some salted Judaism

she/her 28 light in Kashrut

[mildly-kosher]

[tzamanafshi]

The Ezrat Nashim Database

Mapping women's spaces in synagogues around the world

Hey frumblr! JOFA has a new project so you can know what the women's sections are like at a shul, which could be very helpful if you're moving somewhere or visiting. It currently assesses the size of the women's section compared to the men's section, and a star ranking of how well you can see and hear. I haven't put in any rankings yet but there's one I want to put in where the size is decent compared to the men but you have no idea what on earth is going on in the men's section, and the #$@#$@ shul calls itself Modox.

[magnetothemagnificent]

This is so cool!

[wouldyoueatthisfood]

Would you eat this?

I would eat this

I would not eat this

I have eaten this (positive)

I have eaten this (negative)

Remaining time: 5 days 19 hours

Food: matzo toffee bark

Ingredients: matzo sheets, dark brown sugar, butter, vanilla extract, salt, bittersweet chocolate chips, flaky salt

[yuriinullification]

topless mahjong is gonna be the next big thing

[dj-of-the-coven]

More Jewish music in honor of Jewish Heritage month -- this track is an energetic cover of "Im Ninalu", a folk song. Sung by Oshrat Haim.

[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

[koshercosplay]

you now have THIS jewish superpower

but it comes with THIS side effect

is it still worth it?

absolutely yes!

this will suck but it's still worth it

hm probably not

the side effect makes it totally not worth it

Voting ended onMay 20

based on this post

(if they cancel each other out, spin again)

[mildly-kosher]

Without doxxing myself, there is a synoguge no longer in use in the northern part of my state and its now a cultural center. I'm thinking of going up there and camping and doing a tour. If you were a jewish adult would you be interested in car camping and going to the synagogue?

would you car camp and go to a rural no longer in use synoguge that's only 3 hour drive away?

yes

no

yes but not by myself

3 opinions 2 jews/vanilla extract

Voting ended onMay 13

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

What's the second Bund other than the Labour Bund?

German American Bund. They were Nazis. Literally Nazis, they operated in the 1930s with discreet backing from Berlin, and were outlawed after the US entered the war. They held rallies, issued propaganda, ran training camps, etc. etc. There was a big rally at Madison Square Garden where their leader called the president "Frank D. Rosenfeld" and his signature legislation the "Jew Deal." I think they also harassed German American organizations that had the gall to not be Nazis. Fucking fascists, man.

Hilariously, they did get the shit kicked out of them by angry Jews...specifically, Jewish mobsters. The Jewish mafia organized attacks on Bund gatherings with great relish, sometimes in coordination with more legitimate members of the community.

[mildly-kosher]

Maybe we need to bring back the jewish mafia.

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

We do not need to bring back the Jewish mafia, but I do think we should seriously consider self-defense organizations

[mildly-kosher]

Look if there is a local chapter of Lox and Loaded

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

What's the second Bund other than the Labour Bund?

German American Bund. They were Nazis. Literally Nazis, they operated in the 1930s with discreet backing from Berlin, and were outlawed after the US entered the war. They held rallies, issued propaganda, ran training camps, etc. etc. There was a big rally at Madison Square Garden where their leader called the president "Frank D. Rosenfeld" and his signature legislation the "Jew Deal." I think they also harassed German American organizations that had the gall to not be Nazis. Fucking fascists, man.

Hilariously, they did get the shit kicked out of them by angry Jews...specifically, Jewish mobsters. The Jewish mafia organized attacks on Bund gatherings with great relish, sometimes in coordination with more legitimate members of the community.

[mildly-kosher]

Maybe we need to bring back the jewish mafia.

[chutzpahchesed]

💙🕯🕯

sketchpad_on_tour

[wherever-you-are-is-your-derech]

Watched this amazing interview with Dara Horn and Haviv Rettig Gur on antisemitism, and at the end (1:01:34) she drops her definition of antisemitism. It's been rewiring my brain and now I want to interject in all sorts of conversations with it.

We do not teach it as this is a social prejudice/bigotry... we teach it as a lie that people use to gain or maintain power. And the lie is always the same. The lie is: Jews are the obstacle to what you value most. And the only thing that changes in different historical settings is what you value most.

The whole conversation is recommendable, but if you only watch ~5 minutes, watch from 56:58 onward, IMO.

[mildly-kosher]

Why isn't Hebrew/Sunday school taught during the summer. Everyone tells me it's because of the parents vacation, but with younger kids often needing daycare in the summer wouldn't it be better to offer it during the summer and during the school year only once a week?

And tbh like I can't take the whole summer off to be with my kids for vacay.

Then around 12 kids vacant choose their level of involvement.

It really seems like we are not setting ourselves up for success to make kids go to Hebrew school only during the secular school calendar and then no involvement at all during the summer.

Like we also offer it on Sundays but then we complain about adults not being at services during shabbat. Maybe other synogues this wouldn't work but for Reform why can't we have summer sessions with some breaks for camp, Saturday classes so parents come to shul and when they get older still have Wed night classes?

[emptydragonseverywhere]

Imagine if your mom, whom you have a very loving relationship with, handed you and your siblings a book of poetry she wrote specifically for her children before she passed. So you and your siblings, who love and miss your mom and desire to be closer to her, spend hours every day reading the poems and discussing them and annotating them and making notes in the margins. Eventually, you collectively start another notebook just to write down thoughts and interpretations and disagreements you have about what your mom meant by this one line that you and your sister can't agree on. And then there's another notebook of stories that you and your siblings wrote based on the lessons you've learned from the poems. You find meaning in the meanings and you live by the poems and notebooks and still you and your family continue to read them and notate them and expand on them years and years later because your mom wrote these for you, damnit, and you never want to stop actively engaging with them lest you lose her forever.

And then someone who read a totally different version of your moms poems that were heavily edited by a bunch of people who never even knew your mom or her relationship with her children comes along and says you're wrong about the poems. They say you're trying to avoid doing what your mom wanted you to do because one poem says to "go down the river" but you and your siblings didn't grab a raft and go floating down the nearest creek. But your version says "flow like the river," not "go down," and you and your siblings agreed she meant to be flexible in life. Then another person who read a different heavily-edited version of the poems comes along and gets mad that you don't walk around with your arms up above your head all the time since one poem says "reach for the sky." But you know your mom really loved Toy Story and was making an allusion to Woody's voice box, you and your siblings have like 10 pages in the notebook where you already talked about this, and it makes sense given the same poem says "to infinity and beyond" a few lines later (but the stranger's version took that line out). Eventually, the heavily edited versions of your mom's poems are everywhere, nearly everyone has read them, and now you and your whole family are treated like naughty, malicious children who are trying to avoid doing the chores your mom left for you.

When you, as gentiles, tell Jews we're "tricking" G-d, you're the person insisting we go down the river on a raft or literally reach our hands up towards the sky. We are not trying to trick G-d or get out of doing what we're supposed to do. We're working with the text G-d gave us, gave us as in a gift that is ours to do with as we wish now. The Torah is not in heaven, it is here on Earth and we love and cherish it enough to spend millennia pouring over it and learning all of the ins and outs and applicabilities and options and interpretations. We've turned over every phrase, every word, every letter, and continue to do so every day because that is how we connect with G-d, our history, and our people.

Thinking Jews are inherently tricksy/are trying to trick G-d and/or other humans is antisemitic, full stop. Just because you don't understand why we do what we do doesn't mean we're acting in bad faith and assuming we're acting in bad faith is antisemitic. If you don't get it, just ask us or look it up on myjewishlearning instead of falling back on and perpetuating age-old antisemitic tropes.

[jewish-hot-takes]

I’m honestly so extremely over having to pretend that Reform, Conservative, etc are valid movements. They aren’t. It isn’t Judaism. There may be some Jews in the movements, but the movements aren’t Jewish and the “converts” aren’t Halachically Jewish. If you don’t want to keep Jewish law, don’t convert to the “keeping Jewish law” religion. If you want to pick and choose how you keep Jewish law, don’t convert to the “keeping Jewish law” religion. If you think Jewish law isn’t binding, don’t convert to the “keeping Jewish law” religion! I’m so over it. Orthodoxy (a term Conservative and Reform Jews have placed on us, by the way!) is simply the framework in which Jewish law eternally binding and unchanging…aka Judaism. Creating a whole new religion where Jewish law isn’t binding or is able to be changed as you please is not Judaism, it’s a whole new religion masquerading as Jewish. Please stop acting like contracts can just be amended by one party without the consent of the other party.

This is going to piss a lot of people off but sorry I don’t know what to tell you. You went the route of essentially going to a non-accredited university and now you’re mad that your useless degree can’t get you into law school. 🤷‍♀️

..

[jewishgay4il]

anon i assure you orthodoxy did not exist 200 years ago the way you think it did lmao

[diamondsandphoenixfire]

Per the Talmud, conversion necessitates only:

mikveh,

brit milah as applicable,

a sacrifice while the Temple stands (not currently) and

learning / motivation / beit din (bundling these because the beit din judges learning and motivation so they’re kind of inextricable).

Therefore, halachically, converts who undergo these steps are fully Jewish.

Non-Orthodox converts do this.

They are fully, halachically Jewish.

End of.

Per Halacha at least.

Orthodoxy has added its own reinterpretations. And I’m not opposed to new interpretation in general, I believe that each generation adds to our knowledge, we learn more and improve, etc etc, but to pretend that Orthodoxy is More Authentic or somehow Unchanged is asinine.

Examples:

the Talmud specifically accepts conversion for the purposes of marriage (Yevamot 24b:6), whereas Orthodox Jewish groups today do not

the Talmud does not say you have to send your children to Jewish as opposed to public schools in order to be a valid convert but Orthodox Jewish groups today do

Charedi clothes are not ancient Israelite clothes. They were not wearing fur hats and black coats in ancient Judea.

the Talmud also indicates that many people had pretty limited Jewish knowledge immediately post conversion, indicating that the Orthodox practice of only converting people once they are up to community standards is novel

And again, I don’t think it’s wrong that Orthodoxy has its own interpretations of Halacha, just as Reform and Conservative do. We are one people but we are not automatons who always think and feel and need the same things. Someone needed to figure out how to navigate electricity, airplanes, IVF, chemotherapy, and other things that did not exist in Talmudic times.

Just generally, I think that every person on earth would benefit from sitting awhile with the concept of “with very few exceptions, everyone always thinks they’re right.” That’s just being a person. Most people don’t wake up in the morning and go “you know what? I’m going to be a bad person.” Or “I’m going to do Judaism wrong.” Definitely people do that. But we all think we’re right. We’re all only human.

Anyway, Nonnie, if YOU want to cut YOURSELF off from us, I can’t stop you but… We all think we’re right. You’re not special for that. 

[silly-jewish-vents]

I'm just a lil shocked. Where the hell is this hate of reform and conservative Judaism coming from. Have you (anon) even done any research into their thought process because the more I learn the more I admire. Besides its not like the first time there were schisms in Jewish thought and Practice.

Hillel and Shammai are like a literal blatant example of this.

Take a deep breath in and out. Reform and Conservative Judaism are just as legit as Orthodoxy and there are some shit that sections of Orthodoxy does that I can promise you was not actually done 200 years ago (because it started out as a response to the Holocaust or like the rise of electricity).

Also like just because someone is Conservative or reform doesn't mean they don't keep Halacha at all. Plenty are more religious than some Orthodox Jews that I know.

If you wanna cut yourself off from other Jews I can't stop you. But I refuse to condone denying reform and conservative jews as part of my family.

[faggotry-enjoyer]

the framework in which Jewish law eternally binding and unchanging…aka Judaism.

Jewish law has never been unchanging. Even going back to pre-rabbinic Judaism, we can see changes in the law within the Torah. For example:

Exodus 21

2 If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall work for six years, and in the seventh he shall go free, without payment. 3 If he came by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he had a wife, his wife shall go with him. 4 If his master gave him a wife, and she bore him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master [i.e., the slave-owner], and he [the slave] shall go by himself. 5 And if the slave sincerely says, "I love my master and my wife and my children; I don't wish to go free," 6 then his master shall bring him before God [i.e., a temple; or perhaps, "before judges"--i.e., to a court of law], and he will bring him to the door or the doorpost. His master shall then pierce his ear with an awl; and he [the slave] will work for him [the master] forever. 7 If a man sells his daughter to be a slave, she shall not go free as a male slave goes free. [There follows a separate set of laws, according to which a female slave may not request freedom, but may be set free if her master dislikes her; she may not be sold to an outsider.]

Deuteronomy 15

12 If your brother, a Hebrew, is sold to you, whether a male or a female, he will work for you for six years. In the seventh year, you shall set him free. 13 And when you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed. 14 Be sure to apportion to him some of what comes from your flock and your threshing floor and your wine-vat. You shall give to him that with which God had blessed you. 15 You should remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and God rescued you. Therefore I command you this thing today. 16 But if he says to you, "I do not wish to go away from you," because he loves you and your house and enjoys being with you, 17 then you shall take the awl and put it through his ear into the door; and he will be your slave forever. You shall also do this for your female slave. 18 Do not let yourself feel severe when you set him free: for six years he worked for you twice as hard as a hired man would have. HaShem your God will bless you in all you do.

It's very clear that the passage from Deuteronomy is referencing the older law from Exodus: both passages concern treatment of a fellow Hebrew slave, and both are centered on the core idea of working for six years and freedom on the seventh, with the option to forego that freedom if desired. Perhaps most crucially, both contain the ritual of piercing the ear with an awl at the doorpost in the case that a slave wishes to remain. That's very specific; it certainly didn't evolve independently twice within Israelite culture. The Deuteronomic author was almost certainly reading a copy of the law from Exodus; at the very least, they were familiar with the ideas it contained.

And they make changes to it. The law now applies to both men and women. One can no longer release a slave directly into poverty, you have to free them with the materials to restart their life. It is no longer stated that a freed slave must leave his wife and children behind if he married during enslavement, and the fact that women must also be freed allows room for the implication that the whole family should be allowed to go together. Deuteronomy introduced the idea that there can only be one temple in one set location, so Exodus's assumption that one could easily get to a temple no longer holds. The ritual of piercing the ear with an awl is thus adapted to take place at the doorpost of one's own home, where being "before God" can now be represented through the mezuzah.

Besides the concrete changes in law, there's also a dramatic shift in perspective and tone. The Exodus law clearly favors the slaveowner. In the very first sentence, the slaveowner is the subject, who is buying the slave. The law is built in such a way as to increase the odds that a slave will "want" to stay. By being freed with nothing and returning to his farm after 6 whole years away, he will need to immediately take on debt to get the seed and possibly equipment to start farming again--and of course, debt is probably what brought him into slavery in the first place, so there's a very real risk that he'll stay in that cycle and end up enslaved again anyway. All after being separated from his family! By contrast, Deuteronomy favors the slave. In the first sentence, the slave is the subject, and he is referred to as your brother, forcing the reader to foreground his experience as important. By being freed with the materials to restart his life, and likely having his family with him, he is much less likely to choose to stay as the "less bad" option. It's much more humane.

But the Deuteronomic author faces a challenge: everyone is already following the Exodus law, and if slaveowners are acting in their own economic self-interest, they'll probably prefer the old version. So Deuteronomy attempts to persuade, not merely state the law. The author repeats that the law now also applies to women, placing emphasis and ensuring that the earlier "male or female" cannot be written off as a scribal error. They reassure the slaveowner that they still benefited from slavery, and that God will bless them for following this version of the law. They refer to the slave as "your brother" and invoke the Israelite's founding myth of having been enslaved in Egypt, providing reasoning for the change.

And this kind of thing has shown up again and again in Jewish law for millennia. The Mishnah is unusual in the way it only states the law--and it's not long until the Gemara steps in to add that reasoning. When you read a teshuvah, it doesn't just contain the ruling the rabbis settled on. It includes their reasoning and cites the precedents they're drawing on.

The details of what changed in the laws of slavery between Exodus and Deuteronomy aren't the important part here. Honestly, I probably got a little carried away elaborating on that. The important part is that Jewish law has always been open to change and reinterpretation, even going back as far as when parts of the Torah were still being written. Moving forward in time a bit, the entire premise of Rabbinic Judaism is "how do we adapt our laws to fit our current situation?" The first "current situation" that needed adapting to was, of course, no longer having a temple. But that was far from the last. Today's rabbis adapting halakhah to things like electricity and the internet and modern medicine are engaging in the same process as the earliest rabbis adapting halakhah to the destruction of the temple and living in exile. Today's rabbis asserting egalitarianism, asserting that women can read from the Torah and lead services and become rabbis, are engaging in the same process as the author of Deuteronomy amending the laws in Exodus to free a female slave as well as a male one.

[prof-grace-aspen]

The Orthodox movement was a reaction to the Reform movement, which Anon doesn’t seem aware of. Orthodox tradition is literally younger than Reform Judaism.

[kittyoverlord]

People are already clowning on this anon (rightly so), and as someone working on integrating into an Orthodox community, one of my biggest pet peeves is Orthodox Jews acting like their one way of observing halacha is the one right way. There are so many differences just between different Orthodox traditions on what is considered kosher as one example.

I think every Jewish movement could be better at respecting eachother's traditions. I know Orthodoxy gets the most flak for being exclusionary (rightly so), but I have also faced issues in Reform spaces who paint every Orthodox Jew as backwards zealots who are holding the Jewish world back. There are plenty of people (like myself) who feel called to certain traditional practices, and are also working to combat the bigotry that is present in the Orthodox community. (also, one of the most transphobic interactions I ever had was with a Reform Jew, so they're not perfect.)

I think it's amazing that there are so many different Jewish movements so that people can find the space that works best for them. We don't need to be fighting eachother. Especially when we should be united against the wave of antisemitism coming for us all.

[yidzeitbabey]

I dont disagree with what you are saying generally but I do not think it is relevant to the conversation? The core issue, as shown by the anon, is that a section of jews are actively attacking and delegitimizing another. And not in a small scale, few shitty individuals being bullies way. But in a legally enforceable way:

Progressive Jews sound alarm over bill cementing Orthodox control of Western Wall

Diaspora leaders warn criminalizing non-Orthodox prayer at the Wall will exclude many from Judaism's holiest site, violate World Zionist Org

The concern isnt about if a reform rabbi was transphobic one time or something. It is about overtly cutting out whole sections of the tribe. I certainly do not think that reform/reconstruction/conservative branches are acting in an equally unacceptable manner on this topic. As a whole, there is no attempt from these other branches to strip orthodox jews of their jewishness. Theres no attempt from these other branches to invalidate orthodox marriages, or conversions. Theres no attempts from these branches to segregate orthodox burials. Theres no attempt to remove orthodox access to the Kotel.

Chief rabbi says it doesn’t matter if Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life is a synagogue

David Lau says it's clear victims were killed because they were Jews in a 'place of clear Jewish character,' adds: 'I have a deep ideologica

This behavior, refusal to accept jews as jews, is only happening in one direction and this anon is a glaring spotlight on that precise issue. I think it does a great disservice to approach this conversation as ´All Sides Are Bad´. There are bad actors on all sides, but only one has legal authority and is actively attempting to use it.

[maimonideznuts]

Inter-branch discord is so meaningless at the best of times, let alone at a time of rising Jew hatred and anti-jewish violence around the world.

It doesn't matter what type of Jew we are. If they come for you in the morning, they will come for me by the afternoon. So we had better start behaving like we're all in this together.

Regarding this

[televisionetcetera]

favorite image of all time