From what I know about Judaism, people can only become Jews when their mother's is one. So to my question, when a Jewish pair decides to have a child through surrogacy does the surrogate mother have to be Jewish, or is it enough when the genetic material comes from Jews?
From what I understand Orthodox Jews have a time called Niddha where the woman needs to immerse in the Mikvah after her period is done. What happens after menopause? Is there a final Mikvah ceremony, or a symbolic final immersion when a woman is confirmed post menopausal? How did Halakah ascertain when a woman was officially postmenopausal ?
Are there different attitudes within Judaism or Jewish communities toward people who convert to Judaism but are not ethnically Jewish? Are converts generally viewed and treated the same as people who were born Jewish or have Jewish ancestry, or are they sometimes perceived as different or less accepted within the community?
I came close to one sitting alone in an empty part of the airport and he started praying in hebrew after which he left
Mostly it feels like Hollywood's idea of a Jew is at best goofy and harmless, from Mel Brooks & Woody Allen to Jerry Seinfeld & Larry David to Seth Rogan & Jonah Hill.
Every single movie or tv show is either about getting pummeled by the horror of the Shoah or about being a whiny bourgeois wimp.
Adrien Brody's last big movie was literally about getting sodomized by his rich white boss, played by Guy Pearce, who wore a Free Palestine pin to the Oscars that year. So demonically gross to see.
I wish I had more films and shows to watch about Jewish STRENGTH. Can only watch Munich so many times, starring famous Jewish actors Eric Bana & Daniel Craig (/s) or that recent movie about Ethiopia starring Chris Evans as the least-convincing Mossad agent of all time.
Gal Gadot playing Wonder Woman bucks the trend, I guess. She certainly isn't popular here on Reddit among the DSA tankie "antizionists." Harrison Ford & Kirk Douglas, despite being leading men of their time, never leaned into particularly Jewish roles. Indiana Jones has a canonically Scottish, grail-chasing father, FFS.
Anyway I know "Jewish Hollywood" is a huge trope & often the source of antisemitic conspiracy theory, but it's just disappointing how many Jews in Hollywood have mined our culture for punchlines (cough LARRY DAVID cough) for shekels without any kind of consideration for the impact of their caricatures.
/endrant
I'm gonna be honest I'm not Jewish and was never raised Jewish. I just have some questions. You really don't have to answer. Also I'm sorry if these are worded weirdly I went over them multiple times I really am sorry I have disabilities.
I have never met a Jewish person but if I do how am I able to help them be comfortable around me.(Because of history it's hard to trust anyone)
Are there recipes that are okay for people who aren't Jewish to make?.
I own a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank, are there other books I could read to get a better understanding of the Jewish religion. ( I know it's not your job to teach me)
Again I really am sorry if the questions sound weird. That's just how my brain put them. Also again you don't have to answer.
I know that they literally pray and kneel to golden and whatnot idols but what exactly is idol worship? Taoism is more about the governance and communication of heavenly and earthly ministers. Buddhism is even more about not worshipping Buddha as god but as a wise sage to learn from. Please help me understand this as I do not want to be like a non righteous goy that you know what that one rabbi said about according to the strict law of the torah and such.
I'm an amateur creative writer - emphasis on "amateur", for better or worse - and for the past few months I've been working on a post-apocalyptic story. I see fiction, first and foremost, as a way to explore ideas, so the focus is less on action and drama, and more on the philosophical questions that living in such a situation would pose, although the former isn't absent by any means. I'm not honestly sure what prompted me to consider including a Jewish character, and I knew that doing so respectfully and accurately would be a tall order, so I started with a lot of reading, focusing on things written by actual Jewish people. I came away with even more questions and an entirely unexpected sense of longing. I have, I think, a pretty strong sense of who this character is, and the sort of questions she might invite me and my eventual readers to grapple with; but they aren't questions I feel comfortable engaging with on my own, so I set out to talk to people.
This provided harder than expected.
I get the sense that what I'm trying to do is a really sore subject for many people, or at least those I've spoken with. I get the sense that people, or at least those I've spoken with, are accustomed to writers treating Judaism like any other minority identity: a superficial aesthetic if you're lucky, an appalling stereotype if you aren't. I, do, genuinely care about writing a respectful depiction, but that doesn't mean I can. The responses I've gotten have ranged from skepticism and concern to - well, as one of the moderators on r/judaism put it, "don't do this. Perhaps it's silly of me to even be asking this. Perhaps its offensively misguided. If so, please tell me. I would rather cut this character than publish misinformation or put another cliché-ridden stereotype out there. But if I'm giving up too early, you can tell me that too. I'll listen either way.
Full disclosure, I'm asking about this because of House Of Leaves.
I've tried studying a bit about the various Abrahamic religions, coming from outside them as I do, but one thing I've become aware of is how much the framing can matter, so much more than text. A book I'm reading talks more than a bit about Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca and Esau, particularly about Esau's birthright. I'm fairly certain the author is coming from a Jewish perspective on these characters, though few of the characters in the book are Jewish themselves, but as an outsider I don't know how almost anyone is taught to speak about these characters. What cultural assumptions am I intended to come in with, whether or not they're intended to be challenged by it? Does it vary considerably, or are there some pretty broadly accepted feelings and teachings about these figures metatextually? Obviously there's the scriptures themselves, but that tells me almost nothing. I assume this is covered in the Talmud, but (again as an outsider to all this) I don't know how much of what's written in the Talmud enters into common discourse on these figures.
(And my glance just now at the Midrash was somewhat dizzying, that looks really dense. "@_@ )