"Ask A Jew" Wednesday

[u/AutoModerator]

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.

[u/Rigo-lution]

Hi, for any secular Jews here, what are the cultural practices (religious or not) that tie you to your Jewish identity?

For context, I'm from a primarily Catholic country (Ireland) but was raised secularly. My family spends Christmas together but it's usually participating food (coddle, soda bread), music (Sean-nós singing or trad music at pubs) or sport that makes me feel "Irish".
I ask because the overlap of Jewishness as an ethnicity as well as religion is not something I can intuitively understand from my experience.

[u/PreparationOk1450 → u/Rigo-lution]

I'm atheist but celebrate the holidays like the High Holy Days, Purim, Passover. I think there's also doing Palestine activism with others, including Jewish people. This quest for justice is an important part of Jewish values and traditions.

[u/Rigo-lution → u/PreparationOk1450]

I've seen justice mentioned twice now, like how education is associated with Jesuits.

I didn't know about this. Definitely a great value to have traditionally.
Obviously anyone can have it but maintaining a tradition of justice is something more.

[u/Momosufusu → u/Rigo-lution]

I’m Ashkenazi and grew up almost 100 percent secular, though we did Passover Seders with more observant family members and attended their bar mitzvahs etc.

Jewish culture showed up as lots of yiddishisms incorporated into every day English like gazuntite when someone sneezes, and oy vey whenever anything goes wrong or elicits an eye roll. Ashkenazi Jewish foods like kugel and rugelach. A strong emphasis on intellectual curiosity and social justice (tho since the cult of Zionism has taken over that’s less and less of a Jewish cultural norm).

My mother, being a very stereotypical Jewish mother, always made sure everyone who came to our house was fed. Not having enough food for guests was considered the greatest sin — and we would gossip for ages about WASP families not feeding people enough. She was also in everyone’s business and still is. Every phone call comes with a big dose of gossip.

Much of this is carried over from working class Ashkenazi Jewish culture in Europe. And none of it is universal. But it’s how I’ve experienced my Jewish culture.

[u/Rigo-lution → u/Momosufusu]

Huh, that's interesting. I have been saying gesundheit instead of bless you when people sneeze to avoid the religious connotations.
I sometimes forget the Yiddish and German connection.

I get you on this, there's a lot of Hiberno-English (usually Irish grammar directly translated into to english) that I make a point of still using instead of just 'proper English' as would be expected in study or working.

Thank you for the rest of the examples. Intellectual curiosity and social justice are great to maintain as part of a tradition, as is being a generous host.

And thanks for the specific background, I know Jews are a diverse group so I don't expect one size fits all but learning anything new is good.

I know some Iraqi Jews but not well enough to ask about this and the only Jewish friends I had growing up emigrated when I was young.

With the rise of anti-Semitism and the conflation of Israel with Judaism I wanted to be even a bit more informed on this. It's also nice to know about other cultures in general.

[u/Pitiful_Meringue_57 → u/Rigo-lution]

It really depends the level of secular and what u consider to be secular. I’m not particularly spiritual, i don’t live my life according to my religion or truly believe in most of what religious jews do, i believe in a higher power, and i find prayer can be cathartic sometimes. That being said, idk if i would count as secular. I participate in a lot of the important holidays including going to services for rosh hashanah and yom kippur. I’m 20 now so I’m no longer enrolled in hebrew school and i don’t belong to a synagogue cuz i’m at college most of the year but i still participate in the holidays.

When i think about my future i don’t plan on being very active in a synagogue but id still like to belong to one, do activities and go to the high holy days. I plan on raising my children jewish, having them go to hebrew school and have a bat mitzvah. I’m want a jewish wedding and i want to be buried in a jewish cemetery. i dont feel the need to go to services outside of high holy days or yartzeits and again im not that spiritual. Most of this stuff i see as culturally significant and want to do for cultural reasons, not religious reasons. My whole family is kind of like this, we aren’t particularly religious, but this stuff is important to us and most cultural practices and community events revolve around religion.

I have cousins who celebrate passover and chanukah (and christmas) but not much else, don’t go to services, didn’t have bat mitzvahs, but still very much consider themselves jewish and embrace that label.

Other ways to celebrate jewish culture would be to cook jewish cuisine, go to delis and mizrahi/sephardic owned restaurants.

I also would love to try and learn yiddish one day, and i’d like to visit eastern europe and see whatever remnant of jewish life remains.

It rly is different for everyone.

[u/Rigo-lution → u/Pitiful_Meringue_57]

Absolutely depends on that.

That would be a lot more religious than (atheist) but I know a lot of people who would match your description of yourself. There's a lot of cultural Catholics in Ireland, they believe in something more than us but are not in lockstep with the Church but still will be at Church events like you've described.

I have cousins who celebrate passover and chanukah (and christmas) but not much else, don’t go to services, didn’t have bat mitzvahs, but still very much consider themselves jewish and embrace that label

It's people like them that prompted my question.

I can piece together a belief in God making you X religion but I know atheist/secular Jews don't just give up their Judaism and solely become whatever nationality they have outside of that.

I used to speak Irish very well but I've forgotten a lot of it. I very much get the desire to speak your own language and see your own history.

[u/DurianVisual3167 → u/Rigo-lution]

I'd like to add that secular and atheist Jews aren't the same. Secular Jews often believe in G-d, and there are actually many religious Jews who don't believe in G-d.

[u/Rigo-lution → u/DurianVisual3167]

there are actually many religious Jews who don't believe in G-d.

This is something I was not aware of. How does that work? Does Judaism not require a belief in God?
My primary school up to age 12 was non-denominational and we learned about the major world religions but since then I have had very little exposure to any religion.

I'd like to add that secular and atheist Jews aren't the same.

I can see how my comment wasn't clear. I didn't mean that as they are the same but that secular and atheist Jews don't give up their Jewish identity when not participating in the religion.

[u/ContentChecker → u/Rigo-lution]

Sorry about that, trying out some AutoMod code.

[u/Rigo-lution → u/ContentChecker]

Oh thanks, I just sent a mod message as I didn't see this reply.