#To all the converts out there: You are no less of a Jew

[the-lesser-light]

Letter to Ovadiah the Convert by Maimonides

Thus says Moses, the son of Rabbi Maimon, one of the exiles from Jerusalem, who lived in Spain: I received the question of the master Ovadiah, the wise and learned convert, may God reward him for his work, may a perfect reward be bestowed upon him by the God of Israel, under whose wings he has sought cover.

You ask me if you, too, are allowed to say in the blessings and prayers you offer alone or in the congregation: “Our God” and “God of our Fathers,”

“You who have sanctified us through Your command- ments,” “You who have separated us,” “You who have chosen us,” “You who have inherited us,” “You who have brought us out of the land of Egypt,” and more of this kind.

Yes, you may say all this in the prescribed order and not change it in the least. In the same way as every Jew by birth says his blessing and prayer, you, too, shall bless and pray alike, whether you are alone or pray in the congregation.

The reason for this is that Abraham our Father taught the people, opened their minds, and revealed to them the true faith and the unity of God; he rejected the idols and abolished their adoration; he brought many children under the wings of the Divine Presence; he gave them counsel and advice, and ordered his sons and the members of his household after him to keep the ways of God forever, as it is written,

“For I have known him to the end that he may com- mand his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of God, to do righteousness and justice” (Genesis 18:19).

Ever since then, whoever adopts Judaism and confess- es the unity of the Divine Name, as it is prescribed in the Torah, is counted among the disciples of Abraham our Father, peace be with him. Therefore, you shall pray, “Our God” and “God of our Fathers,” because Abraham, peace be with him, is your father.

And you shall pray, “You who have taken our fathers for Your own” for the land has been given to Abraham, as it is said, “Walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give to you” (Genesis 13:17).

There is no difference whatsoever between you and us. You shall certainly say the blessing, “Who has chosen us,” “Who has given us,” “Who have taken us for Your own,” and “Who has separated us,” for the Creator, may God be extolled, has indeed chosen you and separated you from the nations and given you the Torah.

For the Torah has been given to us and to the converts, as it is said, “One ordinance shall be both for you of the con- gregation and also for the stranger that sojourns with you, an ordinance forever in your generations; as you are, so shall the stranger be before Adonai” (Numbers 15:15).

Know that our fathers, when they came out of Egypt, were mostly idolaters; they had mingled with the pagans in Egypt and imitated their way of life, until the Holy One, may He be blessed, sent Moses our Teacher, the master of all prophets, who separated us from the nations and brought us under the wings of the Divine Presence, us and all converts, and gave to all of us one Law.

Do not consider your origin as inferior. While we are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you derive from the One through whose word the world was created. As is said by Isaiah: “One shall say I am Adonai's and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob” (Isaiah 44:5). -Translation from A Maimonides Reader, edited by Isadore Twersky (1972).

[maykitz]

the "you can't identify into oppression" sound bite might be one of the biggest headscratchers out there because for one thing yes you can, and for another you oftentimes don't even need to do any identifying. for someone who converts to judaism for their spouse it doesn't exactly matter whether they personally actually identify as 'a jew' if their synagogue gets a bomb threat to terrorise them. Balbir Singh Sodhi was a victim of an anti-arab and anti-muslim hate crime regardless of the fact that he was neither arab nor muslim but an indian sikh. if a country criminalises same-sex relations a straight male prostitute accepting male clients because there's more money in it will be no less at a severe risk for lacking internal homosexual orientation. all that which is generally subsumed under "oppression" absolutely does not 1:1 correspond to whether or not its targets internally match a specific criterion and to insist otherwise is strikingly stupid. whether a demographic can be considered "oppressed" is if anything to be determined by observing their situation in reality, not by making spiritual arguments along the lines of "they have X-intrinsic essence, therefore Y-effect must inherently be drawn to them; or they don't have X-internal quality, therefore i have logically determined Y-effect can't possibly follow."

[maidservant-hecubus]

My father is an Ashkenazi Jew. His parents were first generation Americans. Their parents escaped the pogroms in Russia and Ukraine and came to find their American dream. They fought in wars and opened businesses and assimilated and my generation barely has a few words of Yiddish between us. My mother is as much of a WASP as it gets. American Revolutionaries and Signers and some household name civil war feature players. Not old money, but old America and undoubtedly white. I'm patrilineal. Not a Jew to a lot of Jews. Not a Jew to a lot of my Jewish family. Even though i was raised Jewish. Even though I look like my father. Even though i got enough of something in my DNA to get asked "What are you?" more often than not. More often than I'm just accepted at face value as "white". When i was little we lived in an Irish Catholic neighborhood. Like the 5-10 kids in every family sort of Irish catholic neighborhood. The kids calling me a christ killer and refusing to play with me because they heard it from their parents sort of irish catholic neighborhood. For some reason my parents tried to send me to the catholic school down the street. I lasted less than a week because i didn't understand their rituals and their language and they found out my father was a Jew and they couldn't have a christ killer in their midst. I was just sad i didn't get to wear the cute plaid skirt anymore. So i went to the public school and my well meaning shiksa mother who never converted but learned the Chanukah prayers and helped cook Seder dinners came to the school to teach the class about Chanukah. She taught them songs and all the kids got dreidels and had so much fun spinning the top for chocolate coins. It was nice to feel normal. A few weeks later a boy in a higher grade attacked me on the way to the bus and smashed my art project (we had made pig noses from solo cups to celebrate reading charlotte's web) into my face and called me a filthy jew. I didn't understand, i was more upset to lose the project i was so proud of. Other things happened. Things I wont talk about because putting them in context would doxx me. But a million reminders that i wasn't one of them. I wasn't welcome because i was Jewish. My parents divorced. My mother left. Far away so I'd only see her a handful of times growing up. And I went to live with my Dad in a city that seemed like it was overflowing with Jews. Everyone knew my holidays! In public school the teachers looked like my family and had familiar sounding names. We had the high holy days off just like christmas or easter. We sang Chanukah songs in the winter recital and nobody's mom had to come teach them to the class. Finally I belonged! My friends and cousins started planning for their b mitzvah celebrations and i asked for my own. I asked to go to hebrew school so i could be more like the people i belonged with and celebrate the things i loved about myself and them. "But you're not jewish." My father would say. This was news to me. The christ killer. The filthy jew. But a 10 year old has little power over their lives. So i didn't go. I didn't have a bat mitzva while my cousins had theirs. It was okay because i still belonged more than i ever had. But i was still jewish enough to keep the holidays and pray and fast and get sent with a box of matzo to my WASP grandmothers for easter, and have matzo packed in my lunch to eat in AP algebra in 7th grade and get asked if I'm a "Yid" by the teacher. And still to this day not know if it was endearment or insult but by then I knew even in this magical city being a Jew wasn't always safe. in highschool I tried to take hebrew lessons with a friend in a similar situation as me. She was also hungry to reconnect. I don't remember why the classes or the friendship fell through, but they did. My next "friend", a goy raised catholic from another neighborhood, liked to accuse me of being money driven when i picked up a penny on the sidewalk or tried to ask who was going to pay for the zine's she wanted to publish.

 "What are you?" I'd get asked a lot on the street by curious strangers, "Where are you from?" "Are you Italian?" Always Italian. I never really understood that, but its become code in my head for "You look like you're white but something about you is very not white and I just can't place it, so Italian seems safe and polite." I'm not here to unpack the Italian part of all that. I don't even know what I'm unpacking for myself by writing this except I've been sick for days and I'm so tired and this is all that my foggy brain can wrap itself around. Later I'm an adult and on my own and getting bloodwork done. The Nurse is a black woman and so sweet to me. She can tell I'm nervous about the needles because I've already stumbled through my apologies for my herd to find veins. So she distracts me with small talk. Where do i live? I tell her. She looks worried for me. Tells me that it used to be a nice neighborhood before white people took it over and she warns me like she's my own mother to be careful because they aren't safe. I doublecheck the skin she's putting a needle into. Whatever she sees isn't white. I love her for it. For a moment I belong there with her. She doesn't ask what I am or where i'm from, but she knows what i'm not. I'm the only one keeping the holidays with my family. We celebrate Passover because I go home to my fathers and cook the dinner and print out the Haggadah and lead the Seder to the tune of my drunk catholic stepmother eating my food and telling me i'll never be a jew. She's more of a jew than I'll ever be because she grew up in a jewish neighborhood and her friends were all jews and she married a jew and i was just playing pretend. I stopped going home for holidays and they stopped observing anything except Christmas. I marry a goy. "Is he a jew?" is the first thing my father asks and he's disappointed when i say no. He's abusive, i run. I end up living in the attic of this older old money WASP couple who need a live in house sitter. They're pillars of their church and they know someone from the WASP side of my family very well and its a funny coincidence and they think i belong there. I know from their divest from Israel bumper stickers that i don't. Then they find out I consider myself Jewish and i see the light in their eyes die and its replaced by something hard and disappointed. Now, while writing this, i can laugh about being the jew in someone's attic. But then, it was only a few months after that they started coming up with excuses for why I needed to move out. I did, their excuses never manifested into reality. I got married again. A jew this time! a Jewish medical professional liek grandma always wanted. She's a convert and her ex was a rabbinical student. I think maybe i'm home finally. She has to understand. I'm not Jewish enough for her. We don't keep holidays at home because i'm not a jew. I cry every year when pesach comes and goes and i haven't recited the plagues or eaten matzo piled high with horseradish. She insists on putting up a christmas tree. She turns abusive. I run.

I'm alone now and no longer in that magic jewish city. I'm far away and surrounded by mega churches and cows and the bagels suck and people quote the bible at me like some call and response that i don't have the cheat code for and I don't belong here at all but i'm finally finally free to light my menorah and recite the plagues and study torah with the group i found here on tumblr who love and accept me even though i'm patrilineal. Oct. 7th happened a few weeks after I moved here. I worry about my family back home and i think no one will look for Jews here among the cows and mega churches, so I can be a safe place for them to run if things get bad again. But i still don't fit in here. I don't look right. The last name I have now is common here and too white for whatever people see when they look in my face. I get interrogated about it a lot. But i learned quickly how to smile and say "have a blessed day". I hide my menorah when maintenance comes to work on my apartment. I flew home last month. Just for a visit. I've never been away from home this far or this long. And I'm the type that covers nerves and anxiety with chattiness, so at the airport i made a for-now-friend while we both waited for the plane to board. She's Puerto Rican. We talk about our lives. Our families. Her twin sister and i go by the same nickname and so we're family now. We talk about food. So much food and how much we love cooking and how important food was at home. "Are you Italian?" she asks as we're stepping through the hatch into the plane. Why always Italian? I wonder for the millionth time in my life. And I freeze up for a moment between fighting my carry-on over the gap and terror that I'm about to see the light go out behind her eyes and i'll lose this for-now friend. "No," i laugh but its not a real laugh and i see the concern in her face as we squeeze through the aisle because she can hear the apprehension in my voice, "I'm Jewish." And something strange happened because her face lit up and she smiled and said "No way?! You guys have GREAT food!"

[jewish-vents]

I'm so tired of goyim assuming I'm a goy because I'm black and assuming they can talk shit about Jewish people in front of me or with me. My ancestors converted because in New Orleans, in the old days, the only people who didn't treat them like shit were Jewish people. Nobody else paid them fairly or talked to them with basic respect. And because they were respected, their minds were open and they realized the beauty of Judaism. They found a spiritual home and converted. I feel like I continually go through the reverse realization, where I see the ugliness of the world en masse. Goyim will stand there and go, "well, there are some people who are Jewish and racist" as if that'll make me leave Judaism when they're blanketly, uniformly ethnocentrist and hateful themselves. The worst any racist Jew has done is ignore me. Hateful goyim want to straight-up murder me. They want to murder all of us. The fact that I have a little bit of visual camouflage is just making me more aware of it, not less.

The way people act when they think you're one of them and not one of (((those people))) is incredibly telling. I don't think anything has made me want to be more observant as much as seeing how goyim in the South are acting right now. The right is trying to "save" all of us by converting us to Christianity, the left wants to murder us, and the centrists are smugly parroting their same old lines about how if we were all secular (culturally Christian) atheists (who didn't observe any Jewish holidays or practices) then the world would know peace.

No. All of those ideas are wrong. And I am not here to shit talk my own community with you, even if it'd be safer to do so. I would rather be unsafe with people who care about me than safe with people who want me to either radically alter huge parts of myself or outright die. I don't want to hang with people who have looked at Hamas' atrocities and said "it's fine, it's resistance". I don't want to hang with people who think they have to "save" me.

People get mad because I won't talk to them or I leave the room but honestly it's taking all my self-control not to yell at them when they start saying hideous, unfounded garbage about Jewish people. Trust me, you want me to walk away. You don't want to know the things I might say otherwise.

I know Hashem said not to fire back at people talking shit but it's hard. It's so hard. I don't want to become a hateful person. I don't want to lash out at other people. But month after month of this is wearing me down. I just want people to go back to pretending to respect us. Just go back to talking shit in private and not to my face. Please, goyim, that's all I'm asking.

.

[hero-israel]

#4 sounds like white people at the end of slavery… “we didn’t want to end it because what if there’s retaliation? There have already been slave riots. Imagine what would happen if we gave them freedom or if we became the minority?” It’s not speculative it actually happened the fears had basis. That’s what number four sounds like. It also feels like you only care about one view point like you expect me to believe y’all are perfect victims that did one thing in retaliation?

#4 sounds like that to you because you are an American who thinks the whole world is America and all history must be the same as yours. So you should start by asking yourself what it is in your cultural upbringing, and what in the media you consume, that has you automatically believing the worst possible claims against Jews, to the point of seeing it as understandable for us to be mass murdered.

Jews did not - and do not - want to live in an Arab or Muslim majority society not because of any issues related to "slave uprisings" you are teleporting into this discussion, but rather because Jews had already been brutally oppressed, persecuted, and genocided by Arabs and Muslims for 1,000+ years before Israel or political Zionism were ever invented. Mohammed himself got his hands dirty with this, wiping out the Jews of Yathrib and renaming the gore-drenched rubble into something called "Medina." No less a source than Maimonides wrote in 1172 "God has entangled us with this people, the nation of Ishmael, who treat us so prejudicially and who legislate our harm and hatred…. No nation has ever arisen more harmful than they, nor has anyone done more to humiliate us, degrade us, and consolidate hatred against us... We bear the inhumane burden of their humiliation, lies and absurdities, being as the prophet said, ‘like a deaf man who does not hear or a dumb man who does not open his mouth’.... Our sages disciplined us to bear Ishmael’s lies and absurdities, listening in silence, and we have trained ourselves, old and young, to endure their humiliation, as Isaiah said, ‘I have given my back to the smiters, and my cheek to the beard pullers.’”

Because there is a long history of this, there is much you can read about it, if you care.

Some very random examples:

The "badge of shame" was invented in medieval Baghdad, only later migrating to Europe

Life for Jews in Yemen: The Jews of Yemen were treated as pariah, third-class citizens who needed to be perennially reminded of their submission to the ruling faith…The Jews were considered to be impure, and therefore forbidden to touch a Muslim or a Muslim’s food. They were obliged to humble themselves before a Muslim, to walk on his left side, and to greet him first. They were forbidden to raise their voices in front of a Muslim. They could not build their houses higher than the Muslims’ or ride a camel or horse, and when riding on a mule or donkey, they had to sit sideways. Upon entering a Muslim quarter, a Jew had to take off his footgear and walk barefoot. No Jewish man was permitted to wear a turban or carry the Jambiyyah (dagger), which was worn universally by the free tribesmen of Yemen. If attacked with stones or fist by Islamic youth, a Jew was not allowed to defend himself. Further, the Jews were forced to wear sidelocks or peots. The wearing of such long and dangling peots “was originally a source of great shame for the Yemenites. It was decreed by the imams to distinguish the Jews from the Muslims”. More degrading and insulting decrees to the Jews were the Atarot (Headgear) and Latrine Decrees. The former was a seventeenth-century decree forbidding the Jews to wear a headcovering or turbans. The Latrine Decree was a nineteenth-century edict in which the Jews were forced to clean out public toilets and remove animal dung and carcasses from the streets. Another discriminatory edict was the Orphan Decree which gave the Zaydis the right to convert to Islam any child under the age of thirteen whose father is dead. Further, evidence by a Jew against a Muslim was invalid and a “Jew was forbidden to pass a Muslim to his right, and whoever did so, even unwittingly, could be beaten without trial; the Jews were forbidden to make their purchases before the Muslims had completed theirs; a Jew entering the house of an Arab or the office of an official was only allowed to sit down in the place where the shoes were removed” . Tudor Parfitt summarizes some of these laws in the following: [the Jews] were required not to insult Islam, never strike a Muslim, or to impede him in his path. They were not to assist each other in any activity against a Muslim…They were not to build new places of worship or repair existing one…They were not to pray too noisily or hold public religious processions. They were not to wink. They were not to proselytize. They were not to bear arms. They were required to dress in a distinctive fashion in order not to be mistaken for a member of the Muslim occupying forces. In other words dhimmis had all the times to behave themselves in an unostentatious and unthreatening manner, one appropriate to a defeated and humbled subject people. They were to avoid the slightest show of triumphalism and they were forbidden any activity that could lead to proselytization. Yemenite Jews were “excluded as it almost always…from affairs of state, and from the great institutions of the country”

1941 Farhud pogrom (Iraq)

1929 Hebron Massacre ("They cut off hands, they cut off fingers, they held heads over a stove, they gouged out eyes. A rabbi stood immobile, commending the souls of his Jews to God – they scalped him. They made off with his brains. On Mrs. Sokolov’s lap, one after the other, they sat six students from the yeshiva and, with her still alive, slit their throats. They mutilated the men. They shoved thirteen-year-old girls, mothers, and grandmothers into the blood and raped them in unison....")

1921 Jaffa Riots

1920 Nebi Musa Riots

1910 Shiraz Blood Libel (Iran) ("In the middle of the 19th century, J. J. Benjamin wrote about the life of Persian Jews: "…they are obliged to live in a separate part of town…; for they are considered as unclean creatures… Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt… For the same reason, they are prohibited to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans… If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him… unmercifully… If a Jew enters a shop for anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods… Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them... Sometimes the Iranians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever please them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life... If... a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (the start of Muharram)…, he is sure to be murdered")

1840 Damascus Blood Libel (Syria)

1839 Allahdad Pogrom (Iran)

1834 Hebron Massacre

1834 Looting of Safed

1700 Jerusalem oppression / apartheid: ("Muslims are very hostile to Jews and inflict upon them vexations in the streets of the city… the common folk persecute the Jews, for we are forbidden to defend ourselves against the Turks or the Arabs. If an Arab strikes a Jew, he (the Jew) must appease him but dare not rebuke him, for fear that he may be struck even harder, which they (the Arabs) do without the slightest scruple...")

1679 Mawza Exile (Yemen)

1660 Destruction of Safed

1500s Iran: ("After the ascension of Shah ‘Abbas II the Jews of Isfahan faced a lot of persecution. Most communities were forced to convert to Islam. Furthermore those who refused to convert would have most of their inheritance taken away as the inheritance laws at the time allowed for those who converted to Shia Islam to inherit the property of non-Muslim family members. Some communities did not convert and were thus forced to wear a special badge to show that they were Jewish. The maltreatment of the Jews weakened their community ties and influence throughout the region. By 1889 there were only around four hundred Jewish families left in Isfahan and most very poor.... by the middle 20th century 80% of the Jews of Isfahan lived on the verge of poverty.")

There's so much more I really don't know where to start or where to end. Afghanistan revoked all Jewish citizenship in 1933. Turkey banned all Jewish names and held massive antisemitic pogroms in 1934. Iraq banned Hebrew schools and Hebrew names in 1936, pogroms throughout Libya 1945, Syria fired all Jewish government employees 1946. Tripoli pogrom 1785. Algiers 1805. Cairo 1844. Istanbul 1870. Safed 1517 and 1799. Jerusalem 1665 and 1720. Granada Massacre 1066. Fez Massacre 1033. How many Wiki links do you want, how many textbooks?

This is an old, old conflict, and the Americanized "colonizer / slave plantation" frame is off-topic.

[nonsensical-raw-material]

Only goyim seem to try to invalidate my Jewishness.

And it's like they think they're doing me a favor. Like "sure you say you're one of THEM but don't worry we can tell"

I live in a semi-rural part of the south. With my synagogue being well into an hour away and having to cross state lines. There is not a Jewish community in the town I live. Wearing my Magen David I've heard people whispering wondering what an Israli is doing in rural America rather than guess Jewish people exist.

It's not hard to tell I'm a convert from the way I talk. My life is very interfaith because so are the people in it. My kind of adoptive family gifted me a gorgeous mezuzah necklace. And when I don't work Sundays sometimes I'll go to church with them to hear my bonus father figure preach. I still participate in my own family's christmas celebrations because to us it's always been secular. I may have a few more reservations about singing songs that speak of Jesus as divine. In the same direction one of best friends who is Christian and who's father preaches when I can't get to synagogue always makes sure I have someone to share the Purim story with. The same friend celebrated Chanukah with me and learned how to make Latkes.

And with all the issues that come with "looking Jewish" despite the fact there is no real way to look Jewish. My name isn't Jewish enough for goyim. Why is my hair blonde? Why isn't my nose bigger? Why are my eyes light? Why don't I fit the antisemitic character in their head? How can I be ethnically German and Jewish at the same time? Man oh man I must really be confused and hate myself.

"OH so you're just Jew....ISH"

Then when I explain how within our community we don't differentiate the convert. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew is a JEW. I explain the story of all our souls accepting Torah at Sinai. How I love my community and for once in my life I felt at home somewhere. And I get looked at like I'm crazy.

Maybe I'm lucky but I have yet to experience any type of differentiation within my community. I've been taken in lovingly and met with open arms. But it's always so crazy to me how I've never had my fellow Jew try to take away my Jewishness. If anything they constantly reaffirm it. I've never been mocked or ridiculed or less valued.

Goyim on the other hand will ask me questions on Torah. Especially Christians on the topic of mitzvot. Acting with superiority "Oh why would you follow that stupid law? We don't, don't you feel stupid choosing to miss out?" Its like an 'gotcha' moment but only for them.

I just wonder if you claim to love G-d why do you see tasks for them as hardship? I suppose it's a cultural difference. We see our laws as blessings and other see them as obligations. I don't live in a society where the religion and culture I've been adopted into is the default. There is an active decision made in being Jewish every single day of my life. But for them they get to be the default. No question goes into what they practice because that's just 'what you do'

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

So you want to write about a Jewish Ed Teach - a quick guide to writing a Jewish man of color, by a Jewish moc

Given Taika Waititi is Jewish, I am always so happy when I see fanfic authors writing about Ed being Jewish! We need more Jewish poc rep and I'm always happy to see it. That being said, I've also seen a lot of misunderstandings, so I wanted to to write up a few quick guidelines.

Disclaimer: I'm just one Jew with an opinion, and this is based on my own experiences! I'd love if other Jews, especially other Jews of color, in the fandom would like to chime in with their thoughts as well!

It is possible to be a Jewish athiest! Judaism is membership in a people, and belief in g-d is not required (and, in my community, it's even considered a very personal question!). Some of the most observant Jews I know are athiests; belief in g-d and level of Jewish observance are not directly correlated. Cannot overstate how common it is for Jews to not believe in g-d or go back and forth on the question.

On that note, there are different levels of Jewish observance. Every individual is different, but in general there's Orthodox (very strict), and then, way on the other side, there's Reform and Conservative (Conservative does not equal politically Conservative). Conservative and Reform are very similar, except the Conservative movement tends to be more observant of traditional Jewish law and uses a lot more Hebrew. If you live in an area without a lot of Jews (like where I live!), it's very common for Reform and Conservative movements to have a lot of overlap and collaborate on a lot of stuff together.

Not every Jew keeps Kosher, or keeps Kosher to the same level of strictness.

Synagogue services are not like Christian services, especially outside of holiday services. Ordinary Saturday morning services are often more like a group conversation as we try to work new meaning out of the Torah. The B'Nei Mitzvah, the big ceremony that marks a kid being old enough to participate fully in Jewish life, is more like "baby's first thesis defense" than anything else! There have literally been pauses in services I've attended before as someone ran to the temple library to check their sources.

Not all Jews speak Hebrew. Some Jews might not know any, some might be able to stumble through the more important prayers, some might be able to sight-read okay, some might only know religious words but not modern words, some might be fluent! Just about any level of proficiency is believable.

Ed's got a lot of tattoos! Tattoos are a big traditional Jewish no-no, but (again!) different movements and different Jews have their own opinions. I know a Conservative tattoo artist! It's not something that other Jews would comment on (unless they're just assholes) and it wouldn't make anyone kick him out of synagogue services (no joke, I read that in a fic once).

Hannukah is not the only (or even the most important) Jewish holiday; it's just the one most non-Jews know about. The two biggest holidays are Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. I think Ed's favorite holidays would be Purim (you get to wear costumes and put on plays!) and Passover (retelling of a story along with a big meal!).

Depending on the area and the Jewish demographic, Jews of color can sometimes feel uncomfortable in our own community, especially when other Jews automatically assume we must be converts. While this is a real issue, it is not something I want to read authors who aren't themselves Jews of color write about because it is a deeply inter-Jewish issue.

Depending on the community you grow up in, religious trauma isn't as common with queer Jews as it is with queer Christians. The Reform movement has been advocating for queer Jews since the 1960s (you read that right, yes). I'm not saying there are no queer Jews who have religious trauma, I'm just saing it's a lot less common, and I have always felt immediately accepted as queer in Jewish spaces.

The inverse is not true. Queer spaces are not always accepting of Jews (or of people of color, a double whammy!).

A few stereotypes to avoid: Jews are often stereotyped as being greedy and corrupt. Jewish kids are bullied by Christian kids because "we killed Jesus," when I was ten I had another kid ask to "see my horns." Always avoid comparing Ed directly to animals, especially rodents.

If you're a non-Jew looking to write about a Jewish Ed, I recommend doing some research. MyJewishLearning is a great website that's very accessible.

Every Jew interacts with our Judaism differently, so if you're writing a Jewish Ed, please take a moment to think about what it means for him! Membership in a community? Calming traditions that remind him of home, family, and community? A point of pride - we're a resilient lot! Even just a note in his background that he's not as connected to as he might like to be?

[a-very-tired-jew]

Hey there! I'm curious about Judaism. I've been doing some research but as you can probably imagine especially these days i've been getting a LOT of mixed messages. Much like anyone I know general background information but I wanted to dig deeper and see exactly what the process of conversion is? As well as other offhand questions which are best asked to someone who lives that life. Like how does the Jewish community largely interact with LGBT+ folk? Thank you and i'm sorry if i'm asking a lot from you!

It's totally okay to ask all this. Unfortunately I am not the best one to ask about the conversion process. I am a secular Jew who was born and raised in it. I was molded by it. I didn't see a Christmas tree till I was in the second graaaaade. *more incoherent Bane noises*

There are a number of converts and people current converting on here who can speak to their own experiences and what they did/currently are doing. When I speak on Jewish issues I tend to speak from the secular, cultural, and historical side of things that I have experienced and researched. Regarding the LGBT+ question, the area where I grew up in the USA is one of the largest interstate Jewish communities. As such, the politics within are reflective of the politics outside of it. Meaning, we've got people who are absolutely homophobic and transphobic, and we've got people who are supportive and make sure we're accepted. I personally grew up in the Reconstructionist movement which was/is extremely left and very accepting. The greater Reform community that we existed in was accepting as well. From my understanding acceptance was really relegated to your local community and the views contained within. I know plenty of Conservative Jews who are LGTB+ and accepted by their community, but I also know ones that left the synagogue they were part of when they came out and switched to a more accepting one. Again, it's all about finding what feels right to you and provides in the manner you need. I know less about the Orthodox cultural acceptance, but that is simply due to me not interacting with members as much. Maybe someone else can weigh in. However, you must remember that when you put two Jews in a room, you will get three opinions. Meaning someone else could completely disagree with all of this, then we discuss, and come to a completely different conclusion. It's just how it works.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I’m going to send emails out soon to finally try to find a willing rabbi to guide me in the conversion process. I’ve said I wanted to convert in December but was thinking about it even before then (that’s just when I told people). But I’m worried about not being Jewish enough. Like I want to convert ‘orthodox’ Sephardic, which ik is kind of redundant bc most sephardic ppl just say sephardic and aren’t rlly divided into orthodox, conservative, reform either due to historical reason, but like what if I turn out being not so orthodox after? Like I love the idea of being observant, but I know that I’m not someone to wear modest dress 24/7 (rn I only wear shorts like a handful of times of year but I’ll also wear leggings, and tights pants or v neck shirts that show cleavage). And I’m not a virgin and don’t really want to be celibate. Idk I just feel like if I go through the process of converting and being observant, I will be expectant to be fully observant and idk if that’s an expectation I can’t hold. Are there any other ppl that converted only to become ‘less’ observant after? And idk observance is a personal things, but many ppl will still look at you as less observant if you don’t follow every interpretation they do

I want to preface this by saying I hope you are able to find a rabbi who you feel safe to discuss this with. Oftentimes, you'll find that they themselves can empathize with you, even if they themselves are born jews. Jewish identity for all is complex. I also hope that, in answering this further, you might find comfort and know that you are worthy of converting.

I am in a mixed Ashki and Sephardi conservative shul, and my sponsoring rabbi is himself not conservative (I'm in a unique position). When he and when other rabbis ask about observance goals, I have noticed it is so they can anticipate how they can best help you. I myself want to be a 'typical' conservative jewish man, so I find some level of empathy with you! It's hard! And you're in what can feel like a raw and vulnerable space, one where judaism feels just out of reach, something you want or need. Trust me when I say I absolutely get it.

I felt the exact same as you before I joined my shul and later again when I found my rabbi. I worried about the fact that I didn't know how to daven, when to bow, the fact that the siddur is transliterated differently than what we say. It was overwhelming! But then... my community privileged me and truly put such an astounding effort in supporting my journey. It is by no means over, but they treat me the same as any other jew in the congregation. I'd feel weird if I pulled by phone out during shabbos because they hold me in the same light as them. All of this is to say that it is just as likely that you will find a community with whom you feel embraces you through this entire wonderful journey. It is entirely possible to marry your goals with judaism - it has been done before. How could a culture, a religion, a people have survived millenniums without someone like you having made a similar journey and made it as a jew? There will always be people like you, like me, who have made this journey and made it work for them, with others who loved them as a comrade, lover, friend, and confidant.

And when it comes to a varying of practice once you are jewish? It is only natural if that happens. A conversion is not an ever-lasting contract to stay stagnant in your practice - it is, essentially, formalizing that you are part of this people. I have been following plenty of jews who have converted and who have both become more observant and less observant. In fact, a ruling about this which has truly comforted me is from Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, a Sephardi chief rabbi who made a ruling about this:

You are human, and there are 613 mitzvot. Hardly any of us consistently follow them all - especially when many require the temple! We can only expect you to do your best, to live jewishly under your terms and readiness! It takes some of us years to work up to certain observances, and that is regardless of jewish status. It would be unfair to expect you to take on more than you are ready for, regardless of if you have immersed yet or not. Heck, I only feel comfortable observing a select amount of mitzvot because I want to understand all of them before doing them. I want my soul to yearn for an aspect of observance, because my personal goal is to fall hopelessly and madly in love with jewish life, judaism, and this wonderful people. I want to emphasize that we all come at judaism with a unique, interesting, and worthy background. Yours is no exception.

I hope that, maybe, you got something out of this rambling. You are worth it to convert if you have decided this is your desire, want, or need. I for one welcome you here, and hope that our paths continue to cross. Please don't hesitate to talk anytime - judaism is a communal practice. It is not something you can wholly do alone.

[creature-wizard]

"If the Law of Assumption is fake, what about the success stories?"

This is a question gotten a few times, so I figured I'd do a post on it.

First of all, the methods used by LOA practitioners to change their beliefs about themselves would certainly have profound psychological benefits to many people who'd internalized false beliefs about their personal agency and value as people. There are a lot of great brain hacks here to break yourself out of learned helplessness and unwittingly sabotaging yourself and others through the Pygmalion Effect.

Here I would like to state: if these methods have helped you regain your personal agency, learn to love yourself, and develop healthy relationships with people, then by all means keep doing them. There's nothing wrong with using affirmations or using a little make-believe to make yourself believe.

Next, there's really know way of knowing for sure whether the LOA actually had anything to do with people's apparent successes. Like if somebody tries to manifest money and finds a hundred dollar bill on the ground within a week, it doesn't necessarily mean that the LOA was the cause of that. Sometimes people just find dropped money; it's not exactly statistically improbable.

Of course, it also doesn't mean that they didn't somehow metaphysically arrange for a hundred dollar bill to come their way. But even if they did, it wouldn't prove that Neville Goddard was right about literally everything, much less the extreme solipsism he pushes in pieces like The Pruning Shears of Revision.

We've also got to remember confirmation bias, where people are more likely to remember things that support their beliefs and dismiss whatever doesn't. Somebody might try to manifest a hundred things, get five of those things, and count the five as proof the LOA works, ignoring the ninety five that didn't. The reality is that the more things you try to manifest, the more likely it is that at least one of them will actually happen.

Also, there's the whole affirm and persist/living in the end deal, where people are supposed to just behave as if they have everything they want. When you see people posting about their successes, they might just very well be trying to act as if their desires have already manifested. They might not actually have it at all.

Finally, people just lie sometimes. Tumblr itself was host to the infamous hivliving, a blogger who lied about having HIV, among... many other things. If you ever want to learn just how ridiculously dedicated someone can be to keeping up a lie online, look into the story of MsScribe sometime. If you think nobody in the LOA community is lying, I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

In fact, Neville Goddard most probably lied about some pretty important shit. You've probably learned that he learned about the Law of Assumption from this Ethiopian rabbi named Abdullah, who supposedly got it from Kabbalah.

The thing is, if you've studied mysticism and the occult for any length of time, you pretty quickly realize that claiming to have been taught by a mysterious foreigner is pretty much just code for "I pulled it out of my ass."

It's also pretty obvious that the Law of Assumption has more in common with New Thought and Protestant beliefs about divine reward and punishment than it does with Kabbalah, which is a closed practice to non-Jews. (If you want to know about the history of Kabbalah, and get enough of an idea of what it's actually about so that you know why the Law of Assumption has nothing to do with it, I recommend Dr. Justin Sledge's lecture series over here.)

Additionally, Goddard's claim that the Kabbalah actually supports his obviously Christian form of mysticism isn't only just absurd, it echoes centuries of antisemitic Christians claiming that Kabbalah actually proves that Jesus is the messiah in order to try and convert Jews.

Goddard's use of the Bible, by the way, is appalling. If you've ever read the texts he quote, it's obvious that he's just ripping passages completely out of context to spin them into something that was definitely never intended by the writers. In other words, he's blatantly lying. (And by the way, if you ever want to learn about the real history of early Christianity, I recommend the work of Dr. Bart D. Ehrman. He's also got a YouTube channel over here.)

Now tell me this: if Neville Goddard so blatantly and so brazenly lied about the source of his ideas, why should we believe him when he claims that the Law of Assumption can do literally anything? Shouldn't we consider that maybe, just maybe, he might have lied about some of that other stuff, too?

[eye-in-hand]

Why I'm Converting to Judaism

I've posted this onto tumblr before on an old blog of mine, fuck if I remember what it was called but lmfao I'm sure some people have seen this before.

There are a lot of reasons why I'm converting to Judaism, but what I talk about in this is a large part of it, and a large part of a lot of healing I've had to do. Getting involved in the Jewish community (at the point of writing this, I had a bit, but was still too scared and admittedly triggered from past events I talk about in this to do so) has been really healing for me, and has made me feel validated and less alone in my experiences. And that's something I can never show enough thanks for.

Also at the time of writing this I didn't have my driver's license yet, but I do now, and that's helped with actually being able to be in a physical Jewish space so that's been nice.

Because it involves (CW:) violent antisemitism and rape, I'll put it under the cut. This was written partly around June/July 2023 and then a couple days after 10/7.

For the last few years I've been seriously considering and researching into converting to Judaism. It's been a little difficult because I live in the middle of fucking nowhere northern Midwest and the closest Jewish community to me is small and an hour away (and I can not drive), but I've been talking with their rabbi for the past few years. Admittedly on and off because I've been ahhhh terrified lmfao for many different reasons (mainly it brings up trauma I've dealt with that I get into that below) but recent events have... really made it clear where I want to stand in this world, and who my heart yearns for the most.

Some back story:

There's a lot that has happened to me growing up involving the idea of Jewish Identity, who is and isn't Jewish—but there are a few major events that really stick out in my mind. The majority of my years in High School, I would often (and I mean, this happened regularly) be asked if I was Jewish, or told "you look Jewish" unsolicited, or asked "why do you [act Jewish]?" I have dark, curly hair, and other "typical Jewish features", or so I'm told. I had no idea if I was Jewish (ethnically anyways, I knew I wasn't religiously), and growing up as an undiagnosed autistic, I had no idea how to respond to these kinds of questions, or what to do about figuring that out, I had no fucking idea about anything. I don't even think I really understood what being Jewish meant. And when enough people ask you if you're X thing, you start to wonder if you are.

When asked, I had two answers: "I don't know, actually," or "why?" I never understood why it was only the Jewish kids being asked this, why was the question always "are you Jewish?" I never seemed to see other ethnicities being questioned (bare the biracial kids, they got asked this a lot too) and I went to a very diverse inner-city school. I knew Jewish kids and they were always asked and bothered the same way I was, sometimes at the same time. I showed interest in learning about Jewish culture and would talk about it at school, etc. Maybe these answers were the wrong ones. I'm autistic, I have no idea. Maybe I should have just said "no, I'm not." but my response was "I don't know, let me look into that," or "Why? Does it matter?" Because I genuinely meant those words.

To keep this short, I was bullied in school for "being Jewish", "looking Jewish", especially as if my dark, curly hair and nose were ugly and weird traits to either mock or touch without asking. Traits I tried to hide my whole life until recently as an adult I learned to appreciate them. I remember a specific incident where my 'best friend' was in a group project with other classmates and as the class was working on them, she came all the way across the room to me, and asked, "are you Jewish?" and I said, "why?"

"Oh because you look like a Greek Jew." Whatever that means.

All I responded with was a forced laugh and "does it matter if I was? Why is the question always about being Jewish?"

She went back to her group and for the rest of the class I was stared and laughed at. Very weird. Autism brain does not understand what is so fucking funny about it. There was another incident with her, or regularly honestly, and this group of people who would compare me to characters from media based on negative Jewish stereotypes and apparently it was just hilarious.

I always had to deal with holocaust jokes, Jew jokes, expected to laugh and go with it because it was just a crack at my appearance.

After high school, I moved towns, and — to keep this short and not too personal. I met a guy who took me in while I was vulnerable. Just became homeless, had no friends or places to go in a completely new town. Turns out, he's a neo-nazi, and I mean that literally. Not in the just a bigot oh he's a nazi, like — he was a proud "Odinist" body builder fuck head who was very proud of being Icelandic and German. The topic of Jewish people was one he brought up a lot, especially towards me. He asked me that same question, and I told him, "I don't know. I get asked that a lot."

I told him I was interested in celebrating Jewish holidays to learn more about Judaism. I'm angry at myself because I was barely 18, undiagnosed autistic, and he was much older than me, a local of the town and who I was depending on for a place to stay, for food. I barely knew what a pagan was, let alone what covert supremacy looked like.

I'm not exaggerating that this all still makes me shake, typing this is hard. I feel sick. He isolated me, kept me in his basement, "joked" about keeping "a Jew in his basement" and how "funny it would be to make that a dead Jew." He sexually abused me, beat me, choked and shook me, called me slurs, he'd talk on the phone when he thought I was asleep to his white supremacist friends about the "Jewish whore" he had. He wouldn't let me get a job, encouraged me to "act Jewish" in a fetishizing way. Told "edgy" jokes over, and over, and over and expected me to laugh with everything. It was all just a joke why are you upset it's funny, what's wrong with you, why are you such a bitch?

Later, when I got away from him (and homeless again in the process) I was in online "spiritual communities" and showed a picture of my face. I didn't realize how much the New Age community hates Jews and I was called a lot of things, especially when I told them that Jews aren't an alien race here to take over the world, or that hating Jewish people doesn't make you a fucking spiritually awakened guru. I was harassed in public for "being a Zionist (edit: yes, even in 2017)" even though I had never even mentioned an opinion on Israel, I never claimed to be Jewish, it was just assumed. My (platonic) partner's mother cried because "my daughter is running off w that k*** boy." I never told her I was Jewish, and neither did my partner. She saw me on Skype once. (Edit: My boyfriend's family are from Russia/Georgia and he's terrified to be seen with me near them and despite being interested in Judaism himself he's scared to go to the synagogue with me because of the possibility of them finding out. (Some of the fear is also because we're gay, but I'm well aware that it'd be even worse if they knew it was gay jews. And he's not scared for himself, he's scared for me.)

I got a DNA test a few years ago. I'm not Jewish. I don't know what happened to me. I don't understand this. Is this valid pain towards an identity I can't even claim? What do I even do with this? I wish I could talk to a Rabbi but I can't tell if I'm overstepping a boundary. A Rabbi's job is for the Jewish Community, they don't have time to hear my sob story about the antisemitism a Gentile faced. I can't just show up to the Jewish community and say "I get your struggles" because I don't. But I feel so alone.

I've stepped in and out of conversion, confused and unsure of who I am or who I want to be, what I believe, and how others see me. Angry at myself for how I handled these questions. Angry at myself for appropriating a struggle that isn't even mine to be struggling with. I'm so sorry.

When converting doesn't scare me, I just want to convert so that maybe the idea of being Jewish can be more than pain to me, and instead be something empowering. But I don't know anything right now or where I should go.

About a month or so ago, a couple coworkers of my partner started harassing us about me being Jewish, and I had directly told them multiple times, that I am not Jewish. I had even dropped the idea of converting because I was too scared of all this past hurt and didn't want to be alone to deal with it anymore, and too scared to talk to the Rabbi for fear of bothering him. But they threatened me, the only place I felt safe to hang out was around my partner's work and that place is no longer safe for me because of these people. I don't know them, and I don't want to know what they're capable of or rather who they know around here, because they're Qanon supporters of the men that tried to kidnap the governor and supporters of Jan 6, trumpy fucking dickheads. I live in a small, incredibly Christian town, I didn't fucking need this shit again.

It really triggered me because I didn't even have the excuse of "well it's my fault, I didn't say I wasn't Jewish" this time. I told them I wasn't but they think I'm hiding some "dark Jew secret" and I "cursed them" because their lives are going to shit.

Then all of this in Israel happened, and it hurt so much. That was the first weekend I had done Shabbat in a year or so, and for the first time it felt so right. It felt like what I should be doing. Then I logged back online, saw what had happened and for the Jewish community around the world it was one of pain. I called my Rabbi this past week after several months of silence on my end, and told him to let me know if there was anything I could do. He was glad to hear from me, and I'm sorry that I kept disappearing.

My point is, I'm converting because no matter what I say or tell people, this will always keep happening, I will never be safe and I don't want to face it alone, I want to hopefully connect with the community (daunting because ahh I'm autistic so I am. Not good at connecting with other people very well), do what I can. I had read about Jewishness being "sharing the fate of the Jewish people" and I believe that I do, it's been proven time and time again no matter what I say or do.

Anyways that's what's been on my mind. I hope this doesn't come off trying to make this tragedy about me, I'm not good at tone and I'm sorry. I'm bringing this up now because this really... marks the time for me to take this seriously, and I never want to shut the door on this again. I need to be there for the Jewish people in times like this because I've felt what that feels like, even if I don't really understand why.

[determinate-negation]

hi, i'm the non-jewish pro-palestine anon from last week who asked for your perspective on smth (i apologize for the delay). so, i've been interested in reform judaism for a while, as i'd like to follow some sort of religion and that makes most sense to me of all i've read about. i also learned last year that i may have significant jewish ancestry, to the shock of my antisemitic eastern european family. however, though i know many us jews are pro-palestine, the synagogues i know of in my area don't seem to be (the best being very "both sides" about it). i'm hesitant of making pro-palestinian jews look bad by barging in as a catholic-raised, white potential convert. like i'd be seen as speaking over jews. i wonder if it's even appropriate for me to be considering this now, or if i'm wrongfully conflating israel with judaism for thinking that. my priority regardless is supporting palestine, not sorting out my own spiritial beliefs..but do you have any thoughts on this? thank you so much for your time and all you do

im not the best person to ask about this sorry. i dont really know much about the conversion process and im not very observant.

just so you know, although theres a lot of american jews who are anti zionist or disinterested in israel there are basically no anti zionist synagogues and you will probably not find many anti zionist jews there because a lot of them are alienated from jewish institutions because of how zionist they are. it sounds like youre writing this from somewhere outside the us so there will probably be even less.

idk i feel like if youre converting your motivation for conversion is whats important

jsyk im not a good person to ask about conversion. i didnt convert, my family is not very observant, i cant tell you much about how it or what people expect from you. @bringmemyrocks made some posts about the process tho

[vaspider]

Yo, so this is less so a specific ask and more me having the need to verbalize some stuff with the option of getting input from someone with a more knowledgable perspective. I have been thinking a fair bit about Judaism and dabbling with the idea of converting to it. I don’t think it’s something for me, but I am tentatively thinking about the option.

The thing is. I assume you’re familiar with the difference between hard magic and soft magic systems in writing. (If not, the tldr is hard magic is defined with hard rules and limitations and soft magic is more ambiguous and fluid.) And I think my basic thing is that I am very open to what you could call soft spirituality and faith, but unable to jell with any hard beliefs.

For example I can never get myself to really entertain the idea of an afterlife being set up in a very specific way with specific rules and where you know what is happening and why. But I saw that tweet that went around a while ago that was like “I hope that death is like being a child at a party and falling asleep, so somebody carries you to bed and I hope when I die I can still hear the laughter from the other room” and that fucked me up beyond words.

I have gone through a couple religions and beliefs over my life and never found a framework that really fit with me, but in the past couple of years I have developed a lot and realized I have a yearning for spiritual things. My current view could probably best be described as a pantheist leaning agnostic enamored with the idea of belief and experience shaping purpose and giving structure… sort of. As well as the power of belief and to change the way you see the world for the better. It’s hard to explain specifically the angle I like.

The reason I am caught up on Judaism rn is that in a lot of ways it seems to be based around a lot of soft spirituality. I am absolutely in love with the idea that god, or the divine, or spirit, whatever one may call it is not something concrete, not one existence, but more of a force like the laws of physics, or the rules of math. I adore the idea of little rituals and rules to bring god into your life and through that connecting you to culture and history and people and community and spirituality. I love the idea you talked about some time in the past of the four kinds of jews, based on studying the scriptures and following the rules, and that even those who do neither are still a vital part of the jewish people and are needed for it to be whole. There’s so many little details that appeal to me so strongly, because they’re exactly the kind of stuff I am yearning for.

But I feel like the hard aspects keep me away. I love the idea of rules and rituals to shape your life, but I don’t think I could follow the rules of Judaism, because having a preset set of rules feels too hard for me. Similarly I love the idea of studying the texts and the never ending pursuit of decifering the meaning and arguing about it, but I don’t think I could get interested in ever doing it, because having a specific text to do it with is too hard.

So I feel very conflicted, because the way Judaism feels to me from the outside, it shows me both the soft aspects of spirituality I absolutely adore and yearn for, and at the same time the hard aspects that keep me away from religion. And they feel very connected and interwoven.

And it feels like especially as a convert being a part of it is connected with a huge amount of the hard aspects and a lot of work that goes into those. I’d have to first figure out if there is even any jewish denominations (is that the right word?) near where I live that don’t do circumcision and that aren’t on the conservative side (I have no idea how the situation is where I live) and then do all the studies and the entire process involved in converting (which I admittedly don’t know very much about either, so I might be overstating this) to be part of something I would immediately take a half step away from because I’m only really interested in the ideas behind the actual elements of it and not as much the elements themselves if that makes sense?

I guess this is pretty rambly, but maybe you have some input, or something smart to say and if not I hope I’m not coming across as this guy right now:

I think that in the process of writing this ask, you seem to have figured out that this isn't for you right now. If you get to a point where all of those things aren't standing in your way but are a to-do list, that will be when you know it's for you.

And they're generally called movements, not denominations.

[jewish-vents]

I can't with this anymore uhhhhhhggggg

"AITAH for creating a private doc to keep notes on what my racist teacher said"

I have this teacher who said a lot of shit (eg. "Ashkenazi people were Europeans forcefully converted by invading Jews", "the Torah mentions Jesus and Mohammed", "Judaism started in Ethiopia because it's the oldest religion and therefore must come from where all people do", "getting angry at Houthis for attacking Israel is like getting angry at a l*nched man for struggling on the noose", etc.). No one cared that she said these things besides a boy she kept deadnaming, a girl who she used as an example talking about slave r*pe, and a kid who she humiliated in front of the class a few times.

When I reported this shit to the dean he was concerned as fuck and 100000% on my side because he's really cool. And to report the stuff, I'd been using a private google doc to keep track of what she'd said. The principal though was overly optimistic and decided instead of talking to the teacher in private, she would hold a class discussion! Yaaaaaaayyyyyyy. I was less than pleased by this, and at the discussion most people took her side. I eventually decided to share the doc with the other three kids so I could get better firsthand accounts.

But then the doc started spreading.

One of the other kids shared it with this boy who she used to mock and throw under the bus, and he shared it with his friend. Who shared it with another friend. Things went like whisper-down-the-lane until someone, I don't know WHO, got a hold of it and shared it to the whole. Fucking. Class. Including the teacher. People started claiming the doc was Islamophobic and didn't elaborate why, and saying we were only "attacking" the teacher because she was Muslim. Or that we only reported this stuff to get drama and attention. The principal herself even said that this was happening because we have varying cultures, which is BS because I have plenty of Muslim friends who have never said ANY of the shit this lady has. That is waaaayyyy more Islamophobic of a statement and I felt offended on my friends' behalf with that one.

I feel bad for the teacher for seeing that doc, but then again, I myself am suffering because someone leaked all my personal opinions to the class. I'm a super conflict avoidant person because I have severe ADHD and OCD and mild autism (ASD1, to be specific), and I hate being involved. I want to sympathize for her. I really do. But when asked to apologize for what she said, she started defending herself and saying we were all closed-minded for not thinking what we previously thought was wrong. My mom wants to take me out of the class to do an independent study project so I can pass the required course without being in that classroom. Because nothing gets in the way of Jewish parents. Especially during Passover.

My classmates are saying she's a sweet lady and it was wrong of us to get upset at her, so are we the bad guys and/or am I overreacting to this scenario.

Anon I'm going to be very honest here. You are absolutely NTA here. And you're not overreacting at all. Your teacher is being very offensive, not to mention historically wrong.

And the doc? If she didn't want to have her offensive opinions called out in front of everyone, maybe she should stop being offensive.

I'm going to say, personally if she were my teacher the doc would be the least of her problems. She would not like me very much.

I hope you're safe tho, you and the other students she's hurt. You don't deserve to be treated like this

-🐺

[hindahoney]

Thank you for your post about the word shiksa. I'd seen similar posts in the past - that you shouldn't call yourself that and it's not a term worth reclaiming - but none of those posts ever properly explained WHY. The best I could ever find was that it's often used to insultingly refer to converts that were married to or planning to marry Jewish men before their conversion as a way to imply their reasoning for becoming a Jew wasn't genuine enough. I didn't understand why that would be something that shouldn't be reclaimed. Knowing that it's a term meant to refer to people that fetishize Jews puts it in an ENTIRELY different light. At least, in my brain, it does. So, yeah, thanks for actually explaining your point.

"Shiksa" cannot be "reclaimed." It's not as if that word has a widely-known history or is used by a hegemonic population to oppress people. There's no need or use for reclamation. A gentile woman calling themselves a shiksa, knowing what it means, seriously makes me feel disgusted. It's the same as someone who fetishizes Asians proudly saying they have "Yellow Fever."

I've never heard that phrase in reference to converts, only towards gentile women who seek out Jewish men specifically. It's more common than people would think. I once invited a Christian friend to a Purim party, where she told me she was just trying to take home one of the men there. This same friend told me she broke up with her Jewish boyfriend because he had been to Israel. Suffice to say we aren't friends anymore. It's incredibly common for (white) Christians specifically to fetishize Jews. It's just expected that all of the Jewish dating apps are unusable because they're full of WASPs looking for Jews.

While there isn't a widely used term for gentile men who fixate on Jewish women, I have seen the term "bagel chasers." I don't like it, because it makes it seem more cutesy and funny than it actually is in real life. It's deeply unsettling and uncomfortable when I'm working and men approach me saying they'd convert for me, or think that saying "shabbat shalom" to me on a Tuesday will make me believe they're also Jewish (and thus someone I should date). There's not a single part of me that thinks it's funny. They see Jews as a novelty and not as people. It's less because they are interested in us, they're interested in conquering us.

[dykesynthezoid]

Literally how are we supposed to have discussions about Judaism being sanitized/whitewashed in online and leftists spaces if you only know how to use it as an opportunity to shit on Reform Jews and converts. It’s so exhausting. Please get your head out of your ass. Like can we have any fucking discussion about Reform Judaism without a bunch of you openly implying that it’s less Jewish/inherently more secular/assimilationist/basically culturally christian.

Tbh the majority of people online who mischaracterize Judaism in that way aren’t even Jewish, they’re goyim who see themselves as “allies” who still haven’t deconstructed their bias. And the Jewish people who do end up (usually unknowingly!) leaning into that characterization are often not even Reform; a lot of the time they’re entirely secular and don’t identify with any major branch of Judiasm to begin with! And that’s part of the reason it’s easier for them to misrepresent Judiasm, specifically bc they aren’t as informed about their own culture.

While it’s important to stress that Judaism is so much more complex than American Reform traditions and that Judaism is by no means inherently liberal or progressive, it actually costs zero dollars not to throw a third of all American Jews under the bus because of that. You literally don’t have to do that. Half the time you all criticize Reform practices it’s shit you literally just made up and that isn’t even true. Fucking hell