Grew up in a Muslim family, surrounded by wonderful Jewish neighbors in the U.S. We all lived in peace. I am mortified by what is happening in the Israel/Palestine conflict and my heart is broken.

I recently took a DNA test and it came back saying 18% of my ancestory is Jewish. Does this mean I’m ethnically Jewish? One Jewish friend says yes and one said an emphatic no.

Just curious….

#jewish #dna

Did anyone catch the Native American dancer holding a Palestine flag while dancing at the parade?

This story contains questionable behavior of a sexual nature, please care for yourselves 🩵l

Some background - I am a trans convert, and I had to unexpectedly move for my partner's job toward the end of my conversion process. I am also severely disabled with a neuroinflammatatory condition, and there are sometimes long stretches of time where it's very difficult for me to reach out to people.

I had one friend at synagogue who regularly asked how I was holding up, rather than hearing l'm not feeling well and waiting for me to reach out when I felt better. He was also the extrovert that felt in the center of everything for people our age, friends with everybody and always making plans to get people together.

When it came time for the mikveh, I asked this trans friend ifI could stay at his place for the weekend it was scheduled, as he takes COVID precautions similar to my own. I had also asked him to be my mikveh witness.

The night I got there, I told him I was exhausted from travel and wanted to maybe play a hand or two of cards before going to bed. Halfway through getting the cards out, he started asking me questions about polyamory - something he had never asked about in the weeks of planning.

While I had described myself as poly to him in passing when we met, he knows I am married and I was only traveling without my partner because of the cost of flights back home. I was really tired after my flight, but l'm 99% certain that he was hitting on me. This conversation lasted five hours somehow, and I don't remember specifics.

The air mattress I'd been promised was also punctured. I had to share a bed with him or sleep on the floor, which my back problems would not allow.

The next day, he didn't bring it back up. i was relieved and assumed, naively, that I had misjudged his intentions and he had just wanted to commiserate about being trans and poly.

The next day, the mikveh happened. When my interview was over and it was time to enter the bath, I stripped off my clothes in the bathroom etc. and asked him to enter so he could see I was ritually clean (no piercings, etc). Rather than a cursory glance, he ogled me and wiggled his eyebrows. The whole point of having someone at the mikveh who's the same gender as you, I thought, was to avoid the sexual gaze.

At the time, I didn't want to make a fuss. It was literal moments before my mikveh, something I had worked towards for years, and I couldn't afford to reschedule. I had waited so long for this, and I didn't want anything to ruin it. I could have done my mikveh at the reform synagogue near where I moved, but its Zionism had made me feel unwelcome from the start and I was constantly being asked why I had to wear a mask.

So, instead of saying anything about the look or the eyebrows, I finished the mikveh and celebrated that I was Jewish. I compartmentalized what happened, and I'm embarrassed to say, I kept being friends with the guy. When I told them what happened, my partner told me it was creepy and gross, and I agreed while also brushing it off as an accident. Because they weren't there, my partner followed my lead on how big of a deal to make things.

About six months later, the trans friend and I had a massive falling out. It was complicated, but essentially - I had gotten into an argument (that we found out later was mostly mutual miscommunication) about anti-Zionist tactics from the bimah with mutual friends. He was not a participant, but after, he yelled at me about it because the argument had happened on a discord server he was a moderator of.

He hadn't asked anyone what happened, just decided it was my fault despite friends apologizing to me within minutes of the conversation ending. I told him that he had no right to scold me regarding situations he didn't understand, and I needed us to seriously talk things out if we were ever going to hang out again. He ghosted me, changed the rules of the discord to be a hierarchy, and kicked me out of it.

It has been about six weeks since then, and I also started EMDR therapy. Re-examining this moment, I feel like he did something dirty and wrong. I don't know if I feel that way because I'm looking for reasons to still be mad, or because I'm seeing what happened through fresh eyes.

Either way, I don't know what to do. He's super involved at my synagogue and I see him constantly. He volunteers to keep things running all the time in a way I wish I could, but I can't. I know I should tell someone, but I don't know who I should turn to. He's not an employee, just a consistent volunteer.

I pidgeon-holed it for so long, and I don't really know why all the way. I do have a history of being abused (that I'm trying to work through in EMDR) that he knew about. I know it was cowardly not to say something or at least stop being friends, but I didn't want to believe that the only guy who checked on me didn't actually care about me.

I ignored a lot of red flags because I wanted a friend, and I'm realizing that if he treated anyone else this way, I'd be horrified. What do I do? How do I say it?

EDITED for typo

Hey so i recently got employed at a Caribou Coffee, I recently saw that the founders are zionists, should I continue to work here considering this? Does anybody know if their proceeds go to Israel?

If you google it, there are polls showing that Americans do not prioritize foreign policy and particularly Gaza very highly. This means the majority of Americans are indifferent to the situation and by being indifferent they are enabling it. There isn't much difference between what American Jews think and other Americans think. Therefore, to specifically single out American Jews seems to be flawed and simple minded, given that non-Jews are not taking positions that are anti-interventionist and critical of Israel. I will never understand far right people who critique Israel but don't critique non-Jews for supporting Israel. I guess national pride blinds people, both the Zionists themselves and the far right people who refuse to hold non-Jewish Zionists to the fire. I understand wanting to be controversial, but not at the cost of being unwise.

Hi everyone,

​

This is our weekly 'Free Discussion' thread, where you can discuss anything. Tentatively this includes meta-topics as well, but as always our rules still apply.

We hope you're all having a good week!

Trump has named controversial far-right pundit Sebastian Gorka to become senior National Security Council director for counterterrorism and deputy assistant to the president. It’s a top post that does not require Senate confirmation. Gorka advised Trump in his first term but was pushed out after The Forward revealed he once had ties to a Hungarian far-right, Nazi-allied group and that he supported an antisemitic and racist paramilitary militia in Hungary while he served as a Hungarian politician.
During an interview earlier this month on the Russian broadcaster RT, Gorka denied Palestine exists.

I'm a college student who was raised in a religious Zionist community to put it plainly without giving away too many details (posted on throwaway.) Ever since elementary school I've never connected to the religious aspect of it all, although culturally Judaism has always been so important to me.

Starting in high school I became disillusioned with Zionism and as of senior year it's no longer something I can support. Yet now that I'm half way through college, coming home just feels...weird? My friends from home are all still pro Israel and practicing to an extent. As someone who left both of those things behind, we still talk, but it just feels alien and weird. They know I don't practice but I know I can't tell them my views on Israel. Hanging out with them is fine but just feels uncomfortable knowing they're all out there protesting for Israel on their campuses. On top of that, I'm still pretending to parents and immediate family like I never left religious Zionism and it just feels so isolating. I can't even be myself fully at college because all Jewish events are pro Israel and I feel like I don't fit in anywhere.

This is partly a rant and partly just a discussion! Has anyone else ever felt like this?

Hello

I hope it’s ok to be part of this community and not be Jewish. I just wanted to express my joy at being here and how this is my favourite space on reddit. Life has felt terrible (extra terrible since oct 7th) and im just holding on to every solid and safe space I can find. I am sorry a lot of you are hurting in real life, i read your stories about how some of you feel alienated from your friends, family, local communities of faith, and yet you keep on persevering with your morals. I wish i could be your family and friend in real life. You are everything that is good in this life and I only wish the best for you all. With much gratitude 🙏🏽

It's everyone's favorite day of the week, "Ask A (Anti-Zionist) Jew" Wednesday! Ask whatever you want to know, within the sub rules, notably that this is not a debate sub and do not import drama from other subreddits. That aside, have fun! We love to dialogue with our non-Jewish siblings.

Please remember to pick an appropriate user-flair in order to participate! Thanks!

I went to their town hall on Sunday and their new executive director Rabbi Kahn said they're working to provide support to the new Jewish communal spaces aligned with the principles of undoing nationalism, colonialism, and white supremacy.. They want draw on their historical roots to be available as a resource for the new movement to ground itself in a progressive Jewish tradition. They want to provide support and be an alternative organization that offers something that the URJ and the Reconstructionist Federation may not. If you want a recording please DM me.

"The Council has begun a process of renewal in order to effectively reinvigorate the spiritual principles and values of our sacred inheritance. Through transparency and strategic consulting, we aim to assess the roles we are best suited to play in support of the wider community. 

The ACJ is committed to supporting spaces that are deeply connected to Jewish practices, histories and lineages, with intentional resistance to the elements of nationalism, colonialism, imperialism and supremacy which have taken root in many of our Jewish communal homes. We strive to be a pillar for the emerging new ecosystem of Judaism in America and beyond, supporting existing communities, cultivating new communities, and bridging between communities.

If you would like to be in touch about our work, please reach out to our executive director, Rabbi Andrue Kahn, at akahn@acjna.org"