Winging off of my previous post, I have no clue how the Jewish people can become a united front again.
One step might be, you know, some Jews not telling other Jews of a different strand of Judaism that they’re not real Jews
Like
Some people
We know
Kol Yisrael arevim zeh la-zeh! Except for you and you and you
But really tho, like, I have said this before, but I will always have another Jew’s back wrt anti-Semitism no matter how much I dislike them as a person
but I have zero interest in supporting the politics of racist, misogynist homophobes just because we share an ethnicity or religion. Some of these people wouldn’t even consider me a human being, let alone a fellow Jew.
(I know you weren’t suggesting we unite with jerks, at this point I’m just proselytizing like a Christian on crack)
But yeah like, the Orthodox have no reason to not recognize Reform besides their own bigotry. Because Reform is very true to the nature of Judaism, which has always evolved with time and cultural changes instead of staying trapped in an archaic, repressive time capsule. And you can shout “halakha” all you want but really what it boils down to is that the idea of queer people being treated as humans (as opposed to that horrible “we love you as long as you never engage in your sinful homosex” thing that some frummies pull when they pretend to be ~open minded~) scares you, as does the idea of women not “knowing our place” behind the mechitza. Oh, and idek why patrilineal descent bothers you that much, probably because you’re horrible but I haven’t pinpointed the exact nature of it.
And I mean, just the irony of being accused of assimilation by people who have done their fucking best to assimilate to Christian fundamentalism.
tl;dr my rant is not entirely off the rails because what I’m saying is for some people “queer Jew” or “Jewish woman” etc is an inseparable identity and until the frummies learn to respect that, I’m afraid we’re fucked wrt a truly united front.
Ooh I really like what you said about Christian fundamentalism
Like this is the model they are going off of what “religion” is and what being a “true believer” is which:: is the MOST GOYISCHE NOTION MY GOODNESS
Like once my Orthodox neighbor (who’s about my age and who now has actually made aliyah good riddance) found out I was an atheist and messaged me on Facebook telling me that that’s a sin and I’m going to Hell
And I was like
WE… DON’T HAVE… A HELL… IN JUDAISM???? THAT’S NOT A THING THAT JEWS ASCRIBE TO????? Ahhhhhh it was so bizarre
[like okay we have some super vague notion of gehinom something something wilderness something desert but uh??? it’s not a thing??? that atheists “go to Hell”???]
I think people (read: frum mafia) deny patrilinearity because, by falling back on halakha, they can overcompensate for their own unstable, ill-defined jewish identities/general shittiness. halakha gives them that one “legitimate” parcel of judaism to cling to because, no matter how horrible they are, they will always be True Jews and they take reassurance in that.
maybe in this sense, then, same-sex marriage really does ruin marriage for the rest of them.
i don’t have any thoughts right now on the unification of jewry, but can merely echo that doing so would entail reconceptualizing judaism.
maybe how kaplan did
in the 1930s
(Source: baruchobramowitz)
