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I wouldn’t say nobody, ever heard of Major League Quidditch….
Yossi, is it possible the numbers are reversed in your particular geographic area? Maybe try a singles event in another community? I hope you find your bashert soon!
Who even knows what’s in a Treacle Tart but I bet there’s lard in there!
@Participant
More spoiler alerts…
What I was refering to was based on the last book Dumbledore knew early on that Harry would need to die to destroy Voldemort. Did he know this and intentionally lure Harry into a parent-child bond knowing as an orphan he was an easy mark? Harry spends half the the series showing his devotion to this man who is his parent-mentor figure and then to know that perhaps the relationship was just a chess move to Dumbledore felt like a betrayal to me. Essentially Harry is sacrificed by his father figure to defeat evil but then is resurrected. Now who does that sound like??? The author said this was her intention when writing the series, to make this parallel.AviraDeArah, my 1st statement was a bit tongue in cheek although I apologize because tone is almost impossible to read online. Just because everyone does something obviously doesn’t make it okay.
My point was more if there was something seriously problematic from a Jewish perspective I doubt so many people here would have read and enjoyed them. I certainly intentionally avoided reading the Narnia series by CS Lewis. Regret for reading them does not seem to be universal either. Are there concerns with the HP series yes clearly. Is it the worst thing for a Jewish kid to read not by a long shot. I don’t see it as having only one right answer but maybe that’s just so I’m always right. 😉Based on the postings it seems everyone here has read and enjoyed the books so as an informal poll there you go. The first two books are probably okay if one is okay with reading secular literature. The characters celebrate Christmas and there is even a token Jewish student, Anthony Goldstein in Ravenclaw, who attends Hogwarts which is a multi-faith wizard school. The later books in the series get more questionable though as the subject matter gets darker and more mature in tone.
From a Jewish perspective my big issue would be the Christian subtext in the stories. I struggled a lot with the ending of the series. <Spoiler Alert> The intense betrayal and sacrifice of the main character seemed disturbing to me. So I did some research to understand it better and then I found out why this literary allegory felt so foreign to me. It is designed to parallel the Christian resurrection story (this has been confirmed by the author). The 7th book the Deathly Hallows even includes 2 direct quotes directly from the Christian bible which were listed on tombstones.
People are human, everyone has sins. That’s why we have communal confessions on Yom Kippur. I have yet to hear of an orthodox shul where they say, oh we skip that part since obviously no one among us has sinned.
Just my view, but I’ve never liked the labels Orthodox, Conservative, & Reform for people. They are affiliations for synagogues or organization. People are Jewish. They can be more or less observant/frum. You can say you grew up in or belong to an O/C/R shul, but even individuals within the same family and over the course of their lives have varying levels of observance.
Here’s a few examples of why I think O/C/R as individual labels don’t work.
There’s a Refom (non-congregational) Rabbi who reads Torah weekly at a local Modern Orthodox shul where I believe he is a member. What is he? Reform? Orthodox?
(Reform + Orthodox)/2= Conservative?
No, he is Jewish.
My friend had a Jewish father and Christian mother, he was Baptized in the church and had a Bar Mitzvah at a Reform synagogue. What is he? A Reform Jew? No, not Jewish.
My friend was ‘raised Conservative,’ he married a non-Jewish woman, they have children, everyone in the home keeps kosher. What are they? One lonely Jew.
Someone who was ‘raised Orthodox’ but no longer is observant? He is Jewish.
A BT or FFB? They are Jewish.
When the little boy at religious school drop-off asks me skeptically if we are Jewish since our family is visibly less observant than others, I say without qualifiers, yes we are Jewish.“In NYC, however, there has always been a massive amount of Antisemitism that people seem to just tolerate.”
I think it gets lost within the general violence of a big city. Not going to be front page news over yesterday’s 75 other crimes. In a small town where Jews are rare and crime is rarer its more likely to make headlines.Also being from OOT I feel the need to clarify this statement, edited
I FOUND IT!!!!!
Burried in section 1, almost a footnote, the real numbers….“One other common definition should be mentioned: In traditional Jewish law (halakha), Jewish identity is transmitted by matrilineal descent. The survey finds that 87% of adult Jews by religion and 70% of Jews of no religion – a total of about 4.8 million U.S. adults – say they had a Jewish mother. Additionally, about 1.3 million people who are not classified as Jews in this report (47% of non-Jews of Jewish background) say they had a Jewish mother.”
@ujm “Orthodox Jews as a whole, not just Chareidim, are very Republican”
The survey says “Orthodox Jews have been trending in the opposite direction, becoming as solidly Republican as non-Orthodox Jews are solidly Democratic. In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, 75% of Orthodox Jews said they were Republicans or leaned Republican, compared with 57% in 2013.”
Since the survey doesn’t split out orthodox subgroups isn’t it also possible that rather than more non-haredim orthodox Jews moving right politically, that haredim in the last 7 years have become a larger proportion of the overall orthodox group accounting for some of the percentage shift to the political right?
I also wonder if any Democratic leaning Orthodox Jews felt pushed out by the conservative political leanings of their congregations?
I know I’ve personally recently strongly felt the inverse of that (having moderate politics no longer feeling comfortable in a liberal congregation).
@CTLawyer – May I ask do you know the political affiliations of others in your minyan from personal chit-chat or is there a push at a congregational level where it is clear what the politics of the shul are?Shall we ask pew to add some subcategories for Orthodox Jews?
_Frum frum
_Frum lite
_Bad JewDid I miss any?
Using #s from wikipedia Jewish population by metro area (#s in thousands) using top 10 US metro areas just for a ballpark figure.
Northeast: 2,279
NYC 1,600
Boston 248
D.C. 216
Philly 215West: 847
LA 519
San Fran 228
San Diego 100Midwest: 292
Chicago 292South: 239
Atlanta 120
Miami 119Not in the top 10:
Cleveland 87
Detroit 72
Cincinnati 27
Milwaukee 26
Columbus 23NCB – I think you are underestimating the numbers on the West Coast even if you assume there are a lot of questionably Jewish people in interfaith families out there.
AAQ – Good point on the 5% of O not keeping kosher.
I looked at the stats for ownership of Jewish items and it says Menorah ownership O-95%,
Mezzuzah O-96%,
Hebrew language siddur O-96%.Something seems “off” with that last 4% to 5%?
We use Travelers. They offer a good discount if you have multiple policies with them.
Ran across this on the wikipedia page for Lithuanian Jews yesterday when trying to figure out if my ancestors called themselves Litvaks 100 years ago as a geographic or a religious affiliation.
“Lithuania became the heartland of the traditionalist opposition to Hasidism. THEY NAMED THEMSELVES “misnagdim” (opposers) of the Hasidi. The Lithuanian traditionalists believed Hassidim represented a threat to Halachic observance due to certain Kabbalistic beliefs held by the Hassidim, that, if misinterpreted, could lead one to heresy as per the Frankists.”
If the term misnagdim was a title they created for themselves then originally it was not pejorative to them. However since it emphasizes the dangers they saw in chassidism it was perhaps originally pejorative towards them. So maybe it’s been twisted since but the discontinuance of that term seems more about Litvish accepting Chassidim today then finding it offensive.
If you WANT to do something but are too tired it’s fatigue.
If you HAVE to do something you don’t want to do but are suddenly too tired its laziness.My guess is if you care enough to ask, it’s not laziness.
Here are some possible causes:
DSM – see ADHD
It’s much different than people think it is. Can cause issues getting started with tasks. Looks lazy from the outside, but weird brain chemistry on the inside. If you are always running late or procrastinating tasks or feeling tired specifically when bored it could be this.
A neuropsychological evaluation can check for this with a series of tests.Depression can make it hard to get out of bed or get motivated even with sufficient rest.
Underlying medical issues can cause fatigue. Some are hard to diagnose and often missed by doctors.
Sleep issues such as sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome’s lesser known cousin perioc limb movement disorder, can interupt your sleep without you being aware of it. If you wake up after a full night’s rest still feeling exhausted could be this.
A sleep study can diagnose.Digestive issues like celiac disease and IBD-Crohns/UC which is very common among Jews but incredibly hard to get correctly diagnosed.
See a Gastroenterologist.Thyroid issues and Anemia can cause fatigue. Get a bloodwork panel.
Hope this helps!
When I was younger (school age) if I noticed I disliked someone for no real reason (perhaps based on assumptions or mild jealously whatever it was) I would force myself to try to become friends with them. Getting to know them usually worked to overcome whatever was causing that feeling and better than that I’d often end up with a new friend.
My suggestion would be to find someone you assume you dislike and reach out in some way and try to find common ground. Like amiricanyeshivish pointed out just happened earlier in this thread.
Remember sinas chinam is a two way street. In my opinion it’s harder to hate someone you know and when there’s no “real reason” it should be easier than you might expect to overcome.yungermanS – beautifully said!
provaxx – thanks for the stories 🙂
n0mesorah – “If you hate other Yiden because they lost their way, is there any place for them to come back to?” – *applause*
Such an interesting discussion!
The confluence of religion and politics within the Jewish community is something I have been struggling with lately.
I find people often confuse their political values and their religious values.The question of “how a Jew can be a democrat” reminds me a bit of the comment I once heard “real Jews don’t eat mayo.” Well if it’s kosher mayo what’s the problem? I personally like mayo! I certainly don’t think that makes me less Jewish.
I’ve always been a proud Independent despite having to register with a party to vote in closed primaries (and in my opinion closed primaries are harmful and help drive parties to their extremes). I look at the issues and where the candidates stand and who the candidates are as people and often divide my ticket at the local level.
To determine my stance on many issues I look to my Jewish values. But not every issue has a definitive answer based in Torah. And as mentioned in other replies, no American party aligns 100% with Jewish values. Just to throw out a few random examples; should we have a gas tax versus toll roads, trade laws, zoning permits, state employee labor union contracts, corn subsidies, tax rebates for solar panels, overnight street parking, should the town invest in a new swimming pool, etc. The minutiae of governing is often not a source of great religious controversy or debate.
The national culture war issues make for great headlines and click bait but are unhealthy and divisive for our country and our people.
As we can see from CR discussions there rarely is only one Jewish view on any topic and politics is no exception.Republicans in blue states sometimes hold positions that are more liberal then democrats in red states.
Connecticut Gov. Lamont, a Democrat, went to Israel while in office.
Connecticut Gov. Roland, a Republican, went to jail while in office.ER – well said about being skeptical of the comment the “Republican Party likes frum Jews.”
Parties don’t like groups for who they are, they like voting blocks in swing states (Florida) and major donors. When the map changes or the donations dry up so will the support.So my personal struggle recently is realizing the Jewish community I grew in has moved so far left politically I feel I have no choice but to leave (and I generally vote D in national elections). While looking at other options it seems many religious institutions also moved far left politically while I was apparently asleep during the last decade.
To say Jews only vote this way or that it pushes out of the community those who may hold different political views and that in my opinion is not right. We frequently welcome lively debates, but forcing allegiance to only one political party shuts that down.
My whole life I’ve felt like a round peg in a square hole so I’m used to some level of discomfort but this has sadly become too much to bear. The positive side is it’s pushed me out of my comfort zone religiously and put me back on a path I had briefly found a long time ago.“Why are people so obsessed with this?”
The issue even has it’s own wikipedia page!
Sorry, no links
In my ignorant open-minded not-so-frum opinion its controversial because if it was an “official” position that the Rebbe is the mashiach it would cause Lubavitch to become a new splinter religion like one of many splinter groups that have their origins in Judaism. (See Besalel’s comment.)
The biggest difference between Judaism and Christianity is accepting “you know who” as the messiah. As a Jew who grew up among way too many Christians, when religion came up, I was often asked about this. They could not understand that ‘he’ had no place in our religion nor my headspace.
Between the different groups within Judaism today the major differences are all generally based on religious practices not theology.I’ve only seen the topic discussed when Chabad is brought up, not just as a casual conversation.
But I was regretfully warned off of Chabad growing up because of it. I went to a shabbos dinner once at the request of a friend but that was my only involvement. I heard various comments from people I personally respected (not really frum but religiously knowledgable individuals) like, “what’s the closest religion to Judaism that’s not Judaism? -Lubavitch” and “they aren’t really Jewish due to their belief in the Rebbe as Moshiach.” Having no personal experience with or understanding of the group myself, I had no way to evaluate these statements on my own (this predated wikipedia). Recently I’ve been feeling unfulfilled, looking for more religiously (hence me hanging out in the CR), and searching for a new “Jewish home.” Very recently I realized that Chabad checks all of the boxes I have been looking for so I plan to really explore what they offer. There are limited choices for observant Jewish experiences where I live and I am quite thankful for the opportunities they provide.None right now, but I had 2 goldfish as a kid and one lived for 14 years! We also semi-adopted our neighbors cat that had been born feral and wouldn’t live inside. She liked to leave us presents.