frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
re-posted from what i wrote on facebook ... lol, tell me what you think. Im wondering whether an end is in sight to my three years long religious crisis 
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Please bear with me because I think what Im about to write is going to sound very weird.
For a long time I've been feeling pretty confused about religion. Make that very confused.
When I was religious I frequently tended to see everything related to God and religious topics and the like, in a very black and white way, as well as seeing zionism and israel in that way as well. The Israelis were "the good guys" and the palestinians were "the bad guys". For a political movement that is the subject of so many outlandish conspiracy theories, a lot of zionists love thinking up sinister conspiracies of their own and I was certainly not an exception. I believed that the world was basically against Israel for no apparent reason, and I linked that to the religion of Judaism as a whole.
I was having a pretty bad time all through my teens and religion did help me a lot. But a lot of it fucked me up, although i didn't realise at the time. I was quite racist, i spent a lot of time with people i should have never, ever have talked to, had some very extreme zionist views, that were partly because of what was happening in my life, and partly because zionism offers very easy answers, by telling you that the world is against you and giving something to focus on. Some of it seems totally absurd to look back on it, as well as the fact that I knew much of it was nonsense and simply ignored it by thinking, "well, that's not true, but the rest of it is." I'll write another post about zionism in a while, I'm meaning to write an article about it, but that could be a whole other note.
When I stopped being religious I spent a lot of time being really angry about religion. I think it was because I'd believed in God almost in a fundamentalist type of a way, despite going to a fairly liberal synagogue, and spent an awful lot of time thinking in that way and trying to get others to do the same. I felt totally let down and betrayed although to be honest it couldn't of been god's fault! I basically became really angry about anything to do with religion, although i didn't really know whether I believed in God I thought he probably didn't exist.
I think religion sometimes stopps you thinking for yourself. For example if you see a sunset as a religious person, you can often not think "Oh look at that beautiful sunset," on its own, but you frequently end up thinking, "Oh, look at that beautiful sunset THAT GOD MADE." It can somewhat close the mind and stop you thinking about things in certain ways.
When I stopped being a zionist it was a real shock to discover that Israel, which I had always thought was doing the right thing even though it "sometimes made mistakes" and did some bad things, was carrying out such horrific policies that I could see for what they really were without me trying to defend them by saying things like "there's nothing wrong with demolishing the houses of terrorists - they do that all the time in england, look, they demolished fred west's house when they found the bodies under the patio!" So, I then became really angry about Judaism in particular and basically beat not only the religion but myself up about what was going on.
In the last few weeks I've been thinking more about Judaism. Ive come back from living in a country that used to be around 60% Jewish before they were killed during the war. The holocaust left a huge hole in countries that used to have huge Jewish communities. I went to synagogue the week before I left Moldova and it started me thinking about a lot of things.
During the Gaza demo yesterday I noticed that there were very very many Jews on the demo, to show their disgust at Israel and their support for the Palestinians. I had a chat with someone I'd met before on previous demos and she started me thinking about some things.
I've come to some interesting conclusions, and here they are.
1) Judaism is NOT zionism.
It's easy to say this, but not so easy to really believe it.
It is really easy to get angry at "Jews" for the lack of disgust at Israel, and wonder whether there is something wrong with us or our religion to create such a "monster". Even if you're not actually thinking this consciously, you might still be feeling this way subconsciously and not only blaming the religion for things in Gaza but also being ashamed of yourself. Or you might start to think that criticising israel is anti-semitic and even blasphemous.
I think there are two reasons for this.
One, is that many Jewish people are zionists, there is often a pro-Israel narrative in the media and there is a lot of social pressure to be a zionist as well.
The other is not so obvious. In the Jewish religion, there is an idea that an injury to one is an injury to all, and if a Jew does something bad then all Jews are responsible in some way, and almost as though you have done that bad thing yourself. This idea is a good one in many ways as it helped the community to keep together, but it is really not helpful in this case. In the case of, for example, the Cumbria shooter, English people don't feel as though we have murdered 12 people just because we are the same nationality as he is, so why should it be the same for religion.
there is no need to feel guilty over it or feel like the religion is all completley fucked or deficient, because we have basically not done anything, the Israeli government has, and there is also not a need to think we are responsible for whatever zionism has caused.
2) We can change things.
Ive said loads of times, that I dont go to synagogue any more because it doesn't represent me etc. But there are loads and loads of people who feel that it doesn't represent them either, or fulfil various needs, whether they agree about politics or not. There would be nothing to stop us from starting our own groups - i mean there are enough people now for a start.
There have been least two major movements in the last 500 or so years that began because the current form of Judaism was not working for some of the people. One of them was the Hasidic movement and the other one was the Reform movement.
The Hasidic movement began in Eastern Europe among working class Jews and was designed to make Judaism more about serving God through joyful worship and the emotions rather than sitting in a room studying, which tended to be inaccessible to many people, as well as completely irrelevant to their lives, especially if they were peasants or manual workers. There is a tale of Hasidic Jews confronting a leader called the Gaon of Vilna, over the fact that he spent much of his life on academic matters and studying the Torah rather than using the Torah to help the people. He knew nothing about the ordinary lives of other Jews who were less fortunate than himself. When he was confronted with this, he sat down and wept.
The Reform movement began in Britain in the 19th century, over the absurdity of having different synagogues for different "types" of Jews, such as ashkenazi and sephardi. A synagogue was started for "British Jews" which could include anyone. It was necessary because the community was already unpopular and poor and it made sense to stick together rather than make divisions. They soon turned their attention not only to the different customs of ashkenazi and sephardi jews but also to other customs within Judaism which were senseless and served no spiritual purpose, such as the lower status of women, and in addition, they scrapped some of the more stringent requirements of food rules which were seen as a barrier to integrating in society. Previously, "modernisers" within Judaism had often ended up advocating conversion to Christianity. It began at a time when movements such as early womens' rights campaigners and trade unions were beginning to form, and Jews were beginning to become involved in these.
So, if these had such a significant impact, which they undoubtedly have, on the development of Judaism, it would make sense to try to think about something similar rather than leaving the religion. I am willing to try and I don't know if anyone else is.
3) In the past the Jewish people have had some terrilbe things happen, but this problem with Israel is something that has never happened before. It is unprecedented that the Jewish people are perpetrators of crimes on such a large scale.
So.................people don't know how to react to it, and so many good people are losing their faith as a result, or if not losing it, being so sickened by israels actions that they can't bear to participate in anything jewish any more. But one of the things I heard on the demo that it would be a shame to have this "problem" drive me away from my faith which has been something that has meant an awful lot to me in the past.
I think I've grown up and matured a lot since I was first religious, and I don't think I would become as fanatical again. So I tihnk that now might be the time to go back to it, although right now I don't really feel that keen on organised religion. But I think that's OK. I think i need something, even if I just end up making up my own things as I go along. It's going to be a bit of a challenge to me to figure out where I am with my spirituality again but I've been having a think about it and it's like, I want to try and figure this out without worrying about anything too much or getting into anything weird and fanatical. It will be an interesting journey I think.
____________________________________________
Please bear with me because I think what Im about to write is going to sound very weird.
For a long time I've been feeling pretty confused about religion. Make that very confused.
When I was religious I frequently tended to see everything related to God and religious topics and the like, in a very black and white way, as well as seeing zionism and israel in that way as well. The Israelis were "the good guys" and the palestinians were "the bad guys". For a political movement that is the subject of so many outlandish conspiracy theories, a lot of zionists love thinking up sinister conspiracies of their own and I was certainly not an exception. I believed that the world was basically against Israel for no apparent reason, and I linked that to the religion of Judaism as a whole.
I was having a pretty bad time all through my teens and religion did help me a lot. But a lot of it fucked me up, although i didn't realise at the time. I was quite racist, i spent a lot of time with people i should have never, ever have talked to, had some very extreme zionist views, that were partly because of what was happening in my life, and partly because zionism offers very easy answers, by telling you that the world is against you and giving something to focus on. Some of it seems totally absurd to look back on it, as well as the fact that I knew much of it was nonsense and simply ignored it by thinking, "well, that's not true, but the rest of it is." I'll write another post about zionism in a while, I'm meaning to write an article about it, but that could be a whole other note.
When I stopped being religious I spent a lot of time being really angry about religion. I think it was because I'd believed in God almost in a fundamentalist type of a way, despite going to a fairly liberal synagogue, and spent an awful lot of time thinking in that way and trying to get others to do the same. I felt totally let down and betrayed although to be honest it couldn't of been god's fault! I basically became really angry about anything to do with religion, although i didn't really know whether I believed in God I thought he probably didn't exist.
I think religion sometimes stopps you thinking for yourself. For example if you see a sunset as a religious person, you can often not think "Oh look at that beautiful sunset," on its own, but you frequently end up thinking, "Oh, look at that beautiful sunset THAT GOD MADE." It can somewhat close the mind and stop you thinking about things in certain ways.
When I stopped being a zionist it was a real shock to discover that Israel, which I had always thought was doing the right thing even though it "sometimes made mistakes" and did some bad things, was carrying out such horrific policies that I could see for what they really were without me trying to defend them by saying things like "there's nothing wrong with demolishing the houses of terrorists - they do that all the time in england, look, they demolished fred west's house when they found the bodies under the patio!" So, I then became really angry about Judaism in particular and basically beat not only the religion but myself up about what was going on.
In the last few weeks I've been thinking more about Judaism. Ive come back from living in a country that used to be around 60% Jewish before they were killed during the war. The holocaust left a huge hole in countries that used to have huge Jewish communities. I went to synagogue the week before I left Moldova and it started me thinking about a lot of things.
During the Gaza demo yesterday I noticed that there were very very many Jews on the demo, to show their disgust at Israel and their support for the Palestinians. I had a chat with someone I'd met before on previous demos and she started me thinking about some things.
I've come to some interesting conclusions, and here they are.
1) Judaism is NOT zionism.
It's easy to say this, but not so easy to really believe it.
It is really easy to get angry at "Jews" for the lack of disgust at Israel, and wonder whether there is something wrong with us or our religion to create such a "monster". Even if you're not actually thinking this consciously, you might still be feeling this way subconsciously and not only blaming the religion for things in Gaza but also being ashamed of yourself. Or you might start to think that criticising israel is anti-semitic and even blasphemous.
I think there are two reasons for this.
One, is that many Jewish people are zionists, there is often a pro-Israel narrative in the media and there is a lot of social pressure to be a zionist as well.
The other is not so obvious. In the Jewish religion, there is an idea that an injury to one is an injury to all, and if a Jew does something bad then all Jews are responsible in some way, and almost as though you have done that bad thing yourself. This idea is a good one in many ways as it helped the community to keep together, but it is really not helpful in this case. In the case of, for example, the Cumbria shooter, English people don't feel as though we have murdered 12 people just because we are the same nationality as he is, so why should it be the same for religion.
there is no need to feel guilty over it or feel like the religion is all completley fucked or deficient, because we have basically not done anything, the Israeli government has, and there is also not a need to think we are responsible for whatever zionism has caused.
2) We can change things.
Ive said loads of times, that I dont go to synagogue any more because it doesn't represent me etc. But there are loads and loads of people who feel that it doesn't represent them either, or fulfil various needs, whether they agree about politics or not. There would be nothing to stop us from starting our own groups - i mean there are enough people now for a start.
There have been least two major movements in the last 500 or so years that began because the current form of Judaism was not working for some of the people. One of them was the Hasidic movement and the other one was the Reform movement.
The Hasidic movement began in Eastern Europe among working class Jews and was designed to make Judaism more about serving God through joyful worship and the emotions rather than sitting in a room studying, which tended to be inaccessible to many people, as well as completely irrelevant to their lives, especially if they were peasants or manual workers. There is a tale of Hasidic Jews confronting a leader called the Gaon of Vilna, over the fact that he spent much of his life on academic matters and studying the Torah rather than using the Torah to help the people. He knew nothing about the ordinary lives of other Jews who were less fortunate than himself. When he was confronted with this, he sat down and wept.
The Reform movement began in Britain in the 19th century, over the absurdity of having different synagogues for different "types" of Jews, such as ashkenazi and sephardi. A synagogue was started for "British Jews" which could include anyone. It was necessary because the community was already unpopular and poor and it made sense to stick together rather than make divisions. They soon turned their attention not only to the different customs of ashkenazi and sephardi jews but also to other customs within Judaism which were senseless and served no spiritual purpose, such as the lower status of women, and in addition, they scrapped some of the more stringent requirements of food rules which were seen as a barrier to integrating in society. Previously, "modernisers" within Judaism had often ended up advocating conversion to Christianity. It began at a time when movements such as early womens' rights campaigners and trade unions were beginning to form, and Jews were beginning to become involved in these.
So, if these had such a significant impact, which they undoubtedly have, on the development of Judaism, it would make sense to try to think about something similar rather than leaving the religion. I am willing to try and I don't know if anyone else is.
3) In the past the Jewish people have had some terrilbe things happen, but this problem with Israel is something that has never happened before. It is unprecedented that the Jewish people are perpetrators of crimes on such a large scale.
So.................people don't know how to react to it, and so many good people are losing their faith as a result, or if not losing it, being so sickened by israels actions that they can't bear to participate in anything jewish any more. But one of the things I heard on the demo that it would be a shame to have this "problem" drive me away from my faith which has been something that has meant an awful lot to me in the past.
I think I've grown up and matured a lot since I was first religious, and I don't think I would become as fanatical again. So I tihnk that now might be the time to go back to it, although right now I don't really feel that keen on organised religion. But I think that's OK. I think i need something, even if I just end up making up my own things as I go along. It's going to be a bit of a challenge to me to figure out where I am with my spirituality again but I've been having a think about it and it's like, I want to try and figure this out without worrying about anything too much or getting into anything weird and fanatical. It will be an interesting journey I think.
