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B’tselem Elohim (spelled here with a quf to avoid writing a name of God) means “in the image of God.” It comes from Genesis 1:27

וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹקִים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹקִים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם׃

“And God created humankind in the divine image, creating it in the image of God—creating them male and female.” (Revised JPS translation, 2023)

-Artscroll

-Koren

-Other (replies)

-Not Jewish/don't use books

but I wish more people talked about pious agnosticism (not 100% the label I would choose for myself; I don’t know that I would either call myself pious or say “I don’t know if G-d is real” I just feel like answering the question as a yes or no question is missing the point of Hashem). like, what about observance—even belief—being defined with complete agnosticism (ha) to the question of ontological existence?

I love Hashem & observing Jewish Law & mulling over Jewish teachings, but I don’t love those things because of anything to do with certainty of a literal conscious divine entity anymore than I sleep or eat food or go to the bathroom or love people because I’m certain I’m literally real.

if I’m not real, I can’t tell the difference! so who cares? I want to be who I am, whatever that means.

I don’t think so. if a thing that is “good” would be evil on its own merits without a deity to prop it up, then it’d just be evil.

if our aim is justice, and justice is that which waters life, and you do that which waters life, then even if the authority that tells you to do it collapsed, you wouldn’t have any reason to regret it; you still watered life.

no one is harmed by abstaining from certain meats or running by a certain schedule or weaving textiles a certain way; so if any of it makes you feel more connected to yourself and your culture, it’s still beautiful.

repair the world, and even if there’s no G-d, you still helped repair the world, didn’t you? isn’t that enough?

Converts - adoptees (the term my rabbi uses and I prefer) - you are exactly, precisely, as Jewish as any other Jew. It is halachically forbidden to distinguish between converts and any other Jews. Your soul is a Jewish soul. Period. You're not even supposed to ask if someone's a convert or not. It doesn't matter. You're Jewish.

And if you won't stop minimizing your Jewishness for your own sake, do it for every other convert who deserves not to have their Jewishness minimized or qualified.

The question? “Is my dryer dairy or pareve?”

The details: I saw on the interwebs the “hack” to turn your empty dryer on high for five or ten minutes and to then use the warm dryer to proof bread. Given that I am currently using my (obviously OFF) oven with a heating pad to proof bread, I figured as goofy and TikToky as it sounds, it’s maybe not such a bad idea.

Then I realized that this would be an excellent way to quickly soften cheese slices for grilled cheese, and immediately tried it out. (it works perfectly by the way and I will never use a different method ever again)

BUT I was immediately concerned that maybe, just maybe, the warm cheese would somehow be enough to render my dryer dairy and thus make it unacceptable to use for bread proofing (even though I know there’s no way the cheese is getting warm enough to release dairy steam).

So I asked my rabbi, who is super religious and kinda stuffy and doesn’t have the sense of humor a lot of Jews have. He was a bit stunned and befuddled, but he at least believed in my sincerity!

Questions like:

- if I stir milk into my coffee with the right temple of my glasses, does the entire pair of glasses become milchig, or can I use the other side to stir cholent?

- how to kasher a clothing iron used as a panini press

Etc.

Absolutely feral bochurim.

Okay jumblr let me put you onto this.

It's called Candle Magic and it's this goo (actually soft wax) you can stick the bottom of your candles in to get them to adhere better in the menorah. Easier and more convenient than melting the bottoms. Game changer.

@chronicangel Try a corkscrew.

It’s understandable why they might. Jews can, will, and should be able to hold a wide variety of opinions on a wide variety of things, including the state of Israel, the Israel/Palestine conflict, and the relationship between Jews and the Eretz. And Jewish institutions should facilitate this without stamping out one position or another.

But this can not apply to antagonism.

If there is a faction that is literally explicitly defining their identity around being anti- you or others in your community, it is not only acceptable but your responsibility to not give their intolerance room to fester. This applies to everyone whether they are Zionist, non-Zionist, or anti-Zionist.

Anti-Zionists will argue this is exactly why they need to root out Zionism. That Zionism is inherently intolerant, and thus must be destroyed in the name of tolerance.

The problem is that Zionist and non-Zionist identity, belief, and practice are fully capable of existing without negating Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim self-sovereignty. Anti-Zionist identity, belief, and practice cannot do the same for Jewish self-sovereignty. Because Zionism is the word for Jewish self-sovereignty.

I think this post is conflating some different things.

One, I think this is interpreting "antizionist" to mean "against zionists." While that does describe many antizionists, I think what the term is intended to mean is against zionism. Someone calling themself an antizionist isn't inherently saying "I want all Zionists removed from my shul," they are saying "I oppose the political movement of Zionism."

I think you do acknowledge this later in your post, but defining Zionism as Jewish self-sovereignty isn't totally accurate -- it's specifically Jewish self-sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael. And not only that, in the current day it's specifically statecraft; for example, a movement that argued for politically independent kibbutzim in the context of a one-state solution would not be called Zionist.

In that vein, the Bundist idea of Jewish political autonomy within Eastern Europe was also not considered Zionist as it did not take place in Eretz Yisrael.

At the end of the day, whatever meanings and importance we assign, Zionism is a political ideology that even 100 years ago was not the default in the Jewish world as it is now, 150 years ago was not mainstream in the Jewish world, and 200 years ago did not exist.

I think it's a mistake to say that everyone is required to adhere to a specific political ideology and that if they don't they should be removed from Jewish spaces. In fact I think it strongly contradicts Jewish concepts like Eilu v' Eilu.

What you are saying in your post is "Jews can hold a variety of opinions on the state of Israel, but opposing it is unacceptable. If they want to be part of Jewish institutions, the only acceptable positions are support, neutrality, or choosing not to voice a position."

I think this still misunderstands what people say when they call themselves antizionist. They aren't using it mean "against the identity category of Zionist." They mean they are against Zionism as a political force that resulted in and maintains the state of Israel.

I understand that a lot of Zionists nowadays have redefined Zionism to mean "the desire to return from exile." This is not what this term has historically meant; it specifically referred to a movement to relocate to Israel in an immediate sense and then to establish a country there. Imagine it's 1920 in Vilna: a "Zionist" is someone who's learning Hebrew and participating in a youth movement to move to Mandatory Palestine. Someone who isn't invested in that project is not a Zionist. The term has now expanded to mean someone who supports that project even if they're not participating in it, but it still refers specifically to that project.

I think the move to redefine Zionism this way has utlitiy because it enables Zionists to claim that antizionism is inherently antisemitic. I think it also serves to confuse and muddy the waters; and I think this is a feature, not a bug.

I also think it's to do with Religious Zionism tying the state of Israel back into Biblical prophecies of the messianic age; seeing Israel as "reishit tzmichat geulateinu" (the beginning of our redemption) and seeing Israel as the modern realization of the longed-for return. Just because a religious-political movement thinks that Israel marks the dawning of the messianic age and the end times doesn't mean Zionism is automatically back-projected millennia into the past. This is as silly as saying Jesus was Palestinian and Moses wore a shtreimel.

Look, ultimately, descriptivism means that if this is what Zionism is coming to mean in Jewish English, then it will in fact "mean" that. Likewise "Palestinian" to refer to everyone who ever lived in what's now Israel/Palestine pre-1880 -- if that's how the word is used then that's what it means. But both of these shifts are ahistorical and unhelpful imo. Especially since (most) Jewish antizionists are not using this definition, so it's not helpful in a discussion about them.

And at the same time, the left has redefined Zionism in a different direction -- they have defined it as the system under which Israel operates -- the system under which Palestinians experience oppression and violence, as well as the forces of ethnosupremacy operating in that dynamic.

A Jew who defines themself as antizionist is stating an opposition to the aforementioned system, and also to Israel in its identity as a Jewish state, and also to the founding of Israel and the Zionist drive to establish the state. Some believe Zionist immigration should not have occurred; others have no issue with the immigration but believe that a Jewish state should not have been established. Many are also diasporists and focus on opposing the concept of "negation of the diaspora."

To the extent that they think about Zionists, it's usually confusion about why Zionists are Zionists, or a desire to get them to change. But the core of Jewish antizionism is about Zionism as both a system and an ideology. The term "antizionist" should be read as "[anti-zionism]-ist" rather than "[anti]-[zionist]."

Also, I don't think it makes sense for Jewish antizionists en masse to identify as Bundists -- that's contextual to a particular time and place and not every antizionist is a Bundist. Also people who do call themselves Bundists get dismissed and made fun of for that too. I've also never heard that Bundists wanted Jews to move out of Israel.

And I'm really getting tired of the "they died, which means we're right" line. Starts to feel almost like gloating. Bad vibes. And if it was clever it was only clever the first time, by the 1000th repetition of the same quip it's long past old. Grapple with the ideas or don't -- let's retire "haha they got murdered by Nazis, those idiots, they kind of deserved it didn't they?"

AUUUUGHHHHHHHH AUURRGHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHGGHHHGHHUUAAUHHHHHHHH

brief intermission for peaceful shabbat noises

7 p.m. is not late

your day is not over at 7 p.m.

you are allowed to leave your house after it gets dark