Passover Haggadah from Germany, written by Abraham Sofer in 1756

By reciting the Haggadah, Jews give their children a sense of connectedness to Jews throughout the world and to the Jewish people throughout time.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt"l, The Chief Rabbi’s Haggadah (Essays), p. 2

Due to a protest at my college, Hillel had to move tonight’s Seder to a secret location and have barred last-minute registrations.

I signed up in time to go, but I’m disappointed that some people who want to go may not be able to. I really wish this was an event that could be more open to students who may have been on the fence about going.

The fact that Hillel has to hide the location of a Passover Seder is horrifying to me.

"The notion of Palestine being Arab emerges, really, only in the 60s. because... what did Israelis do? the colonial era is over; the Ottoman Empire is gone, finally the British are gone, and the Jewish people finally, having outlived all these empires, going back to the Roman Empire, finally restore their sovereignty. What do they do? they do what every self-respecting people in history did when the colonial people were gone- they call the country by their name, right? so Siam becomes Thailand, and the Gold Coast becomes Ghana, and Palestine becomes Israel because Palestine was the colonial name and Israel is the original, indigenous name.

Once the Jews call the land Israel... in order to present the Jews as foreign, [...] thieves, interlopers, Arabs began to hijack the name Palestine, to say, actually we are Palestine, whereas previously everyone understood it was Jews. and I love it, because sometimes you see on the internet, oh look Palestine existed, and they show, like, the Palestine football team and if you look closely all the names are like [...] all Jewish [...] because this was the Jewish football team of the Jewish state in the making, and the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra was the orchestra of Jewish exiles that became the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. So, this is a classis [...] hijacking of the Arabs of something that was very Jewish, in order to present the Jews as thieves, rather than the original owners."

-Einat Wilf (source)

recipes i'm going to make this pesach:

sweet & sour braised roast (i've a kalakel cut so that is what i'll be using)

olive oil mashed potatoes

apple matzah kugel

... and the leftovers on these will keep us fed the whole time, basically, as it's just my partner + me. but i'm also planning to make

matzah "chilquiles" one day for breakfast :)

and moroccan paprika fish because i cherish my once a week fish allowance during pregnancy like nothing else.

Woman baking Matzah, Bukhara, Uzbekistan, 2004

whatever I eat the week before pesach is between me and g-d

Happy Pesach wherever you are and however you sat it! Our unique cultural traditions are beautiful and worth celebrating!

A German silver Seder plate, early 20th century

The centre embossed with Hebrew blessings, the sides with scenes of the sacrifice of Isaac, Moses, King David, King Solomon, Aaron, the Five Rabbis of Bnei Brak surrounded by fruit.

"What is hateful to you, do not do to others, the rest is commentary, go and study"

Hillel the Elder

"Then when G-d asks [Cain], ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ he arrogantly responds, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?' In essence, the entire Bible is written as an affirmative response to this question."

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin

welcome home 💙

tomorrow i will have the honor of being a mikveh & hatafat dam brit witness for a transwoman's conversion and i just wanted to affirm for people that yes, trans people can certainly be accepted in jewish community -- not just reform, either, as in this specific case it is a conservative conversion. ❤️

the rabbi called me this afternoon to request me a second time -- so i will also have the honor of being a mikveh attendant for a disabled person to ensure their safety & wellbeing during the process! ❤️

tomorrow i will have the honor of being a mikveh & hatafat dam brit witness for a transwoman's conversion and i just wanted to affirm for people that yes, trans people can certainly be accepted in jewish community -- not just reform, either, as in this specific case it is a conservative conversion. ❤️

tomorrow i will have the honor of being a mikveh & hatafat dam brit witness for a transwoman's conversion and i just wanted to affirm for people that yes, trans people can certainly be accepted in jewish community -- not just reform, either, as in this specific case it is a conservative conversion. ❤️

I am not ashamed to be Jewish.

I am sad that some in our community are. I wish you weren’t. I wish that you could see the value and beauty and joy of being Jewish. I wish that you did not feel survivor’s guilt. I wish that you had not been swayed to internalize the logic of collective punishment that tells you that you must feel shame for things you did not do and have no control over.

We deserve to see ourselves, not with the eyes of our oppressors, but those who love us. I hope you will learn to see yourself and your people that way—not with shame & self-loathing but love & pride in who you are 💙

i had a question about the religion vs tribal post u reblogged earlier. does this mean converts dont have to be particularly religious? or can converts only convert if they want like. the full religious experience (i am wording this very poorly my apologies) like. can someone convert if they want to simply be a jew, and not just because of the religious aspects? idk

the tldr is no, jews by choice don't have to meet any certain level of religious observance to maintain their jewish status post-mikveh. once they've been approved by a beit din and immersed in a mikveh, they are unquestionably jewish.

that being said, i got a little over excited and wrote up a whole thing about the process and legality of jewish conversion so buckle up buttercups.

the process of conversion is long, usually at least one full year, and supervised by a rabbi. the conversion student meets with their sponsoring rabbi throughout the year so the rabbi can monitor their progress and education, assess their motivations and character, offer them guidance and support, and finally to determine when/if they are ready to go before a beit din and complete their conversion. this isn't something the conversion student requests, it's something that can only be approved by their sponsoring rabbi.

the process and expectations, along with what's considered a valid or halachic conversion, differ depending on which community the conversion student is petitioning to join. for example, most orthodox and conservative communities still require circumcision or hatafat dam brit in order for a conversion to be valid while reform and reconstructionist do not. the standards for what it means to commit to living a jewish life will also be different depending on the community. someone who converts with a sephardic rabbi may follow different rabbinic rulings than someone who converted with an ashkenazi rabbi.

once the sponsoring rabbi has determined that the conversion student is genuine and is ready to complete conversion, the conversion student will appear before a beit din which consists of three jews who are educated in jewish law, at least one of whom must be a rabbi. (usually all three are rabbis, but i've been on two beit dins and am definitely not a rabbi.) the beit din then determines if the conversion student is sincere, knowledgeable, and making this decision of their own free will. they may ask the convert some questions to determine their basic knowledge of jewish law, ask the convert to tell them about their journey to judaism and why they want to become jewish, and will very often ask if the convert is fully prepared to join a historically oppressed people. i have been on two beit dins and one question i've asked both times is if they have a support system to help them navigate their new identity and the discrimination they're very likely to face. the crux of the beit din is "do you know what you're getting yourself into?"

if the beit din determines that the convert is not ready, they will turn them away. usually, this means they'll try again in the future, but sometimes the person decides that conversion is not for them. that being said, since the sponsoring rabbi has to determine first if you're ready for the beit din, it's very rare for someone to be turned away at that point. (though my rabbi has some very....odd stories about people who have put on an act for years to convert, only to go on and on about jesus to the beit din. needless to say those people are expeditiously sent away.)

if the answer is yes, the convert will then immerse in a ritual bath called a mikveh. most often people will go to an indoor mikveh, but sometimes converts will opt for a lake, river, ocean, etc. that's deemed acceptable. after they leave the mikveh, they are jewish. they've received their "jewish citizenship" and their status as a member of the jewish people cannot be questioned. (with the caveat that different communities don't always accept conversions from other communities, and there are some that don't accept conversion at all. and of course, just because something is a violation of jewish law doesn't mean people don't still do it. there is still a lot of anti-convert rhetoric within the jewish community that we have to reckon with.)

once someone becomes jewish, it's up to them the kind of life they want to live. if someone underwent an orthodox conversion, it's probably because they wanted to live an orthodox jewish life so it's unlikely they will leave the mikveh and never set foot in a synagogue again, especially considering for orthodox conversion it's generally expected that by the time you go before a beit din you have been living an orthodox jewish life and live in an orthodox jewish community for at least a year. that being said, if they did decide to adjust their observance or find they prefer a different community, or even if they decided they no longer wanted to be observant at all, they would still be jewish according to jewish law. the only time the semantics would change is if they converted to a different religion, in which case most communities would consider them a jewish apostate. if someone converted through a non orthodox community and wanted to join an orthodox jewish community, they would have to undergo an orthodox conversion.

conversion to judaism is compared to naturalization a lot because it's very similar. you go through a process, prove you are ready to be a citizen and are knowledgeable about the country you're petitioning to be a citizen of, then once you gain your citizenship it cannot be revoked, including if you break the law. if you gain your american citizenship under the expectations that you will respect the laws of the land, then run 10 red lights, you're still an american citizen you're just a citizen with 10 traffic tickets. similarly, in my opinion, if you gain your "jewish citizenship" under the expectation that you will follow the laws of the community, then eat a plate of bacon, you're still a jew you're just a jew who has violated halacha. if we wouldn't revoke the jewish status of someone who was born to a jewish family for eating a plate of bacon, i would argue it's similarly inappropriate to try to revoke the jewish status of someone who converted for eating a plate of bacon.

however, there have been instances where a conversion has been retroactively deemed invalid. however, there was, in true jewish fashion, much debate about what could invalidate a conversion. in this essay submitted to and accepted by the rabbinic counsel, the determination was made that if the conversion in question was obtained by deceit and the rabbi and beit din did their due diligence in determining the motives of the conversion student, the conversion can be deemed invalid. if the conversion was obtained by deceit and the rabbi and beit din did not do their due diligence, the conversion remains valid, regardless of the motivations and deceit.

something i see mentioned a lot when it comes to conversion and observance after conversion is the argument that if someone takes on the commandments during their conversion then doesn't follow them, or they are pursuing conversion only to gain and/or weaponize jewish identity, they are deceiving the beit din and therefore their conversion should be invalid. i get the logic, but i also agree with what the above essay has to say. the responsibility lies with the rabbi and beit din to determine the motivations of the convert. the moral failure of deceit can be attributed to the convert, but the legal responsibility still lies with the rabbi and beit din. we can question all day long why someone would want to convert if they aren't going to do x, y, and z, but at the end of the day if a rabbi and beit din have supervised and approved their conversion, it's a done deal. their conversion cannot be revoked by a court of public opinion.

it's something that i think is very difficult to grapple with because i don't think any of us want someone to lie their way into our community. given our history of persecution, i think it's understandable how scary that could be. that being said, conversion is not an issue of morals but of jewish law, so in conclusion of this essay no one asked for, i think that it's not the responsibility of the community at large to determine if someone's conversion is valid or to question they way they live their life. that opens the door to a sort of mob justice that jews by choice already have to deal with constantly. it's the responsibility of the sponsoring rabbi and beit din to determine if the person seeking conversion is a good candidate.

conflating diaspora jews with the actions of the israeli government is not okay, yes, but have you considered it's not okay to conflate israeli jews with them either