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!

I was also thinking about trying to answer the feminism question, but really didn't think i could do it justice, especially erev shabbat.
I too would describe myself as a feminist - but then you need to talk about first wave, second wave, third wave feminism. I am very in favour of - what I once would have called gendered spaces, but don't think I can any more, given what has been done to the word gender, so let's stick with single sex spaces. And I am happy that the halacha protects our spaces much better than certain proposals by certain politicians, should we say. I agree that sometimes there seems to be male attempts to shut down female spaces in the community - I am thinking in particular of a large concert for women and girls only with some American female singers, that Charedi authorities tried to tell girls and women not to go to (sent letters through all the schools) - but the women pretty much ignored that, and it was packed out. There is immense creativity out there in the community in the women's only spaces, that women have created for themselves, and they are IMHO amazing.
I also note that in the outside world, there isn't a lot of scope for male only spaces, and those that are, are pretty seedy - the idea of having male ownly spaces where men get together with the primary focus on prayer, but the secondary focus on building a community and providing support to one another (and getting them out of their isolation, which seems to aflict men more than women), just doesn't exist.
BTW, going out for the day, so probably not going to be around to answer many more questions before tonight. Over to the others.

Thank you so much for this thread, I really appreciate the openness and honesty as well as the opportunity to learn firsthand.
I have been curious about Jewish culture and religion for a long time.
Thank you.

I've refrained from mentioning this as the thread has been very positive, but I really appreciate that the posters are being very honest, even when the answer isn't necessarily 'palatable'.
Regarding the ultra orthodox - I have experience of SH and I've seen the men crossing over, not making eye contact etc, but I don't find that disrespectful, I accept it is their way of life and as long as they aren't rude about it I'm not bothered. It's the women that I found rude and sneery (and I'm not dressed immodestly by any means) but what I found almost upsetting is the obvious fear and distrust that the children/young people display at the mere sight of someone who doesn't look like them. I've been in parks where teenage girls have pulled children away because we approached the same swing set or slide. I would smile or say a low key hello at anyone I make eye contact with and these young people just looked terrified, or as one person said, as if they've seen an alien. I know they are naturally wary but it just seems as if some sort of unnecessary generational fear/trauma is being passed down, which is very unhealthy for children to bear. Is there any attempt by schools or even more Liberals (such as those from GG) to address this? One thing that struck me listening to ex hasidic members is the fear of the "outside world" (who might actually be their neighbours) and how they didn't know how to navigate this once they left.

This explains why there has been no mention of the Orthodox community in Liverpool - when I was medical student there [not quite 50 years ago!] half my year of 120 were local jewish men [no women at all] and lots of consultants esp surgeons too

But it's true when I think about it most of my peers are now in London or Manchester

Thank you @mirah2 for answering my question upthread and thank you to everyone @jewishorthomum @mirah2 @EllaDisenchanted @Ortiguilla and anyone I’ve forgotten for a really lovely and educational thread.

@jewishorthomum The story you told of the Rabbi summarising the commandments as “Love others as you love yourself” really resonated with me because this same summary is also in the New Testament, at least twice that I can think of, both times explicitly spelt out as a commandment.

As a Christian of CofE background, what you’ve said there has really brought it home to me that I now hear and read those words out of their original context, which were the teachings of a Jew to his fellow Jews. It’s the same summary of the commandments but I receive them in a very different context.

It’s also, I think, the most difficult one to keep! We keep trying though, it’s really crucial, but it’s the one I struggle with the most, for example, I find it hard to keep perspective sometimes when someone angers me.

Someone upthread, apologies, I forget who (mirah?) referred to the people who adhere to the laws of loving G-d to the exclusion of loving people. That resonated with me too. Probably all religious people of any background know people who do this!

Thank you to everyone who has so very generously shared their lives.

I'm really sorry, I never got back you properly. The thread went downhill a bit and I hope you're still here.

My kids are 5 and 1.5 so I get the age range :)

PJ Library is great for your son's level. Also check out Shaboom! on YouTube - very American, but lots of cute cartoons on Jewish holidays and concepts.

I'm also a massive fan of the late Rabbi Sacks. He did a lot to present Orthodox Jewish viewpoints both in our community and to the wider world and make them relevant to modern issues. Your son will be way too young to read him, but you (and DH!) might find it interesting to read some of his books and help that talk to your son about Judaism. Some books are easier to read than others - a good way in might be 'From Optimism to Hope', which is based on his BBC Thought for the Day contributions.

A gentle reminder that as Orthodox Judaism is matrilineal, if your son does decide to embrace that side of his heritage fully he will need to do an Orthodox conversion to be accepted across the whole Jewish community. It's not impossible - I've done it. But it's hard, and there will be some extra angst for him if he 'feels Jewish' but only finds out his halachic status as a non-Jew down the road.

Good luck! There are a lot of positive things to learn from Judaism regardless of what path your son chooses.

Did he want to keep niddah with you, Shhhhnow, when you were menstruating, or ask you if you had had 7 clear days since your period?

Would you go to places together, or stay in your home?

Did he mind when you ended things? Do you think he had done it before/would do it again?

You can also tell a Kohain grave because instead of a magen David (star of David) it will usually have the symbol of two hands with fingers spread. This is the same sign that Leonard Nimoy copied for Spock. He saw it in synagogue!

I'm not really a Star Trek fan but I LOVE this!

More interesting things here, thanks to everyone who is answering 😊

Someone up thread mentioned the mikvah and whether they were still open during the pandemic which led me to wonder - if it had come to it, is there anyway that a bath at home could have been blessed, or sanctified, or whatever the appropriate term would be? Could you have replicated it in some way?

My other interest is based on my work - I’m a massage therapist and I have a particular interest in therapeutic massage for women’s health issues (so mitigating certain menopause symptoms, for example). Given where I live it’s highly unlikely that an Orthodox Jewish woman would ever find her way to me, so this is a totally hypothetical question - but say one of you were to be having a rough time with joint pain for instance and decided that a targeted massage might help. Would you need any particular accommodations to be able to be treated (I am a woman). I’d guess you’d need to be sure that any oils etc I was using were Kosher - anything more? Or would you not even consider using such a service? Like I say, the chances of this ever being an issue where I am are slim but I am interested to know, and anyway, you never know, right?

@RunAwayTurnAwayRunAwayTurnAway honestly, he could not care less about periods. Was never a topic that came up tbh and we just put a towel down when it did happen. But then, it's because I am not Jewish that he didn't care - I know he did with his wife and that they slept separately.

We would meet in a hotel off the M40 quite a bit when he was down here for business. We went to Tel Aviv a few times - I would travel and meet him there. And he would come to my house (I lived with my parents - remember, I was very young, 20 odd) and bizarrely, we would watch a lot of Father Ted.

He was philosophical when it ended. Said he knew it would happen and he was grateful for the fun of brought to his life which, he said, sometimes was not a whole lot of fun. When we met it was very out the blue and he told me he was just at the end of mourning the death of his dad - apologies, can't quite remember the phrase used .. 'sitting something??' and he would always remember me fondly.

And he does. We swap WhatsApp's every year or so maybe, sometimes longer than that.

I'm now married and have been for years and I have two children now,
One an adult, so this puts into perspective how long ago this was and I would of course not do this now!

And your final question .. do I think he'd done it before? Yup. Do I think he's done it since? No idea.

Do I think that any religion in the world, no matter how strict and no matter how observant you are, can override basic human instincts? No. Not always

I appreciated your balanced perspective, it didn't feel offensive to me. I think it can be a little tricky, because although we are all Jewish and orthodox, there can be stark differences socially, and in practice, between different communities. We may have more insight into why certain communities operate the way they do, and I 'get' a lot of the socio-cultural reasons for what they do, but we have no more influence (or right, I suppose) to affect change in areas that we disagree on. So when we are looked at as a homogenous whole (which I totally get why we would be) and held to account in the media for practices/behaviour that we disagree with, it can be very frustrating.

When members of the community in SH broke lockdown laws, all religious Jews in the UK felt the backlash, even though we aren't affiliated with SH, nor behaving the same way, and they are their own entity. At the same time, I have no desire to throw my fellow Jews under the bus.

The mikva water isn't blessed as such rather it has specific criteria in how it is built. A mikva must be built into the ground or built as an essential part of a building. They usually look like mini swimming pools. It cannot be portable, so a bathtub, hot tub or portable pool wouldn't qualify. It must contain 200 gallons of rainwater.
Your work sounds so interesting! As long as you are a women, a Jewish women would be happy to be treated. The oils can be any oils, pretty much only ingested food needs to be kosher.

@amcha my apologies, I also meant to tag you above. The point you raise about male-only spaces in the outside world is an interesting one.

You’re right - there aren’t that many but there are certainly some community groups that are male-only spaces in a healthy way - we’re big supporters of the Men’s Sheds which provide safe spaces to learn new skills and improve their mental health by doing and chatting, whatever their age and background. It can, for example, ease loneliness for elderly men to pass on skills and for young people to learn a new sense of community and purpose. It’s a brilliant idea. I donated my late Dad’s tools to them.

I think the lack of safe and healthy spaces is an expression of the law of unintended consequences - it is not right for women to be excluded from male spaces as an expression of male privilege in education and the professions, for example. But single-sex spaces work well as well, and people thrive in those contexts, and the option should be there.

But then it’s nuanced. I knew straight away the minute I first met him my DH had been to a boys’ grammar by his general demeanour (comprehensive for me). Shy and awkward around women. Part of what was loveable about him, actually. A good egg. But it was hard work sometimes. Not sexism, but he couldn’t always immediately grasp where I was coming from.

Do you think that the separation of the sexes in daily life is a help or hindrance to understanding each other emotionally in a marriage, or a bit of both?

On a train, so my posts might have even worse typos and spelling mistakes than usual, but Orthodox women would definitely use your services. There is a charity in the community, called Camp Simcha, that offer support to families with children who have cancer and life limiting conditions. They offer massages several times a year to the mums (and on their retreats find a male to offer massages to the men, although I think the take up is much lower). For most mums, there is the time and cost, which is why Camp Simcha ensure that these mums who have so much more on their plate, have some time for themselves, and this is very much one of the things they offer.

Hi :)
You wouldn't really be able to do it at home very easily, they are complex and not cheap to set up. It is possible, but in the timescale of the pandemic, extremely unlikely. It would be a bit like building a swimming pool at home, because you can't attend the pool in lockdown (although with more implications if you don't go!). A lot of Chabad couples do outreach and live in far flung places where they have very limited access to mikvas (sort of equivalent situation), and they have to travel, or find a natural source they could use. It's not about it blessing/sanctifying, but has to fulfil certain criteria, including having a certain amount of clean water from a natural source.

I can't think of any accommodations really, oils would not need to be kosher, as they are not being eaten. I wouldn't do it if a man was present (can't see why they would be). It is something I would consider using, for sure.

x post @jewishorthomum !

This is truly the most outstanding thread(s) I’ve ever read here and it’s 1) made me re-register and 2) made me realise I need to get back to my roots.

So many questions have been answered for me - eg, when my grandparents fled London after the car and why they chose Cardiff - and why that particular part of Cardiff.

I’ve googled my old rabbi (orthodox as was the only shul where I was living) and I learned he’s now an expert on sexual expectations for women - no wonder his wife was always so happy! 😁

I will need to find my own path through all of this now and would appreciate any thoughts about accessing records digitally? I know my ggmother was registered somewhere in London and I’d guess Ashkenazi given her name.

My question is this though: given you would generally swerve smartphones/socialising online - how did mumsnet pop up on your radar?

@jewishorthomum @EllaDisenchanted Gosh yes, you’re not building one of those in a hurry, are you!

I do love my job I must say - it’s lovely send people away feeling better than they did! Definitely no random men in the room - the only time I’d have another person there would be to chaperone a child or vulnerable person, so a parent or carer, or to help a physically disabled client get on and off the table as that’s not something I’m trained to do safely.

If either of you ever find yourself in my neck of East Anglia, you’ll have to pop in and see me 😊

Hello 😀I’d start by trying to find out what shul did they attend in London. Or find out where they were married. If they were married in an orthodox ceremony there should have been a kesuba (Jewish wedding certificate ) which might have relevant information on. Burial information may also be useful if you can get hold of it.

regarding smartphone use: it depends on where you are on the spectrum of observance religiously and what you choose to do, within chareidi circles. There also options to put strict filters on smartphones. They are pretty widespread in a lot of communities, but as you get to the stricter end, you’ll see fewer and there is limited or no smartphone and internet access.
mumsnet - I don’t really remember how I came across it , lost to the mists of time lol. I think possibly I was looking up buggies or something for my first kid, years and years ago , and came across mumsnet and liked the chat topics . I didn’t really post though. Smartphone and internet use pretty standard for people I associate with

I will try to answer this as someone who grew up Chassidish in Stamford Hill, but am no longer chassidish but still very much ultra orthodox.
I know that people are very wary of non Jewish people and people who are not like them, even other Jews who don't dress like them. I think it is because of their insular upbringing and only socialising with people who are like them.
There might also be a generational distrust, lingering from the Holocaust and general anti semitism from prewar Europe, most people in Stamford Hill have grandparents who came to England as refugees and didn't trust non Jews not to be anti-Semitic and so raised their kids to be wary of non Jews who did the same for their kids and that combined with their insularity makes the current generation behave in the way you described.
I was raised very insular yet my parents were always very friendly and respectful to everyone they met and as a result I can't see any of my siblings behaving in the way you described. So it is very much related to how their parents behaved to non Jewish people.
At my school, my headteacher always emphasised that we should behave in a polite and respectful way to non Jewish people, I'm not sure about the other local schools.

Just an interesting thing to add about mikvah. Chassidic men are quite particular about going to the mikvah every day before praying. A men's mikvah doesn't have all the requirements that a women's mikvah has and as a temporary measure many people had temporary plunge pools and the like put up in their gardens.
Since then I know of a few people who have actually built a proper mikvah with all the stringencies in their houses.

As a current Stamford Hill resident I concur with the above.

Cardiff used to have a flourishing Jewish community as did Port Talbot and a few other locations in Wales. My Great grandfather also fled London during the war to the countryside in Wales. It was really common.

About your Rabbi being an expert in "sexual expectations for women". It was our Rabbi who gave my husband tips on how to help me get over vaginismus and enjoy sex again after birth😊

And lastly re smartphones. Most streams of orthodoxy do have smartphones and use social media. Only the ultra orthodox wouldn't. About myself personally, I'm ultra orthodox. My husband has a "dumb" Nokia phone. No internet access on it. I have a smart phone but don't have much social media. I used to be on Instagram but I deleted it around 2 years ago. I found it too much of a distraction and time waster. It didn't align with my lifestyle. So that's deleted.
I discovered mumsnet only around half a year ago when googling a question about my baby I think.

The ultra orthodox outlook on internet and smartphone is to use it as needed, whether for business or shopping etc, but avoid it for socialising.
(You may ask why I'm here on this thread, and the answer would be that if the purpose of this thread was for even one person to reconnect with their Jewish roots, its worth all the time.)

@FeltCalled I forgot to tag you. In reply to your post

Thank you @simplespimply @Bergmum . @Bergmum have you always lived in SH? Do you envision yourself always living there?