Thread:Argali1/@comment-26767096-20160929172753/@comment-26184570-20161002030854

Sorry this took so long, we still don't have an up-and-running computer yet.

1. Orthodox Judaism is a branch of Judaism that is as traditional and literal as possible, and almost always completely Ashkenazic, being filtered through our culture and our traditions (I say "our", but I do have some Sephardic in me. I'm actually quite the inter-Jewish melting-pot). Reform Judaism is what I am. It is a more modernized branch of Judaism, and it takes a less literal aproach to the Torah, and is probably the most popular type of Judaism. There are other types of Judaism as well, the third main branch being Conservative Judaism. Conservative Judaism is more recent, and is deffinetly the least consistent branch of Judaism. Conservative can mean anything from Modern Orthodox (basically regular Orthodox, just modified to allow it's adherents to be fashionable) conjoined with a politically conservative philosphy, to a middle-ground between Reform and Orthodox, or it can mean similar to Reform, just less "wanna-be-Lutheran" and more, "screw this, let's be Jews!".

2. Could you be more specific?

3. Of course. However, I common misconception of non-Jews is that Hanukkah is the pivotal holiday and important component of Judaism. It's not. I cannot stress this enough. Just because it's the only Jewish holiday that falls near Christmas doesn't mean that it's the most important one. Christmas just means Chinese food to us. Hanukkah is an extremely recent component of Judaism (still pre-Roman, but that's recent to Jews), and it's nothing more than a cultural festival to us. It's not even a mandatory holiday. The most devout, Orthodox scholar could ignore Hanukkah's existence and be tottaly fine.

4. Well, most Orthodox won't use electronics during Shabbat, because it says "not to re-kindle a flame". What they don't realize is that a combustion is not the same thing as completing an electric circut,

5. Hard to say. A lot of my family members (but especially my mom, and not including my dad) know a lot of Jew-facts and things we should or shouldn't be doing, but if I had it my way, we'd probably be more strict to be honest. The way my family interprets Kashrut laws is a fairly common set-up, where we refuse to eat pork or any forbidden land-animal, but we might mix milk with meat or eat shelfish sometimes, because the former is a far bigger "no-no" than the rest of the Kashrut laws. However, I have stopped eating shelfish for the most part, and I only eat beef with dairy from another animal (I don't eat lamb or goat or most other mammals anyway, because I'm an emotional nut-case, and that's not for Kosher reasons), and I'm the only person I know who interprets it like that. If it's from an animal that doesn't produce dairy anyway, it doesn't matter to me.

6. Yes. I can't speak it, but I know a lot of Hebrew random vocabulary, slang, sayings and culture. To be honest, I probably know more Yiddish. Sometimes, 50% of the words coming out of my mouth non-Jews won't understand and I don't even realize it, either because I'm using Yiddish or Hebrew words. Now, you know the difference between Hebrew and Yiddish (and the other Judeo languages), right?

I hope this helps.