we as a community - and i mean all of us, from haredi yeshiva grads to secular “jew-ish” folks - need to confront and deal with our internalized antisemitism. i know the phrase “self hating jew” has been basically distilled into a meme at this point but it originated from the very real phenomenon of jews assimilating so heavily they turned on their own community. until we unpack that baggage, we’re not going to make progress.

I'm lowkey sick of queer goyim

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I think JCCs should be Jewish again. I don't care what level of observance, but they need to be explicitly for Jews again.

Why is it that the JCC near where I live has most of its membership be gentiles? It's gotten so bad that Jews don't feel safe at JCCs.

My visibly Jewish brother got asked very rudely by a gentile member "why are you here?" As if a Jewish teen would be out of place in a *Jewish* Community Center.

The JCC near me literally removes its basketball nets every Saturday because they don't want the Orthodox kids to play basketball there on Shabbat. It's a massive issue.

I get it, the economy is fucked, but if you pander to gentiles and actively make your space unsafe for Jews, you shouldn't call yourself a Jewish Community Center.

I've been mulling this over a lot, as I consider what it means going forward trying to connect with leftist goyim and collaborate on shared causes.

I have two standards, now.

1) Is this person reliable as a leftist for whatever cause I'm concerned about?

2) Is this person actually safe for me as a Jew, and are they reliable as an ally to Jews?

Call this the 07/10 test: where were they on October 7th, and how did they react in the immediate moment? The aftermath?

Some of you, I don't trust. I don't. You might be right about other stuff, useful to organize with, and even have profound insights on other issues. But a lot of you have breathed in the antisemitism of your culture since birth and you don't give a damn about understanding it or changing how you interact with us.

In the same way that one might fairly ask themselves where that nice hometown boy they went to high school was on Jan. 6th, Jews will always have to ask where any particular given leftist was and what they were saying on Oct. 7th.

goyim who say that "antizionism is not antisemitic", or believes all jews have to be vehemently antizionist, are absolutely antisemitic. I'm talking about the original, true definition of zionism (the jewish right to self determination) and not political/revisionist zionism used by the israeli government. i hate what the israeli government has turned zionism into and even though revisionist zionism is technically a real form of zionism i think it makes a joke out of the other branches bc it throws a lot of core ideals out of the window. zionism is about building a safe place for jews in eretz israel, not trying to conquer as much shit as possible.

if a goy thinks jews have to antizionist then that alienates a huge part of the community. most jews i know are zionists to varying degrees. we believe we have a right to our ancestral homeland, and that we are allowed to connect to the history we have in israel regardless of where we live. I may be wrong about most jews being zionists! I'm sephardic and i interact mostly with other sephardim and some mizrahim. However, most jews are ashkenazim and im not close enough with any of them to know their opinions on zionism or im not aware that they are ashkenazi.

goyim cannot be against a sizable chunk of the jewish population without being antisemitic. it sounds ridiculous to say "i support this group but only if they disagree with that core belief that many of them have!" in order to talk about jewish people from an outside perspective then goys need to learn what defines us.

there's also two main options when a goy believes jews must be antizionist. they either know the true definition of zionism or they have no fucking clue what it actually is (yet still think they do). in the first case, theyre clearly against an important belief of jewish ppl, which as I said before, is antisemitic. in the second one, they are speaking for the jewish community without learning our history, which is also antisemitic. you cannot make decisions for a community you are not part of ESPECIALLY if you dont know shit about them.

it is very, very important that goyim learn about the jews before saying shit about us. expecting us to be against our right to self determination is complete fuckery. believing that we all have to agree on a complex topic is laughable. debate and arguments are a crucial part of our lives, and goyim should not attempt to take that away from us. we can't fuckin agree on what to flavor our rice with sometimes, much less an issue as complex as zionism. even though a lot of jews are zionists we still have our own unique opinions that may differ greatly from other zionists. we also recognize that antizionist jews are valid and they tend to feel the same about us.

zionism is simply our right to self determination and our right to be connected to israel, whether its an emotional connection or we actually live there. i also firmly believe in everyone's right to self determination, including palestine. i don't think that jews are the only ones who deserve that right. all groups that have been displaced or are currently being displaced are allowed to connect to their homeland however they wish. it doesn't matter if the displacement was yesterday or a thousand years ago.

if you're jewish id love to hear your opinion on this. if you're a goy, please sit back and listen. it is not your place to decide how jews should interpret our own history.

i’ve been seeing jewish people who say Lilith is open. Also what if someone’s referring to pop culture Lilith in their eclectic neoreligion as I often see in these spaces? not that i’ve seen that, but i’ve seen people in spiritual pop culture spaces tie characters to historic entities maybe out of association or affection, idk. personal most likely. but what about when the figure is like Lilith? idk im confused

Hi. So, first off, there will always always be someone within a closed culture telling you that it's open*. And, even if a ton of Jews say they don't care, there will always be just as many or more begging you** to stay away from our closed culture that we've been killed and raped and genocided for trying to practice for thousands of years. If you only listen to the Jews that say what you want to hear, and don't listen to anyone else, it means you don't actually care about Jews and only about what you want. Think about how, by interacting with Judaism, a non-Jew gets to have all the fun they want and go unharmed, while even just a few days ago a Jew was stabbed in the street just because he answered "yes" when asked if he was a Jew.

Secondly, these pop-culture versions of Lilith are an example of part of a culture being stolen, erased, and turned into an empty vessel for entertainment. This has actually happened an extreme amount of times with endless amounts of highly sacred Jewish ideas. Also, there's a big difference between pop-culture figures just happening to have the name "Lilith" and actually trying to be Lilith. It would still not be okay to interact with the Kabbalah just because it appears in your favorite comic book, or interact with a figure from any other closed practice just because they were also in a comic book.

If a figure is "like" Lilith, I mean, I'm not sure what you mean (but I will answer this in the next paragraph). Goyim*** who work with her seem to consistently do so because she was the "first wife of Adam who defied Gd". And that's a problem because that's not even the true story. They're taking that narrative from an old Jewish work (the Alphabet of Ben Sirach) that was meant to be a joke, which literally talks about farting and pissing in its other stories. It says Lilith was mad pretty literally because she couldn't be "on top of Adam". And yes, that is the exact origin of that "Lilith was the first woman" story. When you look at actual Jewish (most often Ashkenazi) folklore and Jewish texts, Lilith was never a human being. She was, first, not even one entity, but a category of baby-killing and raping demons. Then she became a singular entity who was the personification of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. So, right off the bat, everything they worship about Lilith comes from their fundamental misunderstanding of what Lilith even is. This stems from the fact that they are not Jewish and will be making these incorrect and ignorant assumptions, therefore continuing to erase actual Jewish ideas and proving a million times over that people working with cultures closed to them will consistently get everything about them wrong because they don't understand a culture that was never theirs.

If someone wants to work with a hot sexy feminist demon or other dark figure that actually stands for female liberation, just go to open practices! Look at Lamia, or Inanna, or Ereshkigal, or Nyx, or Rashoon, or Tezrian, or Delepitoré. Those all actually fit what they think they're getting in Lilith, those are "like" this idea of Lilith that people have and are open. But they go after Lilith anyway, just because they hate being given a boundary and told that they just shouldn't touch a culture that is not theirs.

* In my experience, Jews (who say Lilith is open) whom I have interacted with have, in every instance, not actually known the true story of Lilith or were fully educated on her actual narrative. Not saying they don't exist, but this is my experience, and I think that says something.

** I'm using "you" here a lot but I'm not specifically accusing you of anything. I'm using "you" to denote non-Jewish Lilith appropriators.

*** "Goy"/"goyim" is a Yiddish word for non-Jews.

hey, gentile here. just came across this post of yours and, first of all- it's SUPERB. it showed me a perspective on being a jewish ally that i really wouldn't ever have considered by myself, made me more confident in my choice to put combating jew-hatred above the friendships I've recently lost, and gave me a really useful direction on where to go as an ally to jewish people onwards. that being said, there's a few details about it I'd like to press you about, if it's not too much trouble.

this point is probably worthy of an eyeroll as i'm a culturally christian atheist (making a concious effort to not be *that* kind of atheist), but: when you refer to G-d as the creator of all things, you stress that that includes evil- but that, in so doing, G-d is not evil themself. now, I'm asking this with the express purpose of you correcting me, so: why does this G-d- as a G-d fundamentally distinct from the Christian conception of God as a Super-Mega-Ultra-Perfect God Who Can Do No Wrong Ever- create evil? i, personally, have been led to believe by @/spacelazarwolf that it is simply because G-d, too, makes mistakes just like any human being, but the way you worded it in this paragraph (which I've included as a screenshot below) had me interpret G-d creating evil as a concious, intentional action. did i just not read it correctly? and, if i didn't, then is the reason G-d creates evil part of this central struggle you went in detail into in the same paragraph, and as such, a very individual part of Jewish belief that no two jews agree on? and if that is so, would you be comfortable with sharing your version of it?

a few paragraphs after that one, you dedicated many words to make it absolutely crystal clear that, in the process of unlearning and combating jew-hatred in the society around me, i should, in spite of the vitriol that they propagate, love the former friends i lost to antisemitism. how- and *why* should i love the people who, on an early october 8th morning, actively celebrated the news of a massacre of Israeli civilians? who mocked- and still mock- the survivors and the families of hostages? who wield the memory of the holocaust as a baton against Jewish people's right to self defense? who deify terror groups who are up to their necks in atrocities? who make an active effort to spit on the face of *reality?* How could i possibly look at the face of a friend who chose allegiance to a terrorist group she did not even know existed four months ago over me- who she had actively interacted with for much longer?

would you rather we called ourselves "gentiles" or "goyim?" I've been calling myself a gentile for the longest time because i see jamming a word from a language i don't speak at all in an otherwise english sentence to be disrespectful and constitute appropriation, but you and other jumblr blogs have given me the impression that that is not the case. furthermore- i believe it was @/bambahalva who pointed out the usage of the word "gentile" in antisemitic segregation policies.

that is all- i hope this message finds you well. oh, yeah one more thing- what do you think of The Forward news network? i came across them by chance and next thing i knew I'd gotten into their newsletter.

WARNING: I HAVE FINISHED WRITING THIS AND IT'S LONGER THAN I EXPECTED AND ALSO MORE JEWISH THAN I EXPECTED LOL! I have done the most Jewish possible thing I could do and answered all of your questions with questions. I'm sorrryyyyyy! This is what happens when you grow up surrounded by rabbis and future rabbis! LMAOO

Oooh! What a good ask! I love this ask. OK, so! Let's go in order.

First of all, thank you so much for your kind words. And thanking you for backing your words with the action of prioritizing kindness over hatred. It matters. More than I can ever explain. Thank you.

You know, it's funny. People ask me a lot of questions about i/p that they think will have simple and straightforward answers that just don't. And I end up writing a lot of essays because of this. The questions you wrote me seem like they should be complex, but feel relatively straightforward to me.

Now, to your first bullet point: I don't know. I truly do not know. I think that G-d is fundamentally just...G-d, and in so being, G-d is truly unknowable to me. I think many Jews have many different interpretations on why G-d creates evil. I'm no rabbi, but one of my BFFs is and so is her mother and great grandfather. That doesn't give me any kind of authority. It just means I've spent a lot of time thinking about theological questions like this. As for my perspective, I'm a progressive/reform Jew, not a humanistic Jew. I do actually believe in G-d, but I vibe with the community philosophies of Humanistic Judaism a lot. So that's the perspective I'm coming from here:

I'm not a particular fan of the Book of Job, because I think it gets twisted and interpreted in Christian ways more than most Hebrew books and it can too easily be twisted into a "Don't question G-d, because G-d is perfect" narrative that I find to be fundamentally at odds with how I practice Judaism. Also, it's just a very sad story about how a good and kind man lost everything, and it makes me sad to think about. HOWEVER, that traditional "Don't question G-d" narrative is not how I learned to think about that book. The way I learned it, I believe the Book of Job describes this issue most explicitly. After Job loses everything he holds dear and talks to all his friends and begs again and again "Why? Why did G-d do this to me? Why would G-d do this to me when I'm a good person?" And basically G-d hears everyone answering for G-d with various reasons, "Maybe you were bad." "Maybe you should make an offering" Maybe this. Maybe that. And eventually G-d responds from within a storm (paraphrased of course) 'Why the fuck do you think it's your business to know? I made the whole universe! I made everything you see. I made the world that gave you your family in your first place. Why do you think you get to question my motives?'

The way I always interpreted that is: I don't fricking know! It's not really my business. What am I gonna do? Stop G-d? How does my knowing why G-d creates evil help anything? It doesn't mean we don't question G-d. It means we should instead focus on what we CAN control. I can't make 10/7/2023 not happen any more than I could stop The Holocaust or form an ocean. That's divine business, not human business. What I CAN do is make the world better now. What use is it challenging things that we cannot change? Things that are in the past? What's the point of asking why bad things happen when we can instead focus on stopping more bad things from happening. G-d named us his people when Abraham fought with G-d to stop the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham repeatedly asked, "But are you sure? But what if there are 100 good people? 50 good people? 10 good people?" And G-d kept responding, basically, 'I mean, there aren't. I know this cuz of how I'm G-d and know all the things. But knock yourself out looking.' My interpretation of this was that G-d doesn't get mad when we do our utmost to help our fellow human beings. G-d gets mad when we waste our energy that we could be using to help our fellow man to instead be angry and rage futilely against the past. I say this as someone with PTSD as someone who attempted to stop a tragedy from occuring and failed and can never understand why. What informs my trauma and what makes it so hard to get past isn't that G-d allowed it to happen. It's that people did. It's that I begged for help before it happened--over and over and over to dozens of adults in various positions of authority in order to prevent this terrible thing from happening (no, I will not now or ever disclose what that thing is). And all the people who could have helped failed me, and now two people are dead. Because someone did an evil, evil thing. And a bunch of other people let it happen. I'm not mad at G-d. I'm mad at people. And yet, I also know that hating people and finding reasons to dismiss them and despise them is what leads to more tragedies like that happening. So, despite my rage, truly the only thing to do is to love people. It's the only that helps. It's the only thing that repairs the world. It's the only thing that we can control. So, in short, my answer to "Why does G-d create evil?" is "Why should I spend my valuable time on earth trying to answer that question when, instead, I can spend that same exact amount of time asking millions of people, 'How can I help? What's wrong, and how can I help make any part of it better?'?" We don't need to understand G-d to make the world a better place. I'm fine leaving G-d stuff to G-d and spending my time on the human stuff.

Now, your second bullet point. Love their souls. You don't have to love what they've done. But they are human beings, as are we all. I think this can also easily be twisted into the Christian framework of "Hate the sin, love the sinner," but that's not what I mean at all. People's evil deeds are a part of them. They need to take responsibility. There is no divine absolution for crimes that people do unto each other in Judaism. If you harm a person, G-d cannot forgive you for that. Only the person or people you harmed can forgive you. And to a certain degree, we are all defined by our actions toward others. And so, no. I do not forgive the terrorists who woke up and decided to kill a bunch of Israelis and Israeli-adjacent humans. I do not forgive those who celebrate the deaths of Israelis because of some misguided sense of justice. I do not forgive the people who continue to send me hatred and death threats day after day after day after day. And I do not love the parts of them that did and do those horrible, unforgivable things. But my goodness. They were babies once. They either had parents who love(d) them, which is so sad, because they have this life of love and they chose instead to fill it with so much hate. Or they didn't have any parents or loved ones or anyone to guide them and, my goodness. That is so sad. How terrifying and alone that must feel. Maybe they have friends and family who love them and are instead wasting their precious time on this planet directing their energy at raging against me and 15 million other Jews they've never met. Or maybe they don't have anyone who loves them and they think that hating me and harming me will bring them some sense of purpose and joy. What a horrid way to live.

My Grandpa died last year. I have a wonderful family for whom I'm very grateful, and I even have good memories with my Grandpa. But he was not a good person. He came from an abusive home, and weaponized that abuse on his loved ones until he drove them all away. He was a narcissist. Not in the pop psychology sense. But in the actual clinical sense. He ruined every relationship that ever mattered to him--personal and professional. And in the end, because of his own actions, he died alone. He had pushed everyone so far (often with legal threats and action) that when he died, he laid on a slab for weeks because nobody could figure out who to call, because he had no one left. (For reference, Jewish burials are supposed to happen rather quickly and two weeks is...not good.) He was the only person in his generation who was not born in Israel--my family on his side has lived in Israel since looooong before even the British Mandate and he was the only person in his family born and raised in the US. As far as we can tell, the family on that side has been in Israel for as long as Jews have existed. He was religious. And while I've never been to Israel or met any of my family there, he did go. And he kept in touch with his relatives there before driving them away too. He was a wealthy man, but convinced himself that everyone only wanted him for his money and then decided to horde it instead. He left nothing to his children or to me. He left all his money in an endowment to his university--a place that uses that money to fund anti-Israel organizations now. He died alone, without his family that lived nearby, and with a legacy that will now cause active harm to the family that lived far away. He could have died surrounded by the loved ones from around the world who wanted nothing more than to be near him and loved by him. His story is a tragedy. The story of every person who chooses hatred over love is a tragedy. The story of someone who woke up and chose to murder others or to delight in the death of others is a tragedy. I love the soul in the center of these people. I loved my grandfather. I could not be around him. I cannot forgive some of the things he said and did. But I love the person he could have been. I love the part of him that gave me some good memories. I love the family he gave to me.

No, we do not all need to love or forgive those who have wronged us or terrorized us or murdered our loved ones. But that is different from mourning a human soul. From loving the potential of a human soul to do good in the world, and mourning the loss of that soul and its potential. Every human being--every single one no matter what they have done in their lives--has the potential to create goodness and make the world a better place. Every moment of every single day is a new chance to meet that challenge and do our best. Sure, not all of us have it in us to try our best every single moment. Sometimes life is hard and we're sad and tired and hungry and angry. And that's ok, because we have tomorrow, and an hour from now, and a minute from now. But the moment someone chooses to take action and decides that action should be to cause another harm or celebrate the harm that was caused? That's a tragedy. And when a life is extinguished, that is a life that loses its potential to try again and do better. We shouldn't love people because we deem them worthy of love. We should love people because they are people. And so are we. And how wonderful is that? I could choose to hate them. It would be so easy! But why should I do that? What do I gain? What do they gain? And isn't it so wonderful that I chose to love instead? And isn't it so wonderful that you can, too?

As for your final bullet point: I have no preference. I say goyim cuz it's easier for me. Goy/gentile/non-Jew are all fine to me. I have some icky feelings about the word gentile for a variety of linguistic reasons I won't bore you with. But some other people don't like when non-Jews appropriate Yiddish words. Others (including me) find it wonderful when non-Jews call themselves goyim. All my closest non-Jewish people call themselves goyim, including my sister! Non-jew is the most neutral in English and least likely to offend anyone. But it still separates Jews as an other whereas "goy" is a way to distinguishing yourself from Jews while also being an acknowledgment of our culture. As far as I'm concerned as long as a goy is being a goy (ally, positive) rather than a goy (derogatory) I don't mind that they call themselves goyim. LOL! Idk, friend. Do what makes you happy! What do you prefer?!

Regarding The Forward news network: They are a reliable Left-Center source with a high credibility and reporting rating and only one failed fact check in the past five years for which they issued a correction. I would consider them a reliable source. They cover legitimate issues of people who support Palestinan self-determination ostensibly being punished for their stances. They publish Op-eds critical of Netanyahu, who is terrible. And they address how antisemitism is harming diaspora Jews. They seem to consistently emphasize the humanity of everyone, which you can tell based on the rest of my post is very important to me, but they also avoid over-editorializing on news that is not in the Op-Ed section. I'll never endorse any source as perfect or guaranteed to be free of problems or harm or bad takes, but they do seem to make a genuine effort to be factual, clear, and wholly truthful. Note: I highly recommend that everyone installs the Media Bias/Fact Check extension on their web browsers. Get in the habit of checking and evaluating sources critically. It's a skill that will serve you your whole life.

@clawdia-houyhnhnm I hope this helps. And thank you for your thoughtful ask and commitment to intercultural understanding. <3

Oh so you're one of the pieces of shit reporting me? I figured it was the maga fuckwits or terfs I argue with. But its a fellow jew? Who sells out women for dudes in dresses under the guise of progressivism? 🤡. You know you could just say "don't follow me" rather then being a whiny, cunty baby trying to decide what social media my bisexual socialist jew self gets to use to state opinions backed up with sources that you don't like. I'm honestly amazed that for a blog with library in the name you have such pisspoor reading comprehension and the mindset of a baby 😂

You call yourself a "fellow Jew"--but your response to a post where I was talking about my experience being harassed and traumatized by a Christian missionary was to mock and belittle me, and that's how you treat All your fellow Jews. You're as much a "fellow Jew" as Ben Shapiro or Stephen Miller--i.e. an embarrassment to the family. You don't get to pull the "Fellow Jew" card when you treat Jews and our identity like toilet paper.

And your transphobia, racism, and other bigotries that you proudly display--including your appalling lack of kindness and empathy to school shooting victims--well, you call yourself a socialist, but ideologically you're much closer to one of the Proud Boys.

But as for why I reported you?

Because you won't take a hint. I have as much interest in interacting with you as I have of catching COVID, but no matter how many times I block you, you keep coming back. So there comes a point where I and others have to block you and report you for refusing to accept the message of "go away!"

You're in community-imposed Cherem because you're a Shonde Fir De Goyim, and nobody wants to interact with you outside of your fellow right-wingers.

As for those final insults, I'm honestly just taking them as admissions, like how every accusation from your fellow transphobes turns out to be a confession.

Oh, and reported.

Edit:

"Mindset of a baby" eh? Yup, projection, as I called it.

And I did say "don't follow me" multiple times. The fact that he's on his, what, 12th blog?, shows that he wouldn't respect it.

I go to the local coffee shop by my office every day to get a little treat that makes the hell scape of corporate America almost bearable. The barista who always helps me always wears their Magen David, so we wished each other a happy Hanukkah.

In response, a random ass person in line saw an interaction between 2 Jewish people and thought that it was a perfect opportunity to say "Free Palestine."

To be clear (cause goyim love to put words in my mouth) I am 100% for Palestinian liberation and I am anti apartheid.

But in what fucking universe would that be an appropriate thing to say in response to Jewish people literally fucking existing?

It solidifies for me that a shit ton of people don't give a fuck about Palestinians. They just hate Jews.

Do you mind goys interacting with your posts about Judaism?

if anything seeing goyim be supportive is really uplifting, especially since a lot of them are well... not. I don't mind goyim interacting with my posts about jewish stuff unless they're being antisemitic of course.

Read this before interacting

I decided to set up this blog on things related to Israel/Palestine, religion and so on. Hence, this blog would cover rather controversial topics, especially on antisemitism and Christianity.

Let me introduce myself. I am 23, a Christian from Singapore. Or a goyim, a gentile, as the Jews would say. I don't claim to be from any denomination; my church is not directly affiliated with any. I am not a pastor or anything. Just an ordinary guy, studying civil engineering at the moment. I might make mistakes, but I will be careful to do my research as I make posts on this blog.

This blog is set up after hearing a lot of venting from Jews being slandered by Christians, especially on their role for "killing Jesus". Some even go as far to erase Jesus' Jewish heritage and claim he would support Hamas (spoiler, he wouldn't). Christianity and Judaism have a very complicated relationship. Admittedly Christians in general can get arrogant and think we are the "superior religion", that the Jews are "blind". These are all from rather cursory and simplistic knowledge from the Bible (the bulk of it covers the history of the Jews!), and hence led to such misunderstandings.

This blog aims to address and explore this relationship. I don't wish to take a political stance, nor force people to convert. As much as many try to claim the Gaza war (or Israel/Palestine) isn't about religion, religion is still a driving factor especially as the war rages over what the three Abrahamaic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) regard as the Holy Land. My sympathies lie in both the civilians in Israel and Palestine. Regardless of the circumstances, Israel does not deserve the 7/10 attacks. And the wanton destruction and deaths in Gaza are terrible, but such is the unfortunate reality of war.

I might not post here as often. Discussing the war and the conflict between Israel and Palestine can be very draining. Still, the ask box is always open for any well-meaning questions related to Christianity. Any form of antisemitism or hate towards any religion will not be tolerated and will be blocked.

This site is still under construction, but I'm open to suggestions for a new avatar and background.

I've seen goyim push back against us Jews rightfully telling them they can't learn Kabbalah by saying "b-but learning isn't the same as practicing!!"

Congratulations, you just showed your culturally Christian ass.

In Christianity, practice is only about belief and acts of faith, like praying and attending Church. While Bible study is important, it's not integral to being a Christian. Most Christians don't have a library full of medieval Christian literature.

In Judaism, learning material is *part* of practice. If you walk into the home of a practicing Jew, chances are they will have bookshelves of books, even if they're not Rabbis or educators. Learning Torah is part of practicing Judaism, just as learning Kabbalah is part of practicing Kabbalah. We collect books because books are part of our practice.

In Judaism, learning is a holy act. Before we start learning, we say a special prayer thanking G-d for gifting us His words. In some communities, learning Torah is forbidden on days of mourning like the Shiva period and Christmas Eve, because the holiness of Torah shouldn't interact with the sadness of the time. We also have times when learning Torah is especially meritorious, such as the night of certain holidays and before one's wedding. When we complete our study of a book of Jewish texts, we have a special celebration to commemorate it.

We have a holiday called Simchat Torah where we celebrate completing the reading of the entire Torah scroll all year, and celebrate re-rolling the scroll to the beginning, where we begin reading it from the start all over again. A Torah scroll, on that note, is given immense status. Many times Jews will risk their lives to save Torah scrolls- for example, after the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, Jews risked entering an unstable historic synagogue to rescue the Torah scrolls inside.

And all Jewish texts are treated with care- if a book or text is damaged beyond repair, it can't be thrown out, it must be buried like a human body. On first glance, a mass-printed Tanakh and mass-printed Christian Bible may look similar. Except if a Tanakh is dropped accidentally, it is kissed, and if it's damaged beyond repair, it is buried with full respect. This is because learning is *integral* to Judaism. Studying our texts is integral to our practice. It's not enough to attend synagogue, you must make yourself familiar with the texts.

Learning Kabbalah is practicing Kabbalah, which is why we say that no, goyim shouldn't learn about Kabbalah. Is it not enough that we say it's wrong for you to listen to us? I think part of the reason goyim are so entitled to our texts is because deep down, they believe that we're hiding something in them, and they don't trust us. We're not hiding something, we just have our privacy and our boundaries and you are not entitled to everything.

Intro and Rules

Welcome! I made this blog to help provide Jewish people with joy and happiness. Especially lately, these have been hard times, and everywhere I've seen people express that they feel themselves drowning in so much negativity.

As the name of the blog says, I believe holding space for Simcha, even in dark times, is a very special mitzvah.

This isn't to say you shouldn't feel sad or angry or upset ever. It's normal to sometimes not be able to find joy. So allow yourself to not feel happy all the time, but also allow yourself to be happy sometimes.

About me: I am currently in the process of converting and have been for almost 2 years. So while I'm not technically Jewish yet, I love this community more than I will ever be able to express. I want to make it very clear that I do not speak for the Jewish community as a whole, nor do I claim to. I'm just here to share other people's joyous moments to maybe help others cope with life.

You can call me Simcha, as that is probably the Hebrew name I'm picking. I'm in my 20s, and I'm queer and neurodivergent.

If you need to vent, or are going through a rough time, don't hesitate to visit @jewish-vents instead, a blog similar to this one where Jewish people can vent. Like I said, there is no shame in feeling less pleasant emotions and you're not alone in feeling them.

Rules

This is a space curated specifically for Jewish people. We need a space that is safe and joyful. Goyim/gentiles/non-jews, please respect that and don't try to center yourself here. You can interact respectfully, and show your support by uplifting Jewish voices, not center your own. Unless we decide to change the rules, do not send submissions.

IF YOU'RE JEWISH feel free to send an ask, anonymously or not, about anything happy you might want to share. It can be big or small, as long as it is somewhat related to being Jewish and it makes you happy!

To clarify: when we say submissions should be related to Judaism, it can be just tangentially. Something funny that happened at shul, a recipe your family likes making, a Jewish wedding you went to, a friend who is a good ally. We're not too restrictive here!

If anyone, for any reason, submits something hateful, that is discriminatory to anyone at all or wishing people suffering, you will be BLOCKED and your ask will be DELETED. Yes that works for antisemites, but it also works for anyone coming here expressing happiness for the death or harm of anyone.

If you're submitting something involving other people, please make sure to not give identifying information to avoid doxxing and harassment. We need to be keeping each other safe.

If you want to submit something that for some reason can't be done anonymously, but you still would like it to be, submit it and state IN THE SUBMISSION that you want it to be posted anonymously. I will make a separate post and not mention your identity, and then delete the original.

For the sake of simplicity and anonymity, you are a Jew if you consider yourself a Jew. This includes Jews from any movement, background, color, nationality, patrilineal Jews, people that are still converting, etc. This does NOT include Messianics or Black Hebrew Israelites (not to be confused with just Black Jewish people in general, Jews come in all colors like I said)

I thought that I noticed some hypocrisy and contradiction in your posts but I'm not sure so i would appreciate it if you can clarify things for me bc I don't want to assume the worst. I'm just confused

So basically I feel like you are overly harsh on Christians while being very permissive to (religious) Jews. You act like even progressive Christians are super problematic and not allowed to reblog your posts and wtv, but then you turn around and say that all religious Jews are valid and should be accepted, including conservative and orthodox branches (forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure those are the ones that are very conservative and bigoted). So basically what I'm trying to say is that you seem to put conservative Jews on a higher level than progressive Christians which doesn't make sense to me.

I understand that conservative Christian, progressive Christians and anyone raised Christian pretty much has antisemitism that they have to work through. (I'm an ex Christian goyim atheist and your blog has really made me reconstruct some things which im grateful for btw!) But at the same time, antisemitism is only one bad thing that you can be.

So like to summarize I feel like antisemitism from progressive Christians is enough to make you tell them to dni but other kinds of bigotry like homophobia, transphobia, sexism etc from conservative Jews doesn't stop you from saying their religious is totally fine and acceptable.

Again, this is not an accusation, but more of a question. (Even though I probably phrased it like an attack in sorry!) I don't really know if I analyzed the situation correctly and I would really just want to have a chill interaction with you instead of a heated argument. If you could please explain how exactly you view this issue i would very grateful but you are under no obligation! If you don't feel like explaining yourself to a complete stranger, you are free to just ignore this. Have a meaningful Yom Kippur!

(sorry for the rambling post lol)

i made the mistake of absentmindedly opening the tumblr app on my walk to synagogue and i did not think i could be surprised by gentile fuckery anymore but this has left me pretty speechless. the audacity to send this on yom kippur is. wow. i regret not locking my phone away for 25 hours because fucking YIKES. please come off anon so i can block you because i do not want you interacting with me or any of my content.

hi! I’m not Jewish, my best friend is Jewish and it makes them uncomfortable when people who are not Jewish refer to themselves as “goy” I am curious if this is a broadly held opinion or personal preference, I can understand either way and am fine not saying it regardless but I am curious as to how it’s commonly viewed. don’t answer if you don’t wanna, you’re not obligated to answer questions abt Judaism, just if you have an opinion

hmm, I'd say to each their own, does your friend hate using the word goy in general or do they only hate it when non-jews do it? I'm assuming the latter.

I personally don't have an issue with goys using the word when discussing Jewish stuff (like "as a goy, I think xyz about Jewish topic"), as long as their respectful. I don't really see the need to use the word otherwise, imo it should give a heads up that the opinion is coming from someone who's not Jewish and thus doesn't have the same experiences to see the full picture.

the word also highlights a difference between jews and non-jews so maybe your friend doesn't like it because it alienates them a little? I can see how it can be weird in casual conversations and stuff.

I honestly don't know if it's a commonly held preference, since I'm Israeli and thus lived around a Jewish majority all my life, so i didn't interact with goyim all that often. you can try asking diaspora blogs fir their opinion. thanks for the ask!

Hi there, I first wanted to thank you because I've been trying to find Jewish information on Lilith for years and it's been really hard - though I might just be bad at looking. My shul growing up never really mentioned her much so I didn't know where to even start.

I was wondering about the Jewish feminist reclaimings of Lilith that you've mentioned a few times. Sadly I haven't been able to find them myself (again probably bad at looking) but I was hoping you might be able to point me in the right direction?

The pioneer of all of this is Dr. Judith Plaskow, known as the "first Jewish feminist theologian" (she got her doctorate at Yale, go her!). Plaskow is a wonderful example of someone all for tikkun olam, and stresses the importance of Jewish women's understanding of climate change and support of movements like BLM. She's also a lesbian! **When I have time I will reblog this with sources for the first part of your question.

Her original work reclaiming Lilith appeared in "Four Centuries of Jewish Women’s Spirituality: A Sourcebook", in an essay titled "The Coming of Lilith", published 1992.

This essay later made a reappearance in her 2005 book "The Coming of Lilith: Essays on Feminism, Judaism, and Sexual Ethics", which is an important overall read in understanding her reclamation of Lilith as a whole.

The aforementioned works, however, are far from her most significant or influential, which is often said to be her book "Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective".

She has many other really cool works you should check out, as listed: — Her essay in the anthology "Twice Blessed: On Being Lesbian or Gay and Jewish". — "Goddess and God in the World: Conversations in Embodied Theology" — "Sex, Sin, and Grace"

You should take a look at the Jewish feminist magazine inspired by her, called "Lilith".

The Jewish Women's Archive (which is a super cool source) also has a lesson plan ("Lilith Evolved: Writing Midrash") that revolves around Plaskow's look at Lilith and is a great place to start when it comes to understanding not only Lilith reclaimed, but also women's voices in Judaism as a whole. Plaskow has also authored some articles on the JWA website, and the site itself is one of the best places to learn about her.

I hope this helps! Also, these sources are for Jews ONLY. Goyim can interact respectfully and non-appropriatively. Don't make me turn off reblogs.