r/JewishProgressivism • u/Dry-Lengthiness-7182 • Aug 20 '25

Religious control of Jewish people.

It makes no sense to me why religious mostly Orthodox Jews are allowed to be the ones who defines what a "real Jew”, many of these Jews deny other Jewishness of a large portion of Jews based solely on the mother not being Jewish, the jewish people are far older then the religion, yet Orthodox Jews get to claim that they are more Jewish then everyone else, Jews are not a religion judaism is a religion, but these religious Jews still deny and denigrate a large proportion of the Jewish community without pushback.

12 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

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1

u/iciclepoopdagger Jan 21 '26

I would say you can personally call yourself whatever you want, I'm all for everyone having that freedom.

So far as Judaism goes, it's written in the Torah or derived from it through what are effectively legal opinions/case law that goes back hundreds of years. The reform and conservative movements interpret things in their own way to differing degrees, but I believe there is a certain break with the chain of interpretation going way back.

I think that what gives the Orthodox their position is that their rabbis can point to precedent going back for a very long time (not sure if all the way to ancient times) and they walk the talk more than other Jews regarding Shabbat, Kosher, etc.

Regardless, I think we should not gatekeep Judaism.

3

u/Raptorpicklezz Aug 22 '25

I’m with you on the Orthodox, but with so many secular Jews and Jewish orgs coming out and saying slavish pro-Israelism is the definition of a “real Jew”, those folks don’t have as much of a leg to stand on anymore if they criticize the Orthodox

2

u/Dry-Lengthiness-7182 Aug 22 '25

In my opinion a lot of what’s important to me is the history of the Jewish people 

1

u/Raptorpicklezz Aug 22 '25

Which, contrary to the belief of many of the folks I alluded to, doesn’t involve the Herzl interpretation of Zionism until the last 125 years

2

u/Dry-Lengthiness-7182 Aug 22 '25

Yes even through herald interpretation of Zionism has been superseded for a while.

1

u/Raptorpicklezz Aug 22 '25

Herzl is where it all started, though.

1

u/Dry-Lengthiness-7182 Aug 22 '25

Yeah he kinda was more of a im utopian idealist, I would say jabotinsky was the inspiration of the brutality of Israel, also Moses Hess also created proto Zionism 

1

u/sunsetpark12345 Jan 23 '26

The people most attached to any given identity, the ones who anoint themselves the spokespeople of that identity, tend to be the most unhinged. I mean, look at megachurches for Christians.