#im so grateful for shul

[eye-in-hand]

Showed the Rabbi my art of Ruth and Naomi and Shemot and he asked me to do some art for an event the Synagogue is having soon ahhhhh

Another member asked if my partner and I could help with a pride event later in the year!

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I think I'm "used" to antisemitism until I watch a sermon which enthusiastically says that jews will be sacrificed for the rapture and then I'm baring my teeth

[laineystein]

A bit of a nighttime rant/blog thing because I’m leaving soon and can’t sleep (though that has nothing to do with the fact that im leaving soon — I typically can’t sleep as most of you know by now)

I spent a lot of the day in our little shul here. I’ve come to really love being one of the only women on base and I’m definitely one of the only frum female soldiers…if not *the* only one. But it’s nice because it’s so quiet and it’s like existing in your own shul and it was just me and Hashem chatting for almost two hours. Then I prayed for our hostages and our chayalim. And then I cried. Which I’ve done a lot lately. But it was like therapy and I was so grateful to have it! When we leave I will be in a place with no privacy and no quiet. I’m really trying to cherish it.

When I finally emerged to eat I ran into a soldier I actually met recently. He’s 19 (a baby!!!) and a lone soldier. He’s the sweetest young man and I adore him. And he told his Ima that he feels safe with me around and I’ve spoken to her on the phone so now I feel extra responsible for his wellbeing. Anyway! We went for a run after dinner and we talked about a friend we lost last week. Then we talked about the other “friends” we’ve lost; the ones that have chosen to turn a blind eye and push us away while our tribe is going through the most painful thing a group can experience. It’s a different kind of trauma, to grieve the living. I genuinely only had two goy friends before all of this and now I only have one. The other I have completely detached from and have no desire to ever speak with her again. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. I’ve said it before but I have my tribe and my safety and happiness will always lie with the Jewish people and I’m so content with that. My lone soldier friend, however, (and rightfully so), is really struggling with this. He did not grow up in a Jewish neighborhood like I did. He was not born in Israel. Many of his friends are goy. And he is really struggling with them. And my heart breaks for him. Because I don’t know what to say to make him feel better. Because what I want to say is to forget them and focus on the love of the Jewish community. But I know that’s not as easy for everyone as it is for me. And I just wish there was more I could give him. So if anyone has any words of wisdom I will happily share it with him!

Then I spent the rest of my night checking out supplies and packing my kit while on the phone with my husband. Which took me far too long because I kept getting distracted which has been happening a lot lately. Too many balls in the air, not enough hands to catch them all. But my bags are finally packed so I’m just waiting at this point. Which is the effing worst…hence why I’m currently shouting into the virtual abyss.

Did I mention that my husband might be fostering a dog while I’m gone? A dog that was found in the South was sent to a rescue in Tel Aviv and it had puppies and now my husband wants to foster one…and cited my physical absence in his life as being equivalent to missing the energy of a small hyper dog, hence the need. So I’ll probably be going home to a dog because my husband is the most laidback individual that is not at all affected by anything and will excel at canine fatherhood the way he excels at everything else in life. Standby for updates on this disaster.

Anyway.

How’s everyone else doing? Anyone have any good news? How’s the diaspora? Everyone okay out there? I worry about y’all. People have lost their damn minds. Just a reminder you can apply for aliyah anytime you want. We’d love to have you 💙

Tov, going to attempt sleep I guess. Take care of yourselves, fam 🫶🏼

[morphinomenaljew]

I don’t feel safe at my Shul anymore and it sucks. I wish I did. But any time I try to reach out I either fumble it so spectacularly that I confuse everyone around me or I just don’t get more than the barest of acknowledgments except from a select few.

I wish the space I’ve worked so hard to make my home felt like one still. I wish the people I considered friends thought the same of me and I’m coming to find out that largely that just isn’t the case.

I was stalked today coming home from work and only two people besides my partner checked on me and neither were from leadership. This is why I don’t reach out. Why I don’t consider myself to really be part of things. Why I keep to myself mostly. Because I am beginning to think that there is something just so unbelievably broken and dark in me that I’m beyond redeeming what little place I had in my community to begin with. Because I can’t help but feel like if I was worth their time, I’d have had more options for regulation and resourcing available to me than just sleeping and dissociating until I separated myself entirely from the fear. I thought the PNW would be different than the panhandle. I guess I was wrong 😞

I wish I knew how to make friends. I wish I knew how to keep friends. Hell I wish I knew how to have one successful conversation with a person. And I wish that I’d been born into this community instead of having to choose between it and the other cultural identity that saved my life. I wish there was a way for the two sides of who I am to exist together and I’m beginning to think that that just isn’t possible.

And if you are from my Shul or are my partner, it isn’t your fault. I’m not mad at you. Im grateful for all you’ve done. I’m just

tired

[fangtastic-bastard]

What were things that helped you decide on orthodoxy (or any tenets of it) vs other movements?

Im really struggling to pick, any advice is appreciated!!

Hi there!

Hmm this is a really good question! When I was first learning about Judaism, I had no idea what movement I wanted to be part of. I had started out reading Essential Judaism by George Robinson, which if I remember right gives a bit of a window into each movement's view of various topics (but it might have leant a certain way? IDK it's been a while).

I visited a few different synagogues in my town (I'm blessed to have more than one option!) to get a feel for services, admittedly Conservative first because I needed to write a paper for a uni class. I'm personally a person drawn toward ritual and tradition in the religious sense, so I at first gravitated toward Conservative because I saw it as a kind of median choice (not the perfect way to say what I mean, hmm) between Reform and Orthodox. Also, I'm bi and trans, and I figured the Conservative movement is alright with that so, yeah?

It was reading about halakha and different approaches to it that got me veering off that course, that and the fact that the conservative shul near me is a long bus ride from anywhere plus a long walk and I don't drive. The halakha bit though was most important, because I intend to drive someday anyway. I read about different movements and what their approach is to "why is the Torah important?" and what makes halakha binding (or sometimes not? again, I'm not expressing myself well sorry!) I honestly just found out that I agreed with Orthodox approaches to halakha most, personally?

And so I decided to test that out and I wrote to a local Hasidic rabbi that was near me, had a nice exchange, went to a Saturday service a few times. I figured out somewhere along the way I couldn't shove down being trans forever, freaked out, and went exploring again bc I was afraid to tell that rabbi. I can't say he'd have been unkind!!! I just don't know and I had no knowledge of what to expect. So I reached out to the Modern Orthodox rabbi I'm conversion studying with now, and went to services on and off for a while during my MA, and just asked all the hard questions. I asked about so many things, especially LGBTQ things, and I was delighted to learn he's actually super chill about such things? I'm happy and grateful this is the case.

The idea of the Torah being from G-d is something he and I both find really important, so if that is an issue you feel strongly about in some way I highly recommend researching approaches to that in different movements. I'm not sure I'm being coherent or helpful here sorry! But yeah I am part of a Modern Orthodox community in my town that is warm and lively and my rabbi is like, amazing. And that's a good part of it! Just finding a movement whose services resonate with me and whose community I can see myself being a part of. I love the services at my shul, and I love talking to people after services, and I love the books I've been reading to learn about Jewish belief and practice.

I guess in the end I could have picked a different movement, but I would in the end I think find myself practicing like an Orthodox person anyway because I find the practices so meaningful. The second I found out my (Orthodox) rabbi was delighted to help me convert knowing about me being a trans guy I knew for sure where and how I want to convert.

So yeah TL;DR is I studied how different movements approach halakha and Torah study and that helped me a great deal in sorting out my own feelings on the matter. It's not that other movements don't have great things about them. I just happened to fall for Orthodoxy in a big way and then find out it's possible for me, so...yeah! I hope this helps and if it's too much a ramble send me a clarification question ask if you want!

[therehavebeenstranger]

thank you so much for this thoughtful response! a lot of what you're saying is really resonating with me. it's so interesting (i know we already said it, but--two jews, three opinions) but some of what you raise as a positive is what i find frustrating--because bruce being somebody who is halachically jewish* but raised entirely cut off from jewish community and practice is very interesting, which makes it all the more frustrating that it isn't explored (a frustration you seem to share somewhat--i apologize if i'm putting incorrect words in your mouth). so i'm of these two minds where bruce becoming jewish feels like, as you said, rushed and halfhearted, but i do think it's also frustrating because it's an underdeveloped avenue for storytelling (which is why im so grateful to you and other dc writers who write interesting jewish bruce stories!)

you nailed a lot of my reservations with why i struggle with the retcon. i'd like to offer my other main ones, just in case they're interesting i guess? to me, bruce's WASP-ness feels like it was deeply fundamental to his character and how we understand the waynes and their influence. like. northeastern wasp family with historical great influence on their city? that's an important american archetype, and i think it's interesting to kind of figure bruce and batman inside of that. the darker underbelly of this is that dc has, purely by accident and (i believe) with zero intentional malice, turned batman into a massively wealthy jewish man who kinda sorta runs a secret cabal in his city. and that's a little bit of an ick for me!

(my other issue is actually not an issue with the decision itself, more another place where i'm frustrated with the fact that this is so under-explored. and it's like...kinda fucked up, but i grew up around wasps and even the not-massively-rich ones like....a lot of them don't like us! and i find it difficult to suspend my disbelief that somebody from a family like the waynes would ever be allowed to marry a jewish girl, no matter how rich she is. this is less an actual complaint and more me begging dc to let me write a oneshot about martha kane's complicated feelings about being forced to convert for love and having to raise her son without judaism. maybe interspersed with alfred's guilt about not knowing how to give bruce this part of his parents' legacy. dc editors my dms are soooo open)

anyway, i really like your phrasing of this as a "happy accident." i find that personally pretty useful in navigating some of these mixed feelings--because part of me obviously does think it's cool that batman is jewish, duh!

thank you so much again for taking the time. i hope other people chime in. in conclusion they should really retcon clark as jewish next i mean come ON he's practically a rabbi and his dad is a JONATHAN instead of a JOHN like hello cant you just imagine clark kent in one of those BIG tallits that dads at shul wear like hello!!!!

(*whenever the issue of halachic/matrilineal judaism comes up i feel the need to say that, while i think it's worth understanding the vast cultural trauma that the idea of matrilineal judaism comes from, i personally find the idea of discounting patrilineal jews pretty gross! if you have a jewish parent, you're jewish!)

if you feel like it (and if this question even ends up making sense lol), would you mind talking about how you feel about bruce being jewish? not like the idea of jewish bruce wayne, i mean the fact that in 2011 or so he was retconned kind of accidentally into being jewish. i ask bc i, as a jewish person, have a lot of mixed to negative feelings about the whole thing, and you seem not to. i really hope this doesn't come out as like judgy. i don't think you should feel negatively about it. i'm genuinely just interested in your thoughts and feelings about this. two jews, three opinions, lol

It's not judgy! As you said, two Jews, three opinions -- there's no right answer here.

As I mentioned in my Jewish Bruce post, the likely accidental ret-con of Bruce to likely being Jewish is a tricky subject. It's simultaneously a good moment for Jews who want to feel represented, and a bad one for those who think Bruce's story is not an adequate or appropriate vehicle to convey Judaism.

The reality is, Bruce isn't visibly Jewish now, nor is he practicing or displaying overt cultural, ethnic, or religious influences. He's Jewish by halacha, which is its own mess of significance for Jews.

Personally, I feel that Bruce's emergence as a Jew by halacha, and not by practiced religion or culture, is an important discussion to be had in our modern, interfaith, assimilating culture.

Barring the Orthodox communities, the number of young observant Jews is dropping. Jews are increasingly marrying into other faiths, assimilating, and raising their children outside of the faith. When Jews do stay in their communities, they tend to stay in more "liberal" ones such as Reconstructionist or Reform congregations. You can read more about this at the Pew site.

There are, and will continue to be, many people who find themselves cut off from Judaism and either halachically or ethnically Jewish in the next few years, with little to no connection to the religion, ethnicity, or cultural traditions.

So in this respect, Bruce being cut off from Judaism by nature of his family structure and abridged childhood is good to see, because it's representative of a new generation of Jewish children or interfaith families. Or it will be?

But. There are many Jews who do not identify with this at all -- who grew up in the community with strong ethnic, religious, and cultural ties, who see Bruce's (accidental?) ret-con to Judaism as rushed, dissatisfying, half-hearted, a million other words.

I don't want to assume what you or other Jews are thinking about this, but I can guess. It's not fun to see your religious identity thrown around somewhat flimsily, especially when there remains such a deep and consistent Jewish influence throughout the DC comics.

Why Bruce? Why not Hal? Why hint at it, or make him somewhat Jewish? Why not have a fully-Jewish character? Why not have a character who embraces Judaism as a belief system?

I think the mixed feelings over Bruce's ret-con highlight the growing divide within the Jewish community over who is, and isn't Jewish, and by which standards we judge those who are peripheral to the community.

Having worked with many converts and patrilineal Jews, I have deep sympathy for those cut off from the Jewish community, especially when it is by halachic rule. How can someone who was raised by a Jewish father, who is 50% Ashkenazi, who had a Bar Mitzvah and attends shul regularly, not be as Jewish as someone who was born to a Jewish mother and rarely, if ever, practiced the religion?

We make conversion to Judaism a tricky, difficult, and conditional process. Reform marriages and conversions are questioned by Orthodox rabbis and not considered valid by others. Some people are Jewish in one synagogue and not Jewish enough in another. It's so hard.

So yeah, in my other post linked above I think I called this a happy accident, which is how I'm trying to view it. It makes me happy to have a character to push Jewish headcanons and fic ideas into to, and to tease out the themes of community and what it means to truly be Jewish from Bruce's story. But I don't expect that to be everyone's else's experience at all.

I'd be curious to hear your, and anyone else's, thoughts on this. Again, two Jews, three opinions -- nobody is right here, and we all change our minds a LOT.

[nerdyqueerandjewish]

ok but for real not only do u give me hope as a nonbinary conservative jew (bc i feel worried that being nb means i have to stick to reform or similar) but also ur posts abt zionism have helped me articulate how i feel to myself so, so much better and helped me understand the mess of feelings i have wrt it all, even if most ppl im around would disagree with me or not listen or understand if i tried to explain it

!!!!! This is so nice I’m glad I helped!

I feel like with gender stuff, people make the assumption that reform communities are going to be a better match, but really it depends on the specific community so much. I used to go to a reform place and they didn’t “get” the nonbinary thing and also just sort of didn’t question a lot of like the traditional gender stuff (like women always do candle lighting, men always being the ones who did kiddush) but where I go now is much more intentionally egalitarian which I like, and also people asked me my pronouns like the first time I went and brought me meals when I was recovering from top surgery! (There was a trans person who had been there before my time and had done a lot of educating and I’m forever grateful 🙇🏻‍♂️ because I feel like shul is one of the few places where I don’t need to think about my gender or being trans at all). I serious wish I could just scoop up all the trans Jews who need an accepting community and bring them to my shul - but I hope that my experience is eventually the norm!

I’m glad I could help with articulating some feelings on Zionism too, I don’t post about it as much anymore because it is messy and I don’t want to invite the same arguments over and over, but I definitely feel you with the messy feelings. Like, it’s just a lot of different understandings to hold in tension with each other.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Hi! Feel free to ignore this if you don’t want to answer (or if it doesn’t apply to you)! I’m a prospective convert and at the moment I’m waiting until im older/ live alone to start. I was wondering how long you waited until you begun conversion? And what did you do during that time before you started classes? I know I won’t start my conversion now as it’s not the right time, but I don’t know how to have patience for a life I desperately want to live. I wondered if any converts felt similarly before they begun their journey. Ty :)! 

So, I didn't have to worry about being too young to start converting - I decided as an adult, though my living situation is complicated (the Rent Is Too Damn High Party might just have a point).

What I mostly have done in the meantime though are:

Reading as many books as I can (the books in my LibraryThing are books that I've collected, and some I have read!)

Following as many jews online as possible on tumblr, instagram, twitter, and youtube (my primary social media). I've been following many "types" of jews, many of them are women, orthodox, sephardi, converts, and some Black jews, as well! Cultivating a diverse jewish feed has inspired and educated me in ways I never thought possible, and I'm grateful every day for the age we live in (even if it sucks a lot of the times)

Looking around for shuls and attending services. This might potentially be a far-fetched idea, but this is a great way to engage with the unique jewish community in your area. I totally get that this might not be an option - heck, I have to drive forty-five minutes away just to get to shul, but it has been so helpful for me

I'm someone who really likes to plan things out - researching what I want out of judaism has been so helpful in this time and before when I was considering conversion

Doing all of these things together was what made me decide that conversion really was the only option for myself. I think once I recognized a familiar feeling, I knew that I can't abandon this. This feeling is something I can only describe as being something you feel deep within your soul. I don't know if every gerim/conversion student feels like this, but that was my personal tell, and that's kind of what I was waiting for before I became as serious as I am now.

I hope this might give you inspiration or answered your questions! I'm more than happy to talk about this, and I hope you are well and that your journey brings you nothing but peace, no matter where it leads you