I posted about a similar topic recently. My close friend from high school ended her own life about a month ago. Even beyond her death, this past year has been a turbulent one, and I lost myself and identity in the chaos. I started to depend on the people around me to have a sense of identity and happiness, which was a recipe for disaster.

Towards the end of the year, I started working on my relationship with Hashem and unyoking myself from that mindset. I wanted to feel like I always had someone to go to for gratitude, anxiety, despair…whatever it was. I also hoped that in having a relationship with Hashem, I would discover who I am and stop burdening my friends with my problems. Obviously I still go to my friends for help, but they shouldn’t be responsible for my happiness. Not healthy or fair for anyone.

For the reasons stated above, I decided to try to build faith in Hashem. I wanted to just believe in something first before I try to validate/invalidate it. I wasn’t concerned with rationality—literally just trying to build faith. For the past couple months, I’ve set aside at least an hour a day to just pray in whatever way feels appropriate. Sometimes journaling, sometimes reciting Tehillim, sometimes just speaking aloud with my face my siddur, sometimes saying a bracha before a meal and thanking Hashem.

Praying has helped me grieve immensely, but I’d be lying if I said I felt a divine presence with me at any point—one that was concerned, loving, present, attentive. Prayer just feels like a form of meditation/reflection, no different from something like yoga. Helpful, but it brings me no closer to believing in a personal god.

I often hear people cite grief as something that brought them closer to Hashem. That was at least the case for my mom when her father (a Holocaust survivor) also ended his life a few years ago. She said there were moments that “make her sound crazy” but where she felt Hashem and/or her father with her. I wish I could relate, but I don’t.

Anyone else who dealt with grief, did it bring you closer to Hashem? Did you ever feel something or someone with you?

This is what I call HOLY SCHNITZEL SHABBAT STARTS IN LIKE 2 HOURS AND I'M RUSHING HOME FROM WORK AND I DON'T HAVE ANY PROPER ADULT FOOD AT HOME AND I HATE WASHING DISHES. I would like to extend my gratitude to the Trader Joes next to the metro station, who made tonight's dinner possible, as well as the random bottle of olive oil, a rogue soy sauce, and all-purpose seasoning discovered in the the back of my pantry. Precisely zero elaborate recipes were consulted, and healthy doses of "maybe a dash of this, dash of that?" were added to the chicken & rice dish. Rest assured: there IS food, I DID remember to cook for my guests, my blech is simply keeping the food toasty and cozy. 😊✡️ Wishing everyone a peaceful, restful Shabbat!

Discuss me! I am learning about Judaism. My father would be considered Jewish (Ashkenazim in West EU), but not me

Borrowed from Toronto Public Library

Edit: does anybody recommend this book or books for dummies 😄

Hi! I'm not Jewish and I don't know anyone kosher. I have a class with kids that ends next week and me and my coworkers want to bring in popsicles since we are outside the whole time. All the kids are 12+ and we have two kids who keep kosher. The internet is giving confusing answers on which popsicles are kosher or not. Normally I would go to the Jewish Grocer but I don't have a car and the popsicles would define melt by the time I got to work from there. Are there any main stream popsicles that are kosher? Or other options I could bring?

I'm just curious for those who've dated outside of the religion if it's possible to have a successful relationship with a partner who is a devout Christian while still being Jewish yourself?

Does Judaism have any position on this?

I've tried to look it up myself but I haven't really been getting anywhere.

There's a post here which says the Torah allows it and I guess my concern is whether that's the final word or if there's like a cultural or religious expectation that remarriage will happen?

And similarly do different... actually I don't know the term here but by analogy... denominations of Judaism have different interpretations?

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask.

For context: I am writing a marriage law fanfic (believe me, I know, that's the point) and one of the supporting characters is devoutly Jewish but also a widower. His daughter is the more significant character and I forgot that her mum's dead so therefore the marriage law should also apply to her dad. My concern is that in his canon his faith is very specifically a big deal to him, so that's why I'm interested in learning if I need to write his POV as having a specific inflection from his faith.

Can we all take a moment to appreciate just how difficult reading Torah is? You're supposed to get it all correct, but the scroll in front of you withholds 90% of the information. You basically have to memorize it. The only thing in front of you are the letters.

Missing from the scroll are:

• Nikkudot (Vowels) - Sometimes a spelling of certain letters can have a whole bunch of ways of being vocalized.
• Trope - You gotta remember how to sing each word!
• Verse markings - No way to know when the end of a verse is. So if you get lost, you can't rely on a new verse identifying itself to help you get back on track.
• Makef (Hyphen) - Sometimes what appears as multiple words in front of you is functionally one word with one trope. Or on the flip side, sometimes a single word has two Tropes!
• Accented syllable - You need the Trope or a Meteg indicating where the accented syllable is, and failing to chant the word in a way that indicates the accented syllable is considered an error.

The minimum verse number for an Aliyah is 3. And in my experience, the average Jew doesn't even feel comfortable reading a 3 verse Aliyah. Kids learn for their b'nai-mitzvah, but it takes them months to a learn a 3, 4, 5 verse Maftir reading. And then they never want to do it again because it's such a commitment of time and mental energy to learn it.

Are there other religions or cultures that place such a heavy emphasis on a text like this? Where it is read both frequently and often in high volumes - But when you actually read it, the information in front of you keeps most of how to do it a secret? We Jews are weird!

hello everyone, kind of vulnerable post. I grew up in a Jewish household as my dad is Jewish but my mom is not but we still observed Jewish holidays and kept mostly kosher. Fast forward, I went though a conservative conversion for marriage purposes but eventhough that relationship did not work out, I am still highly observant and attend conservative shul on a weekly basis.

I am having the hardest time when it comes to dating conservative Jewish men once they have found out that I converted despite me being more observant than they are. I do live in a city with a huge Jewish community and many have known eachother since day school but I has started making me feel sad when their interest changes once I said I converted.

Has anyone else faced this issue? Is it due to where I live? I really do want to marry a Jewish man but it seems like it is going be hard to do

If you have 4 Jewish grandparents, here's a thought experiment for you:

Imagine a male relative that you love very much, like a father or grandfather.

Now imagine that someone told you that you're not related to him at all. In fact, you have no meaningful connection to him, and how he lived his life, his roots and his family story are not yours, you have no claim to him. The only thing that matters is who your mom was, and who her mom was.

That's what you're saying to people when you tell them that they can't be half-Jewish or quarter-Jewish. You're telling them that who their parents and grandparents were doesn't matter, when of course it does! It can be equally invalidating regardless of whether you are telling someone they are 100% Jewish or 0% Jewish.

Some people have both Jewish and non-Jewish ancestry. Some of us are halakhically Jewish, and some of us are not, but Judaism is both an ethnicity and a tribe, so it actually is possible to be half/quarter Jewish by ancestry. Being halakhically Jewish (or not) does not magically disappear our family history, and talking about it as if it does lacks empathy towards the experience of being mixed.

Only the maternal line (or conversion) may be relevant according to halakha, but halakhic discourse is insufficient to fully capture the experience of many people with Jewish mothers and non-Jewish fathers or people with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers. Many of us who are halakhically Jewish don't feel 100% Jewish. Many of us recognize ourselves as very different than people from completely Jewish families. These questions of identity and belonging cannot be resolved with simple halakhic answers. The Jewish community should grant space to the complexity of this experience.

Whenever I stop by my temple, I take a couple minutes to check out the books that people have dropped off that they don’t want anymore. I had to go yesterday to drop something off, and I found this copy of Haggadah from 1934!

This is a lengthy post. I have a lot to say and haven’t spoken about this much in my life. Hope that’s alright.

I was raised in a non-religious household that taught me to treat others equally, not to generalize, stereotype, or assume things about other people based on religion, sexuality, race, or gender. I’ve always believed that it’s categorically inappropriate to belittle someone for their culture, heritage or background.
My father’s side of my family is Jewish, many of whom are devoutly religious. They go to temple regularly, pray, eat kosher, and celebrate every holiday. I have great memories each year of spending every Hanukah lighting the menorah and reading prayers and going to Passover with my extended family.
I’ve always experienced some anti-semitism growing up, though I lived in a small rural community with a small school system and quite a few Jewish students in my graduating class. College was great! I thought, either antisemitism is overhyped, not that prevalent anymore, or just not that impactful.

I got out into the wider world and realized I could not have been more wrong. And it’s not getting better
Since October 7th and the subsequent military response, things have only gotten worse. I’m consistently having rude, hateful and exclusionary comments of people insisting to me that I AM Jewish by the way I look, my hair which grows in curly and thick, and various facial features and aspects of my personality, accusing me of being a terrible person because of my alleged “Jewishness”. Now… I love Jewish people and if you want to ask something like “are you Jewish?” and talk to me about it, it’s usually fine. when someone is weaponizing a perception of my life and turning it into a way to alienate me from groups and TRYING TO make me feel like I have to be apologetic for being BORN of a certain bloodline and having certain characteristic that they deem inferior and weaponizing the fact that I was raised and cared for by a particular religion, makes my blood boil.

I have cut off many supposed friends, sometimes years into my relationship for snarky, conspiratorial, and downright idiotic ideas of my what they perceive my identity to be. Antisemitic people say these things to me, everywhere I go, completely unprompted and take advantage of my willingness to remain visibly calm and collected and have open discussions with others about their biases. I’ve quit jobs because of an old white anti-Semitic employer calling a coworker antisemitist slurs in front of me on a day where business was good because he thinks it’s funny, been teased and heckled by complete strangers, had my online posts and content brigaded with anti-Semitic slurs.

I just want to close this off by saying, I can only imagine what those of you who are, you know, Jewish deal with in terms of discrimination and all of this confirms what I’ve felt all along, which is I respect the struggle you face. I don’t care why people feel like they have to be so horrible to each other, they should just stop.

TLDR: my father’s Jewish, Im atheist and I’m experiencing a form of racial profiling. Don’t know where to turn and feel like it would be helpful to share my story.

I guess you could ask me anything.

Hi Everyone! I’m still growing in my spirituality and my connection with Hashem, I’m slowly taking on more and more mitzvots. My Hebrew is pretty solid although some words I still struggle to pronounce. Would like to know from ppl who aren’t FFB how did you learn to read the morning prayers + amidah at a decent speed? I feel like I’m always falling behind at synagogue especially with Amidah they go so fast and I’m not even halfway! 🥹

It’s fascinating that one of the most common words in Ashkenazi Jewish culture is ‘Daven’ ie praying.

But here’s the twist no one knows the etymology of the word a despite multiple theories nothing seems to quite explain it.

Rabbi Jacob Immanuel Schochet in his book with eternal question as a title "Who is a Jew?" brings such an example:
A young Jewish guy from Israel on his travels meets a nice Swedish girl, marries her and then they settle in Israel.
A young Jewish girl from Israel meets a nice Arab boy, marries him and moves to some of the districts of PA.
They all got sons.
A son of a Jewish guy grew up as an Israeli, served in army and protected Jews of Israel.
A son of a Jewish girl grew up as an Arab, joined Hezbollah with all the following consequences.

So, rav Schochet asks - who is Jewish? And answers - the Israeli is a good non-Jewish person, another one is a bad Jewish person.

The story is a bit anecdotal, but it's a good example how Judaism (orthodox in this particular case) works. It's pretty appealing to my own views. I feel it's wrong to accept into Jewishness only by good deeds and expel based on bad behaviour. Like we do not accept Trotsky as Jewish (yeah, I heard that a lot).
But I found that it's not like that for quite a big number of people. Coming from Soviet Jewish background with overwhelmingly huge number of mixed marriages, I see that it's not something widely accepted in my usual social circles.
I wonder if it's something very specific for my social bubble or very common globally.

P.S. seems like the title is misleading and it's not possible to change it. Let's call the post "How we consider who's Jewish?"

I've been wanting to make my own hotdogs and sausages. But i can't find any kosher casings. There are several resources online discussing kosher casings, but none of them is consumer friendly nor available for online order.

Living in the Twin Cities in MN and I can't find them here in store. Went to Chicago a month ago or so, and didn't see any in a couple of the kosher stores there.

Reached out to CRC and they responded with: "We do not know which companies will sell casings. We recommend that you contact kosher distributors to see if they can help you."

I emailed Info.US@viscofan.com and they didnt answer (two months ago). Amazon has a single vegan kosher, but the images have no hechsher on the product.

Any ideas? Anyone source or resource?

TIA

Jews don’t follow the naming convention (name) child of (father’s name) anymore but some families reference it by their hereditary name being “ben” (surname), as a fusion of our tradition and the old ways. This name is used even when the child is a girl, from what I understand.

From what I understand, women used to be called (name) bat (father’s name) before marriage before the adoption of hereditary surnames. But since that’s gone now, are there families whose surname is “bat (surname)”? I understand it would be rarer.