#jewish folk practices

[ouroboros8ontology]

… [Medieval] witchcraft and sorcery were based upon a perverted worship of Satan, according to popular belief, and individual warlocks were supposed consciously to accept the suzerainty of the Power of Evil and to operate through an appeal to his aid. Jewish magic, to the contrary, functioned within the framework of the Jewish religion, which naturally excluded any such association, real or fancied, with the arch-opponent of God. This reputed central feature of European magic, from which it derived its special character, was entirely foreign to the Jewish mentality, not only on theological grounds, but even more on folkloristic, for the figure of Satan as a distinct personality was very faint, almost non-existent, in Jewish folklore. The entire literature does not disclose a single instance of a magical act which depended upon submission to the devil himself, or his intercession, for its execution.

Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion; The Truth Behind the Legend: Jewish Magic

[hailruth]

medieval jewish amulet texts from the sefer raziel. the top, "for grace and favor." the bottom, "to safeguard a man against all weapons."

[thejewitches]

There’s magic surrounding us and there is nothing quite like learning about how our ancestors turned ‘every day’ ingredients into integral parts of ritual. From fertility and love to sewing discord and creating hate, eggs have been vessels for magic in Judaism for centuries. Learn about the various forms of usage of eggs in folk magic and practices in Jewish communities.

But Judaism isn’t alone in utilizing eggs—Certain egg symbolism transcends the borders of culture and are nearly global concepts. Eggs as symbols of resurrection, immortality, life, and rebirth: these are cross-cultural beliefs that exist in many different communities and cultures, so you may see things that resonate with you, even if you’re not Jewish!

Have you witnessed or performed magic with an egg? What rituals with eggs exist in your community? And, of course, do you dip your eggs in ashes?

[shalom-iamcominghome]

hiii, im a conservative convert who wears tzitzit! it's definitely not the community norm, and you'll probably get some ppl reacting weirdly or telling you you're getting "too frum" (or maybe that's just my shul...), but that's their problem — what matters is whether you find it meaningful, and how it enhances your connection to Hashem. it's always a positive thing to take on a new mitzvah. personally i have found it to be deeply meaningful. and if you're worried about people's reactions, you can always wear them tucked in! i will add that if you're wearing out, it's my opinion that you should not do things publicly that violate halacha such as eating at a non kosher restaurant, but i also recognize that im very stringent in general for myself so of course, you should speak to your rabbi and use your judgement in making those decisions. all this to say — honestly yes, you will probably be the odd one out at a conservative shul if youre wearing tzitzit, but as long as it's something you find joy and meaning in, then it won't matter!

sorry this was a very rambly paragraph lol, but i really do encourage anyone who feels intrigued by this mitzvah to start wearing tzitzit without worrying too much about what people think. i think it's a beautiful way to remind yourself every day of your dedication to Hashem and to Torah <3

Absolutely! I don't really see anything jewish as being "too frum" to observe - because frum people are amazing people and because the things we call frum are just... part of judaism? I've found so much meaning in the things I have been able to do, and I've found... it's not just as simple as "I do this because I'm told to," these mitzvot are meaningful because of how grounded I've felt doing them, how they remind me I'm part of a bigger world that's not just "me," that I represent part of the human condition and I should act like it. I think a lot of people almost... oversimplify these mitzvot to the point where they can't understand why it's meaningful - which isn't really a bad thing, because I get it! We don't find the same meaning in the same things! But I just love celebrating all of these mitzvot because I think they're deep and personal and bigger than just "do this arbitrary thing lol"

[shoutsindwarvish]

today is my grandpa’s yahrzeit and i was looking forward to going to services to hear his name read (and to say a short something about him per my shul’s custom) but i just got a migraine :(

i should hopefully still be okay to zoom in but it’s not quite the same. this sucks 😣

[timeisacephalopod]

Not that any "ism" makes sense but antisemitism is wild to me because everything I learn about Judaism makes it seem like a pretty bitchin religion. Like they don't just go evangelize at whoever will vaguely accept their religion because they expect you to study the doctrine and religion deeply as part of the conversion process, they question and often debate parts of their theology and the merits of those things, and have a bunch of great food? I mean that's most of the issues I have with Christianity gone- a religion that won't just accept you at the drop of a hat because you said Jesus was cool and actually expects you to work and understand the religion? I'd say sign me up if I were the religious type but since I'm not just be nice to Jewish people they seem pretty awesome and their religion is pretty cool from what I see of it.

[fridaynightgrimmdark]

Especially when a good chunk of those collage students are the Jewish people they're supposedly protecting.

I'm ethnically Jewish. My great grandma was a convert. She would be FURIOUS if she was still here to see what they're trying to do to "protect us".

Fuck. That.

[strangesmallbard]

if the sight of a jew doing culturally jewish things and/or practicing the religion makes a person go 🫵 POTENTIAL EVIL LYING CHILD KILLING ZIONIST, APPROACH WITH CAUTION🫵 they are already antisemitic. and it’s going to take a lot of research and self-reckoning and uhh talking to jews in good faith for them to come back from that mindset. and many won’t undergo that process because it’s uncomfortable and shame-producing. and i honestly can’t show grace to folks who have unknowingly fallen down that rabbit hole because the conflation of “jewish” with “evil and bad” has already gotten jews killed this year. and it’s gotten jews killed for thousands of years. and unless gentiles start unpacking that long-ingrained cultural assumption that Jew = Suspicious, Probably Evil, Destroy Now we’ll see more pogroms in the future.

and before you come into my mentions with “but israel,” please understand that gentiles have never needed proof to believe jews are evil and murder them. right now, antisemites are gleeful that they have a “reason” and too many of y’all are just following their lead because you refuse to engage with this information. because you’re not an antisemite, right? you just hate zionists, not jews. and you definitely know what zionism is and you definitely can surmise when zionist is being used as a dogwhistle. right! of course! there is no historical precedent that would lead me to not believe a single word you say.

so like. if you truly want to help fight antisemitism, you have to engage with these ideas even if the process is uncomfortable and shame-producing. you have to unlearn 2,000 years of lies about us and the deeply ingrained instinct to believe we are evil. idk why i’m making this post i just wish gentiles would be believe us when we say It’s Really That Fucking Dire.

[skeletonmob]

Transcript & Alt ID: Poster labeled 'Israeli Propaganda' that details various types of propaganda tactics, each with a color coordinated label.

Greenwashing - Israel appeals to environmentalism in order to deflect attention from or mask its harmful practices. EX: JNF tree-planting campaigns of invasive species.

Redwashing - Israel appeals to the image of progressive politics on order to deflect attention from its harmful practices. EX: Historic exclusion of non-Jewish workers from unions

Bluewahing - Israel uses humanitarian aid campaigns in order to deflect attention from its harmful practices. EX: 'Water infrastructure upgrades' that divert 6x more water to settlers than to Palestinians

Pinkwashing - Israel appeals to LGBTQ+ rights in order to deflect attention from its harmful practices. EX: blackmailing queer Palestinians into being informants under the threat of being outed to their communities. (transcriber's note: I don't feel this is a good example of pinkwashing, I think that mentioning that Israel has a habit of promoting itself as a safe haven for LGBT+ folks, and promoting Palestine solely as homophobic, in order to justify their actions is a more appropriate example)

Purplewashing - Israel appeals to women's rights and feminism in order to deflect attention from its harmful ideals. EX: Israeli Occupation Force drafts woman to military service by law to participate in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Faithwashing - Israel appeals to interfaith dialogue in order to deflect attention from its harmful practices. EX: conflating Zionism and Judaism in order to accuse all criticism of Zionism as anti-semitic.

[ouroboros8ontology]

It is reported that as early as the fourteenth century the ceremony called Hollekreisch was widely observed in Jewish circles in Germany. The Jewish boy receives his Hebrew name on the occasion of his circumcision; the girl child usually upon the first Sabbath after her birth. Since the earliest days of dispersion, however, Jews have also borne names drawn from the nomenclature of the people in whose midst they reside—names we may term secular or vulgar as distinguished from the Hebrew, the classical name. These secular cognomens usually correspond in one way or another to the Hebrew, whether as colloquial forms or translations, or related only by the sound or appearance. The ceremony of the Hollekreisch, which marked the bestowal of its secular name upon the child, comprised these features: the baby (or the cradle containing the baby) was lifted into the air three times, usually by the children especially invited for the occasion, and each time the name was shouted out by the guests in unison. Often this shouting followed a formula. In modern times such formulas as “Hollekreisch! What shall this child’s name be?” with the appropriate response, or “Holle! Holle! This child’s name shall be…,” have been employed. In the seventeenth century the custom of Hollekreisch was observed in naming boys and girls only in South Germany, while in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia and Poland it was not used for boys at all, and only rarely for girls.

Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion; The Powers of Evil: “Foreign” Demons

[girlactionfigure]

He was the man of a thousand voices, best known for his beloved characters during the Golden Age of American Animation. But did you know that before he became the voice of Bugs Bunny, Mel Blanc’s first voice impersonation was of an elderly Jewish couple? The Yiddish-speaking pair ran a grocery store in Portland, where Blanc would practice imitating their distinctive way of speaking.

Melvin Jerome Blank was born in 1908 to Russian Jewish immigrants in San Francisco before the family moved to Portland, Oregon in 1915. Blanc's ability for mimicking accents and dialects, including Yiddish, highlighted his versatility as a voice actor.

Blanc’s career spanned decades, voicing countless classic cartoon characters such as Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Elmer Fudd, as well as Woody Woodpecker, Tweety Bird, and Mr. Spacely from “The Jetsons.” Blanc passed away 35 years ago in 1989 and is buried in the Beth Olam section at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. His headstone includes one of Porky Pigs’s most well-known show-ending phrases: “That’s All Folks!” 

[thejewitches]

Make sure to follow our Instagram, @jewitches & check out our website for our brand new collection of Jewish inspired scented candles!

[etz-ashashiyot]

In light of these* previous posts, I am rerunning these polls. Please vote however they apply to you, and spread them for reach even if they don't apply to you. Thanks!!

(*Context: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5])

ONLY answer this if you are Jewish and self-identify as an Anti-Zionist! By which I mean: you voluntarily describe yourself as an Anti-Zionist. Other people describing your views that way is not sufficient. Being pressured into labeling yourself that way for reasons unrelated to your beliefs is not sufficient. You MUST actively choose to label yourself as an Anti-Zionist. If you are a lukewarm Anti-Zionist but are fine with it under certain conditions, that's a personal judgment call. Feel free to answer this poll, the non-/post-Zionist/other poll, or both (if it changes).

If you click that button, you are saying under oath that YOU🫵 are a Jewish Anti-Zionist 🙂

Please answer your IDEAL solution, not necessarily what you think would be the most likely or most practical, but your idealized outcome. I intend to reblog each of these with a second poll that asks what your preferred pragmatic solution would be after posting.

Everyone please be respectful of the folks replying to this poll, as with the others. There are lots of other places to debate people or discourse, but this post is not one of them. My goal here is simply to gather information and others' perspectives, not to argue or deconstruct them.

[hagoftheholler]

There are people in the witchcraft and pagan communities that really need to come to terms with the fact that pagan isn't the universal term for everything that isn't Christian (or Jewish, or Islamic). Hinduism isn't pagan. Buddhism isn't pagan. Hoodoo isn't pagan. African traditional religions aren't pagan. Many regional folk practices aren't truly pagan. The list goes on. It's more of an insult than an identity for some of these groups.

[thrashkink-coven]

Genuine Red Flags in Spiritual Books, Grimoires, Occult Teachers or Mentors

Very often I see folks talking about things they consider to be red flags for beginners when entering witchy or occult spaces. Here are a few of the things that I’ve noticed over the years that will immediately make me put down a book or step away from a practitioner.

1. Claiming they know every thing about every sect of spirituality / occultism or witchcraft

Simply put, there is no one person who knows the deep inner workings of every craft, of every philosophy, of every practice. The guru that claims to know everything from Reiki to Jewish Mysticism to Native American Spirituality to Voodoo to Acupuncture to Chakra Healing, Tarot, Herb Wizardy, Alchemy, etc etc etc. No. They are lying. Even the most dedicated and wise practitioners devote years into understanding a philosophy or spiritual practice. And especially in regards to closed practices, it is impossible for one person to have read and done it all. Either they are straight up lying or presenting brief skimming over texts or conversation as “years of experience and practice”. No.

2. Constantly trying to convince the reader that they are a God, deity or some inhuman creature like a cosmic elf, mermaid, or angel

Now I don’t mean to confuse this with the idea that some Luciferian or Satanic spaces may adopt that all humans are gods in their own right, or you are the god of your own existence. I’m talking specifically about books that try to convince you that you’re actually a lost race of alien who has been trapped in a human body, or has been mistaken into believing they are human. I’m not going to get into my opinions on star seeds or deity ancestry, what I will say is that very often, and I mean uncomfortably often, these ideas are intrinsically tied to supremacist or xenophobic rhetoric You do not have to be an angel to be special and cosmically significant. You don’t have to be an elf to explore herbal magic, people who push these ideas are very frequently praying on those with delusions of grandeur or other dissociative mental disorders and that’s not cool.

3. Using pseudoscience to push miracle remedies. This includes denying things that are provable to push a narrative, like the fact medication can help the mentally ill.

My dears, please fact check what you read. Please see what educated people have to say about these authors before you take everything they say at face value. As many problems and rightful distrust as there is in the medical industry, usually, if a concoction is commonly dismissed by 99% of medical professionals, it’s usually not because they’re trying to cover up the holy grail, it’s because they know it’s… probably not that good for you or simply doesn’t do what it claims.

4. Trying to convince the reader that with enough practice, willpower, and a donation of $9.99 per month, you too can obtain some incredible power that will allow you to airbend, waterbend, firebend, and basically defy all the laws of physics in general!

The point of most occultism, spirituality and witchcraft is not to defy the laws of physics or to obtain some godly power. There most certainly exists the belief in many sects of spirituality that one can influence their reality through training, but I promise you, anybody that is promoting that they can walk on water is trying to make a fool out of you

5. Inability to disagree, contest, or dissent from the opinions of the mentor, teacher, high priest(ess) or leader

This is how cults form, guys. Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug. If the presentation of different ideas or even questions are met with harsh backlash and censorship, you need to get the fuck out of there.

6. Them automatically making the assumption within a very short time of meeting you, usually presented as psychic intuition, that you are suffering and have a “deep sadness” or energy blockage in your soul that only they can fix.

I understand that damaged people often seek mediums and whatnot for help, and sometimes it genuinely brings them ease, that’s fine and good. But so often I have been approached by people online that claim that “the angels have a really important message for me that they can only give after they’ve received an epayment of just a few dollars”. These are obviously scams, but often people who have been trusted for a reading or service in the past will fabricate these stories to trap a costumer in a loop of service. Some of these claims may be genuine but I guarantee you most are not.

7. Sprinkles of Fascism

No you are not superior to other people because you’re spiritually “enlightened”. No you should not separate groups of people or decide who should and shouldn’t procreate. No mainstream society is not being being deceived by the devil, and the devil is not more prevalent in any one group of people, sex, sexuality, gender, or race. You are not the only enlightened one in a world full of lost people. Mentally ill folks are not demons and trans people aren’t energetically unaligned. You will not inherit the Earth while everyone else dies. Uuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shut the fuck up.

8. The claim that ancient societies of people were aliens. Presenting hoaxes and proven scams as evidence of a conspiracy.

This includes things like using documented hoaxes as evidence that aliens built the pyramids. I’m going to be so for real with you guys rn. This is just racism. It’s insane to think the Egyptians were smart enough to build the society they literally lived in, but nobody doubts the validity of the Roman Empire. Crazy concept but maybe Indigenous people of color aren’t savage idiots. And maybe white people aren’t the only ones capable of having societies and interesting architecture. The thing about this that annoys me the most is that… Egyptians still exist today, and the ancestry that dates back to ancient Mesopotamia and Canaan still exist today too. These were human beings, just like us. The alienation of black and brown people proves how little some people see us as normal people.

9. The promotion of practices that are directly harmful. Self mutilation, disorderly eating, or rituals that can induce psychosis or states of mania.

Guess what you actually don’t have to sit on a mountain naked and eat nothing but sunlight to be enlightened. You can definitely do religious or devotional things like fasting within a healthy degree, but I so so often see people promoting things that will very obviously lead to mania and hallucinations just by design. Starving yourself for two weeks while constantly blasting mantras and doing a bunch of psychedelics isn’t enlightenment… it’s a manic episode. While some devotees may feel comfortable offering blood to deities, this should always be in very small ways, a needle poke, not self mutilation.

10. Trying to do business with minors or promote occult topics to children specifically

Just no. I really dislike the idea of selling spells or promoting deity communication to kids still in grade school. They’re trying to manipulate a young mind into believing their dogma or spending their parent’s money. If a parent wants to share their craft with their child, that’s cool, but people who specifically target a younger audience are suspect to me. This isn’t to say spirituality isn’t for kids, it’s just that content that is created for kids is often created to be surface level and profitable in the algorithm.

11. Shitting on New Age Spirituality

Yeah I said it. This to me feels very much like a let’s hate on anything women, especially young women enjoy. Let’s delegitimize their experiences and paint them all as ditzy girls just clanging their crystals together.

There are some things that New Age Spiritualists do that I’m not a fan of, all of the things in this list. However, that doesn’t make this form of spirituality and witchcraft any less legitimate just because it’s somewhat trendy right now. Go fucking howl at the moon and have bon fires with your besties while you do tarot and talk about angel numbers, I don’t give a fuck.

New Age spiritualists aren’t inherently doing anything wrong or different than what ancient cultures have been doing for centuries, it’s just trendy and profitable now. But anything that young women enjoy will inevitably be exploited by the capitalist machine and that is not their fault. Wicca is still a legitimate form of spirituality and witches are not inherently doing anything wrong by being young women. So much of the criticism against NAS is literally just misogyny.

“I’m not into new age spirituality I’m a REAL witch”

omg please shut up

[doberbutts]

Genuine question: What do you think of the argument that very white-passing folks — even if they have black parents, grandparents, etc. — cannot call themselves black?

Personally I think whether or not you're black depends on your actual lived reality. My nephew is white passing. He's from the sister who is about the same tone as me, just a little lighter, and the same racial mixture of Irish and afronative, and his very German father. He's got white skin and blonde hair and blue eyes and genuinely if you didn't know that little boy was technically black you would not guess it.

However. He lives with his visibly black mother, his visibly black sister (same racial mix as him, she just got the darker genes), and their visibly black stepfather and visibly black stepsiblings. He's the odd man out, the lightest of the group, and the one that looks like he doesn't belong. And, when you see him next to his family... suddenly the white skin and blonde hair and blue eyes don't cut it for determining his whiteness, because you start to notice that he shares a whole lot of features with the darker skinned members of his family.

Like me, he's put his foot down about his blackness. If asked at school why he's white but his family is black, he will outright state that he's mixed race and that he is actually black and white just like his sister and mother. He's not wrong. He IS black and white and no small part Native, though I think the complexity of the last part is hard for him to grasp at his elementary school level understanding of race politics.

But what is his reality? Well, when he's with his white father, or my white (passing) mother, he's white. Until he opens his mouth to defend his sister or his mother or a friend of his from racism, at which point said racist's eyes laser-focus on every minute detail of his face to pick out the non-European features covered in pale skin.

This is honestly pretty similar to how a Jewish friend of mine describes her experience, how she is white until she opens her mouth to say something positive about Judiasm or negative about antisemitism, at which point every possible Jewish feature on her face comes under intense scrutiny and her white status is revoked immediately. It's also why I'm always on this "antisemitism 🤝 antiblackness" thing.

I also have a Hungarian friend who is equally peeved at the flattening of racial nuance, as he and his family consider themselves mixed race and Eurasian and not just white, however he has had equal amount of people hurting him for his more blatantly Asian features as he's had people telling him he never experiences racism because he's a white European. Similarly, his reality is that he's white until he says something that doesn't align with white supremacy's rules on white opinion and white behavior, at which point every single Asian feature he has is used as punishment against him.

It's not to say that my nephew, my Jewish friend, or my Hungarian friend don't benefit from their perceived whiteness. They do, in fact! My nephew again is a bit young to have this conversation, but my friends have also discussed with me how they have seen that perception occasionally give them a boost as they move through life. And how, if they would want to keep that boost, they'd have to lean into the concept of whiteness and erase a significant portion of their identities in the process.

This is also spoken about at length by Natives forced to assimilate and intermarry with white people to "breed out the savage", as it were. And I know of lightskinned, though imo not white passing, black people who have discussed the same thing. This even is discussed by people in the Irish, Italian, Greek, and Polish diaspora here in the US- how their current status of "white" came at the cost of not only erasing huge portions of their own culture and history but also practically requires them to lean into white supremacy in order to continue to reap the benefits of white privilege, and how the cost is so much higher than the gain especially when you understand that it doesn't work. You can be One Of The Good Ones all you like and someone dedicated to racism is still going to hate you even once you've gotten rid of all the obvious poc.

To put it simply, these aren't new conversations and I'm never going to be anywhere remotely close to "white-passing" so it's sort of a moot point for me. It's not my reality. But I think listening to those who have lived it is better for gaining a more solid understanding. I don't think that my nephew is wrong to call himself black or mixed black. It's technically true, he came out of a black woman. I also think he is going to have a very different life from his sister, from his mother, from his stepfather and stepsiblings, from his black extended family.

I think rejection from the black community would only hurt him, because he is growing up surrounded by black people in a black family learning black culture, so someone telling him that he shares the same features and DNA but his skin is too light to find community there is just hurtful. Who does it help? Who does it protect? To tell a little kid that he can't call himself part of his own family?