pixel skylines
Monterey Bay Aquarium
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
NASA
No title available
🪼
No title available
Kaledo Art
trying on a metaphor
Love Begins
No title available
tumblr dot com
JBB: An Artblog!
oozey mess
JVL
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
No title available
Claire Keane
No title available
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
seen from France
seen from Poland
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Taiwan
seen from New Zealand
seen from Italy
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
@ahavatolam
Hi! I'm Shavtiel (שָׁבְתִּיאֵל). Long time tumblr user (my main is @goblinofthesun) but I thought I'd make a blog just for Jewish stuff! I'm Reform and I'm trying to take this year while I'm living on my own to learn more about how I want to live/make a Jewish life.
New stickers! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
B’tselem Elohim (spelled here with a quf to avoid writing a name of God) means “in the image of God.” It comes from Genesis 1:27
וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹקִים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹקִים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃
“And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it in the image of God—creating them male and female.” (Revised JPS translation, 2023)
Happy pride month! :)
we should have a cat seder (seder for cats)
majestic child, naughty child, orange child, and child who only knows how to blep
And theyre all the same cat
Poll: Artscroll vs. Koren
-Artscroll
-Koren
-Other (replies)
-Not Jewish/don't use books
Artscroll vs. Koren
Artscroll
Koren
Other (replies)
Not Jewish/don't use books
Do I believe in G-d? Yes, of course!
Do I believe G-d is real? Ehh, now that’s an entirely different question, isn’t it?
The answer to “does G-d exist?” is the question “does G-d exist?”
A lot of times when people talk about atheist or agnostic Jews, it’s like “being Jewish isn’t just about being observant! you can be agnostic/atheist & Jewish bc Jewish identity is also about ethnicity/culture not just religion!” and that’s true! and great!
but I wish more people talked about pious agnosticism (not 100% the label I would choose for myself; I don’t know that I would either call myself pious or say “I don’t know if G-d is real” I just feel like answering the question as a yes or no question is missing the point of Hashem). like, what about observance—even belief—being defined with complete agnosticism (ha) to the question of ontological existence?
I love Hashem & observing Jewish Law & mulling over Jewish teachings, but I don’t love those things because of anything to do with certainty of a literal conscious divine entity anymore than I sleep or eat food or go to the bathroom or love people because I’m certain I’m literally real.
if I’m not real, I can’t tell the difference! so who cares? I want to be who I am, whatever that means.
and if G-d isn’t real, so what? to whatever extent “real” is a thing, the values & practices & whatever else is bound up in what we call Hashem do exist, and are beautiful and worth engaging in, even if Hashem as a literal conscious being doesn’t literally exist as a distinct divine entity. y’know?
Even if G_d isn't real or whatever, following these rules (both in spirit and in letter) means you are trying to do Good in this world. And isn't that enough?
and if the goodness of the things we do in the name of G-d are so contingent on G-d’s existence that they would no longer be good if G-d weren’t real, would those things even be “good” in the first place?
I don’t think so. if a thing that is “good” would be evil on its own merits without a deity to prop it up, then it’d just be evil.
if our aim is justice, and justice is that which waters life, and you do that which waters life, then even if the authority that tells you to do it collapsed, you wouldn’t have any reason to regret it; you still watered life.
no one is harmed by abstaining from certain meats or running by a certain schedule or weaving textiles a certain way; so if any of it makes you feel more connected to yourself and your culture, it’s still beautiful.
repair the world, and even if there’s no G-d, you still helped repair the world, didn’t you? isn’t that enough?
being kind is still being kind. love is still love. joy is still joy 🤷🏻♀️ isn’t that enough?
“repair the world, and even if there’s no G-d, you still helped repair the world, didn’t you?”
Thank you for summing up EXACTLY how I feel about so many things in Judaism.
I probably did see you at Sinai but I’m terrible with faces sorry
I just saw someone say, "I'm a convert, so I'm technically Jewish," and it made me want to scream and cry.
Converts - adoptees (the term my rabbi uses and I prefer) - you are exactly, precisely, as Jewish as any other Jew. It is halachically forbidden to distinguish between converts and any other Jews. Your soul is a Jewish soul. Period. You're not even supposed to ask if someone's a convert or not. It doesn't matter. You're Jewish.
And if you won't stop minimizing your Jewishness for your own sake, do it for every other convert who deserves not to have their Jewishness minimized or qualified.
Please.
you asked chatGPT? well i asked shimon bar yochai and he set me on fire with his eyes
I asked Shammai and he hit me with a ruler
It's time to conduct empirical, academic research once again
jews: how do you shuckel
Exclusively back and forth
Predominantly back and forth, only incidentally side to side
Equally back and forth and side to side
Predominantly side to side, only incidentally back and forth
Exclusively side to side
Not enough data to sufficiently quantify
Jewish but not applicable (i.e. does not shuckel)
Not Applicable
For the purposes of this poll, include yourself if you are or are going to be jewish (since you probably won't change if or how you shuckel once you are)
Hey Jumblr, thought you’d enjoy this one! I asked my rabbi a question he never in a million years could have seen coming and I had to preface it with “I am being genuine and sincere. You’re going to hear this question and think I am messing with you, but this is sincere.”
The question? “Is my dryer dairy or pareve?”
The details: I saw on the interwebs the “hack” to turn your empty dryer on high for five or ten minutes and to then use the warm dryer to proof bread. Given that I am currently using my (obviously OFF) oven with a heating pad to proof bread, I figured as goofy and TikToky as it sounds, it’s maybe not such a bad idea.
Then I realized that this would be an excellent way to quickly soften cheese slices for grilled cheese, and immediately tried it out. (it works perfectly by the way and I will never use a different method ever again)
BUT I was immediately concerned that maybe, just maybe, the warm cheese would somehow be enough to render my dryer dairy and thus make it unacceptable to use for bread proofing (even though I know there’s no way the cheese is getting warm enough to release dairy steam).
So I asked my rabbi, who is super religious and kinda stuffy and doesn’t have the sense of humor a lot of Jews have. He was a bit stunned and befuddled, but he at least believed in my sincerity!
He says it’s fine and my dryer can be pareve so long as there’s no cheese steam. Filling this under “things I never, ever expected to be concerned about before I became religious.”
There’s a humor book that I read ages ago of shailos (halachic questions) asked by the residents of a yeshiva dirah (apartment/dorm for young men in yeshiva).
Questions like:
- if I stir milk into my coffee with the right temple of my glasses, does the entire pair of glasses become milchig, or can I use the other side to stir cholent?
- how to kasher a clothing iron used as a panini press
Etc.
Absolutely feral bochurim.
ETA: Dirah Daze/Days by a Rabbi Elbaz! That was the name of the book!
Can confirm, my brother's dorm legit had fleishig and milchig clothing irons, and they were considering trying to cook a burger in their dryer
If you're wondering which iron they used for their clothes, I will remind you that these were bachurim.
Kinda glad I was born a Jew instead of a Muslim. I can do no cheeseburger but waking up that early I could never inshallah blessing on Muslim brothers and sister y'all are real ones let's share some hummus and complain about goyish. Za gazints
Girl what about shacharis
ברוך אתה ה' אלוקינו מלך העולם שעשני כרצונו
i bring a sort of "idk man i think it depends" vibe to being jewish that the "antizionism is antisemitism" and "boycott israel" crowds really dont like
I bring a sort of “everyone deserves to be safe” vibe to I/P discussions that most people don’t really like
question to all my beloved converts/conversion students: how did you pick your hebrew name?
i'm having trouble choosing between the options i like, and i'd like to hear how you made a final decision <3
I wanted something to honor my mom. She was a born again Christian and she died when I was a preteen. I've had a complicated relationship with her memory, but I wanted to do this to share with her.
So I looked at names that started with the letter S (same as what her name started with) and looked through the meanings. I got to Shavtiel and basically stopped cause it was perfect. It means "Return to G-d" and it has the same root as t'shuvah. That felt like a perfect encapsulation of my journey. And it is. It's perfect.
Okay jumblr let me put you onto this.
It's called Candle Magic and it's this goo (actually soft wax) you can stick the bottom of your candles in to get them to adhere better in the menorah. Easier and more convenient than melting the bottoms. Game changer.
You can get it at a kosher grocery store, some Judaica stores, and various places online.
@chronicangel Try a corkscrew.
One with a squiggly thing like the one on the left, not the one on the right. Simply rotate the squiggly thing in the candle holder.
There is no reason for non-Zionist Jewish institutions to tolerate anti-Zionism ever.
It’s understandable why they might. Jews can, will, and should be able to hold a wide variety of opinions on a wide variety of things, including the state of Israel, the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the relationship between Jews and the Eretz. And Jewish institutions should facilitate this without stamping out one position or another.
But this can not apply to antagonism.
If there is a faction that is literally explicitly defining their identity around being anti- you or others in your community, it is not only acceptable but your responsibility to not give their intolerance room to fester. This applies to everyone whether they are Zionist, non-Zionist, or anti-Zionist.
Anti-Zionists will argue this is exactly why they need to root out Zionism. That Zionism is inherently intolerant, and thus must be destroyed in the name of tolerance.
The problem is that Zionist and non-Zionist identity, belief, and practice are fully capable of existing without negating Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim self-sovereignty. Anti-Zionist identity, belief, and practice cannot do the same for Jewish self-sovereignty. Because Zionism is the word for Jewish self-sovereignty.
You give a seat at the table to people who want to destroy the table at your own peril, and the peril of everyone else at that table.
Wait, hold on.
I think this post is conflating some different things.
One, I think this is interpreting "antizionist" to mean "against zionists." While that does describe many antizionists, I think what the term is intended to mean is against zionism. Someone calling themself an antizionist isn't inherently saying "I want all Zionists removed from my shul," they are saying "I oppose the political movement of Zionism."
I think you do acknowledge this later in your post, but defining Zionism as Jewish self-sovereignty isn't totally accurate -- it's specifically Jewish self-sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael. And not only that, in the current day it's specifically statecraft; for example, a movement that argued for politically independent kibbutzim in the context of a one-state solution would not be called Zionist.
In that vein, the Bundist idea of Jewish political autonomy within Eastern Europe was also not considered Zionist as it did not take place in Eretz Yisrael.
At the end of the day, whatever meanings and importance we assign, Zionism is a political ideology that even 100 years ago was not the default in the Jewish world as it is now, 150 years ago was not mainstream in the Jewish world, and 200 years ago did not exist.
I think it's a mistake to say that everyone is required to adhere to a specific political ideology and that if they don't they should be removed from Jewish spaces. In fact I think it strongly contradicts Jewish concepts like Eilu v' Eilu.
What you are saying in your post is "Jews can hold a variety of opinions on the state of Israel, but opposing it is unacceptable. If they want to be part of Jewish institutions, the only acceptable positions are support, neutrality, or choosing not to voice a position."
We don't make this claim about halacha, about Torah, or even about God. We accept people regardless of whether they follow the Torah, regardless of whether they believe in or worship God. But yet a nationalist state created in the 20th century should be a red line? Opposition to it should be grounds for removing someone from a shul or other Jewish institution? That is elevating a state above God.
FYI I got a notification for this so you might not be shadowbanned anymore
Firstly, Herzl did not invent Zionism. We've been wanting to go back to Israel since the first expulsion. But let's focus on your halacha analogy. There is indeed a small number of Jews who say all Jews should follow halacha and those that don't aren't real Jews. Let's call those the Kahanist. Then you have the vast number of Jews who believe that Jews should be allowed to follow halacha in whatever way works best for them. Those would be the Zionists. So what does that make the antizionist equivalent? That would be "Jews should not be allowed to follow halacha and those that do should be forced to stop". This is a non theoretical position by the way, with various countries looking to ban circumcision and kosher slaughter.
But that implies that most antizionist Jews think Zionist Jews should not be allowed to be Zionists and should be forced to stop. I don't think I've ever met an antizionist Jew who believes this.
I think this still misunderstands what people say when they call themselves antizionist. They aren't using it mean "against the identity category of Zionist." They mean they are against Zionism as a political force that resulted in and maintains the state of Israel.
I understand that a lot of Zionists nowadays have redefined Zionism to mean "the desire to return from exile." This is not what this term has historically meant; it specifically referred to a movement to relocate to Israel in an immediate sense and then to establish a country there. Imagine it's 1920 in Vilna: a "Zionist" is someone who's learning Hebrew and participating in a youth movement to move to Mandatory Palestine. Someone who isn't invested in that project is not a Zionist. The term has now expanded to mean someone who supports that project even if they're not participating in it, but it still refers specifically to that project.
I think the move to redefine Zionism this way has utlitiy because it enables Zionists to claim that antizionism is inherently antisemitic. I think it also serves to confuse and muddy the waters; and I think this is a feature, not a bug.
I also think it's to do with Religious Zionism tying the state of Israel back into Biblical prophecies of the messianic age; seeing Israel as "reishit tzmichat geulateinu" (the beginning of our redemption) and seeing Israel as the modern realization of the longed-for return. Just because a religious-political movement thinks that Israel marks the dawning of the messianic age and the end times doesn't mean Zionism is automatically back-projected millennia into the past. This is as silly as saying Jesus was Palestinian and Moses wore a shtreimel.
Look, ultimately, descriptivism means that if this is what Zionism is coming to mean in Jewish English, then it will in fact "mean" that. Likewise "Palestinian" to refer to everyone who ever lived in what's now Israel/Palestine pre-1880 -- if that's how the word is used then that's what it means. But both of these shifts are ahistorical and unhelpful imo. Especially since (most) Jewish antizionists are not using this definition, so it's not helpful in a discussion about them.
And at the same time, the left has redefined Zionism in a different direction -- they have defined it as the system under which Israel operates -- the system under which Palestinians experience oppression and violence, as well as the forces of ethnosupremacy operating in that dynamic.
A Jew who defines themself as antizionist is stating an opposition to the aforementioned system, and also to Israel in its identity as a Jewish state, and also to the founding of Israel and the Zionist drive to establish the state. Some believe Zionist immigration should not have occurred; others have no issue with the immigration but believe that a Jewish state should not have been established. Many are also diasporists and focus on opposing the concept of "negation of the diaspora."
To the extent that they think about Zionists, it's usually confusion about why Zionists are Zionists, or a desire to get them to change. But the core of Jewish antizionism is about Zionism as both a system and an ideology. The term "antizionist" should be read as "[anti-zionism]-ist" rather than "[anti]-[zionist]."
Oh, and there are Jews who believe halacha as a system is harmful, and I don't think they should be tossed out of communities either. But that's not my point. My point is that "antizionists should be tossed out of even non-zionist Jewish communities" is saying "you cannot be part of the community if you oppose the State of Israel." It is straightforwardly saying that. And I think it is absolutely absurd to make Jewish communal participation contingent on someone's views of a state.
No, it implies that antizionist Jews think Jews should not be allowed to live in Israel or at least not have self determination there. Since Jews currently live in Israel, that means that antizionisit Jews believe that Jews should be ethnically cleansed from Israel. You can see how many Jews, be they zionist or not, would have an issue with sharing a table with such Jews.
The other big reason that so many Jews have an issue with antizionism, even the way you define it, is that there is already a name for the movement that is ideologically opposed to zionism. A Jew using antizionist instead of that term betrays a lack of understanding and knowledge of history. That belief incidentally, would not mean "Jews must be kicked out of Israel" but just that "Jews should move out". Unfortunately, most of the bundists were killed in the shoah.
If you think most Jewish antizionists want Jews to move out of Israel, it doesn't sound like you've talked to very many.
Also, I don't think it makes sense for Jewish antizionists en masse to identify as Bundists -- that's contextual to a particular time and place and not every antizionist is a Bundist. Also people who do call themselves Bundists get dismissed and made fun of for that too. I've also never heard that Bundists wanted Jews to move out of Israel.
And I'm really getting tired of the "they died, which means we're right" line. Starts to feel almost like gloating. Bad vibes. And if it was clever it was only clever the first time, by the 1000th repetition of the same quip it's long past old. Grapple with the ideas or don't -- let's retire "haha they got murdered by Nazis, those idiots, they kind of deserved it didn't they?"
I don't think that that's what you specifically intended but that's the energy that quip gives off.
Also, @cantotallyeven Zionism very specifically exists in the context of nationalism. Nationalism, in this case, meaning the support for the establishment or maintenance of a nation-state. Nation-states are a new concept in how we organize the world, arising largely in the 19th century. A nation-state is a state which integrates the idea of national identity into the state. Both nations (Jewish, Irish, Scottish as examples of national identities) and states (Rome, Britain, France, for example) existed before nation-states did. I am an antizionist Jew, and I explicitly support the return of Jews to our homeland for those who desire it. What I disagree with is using our the political power established by our emigration to eretz yisrael to create a nation-state. I also disagree that the geopolitical setup should continue as is and, the form I prefer, would see modern day Israel and Palestine transition into a new democratic entity. I believe nation-states fundamentally breed fascism, as we are seeing in modern day Israel. I believe certain aspects of the Zionist movement made this more prone to happening than other forms of nationalism, but I won’t discuss that in places where goyim can insert themselves and muddy the waters. Hope that clears some of the confusion as to why people like us identify as we do. (Genuine)
how literally every week feels lately:
AUUUUGHHHHHHHH AUURRGHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHGGHHHGHHUUAAUHHHHHHHH
brief intermission for peaceful shabbat noises
AUUHHHHHGHGGHHHH AHHGFFGGFGHHHHHHHHHHAAUAUHGHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
autumn/winter affirmations:
7 p.m. is not late
your day is not over at 7 p.m.
you are allowed to leave your house after it gets dark
7 p.m. is so early
