Help A Jewish Community Buy Back Its Own Damn Synagogue!

Help a Jewish Community Buy Back Its Own Damn Synagogue!

Firsty, thank you for reading this, and I hope you’ll get through it and give us the honor of a donation, firstly, and a reblog, secondly. Maybe even a note to any friends you have outside of tumblr!

If you don’t care about the history, skip to the bold at the end!

This is Temple Emanu-El, in Helena, Montana. At the time it was built, it was the only synagogue between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Portland, Oregon. It was built with the hard work of the Jewish community that had come west to seek their fortune and stability, having heard that people were more willing to do business with Jews in the West, a place where social strictures were slightly relaxed. This turned out to be true, and the community thrived.

This picture resolves small on tumblr, but you can see the love and care they put into it. It’s modeled after the great synagogues of Europe, with heavy stonework, onion domes, and intricate stained glass. The president of the congregation cried at its opening and dedication.

As the years went on, the West became more settled, and for a series of socio-political reasons of which my History of the American West major ass is well aware but are ultimately unimportant to the issue at hand, Jewish communities left much of the interior west for metropolitan areas. By the 1930s, the Jewish community was so small that they could not justify the large and lavish worship center.

They sold it to the city for one dollar.

The promise made to them was that it would be used for the public good. The state readied the former temple for its new function as offices for Social and Rehabilitation Services, sandblasting of the Hebrew inscription, “Gate to the Eternal,” above the entry and removing the star-studded, painted domes.. The copper was stripped from the building and likely reused to re-clad the State Capitol’s dome at about the same time.

That lasted all of 40 years, when the State of Montana decided to let it sit idle and decay, so they could justify the sale of the building, sold for a pittance to the public good, to the Helena Catholic Diocese for $83,000 (this is an opinion of mine, though it is not an uneducated one, and I do firmly believe it. I do not, however, represent that they allowed it to fall into disrepair to justify the sale as objective fact.)

This is the building now

In a twist of fate, the diocese can no longer afford to maintain the building. They are selling it, and the Jewish community of Helena is trying to buy it.

The Montana Jewish Project is being far far far nicer and more politic about this than I would be, but in fairness, they actually how to get Nice Goyim to donate, and I don’t, so. The Diocese is spinning this as selling the building for much less than its worth, which may be true, but if you bought it for $83,000, that would be $280,000 now.

They are selling it for $925,000. And we have to have 70% of the purchase price by February 28th. Easy terms, right?

Here’s where you come in! If the idea of Montana’s Jews getting back the building that was sold to the Diocese in spite of the original agreement appeals to you, you can and should donate to their capital campaign. They even have an option for your donation where if we don’t get Emanu-El back, your money will be returned to you instead of being used for other MJP protects and repairs.

This place won’t just be used for the Jewish community, though I think that would be enough. They want it to be used as a museum and center for the community as well, to teach about Jewish life in Montana, with Jewish cooking classes, and social programs, and teaching non-Jews about Jewish customs and culture.

I just want to get the cross off the top.

Donate here

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I’ve been having a hard time dealing with the news of yesterday.

If you don’t know. The Supreme Court over turned roe vs wade, removing the federal coverage and right of abortion in the United States. This gives the power back to individual states which I believe as of now 13 have added trigger laws that will ban abortion in those states almost immediately.

I live in Canada, and my heart and soul ache for America right now.

My friends and loved ones down there and every citizen capable of bearing children my heart goes to you. This news is tragic.

This blog has never been a political one but human rights are not political and so I ask you kindly that if yesterdays news brought you joy, to unfollow and remove yourself from this blog.

You are not welcome here.

This blog is a safe space for all.

To all that may need it. I am attaching a link that helps you find the closest abortion provider.

And a link to a post of Herbs to avoid during pregnancy

And if anyone needs to chat to vent to just speak their mind I’m here. Please don’t ever hesitate to reach out. I’m going to be taking a break from the witch posts and focus a bit on bringing awareness to this. Recourses that may be helpful to some.

I don’t often use this sign off as I find it a bit over used in the witch community but I feel we are in need of it.

With love and light

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rb if you're going to fight Filoni if Cody dies

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A new bug

Credit shared with my sister for spotting it

Do you ever see something and just go, “Damn, that’s really neat” for no discernible reason?

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Tags

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So we need to talk about “Weapons Factory” again…

And no, I’m not going to delve into the whole Anakin/Luminara dynamic after the factory blows up and they’re searching for their Padawans. That is a horse that has been beaten to death that this point and there’s plenty of great meta out there that shows how Anakin and Luminara BOTH love their student.

I’m talking about how good of an idea it was for the Padawans to go undercover into the factory while the ADULTS put themselves in the direct line of droid fire with bare minimum cover. There’s a lot of people that love to rip into Luminara’s character when she unveils her plan she and Barriss had prepared for but again I don’t think these people utilize critical thinking when it comes to characters that aren’t the mains. I personally think Luminara’s plan was full of good intentions. She wanted to keep the girls out of as much danger as possible (she most likely didn’t forget how quick Ahsoka was to put herself up against Ventress in their mission together and wanted to return the favor and keep Ahsoka safe along with Barriss). Look no one is going to disagree on how much that mission sucks for all parties involved, but Luminara seemed to try to make the most out of seemingly impossible situation.

1.) First off, the idea of sneaking the teenage girls into the factory was probably the safest option for the Padawans. Judging by Anakin’s reaction, the fact that there would be catacombs under the factory itself doesn’t seem to be common knowledge, thus the Poggle and the gang wouldn’t be betting on their enemies to know about it either. With that being said, having that kind of advantage immediately lessens the chance of Ahsoka and Barriss getting hurt as their enemies wouldn’t be expecting them and again…they are out of the direct line of fire happening outside. Anakin, Luminara, and the Clones literally have no cover. Do you really think it would have been fair to put the Padawans out there too when their own Masters are struggling? Luminara even said that with a frontal assault their losses would be high. Furthermore, there’s even a point where Anakin and Luminara have the Clones stay back while they go destroy the bridge.

2.) People love to say that Barriss being tasked to memorize the labyrith is like a form of child abuse but I hate to break it to you, it’s not. Anyone who has read Barriss’s EU novels (The Medstar duology written by Steve Perry and Micheal Reeves, which Feloni himself has also read) would know that Barriss’s wicked intelligence and memorization is very in character for her. Before all this terrorist bullshit, Barriss was characterized to be an extremely gifted healer whose intelligence was exceptional. It was also shown in these novels that Luminara would never ask Barriss to do anything she wouldn’t be comfortable with. Honestly y’all I think if Barriss did not have photographic memory, I think Luminara would have memorized that shit herself, because she would rather die than do anything to compromise her student. As I’ve mentioned this is not a far fetched theory as this was their dynamic written well before TCW that Feloni based on these books when it came to these characters.

Unlike Anakin (I love him too so don’t come for me) who didn’t trust in Ahsoka’s ability to run a briefing by herself, Luminara trusts and believes in Barriss. She gave her a task she knew Barriss could do and never doubted her Padawan for a second even when she too was starting to worry like Anakin.

3.) Like with any plan, there will always be risks no matter how meticulous it is. What ended up happening to Ahsoka and Barriss down there was a bad accident. No one can control the off chance that a bug would wake up and alert Poggle of what’s actually going on. No one can control the fact that the girls were outnumbered and that their bombs were taken away as a result of this development. It’s something Star Wars is always preaching about, there are just some things you can’t control, you just have to make the best of it and have the courage to make the better choice. It’s pretty evident in both Anakin and Luminara’s reactions when the factory went down that they were not expecting that and were hurting as a result of it.

In conclusion, there wasn’t a single person in this episode that did not have good intentions and I’m tired of Luminara being painted as this cold, heartless woman because of things she cannot control and due to her ability to have a handle on her emotions.

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I used to enjoy Pokemon games a lot, but lately some of the newer entries have been kinda controversial due a variety of issues.

But instead of focusing on that, i'm here to bring you back to the past to the Nintendo DS era of Pokemon, where many (myself included) would say that the quality and care of the series was at it's peak!

Games included in this collection:

EVERYONE IS HERE!! Every single Pokemon game released for the Nintendo DS is featured in this pack. Two emulators are included in the set, just download and play

Download here!! (1.25 GB): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jGy0GHSDwSLIuGnUrdmsD3WY_AJiq5ws/view?usp=sharing