#Miriam Ezagui

[angryjewishcockroach]

Being a 21st century Jew is telling your family/Jewish friends about the Jewish influencers you're following on the internet and discovering that you're all following the same people.

[mhaccunoval]

so eepy, yet so thinky (thinking about rebekah)

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

Miriam ezagui (orthodox jewish influencer on instagram) is kind, understanding, has a beautiful family, a successful career, and a loving husband and still her comment sections are full of people who can barely figure out where their own heads are being absolute asshole antisemites to her. like you shouldn't even judge jews that aren't absolutely thriving like she is but her?? are you kidding me?? she probably would never do this because it's not her style, however if she decided to release a video absolutely verbally demolishing these people id support her 1000%

[exdivine]

I'm talking about Miriam Ezagui from TikTok again because I never liked that woman but I'm honestly confused as to why she's getting cancelled for supporting Israel? She had so much support when she was openly sharing her conservative religious beliefs about women's role in Hasidic Judaism. Libs were literally cheering this woman on when she happily shared how she believes women are in a state of ritual impurity while menstruating, and therefore should observe ritual bathing after menstruation in order to restore ritual purity. Or how she posts her toddler and baby daughters on social media to use them as examples on how to raise girls with a "modest" mindset. This is all to say, I genuinely cannot fathom why people are surprised she's not only pro-Israel, but also a Zionist. Of course a conservative religious woman is indoctrinated into supporting a military ethnostate. These people are fucking STUPID lmaoo

[peach-and-bugs]

Do you think Lottie would be the type to carry her baby everywhere? Like always strapping baby Matthews to her chest or something

Lottie 100% baby wears all the time when baby Matthews is old enough for it. But she’s not into the baby papoose or the baby bjorn so much. She’s more into baby wearing with a wrap instead!

If you’re not familiar with that kind of baby wearing, a great example is Miriam Ezagui on TikTok. She’s a labor and delivery nurse but also teaches about baby wearing as well as her culture as Orthodox Jewish.

But Lottie is wearing baby matthews all the time. I like to think that baby gets her best naps when she’s wrapped on Lotties back during a hike or while she’s gardening

[la-lauren]

I really enjoyed Miriam Ezagui’s content until…. Now.

[yonahsienna]

I'm begging you to watch literally anyone else. Ben Shapiro is a pundit and propagandist for the far-right, and he is not a Rabbi or Jewish Educator. He may happen to be Jewish but he is definitely not the voice of our community.

I would suggest the following instead (most can be found both on Youtube and wherever you find podcasts)

Aleph Beta

BimBam

Judaism Unbound

Miriam Ezagui

My Jewish Learning

Nice Jewish Girls

On the Other Hand

The Jews Are Tired

Unorthodox

Wondering Jews

A paradox of the Jewish Internet is that while the Jewish community is only about 10% Orthodox, with 90% of Jews being more "progressive"/"liberal", Judaism online is the opposite. I don't know if Orthodox content makes up fully 90% of the Jewish content online, but there's at least two or three times as much of it.

When you think about it, it makes sense. People who identify as culturally Jewish or are only loosely affiliated are probably not going to spend a lot of time talking about their Jewish identity online. Lots of celebrities who "happen to be Jewish" (eg Andrew Garfield, Jack Black, Scarlet Johansson, etc) probably won't be starting a Jewish podcast anytime soon. For most Jews, being Jewish is part of their identity but not necessarily the biggest part, so it makes sense that more online content will come from an Orthodox/traditional perspective.

Now, I want to be SUPER clear: Orthodox Judaism is a valid and beautiful branch of Judaism and has a lot of awesome stuff. On top of that, Orthodox Jews (especially ultra-Orthodox) bear the brunt of anti-semitism because of just how visible they are; you can't be an ally to Jews but exclude Orthodox Jews from that. But I also want to emphasize that you shouldn't consume from only one branch of Judaism, and it's easy to accidentally do that, especially online.

Good luck on your learning journey!

If you choose not to post this one I completely understand, but this is a genuine question and my intent is not to start a fight.

I've been looking at resources to learn more about modern Judaism, and along with books I've also been seeking out podcasts and YouTube channels/videos. As I'm sure you might expect, Ben Shapiro has come up a few times in these searches. I personally have a hard time listening to him, but for anyone who has, do you think he has interesting things to say about Judaism?

.

[alexandrium]

ppl on tiktok surprised abt miriam ezagui as if it wasn't obvious what she would believe. look i can respect ppl and their religions. their rituals and beliefs. but there's a reason I'm always gonna be away from hyper religious ppl. They r always on a slippery slope to other shit

[arlathen]

“tiktok is awful” -a moron who clearly doesn’t follow miriam ezagui

[zhabe]

Okay imagine you’re a white TME trans person who was raised with new age spirtuality and you have face tattoos (3 enormous ones all completed within 3 months) and you’re autistic and your special interest is Anne Frank (?). You take a DNA test in October (2024) and you find out that your great grandfather wasn’t only Sicilian but also “hispanic” (this means you’re not white. But he was from spain btw). But more importantly you find out you had one (1) jewish ancestor from the 1700s (less than 1% “jewish”). You then proceed to make really insane videos about how you’re Jewish (you were Hindu in September). You also write in a diary (addressed to Anne Frank btw) that you’re not “less Jewish than her” because you’re 1% Jewish. You make antisemitic jokes and call everyone “gringo” and say that you can’t have gentile (pronounced “gentle”) friends because everyone is suddenly antisemitic to you including the guy delivering a package but it wasn’t your package so that’s antisemitism (?). You have an insane victim complex. You show up to a random kid’s bar mitzvah from your synagogue with an Anne Frank hairpin. You’re surprised by how well he can speak hebrew (he’s an israeli immigrant). By the way you also run a two person punk band about how cool Zionism is (you have a 13 minute video on Instagram about why you support “israel”) with your mother. By the way your mother isn’t Jewish and she’s also transgender (this is important later). Neither of you can sing or make music. You’re bald. You wear a sheitel with a kippah clipped on the very front of your head with the barrette sticking onto your forehead. You are “converting” reform (you call yourself Jewish btw) because you found out that was an option and wanted the express lane into Judaism after allegedly going to Chabad. Sometimes you wear seven tichels (pronounced “tickles”) at once because you just really love miriam ezagui. This isn’t important. Every week you have a new name and you rotate between them depending on the identity you want to grift. You have 10 first names and 6 last names. On instagram you post about how you are able to capture your feminine and masculine side and are proud to be transgender. You said you legally changed your name to Ya’akov Israel Davis. But you still go by your birth name on Facebook and have a video about why you regret top surgery (a month after saying you were getting bottom surgery soon) and that you don’t know if you are transgender after being raped (or attempted to be raped.) by your two cousins at the age of 10. One of your cousins posts exclusively lesbian disney incest posts on their instagram (unrelated). You tag these videos as “detransitioner” (remember when I said your mom is transgender). You refer to your “abba” as dead but you don’t have an “abba” and both of your mothers are alive. Sometimes you make a video of you at the yacht club. You tell people that your great-grandfather had to pretend to be italian to immigrate to America because there were laws against non anglo-saxon immigration in the 1930s (<- doesn’t make sense). Every video you make has a huge israel flag in the background (sometimes a trans flag. jury’s still out on detransitioning) and there’s an awful blue LED light on everything. You’re upset that Asperger’s isn’t a real diagnosis anymore. You don’t go to Naropa University. Imagine this

I’m freaking out about my new favorite obsession right now her life is so fucking crazy

[wouldnt-it-be-hilarious-if-i]

Books to Read (Judaism Edition)

Currently listening to: Melting by Kali Uchis

Judaism

It's a Mitzvah! By Bradley Shavit Artson

The Outsider's Guide To Orthodox Judaism by Rabbi Arnie Singer

Living a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant

Choosing a Jewish Life, Revised and Updated: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends by Anita Diamant

A Short History of the Jewish People by Raymond P. Scheindlin

The Complete Tanakh (Tanach)

The Jewish Holidays by Michael Strassfeld

Jewish Literacy Revised Ed: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History by Joseph Telushkin

Notes

One thing about me is I have the attention span of a well-fed rat. So, I definitely can't promise I'll read all of these immediately. But I identified a few things I thought I could learn more about and decided to add them to a list of books that came up on my fyp on tiktok.

I follow a lot of orthodox Jews on there, and for some reason, it's not something I ever thought about before they started coming up on my fyp. But I find a lot of their traditions and rules very fascinating, so I thought I'd include a short guide on the basics so that I can understand what they're talking about.

Two of the creators I see most on there are Melinda Strauss and Miriam Ezagui. I find their content to be some of the most fascinating because if I'm being entirely honest here, I have almost never seen orthodox Jews outside of science fiction or historical fiction. And that's not because it's super common to see orthodox Jews in sci-fi. It's just because the first time I remember ever learning anything about it was actually on the X-Files.

I learned a strange amount about Judaism from the X-Files, now that I think about it. Because that's also where I first learned about golems. Anyway, I find these two women incredibly fascinating also because they share and explain so many things I straight up just never would have never thought about.

Recently, I think Melinda's daughter, Nora, had her bat mitzvah and it was the cutest one I've ever seen. I see a lot of Jewish creators on my fyp outside of these two, and there was one girl who was rating all the bat mitzvah t-shirts she had gotten over the years. It's a super funny series because she's a really funny person, but it reminded me of the amount of people who have shown their bat mitzvahs on tiktok and also just on other apps as well, and whenever I think about it (which isn't very often but definitely whenever I see any of Melinda's videos now), I cannot get over how cute Nora's was. It was like this super cute 80s/lightning bolt theme? The colors were like pink and black, I think. Very girly. But the t-shirts and everything were so cute.

Anyway, Melinda also goes really into detail about what is kosher and what isn't, talks about all the different rules of Shabbos, and all the different religious observances. It's so cool. Miriam is similar. Her daughters are much younger, but the videos she post really show her life as an orthodox Jewish woman. She talks a lot about marriage. One of the most fascinating things to me was learning about the wigs. It confused the fuck out of me at first because I was thinking it was like a modesty thing, but apparently it's not.

I am also really interested in reading the torah. Y'all have no idea how shook I was when I saw a real one for the first time. My friend showed me and I was like ITS A SCROLL???????? Shook. Like I actually can't name anything else that shocked me more than that. I don't know why but I just wasn't expecting that. But anyway, I found an online translation into English and I'm super interested in it.

Before I stop myself from writing anymore, I was thinking earlier about how when I was a child, I wanted to convert. I was a very serious Catholic, but I think I had a lot of trouble with my faith. So, I remember asking my mom if I had to be Christian and if I could be Jewish instead. She didn't say no. She just ask me if I really believed Jesus wasn't the son of God and if I was really ready to give up Christmas.

The question always freaked me out so badly as kid because the very question felt a tiny bit like I might go to hell for saying anything short of yes. So, I'd just let it go. But I came back to that question a lot throughout my childhood and teen years. Now I really just like to learn as much as I can because I am very passionate about being a good ally to my Jewish friends, and because I lowkey have a type and I do not want to keep sounding like a total dumbass whenever I talk to Jewish girls.

The main things I want to work on learning about are 1). keeping kosher (what is and isn't kosher) because I really want to cook for my friends but I want to stay respectful and ask them what is okay but also have a general idea of what is okay and what isn't. 2). Understanding the nuances of Israel (and Palestine) in politics and in Jewish communities. This topic always makes me so nervous bc I have absolutely no idea where to start and every single time it comes up in conversation people expect me to already have an opinion on it. 3) Knowing more about some of the basics: How to act in synagogue, what to say on the different holidays, what each holiday entails, etc.

My next reading list will be for books about Islam!

[adamavshamayim]

I just saw Miriam Ezagui on tiktok talking about how frum women are less fearful going into birth than other types of women. How?

Like a book on how magical the mikvah is, or how beautiful parenting is. Something that gives me confidence going into the process and reassures me.

The medical culture IS making me scared, and every alternative I've seen is about looking into other cultures, especially Eastern cultures, for inspiration on staying calm. Nothing against those other cultures, but surely there must be something from a Jewish perspective? A way I can turn to Judaism, and Hashem, at this time?

Recommendations of books by Jewish women about the right mindset going into birth?

[angryjewishcockroach]

APPARENTLY a couple of my goyishe coworkers have been getting the very same Jewish influencers popping up on their Facebook reels, which is absolutely WILD.

Being a 21st century Jew is telling your family/Jewish friends about the Jewish influencers you're following on the internet and discovering that you're all following the same people.