#personally anon i dont think u can be held accountable for anything u thought or felt when your brain had like 5+ years left in the oven

[comphetthings]

Thinking I’m secretly not a lesbian cuz I had fat crushes on boys in high school. I never was very comfortable pursuing them but I had a deep obsession with them and desired their validation so intensely. Because I liked these boys so much in high school despite never being interested in pursuing a healthy relationship, I must not be a lesbian

[greenandhazy]

hi, i have a potentially bad question and 100% get it if you dont feel like answering it, but i think your perspective would be super valuable here. im a polish gentile and would like to find some resources on judaism (other than the info wikipedia can offer) just to get to know it. history is pretty easy to find, but i dont know how to proceed with the rest (fun books? music?? idk). hope u have a good day :v

hi anon, I saw this ask and then totally forgot about it. idk if you’re still checking my blog/will ever see this, but sure, I’ve got some suggestions. hopefully some of these are accessible.

For nonfiction books about Judaism I would recommend To Life!: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking by Harold Kushner, Essential Judaism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs, and Rituals by George Robinson (this is more of a reference text). Standing Again at Sinai by Judith Plaskow and There Shall Be No Needy by Jill Jacobs are both favorites of mine, too, because they cover more recent developments in Jewish practice (feminist Judaism and social justice, respectively, although I haven’t reread them in a year or more so I can’t say for sure how much value they have if you’re coming from an outside perspective. I’ve seen A Convenient Hatred by Phyllis Goldstein held up as a good primer on antisemitism but I actually haven’t read the whole thing; I started reading it a few years ago, thought “yeah I think I knew most of this already” and moved on to other things.

For more creative/spiritual stuff, Megillat Esther by J.T. Waldman is a graphic novel interpretation of the biblical Book of Esther, which is pretty cool, and Five Books of Miriam: A Woman’s Commentary on the Torah by Ellen Frankel takes a bunch of biblical women and imagines what they would say about incidents from the Torah. I’m not describing it well, but it’s great to sit down and read through, or flip through from time to time.

My favorite Jewish novels are The World to Come by Dara Horn (a man attends a singles mixer at a museum, recognizes a painting by Marc Chagall that used to hang in his living room, and steals it--the book follows both his story and the painting’s), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (two cousins try to break into the comic book industry in NYC while dealing with personal/relationship issues and the outbreak of WWII), The Chosen by Chaim Potok (this is an absolute CLASSIC, about a Hasidic boy and a non-Hasidic Orthodox boy who become friends over a dramatic baseball game, also in NYC during WWII...).

Also Angels in America is maybe my favorite work of Jewish fiction--it’s a play, but the published screenplay is widely accessible and it was also made into a very, very good and underappreciated miniseries featuring, among others, Meryl Streep and Al Pacino.

I know a lot of people don’t use 8tracks anymore since they started restricting listening times unless you have a plus account, but 8tracks is a great site to find Jewish music. You can just search for anything with a “Jewish” tag. I like the American Jewish Pop playlist, as well as a few Hebrew/Israeli mixes and some of the holiday ones.

ummmm yeah that’s what I’ve got off the top of my head. if you have questions or if you’re looking for something specific, feel free to ask!