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

It was a quote but failed to highlight for some reason.

I think we should avoid politics on the thread.

On smoking lots of people thought it was safe. I remember my father had a pipe. He stopped that in the early 60s when it became cler it damaged health - he stopped easily and he was a doctor. My (Catholic) mother could not stop (it is very addictive) and carried on (and indeed it killed her - lung cancer and empheseyma at 75). It was just not known it was dangerous until about when my father stopped or late 1950s.

On tights in bed anyone interested in what is by the way an aberration and cult according to most orthodox jews and to me but very interesting programme about this group Lev Tahor when they were in Canada. and (Apologies for thread deflection and jews will not mostly recognise them but still fascinating)

Yes - I'd like to keep politics out of this thread - the tone so far has been respectful and based on the faith as it is lived and understood by posters. They've been really open and patient and I wouldn't like to see anything critical injected to that space.

into that space (their personal response to their faith)

"I can imagine people in the small village where I grew up would be more antisemitic than a community of multicultural, educated, London liberals"

I'm surprised at that. Growing up in a village, I can tell you I had no preconceptions about Jewish people at all. They just didn't feature in my life. Even now, I live in a city and could still count the number of Jewish people I've knowingly met on one hand.

I did use to take the coach to London that stopped in Golders Green and that felt like a completely different world.

I can tell you I had no preconceptions about Jewish people at all. They just didn't feature in my life.

Yes me too. I knew the history from school and was horrified by the Holocaust and pogroms. And I've always been deeply puzzled by anti semitism. Didn't meet a Jewish person until university.

My ILs were those people. Rural Notherners, whose only experience of Jews was very much second- or third-hand. They were completely bewildered by me. Still are, I suspect.

Before meeting me, the only Jews they had knowingly met were a Rabbi who gave a WI talk in the 50s and post-2ndWW refugees working at a factory where one of my ILs worked. The Rabbi was a memorable curiosity, but my ILs recollection of their Jewish colleagues was very hostile, purely because the Jews seemed to form their own clique in which they spoke Yiddish to each other. I don't think it ever occurred to my ILs that people who have just survived arguably the worst persecution in history, traumatised by their betrayal by their homeland, surviving in yet another country (who knew whether they would not be betrayed and dehumanised again by this new 'homeland'?), strangers in a strange land, having to function in perhaps their third or fourth language, might naturally seek out the familiar - and communicate with each other in the one language that virtually every Eastern European Jew knew, regardless of the language of their country of origin. No, what my ILs took away from these encounters was that Jews are rude, secretive and snobbish.

Who do you mean by 'those people' PikesPeaked? I'd be surprised if Gwenhwyfar and I had much in common with your ILs.

"There is a joke about '2 Jews, 3 synagogues- 1 synagogue he likes, 1 synagogue he doesn't go to, 1 synagogue he doesn't go to'"

Lol

There is a joke about a Welshman on a desert island. When he's finally rescued he's asked why he's built two chapels and he replies 'that's the one I go to and that's the one I don't go to'.

"I can imagine people in the small village where I grew up would be more antisemitic than a community of multicultural, educated, London liberals"

The people mentioned in this comment.

The absence of tone of voice. Not "...ewww - one of those people..."

This thread is fascinating OP. I’m only on p4 so place-marking for when I get time to continue.

"Didn't meet a Jewish person until university."

Me neither and she was from London. Met a couple while I lived on the continent and then 1 or 2 more in my entire life and that's it. I'm always quite confused about anti-semitism in Britain really. I've heard the historical 'reason' that they were blamed for killing Jesus, but Jesus was himself a Jew so it's not something that makes much sense. There is a Jewish community where I live now, but they are not particularly visible and have lived here for 10 years without meeting one.

"No, what my ILs took away from these encounters was that Jews are rude, secretive and snobbish."

You've kind of proved my point, which was that people in rural areas who never meet Jewish people will have no preconceptions whereas people who've known Jewish communities might have preconceptions based on their own experience, whether positive or negative. I was questioning why London people would be assumed to be less anti-Semitic than people in a small village. My experience of people who've grown up in cities is that while they've experienced much more diversity, they also sometimes have some entrenched prejudice that a person from a less diverse area wouldn't have.

First time I've head of cheesecake being Jewish - had no idea! I didn't know about bagels either, but not surprised as I associate them with New York and I think there are lots of Jewish people there.

I suppose so. I guess I was thinking of my ILs encounters as being very different to regularly encountering people of other faiths and cultures, as one would growing up in London, Manchester or Leeds, for example. Growing up in London I had Sikh and Muslim friends, as well as Jewish and Christian friends, and thought nothing of it.

I grew up with the attitude "Different? Interesting!", my ILs attitude is "Different? Suspicious - avoid."

Pikes - in my rural area I think the attitude might be Different? - Both extremely fascinating and a bit scary.

Can you tell me about the orthodox jewish zones ?
I own a property in London which now is on the edge of a extension to a zone. I don't live there personally so only found out about it from my tenants who were complaining that there had been two poles and wire added to a boundary wall. From my understanding it means people within the zone can move freely om the sabbath but why the wires and poles ? Why can't the area just be blessed or similar?

The absence of tone of voice. Not "...ewww - one of those people..."

Thanks for the clarification PikesPeaked. I do understand about absence of tone of voice. This format makes it difficult to achieve. I have typed and deleted several posts on this thread because I'm worried that it might come across wrong!

Someone on here (not this thread) recommended a book for me to read that might be of interest to others here.

It is written by a priest who was friends with a secular Jewish man. The secular man asked the priest to put int to laymans terms the essence of his faith for people who are 'crying out' for it but haven't or don't want to access it through traditional religion.

The book is a letter from the priest to the his friend and he talks about how we are and how we want to be. It is actually very well written and reassuring and just really says that until we recognise our own worth (as seen through the eyes of God) and accepted that, our life will be missing something that we can sense of the absence of and we will try and fill it with everything else and perpetuate a sense of unfullfillment.

I do believe life is to be lived and not debated, considered, pondered on but lived in the thrust and heat of the day. I think faith focuses you simply because you no longer question these ethereal things and just get on with the physical but the love you feel protects you from the harsh reality of a physical reality.

And I didn't mean to derail the thread and absolutely do not mean to interject a Christian interpretation within a topic on Judaism - it's just that the words he used were secular and intended to just speak to the human heart. The people replying on here have found that already in their faith, I think - it was just in case anyone else was interested in finding a way in.

@habibihabibi when shabbat is over, the orthodox Jews on the thread probably can give you a more insightful newer but I understand it is to create a physical boundary. Like a fence encloses a garden and also your home. As orthodox Jews cannot carry things outside their home, this creates a temporary extension of your home on shabbat, and converts thousands of individual Jewish homes into one big home. Without the eruv, a Jewish mother is experiencing covid style lockdown every week for 25 hours, she cannot push a stroller outside so she can't leave the house if she has a baby. An elderly person in a wheelchair can't attend synagogues. They may have difficulty visiting relatives on shabbat . I hope you can explain to your tenants their Pov, it's a small thing that would make a big difference in the lives of others.

Reform/liberal Jews like myself do not use the eruv though we may often live in it. We often even travel outside the eruv to go to a synagogue that we like rather than one we just happen to live in. When I lived in Hendon, there were no reform synagogues in my area so I would take the 113 to st John's wood to attend services in a big central London synagogue. I live in Finchley now which has more non orthodox synagogues but pre covid, I still tried to go to the one at st John's wood for sentimentality reasons.

*more insightful view.

@Desiring

Are you not keeping Shabbat, Desiring?

@serenada I am liberal, I had to use internet this morning to participate in the online service. My rabbi uses Facebook on shabbat but I think the senior rabbi doesn't. Liberal Judaism is about informed choice, we know the halacha behind each tradition and rule but we ultimately make our own choices about our own traditions. It was different when I was living in an orthodox household i.e. with my MIL, I didn't really use internet partially because we were doing shabbat stuff and going on endless walks. But now I haven't seen her in weeks. :(

@serenada

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