#Jewish Holiday Writings - Pesach

[gay-jewish-bucky]

This would be such a fun concept for a Stucky fic

There are so many ways this can go, but I'm really drawn to a college fake-dating-to-lovers AU 👀👀👀

Some ideas:

Steve is a lapsed Catholic | Bucky is an observant Jew

Steve's sexuality is up to the writer | Bucky is gay (this is not at odds with him being Jewish)

Steve is an Art History major | Bucky is an Astronomy/Jewish Studies double major

Steve is an athlete | Bucky volunteers at Hillel

Steve is HoH & wears hearing-aids | Bucky is an amputee

Steve has his Ma | Bucky has both parents & three sisters

Both of them are very close to their families

They've secretly had crushes on each other since becoming best friends as freshman and are oblivious to the other's feelings

They, along with their friends Wanda (also Jewish) and Sam, are roommates

Steve usually has Easter dinner with his Ma at her priest's house, though often tries to get out of it. Bucky always spends Passover with his family but is tired of his parents (lovingly) prodding him to find himself a nice man.

This year Passover and Easter overlap.

Steve impulsively offers to come with Bucky and pretend to be his boyfriend, Bucky (equally impulsively) agrees. Wanda (who knows about Bucky's crush) and Sam (who knows about Steve's crush) both think it's a dumb idea but fail to talk the two boys out of it.

Cue 8 days of Steve and Bucky sharing a small bed, intense pining, and being a little too convincing at "pretending" to be boyfriends.

@stucky-fic-idea-bank

[mrsdenasaan]

[germiyahu]

Actually don't listen to me. I'm an impulse buyer with credit cards. You want a nice looking pitcher and basin to perform the hand washing mitzvot? That's an excellent opportunity to go thrifting! You might even find Judaica there, like a Chanukkiyya perhaps?

You don't want to wait 8 years for Shabbat candles to arrive from Israel? Ask your rabbi! When I asked her if you can reuse a Havdalah candle, she sensed I was worried about the cost of buying all these candles and said her shul has tons of extras.

You absolutely do need a Chumash, a Tanakh, and probably a study Bible too... but Sefaria has all that and more! Especially the Talmud and other Rabbinic sources! It literally blows my mind that this site exists and is free.

But what about all the books on Jewish history and philosophy? What about textbooks for Modern and Biblical Hebrew? See if there are scanned versions online, or go to your local library. Invest in notecards, you're going to want to write down prayers and such, this will especially help if you don't own the books you're studying from.

It's a good idea to have a Siddur, but your shul will most definitely have their own, and as others have told me, you can ask your Rabbi if you can borrow one to take home (make sure to treat it with reverence).

If you want to start baking Challah and are living on your own, or maybe in a dorm room, see if there are community cooking spaces so you don't have to buy your own materials, or just ask your parents if they can gift you some kitchenware because "You want to get into baking."

You literally don't need anything other than a cup that you think is pretty and has meaning to you for the Kiddush. And don't splurge, I've seen hundreds of very attractive Kiddush sets and candle holders and all that for modest prices.

And take it slowly! Don't buy everything at once. We're nowhere near close to Chanukka right now, so don't even put that in your mind. If you want to acquire holiday items, focus on Pesach and worry about other festivals in their due time, let your wallet recover a little. This also goes for Shabbat! You don't need a pristine set of everything all at once, I'm just an idiot. You can slowly build up your perfect beautiful intricate table as the months go by.

[date-a-jew-suggestions]

Missouri was my home, and I can’t go back because I’m trans.

Before the rest, I want to clarify: I do not get my hrt through a Missouri healthcare provider. This will not impact my medical transition, and I am so very lucky to not have to worry about that. Many, many transgender people living in Missouri do not have that luxury. However, I am hurt, and I am scared. I was not intending to move back to Missouri, because I am a lot happier where I am now. However, I’m very scared about the precedent that this sets. Missouri is the first state to pass legislation that restricts access to medical transition not only for minors, but for ADULTS. I would be very surprised if this was where their anti trans legislation stopped. Based on how they seem to be leading the charge against transgender rights in this regard, it seems very likely to me that within the next few years, trans peoples rights to public spaces in Missouri will be legally restricted. If this happens, I will not be able to visit about half of my family members.

The rest of this post is me coming to terms with that.

I flew to my home city, St. Louis Missouri for Pesach recently. I was so excited to spend the holiday with my family. Several members of my family were unable to get off work/school on the actual holiday, so I flew home on Easter weekend and we had our Seder on Easter. This is because in the USA, Easter and Christmas are federal holidays that get automatic off days, unlike Jewish holidays. The Seder happened at my grandma’s house and my entire extended family was invited, as is our family tradition. I had a lovely weekend with my family.

While I was visiting, I stayed in my grandparents house. Growing up I spent nearly every weekend there. My grandparents have always done their best to make me feel at home there. I have countless memories at that house of Shabbat with my grandma, playing games with my cousins and sister, climbing the big tree in the backyard, play dates with friends, doing all sorts of arts and crafts projects with my grandma, teaching myself to use a sewing machine on the living room floor, playing d&d in the basement, and big extended family gatherings for every Pesach, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur every year. It is one of the places that makes me feel the safest out of any place on earth. I would consider it my backup home. And as always, our Passover Seder was amazing.

This trip home coincided with my parents selling the house I lived in until I was 18. This has been in the works for a long time, so it did not come as a surprise to me. Even so, both my grandma and grandpa reassured me repeatedly throughout the weekend that I would always have a home at their house. That I could always come back, to visit or stay as long as I need. That this place would always be my home.

One of the things I did while I was staying there was make sure I had copies of all of the family records that my grandma had saved. Things like family trees, Ellis Island immigration records, death certificates, writings of long deceased relatives. I want to preserve as much of our family history as I can, because too much Jewish history has been destroyed by those who hate us. I already knew that my family has lived in the same city in Missouri practically since they immigrated, I think it’s something like 4 generations. Looking through these documents and reading things the previous generation of my family has written was fascinating and deeply moving to me. It cemented in my mind the fact that my family history is completely intertwined with the St. Louis Jewish community.

And of course, the synagogue I belonged to growing up is in Missouri. Where I spent the high holy days, where I was bat mitzvah’d, where I went to hebrew school every week. My Hebrew school teachers. My rabbis. I’ll be visiting it soon for my cousins Bat Mitzvah, and I’m hoping I might get a chance the day after to sit and talk with my rabbis. I feel like I need to say goodbye to them.

I can’t go back to any of these things. It has taken me a long time to write this post because this is so painful for me. I love my family so very dearly, and I have a big family. My cousins were like extra siblings to me growing up, I’m close with all of my second cousins and their partners and kids, my aunts and uncles, my great aunts and uncles, and my great grandparents when they were alive. I don’t go back to St Louis for the city, I go back for them. My grandparents have lived in St. Louis for their entire lives, and they aren’t going to move. Nor do I want them to have to, they’re so happy there. They have carved out a very comfortable and safe place for their family and friends. It’s just not a place I will be welcomed in for much longer, and that is out of our control. They will travel to visit me once in a while, but I know that me not being able to visit Missouri would drastically cut down on the time I can spend with them. And realistically, they are getting old. I don’t know how much longer cross country travel will be safe and feasible for them.

My family took a long time to get on board with my transition, largely because they were lied to by politicians and mental health “professionals” who were unqualified to treat transgender patients. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about that. To me what matters is that they unconditionally support me as a trans man now, and even though they were misinformed and said and did things that hurt me, they have always loved me. And they have made an incredible and effective effort to not only apologize for the harm they caused, but to change the way they treated me in order to express that love. My grandpa, previously the most old fashioned, socially conservative, and transphobic member of my family, will now call me to say things like “the other day this meshuggenah tried to tell me trans people are dangerous, I told him my grandson is transgender and to shut the fuck up. You shoulda seen the look on his face.” My grandma and mom both flew across the country with me to help me prepare for and recover from my top surgery. I could not have asked for better people to care for me post op.

Despite how supportive they are now, it’s only fairly recently that I’ve repaired my relationship with my family enough to enjoy spending long periods of time with them. It is still hard for me to talk to certain family members because I am trans. But the last few trips home have been the first times in a long time I have had a wonderful time with my family, which is something I missed and needed for so long.

I think that is going to be taken away again very soon. And it’s being pushed by the very same people who lied to my family and drove a wedge between us in the first place. This time it is out of our control.

To say I’m heartbroken would be an understatement. It’s hard for me to even conceptualize the concept that my ability to see my family is being slowly taken from me by the Christian zealots in our government. It feels like just now that I’ve been fully accepted and embraced, I’m being forced out again. And once again, it is under the guise of protecting people like me. They expect me to believe that this is for my own good. That all of the bullying and abuse and dysphoria I was forced to endure for my entire childhood was for my own good, because g-d forbid I be transgender and happy.

I had to move across the country to escape unsafe living conditions caused by white Anglo Saxon Christians, and now I’m uncertain of my ability to visit the family members I left behind. Ironically, this is a very Jewish experience. I imagine this is a much smaller version of the pain my ancestors felt when they immigrated to America and left their family behind in Russia and Poland. In a way, this experience connects me to my Jewish heritage in a profoundly painful way.

This was a long and rambly post. I’m just hurting a lot right now, and I needed to talk. Thank you to anyone who read this far.

[whencyclopedia]

Easter

Easter is the Christian holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth three days after he died from crucifixion by the Roman magistrate Pontius Pilate (c. 30 CE). Easter Sunday is the culmination of the week-long events that preceded his death, re-enacted every year in liturgical ceremonies known as Easter Week. The word, 'Easter' may have derived from the work of St. Bede the Venerable (672-745 CE) who wrote a history of the conversion to Christianity by the Anglo-Saxons in Britain (Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum). In his writings on the calendar, he claimed that Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon and German fertility goddess, was the local term for the month of April. Eostre celebrated the renewal of fertility each spring, with symbols that included eggs and rabbits (both ancient concepts of fertility and renewal of the cycles of life).

Historical Context

Beginning with the gospel of Mark (c. 70 CE), all the gospels relate the suffering and death of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet who proclaimed that the God of Israel would soon establish his rule on earth. Pesach in Hebrew, pascha in Greek, was one of the three mandatory pilgrimage festivals in ancient Judaism. Passover re-enacted the story of the Jews' slavery in Egypt when God delivered them from the oppression of Pharaoh (as related in Exodus 12). As the tenth and final plague on Egypt, God would send the angel of death among the Egyptians "to kill the first-born of Egypt." To protect the Hebrews, they were to slaughter a lamb and place its blood upon their doors. Exodus contained the command that the Hebrews were to re-enact and celebrate this event each year. The lamb was to be slaughtered on the 14th day of the month of Nisan and eaten on the 15th. Jews followed a lunar calendar, so it did not always fall on the same day every year.

It was during this festival that Jesus was executed by Rome. After his death, his body was placed in a nearby tomb. His women followers went to the tomb on Sunday morning, only to find his body gone. His followers proclaimed that he had been raised from the dead by God. This central event of resurrection was celebrated as the most important event in the life of Jesus. Christmas was not celebrated until after the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine I in 312 CE.

The followers of Jesus took his message to the towns and cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, where Gentiles (non-Jews) soon outnumbered the Jewish followers. For Gentiles, the story of a dying and rising god would have sounded quite familiar. There were native cults known as “mystery cults” that required secret initiation rituals. The major ones were centered on gods and goddesses, such as Demeter and Dionysos, who had suffered death but then were resurrected to life again.

Continue reading...

[jewish-culture-is]

Jewish culture is using your “days until” app to count down to your favorite holidays (only 73 days until Pesach as I write this lol)

73 days until pesach !!!! (february 9th)

[to-know-how-it-ends]

Hey everybody. I haven't posted on tumblr for quite some time. I have reasons, among them being Passover and the antisemitism that seems to have grown tenfold since I came back.

Nevertheless. Many of you may not know this, but in addition to being a humongous musical fan, I really love to write plays. Currently, I am in the process of developing a play-in-a-play centered around the Purim story.

Unfortunately, I really only have mine, my family's, and my own perception of the Purim story and holiday to base my play off of, which limits my story, my characters, and the inclusiveness of this play. So I wanted to ask my fellow tumblr Jews of all backgrounds (I am looking for everything under the sun, Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, etc., so I would really love a lot of perspectives)

what does the Purim story mean to you?

What are the themes you find most important?

The characters?

Are there any variations that you know of from other tellings of the story?

And for Purim, the holiday, how do you celebrate it?

I also want to open this up to any non-Jewish tumblr people -- what do you know about Purim? What is your perception of it from an outsiders perspective?

Thanks so much and hope everybody had a Pesach Sameach!

[fdelopera]

Helloo, just curious about something

What's the difference between Rosh Hashanah and New year? I'm gonna use it for writing purposes \^0^/

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. There's no difference. Rosh Hashanah takes place on the first two days of the month of Tishrei. It is the start of the Jewish High Holidays, and it begins the Ten Days of Repentance that conclude with Yom Kippur.

The first month in the Jewish calendar is Nisan (Pesach falls on the 15th and 16th day of Nisan in diaspora). But that is not the same as the Jewish New Year. The Jewish year is counted from the first day of Tishrei (first day of Rosh Hashanah). So, year 5784 (this year), began on 1st Tishrei (which in 2023, fell on September 16th).

A word of caution: Please give Jewish holidays, Jewish history, and Jewish traditions the respect and care that they deserve by researching these topics thoroughly.

MyJewishLearning.com is a decent introductory resource.

The nature of your question (not knowing whether Rosh Hashanah and the New Year are the same thing in Judaism) tells me that you need to do a lot more research before you write.

Also, I am a very tired Jewish person who has just experienced a month of intense and and extremely vile Jew-hatred and harassment, and I know that this sharp rise in antisemitism is going to get worse. I will not have the spoons to serve as an advisor on this project. I hope that you will understand.

[atthebell-moved]

Rejoice a new ash atthebell fic (and it's for passover!!!)

my fic for @mcyt-passover-event!!

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dream SMP Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Tubbo & TommyInnit Characters: Wilbur Soot, TommyInnit, Tubbo, Ranboo Additional Tags: Pesach | Passover, Letters, Epistolary, Letter-Writing, Post-c!Wilbur finale, Post-Dream SMP (kind of), Post-Canon, Jewish Holidays, Jewish Character Summary:

Letters between Wilbur and Tommy, about Passover and narrow places. For my MCYT Passover 2023 Event.

[chai-af]

pomegranates in judaism

pomegranates have deep significance within judaism. they are thought to have 613 seeds, similar to the 613 mitzvot (commandments) that observant jews adhere to. of course, there aren’t necessarily 613 seeds in every pomegranate let alone one, this is just and old-age theory that is shared for historical/nostalgic/religious reasons.

rosh hashanah

pomegranates are often the fruit of choice of a rosh hashanah*** tradition of eating a “new fruit.” a new fruit is a fruit someone hasn’t eaten in a long time. in sephardic*** tradition, it is customary to have a rosh hashanah seder***, in which a pomegranate is one of the foods incorporated into it.

jewish texts

pomegranates are also mentioned in jewish texts, as well as being listed as one of the “seven species”***:

a pomegranate was one of the things brought back by the spies who scouted the land of canaan*** (torah, numbers 13:1-15:41)

pomegranates decorate the robes of a high priest (torah, exodus 27:20-30:10)

a wife of a rabbi disguises herself as a sex worker and seduces him, demanding a freshly picked pomegranate as a form of payment (talmud, kiddushin 81b)

many judaica*** is adorned in pomegranates, such as torah scrolls, mezuzot***, kippot***, candle holders

coins

pomegranates are found on ancient judean coins. recently, a coin was discovered dated to the bar kokhba revolt*** in 132-136 CE.

hope you learned something new ♡

*** glossary

rosh hashanah: a jewish holiday celebrating a new year

sephardic: jewish diaspora population that has ancestors who have lived in the iberian peninsula

seder: jewish ritual service + ceremonial dinner, usually observed on pesach (passover) but also observed on rosh hashanah by sephardic jews

seven species: seven products that are listed in the torah as being special types of species; it includes wheat, barley, grape, figs, pomegranates, olive (oil), and date (date honey)

judaica: jewish literature, customs, culture (examples include mezuzot, kippot, menorah, candles used for jewish observances, etc.)

mezuzot (singular → mezuzah): a small decorative case that holds a parchment with religious writing; placed on the doorpost of jewish homes

kippot (singular → kippah): also known as a yarmulke or skullcap, it is circular in shape and traditional placed on the head of jewish men, but women and gender non-confirming folks wear them as well

bar kokhba revolt: large-scale armed rebellion/war led by jews against the romans rule of their land

sources

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/9-jewish-things-about-pomegranates/

read about the judean shekel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/ancient-shekel-sells-for-1-1-million/

[radiofreederry]

Hey, could you answer something for me (if you're willing to of course)? because i'm hopelessly confused at this point and would love some clarification

so:

am i Jewish?

A) I'm not sure if my matrilineal grandma was Jewish, but my matrilineal grandpa was

B) I wasn't raised Jewish, but when i was around 12 and my sister was around 18 she became heavily involved in Israeli nationalism and among other things learned to write in Hebrew (which she unsuccessfully tried teaching me) and started flirting with some Israeli on facebook. All this eventually ended with her contacting a rabbi (getting denied 3 times), and us (me, her, my mother) converting. I don't remember any of the conversion process but due to the next part i know it must have happened somewhere, maybe i was just too young to be involved

C) For the first few years we occasionally went to a local synagogue and celebrated several holidays (primarily Pesach and Chanukah, happy Chanukah btw), but this dried up over the coming years and by now we don't do anything

D) Despite being around that age I never had a bar/bat mitzvah

E) My mom and my sister still call themselves Jewish, my mom wears a star of david around her neck and we still have a Menorah in the living room

F) The only remaining evidence of us ever celebrating anything is a bag of old gelt in the cupboard that i'm fairly sure have gone bad by now

G) I don't consider myself religious

I am not a rabbi

[gay-jewish-bucky]

Sam is Bucky's annual Chametz goy*, who he sells his and Steve's leavened foods to each Passover

Much to Bucky's dismay, Sam does, in fact, eat most of the Chametz he is tasked with keeping, instead of selling it back to them after Pesach like Bucky asks him to (with increasing desperation each year)

*Steve "Shabbos goy" Rogers-Barnes can't be Bucky's Chametz goy since they live together and share a bank account

[mrsdenasaan]

[bizarrebazaar13]

yesterday’s discussion is still knocking around in my brain… it’s weird how fbg can be so good at casually queer characters but still drop the ball so spectacularly on cultural representation.

maybe it’s easier to slip in a they/them or her wife or what have you, than to mention a character having to clean their house for pesach (Jewish holiday) or making sundubu jjigae (a Korean stew) or to not be so fucking weird about the past cities (especially the third city). but like… you can just google Jewish holidays and get lots of results for associated traditions. a few wikipedia clicks tell you what you need to make sundubu and when it originated. there’s lots of stuff out there about tropes to avoid when writing about Mesoamerican culture. this is just what I could come up with off the top of my head.

it just feels lazy tbh. there’s room for squid people in your game but so many real people get left out or misrepresented? hhhhhh.

[frosticenow]

Following the last chapter also very angsty!! Sorry it's late I was traveling but I will be posting two more chapters in the upcoming weeks before posting more of a Diamond in the Garden!

As always my wonder friend and beta reader @rosasynstylae did the betaing for this fic and you should also check out her fics she does some amazing writing!! (Note I did not send it to her yet because organization what organization but still check her stuff out it's amazing and I will probably get her to read it and update the chapter)

Rating: M

Relationships: Fíli/Original Female Character

Tags: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fix-It, Pre-Canon, Strangers to Lovers, Tolkien boy in the Modern World, Modern Girl in Middle Earth, Cultural Differences, Dwarven Ones | Soulmates, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarf Courting, Hair Braiding, Blue Mountains | Ered Luin, Jewish Character, Pesach | Passover, Jewish Holidays, Canada, Past Sexual Assault, Meddling Valar, Dwarf/Human Relationship(s), Dwarven beauty standards, Angst, Pre-Quest of Erebor, Slow Burn, Gratuitous use of Khudzul

Summary: Fíli son of Víli and Dís, brother to Kíli and sister-son and heir to Thorin Oakenshield has gone missing without a trace. While his family in the Blue Mountains mourn him, the young prince finds himself in a world different from the one he has always known

[jerusalemstraycat]

Why does Tisha B'av, of all days on the Jewish calendar, make me want to write essays on the internet? I think that it's because it is a time of having lots of difficult feelings with nowhere for them to go. It is a time of isolation - one is discouraged from unnecessary socialization, or even greeting others. It is a time of sitting on the floor and reading poetry about historical tragedies, and not much else. There aren't as many rituals and traditions around Tisha B'av as other holidays such as Pesach or Sukkot, no festive meals or get-togethers with family and friends.

So I turn to social media. I scroll through Jewish tags and see what other Jews are thinking and talking about on this day. Some of the most meaningful and inspiring words I've ever read were from rambly posts that people have made on Tisha B'av. Possibly they felt the same way I do, shouting into the void as the only way to get some kind of emotional release.