Who is ACTUALLY Jewish? The Complicated Truth About Jewish Identity

There are Jewish people, all of the world. Some might be your neighbors, some might be at your job, some are in Hollywood, some are in Israel, and some of them are from Poland, some are from Morocco. What is the difference? How are they all related? Why do some Jews dress in all black with side curls and others look like they could just work at a coffee shop? And how can someone be Jewish, but not fully believe in God? Well, today we are doing a deep dive into the different branches of Judaism that exists in the world today. What they believe, how they practice, and where you will find them, and why they're so different from each other. Plus, we're gonna be busting some major misconceptions along the way. Because Judaism doesn't work like most religions, and the groups aren't necessarily divided by what they believe, but rather they're divided by how they live. And by the end of this, you'll be able to know the difference between Hasidic and Holika and Haskala and everything in between. So, if you've ever been curious about what your Jewish friends believe, well, great news you're in the right place. So sit back, relax, and welcome to Religion King. (chanting) What's up, people, and welcome back to Religion King. My name is Mark Gagdon, and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single Sunday, we explore the most interesting fascinating and controversial stories from every religion from around the world from all time forever. Yes, that is what I do in the tent every single week, 'cause I try to figure out what everyone on this beautiful planet believes. And I do it for a few reasons. One, I wanna know where everyone's faith is at, you know? Like, I grew up in a Catholic household, and I would grow up and I'd meet people of all these different backgrounds, whether they're Jewish or Hindu or Latter-day Saints, and I would be like, what are you guys all about? Why do you dress this way? Why do you eat this kind of food? And why do you practice these rituals? And so this show is an attempt for me to grow closer to my fellow human beings on this planet and become a better global citizen by understanding how people orient their lives. For many people, their faith and their belief in God is the most important thing in their existence. And for me, to not know about it just seems, I don't know, extremely naive. So, that's what I'm trying to do. And today is no different. Secondly, I also like to take all the great things from every religion that I hear about and apply them to my own life. You know, like, I just try to take the great stuff and I apply it. Whether it's like fasting or a focus on, you know, charity or helping people, whatever that thing is that is, you know, so unique and fundamental to religion, I'm like, hey, I should do that as a Catholic. Let me bring that over here. And today we're diving deep. But before we jump in, I wanna say thanks to you. Yeah, dude, slash lady, slash person, whoever you are, I wanna say thanks. For tuning in and clicking on this episode because every time you click on an episode comment, like whatever you do with our content, you help us boost in the algorithm. You help the show get bigger. You help us, you get big guests and just grow everything. You help keep the lights on in the tent and you keep the fire burning here at the campsite. Now I'm not here alone. I'm here with my good bowel. Christos Papadopados. Christos, how are you? Oh, I'm gonna miss you, Mark. All right. Christos, we don't have time, all right? 'Cause we're not talking about Greek orthodoxy today. We're actually talking about the faith of perhaps one of your friends. One of your lovers, perhaps. Yep. A Jewish woman. That's right. We are discussing Judaism today. And this is not necessarily a deep dive on the history of Judaism or anything like that. Of course, we're gonna touch into that. But it is the different theological sex of Judaism. For most people that never grew up with Jews or didn't know Jews growing up, sometimes they go, "Yeah, it's like all one thing." But like any religion, there are many different branches. Like Christianity. You got Baptist and Catholic and Greek orthodox. There's so many different subsets. They're all generally Christian, right? But they all kind of have, you know, vaguely different beliefs. They live their life in certain different ways. And they might look different from the outside. You know, the Amateur Christian, but they don't use electricity. I'm a Catholic, but, you know, I'm not snipped. So what does it all mean, right? That is ultimately the question that we're gonna answer today. Now, I just wanna say a few things before I go into this. I'm not Jewish. I wasn't raised Jewish. I was raised around many Jews down in Florida, but as a result, I don't claim to have any type of authority on the Jewish religion. This is just my attempt through research along with my friends Sophia, who helped me put this together to try to understand what my Jewish friends truly believe. So if there's anything that I miss in this episode or something that I get wrong, by all me, and Stone hesitate to drop a comment, I read all of them. And even if I don't respond to you, it will be helpful to the discussion for someone else in the comments. Just please keep it civil. This is like the last place on the internet where people are in the comments and they're actually like kind of nice to each other. It's just shocking on a channel about religion that we've somehow curated a actual productive discourse, which I'm very proud of. I would probably get way more views if I was just going off and ever religion around the world as being like everyone sucks, but somehow by the virtue of operating good faith and trying to show things in the most fair and unbiased way possible, we've been able to cultivate a beautiful community. So please, let's try to keep it this way. Now, before we get into all the different groups, we need to understand something fundamental about Judaism that makes it different from a lot of other religions that you might be familiar with. Judaism is not just a religion. It is what different sociologists have called an ethno-religion. It is an ethnicity and a culture and a heritage and a belief system all wrapped into one thing. Like, for example, you can be Jewish and technically not believing God. If you grew up in a tradition like Christianity or Islam, that sounds like it doesn't make any sense. It's like, well, that's part of the co-founding sort of beliefs of being in the religion. Because in those religions, if you stop believing, you're basically not a part of the religion anymore. But with an ethno-religion like Judaism, it doesn't always work the way. There are multiple layers about what it means to be Jewish. And this is why you're going to hear people talk about secular Jews or cultural Jews. These are Jews who might not pray. They may not even believe in God, but they're still ethnically Jewish. They connect to their heritage through tradition and through food and holidays and family gatherings, all the cultural stuff. So, you know, for me being French-Canadian ethnically, it's kind of where you trace me, also Romanian for the record. That is part of my ethnicity, but then I am American culturally, but then also my religion is Catholic. For Jews, oftentimes this can all be wrapped up into one thing. So, they will show up to a Passover Seder at their grandmother's house, but they might not keep kosher for the rest of the year. And this is where it gets tricky, because it does depend on which Jewish community you're talking about, because they all don't agree on what criteria actually make someone Jewish. And that criteria is actually sometimes shifted and changed over the centuries. So, before we dive into each major Jewish group, let's first take a look at what it actually means for someone to be considered Jewish today, and heads up, the short answer is it's complicated. So, way back in ancient times, being Jewish was generally passed down through the Father. This was a patrilineal sort of tradition, like in the Torah. God tells Moses to take a census by their Father's House. This made sense, because Judaism, back when, you know, was very much a tribal sort of group. If you were a part of the tribe, you were in the religion. So, if you read the Hebrew Bible, you will see a ton of famous Jewish guys marrying non-Jewish women, like Jacob, Moses, King David, the Wise King Solomon, and the list goes on. And their kids, they were technically considered Jewish because their dads were, and no one really questioned it. But that all changed like two thousand years ago. The Romans came in and famously destroyed the Jewish temple, and as a result, we get a Jewish diaspora where Jews are scattered everywhere. And so, Judaism had to evolve from the centralized Israel-based tribal thing into something that could survive while people were being spread across the entire world. And this is what is known as the Jewish diaspora. Obviously, diaspora meaning dispersion or a spread of people from their original place. So, the diaspora is when the rules change to a matrilineal descent, meaning that if your mom is Jewish now, you are Jewish. Well, why did this change? Well, according to research, Jews were now living amongst non-Jews everywhere. And intermarriage was becoming way more common. So, aligning with the mother was a way to protect the genealogy in two ways. One, it encouraged Jewish men to marry Jewish women since they would want Jewish kids. And two, it eliminated any doubt about who the mother was. In a world where paternity wasn't always certain, whether it was from intermarriage or even worse situations like assault or something, you would always know who gave birth to the child. So, it was just a way more concrete way to determine which children were of the heritage and which ones were not. So, by the second century, this became official Jewish law and stayed that way for the next 1,600 years. And then the modern era hit. And once again, everything gets called into question. And this is due to a few reasons. Well, first you had the Jewish Enlightenment, which started in the 1770s and lasted up until like the 1880s roughly. Jews were inspired by the Enlightenment movement in Europe and started to apply it to their own religious and cultural context. They started to focus on secular academia, learning European languages, in addition to Hebrew. And they even started to dress more European to assimilate better. This Jewish Enlightenment is generally called the Haskellah. And this is derived from the Hebrew word for reason or intellect. And then suddenly there were tons of secular Jews. People like Freud or even Albert Einstein, who didn't strongly believe in God or follow every single particular of religious law, but they still strongly identified as someone that was Jewish. And then came the Holocaust, which was based on, of course, racial antisemitism, which is an important distinction. Because the Nazis didn't care if your mom was Jewish or if you kept kosher or not. Like if you, you know, you couldn't just be like, "Oh, I'm not Jewish, I don't even go to the temple, I don't go to synagogue. I don't belong to any shul." Even if you had one Jewish grandparent or any Jewish blood at all to them, you were Jewish, point blank. So many survivors of that genocide obviously considered themselves Jewish after that, regardless of, you know, what ancient religious law said. Because they were being targeted for a heritage they may not have even formerly identified with. And this goes all the way back to the many other persecutions of Jews throughout history. Every time there's a persecution, the group of survivors that go on and potentially move to a different place, they say, "Well, I'm not being persecuted necessarily for what I believe, but rather for who I am." And so it creates a much more concrete ethno-religion. And going forward, this would inspire yet another change of how the community would determine Who was Jewish and? What's up guys, we're gonna take a break real quick 'cause I wanna tell you a little story. 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So during and after World War II, a lot of Jews were immigrating to America where anti-Semitism was less intense and intermarriage was becoming more common and accepted. And then in 1968, the Jewish Reconstructionist movement started and it said, you know what, if your dad is Jewish and you're raised Jewish, then you're Jewish. And then reformed Judaism followed in 1983 and basically had the same policy, basically saying either parent being Jewish counts as long as you were raising the faith somehow. However, the conservative and orthodox movements weren't really on board. They were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, we got to stick with the traditional laws that we've had for a couple 1600 years at this point. So for their own communities, Jewish heritage is still matrilineal. And this is kind of where we are today. You have orthodox and conservative Judaism and they say, only on your mother's side does account. If your dad is Jewish, but your mom isn't, well, we won't really consider you Jewish really unless you convert and then that's its own whole process. This isn't them trying to be jerks or exclusive or anything like that. They just viewed the traditional Jewish law as binding and non-negotiable. This is a covenant passed down from Hashem. So we're not gonna deviate from that. Whereas in reform and reconstructionist Judaism, either parent works as long as you were raised and educated as a Jewish person. And these movements don't see Jewish law as being as absolutely binding. So they were willing to update the definition as time went on. Especially considering that the law was changed from the father to the mother when the temple was destroyed. So they're kinda like, hey, why can't we just shift it again? So it's important to note that most Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities, these are Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, they do tend to follow matrilineal approaches as well. Since they didn't go through the same enlightenment, holocaust, and American immigration experiences that many Ashkenazi Jews did. Now, if you're not familiar, Ashkenazi Jews are typically Jews from European descent. So you have these different Jewish categories. You have Sephardic, you have Mizrahi, and then you have Ashkenazi. And these are names that we use to refer to Jews in specific geographical locations due to the diaspora. So my friend who's a Moroccan Jew, he would be Sephardic, but my friend who lives in New York City, whose parents were Polish and immigrated through Ellis Island, he would be Ashkenazi, generally speaking. But oh boy, what about the Jews who actually stayed in Israel? Well, Israel brings a whole nother layer to the conversation because Israel actually has two different definitions of what it might mean to be Jewish and we'll go over them real quick. First, if a person has one Jewish grandparent on either side, Israel as a nation will generally recognize you as Jewish. And this makes sense because Israel was partly founded to protect Jews from this type of anti-Semitism, which, as we mentioned with the Nazis, didn't discriminate based on which parent or grandparent was Jewish, just if you had some Jewish blood, you were Jewish. So Israel is pretty accepting of anyone who was even like a quarter Jewish and had that type of ancestry in their lineage. This has even led them to come up with a thing that they call the law of return. You might have heard this if you have Jewish friends. The law of return lets Jews with different nationalities actually immigrate and become citizens of Israel. And they can get citizenship to the country just because of their heritage. But once you're actually living in Israel, sometimes the rules can actually change. So the rabbinical courts, which is the half political, half religious system that governs Israel, they will recognize only orthodox definitions. So while you might be able to move to Israel as a Jew under the right of return because maybe your grandma was Jewish, you might not necessarily be able to participate in certain Jewish customs or things. Because remember, according to the orthodoxy, you were only really considered Jewish if your mother was Jewish. So you might be a citizen of Israel, if your grandparents or just your dad was Jewish, but you wouldn't be allowed to necessarily marry another Jew in Israel because you aren't considered officially Jewish by the Jewish courts. So bottom line, can you be Jewish if only your dad is, depends on sort of which sect of Judaism you belong to. According to the reform and reconstructionist, that's a okay. If you're orthodox or in a conservative community, no, but you can convert. And if you're living in Israel, yes, for immigration, but it kind of can get complicated after that. So if you have some Jewish ancestry or perhaps you're a non-Jew in a relationship with a Jewish person, Christos, and this might be troublesome. Well, just remember, conversion is technically always an option and every movement actually does recognize it. Also, the people who don't consider you Jewish aren't always necessarily being malicious serp, I'm sure some people are, you know, maybe being rude or exclusionary, but generally speaking, it's not personal. It's just following this ancient law that they believe is non-negotiable. And at the end of the day, identity is kind of a personal thing and sort of complicated, but understanding the history and the different perspectives will really help kind of build out what it means and why different people do different things. And of course, the tradition and the heritage that you feel closely with and that you identify with is ultimately up to you. So what this actually means for understanding the different major branches of Judaism, well, it means the divided groups that we're talking about aren't really always divided by different beliefs about God or the afterlife or any of the theological stuff. They're actually more divided by their different approaches to practice and tradition and expectations on how to properly live life as a Jewish person. And the real question separating these groups is ultimately this, how much of traditional Jewish law do you follow? And when I say Jewish law, I'm talking about the holocaust. This is the Hebrew term for the entire body of Jewish religious laws that cover everything from what you eat, to how you pray, to how you conduct business. It's basically the rule book that comes from the Torah and from centuries of rabbis who have debated and argued and interpreted this. And also, let me just say I'm sure my pronunciation is not perfect on that, so my bad. So someone living in an Orthodox community and someone in a reform synagogue might actually have really similar spiritual beliefs about how they interpret God and salvation and life and afterlife and all that stuff. But the day-to-day approach to how they live their lives might be different because of how they interpret holocaust. So with all that foundation in place, let's talk about Orthodox Judaism. This is the modern movement most committed to preserving traditional rabbinical law and practice. So Orthodox Judaism is what most people picture when they think of like the really religious Jews. But here's where it gets interesting because they're actually very different types of Orthodox Jews and they don't all agree with each other. So let's just start with the basics. Orthodox Jews believe in the Torah, both the written text and the oral law that explains it. And they believe that it came directly from God and must be followed strictly. There's not really any wiggle room here. And that means following kosher food laws or strict Sabbath observance where you can't drive or use electricity or light of fire, you can't work. It also means keeping a daily prayer and dressing modestly. For men, they usually means keeping your head covered for women, usually means a long skirt and covering your hair if you're married. But here's the thing that most people don't realize. Orthodox, it's really an umbrella term. It includes different subgroups that all have their own distinct vibe and even their own way of following certain rules. So, going even more granularly, you've got modern Orthodox Jews. User folks who are balancing strict religious observance while still fully participating in modern life. So they'll go to college, they'll work as a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer and they watch movies and they use the internet and they're keeping all the laws like kosher, Sabbath, daily prayer, but they're also deeply engaged with secular culture and society. Their motto is basically Torah and secular knowledge together. You'll generally find them in a lot of places like New York City. You'll find many modern Orthodox Jews. I actually think, and correct me for a moment, I think Ben Shapiro might be considered a modern Orthodox Jew. He's generally wearing a keep up, but he doesn't have payus. These are the sort of long curls that go from the corners of the skull. And, you know, they might generally look like anyone else you might know during the week, but they are observing holocaue and everything they do. And then you have heredity Judaism, which people sometimes call ultra-orthodox, though a lot of different heredity Jews don't actually love that term. And this group generally maintains more separation from secular society and they lean towards stricter interpretations of Jewish law. So they're generally more cautious about secular education or secular media, or even just mixing with the non-Jewish world. Now, within the heredity, you have two main groups. You have Hasidic Jews and you have Yashivas Jews. So, Hasidic Jews, you probably are able to picture. These are the guys with long black coats. They might have a fur hat during the winter time, and they're going to have these side curls. So Hasidism is generally said to be started in the 1700s in Eastern Europe as a mystical movement that emphasized joy and spiritual connection and a personal relationship with God. And a lot of Hasidic communities follow specific spiritual leaders called Rebys, and they're generally divided into different dynasties, basically different groups named after towns in Eastern Europe. So you've got Sapmar Hasidism, and you have Habad Lubavitch, and Babav, and Gare, and all of them are different groups with their own customs and even slightly different styles of dress. If you're not really tuned in, you might just see them all as ultra orthodox or very religious Jews. But once you kind of get to know them, you can kind of identify which ones belong to which subgroup. And they often emphasize emotion and spirituality in their practice. But then there is Yashivish, or Litvish Jews, who are technically heredity, but are totally different from Hasidism. And these communities emphasize intense intellectual Torah study above anything else. Many of the men spend their days in Yashiva. These are religious Jewish schools, and they are just studying Jewish texts. They often will dress similarly to Hasidism generally in all black, but their hats are often different, and they don't have the same side curl styles, and their whole approach is more intellectual than mystical. So major Yashivish communities are places like Lakewood, or New Jersey, or even parts of Brooklyn or Jerusalem. And here's actually a misconception that I want to make sure we nail down. Not all orthodox Jews are Hasidic. Hasidic Jews are one subset of the heredity world, which is in and of itself one part of the orthodox umbrella. So when Americans see someone in traditional dress, they tend to be like, oh, they're Hasidic, but that's not necessarily true. And it's a good thing to keep in mind when we interact with any of our orthodox Jewish friends or neighbors. You're going to find large orthodox communities in New York, New Jersey, Israel, parts of South Florida, parts of Europe, and in Israel, over half the population is actually made up of Jews from Middle Eastern and North African backgrounds who often practice a traditional form of Judaism that actually doesn't fit neatly into these American categories, but that is a whole separate conversation. So on orthodox Judaism, it generally focuses on strict traditional observance, with many different approaches to how you will engage with the modern world. But back in 1800s, as Jews were getting more rights and opportunities in Europe and in America and less persecution, some people started to ask a different question. Can we adapt this tradition to fit into modern society instead of separating from it? And that question led to an entirely new movement, and this is known as reform Judaism. Now reform Judaism has caused a major controversy, and specifically when it started, it was hotly debated. But here's what's surprising about it today. It's actually the largest Jewish nomination in America. And here's how that happened. In the early 1800s, Jewish people in Germany and America were finally getting equal rights. They could go to universities, work regular jobs. They could live where they wanted. They weren't relegated to live in a ghetto, but there was attention. How do you fully participate in modern society? Subsequently, a society that is Catholic or Muslim, while also maintaining traditions that were designed for a different world. Traditions that are generally central to your heritage and have been maintained for thousands of years. Well, reform Judaism's answer was to fundamentally rethink the whole thing. Their core idea is fundamentally that the Torah is divinely inspired. Sure, but it was written down by humans living in a specific place in a specific time. So we can interpret it and adapt it for modern times based on contemporary rules. Now for a lot of Christians, they kind of have a similar approach. They're like, okay, the Bible was written this time, but the way we interpret it can be updated. But this idea for Judaism was radical at the time they were doing. You see Orthodox Jews were saying every word is from God and you cannot change a thing. And reform Judaism was saying like, hey, the ethical heart of Judaism, like kindness and community and justice, that's what matters. And the specific ritual laws can actually evolve and change. So what does this look like in practice today? Well, reform synagogues will allow men and women to sit together. Services use a lot of English instead of all Hebrew. So people can actually understand what's being said. Many reform Jews don't always keep kosher or don't always strictly observe the Sabbath at home. They might light Shabbat candles on Friday night and have a nice dinner, but they're not avoiding electricity or you know, it's not driving. An important reminder here is that reform Judaism also recognizes this patrilineal descent that like if your dad is Jewish and your mom isn't reformed Judaism counts you as Jewish as long as you were raised with a Jewish identity. What's up guys? We're going to take a break real quick because I want to tell you about a brand that I actually love. You probably seen ads for it on Instagram and it's ultra. It's the best. As you already know, I'm super locked in on like fitness and sleep and fasting and all that kind of stuff and one thing that I care about now is getting energy and focus without feeling like jittery and cracked out and on edge like my heart is beating out of my chest and that's why I reached out to ultra. Ultra pouches have zero nicotine, zero caffeine pouches that give you clean focus and smooth energy when you need to lock in. Now a lot of people think pouches are helping them at the gym, but nicotine is actually a vasoconstrictor. It actually narrows your blood vessels and restricts oxygen delivery to your muscles and can actually work against the pump that you're trying to get. It also can raise your heart rate and your blood pressure, which is not exactly what you want when you're already training super hard. Ultra gives you that pouch experience. It's fun, it tastes good, but it's 100% nicotine free and they use clinically proven neutropics and adaptogens to deliver immediate focus and smooth energy that lasts one to two hours. And if you're fasting your dieting, they actually can help you quiet the cravings and limit the food noise to help keep you locked in and they have five flavors, cool mint, winter green, watermelon, tropical, blue razz. My favorite is blue raspberry and it tastes amazing. I have the watermelon ones right here because I already finished the blue razz, but these are great too. Now ultra is the ultimate guilt-free pouch delivering instant focus and mental clarity without nicotine or caffeine and new customers can use the code camp, C-A-M-P, to get 15% off when you go to take ultra.com. That's take ultra.com for 15% off with the code camp. And after you purchase, they're gonna ask you where you heard about them. Please tell them that Mark increased us from the campsite, sentia. Now here's a misconception to be aware of. Reform does not mean not religious. Like there are plenty of reformed Jews who are deeply spiritual. They pray regularly. Many of them may observe kosher with extreme rigidity and they feel a profound connection to God as well as their Jewish heritage. They might just express it a little differently. They're showing up to temple services. They're celebrating holidays. They're raising their kids Jewish. They're supporting their synagogue. They're just doing it with a different philosophy about which parts of the tradition are essential and cannot be delineated from. It also clearly resonates with a lot of people because reform is the largest nomination in America today. Like depending on who you ask, roughly 35% of Jews who identify with a denomination are reform. And you'll find reform communities predominantly the United States, but of course there are also communities in Europe and North Africa and Israel. But of course, not everyone was on board with the reform movement. When reformed Judaism started to make these changes, some Jews thought that they had gone too far the other direction. They wanted something that honored tradition more but still worked with modern life. So of course, in the mid 1900s, a middle path kind of emerged. And this is known as conservative Judaism. Now conservative Judaism tries to sort of split the difference between orthodox and reform. But in reality, there's a huge variation even within that movement. Here's what makes it so tricky to really pin down. So conservative Judaism emerges in the mid 1900s, basically as a response to reformed Judaism, which they felt was perhaps changing things too much. And the argument was, look, reform went too far. They changed too many things. You can't just discount Jewish law entirely, but they also weren't willing to go full orthodox and not use electricity or be so insular and not assimilate into broader culture. So the philosophy kind of became this. Jewish law is still binding and still very important. But it can evolve and adapt to modern circumstances only through careful, scholarly interpretation. And it sounds pretty reasonable, right? The problem is that in practice, conservative Judaism kind of goes all over the spectrum. I mean, you might walk into one conservative synagogue and you might think you are in like a reform temple. There's a lot of English. There's guitar music. It's very casual. There might be a woman that is ordained. Men and women might be sitting together. But then you might walk into another conservative temple and it feels almost orthodox. All the prayers or most of the prayers might be in Hebrew. The melodies are all very traditional. It's much more formal. And this flexibility of interpretation is kind of baked into the movement. They want to be adaptable. So they give individual synagogues and rabbis a lot of wiggle room to make their own choices. But it does mean that there is no single conservative experience. Two people growing up conservatively Jewish might have different philosophies or have lived different childhoods. And here's even another disconnect. Most conservative Jews will tell you that they fully follow the holocaust. But if you look at how they actually live, many members don't necessarily keep strict kosher or observe the Sabbath at home to the same degree that many orthodox do. They might avoid pork or shellfish, but they're not like checking labels for every little single kosher certification. They might not work on a Saturday, but they are driving to a synagogue using their phones, so they're not orthodox. So there's often a bit of a gap between the philosophy and the practice, which of course orthodox Jews would take some issue with. Conservative synagogues typically have mixed seedings as of the 1980s, and they started ordaining women as well, like I mentioned, though they implemented that like a decade after the reform movement did. They also stuck to the matrilineal descent, only meaning that your mom has to be Jewish for you to be Jewish. But that puts them closer to orthodox on that specific point, and it's actually one of the bigger dividing lines between conservative and reform. Here's something interesting about the trajectory actually of conservative Judaism. It was actually the largest Jewish movement in America after World War II, like this was the general default for American Jews for decades. But it has been declining pretty significantly as of late people have been drifting towards either reform, if they want something more flexible, or towards just, you know, cultural Jewish identity with no strict denominational label at all. Many have even gone more traditional towards orthodox, so conservative Judaism has kind of been getting squeezed from both sides. You'll find conservative communities primarily in North America. Outside the US, it's called Masorti Judaism, which literally means traditional in Hebrew. There are communities in Israel and in Europe, but of course it is much smaller there. So we've covered the big three. We got orthodox, reform, and conservative, but there's one more movement worth mentioning because you might hear about it, even though it's actually a lot smaller than the other ones, and that is reconstructionist Judaism. So reconstructionist Judaism was founded by Rabbi Mordekai Kaplan back in the 1930s and 40s. And basically, Rabbi Kaplan looked at everything that we've been talking about and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're all asking the wrong question." His big idea was that Judaism isn't primarily a religion. It's an evolving civilization of the Jewish people. Religion is just a part of its shore, but so is language and food and art and history. All of it is a part of what it means to be Jewish. So reconstructionists focus on community and culture and Jewish personhood over strict ritualistic obligations. They also did something pretty bold. They rejected the whole idea of Jews being God's chosen people and actually rewrote prayers to take that language out. And of course, for traditional Jews, that was way too far. But reconstructionist saw it as being more honest and inclusive. And it is a relatively small movement, maybe like 60,000, 100,000 people would consider themselves re-constructionist, but it's been intellectually influential, especially in how it's- Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Gel-to-Mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day-confie grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new groupie setting mist from Mavily New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. Members think about Judaism as a culture and an identity even beyond just a religion. But here's a really big trend happening in America right now. Just Jewish. About 35% of American Jews today don't identify with any denomination at all. They just say, "I'm Jewish," and they leave it at that. And these are generally people who would celebrate Passover and celebrate Hanukkah. They would feel deeply connected to Jewish culture and community. They'd be like, "Yo, Adam Sandler is Jewish. I love that." They probably even belong to a synagogue in some way. But they don't want to be put in a box. Some are religious, some are totally secular, some are somewhere in between, perhaps they're kind of spiritual. And the reconstruction movement gives them room to do that. It's very fluid. And they're taking what resonates with them and sort of leaving the rest. And this actually reflects a broader generational shift away from many rigid sort of institutional labels towards more personal individualized Jewish identity. People want authenticity on their own terms, not institutional definitions of what it means to be a good Jew. I think Christianity in America kind of looks similar to this in a lot of ways. I mean, probably like 50 years ago, you had many more people saying, "I am just Protestant. I am Baptist. I am Catholic." And that was it. And they were like, "I go to this church and that is who I am." But nowadays you have many more people that are saying, "I am non-denominational. I believe the words of Jesus. I read the gospel." But how exactly they live their lives or what rituals or traditions they follow, they're, you know, they kind of vary. And so they would fall maybe into a version of cultural Christianity. So now we know the major branches. You have orthodox with all of its subgroups, you have reform, conservative, reconstructionist, and the growing number of people who don't claim any label and say they are perhaps non-denominational Jews. So let's actually bring all of it together and talk about what it actually means. Because when we started this episode, maybe we're thinking Judaism is just one thing, maybe with some people being more religious than others. But now I hope you understand that it's actually way more complex and interesting and diverse and even debated and a way more interesting dynamic than just a single label. Judaism is really unique because it is both a religion and an ethnicity. Being Jewish is about practice and community and heritage, not just about how you believe in God or how you worship. And then we walk through all the major denominations, but here's what I think is the most important takeaway from this. Judaism, depending on who you ask, doesn't necessarily have rigid boxes. Real people move between denominations. They might blend practices. Some might grow up conservative and then become orthodox or maybe they grew up culturally Jewish and then they become, you know, reformed or conservative and they can kind of shift. And the labels help us to understand broad approaches, but people and identity and heritage are really complicated. And I think what struck me by putting this together and even, you know, talking to Sophia about her research is how much these divisions reflect universal questions that every culture and religious group tries to deal with. How do you honor your past while living in the present? How do you stay connected to your community when the world is pulling you in a different direction? And ultimately, what do you keep and what do you let go of? These are very human questions, not just Jewish ones, but something that every religion has really tried to grapple with. Judaism has survived thousands of years of exile and persecution and, you know, very many cultural shifts internally. And the fact that there are now multiple ways of being Jewish, all coexisting and legitimate, it's actually kind of remarkable. It shows a tradition that is alive and dynamic and not just frozen in time. So here's what I'm going to probably do with this knowledge. Next time I meet someone that's Jewish, I don't really assume anything. I mean, I assume like their mom wants them to call home or something, but that's kind of all of our moms. But Jewish moms in particular, they do want you to call. So I would call your mom if you can. But I generally try not to see someone in a traditional dress and think like, oh, I know their whole life. I don't hear a form and assume that they're not religious. And honestly, I just ask that is one of the things that I love so much about Jewish culture is that they're pretty open. And if you're operating good faith and asking a genuine good-hearted question, more often than not, they'll just be very blunt with you and give you the answer. And that ladies and gentlemen is a brief synopsis over what the different branches of Judaism are and why they believe and do what they do. I mean, it's a very interesting conversation because like I said at the very beginning, I think a lot of people, if you don't grow up with Jews, which for the record, most people in America, maybe in the world, they might not have Jewish friends, which is weird for me because I grew up in Florida and I was growing up around a bunch of Eschanazi Jews and, you know, like some religious, some warrant, a bunch of Israeli Jews, like there's a bunch of people that I was growing up around and just kind of like playing with and I didn't really think about it. And as I've gotten older, I start to understand them better based off of what their group or what their sect was. And to be honest, I think there's a lot of correlation with Christianity where, you know, Christianity isn't one thing. It has like a central tenet, right? It's like, Jesus Christ is good. But, you know, do you get baptized as a baby or as an adult, can you get divorced or not? Like all of these sort of technical questions are dependent on what denomination you follow, which is often dependent on who your family is, which is often dependent on where you grew up. Right? Like, Coptic Egyptian Christians might operate a little differently than I do growing up as a Catholic in Florida, which is very different from my Presbyterian friends who grew up just down the street. But we all believe in Jesus. So I think sometimes people look at these different branches and they go, "Oh man, that's crazy." But for Christians, at least I can say, with my own personal experience, that it's actually quite similar. And it is interesting because the ethno-religion part does change the texture of it a little bit. You know, so much of it is based off of where it came from. And I think for a lot of my Jewish friends that I talk to, it's because there was no place. It was a diaspora for thousands of years. Ever since the Second Temple got destroyed, they were generally living as a minority religious group, slash ethnic group in all these different countries. And so when there's different persecutions, whether it is from, you know, the French or the Spanish or an exile from here, you're getting kicked out of this place, all of these different experiences solidify the group to say, "Hey, they don't care what we believe, they just care who we are ethnically." So at the end of the day, that's what we care about because whether I'm orthodox or I'm reform or I'm just a cultural Jew, the persecution is going to be the same, so we got to stick together. And I think a lot of people miss that when they consider Jewish history. That a lot of my Jewish friends talk about this from an early age. And if you're not familiar with them, then you might just be like, "Yeah, what's all the hubbob about? Why are you guys always complaining about atheism?" Well, because they know their history. And that is the way that they talk about it internally. So I think it's, I think the biggest takeaway also is that all my Jewish friends basically, all of them, even like I have friends that are like orthodox Jews, they're pretty open. Like I know sometimes with orthodox Jews, people will be like, "Ah, they're closed off, they don't want to talk to you." I had such an interesting conversation with a buddy of mine, Joel, who lives in an orthodox community. He has payas, he has a bunch of kids. Like he does all the traditional orthodox Jewish things or the Hasidic things rather. He made a comment to me where he goes, "Yeah, sometimes we don't know what to ask you." I was like, "What do you mean?" He was like, "Well, like, we don't watch sports, we don't watch TV, we don't watch movies. We have hotline on our phones and we listen to like the local radio of our community often in Yiddish. And we just don't know where to start." And I was like, "That is a fascinating point because sometimes I don't know where to start when I'm talking to a Hasidic Jew." I'm like, "Do you see the game yesterday?" They're like, "No." And I'm like, "Yeah, well, I get that." And it's just a different philosophy or a different way of looking at life. And I think oftentimes what is perceived as caginous or as aloofness sometimes can just almost be a little bit more. like social awkwardness and not knowing what to say. So I would encourage you. Next time you're talking to someone and you have a couple minutes of small talk and they might be dressed as a traditional Hasidic Jew or maybe they have a Kepa or a Yamaka or maybe they just have a Jewish star on their neck and it's just the star of David on their chest. If you're interested, I bet you if you asked him a question in good faith and you were like, "Hey, why don't you guys eat pork?" You might get different answers depending on who you ask but generally almost always there's gonna be an honest, I think a friendly open-minded answer. Well, they'll tell you like, "Hey, here's what we believe." I mean, that's been my experience. I don't know, Krisos, you're deeply involved in a relationship with a Jewish woman. Has this been your experience? I can neither confirm nor deny that, but they're very open to explaining their religion to you. Right, yeah. And I don't know what you can share or what you would like to share but would you consider her family as a part of like a cultural Jewish family that is perhaps not denominational or do they fall under one of these strict branches? I can't tell. (laughing) Well, perhaps maybe on the 20th day, you'll ask the question. Yeah, I think that's nice. And I can't wait to go to the wedding. Easy, Mark. I'm gonna hoist you up in that chair, dude. I'm gonna be the launch of you, dude. I can't wait. Be great. If it happens, Bizarrethe Shem. (laughing) Someone willing. I don't want to say what a normal phrase is. God willing, that Bizarrethe Shem. That's what it means. That's God willing in Hebrew. Got it. Bizarrethe Shem. I don't know if my pronunciation is great. I probably missed out a lot of these words but because what do you guys think? If you are Jewish or you are just even non-denominational or come from a strict religious background, what's your perspective on this? Does there anything that I missed, anything that I got wrong? Any pronunciation that I completely overlooked? If you're not Jewish or maybe you had no Jewish friends, maybe you don't know any Jewish people even to this day. What do you think of this perspective? Does it give a different understanding to your own faith and your own background? Does it give you a different perspective on how Jewish people maybe you see on TV or maybe people you've interacted with through business, how they operate? I'd be so curious to know what your thoughts are. Again, I would love to see the comments, YouTube, Spotify, I read all of them. Even if I don't get back to it, it'll be beneficial to someone. Just please be normal and kind. We're all human beings trying to figure this thing out. So just be civil, please, okay? Also, great news. If you like historical content, well, we have a whole channel for that over at History Camp. And if you like crazy deep dubs and mysteries and all sorts of interesting stuff, well, the main channel is for you. That's Camp Gagnon where I do interviews every single week with all sorts of interesting people, way smarter than me, thank goodness. But also deep dives on topics that I'm interested in from the occult to mysteries, unsolved crime conspiracies and everything under the sun. And if you'd just like to rock with a religious vibe and draw closer to God, whomever that may be for you, perhaps it's all the same God for all of us. Well, you were in the right place. Thank you all so much. Have a blessed Sunday and I will see you next week. Peace.