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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It’s time to normalize your great-grandparents Judaism. Ultra-Orthodox/Chabad didn’t exist in the US until the 1950s. Even haredi communities in Europe - most women didn’t cover cover their hair. The faces/bodies/voices of girls and women weren’t fetishized so they couldn’t be seen or heard. Jewish education was mixed. No one had two dishwashers or two sinks or two ovens. Absolutely no one had a “Pesach kitchen.” Many families didn’t have separate milk and meat plates/dishes - they just kashered in between. Hechsher wars didn’t exist. No one cut their broccoli in microscopic pieces to check for bugs. Men worked real jobs. Secular studies were not incompatible with religious studies. Hyper-fixation on female “purity” was not a thing. The Post-Shoah rejection of modernism meets Israeli rabbinate hyper control meets Ashkenormativity of yeshiva life meets culty Chabad culture has contorted Jewish practice beyond recognizable boundaries. It’s Christian fundamentalist-esque. [/quote]

My grandparents had and did all that,  and well before the 50s, from the turn of the century until their death. My parents started to but began sliding down the ladder  until they were conservadox.  By the time they were elderly,  they were on the reform level. I have trouble accepting really any practice  since I've been an adult,  but appreciate the historical ethnic culture. I will say I harbor what I think is some religious trauma from a lot of it. I did only secular things with my own kids- just wouldn't go there.

I agree with your comparison to fundamentalism now. I feel like there's orthodox practice and everyone else, regardless of what they call themselves- conservative,  reform, reconstructionist, whatever. Additionally, it seems that way politically, too. The more observant, the more right wing.But the political aspect wasn't there in the 50s or 70s, or even  90s. [/quote]

Did you know them? It’s unlikely that they did. For example, they may have worn hats, but I suspect that there wasn’t such militance about hair was showing. Also from historical evidence, we know that the faces of women and girls were not blurred out they way they are frequently today. It would have been unusual for Jews to have the funds for separate ovens in that era. The existence of haredi communities in the US didn’t happen really until after WWII. My great grandmother was the daughter of a rabbi - they didn’t even have separate plates. [/quote]

Yes, I did know them very well,  as I knew their siblings and cousins, hereand in Israel.  . I am in my 60s, not  my 40s. There were no blurred faces as there wasn't the technology (!), and there might have been nuances  that have ramped up, but there was a karp in that tenement tub,  full wigs,  modest clothing ( but women didn't wear pants then anyway) , and they kashered their kitchen for Pesach .  The plates were separate or kashered as needed as they were quite poor. My parents did all this, but slowly gave it up, little by little, as did many children of this group of immigrants, but remained observant by their own standards. Orthodox Judaism split in different ways in the 1960s in my area, where people basically started making choices of how to practice,  live in the secular business  and educated world,  but retain the Jewishness. My generation  split that even more, and my kid's generation  has either given it all up OR headed  back into the practice you are talking about-full  super orthodoxy,  and this time with IG accounts reviving all those things and celebrating it in the way of other  online presence (such as  #tradwife # mormonlife #cottagecore , etc.) Take a look. [/quote]

Wig wearing wasn't really common then: https://forward.com/life/203981/the-complete-history-of-the-sheitel/.[/quote]

There were wigs!  Plenty of ugly ones. I was there,  my friend.  Very ugly wigs that were basically brown helmets.  But mostly  cloth tichels for the daytime. Absolutely  covered their hair. This just wasn't in your family, I guess. [/quote]

Wasn’t most families. Sounds like yours was an exception. [/quote]

Really,  because I had a large family in New York, my grandmother came here with siblings, no parents, all separately. Where they lived,  walk up tenements, it was everyone. Hundreds off people.  I'm not sure what  your point is, somehow you are trying  to make a point,  but I lived it,  in Ny, at three different communities,  all large communities.  They were hardly exceptions- kosher all the way, kosher butchers,  tichels,,wigs,  black coats, yiddish speaking only. I only spoke Yiddish until age 6.

My parents are the ones who stopped  the wigs,  and everything kosher, only some things,  and my mother wore sleeveless dresses in the summer. I remember it being a big deal causing  upheaval  back in Ny. By the time it was 1967, they started eating in restaurants,  but kosher at home. TV, etc. [/quote]

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