u/Swimming_Care7889

From one of the social media groups I'm part of, I just learned that the school district of the city I live in is planning a walk out to "stand with Palestine" on the third anniversary of 10/7. California's Department of Education has repeatedly told Oakland Unified School District to stop doing this stuff but they refuse to do so. We are basically watching the 21st century version Holocaust Revisionism/Denial form in real time. Tens of millions of people, maybe even hundreds of millions believe that 10/7 never happened and Israel just got up and invaded Gaza for the hell of it.

I am far from an expert but based on cursory reading, everyday Jews seemed to celebrate Rosh Hashanah more as an actual New Year's celebration in the past with eating a meal with symbolic meanings like a head of a fish or sheep or cow. I think it also used to be a custom to send greeting cards on Rosh Hashanah. Now a lot of these New York celebration type customs seem to be basically gone even among the most observant Jews beyond eating apples and honey. I guess my question is whether in the distant or even not so distant past, did Rosh Hashanah have a lot more customs that resembled what would be seen as a New Year's celebration than the current practice?

SB 1387 is a proposed bill that will put Jew as a box for demographic data on different forms. From what I can tell, based on an a small sampling, Jews in California seem rather divided about this. Older Jews seem generally against it while middle aged Jews, people born between the mid-70s to early 80s, seem more favorable towards it. I personally think it is a good idea because Jews are treated as an ethnic group even if this doesn't get articulated but others seem to be persistent in that Jews are a religious group alone.

Related to the funny misconception threads. What is or are crank theories of Judaism you like or at least find somewhat amusing? My favorite crank theory is that Hashem and Dionysius, the Greek God of Wine, are the same God. This is something that was speculated on by non-Jews since Antiquity. Almost certainly untrue even if you assume an atheistic universe since we more or less know where YHWH comes from but the idea of Hahem being a god of ecastasy and wine is amusing. It certainly isn't inconsistent with some ways Jews have worshipped even if we are a bit toned down compared to the Greeks.

Has anybody noticed that Judaism is not taken exactly seriously by non-Jews, whether they are religious or not? I am not talking about the people who actively hate us and see Jews and Judaism as a malign influence on the world but people who simply seem to see our religion as something of a joke. Non-Orthodox Judaism is nearly always Reform Judaism and treated as basically social justice with flavoring. Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism is treated as a bunch of strict rules and regulations that people follow but there is ultimately no meaning for. Judaism isn't seen as teaching deep noble universal truths or having a goal like salvation or Enlightenment but just customs that people do because reasons.

I grew up Reform and still go to a Reform synagogue. One thing that I've noticed in the synagogue that I go to is that a lot of the more Bronze Age parts of the Torah, for lack of a better term, get edited out. I remember a couple of years ago that my Rabbi gave a Yom Kippur sermon that invoked the Beith HaMikdash but involved some imaginary ritual about people seeking forgiveness and people asking forgiveness going in different ways around the courtyard until they met up, while ignoring that the actual Yom Kippur service at the Temple involved a lot of animal sacrifice. I can't find any reference of this anywhere else. There is also a selection of the Torah reading on Yom Kippur that gets skipped over because it is also very Bronze Age.

For other Reform Jews, do you find that your synagogue just sort of goes around the more violent and bloodier parts of the Torah and even Judaism to the extent possible? The current synagogue and my childhood synagogue did. I am not sure what I think about it. I understand the theory behind this, these portions are not relevant to modern 21st century people, but at the same time it is still part of Judaism and our history.

This is not normal behavior and way too many Jews refuse to believe that there is a global war being waged against us.

Does anybody else read the Talmud on what Jewish practice, allegedly, used to be like and kind of find past practices to be more interesting and theatrical. Things like the Simchat Beit Hashoevah as described in the Talmud seem a lot more festive than modern practices. Anybody else have some past Jewish practices they wished still existed?

Scott Wiener has taken a hard stance against Israel during the Israel-Hamas War but this is apparently not enough for some people. Even Jews who criticize the current government of Israel are not safe. This is why recognizing that antizionism is an anti-Jewish hate movement is important and that many antizionists are not acting in good faith.

One of the things that I've noticed in the post-10/7 world is that we Jews simply don't seem to move people to saviorism like other minorities or oppressed people might move people to saviorism. If anything that This isn't a particularly original observation. Ben Hecht made this observation decades ago with his reference to a cold spot for the Jews in the warmest of all hearts. What I have noticed is that Israeli Jews and other Diaspora Jews seem much more familiar with the amount of Jew hatred in the international caring community and international NGO world than most American Jews. My guess is because they have to interact with the "warmest of all hearts" type Jew haters a lot more than American Jews, so are more familiar with the type. Only after 10/7 have many American Jews had to deal with this type for a variety of reasons.

The title of the post might be a bit clunky but one thing that strikes me as somewhat unique to Judaism compared to other religions is that at least some Rabbis thought that with some discipline and hard work living a life entirely according to Halakaha is completely possible. People might need some guidance from sages now and then and some mitzvot would need stringent rather than lenient interpretation to prevent mistakes but it was possible to basically not make a mistake if you put some effort into it. Other religions seem to assume that nearly everybody would make big and small mistakes, or sins if you want to put it that way, and would need forgiveness or a very firm hand in order to prevent this.

Has anybody else noticed that nearly all media dealing with earth after an apocalyptic event of some sort doesn't seem to have a single Jewish character in it? Even shows aiming for diversity casting don't seem to think that they need to include one Jew. This might be me but I'd think seeing Jews, especially maybe observant and traditional Jews, deal with a post-Apocalyptic world to be fascinating.

I was born in 1980 and grew up in a Reform Jewish household in suburban Long Island. My Jewish education consisted of Hebrew school from classes after school at the synagogue to basically a discussion group with the Rabbi that lasted until I graduated from high school. This was obviously not the same level of intensity that Orthodox Jews get but there also seem to be many Jews whose Jewish education is effectively nothing.

What is the average level of Jewish education among Jews? This is obviously going to vary a lot by country since public schools in Israel are going to cover a lot that needs to be done privately outside of Israel. At least at the time and place where I grew up, most parents seem to believe that they needed to send their kids to Hebrew school to at least their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs but in other places, where Jews are a lot less thick on the ground, parents seem a lot more laissez-faire towards making sure that their kids get even that in a Jewish education. It also seems that the drive to give at least a basic Jewish education decreased for people born around the mid-1980s or latter.

At least this is finally being taken seriously. This is why antizionists should never be believed when they claim they don't hate Jews, only Israel.

I've noticed that there is a relatively recent trend in some educational internet videos on YouTube like Religion for Breakfast or Esoterica and elsewhere to actually say Hashem's name or at least as close as we think the four letters are supposed to be pronounced rather than say God or something more indirect. I am not sure what I think of this. I get why they are doing this, to make sure that people know they are talking about the God of the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism/Israelite religion rather than the Christian Trinity or the Muslim Allah. At the same time it still seems disrespectful towards us. Not pronouncing the name of God is one of the oldest and strongest taboos in Judaism. Basic respect should mean that non-Jews doing videos on early Judaism shouldn't say it either in my opinion.

The Movement Against Antizionism recently had their first big political conferences recently. One of the attendees was Ben Shapiro. I am kind of divided about this. Since antizionism is a form of Jew hatred, all Jews are going to be effected. In fact, even antizionist Jews like Molly Crabapple will be effected once their use as tokens is over. Ben Shapiro is a Jew and as an Orthodox Jew is the most likely to be attacked because he is visibly Jewish. It would be uncharitable not to include him. At the same time, the people we need to convince that the antizionists are not acting in good faith and are really just massive Jew haters are going to be on the liberal-left side of the political spectrum. Ben Shapiro is not going to be a credible figure for this argument because most people on the liberal-left spectrum hate him. I have no way around this dilemma.

Elon Gilad, who does short videos on Hebrew etymologies and some of the more obscure parts of Jewish and Israeli history, has a video on how Labor Zionist pioneers in the Jezreel Valley attempted to recreate Shavuot as a harvest festival before the Religious Zionists and the Rabbinate stomped it out. I'm always fascinated about the history of trying to create or recreate Jewish national culture in the pre-state and early state eras of Israel. It is really hard to find a lot of this information in English so anything is welcome.

Rabbi David Ingber takes on his fellow progressive Rabbis by pointing out how some do not care enough about their own people. IMO, this is a thing but I am not sure if it as much as a thing as David Ingber is claiming. From my personal experience in the Bay Area, many progresssive Rabbis are basically trying to keep their synagogues together because of deep faction disagreements in the congregation itself on the current moment.

The title of the post is a bit clumsy but this is something that I've been thinking about for a long time. There seems to be a very big disconnect between how we Jews see ourselves and how I think many non-Jews see us. Basically, many Jews, in our own way, see ourselves as one of the great civilizations of the world and something that should be treated with respect. For more than a few non-Jews, we are annoying bugs of a people with a very bad case of main character syndrome that get in the way. Thoughts?