After accompanying her grandmother a few times for these cheesemaking demonstrations, Cohen was hooked. “When I graduated from high school, I decided to start a cute business using this recipe. I called it ‘Grandma’s Cheese’ because it was my grandma’s recipes,” she recalled. “I began making it in my mom’s kitchen and I delivered it to my friends and neighbours. It was really a very hard process; it is not only time and energy but also heat involved and lots of burnt fingers! But people wanted it, so I kept going.”

Cohen’s business was an instant success. “I hit a point where very soon I was delivering to 50 houses a week. At that point, I hit a ceiling, I could not do it all by myself,” she said recalling the early days of her fledgling business. “My dad actually got me into a local store. He said: ‘hey look, my daughter sells cheese, these are her customers, can she sell it here?’ at that point I had all the requirements, but I needed someone to believe in me. So, at Ouri’s Fruit in Brooklyn, I had a little stand in a shelf with Grandma’s cheeses. Everything was handmade. Even the labels!”

From these humble beginnings, Grandma’s Cheese is now stocked in over 30 supermarkets in the tri-state area, several outlets in Texas and Florida, and is even shipped to Panama. With over 10 flavours of braided mozzarella including black caraway, za’atar and olive, a new line of kosher burrata cheeses, and even a kosher restaurant that is dedicated to showcasing the cheeses in all its dishes, Cohen’s business is booming and expanding.

And in a twist of fate, Cohen met her husband Max through her kosher cheese business.

“I met him through [cheesemaking], because I had built a name for myself in my community for being the ‘cheese girl’. I saw him at a party and used my cheese as a way to introduce myself to him. He didn’t know of me at all or my brand, until I reached out again later, asking him to try my product. Our relationship started when he came to my house and he tried it there,” she laughed, recalling the origins of their relationship.  He later joined her business, and these days, they both work full-time creating their lines.

Interestingly, Max and Florence Cohen are part of a brand-new wave of cheesemakers that are producing high-quality kosher cheeses that were never traditionally available to kosher consumers.

Kosher cheesemaking can be difficult, with added expenses for kosher supervision and difficulty obtaining cheesemaking supplies such a certified rennet or cheese cultures that comply with kosher requirements.

Factories are also sometimes reluctant to produce kosher cheeses, which are often small production runs and include extra requirements such as intensive cleaning which may interfere with larger orders. Small businesses may also find the costs of kosher cheesemaking prohibitively high, especially if there is mashgiach [kosher supervisor] present to supervise the milking to ensure compliance with the highest level of kosher requirements such as Chalav Yisrael.

All these additional challenges may present insurmountable hurdles to kosher cheesemaking, which is already a highly technical art.

While the Grandma’s Cheese does not use rennet, and achieving formal kosher certification was not overly difficult, it is still an expensive additional cost.

“For us, becoming kosher was not a challenging process. It was just expensive,” said Max Cohen. “Usually, it comes with getting a commercial kitchen. These days we have our own commercial kitchen, but that was a whole journey.” Despite the efforts involved, the Cohen’s are happy their product has resonated with so many people, noting, “we love it, we eat it all the time.”

As for Florence Cohen’s grandma, the nachas continues, “She’s still alive. She’s young. When she walks into supermarkets, she points to our cheese, and says: ‘I’m the grandma!’”

The Cohens are not the only ones making kosher cheeses accessible to the masses. In supermarkets across the country, including Wholefoods, one can find kosher certified cheeses from That Cheese Guy.

The man behind the brand is Brent Delman who owns a wholesale speciality food company. About 30 years ago, when he adopted an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle and started keeping kosher, he felt there was a lack of kosher cheeses.

“I created a brand and started going to trade shows and taking cheesemaking courses. I started to partner up with small producers who had never been kosher. I live in New York in Yonkers. So, I started to partner with Vermont and New York State farmers, and I started to get some of them to produce kosher. I found myself having to source bacterial cultures and rennet and buying cheesemaking equipment like brine tanks and cheese moulds” he said. 
 
While Delman makes kosher cheeses, he considers himself more of an affineur, someone who is an expert in ageing and maturing the cheese. These days, his brand produces more than 50 types of artisan kosher cheeses, including many organic, raw milk, grass fed cheddars and parmesan as well as burrata and goat cheese. 
 
“I do not own a farm. I go in and make cheese at creameries and farms. I bring in all the ingredients other than milk. I also bring the mashgiach [kosher supervisor] and then I take the cheese that is made, and I age it,” he said. 
 
As his business has grown, he has commanded a unique niche in the market where he produces the largest range of kosher high-end speciality cheeses, outside of Israel. As part of his work, he travels to farms around the world, sourcing the best materials and ingredients to make his high-end artisan kosher cheeses. 
 
One of his top sellers is an American made Parmesan cheese.  “We aged it over 4 years and the way we age it, it retains some creaminess and has a nuttiness and sharp flavor profile that’s almost sort of reminiscent of an aged cheddar. It is just an incredible umami flavour with cheese crystals. You bite into it and get these crunches which come from the amino acids that are crystallising in the cheese,” he said. “When I started this, about 18 years ago or so, there was no sharp cheddar or fresh mozzarella in the United States. We probably had 5 or 6 varieties in total of kosher cheeses in the market. So, my goal has really been to bring the finest cheeses in the world to the kosher pallet palate and do so within the framework of Jewish law,” he explained. 
 
Despite the challenges involved in kosher cheesemaking, Delman is happy to be able to be able to provide high-quality kosher cheeses that bring so much joy to so many people. 
 
“People send emails saying that it brings their families and friends together. One of the things I hear often about my products is that the quality is such that it’s acceptable to anyone, kosher or non-kosher as well as those with other dietary or ethical restrictions. Sometimes there are family members who find it difficult to come together and agree upon common foods, but my cheeses have done that. It is one of the best things.”

The post The Art of Kosher Cheesemaking appeared first on Jewcy.

By posting as the ‘Chief Rabbi of Gaza’, Michael has amassed almost 7,000 followers, some of which include Fleur Hassan, the deputy mayor of Jerusalem and Disturbed lead singer David Draiman. While poking fun at the often careless ignorance of anti-Israel progressives, Rabbi Linda has duped ‘Tinder Swindler’ Simon Leviev, Jewish Currents, former British MP Thelma Walker, and most notably, New Jersey congress hopeful Imani Oakley.

I sat down with Michael to talk about creating the account, the shenanigans he’s been up to as Rabbi Linda, and the astute political commentary behind them.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about when Rabbi Linda was born and what inspired you to create her.

I’m normally scrolling through Twitter, but during the last flare up in Gaza back in May, I was seeing so much hate and disinformation coming from progressive circles. I’m thinking of people like Ariel Gold, for example, who just seem like a parody even though they aren’t. 

Why not have a character that takes these anti-Israel positions to the extreme and attempts to predict the future on antizionist positions? And it happens. Rabbi Linda will say something absolutely crazy, and then a real person comes along and inevitably says the same thing.

I’ve been having fun with it. It’s taken off more than I expected. I did it as a sitting-on-my-couch kind of thing. But now she has a bit of a following, and people expect her to tweet about certain things. I’ll get messages all the time from people asking me to respond to something or to support something by highlighting it in an outrageous way. 

Can I ask about her photo? Is it from one of those AI websites that generates a realistic fake face?

Yeah, I definitely didn’t want to take anyone else’s image or get in trouble for that. I was refreshing the website for about an hour until I found the right picture of what I imagined her to look like. And these websites have gotten better since then, but I can’t change it now because you know her face. Like, punchable with the sunglasses… 

Yeah, you can’t change it anymore. She’s so recognizable, and people on the Jewish enclaves of social media have become quite attached to her.

For sure. In the beginning, when I would go dark for Shabbat people would be asking, “Why aren’t you tweeting?” I think the Imani Oakley story was actually published once Shabbat had already started. I’m not online on Shabbat, so I didn’t see anything. Once I came back I had like 50 DMs from people being like, “Are you suspended? What happened to your account? Why haven’t you tweeted yet?”

The Imani Oakley story was incredible. Did you expect to be duping people and pranking public figures since the beginning or is that something that came later on?

That came later. My earliest tweets were about organizing a Tehillim group for Hassan Nasrallah when he was ill, and then trying to organize a Gaza Pride Parade. I think the Pride Parade was what really made the account take off. Pinkwashing was a big thing at the time, and I was just trying to highlight how ridiculous that is when Tel Aviv is one of the most LGBT friendly cities and Gaza is very much the opposite.

I was honestly expecting the account to move around the anti-Israel circles and instead it was noticed by pro-Israel people, which I guess are the people who get the joke.

With Imani Oakley, I was inspired by some previous disastrous interviews by AOC and the founders of Ben and Jerry’s that illustrated that they just parrot talking points and they don’t have any substantive understanding of Israel. I thought it would be fun to test the empty suit theory on Oakley. 

How much background went into creating Rabbi Linda? This character has a lot of detail and it’s all very consistent.

It’s loosely based on my life. I am married. I have a wife, so Linda has a wife. She has a daughter. I have a daughter… Unlike Linda, my daughter’s name is not Leila Khaled.

The parallels make it easier to keep the details consistent. But she does have a lot of backstory, and part of it is remembering it. There’s the name of her shul and her OnlyFans page and all that ridiculous stuff that she does. Part of what makes her fun is that she has a real story.

So you’re also a nude yogi like Rabbi Linda?

Not a nude yogi. I have tried yoga, and I’m not the biggest fan. But it’s those kinds of things that make Linda realistic. There was one time when Jewish Currents retweeted Rabbi Linda not knowing she is a satire account after they had posted an article about at home abortion guides. I had thanked them and said how helpful it was for sex workers like myself.

I don’t care if someone wants to get abortion, but I wanted to show the ridiculousness of a rabbi being a sex worker and they just took it at face value. It was up there for a while before they took it down. 

The ‘nude yogi’ thing comes from that. I’m trying to make it obvious for anyone looking at the page that this is satire. I hope that gives it away.

And yet there’s still people who are consistently falling for it. They don’t know that these things aren’t true and they are confidently engaging.

That’s the fun part. Her bio says “Chief Rabbi of Gaza”. There are no Jews in Gaza. It says “Jewish Issues advisor to Ismail Haniyyeh,”  who is a senior political leader of Hamas. That’s obviously not a thing. Just the idea that there is a shul in Gaza [laughs]… People have asked me privately who I serve there, and I tell them there’s plenty of UNRWA workers who are Jewish. 

It just shows that many people are completely ignorant of all these issues. Jews are not permitted in Gaza, and in any future Palestinian state, there would be no Jews there either. As a base point, if you don’t understand that Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of Israel in its entirety as an open, safe society for Jews, then you’re not really getting it.

Do you ever worry about how coverage like this interview, or the New York Post article might make tricking public figures more difficult?

That was one of my biggest hesitations with the New York Post. If I let them write about this, I will be able to do this less because a quick Google search now shows it’s a parody account. But there are other parody accounts out there that no matter how big, people fall for it. So I just figured, if they can stay relevant, then I can do it too. 

And Rabbi Linda is in more of a niche space. How many Zionist Jews on Twitter care to follow an account like this? There’s only so far she can go, and she’s gone pretty far. Yeah, I guess it will be harder to do those kinds of things, but at this point, I’m over that concern.

Rabbi Linda’s account is critical of the left-wing Israel-Palestine discourse, but it’s also critical of the woke-type rhetoric that often comes attached to it. For example, she writes Torah as “TorXh,” which I’m guessing is alluding to the controversy behind the term “Latinx.”

That was in response to an article about the Torah being gendered. Somebody re-gendered the whole Torah and switched all the genders around. So then I responded by asking her not to gender the Torah at all. She asked how you would do it if it wasn’t gendered, so I made it “TorXh.”

I’m just trying to keep the character consistent. There are real rabbis that she may or may not be modeled after who are much more interested in fitting Judaism into progressive politics than actual Jewish traditions. It’s the woke types who engage with Rabbi Linda. I just go where the audience goes. 

People’s observances are between them and God and I’m not critical of how someone practices their faith, but it tends to be antizionist Jews who are the type to do these things, so it blends in. And so the people I’m trying to parody don’t recognize it either. It fits into their circle perfectly. They have no idea.

There’s some sort of a mess of ideologies and a rebranding of Judaism in a way that perhaps makes space for anti-Israel views.

It’s putting an American progressive lens on everything Jewish even if it’s not taking place in America and trying to fit everything into that mold and hierarchy, which doesn’t really apply… It’s just how it works. People impose their views on anything and it happens on the right too. I’m not opposed to criticizing Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar. I’ve definitely done plenty of that too.

Maybe the next step for Rabbi Linda is beef with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I don’t think she’ll engage with me. I’ve tried on Twitter a few times. But the space laser thing was pretty amazing. There’s just always good content with her. 

There was also Thomas Massie, a Kentucky congressman who has voted against Iron Dome funding, when he tweeted a picture of his whole family holding guns. Some of them were Uzis, which are Israeli made weapons, so I attacked him for that. He also didn’t respond.

Maybe the left is more gullible here because they’re excited to see someone else on their team.

There’s more of a platform for the squad-type people. It’s Ilhan Omar who serves on the foreign affairs committee, even after saying we shouldn’t send weapons to Ukraine and whatnot. Then there’s people like Steve King, who is on the right, and he was stripped of all of his committee assignments when he said something antisemitic. Both parties definitely have a problem with antisemitism, but I think some tend to have a bigger platform. In this case, it’s the squad, where it seems like they can just say anything and get away with it. 

I honestly think we’re not very far behind what happened in England with Labour and Jeremy Corbyn. Our progressive wing is maybe four or five years behind.

I’m sure many British Jews would agree with that assessment. There’s been a lot of criticism on that end because it feels like Jewish community is splitting off here and many are blinding themselves to it, while in the UK, there was more unity.

When you are too steeped in ideology, whether it’s far left or far right, it takes over your Jewish identity. It takes priority over it. So I think in this country, the Jews who are giving cover to folks like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are more concerned with being accepted in certain circles than with being Jewish.

What is in the future for Rabbi Linda? What’s the big picture?

I think she’ll be relevant as long as there’s some sort of commentary to make based on what’s happening in Israel. And there are quieter weeks, which are good. I like the quiet weeks. But there are weeks where things are going on and something needs to be said to highlight the ridiculousness of some positions. 

I saw a woman holding a sign in Ukraine which had Golda Meir’s very famous quote, which is originally about Israel: “If we lay down our weapons, there’ll be no Ukraine, but Russia lays down its weapons, there’ll be no war.” I’m a huge Golda fan, so I love that quote, and it describes the situation in Israel so well, and I’m happy that it was used in Ukraine too. But the fact that people can understand it when it applies to Ukraine, but not Israel, just shows it’s always different when there are Jewish people involved.

That kind of hypocrisy will probably always exist, and flare ups like the Israel-Gaza conflict last May are bound to happen again, so she’ll always be relevant.

I don’t want her to have to exist, but at this point, I can’t really take her away. Even after the Texas hostage situation… I didn’t expect to say anything. I actually didn’t want to. And some prominent people kept saying, “Rabbi Linda’s got to weigh in here. People are upset.” I was like, “Alright, if it makes light of the situation.” But I felt uncomfortable doing it.

I didn’t want to tweet about Ukraine either. It’s a sensitive situation, but some things just need to be said. I made a situation in which I just have to be consistent with the character even if it sucks.

It’s interesting to hear about how playing this character can sometimes become uneasy, but it just comes with the territory of committing to the bit and the satire. Still, it’s a very Jewish thing to deal with serious situations with humor. I hope we can all continue to do that.

It started because it was just so exhausting to be pro-Israel on social media. Someone’s gotta make light of it a little bit, and be able to laugh at it all.

You can follow Rabbi Linda Goldstein on Twitter @RabbiLindaGold1 and on Instagram @realrabbilindagoldstein.

The post Who Is Rabbi Linda Goldstein, Really? appeared first on Jewcy.

However, it didn’t take long for Zara Zahava to soon find success, with her third video hitting almost half a million views, after she posted a clip recounting an experience she had as a resident advisor at college. “I told the story from when I was a resident advisor at my school, and how we would leave out free condoms and lube to promote safe sex. One day I overheard this conversation between two people, where one asked the other: ‘do you think this is enough lube to slide down the hall like a penguin?’  When I ran out of my room to tell them not to, they were already gone along with a 2-gallon tub of lube. I retold the story on TikTok and said that I live in constant fear that I will see them sliding down the hall like penguins.”

That clip was the start of Zara Zahava’s viral TikTok fame.

Growing up in the Conservative movement and attending a Solomon Shechter school in Massachusetts, Zara Zahava is highly knowledgeable about Judaism. However, in her first few months on TikTok she did not speak at all about her Jewish identity, but when she hit 40,000 followers, that changed.

“The first video I posted about Judaism, was a clip discussing whether a vampire could keep kosher,” she recalled. Her TikTok about “whether Furby is Kosher” generated hundreds of thousands of views and hilarious comments and feedback.

Zara uses her platform with great success to provide Jewish answers to obscure and often crowd sourced questions. These questions come from a variety of sources, often from comment responses to her previous videos.

“When I posted my first TikTok about Judaism it was in response to one of the comments. But people said the answers were fascinating and asked me new questions. Most of these questions come from complete strangers,” she said.

In addition, she has many non-Jewish friends. “They love learning about Judaism in a fun way, so sometimes they will comment their questions knowing I will see it,” she enthused. Despite having excellent Jewish knowledge, her answers are often the result of extensive research.

“I fact check everything I say, even if I think I know the answer, I appreciate that it is always possible that I was taught incorrectly. I also like to provide quotes and citations. I also try my best to be as non-denominational in my answers as possible,” Zara Zahava said, noting that she will cover off a range of Jewish perspectives.

However, being on TikTok as an openly Jewish creator is not all fun and games. In addition to cyber bullying and nasty comments, there is blatant antisemitism. It is for this reason Zara Zahava preferred that Jewcy not use her full last name, as she has previously been doxed and sent antisemitic abuse when people have been able to link her account using it.

“I get comments about blood libel. I always thought people stopped believing that” she said. “Sure, there are antisemitic stereotypes that exist, but in person I have never experienced the antisemitic accusations of blood libel. I thought it was known to be definitely fake! But it come up all the time on TikTok. So, then I wonder: is it the product of misinformation?”

She also takes precautions against antisemitic comments, including utilizing a TikTok feature that allows her to ban certain people from her comments section. In addition, she has banned antisemitic words from appearing in her comments section and will block those who use such words against her.

Zara Zahava also ensures she takes regular breaks from social media to ensure her sanity.

“It’s hard because, because for every 100 comments I get, maybe 5-10 are bad, but the bad ones are really bad, so sometimes I have even considered quitting TikTok because of how those comments stick with me,” she recalled.  “When that happens, I’ll take a few days off TikTok for my mental health.”

But her TikTok fans certainly hope she won’t be quitting any time soon! In the past few weeks, her rise on the app has been meteoric.

“I hit 50,000 followers in January 2022 and then I hit 100,000 followers by February 2022,” she said.

But despite her success, she has no plans to monetize her content which is clearly resonating. While she knows she has the capabilities to pivot and do something in social media, for now, she wants it to remain a hobby. 

“I don’t think it interests me, not every hobby has to be monetized,” said Zara Zahava. “Our generation thinks that you if are good at something you should make money off it. But this then creates huge pressure that makes these hobbies less fun,” she reflected.

Zara Zahava isn’t sure what her next step with TikTok will be, but she has some new job prospects to consider. “I have gotten comments that I should become a rabbi. In response, I made a video about why I don’t want to become a rabbi,” she recalled. But the response to her video was even more interesting. “A person stitched the video I made saying that I could bring so much to the community. Originally, I thought people were saying it as a joke but then I realized that people were being serious.”

When asked whether she is considering a potential new career in the rabbinate, Zara Zahava was reflective, “it’s still something that I don’t think is my path in life, but I have received comments from rabbis and cantors telling me that if I genuinely want this as a career we can talk.”

At least for now, Zara Zahava will stick with her TikTok content creation, “I don’t fully care if it keeps growing, as long I get to keep saying what I am saying, and people think it’s cool!”

The post The Mashgicha of TikTok appeared first on Jewcy.

If you have too much faith in the human race, how about a surgeon trying to make bank by turning a terror-victims X-rays into crypto payouts:

Among the ‘normies’, you had… whatever this was:

In all these situations, two things are made clear:

1. We live in a weird, cringe-dense era, that is only getting weirder and probably more cringe-worthy.
2. Very few people know what NFTs actually are, including those making and buying them.

I can do little about the weirdness and cringe, but it’s worth taking a stab at clarifying what NFTs are.

As with most things associated with crypto, any explanation unfurls into a seemingly endless follow-on of questions and complications, and most current implementations are overpriced, pointless, or scams.

But it’s also true that NFTs are among the most exciting implementations of blockchain technology, which is a fundamentally novel, important computing breakthrough, and will likely play a significant part in the future of the internet.

So; your questions:

What, in basic terms, is an NFT?

Let’s say you’re going to see a performance by the best Australian indie rock band, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. You go on TicketMaster, choose a seat, insert your credit card details, and are emailed or mailed a ticket; which you present on paper or your phone when you arrive at the venue. But how do they know that this is your ticket? How do they know this isn’t a fake? A long series of numbers and characters, that corresponds to a database entry with the details of the ticketholder, and typically scannable through a barcode, or QR code.

On a basic level, this is what NFTs are; an identifying code on a database that confirms ownership of the related asset. What makes it different though is that an NFT isn’t on the seller’s database, or the marketplace’s, but an unfalsifiable, immutable, permanent public database, run across thousands of computers; a blockchain. If you own the NFT – your digital ‘wallet’ contains it – then you have sole access to that discreet, individual, uncopiable data-base entry.

For some, that seems irrelevant; but this is a fundamental shift in the allocation of ownership. No longer is the ‘ledger’ of ownership controlled by authorities – corporate or otherwise – but is publicly viewable, and verifiable. In the case of your King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard ticket; it’s not controlled by the ticket company, it can be accessed and viewed by anyone, but only you can edit or sell it.

How do you buy an NFT?

There are many platforms, but the most notable are OpenSea, Rarible, and SuperRare, and they work by either charging directly from your debit/credit card and converting your cash to the cryptocurrency of choice, or by connecting to your crypto ‘wallet’; a piece of software that connects to the blockchain, recognising the wallet-holder’s ownership of a currency or NFT. Once you buy it, you can display it in a digital gallery like Spacial or Mynt, sell it as a speculative asset (which has been the dominant motivation behind most crypto and NFT purchases), or (if it’s an image, and you pay for Twitter Blue) can be made into your Twitter profile picture.

Are you buying an image?

No; you’re buying ownership of an image. Let me explain:

Adding to the blockchain is not free; instead, it has a processing cost to burning an entry to this ledger, and having it verified. These are called ‘gas fees’, and for a simple text entry – like a code or link – this can cost $100+ on the most popular blockchain, Ethereum. As such, it’s far too costly and impractical to add images themselves to the blockchain; to mint even a single gigabyte to the Ethereum blockchain would cost roughly $260 million.

NFTs mint a link to the blockchain, which points to a place online where that image is stored; on a different, separate server. It’s kind of like sending someone a link to a Google Drive file; but it has, within it, that verification and scarcity.

This has an almost endless list of problems, and is why using NFTs to buy and sell art, music, or other files is – at least for the moment – really, really bad; both for the art, and as an investment. The scarcity and security of the link does not carry whatsoever for the underlying file. Minting it as an NFT provides no protection against censorship, and no security for the owner, for you can simply change where that link points to. This is a gateway to all manner of horrors, from banal ‘rug-pulls’ – where the artist replaces the image with something else, sometimes literally a rug – to truly nefarious stuff, where the precious art you ‘own’ is replaced with doxing information, revenge porn, abusive content of children, or any other flavour of poison. There is no mechanism that prevents this.

Upgrades or replacements to the existing blockchains that include hashcodes for the connected content or that are far more efficient would solve this, but as it stands, no, you are not buying an image, you’re buying a receipt.

Why are NFTs so expensive?

The other night, sitting in a restaurant, I noticed a fellow diner was wearing a Richard Mille RM 55 “Bobby Watson”. You don’t buy, and wear, that very large, very bold, very white watch because you love horology. You do it to signal “I spent over half a million dollars on an accessory”. While eating, he picked up his phone to check the time.

This isn’t because he’s foolish; the watch isn’t there to tell the time; besides, checking your phone is more convenient. We all spend so much of our lives online – flicking through social media feeds, refreshing emails, and looking for the closest watch-owning Daddy on Grindr – so always have a phone close-to, or in, hand.

Take two core premises there – that people will spend lots of money to signal they have/had it, and that we spend most of our public lives online – and it’s not surprising that the first technology to express scarcity digitally would become a tool for signalling in the digital age.

Much like the Richard Mille – or owning a notable piece of physical art –  Punk 7121 doesn’t need to do anything for you except signal that you’re rich (and tasteless). And that it does!

It’s worth noting a few additional points though:

1. The valuation of some projects has clearly been inflated as a way to money launder, move currency from authoritarian regimes, avoid taxation, or just pump the value so as to make a lot of money before those buying realize nobody running the project cared about anything beside robbing them.
2. Most NFT projects have as little financial value as they do artistic; and the market reflects this. Don’t be fooled by the pricetag; see what someone actually paid for it.
3. NFT prices don’t just vary based on perceived value, but also on blockchain’s gas fees. As mentioned, most NFTs are minted to the Ethereum blockchain (the first blockchain to natively facilitate smart-contracts; which are essentially legal contracts but written into code, and are necessary for all NFTs), but more are being built on other chains, from mainstream alternatives like Solana and Polygon, to lighter ones like DeSo.

Are NFTs good for artists?

It depends on the artist.

The high prices have been a benefit for some great digital artists whose work had been criminally underserved by the internet economy. I’ve loved the work of many digital artists online but other than buying an occasional print, I – and the majority of their fans – have done nothing to support them. NFTs are a way to change that; because you aren’t buying the art, but attaching a financial asset component to it. As this tweet notes, whatever critique you can have for NFTs, nobody was acting in a way to actually give artists money:

As a financial instrument, the connection of an image to a payment also makes it excellent for signalling support for a cause. Say our editor-in-chief Isaac was to mint some of his more sizzling tweets as NFTs; not only are you buying them as a piece of internet history, but to support his ongoing work. Sam Harris has intended to do the same for ‘effective altruism’, precisely because the cost of making an NFT is minimal, but by attaching some great art as a free reward to charitable commitment, it gives social credit to a good deed, and may improve the financial incentives of doing it, if those NFTs became desirable in time.

The flip side of this though is that what makes an NFT successful is not the quality of its art; and there’s a lot of theft.

For the former, consider the most successful NFT projects; Bored Apes Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, and Lazy Lions. As explained in this great video by Solar Sands, each piece consists of a computationally randomised set of elements, with some common and some exceptionally rare. This means they are inherently derivative, lack the signs of an artistic touch – because they fundamentally lack any – and are generally fucking hideous.

For the latter point, many digital artists who don’t like NFTs have had their work stolen and minted by those hoping to exploit their hard work; and even notable NFT creators have their work stolen and re-minted. Perhaps the most ironic example of this was where ‘DeeKay’s’ ‘LetsWalk’ project – cute animated profiles that steal a lot of very very valuable IP without credit – was reminted/stolen, to the original maker’s chagrin. Stolen IP is rampant through the NFT world, and the cracks are already showing; hype-wear reseller StockX was sued last week by Nike for their ‘NFT’ sneakers.

But what about the environmental impact of NFTs?

Worries about the energy consumption, and thus environmental harm, of blockchains fail to recognise that the server infrastructure that supports the internet consumes a huge amount of energy and resources as it is, and that the efficiency improvements that gas fee reduction requires is one and the same with improving its total energy usage. This means that, however energy-inefficient NFTs are now, no technology has more incentives to become environmentally friendly than the blockchain, and all great innovations start being ostensibly useless. The final point to mention is that energy consumption is a good thing – it is the road to progress. The worry is how it’s produced, but never have we seen as rapid and encouraging progress in making that renewable as we do now; notably in solar panels and nuclear reactors.

Should you invest in NFTs?

No.

Do not do this.

More specifically; if you have enough expendable income that you can afford for a certain percentage of it to burn, then yes, but otherwise, I would not.

Just save two- to four-months of expenses in a savings account and then dollar-cost average into a passive index fund.  

Why are NFTs useful?

As you can probably gather, I’m not enthused about most existing NFTs. They don’t protect art, are rife with scams, and are basically just the most technologically advanced, novel way to tell someone ‘Look, I’m rich’. But, this is genuinely unique, interesting technology, and despite this inevitable, distasteful beginning, I’m bullish about the future of NFTs.

As laid out in a very good Harvard Business Review article, NFTs allow artists to monetize their work effectively on the internet, as wasn’t possible before without selling ads or personal data; they can allow greater security for documents, tickets, and records, without depending on central bureaucracies; and this is just the beginning. If virtual worlds become mainstream, then they could allow for the purchasing of digital items to cross between them; for buying music from artists without it being tied to a single streaming service or platform; and paying directly for single articles, books, and podcasts online, for very small amounts, avoiding the costs of payment processors, and perhaps leading to a healthier media ecosystem, without having to bankrupt oneself on Substack subscriptions.

And if none of those individual things excite you, that’s totally fine! Remember, these are very early days of a technology that is genuinely novel and important. At the moment, there’s a lot of scamming, a lot of bullshit, and a lot of cringe. But, give it time, let smart, creative people take it in directions we can’t even imagine right now, and there could be something genuinely great in NFTs on the horizon.

The post What the Heck Is an NFT? appeared first on Jewcy.

However, about two years ago things started to change for Tilchen.

“During the pandemic a lot of Jewish people started to feel a surge in antisemitism. It was a mix of things, partially because it felt like the world was crumbling and [partially because] people needed a scapegoat and Jews have historically been used as the world’s scapegoat,” she said.

Active on Instagram and Twitter it was a slow process realizing that there was, as she says, “a dire need for activism in these spaces.” While previously she had been focused on posting what she deems “normal, day to day content,” she pivoted her content to educate people about antisemitism where she has quickly become one of the new and emerging prominent voices in this space.

Her content took off quickly.

“I have a solid understanding antisemitism and how it functions. I felt a responsibility to use my voice to show that antisemitism exists everywhere,” she said.

A Long Island native, Tilchen has visited Israel, and although she doesn’t have immediate family there, she feels a strong connection to the country and has many friends living there.

 “I started to see how antisemitism exists across the political spectrum and how the libel claims against Israel have really affected Jews , not just in Israel but in the Diaspora,” she said.

The content on her feed is a particularly enticing mix, including regularly trolling antisemites with viral memes, poking fun at Israel’s ban on foreign tourists but also more serious content that calls out antisemitic behavior and providing education to people who may not know too much about Israel or Jewish people.

While Tilchen finds a lot of meaning in the work she is doing, being a public advocate against antisemitism can at times be a difficult gig.

“I get a ton of abuse in my DMs with conspiracy theories. You have to develop a thick skin. You have to be strong in your Jewish identity and know who you are,” she reflected.

Her social media presence has a track record of resonating with young people around the world, but despite her success, she is just one person. Tilchen thinks that larger better resourced Jewish organizations could do a better job at being active on social media platforms where young people are congregating.

“I’ve called out the legacy Jewish organizations on Twitter. I think they don’t properly understand how to reach young people. I think Jewish organizations should be doing everything they can to help young people understand their Jewish identities before the non-Jewish world tells them who they are,” she said.

“If you don’t have a basis of knowledge, it’s easy to absorb non-Jewish ideas of who Jews are. That’s dangerous. If you start believing the conspiracy theories, it gets messy. We are so outnumbered. You don’t want to be a Jewish person who has internalized non-Jewish identity.”

Tilchen is sometimes surprised at the level engagement that her account has with people who don’t know much about Jewish or have never met Jews. “When I started my advocacy work, it felt like I was trying to change the minds of antisemites, absolutely toxic antisemites, in the comments sections. It really burnt me out. I like talking to people who have nothing against Jewish people but are curious,” she said.

Echoing this thought is Rabbi Shlomo Litvin, the Chabad rabbi of Lexington Kentucky.

He was one of the first Jewish leaders to join the audio-only app Clubhouse in 2021. Like Tilchen, he fell into antisemitism activism accidentally.

“Immediately after I joined Clubhouse, students started pulling me into [private chat] rooms [on the app], asking for advice on how to respond to Clubhouse antisemitism,” he reflected.

“I am a Yad Vashem trained Holocaust educator and up until that point I had mainly used social media to just share positive events.”

However, seeing the need for advocacy in this space, Litvin stepped up to the challenge. His regular use on ClubHouse drew him to Twitter as well.

“There is something extraordinary about Twitter that allows people to have conversations,” he said, recalling an incident where he was able to deliver Hannukah candles to someone who he didn’t know personally, but had connected with him via Twitter.

“She was sick with COVID, located across the country. I got her address, and I contacted the Chabad Rabbi at UC Irvine who delivered her menorah and candles and sufganiyot,” he said.

However, with his new public role on social media fighting against antisemitism, Rabbi Litvin has experienced some scary incidents.

“I was listening to a conversation in the Israel-Palestine room on Clubhouse, and someone spoke up and said that no one knows how to respond to the points I was bringing up about Israel, and then another person piped up and read out my address and said that someone should do something about me,” he recalls. He has also received some nasty letters to his home.

Like Tilchen, Litvin thinks that legacy Jewish organizations could be doing more to use their resources to fight back against antisemitic hate on social media.

“If they haven’t woken up to Twitter yet, then they haven’t woken up to the internet,” he said. “The President of the US has a Twitter account. The excuse that it’s “new” has gotten “old.”

The beauty of the internet is that it requires no geographic boundaries for people to become connected.

In Melbourne, Australia, 22-year-old Josh Feldman is a new and emerging voice on social media that has written op-eds for major Australian and international newspapers about Israel. He is also active on Twitter where part of his bio describes himself as a “Falafel enthusiast.”

While he is still growing his following, he knows that doing so may come at a personal cost.

“I’m not yet a public figure. The Blake Flaytons and Eve Barlows, people know who they are, and they cop a lot more abuse. If I become a bigger figure, I am sure I will get more abuse, and then it becomes a question of how to manage it,” he said.

While he receives occasional insults for his work educating people about Israel (some nasty DMs and emails), overall, he believes in the pieces he is writing and enjoys the unexpected benefit of his advocacy on social media.

 “Occasionally you will write a piece, and someone will reach out to say something nice and that starts a relationship which is a cool part of it that I wasn’t expecting.”

When asked whether she will continue with her public advocacy, despite some of the hardships, Tilchen is steadfast in the belief of what she is doing.

“It’s kind of crazy to think that I have so many more friends now than before COVID. With the friends I have made [from Twitter and Instagram] we have lit Hannukah candles over zoom. We have gotten together over shabbat. I have friends across the world and in Israel,” she said.

Tilchen reflected on a particularly meaningful experience she had a few months ago when many of the advocates who like her, post content fighting back against antisemitism, decided to all go out for brunch in New York City.

“We posted the picture. There was horrible abuse for 2 or 3 days straight online. Abuse about what we looked like. Abuse about how much we tip. Abuse about our noses. However, despite all the abuse, no one could take away the joy that we had meeting each other, because we know who we are. That’s a beautiful thing. We are just people on Instagram and Twitter that use their voices for good” she said. 

The post Jewish Activists Can Take the Heat appeared first on Jewcy.

Anyway, even though we started ‘The Weekly Jewce’ last week, we’re already expanding and building a nice community here! So, starting Friday, ‘The Jewce’ will include an advice column written by the one-and-only Arielle Kaplan, whose writing you will often find on Jewcy.com.

Dating as Jews is hard, and no one really talks about it, so we decided to. Here at ‘Jewcy’, we are committed to creating a space where you can tell us your problems, and we make them worse. Kidding! We can only go up from here, right? Without further ado, meet your new—as she calls herself—Yenta-Jewish-Dating-Prophetess. I hope you’re as excited as I am.

Isaac, Editor of Jewcy.com

Hey Bubbela,

It’s me, Arielle, your local Jewess yenta prophetess. Are you underwhelmed by the Jewish dating scene? Do you feel like an orange and/or green M&M, anxious and undershtupped? Well, If you’re reading this, it’s not too late. I’ve been enlisted to help the Children of Zion fulfill daddy god’s number one request — “Be fruitful and multiply!”

What makes me, a lonely and horny Jew, qualified to help you navigate your life and be a light amongst the nations? Not to brag, but from surviving barrages of online Jew-hatred and French kissing IDF soldiers to my tenure on Jswipe and the Lox Club, I’ve cashed in more than enough mitzvah points to transform you from a shande fur die goyim to Good for the Jews.

So, my desperate little M&Ms, how can you reach me for dating and general life advice? Send your questions to heybubbela@gmail.com. And don’t fret or hold back, I’ll always preserve my bubbela’s anonymity.

xx,
Arielle

The post A Dating Advice Column for Sexy Jews Who Schmooze appeared first on Jewcy.

Every so often, Edelman, creator of the BBC radio show Peer Group, likes to scroll through the vile list, as a treat. One such evening, he came across an open invitation to attend a meeting for White Nationalists at a private apartment in Queens. “Curious about your whiteness?” the tweet read. Edelman is curious about everything, and hey, maybe there’d be a cute girl there. And that’s how a curious Orthodox Jew wound up at a gathering of neo-Nazis and, using wit and charm, lived to tell the tale.

What happened next? No spoilers here! You’ll have to buy a ticket to Edelman’s third solo show, Just For Us, playing at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York City (and Mike Birbiglia produced it!) If you’re lucky enough to snag a seat during the show’s limited run, the award winning comedian will take you back to his very Jewish childhood in the very racist Boston and explain in hilarious detail how he infiltrated a group of White supremacists and survived unscathed. Come for the Nazis, stay for the unexpected love story, and applaud Edelman for the finale zinger of all zingers. 

Dear reader, I realize it’s kind of late to insert my voice here, but deal with it. Edelman doesn’t remember this, but we first met at a comedy show in January of 2015. He was MCing and checking IDs — a man of many talents — and when he read my Hebrew name written on the silver necklace I wore, I fangirled hard. Critics describe him as a young Jerry Seinfeld, but I think he’s more of a Bugs Bunny — charming, full of tricks, and a master at deploying humor to examine uncomfortable issues. Anyway, seven years later I found myself on a Zoom call with Edelman joking about dead Jews. He was telling me about a recent episode of his BBC radio show Peer Group that was “controversially” called “Dead Jews.”

Controversial? People love dead Jews, I quipped (I know “quipped” sounds pretentious, I just didn’t want to write “joke” again). “Right, the joke is that people care a lot more about dead Jews than they do about living ones,” he replied. 

Dead Jew jokes don’t sit well with everyone, but it’s less of a joke and more so an observation about Jews in non-Jewish spaces, which is precisely what Just For Us is about. Okay, let’s get into my conversation with Alex.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What I loved about the show were the handful of moments where I felt the jokes were just for Jews, just for us. It surprised me that the majority of your audience is actually non-Jewish. Do they, like, get it?

Every joke that is specifically Jewish is contextualized by at least one explanation and two context clues. It’s calibrated to appeal to non Jews, but also to make Jewish audiences feel like it’s for them. And the reason for that isn’t cynical. The reason for that is that I am a Jew, who, after many years of trying to figure it out, is existing as a Jew in non Jewish spaces. And that’s one of the layers of the show is what it means to exist as a Jew in a space that isn’t Jewish, and tackling everything around that. It’s nice, though, to have jokes in the show with the word shul or HaShem, and it does get a different pop here. It’s a joy to be doing it in New York, precisely because this is the first time I’ve performed in a market where there’s a substantial base of Jewish people.

People say the show is so timely, especially now. But I think it’s evergreen.

People always tell me, “What a timely show.” When I ask them why, they answer, “Because of all the antisemitism.” And I was like, bro, even when I started writing—back in my second solo show in 2015—people were like, “What a timely joke about an antisemitic experience!”

I have a feeling the show will be evergreen and it will always be timely. If this show is filmed with a special — God willing — and comes out in 2023, people are going to be like, “What a timely special,” Yeah, man… antisemitism. We’re always on the menu.

That’s it, you can call your next show, “Timely,” or “Always on The Menu.” 

If my next show is about Israel and Palestine my old manager said we should call it “Career Suicide.” I do sort of want to tackle it. I think comedy should try to thread the needle. No one can agree on the Israel and Palestine conflict generally, but everyone can agree that it’s hard to talk about. Everyone can agree that what’s happening on the ground is heartbreaking to people on both sides. Everyone can agree these are two distinct people who just want to live in peace and have nice televisions and eat food with their families. So there is common ground, and comedy is such a great vehicle for exploring it and navigating heavy issues in a light-hearted way. 

So you go to this neo-Nazi meeting for anyone who’s “curious about your whiteness.” What’s your gut response to the ever debated question — are Jews white? 

The short answer is “it’s complicated.” The long answer is Jews have a complicated relationship to whiteness. In some spaces, Jews are considered white and in some spaces, Jews aren’t considered white; they benefit from certain white privileges and things have changed throughout history. But the way I qualify it is — which is a joke that I’ve done on the BBC — here’s how you know if you think Jews are white. If you think being white is awesome, then Jews are definitely not white. If you think being white is terrible, then Jews are whiter than white, the whitest people who’ve ever lived. It’s a lose-lose situation. Look at me, I’m a white person, although some people look at me and they’re like, “You’re clearly Jewish.” I have passing privilege, right? I wear my hair in a certain way, I dress in a certain way, so if I’m in a certain environment, people might not register me as Jewish. So I have this passing privilege, but the fact that Jews even need to pass raises all these complicated questions.  

And it’s your white privilege that allowed you to infiltrate this group of neo-Nazis. Another issue with the are-Jewish-White question is that it erases Jews of color. It’s not even about all Ashkenazi Jews, but the white-passing Ashkenazi Jews like you and me.

It’s complicated, because there’s no one-to-one here, right? The construct of skin color and reckoning with what a Jew is, as a cultural, religious, ethnic melange… it’s hard to quantify. It’s fascinating and complex because it’s like trying to do a math problem with two different mathematical languages. Some people go, “It’s the same language,” and other people go, “No, it’s entirely different.” It’s contentious in every way. What I reckon with is that some Jews have elements of white privilege and other Jews do not. 

I think this addiction of binaries that is reflected within the general culture is unhealthy. Someone’s either this or they’re that. A big part of the show, and a big part of my work, my upbringing, and day-to-day life is examining a shade of gray (no pun intended). It’s where all the interesting stuff is! The tension between tradition and modernity, comfort and anxiety… I’m not uncomfortable saying that there’s a tenseness to the question — are Jews white? — I’m also not uncomfortable trying to examine that tension in a thoughtful way. I think anyone who declaratively states one way or the other might have firmer conviction in their beliefs than I do. 

Stephen Fry, one of my favorite Jews and intellectual heroes, likes to say that he’s constantly suffused with doubt. I’m the same way. You know who Stephen Fry is, right? Google him real quick and you’ll be like “I know this guy.” 

*Googles quickly* Ohh LOL yeah, I know him.

Right, he’s super recognizable, one of the funniest people alive and the smartest people alive. His approach is to come at everything with a degree of doubt. There’s a quote by Yeats, the poet, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst, are full of passionate intensity.” Let’s bring passion and intensity to not having conviction! We’re getting a little Talmudic now. Ask another question. 

No! This is where the good stuff happens! 

Well, yeah! I mean… things have changed. Things keep changing, and the Jews that I speak to about this often tell me that they’re frustrated by what is perceived to be a lack of allyship in all corners, and there’s real value to that message. There’s a tendency for people on the Right to not call out right-leaning antisemitism. I think there’s a tendency for people on the Left to not call out left-leaning antisemitism.

As they say, Jews are — or rather, antisemitism — is the canary in a coal mine. Or the scapegoats, which is ironically from the Torah.

Antisemitism skyrocketed in the last year, especially in Europe. Did you experience any Jew-hatred from your show? 

I had a bad antisemitic experience onstage in England in February of 2020, but I’ve also had a shocking amount of Jewish allyship from British people. The amount of people I’ve met on tour who’ve come up to me and been like, “Man, you’re the first Jew I’ve ever met,” and I’m like, “sick!”

Now that’s good for the Jews!

Being good for the Jews is really important for me. All of my heroes are people who are good for the Jews. Like Mel Brooks, who I would argue is great for the Jews.

Ugh, the best. 

David Baddiel identifies as an atheist, but still gets to be good for the Jews. In the show I say that Judaism is a mailing list you can never unsubscribe from. It’s like the Hotel California of religions. For better or for worse, you can be an atheist and wake up every day and curse the name of God and eat pork nonstop from the time you get up until the time you go to sleep and engage in the ritual slaughter of Torah scrolls or something—

But a Jew is a Jew is a Jew.

Exactly, a Jew is a Jew a Jew.

The post Alex Edelman Is Good for the Jews appeared first on Jewcy.

But the Orthodox community is diverse, with diverse beliefs, including feminists and advocates against dangerous extremism. Take Shoshanna Keats-Jaskoll, co-founder of the Orthodox organization Chochmat Nashim, which directly translates to “women’s wisdom.” 

Although she was born in Lakewood, New Jersey, a very traditional Orthodox community whose practices oft border on extreme, Keats-Jaskoll did not grow up religious, and therefore was not a witness to this extremism. Her drive to oppose extremism, she says, came later in life. However, justice has always been a core value of hers. Her grandparents, Holocaust survivors, inspired her not to stand idly by as others were being hurt. When Keats-Jaskoll joined the Haredi Beit Shemesh community in Israel, she first encountered extreme behavior taking place, for example, in the form of women and girls’ erasure in images and her young daughters pressured to sit in the backs of buses. Keats-Jaskoll subsequently arrived at the conclusion that the driving force behind the behavior was not Torah, but a desire to control. “There was just a sense that the Torah and the Judaism that I loved was being used for abusive purposes by those who wanted to control others,” she says. 

It spurred a revolution.

Chochmat Nashim was born after several factors came together for Keats-Jaskoll. Serving as the physical representative for her aunt, whose husband, in refusing to give her a get (Jewish divorce document), had fled to Israel and left her an agunah (chained woman), Keats-Jaskoll experienced disillusionment in the religious court and leadership. This, combined with an influx of letters from people who read her blog in the Times of Israel, telling her about how they had noticed similar extremism on the rise within their own religious communities, led Keats-Jaskoll to co-found Chochmat Nashim. Chochmat Nashim is an organization dedicated to fighting extremism within Orthodoxy and fighting for women and their rights. What makes Chochmat Nashim unique is the internal nature of the advocacy. When calls for change come from within the house, it is more likely to be perceived as originating from a genuine desire to help and improve, as opposed to external critiques, which are perceived as empty criticisms intended to belittle its practitioners. It is therefore less likely to be viewed as an attack and more likely to be heard. When there is a social problem plaguing the community, responses from within are more welcome.

Chochmat Nashim’s initiatives include the creation of a photo bank of ordinary Orthodox women, designed to counter the extremist erasure of women in Orthodox publications; a subtle campaign inside the Haredi world for breast cancer awareness, intended to encourage women to get checked; fighting for other agunot (women who are victims of get refusal), and a project for women to write more articles in spheres wherein female contributions to Torah insights may have gone unnoticed. Most recently, following the breaking news of the Chaim Walder case, Chochmat Nashim was involved with the distribution of flyers raising awareness of sexual assault and the dangers of including the Biblical prohibition against gossip in the dialogue around sexual abuse. 

Chaim Walder was a well-known children’s book author and therapist in the Haredi world, who was accused of serial sexual abuse of women and children over the course of decades in an exposè by Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. Following a conviction by a Safed rabbinical court, Walder committed suicide. In the aftermath, the Haredi community varied in response to the allegations. Some newspapers reported on his death without mentioning the accusations, painting him as a hero; others included them. 

In general, Walder’s death prompted a wave of discourse on the appropriate response to sexual abuse within the Haredi world. Some, including anonymous Haredi women working on this campaign alongside Keats-Jaskoll, were horrified by the seemingly halfhearted responses to sexual abuse in their communities. Others cited the halachic prohibition against gossip as a reason not to discuss allegations or, presumably, address them. This notion is exacerbated by the old adage that lashon hara kills, and is therefore equivalent to murder. Keats-Jaskoll, in countering that concern, describes a hypothetical scenario in which a young Haredi boy sitting in school will, upon hearing this, think to himself, “Wow, I’m so happy I didn’t tell anyone that so-and-so touched me. And now I never will.”

The Haredi community is saying, ‘you’re not sacrificing our children anymore for the klal, for the entirety.’

In some cases, says Keats-Jaskoll, “anything that could bring harm to the community as a whole has to be stopped, regardless of who’s harmed in that process,” the community’s needs being prioritized over individuals’. There has been a change in sentiments brought about with the Walder case. Now, says Keats-Jaskoll, “the Haredi community is saying, ‘you’re not sacrificing our children anymore for the klal, for the entirety.’” A line has been drawn. No longer will Haredi people stand by as sexual predators’ crimes are brushed off, ignored under the guise of avoiding gossipmongering. To advertise the cause and their support for victims of sexual abuse, Haredi women put up fliers offering support to victims of sexual assault, redirecting them to available resources. As the community deeply values halacha, Jewish law, as well as the perspectives of Rabbinic authorities, they will sometimes obtain Rabbinic approval in order to address sensitivities of the Haredi world. A set of fliers that were put up quoted Rabbinic statements, elaborating on the importance of reporting sexual assault, and affirming that reporting sexual abuse does not violate the laws of lashon hara.

In the long run, Chochmat Nashim’s goal is to fight extremism and protect Orthodoxy. Extremism begins, says Keats-Jaskoll, by targeting the most vulnerable members of society, women and children. But when the most vulnerable members of society are treated fairly, that serves as indication that Chochmat Nashim has done its job. “When women are back in pictures in Orthodox publications, and there’s a systemic solution for Jewish divorce, so that no one’s trapped in marriage,” says Keats-Jaskoll, “I’m happy to close my doors.”

Change on the ground starts with change in the conversation.

It is clear that Chochmat Nashim has had an impact in recent years. “Change on the ground starts with change in the conversation,” says Keats-Jaskoll. And the conversation has changed. Various individuals have reached out to the organization to thank them for providing the words and the terminology to discuss their feelings. Members of the community reach out to Chochmat Nashim for advice on how to make change–and it works. Some people have even thanked Chochmat Nashim for being the reason that they did not leave Orthodoxy.

“I see change in the community wanting to take action, meaning they’re not sitting silently,” says Keats-Jaskoll. “They want to know, ‘How do I make personal change?’ As opposed to waiting for change from the top-down, I see a real movement of people wanting to make change within, bottom-up.”

The Orthodox community is complex. It isn’t easy to maintain a millenia-old legacy in a new world, and we will not always agree on the best approach. But we are, as one, driven by the beauty of our religion and committed to following its ways. Chochmat Nashim is a perfect example of the struggle to preserve our values, keep our faith, while simultaneously keeping a balanced, healthy Orthodoxy.

The post Preserving Tradition, Rejecting Extremism appeared first on Jewcy.

Jewcy is a platform for ideas that matter to young Jews today. And The Weekly Jewce is its newest addition, bringing you the most relevant news for young Jews straight to your inbox. Every week.

From celebrity feuds to Israeli pop to the latest TikTok drama, you’re sure to find it there. Subscribe now!

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Then I remembered that this is, technically, a Jewish practice too. On our New Year, Rosh Hashanah, we also take on resolutions of things we’d like to improve. And ever since I was young, I was encouraged on my Hebrew birthday every year to take on a new mitzvah, something to work on. Clearly, my issue wasn’t with an annual decision to improve. That’s why I decided to reframe the way I was thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. If you don’t take it as a decision to change everything at the drop of a button, and instead, use it as an opportunity to do some introspection and figure out things you’d like to work on, New Year’s can really be valuable. If you’re honest with yourself and introspect correctly, having a time built into every year to reflect on your shortcomings and what you want to improve on is helpful.

Here’s how to maximize the value out of New Year’s Resolutions, as rooted in Jewish practice and Jewish wisdom:

First of all, take your time deciding what to work on and what to improve. The Jewish new year, taking place on the first day of Tishrei, is when we officially commit to doing better and being better, but for the entirety of Elul, the entirety of the month prior, we prepare ourselves for it: we decide what exactly to work on, we start preemptively taking steps. Don’t come up with a resolution off the top of your head. Take time to think about it; ruminate on your shortcomings and what you want to change before you finally come to a decision.

Another tip is to check in more often than once a year. In Jewish practice, we first make a resolution on Rosh Hashanah, and then, nine days later on Yom Kippur, we once again focus heavily on our shortcomings in an attempt to atone for them. Even after that, we once again focus on repentance and resolutions on Shemini Atzeret, towards the end of the month of Tishrei. If you have a custom to make a hachlatah, a resolution, on your Hebrew birthday, that’s an extra moment of introspection built into your year. Having a set time of year to introspect is helpful, but you need to check in. You need to follow up and make sure you’re progressing. And if you aren’t progressing, you need to check back in and remind yourself that even if it’s no longer the beginning of the year, it’s still not too late to start. Don’t push off reviving your resolutions until the next year. As King Solomon wrote in the Book of Proverbs, a righteous person is one who falls seven times and stands up. If you fail at making lasting change on the first of January, you can pick it back up weeks or months later. If you mess up your resolutions, you can work on reviving your commitment right away, on standing back up, without waiting all the way until the next January.

A third tip is to vary your resolutions. When I make my Rosh Hashanah resolutions, I try to make one from each of the categories of mitzvah: one mitzvah of bein adam lechavero (the commandments relating to your interactions with other human beings), one of bein adam lamakom (the commandments relating to your interactions with Hashem), and one of bein adam le’atzmo (the commandments relating to your interactions with yourself). The most common kinds of New Year’s Resolutions fall under the bein adam le’atzmo category: exercise more, save money, lose weight, stop drinking, eat healthier. It’s valuable and important to work on yourself and your health. But it’s also important to work on being a good person in your interactions with others. Include some bein adam lechavero or bein adam lamakom in your resolutions so your self-improvement is balanced and well-rounded.

Finally, start small. No, even smaller. Even small progress is progress, and the smaller the goals you set, the more confident you’ll feel in your own ability to follow through. Furthermore, from a psychological perspective, the more confident you feel, the more likely you are to be resilient in the face of adversity. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Instead of resolving to work out every day, maybe decide to go to the gym at least once or twice a week. Instead of resolving to quit drinking completely, maybe decide to drink less. By giving yourself wiggle room, you’ll be less likely to feel constrained by your resolutions, and you’ll therefore be more likely to actually stick with them.

The post Getting the Hang of New Year Resolutions appeared first on Jewcy.