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This is a great question! I think my answer would have to be that jewish characters tend to be made into extremes, in that they're either SUPER JEWISH ALL THE TIME WITH ALL THE STEREOTYPES (even when the media itself isn't trying to be offensive) or alternatively the only way you know the character is jewish is that they celebrate hanukkah instead of christmas in the winter. Of course jewish experiences vary widely, but for a lot of jewish people our culture and heritage inform our daily lives in much the same way it does for any other ethnic or cultural minority, so somewhere in the middle of the two extremes would be a lot more accurate.

In rp I rarely see jewish characters, but the few times I have the main issues have just been the muns trying too hard. Research is great, references are great, but when you go too far and start using intra-jewish terms incorrectly (think when someone goes too far playing a Japanese character and starts using Japanese slang they don't quite get, especially when it isn't necessary) it starts to be a problem. Also unfortunately I've found that some muns get uncomfortably close to fetishizing their character's judaism (usually the religious aspect) which is awkward to say the least.

thanks for answering! what kinds of fetishization have you seen? you don't have to get too specific if you don't want to.

I'll have to be kind of vague mostly so I don't implicate anyone in specific, but generally it's the same sort of fetishizing as weeaboos get into. Obsession with but poor understanding of the culture, trying to insert themselves into conversation/talking over people who are actually jewish about jewish issues/culture/whatever to prove how much they know and to feel involved, misuse of hebrew or yiddish (there are more jewish languages but people don't seem to remember they exist) because it's so 'exotic', etc. There are more harmful things of course (the jewish seductress stereotype, for instance) but I haven't seen them in rp.

In general this seems to fall under the realm of that people often forget jewish people still exist outside of this far-off concept, like often happens with first nations and romani people. So we end up more a interesting, sometimes mystical, foreign-but-not-too-foreign idea that gets latched onto and extrapolated out as a concept instead of actual individual people, and this is both in general and in rp. If any of that made any sense.

it does make sense, thank you!

da and i really wanted to rp a jewish character who is really devout and it's a huge part of his life. the only problem was i couldn't figure out even the major holidays. i went on wikipedia, read a ton of shit and googled it and there were so many pages and basically you can't figure out when the holidays are even? you have to know the previous one and all this terminology. i didn't want to gloss anything over so i never played them.

is there any advice on finding this sort of thing more easily?

not op or jewish but i can help with this.

what you have to keep in mind is that judaism has its own, lunar based, calendar, so when the holidays are isn't fixed on the gregorian calendar that we use. luckily, google calendar does have the jewish calendar in its options, so you can use it to help you out there!

Not Jewish either, but I've used this for writing fic in the past and it's really useful: http://hebcal.com/hebcal/

You can look up the dates for any year on the Gregorian calendar.

The anons above me have some great advice regarding holidays/the calendar (and remember that since we use a lunar calendar days are counted sundown to sundown,) so I'll add some slightly different advice regarding devoutness/which holidays/etc.

I don't know if the character you want to play is an OC or a canon character, but either way it's important to first look into their cultural background. Because of our diasporas and just generally how long jewish people have been around, we have a ridiculous amount of different subcultures, subethnicities, levels of devoutness (one subculture's devout doesn't match another's) and all that. If you're playing a canon character it's probably safe to guess they're Ashkenazi if there's nothing to indicate otherwise, but if it's an OC you have a ton of options.

Once you've figured out which subethnicity/subculture the character is, then you get to pick within that for religious observance. To use Ashkenazim as an example, there's hasidic, orthodox, conservative, reform, and probably a bunch of others I don't remember because I'm not particularly religious myself. Each of those subgroups has different levels of observance to be considered devout, from how strict kosher rules are to which holidays to observe carefully to what's okay and not okay on the sabbath. This is also true for the different subcultures; for example Sephardi and Ashkenazi populations have different opinions on what's okay to eat during passover.

I could probably give you more specific advice on figuring out holidays and such if I know a little more about the background of the character you're interested in, but honestly you can likely get away with a lot in rp due to the fact that in a lot of games time is all wonky, supplies are limited, etc etc, and so things like holidays would be less important than maintaining the impact the character's culture and faith has in their general lives.

Feel free to ask anything else and I'll try and help though! Also if you have a sock or something, I can definitely PM you if you don't want to talk on anon/are concerned details on the character would make it obvious who you are here.

In case you still feel overwhelmed, here are some nice holiday rules of thumb I usually tell people who play Jewish characters:

- The BIGGEST holidays are the High Holidays, including Rosh Hashanah (literally, "head of the year", or New Years) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). Observant Jews go to temple for very long services on these days, and on Yom Kippur there is a 24-hour fast from sundown to sundown. Rosh Hashanah often has a pretty happy, festive air to it, while Yom Kippur is more serious.

- The other big holiday that most Jews celebrate is Passover or Pesach, which just passed. It celebrates the biblical story of Exodus, first and foremost, which is the story of the Jewish people being freed from slavery in Egypt. You know, the one with all the plagues and "let my people go". Jews celebrate Passover primarily over two nights. Instead of a regular dinner on these nights we have a seder, which is a ritual that starts when everyone sits down at the table until after the meal. Usually most of the ritualistic stuff is done before the meal, and in very observant households this can last HOURS. Less observant households often do shorter seders though. But aside from the seder the big thing that will impact a religious Jewish character is that on Passover and the days following, the character will not be allowed to eat any leavened bread. This is everything from loaves of bread to oatmeal, and in some subgroups it also includes legumes. Instead of bread, we eat matzoh, which is a flat, crumbly unleavened bread.

- The last REALLY important holiday that you can't miss if you've got an observant Jewish character is just Shabbat (or Shabbos), or the Sabbath. This happens every week from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. On Friday you light candles and do a few rituals before the meal, on Saturday morning you go to temple for the weekly service, and on Satuday night you close out the sabbath with havdalah, another set of rituals. Between these, very observant Jews aren't meant to do work. That includes going to your job, but it also includes weird things like turning on the lights or driving a car. This tends to be a bit tricky for orthodox people, but apparently we've managed for thousands of years.

- And finally, Chanukkah is NOT that important! It's the only holiday everyone knows about because it falls close to Christmas, but it's actually a newer holiday without a ton of significance. There's not too much ritual attached, but of course kids like it because we often get presents. This is a tradition that has blown up into a huge deal in the West because Jewish kids want to get gifts just like their Christian friends. But traditionally, presents were not the most important part of the holiday and mostly consisted of fruit or maybe a coin or two. Still, it's become a big deal here in the US and some people get big presents for their kids for all eight nights.

I hope this helps you sort out the most important stuff. There are a bajillion other holidays, like Purim, Sukkot, Tu B'Shevat, Simchat Torah, and so on. But these are a good place to start.

The anons above have a bunch of great suggestions, but I want to add:

Protip: If you want to do a fun thing with a character's Judaism that can reasonably involve other characters, look up Purim! —Or, as I like to call it, "drunk jewish halloween." The Purim story actually doesn't involve god at all, which makes it extra rp-friendly. (Purim already passed this year, but: for future reference.) Learn why Esther is so great! Dress up in costumes! Eat cookies specifically designed to make fun of an ancient asshole's hat! Get really, really drunk!

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You sound fat

Re: Jewish person

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Not OP but another Jewish anon...

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