guidesforgoyim

[guidesforgoyim]

Hi Tumblr. It's been a minute on this blog. Honestly, I've (the founder/curator/moderator) have been crazy busy - moving and now being in between jobs. This hiatus is temporary, just long, and once my personal life is a little more settled we'll be back. In the meantime, I have an ask of the Jumblr community. I want to make a master list of jumblrs who are open to questions. It'll be a seperate post than this, but if you'd prefer to reblog this instead of DMing me that works too.

Please let me know if you'd like to be on the list. Please include:

-The blog name you want to be inboxed or asked at. A name you'd like to be called is optional!

-Your pronouns

-If you take DMs, asks, or both. Also: if anon asks are okay or not.

-Specific Jewish experiences (i.e. overlapping with other identities, locations, converts, interfaith families, denominations, etc.).

For example, me.

@BenevolentBirdGal (you can me Birdie), she/her. Open to DMs and asks, anons okay! Interfaith family, non-orthodox, ashkie af, USA (south and east coast), general knowledge, Jewish media, general allyship to Jews, Jewish language topics (non-expert).

Best,

Yael, 16 Heshvan 5783 / 9 November 2022

[guidesforgoyim]

Taa’nit Esther (Jewish Holidays Explained)

If you haven’t yet, read our introduction, disclaimers, and user guide here.  

Taa’nit Esther (the fast of Esther - תַּעֲנִית אֶסְתֵּר) is a minor fast day associated with the holiday of Purim. Like other minor fasts, it begins at dawn and ends at dusk the evening before Purim. If set to land on Shabbat, however, the fast is moved to an earlier day instead - Shabbat is considered a higher priority than some but not all fasts. Like other Jewish fasts, exemptions exist for those who might otherwise fast, including age (young or old), pregnancy, and medical conditions. The fast commemorates the fasting and repentance of Esther, Mordechai, and the Jewish community before Esther approached King Ahashverosh to plead for the safety of the Jewish community from Haman, his forces, and antisemites throughout the kingdom. 

Taa’nit Esther takes place on Adar 13.

For more information about Jewish holidays, you can head over to our Jewish Holidays Explained Index. You can navigate to our other content via the Index HaGadol (the Great Index).

[guidesforgoyim]

Question of the day #3

Are there any Jewish practices or beliefs surrounding quarantining or public health?

Open to Jewish followers to answer - please specify which traditions, denominations, and geographies your answer is specific to!

[guidesforgoyim]

Question of the day #2

What is the significance of different pieces of traditional Jewish clothing?

Open to Jewish followers to answer -  please specify which traditions, denominations, and geographies your answer is specific to!

[guidesforgoyim]

Introduction, Disclaimers, & Reader Guide

Welcome!

Hi! We’re a project focused on creating resources for people wanting to be allies to the Jewish community, but don’t know where to start. We hope to become a place that goyim (non-Jews, Hebrew for “nations”) can come to for information and to ask questions, as well as a resource for Jewish people to point well meaning-goyim to. 

This is an intro to our project and a guide to how it works. While you are welcome to reblog this, it may be updated on occasion and the most recent version will remain pinned on our blog.

How This Works & Our Goals

Our articles and asks will be indexed in either the Index HaGadol (the Great Index) or in more specific indexes listed on Index HaGadol. If you’re new here, you might also want to start with the Glossary. 

Our primary audience is people who are very new to Judaism, so our first series of articles will be very basic. Think of this as entry-level-allyship-to-Jews. In addition to the different categories of articles (holidays, resource reviews, etc.), we are also labeling articles by how much background knowledge you need. 

Our basic resources start at level 0 - Entry Level, but as our wiki grows our content will include 1 - Learning More, 2 - Advanced Discussion, 3 - Detailed Discussion, and 4 - Views From Jews (explicitly opinion or personal experiences). Pieces that require more background will link back to relevant foundational pieces. 

For example, our first Passover post, 0 - Entry Level, will be the most basic explanation of the holiday possible. Future posts (that link back to the first post) might explain, at level 1 - Learning More, greater detail on the background of the holiday. At level 2 - Advanced Discussion, a post might be made examining the Seder ceremony. Level 3, Detail Discussion, might be a post discussing the nuances of a particular Passover teaching. Level 4 - Views From Jews, might talk about someone’s family’s specific Seder traditions. 

We generally hashtag everything by category (i.e. holidays), guides for goyim, and the “level” of the topic. 

Disclaimers:

1. We are a small team, so while we represent a variety of perspectives from the Jewish community, we do not claim to represent the entirety of it. 

2. Our primary audience is people new to learning about Judaism. While we are thrilled if the guides can be a resource for people from our community and outsiders more familiar with it, our basic articles are, well, basic. Not every detail about the topic is going to be in the entry-level post - more details might be found in later posts or linked resources. 

3. The views of our contributors in their blogs or opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the blog itself. 

4. Linking a resource (or reviewing it) is not necessarily an endorsement of every view expressed in that resource. 

5. Our ask box is open if you have questions not covered in any of our guides!

Interested in getting involved?

If you or someone you know would like to help with the project, you can fill out the form here. We are a small but growing team of Jewish writers, editors, and moderators from a variety of Jewish backgrounds as well as goyish (non-Jewish) proofreaders who assess our posts to make sure they are as accessible as possible to our primary audience. 

You don’t need to know everything about Judaism or have a formal Jewish education - the idea is to bring a variety of Jewish perspectives from people who can talk about their specific interest areas - whether that’s everyday practice, holidays, (their) denominations, (how goyim can do) allyship, Judeo-languages, or more!

[guidesforgoyim]

Index HaGadol (The Big Index)

Index HaGadol

This is the Index Of Indexes for Guides for Goyim! If you haven’t yet, read our introduction and check out our glossary! 

While you are welcome to reblog any of our posts, please be aware that indexes update frequently. The versions linked here (and the version of this post linked in our pinned introduction post) are the most updated versions of any given index. 

Meta Index

Jewish Holidays Explained Index

Jewish Practices & Beliefs Explained Index

Jewish Lifecycle Events Explained Index

Resource Review Index

Antisemitism Annotated Index

Everyday Allyship Index

Views From Jews Index

[guidesforgoyim]

Meta Index

This is the index for meta-level posts about the Guides For Goyim Blog! If you haven’t read our introduction & user guide, please do so here!

While you are welcome to reblog any of our posts, please be aware that indexes update frequently. The version of any given index linked in our Index HaGadol is the most recently updated version of that index. 

Meta topics 

Introduction, Disclaimers, & Reader Guide Guide

Writer Bios - Coming Soon

Link to sign-up to contribute to our project!

[guidesforgoyim]

Views From Jews Index

This is the index for Views From Jews Index posts! If you haven’t read our introduction & user guide, please do so here!

While you are welcome to reblog any of our posts, please be aware that indexes update frequently. The version of any given index linked in our Index HaGadol (The Big Index) is the most recently updated version of that index.

Views From Jews Index Posts:

Coming soon!

[guidesforgoyim]

Everyday Allyship Index

This is the index for Everyday Allyship posts! If you haven’t read our introduction & user guide, please do so here!

While you are welcome to reblog any of our posts, please be aware that indexes update frequently. The version of any given index linked in our Index HaGadol (The Big Index) is the most recently updated version of that index.

Everyday Allyship Posts:

Coming soon!

[guidesforgoyim]

Antisemitism Annotated Index

This is the index for Antisemitism Annotated posts! If you haven’t read our introduction & user guide, please do so here!

While you are welcome to reblog any of our posts, please be aware that indexes update frequently. The version of any given index linked in our Index HaGadol (The Big Index) is the most recently updated version of that index.

Antisemitism Annotated Posts:

Coming soon!

[guidesforgoyim]

Resource Review Index

This is the index for Resource Review posts! If you haven’t read our introduction & user guide, please do so here!

While you are welcome to reblog any of our posts, please be aware that indexes update frequently. The version of any given index linked in our Index HaGadol (The Big Index) is the most recently updated version of that index.

Resource Review Posts:

Coming soon!

[guidesforgoyim]

Jewish Lifecycle Events Explained Index

This is the index for Lifecycle Events Explained posts! If you haven’t read our introduction & user guide, please do so here!

While you are welcome to reblog any of our posts, please be aware that indexes update frequently. The version of any given index linked in our Index HaGadol (The Big Index) is the most recently updated version of that index.

Jewish Lifecycle Events Explained Posts:

Coming soon!

[guidesforgoyim]

Jewish Practices & Beliefs Explained Index

This is the index for Jewish Practices & Beliefs Explained posts! If you haven’t read our introduction & user guide, please do so here!

While you are welcome to reblog any of our posts, please be aware that indexes update frequently. The version of any given index linked in our Index HaGadol (The Big Index) is the most recently updated version of that index.

Jewish Practices & Beliefs Explained Posts:

Coming soon!

[guidesforgoyim]

Jewish Holidays Explained Index

This is the index for Jewish Holidays Explained posts! If you haven’t read our introduction & user guide, please do so here!

While you are welcome to reblog any of our posts, please be aware that indexes update frequently. The version of any given index linked in our Index HaGadol (The Big Index) is the most recently updated version of that index. 

Jewish Holidays Explained Posts:

Basics & Weekly/Monthly Occurrences

Jewish Holidays FAQ

The Jewish Calendar

Rosh Chodesh 

Shabbat & Special Shabbatot

Havdalah

What is Chol HaMoed?

Major Holidays: 

Rosh HaShanah

Yom Kippur

Sukkot

Hoshana Rabbah

Shemini Atzeret & Simchat Torah

Pesach

Shavuot

Minor Holidays: 

Hanukkah

Tu Bishvat

Purim, Purim Katan the month before in applicable years, and Shushan Purim where geographically applicable. 

Pesach Sheni

Lag BaOmer

Tu Ba’Av

Rosh HaShanah LaBehemot 

Minor Fasts: 

Fast of Esther (Taa’nit Esther) 

Fast of the First Born (Taa’nit Bechorot) 

Tzom Tammuz

Tisha B’Av

Tzom Gedalia

Other Special Periods of Time in the Jewish Calendar:

The Ten Days

Counting of the Omer

The Three Weeks

The Nine Days

Leil Selichot

Holidays From Specific Jewish Communities:

This section is very incomplete - if you are Jewish and we’ve missed holidays from your communities, please let us know and we’ll add it to the list. If you or someone you know would like to write about a holiday from your community, please let us know as well.   

Mimouna (Moroccan Jewish Community)

Sigd (Ethiopian Jewish Community)

Seharane (Kurdish Jewish Community)

Shab-e Sal (Persian Jewish Community) 

Local Purims to celebrate the survival of a community threatened by more recent (last two millennia) antisemitism. 

Holidays specific to particular Hasidic movements. 

[guidesforgoyim]

Question of the day #1

Today's #QuestionOfTheDay for our Jewish followers from Our Anonymous Question Box: What are your favorite Jewish phrases?

(However you interpret this is fine - Hebrew, Yiddish, a prayer, another Judeo-language, English, whatever a Jewish phrase is to you)!

Please specify which traditions, denominations, and geographies your answer is specific to!

[guidesforgoyim]

Call for Non-Jewish Allies!

Hi, we’re still looking for non-Jews to help with our new project, Guides For Goyim!*

Our intended primary audience is people who are new to understanding Jews, Judaism, Jewishness, and the Jewish community and want to learn more - about our culture, holidays, how to be an ally to our community, etc. 

To make our guides as accessible as possible, we need non-Jewish proofreaders to make sure that our articles are a good resource for people who are not coming from a Jewish context beforehand. 

We intend to *officially* launch this resource in the near future, but would like to have a base of articles ready first. This first launch will hopefully happen soon, and we will of course continue expanding the resource after that!

If you are interested in helping with this project, please fill out this form!

Questions can be directed to our inbox. 

[guidesforgoyim]

Call for writers!

Hi, we’re still looking for Jewish writers & editors (one-off & regular)!

You don’t need to know everything about Judaism or have a formal Jewish education - the idea is to bring a variety of Jewish perspectives from people who can talk about their specific interest areas - whether that’s everyday practice, holidays, (their) denominations, (how goyim can do) allyship, Judeo-languages, or more!

-We intend to *officially* launch this resource in the near future, but would like to have a base of articles ready first. This first launch will hopefully happen soon, and we will of course continue expanding the resource after that!

If you are interested in helping with this project, please fill out this form!

Questions can be directed to our inbox!