Jewish Orthodox Mum Part II AMA

[mirah2]

I'm probably letting myself in for it, but here goes...

New AMA to mop up any questions that didn't get answered on the first (full) thread. If you're sure (after reading all of that thread) that your question wasn't answered, or have a new question, please post.

I probably won't have time to reply until after dinner and kids' bedtime.

I am NOT the OP of the original thread. My frame of reference - Modern Orthodox, British (living in UK), convert, mixed race heritage.

Fellow Orthodox Jews of Mumsnet - feel free to crowd share answers, but please remember:

• this is not the shul kiddush. This is a public internet forum anyone can read
• please be sensitive and think about how others (Jewish and not Jewish) might interpret what you say. We sometimes have different working definitions of words within our bubbles so be mindful of that.

Go forth and post!

Thanks @mirah2 I am a Liberal Jew and really enjoyed reading the first thread. Let's hope the antisemites stay away!

My first question has to be what is the Shul kiddush you reference?

Oh good!

DH was raised Jewish, though not as part of much of a community (his parents' schul had only six families, fewer now they've died, and no family contact). He has a stereotypically Jewish surname. He never encountered any antisemitism whatsoever until Brexit, when he got half a dozen insults within the month - he worked on a helpline and had to give his name on calls.

Has Brexit legitimised antisemitism the way it did other forms of racism?

He doesn't consider himself Jewish these days, and I was raised in a mix of various Christian traditions. We're an atheist household now. He was totally thrown by getting aggro at such a late date.

Thanks for the new thread.

Why didn’t you let the original OP continue with a new thread?

Watching this entertaining thread from the sidelines of the Reform branch.

The Volvo comment made me laugh. I think four out of five kids growing up in liberal or secular families in Manchester in the 80s were transported by Volvo estate.
The reason I heard was that a lot of Jews were in trade and would require the boot space, when not filled with children, for stock. Certainly in our family this was the case.

The lack of anti semitism before was likely because he grew up in a tiny village where it never occurred to the other kids that he was different in any way, and there's not much of a jewish community in the wider area either.

I try to educate my kids about my background (various types of European), but he knows almost nothing to be able to pass on to our kids, since his father's orthodox family did the whole declaring him dead thing over marrying a convert and then moving away from orthodoxy to reform. A handful relented enough to attend his funeral, but none came to his stone setting, spoke to any of us at the funeral itself or stayed in touch with his converted widow. He can't even remember much about the main celebrations. Are there any reliable books or documentaries?

shul = synagogue
kiddush = the get-together after a synagogue service where everyone drinks little cups of kosher wine/ cups of tea and eats biscuits and gossips

Oh great - I was sad to see the other thread had closed! I had a lovely Jewish friend in uni who would occasionally be kind enough to invite me along to Friday night dinner with his family. I really appreciated his invitations and felt extremely privileged to be invited to share his family Friday evenings but I often look back and wonder what I 'should' have done - in my effort to be polite I would mumble along to the prayers (which clearly I did not have a clue about!!). If I am every fortunate enough to be invited to a Jewish family's home on a Friday evening what should I do during prayers and rest of the 'ceremony' - I felt a bit odd just watching. I suppose what I am asking is what do you expect from guests you invite - are you okay with them just being at the table watching during prayers?

Thank you so much OP for the thread. I find the ultra orthodox utterly fascinating and read lots of blogs, watch vlogs and follow ultra/orthodox Jews on social media. I think it's incredible how they are able to mobilizer and form schools, housing associations, ambulance services etc within a relatively short space of time and the vast majority seem to have no formal education.

My questions are:

1. Do you feel it's expensive to be Jewish? I was listening to a podcast which stated the extra costs associated with being torah observant, and by the time you've paid for schools, shul membership, kosher food and often inflated rental prices in Jewish areas that it can force people into poverty. Do the community have issues with this or is it just accepted that this is the way it is?

1. This is specific to the ultra orthodox - do many children/teens rebel, and how is this managed? Is this discussed widely or would it be kept hush hush? I remember reading about a Manchester rabbi who had been exposed for visiting prostitutes and the comments were from people he had gone to school with and said he had always been pushing boundaries. I assume in ultra orthodox communities conformity is very important and parents aren't keen to turn a blind eye or view it as a passing phase?

1. From what I've read the community in SH are very reliant on welfare benefits and the benefit cap has had a very detrimental effect. Given that large families are encouraged, are the community seeking to redress the lack of formal qualifications for the younger generation in order to get out of this poverty trap?

1. Do any of the posters here know personally any of the people that featured on any of the documentaries? Avi Bresler, Gabby Lock and Samuel Lobowitz (sp) from Stamford Hill, and Bernette from Manchester? All very colourful characters, I'd love to know how they are viewed by the wider community.

Thanks again OP.

@8state
I remain curious as to what Orthodox women like to read. Can they curl up with a Margaret Atwood or Hilary Mantel? Are there genres which are too counter to their values and beliefs to read? I am curious about music too. Is world music popular, what do young people listen to? I can see how busy the thread is, so won't ask again if there is too much to answer!

Thought I'd try and answer on the new thread. The point is that Orthodox Jewish women (there are Orthodox Christians as well of course) are a diverse bunch. Amongst the Modern Orthodox, I have certainly read Margaret Atwood, and never quite to Hilary Mantel, but I might well one day. Modern Orthodox tend to read widely - well as widely as most other women, ie it depends on the woman. But part of the Modern Orthodox belief system is to be open to the best of the wider culture and participate in it, while retaining Orthodox Jewish practice.
On the other hand, at the other end of the spectrum of Orthodoxy, many some Chassidic women might struggle to read English very well (their main language is yiddish), and they would generally not read secular books or have them in their house. In between - well there is a growing literature (if you can call it that) of English books written by Orthodox Jewish women for Orthodox Jewish women and girls (and sometimes boys a bit) which are set in and talk about their own societies and are imbued with the values of those societies. More for late primary and high school girls and about late primary and high school girls. Most of it, the quality is pretty awful and they are pretty didactic, but sometimes they can be not badly written.
I am pretty omnivorous when it comes to books - although would tend to avoid those with graphic sex scenes or violence. Others are much more restrictive. Most of the charedi schools do censor, and will have somebody read the books before they go into the library.

One more thing: just after Unorthodox and My Unorthodox Life aired lots of Jewish social media people reacted. ALL of them firstly said "this would never happen to Muslims". I thought this was odd as Muslims are vilified much worse on the media, I didn't even think the above two programs were that demonising (I thought it was very obvious Julia was very selective with the truth). Do Jews in general think Muslims are treated better than them?

Yes this.

@8state
Oh I didn't answer about music. While I am, as I said, pretty omnivorous with books and mostly did not restrict my kids, mostly assuming they were sensible enough to avoid or put down books that bothered them - I am probably less comfortable around some of the overtly sexual music videos out there, and some of the lyrics, and probably not something i am keen on exposing my DC to. Some in the more charedi communities (and it was really pushed by my DC's primary school) to listen to Jewish music only - and again there is a whole genre out there of music with uses modern techniques and sound with Jewish/Hebrew lyrics - I rather like some of the more soppy stuff - like D'vekus - some of it is more rock - the key is usually using Hebrew lyrics - often based on texts from the Bible or other Jewish literature. In Israel now there is a relatively new genre that fuses that and more modern lyrics that I personally find very creative and love - but some of these are too "modern" for the charedi taste.

@HoofWankingSpangleCunt there's an old channel 4 documentary about the chassidic community in SH called Volvo City. Apparently the new favoured car is the Toyota Previa.

A few posters on the previous thread were asking about dv services.
Jewish Women's Aid can provide confidential support and advice.
https://www.jwa.org.uk/

@TheShellBeach But who decides this?

This is a very complicated question, but I will give it a go.

The short answer is the community you live in as decided by the rabbi who leads your community, or to whom you go to with questions.

The rabbi decides this based on community norms and his (or the rabbi he goes to, to ask the questions he doesn't know the answer to)'s understanding of the texts (Jewish law). The closest analogy I can give is to a judge in a secular law situation - eg ruling on who has to pay who money if someone damaged somebody else's property. That judge would have studied the law of damages (eg in England), and would know the principles that the courts have formulated over the years. They would then seek to apply those principles to the particular situation in front of them. There can be major disagreements between judges (that is why the law is often overturned on appeal, and may be overturned on further appeal to the Supreme Court). So too here. Different rabbis have different views on the various texts and how they should be applied, influenced both by the communities they have grown up in and what their particular rabbis have said and their own reading of the texts (so too do learned individuals, male and female). The key thing is the fidelity to the tradition and the text, but within that, there are quite a range of acceptable positions and views on things like - well no trousers and why. A lot depends in any circumstance on whether you analyse the situation as being required by, or a violation of a Torah law (that includes the Oral Torah), a rabbinic law (formulated by the rabbis in the period up until the closure of the Talmud in around 500CE) a proper minhag (custom) or just a practice that carries no weight.

Does that help? It is complicated

It had reached its limit of 1000 posts (in about 24 hours!).

Yes and OP said she would come back
It’s pretty poor to jump on and start a second thread. And especially to lay down rules in such a pompous way when original OP didn’t feel the need to…..

Thank you for the new thread. I have a lot of Jewish friends but all liberal so this is a fascinating window into your world.

I really appreciate your time.

@Joevanswell I am not sure if anybody has answered you (even though I think you asked twice on the last thread).
When you say great-great grandmother (maternal line) do you mean it is all completely down the maternal line? If so, prima facie you are Jewish without converting - but warning, most Orthodox institutions will want proof, and the devil can be in the detail in charting that proof - there were a lot of Soviet Jews who came to Israel and who have really struggled with the Bet Din bureaucracy because it is one thing for them to know they are Jewish, but the Betei Din want proof, and documentation that proves it is often very hard to come by. I think sometimes people have gone through a conversion procedure because it is easier than proving their original Jewishness (but if the Bet Din really believe you, and see you are committed to an Orthodox way of life, they may be more than willing to fast track you through that just as an easier way of getting the documentation). You can do a conversion l'chumra (ie go through all the rituals in case you aren't but don't say the blessings in case you are). You would need to talk to a Beit Din about it though - and what should be done.

Hi. The question is not why a new thread was started (fairly obvious - 1000 posts reached). The question from me and the other poster is why the thread needed continuing by someone who didn't create the first thread. If anything - its that poster who should have created this follow up thread - branded as a Part 2 and all.

Quite. Exactly my point which @JeweyJew appears to not have got. Weird and poor form.