#cultural judaism

[frownyalfred]

I've never been heckled more in my life than when I went to a synagogue garage sale with untied shoelaces.

Well meaning family friend once brought mashed potatoes with raisins in them to Shabbat dinner. I had the unique pleasure of watching various Jewish women in my family walk up to the stove one by one, say “Are those raisins?” and then put the lid back on with the same disgusted expression.

[mzminola]

Every time I see a flare-up in discussion of the terms “cultural christianity” & “culturally christian” I see multiple people suggesting the term “christian hegemony” or some variation on it instead, under the assumption it will be less inflammatory, and I gotta say that one, I strongly disagree with that assumption, and two, it’s not actually an interchangeable term.

There are places in the world where Christians are a cultural minority, and they are still culturally christian, including the people in those communities who are atheist. They are just also being affected by whatever culture is the majority in their area. They are being affected by a non-christian hegemony.

I am a Jewish atheist from a mixed family who grew up in the US with atheist & agnostic parents. I have a mix of culturally Jewish & culturally christian ideas, attitudes, values, worldviews, etc, with some New Age Hippie Stuff thrown in for good measure.

That’s a neutral description of me. It is a neutral description of my background.

Sure, because I grew up in the US I was affected by christian hegemony.

But if you kept all of my parents’ backgrounds the same, and had me grow up in a country where christian culture is not the majority, where it cannot be described as a hegemony,

I would still be a person from a mixed family who is a mix of culturally Jewish and culturally christian and influenced by New Age Hippie Stuff.

I would just, also, have whatever local culturally majority is influencing me too.

“____ hegemony” and “cultural ____” are not interchangeable terms.

“culturally ____” is a neutral description on it’s own. People can use it positively, negatively, or neutrally, just like they can with any baseline-neutral term. Any term we come up with to replace it will have the same problem of some people using it negatively, and derailing the discussions.

So, maybe let’s give each other the benefit of the doubt, and not assume other people are insulting us personally when discussing this stuff?

[jewish-culture-is]

Jewish culture is gently resting a kippah on your pet's head so they'll feel included

you can’t say that and not show us….

[nesyanast]

Some of my favorite Hassidic Purim pictures

[edenfenixblogs]

Ummmmm I just came home from a Filipino Jewish bakery and y’all…

Filipino Jews have won Purim and maybe the entire baked goods category.

I don’t wanna brag but I’ve acquired an ube challah and an ube hamantaschen and that doesn’t even touch the variety of pandan offerings they had. Omg. This is easily the best discovery I’ve made in my city.

And yes, they ship nationally so I will be ordering from them when I move away.

[batboyblog]

I'm just gonna say something, Bar/Bat/B'nai mitzvahs are a celebration, they often but not always come with an after party and depending on the means of the parents of the lucky 13 year old they can be over the top sometimes. Much like rich kids with sweet 16s or Quinceañera.

okay thats out of the way, what I wanted to say is, I'm SICK of every media depiction of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah as a 100 million dollar, biggest party on the planet celebration of conspicuous consumption. Almost ALWAYS missing the you know Bar Mitzvah itself, and again depicting Jews over and over again as INSANELY wealthy. Like not everyone, hell not MOST people's Bar Mitzvah was huge and expensive.

another thing, I know by definition no 13 year old is cool, by definition they are greasy and annoying and cringe. But EVERY depiction of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah where the boy or girl of the hour is both an awkward loser and (particularly the boys) sleazy little creeps who are trying WAY too hard to impressive with their garishly massive (and expensive) party (and how often they quote how much something costs as if a 13 year old would know or care) it just seem a little close to the old antisemitic stereotype of Jews as crass and uncouth social climbers desperately trying to use their money to buy their way into classy society and forever failing.

[chanaleah]

It's interesting to me that growing up Jewish seems to have given me a fundamentally different understanding of religion from my Christian friends. For me, I think that your religion (or ethnicity, since Judaism is an ethnicity) is not something you can get rid of. You can convert to another religion, but I never understood friends of mine who said that they weren't Christian, but Atheist.

"But you celebrate Christmas, right?" I asked them.

"Well, yeah," they said, "but we don't celebrate Christian Christmas. I'm atheist."

That didn't make any sense to me. Sure, maybe the version of Christmas they celebrated in their house looked more like treats and presents and less like nativity scenes and prayers, but it was still the same holiday.

So, I came up with the concept of the difference between "Not Christian" and "non-Christian". Which of course my "not christian" friends didn't understand. But my idea was that there are people who are "not christian" - mainly culturally christian atheists - and people who are "non-christian", like Jews, Hindus, Muslims, or others.

Because while both groups generally don't identify as Christian, we have different experiences. As a Jew, my experience as a religious minority is not the same as that of a culturally Christian atheist. They're not Christian, and I'm not Christian, but in different ways.

[magnetothemagnificent]

Ways to show a home in a show or movie belongs to a Jewish character that isn't just lazily having a menorah in the shot for 0.02 seconds:

-Mezuzah on the doorpost/s

-Hamsas hanging on the wall

-Shabbat candles on a shelf somewhere

-Basket or drawer full of endless monogrammed and logo-ed Kippot from past weddings, B' Mitzvahs, and holiday parties.

-A calendar with both Hebrew and Gregorian dates on the wall

-A collection of Jewish books

-Various Jewish ritual items scattered around

[political-confetti]

if yall go into the inboxes of random jewish folks and ask for their opinions on the palestine/israel conflict just because they’re jewish, fuck you. genuinely, fuck you. stop doing that. you aren’t supporting palestinians by harassing random jewish folks on the internet, you’re just being an antisemitic asshole. y’all are doing the exact same thing as assholes who would go up to random muslim folks after 9/11 and ask them their thoughts on the taliban. it’s fucking gross. if you actually care about victims of the war, donate to charities or funds. share posts and information about the situation. don’t fucking harass jewish people.

[troybarnesbucky]

“but before israel existed, jews in the middle east lived in peace with muslims, they were arab jews!!!!!” what if i shove my entire foot up your ass

[jewishpositivity18]

Studying commentary on the Torah is a bit like joining a conversation that covers the entire world and all of history

This guy from the 1880s disagrees with that guy from the late Middle Ages about what the text means

A dude in 16th century Poland is building off what that dude in 12th century Egypt said about why the text is written this way

Guys come read Gemara the Old Men are fighting again

[backgroundshipper]

And let’s not forget the hypocrisy of non Jews.

All year it’s “Stop mentioning the Holocaust,it happened along time ago”, “We should finish what Hitler started”, “Israel needs to go away”, and rewriting Jewish history to fit their political views,conveniently ignoring the fact that the Allies recruited Nazi scientists after World War Two, and there are now Rabbi Halloween costumes come out around Halloween.

But when Chanukah comes around,it’s “We love the Jewish people! We love Chanukah even though we don’t know the historical significance, and meaning behind the holiday.We just like it because it’s so pretty!”

Bunch of hypocrites.

[jewish-culture-is]

Jewish culture is changing popular phrases to say “Moses” instead of “Jesus” because your rabbi once called something a “come to Moses” and you thought it was hilarious

.

[nesyanast]

“Yentl—you have the soul of a man.”

“So why was I born a woman?”

“Even Heaven makes mistakes.”

Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy by Isaac Bashevis Singer

[notaplaceofhonour]

no thoughts, head empty

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