#same bat time same bat mitzvah

[jamesmendezhodes]

Please back IF I WERE A LICH, MAN, Lucian Kahn’s game trilogy exploring Jewish culture and struggles through humor and joy! As cultural consultant, I wrote about how liches’ relationship with orcs intentionally examines Jews’ ties to other subaltern groups.

[snapbookreviews]

Jewish Roleplaying Games 3e

Hanukkah may be over, but there's never a bad time of year to play Jewish tabletop games.

[too-deviant]

mdni 🃏

thinking about luke as your mom’s friend’s son who only comes over when your parents hang out…yk the one….anyway here’s a shitty drabble

being all awkward smiles and painful small talk for the first hour of whatever family event your parents had dragged you to this time.

indulging in more than a few cocktails that your older cousins snuck to each of you from the bar.

(the dodgy bar in the dodgy events building that had been hired out for whatever birthday party/baby shower/bat mitzvah was happening. you didn’t really care all that much, anyway.)

the liquid courage fuelling the conversation, pulling up old memories you had buried and bubbling over the giggles you shared as you drank in the corner.

getting progressively tipsy, sharing secret smirks when your mom passed a comment about how “it was as if you two had never been apart!”

luke’s hand in yours — older, mature, callused; so different from how they used to feel when you were kids, although those memories were fading, being replaced with something much more carnal. something you were less likely to share over a cocktail at a family party.

sneaking away from the crowds — easy enough, everyone was drunk.

cutting through hallways, passing the drunkards who lingered outside of the chaos. they were smoking, arguing on the phone, waiting for a cab, looking for the bathroom. you?

you were being pressed against the wall of an empty stairwell, gasping quietly at luke’s mouth on yours. his hands on your waist, then your back, your arms, the sides of your neck. everywhere he’d been thinking about touching since he knew what touching meant.

and you were the same. fingers under his blazer, dipping into his waistband for a teasing second before returning to the outside world — but he noticed. how could he not? the firm pull of your body against his was response enough, his right hand coming down to hitch your leg around his hip.

your crotches burned with desire, rubbing against each other with every small movement of your bodies. aching for more whenever you paused for just a second because you thought you could hear someone passing the bottom of the stairs a few feet below you. all they would have to do is ascend the first set, and they’d spot you there. but neither of you cared.

luke inching a hand up your dress, dipping his fingers beneath your panties and huffing into your ear when your wetness coated them after one stroke. your own hand, fiddling with his belt and making sure nobody heard the clanging of the buckle as you undid it with fervour, eagerly searching for his cock once you could stick your hand in there to your wrist comfortably.

moaning in each-other’s ears. grinding on each-other’s hands. sucking in deep gulps of air whenever you got too loud, whenever the slurring speech of an uncle you’d never met faded in, and then out of shot.

luke cumming in his underwear, your hips spitting and sputtering against his palm only moments later.

cleaning yourselves up, catching your parents at the bottom of the stairs just as they passed by in search of you. sharing a look.

in the years you’d known him, you’d never exchanged socials. you didn’t need to. you just hoped he would be at the next family function.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Culture

There are many definitions of culture and it is used in different ways by different people.

Culture - may be defined as patterns of learned and shared behavior that are cumulative and transmitted across generations.

Patterns

There are systematic and predictable ways of behavior or thinking across members of a culture.

Emerge from adapting, sharing, and storing cultural information.

Can be both similar and different across cultures.

Example: In both Canada and India it is considered polite to bring a small gift to a host’s home. In Canada, it is more common to bring a bottle of wine and for the gift to be opened right away. In India, by contrast, it is more common to bring sweets, and often the gift is set aside to be opened later.

Sharing

Culture is the product of people sharing with one another.

Humans cooperate and share knowledge and skills with other members of their networks.

The ways they share, and the content of what they share, helps make up culture.

Example: Older adults remember a time when long-distance friendships were maintained through letters that arrived in the mail every few months. Contemporary youth culture accomplishes the same goal through the use of instant text messages on smartphones.

Learned

Behaviors, values, norms are acquired through a process known as enculturation that begins with parents and caregivers, because they are the primary influence on young children.

Caregivers teach kids, both directly and by example, about how to behave and how the world works.

They encourage children to be polite, reminding them, for instance, to say “Thank you.” They teach kids how to dress in a way that is appropriate for the culture.

Culture teaches us what behaviors and emotions are appropriate or expected in different situations.

Example: In some societies, it is considered appropriate to conceal anger. Instead of expressing their feelings outright, people purse their lips, furrow their brows, and say little. In other cultures, however, it is appropriate to express anger. In these places, people are more likely to bare their teeth, furrow their brows, point or gesture, and yell (Matsumoto, Yoo, & Chung, 2010).

Learned: Rituals

Members of a culture also engage in rituals which are used to teach people what is important.

Example 1: Young people who are interested in becoming Buddhist monks often have to endure rituals that help them shed feelings of specialness or superiority—feelings that run counter to Buddhist doctrine. To do this, they might be required to wash their teacher’s feet, scrub toilets, or perform other menial tasks.

Example 2: Similarly, many Jewish adolescents go through the process of bar and bat mitzvah. This is a ceremonial reading from scripture that requires the study of Hebrew and, when completed, signals that the youth is ready for full participation in public worship.

These examples help to illustrate the concept of enculturation.

Cumulative

Cultural knowledge is information that is “stored” and then the learning grows across generations.

We understand more about the world today than we did 200 years ago, but that doesn’t mean the culture from long ago has been erased.

Example: Members of the Haida culture, a First Nations people in British Columbia, Canada are able to profit from both ancient and modern experiences. They might employ traditional fishing practices and wisdom stories while also using modern technologies and services.

Transmission

Passing of new knowledge and traditions of culture from one generation to the next, as well as across other cultures is cultural transmission.

In everyday life, the most common way cultural norms are transmitted is within each individuals’ home life.

Each family has its own, distinct culture under the big picture of each given society and/or nation.

With every family, there are traditions that are kept alive.

The way each family acts and communicates with others and an overall view of life are passed down.

Parents teach their kids every day how to behave and act by their actions alone.

Outside of the family, culture can be transmitted at various social institutions like places of worship, schools, even shopping centers are places where enculturation happens and is transmitted.

Understanding culture as a learned pattern of thoughts and behaviors is interesting for several reasons:

It highlights the ways groups can come into conflict with one another. Members of different cultures simply learn different ways of behaving. Teenagers today interact with technologies, like a smartphone, using a different set of rules than people who are in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. Older adults might find texting in the middle of a face-to-face conversation rude while younger people often do not. These differences can sometimes become politicized and a source of tension between groups. One example of this is Muslim women who wear a hijab, or headscarf. Non-Muslims do not follow this practice, so occasional misunderstandings arise about the appropriateness of the tradition.

Understanding that culture is learned is important because it means that people can adopt an appreciation of patterns of behavior that are different than their own.

Understanding that culture is learned can be helpful in developing self-awareness. For instance, people from the United States might not even be aware of the fact that their attitudes about public nudity are influenced by their cultural learning. While women often go topless on beaches in Europe and women living a traditional tribal existence in places like the South Pacific also go topless, it is illegal for women in some of the United States to do so. These cultural norms for modesty that are reflected in government laws and policies also enter the discourse on social issues such as the appropriateness of breastfeeding in public. Understanding that your preferences are, in many cases, the products of cultural learning might empower you to revise them if doing so will lead to a better life for you or others.

Humans use culture to adapt and transform the world they live in and you should think of the word culture as a conceptual tool rather than as a uniform, static definition.

Culture changes through interactions with individuals, media, and technology, just to name a few.

Culture generally changes for one of 2 reasons:

Selective transmission or

to meet changing needs.

This means that when a village or culture is met with new challenges, for example, a loss of a food source, they must change the way they live.

It could also include forced relocation from ancestral domains due to external or internal forces.

Example: In the United States, tens of thousands Native Americans were forced to migrate from their ancestral lands to reservations established by the United States government so it could acquire lands rich with natural resources. The forced migration resulted in death, disease and many cultural changes for the Native Americans as they adjusted to new ecology and way of life.

Source ⚜ More: On Psychology ⚜ Writing Notes & References

[fashionsfromhistory]

Custom Dress worn by Elaine Roebuck to her Bat Mitzvah

Christian Dior

Spring 1957

“It all started when I was twelve years old and I wanted a bat mitzvah. My father said absolutely not — girls didn’t have bat mitzvahs in those days,” Roebuck tells me. “My mother rallied for me and finally my father said OK. The next thing I knew, we were on the train to Montreal to look at my dress.”

The dress in question is a silk organdy masterpiece custom designed by Monsieur Christian Dior himself. Dior did not design for children back in ‘57, but he made an exception. “Not just anyone could go in and say ‘whip me up a dress for my daughter’s Bat Mitzvah’ – that wasn’t their business,” says Dr. Alexandra Palmer, the museum’s senior fashion curator. But that’s just what Elaine’s mother, the late Molly Roebuck, did. “She had a motto: If you’re going to do something, you better do it right,” says her daughter. “And in her mind, Dior was just right.” Likely, the exception was made on account of Dior’s relationship with Holt Renfrew, the prestigious high-end retailer with exclusive rights to his collection in Canada back when it launched.

So, with the help of her friend, buyer Betty Macpherson, Roebuck commissioned the dress in Paris. It was to be modest, but fantastical enough for such a special night. After a few months of trading sketches with Dior himself, the muslin models arrived in Montreal, where Dior’s pieces were made-to-measure for the Canadian market. “The dress was dreamlike and it made me think, or maybe even feel, like a princess,” says Roebuck. The end result was a full-skirted silk organdy cocktail dress with daffodil embroidery. As it was a one off, the fabric never appeared in Dior’s collections. “I knew the dress was special, but at the same time, I didn’t think I was different from any of my friends,” she says. (Teen Vogue)

Royal Ontario Museum (Object number: 2013.68.14.1-2)

[krookodyke]

thinking of danielle shiva baby even after all this time still makes me sick… you’re 22. you don’t know what the fuck you’re going to do in your life. sex for money feels like the only out. you miss your childhood best friend. you don’t think she gives a fuck about you. you’re the black sheep of the community. you’re bisexual. almost everyone you grew up around is older than you. you’re still a child. you’re still the same awkward 12 year-old at your bat mitzvah and that’s how everyone still sees you. you don’t know. you don’t know. you just want to make your mom proud. you don’t think you’re capable of that. your childhood best friend misses you, too. you don’t know why. she’s braver than you but not by much. she knows how to twist the knife. you’re a shitty jew. you’re a shitty person. you’re so fucking lost. your parents love you. they don’t know you. your childhood best friend loves you. she knows you and it’s terrifying. you’re still 13 in the back of your dad’s van. you’re still a kid. you love her back. you’re still a child.

[blueshistorysims]

August 1942, Henford-on-Bagley, England

It had been months since Byron had been home, and to see all the children so grown? It was overwhelming—Simon-Elliot was 16, Miranda was 13, Amalia was 12, and little Kit was now 2. How could they have grown so much in the time he’d been away? Guilt filled him—how could he do this to his children? His own father had been very busy, but he always made time for Byron and his siblings. What kind of a father was he?

According to Eleora, Amalia had been in a pissy mood for months, ever since she learned she was not to have a bat mitzvah due to the war. They’d had a small ceremony of course, no big party that she was expecting. Byron understood her anger, but Eleora would have none of it, reminding her that her cousin Marie-Louise likely hadn’t had a bat mitzvah either, nor did the other Jewish girls her age living in Europe. 

Byron had been aware of Simon-Elliot’s and Lydia’s friendship, but he hadn’t known exactly how close they were. He suspected Simon-Elliot harbored a crush, but he wasn’t sure if Lydia’s own feelings were platonic or not. It was trivial, looking at teenagers and thinking back when he was the same age. He wondered about Joel and his family sometimes. He and Wilhelmina had lost contact years ago. The last he heard she and her husband had moved to Berlin to embrace the art scene there in the late 1920s. Were they still there? Or had they disappeared like dozens of others after Hitler took power?

When the couple was finally alone, he let his feelings overwhelm him, and for the first time in years, he wept in his wife’s arms, letting out his guilt over the war, over his children, over his brother-in-law and family. 

[matan4il]

My daily update post is a personal one today. Following International Holocaust Memorial Day, that's observed every year on Jan 27 globally thanks to Israel's initiative, today I got to guide a very special tour, with a bar mitzvah ceremony at the end, for kids evacuated from the south.

They're from a community that's the second most western one in Israel. They only have one western neighbor, Kerem Shalom, which is right on the border with Gaza. Their community is incredibly small, and was only established 12 years ago. On Oct 7, as thousands of rockets were rained down on Israel, some hit inside their tiny hometown. When terrorists were invading civilian communities and attacking people there, and burning everything, they described the sky as being black due to the smoke, and they said that breathing the air was like inhaling gun powder. When a neighboring community was attacked, some of their emergency squad went over to help, and prevented a massacre from taking place there, too. They lost 4 members of the squad, which may not sound like a lot to some, but on top of each person being an entire world, in such a small community, that carries an impact. The way they put it, there are 15 orphans in their community, all from the same street.

They were evacuated from their home on Oct 7, which means they are all internal refugees. They've been homeless since the massacre. Someone donated the money, so the community's kids who are of bar and bat mitzvah age could get this special tour and ceremony, where they each adopted the memory of one child of roughly the same age, who was murdered in the Holocaust. And we talked about the meaning of remembrance, and how do we move on, and how our Holocaust museum is a testament to the destruction brought upon the Jewish people, but also to the strength of our spirit, and how we survived, how we took care of each other even in the worst of times, how we overcame and re-built, it is a testament to the resilience of the Jewish people.

Am Yisrael Chai. That's not just a slogan. Today I felt like I had the honor to be a small part of another chapter in the story of our resilience and strength, and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Sending you much love, wherever you are! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[tgammsideblog]

Libby and absent parenting

One of the most recent episodes from Season 2 ¨Like Father, Like Libby¨ explored Libby’s relationship with her father, Matias, who hasn’t seen Libby for years because ¨he has been too busy travelling to write his novel¨. Of course, it is easy to realize that this isn’t the case: Matias is an absent father and he isn’t interested in being involved in his daughter’s life. The theme of this episode is exploring Libby’s ilusion to see her father again and wishing to spend time with him, something that eventually is shattered when her expectations don’t meet with reality.

Matias is never mentioned in Season 1 by neither Libby nor Leah, Libby’s mother. When Libby talked about the people that were important to her Bat Mitzvah (Episode-Mazel Tov, Libby!), Libby never mentioned Matias once, only Leah and Molly. This already hinted how absent he was in Libby’s life, to the point he was never brought up to Molly nor Scratch.

At the start of the episode when Libby gets her Bat Mitzvah gift months after the celebration, one can tell that there are some red flags: The gift was sent several months after Libby’s Bat Mitzvah, the price of the gift is only one dollar and the plush isn’t even something a turtle, it is a frog. Molly quickly realizes that something is off from this gift but keeps it to herself since Libby is very happy to learn that Matias wants to meet her in person after years of not seeing her. Molly doesn’t know enough about Libby’s father neither to give a full opinion on him because it is something that she doesn’t ask Libby about. She still brings up to Libby that she can talk about Matias anytime, without pressuring to explain her situation and respecting her privacy.

Libby shows Leah the letter she received from her father. Leah’s very hesitant in doing such a long trip to see Matias. However, she sees that Libby is very excited about the idea of seeing him again, so, Leah decides to support Libby by taking her to the place she is supposed to meet with Matias.

Throughout the episode we see Leah’s struggle between supporting her daughter and trying to be honest with her about how Matias doesn’t really care about her. She doesn’t want to fully break Libby’s illusion since she knows that this is important for her but, at the same time, she warns Libby about not raising her expectations too high and explaining that Matias isn’t that good as she think she is.

Despite of her dislike for Matias, Leah is very considerate in not making Libby hate him. She understands that Libby is entitled to see her father and trying to reconnect with him, even he doesn’t feel the same way about Libby. Lea still warns her a few times, for her to get that maybe things aren’t going to turn out the way she wants and reassures her that she is there for her.

What is so devastating about this episode is how Libby acts very accurately like a kid with absent parent/s would. She makes up excuses why Matias hasn’t seen her all these years- he is too busy writing his novel. She genuinely wants to believe that he cares about her and, that once she meets him again, they are going to spend time together and he is going to be involved in her life. It’s a very sad situation to see, because Libby still doesn’t come to terms with the type of parent that Matias is. She wants to believe that he has changed or that he is only busy. She has a whole song sequence imagining all the things that they are both going to do together. She thinks that her parents are going to get back together.

However... there is a part of her that tells her that Matias doesn’t care about her and he is ¨gone¨. This means that she is partially aware of her father’s behaviour but, like any kid who has neglectful parents, she wants to believe that this isn’t true, that Matias is a ¨good father¨. 

Libby’s abandonment issues and the overall impact of having an absent father being explored in this episode puts some scenes from previous episodes in context. The biggest example of this is ¨Friend-Off¨ where we see Scratch and Libby’s competing over who is Molly’s ¨Best Friend¨. While Libby’s insecurities in ¨Friend-Off¨ could come from her lacking friends before meeting Molly, knowing that she has a negletful father puts her animosity and treatment towards Scratch during the episode in perspective. She is scared of losing Molly as a friend or not being good enough for her. There are moments she thinks that the curse Molly and Scratch shared made their bond closer than her with Molly.

Back to ¨Like Father, Like Libby¨, when Libby finally meets Matias, she is very happy to see him again but it doesn’t take her less than a minute to notice that he isn’t paying attention to her. She shows to him a book she wrote, something that she mentioned in multiple letters she send to him. Matias doesn’t seem to be aware of this, implying he didn’t read those said letters. He only takes a photo with Libby’s book to make himself look like a good father in social media.

Libby talks to him about all the things that they are going to do now that they are together only to be interrupted by Matias telling her that he is going to be ¨too busy¨ writing his book trilogy. This is the moment Libby’s illusion crashes and she is forced to face the fact that her father doesn’t care about her and doesn’t want to spend time with her. She quickly runs and gets into the car, crying by realizing that Matias doesn’t want to stick around.

Leah comforts Libby by telling her that she is her ¨miracle¨ and Libby thanks her mother for always being there for her. The two return home, with Libby knowing that Matias isn’t worth of her attention and she should focus instead in that people that actually care about her. She gains a lot of appreciation for Leah as well, considering how she took her time to drive two states for Libby to see Matias and how caring and supportive she is.

¨Like Father, Like Libby¨ is an episode that showed up a new side of Libby and her family. It gave more dimension to Leah who, as a single mother, had to raise Libby on her own. It also shows a good potrayal of a teen finally realizing what type of person their parent is and them having to deal with that.

[frances-baby-houseman]

Something that has been stressing me out UNBELIEVABLY, like wakes me up in the middle of the night, cannot stop thinking about it, freaking out on the regular, is that we have to join a synagogue by September. Alice HAS to start religious school-- bat mitzvah prep starts in third grade!!

For awhile we went to adam's dad's congregation in Northfield, but they had a bad cantor transition and that combined with COVID meant we fully stopped going after being pretty engaged members for 5ish years. We don't want to go back there, but where!?

We tried a VERY FANCY congregation in the fall, bc Joe's friend's family goes there and it's close to our house, but I did not get the right feeling there. They did not do the right tune for Kol Nidre! And also we learned that adam's cousin bedbugs goes there and I'm sorry I have such a complex about her, our girls are the same age and love each other which is great, cousins should love each other, but I cannot handle being in the same bat mitzvah class!! We are not hedge funge mengeaners!! So that was out. But where?!?!?!?

I was literally crying and crying about this yesterday to both Adam and my work bestie bc you're just supposed to go where your family goes!!! But adam's family abandoned us!!

And then! This morning! In my canasta group we have a side chat for the jewish girls so we can share jewish events, and one of the women texted us an event at a local temple for next week and I was like, OMG YES TELL ME MORE WE ARE SYNAGOGUE SHOPPING! And two of the other women are also, and we were like, let's do this together! so one of them gave us the rundown on everywhere, and she actually said our best bet was probably the congregation that Adam's aunt and uncle go to! They love it and I've been a few times and didn't love it, but they've since merged with another congregation and have a really good reputation. So we're going to try it out, and another temple down the street from my house that's having a yom ha atzmaut party next week.

Look at that! Look at hashem giving me a little life boat! And maybe I will join with my new friends!!

[kittenintheden]

I want to share something. I absolutely adore how you write Astarion. You capture his mirth, the absolute ridiculous stray ginger cat energy he embodies, the tragedy of his situation, and how utterly hilarious he is all at the same time. But what I love especially is how *young* you manage to write him, like this is an elf who was killed before he even reached young adulthood in Elvish culture and you capture that brilliantly in both his mannerisms, sarcastic and sometimes juvenile quips and even his body language. It's just mind-blowing and I love reading your fics due to how well you capture him.

this is such an incredibly sweet comment and thank you so much for making it T_T my heart, it is warmed.

if I may ramble for a moment!

here's my thing: based on the information available to us, it's pretty widely confirmed canon (fanon? since Larian hasn't actually confirmed to my knowledge?) that based on the translated dates on his grave marker, Astarion died at 39. which is VERY young for an elf, but still adulthood, because elves physically and mentally mature at a similar rate to humans. the "they don't reach adulthood until 100" is more cultural than physical/mental, so Astarion very much was an adult with a career and all that when he died. culturally, however, he would not have been considered fully adult by other elves.

kind of like if you had a bar/bat mitzvah at 100 instead of 13? like it's not a measure of physical/mental adulthood, it's a cultural/religious ceremony signifying the passage into adulthood. that kind of thing.

WITH THAT SAID: Astarion did die young (we think) and then was launched into a situation that severely impacted his growth and progression as a person. namely: it stopped. he's frozen in time. he had no opportunity to learn, grow, or change. he was literally prevented from doing so.

Cazador worsened and encouraged this behavior not only in Astarion but in ALL the spawn. he refers to them as children, they're considered siblings, and the journals and notes we find in the palace indicate that they frequently pranked the shit out of each other and were generally the worst versions of themselves because Cazador regularly pitted them against one another. he starves and belittles and torments them physically and mentally. no one can thrive in circumstances like that.

when we meet Astarion in game, we're meeting a severely abused soul in survival mode who's never been able to make a plan or act for himself or exist in a world that wasn't constant terror. not since he can remember, anyway. he's fully and completely trauma-brained.

SO MUCH of his behavior is rooted in that. Cazador and his staff routinely refer to Astarion as a brat, little one, child, etc. dialogue indicates that he was constantly shamed for "prattling" and being a talker. so here's a man who's in literal arrested development and any meaningful growth he could have had was cut off at the ground. and he acts it.

until he gets a chance to grow.

then he still acts like a big baby boy but, you know, one who's also beginning to think past his own nose and develop a tiny bit of empathy and consideration. if you let him lol. you don't have to.

also I have a history in writing YA and Romance if that wasn't PAINFULLY OBVIOUS LMAO.

[doyouknowthisjewishcharacter]

Info and Rules

So! Yet another "do you know this x" blog! Welcome!

Submissions are open! Just pop your suggestion in the ask box. You can also send in any questions or comments through the ask box too! Any questions or comments in the ask box will be screenshotted and posted anonymously unless you say otherwise. Please submit one character at a time! Anon is off, but I will post submissions anonymously unless someone says they want to be tagged in the poll. Also, I try to spread out polls of characters from the same fandom. So if you send in a couple characters from the same source, don’t worry if you see one posted but not the other! The other will probably be posted by next week!

In submissions, please list:

Character name

Media the character is from

Any other information or details you think are important (if it's a character where verification of their Jewish identity can't easily be found online, I ask that you provide information about how their Jewish identity is confirmed [e.g. "they had a bar/bat mitzvah", "they call themselves Jewish", "the creator said they were Jewish", etc.])

If you want to include a photo of the character in your submission that is helpful! (If you include an image ID with the photo, that would also be great!)

For grey areas, I'll judge on a case-by-case basis. Any extra information you can supply in these cases is super helpful!

Some examples of grey areas:

Character is from a fantasy world where Judaism doesn't exist, but is part of a religious or cultural group that is an in-world equivalent (such as the Wolf and the Woodsman where the Yehuli are a stand in for Jews)

Character's identity is in some way ambiguous and they may not consider themselves Jewish (an example might be Margret Simon or Leopold Bloom)

There are facts about the character that indicate they may be Jewish, but nothing explicitly confirms it (such as Miriam Mendelsohn from Turning Red who has an almost exclusively Jewish surname and common Jewish given name, but nothing else indicates a Jewish identity)

Some information about how the blog is organized below the cut!

I've created some tags to sort how a character's Jewish identity was confirmed! I thought it would be interesting to keep track of, so here we are! Some characters might have multiple of these tags if their Jewish identity was indicated in multiple ways.

So far, for common categories:

#chanukah mention

#b'nai mitzvah confirmation

#jewish wedding confirmation

#word of hashem (someone involved with the character like a writer has confirmed the character's Jewish identity outside of the media)

#jewish story premise (for when the Jewish identity is inherent to the story and not revealed in any way. For example, Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof.)

#other in-media confirmation (depending about how much I know about the character I might give a brief elaboration in the tags)

[torchflies]

The Five Names of Ice Kazansky (Girl!Ice Orthodox Jew!Ice) + Glossary of Terms

* I was super bored at my conference and wrote this on a napkin because I was having Jewish thoughts on naming 😎 💁🤷*

—

To be a Jew is to struggle with God — it's the first thing little Hadassah Tzabarit Kazansky learns in this life. 

—

She questions for the first time at six years old as Dassy, Rabbi Kazansky’s sharp-tongued little girl and now, as his only child.

“Abba?” Dassy asks him, holding his big hand in her smaller pair as they toss handfuls of dirt into her twin brother’s grave, “Why did Feivel die?”

Rabbi Kazansky takes his only living child into his arms as he answers, “You already know, zeeskeit. He had lymphoma, he was very sick.”

“But why?” She asks again, with the unfailing trust of a child. “Why did God take him away? He was ours.”

“No,” Her father says as tears drip down his cheeks and into his beard, “Feivel was not ours, just as you are not mine. Our children are gifts, Dassy, but they are only borrowed; we raise our children to leave us. Sometimes they stay in this world to do that and sometimes they do not.” 

—

When her mother dies, she is Hadassah. 

She sits by herself at the funeral, wearing a black dress that’s too long and too loose across her chest to be comfortable. But nothing is comfortable anymore, not when her mother is lying in an aron under the earth and everyone is talking about her like she isn’t sitting ten feet away from them.

There’s dirt under her nails from yesterday, when she had climbed the biggest tree in the shul garden to put an empty bird’s nest back from where it had fallen. She had slipped on the way back down and torn a hole in her tights; Rabbi Moskowitz’s wife, Miriam, had given her an extra pair with a smile. What will we do with you, Hadassah? 

She had spent the entire morning fixing her two thick braids, pulling them so tight that the blond curls didn’t bunch out at any angle, then redoing them again when they didn’t match. It took five tries to make them look perfect. She had pinned both plaits back with one of her mother’s favorite tichels, folding it so it held back her braids instead of covering her whole head. She didn’t have any black dresses, so she was forced to tug out one of her mother’s from her closet, feeling a bit like she was stealing. 

Hadassah, my Dassy. Her mother would say. You’ve gotten so big while I’ve been away. 

Her torn ribbon flutters against her neck and she shoves it down angrily.

She doesn’t want to cry in a room of alte makhsheyfes and alter cockers that she doesn’t know. It’s silly and childish, but all she wants is for her mother to wake up and take her home. 

But dead is dead and Goldie Kazansky is very dead. 

“Hadassah, are you alright?” 

Rabbi Moskowitz sits down beside her, his brown eyes doleful and sad. He shifts until one of his knees sits curled on the bench, regarding her softly and waiting until she’s ready to speak. He does the same thing when she sits in his office every Tuesday morning to practice for her Bat Mitzvah, letting her take her time with the text until she’s ready to talk to him about it. But nothing is right anymore, it’s Tuesday morning and her mother is dead. 

She shrugs, tugging on her right braid and staring out the window, watching a little blue bird hop around in the grass. Her Rabbi doesn’t say anything, he just waits. 

“Excuse me, Lev. Can I have a minute with her?” 

Rabbi Kazansky sits down beside her, in the wreckage of the only life she's ever known.

She falls into her father’s arms with a low sob, “I don't understand!” She cries, twelve years old and distraught, “Why would God take her away too?!”

Her father says nothing, he just rocks her and sings a nigun until her tears run dry. 

—

The day she meets her best-friend, she is Ice. 

Ice Kazansky, the Ice Queen, buries Hadassah and Dassy as far down as she can reach. She smiles with nothing but a mouthful of pretty, perfect teeth as her Academy classmates call her a frigid bitch, something not to be touched, and she shows them just how desperately their performances are wanting. 

She is a flawless pilot and she is ice: cold, and unfeeling until she ends anyone who gets too close. 

“Ron Kerner,” Her fourth RIO introduces himself, all six feet and four inches of smarmy ego that she doesn't have time for. “But you can call me whatever you please, sweetheart.”

She blinks at him, glacial and unforgiving, and on their first hop together: she rolls them, hanging them inverted until he pukes. 

“You really are an icy bitch.” He moans as he spits up on the tarmac. 

Ice just smiles and turns sharply to grab her third cup of coffee from the mess, not a hair out of place, and according to her classmates — barely human. No one speaks to her as she marches past, no one reaches out. 

“I’m sorry,” Kerner tells her later, pushing his plate of bacon towards her as some kind of peace offering. She instantly shakes her head, decades of lessons kicking in before she can stop herself. He looks so damn dejected that she allows herself a moment of — something. She wavers, reaching out.

She takes his dry toast, with a soft, “I don't eat meat.” 

“Oh.” He says, dark eyes wide. “Ever?”

He's inching closer to things that she doesn't want to explain, kashrut and observance, and being an Orthodox Jewish woman but also being everything that an Orthodox Jewish woman is not. How, in her community, she would have already been married with a baby on each hip — how that was a life she had wanted so badly for so long… until she was told it was all she could ever have. 

“Ever.” She says instead, hating the lie. 

“I’ll remember that, Kazansky.” He hums with a smile that makes him softer, kinder. He has warm eyes too and honey-brown hair that curls up at the ends, her RIO with his awful callsign — Slider. 

“Ice,” She corrects, even as he goes red at the memory of his insult.

“Ice.” He says and she finds that she likes the sound of her cruel epithet in his mouth. 

—

The day she falls in love, she is the Queen. 

The little gremlin has no idea how close he is to hitting the nail on the head — she is Hadassah, but also anything but. 

“Icy!” She somehow hears over the throng and almost rolls her eyes behind her shades, recognizing that lackadaisical voice and the only person in the world who calls her Icy. 

He's a memory, an old friend, a first kiss and the first of many hefty guilt spirals at eighteen, in a world so different from the one she had grown up in. He had been three years older than her then, still was, and had seemed so much wiser than her at twenty-one. But now, at twenty-six, she knows how young they both were. 

Still, the last she heard, Loosey Goosey Bradshaw was off getting married and having a baby, not frequenting the O Club in Miramar. Her cold eyes sweep the crowd and she only narrowly finds him, waving at her from the bar — lanky and jovial as ever. She doesn't smile, but she could have. She's missed him. “Hey! C’mere, I got someone for you to meet!” 

She follows her marching orders, letting his voice wash over her as it starts being audible over the pounding pop music. 

“Here she is, the best of the best — Ice Queen Kazansky. It's how she flies, Mav: ice-cold, no mistakes and I'm just warning you now, pal. If you get bored and do something stupid, she’s got you.” 

He's bent over double, giving a life lesson to the short, stocky young man beside him. Ice has half a foot on the boy and that's being generous — he’s tiny. He smiles from ear-to-ear when he sees her though, full of lust and ignorance, and she thinks of that one film that Slider’s been making her see at the drive-ins every few weeks now: Gremlins. 

“She could have me all the time if she wants.” The little cowboy drawls and Ice ignores him completely, only to raise an eyebrow at her old friend, no wedding ring in sight.

“Hey there, Bradshaw,” She intones, flat and bored, but Nick knows her well enough to pick up on the undercurrent of amusement there. “Odd place to hang out for a married man.” 

He goes a little red at that, flushing up to his eyebrows and she steals his Budweiser to cast her eyes over the crowd again as she sips, “Slider should be around here somewhere, I think you just missed him on the way to his latest crash and burn.” 

The little guy clears his throat, for what must be at least the second time, if his uppity attitude is indicative of anything specific. 

“Goose,” He announces, all bluster and no bite with those big teeth of his. “I think the Queen’s lost that lovin’ feeling.” 

Beside her, Ice’s old friend blanches bony white. “Nope. No, Mav. She hasn't, she really hasn't.” He's making slicing motions across his neck and for a moment, she's concerned about his blood pressure and the vein twitching at his temple. “Mav,” He hisses, so low that she almost misses it, “No.” 

“Actually, Goose.” Those bottle-green eyes fan over her, assessing for some soft spot that she doesn't have. She lets him try. “I think she has.”

The little thing grabs Nick by the wrist and drags him in the direction of the jukebox. Ice merely hums and lets them go, sipping on her free drink. 

She doesn't expect the serenade, nor does she expect the way her heart bottoms out or the way her lips tremble against the cold glass of her bottle. 

You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips…

This maneuver is not recoverable and she can't eject.

Pete Mitchell is going to destroy her entire life, or maybe — he’ll give her a new one.

—

He does give her that new one, three years after they get married — Golda Helen Mitchell, named at a Zeved Habat for his mother and hers. 

— 

Glossary of terms:

Zeved Habat — naming ceremony for a baby girl

Hadassah — Hebrew name for Queen Esther

zeeskeit — Yiddish term of endearment similar to sweetheart

Kashrut — kosher dietary laws

Rabbi — a leader, both religious and otherwise, in the Jewish community and a teacher

Aron — a casket

Tichel — the head covering of a Jewish woman after marriage

Bat Mitzvah — the coming of age for a Jewish girl

Shul — synagogue, Jewish place of worship

Alte Makhsheyfe — Yiddish insult meaning old witch

Alter cocker — Yiddish insult meaning (annoying) old person

[my-jewish-life]

Since so many wanted me to post more of my Jewish Sims 4 family, let me introduce you to the Abrams family!^^

Here´s the twins Joseph and Zahavah, 11 years old. Zahavah is very excited as she´s preparing for her Bat Mitzvah. She´s very artistic and loves to draw and create things. Joseph loves playing outdoors and spends alot of time in their treehouse, he also has ADHD. Joseph and Zahavah always hang out together growing up, keeping up with them as toddler was a struggle for sure. Their favorite holiday is Purim!^^

Naomi, 18 years old, is in her last year of High School. She wants to study to become a vet, animals and nature has always been a big passion for her. She´s helped taking care of the pets at the local shelter even since she was a kid, last year she found a homeless cat and adopted it. When she´s not helping pets or studying she will sit in her room reading a book or playing guitar. Not too long ago she was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, and her parents and family have been a great support system for her during her ups and downs. Her favorite holiday is Rosh Hashanah and Purim.

The youngest member of the family, Taliah. This little bundle of joy is 3 years old. She loves playing with the family pets and hanging out with her siblings, amd dancing to music. She loves trying to help in the kitchen even if it often ends up in a mess everyone is still having fun. Miranda has teached all their children from a early age to help cook and clean, it´s a important skill after all. Right now Taliah really loves Purim and Hanukkah.

Miranda, 38, the mother of all the children. She´s a stay at home mom, she´s been a stay at home mom since their first child. When she isn´t cooking, cleaning or taking care of Taliah she loves to sit down with a good book or to work in her garden. She met Miriam during high school and fell in love with her right away. She was scared Miriam didn´t feel for her the same way, nor did she know how to tell her orthodox parents about being lesbian. But to her surprise, her parents took it very well. They had known it for a long time and had waited for Miranda to tell them herself when she was ready, and Miriam? She had a crush on Miriam as well but were too nervous to tell her too. Their wedding was lovely even though it took some time to find a rabbi for the wedding. She also has autism and her special interests are books and flowers and whenever she needs a break or feel overstimulated, Miriam is there to help her.

Miriam, 39. She works as a chef at one of the kosher restaurants in town, she´s mostly the one who cooks at home but both her and Miranda ejoys cooking. She has Seasonal Affective Disorder and got a service dog to help her, named Dodi. Dodi has helped her alot during her periods, she´s her little shadow and is always by her side. Miranda has helped her alot as well, knowing what to do and how to help. Miriam loves knitting clothes, something she learned from her bubbe, she holds those memories very close to her heart.

The family pets, the cat Zayit and Dodi.

[hindahoney]

i've been getting more into judaism after being raised jewish. i was never bat mitzva'ed, so im wondering if i should do that? also wondering what other steps to take.

Well, I have great news! You don't need to have a bat mitzvah, you are a bat mitzvah! If you would like the celebration, you certainly can have one, but it isn't necessary.

I didn't grow up with really any Jewish observance, so I was essentially a complete beginner when I decided to connect. So, my suggestions come from personal experience and the experiences of some others I know who are baal teshuva.

Some more steps you could take to foster a stronger relationship with your Judaism is first to reach out to your local rabbi, and see what events or classes their shul has going on. Showing up to these opportunities can open doors to figuring out what feels right for you, and I've found that making friends who are at a level of observance that you strive to be at can inspire you to keep learning. If you get in touch with a rabbi beforehand, they could probably arrange to have you meet with someone who can show you around and introduce you to people. While this can be really intimidating at first, believe me when I say that many Jews will be happy to help you and won't pass judgement. Many Jews have been in your shoes, you're not alone.

Or, you can pick a few different shuls and just go to each one until you find one that feels right for you. Don't feel pressured to commit to one over the other. Don't get bogged down by the labels of movements. If you have a personal goal in mind or a certain aspect of observance you want to do, just start doing it, even if it feels awkward at first. Over time, it'll be easier. Find some local study groups, or join one online! During quarantine I joined a Torah study group from a shul hundreds of miles away from me. They didn't care that I'd never step foot in their shul before, they were just happy to have a fresh face who wanted to learn. You could also try Partners In Torah, which is a website that can connect you with a chavruta.

Chabad is always a great option for those who are looking to deepen their relationship with Judaism because they always have resources specifically for people looking to reconnect.

If you live in a place with a significant Jewish population, you could find a Young Jewish Professional's group that can introduce you to more people.

I would recommend getting a siddur with Hebrew and English, if your Hebrew is shaky. I would also recommend starting to read the parsha every week, or starting the Tanach from scratch and reading it like any other book. I suggest The Living Torah and The Living Nach by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan because the translations are in modern terms and easier to read, and they have commentary by Rashi. I also can't recommend enough Joseph Telushkin's books Biblical Literacy and Jewish Literacy, they're incredibly comprehensive guides to living a Jewish life by forming a strong Jewish educational foundation. Seriously, I've mentioned these books a million times on my blog because I love them that much.

Also, you could just start small! Saying modei ani in the morning when you wake up, saying hamotzi or the birkat, or even just saying Shema before bed can be a great way to start the process of opening up.

This last recommendation might be a little out there, but I think that doing some traditional Jewish cooking or baking can help motivate you to keep learning. This is how I started. I bought a few kosher cookbooks and just started making anything I had the ingredients for. It's not necessarily a "standard" way to connect, but my soul felt like it was reaching through time and space and connecting with all the Jews before me who had prepared and eaten the same thing.

As always, if anyone else has suggestions for anon, the more the merrier! I want to express my sincere excitement for you. Enjoy the journey you're on, don't be so caught up on "but I wish I was more observant this way" or "I'm not Jewish enough in this way" because it's all nonsense. Reconnecting is an amazing and life-changing experience, so enjoy the path that you're on, not necessarily the destination. When I first started, I was so insecure about how much I didn't know and worried others would judge me, but I found most people genuinely just want to help. Learning was exciting, and in some ways I'm envious of all the new experiences you're going to have. I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I just relaxed and accepted that it's okay not to know things yet.

Good luck!!

[scientologisabethmoss]

in so much pain right now, knowing it doesn’t even approach what gazans are experiencing at the moment, doesn’t approach what the loved ones of the israeli victims of the attacks are feeling. just tremendous sadness and anger.

all i want to do is talk and be with other jews who love being jewish, are proud of their jewish heritage, and who feel (and have felt) alienated from israel. i want to be with other jews right now and have a space to talk about our anger at israel and its ethnic cleansing of palestinians and how we can do something to fight back against this violence, this injustice, because it’s what our jewish education has instilled in us to do. and i want to be in a place with people who feel supportive of our concerns of rising anti-semitism, who understand that though we do not support israel - or any ethnostate for that matter - we probably have loved ones, or loved ones of loved ones, who live in israel and have been impacted by this violence. the global jewish community is so small that even if you don’t support the state of israel, you probably know someone who lives there and is affected.

and you know that israel is an apartheid state, you know that what israel is doing and has done to palestinians is heinous and goes against the geneva conventions, you know the power imbalance at play and that the most powerful country in the world financially backs israel and its crimes against palestinians. and there’s clarity in that, in the ethical stance you must take against injustice like that. in that way, things are simple.

but then you think about your great-grandparents and their parents, refugees who fled from pogroms and who ended up in the US. if they had remained in the pale of settlement for a few more decades, they probably would have been murdered. and if not, they likely would have sought refuge in israel after the war. and you think of your great-grandparents in new york, who housed refugees from germany in the 1930s, who were outspoken against fascism and saw their people murdered abroad and tried to live righteous lives and who had a dream of a jewish homeland and bought israel bonds to make try to make that dream a reality. these are people, my descendants, who wept with joy and relief in 1948 when israel came into being, the same year as the nakba.

and now you’re 29 in 2023 and don’t really believe in a jewish homeland anymore because you don’t believe in ethnostates. and your 94-year-old grandmother hates bibi, has been disgusted with israel for decades now, and feels like the dream of israel, the dream of her parents and grandparents, has failed. but was that dream of a jewish homeland ever valid in the first place?

you think of all of this, of the legacies of colonialism and the shoah and the nakba and all this suffering. you think of diaspora, of intergenerational pain, of memory, of who has power now and who had power a hundred years ago. and you want an outlet, a jewish community who Gets It, but you split with your previously long-term reform synagogue, the temple you became a bat mitzvah at, because you and your family were so disgusted by the zionist words of its new rabbi. and you are so thankful for and supportive of organizations like if not now and jewish voice for peace, orgs that are standing with gaza and against harm to civilians during this time, but then you see the term “jewish supremacy” used in a post to describe the actions of israel, and you think, have we completely lost the plot???

and if that’s the inside of my head right now, i know that must be the inside of the heads of so many other jews worldwide. and so when non-jews who aren’t palestinian either say that you are complacent in palestinian genocide if you admit that things, for you, are complicated, you shrivel and turn inward and think, who could i possibly share my feelings with? and if i can’t somehow share my feelings, how can i make space inside myself to properly speak up for justice, to work against israeli apartheid and attain equal rights for palestinians?

things are simple and they are complicated, but if things are both simple and complicated, they must just be complicated. i hear myself and think i must be going insane, but there has to be a scenario in which saying things are nuanced is not a cop-out or an excuse for genocide.