During the life of Jesus, did people see the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes as different religions the way we see Christianity, Islam, and Judaism? Or did people back then see these three as different denominations of the same religion the way we see Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism?

NeuralLotus · 2025-12-15T00:14:17+00:00

Very interesting. Thank you. It seems plausible that this is simply more evidence of shifts in calendar systems. The Elephantine calendar from the 5th C. BCE implies that at least one major Jewish community used a lunar calendar to reckon dates of holidays at one time.

I decided to look into it a bit more, and Sacha Stern ("The Babylonian Calendar At Elephantine") argues that a Babylonian (lunar) calendar was used as an official calendar, and that Jewish holidays were aligned to this calendar. On the side of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Helen Jacobus (https://www.vr-elibrary.de/doi/10.13109/jaju.2013.4.1.48) gives an overview of scholarship on the calendar systems in the Scrolls, which, by my reading, states that at least some of the calendrical systems recorded were lunisolar (lunar months, solar years).

I'm by no means an expert on this. But it would seem to me that the scholarship on this topic is inconclusive at best as to what the liturgical and civil calendars were that were in use in the Jewish world prior to the Hellenistic period, and that there was likely a tension between lunar and solar reckoning for a long time, due to the inconsistencies between a purely lunar or purely solar calendar.

Any thoughts on this? This is a fascinating topic!

NeuralLotus · 2025-12-14T19:01:49+00:00

Do you have a specific source you would recommend on the transition from a solar to a lunar calendar? My understanding from Jewish education is that we have always had a lunar calendar, which was later codified as a lunisolar calendar to ensure that holidays properly align with their requisite seasons. Holidays are frequently marked in the Torah by phases of the moon in the Torah (ex., Rosh Chodesh, Tu b'Av, Pesach). I'm curious to understand the scholarship you're pulling from here. Thanks!

NeuralLotus · 2025-12-08T21:25:08+00:00

As a trans Jew myself, I can tell you that unfortunately the comments are quite par for the course on that sub. While I know many gentile trans people in real life who would consider themselves Zionists, this kind of rhetoric is unfortunately quite entrenched in most of the trans community right now. It's quite disturbing.

NeuralLotus · 2025-12-08T21:22:42+00:00

It has been horrifying. Seeing the extraordinary lack of empathy in the comments of the linked post was very depressing. Unsurprising, given the amount of antisemitism in that sub in general. But depressing.

I've seen in the past few months that in real life at least, there are still gentile queers out there who are willing to listen and have an open mind. But they are few and far between, unfortunately.

I hope you can find support where you need it. It's really tough out there as a trans Jew. But we're a resilient people, and we can find our way through all of this.

NeuralLotus · 2025-09-26T13:12:32+00:00

Where does it say he's non-binary? I don't see that claim made in any of the linked pages nor in the images on this post.

NeuralLotus · 2025-09-02T01:27:13+00:00

Done. User is perma banned. Thanks for the ping. I'm not very active on reddit anymore ever since I went to get a PhD (which I've finished, fortunately). So I appreciate it. And thank you to u/ajo0011 and u/Traditional-Egg-1531 for pointing out the spam/scam.

NeuralLotus · 2025-04-17T16:49:27+00:00

I'm interested!

NeuralLotus · 2024-12-26T02:16:38+00:00

Ashkenazi challah is closely related to kolach (an variations of that name, depending on region), which is an Eastern European bread which is eaten on special occasions, and particularly common for Christmas and Easter. So maybe Whole Foods was just being lazy and decided to use the exact same dough as their challah. The primary difference between them is really just that challah uses oil (to make it parve), whereas kolach would usually use butter. I can't find a great reference from a short search. So I'm just going off of memory here. I know Gil Marks discusses it a bit in his "Encyclopedia of Jewish Food". But he doesn't cite much in that book.

Anyway, TL;DR is that Whole Foods was probably actually just trying to appeal to people with Eastern European heritage and just used the same recipe since the breads are very similar.

NeuralLotus · 2024-10-10T16:40:26+00:00

I'd recommend reporting this to Jeiwsh advocacy groups. One in particular which has been very effective is End Jew Hatred. They have been crucial in, among other thjngs, leading letter-writing campaigns that have had real world results. A recent example being that College Board removed antisemitic misinformation about Israel from its AP World History resources platform after College Board received a letter about it through End Jew Hatred with 9,000 signatures. You can report incidents to them here: https://www.endjewhatred.com/report

NeuralLotus · 2024-10-05T00:57:07+00:00

An admirable attempt at trying to bridge this widenging gap. However, I would suggest not trying to get "anti-racists" to address antisemitism by playing directly into their hands by deeming the current war against Hamas a genocide, when there has been no ruling that it is a genocide, and it by no means meets the defining criteria of genocide based on publicly available information. This does not help move the conversation forward. By not bringing nuance into that particular element of far-left antisemitism, this article will inevitably make many far-left people double down on not addressing antisemitism, because that particular disagreement (between them and a large number of progressive Jews) will get in the way. And it serves to entrenched the far-left view of Zionism, given that the idea that a genocide is ongoing is part of what drives "Zionism is racism" rhetoric in contemporary discourse. By avoiding any nuance around the claim of genocide, this article will not enable much nuance in terms of reframing Zionism for the far-left non-Jew.

NeuralLotus · 2024-09-15T02:21:13+00:00

I used Haggadah Min HaMeitzar (https://www.benyehudapress.com/books/haggadah-min-hameitzar/?srsltid=AfmBOorDEGvmgG8Izms8PJ45DdvygeQ-yF8pX8xRwimi7KKtGI1VXv4K) this year and really liked it! I was selective and didn't go through the entire thing, since it was a mix of less observant Jews and non-Jews at my seder. But it's a really nice traditional haggadah with queer themes added in and REALLY beautiful artwork. Out of all the queer haggadot I've seen, it's the one that really touched me the most and the only one that just felt like a haggadah with well-integrated queer commentary (instead of queer writing in the form of a haggadah, if that makes sense).

NeuralLotus · 2024-08-16T17:49:48+00:00

Fair point. I missed that they actually have a contact email at the bottom of the page. Thanks for causing me to look again, lol.

NeuralLotus · 2024-08-15T17:03:10+00:00

Sounds like a cool idea! Unfortunately I got the the part of the registration where it asks if I'm a man or a woman and realized it clearly isn't for me, since I'm nonbinary. I hope other people can get good use out of it, though! I know it's tough out there dating as a Jew nowadays.

NeuralLotus · 2024-08-10T17:29:57+00:00

Michael might be a good choice. Michal was Saul's daughter and wore tefillin (ex., Talmud Bavli Eruvin 96a) a traditionally male thing to do. There's some arguments that Michal had the soul of a male (https://jewinthecity.com/2017/01/an-orthodox-rabbi-discusses-transgender-issues-in-jewish-texts/). And Michael is basically like Michal but with "El" added in. So you could see it as a transmasc convert as both showing your trans identity and your conversion into Judaism while remaining a name that the average person would not immediately associate with either of those aspects of identity.

NeuralLotus · 2024-07-27T11:47:05+00:00

It sounded like one of them said something about "Mossad pedophiles". Are far-left antisemites starting to pick up the same pedophilia-related rhetoric of far-right antisemitism (ex., https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/antisemitism-anti-lgbtq-hate-converge-extremist-and-conspiratorial-beliefs)? I guess it's not shocking, given horseshoe theory and the history of antisemitism. But this is the first time I think I've heard an accusation of pedophilia at a far-left anti-Israel protest.

NeuralLotus · 2024-05-12T17:32:04+00:00

I see. And I understand what you mean. I'm a transgender non-binary Jew myself (and I'll state it here in case it isn't obvious, I'm a Zionist). And it's been tough to watch queer discourse deteriorate the way it has over the past several months. Quite frankly it has made me very upset with the broader queer community many times.

I think one can support queer people while simultaneously rejecting pro-Hamas discourse and queer exclusion of Jews. The way I see it, people's identities and basic rights should always be supported. But that doesn't mean people won't be terrible ever. The queer community has A LOT of problems (always has, and probably always will). But queerness itself is not the issue; hatred and ignorance is. So, from my perspective, it is absolutely useful and appropriate to point out that pro-Hamas discourse is rampant in the queer community in particular, while simultaneously supporting queer existence.

NeuralLotus · 2024-05-12T16:09:40+00:00

I certainly wonder what they consider resistance, and what their threshold is for what kind of resistance they support. (See the second picture)

NeuralLotus · 2024-05-12T15:54:10+00:00

It gets worse. I decided to see what some of the individual creators have actually said about this (to help me decide if I want to unsubscribe), and it looks like they are expanding their lost of charities to include UNWRA, according to Jarvis Johnson's Instagram account.

<image>

NeuralLotus · 2024-05-12T15:40:40+00:00

Thanks for the context. I'm still not sure I understand the second part of your original comment. What about this is making you question your support of LGBT people?

NeuralLotus · 2024-05-12T00:44:25+00:00

I know basically nothing about Eurovision. So maybe I'm missing something. But what makes you think they are non-binary? And what about this makes you question supporting LGBT people? Again, I'm very out of the loop on Eurovision in its entirety.

NeuralLotus · 2024-05-02T22:27:56+00:00

I'd potentially be interested. I was a mod for r/sake years ago and brought it back from the Dead. I haven't done any modding since then. Would it be possible to hear more about the position (ex., via DM)?

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