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!

There is a principle that direct heat transfers 'taste'. So we use separate pots to directly cook and eat meaty and milky products. As always, if a mixup is made there are laws about this - if we don't know the answer ourselves we ask a Rabbi who does. And yes, it means a lot more kitchen storage space.

Shiva for marrying out - I think this was covered in the first thread (sensitive topic!). At least as recently as 100 years ago, some did have the custom to do this. It is very much an emotional/psychological reaction to what would have been seen as the betrayal of a family member leaving the fold. Nowadays, the usual approach is to maintain family ties and an 'open door' policy.

That made me laugh too. I think it’s called the Spiritual Supermarket.

Just to add - to what has been said by the OP and others, the two sets of everything is a have to have. Yes you can kasher things if a mistake is made, but it is not considered ideal to have to kasher between meals - although at least on kibbutz does that - they are a mixed kibbutz not a specifically religious one - and they have a special industrial type dishwasher that apparently they got rabbinical authority to agree functions to kasher, and they have metal plates (I think) that they kasher between meals. I only know this because I have a distant cousin on this kibbutz. But it is to deal with the fact that they are a very mixed group, with some more religious than others, and I believe it is unusual. Most kibbutzim are either religious or emphatically not religious.
Kashering for Pesach is different - a lot of people historically did that, so they didn't have yet more sets (ie four, two for the rest of the year, two for Pesach). These days most people don't bother and have four sets. The upside is that your Pesach sets last a lot longer than your during the year sets. I am using my grandmother's Pesach meaty set of crockery (which has moved three continents), and there is a good chance my DD might inherit it, as it is still going strong. And while it is not so easy to kasher for Pesach from the rest of the year, it is easy the other way, so we tend to keep spares of things for Pesach and when something breaks during the year, we just have it available and we make it for the rest of the year.

I’m currently reading an anthology of stories about London. One of them written in 1850 is supposed to be the worlds of an 8 year old Watercress girl (but told by a male writer), she spends her entire day selling watercress on the streets of clerkenwell. It’s a hand to mouth existence and her diet is mostly bread, dripping and tea. However she describes how on Friday evenings she goes to a Jewish home and does the jobs her employers can’t do because of the Sabbath, and stays till Saturday . Given this was written nearly 200 years ago I was half expecting some anti semitic tropes but no. She describes what she gets to eat there ( foods her family could never afford) and the kindness of her employer. Interesting that there was this symbiosis in those days already.

Interesting! What's the name of the anthology, pls?

It’s in London Stories published by Everyman Pocket Classics. The Watercress Girl story is by Henry Mayhew, written in 1851.

Why is it required that a dead body has someone sitting with it until the funeral?
Or have I got that wrong?

Also, to the PPs who mentioned 'Almonds and Raisins' - its 99p on Kindle at the moment, and I'm reading it right now. It's fantastic!

I've just read the line 'David had gone to Sale and returned with his arms full of greenery gathered in a country lane'. I'm from Sale, and you'd have a way to go, now, to get to a country lane from Sale Station!

Thank you, I have just bought it too!

Altrincham Massive checking in 😀

You haven't got that wrong, it is called doing shemira (guarding). It is just a custom, but like many of the customs associated with mourning, many people keep them even when they don't keep much else. I think it is just a matter of respect really, not to abandon the body. Burial is as quick as we can make it - given the need for death certificates in the UK before burial (in other countries while you may need doctor sign off of death, but the formal death certificate can be procured after the burial, which can make it faster). I took stints with my MIL, as did various of other women in the community (the rabbi's wife, various friends, and of course DH and his brothers). For my own DM, the chevra kedisha (burial society) mostly did it (and the held up the funeral until I could fly in - but they only do that for very close relatives). For my MIL, she died at about 11am on a Monday and she was buried Tuesday about 2pm.

In regards to funerals are jewish people generally against post mortems? As I know alot of respect is given to the deceased. Also would be interesting to know how the body is shrouded/washed/prepared before the burial

Generally not keen on post mortems - and especially invasive (ie cutting people up) ones (as technology has improved, they can do a lot more using scanning technology, but are often reluctant to).
Regarding preparing the body, unless one of the other Orthodox mums on here are on the chevra kedisha, they mostly won't know either. I have never done it. Best I can do is refer you to this book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Duties-Chevra-Kadisha-Society/dp/0955287596

I think that shemira done is for respect, but I have also heard some more superstitious/kabbalistic reasons about keeping demons away.

There was a BBC series a couple of years ago about faith in life’s big moments, including death, called ‘Being . . .’

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p096g86x/episodes/guide

Parts of some of these episodes had been filmed during the pandemic and so there was an extra dimension to it.

The ‘Being Jewish’ episode followed a funeral and included an insight into the preparation of the body. It was respectfully done, as were all the documentaries, I thought. Currently unavailable but they frequently make these sorts of programmes re-available on a fairly regular basis.

Same sort of faith strand of documentaries that featured dating and marriage, including the Saul & Shoshi one mentioned upthread.

What is the view of (especially ultra orthodox Jews) on Ethiopian Jews? Do they accept them as Jews ethnically, do they intermarry?

Another one :) what faith were Jews before Judaism was revealed to them? Was it a "tribe" before? And do Jews believe we all come from Adam and Eve? In which case we're all relatives?

Ok one last one, sorry! What's this thing with "a lost tribe" ? Is that a legend?

@jewishorthomum @EllaDisenchanted @mirah2 @amcha sorry if I have missed anyone out
Thank you so so much to everyone for answering all of the questions
I have one last question which might be slightly controversial but I'm sure you will be able to explain better to me than an online website. In the morning prayers the men say 'thank you G-D for not making me a woman' is that correct? How do female Jewish women feel about that? And what is the reason behind saying this? Thank you

Hi, I've had a busy day so not had time to come on here. I'll be back later this evening to answer if no one gets there first. @Parkingt111 @Betaalpha

Adam and Eve yes. So all relatives, yes. All this comes from the Bible (what Christians know as the Old Testement) which is our key document. The five books of Moses (ie first five books of the Bible - using the Christian names, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticius, Numbers and Deuteronomy - but in the original Hebrew) are what we call the Torah, or the written Torah (as along with that came the Oral Torah). If you read the Bible you will see that it tells the story in Genesis (Breishit or Breishis - depending on whether or not you use the Sephardi or Ashkenazi pronunciation) of the development of the Jewish people, starting off from Avraham, through his son Yitzchak and his grandson Ya'akov, going down to Egypt and becoming, as it says at the beginning of Exodus (Shemot or Shemos) a great nation there, made up of 12 tribes. The understanding was that Avraham came from an idol worshipping family but came to a realisation of G-d, and then G-d communicated with him and gave him various commandments, but that most of the commandments given to the Jewish people (ie the 12 tribes) were given to the people once they had left Egypt and were in the desert. So the Jewish people believed in G-d from the time of Abraham, but "Judaism" ie what Jews are required to do in their lives - ie keep all the commandments, was not revealed until later in the desert. And the people really became a people, ie with 12 tribes descended from the 12 sons of Ya'akov only in Egypt.

Actually 10 of them! If you read further in the Bible, eg in Kings you will see that at one point the the country split between two Kingdoms - the first called Israel which included the territory of 10 tribes, and the second called Judea which only really included 2 (although the Leviim were in both). And the northern kingdom, Israel, was conquered by the Assyrians, and their policy was to deport the people in the countries they conquered and bring in some of their own, so most of the 10 tribes were deported (although the archeological evidence is that Jerusalem expanded hugely at that time, so quite likely there was a signficiant refugee movement). The reason that Jews are called Jews is because of the remaining kingdom, Judea. There is a belief that at the end of days the 10 tribes will be reunited with the rest of the Jewish people.

There is a split, I believe, between those rabbis that ask for a conversion l'chumra - ie to go through the rituals of conversion just in case, and those that hold that there is no need, and they are fully Jewish anyway. The most famous of the latter rabbis is probably Rav Ovadiah Yosef, who strongly championed the view that the Ethiopians are fully Jewish without conversion. Rav Ovadiah Yosef was a major posek (major rabbi) - probably the biggest posek for the Sephardi/Edot HaMizrach (middle eastern) community, and so his views carry a lot of weight there. However most ultra Orthodox, particularly in England, are Ashkenazi (European), and they are more likely to follow other poskim.
Also it is important to understand that because of the way the shidduch system works in the ultra orthodox community - people there tend to be set up with people from the same ethnic community, so there is not a lot of mixing Ashkenazi/Sephardi there, so don't mention Ethiopian. Amongst the modern Orthodox, there is a lot of mixing Ashkenazi/Sephardi these days, particularly in Israel (they are going to the same schools and growing up together), and marriages with Ethiopians are also becoming more frequent as they integrate into the general Israeli community.

I'll grab this.

In a nutshell - officially yes they are accepted as Jewish (either up front or via a 'giyur l'chumra or conversion ceremony for formality only).

In practice, I don't know how many Ethiopian Jews are part of/marry with the Haredi community. The religious ones I know of are part of the dati leumi (roughly, Modern Orthodox) community.

For background, the Ethiopian Jews claim descent from members of the Tribe of Dan who went to Ethiopia in Temple times. They were mostly isolated from the rest of the Jewish world until the late 20th century. Because the rest of the Orthodox world follows Rabbinic Judaism (which developed majorly post-Temple), there was a debate about whether they counted as Jewish or needed to convert when they migrated to Israel.

Rav Ovadia Yosef ztz"l (a major scholar and former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel) argued for full acceptance without conversion. Because of his stature, at least some accept his opinion regardless of the State authority's position (which I have lost track of).

Cross post! Sorry

I actually have a book en route by Rabbi Sharon Shalom, a dati leumi (MO) Ethiopian Israeli rabbi. Looking forward to reading it.