gulags.
Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto is so unnecessary, inflammatory and inaccurate (not to mention hateful), that I can only conclude that Gessen wants to throw in with the Jew haters and see Jews/Israelis everywhere denounced and attacked. For me, this is when she moved beyond the pale and revealed herself to be twisted and untrustworthy.
She must have been deeply humiliated as a child, there is some ugly self-hatred in there somewhere, but that's just my speculation.
This is a rather generous characterization of Gessen’s writing. Gessen is a grotesque parody of an intellectual in service to a fascist regime whose writing is more facile and yet hateful with each article. One of the reasons I no longer subscribe to the New Yorker.
Wow. Just wow. My great grandfather immigrated from Saratov, Russia & even while in the US he hid that he was Jewish. I literally was in my 30’s before I even knew. My father & grandmother (Nonnie) were both passed on by then & never knew. It broke my heart that he had to make the decision to hide himself for fear his future generations would suffer the same persecution he did. This is why I make it a point to shut down antisemitism in comments sections on instagram I feel like I owe him that & it’s just so wrong the things they say. This article opened my eyes to so much of what he must have went thru & it’s beautifully written too 🥲
As a Soviet-born Jew and current American citizen, I used to feel proud to read Gessen's writing. She shares a similar background, appears in prominent publications, and her views—mostly anti-Putin—aligned with my own. However, her later transformation into an antisemitic promoter of second-hand conspiracies is troubling, especially given that the KGB fabricated the entire Palestinian narrative. I can only speculate that her objective is financial gain. While I find this repulsive, I cannot say how I would react if, during difficult personal economic circumstances, I were offered compensation to advocate a particular viewpoint.
The same applies to Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky. Finkelstein, a mediocre professor at one of the colleges of the City University of New York, has managed to gain a worldwide audience, while Chomsky, known for his linguistic discoveries made 60 years ago, still has a relatively widespread presence on YouTube and in the infotainment sphere.
A “trans and non-binary” journalist of Russian-Jewish descent who attacks Putin but supports Hamas against Israel. What can I say? I wouldn’t really care about his stance. The mess in his brain is already enough for him to deal with. May God help him see the light on so many issues. Anyway, Am Yisrael Chai! Listen to your father. He’s entirely right. Thanks for sharing.
Maybe this will help--she was born a female and she continues being a female. So if you think that a woman is an adult human female, then we have no problem here.
As we all know, there are some men that like to pretend they’re women and like to be called women. As a matter of courtesy I’m usually willing to play along. But not for someone like Gessen.
Gessen is a woman, a female. I am talking XX chromosomes and all. She grew up in the USSR as a gender-nonconforming girl. Her birth name is Masha (Maria). Nobody in the USSR would have given that name to a boy. She was never a boy/man. I think she even gave birth to a child or two. I am not sure what makes you think she is not female. (BTW, I don't believe in using preferred pronouns out of courtesy, but that's just my opinion)
👏👏👏 This article is a tour de force that exposes Masha Gessen as the fraud she is! Thank you so much to Liza for writing it and saying something that definitely needed to be said and thank you to the great Reuben Salsa a humble warrior for the state of Israel and the Jewish people! Liza absolutely ripped Masha Gessen a new one! It’s so sad to see self-hatred anytime you come across it. Masha is a definite case of someone who is ashamed of being Jewish and so she does everything she can to distance herself from her heritage and her faith by being as anti-Zionist, antisemitic and anti-Israel as possible.
On another note, I learned a lot from this article about Liza’s family and the plight of Soviet Jewry I had not previously been aware of. I had no idea how horrible the Soviets had treated Liza’s family. RIP to her great-grandfather! May his memory be a blessing!❤️🌸🌺💐🕯️🕊️ I didn’t know her father was thrown in jail either, that’s absolutely awful! I’m so glad that Communism was defeated and the Soviet Union is now a thing of the past! Liza is absolutely correct to point how the Jewish people have suffered for centuries from when they were slaves in Egypt to being persecuted by the Romans to the infamous Dreyfus Affair to the pogroms in Czarist Russia to the Holocaust to the horrible treatment of Soviet Jewry to the 1991 Crown Heights Riots to the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018 to the October 7th attacks on Israel. Russian Jews in particular have suffered enormously.
But yet, Masha couldn’t care less about her own people’s plight. At all. She compares Israel to Nazi Germany and likens the war in Gaza to the Holocaust. Claims that Jewish students aren’t really under attack at many American universities. Claims there were no rapes on October 7th and Israel deliberately exaggerated the atrocities of that day to get sympathy from the international community. She even has the temerity to declare Israel an apartheid state. Liza rightly makes note of the parallels between Masha’s nonsense and the projectile vomit that comes from that fraud of all frauds Norman Finkelstein who claims Israel and it supporters use the Holocaust to gain sympathy for themselves and play the victim.
🤦♂️ Okay, first off that’s not only antisemitic but extremely insensitive and offensive to the global Jewish community and those who perished in the Holocaust. Not to mention the survivors who helped resurrect the Jewish state after over a millennia. Second, he’s a fine one to be up on his moral high horse considering he’s expressed solidarity with both Hamas and Hezbollah. Okay, let’s debunk Masha’s ridiculous talking points one by one. Israel is NOT committing genocide in Gaza, that’s utter nonsense! Israel’s combatant to civilian killed ratio in Gaza is the lowest in the history of warfare. The IDF goes to lengths no other army goes to to preserve human life including Palestinian lives. When civilians die in Gaza it’s always a terrible tragedy but those deaths are on Hamas. They after all, use their own people as human shields.
Not mention to they would set up road blocks and stop them sometimes shooting at them, to keep them from leaving Gaza. As to the plight of Jewish students on many college campuses, it is very much real. You’ll find countless articles about just with on Google search. I guess Masha was too lazy or too dishonest to take two seconds to do that search. There were indeed rapes that took place on October 7th. A documentary on the subject that I highly recommend everyone watch called Screams Before Silence was released to the public about a year ago. Did she just not know if it’s existence? I find that hard to believe considering it was promoted everywhere. Plus we have plenty of testimony from victims and first-hand witnesses alike. Nor were the atrocities of October 7th at all exaggerated. Countless first-hand testimonies of the gruesome and horrific crimes Hamas committed that day. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their civilian collaborators committed pogroms against Jews, sprayed playgrounds with bullets, beheaded babies, burned whole families alive, raped young women, shot and killed motorists as they drove home from work, molested children, shot dogs in the head for fun, ransacked and looted civilian homes, and kidnapped hundreds of people including women, children, babies, old people, Israeli Arabs, Holocaust survivors, teenagers, foreign nationals, and tourists.
As to Israel being an apartheid state, don’t make me laugh. A multicultural democracy with equal right for all? Ha! Israeli Arabs are much better off than Arabs anywhere in the Middle East. Israel is basically like a more compressed United States with a diversity that would shock you. Jews aren’t just white you know, their black, brown, yellow, and red too. Not to mention the Druze, Circassian and Bedouin communities. I could also mention the Black Hebrew Israelites and the African-American Christians who live in Israel. Not to mention Palestinians that come to Israel will be treated like anyone else. Israel has the very best record on minority rights of any country in the Middle East. If you are a woman, black, gay, Trans, Christian, Kurdish, or disabled in the Middle East anywhere other than Israel, your life is miserable. Just ask Nubians in Egypt, Asian guest workers in the UAE, Berbers in Algeria, the Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria, or Turkey, Shi’ite Muslims in Bahrain, or the Fur, Maslit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Sudan how well minorities are treaty in Arab countries or the Islamic Republic. Oh by the way, the Arab nations have a REAL apartheid system against the Palestinian people.
Also, if she’s referring to the West Bank that is also incorrect. West Bank Palestinians get free medical care from the IDF, are protected from harm during times of warfare, can work in Israel for four times the wages they’d earn at home, can become Israeli citizens, can marry Israelis if they so choose, and have a degree of self-government. I don’t recall blacks, Coloureds or Asians having such rights in Apartheid South Africa. So where’s the apartheid state here?
On a side note, how can someone be Trans and nonbinary? That’s impossible! She is just making stuff up now. Indeed, if Masha Gessen had had a supportive family like Liza does, who told her to be proud of her Russian Jewish heritage she wouldn’t be doing the disgusting things she is today. The Russian Jewish community in Israel is a large minority of its population and have made many valuable contributions to the nation state of the Jewish people. She is part of an amazing community that she should be more grateful for.
Liza and Rueben, you both have done Israel and the Russian Jewish community proud with this amazing article! Liza you had the courage and moral clarity to publicly call out Masha Gessen and stand up for your community whether the folks you pitched it to liked it or not. Rueben, you gave it the opportunity to be published and for it to see the light of day. I am a lifelong Christian Zionist who will always stand with Liza, Rueben, the people of Israel, and the global Jewish community. Now and forever! Am Yisrael Chai! 🇮🇱 Free Gaza from Hamas! 🇵🇸
My forebears came to America mainly from areas of what was then the Russian empire before World War I - and yet I am a conservative who didn’t need the experience of Soviet communism to make me that way. (Radicalism on campus during my college years more than 30 years ago did that for me.) As for Masha Gessen, I have known about her for years insofar as her perspective is quite far removed from my own. The fact that she’s an anti-Zionist comes as no surprise to me, given the political circles she has made herself at home in.
Reading most of Gessen's logic-devoid screeds in The New York Daily Times Stürmer, is analogous to biting down on dry ice while simultaneously listening to a chorus of fingernails being drawn across an ancient chalkboard.
Comprised of 15% Russian Jews? Are you sure? In 1997, was told that only 40% of my college aged neighbors, in the Israeli Absorption Center, from the former Soviet Union were actually Jewish. Those from Uzbekistan and provinces in the Kavkaz had a very high percentage of Jews among them. Ukraine, let's just say was another story.
Who knows how many are actually Jewish these days.
The biggest critics of such usurpers, albeit legal according to Israel's ridiculous Law of Return, were the secular, Russian Jews. They and their parents and grandparents suffered so that Jews could eventually receive their exit visas and immigrate to Israel.
Of course, now that so many are here, and support Avigdor Lieberman, the voice of these original Russian speaking immigrates seems to have been silenced.
As insane and extremely problematic Gessen is, if she is actually Jewish, she has more of a standing as being part of the Nation of Israel than any of these fake Jews who are either for their free university degrees, economical freedom, the weather, duped into believing they are Jewish, or simply because they have been recruited to prop up the left wing voter base.
So, on one hand, the article is important in pointing out the Gessens among us. On the other hand, what are we doing in the way of education to prevent such lost Jews from remaining lost?
The Western sensibilities approach isn't working. Time to turn to an authentically Jewish approach. And what's that? Torah.
The surname Gessen is a transliteration of the Russian spelling "Гессен" for Russified persons coming from the House of Hesse, including Russian Empress Alix of Hesse.
It is also the transliteration of the surname of other notable individuals of Russian origin, such as Boris Hessen, a Soviet physicist and philosopher.
The name Gessen itself does not have a specific meaning in Russian but rather is a transliteration of a foreign surname.
No meaning in Yiddish either except for a variation on the above but it sure sounds like a curse
Albert Einstein actually expressed reservations about establishing a nation with “borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power,” fearing it might cultivate “a narrow nationalism within our own ranks.” And he was not the only self hating Jew to stab the chosen people in the back! He even likened Menachem Begin’s Herut to “Nazi and Fascist parties,” referencing so-called historical events like the Deir Yassin “massacres”. And then he disrespected ALL JEWS all over the world by declining to accept the honorif offer of Israel’s presidency!!! (And thus spitting in the eye of all Jews from Abraham onward to the children and grandchildren of your own loins)
Now I know there are plenty of naive Einstein apologists who have dorm posters with this quote of his, “We were compelled by the adversities of our situation to assert our rights through force of arms; it was the only way to avert complete annihilation.” But shaggy Al also can be quoted as saying, “What we can and should ask is a secured bi-national status in Palestine with free immigration,” which everybody (who was not born yesterday) is code for “Israel must be destroyed and all its people massacred and then raped - or raped and then massacred! Either way! I’m sure how you noticed he used the fake word “Palestine” instead of the valid term “Israel”)
People like Einstein and Gessen give humanitarianism, empathy, compassion, and decency a bad name when they refuse to fixate ONLY on the 1400 Jews (who were killed in a massacre that did not spare FAR TOO MANY children and infants when the IDF was pinned down resisting a genocidal onslaught on the West Bank even though they had the Hamas battle plan and a barrage of first hand pleas and observations from the young female soldiers who were “manning” the cameras on the Gaza line) but instead OVER focus on the fifty thousand civilian deaths in Gaza which ONLY include well over 10,000 children as well as a number of regrettable, but Absolutely Necessary (legal and moral), ACCIDENTAL attacks on journalists, aid workers, schools, universities, hospitals, ambulances, sewage treatment plants, desalinization plants, and world cultural sites like Great Mosque of Gaza, the Church of Saint Porphyrius, and the Byzantine Church of Jabalia. This is why SO many good Americans and worthy Jews have been FORCED (against the better angels of their nature) to renounce humanitarianism, empathy, compassion, decency, reason, and justice because otherwise they will be murdered in their beds by self hating Jewish grad students with their Palestinian Svengalis.
Do you note that you are lumping ALL Palestinian Arabs into one group so that the terrorists who rampaged, kidnapped, murdered, and raped are the same as those in Gaza who had less knowledge of the 10/7 attacks than the IDF and Israeli intelligence?
How is that different from those who lash out at ALL Jews for the genocidal terror and murder being unleashed on Gaza today either because they are legitimately confused by the horror and terror of killing children and torturing doctors and teachers OR because it’s just another viscous excuse to feed into ancient ancestral anti-Semitic tropes?
Do you note that the most passionate spokespeople for the Palestinians are able to communicate in nuanced and fluent American sounding English where the most passionate spokespeople for anti-Arab genocide speak in heavily accented numbness of those who appeal to blood, soil, hate, and fear? (Uhhh, kinda like …. Uhh waddaya call’em in the old black and white movies “Knot Zees” or something except those nasty sounding accents were more Teutonic???
Do you note that the best and the brightest of those who call themselves Jews either had painful reservations about any “state” of Israel (like Einstein at its genesis) or Noam Chomsky (when the pattern of crimes against humanity was already firmly established especially after 1967), Masha Gessen, or the latter day Hebrew Prophets who write for Haaretz and for their efforts are at best ignored, scorned, and traduced?
“Einstein publicly stated reservations about the proposal to partition Mandatory Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish countries. In a 1938 speech, "Our Debt to Zionism", he said:
I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain—especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state. ... If external necessity should after all compel us to assume this burden, let us bear it with tact and patience.[35]
The Arabs and Palestinians could (and too many do) say the same about Israelis. But it’s not about ethnicities, language groups, or race. Palestinian Arabs are probably mostly decendents of ancient Canaanites, some tribes of which formed the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the early Iron or late Bronze Age. Many current Palestinian Arabs are likely descendants of Jews who converted to Islam after 600 CE. A large part of the ongoing problem is statecraft and empire. Both Israelis and Palestinians have good reason to fear and distrust the other. Both are too traumatized to even face up to the facts of the atrocities committed on 10/6, and the soul shocking crimes that Israelis TRY to justify by 10/6 but which are clearly part of a relentless genocide that began well before the formation of the state of Israel.
What the state of Israel is doing is not “war”. It is genocide. And the vicious unrelenting and DELIBERATE attacks on hospitals, water and sewage treatment facilities, aid workers, schools, ambulances, and the TRUTH are both reminiscent AND a soul shredding aftershock of Nazi atrocities not so long ago. The little girl alone in her car except for her murdered family will be a symbol for the ages reminiscent of Anne Frank. The shrieking slaughter of innocents cloaked by all the collective dead-eyed hasbara is already an excruciating informant to the future of world religion and the potential development of how trauma begets trauma.
Investigating the evidence of Jews converting to Islam after 700 AD makes one thing clear which is that there is no generic, ethnic, or religious reason for the levels of hatred and fear generated by the way the state of Israel has developed under the auspices of British and then US imperialism.
A tragedy of recent modern Judaism has been the conflation of Jewish identity with the state structures of Israel. And this is a tragedy for Jews too though, of course, it has been a more shocking and inhumane tragedy for Arab Palestinians. In reading Hebrew Scriptures it is easy to find multiple threads decrying against the perils of state formation whether it be the one centered in Shechem and then Samaria or the one centered on Jerusalem. Both of those early states/kingdoms were also largely client states and pawns of more powerful empires (Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon) when they weren’t totally dominated by states like Persia, the post Alexander Hellenic kingdoms, and of course Rome, the destroyer.
Whether any Jew EVER converted to Islam is less important than their mutual Canaanite heritage But this is from Chat GPT regarding Jews (largely voluntarily) converting to Islam:
*************************************
Following the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem in 638 CE, there is limited direct evidence of widespread Jewish conversions to Islam in the immediate aftermath. However, over subsequent centuries, some Jewish individuals did convert, influenced by a combination of social, economic, and political factors.
Under Islamic rule, Jews were designated as dhimmis, granting them protection and certain rights in exchange for paying the jizya tax. This status allowed Jewish communities to maintain their religious practices and communal autonomy. While this arrangement provided a degree of stability, the financial and social burdens associated with dhimmi status may have incentivized some Jews to convert to Islam to attain full civic equality and economic advantages.
Historical records indicate that during the early Islamic period, the Jewish population in Jerusalem experienced a revival. Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab permitted seventy Jewish families to resettle in the city, reversing the Byzantine-era ban on Jewish residence in Jerusalem. This policy fostered a more tolerant environment, allowing Jewish communities to flourish without significant pressure to convert.
It is important to note that while conversions did occur, they were not uniformly widespread or systematically enforced. The extent of Jewish conversions to Islam varied across different regions and periods, influenced by local conditions and policies.
In summary, while some Jews did convert to Islam following the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, these conversions were influenced by a range of factors and were not indicative of a broad or forced movement. Jewish communities largely continued to exist and practice their religion under Islamic rule, benefiting from the protections afforded by their dhimmi status.
It starts with us and, ultimately leads to humanity's demise. If the world had no Jews, on whom will the wolves turn?
Masha is disgusting. What else is there to say about them.
I know it's unfair and even cheap to meet someone's arguments with a crack about their appearance, but sometimes it's relevant, and as they say, A picture is worth a thousand words: Take one look at Masha "M." Gessen and you can see a deeply unhappy person whose misshapen soul peers out through a misshapen body.
As the author points out, misshapen Masha refutes her entire prior career by suddenly becoming a cynical skeptic about rape claims, which I thought were sacrosanct when it comes to tearing down the "patriarchy", but become disputed when made by a Jew on the receiving end of Hamas brutality; then she also mocks Jewish students about their safety concerns, when of course "Safety" has been the paramount value of academia for at least the past decade, evoked when black or gay kids feel threatened (even by an essay), but now suddenly scrutinized when done on behalf of Jews.
But really the most repulsive thing about Masha by far (besides her hatred for her own people) is her grotesque comparison of Israel and Nazi Germany, a foul performance of moral inversion practiced by all Islamo-Leftists in their deranged campaign to erase the evil Zionist entity.
Why make this grotesque comparison, which can be unraveled in a moment's thought? (Hamas could surrender and end all violence but for the Jewish victims of the Nazis there was no escape from death, Israel is trying to protect its people from terrorists but the Nazis had a total monopoly on violence, and it's not Jews who have genocidal dreams but the Palestinians etc etc) Because the goal here isn't reasoned debate, compromise, trying to find some path toward peaceful coexistence, it's to incite total hatred for Israel in the reader, render it as the epitome of all evil and to strip Jews of all claims to deserving of protection and to living safely in their own homeland.
Something uglier than any face happens to Jewish intellectuals when they renounce their birth faith to be baptized in the Leftist faith (Communism, Socialism etc): they suddenly become the most vociferous enemies of their own people, they feel the need to prove their moral supreriority and devotion to universal humanitarianism by denoucing Jews for parochialism, tribalism, and they hate Israel even more than Hamas does.
The psychology of the Leftist Jew is too twisted to explore here, but if I had to sum it up quickly I'd say: they prefer their Jews weak, helpless, homeless, a strong proud Jew fills them with shame, their real devotion is to their self-image as Defenders of the Oppressed Victim, and they're happy to support the murder of their own people to maintain this self-image.
Very well said. She brings to mind Otto Weininger, another deeply unhappy Jew who fulminated against Judaism, capitalism, and femininity. He killed himself at 23 and later, his work provided fodder for Nazi propaganda.
I can only add one thing - Gessen is not a good writer. I've read three of her books, and the best of the bunch was Never Remember (apropos!), which consisted mainly of photos evoking Stalin's gulags.
Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto is so unnecessary, inflammatory and inaccurate (not to mention hateful), that I can only conclude that Gessen wants to throw in with the Jew haters and see Jews/Israelis everywhere denounced and attacked. For me, this is when she moved beyond the pale and revealed herself to be twisted and untrustworthy.
She must have been deeply humiliated as a child, there is some ugly self-hatred in there somewhere, but that's just my speculation.
Thanks
💯
This is a rather generous characterization of Gessen’s writing. Gessen is a grotesque parody of an intellectual in service to a fascist regime whose writing is more facile and yet hateful with each article. One of the reasons I no longer subscribe to the New Yorker.
Wow. Just wow. My great grandfather immigrated from Saratov, Russia & even while in the US he hid that he was Jewish. I literally was in my 30’s before I even knew. My father & grandmother (Nonnie) were both passed on by then & never knew. It broke my heart that he had to make the decision to hide himself for fear his future generations would suffer the same persecution he did. This is why I make it a point to shut down antisemitism in comments sections on instagram I feel like I owe him that & it’s just so wrong the things they say. This article opened my eyes to so much of what he must have went thru & it’s beautifully written too 🥲
As a Soviet-born Jew and current American citizen, I used to feel proud to read Gessen's writing. She shares a similar background, appears in prominent publications, and her views—mostly anti-Putin—aligned with my own. However, her later transformation into an antisemitic promoter of second-hand conspiracies is troubling, especially given that the KGB fabricated the entire Palestinian narrative. I can only speculate that her objective is financial gain. While I find this repulsive, I cannot say how I would react if, during difficult personal economic circumstances, I were offered compensation to advocate a particular viewpoint.
The same applies to Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky. Finkelstein, a mediocre professor at one of the colleges of the City University of New York, has managed to gain a worldwide audience, while Chomsky, known for his linguistic discoveries made 60 years ago, still has a relatively widespread presence on YouTube and in the infotainment sphere.
A “trans and non-binary” journalist of Russian-Jewish descent who attacks Putin but supports Hamas against Israel. What can I say? I wouldn’t really care about his stance. The mess in his brain is already enough for him to deal with. May God help him see the light on so many issues. Anyway, Am Yisrael Chai! Listen to your father. He’s entirely right. Thanks for sharing.
Masha is a woman. It's HER brain, not his
Obviously your definition of what a woman is isn’t right. A woman is an adult female human.
She IS an adult human female. Who do you think she is? She is not male.
Cool
Maybe this will help--she was born a female and she continues being a female. So if you think that a woman is an adult human female, then we have no problem here.
Perfect. Thanks.
As we all know, there are some men that like to pretend they’re women and like to be called women. As a matter of courtesy I’m usually willing to play along. But not for someone like Gessen.
Gessen is a woman, a female. I am talking XX chromosomes and all. She grew up in the USSR as a gender-nonconforming girl. Her birth name is Masha (Maria). Nobody in the USSR would have given that name to a boy. She was never a boy/man. I think she even gave birth to a child or two. I am not sure what makes you think she is not female. (BTW, I don't believe in using preferred pronouns out of courtesy, but that's just my opinion)
👏👏👏 This article is a tour de force that exposes Masha Gessen as the fraud she is! Thank you so much to Liza for writing it and saying something that definitely needed to be said and thank you to the great Reuben Salsa a humble warrior for the state of Israel and the Jewish people! Liza absolutely ripped Masha Gessen a new one! It’s so sad to see self-hatred anytime you come across it. Masha is a definite case of someone who is ashamed of being Jewish and so she does everything she can to distance herself from her heritage and her faith by being as anti-Zionist, antisemitic and anti-Israel as possible.
On another note, I learned a lot from this article about Liza’s family and the plight of Soviet Jewry I had not previously been aware of. I had no idea how horrible the Soviets had treated Liza’s family. RIP to her great-grandfather! May his memory be a blessing!❤️🌸🌺💐🕯️🕊️ I didn’t know her father was thrown in jail either, that’s absolutely awful! I’m so glad that Communism was defeated and the Soviet Union is now a thing of the past! Liza is absolutely correct to point how the Jewish people have suffered for centuries from when they were slaves in Egypt to being persecuted by the Romans to the infamous Dreyfus Affair to the pogroms in Czarist Russia to the Holocaust to the horrible treatment of Soviet Jewry to the 1991 Crown Heights Riots to the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018 to the October 7th attacks on Israel. Russian Jews in particular have suffered enormously.
But yet, Masha couldn’t care less about her own people’s plight. At all. She compares Israel to Nazi Germany and likens the war in Gaza to the Holocaust. Claims that Jewish students aren’t really under attack at many American universities. Claims there were no rapes on October 7th and Israel deliberately exaggerated the atrocities of that day to get sympathy from the international community. She even has the temerity to declare Israel an apartheid state. Liza rightly makes note of the parallels between Masha’s nonsense and the projectile vomit that comes from that fraud of all frauds Norman Finkelstein who claims Israel and it supporters use the Holocaust to gain sympathy for themselves and play the victim.
🤦♂️ Okay, first off that’s not only antisemitic but extremely insensitive and offensive to the global Jewish community and those who perished in the Holocaust. Not to mention the survivors who helped resurrect the Jewish state after over a millennia. Second, he’s a fine one to be up on his moral high horse considering he’s expressed solidarity with both Hamas and Hezbollah. Okay, let’s debunk Masha’s ridiculous talking points one by one. Israel is NOT committing genocide in Gaza, that’s utter nonsense! Israel’s combatant to civilian killed ratio in Gaza is the lowest in the history of warfare. The IDF goes to lengths no other army goes to to preserve human life including Palestinian lives. When civilians die in Gaza it’s always a terrible tragedy but those deaths are on Hamas. They after all, use their own people as human shields.
Not mention to they would set up road blocks and stop them sometimes shooting at them, to keep them from leaving Gaza. As to the plight of Jewish students on many college campuses, it is very much real. You’ll find countless articles about just with on Google search. I guess Masha was too lazy or too dishonest to take two seconds to do that search. There were indeed rapes that took place on October 7th. A documentary on the subject that I highly recommend everyone watch called Screams Before Silence was released to the public about a year ago. Did she just not know if it’s existence? I find that hard to believe considering it was promoted everywhere. Plus we have plenty of testimony from victims and first-hand witnesses alike. Nor were the atrocities of October 7th at all exaggerated. Countless first-hand testimonies of the gruesome and horrific crimes Hamas committed that day. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their civilian collaborators committed pogroms against Jews, sprayed playgrounds with bullets, beheaded babies, burned whole families alive, raped young women, shot and killed motorists as they drove home from work, molested children, shot dogs in the head for fun, ransacked and looted civilian homes, and kidnapped hundreds of people including women, children, babies, old people, Israeli Arabs, Holocaust survivors, teenagers, foreign nationals, and tourists.
As to Israel being an apartheid state, don’t make me laugh. A multicultural democracy with equal right for all? Ha! Israeli Arabs are much better off than Arabs anywhere in the Middle East. Israel is basically like a more compressed United States with a diversity that would shock you. Jews aren’t just white you know, their black, brown, yellow, and red too. Not to mention the Druze, Circassian and Bedouin communities. I could also mention the Black Hebrew Israelites and the African-American Christians who live in Israel. Not to mention Palestinians that come to Israel will be treated like anyone else. Israel has the very best record on minority rights of any country in the Middle East. If you are a woman, black, gay, Trans, Christian, Kurdish, or disabled in the Middle East anywhere other than Israel, your life is miserable. Just ask Nubians in Egypt, Asian guest workers in the UAE, Berbers in Algeria, the Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Syria, or Turkey, Shi’ite Muslims in Bahrain, or the Fur, Maslit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Sudan how well minorities are treaty in Arab countries or the Islamic Republic. Oh by the way, the Arab nations have a REAL apartheid system against the Palestinian people.
Also, if she’s referring to the West Bank that is also incorrect. West Bank Palestinians get free medical care from the IDF, are protected from harm during times of warfare, can work in Israel for four times the wages they’d earn at home, can become Israeli citizens, can marry Israelis if they so choose, and have a degree of self-government. I don’t recall blacks, Coloureds or Asians having such rights in Apartheid South Africa. So where’s the apartheid state here?
On a side note, how can someone be Trans and nonbinary? That’s impossible! She is just making stuff up now. Indeed, if Masha Gessen had had a supportive family like Liza does, who told her to be proud of her Russian Jewish heritage she wouldn’t be doing the disgusting things she is today. The Russian Jewish community in Israel is a large minority of its population and have made many valuable contributions to the nation state of the Jewish people. She is part of an amazing community that she should be more grateful for.
Liza and Rueben, you both have done Israel and the Russian Jewish community proud with this amazing article! Liza you had the courage and moral clarity to publicly call out Masha Gessen and stand up for your community whether the folks you pitched it to liked it or not. Rueben, you gave it the opportunity to be published and for it to see the light of day. I am a lifelong Christian Zionist who will always stand with Liza, Rueben, the people of Israel, and the global Jewish community. Now and forever! Am Yisrael Chai! 🇮🇱 Free Gaza from Hamas! 🇵🇸
When a person turns a lie into truth, then all truth becomes a lie in that person’s eyes
😮
Serious jaw drop with that truth bomb
This is a really important article by Liza.
My forebears came to America mainly from areas of what was then the Russian empire before World War I - and yet I am a conservative who didn’t need the experience of Soviet communism to make me that way. (Radicalism on campus during my college years more than 30 years ago did that for me.) As for Masha Gessen, I have known about her for years insofar as her perspective is quite far removed from my own. The fact that she’s an anti-Zionist comes as no surprise to me, given the political circles she has made herself at home in.
Reading most of Gessen's logic-devoid screeds in The New York Daily Times Stürmer, is analogous to biting down on dry ice while simultaneously listening to a chorus of fingernails being drawn across an ancient chalkboard.
Your essay is an eye opener. Thank you.
Comprised of 15% Russian Jews? Are you sure? In 1997, was told that only 40% of my college aged neighbors, in the Israeli Absorption Center, from the former Soviet Union were actually Jewish. Those from Uzbekistan and provinces in the Kavkaz had a very high percentage of Jews among them. Ukraine, let's just say was another story.
Who knows how many are actually Jewish these days.
The biggest critics of such usurpers, albeit legal according to Israel's ridiculous Law of Return, were the secular, Russian Jews. They and their parents and grandparents suffered so that Jews could eventually receive their exit visas and immigrate to Israel.
Of course, now that so many are here, and support Avigdor Lieberman, the voice of these original Russian speaking immigrates seems to have been silenced.
As insane and extremely problematic Gessen is, if she is actually Jewish, she has more of a standing as being part of the Nation of Israel than any of these fake Jews who are either for their free university degrees, economical freedom, the weather, duped into believing they are Jewish, or simply because they have been recruited to prop up the left wing voter base.
So, on one hand, the article is important in pointing out the Gessens among us. On the other hand, what are we doing in the way of education to prevent such lost Jews from remaining lost?
The Western sensibilities approach isn't working. Time to turn to an authentically Jewish approach. And what's that? Torah.
The Gessen amongst us 🤔
Gessen Meaning
The surname Gessen is a transliteration of the Russian spelling "Гессен" for Russified persons coming from the House of Hesse, including Russian Empress Alix of Hesse.
It is also the transliteration of the surname of other notable individuals of Russian origin, such as Boris Hessen, a Soviet physicist and philosopher.
The name Gessen itself does not have a specific meaning in Russian but rather is a transliteration of a foreign surname.
No meaning in Yiddish either except for a variation on the above but it sure sounds like a curse
It’s not just Gessen. It’s MUCH MUCH more grim.
Albert Einstein actually expressed reservations about establishing a nation with “borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power,” fearing it might cultivate “a narrow nationalism within our own ranks.” And he was not the only self hating Jew to stab the chosen people in the back! He even likened Menachem Begin’s Herut to “Nazi and Fascist parties,” referencing so-called historical events like the Deir Yassin “massacres”. And then he disrespected ALL JEWS all over the world by declining to accept the honorif offer of Israel’s presidency!!! (And thus spitting in the eye of all Jews from Abraham onward to the children and grandchildren of your own loins)
Now I know there are plenty of naive Einstein apologists who have dorm posters with this quote of his, “We were compelled by the adversities of our situation to assert our rights through force of arms; it was the only way to avert complete annihilation.” But shaggy Al also can be quoted as saying, “What we can and should ask is a secured bi-national status in Palestine with free immigration,” which everybody (who was not born yesterday) is code for “Israel must be destroyed and all its people massacred and then raped - or raped and then massacred! Either way! I’m sure how you noticed he used the fake word “Palestine” instead of the valid term “Israel”)
People like Einstein and Gessen give humanitarianism, empathy, compassion, and decency a bad name when they refuse to fixate ONLY on the 1400 Jews (who were killed in a massacre that did not spare FAR TOO MANY children and infants when the IDF was pinned down resisting a genocidal onslaught on the West Bank even though they had the Hamas battle plan and a barrage of first hand pleas and observations from the young female soldiers who were “manning” the cameras on the Gaza line) but instead OVER focus on the fifty thousand civilian deaths in Gaza which ONLY include well over 10,000 children as well as a number of regrettable, but Absolutely Necessary (legal and moral), ACCIDENTAL attacks on journalists, aid workers, schools, universities, hospitals, ambulances, sewage treatment plants, desalinization plants, and world cultural sites like Great Mosque of Gaza, the Church of Saint Porphyrius, and the Byzantine Church of Jabalia. This is why SO many good Americans and worthy Jews have been FORCED (against the better angels of their nature) to renounce humanitarianism, empathy, compassion, decency, reason, and justice because otherwise they will be murdered in their beds by self hating Jewish grad students with their Palestinian Svengalis.
Do you note that you are lumping ALL Palestinian Arabs into one group so that the terrorists who rampaged, kidnapped, murdered, and raped are the same as those in Gaza who had less knowledge of the 10/7 attacks than the IDF and Israeli intelligence?
How is that different from those who lash out at ALL Jews for the genocidal terror and murder being unleashed on Gaza today either because they are legitimately confused by the horror and terror of killing children and torturing doctors and teachers OR because it’s just another viscous excuse to feed into ancient ancestral anti-Semitic tropes?
Do you note that the most passionate spokespeople for the Palestinians are able to communicate in nuanced and fluent American sounding English where the most passionate spokespeople for anti-Arab genocide speak in heavily accented numbness of those who appeal to blood, soil, hate, and fear? (Uhhh, kinda like …. Uhh waddaya call’em in the old black and white movies “Knot Zees” or something except those nasty sounding accents were more Teutonic???
Do you note that the best and the brightest of those who call themselves Jews either had painful reservations about any “state” of Israel (like Einstein at its genesis) or Noam Chomsky (when the pattern of crimes against humanity was already firmly established especially after 1967), Masha Gessen, or the latter day Hebrew Prophets who write for Haaretz and for their efforts are at best ignored, scorned, and traduced?
“Einstein publicly stated reservations about the proposal to partition Mandatory Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish countries. In a 1938 speech, "Our Debt to Zionism", he said:
I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain—especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state. ... If external necessity should after all compel us to assume this burden, let us bear it with tact and patience.[35]
The Arabs and Palestinians could (and too many do) say the same about Israelis. But it’s not about ethnicities, language groups, or race. Palestinian Arabs are probably mostly decendents of ancient Canaanites, some tribes of which formed the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the early Iron or late Bronze Age. Many current Palestinian Arabs are likely descendants of Jews who converted to Islam after 600 CE. A large part of the ongoing problem is statecraft and empire. Both Israelis and Palestinians have good reason to fear and distrust the other. Both are too traumatized to even face up to the facts of the atrocities committed on 10/6, and the soul shocking crimes that Israelis TRY to justify by 10/6 but which are clearly part of a relentless genocide that began well before the formation of the state of Israel.
What the state of Israel is doing is not “war”. It is genocide. And the vicious unrelenting and DELIBERATE attacks on hospitals, water and sewage treatment facilities, aid workers, schools, ambulances, and the TRUTH are both reminiscent AND a soul shredding aftershock of Nazi atrocities not so long ago. The little girl alone in her car except for her murdered family will be a symbol for the ages reminiscent of Anne Frank. The shrieking slaughter of innocents cloaked by all the collective dead-eyed hasbara is already an excruciating informant to the future of world religion and the potential development of how trauma begets trauma.
Investigating the evidence of Jews converting to Islam after 700 AD makes one thing clear which is that there is no generic, ethnic, or religious reason for the levels of hatred and fear generated by the way the state of Israel has developed under the auspices of British and then US imperialism.
A tragedy of recent modern Judaism has been the conflation of Jewish identity with the state structures of Israel. And this is a tragedy for Jews too though, of course, it has been a more shocking and inhumane tragedy for Arab Palestinians. In reading Hebrew Scriptures it is easy to find multiple threads decrying against the perils of state formation whether it be the one centered in Shechem and then Samaria or the one centered on Jerusalem. Both of those early states/kingdoms were also largely client states and pawns of more powerful empires (Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon) when they weren’t totally dominated by states like Persia, the post Alexander Hellenic kingdoms, and of course Rome, the destroyer.
Whether any Jew EVER converted to Islam is less important than their mutual Canaanite heritage But this is from Chat GPT regarding Jews (largely voluntarily) converting to Islam:
*************************************
Following the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem in 638 CE, there is limited direct evidence of widespread Jewish conversions to Islam in the immediate aftermath. However, over subsequent centuries, some Jewish individuals did convert, influenced by a combination of social, economic, and political factors.
Under Islamic rule, Jews were designated as dhimmis, granting them protection and certain rights in exchange for paying the jizya tax. This status allowed Jewish communities to maintain their religious practices and communal autonomy. While this arrangement provided a degree of stability, the financial and social burdens associated with dhimmi status may have incentivized some Jews to convert to Islam to attain full civic equality and economic advantages.
Historical records indicate that during the early Islamic period, the Jewish population in Jerusalem experienced a revival. Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab permitted seventy Jewish families to resettle in the city, reversing the Byzantine-era ban on Jewish residence in Jerusalem. This policy fostered a more tolerant environment, allowing Jewish communities to flourish without significant pressure to convert.
It is important to note that while conversions did occur, they were not uniformly widespread or systematically enforced. The extent of Jewish conversions to Islam varied across different regions and periods, influenced by local conditions and policies.
In summary, while some Jews did convert to Islam following the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, these conversions were influenced by a range of factors and were not indicative of a broad or forced movement. Jewish communities largely continued to exist and practice their religion under Islamic rule, benefiting from the protections afforded by their dhimmi status.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Muslim_rule?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_of_Jerusalem?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_of_Jerusalem?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/wuxusj/what_happened_to_the_indigenous_population_of/
Don't waste your time with this gibbering antisemite.
Edau Amalek Hitler is in the room
Masha is just a good little lefty. A sheep in intellectual's clothing. When the left says "jump", she asks "how low?". May she fade into oblivion.