I'm Jewish AMA

[Bobbiepin]

Just that really, brought up (relatively) orthodox if that makes a difference.

Please note, I have an opinion on the situation in the Middle East but I don't believe that Zionism is a part of Judaism and don't really want this to turn into a discussion over Israel.

Also, I can answer to my knowledge of the faith and my experiences, others may have differing understanding and wouldn't agree with my opinion.

@Bobbiepin she went with LJY. We had her down for RSY originally but her best friend didn't get a place so we switched and she loved it.

Gorgon thank you. Yes that makes sense.

Fair enough, I was interested to see if she went with the same tour provider as me (which would significantly narrow it down, if that means anything to you).

Is the practice of arranged marriages still a big thing or is that just primarily an orthodox thing? Is it still a stigma to marry out?

Arranged marriages are still common in the strictly orthodox community. I have some relatives who married spouses they had only met three times or so. The idea is that you are set up by a shidduch (who is a matchmaker- usually someone in the community who does it for free but there are professionals too).

In my experience of these things they don’t always work out but that’s the same as any marriage I suppose. There still is quite a stigma of divorce in the strictly orthodox community but it is permissible and does happen.

Definitely a stigma to marry out - in all parts of the community even those who are completely unobservant. But it happens a lot. My concern for my dc is that they bring up their childrn in the faith and culture but I am more open to the idea they could marry someone who could perhaps convert!

I know nothing about Judaism, so this is a very interesting thread .

zsazsa Definitely a stigma to marry out - in all parts of the community even those who are completely unobservant.

I have to disagree with this. I married out and I know that my parents are just happy that I found a partner they love and trust. I haven't felt any stigma. It's more common to marry out than not to, in some parts of the community. There are lots of mixed families at my kids' non-faith primary school.

My mum converted and whilst she was delighted I had a partner who was kind and loving and adored me, she did ask me on numerous occasions if he would consider converting. I said, look mum, I don't believe in this stuff, why should I ask him to go through this all - when it's going to make sod all difference. We discussed religion early doors in our relationship, the fact is that we share the same values, and for me being Jewish is about cultural and family tradition, not faith. If he would have been extremely anti taking part in family Seders, or me lighting Chanukah candles (or indeed having a mezuzah on our front door), then that might have been an issue. We discussed children and we were both aligned that I would want to raise a child exposed to the traditions but would be hypocritical to send to Cheder when we are both atheists! I wouldn't have wanted a son to be circumcised either. As I mentioned above, we had a very Jewish wedding ceremony - so the fact he was willing to embrace the cultural traditions meant it was less like 'marrying out'

My dad couldn't have given a shit about converting but to her death bed my darling mum did still say 'would he think about it do you think?' 🙈

I'm not at all bothered if my dd marries out, as long as she's happy. My cousins on my mum's side are all married out. My parents were so happy that I married a "nice Jewish boy" but he turned out to be a complete bastard and left me for someone else (not Jewish). His sistesr is also married out. I've not got any intention of having another relationship ever, but if it was to happen, their religion wouldn't be an issue.

In the "olden" days, if you married out, that was it - you were cutting your ties to the community, and basically deciding to bring up your children as non-Jews. It's a bit different now - there are couples who make a conscious decision to bring up their kids as Jewish, and they are an accepted part of even some orthodox communities.

But for many, marrying out is just a part of leaving the community, and there is neither hope nor expectation that Judaism will continue in the family. This a valid choice, of course - there is no compulsion in religion, as the Muslims say, but this would be frowned by many in even fairly liberal communities.

We had to change English divorce law to help orthodox Jewish "chained" women get a Get as far as I remember. Itw as interesting reading about it. Having a civil divorce is not enough, you need the Get bit to be religiously divorced (just like I got a civil divorce and then a Roman Catholic annulment- although that is very very very hard to get as we don't have divorce unlike with Jews and muslims)

I'm not sure if this can be answered here but as this is AMA I thought I'd have a go (really interesting by the way-thanks for your answers) but why did the Nazis hate Jewish people like they did. I've tried to gain a perspective by Googling but all the response is is antisemitism. Can someone explain what is actually meant by antisemitism. I get the obvious - that it is an irrational hate of Jewish people, but what I can't seem to find is a reason that so many people went along with murdering so many innocent people who (on the face of it) looked the same, spoke the same and lived the same way as everyone else in Europe.
Whilst any form of racism, xenophobia or prejudice is the most hateful nasty thing, I can kind of understand where basis of racism on colour comes from - when someone doesn't look like you - uneducated bigotry / some form of residual suspicion of another "tribe" so to speak, despite how we actually all one big human family. But I really cannot understand the origin of this ability of the Nazis to justify (no matter how wrong this justification was) to wipe out millions of people.

Can someone give me a fairly plain answer? It seems answers elsewhere on the internet are so guarded or so convoluted that they make no sense. Or someone replies with a comment about the Middle East so it starts infighting. With the rest of the respectful behaviour on this thread I'm hoping I can get this long time question answered.

I really hope no one finds any part of my post offensive- it certainly isn't meant in that way at all.

I think more and more people marry out as time goes on

Of 6 grandchildren of my holocaust survivor grandfather, 3 have married Jewish partners, 3 have married out.

I didn't mix with a Jewish crowd so it never occurred to me that I would ever marry anyone Jewish.

Arranged marriages are strictly an ultra orthodox thing and even then they’re introductions and not forced marriages, both parties are absolutely free to say “no thanks”. They approach a Shadchan (matchmaker) who arranges introductions. arranged marriages don’t exist out of orthodox circles.

Marrying out is much more common than it was. Some families have no problem with it, some don’t like it but accept it and some still feel it’s terrible. My grandmothers feeling as a holocaust survivor is very much “they tried to kill us and we survived and to marry out gives them what wanted”.

Personally I’d prefer my kids to marry Jewish because I would hate our customs and culture to die away but equally I’ll never stand in their way and will welcome whoever they fall in love with. I would find it incredibly hard to accept if they wanted to have a religious marriage of a different religion but again, I love them too much so would have to live with it.

Often a girl marrying out is seen as less of an issue than the boy marrying out a Judaism is passed along the maternal line so the children will still be Jewish. Pretty much everyone I know who has married out has brought the children up as Jewish. Interestingly 2 families where mum is Jewish and dad isn’t decided that the children would have no faith at all and somehow by their early teens all the children have considered themselves Jewish and embraced it

what I can't seem to find is a reason that so many people went along with murdering so many innocent people who (on the face of it) looked the same, spoke the same and lived the same way as everyone else in Europe.

This doesn't answer your question but this is entirely accurate

My great grandparents were prominent members of the Berlin business community and mixed in very high circles

They ended up sneaking out of the country in the dead of night to flee the Nazis and had their business and citizenship stripped

My great great uncle refused to leave, as he believed it couldn't possibly happen. He said 'I'm German!'. He fought for the German army in WW1

He was taken off to the camps, along with his non Jewish common law wife, who was taken off for consorting with a Jew.

A year or so after my family arrived in the UK, after war broke out, my great grandfather and grandfather were sent to the Isle of Man to be held in internment camps by the British government, on account of being 'enemy aliens'

They had by this point established another textiles business and were making parachutes and life vests for the war effort. Someone had to come over to the Isle of Man to the internment camp to get my great grandfather to sign the wage slips so that the factory could continue to operate!

All this was while their old German factory was being run by the Nazis. And the Nazi who took it over was by all accounts a shit businessman, and used to write them letters asking their advice about how to run the factory they'd had seized from them!

At the steps down to the u-bahn of the station in Berlin where their factory was, my great grandfather's name is on one of the steps, along with the names of other prominent Jewish industrialists who had owned businesses in that area. All fled or died.

Iona
One thing to understand is that the Jews had ALWAYS been the subject of pogroms (organised mass murder), put in ghettos, expelled from countries, murdered on the basis of lies about killing Christian children to put their blood in matzos (the 'blood libel' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel ) etc.

This happened in the UK, Russia, Spain, Portugal etc. etc.

So the Holocaust was unique in its scale and its horrors, but didn't come out of nowhere, if you see what I mean.

there is a very good, but very disturbing, book called 'Hitler's Willing Executioners' that looks at why so many German people actively supported the Nazi genocide.

This book argues that there was a specifically German brand of antisemitism that developed from Martin Luther, who was violently antisemitic in his teachings and books, and was extremely influential on German culture
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism

So starting from a religious viewpoint.

Then in the 19th century this was reinforced by 'scientific racism'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism
that argued that certain races were fundamentally different and inferior.

Finally the economic disasters that happened in Germany following WW1. All of these led to the culture in which the Holocaust could happen.

Does that help, or just confuse things further?!

@bananafish81 words cannot describe how you must feel about this. Thank you for sharing despite how difficult it must have been to write that out. It must never be forgotten, what all these people went through.

@GorgonLondon thanks for your post, I have some reading to do! After a brief look - I had never heard of blood libel before and never knew Martin Luther was antisemitic. I have read some turn of the century Victorian articles in old newspapers about Christian Societies that existed to convert Jewish people and was surprised that such things existed.

I am an english Christian but work in a synagogue. ...I've spoken with bobbiepin before on here, and shes been amazing at answering my queries. I find Judaism fascinating and I absolutely love the tradtions. It saddens me that our traditions within my religion are not followed so much. Also, reading this thread makes me think I may know some of you !!! It is my absolute pleasure to look after you all at Shul, and thank you for your appreciation.

@Bobbiepin thanks for starting this absolutely fascinating thread! I was born and raised in Stamford Hill and have always wanted to know more about Judaism but have never plucked up the courage to ask anyone in the local Orthodox community or try to visit a Synagogue. I'm embarrassed to say that growing up my assumption was Orthodox Jews were not just not permitted to talk to anyone outside of the Jewish faith. My parents still live in SH so hopefully I'll still get a chance to do that Synagogue tour when I visit them.

Sorry if already covered as I haven't read the entire thread but I wondered if there is a lot of tension (for want of a better word) between the more liberal Jewish community vs Orthodox?

Re: antisemitism, just look at the antisemitic tropes in the mural that Jeremy Corbyn promoted

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/28/antisemitism-open-your-eyes-jeremy-corbyn-labour

"Sitting around a table is a group of rotund men: one has a full beard, and is counting money. That, in and of itself, is an antisemitic symbol.
It’s not just the big, hookednoses and evil expressions that make this iconography offensive and troubling, these depictions mirror antisemitic propaganda used by Hitler and the Nazis to whip up hatred that led to the massacre of millions of Jews. This extends to the table these figures are sat at, resting on human bodies, as the Nazis also depicted.

Context here is also important. If you haven’t yet, then research The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. An entirely fabricated text printed first in Russia during the early 1900s, it purports to document a meeting of Jewish leaders setting out plans to take over the world by controlling the media and press, and fostering religious conflict to subjugate non-Jews across the globe.

There is more than a visual connection in this mural to antisemitism – the messaging is full-blown Nazi too

During the 1920s and 1930s the Protocols were a key element of the Nazi propaganda programme – at least 23 editions were published by the party in the two decades that preceded the outbreak of the second world war in 1939. The domination of the world by hooknosed men wielding power and money? There is more than a visual connection in this mural to antisemitism – the messaging is full-blown Nazi too."

FYI here is more about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheProtocolssoftheeEldersoff_Zion

Because the church banned usury, they got round it by Jews serving as money lenders. Hence the stereotypes of Jews as controlling the banking system

Jews are disproportionately represented in public life, and anti semitic conspiracies will seize on this as there being secret cabals of Jews plotting to take over the world

(eg 22% of Nobel laureates were Jews, although the total Jewish population comprises less than 0.2% of the world's population)

You've seen comments about Jewish nepotism even on this thread

The rise of anti semitism in the Labour party disturbs me immensely, and as a lifelong Labour voter it weighs on me heavily

Thank you Bobbiepin for this interesting thread.

Like UmSrsly I'm half Jewish, and not the right half! My father is Jewish. His family came here from Russia via Latvia in the 1880s. They settled in Hackney and they were carpenters, furniture makers and later wheelrights. I have seen some very old sepia photos of my great grandfather, and he appears to have been orthodox, but my father doesn't speak much about it. At 6 years old I exclaimed to my then very elderly great aunt "oh he's Jewish" at this point I had never seen or met anyone from the orthodox community. So, how I knew is anyone's guess. She fell silent and then changed the subject.

My father and his brothers were bullied at school. It seems that for some reason there was an element of shame, or having to assimilate to be accepted. But this then was rural West Sussex.

I wondered how you feel about the concept of Jewish souls. I have read a bit about this because from a very young age, five or six, I have simply felt myself to be Jewish. I would especially like to know if many orthodox Jews find the concept believable?

It's always been my long term plan to convert, before I die! I can't die a gentile, and I've felt this way now for over 30 years.

How difficult is it to convert to be an orthodox Jew, and would the community accept me when I have a DH and two sons who would not convert? How could that work?

There might also have been the idea that Jews killed Jesus 2000 years ago, but basically people always seem to find reasons to dislike those who are different from they are or have more money than they have. Whilst bananaf's ancestors were prominent members of the Berlin business community mine (Catholic) direct poor and mining coal or dying in industrial accidents. My grandfatrher fell to his death from the ship's mast in 1931 at work at a shipyard for example. However their poverty was nothing to do with the fact that some (but by no means all ) jews had more money and it vital we all teach our children in my view never to pick on particular groups or indeed to try to blame others when things go wrong and instead just get on it and live in harmony with other people.

If someone on the thread is unahppy about Labour come over to the Tory fold - much better for Britain.

I would point to questions on this thread about Jewish nepotism as interesting observations that were the first thoughts of some on this thread.

There are rich and poor in all segments of society. My family ancestors are no more typical of a race or people than anyone else's.

Xenia - the Jews are always criticised for whatever happens to be the shibboleth of the age. So when religion was dominant, Jews were considered heretics. Then when nationalism was important, Jews were considered rootless, and responsible for both capitalism and communism. Then people started looking at race, and decided the Jews were racially impure. Now human rights is the big thing and, surprise, the Israelis are the subject of endless condemnation, hugely disproportionate to the things they have done wrong (which are many, I should add, but don't require about 1/3rd of UN time and resolutions)