#Reform Judaism

[emotboyswag]

Closet antisemites/racists love bringing up that the swastika is a Buddhist peace symbol (as if they give a shit about buddhism) like yeah it is but the skinhead white guy with a swastika tattoo isn't a Buddhist and the edgy teenagers who painted a swastika on a wall aren't Buddhists and you need to use the tiniest dash of critical thinking and common sense.

In a Buddhist temple its a peace symbol, scratched on some guys house its a hate symbol . And stop telling Jews they are being dramatic or chronically online for being upset/disturbed/scared or annoyed by swastikas!!

[ellaeved]

[glitzy-dynamite]

Well it’s time for the most important post, and I hope y’all will support me.

Might be surprising for everyone here - but I’m not Jewish. My great grandfather was an American Jew, but he married an Armenian woman, thus I’m just a 4th generation. I was reblogging Jewish things in a neutral way, as an ally.

But today is a day when I finally decided that yes, I’m going to convert to Judaism.

I’m learning, and when I will feel like I’m ready, I will go to the local Reform Judaism community for an actual learning and conversion.

So, please! If your blog is about (Reform) Judaism, or you’re converting/thinking about conversion, feel free to comment/reblog so I can follow you, or share your favorite blogs with me!

I hope we will be friends. ✡️

[feygaleh]

i think i just received the most insane variant of “happy holidays” from a customer. “merry christmas if you do that. bye.” ?!???!??&?!??!??????????

[the-catboy-minyan]

due to a certain asshole spewing bullshit in spacelazarwolf's notes, I wanna emphasize something:

YOU DON'T HAVE TO KNOW HEBREW TO BE JEWISH

YOU DON'T HAVE TO LEARN HEBREW TO BE JEWISH

YOU DON'T HAVE TO WANT TO LEARN HEBREW TO BE JEWISH

the only thing you need to be Jewish is to be Jewish. a Jew is a Jew.

(this message does not include messianic jews)

[my-jewish-life]

We all need to take a break from social media with everything going on atm, stay safe everyone✨️

Credit to sefiracreative ✨️

[unsolicited-opinions]

[babka-enjoyer]

A YouTube video just dropped explaining the evolution of Jewish "denominations" (movements) from the Bible times until now. It's fairly American-centric once you get to modern time but still useful.

[hailruth]

Good time of a day!

I'm not Jew or Jewish, but I genuinely want to learn more about Judaism and Jewish culture. I recently found out about kosher clothes for girls who are 13 and higher (that the clothes must cover the elbows, etc) and wanted to know: are these rules strictly followed by Jewish girls in reality? Is it voluntary? Do secular Jews obey it?

I'd be glad if you answered these questions! Have a great day! Wish you all the best!

so, first things first, you will never be able to say that every single member of one ethnicity, religion, race, country, etc. definitively does one particular thing. so, something like how one dresses will not be universal among any group, including jews. the idea of how one should dress is also very broad; a simple yes or no answer is impossible to give on this topic. i am not a rabbi nor extremely educated on these ideas, so keep an eye out on the comments/reblogs from people who can provide more insight. also, keep in mind that i'm typing this on mobile while waiting at a gate for a flight.

there is an extremely large amount of secular jews out there and just as many religious jews who do not follow the laws of צניעות (tznius/tznuit, "modesty"). even then, how tznius is defined varies between communities (it is largely shaped by the minhag hamakom, the "custom of the place"). it also varies between streams of judaism. for example, the reform movement does not require a certain kind of dress (this does not mean that there aren't reform jews who choose to dress modestly / according to tznius), while orthodox and conservative movements will have guidelines. those are not all the branches of judaism, but they are the "big three." even within orthodoxy, which is probably what you're thinking of when you talk about "kosher clothes," there are many different ways in which people follow tznius.

there seem to be a few other misconceptions that you are approaching the topic with, so i would like to correct them.

tznius is absolutely not gender-specific (as in, only for women). modesty applies to every jew, regardless of gender. there are requirements for both men and women. there are, additionally, very interesting discussions among jews who are not cisgender or are gender nonconforming and how they interact with tznius. i do not have a personal gender identity but choose to practice judaism according to the laws given to women, and that is the only way in which i identify with any gender at all.

i am not completely sure where the "13 and higher" idea comes from. i am not educated on every single movement, but within orthodoxy, parents who choose to dress according to tznius generally start their children much earlier than that (anywhere from 2-6 years old, this is also dependent on minhag, but often is thought to only start once the child can understand the concept). there *could* be some communities that instead do this at the age of 13, but not that i personally know of. there is no strict answer as to exactly when children should begin dressing modestly.

like i said before, the idea of exactly what is modest is different between communities. modern orthodox and conservative movements, for example, follow tznius but do not always believe that this includes the need to cover elbows, according to the example you gave. as another example, not all orthodox jewish women wear strictly skirts, modern orthodox women often wear pants.

now onto your specific questions.

are these rules strictly followed by jewish girls in reality? i have largely answered this already, but to reiterate, there is no one mode of dress which you can assign to the whole of judaism or jewish women. but there are many who do follow these rules. i am an example of someone who is working towards having a modest wardrobe. in synagogue, i cover my collarbones and elbows, i also wear long skirts that are mid-calf length at the shortest. once i am married that will most likely be the entirety of my closet, though i am still personally working through whether or not i will continue to wear pants. as you can see, it is a very personal journey as clothing is so central to one's identity and mode of self-expression.

is it voluntary? again, it is impossible to give a universal answer to this question. i already have a multi-paragraph response in my mind to this, but i don't think i will get into the complexities of cultural expectations, societal norms, religious thought, and intracommunity disagreements. ideally, hopefully, and in the best scenarios, one will never, ever be forced to dress in a way that they do not want. but the world we live in is far more complex than that. however, most people who follow these laws do so because they believe in them deeply.

do secular jews obey it? well, again, this isn't a yes/no question. if they are secular, though, they definitely aren't doing it for religious reasons. i know of many jewish movements that adopt jewish forms of dress as cultural markers (such as women who cover their hair as a symbol of judaism, even if they aren't married). it's simply more comfortable and freeing for some to be more covered up, too. the reasons are endless and always personal. while most secular jews one meets probably do not choose to follow jewish modesty, there are absolutely those who do.

i hope these answers suffice. i would greatly appreciate it if any jews could share their personal beliefs and habits when it comes to how you dress. it would be most helpful for the asker to see the immense variation among movements, communities, and individuals.

[spale-vosver]

Sure, you changed the gendered language about HaShem in this handout, but are the girls in your synagogue studying Torah?

[sefardimjew]

Being Jewish is destiny and a blessing, but it's also damn challenging, I mean a lot...

[askjumblr]

i know i want to convert to judaism, but i'm having a hard time choosing between reform and conservative. i'm leaning more towards conservative but if you're a reform or conservative convert, i would love to hear what your experience was like!

.

[hifibeatup]

So, funny story: About a month before my Bar Mitzvah, I had a crisis of faith. It suddenly hit me all, at once, that I didn't think there was a God. And seeing as I was about to participate in a ritual confirming my status as a member of said religion, this troubled me greatly.

I went to my rabbi and told him very bluntly, "I don't think I believe any of this." And he very kindly explained to me how there are Jews who see the Torah and our traditions as metaphor, allegory, and guidance in life. How there were many Jews before me in my position, and they were all still part of our community.

Meanwhile, when I told my dad, he said "Well, your grandparents already booked their plane tickets, so you'd better do it anyway."

[feygaleh]

��and who do you pray for at shabbat huh?” literally lebanon and palestine. from the rabbis mouth. hard for yall to grasp we care about innocent lives being needlessly killed

[hindahoney]

To the Reform Jewish community:

I think I have some misconceptions about the reform community. I think I'm wrong about how I perceive reform Jews and their level of observance, and I want to be educated.

The things I'm going to say are going to be pretty harsh, but I promise I say them so you can understand where I'm coming from, my experience with the Reform movement, and that I want to learn because I see some problems with my thinking. My background and experiences are primarily with the conservative movement, modern orthodox, and Chabad. It's no secret that within these communities, reform Jews get a pretty bad reputation (I want to stress: Not everyone in these movements says/believes these things, but it's common to hear) To the more right-wing side of Judaism, reform Jews are seen as assimilated Jews, "Jewish only in the name" I've heard. I'm told about how reform Jews widely don't keep kosher, often don't have mezuzot, don't pray, don't lay tefillin, don't keep shabbat except making a dinner every now and then. I'm told, and given the impression, that reform Jews have a loose relationship with their Judaism and misunderstand our core texts which leads to misunderstandings and demonization of Jews who do (ie "Orthodox Women are oppressed").

I don't have very much experience with Reform Judaism (which is likely where my ignorance comes from), and I understand that there are Reform Jews who may keep kosher, or may keep Shabbat, but I think my misunderstanding of what makes someone reform is their level of observance. To me, if I encountered a Jew who grew up Orthodox but now no longer kept kosher, kept shabbat, threw out the tzitzit and doesn't lay teffilin, I'd say he's no longer orthodox and he's reform.

Is this where my misunderstanding is coming from? Is it the shul you go to? I just can't imagine seeing a man with tzitzit in a Reform shul. Are you taught that there are observances you no longer need to keep?

I have a pretty decent-sized Reform following, so I've heard from you about how it's offensive and painful when people assume a lack of observance, and that that's not what it means to be reform. I want to be educated, and I want to listen. At the same time, I can't ignore the instances I was in a reform-dominated space and they told me themselves "Oh yeah reform Jews don't keep kosher, it's not important," or about how they work on Shabbat, and then I notice they don't know Hamotzi or the Birkat.

I see the divide between movements and it feels like we can't reach across the aisle to understand each other. Ring-wing Jews are mad at left-wing Jews for not maintaining important traditions, but mainly they are mad at reform rabbis because they see the loss of tradition as the fault of the community leader, that the community would choose to uphold more traditions if they were educated on it, which is the responsibility of the rabbi. Reform jews are mad at right-wing Jews because, let's be honest, right-wing Jews are constantly talking trash and have a belief that they are "better" Jews for being more observant. But I think reform Jews don't really understand some practices, or they aren't taught about them right, because a large portion of dialogue I've had with reform Jews has been me having to field accusations and speak for the movement about how right-wing Jews aren't all sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. and neither are the practices. So I think this also plays a large part in why Reform Jews have a problem with Jews from other movements, because they believe we're closed-minded.

I think these hard conversations need to be had so that we can come away understanding each other. I want Judaism to move past the need for movements, which I think we are, because part of me believes they do more harm than good and people never feel like they quite "fit" certain movements. I just hope that these conversations can be had in good faith.

[my-jewish-life]

Remember to love yourself, let love be your strenght 💕