"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/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.