I’m struck. Part of me is genuinely shocked that a goy is that cut up at not being able to follow an internet blog that isn’t meant for them, especially since they are allegedly “curious.” Another part of me is humiliated and horrified that goyim are still patrolling and surveilling this space for the express purpose of treating us like lab rats for their “stories” and “characters”. Part of me is interested by the idea that goyim (or any privileged group) feels they must be given the right to educate themselves about a marginalized or targeted group and the oppression they face. Part of me is open-mouthed aghast at the patronizing inherent in “Something to consider.” “You should learn how to better coddle me. You should learn how to make me comfortable in your spaces. You need to learn the proper ways to butcher your culture and make it palatable enough for me to violate and water down for me and my goyische friends.” Obviously this person’s response is, “That wasn’t my intent,” if they care at all. Such an interesting study. I mostly wanted to share this to demonstrate to other Jewish people that it’s ok to feel hurt when your boundaries are transgressed and to express those feelings, and to warn people that there’s definitely quite a few goyim hanging around surveilling these spaces, and also to issue a brief response to this Anon:
Jewish people are getting fucking murdered and this is what you’re fucking doing. Go the fuck outside sometime, you collaborator piece of shit. “I WAS going to follow” then perish.
Not to mention there are spaces that focus on learning about Judaism that aren’t this specific blog. There are sites like chabad.org that give basic info and there are tumblrs like @jewish-education and @yidquotes that have more advanced info and don’t say that gentiles can’t follow.
I mean OP probably shouldn’t be writing Jewish characters anyway if they’re going to act so entitled but their concern trolling looks even more obtuse and nasty considering that any person who genuinely wants resources has other options.
I’m a little ticked with a lot of this right now. And since I’ve been @ here I’m going to insert myself into this conversation. Putting two hats on at once here as a writer and a Jewish person. Jumblr and writeblr should read all of it, but some paragraphs are to one of the other of you:
To writeblr: Research is great. Research is awesome. Research is necessary for good writing and a societal shedding of -isms. Do it where you’re welcome and will best be able to learn.
To jumblr: Writers do research not because minority people or characters are lab rats, but because they need some help learning to understand a life and worldview different than their own. And it’s great when writers make diverse characters/worlds. Sometimes the only place folks will meet someone Jewish (or of another minority group) is in the pages of a book. Let’s make sure those characters are done well.
To writeblr: You should be respectful and do research in places where folks are chill with it. No group is required to let you in to all of their spaces. Some of them are exclusively for intragroup conversations or are intragroup safe spaces. I feel like many of y’all know this by now? I hope.
To jumblr: It’s okay for us on jumblr to get angry and feel threatened when folks cross one of the boundaries we’ve put up (especially when we’ve often got good reasons to put them up!).
But jumblrites need to remember that making sure writers do their job right is mutually beneficial. Given, this anon doesn’t seem (at least from this snippet) like someone who would do a good job no matter what we did…But if a writer approached y’all politely, with a genuine desire to do things right by all of us, I’d hope that (given the energy and ability) you would be willing to help:
A polite, genuine request could have been “I’m trying to learn about x because I’m working on a [piece of writing, etc.]. I came across your blog and know it isn’t for me, but would you be willing help me find some places I can go to learn about x?”
I’d caution people from using my @jewish-education (or even @yidquotes?) to learn how to write a Jewish character. We just mostly don’t post about the lives and opinions of your “average” (lol) Jewish person. (I mean maybe some of my blog’s #jewish identity tag??) Chabad is good to know about traditional, Hasidic practice, but it won’t teach you how [random Jewish character] lives.
I’d recommend following personal blogs (on tumblr/beyond that are chill with random gentiles reading), reading published works by and about Jewish folks, and relying on writing advice blogs with Jewish mods when questions come up. If you have Jewish people irl who are willing to talk to you, that’s a great resource too. I am open to (some) personal-ish jewish life/identity questions over messaging. I am also willing recommend books or use my blog as a platform to ask followers for books recs (I haven’t read everything). Me and I think my end of jumblr will talk books ‘til the cows come home.
I would really recommend that writers ask if they can follow a personal blog specifically for research because I would personally be really uncomfortable with that …
Thanks for the important emphasis @nerdyqueerandjewish! Yeah…I said that are chill with random gentiles reading. But that should probably be in bold and italicized so amendment of: “I’d recommend following personal blogs (on tumblr/beyond that are chill with random gentiles reading)
”
I mean I’m happy to have gentile readers, sure, it is the idea that it would be for researching a character that gives me the creeps I guess?
there is literally a dedicated writing tumblr for this, though: @writingwithcolor
http://writingwithcolor.tumblr.com/tagged/judaism
@shiraglassman is usually answering Jewish writing questions.
Heads up: I’m one of those personal blogs willing to answer questions. 🙂
Death By Catchphrase 