Torah Family Living Blog

[chiccy]

I'm between a 3 and a 4 (probably closest to like a 3.25) and I'm Reform. :D I did at one point have different sets of dishes, but last year after Pesach, I suffered a fit of misanthrope and said "screw it" and went down to one.

That's interesting; all of the Conservative (and, of course, Reform) Jews I know don't keep any aspect of kashrus, except occasionally at Passover. The most I've seen any of my non-Orthodox acquaintances do is say "I only eat Hebrew National hot dogs"--which, of course, are not even considered Kosher by most Orthodox standards.

Do a lot of people in your Reform community follow the dietary laws?

[Beeks]

That's interesting; all of the Conservative (and, of course, Reform) Jews I know don't keep any aspect of kashrus, except occasionally at Passover. The most I've seen any of my non-Orthodox acquaintances do is say "I only eat Hebrew National hot dogs"--which, of course, are not even considered Kosher by most Orthodox standards.

Do a lot of people in your Reform community follow the dietary laws?

I'm sort of shocked that most conservative people you know don't keep any form of kosher! Where do you live? When we lived in LA I would say most conservative people we knew kept SOME form of kosher....but granted our synagogue was more conservadox and we crossed paths and ate out with a lot of MO folks as well.

[chiccy]

I'm sort of shocked that most conservative people you know don't keep any form of kosher! Where do you live? When we lived in LA I would say most conservative people we knew kept SOME form of kosher....but granted our synagogue was more conservadox and we crossed paths and ate out with a lot of MO folks as well.

Beeks, I live in a major metropolitan area on the East coast. A very liberal place, if that helps...I know tons and tons of Jews here, the majority of whom are Reform. But yeah, the Conservatives I know don't keep much (if any) halacha. The small amount that they do do tends to be in homage to tradition, not based on any religious motivations or belief in the divinity of Torah.

[FaustianSlip]

I was in the D.C. area and my experience has been closer to Beeks'- most of the Conservative folks I know, at the very least, don't eat pork or shellfish, and a lot keep kosher homes and only eat vegetarian stuff out. I know some (mostly younger) people who don't bother with any of it, but not many who identify as Conservative in the sense that they're regular attendees at services, et cetera. There were a number of people in my congregation who were functionally Orthodox, aside from the fact that they davened at an egalitarian synagogue and occasionally took advantage of the infamous driving teshuvah. The Reform folks I know, by contrast, almost to a person didn't worry about keeping any kind of kosher at all.

Of course, I'm a Conservative Jew who davens every day and lays tefillin, so maybe I'm further to the right of the observance scale than I think I am. I think of myself as being pretty middle of the road, given that I'm not shomer Shabbos or Yom Tov, at least not yet.

[ilovetchotchkes]

That's interesting; all of the Conservative (and, of course, Reform) Jews I know don't keep any aspect of kashrus, except occasionally at Passover. The most I've seen any of my non-Orthodox acquaintances do is say "I only eat Hebrew National hot dogs"--which, of course, are not even considered Kosher by most Orthodox standards.

Do a lot of people in your Reform community follow the dietary laws?

No, i'm an odd duck. We all got together Christmas Eve for Chinese food and almost everyone ate shrimp but me. But I use the excuse of "i'm a convert". Truth is? almost all of the foods I loathe are not kosher. My hatred for bacon knows no bounds. And I hate shrimp.

I'm probably closer to the conservative end of the spectrum observance wise, BUT our community is so fabulous and we've got some amazing friends at our shul that we're just happy being more observant in a less observant environment. Luckily, our Cantor is about the same level as we are so its not like we're the ONLY people.

[RR88]

No, i'm an odd duck. We all got together Christmas Eve for Chinese food and almost everyone ate shrimp but me. But I use the excuse of "i'm a convert". Truth is? almost all of the foods I loathe are not kosher. My hatred for bacon knows no bounds. And I hate shrimp.

I love bacon, but the smell of any other pig products makes me physically ill. Shrimp give me migraines. (Sorry I disappeared for a few days; I've been preoccupied.)

[pomology]

I love bacon, but the smell of any other pig products makes me physically ill. Shrimp give me migraines. (Sorry I disappeared for a few days; I've been preoccupied.)

Honestly, the smell of bacon makes me ill, too. My friends think I'm crazy, but they accept the explanation that it's probably due to the fact that I didn't smell it for the first 18 years of my life.

But honestly, I've never felt the desire to violate my own standards for kashrut because I don't like meat, so I eat very little meat, and therefore have no desire to eat non-kosher meat or meat with milk. which, to be honest, is also an idea I find somewhat repulsive.

[Daenerys]

I once had a pepperoni pizza and creamy dip with my jewish friend's family. They were crazy liberal, though, the boy wasn't even circumcised and they were Americans!

[2xx1xy1JD]

Cute list of levels, but of course there are individual quirks.

Growing up, we were around a 2, but with some odd twists. No eating pork out - unless it was at a Chinese restaurant or in the form of pepperoni. It took me years to realize that I had been eating pork in these place, when I believed that I had been avoiding it. Anything with shrimp was to be smuggled in and hidden at the back of the freezer. Milk was never, ever to be served with meat - except pepperoni and cheese pizza was okay, and so was parmesan cheese on a caesar salad served with steak.

Part of the confusion was that my dad came from a Modern Orthodox family, while my mom's was socialist/atheist.

We were surrounded, however, by tons of traditional Conservative Jews who were fairly serious about keeping kosher to Conservative standards (levels 3-5). I'm constantly trying to explain to folks who don't know my city that traditional Conservative really do exist (since they seem to think that a Conservative Jew who keeps kosher and keeps Shabbat is like a unicorn). For more fun, I try to explain that most of the Conservative synagogues near me are NOT egalitarian, and that my grandmother's Modern Orthodox synagogue was more feminist than my family's Conservative one.

There is a rational basis for some level 4 leniencies. Level 5 is quite basic, and I'd lump all of the extra stringencies and "I can do this because I can afford it" stuff into level 6. I'll admit that we have separate sinks - it's clearly not a necessity (since none of my rabbis had them) but it makes life a bit easier, we were renovating the kitchen anyway, and I thought it would increase the resale value in our area.