I am Jewish AMA

[Bells3032]

Following answering some Q&As on a thread about the programme Unorthodox thought i'd do an AMA here. I have looked and don't think there's been one since like 2018.

I am a traditional/modern orthodox Jew so not Hasidic like the show but I actually do talks on Judaism as part of my job and I so my knowledge is fairly good and I am rarely embarrassed or offended by questions.

So go ahead AMA

Also (sorry!), can you be a Jew and anti-Zionist/Zionism? What does the Jewish community make if this.

Just to add to my previous post- I do know someone much older who is Jewish but she's very cagey talking about her Jewish identity so I can't ask her certain things- she begins to counterattack which I don't find helpful.

Absolute last question! What's the link with Jews and therapy? Is it a given that Jewish people have a therapist?

@Elladisenchanted - Muslims can indeed eat Kosher. In fact, we're thinking of switching from our halal butcher to our local Jewish one but I haven't got the guts to go in and order anything in case I'm laughed all the way out to the door or something else!

@Desiringonlychild there's a few ideas behind not watching TV including bitul Torah and inappropriateness of some shows. The Internet for the reasons you said is also disapproved of, but it's understood that its hard to function in modern life without it so they use very strong filters if using is it unavoidable . A place I worked in had super strong filters which could be very frustrating but also very amusing ( the most random things would be blocked).

@serenada Liberal Jews are much like the rest of the population. The thing is I am struggling to think of anyone I know who is cohabitating with someone else, not because it is a taboo. But liberal Jews tend to join and be active in synagogues when they have children. So many of the people I know are married couples. Even the gay couples are married.

Also like @Elladisenchanted said, there are exceptions in the orthodox community. When I met DH, he already had sex before with other women including his girlfriend from an orthodox Jewish secondary school. I was the virgin despite having had a far less religious upbringing. I don't think DH would be the only boy from his school to do that. But probably no one who considers themselves religious would have sex before marriage

@titnomatani don't worry about it. I have an east Asian appearance and no one has ever laughed me out of kosher shops. They must be questioning why I am buying boxes of matzah and grape juice. Also a lot of the shop employees aren't Jewish.

@titnomatani I'll do my best to answer but I'm falling asleep so apologies if I'm somewhat incoherent! This is also just my opinion and not fact- The defensiveness and standoffishness is a wariness and mistrust of outsiders that is probably passed down sub consciously. I don't know anyone who hasn't experienced anti semitisim and I believe that has an effect. I am not alone in this and I know others who do this but I keep mine and my families passports up to date always in case we need to flee the country. History has repeated itself once too many times for me to ever feel confident that I will always be safe here, however much I love England. I grew up hearing about my great grandfather's siblings who did not escape Germany because they were happy and settled and couldn't believe a modern civilised country would turn on them. There was one surviving child from those two families. I think hearing stories like this has an impact.

Again this is a theory but I wonder if the overconfidence is because we study and debate and argue and learn literally our entire lives. Learning in Judaism is not passive, it's actively debating and thinking and making your point and defending it, so it could be that translates to situations outside of studying Torah? This is just my thoughts though! And I guess that translates to achievements in areas like maths and science too.

Not all Jews are frugal. I wish I were better at budgeting

@titnomatani I doubt you'd be laughed out of the shop. You'd be a customer like anyone else. Non Jews do shop in Jewish kosher shops. I have a Slovakia friend who does as she can get things that are the same as she would eat at home.

@titnomatani I'm not sure what you mean about the therapy link?

@titnomatani historically pre world war 2, the Rabbis at my liberal synagogue were anti Zionist. They believed that Jews should try to integrate (but not assimilate) into European society. The shoah changed all that. We realized how important it is to have a country to run to when a pogrom happens. Today we celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut, have a prayer for Israel and send our young people to Israel for trips every year.

which is what @Elladisenchanted said. There is this fear of the shoah happening again, Israel is important as an option. There are very few places in the world where anti-Semitism isn't a problem. Jews need an escape route and that is Israel. For that reason, most Jews I met are Zionist.

@Elladisenchanted and @Desiring

Thank you.

I'd like to ask another question but am nervous about how to word it - but basically - how do you make sense of the Shoah? How do you learn and accept that history when it was so horrific and so recent?

I'd also like to add that some of the ancient rituals and practices of religions are so powerful and important to retain. I realise they can be restrictive at times but this is the collective wisdom of communities. I get so angry when people dismiss them as mumbo jumbo without realising that the religious communities are made upon of very educated practitioners who share their knowledge with their community. I grew up in an immigrant, parish based community in London which sadly we seem to have been almost pushed out of (due I suspect to its very popular primary school).

I’m a queer feminist orthodox Jew, and while I don’t personally recognise or identify with many of the experiences shared here, it’s fascinating to read them. (I personally don’t know anyone in my community or social/family circle, at least of my generation, who’s never lived with a boyfriend or girlfriend. That includes plenty of orthodox Jews some of whom are very religious, some medium and some not at all, but no one who is ultra orthodox or frum.)

From birth I’ve always been told how crucial Jewish solidarity is. But imo Jewish society is far too divided, and it’s valuable for Jews from different backgrounds and practices to come together and share.

My thoughts on the Shoa are basically exactly what Desiringonlychild said.

A friend of mine has this theory that you’re either a Pogrom Jew or a Holocaust Jew (apologise for the harshness of the wording). Meaning your family fled from/survived one or the other. And how strange and frustrating it is that so many goyim have never heard of the history of pogroms in Europe. My great-grandfather married a Holocaust survivor after the war and I grew up considering her my great-grandmother. But my entire family got out of mainland Europe and came here or to the US/Canada or South Africa by the early 1900s. When WWII started my grandad enlisted to fight, which must have been strange for a Jewish immigrant boy.

The Shoa is still my trauma, because it is all of our trauma. To be Jewish is to carry the epigenetic race memory of two thousand years of oppression. That’s why the need for a homeland and the desire to be able to protect ourselves runs so very deep.

Hey @Rapunzel what's keeping you up at this hour?
That's interesting that orthodox, religious also live together before marriage.

Becoming much more normal in the RC community, too. My mother was horrified at her granddaughters living with their boyfriends before marriage yet my (very traditional sister, her mum, seemed OK with it).

So, would it be correct to say that the Shoah is another trauma to add to the 2000 years - that the pattern of acceptance has already been established?

Acceptance is perhaps not the best word to use.

You also say 2000 years - so since Christianity? My understanding is that Jewish people were persecuted before then? The Romans?

The pogroms are predominant in more Orthodox Christian countries as I understand it so perhaps the history of them is hidden in Europe as it is our shameful heritage. I think some efforts are made to fade out certain beliefs and thought that in modern-day seem wrong and in 'fading' them out, the idea is not to draw attention to them or give them oxygen. The hope is they will die out hence subsequent generations not learning about them. I never did but came across the word pogrom only in context of Russia.

Thanks for replying.

I don’t know, I just can’t sleep.

But I have lots more opinions on Judaism to while away the hours!

I loved this comment:

Again this is a theory but I wonder if the overconfidence is because we study and debate and argue and learn literally our entire lives. Learning in Judaism is not passive, it's actively debating and thinking and making your point and defending it

The other day I was debating about antisemitism (basically arguing that one of the reasons the traditionally “anti-racist” Left has become associated with antisemitism is because the tactics used in antisemetic tropes and propaganda are not the same as those used to dehumanise other ethnic minority groups, even though the goal is the same).

I made the argument that some stereotypes are worse than others depending on a long cultural background and context. The stereotype of Jews being cheap/money grubbing is deeply racist and damaging because of the long history of how Jews were excluded and punished by laws and customs around money (basically forced to do things then punished for it), and because that stereotype was a major part of Nazi and other antisemitic propaganda which weaponised German fear and anger after the Treaty of Versailles (all tribalism is fundamentally predicated on competition over resources imo).

On the other hand the stereotype of Jews being bolshy or argumentative isn’t really considered that offensive, because our culture and religion encourages and praises the ability to engage in robust debate. In some religions that would be frowned upon or even considered sacrilegious.

Also Jews know how to argue without it ending in tears and insults and threads getting closed.

I agree about the debating part. I love those kinds of conversations but I offer encounter people who try to counsel me when I start talking about these things - as though I have a personal problem that I need help with rather than an interest in social policy or reform.

Certainly, in some RC communities, my experience is that that kind of questioning can be construed negatively as though you are lacking faith that everything will turn out OK or you are a trouble maker. There's a hint of it but it is there with some of the snitchier types

It is also a great practice for the 'self' - to debate something with another clarifies your ideas, focuses you, you really have to work at it. It is mentally a healthy thing, I think.

@serenada the shoah is the biggest trauma, particularly since it impacted so many families in the uk. On holocaust memorial day in my synagogue, they asked the people who lost relatives in the shoah to stand and 50% of the congregation stood up.

Also 68 years on, most of us have family in israel. So it is a homeland in more ways than one.

This thread is so interesting. My BIL is Jewish but married out and he has very little contact with his family now. His mother sees my niece and nephew twice a year but that's it. She is always saying horrible things about my Dsis as she is not Jewish- is this normal to be almost cut off if you marry out? BIL is not religious but was brought up in a very religious household.

I've always wanted to learn Hebrew I love the sound of it- is it difficult to learn? BIL was taught it when he was tiny but barely speaks to any more so I wouldn't have anyone to 'practice' with.

@Dillydallyingthrough it depends on the family. I wasn't born Jewish so my very orthodox MIL wasn't pleased when DH married me (but I guess she is ok with it since we have been married for 5 years, and we lived with her for 3 years too). I would say that its normal for very religious families and slightly weird if the family isn't super religious. I know this acquaintance who was dating a lady pursuing an orthodox conversion. Once they started dating, the rabbis thought that she wasn't suited to be an orthodox jew cos the guy wasn't religious enough. So she had a masorti conversion instead. But the guy's family still thought she wasn't jewish enough and she should have had the orthodox conversion even though it was their son's fault really she couldn't get it. You can't please everyone.

I can read biblical hebrew and that was from a year of hebrew lessons and regular synagogue attendance. I grew up learning mandarin so i find it far easier to pick up than mandarin, the jewish alphabet is not difficult and non israelis tend to rely a lot on vowels ( our prayer books have vowels). Biblical Hebrew and Ivrit are quite different though, there is a reason there are free hebrew classes for immigrants in israel even though many of them probably had a full jewish education. But knowing how to read biblical hebrew is different from being able to socialize/get a job in israel.

*hebrew alphabet

Ivrit is everyday, spoken Hebrew?

Fascinating language - I would love to understand it. I would have thought a lot of our understanding of linguistics comes from Jewish scholars studying Hebrew and Gematria? (or is that just numbers?) and the significance of letters in Hebrew that has, over time, developed into the academic discipline.

Thank you for your reply Desiringonlychild. I find the Jewish culture really interesting, I love learning about different cultures and religions.

This is probably very complex but why out of all the religions and beliefs do Jews seem to be persecuted the most (historically and now) - sorry if I have worded this poorly or it is insensitive, I don't mean it to come across like that. I just cant grasp why in history Jews have been persecuted wherever they live when compared to all the other religions. I know there are pockets of persecution in other religions but that is pockets and not continuously throughout history. If this is insensitive please feel free to ignore and thank you so much to you all it has been one of the most interesting threads I have ever read.