The situation: Halakhically Jewish, but my family has been secular for over a hundred years (my mother's mother's mother secularised as an adult) My mother is kind of an antitheist for a lot of complex reasons (Jewish community demanding that she ought to be religious, non-Jewish community not caring if she was religious and being antisemitic anyway, American Christian extremism yelling constantly that she was evil for being an atheist), and I was raised atheist I'm still an atheist, but a) I have a lot of "hypothetical theism" beliefs (like "if I accepted premise x, I would adhere to school of thought A; if I accepted premise y, I would favour approach B" and so on), and b) rituals and stories are very important to me on a profound level as a human being. In pretty much every paradigm I've hypothetically explored, I would still hold heretical beliefs. I'm cool with this, but other people often aren't. My concept of Judaism was very strongly coloured by growing up around the American Evangelical movement, which gives you a rather distorted concept of what "religion" is - sort of creating a form based on American Evangelical Christianity, scrubbing out the names and numbers, and then assuming that other religions can just fill in the blanks to describe themselves accurately. Spoiler: like this Congratulations on your application to the Database of Religions! Please fill out the following. Name: Age: Commandments: Personal Lord and Saviour: Deadliest Sins: Afterlife Description: How Not To Be Completely Fucked If You Die Right Now: Just How Fucked Are You If You Don't Immediately Convert To This Religion?: Primary Method Of Proselytisation: Please mark your envelope with the single visual symbol that represents your religion's core concept, and as a return address, give the location of your church with whatever word you use instead of "church" included afterwards in parentheses and quotation marks. I've only relatively recently begun to learn that this is not actually how it works. I wanna get involved more with Judaism on a community basis, rather than just reading online. People keep assuring me that there is room in Judaism for huge queers covered in piercings who want to sell sex toys for a living; I just don't know where to... find it? In meatspace. Like, reading and researching on my own is great, but a) my concentration abilities suck and b) I know that by missing out on the community, I'm missing out on a huge amount of what Judaism is about. (Also, I like being around people and participating in rituals. Also candles and chanting.) Any ideas? Comments? Suggestions?
I recommend looking for Reform synagogues/community centers in your area. (Here's a cool find-a-synagogue resource for the UK!) Reform being the most liberal branch of Judaism, in multiple senses, it's probably the best place to start; even the tiny synagogue I go to way down here in the American South (man, do I hear you on growing up around Evangelicals) has a decent-sized queer contingent. …I hope this is even slightly helpful. ^^; Best of luck!
Yeah, my experience with most Reform synagogues has been pretty queer-friendly! Pretty location-dependent, though.
Arrrrre you in London, Elph? Because I can put you in touch with the London anarcha-queer radical Jewish community via my big sis, if that wouldn't be too weird a collision of online & meatspace.
...well, not right this second, but generally, yes! :D I really want to say "that would be awesome", but I've had some off-putting experiences with radical anarcha-queer London. The kind of stuff I'd put in tumblr.txt if if happened online. :/ Which is not to say that's what your big sis & co. are like, just that I'm a tiny bit hesitant here, and not for online-meets-meatspace reasons. (Apart from my relatives, virtually everyone I know in London is someone I met either online or via a peer group that was originally based online. No weirdness worries there.) So I guess "yes, please do, but let me know if there are any things I should be aware of about this particular community"?
Yeah, sure! My sis used to hang out with a lot of people in the secular A-Q London community who I found really off-putting: aggressive and unkind to each other and everyone else. But I think she's lost patience with that whole vibe now, so her new community is much more patient and compassionate. And she'd definitely be sympathetic to your wariness. I'll ask her where would be a good place to meet people. I think the language school she works for part-time is hosting a chanukah party on Monday, which could be fun. The language school is run by the Jewish activism organisation she's part of.
Sis's not got back to me yet, but this is the organisation she works with. IME the members are less sarky and more friendly than the fb page would suggest. The Chanukah party event is on there as well. I probs won't go: I'm a little ill & shattered from advent singing & I'm thinking about heading to Cambridge to see my parents. But I expect there'll be a lot of friendly young Jews there who're always keen to welcome new people. And since I forgot to mention it before, quite a few of the members of the community come from a similar religious background you described. My sisters + I are also halachically Jewish but not raised that way. Big sis has just started to reclaim it in the last 2-3 years.
It's been several months but I would just like to say a big public "thank you" to @EulersBidentity for introducing me to the joy of Jewdas. It has made a very positive contribution to my life! I've met some amazing people and been inspired to do a lot of personal growth. :)