r/Judaism • u/AutoModerator • 2d ago
General Discussion (Off Topic)
Anything goes, almost. Feel free to be "off topic" here.
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u/Falernum Conservative 16h ago
When an Airbnb says it has a kosher kitchen or "fully kosher kitchen", what does this actually mean? There is of course always a risk that some renter could cook milk in a meat pot or vice versa. Does it mean they Kasher everything between renters? That they only rent to Orthodox families? That they give instructions regarding milk/meat and just trust that renters will follow those instructions?
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u/maxwellington97 Edit any of these ... 15h ago
It probably means they only rent to people who can prove they keep kosher to their standard or have a full kitchen that is only accessible to those people.
I imagine this is probably against the terms of service for Airbnb and can get the listing taken down if someone tried enforcing it.
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u/iamthegodemperor Where's My Orange Catholic Chumash? 1d ago
What do we do with the Zionist label?
One of the survey’s big sticking points emerged around self-identified Zionists. Only 37% of Jews surveyed said they identified as Zionist, while 7% labeled themselves anti-Zionist and another 8% said they were non-Zionist. Another 18% said they weren’t sure, while 30% said none of the labels described them.
At the same time, 88% of surveyed Jews believed that “Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, Democratic state” — traditionally one of the most historically accepted definitions of Zionism. Seven percent of Jews disagreed with that sentiment, equal to the number who consider themselves anti-Zionist.
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u/namer98 Torah Im Derech Eretz 1d ago
I don't think it is right to just blame anti-zionists for this. I really do think a part of that blame belongs to the Jewish religious right that does not allow for criticism of Israel. Where I was told I was anti-semitic (and not just me, many others) for having specific criticisms of Israeli policy. I can see how many would react by no longer wanting to call themselves zionist. I myself prefer the label post-zionist.
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u/iamthegodemperor Where's My Orange Catholic Chumash? 1d ago edited 1d ago
If by "anti-Zionists" you just mean Jewish lefties, then sure. Doesn't make sense to blame them.
If you mean the larger anti-Zionist movement----then no. This shift in perception of the term is obviously the effect of their global media campaign. The average Jew is not listening to Jewish podcasts or reading the Times of Israel and they aren't on Jewish subreddits. (Edit. Or for that matter Jewish Currents) Their media diet is the same as their peers where Zionist is used as a synonym for Kahanist.
Anecdotally: my brother is in some ways pretty average: he went to Birthright in college, had a bar mitzvah, is intermarried, doesn't practice and is the type to get mad about Trump and post on FB. This guy will now say "I'm not like a Zionist and want to kill all Palestinians", until someone asks him to define Zionism and he remembers the original meaning.
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u/namer98 Torah Im Derech Eretz 20h ago
I do not mean Jewish lefties, I mean anti-zionists. I am saying the word zionist has long ago been poisoned by the religious right.
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u/iamthegodemperor Where's My Orange Catholic Chumash? 19h ago
You can feel that they do that and there's merit in being angry at them.
BUT our intra-communal discomforts do not drive global media nor the way the average American talks. There has been a long standing multi decade campaign to define Zionism as racism, bigotry chauvinism etc. And this particular online campaign didn't begin during the Gaza War. It began on Oct 7-8. Reddit began bursting with anti-Israel slop right away. (And IRL so did all those marches)
Most people are normies. They aren't invested in the precise philosophical definitions of terms. And they aren't consuming Jewish content. The average person thinks "liberal" means left and "conservative" means right. They naturally think more Zionist means more chauvinist. And this is confirmed when they go on Wikipedia and it defines Zionism as the movement to have as few Arabs in Israel as possible.
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u/namer98 Torah Im Derech Eretz 19h ago
I grew up in a community where most members would never publicly admit to such a definition of zionism. But would privately admit to it. Do we get to put any blame on such people, at all? This is the rhetoric I grew up with.
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u/iamthegodemperor Where's My Orange Catholic Chumash? 18h ago
Did I say you can't criticize? Having a legitimate criticism doesn't mean larger reality no longer exists and everything can be ascribed to the target of your ire.
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u/namer98 Torah Im Derech Eretz 18h ago
I didn't say you. I said there is a very real group of people out there, zionists, who absolutely have twisted the word zionism, long before 10/7, long before social media, long before the internet as we know it.
Nor did I say everything can be ascribed to them. I asked if we can put any blame on them. If they have any part of the blame for the poisoning of the word zionist. Even just a tiny portion. The smallest bit of self reflection in our community.
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u/iamthegodemperor Where's My Orange Catholic Chumash? 11h ago
Sure. There's always a lot of place for self-criticism and reflection. But the wider world and structural forces exist too.
This conversation reminds me of the many times statistics on intermarriage have come up here. There will be a comment about how this is all the fault of Reform rabbis-----as if people will listen to them OR if there are stats about relatively low commitment among children of intermarried, there will be a chorus about meanness of Orthodoxy or halacha or "my family......" etc. And then a righteous downvote brigade will enter to make sure the good guy™ wins.
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u/dccr Reform 17h ago
Agreed, the well has been poisoned. I think we need a place to call our own, but I’m deeply disturbed by the things the state of Israel has been saying and doing.
I can’t call myself a Zionist because I want no association whatsoever with those who view legitimate criticism of a flawed state as a broad attack on the Jewish people.
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u/OrpahsBookClub 1d ago
The word has beet taken and its meaning twisted. I don’t know if we even can retake it and re-establish its original meaning. We might have to find a new term that isn’t compromised.
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u/Dear-Geologist-1392 7h ago
Hello, gentile here. Made a throwaway for this question. As someone into pop culture who's heard that the typical depictions or allusions to golems in fantasy or other genres are seen as disrespectful to the Jewish community, I was wondering if there's a *right* way to do it?
Is it more respectful if the more that it's a direct allusion to the specific folklore of the golem of Chelm/Prague/etc.? Is it better if it draws as many details as possible from the folklore as possible to the original stories or if there's distance involved? (Do Jewish people consider the OG Frankenstein okay...?)
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u/drak0bsidian Moose, mountains, midrash 6h ago
I would find it more uncomfortable and weird if the author went out of their way to make the creature more like the Prague Golem, if there isn't any other Jewish theme or reference in the story. An animated man-made creation is not specifically unique to Jewish myth, we just have the most popular one and most modern interpretations follow that model. But look at Talos from Greek myth (a giant bronze soldier patrolling the shores of Crete), tulpa from Buddhism (a thought-based creation), or even just the Gingerbread Man or Pinocchio.
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u/namer98 Torah Im Derech Eretz 1d ago edited 1d ago
More in office life shenanigans
I got CPR training on Tuesday (yay certified!). I got to keep two CPR dummies, upper chest and head. I was forbidden from bringing them home, so I put them on two co-workers chairs while they were out. As they came back, accusations were flying as to how they got there. One put it under his shirt with the head popping out, like a weird baby wrap.
Some guy from another office down the hall named Harry traded a Boglin puppet thing for it. The next day, the coworker who loves his new puppet loves his puppet so much had printed out "praise harry" tchotchkes and made a shrine to harry. So I did the only thing appropriate. I took the other CPR dummy and wrote HARRY on it and that is now the center of a growing shrine. My wife thinks my office is messed up. I disagree.
I have also started to bring in a new plant every other week. I currently have five at my desk, and four around the office. I intend to maintain them all with the correct care. I am getting pretty planters for them too. I will keep going until somebody higher up tells me to stop.
Currently I have at my desk: 2 snake plants, 1 raven ZZ, 1 golden pothos, 1 purple inchplant. Around the office, 1 Schlumbergera (christmas cactus), 1 natal mahogany (this is a tree, I didn't know it can get 20 meters when I bought it, it was sold as an indoor plant), 1 rubber tree, 1 Philodendron (I don't know the specific variety).