#i also know reform judaism is very different from what we have here. so I'm not talking abt that either.

[daz4i]

i am aware i will sound. ig ignorant is the right word here? but every time like. i watch a wendigoon video where he brings up his connection to religion. or when he brings up other creators of horror content who are religious and use it in their horror. i am so baffled

like to me, from all the people i met throughout my life (both jewish and christian), it's hard to think about religion as a good thing. i know more people who are ex-christians or ex-orthodox jews than ppl who believe in god (or rather, the ppl i do know who believe in god, aren't really people i was ever close to. more like neighbors in my old building). religion is something that has been traumatic to most people i know who had any connection to it. i personally see it as something that's been forced on me and is still forced on everyone in my country regardless of if we believe in it or not, ever since we were kids

(not to mention my personal gripe with god as a trans + disabled person lmao. my biggest enemy fr)

so seeing people treat religion as something positive is. ig the best word here is. alien to me. people using it in horror not as the thing that's horrifying (or rather, using demons as the thing that's horrifying, rather than the god fighting them) just feels wrong

logically i know people find meaning in it. i heard stories of belief saving people's lives. i have met people who are incredibly sweet and still religious (tho, i can count them on one hand). but at the same time, as a whole concept, and the way its people are currently working to ruin the lives of almost everyone in my country besides themselves, i can't help but view it as something vile. the things it makes people do are awful. the wars it causes. the human rights being trampled because of it. it's hard to imagine how someone could be entrenched in it but come out kind while still holding onto faith

[antisemitism-101]

Welcome and FAQ

I'm so excited that you want to learn more about antisemitism and how to fight it! Thank you. Here are a few questions I've been asked while setting up this blog; I figured it would be worth putting them all in one place.

Why make this blog?

Often, growing up Jewish means growing up with intensive training in identifying antisemitism.  Even our religious holidays frequently boil down to "They tried to kill us and failed!  LET'S EAT ABOUT IT."  

The upside of that is, we learn from a very early age how to be safe.  What to watch out for, what escape plans to make.  The downside?  A lot of kind, thoughtful people who care about social justice, who want to help, didn't get that training. They didn't have to.  And us trainees failed to realize our training wasn't common knowledge.  That training gap leaves lots of room for bad actors to promote dangerous misinformation and antisemitic tropes.

I want to reduce that wiggle room.  To share knowledge with people who want to learn but are afraid to ask.  To help people understand why so many of us feel hurt and alone.  To identify language with antisemitic implications that are harder to see.   And I want to help the helpers.  I know there are a lot of you.

Who are you, and what makes you qualified to do this?

I am a Reform Jewish woman from the United States (Not A Zionist, Free Palestine, just to get that out of the way.)  My biggest credential, honestly, is my adorable mother-in-law.  She's a deeply curious woman with no sense of what an appropriate question is.  She's also lived in rural Texas without internet access for decades, and I was the first Jewish person she ever met.  Thanks to her, I have so many years of practice answering really painful good faith questions about Judaism.

The second person helping with this blog is a dear friend, a Zionist, and pro-Israel, and I've been arguing with him about Palestine more or less nonstop since October 7. I figure anything we two can agree on about antisemitism is probably broadly applicable.

Why are you blogging about this instead of about Gaza?

I don't believe being one more person blogging about Gaza is going to make a meaningful difference in the lives of Palestinians; I've currently focused my activism there on donating to aid organizations like Islamic Relief USA, which I encourage you to also do, and calling my elected officials.

In my experience, a lot fewer people are discussing antisemitism, for a lot of reasons.  I feel like largely people are afraid discussing antisemitism means ignoring the nightmarish suffering of Palestinians.  I know we have enough compassion in our hearts to support people in two marginalized groups.  And since I can discuss antisemitism in a knowledgeable, warm, and level-headed way, I feel like it's my obligation to right now.

How do you decide whether a question is in good faith?

That's a good question!  The unsatisfying answer is: it's entirely subjective.  But my definition of 'good faith' is generous, so don't be afraid to ask something because you feel like I won't like it.   

Can I ask general questions about Judaism here?

Try it! If the questions aren't related to antisemitism at all, I reserve the right to not publish them, but a lot of antisemitism comes from a misunderstanding of Jewish culture and tradition. If you want a Judaism 101 blog too, feel welcome to suggest it.

Is there a good place to find Antisemitism 202 content on Tumblr?

I'm glad you asked! My favorite two Tumblr bloggers who write on the subject (from very different angles) are:

@edenfenixblogs, who writes eloquently about common Jewish experiences and promotes both Jewish-Muslim solidarity and Israeli-Palestinian Solidarity. This post about the relationship between Judaism, trauma, and the desire to be a light in the world feels like it came straight from my heart.

@historicity-was-already-taken, who is a Holocaust scholar by profession. Obviously she writes mostly about the Holocaust and academia, but branches out into current events sometimes. I've linked her 101 post on antisemitic tropes to watch out for to multiple friends.

(Hi, both of you! I doubt you know me, I've just been an occasional commenter, but I'm a fan. If you don't want to appear on this list, please feel welcome to ping me and I'll remove you.)

What is that icon?

It's a dreidel, which is a children's toy used to celebrate a Jewish holiday, Chanukah. I wanted to pick something friendly and recognizably Jewish to USians like me.

[kick-a-long]

HIII im the last anon here again :)

this might send twice so sorry in advance my internet sucks

EVERYTHING YOU SAID!!!!!!IS SO FREAKING SMART AND ON POINT!!!!!!

your account is such a fave of mine because as someone who knows the history of antisemitism well and studied it, it feels like everyone but you downplays it and misunderstands it so you do such a great job haha u just get it

Speaking of conditional acceptance - being Jewish is immediately different because as you said : we're "accepted" when we succeed except they are still determined to erase us so there's a campaign to label us as "just (insert nationality)" instead of Jewish and our Jewishness is debated - the left's Judaism is just a religion versus the right's a Jew will always be a Jew. to everyone we are just abstract ideas and contradictions. We're "slippery" and can "hide" and yet they always know who's a Jew. This is uniquely horrible to us tbh.

Do you have any books or articles that discuss what we have spoken about? Im writing a paper lol

OKAY ONE LAST THING (youre so fun to talk to) im a yapper #sorry. Have you watched attack on titan and do you think it's antisemitic? i have to kvetch about this

thanks so much! you're fun to talk to too.

I don't have sources, I grew up in a pretty weird house with hundreds of books, every wall was a book case including our bedrooms. i would read stuff and then move on without really remembering the name of the book or author. I was named after Hanna Arendt, who I don't really agree with, but as for other books, i don't remember. I've always been on high alert for how antisemitism works since I picked up Maus as a kid. I've paid special attention to it in fantasy seeing how closely antisemitism follows conspiracy theory and fantasy troups.

as far as attack on titan goes, I would LOVE to hear your take on it. i fell off on season 3 but I know the gist of the show. I have a hard time deciding if it's antisemitic, honestly. I'm always a little dubious of how much japanese people understand what jews are to goyim, how the abrahamic religions interact, or how antisemitism is distinct from other bigotry. they also have a very different perspective on what WW2 was about first because they don't recognize their own history in china during WW2 and didn't have the historic fall out from it that Germany did.

it definitely has holocaust/WW2 inversion and "X group are the real jews" this time X being imperial japan. it also has a pretty one to one of erin being a new hitler stand in as the main character (a surprisingly popular romance anime plot line btw. 'can you reform the ultimate bad boy, anime hitler?" kinda trope.) it's also got some pretty WILD blood genetic magic type stuff which is i think something to do with the Japanese emperor and eugenics shit. So that makes it seem pretty cut and dry, right? but I have a hard time seeing if the author understands what roll antisemitism played in the Europe side of WW2. I don't know if jews even play a roll other than borrowed imagery and names. you have characters or places that through name or roman nose seem pretty jewish to me: anne, levi, ymir (which sounds like a hebrew city name to me) zoe, etc... but idk if there is any idea that jews are different from either the bad guys or the good guys. I would love to hear your take on it! ramble away!

[a-witch-in-endor]

Hi! Different anon here and I’m sorry if I’m intruding, but I saw your last post and was reminded: how strict is Jewish law when it comes to the maternal vs paternal line? My mother’s father is Jewish, but her mother is not, but she grew up Jewish and being considered Jewish by everyone around her since apparently in the ussr at the time it depended on who your father was. She moved to Israel when she was a teenager for a few years and obviously was immediately kicked in the face by the switch, and that people didn’t consider her Jewish there, but that seems a little….silly?? I’m not Jewish, and she hasn’t practiced any religion in decades, so it gets a little confusing when I try and explain it to others. Sorry if this was a little confusing too.

The short answer is that Jewish law is matrilineal and has been for thousands of years. It's a lot blurrier in a pre-rabbinic world for a number of reasons, including (but not limited to) the fact that when gentiles joined Israelite society, it really meant being a ger toshav (a stranger dwelling [in the gates]) because... well, they would need to be in the Land of Israel for it. So that was considered being semi-Israelite in some senses in the biblical world. But since law has been clearly in the hands of the rabbis, it's been a matrilineal tradition.

The reason for this is not as clear and crisp as some would have you believe. I'm inclined to say that it comes down to an assumption that women held power over religious life in the home, and that in cases in which an unwed couple had a baby, the child would go with the mother.

But it doesn't really matter 'why', for those of us who live in the paradigm in which law is binding. Without significant reason to change the law, according to the rules of change embedded in the legal process, the law is the law is the law.

(If you didn't already know this, I am very much a traditional Jew. And, um, clearly I'm a big fan of law.)

That being said, there are modern movements that have used the blurriness of the ancient world to argue that it should pass down through either parent. Reform Judaism and its counterparts have a different relationship to law than the traditional world. It's not, as some of my peers would suggest, that they don't care about law and tradition. They just see it as having a different role in Jewish life. The pithy line on it from Reform Judaism is that halakhah (Jewish law) "has a vote, but not a veto". I will fully admit to enjoying that as a concept, but... I do believe in the binding nature of law through covenant, so it's not going to work for me.

(As a by-the-by, that line of thought also counts for things like keeping kosher. Some Reform Jews keep kosher because they like it, but it's not seen as obligatory.)

Many of those movements have switched to any-Jewish-parent, but in a variety of ways. For example, on paper, the American Reform movement only accepts people as Jewish if they were raised Jewish by a Jewish parent, but it doesn't matter which parent was Jewish. In practice, however, they consider matrilineal Jews to be Jews regardless of how they were raised, and are less likely to be as lenient with those who are not of matrilineal descent.

Now, the issue with the USSR as I understand it - which, please take with a grain of salt, is very little - has less to do with Jewish law, and more to do with the implications of secular customs on how Jews self-identify. This was a Whole Big Thing when the post-Soviet Union wave of aliyah (moving to Israel under the Law of Return) occurred. But according to the Law of Return, one can be zera Yisra'el (seed of Israel) with any Jewish grandparent and be considered eligible. That's how the Misrad HaPanim (Ministry of the Interior) functions, because the Law of Return has less to do with culture and religion and more to do with ethnic ties to the homeland.

And finally... what do you do with Patrilineal Jews? We do indeed now live in a world in which some people consider themselves Jewish, because some modern movements consider them that way, because of how secular thought has impacted on Jewish life, and because intermarriage is so high. I think it's incredibly important to make the route to halakhic (Jewish legal) recognition as smooth as possible for people in those situations. Conversion to Judaism is a tricky thing to do - it's demanding, in terms of study, in terms of practice, and in terms of time (at least, in the traditional world). Personally, I think people born of Jewish fathers should be considered to need giyyur l'chumra (conversion for the sake of strictness), which would solve the legal dilemma by fulfillment of the conversion rituals, but would be a) a simpler route to those rituals, and b) a recognition that their status is not the same as an actual convert's.

... I started this answer with "the short answer", didn't I.

[neverwritewhatyouknow]

hey can you just clarify why if someone is ethnically jewish it matters that they were raised christian? afaik nora isnt religous in the book... I'm just genuinely curious bc I was raised catholic but my mom's side of the family is jewish! The only thing I can think of from my personal experience is that the actor perhaps wouldn't have experienced the culutre and customs of judaism. I appreciate you taking the time to explain all of this!

Hi! I can try. I’m going to preface all of this by saying I’m literally just a girl in my early 20s, I don’t know everything there is about being Jewish or Judaism, I’m also reform (more progressive) so I know I have a different view on stuff then more traditional Jews. So, just know I’m trying my best to answer this, but I doubt I can answer it fully. I asked a lot of people for help answering this, because I wanted to make sure I could answer it in the best way possible.

I’m going to start by saying that the actress playing Nora isn’t ethnically Jewish because her mom isn’t Jewish, she seems to have some Jewish heritage from a while ago on her dad’s side (he doesn’t seem connected to Judaism or Jewish traditions based on what I’ve seen), but her mom is a very devout Christian. The actress herself was brought up very active in church and in Christian traditions. So the actress in question shouldn’t be playing a Jew. Nora being religious or not doesn’t really matter here, because she’s still Jewish and Rachel isn’t. This was the easy part to answer.

Now, this question of ethnically Jewish, but raised otherwise is such a complex one. I’ve been working on this for hours, I’m not even kidding. I used you as an example in order to get answers from people, sorry, it was just easier that way (you were just an anonymous friend of mine who wanted to know about Judaism). I don’t think I can fully answer this question here. It’s so complex and it varies so much from denomination to person to everything. So I’m going to try, but if I left something out or something is debatable, just know it’s because it’s a really complex question and I’m just one girl who spent Hebrew school flirting with the boys and eating cookies stolen from the kitchen.

TL;DR: An actor who is ethnically Jewish from a Jewish mom, but who is raised fully in another religion, wouldn’t be the right person for a Jewish role, because they aren’t really seen as Jewish. They’d be a Christian with Jewish heritage or an Apostate Jew. This person wouldn’t get the “perks” of being Jewish, like speaking for Jews or playing Jewish roles. Using vague Jewish heritage as a way to speak over and for Jews (including playing them as a character), when the person wouldn’t call themself Jewish, is not right.

Adding this after I wrote everything else (I’m researching as I write because I don’t know everything): I just read an article that I thought was a great fit for this answer so I’m adding it in. There’s a difference between Jewish status and Jewish identity. Status means more of the lineage, identity means more of what a person believes. If a person doesn’t identify as Jewish, even if they have a Jewish mom, can we call them a Jew? That’s a question I can’t answer for all Jews everywhere. But if you don’t think of yourself as a Jew, I don’t think the rest of us can either. You know? Blood or not. So if someone was raised fully non-Jewish, was brought up another way, and doesn’t have ties to being Jewish except a Jewish mom, yes your status is technically you’re Jewish (in the most by the book way), but your identity is that you’re not. And if someone were to say something on behalf of Jews or play a Jewish role, but they themselves would not consider themselves Jewish… then it’s not representation and it’s not the same as someone with Jewish identity. Because yes, ethnically that box is checked, but being Jewish is so complex because it’s a mix of so much that if someone is actively not Jewish, then they just might not be.

I asked Reddit for help. This is kinda a compilation of everything that was said. I’ll include some pictures too, but nobody better give anyone from Reddit any shit, I’ll block their names— but stay away from them with any antisemitic fighting.

According to Judaism, Jewish status is created if mom is Jewish, baby is Jewish. But, this gets affected and a messy gray area is created, when the baby is fully brought up and raised in another religion. This person would be seen as an “Apostate Jew” meaning someone who has chosen to turn away from Judaism, obviously a child didn’t make the choice, it’s just an older term, but that’s what many agreed. So this person would be halaically Jewish from their mother, but would be more considered a Catholic based on the fact that they were brought up that way. It’s sorta the reverse of what happens if your dad is Jewish and your mom isn’t (in a reform temple). When this happens, if you’re raised fully Jewish, then you’re a Jew. So, if you’re raised Catholic and have no connection to being Jewish (besides half or less of your DNA)… messy gray area, but most signs point to said person not being considered as much a Jew as they would be a Christian. The children of said person wouldn’t be Jewish and in order for this person to be recognized as Jewish they would really have to prove that their mom is, because of their fully Christian/Catholic/Actively non-Jewish upbringing. Though they’d have an easier time converting to Judaism if they wanted to.

I also asked my denomination (reform) for help answering this question. Reform requires at least one Jewish parent, and the child to be brought up Jewish, in order to be recognized as Jewish. I’m not orthodox or traditional or conservative or other ones, but from what I’ve been told by some people who are— the blood matters, but the heart matters more. So, if someone has Jewish blood, that’s great and they’d be considered a Jew, but if they then shed away any Jewish identity and took up another religion besides Judaism, then they’d be seen as someone with Jewish heritage.

So if the actor playing Nora had a Jewish mom (though in all of my research, Rachel’s mom is a very devoted Christian), but was raised fully Christian without any ties to being Jewish at all and was fully brought up believing in another religion, in another culture… This person is Jewish only in the most technical sense of the word by people who take the book very seriously. If they would call themselves fully and only a Christian, they’re not a Jew.

Let’s pretend that Rachel isn’t playing Nora, let’s pretend it’s another actor. This actor has a Jewish mom and a dad who doesn’t really care about religion one way or the other. This actress was raised not super involved in any religion, her family did Hanukkah, and she went to a Jewish preschool, they attend high holy days sometimes, but that’s about it. They never went to church, and they never were active in any other religion. This would be fine and she could totally play Nora. Because the difference is, there was no other religion in play. The Jewish core of tradition, culture, etc. wasn’t covered up or erased.

If there are questions, let me know if the comments. I’ll do my best to answer any that come directly. There was just so much and I know I’ll be dragged through coals no matter what I say, so…

[meirmakesstuff]

1/2 Hi Meir! I saw your answer on WWC, and since you mentioned you're professionals, I figured I'd ask directly: I'm writing a second world fantasy with a jewish coded people. I want to be clear in the coding but avoid the "if there's no egypt, how can there be passover?" so I called them Canaanites. I thought I was being clever by hinting in the naming that the whole region does exist, but I've since read that it might've been a slur in fact? Do you have any advice on this?

2/2 I did consider calling the group in question Jewish, but aside from how deeply Judaism is connected to the history of the Israelites, I haven't used any present-day real-world names for any other group, (I did use some historic names like Nubia). I feel like calling only one group of people by their currently used name would be othering rather than inclusive? Or am I overthinking this?

Okay so I want to start out with some disclaimers, first that although WWC recently reblogged an addition of mine to one of their posts, I am not affiliated with @writingwithcolor​, and second that the nature of trying to answer a question like this is “two Jews, three opinions,” so what I have to say about this is my own opinion(s) only. Last disclaimer: this is a hard question to address, so this answer is going to be long. Buckle up.

First, I would say that you’re right to not label the group in question “Jewish” (I’ll get to the exception eventually), and you’re also right in realizing that you should not call them “Canaanites.” In Jewish scripture, Canaanites are the people we fought against, not ourselves, so that wouldn’t feel like representation but like assigning our identity to someone else, which is a particular kind of historical violence Jews continue to experience today. I’ll get back to the specific question of naming in a moment, but because this is my blog and not WWC, and you asked me to speak to this as an educator, we’re going to take a detour into Jewish history and literary structure before we get back to the question you actually asked.

To my mind there are three main ways to have Jews in second-world fantasy and they are:

People who practice in ways similar to modern real-world Jews, despite having developed in a different universe,

People who practice in ways similar to ancient Hebrews, because the things that changed us to modern Jewish practice didn’t occur, and

People who practice in a way that shows how your world would influence the development of a people who started out practicing like ancient Hebrews and have developed according to the world they’re in. 

The first one is what we see in @shiraglassman​‘s Mangoverse series: there is no Egypt yet her characters hold a seder; the country coded Persian seems to bear no relation to their observance of Purim, and there is no indication of exile or diaspora in the fact that Jews exist in multiple countries and cultures, and speak multiple languages including Yiddish, a language that developed through a mixture of Hebrew and German. Her characters’ observance lines up approximately with contemporary Reform Jewish expectations, without the indication of there ever having been a different practice to branch off from. She ignores the entire question of how Jews in her universe became what they are, and her books are lyrical and sweet and allow us to imagine the confidence that could belong to a Jewish people who weren’t always afraid.

Shira is able to pull this off, frankly, because her books are not lore-heavy. I say this without disrespect--Shira often refers to them as “fluffy”--but because the deeper you get into the background of your world and its development, the trickier this is going to be to justify, unless you’re just going to just parallel every historical development in Jewish History, including exile and diaspora across the various nations of your world, including occasional near-equal treatment and frequent persecution, infused with a longing for a homeland lost, or a homeland recently re-established in the absolutely most disappointing of ways.

Without that loss of homeland or a Mangoverse-style handwaving, we have the second and third options. In the second option, you could show your Jewish-coded culture having never been exiled from its homeland, living divided into tribes each with their own territory, still practicing animal, grain, and oil sacrifice at a single central Temple at the center of their nation, overseen by a tribe that lacks territory of their own and being supported by the sacrifices offered by the populace.

If you’re going to do that, research it very carefully. A lot of information about this period is drawn from scriptural and post-scriptural sources or from archaeological record, but there’s also a lot of Christian nonsense out there assigning weird meanings and motivations to it, because the Christian Bible takes place during this period and they chose to cast our practices from this time as evil and corrupt in order to magnify the goodness of their main character. In any portrayal of a Jewish-coded people it’s important to avoid making them corrupt, greedy, bigoted, bloodthirsty, or stubbornly unwilling to see some kind of greater or kinder truth about the world, but especially if you go with this version. 

The last option, my favorite but possibly the hardest to do, is to imagine how the people in the second option would develop given the influences of the world they’re in. Do you know why Chanukah is referred to as a “minor” holiday? The major holidays are the ones for which the Torah specifies that we “do not work:” Rosh Hashannah, Yom Kippur, and the pilgrimage holidays of Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot. Chanukah developed as a holiday because the central temple, the one we made those pilgrimages to, was desecrated by the invading Assyrian Greeks and we drove them out and were able to re-establish the temple. That time. Eventually, the Temple was razed and we were scattered across the Roman Empire, developing the distinct Jewish cultures we see today. The Greeks and Romans aren’t a semi-mythologized ancient people, the way the Canaanites have been (though there’s increasing amounts of archaeology shedding light on what they actually might have been like), we have historical records about them, from them. The majority of modern Jewish practice developed from the ruins of our ancient practices later than the first century CE. In the timeline of Jewish identity, that’s modern.

The rabbinic period and the Temple period overlap somewhat, but we’re not getting into a full-scale history lesson here. Suffice it to say that it was following the loss of the sacrificial system at the central Temple that Judaism coalesced an identity around verbal prayer services offered at the times of day when we would previously have offered sacrifices, led each community by its own learned individual who became known as a rabbi. We continued to develop in relationship with the rest of the world, making steps toward gender equality in the 1970s and LGBT equality in the 2000s, shifting the meaning of holidays like Tu Bishvat to address climate change, debating rulings on whether one may drive a car on Shabbat for the sake of being with one’s community, and then pivoting to holding prayer services daily via Zoom.

The history of the Jews is the history of the world.  Our iconic Kol Nidrei prayer, the centerpiece of the holiest day of the year, that reduces us to tears every year at its first words, was composed in response to the Spanish Inquisition. The two commentators who inform our understanding of scripture--the ones we couldn’t discuss Torah without referencing even if we tried--wrote in the 11th and 12th centuries in France and Spain/Egypt. Jewish theology and practice schismed into Orthodox and Reform (and later many others) because that’s the kind of discussion people were into in the 19th century. Sephardim light Chanukah candles in an outdoor lamp while Ashkenazim light Chanukah candles in an indoor candelabrum because Sephardim developed their traditions in the Middle East and North Africa and the Ashkenazim developed our traditions in freezing Europe. There are works currently becoming codified into liturgy whose writers died in 2000 and 2011. 

So what are the historical events that would change how your Jewish-coded culture practices, if they don’t involve loss of homeland and cultural unity? What major events have affected your world? If there was an exile that precipitated an abandonment of the sacrificial system, was there a return to their land, or are they still scattered? Priority one for us historically has been maintaining our identity and priority two maintaining our practices, so what have they had to shift or create in order to keep being a distinct group? Is there a major worldwide event in your world? If so, how did this people cope?

If you do go this route, be careful not to fall into tropes of modern or historical antisemitism: don’t have your culture adopt a worldview that has their deity split into mlutiple identities (especially not three). Don’t have an oppressive government that doesn’t represent its people rise up to oppress outsiders within its borders (this is not the first time this has occurred in reality, but because the outside world reacts differently to this political phenomenon when it’s us than when it’s anyone else, it’s a portrayal that makes real-life Jews more vulnerable). And don’t portray the people as having developed into a dark and mysterious cult of ugly, law-citing men and beautiful tearstreaked women, but it doesn’t sound as if you were planning to go there.

So with all that said, it’s time to get back to the question of names. All the above information builds to this: how you name this culture depends on how you’ve handled their practice and identity. 

Part of why Shira Glassman’s handwaving of the question of how modern Jewish practice ended up in Perach works is that she never gives a name to the religion of her characters. Instead, she names the regions they come from. Perach, in particular, the country where most of the action takes place, translates to “Flower.” In this case, her Jewish-coded characters who come from Perach are Perachis, and characters from other places who are also Jewish are described as “they worship as Perachis do despite their different language” or something along those lines (forgive me, Shira, for half-remembering).

So that’s method one: find an attribute of your country that you’d like to highlight, translate it into actual Hebrew, and use that as your name.

Method two is the opposite: find a name that’s been used to identify our people or places (we’ve had a bunch), find out what it means or might mean in English, and then jiggle that around until it sounds right for your setting. You could end up with the nation of the Godfighters, or Children of Praise, The Wanderers (if they’re not localized in a homeland), The Passed-Over, Those From Across The River, or perhaps the people of the City of Peace.

Last, and possibly easiest, pick a physical attribute of their territory and just call them that in English. Are they from a mountainous region? Now they’re the Mountain People. Does their land have a big magical crater in the middle? Craterfolk. Ethereal floating forests of twinkling lights? It’s your world.

The second option is the only one that uses the name to overtly establish Jewish coding. The first option is something Jews might pick up on, especially if they speak Hebrew, but non-Jews would miss. The third avoids the question and puts the weight of conveying that you’re trying to code them as Jewish on their habits and actions.

There’s one other option that can work in certain types of second-world fantasy, and that’s a world that has developed from real-world individuals who went through some kind of portal. That seems to me the only situation in which using a real-world name like Jews, Hebrews, or Israelites would make sense. Jim Butcher does this with the Romans in the Codex Alera series, and Katharine Kerr does it with Celts in the Deverry cycle. That kind of thing has to be baked into the world-building, though, so it probably doesn’t help with this particular situation. 

This is a roundabout route to what I imagine you were hoping would be an easier answer. The tension you identified about how to incorporate Jewishness into a world that doesn’t have the same history is real, and was the topic of a discussion I recently held with a high school age group around issues of Jewish representation in the media they consume and hope to create. Good luck in your work of adding to the discussion.

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

Hi! Obviously ignore this if I'm asking something too personal, but you've mentioned that you're in the process of converting to judaism and I've been wondering how did you start? I've done a good bit of research and think it's something I'm interested in, but I have no idea what the actual process of conversion looks like, much less where to begin. Obviously feel free to ignore, or send me towards someone else, but thought I'd ask!

Hey no worries, anon! So, I will preface this by being forthcoming and saying I got partway through the conversion process, was forced to move, and ended up in a different part of the country with only one shul nearby whose rabbi (and community) are… very unfriendly to converts. They don’t SAY they are, but a few months of attendance and a handful of meetings with the rabbi with regards to conversion really hammered home that neither my wife nor I felt even remotely comfortable converting here, considering it’s a very personal and often vulnerable process, and wherein you have to actually like… trust and communicate with the rabbi you’re working with. So my conversion, while I still consider it “in progress”, is in an indefinite stall until we can move somewhere else or can reliably get to the next closest shul, which we currently cannot for various reasons.

ANYWAY. I started by doing a lot of research. Mostly I was just looking into… all kinds of religion, including Islam actually, because I missed the community and the structure and the spiritual anchors of my very conservative evangelical christian upbringing, but I didn’t like or want to return to the actual, y’know…. beliefs and tenets of Christianity. I found Judaism and just… the more I read and researched about the beliefs and the general culture of questioning and grappling with things within it, the more I felt like I’d found a people who I could understand, and a religion that understood me and would allow for me to be uncomfortable and question why things are taught certain ways and so forth. Which was one of many things that drove me away from Christianity, as I was not good at the whole “blind faith” thing. (they insist it’s not blind, but if you’re not supposed to question god then… what else IS it?)

At that point we were living in upstate new york, and the nearest reform shul was very small, did not have a permanent rabbi (there was one for a number of local communities that cycled around every few weeks), and really while they were officially reform they seemed to as a community have a practice and beliefs a lot closer to something like reconstructionist or humanist Judaism. I went to shabbat services on fridays there for a few months, and they were very nice but said they were very much not a usual reform congregation and that I should probably actually convert somewhere with a permanent rabbi and that was a bit more traditional, but that in the meantime they were more than happy to have me attend services and events with them. They were very sweet and I did appreciate that opportunity to accustom myself to the general pacing and content of a friday night shabbat service.

At that point we get to the part that you’re actually asking about, and I’m sorry if you’re just like “OH MY GOSH MAGS PLS JUST GET TO THE POINT” which is when we moved back down to Florida and I actually properly started the conversion process with a rabbi! I started out emailing the local shul and saying that I had just moved to the area, I was not Jewish but was interested in possibly converting and had been attending services at a very small shul up north, and is it all right if I attend a few shabbat services while I consider converting? I will say, I have never been told “no please don’t attend” about going to shabbat services, but especially with the world the way it is, and me being new and not knowing anyone in the community or having anyone to vouch for me, I prefer to ask beforehand so that they know to expect someone new who is reaching out and less likely to be a threat.

Anyway after a couple of weeks at that shul, I already loved the people and could tell I would get on pretty well with the rabbi, so I emailed her again about setting up a meeting to discuss converting. We had the meeting, talked about why I wanted to convert, what would be required of me, etc. She got me set up with a book list and some books from the shul library, gave me a reading assignment and asked me to write down any thoughts or questions I had, along with some other things that were kind of reading comprehension stuff, and told me to email her when I had finished so we could have another meeting. She also stipulated that she would have me live and practice through a full year of the Jewish calendar at minimum before she’d declare me ready to go to the mikvah, and we’d meet regularly, I’d do a lot of reading, I needed to attend a beginning hebrew class for adults that would be starting again over the summer, attend services (both weekly and holiday) as much as possible, and engage as much as possible in the community. (I really loved them. I was a soloist in the Purim spiel that year and I had friends and once I’d finished converting and could join the synagogue I’d already been needled to join their tiny choir and it was just a great group of people.)

Aaaand then we had to move due to things outside our control, and I couldn’t attend as often due to being a heck of a drive away (in a car with no A/C, in Florida, in the summer) so I tried to shift over to a closer shul whose rabbi my old rabbi knew, but it was High Holy Days and then he was travelling for some studies and couldn’t start doing anything like conversion until that was all over, and then we had to move again and now we’re here and have a very unfriendly rabbi and congregation, so we don’t attend services right now.

…………all this to say: you’ve done some research and you think you’re interested. Next step is to find the nearest shul that is of the movement you want to convert in, and call or email them and just let the rabbi know where you’re at and ask if you can attend some services respectfully to see if you still feel drawn to Judaism when engaging with it directly. If so, let the rabbi know, set up a meeting, and go from there. It’ll take time, a year at the LEAST and usually longer even if you DON’T have the sort of issues I’m currently having, but if HaShem is calling you home, it’s worth it.

(and if your rabbi requires to you take any classes or what-not, most organizations that run them that require you to pay some kind of fee offer scholarships or reduced tuition if you’re not financially able to enroll in them initially, so be sure to reach out about stuff like that, too.)

[soloalfie]

What stream of Judaism do you think Alfie is? Hasidic? Haredi? Modern Orthodox? Conservative? Masorti? Reform?

Thanks for the question ^^

I'm not Jewish and even if I did some research I can't tell, to be honest. Besides, I don't think the script in the series give us enough information to know about it. I couldn't get much information nor from the way he dresses in the tv series neither from the story he tells in the gospel of Alfie Solomons about his past. He's usually portrayed with a tasselled scarf, which is reminiscent of the Jewish tallit, and several types of black hats, similar to hasidic hats, but he's never seen wearing a real tallit, a kippah or a shtreimel, all we know is his wonderful wide brimmed hat was inherited from his father. Regarding his family origins we only know his mother flee from Imperial Russia and I couldn't gather anything about the different streams of Judaism in the Russian pogroms or the diaspora to Whitechapel, the Jewish zone in London back in those days.

All I can give you is my own view of Alfie. I don't imagine him as a very religious person. He's very aware of his occupation and he fights Tommy when the Shelby dares to show some moral superiority by telling him he "crossed the line". Also, he calls himself a sodomite, so I can't picture him taking religion too seriously.

As I said, the fics I uploaded were supposed to be part of a longer story. Here you have a piece of what I wrote about Alfie's beliefs in that story:

"Personally, he had lost any trace of religiosity years ago, left his beliefs and hopes in the trenches, buried under a thousand corpses, but he was fond of traditions. He held a strong sense of belonging and he was proud of his roots. Whenever he felt lost or weak he clung to his culture and his people. It provided him an identity and that was pretty enough to avoid the solitude and alienation in this world. His Jewish background was his compass and his home but he couldn't care less about any god."

Anyway, that's just my Alfie, it's just the way I see him (or I'd like him to be).

[jechristine]

I'm a Jew who's grandparents fled Ukraine, as is Amy Schumer. In Judaism, giving charity (tzdaka) is supposed to be anonymous. You have no idea whether she's given fifty virgils or $100,000 to Ukrainian causes. Never speculate. I donate about $1000 per year but always check the box for anonymous when I donate, and I never talk about it. You don't know what happens in private and when celebrities ARE public in their charity efforts, people shit on them too.

And anon continued:

Please pass this onto your friend, especially since you chose not to post my earlier anon about being Jewish within the Ukraine issue. It goes even further than what I wrote. We were stateless subject to genocidal pogroms catalysing the flight between the 1880s and 1920s. To say "Amy Schumer was born in the USA and get over yourself" is the same if not worse than saying an African American should get over the "African wannabe" revivalist culture. How very dare she.

It's so funny how you've got so many opinions about the UK and that black people being absolutely at all times perfect and immune from criticism, but you have massive racial blind spots which have become apparent to me today and you'll never post anything which critiques or calls out our biases and ignorance. You're one of those "my shit don't stink" types. Proximity wokeness is the inbred cousin of enduring victim complex.

I had been intending to answer the first ask here but it required a little thinking on my part, and I wanted to give it the attention it deserved.

I appreciate your sharing the parts of your Jewish identity that are important to you. I think you were sharing because you wanted to show me that you know more about Amy than I do.

Anyhow, true, we don’t know for sure whether Amy or anyone has already donated to the Ukraine causes. But I do know that she, as an individual, often publicizes her donations (just google “Amy Schumer charity”) contrary to the tradition that you’re describing, and we know that she’s currently publicizing her concern for the Ukraine and ideas around how to help. I drew a conclusion and made a suggestion, but sure I could be way off base. Apologies to Amy if I got it wrong. She seems like a generous person, so if she hasn’t already given to these causes, I’d guess she will eventually.

I have no particular care for Amy Schumer. I think the point from me and @artsimpourtzi was more to use Amy as an example of a widespread celebrity behavior of lecturing the rest of us and/or virtue signaling rather than simply redistributing their own money, which is what’s actually needed from civilians. I think maybe that larger point got lost in your ensuing tirades?

By the way, I am not Jewish but my husband is. My husband is a liberal, Reform Jew like Amy. His ancestors are from Lithuania and came over to the US in the same era to flee the Russian/Lithuanian pogroms. Americans of Ashkenazi descent whose ancestors were stateless, as you say, have different ways of thinking about their connections to the the specific lands from which their ancestors traveled. My own extended and immediate family members think of themselves as Americans exclusively and abhor their ancestors’ Lithuania, which they regard as having helped Russia to murder many of their relatives. This is either here nor there, but my husband also isn’t so traditional as to practice giving tzdaka anonymously (same as Amy). I guess I’m just sharing that because I was accused of having blind spots around Jewish identity, and maybe I do here and there, but I do try to talk those through with my life partner, not with mean-spirited anonymous people online. From him and his family I do have some awareness of what it means to be an American Jew.

Anyhow, I think it’s just best to treat people as individuals and not make assumptions based on race/ethnicity, even if you mean well. I guess just…never speculate.

The analogy to African Americans makes no sense.

[vibingforjudaism]

i empathize with all you are saying regarding orthodoxy. i have been working with a conservative rabbi for a while now, and while he's great and a very knowledgeable caring person, he's a little too liberal with some things for my tastes. my shul is on the traditional end of conservative (was orthodox until about ten years ago) and the community is wonderful and warm, i have friends there, so often i feel happy there but there are some things/directions they are moving (instruments on shabbos, etc,) where i'm just realizing that i maybe have a... different view on these things. and yet it's harder when you're gay--even if i commit to like... being single/celibate for life (which is a HUGE thing to commit to) that's still might not be enough depending on the rabbi. and honestly, i'm not particularly open about my sexuality in real life but mostly i just don't want homophobia to hurt my relationship with God or with judaism, you know? i'm coming from a jewish heritage/background, but while my maternal grandfather is jewish, my grandmother isn't. so while it's my heritage, it feels totally different when you're not halachically jewish, or raised jewish at all, and converting--as you said, i am MAKING THE CHOICE to commit to these things, so i feel that i need to conform to the standards in the community i'm joining, you know? versus being raised jewish/orthodox, it's completely different because you're jewish no matter what. not the case for me. but one of the "standards" is heterosexuality and it's not like i can DO anything about being gay... also doubly hard when you live somewhere with a small jewish community (and a tiny frum community). we have one ashkenaz orthodox shul and one sefardi synagogue and most of the congregations here are reform/conservative/recon/what have you. it's not like there's like. a huge variety of options in terms of orthodoxy like there would be in, say, NYC. also makes strict kashrut observance harder, lmao. sorry for the extremely long, personal, rambling ask but it's something i've been kinda struggling with lately on my jewish journey, and it's really nice to see someone else talking about this as well and to know i'm not alone in feeling kind of stuck in that way. i hope we're both able to find our place.

🫂🫂🫂 I hope we can too!!!!! That sounds complicated and frustrating and full of thoughts and feelings ah And-- yeah. I'm not going to commit to celibacy and singleness. I'm not going to detransition. I'm just not. And there are orthodox rabbis that will work with that. But they're harder to find. And it's frustrating. I'm good with my gender and sexuality actually I love to talk about them with my queer friends and they connect to Torah great. Rav can we talk about the halachic implications of imperfections on stainless steel silverware--

[docholligay]

Question! What made you decide to avoid eating pork, but not some of the other food that's supposedly proscribed? (I'm actually unclear on what exactly is a no-no, even after trying to look it up online)

I’m Reform, which doesn’t mean “You don’t have to follow any of the rules ever” like some Reform Jews who I might argue haven’t given their faith a lot of thought would say, but it encourages us to be our own “sage” and to really try to discern what has meaning, and what God might have meant, rather than saying, “WELP IF SHAMMAI SAYS SO.” I think, done correctly, it’s a really challenging form of the faith because it asks us to be in touch with what we feel the ideals of God might be, to constantly be climbing the ladder. 

I mean, my BIGGIES, and if I could make the world take anything from Judaism, it would be this, are the ethical obligations. The prohibition against lashon hara, asking us not to spread something, even if true, simply to discredit or harm someone, asking, ‘why can’t this be handled privately?’, asking us to search our motivations for “warning” which holy shit do I wish fandom would get that one. The obligation to the poor, the obligation to tzedakah, our obligation to stand for others, to attempt to think good of people, to guard against joy in the misfortunes of others. That’s my big deal Jewish following! This is where I put the majority of my energy! 

But also, I keep a version of some of the kosher law. I don’t eat pork, and I don’t eat “matched” meat and dairy. So I don’t eat beef and cow milk together, for example. I do this because the ACTUAL LAW IN TORAH is “Don’t stew a kid in its mother’s milk” and I have a lot of very personal feelings about how that’s gotten SEVERELY overstretched as a linchpin of Jewish behavior and if we’re going to “put a fence around the Torah” why aren’t we doing that by donating 20% of our income?? Just to make sure??? and things like that, but this is an argument better kept in my Torah study class. 

Anyway, the pork thing. I had been thinking about it for a few years, not only out of personal thoughts, but as a mark of Jewish identity, perhaps one of the most commonly known ones. But two things changed it for me: knowing a pig, and a random rabbi I was reading. 

But Doc, you might fairly say, you’ve known plenty of farm animals. Yes, and so I don’t feel bad about eating them. Chickens barely know they’re alive. Cows are assholes. Sheep are ridiculous. None of them has a keen sense of intelligence that BOTHERS me. Pigs are very intelligent, akin to dogs and maybe even smarter, and working at a place that had a few (Keeping pigs is not common here) made it feel...not okay to me. Then I was reading a rabbi, also Reform, whose name escapes me, and he pointed out that there is no use for a pig on a farm but to die. It cannot give milk, or wool, or eggs. And I was like, “HO HO HO IS THAT AWKWARD AS HELL.” so I gave it up. 

I don’t really care if other people eat it or not! People always want to argue with me, and I’m like, “Bro I could not possibly care less about your life.” But I won’t cook it. So. I told Jill she can cook it whenever she wants but as it turns out she wants pork less than she wants to cook. 

There are a lot of kashrut (kosher) laws and honestly all Jews keep them to different degrees from Very Very Serious to Not At All. IN my congregation, I’m one of the more serious, but not the most serious, as far as food goes. 

People get hung up on the food thing, but there’s plenty of other things I do and keep too. I say Modeh Ani when I wake up in the morning, I light Shabbat candles every week, I don’t use internet on Shabbat, I say the Shema before I got to bed. Whether I’m “religious” or not depends on one’s perspective, i suppose, and I’m really not interested in whether anyone considers me religious or not. The older I get, the more mizvot I find I pick up. 

[sasshomaru]

I'm Mizrahi Jewish/Middle Eastern Jewish and here are some things to add:

if you're not jewish, chances are you're anti-Semitic without realizing it. most of us grow up in anti-Semitic societies, just like we grow up in racist, patriarchal, LGBTQ+ phobic societies. the best you can do is acknowledge this, do better, and support Jewish people.

not all Jewish people are white. there are Middle Eastern jews, Indian Jews, North African, North and South American, and well, everywhere we could seek refuge really

Ashkenazi generally means European Jewish. this means they kept religious and cultural practices per European customs and diets. Sephardic and Ashkenazi have some different traditions but we recognize each other and other forms as 100% correct. as an example, my family does a longer ceremony on rosh hashannah and we eat different foods (no potatoes and way more fruits!)

just like any other religious and ethnic group, we have different opinions on things. asking your Jewish friend "so what do you think of Palestine?" is just... insensitive and weird. if you wouldn't ask a Muslim person "so what do you think of Iran?" or a Christian person "so do you condone the Westboro Baptist church?" don't ask a Jewish person about Palestine/Israel unless prompted

avoid "Jews for Jesus" like the plague. these people insert Jesus into our religious holidays and seek to convert Jews.

goy/goyim comes from Yiddish, gentile is the English term. they mean the same thing. goy is singular, goyim is plural, eg. that person is goy, those people are goyim

honestly the only people i know who speak Hebrew have visited Israel or lived there at one point. if you can understand why someone who is Catholic doesn't know Latin, you can understand why someone who is Jewish doesn't know Hebrew

Hannukah isn't "jewish xmas" because it's really not a super religious holiday. in protestant christianity there's basically only easter, xmas, and maybe good friday. in Judaism there's Yom Kippur (holiest day of reflection and repentance), Rosh Hashannah (new year), and others. a lot of Jewish holidays have to do with celebrating and remembering events, and Hannukah, Sukkot, Purim, and Passover all fall under that category. Hannukah is really not as religious of a holiday, and at least in the U.S. it's only normalized to get presents during this time bc of xmas.

kosher/keeping kosher is a dietary law that not all Jewish people follow, and to varying degrees. i know some who don't at all, some who don't at all except they won't eat pork, and some who have two kitchens and won't eat dairy and meat in the same meal. it doesn't hurt to ask and if you're providing food for someone who keeps kosher, the best you can do is talk to them! maybe they'll only eat from kosher restaurants, or they're cool with vegetarian options. see what works for them!

im reading the notes and people are saying "go to temple! learn about our religion!" and like... im hesitant to say that u should attend our services. like i don't attend mosque or church for my muslim or christian friends. these people might be referring to temple which is generally less strict on laws and more spiritual. for me, i grew up going to orthodox synagogues where it takes years to convert to judaism and we are very strict about not converting people unless they absolutely 100% want to become jewish. it is against our religion to force people to convert (which is probably where all of the antisemitic "jews are secretive!" bullshit comes from). if you really want to ally yourself w the jewish community tbh reach into your purse. my old synagogue couldn't afford sabbath/shabbat meals sometimes; some communities don't even have their own buildings and have to use churches or community centers. you can also call and ask if there are any classes or educational resources you can find as a non-Jewish person. again, reform temples probably have more programs and resources for non-Jews than orthodox.

another way you can be an ally is to educate yourself! read books by jewish people, follow jewish people on social media, buy from Jewish business, just in general support Jewish people.

listen to Jewish people and call out anti-Semitism. you heard someone make a holocaust joke? call them out on it and report them if it was your school or workplace (or some other place where they can be reported)! your friend said "idk man, Jewish people just have control of everything"? call them out and tell them that's some anti-Semitic shit! you see Jewish people online calling something anti-Semitic? listen to them!

since judaism is an ethnoreligion, there are people who are athiest and jewish. i myself don't believe in god but value jewish practices and traditions and keep kosher. if you're not Jewish, don't tell Jewish people how we should keep our religion.

be wary of athiest rhetoric that's like "religion = bad, traditions = outdated." i have a friend who is athiest and during passover, i told him that i was avoiding bread that week and explained the history of passover. he was like "honestly that's some shit and why i don't get religion, like why would you make yourself suffer? your ancestors did that so you wouldn't have to eat matzah and unleavened bread" and i called him out and was like lol dude chill im not suffering, im a grown ass adult making my own decision and i Promise i am not suffering by not eating bread for a week and i will live and be fine lmao.

pickled foods, bagels, gefilte fish, latkes, ETC. are Ashkenazi food and not the only Jewish food that exists! every region has their own foods!

with more protests going on, don't make arguments or signs like "the bible ALSO says not to wear two types of fabric :)" and tbh i can't think of specific examples but basically the goal is to say "why follow the bible when these laws in it are outdated and no one follows them." Some Jews DO follow those laws. calling these laws archaic when real people follow them is anti-Semitic.

i can't think of anymore rn but feel free to add on

Hey not to sound stupid, but what's the best way to be a Jewish ally? Like, yeah I'm anti-Nazi, but I don't think that's the same thing as being pro-Jewish

im glad u asked! some quick tips:

-its ‘jewish people’ not ‘jews’ (if a jewish person calls themself a jew its their business but goyim Shouldnt)

-we aren’t all zionists! most of us are anti-israel so please don’t ask someone their stance on it when you find out someone is jewish

-goy and gentile mean the same thing and neither are slurs

-on that note, goy is singular, goyim is plural, and goyische is an adjective

-jews of color exist and are erased and underrepresented both by gentiles and other jewish people

-we dont all speak hebrew!!! i can only do a couple of prayers phonetically and some jewish people can’t even do that

-judaism is a culture as well as a religion-hanukkah isnt jewish christmas (its better)

anyone can add on to this, and if you need any other tips feel free to ask!

[jewishangus]

(I'm not even sure if this is the place to ask, sorry if this is a weird question haha) I'm a fanfiction writer and now that angus has been confirmed jewish I don't want to ignore that part of him in my future works. But I know literally nothing about what it means to be jewish. As a jewish fanfiction writer yourself, do you have any advice about how I could respectfully write a jewish angus?

no its a great question!!!! dont worry about asking - if anything, im super glad you’re looking to create good representation!! (and humbled that you’re here asking me? fuck)

tl;dr: being respectful really just means putting thought into your character, and treating judaism like you would any other facet of someone’s personality. most of the time, it won’t be that prominent! but if you don’t think about it, you’re going to end up writing it badly.

under the readmore, however: how to approach thinking about judaism and working it into a character.

ok first of all, if you’re not jewish and know nothing about judaism, there’s a couple of things you should get.

first: ethnicity is key.i’ll leave you to do the googling on the terms - the key to all good representation is research - but if youre european/american, you most likely adhere to a denomination (which, for the numerical majority of jews, is either orthodox, conservative, or reform), if you’re from the middle east/north africa/actual real africa/far east, or live in israel now, you’re likely not to. 

second: surprisingly, politics dont matter. tradition, however, does.you can be liberal and orthodox and conservative and reform, even though orthodox judaism is the more traditional/patriarchal in nature of the two denominations. but you’ve probably heard of if not seen fiddler on the roof - its incredibly hard to stray against what you’ve been raised when youre jewish, mostly because most of your jewish identity comes from your parents and your history! a lot of people do, especially on the political front. but even if people differ from their parents politically, they might not do so jewishly.

third: jews are a nation as well as a religion.jewish culture exists (though it’s different for people of different ethnicities), a jewish language exists, a jewish history exists (even though schools suck at teaching all of it), and jewish national sovereignty also exists and is important - hence, israel. at the same time, a jewish biblical canon exists, and jewish books of law exist, and those two have to coexist together. for some jews, both are equally important. some prioritize one over the other, and do so in different ways.

last: stereotypes are…. actually kind of important.jews love to argue. true. jewish overbearing moms exist. also true. jews control all the money in the world? actually, we joke about that a lot, but sadly that isn’t true. however, for a nation with only ~15 million people, you’ll find us in a lot of high places; we’ll attribute that mostly to our brains, though.when you’re writing stereotypes, think about them. every jewish person thinks about them differently and treats them differently. people who grew up in more of a jewish bubble tend to be more comfortable with them than those who arent.whatever you do, though, dont avoid them like the plague. a lot of them are true, and cute, and a lot of them are something id love to see in fic! as an example, take a line from one of my wips: “So, deep down, Davenport knew it wasn’t a coincidence that when he collected the seven, they all turned out to be Jewish. It’s the Jew-dar, Merle jokes sometimes, or the “you were looking for smart people, what’d you expect?” that Taako said once, but their captain’s more serious than that. He thinks it’s destiny.”

there’s two different stereotypes in there: jews are smart, and the jew-dar, which is more a pun off of the gay-dar than anything. and yet, they’re used light-heartedly, for a laugh that doesn’t poke fun! kind of in the same way angus was confirmed to be jewish.

ok, now that that’s done with, a disclaimer that i implied heavily in the last bit but is very worthy to say outright:

every jew is different! 

when you’re writing a jewish character, this is the most important thing to keep in mind. a person can’t be just jewish, they’re jewish and [insert race/ethnicity] and [insert gender] and [insert age] and [insert socio-economic status] and [insert sexuality] and i can just go on and on and on, because even the men in black hats in nyc’s diamond district have a story and other facets of their personality.

so the key to write a jewish character is not to throw everything else in the garbage - in fact do exactly the opposite. decide everything else first, and then use that to reverse-engineer their judaism.now, this is true even for people who see judaism as their salient identity, like me! even if judaism is the most important thing in their lives, it’s that along with everything else that builds character.

let’s try it with angus, shall we?

okay, so who is angus?

-he’s a boy-he’s 11-he is, for whatever reason, mostly disconnected from his birth family-he loves to learn - an academic at heart-he’s fancy - his birth family was probably rich, or at least he knows his manners.

and if you wanna do some world-building you can - how do jews in faerun deal with magic/other gods/the astral plane/etc? thats a whole other post, but it’s interesting to think about in regards to angus’s psyche.

okay, let’s do this:

we don’t know angus’s race. if he’s white, what denomination does he slide into, if any? if he’s black, he’s either ethiopian or his family converted at some point in his history or he’s an extremely rare character. either way, his generation is probably like. one of the first to integrate into modern judaism. what’s that like? 

he’s a kid. his judaism is going to change over time! how serious is he about it now? is it a source of fun for him, a source of serious learning, or a mix of both? does he make sure to follow the laws, clearing his dorm of bread on passover or fasting on yom kippur or keeping shabbat/kosher, or does he just light candles for hanukkah and eat dairy on midsummer?

where is his family, and why would they have left him? the days of ditching your kid in fear of him growing up bad have been behind us for millennia. if his family is shitty or dead, where’s the extensive community that usually backs up kids of his character? does he still have a network? does he go back and visit?

he found a new family in the bureau and the ipre - are they jewish? do they support him or just leave him be?

he is a boy genius, in most understandings of the term. does he speak hebrew? know torah trope or prayer or jewish law? or is he more of a jewish history buff? or does he like secular subjects better, struggling over yet appreciating the old text yet turning his attention to something else? judaism seriously endorses academia - is that where he got his love for it from?

if he’s fancy, is he traditional? does he wear tzizit under his clothes or was his family not that jewish when they got rich?

the answers to all of these questions are going to create the kind of jew you want angus to be!

and yet - 

you can incorporate all of this character-building into angus and end up writing him the same way as you have this whole time - it all depends on the scene you’re writing him in.

your angus could be the same except he interrupts to ask a question about a religion/custom that’s different than his own. he could be the same except fixing the tzizit under his clothes is a fidget of his. you know what? his judaism is probably only going to come up in little snippets anyway - he could be asking taako which ones are the meat forks and which are the dairy ones, or magnus could play keep-away with his kippah, or lucretia could find him in his room studying torah. or maybe it comes up in conversation? maybe someone calls him a genius and he blushes and says he kinda struggles with his hebrew homework sometimes, and then the conversation moves on as if he hadn’t mentioned judaism at all.

so what do these questions answer, exactly? whether those snippets, those pieces of judaism that work his way into his daily life, are even there to begin with. 

does it come up in conversation? does he spend his free time studying torah? does he wear a kippah or tzizit? does he care about meat and dairy forks? does he end up going on an extreme teen adventure and ask a bunch of questions or is he worried about merle preaching? 

those are up to you, and those decisions are what im working to educate on in this post.

anyways, that’s about all i got! if you wanna find out more about judaism, feel free to ask - i was trying to avoid giving you a crash course on my religion and more focusing on how to incorporate it into a character, but if the former was what you were looking for, hit me up and ill write another 1500 words for you!

hope i could help, and happy writing!

[keshetchai]

Why does Judaism not have a central authority - like Catholics have the Papacy etc? Is there any concept of "sacramental" leadership, like how we understand the Pope as Christ's representative/vicar, within Judaism? Or is there a theology that is more collective and egalitarian, communal in action and hermeneutics and understanding what is True. (Obvi Catholics have a very top-down system concerning revelation of Truth from the Magisterium) - sorry if I'm bugging you here! It's all so intriguing

this post is gonna be so very long that it’s just going to go under a big cut and has the like…clarification that i may have made mistakes and i am greatly simplifying some things. 

i’ll preface with a nice story: 

Hillel, when asked by a prospective convert to Judaism to teach him the whole Torah while he stood on one leg, replied: “That which is hateful unto you do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole of the Torah, The rest is commentary. Now go and study.”

i feel like an answer of all of these questions could maybe take thousands of words and several pages but like the short answer is “no” and “we don’t anymore there’s no temple, but even so the High Priest was not the same or similar to the pope.” 

a slightly longer answer, point by point:

Why does Judaism not have a central authority?

There used to be a High Priest, who was the primary authority of the Jewish Temple. However, there is no longer a Temple on the Temple mount, and therefore we do not have a High Priest. Realistically speaking the dome of the rock and the al-aqsa mosque now sit on top of the temple mount and the remains of the temple, and aren’t like….going anywhere. So we won’t see a third temple being built anytime soon, and therefore have no reason to have a high priest. 

that’s the most practical answer i can give you. we like, don’t have one because the romans destroyed the temple (and therefore much of the job of the high priest) and tried to end Judaism. we have a holiday about it, where you sit on the floor, fast the whole day, and are sad (this is a very quick description, to give you the idea.)

historically speaking, this move of destroying the temple did not work for the romans. the Jewish people still exist, and the Roman Empire…well…does not. (am israel chai. the people of israel live.)

we have had other things/positions of power and leadership but like…nothing like the pope. Especially because one of the pope’s major jobs has never been like, “prevent my people from all being slaughtered by the local community.” today there are often chief rabbis of various jewish communities in the diaspora, and two representative chief rabbis of the “orthodox” world in Israel who make up the chief rabbinate, and they’re elected for ten years as head of the rabbinate council. i don’t know much about it because it’s A.) in Israel only and B.) i’m not orthodox and C.) also there aren’t really chief rabbis in north america outside of Montreal and also D.) the concept of a chief rabbi is not really mandated in Judaism, since in theory all rabbis have the same amount of authority.

Is there any concept of “sacramental” leadership, like how we understand the Pope as Christ’s representative/vicar, within Judaism?

we don’t like…we don’t…

okay let’s just throw out all the christian terminology here because i can’t make those comparisons, i will just answer the question i think you are asking:

Q 1.) what do jewish people like, do, anyways?

A 1.) we fulfill mitzvot (aka ‘commandments’). there are 613 of them. some of them depend on the existence of the temple, which doesn’t exist, so obviously we can’t do those. we also have roles which can only be fulfilled by the priests or high priest. the position of high priest does not exist currently (see: romans, temple). technically of the 12 tribes of israel, 2 still exist as distinct tribes: the kohanim, the levites, and both are the priestly tribes. everyone else is now called yisraelim (mostly from the tribe of Judah or Benjamin). those who are kohen or levite are expected to perform certain things and still technically have like, certain roles or honors but the role of priests in average jewish life is again not the same as it was when there was a temple. 

Q 2.) okay who like DOES this commandment stuff? who fulfills mitzvot?

A 2.) jewish people are obligated in fulfilling mitzvot to the extent that fulfilling them is currently possible. there’s like some things that may or may not apply to specific individuals and that is complicated but generally speaking if you are jewish, you do the things. 

Q 3.) so like, uh….if you want to lead a service, who does the Things?

A 3.) literally any jewish person can, in theory, Do The Things. some movements prefer that men and women are obligated to do certain specific things but in a progressive environment anyone can do the Thing.  my rabbi (liberal reform movement) said he is a “professional jew” but not like…inherently better or anything, it’s just his job to be really jewish and know how to be really jewish (oversimplification, but the point is, other people can do a lot of the things he does). oftentimes during the summer, the rabbis at my synagogue are off doing things or studying or who knows what else, and sometimes the services will be run by other people. technically speaking, i could, in theory, lead a whole service. in reality i do not feel prepared enough to do so, but i am capable and should i be asked to do so, it would be my duty to the community. we even let thirteen year olds do this. 

generally speaking if you have ten jews in a room you can do almost all of the Things, although some of those jews might know what they are doing better than others. if someone goes around asking “are you jewish? we need a tenth person,” and you are jewish, you have to say yes because they need a tenth jewish person to do a Thing. (some prayers are only recited in the presence of a minyan, which is ten jewish adults.) 

 i think technically(?) i could even be like “as a jewish person i want to officiate a jewish wedding ceremony” but my rabbi said the state really prefers that someone with the title of rabbi does that because like, it’s just easier to regulate and keep track of and less confusing/less paperwork. like religiously speaking all jews can do the Jewish Things, which are fulfilling mitzvot (commandments), inclusive of rituals/holidays/life cycle events (like marriage or circumcision). but some jews are professionals at doing these things (like rabbis or cantors or a moyel), or are from the priestly tribe and therefore obligated to do more things, or we can’t do the things because no temple. 

this is a big big big simplification. 

….so i think the answer is “no.”

Or is there a theology that is more collective and egalitarian

yes.

hermeneutics and understanding what is True

i dont have an answer per se but: “israel” means “wrestles with g-d” so like…fight g-d, wrestle for the truth, argue with g-d or anyone else. 

the graphic novel The Rabbi’s Cat also discusses the difference between Judaism and other forms of like…western thought

“Western thought works by thesis, antithesis, synthesis, while Judaism goes thesis, antithesis, antithesis, antithesis….”

everyone is always studying, we are always reading torah, we read it in cycles every year, all the time, over and over and we argue about it. 

all jewish people were given the torah, and therefore we are all equally able to have…it…? does this make sense? 

[ren-in--wonderland]

Also, there are about 4 levels of judaism.

The first one is reform. That means that you go to services on High Holy days (Rosh Hashanah, one of the first nights of Passover, things like that). Maybe you will go to a Friday night or Saturday morning service, some people do go regularly, but you don't keep accordance to most of the laws in the Bible. Just the ten commandments, really.

The second is conservative. This means that you definitely go to High Holy days, and to either/ both Friday night and Saturday morning services. You will definitely have your bar/bat mitzvah and it will be very long and completely in Hebrew (reform means that some people will have their bart mitzvah, and if they do it will be much shorter, and some of the songs will be in English). You tend to keep kosher, and some people will have two sets of cookware because of this. Services are much longer and more in depth, and use more Hebrew. You will start to keep more of the laws in the Bible, not just the ten commandments.

The third is orthodox. Not only will everything be the same as conservative with High Holy days, bart mitzvahs, and the like, you will also not do any sort of work on the Sabbath. The Sabbath starts at sundown on Friday, and goes until sundown on Saturday. You will walk to services on both Friday night and Saturday morning. Some people even prepare pieces of toilet paper so you don't tear them off because that could be considered work. You will not be cooking during the Sabbath, so all food has to be prepared beforehand. You keep as many of the 653 laws in Leviticus as possible. The women also wear modest clothes and keep their hair under wraps. If you know the musical Fiddler on the Roof, then you are pretty familiar with what orthodoxy looks like. It's just a bit more modern now. Girls and boys go to separate schools, and when girls have their periods, they have to take sick days until they are done and have a special bath. A good friend and teacher of mine taught at one of the schools for girls, and I can ask her questions if any of you have any questions about schooling for girls.

After that is something called Hasidism. It's orthodox on steroids. Everything under orthodoxy is still applicable, but the men are expected to learn about the Torah all day and dedicate their life to it. So who makes the money? You ask. The women do. Not only are the women expected to take care of the children and the house, but they are also the sole breadwinner while the husband reads the Torah and studies the Bible. There is a sect of Hasidic Jews that live near me, and we are family acquaintances and we get matzah from them every year. We all feel badly for the wife, but they seem very happy.

After this, there are two different 'styles' of judaism. There are the ashkanazi (excuse the spelling, Hebrew is hard and I'm dyslexic), which is the better known of the two. These are people from Eastern Europe. Mostly Ukraine, what used to be Prussia, parts of Russia, and parts of Germany. This is the style of the family from Fiddler on the Roof.

Then there is Sephardic Jews. These are Jews from Southern America and a bit of central America. The only difference that I have ever been told about these different styles of judaism is the way they sing the prayers and a couple of modern songs about the holidays.

If anyone has any questions about any of the types, I have friends and family that have either worked with or been a part of all of these types and styles of judaism. I also hope that this expands on OPs first point about the differences between judaism and christianity, as I myself am finding that these religions are very different as I am converting to Catholicism. Because I, too, had only ever been told that christianity was judaism with Jesus being the Messiah instead of the Messiah not being born yet. (Also, we argue about the part of the person who gives birth to the Messiah being a virgin or just a young woman)

Tl;Dr here are the different types and styles of judaism and how they are different from each other and can help explain how they are different from christianity, from someone who is starting to see both sides of the religions

listen i know a lot of you think that judaism is just like….christianity but with some cool more ~ethnique~ holidays or whatever but if you’re approaching your interpretation of judaism within any sort of framework related to xtianity you’re doing it entirely wrong

“the torah says [x]” doesn’t mean “the torah says this and so this is what everyone does bc that’s the torah”

“the torah says [x]” means “for the next several thousand years people are going to argue about what exactly this means, what the loopholes are, how many different ways this can be interpreted, whether we should even follow it, and hey maybe gd isn’t even real so maybe the question is how this impacts us and our society, what are the implications, etc”

judaism is not “the torah says sodomy is an abhorrence therefore the entire religion is intrinsically homophobic and gd hates gays and is gonna send us to hell for being gay” because that is not how judaism works AT ALL

if you’re a prospective convert, if you’re someone who’s interested in theology, if you’re someone who thinks you know enough about judaism to talk about it on the internet, it is ESSENTIAL to understand these things.

judaism is not, and has never been, xtianity. not just because of our holidays. not just because we don’t believe that jesus is the messiah. but because we have a fundamentally different philosophy about gd, the torah, and how we should live our lives.

[keshetchai]

I am interested in converting to Judaism. Honestly, the experiences I've had with it, has made me feel something that I haven't felt in awhile. But I'm nervous. I figure it's best to contact a Rabbi, but I'm so worried that they will be skeptical of my reasons for converting. I was wondering if you could tell me what your own experience was like.

Thank you for asking me, anon! To start with, I want to say everyone’s experiences are different and if you run into some bumps in the road that’s okay. Sometimes you have to try a few things and places before you find the right fit for you.

That said: I had a really great experience overall and was really happy about it.

I emailed two local rabbis to start (One Reconstructionist and one Reform). The Recon Rabbi I think didn’t see my email when I emailed him and the Reform Rabbi happened to reply same day. I don’t hold that against the Recon Rabbi at all - I later met him and he’s a really nice and wonderful guy. Very smart and welcoming and friendly. Rabbis often have to wade through TONS of emails so it was probably just an accident he didn’t see or get to mine. If the Reform Rabbi hadn’t replied, I would’ve emailed both of them again - maybe wait 3-4 days or a week and then email again if you don’t get a reply within the week. (And don’t expect replies during Shabbat so Friday-Saturday isn’t a good time to email).

I think I could’ve also emailed the Conservative Rabbi looking back on it, but I was lucky and found the right place for me off the bat. I basically emailed saying I was considering converting and wanted to learn more and would it be alright if I showed up for Shabbat?

Basically my (now) Rabbi (I call him Rabbi R on here) emailed back, and CC’d like…the other (new to the congregation) Rabbi, the Cantor, and a woman who I would guess is a liaison for the congregation (IDK what her titles are but welcoming committee? Ish?) and they basically all said hi. The woman who was the welcoming committee type (Susan), welcomed me to my first Shabbat and sat with me to help keep me on page and clued in to what was actually going on.

My first Shabbat service was led by the new-hire Rabbi K who had come from a congregation in Texas. It was her first time leading a service in her new community so I got to tell her that as far as I knew, she was perfect and made Zero mistakes.

The first few Shabbats I sat with Susan or the new Rabbi when she wasn’t leading the service and was sitting in the pews. I still like sitting with them, or Rabbi R’s wife, or a few of the other ladies I adore. I also had dinner with some of the congregants after services a few times. In the beginning (after a few services!) I met with Rabbi R in his office to talk about converting and my interest in signing up for the Introduction to Judaism class. Where I live, the Rabbis of all the branches co-teach that class - and basically all of them were like “So…we don’t really do that turn you away three times thing anymore, mostly now we just warn about antisemitism and encourage you to evaluate and re-evaluate how you feel and if you want to convert still. And if you don’t at the end of this, that’s okay!”

I’m paraphrasing but that was essentially that experience. I met with my Rabbi some, went to Shabbat services as often as I could (pending transport/weather/etc). My Rabbis are both smart and fun people - the third Rabbi on my Beit din is a conservative Rabbi who is at the JCC locally and he remarked I found the right sponsoring Rabbi for myself, haha.

Basically I found some great people and a great place and am really happy about it. And I don’t think anyone was ever skeptical or unwelcoming to me - certainly the answer “I think Judaism emphasizes a lot of things that I value in religion/society and better fits how I approach the world and religion than anything else I’ve seen/studied” is a perfectly acceptable reason.

“It speaks to my soul and inspires me” is an good reason. So is “I value the tenets of Torah and how the Jewish religion is about right practice.”

Or “I fell in love with my partner, who is Jewish. Their Jewishness is part of why I love them, and it made me curious about/passionate about their Jewish values/religion. I want to be a part of this and I want to pursue this for myself. I see what my partner has, and think ‘that is good, I want that for myself too, I want that for us as a couple, and I want to raise our children Jewishly.” That’s also a good reason!

I think the…. “Bad” reasons would be like “I think Jewish men/women are hot and want to date them.” (Fetishizing) you know? I’d personally be wary of philosemitism (idk “the Jews are more enlightened than other religions!” Would be…weird? Like nah all religions have imperfections and problems.) I think a lot of ex-Christians have to struggle with our personal rage against the Problems with the Church that we’ve built up over a lifetime and so we’re all prone to this and just…need to be honest and not let our negative feelings towards Christianity/some other religion dictate the narrative of our choosing another religion we want to be a positive experience for ourselves. They’re related but different issues to bring up with a Rabbi - “Judaism seems right/interests me because…” Is a slightly different conversation than “I’m not comfortable with the religion of my family because…” Even if those things overlap in some ways, you’ll want to eventually (not immediately!) articulate your interest in Judaism for the sake of itself.

Honestly it’s *okay* to not have all your answers right away, to not know everything about how to feel right away, and to just email saying “I think this may be a good fit for me, but I’d like to know more. Can I come this Shabbat?”

I wish you the best of luck!!!