r/JewsOfConscience • u/ContentChecker Jewish Anti-Zionist • Oct 27 '24

Discussion Cultural exchange with /r/Arabs!

Hi everyone,

Today we will be having a cultural exchange with r/Arabs - beginning at 8AM EST, but extending for about 2 days so feel free to post your questions/comments over the course of that time-frame.

The exchange will work similarly to an AMA, except users from their sub will be asking us questions in this thread for anyone to answer, and users from our sub can go to a thread there to ask questions and get answers from their users!

To participate in the exchange, see the following thread in /r/Arabs:

https://old.reddit.com/r/arabs/comments/1gd9eb3/cultural_exchange_rjewsofconscience/

Big thanks to the mods over at /r/Arabs for reaching out to us with this awesome idea! Thanks to MoC for posting the original post.

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u/Strange_Philospher Oct 27 '24

How do Jewish people who are both religious and leftists recioncile between religion and leftism? The common narrative in the Arab world established some sort of dichotomy between religion and leftism ( mostly due to political fights between Islamists and leftists ), so I was quite interested to gain more insights from people here. For example, how do u reconcile between the spiritual nature of religious practice and fighting against the material oppressive systems ? Doesn't the focus on one lead to ignoring the other ?

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u/acacia_tree Reform Ashkie Diasporist Oct 28 '24

The Haskalah, the Jewish enlightenment, birthed the Reform movement of Judaism. I was raised Reform. The central tenet of the Reform Judaism is Tikkun Olam, Hebrew for “repairing the world.” Reform Judaism was named as such not only because they reformed the religion to consider traditional Jewish law as non-binding and instead center on ritual and spirituality, but because reforming the world for justice is a central tenet. I’ve always drawn on my religious belief to fuel my leftist praxis. It’s worth noting that prior to the 1960s, the Reform movement was mostly anti-Zionist.