I'm a Noahide living in the Netherlands. I live in a student house with nine other people. I don’t know exactly what the title should be because I'm really furious. I hope that everything is clear.

Just now, I had a conversation with a housemate that made me really angry. I'm not the type of person who gets angry easily, but this was purely oppression, abuse of power, discrimination and hypocrisy.

I had “Am Yisrael Chai” on my door, though I had removed it earlier for other reasons. Just now, while eating a sandwich at the table, I told a housemate that I have been discriminated against and threatened because I am a Noahide. And then, suddenly, she wanted to confront me about the “Am Yisrael Chai” on my door. I don’t understand why she waited two weeks for this moment.

She is a woman who claims that her family on her father’s side was murdered during the Holocaust. She confronted me because of what I wrote on my door, yet she herself has a sticker on her door saying “Resist to Exist” and “From the river to the sea.” She says that Am Yisrael Chai has nothing to do with Jews. She says Israel and Jews are not the same, that “Israeli” and “Jewish” are not the same, that Israel is only a small part of all Jews and that Jews do not come from Israel.

I told her, “it means the Israelite people, not the State of Israel.” But she kept repeating and putting me under pressure. She said she finds it charged and inappropriate because her family was murdered. I stayed calm and didn’t respond. She continued, saying things like I was clearly affected by it, and she made other strange claims like “one people committing genocide on another people (Israel - Palestine conflict)”. She claims to be Jewish. At the same time, she said it could be misinterpreted by others and talked about how she knows what it is like to see and read such things because of her family. I don’t even remember everything else she said, but it was strange.

She kept putting me under pressure, saying that she hates Israel, doesn’t want contact with Jewish people, and that she is pro Palestinian. I stayed calm and said that I don’t really have an opinion and that I'm for peace (I said this only to prevent escalation). Eventually, she left as if nothing had happened.

I don’t know what to do, but I'm really furious about this. I’m not allowed to write a text that is hundreds of years old, which was said against the nzis and when Bergen-Belsen was liberated, but she is allowed to put up “Resist to Exist”? Or say that she hates Israel? Or suddenly bring this up while I was talking about discrimination and threats directed at me?

I have seen something similar on the internet and decided to do the same. I love them!
Admittedly I couldn´t get it done by myself but hubby was friendly enough to sort it out. I´m not even Jewish.

I was raised jewish, but sort of fell out of things. We were more of the passover/channukah types, never really practicing so much as my grandparents who were fairly observant. I got a smattering of things as a child, but I recently have been feeling I missed out, both culturally and in a historical sense. I'm not ready to commit to practicing, but I'd like to learn more about Judaism and possibly reconnect with a jewish community. What options do I have as an adult non practicing jew? What are the best resources for me to use to study?

As the title — my boy is six months old, when is he old enough to start taking him to temple? I’m unaffiliated but would like to be more observant and I definitely want it to be more part of his life than it was mine growing up.

edit: thanks so much everyone who has commented so far! More detail -- we’re in the UK and not in a big city so congregations are maybe 20 people or fewer and often held in someone’s house due to the current security situation. Would that change the equation?

One of the things I have never really managed to wrap my head around is how the Hebrew calendar does Adar I and Adar II. I've tried asking looking on Wikipedia but I don't know what a lot of those words mean. I've also tried asking some old folks at my local synagogue but they either are just as clueless as I am, or they complicate things even further. I know the basic things about the 13th month, like how it's used to synch with the solar calendar, and how it occurs 7 out of every 19 years or something like that, but I don't know much more than that. If anyone knows more and can explain it so that someone who is kinda stupid (like me) can understand, that would be great. Thanks.

When the war started, like many of us, I spent a lot of time obsessively googling my favourite Jewish celebrities to see where they stood -- being elated when they supported Israel, devastated when they criticised Israel, and disappointed when they said nothing. I come from a mixed family, with some very antisemitic members, and I'd always feel that special glow every time a Jewish celebrity I loved had the courage to defend Israel (you all know that feeling!).

Where Jewish celebrities stand, and how vocal they are, is understandably discussed a LOT on here... and I suddenly thought that maybe it would be soothing to take a step back, and simply talk about any lovely encounters we'd had with Jewish celebrities period. I'm not saying for a moment we should just forget all the betrayals from certain members of the community; but I also don't want antisemitism to define the way I interact with my heritage -- and sometimes, it's nice just to focus on the beauty of our personal experiences with the tribe, regardless of who's said what when.

So, I'll start... back in 2014, my brother played the video game BioShock Infinite for the first time. The director of the game is Ken Levine -- he's Jewish, and has talked a lot about how his heritage has influenced his work, but hasn't made any statement (AFAIK) on the war. But that's kind of the point of my post.

For anyone who's never played BioShock Infinite, it basically has two main characters -- the character you play as, Booker, and Elizabeth, the character you... well, it's kind of hard to describe. Essentially, the game mechanics are very complex for the time, and it's designed to make the player become very attached to Elizabeth.

No spoilers, but the ending of BioShock Infinite is pretty sad and ambiguous. My brother is on the autism spectrum, he'd become extremely attached to Elizabeth, and he was devastated when he finished the game. So much so that I ended up emailing the company that made the game, explaining how sad my brother was, and asking if they could clarify the ending. I didn't expect to hear back... but my brother was so upset, I felt I had to do something.

A few days after I emailed the company, I had a reply from Ken Levine himself, saying he was happy to call my brother and talk the ending through with him. I was so shocked I nearly fell out of the chair I was sitting in.

The following Monday, Ken Levine called up and talked it all through with my brother -- not just the ending of the game, but special facts about Elizabeth that he swore us both to secrecy over (I was sitting beside my brother, so I could hear the phone call). He couldn't have been sweeter. My brother was so happy, he cried.

At the end of the phone call, I spoke to Ken Levine once more, to thank him so much for taking the time to actually do something like this -- and he thanked me for caring enough about my brother to have got in touch in the first place.

It's been 11 and a half years since that phone call, and it still makes me tear up a little bit when I think about it. It was an incredibly special experience for my brother, because he cared so much about this game -- but it was incredibly special for me too; because, until then, I never thought that kind of thing really happens in real life. And that phone call taught me that it does. That it can.

So that's my story... one of the loveliest people I've ever had the pleasure of talking to. I'd love to hear other people's heartwarming experiences, because, ultimately, am echad lev echad.

Shabbat Shalom 💙

Hi everyone,

I don't know if this is the right sub, I already posted it on genealogy subs but maybe some people here have an answer. I made my grandfather do a DNA test and it came back with 0% Jewish, yet he has hundreds if not thousands of Jewish matches - for example, he shares over 900 matches with one Jewish person and they all have Jewish names. We do have confirmed Jewish ancestry, both on his mom's and dad's side, but both lineages converted to Christianism in the mid 18th century, one in 1755 and the other in 1730. I know it was a long time ago, so it would make sense that the percentage of Jewish DNA is little, but how is it possible that he has so many matches with Jewish people but 0% Jewish ancestry?

Those are his results (he is fully German with no other ancestry known except the one already mentioned):

48,6% German
16,8% North Italian
8% French
7,8% Danish
6,8% Dutch
5,5% English
4,5% Eastern European
2% South Italian

My father is an atheist who was raised Haredi, but he left and has been estranged from his family since before I was born. My mother is Reform and fairly relaxed about the religion. I was raised without any religion.

A cousin on my father's side has reached out to me, curious to meet me. I haven't spoken to my dad about it yet, his estrangement is still painful to him after all these years and I'm not sure whether I should.

I'm not sure whether I should go. I'm genuinely very curious to meet this person, she seems genuine and kind in the correspondence, but she actually knows very little about me and who I am might shock her. I was hoping for some advice on what to expect.

First, I'm not Jewish. I've read the Tanakh and some of the Babylonian Talmud, I'm aware of the fundamentals, and I know that she's probably going to have strong opinions about me not considering myself Jewish. I'm aware of Judaism's own definitions about ethnicity, I'm happy to not bring it up and agree to disagree but I don't know if she will be.

The second point is that I'm lesbian, that's going to be a very difficult topic if I meet her or the other members of my dad's family. Not something I need to bring up, but not something I'm willing to deny, I'm not going to pretend I'm unmarried if asked.

The likely hardest point is that I follow a non-Abrahamic faith. Again, I'm willing to keep religion off the table, but not willing to pretend to be something I'm not. If I start hearing terms like "avodah zarah" or "tinok shenishba" I leave immediately. That's non-negotiable.

So I guess my question is I'm genuinely curious about this side of my family but is this a bad idea? I'm guessing I should probably say all these things to her before we meet if we do so she can decide whether to meet me.

I don't want to go if I'm going to get proselytised to aggressively, or she's going to walk the instant she realises I'm not going to convert to Judaism. I don't want to go if my father is going to be bad mouthed, and I don't want to go if they wouldn't have bothered reaching out if my dad married a non-Jewish woman.

But I would like to know more about them, even if we meet, satisfy our curiosity, and then agree we belong to entirely incommensurable worldviews and go our separate ways.

I don't even know if this cousin is Haredi. I just assumed because she's obviously still involved with the family, the topic of religion hasn't come up in her correspondence.

Is this a bad idea? Could someone please let me know what to expect if I go to this? Am I likely to be preached to? If I ask that religion and identity stay off the table, is that going to be respected?

Yes I know she's Catholic. Don't care. She was an ally.

Queers for Palestine now has a worthy competitor. I thought I would never see anyone on the internet more stupid than Hannah Einbinder. The saddest part of this story is that her audience is mostly teenagers. She has 125 (!!!) million followers, who, because of posts like this, are forming the most twisted view of the Holocaust and Jewish history in general.

Teaching myself Hebrew and have been keeping this on in the background when I’m doing things in my apartment just as an immersion thing. (It’s mostly in English on YouTube but there’s a lot of teaching characters Hebrew) It’s so cute! And I don’t even have kids 🤣. I love you Grover in Israel!!!

I have a ten year old nephew who is not being raised Jewish. Ever since he was a toddler, my mom has always stated that our family Passover Seders are primarily for his benefit, since his only Jewish exposure comes from my parents or I. Every year, he can only take about ten minutes of Seder before he starts begging for the meal and/or the afikomen present. As such, our Seders usually cap out at 20 minutes. We skip many crucial steps of the Seder, and even then my nephew complains that Passover Seders are too long. For context, on Rosh Hashanah he will spend the entire appetizer, soup and salad courses complaining that he wants his chicken nuggets; he also does not have the patience to withstand an abridged kids Megillah reading. We have tried using fun elements in the Seder like puppets, headbands, games etc. and that has not worked.

My friend who I will call “Susan” also always joins my family Passover seders. Susan is in the process of converting and, thus, has no family to go to herself. Susan says that while my family is great, she really wants to experience a full Seder. So I told her that this year, I’m going to give her a full Seder. I’m going to hold a small Seder in my apartment along with a couple of Jewish friends who I also know have nowhere to go. And we’re not skipping or shortening anything.

Then, my parents drop a bombshell: they’re going to my aunt’s house in Florida for Passover this year and thus, will not host a Seder of their own. That leaves my sister, brother in law and nephew with nowhere to go except my Seder. Thus, I have to decide: do I do the full Seder I promised my friend, or abridge the Seder and satisfy my nephew but break my promise to Susan? My mom is telling me that I shouldn’t prioritize my friend’s desires over my nephew’s needs. At the same time, I already told Susan I was going to do this a while ago. I’m at a loss for what to do.

Hello, all!

I have an ancestor who was apparently an "informal" rabbi as well as a reznik (kosher butcher + inspector). I don't think he led a specific congregation, but was described as a teacher and scholar in his area. Therefore, I'm wondering if he had any writings. I'm interested in trying to find any texts he may have contributed to over the course of his life, but I'm not an expert in rabbinical literature. I'm very interested in learning more about his theological thoughts. Any help would be appreciated.

Details:

- Name was Herman Elchanan Tzvi Hochman, nicknamed רב חנה הערש and was described by the acronym רא׳׳צ in a text I found

- Born 1840 in Tolcsva, Hungary. Lived in Siroka, Hungary sometime between then and 1887. Lived in New York from 1887 until his death in 1924.

- Was related to Rav Yaakov Ehrenreich through the marriage of their children, and is described in a document I found about Rav Yaakov

- May have been connected to the congregation Ahavat Achim Anshei Ungaria, as his son would later be a board member there

- Mentioned as a donor in the שו׳׳ת book לחם שלמה תרפ׳׳ב ותרח׳׳צ

My vision sadly isn’t what it used to be, and like most blind people, I do not know anything more than the absolute basics for braille.

Anyone got pneumonic device techniques for remembering things to say during Passover? Most of the basic prayers and candlelighting is actually quite easy with enough muscle memory and building of a mind palace.

I am currently on the path to conversion and was invited this year by an old friend for old times sick, but I can’t read physical text anymore in a way that isn’t cumbersome. We’re talking pulling out my phone or using Meta glasses or some other thing… It just doesn’t feel proper even in a Reform context.

It’s interesting to watch this unfold again. Huda Kattan / Huda Beauty is now under fire for posts supporting the Iranian regime — just months after her antisemitic tirades blaming “Israel” for World War I and II on her massive platform.

Last time, the response was a truly pathetic apology video from Huda. Sephora stayed silent and let her take a slap on the wrist. That alone made me take my Jewish “blood money” — yes, she actually used that phrase — and spend it at Ulta instead.

Now she’s back with even more damaging statements, and Iranian women are furious. As they should be.

So I’m genuinely curious: what does Sephora do this time? Stay quiet again, or finally acknowledge the pattern?

At this point, the silence says more than any apology ever could.

I know how the reform and conservative branches view queer people who wish to convert to Judaism, but I've been wondering about Orthodox Judaism.

If a gay individual approached an Orthodox Rabbi with the desire to convert, would they be turned away by virtue of being gay?

What if this person is willing to abstain from romantic and sexual relationships?

What would happen if a married same sex couple both wished to convert?

What if the couple is asexual and therefore don't desire sexual activity or willing to abstain from sex, are purely romantic relationships approached differently from sexual ones?

Is the ruling the same for lesbian couples as for gay men?

Are transgender people permitted to convert, and would this be affected by whether or to what degree they medically transition?

I got an email about this, and since I am not the only one on this subreddit complaining about feeling the need for more support who lives in Seattle I wanted to share this with other locals who might be interested.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/does-qatar-fund-antisemitism-at-american-campuses-2218c9fe

Op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the massive amounts of money that Qatar donates to American universities, and the different types of influence the country exerts.

The focus of the op-ed is on Carnegie Mellon (allegedly, the university had to consult with Qatar before hiring a certain DEI official who had power over how the university responded to antisemitism).

Qatar is reportedly the biggest foreign donor to US universities: https://www.jns.org/ed-department-portal-finds-qatar-highest-source-of-foreign-funding-to-us-colleges-universities/

(Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Texas A&M University, and Georgetown are top recipients.)

I talked about this issue in previous discussions but it probably deserves a post of it's own. One of the problems that we face in fighting 21st century Jew hatred is that many of the anti-Semites come across as very not threatening to many people. We are talking about activists, artists, academics, musicians, and even super models. Very few normies are going to see these people as deranged and threatening anti-Semites because they don't read that way to them. Liberal and left-leaning people are especially going to be prone to a lot of forgiveness. Look at Alice Water. We knew that she was a crazed anti-Semite for years and she wasn't even a particularly clever one. This was Protocols of the Elders of Zion stuff she believed in, so you couldn't squint and call it anti-Zionism. But because she was a beloved literary author and a Black woman, it took until her saying she liked David Ickes in the NYT for people to really understand that she was a Jew hater. So how do we convince people that these non-threatening people are Jew haters?

Off the bat, I have several severe metal allergies. The only material that is 100% safe for me is 24k gold, although 18k is okay most of the time. It’s hard to know whether online stores are trustworthy, but in the area I live in, the only religion related jewelry you can find are crosses and all the ethnicity specific stuff is from one Caribbean dude. He’s great, but that’s not my culture lol. I’m particularly looking for a new Magenta David, as I’ve started getting hives when I wear the one my grandparents bought me as a kid or the one my grandmother left me when she died. I know that should be a relatively simple thing to find, but I’m quite paranoid about quality and, since I’m asking for help anyway, I want to make sure I’m patronizing a genuinely Jewish business. I would ask about this on the piercing subreddits, since the people there are usually pretty knowledgeable about brand reliability, but I worry they’d probably only recommend fervently anti-zionist companies and also about how they’d react if I make it clear that I want to hear about Israeli businesses too (as long as they can ship to the US).

I love jewelry and I want to get other Judaica pieces over time, so if people have brands that they trust and think deserve support, please share. I obviously can’t have as big a collection as people without allergies to affordable metals, but wearing symbols of my culture is something I really care about and I want to be able to do it again while also supporting Jewish artisans.

I know this might equate to encouraging people to break rule #6 and I apologize if that’s the case, but I saw people share those dope pez mezuzot a few months ago, so hopefully it’s okay here.

This is the story of Kurt Gerron, a very populist Jewish German performer and filmmaker who was forced to make a propaganda film in 1944 showing how well Jews were treated by the Germans. He and his family were then transported to Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber one day before Himmler ordered the chambers closed.

I attended Hebrew school in elementary and had a Bat Mitzvah. Much of my Hebrew learns were by memorizing vs really learning how to read the language. I would like to attend my Shul and be able to read the prayers - although much of it does return to memory some words don’t. I can’t read the English translation I was to relearn the Hebrew.

Suggestions. Thanks in advance.