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Izzy Posen

@PosenIzzy

5 Dec

THREAD: who am I? I've received a lot of new followers lately. Let me present myself:

1/ I grew up in the Satmar, chassidic community in Stamford Hill London to a rabbinic and moderately elite family. I lost my faith in its worldview at the age of 20 and left/was cast out.

2/ I made it to university to study Physics and Philosophy and graduated with a master's in these subjects this past summer. I've been studying Yiddish and chassidic culture for some years now. I have written a lot on my blog: journeyerblog.wordpress.com/category/judai…

3/ For personal reasons I went through a period of low output. I'm now back and am experimenting with the best ways to use my voice to share my knowledge about a very unique culture and way of life. For now I'm using Twitter for my micro-blogging and threads.

Read 7 tweets

Izzy Posen

@PosenIzzy

4 Dec

Here's the thing. For the first time in forever the chassidic culture has a solid presence online. Do you guys understand how huge this is? The western world is about to get an intimate glimpse into one of the most secretive and insular cultures to ever exist in its midth.

Here is what we're gonna do. I will use my intimate knowledge of this community (I grew up at the very centre and in the elite of this community and lived there for 20 years) to comment live on the things happening in the community that make it online.

We're gonna look at examples in real time and together we're going to learn and discuss this culture. I invite scholars, anthropologists, lovers of chassidic culture to join me in starting to study this society, its rich culture, its unique way of life.

Read 34 tweets

Izzy Posen

@PosenIzzy

3 Dec

@BrisFreeSpeech

@BrisFreeSpeech was due to host an event with Steven Greer who faced a concerted and bad faith campiagn of spurious allegations of Islamophobia.
I wrote more about this in this thread:

https://twitter.com/PosenIzzy/status/1465284880921763845

@BristolUni

The event was cancelled last minute due to pressure from uni authorities without any regard for the committee that worked so hard to put it together and for @BristolUni students who deserve answers to what one of their lecturers were put through.

We don't have all the details behind the decision to cancel this event, but here is the statement from Steven:

Read 9 tweets

Izzy Posen

@PosenIzzy

2 Dec

@hd41321508

@hd41321508 Busy day at work. Hope to finish another time

@hd41321508

@hd41321508 We literally weren't allowed to read ANYTHING printed, produced, written by pretty much anyone outside of our tiny world (0.5-1 million people out of 7 billion). Yes, some read, but officially you're not allowed and depending on family/friends, can have serious consequences.

@hd41321508

@hd41321508 All the world's movies, theatre, art, news, philosophy, knowledge, even lots of science is completely banned and censored. You are brought to be very strictly isolated from all that take serious risks if you try to access, again depending on family/social circle.

Read 8 tweets

Izzy Posen

@PosenIzzy

1 Dec

THREAD: freedom of expression and censorship in the chassidic community compared to the current climate in wider society.
⬇️⬇️⬇️

@BrisFreeSpeech

2/
In the last few years I have been incredibly passionate about, and active in, the free speech movement. In my first year at uni I founded @BrisFreeSpeech and later I was amongst the founding members of @speechchampions.

3/ I have watched in horror as dogmatic ways to thinking consolidate themselves in our educated circles and as #NoDebate replaces a culture of curiosity and open-mindedness. #SilenceIsViolence told us all how we must think as indoctrination was renamed "educating oneself".

Read 25 tweets

Izzy Posen

@PosenIzzy

29 Nov

@Shmarya

Thread: chassidic art and culture is undergoing a renaissance phase.

I have been claiming for a while that chassidic culture is in the early stages of a renaissance phase. This idea has been critiqued, recently by @Shmarya. In this thread I aim to back up my claim.

2/n
First a bit of history (necessarily oversimplified). Traditional Jewish communities in Europe encountered the enlightenment in the late 18th century, birthing the haskallah movement. This spread to all of Jewish Europe over the next century and a half, up to the holocaust.

3/n
From its earliest of days chassidic culture was bitterly opposed to haskallah, responding to that threat with isolationism and rejection of modernity and secular knowledge.
In the 20th century haskallah gave way to its daughter ideologies: Zionism and socialism.

Read 38 tweets

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