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That is why the word colorism exists. Why the word texturism and featurism exists. YES, jews of all types can be racialized! But some of you have got to take a step back, calm your nervous system, and realize you are having a kneejerk response to a complex, nuanced discussion around oppression because your brain accidentally pattern-matched it with people denying your experiences with racialization.

WE GET IT, I PROMISE you! People invalidate people's experiences when they quite literally are not black and white. But your inability to see clearly is harming genuine conversations, and harming other jews.

Nonblack jews will be privileged by not being black, lighter skinned jews will be privileged for their lighter skins, jews with less racialized features will be privileged because they will face less featurism, etc etc etc... This does not mean you face nothing, it means we are ready to have a complex discussion. Please let us.

Little girl 2: yes it’s made of rocks but the rocks are made of Hashem. everything is made of Hashem because Hashem is in everything.

Little girl 3: even things no one’s ever heard of.

I know we all know this, but it helps to hear sometimes.

I love being a Jew. I love that I look forward to Shabbat services. I love that I'm looking forward to the High Holidays, I love that I've been tapped to do the aliyah for the Rosh Hashanah Torah chanting, I love that I successfully wrote my own name in Hebrew, at 32 years old, for the first time this past week, I love learning and growing and connecting and continuously rolling up my sleeves to enthusiastically wrestle with my identity with love and compassion and excitement.

If tumblr blog Jewish-hot-takes has 200 defenders I am one

if tumblr blog Jewish-hot-takes has 10 defenders I am one

if tumblr blog Jewish-hot-takes has 1 defenders I am him

if tumblr blog Jewish-hot-takes has no defenders sit shiva for me

iv nutrition beyond a saline iv is also an extreme option for disabled and/or extremely acutely ill people. total nutrition via iv is very rare and very expensive and is usually only done if it’s the only option. it has a high infection risk without a port, which can be deadly, so the risk has to be weighed carefully.

Oops! I'm sorry I didn't get to your original ask. Things do get buried in there lol.

For Jewish folklore:

Howard Schwartz has several award-winning collections of Jewish folklore, which are a joy to read, including 'Leaves from the Garden of Eden;' 'Elijah's Violin;' 'Lilith's Cave: Jewish Tales of the Supernatural;' 'Tree of Souls: the Mythology of Judaism;' and so many more. I definitely recommend any of those works.

Yiddish Folktales - Beatrice Weinreich

Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories - Shalom Aleichem

Jewish Legends of the Middle Ages - Claud Field

Legends of the Jews - Louis Ginzberg (a collection of Midrash that is so very good)

A Treasury of Jewish Folklore - Nathan Ausubel

Pomegranate Seeds: Latin American Jewish Tales - Nadia Grosser Nagarajan

Jewish Folktales - Pinhas Sadeh

Mimekor Yisrael: Classic Jewish Folktales - Micha Joseph Ben Gorion

For Jewish children's books:

Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins - Eric A. Kimmel (I adore this book)

The Golem's Latkes - Eric A. Kimmel (I also adore this one)

The Magic Dreidels - Eric A. Kimmel

The Adventures of Hershel of Ostropol - retold by Eric A. Kimmel

The Keeping Quilt - Patricia Polacco

The Blessing Cup - Patricia Polacco

The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming - Lemony Snicket

The original push behind naming cultural appropriation and having these conversations were so that we as a society could evaluate why we were punished for our heritage while white People were not. It was supposed to be about seeking solutions. The idea was to create a society where we could celebrate our cultures with impunity. It was never about telling white people that they “weren’t allowed” to do certain things. We did ask that white People stop doing certain things because they weren’t doing them respectfully and were not invited to do them, but the primary reason we asked them to desist was to reclaim the things they had stolen and to reassign them culturally back where they belonged.

White “allies” saw these conversations happening and instead of trying to aplify our own voices or even try to learn about the complexities behind why we were saying what we were saying, they instead began screaming over us and creating a narrative that was hardly even the bones of what we originally set out to say. It was like they took the conversation we were trying to have, completely decontextualized it, and stripped it of all it’s nuance in order to gain social currency by seeming progressive.

So the conversation around cultural appropriation went from “This aspect of our heritage belongs to us and we find it egregious that we are shamed for it. What steps can we take to address the racism that’s creating this situation as well as rehome the things that have been stolen” to “you’re not allowed to do that because if you do that you’re racist, we don’t really understand why that’s racist but you’re not allowed to do that and if you do that you’re a klansman no exceptions. So you’re not allowed because because”

At the end of the day, did I like the fact that sally was wearing dreads? No. But my primary concern was not that sally was wearing dreads but rather that sally could wear dreads and I couldn’t. THAT was the intended focus of those conversations. It was about addressing the inequality. It was about us. Now the conversation is just about sally and were completely forgotten.

Also, what prompted the Second Intifada (on paper), was that a Jewish politician went to visit the Temple Mount after the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf illegally excavated and dumped over 10 dump-trucks' worth of priceless artifacts within the Temple Mount.

And they slaughtered thousands of our civilians for it.

Fuck this article, but the headline spot on.

A Jewish man merely visiting the holiest place in the entire Jewish religion, that Jews aren't allowed to go near to "respect" the religion that built over it, and that alone prompted slaughtering thousands of our civilians.

And people try to, "Well... both sides" it.

"Wellllll, a Jewish politician visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque made Muslims scared that they'd make changes to it, so you can understand why--"

a) Like when they "made changes" to our holiest site in the world by destroying and dumping tens of tonnes of our holiest artifacts??

b) A Jew visiting a Mosque shouldn't prompt slaughtering thousands of Jews.

I shouldn't have to say that.

And don't, "Well, apartheid--" me:

This was just after the Camp David Summit.

Just after the Israeli government agreed to all of Yassir Araf's demands for Palestinian statehood and then some: All of Gaza, 96% of the West Bank, East Jerusalem as the capitol, plus full monetary reparations for those displaced in 1948 War that they started.

And Arafat responded by not just rejecting statehood, but his Waqf by vandalizing and destroying ten dump-trucks worth of the holiest Jewish artifacts from the holiest Jewish place in the world.

And Jews were (and are) expected to be completely fine with it.

"They destroyed literally tonnes of our holiest artifacts, but we visited their mosque, so it's really all the same."

"They stabbed, shot, and blew up thousands of our civilians across a bloody summer, but one of our guys visited their mosque, so tit-for-tat."

Fuck that.

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If you disagree with me about any of this, that's fine.

I don't care.

See, the Waqf's illegal excavation of the Temple Mount has a part two: The Temple Mount Sifting Project. We know where all the rubble was dumped, and this organization, with the help of hundreds of thousands of volunteers, has spent decades sifting through it for all the priceless archeological treasures.

But one of the most important elements of an archeological find, perhaps the most important element, is the context. Not only where it was found, but how deep. What was above it? What was it above?

And all of that context was permanently, irrevocably destroyed. If a 3000 year old shard is found, we have to ask: has it been there for three thousand years? Or could it have spent two thousand years elsewhere before being moved?

If the Temple Mount hadn't been desecrated, we'd find that shard in a layer of debris that would prove how long it had been there. But as is, we can't be totally certain. We can't prove it.

I've volunteered with the sifting project twice. The first time, I found a piece of Herodian tile--that is, the specific type of tile that he used in all his major building projects, which we also see at Masada.

I held in my hands corroboration of the contemporary account of Herod renovating the Temple and adding the retaining walls and plaza that are still standing today, the structure the Dome of the Rock was built on.

But that evidence, and every other piece of evidence the project finds, has, and always will have, an asterisk.

A bit of room for doubt that will always be there, because the religious authority descended from the conquerors of the land deliberately destroyed the evidence of the cultural history that predated their presence.

And yet, somehow, we are the real imperialist colonizers, and our presence is the real desecration.

When you factor in the fact that Jews are so so few, the amount of material culture within the archaeological is infinitesimally more finite, especially when compared to say the Roman Empire or the Arab Conquest. The scale and depth of just this incident of Temple Mount looting (note the Jordanian government also did significant damage during their occupation of the West Bank, this is not an isolated incident) is unimaginable.

No commentary needed (though that will possibly improve the experience), and in whichever language they are most comfortable, just the Tanakh from start to finish.

Regardless of ones theological views of the validity, divinity, or historicity of it, the tanakh is the foundational texts of Judaism. Had we not maintained it over these millennia, we would have stopped existing.

It is the same between Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, etc. as well as between Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Sephardi, Yemenite*, etc. and it is the defining difference between Jews and our closest religion (Samaritans).

Yet almost no one actually studies the whole thing from start to finish, including in the Yeshivas and Kollels.

As well, there is a complete different experience reading even just the torah in one go vs parsha by parsha as we normally do.

While I doubt it will make anyone more religious (it'll probably do the opposite), everyone who chooses to define themselves as Jewish should be familiar with the book that separates Jews from every other religion.

*ok, technically there are minor differences in the torah in some cases, but as far as I am aware they never impact the meaning of the word.

I love you jews in my phone

no, we don’t think we’re “saved” or “freed” from the law. i don’t know where people get this. my rabbi encourages us to take on as many mitzvot as we can, and when questions of halacha come up, she lets us know the varying consensus so we can make our own decisions. i understand the reform movement was interested in assimilation in the 1800s, but it’s not the 1800s anymore. and we certainly don’t think of “enlightenment” as our jesus (it makes me feel gross even to type that). we worship HaShem like everyone else.

2 million american jews are reform. to belittle us and all we face by calling us christians is beyond cruel. what about ahavat yisrael? what about lashon hara?

if you are so concerned about reform judaism, anon(s), then try some outreach. try some education. we are just as eager to learn and do as everyone else. i can’t fathom the reasons you’re saying this other than to drive other jews away.

no, we don’t think we’re “saved” or “freed” from the law. i don’t know where people get this. my rabbi encourages us to take on as many mitzvot as we can, and when questions of halacha come up, she lets us know the varying consensus so we can make our own decisions. i understand the reform movement was interested in assimilation in the 1800s, but it’s not the 1800s anymore. and we certainly don’t think of “enlightenment” as our jesus (it makes me feel gross even to type that). we worship HaShem like everyone else.

2 million american jews are reform. to belittle us and all we face by calling us christians is beyond cruel. what about ahavat yisrael? what about lashon hara?

if you are so concerned about reform judaism, anon(s), then try some outreach. try some education. we are just as eager to learn and do as everyone else. i can’t fathom the reasons you’re saying this other than to drive other jews away.