Since it’s sadly relevant, a PSA for anyone attending a Jewish funeral or visiting a home where they are sitting shiva: no flowers, please. We understand that’s your tradition and won’t be offended, but respecting our traditions is a better gift of care.

https://www.shiva.com/learning-center/what-to-bring-or-send/flowers-and-jewish-mourning/

I don’t even think Christmas shouldn’t be all over the public space like it is. Clearly it does make a lot of people happy and I lowkey I actually kind of like it too! (Sort of. But I also don’t.) So, continue covering your town square or wherever with trees and lights, I’m not saying not to. What I *am* asking for is:

- Acknowledge that Christmas is not a universal holiday and that some people either feel negatively about it or just don’t celebrate it. Stop being offended by this.

- Stop forcing people to participate. Don’t make your Jewish employees wear Christmas outfits, don’t make schoolkids be part of Christmas plays, etc.

- Stop pushing back when Jews are honest with you about how they feel about it.

- Stop deflecting to talk about how Christmas traditions are actually pagan in origin. We know, and also it’s fully irrelevant to our issues with Christmas.

- Recognize things from other cultures. Or at very least don’t *prevent* members of other cultures from expressing them. If your employee wants to put up a menorah, let them. If your coworker wants to add a Chanukah decoration to your office don’t take it down when they’re not looking because it “messes up the Christmas spirit” or whatever.

- Recognize things from different cultures at other times of the year too. Let your Jewish students and employees take days off for the fall holidays. Maybe even consider merchandise or decorations for those holidays too!

- Stop with the double standards. You don’t get to say that a menorah is religious and a Christmas tree isn’t. Either both of them are or neither of them are. A menorah actually is a ritual object but a) plenty of secular Jews use them and b) I don’t think most Christians know that, they just think of Judaism (and therefore Jewish culture) as “a religion” and Christian culture as normal. When people claim to object to Chanukah (the holiday most widely — and often exclusively — celebrated by secular Jews) because it’s “religious,” they’re actually objecting because it’s non-normative.

- Listen when someone is telling you about their experiences with and thoughts about hegemonic culture. Don’t argue that actually it’s fine becaude Christmas is secular or pagan or whatever. Trust people about the experiences they’ve had and how things impact them.

(Yes, non-Jews can reblog this.)

you do know that when jewish and romani people say “never forget” we mean “learn about the holocaust so you can recognize the warning signs of facism and genocide” not “repeatedly bring up the holocaust whenever anything bad happens and exploit our pain and trauma to make people care about your cause” and when we say “never again” we mean “take action to prevent any stage of genocide on any scale by any means, hold collaborators responsible and don’t be complicit” not “only care about genocide when it’s too late”, right? or did you think it was just a fun catchphrase?

no actually reblog this

i told my family about the rabbinic definition of a “wall” as “a barrier that impedes the passage of goats” and my mother was so delighted by this that weeks later she showed me a photo of a baby goat squeezing itself under a gate and was like “this is NOT a wall!” 

@creekfiend 

If the baby goat had to squeeze through, that may suffice? Impeding can mean slowing down or delaying or making more difficult, so if the gate posed enough of a challege, it may be a wall.

A wall that does not stop goats is not a kosher wall but the rabbis, IMO, define it too narrowly, as they say a wall two handsbreadths off the ground will stop a goat and admittedly I have kind of big hands but I’ve seen goats get through a smaller space than that on many occasions

My neighbor has a goat farm with a cattle grid instead of a gate on his driveway. It seems to contain them, to my surprise. Does a cattle grid count as a “barrier”, and if so, could a goat-stopping cattle grid be considered a wall?

If it doesn’t stop a goat it’s not a wall, but if it does stop a goat it isn’t necessarily a wall

BEHOLD A WALL

just a friendly reminder that this type of rhetoric is misleading, (in my opinion, slightly antisemitic) and not the way to go about fighting religious homophobes.

religious jews still follow these laws. we dont wear clothes that have a blend of wool & linen (laws of shatnez). fresh produce in israel follows all of the agricultural laws outlined in the torah. as for some of the other laws i always see referenced: we don’t eat shellfish or pork or anything prohibited by the torah. clean-shaven men will only ever use electric razors never blades. we don’t work on the sabbath, we observe the sanctioned holy days, we believe in, love and fear God and obey God’s commandments.

personally, i find the rhetoric harmful and insulting for three reasons. one, it only works on the (very christian) premise that the torah is outdated, and that ~nobody in their right mind~ would follow those laws anymore. two, it tends to ignore the fact that lgbtq+ orthodox jews exist and have to live through the struggle of being lgbtq+ and observant, despite community backlash, severe judgement and institutionalised homophobia. and three, it gives homophobia-masked-as-religious-observance some sort of legitimacy because yeah, the rest of those laws are kept in varying degrees by millions of people.

don’t fight homophobes by saying ‘look at all of these other ridiculous laws’ – those laws matter to a lot of people, including me, a jewish lesbian. instead, say ‘do not stand idly by your fellow’s blood (leviticus 19:16)’, ‘whoever humiliates another in public forfeits their place in the World to Come (avot 3:11), ‘one shall not say to a person words that hurt them or cause them pain against which they cannot stand (sefer hachinuch, mitzvah 338)’, ‘do not do to others that which you would not wish them to do to you. this is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary (gemara shabbat 31a)’, and what is perhaps one of my favorite verses in tanach, ‘to what is good and just is more preferable to God than sacrifice (proverbs 21:3)’.

oh, and here’s a good starting point for educating your religious friends and family members. 

Being kind to ghosts is a Jewish value

I was just telling my coworkers today about how part of the official Passover cedar is literally summoning an ancient ghost to get drunk with you and I didn’t quite realize how wild Judaism is until I had to explain that

Objection: Elijah never died, so whatever he is, it isn’t a ghost.

look i googled “passover elijah” and this is the first image result

if it looks like a ghost and quacks like a ghost it’s a fuckin g ghost

That’s my grandpa

Elijah Never Died He Tucked His Arms And Legs Into His Belley. Curled Up Into A Ball. And He Just Rolled Away.

We have no conclusive proof that Elijah wasn’t always eight feet tall and translucent. 

“I wanted to fly planes on an aircraft carrier, but my father had fought in World War I, and he told me that we’re a family who goes into the army.  So I enlisted in the infantry.  I wasn’t worried about a thing.  I was only eighteen years old.  I was too young and too stupid to be afraid.  The government sent me to Europe on the Queen Mary. I had two sets of dog tags.  One of them designated my religion as ‘Hebrew,’ which I planned on throwing away if I got caught.  I was sent to the Battle of the Bulge.  When I arrived at my post outside of Luxembourg, I learned that all the officers in my company had been killed, except for one.  He assigned me to be an advance scout.  It sounds like a glamorous job, but my orders were to walk in front and draw fire so everyone behind me knew there was danger.  At one point a shell exploded over my head and my ear started bleeding.  When the medics finished bandaging me up, they told me: ‘That will be enough to get you a Purple Heart!’  But I told them to keep it because I knew they’d notify my parents, and I didn’t want them to worry.  After I recovered I was transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp.  I arrived on my 19th birthday.  My new job was to guard the liberated prisoners so the Nazis didn’t come back and kill them.  These people were so emaciated from being starved to death.  I was helping to bury hundreds of bodies per day.  But I couldn’t cry.  Because I had be strong for the prisoners.  They needed my strength.  I would walk around the courtyard at night, and sing a popular Jewish song called ‘My Yiddishe Momme.’  It’s a whole long story about missing your mother, but the lyrics didn’t matter.  I’d sing it as loud as I could.  Because I wanted everyone to know that a Jewish boy was there to protect them.”   #quarantinestories

someone explain the jewish holidays to me like i'm 5 years old

Purim: They tried to kill us, we survived. Let’s tell the story, wear silly costumes, and get wasted. (Optional: have a carnival or a play!)

Passover: They enslaved us, God freed us. Remember this via a big ceremony/feast and then don’t eat bread for a week. This is a big one; you’re going to have to clean your house and host all your relatives.

Tu B'Shevat: It’s Earth Day, let’s eat some fruit.

Simchas Torah: We read the entire Torah every year, and we got to the end! Let’s have a dance party and then start all over again!

Tisha B'Av: They destroyed our temples. That sucked.

Rosh HaShanah: Happy New Year! It’s time to ask (and grant) forgiveness for the wrongs done in the past year, pledge to do better, and wish for a sweet new year. And go to synagogue for HOURS.

Yom Kippur: Rosh HaShanah’s somber counterpart. God decides on this day your fate for the next year. Repent your sins, hope for forgiveness, and fast. (And go to synagogue for HOURS.)

Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Sukkot: Harvest festival! Sleep in a hut under the stars.

Shemini Atzeret: Man, I don’t even know?

Shavuot: God gave us the Torah! That was pretty nice of him.

Chanukah: They busted up our temple and tried to forcibly convert us. We responded with guerilla warfare. Let’s eat some fried food. Candles!

So basically the entire Jewish holiday calendar is giving the middle finger to death and high-fiving, with or without various combinations of prayer and foods.

Yup. Or as we say, “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.”

thank you for the desc’s bcs they are beautiful and i am now educated

A handy table for everyone:

— Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy (via ourwakingsoules)

seriously tho being jewish or muslim or just a minority that doesnt celebrate Christmas and going to a ""holiday"" party is like... so alienating lmao. like I feel like I'm ruining the mood by existing because I brought sufganiyot or want to listen to hannukah music. no amount of "holiday parties" and "non denominational celebrations" are gonna make me feel better when you dont actually try and include minority religions.

(goyim can reblog but Do Not Clown)

Welcome to Judaism. Our most sacred of documents doesn’t ever really bring up the concept of an afterlife, but while you’re here, please enjoy this excerpt of the text which mentions pomegranates no less than six (6) times.

“we don’t really know what happens when we die, but we know for a fact that pomegranates are delicious so let’s expand on that”

note to @julebug123 who said #this doesn’t sound right #bud I don’t know enough about Judaism to dispute it: 

Here is a video from a Jewish organisation addressing the absence of afterlife discussion in the Torah.

An excerpt: 

And this from the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals: 

Meanwhile, as noted here by the Jewish Virtual Library: 

And that’s just Chapter 4 of Shir HaShirim! When I searched for the word Pomegranate in an online version of the whole Tanakh I got 21 results! 

There are plenty of important Jewish texts (like the Talmud) that discuss and debate both the afterlife and the soul, but the specifics are far more vague/inconclusive than the vision put forth by other Abrahamic religions.

Hope that helps!

Judaism:

LMAOOOOO

Mystic Jew Powers

I don’t think I’ve ever written this down before. This is the story of the first time I played a shofar (as I remember it, not as it happened).

So it’s the mid 90s and I’m in primary school (‘elementary’, my dear yanks). We were doing Religious Education and learning about Judaism, I think for the first time. The teacher didn’t really know anything about Judaism that wasn’t written in the book, so he kept asking me, since I was the Only Jewish Kid In The Class (only jewish kid in the school in fact, except my sister). I wasn’t very religious, but I was doing my best to make up reasonable sounding answers. Anyway, the school had somehow got hold of a shofar. (If anyone’s religious education wasn’t up to the stellar standards of mine, the shofar is the ram’s horn that’s blown like a trumpet as part of the ceremony of certain jewish holy days). The shofar was passed around the class, and of course, hygene be damned, everyone tried to play it. But it’s not an easy instrument to play, there’s more to it than just blowing. So everyone is puffing and wheezing and red in the face, and the best anyone can get out of this thing is a pitiful squeak. But we’ve all just seen the guy on the VHS tape with the hat and odd hairstyle blowing it, and we heard the tooting noise come out of the tinny little speakers of the TV on the wheely cart, so we know this isn’t right. Is our shofar broken or something? Is it blocked up?

Finally the shofar gets around to me, and I am psyched all the way up. I haven’t played a shofar before, but I’m determined to get some kind of noise out of this damn thing, because my heritage is looking silly right now. The burden of upholding the dignity of Judaism itself falls upon my narrow shoulders. So, I take the biggest breath I possibly can, and put the shofar to my lips. Everyone’s looking at me, because I’m The Only Jewish Kid In The Class. And the thing that nobody in the room (including me) is thinking about, is the fact that I’m also The Only Trumpet-Player Kid In The Class. I only know one way to blow into an instrument. It happens to be the right way. And I do it, just as hard as I possibly can.

If you haven’t heard a shofar played properly in person, it’s not easy to describe. Recordings don’t capture it at all. Maybe it’s just because you usually hear it in a context of fasting and extreme reverence, but nonetheless a shofar blast (and that’s what they call it, a “blast”) is an amazing sound. The shofar sounds like raw naked power, it sounds like righteous fury. It sounds like more noise than a single human could ever make, yet it has a property like a human voice, like a bellow, a howl, like a newly bereaved mother splitting her lungs with blood and thunder. It’s a BIG sound, in the sense that it’s very loud, but also in the sense that it seems to fill whatever space it’s in, to come from all directions at once. It makes sense that the ancients gave it religious significance. When you hear the shofar’s call, the story of the Walls of Jerico tumbling down doesn’t seem that crazy.

So, it’s not possible to play a shofar quietly, and I’m giving the thing everything I’ve got in a little red brick classroom in southeast london. I can feel the room resonate and shake, hear the single-glazed windows rattle in their frames. I’m having a great time - this is the loudest noise I’ve ever made in my short life! And it’s in school! And I’m allowed to do it! So I keep going as hard as I can until my little lungs give out. I remember surfacing, out of breath and grinning, and listening as the antique cast-iron pipes throughout the building slowly stopped reverberating over the slack-jawed silence of the room.

The kids of course have seen enough TV to know exactly what happened. The Shofar knew I was Jewish. Obviously it’s not going to unleash that kind of unearthly sonic firepower for just anyone. Shofars only work for Jews. And the teacher is like “…That doesn’t sound right… but I don’t know enough about Judaism to dispute it?”. I didn’t offer any other explanations, because why would you demystify your Mystic Jew Powers?

And I’m writing this because I just realised that there were perhaps 30 kids in that class, and there just aren’t very many jews in southeast london to set them right, so it’s quite possible that there’s at least one 25 year old adult out there who still believes that the Shofar is a Holy Sacred Artefact which will Sound its Mighty Voice for none other than God’s Own Chosen People. And that cracks me up.

bringing this back for a happy new year

1) genesis 17:7, jewish publication society tanakh // 2, 4) 2.13, mizumono // 3) 2.13, mizumono, steven lightfoot & bryan fuller // 5) genesis 17:19, jps tanakh // 6, 8) 1.01, apéritif // 7) 1.01, apéritif, bryan fuller // 9) women in scripture: a dictionary of named and unnamed women in the bible, carol meyers // 10, 12) 1.12, relevés // 11) 2.04, takiawase, scott nimerfro & bryan fuller // 13) abigail, oxford dictionary of names // 14, 16) 2.13, mizumono // 15) 2.13, mizumono, steven lightfoot & bryan fuller // 17) genesis 22:1-2, jps tanakh // 18, 20) 3.02, primavera // 19) 2.11, kō no mono, jeff vlaming, andy black, & bryan fuller // 21) genesis 22:11-12, jps tanakh

i decided to wash the ratty assortment of yarmulkes that has been collecting in a drawer for like 25 years but i accidentally washed them on hot and some of them kinda shrunk

A story that the Jews tell each other is that when the slaves were fleeing Egypt they came to the edge of the Red Sea and thought: well, fuck, this is it. Water in front of them and enemies behind. They had escaped, sure, but all this meant was that they were going to die free instead of in chains. A meaningful distinction in an abstract sense, but the Jews are a practical people, and mostly what they were concerned with in that moment was: they would be equally dead either way.

A man stepped out from the group. He stepped into the water. He said: mi chamocha ba’eilim adonai? Who is like you Adonai, among the gods who are worshipped? He sang that verse over and over again. He sang it as he waded into the sea. He gave his body over to his faith as he walked. There was nowhere to go but forward. If he was going to die, he figured, and be equally dead either way, he was not going to die in slavery and he was not going to die at the hands of the Egyptians, either. He was going to die walking and singing, believing, trying to find progress in the chaos, in the waves. 

In the story, the water laps first at his feet, then his knees, his thighs, his ribs, his neck, finally flowing into his mouth as he sings and sings and sings. The words get choked, mispronounced: the hard cha of mi chamocha becomes mi kamoka, strangled but still certain. 

In the story, this man is why the people get their miracle, the waters parting to let them cross through on dry land. It is an act of divine intervention, but it only comes because someone is willing to put his life on the line to make it happen. I keep thinking about him this week, that apocryphal man and how it is a story we make sure to keep telling each other: when there is water in front of you and enemies behind, you do not wait for your god, or a sign. You trust in something larger than yourself and open your mouth to sing about it. You put your feet on the ground and walk forward. 

His name was Nahshon ben Aminadav. Descended directly from Judah, he fathered a line of kings. We tell his story to remind ourselves that God does not act in isolation. Humans are not just participants in holy work - we are vital to its success.

i just woke up from a dream where i was being interrogated by a bunch of people asking me if “furbies are kosher” firstly…. im not jewish. secondly……..what the fuck

please stop sending me asks pertaining to the kosher status of furbies. i really do not know. this was just a manifestation of my subconscious. im assuming that they are not kosher because furbies aren’t even food. but who knows! ask a rabbi, if you must. 

Jew here! Furbies are actually worse than unkosher–they are not permissible as food, even for gentiles. This is because the Torah teaches that it is forbidden for any human to eat the meat of an animal that is still alive, and the Furby cannot die.

hi this is the most ominous description of a furby i have ever heard