Ute is a Jew. Alix is a Jew. They belong to different denominations of Judaism. The denomination Alix belongs to doesn’t recognize Ute as a Jew. To the rest of the world, she is.

Alix should know this. She doesn’t have to like it or agree with it, but that’s besides the point. It’s a religious difference that can and does lead to religious disputes: disputes that should remain between the people involved. Getting one side to accept the other’s point of view during a dispute can be difficult if not impossible. Alix should know this, too.

Apparently she asked Ute to change the name of her book because she saw it as cultural appropriation. Ute didn’t. That’s her prerogative, no matter how much Alix disliked it. And after, Alix started saying Ute was pretending to be a Jew, wasn’t Jewish, etc.

Now.

If you want someone to do you a favor, you don’t insult them. If they turn you down, well, sure, you can…but you kill any chance of them agreeing to do something you ask, or help you, or even listen to you, in the future. Alix should know this.

So what was the point of continuing to insult Ute on various platforms? What was it supposed to accomplish? Convince people she wasn’t a real Jew? Get people to not buy her book? To make her feel bad? To punish her for… what, exactly? Not doing what Alix wanted? Out of jealousy?

I’ll take the latter for $1000, Mr. Trebec.

I have no concrete evidence of this, no receipts, no screenshots, no emails. Nothing but my gut feeling and the experience of seeing similar dynamics in different situations. But I’m going to lay out why I feel jealousy is the root cause of this clusterfuck feud.

Mainly the claim using “grass widow” was cultural appropriation. When Exulansic dug up evidence that its origins were not Yiddish, the talk about it seemed to just… disappear. No posts about being mistaken, no “Oops, my bad.” I’m not on every social media and there’s an excellent chance I missed it. But still. I noticed that absence.

How long had Ute been talking about her book? How long had its title been out there? Why make the cultural appropriation claim public now, when it was going to press?

There were other comments — not from Alix — that made me think there was a whole lot of “Look at that bitch eating crackers” going on. Second-hand resentment, if you will. Ute promoted her book too much, Ute posts on her blog too much, etc. But the one that caught my eye was in response to another comment about Alix delaying GenderMapper for a month: “Yeah, a month talking about transwidows instead of gendermapper.”

Nothing about Alix being in danger. Just whining that they’d have to talk about transwidows. Like they’re forced to read blogs and watch videos with topics they don’t like.

Alix was cruel to Ute out of jealousy and it blew up out of her control. I hope whatever pleasure and/or satisfaction she got was worth it.

There’s more I wanted to say but it’s after 2 am, and I’m tired. I may post those thoughts later, or I may not.