wtf is a jesus fern

hi guys, long time no see, it’s me, lemuela (aka lulu, or lualhati, any of the three is fine). this isn’t really advice - or anything of it, and before i’d talk about it, i’d like to apologize for my absence. without getting into details, my health took a very dark turn for a while, but it’s all good now! but for a while i was really sick, and mentally couldn’t handle writing or explaining my jewish experience in detail, and i couldn’t give any of you my best, which is what you all deserve. 

for those of you that don’t know, i live in the south. mississippi, to be specific. i grew up in a small college town (i say grew up, i immigrated to the united states when i was 8, but that’s another story). this town had no synagogue. in fact, the closest one was 30 minutes away, and even then, my parents tended to work long weekend shifts at the hospitals, and we didn’t know anyone - we didn’t know anyone jewish, certainly. i also went to a private school - a private christian school. i don’t know why my parents thought that was a good idea, but i know the public schools were also not that great, so. i learned very quickly that kids are cruel, unintentionally, though. i was exempt from a chapel that happened once a month, and kids asked me why to my face, asked me if i didn’t believe in G-d. at this time, my english wasn’t good - it was self taught & my father taught, so i didn’t know how to explain i was jewish in words kids could understand, because i didn’t even understand. i still made friends, however. i remember case and karlee and aubrey and they became my protectors almost. but they still asked me questions, and when they got older - they called me their jew. a joke, no doubt. but it still hurt my feelings.

i moved when i was 12. not for bullying, or anything like that - i never told my parents, and i was going through other stuff too that’s very personal. my dad got a different job. so i moved. to a bigger town, still in mississippi. i had learned to hide my jewishness by this point - though it was not intentional. i just didn’t know how to be jewish, in a way. i went to a public school all through middle school and high school. and it was so much better. maybe because it was a bigger town, much bigger. and maybe because it was a public school. my best friends was a catholic boy named danny who i would later marry, a muslim girl named kathy who taught me how to ride a bike, a catholic girl named khloe who i’m still best friends with today, and rachel, who, from the ripe age of twelve, loved bobby flay so much i’m pretty sure that’s her religion. 

still, i didn’t go to synagogue. i didn’t know what i was supposed to do. i didn’t know how to celebrate my religion. it wasn’t until i was 16 i went to synagogue - i went with danny and rachel and another girl, and i felt safe. i started going weekly. during high school i also got my car egged and spray painted, and i got a swastika burned in my front yard.

i got a job when i was 16. there’s something to note about working when you’re in the south: you’re everyone’s business, customers will talk to you like they know you. i always worked sunday mornings, always the church crowd. old lady’s would tell me that jesus loves me, men would ask me why i was working instead of at church. this was polite conversation that made me uncomfortable, but in jewish. but the worst was with my managers, who loved me, and i loved them - but again, they would ask questions, and it would make me feel like i was in that private school again. or when i would mess up an order, drop food, one of them would roll their eyes and say fucking jew (of course - this is a joke, they laughed, but it still hurt). 

          polyamory is typically viewed the same way that “secular” ( or christian ) society views it. in other words, it can vary. while some people point to jacob having two wives or abraham conceiving a child through a woman other than his wife sarah as evidence that the torah supports polyamory, others argue that the torah speaks of a husband and wife pair more often. that being said , there is a large and active community of jewish polyamorous individuals. they even have an official email list. for more indepth information i suggest reading the following articles: x / x

hi! check out our RESOURCES page. there’s a link for almost everything there - we can help you better with specific questions. myjewishlearning has really good resources and information posts about anything & everything. general questions like these are very hard to answer --  JUDAISM IS VERY DIVERSE. a lot of our advice depends on how judaism affected / affects your character as a whole.

hi! check out our RESOURCES page. there’s a link for almost everything there - we can help you better with specific questions. like just off the top of my head, if you yourself are a gentile - don’t have your character say goy/goyim or ‘jew’… be careful when you chose your words - look into the stereotypes and how to avoid them. but if you have more specific questions we can give better advice. 

hello there !! 

we have a resources page here with some good links to start off with ( x ). although it’s there , i’d like to single out myjewishlearning. just browsing through the website is a learning experience. i grew up going to hebrew school and temple and i still learn so much from them. if you have any more specific thing you’re looking for , i’m also happy to help !!

hi, i really don’t have the energy or like.. just energy to be really upbeat or like super fun about this but when your face claim for your character is ethnically jewish:  you need to address it. not addressing it is erasure, rather it be intentional or not. your character can be ethnically jewish and not religiously jewish, that’s fine. if you wanna know how to write about that, i answered an ask that kinda divulges into it HERE. (but it’s very specific, i can make a more general post soon maybe). it’s important to acknowledge that aspect of your character - but if you are unsure about how their ethnic jewishness played into their religion, it ultimately comes down to you and how you interpret that character’s relationship with their religion as a separate entity with their ethnicity. (i.e. you can have an atheist character that’s ethnically jewish).

if you want to read about the different ethnicities within judaism, they’re listed on the resource page FOUND HERE. 

shanah tovah. 

modeh ani is a prayer that when you translate the name, means “i acknowledge”. it’s said first thing when you wake up, while you’re still in bed. what’s the point of this prayer? it’s a thanks to G-d for returning our soul to our body and gives us the gift of life because G-d knows that we are up to the task and will do good. it’s a very short prayer! 

the translation reads as “i give thanks to you, King living and eternal, for You have given me back my soul with compassion, Your faith in me is great / abundant.” 

another reason why the prayer is said right when we wake up is so that our first conscious thought is of G-d and of our faith in G-d. i, personally, really love this prayer, it makes me feel connected to my faith on a deep level each morning, and makes me feel very much safe and protected, if that makes sense. 

HERE IS A COOL WEBPAGE that can walk you through each part of the prayer, and the deeper meaning behind each part of it. it’s really cool.