Jewing My Best @jewingmybest - Tumblr Blog

intro post!!! ❤️

shalom everyone! my name is robbie, and i'm a college student who is currently converting to judaism.

this blog is just a condensed place for me to put my thoughts and feelings during this process. (and vent, recently) thank you all for stopping by :)

TRANSPHOBES/QUEERPHOBES DNI

more about me ⬇️

#intro post #:)#jumblr

goose-onthe-loose

No I'm not frum anymore but I will NEVER shut up about the complete lack of orthodox representation in media. THERE. IS. NONE.

I've never seen an orthodox character in a movie, or book, or tv show, outside of the very niche genre produced BY us, FOR us.

"But what about Unorthodox--" No. That's about someone who used to be frum. That's a completely separate thing.

Do you have any idea how much that would have meant to as me a kid? To see or read about even ONE character in mainstream media who was like me? To know that someone even knew people like me existed?? And accepted it??? It would have meant the world.

And so, to the authors and screenwriters and character designers and podcasters and animators and EVERYONE working in the entertainment industry, I say:

Give me Chaya's and Perel's and Basya's and Devorah's. Baruch's and Chaim's and Avi's and Tzvi's.

Give me girls wearing long-sleeved shirts and skirts that go past the knees.

Give me boys with yarmulkes and tzitzit.

Give me characters saying "Do you wanna come over for shabbos/yuntif?"

Or, "hang on, I need to go daven shachris."

Or, "Is it Kosher?"

Give me bubbes and shuls and cholent and tehillim.

Give me explicitly orthodox representation.

And if you won't do it for me, then do it for all the others who feel invisible.

We're in the theaters and the bookstores and spread across all the internet, and we see you.

Why can't you see us, too?

animatedamerican

When I wrote stories as a kid, if they were set in the real world and not in some fantasy setting, the characters always, always had English names.

I grew up Orthodox. I went to private religious schools. The people I knew personally almost all had Hebrew names, including me and both of my siblings.

But the characters I wrote didn't, because nobody did in any of the books I read or the TV shows I watched or the movies I saw, and little me wanted to write like a real writer. And that meant English names.

Coming to understand this as an adult was painful. It still is. I don't know if I'll ever be over it.

(I am still grateful to @seananmcguire for naming a character after me in one of her horror novels, and making that character cover her hair. It matters, and she understands why it matters.)

koshercosplay

@animatedamerican you genuinely just blew my mind.

I also grew up Orthodox, going to all-girls Orthodox schools, in an entirely Orthodox community. Nearly everyone I interacted with on a day-to-day basis was an Orthodox Jew.

But I never, NEVER, wrote Orthodox characters, and I still haven't. I had that same mentality - I wanted to write something real. Writing an orthodox character like myself would have been weird and cringey, and I wanted to write something like the media I was consuming.

I never realized this was something I had to unlearn until this very moment. Even now, when I write Jewish characters, they're almost never orthodox, even though I myself am orthodox. I'll write secular jewish characters occasionally, because they just feel like they fit into the story better.

but that's probably only because I've never SEEN an orthodox character in a story like the ones I write. Of course it doesn't feel right. I have nothing to base it off of.

This is also probably why the book Spinning Silver felt like such a revelation, to the point where I'm still thinking about that story months later. It affected me so much because I had never read anything like that before. This mentality has been affecting me for my whole life, and I didn't even consciously realize it.

Representation matters so so much.

abislwise

campus antisemitism got you down? let me introduce you to the TITLE VI COMPLAINT.

This is not foolproof, but it's how I killed SJP on my campus.

See, the thing everyone on campus fucking forgets is that "Israeli" is a NATIONAL ORIGIN, and that's a protected category under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which like... is wildly in danger in this day and age but that's not the point. The point is that anything that receives federal funds is vulnerable to a Title VI complaint, and you know who receives federal funds?

COLLEGES. UNIVERSITIES. EVEN PRIVATE ONES. Because you know what counts as federal funding?

STUDENT.

LOANS.

That's right: if your institution offers federal student loans, YOU CAN MAKE A TITLE VI COMPLAINT.

And because a Title VI complaint threatens a school's federal funding? They do NOT fuck around with them. They won't always be able to tell you the exact action they take (in fact, they'll hardly ever be able to tell you), but they WILL have to take action if your local band of antisemites is posting anti-Israel crap.

And how do you MAKE one? Why, through this extremely handy portal! But your school should also have a process for making one, and if you have a diversity office or something akin to that, you can also have fun freaking them out by walking in and saying, "Hi, I'm here to make a Title VI complaint." Usually this will cause people to get managers. Federal discrimination complaints are a big deal.

DO NOT get bullied out of making your complaint. DO NOT let someone file it for you. Fill out whatever thing there is yourself, and let them know you've done so. And get a copy if you can.

iliothermia

The Morning After

nonbinaryjudean

Several years ago I saw this post on here that was originally the OP talking about Simon and Garfunkel and said “it’s so funny how Simon is like the name of a normal dude and Garfunkel is like the name of a little goblin man” and it became really good commentary on antisemitism and the fact that these two Jewish men, in this context, represent the erasure of assimilation versus the dehumanization of stereotypes. I can’t find that post but I think about it a lot.

woman-respecter

only vaguely related but i’m sorry you’ve activated my unskippable cutscene

the more things change the more they stay the same i guess… also worth noting that afaik garfunkel, along with streisand, was one of the first jewish americans in the industry to use their very jewy last name instead of a stage name.

all this is to say that, while i think a bit of joking about garfunkel’s name is ok (hell nobody is more guilty of this than paul simon lol) i would appreciate it if gentiles would be careful with how they talk about certain things. at the same time, these days i see people being like “NEVER say anything about garfunkel’s name” while also posting blood libel the next day bc that’s the state of the internet rn so it’s really not the biggest fish to fry.

volgin

every holocaust memorial day, i always ask people to keep romani people in their thoughts, but this year i’d like to clear up some misconceptions that i see every year w/ a psa

romani people are not white. we’re south asian (from northern india), and each subgroup has a unique racial makeup of asian/white/etc, in different amounts. this is also why we vary wildly in physical appearance/skintone

we still face oppression. what we face, especially in europe, can still be constituted as attempted genocide, as we’re forced to live in hazardous conditions or to give away our children, be sterilized, etc just for the crime of being roma

the ‘g slur’ isn’t just an american issue. the reason some european roma prefer the slur is because, in many countries, there is no term for roma that isn’t a slur, and it’s either the g slur or the literal translation of the n word. i’m romanian, and if you used the slur in my hometown, you’d get slapped, since we just use ‘roma’.

we live in every continent across the world. some of the largest romani populations exist in south america, predominantly in brazil. they are no more and no less roma than their european counterparts, and they, like romani in asia, africa, etc all face unique challenges and oppression.

we’re the largest ethnic minority in europe, and yet have almost no political power, no land ownership power (in some places, we’re forbidden from owning land entirely), etc. with very few reputable charities- a lot of us reject charity by principle, as well as there being a general lack of education about us- the best thing you can do to help romani people is to just spread information, and help individuals when you can.

jewish-privilege

Today, August 2, 2020, is Rroma Holocaust Memorial Day. On this day in 1944, 2,897 Rromani people were killed in the Z*geunerfamilienlager, or G*psy family camp, in the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. We remember them.

itbitesthehand

I mean this in the nicest possible way but

It’s not just them. It is them, but it’s not just them. Gorja want every excuse to forget us and our pain. Please show them the numbers, because we can’t show them their names. Remember them, the 2,897, but don’t ever let the 200,000-500,000 estimated people who were also murdered be forgotten.

Today, 2nd August 2023, is Roma Holocaust Memorial Day. Please remember them all.

weirdpinkandmagical

Here’s the screenshot excerpts, from a Centre for Holocaust Education article entitled “The Porajmos: The Nazi Genocide Forgotten by the world”:

Today marks the 78th anniversary of the liquidation of the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Camp) at Auschwitz. A day when 2,897 Roma and Sinti men, women and children were murdered in the gas chambers of the Auschwitz extermination camp.

It is also a day when we remember the hundreds of thousands of Roma who were murdered or died of starvation or disease in other concentration camps across Europe. Many more were imprisoned, used as forced labour or subject to forced sterilisation and medical experimentation.

…

The murder of the Roma is often described as Nazi Germany’s “forgotten” genocide, that is why it is important that we acknowledge that as many as half the Roma population of Europe was erased from existence.

(Bolded emphasis mine)

Article link

shofarsogood

The reason August 2nd is used is because it marks the “liquidation” of the camp. They murdered everyone who was left. A lot had been sent to other camps on death marches, but this was specifically a day for “let’s kill as many human beings as fast as possible.”

Yes, 2,897 isn’t a lot compared to the millions who died, but it’s the ruthlessness with which they were murdered that makes it notable.

tuulikki

This is summing up a complex topic with a lot of moving pieces, but I think it’s fair to say that surviving Jews confronting the Anglo-European world with the fact of the murder of 6 million Jews forced that world to admit that maybe antisemitism could be carried too far. (But it didn’t even induce Germans to take down medieval Judensau art, so the moral soul-searching had hard limits of #HeritageNotHate)

There was no such reckoning in Europe about Roma and Sinti people.

The West German government fundamentally agreed with the Nazi premise that Roma and Sinti were “criminals,” so it wasn’t that the Nazis were wrong, they just went too far. Excessive. Distasteful. Unfortunate. But not incorrect.

The East German government had a similar perspective and it only granted recognition and compensation to people who could muster documentary evidence and submit paperwork establishing that they were “victims of fascism.” That category was intended to frame the Nazi persecutions as ideological, with the ideal victim a communist hero engaged in armed resistance. This bureaucratic category purposely erased nasty bourgeois divisive categories like ethnicity. German Jews struggled to get recognition. Think how much worse it was for Roma and Sinti people navigating a hostile bureaucracy that thought everything about their traditional way of life was 1.) an impediment to revolution, 2.) essentially criminal.

And truly, the Allies did not fight to liberate the camps. It’s not that they didn’t know about the camps. All the protests of American Jews weren’t sufficient to induce the Allies to bomb the gas chambers or even bomb the train tracks to the camps. Jews fought for recognition and for whatever reckoning there’s been—and given the amount of Holocaust denial and misinformation out there, I’m not sure it’s been a success. There are fewer Roma and Sinti people, they were less “assimilated” into the economy, and they didn’t have an emancipated population safely on another continent. Yes, it was smaller, but every barrier has been in place to impede the Porajmos’ place in historical memory because the perpetrating cultures did not care about any memory unless absolutely forced to.

I also mentioned this yesterday, but the USC Shoah Foundation collected witness testimony interviews with Holocaust survivors of many backgrounds (Jews, people with disabilities, gay men, political prisoners, etc.), including hundreds of Roma and Sinti survivors. I think it’s really important to listen to them.

meowzel-tov

ik he mentions israel at the end please dont derail this post tho-

OLDEST SYNAGOGUE IN JAPAN!!!

nonbinaryjudean

"Looking Jewish"

a collage i made of a ton of photos of Jews past and present. our beautiful faces.

I have made other photo collages like this, might share them

notaplaceofhonour

burning with anger reading accounts of the 1929 Hebron massacre and then hearing people say shit like “everyone lived in peace in Palestine before 1948!”

iswearbyalltheflowers

(x)

iswearbyalltheflowers

undeadcrimson

You need to love Jewish people and make them feel like their presence is wanted and appreciated instead of threatening and uncomfortable. Btw

personalmoshiakh

reading about jewish history is depressing bc it’s like this endless cycle of, “we were doing okay for a bit and even managed to partially integrate, but the political climate changed and we’re once again heavily persecuted if not outright murdered. ce la vie!”

personalmoshiakh

i want gentiles to understand that Diaspora jews are getting squirrely rn bc we’ve been through this before and we can Tell the current period of relative acceptance is ending and we’re in for some shit.

infiniteglitterfall

this is from 2019

gingerswagfreckles

You can tell it’s from 2019 because it has more than 300 notes.

sole-e-acqua

jewish-microwave-laser

jews looking for (low rent! high quality!) housing in chicago please dm me. i'm looking for two roommates. must be okay with a dog and a cat, 4 bed 2 bath, private porch and big back yard. rent less than $400/month, part of moishe house so you'll need a background check but i think as long as you're honest about anything that might come up there'd be no issue they just wanna make sure you wont kill the other residents ig

jewish-microwave-laser

bumping this again because we are officially getting shut down if we dont get at least one confirmed roommate by sept 1 and if that happens then we'll have to move or our rent will double

mariacallous

The mayor has shrugged off criticism over his anti-Israel politics. But backlash for excluding Jewish lawyers from a key judicial committee

knight-of-skyloft

“The suggestion that there would be any decision-making motivated by religion, it does bother me,” Mamdani told reporters on Wednesday. “This is a city that is beautiful because of the breadth of diversity of those who call it home, and that includes the Jewish community across the five boroughs.”

aka "how dare you call me antisemitic I'm literally nice"

Mamdani forcefully denied suggestions that religion played any role in assembling legal experts for the committee. “I did not ask for the religion of each of the person that was put forward,” he said on Wednesday.

aka "I don't see religion I just hired the best people for the job and it's not my fault if that includes zero Jews by sheer coincidence"

mariacallous

I would almost potentially buy his argument if we weren't talking about not only lawyers but NY-based lawyers. You either have to be actively weeding out (or your staff ) or the list of potential people is not only pre-determined but incredibly intentional.

I just also don't understand the ostensible level of surprise every time something like this comes up. There have been so many unforced errors, it's like intentionally walking into rakes at this point.

chutzpahchesed

also I just want to mention how he yet again defines “Jewish” solely as a religion - this is a constant for him, and it undermines the fact of Jewish ethnicity and peoplehood.