Talking about Jewish topics
Feb. 6th, 2019 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livI am completely overwhelmed by all the responses to my brainweasels posts! You people are just incredible. Partly the specific helpful and supportive things people said. But massively the sheer volume of comments from lurkers, from people I've been admiring from afar for ages, people I don't know at all. The fact that so many of you bothered to comment to tell me I should keep posting is incredibly heartening.
Among a range of thoughts sparked by the discussion, I've been thinking about the etiquette around posting Jewish-related stuff. Quite a lot of my life is to do with Jewish-community related activities. Indeed, a few years back I met someone I'd only really interacted with online, and they assumed I was some kind of religious professional, based on reading my DW!
I could make an argument that Jews are an oppressed minority in Christian-dominated society, and therefore I should take pride in posting about Jewish stuff as much as possible to balance the ways Jews might otherwise be silenced and erased. Or I could talk about some of my experiences where people would really rather I'm quieter about being Jewish, that I don't mention my identity or at least if I must mention it, I shouldn't get in people's faces by actually acting differently from my non-Jewish circles. Or I could talk about how it's not fair to have to educate the privileged majority about my minority culture, so I should just babble about whatever comes into my head and if people can't follow, that's their problem. I have experienced being treated as an endless free resource for people to spill their random thoughts and feelings about Judaism at, though for the most part I quite enjoy being the explainer-of-Judaism.
But equally I could make an argument that Jews are privileged monotheists, and by talking about religion-related topics too much, I'm contributing to the oppression of atheists, polytheistic pagans, and anyone who doesn't come from a Christian-influenced European culture. And I very much have experienced the thing of people constantly going on at me about their religion in ways that are clearly a power-play and make me very uncomfortable.
This is the kind of situation where I find the privilege / oppression framework just... not very useful. For me, a more useful paradigm is that of consent. If I make sure all my posts on religious themes are clearly labelled and behind cuts, then people can choose whether they want to read them. Jews, being Abrahamic monotheists who are somewhat acceptable to at least some Christians, may have social power over non-monotheists in a broad sociological sense, but I personally don't have any meaningful power over any of my readers. So if I offer you an opt-out from my religion posts, you're (hopefully) not under any pressure to read them.
This isn't perfect, because there are some people who find themselves compelled to click on cuts that are going to lead them to material they may find traumatizing. A lot of people use opt-in filters for triggering topics to avoid the problem. I'm kind of reluctant to do that, partly because I really like blogging almost entirely in public and having 50 people comment on random angst posts, and don't want to be keeping track of a lot of access filters. And partly because Judaism is my life, it's not a compartmentalized thing for special religious occasions. If I'm talking about my family, my ethics, my general experience of being in the world, I'm talking as a Jew. And of course, that can be an excuse, I've heard the pushiest of missionaries justifying their rudeness by saying they just can't help Witnessing at me. But I think realistically, it's not fair to have to hide away any mention of my religion and culture and identity in my own space.
Which is not to deny that religious trauma can be real. There are plenty of people, especially anyone who doesn't have a completely default sexuality and gender identity, who have been exceptionally badly treated by religious people and religious organizations. Some of them are ancestrally Jewish, and all have just as much right to avoid reading about religion as I have to express myself by talking about it.
I have a rotten cold and I am not sure I'm making sense, but anyway, this is something that's been on my mind based on recent discussions.
Among a range of thoughts sparked by the discussion, I've been thinking about the etiquette around posting Jewish-related stuff. Quite a lot of my life is to do with Jewish-community related activities. Indeed, a few years back I met someone I'd only really interacted with online, and they assumed I was some kind of religious professional, based on reading my DW!
I could make an argument that Jews are an oppressed minority in Christian-dominated society, and therefore I should take pride in posting about Jewish stuff as much as possible to balance the ways Jews might otherwise be silenced and erased. Or I could talk about some of my experiences where people would really rather I'm quieter about being Jewish, that I don't mention my identity or at least if I must mention it, I shouldn't get in people's faces by actually acting differently from my non-Jewish circles. Or I could talk about how it's not fair to have to educate the privileged majority about my minority culture, so I should just babble about whatever comes into my head and if people can't follow, that's their problem. I have experienced being treated as an endless free resource for people to spill their random thoughts and feelings about Judaism at, though for the most part I quite enjoy being the explainer-of-Judaism.
But equally I could make an argument that Jews are privileged monotheists, and by talking about religion-related topics too much, I'm contributing to the oppression of atheists, polytheistic pagans, and anyone who doesn't come from a Christian-influenced European culture. And I very much have experienced the thing of people constantly going on at me about their religion in ways that are clearly a power-play and make me very uncomfortable.
This is the kind of situation where I find the privilege / oppression framework just... not very useful. For me, a more useful paradigm is that of consent. If I make sure all my posts on religious themes are clearly labelled and behind cuts, then people can choose whether they want to read them. Jews, being Abrahamic monotheists who are somewhat acceptable to at least some Christians, may have social power over non-monotheists in a broad sociological sense, but I personally don't have any meaningful power over any of my readers. So if I offer you an opt-out from my religion posts, you're (hopefully) not under any pressure to read them.
This isn't perfect, because there are some people who find themselves compelled to click on cuts that are going to lead them to material they may find traumatizing. A lot of people use opt-in filters for triggering topics to avoid the problem. I'm kind of reluctant to do that, partly because I really like blogging almost entirely in public and having 50 people comment on random angst posts, and don't want to be keeping track of a lot of access filters. And partly because Judaism is my life, it's not a compartmentalized thing for special religious occasions. If I'm talking about my family, my ethics, my general experience of being in the world, I'm talking as a Jew. And of course, that can be an excuse, I've heard the pushiest of missionaries justifying their rudeness by saying they just can't help Witnessing at me. But I think realistically, it's not fair to have to hide away any mention of my religion and culture and identity in my own space.
Which is not to deny that religious trauma can be real. There are plenty of people, especially anyone who doesn't have a completely default sexuality and gender identity, who have been exceptionally badly treated by religious people and religious organizations. Some of them are ancestrally Jewish, and all have just as much right to avoid reading about religion as I have to express myself by talking about it.
I have a rotten cold and I am not sure I'm making sense, but anyway, this is something that's been on my mind based on recent discussions.
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(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-07 06:18 pm (UTC)I don't think you need to be concerned that you might be doing something wrong by writing about a core part of your cultural identity, in your own personal space which no-one is forced to read. I think it's really unfortunate that you've been made to feel this way and that the people or ideologies or paradigms that try to make you worry about this have got something very badly wrong and oppressive in this instance.
This isn't about you (hypothetically) abusing your power as a manager at work to make people study Jewish texts. This just seems to be about you having a fundamental right to express and show your identity and share it with those who choose to read. And anyone who tries to shame you into feeling that that's wrong or that you shouldn't is simply acting horribly. The commenter who made the analogy with the way some people argue (wrongly) that gay people shouldn't show affection in public in case it 'upsets' people seems spot on.
You have an absolute right in every sense to write about your faith, religious and cultural practices, academic details thereof and how it plays out in your day to day life on your own blog. The fact that lots of us find it interesting is a bonus, but like the brain weasel post, it's absolutely ok if we don't.