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Shit Christians Say to Jews


FaustianSlip

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I've actually contacted places about Reform conversion, but being a lesbian in a long term relationship with a Buddhist is a turn off for those I've talked to, which I was surprised at. :/

That surprises me as well, because I know converts who are lesbian. Reform people are generally totally cool with that type of thing. You are moving around a bit, right? I would keep shul shopping if you are interested, because the life situation you describe is typical Reform in my experience.

Most of the families at my temple are mixed-faith, and we have at least one openly gay couple. My cousin is an openly lesbian Reform rabbi with a wife and kids; she had to convert because she is related to me through my grandfather and does not have that maternal lineage.

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Oh, just to add, one can definitely be culturally Jewish and participate in another religion. My mom is basically Fran Drescher in terms of dress and accent, but she is Buddhist by religion.

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That surprises me as well, because I know converts who are lesbian. Reform people are generally totally cool with that type of thing. You are moving around a bit, right? I would keep shul shopping if you are interested, because the life situation you describe is typical Reform in my experience.

Most of the families at my temple are mixed-faith, and we have at least one openly gay couple. My cousin is an openly lesbian Reform rabbi with a wife and kids; she had to convert because she is related to me through my grandfather and does not have that maternal lineage.

Exactly. We did a baby naming at ours about 6 months back for a wonderful couple that's 2 guys who are so enamored of their adopted daughter its insane (seriously i have NEVER seen a toddler that cosseted and just fussed over. It was really sweet to see) . My son who was about 14 months at the time was TOTALLY trying to flirt with her too. My best friend and his partner had a commitment ceremony done by our cantor. And we've got TONS of interfaith couples too.

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Oh, just to add, one can definitely be culturally Jewish and participate in another religion. My mom is basically Fran Drescher in terms of dress and accent, but she is Buddhist by religion.

I want to meet your mom.

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I want to meet your mom.

She is definitely a trip, and my stepfather is just as eccentric. It took my husband a long time to get used to my mother and stepfather. He still kinda holds it against them that we almost got kicked out of a campsite at 2 AM because of them. That and the time they broke into our house to use our shower. :lol:

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I had a Church-goer neighbor once who thought all Jews were rich and wealthy because they were hoarders and misers :roll:

same old same old.

But she did gave me examples such as Yossele from Poland (which actually was a Polish myth)

and then she mentioned real characters like the Rothschilds and Sir Manasseh Masseh Lopes, who was the actual inspiration for the Ivanhoe Character Isaac of York.

Honestly, I have never known any Jewish person in real life who was a miser or greedy. So apparently people like my neighbor who says that are obviously lying and ignorant of real Judaism.

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That is probably the most common Jewish stereotype.

Most people in my family are thrifty, cost-conscious and live below their means--voluntary simplicity. I guess it is a stereotype, but most Jews I know are similar so it could be a culturally sanctioned behavior. That is not the same as being a miser or a hoarder. I do have a few elderly hoarders in my family and it is clearly a different behavior than the coupon-clipping, sale-hunting, won't-pay-more-than-X that the rest of us do.

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That is probably the most common Jewish stereotype.

Most people in my family are thrifty, cost-conscious and live below their means--voluntary simplicity. I guess it is a stereotype, but most Jews I know are similar so it could be a culturally sanctioned behavior. That is not the same as being a miser or a hoarder. I do have a few elderly hoarders in my family and it is clearly a different behavior than the coupon-clipping, sale-hunting, won't-pay-more-than-X that the rest of us do.

Just out of curiosity, what do they hoard? antiques? books? magazines?

Because that's a lot common in my family, my brother hoards gun/motorcycle magazines and my mom loves collecting glass dolls in her glass cabinet.

And I like to hoard paper, a lot.

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Just out of curiosity, what do they hoard? antiques? books? magazines?

Because that's a lot common in my family, my brother hoards gun/motorcycle magazines and my mom loves collecting glass dolls in her glass cabinet.

And I like to hoard paper, a lot.

My grandmother, who died a year ago, hoarded books. She had probably tens of thousands of them when she died, in boxes, shelves, storage sheds, her carport. Maybe hundreds of thousands, we cannot even count! She also hoarded food and shoes. Before she died, she let me go through just.one.box of her shoes and I took away like five pairs of cute retro flats with the tags still on them. She would spend hundreds of dollars a week on food, all on sale and bought with coupons. Her childhood was traumatic and she did without a lot of things including adequate food, shoes and books. So I think she just made sure she had plenty around her in adulthood.

My grandfather was a diesel mechanic and would take people's broken down machinery, then fix and either use or sell it. That is fine, but the unfixable stuff just sat there around several acres of gorgeous Northern California property (with a small, private lake and a view, if you could look around the rusting trucks and diesel generators). In the last decade of his life he was unable to continue fixing stuff and continued taking it in. Years after his death, my family is still gradually hauling stuff off his property so we can actually use the property.

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May I ask a very ignorant, stupid question as long as you know I'm asking very respectfully and out of a desire to be more knowledgeable?

Here it is:

I have a friend who was raised Jewish (Jewish parents, bar mitzvah, etc.) Don't know if he was Conservative, Reform, etc. I don't think Orthodox. We're in the midst of not talking so I can't ask right now. I do know he grew up in a kosher home and still refuses to eat bacon or eat cheeseburgers.

He is also a militant atheist. Like, really thinks theists of any kind are not only willfully stupid but evil. (he has a lot of issues, don't get me started)

BUT....

I remember very clearly that he was very proud of his Isreali citizenship and has never renounced it, even when he renounced God.

He still considers himself Jewish. But Jewish and an atheist. I once asked him about it and he said that all Jewish people can be traced to 12 tribes (I think have that correct) so he deems himself to be of the Jewish "race." I do remember him saying that specifically because it seemed so odd to me that one could ever convert to a "race."

So my question is - what the hell was he talking about? Can he really still claim to be Jewish if he's an avowed atheist? I mean, if one were raised Catholic and became an atheist they don't consider themselves a Catholic atheist. At least not the raised Catholic/atheists I know.

Please don't kill me if this whole post is wrong on every level. I was raised as a horrible, ignorant heathen atheist and have spent most of my life learning little religious tidbits other take for granted.

Thank you very much.

Here's what I would say. Yes, you can be a Jewish atheist. I'm not a militant atheist and I do occasionally feel more like a pantheist, but for all intents and purposes I'm pretty much an atheist. Judaism is more than a religion.

But it is NOT a race. Or even an ethnicity. There are Jews, born-Jews, not converts, of many different races and ethnicity.

What Judaism is (and this is my opinion) is a nationality. I was kind of already of the belief that Judaism has more in common with citizenship than with religions (as in it is both something you can be born into and something you can choose). Then this past semester I took a course on East European Jewish history and read a ton of things about Jewish nationalism and it kind of just reinforced in my mind that what Judaism is (beyond a religion) is a nation. It's a bit complicated to explain, but we Jews are weird like that.

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"Did you know you killed my lord and savior?" (pretty sure that neither of us were there at the crucifixion)

Then say well you are why Jesus had to die in the first place He died for YOUR sins.

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This video is hilarious. And yes, I've heard most of these over the years. Surprised they left off the whole sex-through-a-hole-in-the-sheet line of inquiry (or maybe that was just big in my area growing up, which was very close in proximity to a major Chasidic community).

Funny thing is, right now I am facing a sort of opposite situation. I work in a (stereotypically-but-also-in-real-life) heavily Jewish industry, and have recently taken my Catholic husband's screamingly Italian last name. It sounds awful, but when I started my new job, and was introduced to my colleagues, I felt like I has instantly lost some sort of elite member-of-the-tribe status that I had with my old last name. I am sure it's as much in my head as anything, but I am super cognizant of dropping clues to my religious and cultural heritage into conversations.

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Then there are the people who are overly sensitive about it. While taking a class on avant-garde art, I discovered a Dada artist who was Jewish and had the same last name as me. Because my last name is very uncommon, and even less common among Jews, I set out to determine if we were related. (Results are inconclusive, but my dad insists he has the "family forehead.") When I told people about it, they asked what happened to the artist, and I said he died in the Holocaust. They'd respond, "Oh! I'm so sorry!" Thanks for the concern, but it's not like I didn't know that was a possibility.

What they fuck are they supposed to say?

If someone had said something else, you'd be on here talking about how INsensitive they were!

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:lol: That's a good one.

I think my favorite thus far is this one:

ylPUzxpIBe0

This one is so frickin' funny!

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Here's what I would say. Yes, you can be a Jewish atheist. I'm not a militant atheist and I do occasionally feel more like a pantheist, but for all intents and purposes I'm pretty much an atheist. Judaism is more than a religion.

But it is NOT a race. Or even an ethnicity. There are Jews, born-Jews, not converts, of many different races and ethnicity.

What Judaism is (and this is my opinion) is a nationality. I was kind of already of the belief that Judaism has more in common with citizenship than with religions (as in it is both something you can be born into and something you can choose). Then this past semester I took a course on East European Jewish history and read a ton of things about Jewish nationalism and it kind of just reinforced in my mind that what Judaism is (beyond a religion) is a nation. It's a bit complicated to explain, but we Jews are weird like that.

How it was explained to me when I was converting was it was like being an adopted kid. People who are born Jewish and decide not to be are still "family" we still love them and they're SO still family to us even if they have done a lot of soul searching and have discovered that say atheism or buddhism is what helps them sleep at night. It also goes for the person who is converting TO Judaism as well, you don't lose your past, you don't suddenly become someone else your past is part of your story.

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She is definitely a trip, and my stepfather is just as eccentric. It took my husband a long time to get used to my mother and stepfather. He still kinda holds it against them that we almost got kicked out of a campsite at 2 AM because of them. That and the time they broke into our house to use our shower. :lol:

That's hilarious. Can I sell my mother and buy shares in yours? If only families worked like stock markets.

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Religious belief and practices aside, I would call Judaism a culture (made up of many subcultures) rather than a nationality, but I understand pomology's reasoning.

I guess I should consider myself lucky for never having heard any of the brilliant remarks in the video--at least, no one has ever said them to me directly. One of my teachers--she was rather flaky--did once say that I didn't have typically Jewish features. (This came up while we were presenting our family trees.) I actually think I do, but that's because I know there are a diversity of "Jewish features"--which is a term that is becoming increasingly meaningless as more people convert and intermarry. (And that's good! Genetic diversity FTW!)

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What they fuck are they supposed to say?

If someone had said something else, you'd be on here talking about how INsensitive they were!

I just thought it was an odd response because, with the choice of words and tone of voice, they were reacting as if it just happened yesterday, or as if I had been blindsided with the information and was upset about it. Of course, being insensitive would not have been called for, but I would have been ok with a more neutral response, like "That's interesting."

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There are plenty of atheist Jews out there. I guess it's because being Jewish is not only considered a religion, but also, depending on your perspective, a racial/ethnic/cultural group.

Atheism doesn't preclude involvement in organized Judaism. Humanistic Judaism is one secular branch, but you can find atheists in some of the other branches, too.

You can find atheists in all branches. I know of at least one agnostic/atheist Orthodox Jew and I'm sure there are others.

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LOL, I love all these stories. My husband had the opposite issue - before he converted, everybody thought he was Jewish. He has an extremely Jewish name and looks. When he first moved to Los Angeles he could not for the life of him figure out why people were wishing him a happy new year in September. =)

Ha! I have a very Jewish last name, but was raised Catholic (and I look Irish), and I've had people wish me a happy new year in September, too.

I never realized how Jewish my last name was to some people until I lived in Chicago for several years, and some people would ask me if my family owned a well-known bagel shop in Skokie.

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  • 2 weeks later...

How it was explained to me when I was converting was it was like being an adopted kid. People who are born Jewish and decide not to be are still "family" we still love them and they're SO still family to us even if they have done a lot of soul searching and have discovered that say atheism or buddhism is what helps them sleep at night. It also goes for the person who is converting TO Judaism as well, you don't lose your past, you don't suddenly become someone else your past is part of your story.

That's interesting. Because with some Jewish converts, mainly Orthodox, I get the sense that people feel they must in some way walk away from their past. I get this feeling a lot form Skylar/Kochava's blog, once she wriote that she knew she and her future kids wouldd end up having limited contact with her close family. I don't see why this would have to be, unless your family is full of anti-Semites or strongly associated with a different religion. Maybe it's something to do with Orthodoxy? Or this specific person?

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  • 10 months later...

That's interesting. Because with some Jewish converts, mainly Orthodox, I get the sense that people feel they must in some way walk away from their past. I get this feeling a lot form Skylar/Kochava's blog, once she wriote that she knew she and her future kids wouldd end up having limited contact with her close family. I don't see why this would have to be, unless your family is full of anti-Semites or strongly associated with a different religion. Maybe it's something to do with Orthodoxy? Or this specific person?

Skylar here. Nope, not an orthodox thing. I say that just because my family lives far away (12 hour drive) and in a remote area (Appalachia) that doesn't have access to synagogues or kosher food. Even the airport requires a seven hour drive roundtrip! Gorgeous, but sounds terrible to me. I can't send my kids to their house unsupervised for a week or three like I did with my grandparents when I was a kid. That's a problem in any family that has some orthodox members and some non-orthodox ones, no matter whether the non-orthodox ones are Jewish or not.

It's not the best, but we're figuring it out. We're actually quite a close family! LOL

However, I do know converts who have had antisemitic attacks (physical ones) from family members. I know of at least two restraining orders. So it's not unheard of. And certainly a fair share of shunning people leaving conservative religious backgrounds (of any faith). I feel like a lot of orthodox converts do walk away from their pasts, as though it was a different person. They take on a new Hebrew name exclusively, can't wait to marry to change their name (even men sometimes do it to sound more "Jewish"!), and they act like they've always been this person. That's not for me, but I suppose every person deals with themselves differently. I just don't get it though. I see this as a continuation of every moment up to this point. I can't imagine making a big distinction like "This was Skylar, and this is Kochava, and never the two shall meet." Different strokes?

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One more data point on the "people who identify themselves as both 'Jewish' and 'atheist'"---one of my husband's cousins keeps kosher, attends Conservative services, and is an atheist. My husband is pretty much an anti-theist, but has a strong cultural identification as Jewish.

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Growing up I had a classmate who had dark red hair, blue eyes, and light skin. When she said that she was Jewish she'd often get responses of "But you don't look Jewish!"

One time in college we had to write an essay on the occupation of Germany after WWII. I was waiting for art class to start and was reading a book on a person's experiences during the time period. I had one person come up to me and ask "Are you Jewish?" I told him "no" and that I was doing research for an essay assignment. He stared at me blankly and said "I thought you were because of your nose...you have one of...those noses...and you're...that book..." before he walked off. I had to shake my head and go back to my work.

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