✡ ♥ ✡ ♥ ✡

hello! you can call me lee or molly. :) feel free to ask me anything but disclaimer: I am not an expert, pls ask your rabbi about serious issues <3 21, USA. she/they. this is a sideblog to post my feelings/reflections/any resources i find relating to conversion. wish me luck! ♡

[kajdaldjslkajdkl]

“I slept, but my heart was awake.”

— Song of Songs 5:2

[rhiannonmcgavin]

we performed at a jewish day camp the other day and there was this GREAT mural by a kid artist, check out these righteous puppies

[yiddishthetic]

The tomb of Daniel in Shusha, Persia / Susa, Iran.

[ofskfe]

Ketubot (Jewish marriage contracts) from Herat, Balkh, and Kabul, Afghanistan.

[yvesdot]

Today is Purim! If you haven’t heard of this minor Jewish holiday, now is your chance to get in on the fun. One of just two holidays (the other is Hanukkah!) Rabbinically-decreed, as opposed to coming directly from the text of the Torah, Purim isn’t one of the most important holidays– but if we made Hanukkah reasonably well-known, we ought to do the same with one of the most fascinating stories in Jewish culture.

The Purim story covers one woman (and her uncle)’s quest to save the Jews from imminent doom. This featuring of a primary female heroine, as well as some truly iconic lines, makes it my favorite Biblical story, and a beautifully unique one.

If you’re into lesser-known mythos, niche Biblical stories, or women, you should go read it now, either on the Wikipedia link above or with this Chabad.org link which contains the original text of all ten chapters translated with commentary (”Show Rashi”.) Simple 20-minute read. You can also hear it read in the original Hebrew on YouTube.

I’d really like to give Purim a little more coverage in mainstream circles. I could go into its uniqueness all day, but we don’t have all day– so I’ll leave you with the Wikipedia and Chabad links, and you can learn what you like.

[hiddurmitzvah]

משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה

“As soon as Adar begins, increase in joy!” 

[kajdaldjslkajdkl]

Apologies for the long absence. I miss this blog a lot.

Chag Purim Sameach!!!

[neshamama]

palestine sampler, 1901, punchwork embroidery, unknown artist

[jewish-tutter]

yes...this does interest me ...mazel tov monty

[jewishtransition]

Studying the Torah can be of great help on our path to realization. After all, what is Torah? It is life transformed into sacred text! It is sacred not because it was transmitted to us by an external Divinity, but because of the intention that went into writing it. Studying Torah is like studying our lives, and in treating it as sacred we treat our lives as sacred and begin to live that way.

Rabbi Jeff Roth, “Me, Myself, & God; A Theology of Mindfulness” (via jewishtransition)

[beismordechai]

“The Hebrew word for ark, “Teivah”, also means “word.” When G‑d says (to Noah), “Come into the ark,” He is also saying: Enter into the words of prayer and Torah study; there you will find a sanctuary of wisdom, meaning and holiness amidst the raging floodwaters of life.“

The Baal Shem Tov (via beismordechai)

[hiddurmitzvah]

In hebrew the word I (אני) and nothing (אין) contains the same letters. I found it an interesting idea, that only the order makes the difference between “me” and the “nothingness”, so I made this drawing with the two words.

[progressivejudaism]

brilliant

[kajdaldjslkajdkl]

I'm really happy I've been working super hard on my Hebrew and I understand the alphabet and can write out words properly without having to look up the letters! I know it's a really small thing but I've never studied another language and this is really important to me and I'm just so excited

Hey!! I’m sorry for the late response. 

You sent this a while ago so I’m sure you’ve progressed even further by now, but I’m so happy you felt so proud and excited!! Being comfortable with a different writing system is definitely no small accomplishment and I hope you keep celebrating things like this along the way. :)

[ofskfe]

Patronato Synagogue in Havana, Cuba. (x, x)

[kajdaldjslkajdkl]

Hi! I just discovered your blog and i liked it. If you dont mind, which branch of judaism you are converting? Just wondering, i absolutely dont judge! :)

Hi! Apologies for the (super) late response. :)

Almost definitely Reform, but some Reconstructionist ideas appeal to me too. 

[kalifornyer]

Would you mind sending me some Yiddish resources? I've been trying to learn for a while, but haven't been able to find much good

okay i don’t want to overwhelm you with things so here just a few things to get you started with…

1. yiddishpop is a great online language learning program and a very good starting place

2. once you get comfortable reading yiddish, reading the yiddish daily forward online is a great way to practice reading. if you dont know a word, click on it twice and a definition will pop up. 

3. the world of yiddish online dictionaries. the best place to go is verterbukh which is a searchable online version of the beinfeld bochner dictionary, which is the most comprehensive. it’s not free, unless you can get it through a library which you’re a member of. or you can pay. another good place to look is this dictionary

4. here’s a useful link dump of yiddish resources from the university of kentucky

zol zayn mit mazel un zayt gezunt khevre!

[emoyouth]

Yiddish-English Dictionary:

http://www.lexilogos.com/english/yiddish_dictionary.htm

Learning Yiddish:

http://mylanguages.org/learn_yiddish.php

http://yiddish.biz

Yiddish Books as PDF:

http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/jd/nav/index/all

https://sites.google.com/site/mendeledervaylik/library

https://archive.org/details/nationalyiddishbookcenter

https://sites.google.com/site/onlineyiddishresources/

Yiddish Newspapers:

http://yiddish.forward.com

yiddish-periodicals.huji.ac.il

Yiddish Poetry:

http://www.yiddishpoetry.org

http://yiddish.haifa.ac.il/Stories.html (as PDF and MP3)

Miscellaneous:

http://yiddish-sources.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/yiddishbookcenter/videos

[sniper-at-the-gates-of-heaven]

meir gal, nine out of four hundred: the west and the rest (1997)

the artist holds up the official textbook of jewish history used in israeli schools, by the only 9 pages which refer to jewish history from asia and africa. “these books helped establish a consciousness that the history of the jewish people took place in eastern europe and that mizrahim have no history worthy of remembering.” read his statement here.

[jewish-archives-blog]

Indian Jewish synagogues of India.

Saccath Shelomo synagogue, Poona, India

Beth El synagogue, Rewdana, India

Shar Ha Shamayim synagogue, Thane, India

Ohel David/Red (Lal Deval) synagogue, Poona, India

Mikva of Shar Ha Shamayim synagogue, Thane, India

Interior of Ohel David/Red (Lal Deval) synagogue, Poona, India