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

@belfasteast yes there's lots of mosques and churches in the area too

@pikespeaked you can buy ready made grieven. Very bad for you lol. I didn't realise it was the same idea as crackling - god to know!
I use chicken carcass for my chicken soup, with wings and necks and throw in a few poupicks too. My grandma adds a squirt of tomato concentrate for colour and fresh dill, parsley, celery, carrots and onions and shin beef. I keep it super simple with just carrots onions salt and pepper. It gets skimmed as its boiling up and cooks for hours and it's yum! The lokshen is just angel hair pasta cooked separately (if you leave it in it turns to mush) and sometimes I make knaidlech too. Anyway the carcasses and wings etc you can usually get as a soup pack from a kosher butcher and they are pretty inexpensive. 2 soup packs can make a large stock pot full as long as you leave it long enough

Now I'm hungry for leftover soup from shabbos!

belfasteast, I looked it up and there are 21,000 Christians living in Stamford Hill, and only 16,000 Jewish people. Plus nearly 12,000 who are atheist or indicate no religion. And thousands of a Muslims and Hindus too. It’s just a normal neighbourhood that happens to have a particular concentration of Jewish communities. Nothing to be wary of.

And Jews and non-Jews look exactly the same, ie like people. There are Jewish people from all over the world and all different ethnicities. Most Jews are not Haredi.

If you saw me in my jeans, belly top and cropped green hair you might not assume I’m an Orthodox Jew, but I am. It honestly worries me how many people assume all Jewish people have payot or dress very modestly; that’s like assuming all Christians are Mormon.

Obviously people will know you’re not Haredi, but people won’t know or care about your religious background.

Go. Have fun. Buy a beigel. Grodzinski's is best.

Whoever said, "gemach", having looked that up, yes that seems to be it.

Waves tot he Finchley people, I lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb and then Finchley.

I'll just add to the language by introducing some sign language.

BSL has at least three signs for 'Jew' or 'Jewish', the most politically correct and accepted you start with your hands in front of you, palms facing away and thumbs crossed, the hands then go down, out, up to represent the menorah.

The other signs are older and thought to be less politically correct, and sexist. One represents a beard and the other you make ringletts at the side of the head. I find when the discussion goes to 'orthodox' or 'ultra orthodox' I'm using the different signs in my head.

I watched 'strictly kosher' recently, I actually cried when the 90+ year old made his Bar Mitzva (he was in hiding during WWIIwhen he had his birthday).

Thanks again for all the information.

Jews and non-Jews look exactly the same, ie like people.

"You're Jewish? Oh. You don't look Jewish."

Interestingly, I've never had this from a Muslim.

Sorry to clarify when I said I don't look Jewish I meant hasidic. On reprogram I've watched regarding Stamford Hill it gives the impression that it is a Jewish place only, and the Jews who live there very much have a look, in terms of dress code.

@PikesPeaked I think its because islam is a religion that does encourage proselytising. a lot of people don't even realize you can convert to judaism. And for Jews like my DH, he does look Jewish with his Jewfro and pale skin- a bit like a yeshiva boy minus the kippah and glasses, and in jeans and t shirt.

I think I look very Jewish, although not as much as my uncle and some of my second cousins. Yet people have reacted with surprise and say I don’t. Most non-Jews in the UK have no idea what my tichel is, although I’ve had a lot of compliments on it 🙂

Actually, I think it's because Muslims have experienced the same visual stereotype driven behaviour.

My DH apparently 'looks' Jewish but has no Jewish heritage at all.

@belfasteast what is the programme you watched on Stamford? Sorry if you have mentioned it already and I missed it.

@ShoppingBasket was the programme and others appear if you turn on the autoplay.

Thank you

OP thank you for posting this thread. I am not Jewish but have always felt a natural affinity with people of the faith. My mother was given the option to have me in a Jewish maternity hospital (because of where they lived) and my siblings and I are often mistaken for being Jewish just by 'our look'. It has been fascinating and educational reading this.

Thank you for this thread it's really interesting!
I'm just watching Shtisel and a little boy was just kicked out of the Yeshiva for having a dog and his grandfather said dogs are impure.
Can I ask why are they seen like that and on the subject how are cats seen?
There was in one episode one guy bought a parrot but would you keep any other pets?

@Bells3032 Thankyou for this thread. I’ve never googled as many words to find meanings before! Really interesting and educational as well.

@mutzul I think this is a haradi thing - they don't want animals in their home that are considered non-kosher so this would apply to cats too.

However, many orthodox people have dogs and other pets (I grew up having dogs and all my family did).

@Bells3032
Thank you for the answer.
Yes the series it's about a Haredi family.
I am originally from Satmar now spelled differently and I don't think anyone in my family is Jewish and tbh didn't know one Jewish person untill I moved to London but we have very similar foods,like the chicken soup,liver with onions,the sweet bread(can't remember whats called sorry) also I have no ideea how to spell it or whats it's original name although I suspect the Jewish name is the original but grew up thinking it's just a way of saying something like Lutkos like I said no ideea if that's how it's spelled but I've seen it mentioned in Shtisel aswell,I was surprised to find out these were Jewish foods.
Also surprised when I watched Unorthodox and found out it's based on the Satmar community so I had to find out more because living there for most of my life never once have I seen a obviously Jewish person by that I mean someone with the black hat and suit and the hair and all, really interesting.

@mutzul

I am not sure where Satmar is but just looked up and it seems it is in Romania. Most of the Jews in those communities left in 1880-1950 time due to pogroms and then the Holocaust therefore there are unlikely to be many, if any, Jews left in that area. Most of them moved to NYC and set up their but still kept in their little enclave and associated themselves with their area of origin. It donates the origin not the current location of these communities, these communities are now mainly based in new York.

The sweet bread is called Challah. I am planning to bake some this Thursday night :)

Latkas are fried potato pancakes (similar to what UK people call hash browns)

Most Jewish foods, particularly those associated with the Ashkanzi community, are very eastern European as that's where they were centred for hundreds of years.

There is also a large Satmar community outside of NYC, in and around Kiryas Joel, in Orange County, NY.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiryas_Joel,_New_York

@Bells3032
We only really make the sweet bread which we call Pasca at Easter don't know why tough.
The food that I mentioned is not the potato pancakes although we do something like that too and it's actually called Lecso (got excited and mixed them up) and it's a tomatoy dish.
I googled it and in 2011 there were only 34 Jewish people in my town,there's probably less now,there is a Synagogue but I don't think it's open. used to go to school in that area and never saw anyone going in or out but then I never actually paid attention.
On this day 76years ago in 1944 the first train full of Jewish people left from my town to Auschwitz and I want to say Im sorry,I know it doesn't change anything and I had nothing to do with it but still fell the need to say Sorry that my town treated your people so bad,Satmar was actually a ghetto before sending people away never knew this so again Im sorry

Thanks ever so much for this fascinating thread

@mutzul

There's a tomatoey egg dish called Shashukah which is common in Israel.

Interesting your bread at Easter is called Pesca as Easter coincides with Passover which in Hebrew is called Pesach (pronounce Pay-sak) so the name of the bread originated from that. Ironically the most important thing you can't eat at Passover is bread!

My mum used to make latkes quite frequently. We loved them. She wasn't Jewish, but her father was. They came here as refugees in 1933 to escape from Nazi Germany. Only one other family member managed to avoid the gas chambers.

This thread is brilliant. I also need to google most of the terms, some of them sound so very similar to each other. For example is there more than one word for Sabbath?

@ginfordinner thank you. can't quite believe how much interest this thread has gotten and how many other Jewish people have jumped aboard to help as well.

Yes there are often lots of words for the same thing - partly because they'll often be the English, Yiddish and Hebrew words but also different pronouncations and spellings. This is just down to the jewish community being a "nation amongst nations" and different traditions and words being influenced by the communities that surrounded them.

For Shabbat, it can be Shabbos, the Sabbath, the holy day etc

We worship in a synagogue, a shul or a beit Knesset. etc