So I am kind of idolizing Jews? Like big time. I spend a little bit of time every day just sitting there and thinking about how wonderful Jews are. I think it started when I realized that two of my favorite bloggers (Scott Alexander and Eliezer Yudkowsky) and the creators of my two favorite shows (Rebecca Sugar for Steven Universe is half Jewish and Raphael Bob-Waksberg for BoJack Horseman) are Jewish, if not currently religiously than culturally and ethnically. And then I got curious and looked a few things up and learned that an overwhelming number of cool people out there are Jewish, like Einstein and Feynmann and Rod Serling and Noam Chomsky and haha I guess I won't post the giant list of awesome Jews that's sitting in my head because that would take too long. An extremely disproportionate number of Nobel prize winners are Jewish and I saw a poll that said half of American Jews see becoming smarter as a cultural value. That is so cool and they are so cool and I wish I had Jewish friends. I know rationally that Jews are just people and not better than everybody else, but my emotions don't agree. I get frisson/ASMR whenever Jewish topics come up anywhere. When Scott Alexander was talking about his results from 23 and me (a genetic information company), he said he was a "full blooded Ashkenazi Jew" which is a phrase I repeated in my head like 200 times because it kept giving me ASMR. I have like 30 Wikipedia tabs up on different topics related to Judaism because reading through these pages gives me an odd pleasure. Whenever I hear a celebrity has a vaguely Jewish name, I look them up to find out and then celebrate in my head if they are. I'm worried I'm being anti-Semitic here because I've heard that being an extreme weeaboo is racist and that's kind of what I'm doing, only towards Jews instead of the Japanese. If so, what should I do? I'm not sure I can just stop feeling excited when I see Jewish things. Also curious if this might just be what having a special interest feels like. So, uh, any opinions? I just got done searching Jewish terms on Kintsugi so I could bask in the wonder of knowing there are Jews right here on this forum.
Hey, um, I don't have anything to contribute regarding Jewish angle, sorry, but something just caught my attention here - you get triggered for ASMR by hearing about certain specific topics? I've only ever heard of ASMR being triggered by certain types of soft sounds or close up visuals, more to do with the type of sensory input rather than the content. I certainly have never gotten an ASMR response from hearing somebody discuss a certain topic. Forgive me if I'm going off topic, and feel free to boot me out of the thread or maybe reply elsewhere (or not at all) if you want, but is that normal for you? Do you know any other people who get triggered by things like this? Sorry it's just I'm a bit of an asmr nerd and that really caught my attention. I'll let somebody else address your actual question now, aha..
honestly imho to me this just seems like you really appreciate jewish culture (and to be fair, jewish stuff is really fucking cool) and since you're discovering it for what seems to be the first time you're getting really into it! which from my perspective honestly seems fine, and i have a hard time seeing "is really into jewish culture" as antisemitic lol the only thing id be careful about is keeping yourself from crossing into the fetishizing territory? like you said, we're just people and definitely not better than anyone else. if that's not how you feel emotionally. . .honestly im not sure? ive seen so much "jews are subhuman/worse than literally any other cultural or ethnic group" that seeing the opposite is kinda swinging me for a loop haha! someone else will have to weigh on that definitely don't try to stop feeling excited about jewish things though, in my experience jews love non-jews being excited about jewish things because we love sharing our culture (like if i knew you irl i would 3000% invite you to our passover seder) so keep on researching what interests you!!! that is totally fine (also if you have any questions about jewish things feel free to ask, ive got ~5 years of spotty hebrew school and countless years of personal research to go off of lol)
also idk how apt the comparison to weeaboos is - no matter how hard a weeaboo tries, they can never become japanese, but it's completely possible and feasible to become jewish, people do it all the time in fact, so. . .:p
That's the thing I'm worried about. Like I know intellectually that not all Jews are amazing and really good at something, but when I hear that somebody is Jewish, I end up adjusting my expectations toward them being more awesome than normal in some way. This isn't fair to the Jew in question and I don't want to like make Jews feel pressured or uncomfortable, especially since I only want to give them positive experiences.
I don't think you're being anti-Semitic, to be honest. You're maybe a little at risk for fetishizing, but you're aware that this is a risk and I assume you're trying to avoid doing that, especially since you mention that you don't want to make Jews feel pressured or uncomfortable. You also don't mention anything about taking part in Jewish rituals without Jews being there, or purchasing / using items like a hanukkiah, or shabbos candleholders, or a tallit, which would be a warning sign for me of fetishization at the least. (Especially the tallit thing. The candleholders, it's easier to argue that you're using them for a normal-but-not-inherently-sacred purpose.) If, at some point in your research, you find you do want to take part in these rituals more than just as a friend, then I would recommend looking at conversion and seeing if it's something you want to do. But for right now, I'd say you're good. You're aware that the potential for an issue exists and you're trying very hard to avoid falling into it.
^^ what turtleDove said pretty much the fact that you're worrying about it indicates, to me at least, that you're doing ok [thumbs up emoji]
@turtleDove You mentioned how buying/doing certain things related to Judaism could be bad. What do you think of the following? While I wouldn't buy anything like sacred or something, I did recently buy the book The Joys of Yiddish which might be appropriative?? There were people in the Amazon reviews who said it wasn't just for Jews but still... Also I was thinking that if I'm still obsessed with Judaism in June when Hebrew comes out on Duolingo I could try learning it? But again, I'm a bit worried that would be a bad thing. I'm just going to mention here that I think both of you are really great. I love you guys. You are Jewish and that is so awesome. I hope you get everything you want out of life.
@BPD anon Jewish culture is for sharing! Absolutely don't feel bad about looking into learning Hebrew or Yiddish, imho learning languages is never appropriation. And they're both really interesting languages in their own right; Hebrew is afaik the only dead language to ever be revived and used as a day-to-day spoken language. If you find a friendly synagogue or chabad house near you they'll be happy to answer any questions (and you might end up invited to a seder). Edit: check out the Moishe House site too. It's good you're thinking about how this might make someone uncomfortable, but I'd point out: "when I hear that somebody is [something], I end up adjusting my expectations toward them being more awesome than normal in some way" is a fairly normal thing to think! Maybe with less intensity than you seem to be experiencing right now, but just today I saw something on facebook that implied my presumed-straight acquaintance had a girlfriend, and I was like oh cool! I should talk to her more. Turns out she was a gal pal.
I wouldn't say that buying or reading The Joys of Yiddish is appropriative; you're learning, and learning's a good thing. I also wouldn't consider it to be appropriative to learn Hebrew - it is the language in the Torah, yes, but it's also the common-use language in Israel, so...it's about equal, to me, as learning Japanese? It's not an inherently appropriative thing. Personally, I wouldn't consider books to be appropriative, especially since you're consciously trying to avoid that. And I'll second a recommendation to drop by a friendly synagogue or chabad house if there's one near to you, since they'd be happy to answer questions. I think you're pretty cool too, and I hope your life goes awesomely for you.
Yeah, like people have said the real risk comes from doing this without self-awareness. Being fascinated by a culture is a good thing! If you lose sight of Jews as individual people that's a problem, but I don't think you're really in danger of doing that given what you've talked about. Also Judaism as a whole doesn't tend to object to goyim attending events as long as they're respectful, so absolutely go visit a synagogue or something, you might make friends :D
(Bearing in mind that my family secularised over 100 years ago, here's my 2c.) I don't think any of what you're doing is appropriative. I completely agree that you're being appropriately aware of the risk of fetishising people, and that that'll probably act as a decent safeguard to stop you from actually crossing that line. I trust your judgement here. Also, you might be interested to know that the frisson/ASMR/joy reaction reminds me strongly of how I feel about my special interests.
Not Jewish, but I don't think this is anti-semitic. You're being very aware of why fetishizing is bad, but that doesn't mean you're not allowed to be interested in Jewish culture and history! Yeah, it's bringing you a lot of joy, but that's not a downside.
haha, yeah. i've already given my two cents on this, but it's worth adding that... wow, usually when someone starts a conversation about their "feelings about the jews" with me it winds up being some half-sheepish confession of anti-semitism (the woman who almost became my stepmother told us that if we didn't act like we were better than everyone else all the time, maybe we wouldn't be hated the world over. and so on and so forth, ad nauseum. for years.) so... in light of that history, it's always exciting to find a non-jew who wants to learn about jew-things. ditto for the Q&A offer, but i'm not exactly savvy on the religious front. my old hebrew school was a reconstructionist hippie factory whose two lesbian rabbis probably didn't even believe in god. it was a weird and highly atypical community.
As someone who wishes I'd been taught more about Judaism as a child, as well as being a lesbian atheist raised by a hippie, I kinda envy you tbh :P
@raydelblau as someone who had to go to a really conservative temple for hebrew school bc it was the closest and cheapest, i am also envious :pp
@rats @Elph i miss that place a lot (my friends and the holiday services especially), but i didn't actually learn much there and often wished it would act more like a conservative temple. hah. this coming from an atheist queer. it also got uncomfortably propagandistic and drama-ridden by the end, which is why my mother made us ragequit mid-way through high school. turns out a whole congregation can go sour when social justice bullies take over its administration. :(
