So this is going to be a bit of a longish thread but tl;dr

after a really beautiful Jewish High Holiday season, I have realized that its time to get rid of my social media accounts (this + my IG handle).

Everything is fine- great really! Which is why now is the best time. I joined twitter in 2017 bec I was running for a local council seat and as a young mom I wanted to use the platform to connect with ppl and enhance my visibility without having to do all the direct canvasing and meet and greets which seemed impossible with a baby +2.5 yr old.

I agree with the first part of this but IMO its not that its irritating bec men should be able to decenter themselves. Its irritating bec mosg women would *love* to jump right back into everything the second they give birth, we just physically and materially cannot.

https://twitter.com/Utterly_Jean/status/1844551391131599188

Its not even safe to have sex before six weeks post partum. And if you breastfeed your body is still not your own. If you formula feed, youre still constantly feeding and also dealing with your milk drying up. Plus of course your body literally needs time to heal.

I hope this is true but I'm pretty sure we'll see the opposite. Like the Grants Pass decision, we'll see responses to shelter contraints increasingly framed as an issue of personal responsibility, making only *some* individuals "worthy" of housing support.

https://twitter.com/ItsDanaWhite/status/1843668735501984186

In other words, if you already own a home in florida and its washed away, you'll likely have access to robust housing support services but if you were already homeless in florida, you'll likely be waiting longer to get a voucher bec the other ppl will come first.

Alright, I have watched Nobody Wants This and 99% of the plot is stupid and bad and low key antisemitic but I love that Esther is the only one with any real character development and the scene where Rebecca is in the hospital deserves an Emmy. I dont think Noah and Joanne have any real chemistry. Noah is just good at flirting and Joanne is damaged enough to need only the slightest bit of encouragement to make her fall in love with someone. At least Rebecca had actual standards 🤷🏻‍♀️. Also the writers did Bina dirty.

At least 20% of American Jews are economically insecure.

As an advisory board member of the Jewish Funders Network group, Together Ending Need (TEN), I'd like to elaborate on this a bit because its both better and worse than many people realize >>>

https://twitter.com/DBashIdeas/status/1836938547913265368

First of all, these aee two separate pots of money. There are MANY Jewish funders who have long given to basic needs services and still do and those dollars FAR outweigh the kinds of programs I think the OP is referring to. Especially when you include Orthodox funders.

On a Friday night in early 2023, I was 7 weeks pregnant with my youngest and had just lit shabbat candles when I started bleeding.

I had to chose btwn going to the ER or staying home and bleeding out on my own.

I chose the latter bec, due to horrible policies, it felt safer. People really dont believe that women are actively making the most horrifying decisions right now because our nations approach to womens healthcare has put us all in danger. But I'm here to assure you that we- even the Orthodox moms who want a bunch of kids- absolutely are.

Immigrants ARE NOT the ones making it harder for homeless folks.

This lie protects the people who ARE responsible for increased housing insecurity: landords, property owners & developers who have been actively destroying NOAH (naturally occuring affordable housing) for decades.

https://twitter.com/jdcmedlock/status/1834640785813520421

The vast majority of folks who are homeless or at risk of homelessness are engaged in the private or quasi-private (public funding but privatized building/management) housing market. In theory, this market should include extremely low amenity, low cost housing. >>>

A bunch of people have responded to this with, "but what if they use that money to buy drugs?"

and I want you all to read through this entire thread but

TL;DR-

If a homeless person uses the cash you give them for drugs, it could SAVE THEIR LIFE!!

(1/x)

https://twitter.com/HannahLebovits/status/1833853889914851805

A lot of folks think of drug addiction like this: adult people with fairly normal/healthy lives decide drugs are cool/interesting and start taking them >> they become addicted >> this makes them pull away from ppl, positive behaviors, and adult responsiblities >> as a result....

I have three sibs who live in the Orthodox community of Lakewood NJ. We're close and I often ask them about diff things going on in the community. Last week I learned that there is a group of older women who volunteer to help people fill out paperwork. TBH that sounds amazing. There are a lot of intentional administrative burdens built into our governmental systems and these actively prevent many people- esp those with executive functioning disorders- from being able to access goods and resources. I think its so great that they can get this assistance!

Conversations about childcare are wild bec folks will be like, "saw kids in the park with someone who isnt mom, total 1%ers" and the family is literally a single mom with three kids trying to hold down a 65k a year government job where she could be fired for clocking in at 9:07. IDK why but for some reason people literally seem to think that the presence of non-parent childcare means a family is rolling in it when the reality is that pretty much every singe 9-5 job requires outside help when you have kids ages 5-11.

Every single person deserves to die with dignity. It is a basic human right that has been violated countless times in the international stage by violent selfish actors. AND there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done to ensure dignity in death in the US, as well. I find it hard to talk about this on here because as a post-mortem deathcare worker, I cannot find words that adequately express how devasted I feel. But if you genuinely care about this issue, there is so much to be done in the US and I encourage you to get involved.

A lot of people are concerned about anti-intellectualism but a much more concerning trend is the growing pseudo-intellectualism and the production of extremely unoriginal, uninteresting, and vapid content that is reframed as bold, inviting and deep.

https://twitter.com/MisfitTorah/status/1829647688381669502

In the Orthodox community, this pseudo-intellectualism is evident in both print and digital media outlets, where content producers frequently talk about the same six topics which are all repeatedly referred to as groundbreaking, eyeopening, and rarely discussed.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: folks get all angry when Jewish men are inaccurately and unfairly portrayed in media and yet very few people *really* care that there isnt a single well known Jewish woman lead who isnt annoying, neurotic, vapid and/or obnoxious.

https://twitter.com/HannahLebovits/status/1829328522101375440

I'm talking about Midge Maisel, Julia Haart, Annie Edison, Monica Geller, Rachel Berry, the Broad City babes, even the mom from the Rugrats. None of them code as beautiful, lovable, kind, normal and all around excellent women. Just flaws all the way down.

I love being an Orthodox Jew.

But I also find it uncomfortable when people- esp those who are new to Orthodoxy- try to write about this socio-cultural group as if it answers all Jewish questions and resolves all entrenched Jewish communal concerns.

Is this just a me thing? Like maybe I'm just not enough of an Ortho stan and thats my own deficiency but IMO Orthodoxy as an institutional system is actually pretty complex, has a lot of its own issues, and is not self-sustaining so it seems odd when people act as if its some kind of magical potion

I appreciate that so many people found this cringe/bad/creepy but, to me, the most striking part of this interaction is that it is yet another example of men- particularly those raised within a specific social environment- believing that only their boundaries matter.

https://twitter.com/HannahLebovits/status/1828075228435460501

This guy was socialized in an environment where he was prohibited from engaging with women who are not his wife and his only thought process was about whether he felt comfortable flirting with me. At no point did he think about how I would feel and if I was okay with it.

Alright, here's one:

I'm 18 years old, thousands of miles away from my parents at an extremely religious all-girls seminary where we are not allowed to use technology, we are locked inside our dorm at 10pm and we all wear uniforms.

So, naturally, I decided we needed a pet.

https://twitter.com/HannahLebovits/status/1808528975091716579

This is not **explicitly** against the rules, as its not stated anywhere in the extensive information packet so like, how bad can it be, right?

Anyway, I gotta play the long game bec pets are expensive and I dont have much money. So the first step is getting a cage.

Here is a bit of background, before I respond to this.

A Jewish divorce is the reverse of a Jewish marriage. In a Jewish marriage, the husband acquires his wife and in a Jewish divorce he releases her. If he refuses to release her, she is an agunah- a chained woman.

https://twitter.com/HannahLebovits/status/1807830604177694941

The laws surrounding Jewish divorce are clear. They state that someone who refuses to release his wife is an abuser and should be shunned by his community and even beaten until he agrees to release her. Unfortunately, as a community, we have abdicated this responsibility.