entanglingbriars:

tikkunolamorgtfo:

aegor-bamfsteel:

Considering that Rachel McAdams is a blonde Gentile playing a Jewish woman, Rachel Weisz is a Reform/secular patrilineal Jewish woman playing an Orthodox woman growing up in a completely different culture, and the movie uses Jewish Orthodoxy as an excuse for a forbidden romance when Orthodox Judaism is the Abrahamic religion the most accepting of lesbians (there’s a thriving community of Orthodox Jewish lesbians with their own spin on sexuality and religion, such as the band the Orthodykes), count me the fuck out.

Look, the point about the ‘Forbidden Romance in Orthodoxy’ trope is valid, but throwing around ‘patrilineal’ like it somehow devalues Rachel Weisz’s identity and experiences as a Jewish woman is profoundly uncalled for. There are Reform and Secular Jews with Orthodox backgrounds. There are Orthodox Jews who are technically patrilineal (by which I mean they were forced to undergo a conversion before being accepted into Orthodoxy despite being ethnically Jewish). There are blonde Orthodox Jews. None of those descriptors are necessary to the sentence: “This is a film made by individuals who are not intimately familiar with the culture of Orthodoxy.” 

Also, saying “Orthodox Judaism is the Abrahamic religion the most accepting of lesbians“ treats Abrahamic religious groups with more conservative interpretations of scripture/tradition as more authentic than ones with more progressive interpretations. There are plenty of Abrahamic religious groups that are more accepting of lesbians than Orthodox Judaism* both within and outside of Judaism.

*referring to Orthodox Judaism as a single religious group is also misleading; there are several distinct movements of Judaism that are commonly grouped together as Orthodox. I assume aegor-bamfsteel is referring to Modern Orthodoxy, but that’s not clear.