Vacuumfish

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.

Obviously there are differences, but I have the perspective that my soul was always Jewish, it just took me time to find my way there. Similar to how I was always a boy, I just didn't know until later in life.

When it comes to interacting with the Jewish community at large, the main difference people assume between converts and born Jews is that converts did not practice Judaism growing up and don't have the same cultural knowledge that born Jews have. However, there are plenty of adult Jews who were either off the derech (path) for many years, or whose parents never practiced, then reconnected with Judaism later (there's even a term for that, baal teshuvah). I actually know a lot more about Jewish history and practice than many people who were born Jewish because I learned it more recently. This is really just to say that if you're a convert you shouldn't feel pressured to out yourself because you assume it will be obvious - it may not be.

I will share that I converted to Judaism if it feels relevant to the conversation because I see it more like stating a truth about my background rather than dimissing my Jewish status. I've only had positive experiences with people respecting my journey and making sure I feel welcome in the community. However, that doesn't mean that anyone has to share that fact, and if for some reason I'm not in a place where I feel comfortable being open about that, I think saying, "I'm reconnecting to my practice." or something similar is a fine way to dodge that question.

I actually got to practice this today with a Chabad Rabbi, who I would consider the Final Boss of people trying to determine your Jewish status. Of course, he knew exactly what to ask. We walked around it for a bit until he hit me with the, "So are your parents Jewish?" then asked where I converted. I detail more about this interaction and Chabad in general in this post if you're interested.

This is his job, so I wasn't really suprised, but really anyone other than a Rabbi should not be interrogating you like that (even Rabbis shouldn't be doing so generally, but becuase Orthodoxy only acknowledges Orthodox conversions as valid, if you frequent those communities you may get Rabbis who ask you so that they can determine if you count for a minyan based on their halacha).

We are all one big Jewish family, no matter where you started. :)

Growing up the word used for someone who converted was Ger which I don't like because it means stranger.

How I always understood it based on the many Midrashim, the many Tanach commentaries I learned both growing up and as adult is that it can be more akin to a joining.

The joining of a family, of a community, of a people.

So that is how I see and have always seen it. These are my family members. How they got here and when they got here doesn't really matter. What matters is that they are here and they are family.

So let us make sure they are comfortable and have got something to eat.

And whether it is family by blood or by mikvah it doesn't matter, it is family.

It is cruel to say an adopted family member is not a full member of the family because of the how and when in regards to the joining of their family.

The same goes here, it is cruel to act and/or say in regards to our adopted family members that they are somehow not fully a part of the family because of the how and when they joined.

A laugh-out-loud Sukkot story that reimagines the classic tale of the three little pigs; an inspiring work of historical fiction story about a Jewish family in Vienna fleeing Nazi persecution and becoming refugees in Shanghai; and a heartwarming Rosh Hashanah story about two quarreling sisters who promise to be better as the Jewish new year begins.

These are among the titles in the new crop of kids books for the High Holidays that echo the themes of the holidays — a time for celebration and reflection, starting anew and welcoming guests.

Mi Al Har Horev: The Earliest Recorded Jewish Music and the Norman Convert who Saved It for Us

Out of all the obscure and fascinating coincidences of the Cairo Genizah, this is one of my absolute favourites.

Amazingly, among the documents of the Genizah were found seven leaves from an autobiographical memoir (of sorts) of a convert named Obadiah, and scholars were able to piece his life story together. He was born around 1070 in Norman Italy to a noble Christian family, and was originally named Johannes, son of Dreux. Although he received religious training in a local monastery and was a serious student of the Christian Bible, he was drawn to Judaism from his early teens, and eventually converted in 1102.

Leaving Europe, he made his way to Jewish communities in Aleppo, Baghdad, Damascus, and eventually, Fustat [Cairo], having mastered by this time both Hebrew and Arabic, and having survived several harrowing encounters with the soldiers of the First Crusade… It was here that he made his great contribution to the history of Jewish music.

For decades, scholars had been puzzled by another set of fragments found in the Genizah: Hebrew piyyutim [devotional poems], clearly written in the handwriting of 12th-century Levantine Hebrew script, i.e. somewhere in Egypt, Syria or Baghdad… But each line was also written out with the neumes of medieval musical notation — specifically, in the 12th-century southern Italian School of “Lombardic” or “Beneventane notation.” How was a Levantine Hebrew piyyut recorded with a system of musical notation that was at this time confined to Christian monasteries in southern Europe?

It was only in 1964 that the scholar Norman Golb saw the musical manuscript and recognized that the handwriting was identical to the script of Obadiah’s memoirs which he was preparing for publication. And thus the mystery was solved: Obadiah had taken the piyyutim of the Jewish community around him and recorded them with the musical notation he had learnt in his youth in Italy. It seems that in some cases he was transcribing the traditional tunes, and in others he was setting the words to music of his own composition in a Gregorian-Italian style.

This will hopefully be an ever growing list. If you have any Talmud study resources you like (online or in print), please send them to me and I’ll update accordingly!

The most important resource for study is community, so if you have a local synagogue, check if they have study group

Free Online Resources

Sefaria Mishnah — reading the Mishnah first can make the Gemara easier

Sefaria Talmud — the go-to free online translation. I believe it uses the Koren translation

Daf Yomi — daily image of the day’s daf with audio of it being read (not translated as far I can tell)

New addition! Hadran Courses — Absolutely top notch courses to give you the tools to study Talmud. Cannot recommend this enough.

Books

Your local Shul’s library probably has a copy of these or similar books! They are far from the only books on these topics

Reference Guide to the Talmud by Rabbi Steinsaltz

I love this book. It has the answers for almost every question a beginner could ask, from how a page of Talmud is laid out to the basics of Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic

The Practical Talmud Dictionary by Yitzhak Frank

Not a comprehensive dictionary of Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic, but it has a lot and is simple to use

Grammar for Gemara & Targum Onkelos: An Introduction to Aramaic by Yitzhak Frank

Sister text to The Practical Talmud Dictionary. Good for beginners with at least some knowledge of Hebrew

Everyman’s Talmud by Abraham Cohen

Basic overview of topics covered in the Talmud. Very dense

The Essential Talmud by Rabbi Steinsaltz

I highly recommend Rabbi Dr. Joshua Kulp's Daf Shevui commentary. You can have it up side by side with the Talmud itself on Sefaria.

It's a "21st-century English commentary meant to be accessible for beginners by Dr. Joshua Kulp, rosh yeshiva of the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem."

it isn't available for every tractate yet - I believe it's still being written - but it's an excellent resource to use for the tractates that have it.

So far, those are tractates Sukkah, Megillah, Ketubot, Kiddushin, and Avodah Zarah.

On Sefara, you can check if a given Talmud passage has Daf Shevui commentary available by clicking on Commentary on the resources panel on the right of the screen. It's under the Related Texts heading.

Sefaria also has Jastrow's introductions to each tractate and chapter within each tractate, as well as a summary of each chapter, at the start of the tractate and chapter. These are also accessible from the Related Texts section of the resource panel, and unlike the Daf Shevui commentary, are available for the entire Talmud, as far as I can tell.

Also, as a note, Sefaria defaults to the Koren-Steinsaltz translation of the Talmud, but there are other translations available on the site. You can see what other translations are available for a given text by clicking Translations in the resource panel. Many texts, including the Talmud, have translations available in languages other than English, including German and Portuguese.

Sefaria also provides images to pages from written versions of the texts on the site in the resource panel, in the Resources secton. The name they give this is Manuscripts.

There are no requirements to be a witch other than to practice witchcraft! That’s it! That’s all you need!

[ID: a tag that reads, "whatever kind of boots a wizard wears but thigh high". /End ID]

Banff National Park

That website will show you your polling location, the hours, and what (if anything) you need to bring with you.

If you requested a ballot but you didn’t give it back to the state (or if it straight up never came), you can vote in-person. You’ll vote probably have to vote a provisional ballot.

If you forget your ID, you can probably get a provisional ballot, which they will count once they are sure you haven’t voted already, either in person or by mail.

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