#mikvot

[thepomegranatewitch]

I'm taking the mikveh guide course via Mayyim Hayyim and Rising Tide Open Waters and finished my first week. I made this to try to explain what it means to me. Anyone, anytime, can choose to mark something new, can choose to cleanse of anything that no longer serves them, and for all Jews, no matter your observance, this is open to you. I'm so excited to help you access this the way you need it.

Artists statement and image description.

A collage: a banner of stars with Hebrew text “shelter us beneath your peace” floats over a pomegranate tree bearing only ripe fruits. It grows in front of a beach at sunset with subtle trans pride colours from a stone wall that reads madrich/a in Hebrew. This wall, collaged from an image of the kotel, is balanced on seven pillars of text capped with an image in front of a red desert sand, connecting the natural and human made desert mikvot with the biggest natural mikveh, the ocean.

Between these pillars grow flowers. From left to right, a red poppy for rest and healing, California poppies for the artist’s home and their medicinal restful qualities, yellow roses for friendship, a lily of the valley for the author’s birth, its duality as poison and perfume, and mention in Shir haShirim, a blue gentian for medicinal properties especially as an emmenagogue to tie it to mikveh use, lavender for healing, a white rose for love and death, and a pink rose of Sharon as mentioned in Shir haShirim for love and marriage. They are in this colour order as a nod to queer use and usage of mikveh as a spiritual technology.

The columns each have one of the seven principles for mikveh written in Hebrew, and are capped with a stone collaged with a related item. From right to left, these are a Torah scroll, a folding screen, a magen david with the downward pointing triangle replaced with a heart, a seven branched menorah with almond blossoms instead of candles, an open book, a brush painting a rainbow, and an open set of french doors that, if you look closely, are opening to a mikveh at Mayyim Hayyim.

Over all this are three blessings connected to mikveh, in English, with a name for the divine in Hebrew beneath. The first two are the artist’s own poetic translations of the mikveh immersion and shehecheyanu brachot, and the last is a tekhine praising Gd for gifting us the mikveh as self empowerment connecting us to natural cycles.

Blessed are You, She Who Contracts our god, Sovereign of Space Time, who has blessed us with your teachings and invites us to immerse.

Blessed are You, Being our God, Sovereign of Space Time, who has blessed me with my life, sustained me, and accompanied me to this moment.

Bless the One who gives me this.Bless the one who shows me how to cleanse myself take in the power of the water and the moon as the sun sets orange and feel that coursing through my veins to know I am powerful as this.

[waugh-bao]

[askjumblr]

I was wondering - what would someone who can't get wet do if they needed to immerse in the mikveh? My sibling and I were discussing different ways in which mikvot have been made accessible, but we weren't sure how it worked if you had medical ports, for instance, which couldn't get wet. If you needed to immerse, such as for conversion, what could you do?

.

[magnetothemagnificent]

hello 😊 i was reading on mikveh/mikvot and was wondering how queerness interacts with certain aspects of it, specially since i often see jewish queer folk online reclaiming or adapting rituals for their queer existence in very beautiful ways (if that makes sense!)

for instance, if jewish lesbians also immerse after niddah to resume displays of affection with their partners or if that is just for straight couples, or if transmasculine folk who menstruate are allowed to immerse after niddah as well?

in the same vein (if you have any sources on it) i'd love to hear about how disabled people perform this ritual in relation to disability or illness

i realize these can be quite intimate/personal subjects though so i don't mind not having an answer! sorry for asking many questions all at once :'~)

Firstly, Mikvah isn't just for people to do after menstruation. It's done before marriage, as part of conversion to Judaism, and in general whenever one wants to ritually cleanse themselves. Men with penises are also required to use the Mikvah after they've had a nocturnal emission. Many people go to the Mikvah every week before Shabbat, and even more do so the day before Yom Kippur.

Disabled Jews have always existed, and so disabled Jews have always used the Mikvah, it's not a new "movement", so to say. Women's Mikvaot especially have attendents to help one with every aspect of Mikvah, whether it's helping them undress, helping them into the pool itself, or just being there as support and to answer any questions one might have.

As for queer Jews using the Mikvah, there are formal movements and personal choices many queer Jews do. I personally shy away from "movements", as they tend to lean more political and less on the spiritual, and some of their politics I do not align with. I myself plan to immerse in a Mikvah before I start my first dose of Testosterone (whenever that may be, alas), and before I get my top surgery (again, no idea when that will be).

I do not agree with certain movements to bathe in non-Mikvah bodies of water as part of some "radical queer liberation". There are Halakhic parameters to Mikvah, and I don't think queer people should have to settle for something that isn't Halakhically a Mikvah. Rather, instead of the political lip-service movements that exist, there needs to be a greater movement for existing synagogues and communities to create non-gendered Mikvaot. Whether it's by degendering their existing Mikvah for a specific time every week, or by building new Mikvaot. Queer people shouldn't have to settle for less-than-halakhically-stellar options.

Jewish communities that don't have a seperate Women's Mikvah already have a system where certain times during the week, it becomes Women's Only. There should be that system now, but for degendering the Mikvah. I believe there is a place for gendered Mikvaot, but there's also a place for degendered Mikvaot, and they can coexist. The bottom line....queer Jews shouldn't have settle for a bathtub. Because a bathtub is not a Mikvah in any sense of the word, and it's not giving queer Jews the dignity in fulfilling Mitzvot.

[transition-with-the-torah]

The post about JVP's teacup mikveh is going around, but I don't want to derail.

First, I've seen at least two mentions of the ritual being created during the pandemic, but the guide in ~tikkunolamorgtfo's reblog has "...wp-content/uploads/2017/11/..." so I'd interpret that as November 2017. There was some sort of guide that I remember seeing during 2020 that mentioned taking a shower for X amount minutes in order have a certain amount of water pass over your body, but that wasn't this guide.

Second, there was a very specific post that mentioned this teacup mikveh and JVP offering information on self-conversion in the same chain of reblogs that didn't say they were paired together, which is where I think some people have converged the ideas. It wasn't a matter of people just randomly deciding. No one had enough faith or goodwill in JVP to not connect 'just offering some self-conversion info' with 'just offering some alternative mikveh info'.

I feel like most people have touched on their main issues with this guide. There's a lot to set off Neopagan associations, and this is just a limit to two examples:

"The spirit of water can be present with us if we choose to call for water, so even when water is not physically available to us we can engage in mikveh practice." This pings as 'calling' the corners of a magic circle and sounds like we're interacting with elemental spirits.

"Queer mikveh is an earth and water honoring ritual." This sounds like Neopagan honoring the land and water stuff.

Some of the information is just baffling, and I have no idea if the goal is to make it more difficult for someone to actually engage in going to and immersing in a mikveh:

"For some people, doing mikveh in drag will feel most vulnerable, with all your make-up and best attire." The idea of taking off clothes and make-up isn't about vulnerability, and this is just going to confuse people (anyone who tries to immerse in a mikveh like this and others there).

"What to bring to a mikveh: 2) Items for the altar [...]" There's no altar. (We're not escaping the Neopagan vibes here.)

I also went back and forth on the impression that there's this sorta disconnect from Jewish communities or an awareness of them:

"[...] we have long wondered why it is not available to more people, including the significant trans and queer populations in Jewish communities." Until there's a mention of some resources later, this is it, and it sounds like JVP's just disconnected from actual efforts to make mikvot accessible to more groups of Jews.

"We do mikvahs in lakes, rivers, bathtubs, showers, outside in the rain, from teacups and in our imaginations." Some of this isn't wrong, but that doesn't mean it all is correct. There's a later section that talks about the ocean, but that doesn't mean this guide is clear on when water is actually involved in a mikveh.

This seems like such a small thing, but it feels intentional that Yiddish and Torah aren't capitalized. Plus, "You can use a book you find meaningful (or the torah)" sounds a bit like there's not an awareness of what to call the Hebrew Bible or the Tanakh. Are the guide writers actually knowledgeable enough to be making a guide on mikveh alternatives here?

Additionally, there's this impression of isolating the assumed audience that I keep coming back to:

"Your own wisdom is all the power you need to be a Jewish ritual leader." Plus, "Each person is their own spiritual authority and has the power to create their own ritual for individual or collective healing." It also pings as a solitary Neopagan doing self-empowerment rituals, but unlike with many Jewish discussions where you can't go for very long before someone advises you to reach out to a rabbi, this comes across as very separate from other Jews.

"Most mikvot currently exist in Orthodox synagogues [...]" This is something that I'd want more of a source on, since I live somewhere that doesn't tend to have a mikveh in any movement's synagogues. (The closest mikveh is used by multiple movements and has a secondary, smaller mikveh for kitchenware, so I'm not aware of whether there's just a small mikveh just for kitchenware in some Orthodox synagogues.) It seems kinda misleading to portray almost all so-called mainstream mikvot as being inside Orthodox synagogues where someone reading this guide probably won't want to risk going, especially if they think only this guide is bringing up the whole trans and queer accessibility discussion.

"How to make mikveh a Non-Zionist ritual" This section doesn't involve doing or saying anything to anyone else, so someone could very well do this before immersing in a mikveh and no one would know. However, it feels like this guide is disconnected from the purpose of a mikveh and just slotting Non-Zionism (or more specifically the Palestinian cause) into a ritual bath. (There's also potential for supporting non-interaction with more conventional resources in order to avoid Zionists, but that's not explicitly stated.)

Overall, there's a surprising amount of direct text and impressions that set off 'I dunno about that' bells for me, and I'm not surprised that there hasn't been an overwhelming wave of Tumblr responses chomping at the bit to incorporate an alternative mikveh suggestion from this guide into their life.

[hindahoney]

So Ive been thinking of beginning the process of converting to Judaism, but Im a trans man. My question is, during the Mikveh, would I have to use the women’s? Are they gendered? What does this process look like for trans people? Sorry if this is worded incorrectly, Im genuinely curious!

Hello! This depends upon the community you go to. Most communities do not have the funds or need for more than one mikvah, so they are not gendered. I have seen one community that designates the times men or women use the mikvah, but for the most part it is by appointment for whoever needs it. For communities who do have the funds and need to have two mikvot, it may be gendered because there are some men who use it every day or before every shabbat, but these are Chassidic communities so you're unlikely to encounter this issue unless you want to be a chassid :) I am personally unaware of any additional groups who have a mikvah designated for men. You can find more information here.

I hope this answers your question!

[jewish-education]

Is there a list of pluralistic mikvahs out there? I’d love to have this as a resource for myself and for folks I know on and off tumblr. By this I mean mikvahs that:

allow non-Orthodox converts to immerse for conversion ceremonies and throughout their Jewish life as needed

allow single women to immerse

allow LGBTQIA folks to immerse as part of transitions (or otherwise) while affirming their gender and sexuality

allow other new traditions (immersing after sexual assault, immersing after becoming a father, etc.)

ideally would be halachically stringent enough for a Modern Orthodox Jew to feel comfortable immersing (or at least a Conservadox Jew)

[felgueirosa]

im bored and making a map of historic world jewish communities + former jewish sites and very surprised to find chernivtsi in ukraine seems to have a current large jewish population and its not that large of a city. 11 standing synagogues, 3 of them active!

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I read a quote about how mikvot are like stones you collect, and how easy it might be for you to pick up one stone, while another might be much harder for you to pick up.

But I honestly think that's what I love about this process. I don't feel expected to "be perfect," I am able to pick up a specific mitzvah when I am ready. I have lived a life where I expected myself to rush into things and be perfect, much to my detriment. I didn't understand why I did the things I did, I just felt obligated to do them and to do it to perfection.

I don't want to feel the need to be a "perfect jew" or a "perfect convert". It's unrealistic. I think it will actually hinder my process. In terms of mitzvot, yes, I do want to honour some (and many) of them. But I want to do so in time. I can pick up the stones which are easiest, and learn how to pick up the ones which seem buried in the ground

[dieinct]

i fully cannot stop thinking about "#judaism doesn't have holy water?" i would take this over people comparing mikvot to holy water any day

[lioryaakov]

It would be so weird if I had to have a Zoom bein dit and a mikvah in which my rabbi had to stand at least six feet away from me the entire time. 

(I mean it’s not like she would be getting in the water with me anyway lol but still).

Also I don’t have a car so if we are on coronavirus lock down then the mikvah is still off bc I’m definitely not taking a bus and Uber/Lyft would be out. So it’s probably getting pushed back :(

On the other hand, I’m actually no longer annoyed that the local Chabad group does not let anyone else use the only kosher in-door mikvah in our city (we use a natural spring instead for conversions, whatever you call infant adoption ceremony mikvot, and other reasons) because I’m going to bet the spring is more sanitary now.

[thepomegranatewitch]

This week's mikveh art: I rewrote the traditional ketubah wording with the Lieberman clause to be between Klal Yisrael and the divine, and rewrote the Lieberman clause as a purification clause. Mimicking the vernacular and Hebrew ketubot style, I added in a poem and my poetic translation of the traditional immersion and shehecheyanu brachot to the left.

I am fascinated by the delineation between purity and holiness, and the fact no-one can be purified, technically, until a Temple is rebuilt. This opens so many possibilities for us!

Since technically all humans are related to humanity and thus ineligible to sign as witnesses, I had Lilith and a golem (I like to think it's the Golem of Prague) sign. I struggled to choose which name of Gd to write in (I collect them, all with shades of meaning) but settled on an ungendered or god-gendered version. In some places you will see the word 'god' or 'godself;' I use god as Elohim's pronouns. Since the month starts with the fresh crescent moon, and it's my name, I centered that at the top of the phases. The papercut is traced off a pomegranate blackwork pattern.

Text on image below image description.

Image description: a ketubah with a background of bright blue and white waves, centered on a photo of the moon. The moon has a white glow. White hamsot in the corners, white pomegranate blackwork in a circle, and white moon phases starting with a rosh chodesh moon at center top circling the moon and text in center mimic papercutting. The ketubah text on right of the moon has a yellow cast to black font and is shaped like a crescent. The remaining space to left is a poem with a purple gray cast. The ketubah is signed in thin cursive Hebrew by Lilith, and childishly large block print Hebrew by the golem. The bottom centered pomegranate holds the artist's signature in red.

~~~

Ketubah text:

On the third day of the week, the third day of the month in the year two thousand four hundred and forty eight since the creation of the world, the era according to which we count here at the slopes of Mount Sinai that Elohim Eloheinu said to Klal Yisrael children of Abraham and Sarah through the line of Yitzhak and Rivkah’s son Yaakov and his wives Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah.

“Be My people according to these laws I have given you, and I will cherish, honour, support, and maintain you in accordance with the custom of Jewish husbands who cherish, honour, support, and maintain their wives faithfully. And I here present you with the marriage gift of these teachings of connection, which belongs to you, the law of Moshe and Yisrael; and I will also give you your food as manna and the seven sacred species, tallitot, and necessities, and live with you as your god according to universal custom. And Klal Yisrael, these people consented and became god’s people. The trousseau that they brought to god from their house in silver, gold, valuables, clothing, furniture, and bedclothes, their stiffneckedness and chutzpah and thankfulness and dedication, all this Elohim accepted in the sum of themselves, and Elohim the bridegroom consented to increase this amount from god’s own property with the sum of six hundred and thirteen teachings of connection, making in all one covenant. And thus said Elohim, the bridegroom: “The responsibility of this marriage contract, of this trousseau, and of this additional sum, I take upon Myself and My heirs after me, so that they shall be paid from the best part of My property and possession that I have of and beneath the whole heaven, that which I now possess or may hereafter create. All My property, real and personal, even the glory which is My raiment, shall be mortgaged to secure the payment of this marriage contract, of the trousseau, and of the addition made to it, during My lifetime as Ein Sof, from the present day and forever.” Elohim, the bridgegroom, has taken upon godself the responsibility of this marriage contract, of the trousseau and the addition made to it, according to the restrictive usages of all marriage contracts and the additions to them made for the children of Yisrael, according to the institution of our sages of blessed memory. It is not to be regarded as a mere forfeiture without consideration or as a mere formula of a document. We have followed the legal formality of symbolic delivery between Elohim Eloheinu, the bridegroom and Klal Yisrael children of Abraham and Sarah through the line of Yitzhak and Rivkah’s son Yaakov and his wives Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah, and we have used as a garment legally fit for the purpose a rainbow, to strengthen all that is stated above, and everything is valid and confirmed.

And both together agreed that if either party in this marriage shall ever become impure, then either spouse may invoke the cleansing of the gathering of the living waters, in a naturally occurring or duly kosher humanmade gathering, to immerse three times as is appropriate under Jewish purity and holiness law; and if either spouse shall fail to honour the purifying powers of the gathering of these living waters or to live in accordance with this cleansing power, then the other spouse may invoke any and all remedies available in healthy community power to enforce acknowledgement of the cleansing powers of this first creation and this solemn abligation.

Attested to [Lilith] Witness

Attested to [GOLEM] Witness

~~~

Poetry text: Note that in order for a ketubah to be kosher, there must be a clearly defined shape to the text with no space to alter the contract. This text is not exactly what appears on the image so as to make it screen reader friendly. All open space has been replaced with words in a font half the size to fill it. These are bracketed so you know what words are repeated to fill the space. They exist between stanzas and in stanzas separating the lines.

[purity holiness] You will never be pure. Oh, sure, one day, perhaps, the stars may align, the calf be born, the stones relaid - but until then see the foxes, jackals, among the ruins. You will never be pure. [purity wholeness] But how wonderful a world of possibilities opens! Instead of pure you can be holy wholly human. [wholeness purity] Your body is your body is the image of God. your choices are your choices are yours. [purity holiness] Immerse, and cleanse yourself. Start anew. Emerge from the womb of the earth trailing amniotic rain. Be wrapped dry in clean white linen, welcomed by name, and your holiness affirmed. [immerse] Return to the head of it all: the gathering of the roiling sea, moon tugging at your blood, lungs sealed shut, as waves push you back, back, back to shore as sun sets orange. [purify immerse] You will never be pure like the moon is not pure: shifting phase to phase above us. like oceans are not pure: glimmering gold and silt and teeming life. like forests are not pure: ancient and fecund and noisy. like gardens are not pure: a riot of life and species cocreating. like birth and death are not pure: bodies riding the cycle. like storms are not pure: winds and rain and lightning. like deserts are not pure: so dry but filled with life when you breathe. like art is not pure: messy with emotion. You will never be pure: but you are holy. [holy] We long to re-enter living waters and they long to hold to us, gift us their slippery purity now we have forgotten to breathe them - only hold them in our veins - but more than that we long to exit the waters and stride forth onto surety. [holy] Blessed are You, She Who Contracts our god, Sovereign of Space Time, who has blessed us with these teachings of connection and invites us to immerse. Blessed are You, She Who Contracts, our god, Sovereign of Space Time, who has blessed me with my life, held me, and accompanied me to this moment.

[osinyy]

Never have I felt so very JEWISH as sitting in the kitchen reading the end of @jhscdood‘s For You Have Returned My Soul Within Me over my breakfast of a bagel and schmear with maple-flavored pork sausages. I struggled to read the right-aligned font with my lapsed day-school Hebrew. I sang the prayers under my breath. I said the shema before bed last night after reading the first chapter. 

I cried so much reading about Big Brother Bucky ‘saving’ Becca at the dance hall. About Yaakov bar (ben?) George v’Yocheved going to the mikvah before shipping off to the front. About him meeting Gabe and sharing their Hebrew names and finding the shul in Europe and making Shabbos even without challah or wine, just two stumps of candles burning for maybe ten minutes.

I wept reading about Rabbi Linda and Bubbe Becca and their flat out acceptance of Bucky and his trauma. I wish Linda was my Rabbi, truth be told.

Under the cut are just a few of my favorite bits. (Which, actually, got a lot longer than I thought it would. There are also spoilers below.)

“Soldat!” the Commander barks. “What are you doing?”  (...)   He says, “I was resting.”

“Of course Steve called me, boychik. He has me on speed dial.”

The melodies have changed – of course the melodies have changed, it's been 70 years since he last went to temple, they're allowed to write new music for ancient words if that's what makes them happy, but–

The shema is the same.

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד

His breath hitches.

Rabbi Linda laughs, and gets up out of her seat, extending her hand for him to shake. He takes it, and she cups his in both of hers, gently. “We have a good community here, Bucky. There is so much we have been through, but we made it out by joining hands and moving forward together. I believe you can do that, too.” 

He reads Eli Wiesel and Harold Kushner.

He reads Primo Levi and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

He says, “I feel like I am back at yeshiva.”

Becca says, “Good God, that's depressing. You're coming over tonight, The Producers is on at six.”

“A lot of those Torah scrolls were lost when the Nazis came,” Rabbi Linda confirms.

Then she says, “But many were also hidden away and kept safe, or transported to England or the US, or later to Israel.”

She looks at him steadily for a long moment. She says, “And some were taken by the Nazis. Locked away in basements and vaults as trophies of war, meant to be kept from us, never to be read from again.”

She leans forward. “But we keep finding them. These little troves of Torahs. And we recover them, we repair them, we restore them, and we bring them back into our communities, to be used again in the way they were intended. The Torah from your temple could very well be one of those, could be somewhere in the world being read from this Shabbat.”

“We, the Jewish people, are more than what happened to us during the war. It still hurts us, yes, but it doesn't define us.”

She puts her hand on his, gently. She does not seem to mind the metal. She says, “It was not the end of our story, and this is not the end of yours.”

On the way home, he stops at a store that doesn't have the word “mart” in its name, and he buys a dress shirt that won't make his sister tease him.

She teases him anyway.

“I think I want to go to the mikvah,” he tells Rabbi Linda. “Is that something people still do?”

Linda's eyebrows rise. It's rare for him to state a desire so plainly. Bucky thinks he likes the freedom in doing so. He should do it more often.

“There are a few formal mikvot in the area,” Rabbi Linda says. “But personally, I prefer to use the ocean.”

She hands him an envelope. Inside are a Social Security card and a Florida State driver's license. The name reads, Jacob Elijah Barnes.

“You've been spending too much time with my sister,” he says, rolling his eyes at the joke. We’re always waiting for Elijah to return.

It takes a couple weeks of poking around Brooklyn, venturing out from his new room at a new shelter in the old Jewish section of the borough, to find Steve. And of course, when he does, it's at Friday night services at a little temple prominently displaying a rainbow flag on the front gate.

He slips inside just after services have started and takes a seat a few rows behind Steve, who has placed himself two-thirds of the way back, on the far right next to the aisle. He's wearing a kippa that's dark blue, and embroidered with the tree of life in silver thread.

Bucky follows along with the service, singing Lecha dodi and all the rest, and he sees the exact moment that Steve hears him and realizes he's there: his head lifts, alert and on guard, while at the same time, his shoulders relax and drop a good two inches.

“C’mon, Becca, it’s–”

“Ugh, I hope I have another stroke tonight and forget this entire conversation,” she says, and then hangs up on him.

“Hanukkah starts Tuesday night,” Steve says, because he's always been bolder than Bucky, if not braver. “If you want to come over, we can light the candles together.”

“I think,” Bucky says quietly, “I think I'd like that.”

[thekosheraisle]

Reconnection

Since it’s Holocaust Memorial Day, I might as well share the story of something amazing that has happened to my family recently.  

My great-great grandfather (I think that’s right, he was my mother’s grandfather) was a rabbi, and he wrote many books about halakha.  In his publication on the proper building of mikvot, he included a foreword section, in which he dedicated the book to his four siblings.  He wrote that he had not received letters from any of them since the war in Europe had started, and that his heart ached at the thought that they had lost their lives.  

Our family believed those four siblings to be dead for a long while.  We thought they had perished in concentration camps somewhere in Eastern Europe.  But recently, a miracle has happened.  My cousin wrote a biography on the lubavitcher rebbe a few years ago.  A copy of the book made it into the hands of our long lost, assumed to be dead relatives.  

They are alive, as it turns out, and they recognized my cousin’s last name as the name of their own great-great grandparents, who they thought had lost a brother to the Holocaust.  During the war, it turns out all four of them managed to escape to Uzbekistan, and then once Hitler was defeated, they returned to Ukraine, where they remained until they ultimately made aliyah in the nineties.  

We’ve gotten in touch over email, and over the past few years we’ve been sharing stories and photographs.  Some of us over here in America have been arranging trips to go and meet them.  

The Holocaust was devastating and shameful, and the crimes committed by Nazis and enabled by bystanders disrupted so many lives.  Families lost members, and in some cases, entire families were destroyed.  I feel so blessed and grateful that these two branches of my family were able to reconnect after all of these years, and that so many Jewish people around the world are still living their lives, and still proud of who they are.  

[archivogiyoreli-blog]

anyways, i was talking about chile a while ago but now i keep thinking abt spain

i thought about spain a while ago but i thought too much fascism too little jews (also idk how they’re doing after that whole economic crisis thing)

(the longer i have been jewish, the more a very tiny jewish community feels larger to me. wow!! a whole 2,000 jews!! so many!!)

but there are also still more jewish people coming to spain, i would love to help them. but main reasoning is, i was looking at old jewish cemeteries and i would love to take care of old jewish sites and places like that, the cemeteries though are especially neglected, if they’ve been destroyed or built on top of they rarely ever have a monument or any signage that there was once a jewish cemetery there 

also i was talking about getting ladino signs in historical jewish towns in spain, that is a huge dream, also i’d just love to be able to enjoy sefardi culture with other sefardim 

and of course, i feel like i’d be the best place to get people to raise their children speaking ladino again. every minute i’m not working on ladino or learning ladino or reading ladino or writing down ladino, i feel like it’s being lost more and more and it’s really upsetting

also it’d be easier from spain to get to other diasporic sefardi places like bosnia and herzegovina and greece and italy and maghreb and turkey

[transconverts]

I'm really interested in Judaism; so much of the religion appeals to me. That said, I was wondering how you deal with mitzvot that are gendered/mikvot. Also, I don't necessarily plan on marriage or having kids, and I'm not sure whether it would be a waste or dishonest for me to convert because of the emphasis on family life.

Personally I like to perform the gendered mitzvot that I find meaning for myself in, and avoid the other gendered mitzvot. As a liberal Jew, that’s my approach towards the majority of mitzvot so gender doesn’t play too big a role for me. Other people will have different approaches.

And it’s not a waste, or dishonest (unless your Rabbi asks and you lie, obviously). Talk to your Rabbi about your feelings. There will likely be rabbis willing to help you convert even if you’re not sure or don’t want to marry and have kids, it just may take some digging depending on your area and what traditions the rabbis you speak to come from.

Also just confused about your addition of “mikvot” unless you mean how the gender situation is handled at the mikvah? I only have my experience where my rabbi was the one checking to make sure I was under the water, so there was no gender guide issue and I was there at a time open to all genders. Different mikvot will likely have different rules.