Running head: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE APART OF THE JUDAISM RELIGION?

What Does It Mean to be Apart of the Judaism Religion?

Jenna Clark

Arizona State University

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Abstract

I researched the Judaism religion for my project. My central research question is What is the

Judaism religion and what does it mean to be apart of this community? Throughout this project I

interviewed two people that are apart of the Jewish religion. I also asked one of them to take me

through a verbal description of a temple. I explored many different important objects and

symbols for the religion. I was able to expand my knowledge and appreciation as an outsider for

a religion I had no prior knowledge on.

Keywords​: Judaism, Jewish, Religious Practices

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What Does It Mean to be Apart of the Judaism Religion?

Section 1, Question Bank

I am researching the Judaism religion in hope that I can broaden my knowledge on other

religions to more than just the religion I apart of. My interest in this topic first started when I was

at the extra credit lecture and I realized how many different religions and people are out there

that I do not know anything about. I am very curious to see the differences in Judaism compared

to Christianity. Before my research my only knowledge about the religion was that it was similar

to Christianity, but I knew they did not believe in a “Jesus”.

Central Research Question:

● What is the Judaism religion and what does it mean to be apart of this community?

General Inquiry/Observation Questions:

● Is your whole family Jewish?

● When did you become a part of this religious practice?

General Interview Questions:

● What makes you feel connected to the religion?

● Are there any symbolic objects? If so, what?

● What traditions are there and why are they special to you?

● Why is it important to be kosher?

Interview Questions for Specific People:

● Is there a youth program you are apart of? If so, do you enjoy it?
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● Do you have any significant moments or something that happened that was involved with

your religion?

● What do the Kosher dietary laws mean to you and your family?

● How do you and your family celebrate passover?

● Did you have a Bat Mitzvah? If so, what did that look like?

● What does an afterlife look like in your religion?

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Section 2, Sites of Inquiry

Sites of Inquiry Contact / Location Dates / Times

Arianna Drapkin Arianna Drapkin (member) Sunday, October 14th 2018

University of Arizona Follow up: Wednesday 24th
2018

Simone Simone (member) Sunday, October 21st 2018

Arizona State University
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Section 3, Inquiring into Objects /Artifacts

Part 1, Summarize the experience, including responses and notes (~200 words):

When interviewing my friend Arianna Drapkin who is apart of this religion since birth

she mentioned that The Torah, kippot, and tallit are important symbols. She explains further that

the Torah is their version of a bible. After hearing this it sparked my interest in finding further

knowledge on the Torah. ​The Torah is written in Hebrew and is the first five books of the Bible.

It is also read every Friday and Saturday during their religious services.​ Next, she mentioned a

Kippot. A Kippot is like a hat that is worn to symbolize being close to God. Depending on the

branch of Judaism that someone is apart of, will also determine if it is custom for them to wear a

kippot. The traditional practice is that men wear a kippot at all times except when he is asleep or

bathing. Some members will only wear the kippot when doing things like praying, or going to

religious ceremonies. Next, she mentioned the tallit. She describes a tallit as a prayer scarf. She

said it is something received at a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, which celebrates coming of a age. Lastly

she mentions items that are important during Jewish Holidays.

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Part 2, Principle Quotes or Observations with an explanation of value:

1. “The Torah, the kippot, and the tallit are probably the three main symbols.” The

significance of this is is that the immediate top three things that came to her mind when I

asked what important symbols were apart of her religion, shows me that these are very

important to members in this religion overall.

2. “There are also symbolic objects specific to certain holidays, like the menorah is a

symbolic object related to Hanukkah. It represents the oil that burned for eight days. The

shofar (ram's horn) is a symbolic object used during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

and it symbolizes waking up and getting ready for the new year” The significance of this

is that shows me that there are more than the just the traditional objects that are important

during celebration of holidays.

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Part 3, Reflect on the process, occurrences, and results of this research, including inferences
about the significance of your observations and interview responses. (~300 words):

At first when I knew I needed to find objects and symbols that were important to a

religion I thought it was going t be difficult. I thought it would be hard because when I think of

the religion I actively am apart of, all i thought of was the Bible. After talking to Arianna about

things that are important to her and important to people practicing Judaism I realized there is so

much more than just the religion’s bible. It seems to me like there is never a dull moment in the

Judaism religion. Simone once told me “Honestly, it seems like there's a holiday basically

everyday.” I think that these object symbolize more than just literal objects. To me it seemed like

these objects are reasons and ways to bring people together to celebrate or have the sense of

unity in the practices.

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Section 4, Inquiring into Place

Part 1, Summarize the observation, including responses and notes (~200 words):

For this section I have a soundscape of Arianna talking about her temple. She begins by

explaining that every temple looks different as well as follows their own traditions. She then

talks about what you first hear and see when you walk into a temple. Sometimes there is music

playing in the background but typically what you hear is chatting amongst everyone before

service starts. She says there are minimal decorations but one decoration that is apart of her

specific temple is a Tree of Life. A Tree of Life is a symbol that represents the “10 Sephirot” and

the “22 paths”. The is representative of a series of good emanations of God’s creations. Once

service starts everyone goes into the sanctuary where they sit in the pews facing the Rabi.

Typically the service kicks off with a Rabbi or Cantar singing a song. She says there can be

multiple Rabbi’s each service. A Rabbi is responsible for the prayer and religious type things.

Every service they read from the Torah and sometimes they focus more on music or on the

holiday if there is a holiday that falls on that day.

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Part 2, Principle Quotes or Observations with an explanation of value:

3. “First every temple looks different and has different traditions and things for services.”

The significance of this is it shows originality in each of the temples and I think that is

special to help create connections with members and the church.

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Part 3, Reflect on the process, occurrences, and results of this research, including inferences
about the significance of your observations and interview responses. (~300 words):

This was a very interesting part of the project for me because I was able to just sit and

listen and imagine the temple in my mind. I used the technique of not interrupting or budding in

while she was talking. It would have been cool to go to a temple but I was just not comfortable

with that. I thought it was very cool that every temple is different. I have been to a few churches

myself and I have had a different connection with each one. I believe it is more about the people

inside the building that make it a church; however, it is important that there is a meeting place

for religious groups to go to. I got the same impression from Arianna as well.
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Section 5, Inquiring into Activities/Events

Part 1, Summarize the observation, including responses and notes (~200 words):

As I was interviewing Simone I asked her to explain to me a couple of custom traditions

that I would experience if I was apart of the religion. The most interesting one she explained to

me was the afterlife/ mourning process that takes place in this religion. She explained to me the

ritual that takes place when different people in their lives pass away. If someone in your

immediate family passes away a “shiva” takes place. A shiva takes place after the burial and for

seven days the family does not shower, shave, eat meat, and they sleep on the floor instead of

their bed. After this the family goes to the cemetery and they make a gravestone. After the

gravestone the no showering, shaving, eating meat, and sleeping on the floor instead of their

bed continues. She also explained specific relationships and the mourning process, like say a

mother loses her child. Another thing I thought was very interesting was when she was telling

me about what she does every year for passover. Her family celebrates for two nights. The first

night they go to a close family friend’s house, and the second night the stay at her house with her

close family. During passover there is a seder plate on the table. The plate has matzah, haroset,

hard boiled egg, shank bone, a bitter herb, and parsley on it. That ritual is then followed by the

main course, israeli food.

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Part 2, Principle Quotes or Observations with an explanation of value

4. “Afterlife in the Jewish religion is huge” The significance of this is when I first asked her

what an afterlife looked like in this religion this was her first initiative response. This

kind of just showed me how important the afterlife is.

5. “If a sibling dies, you spend a month praying everyday and grieving by not attending any

parties, for parents you continue this for a full year. After this every year you go to the

synagogue every year and hold a memorial with people who are close to you. If a women

has a sibling or parent who dies, she must ask the rabbi to say kaddish for her, which is

the prayer to remember the soul.” The significance of this is just how important the

mourning process is.

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Part 3, Reflect on the process, occurrences, and results of this research, including inferences
about the significance of your observations and interview responses. (~300 words):

I found the section and story to be very important. The mourning process in a way I could

connect to. This year my family went through a lot of loss and it was very interesting to me to

see another religion's process of mourning. I believe it is very important to mournfully for two

reasons, one to show respect to who passed, and two, because selfishly I believe you need to

mourn and go through the stages of mourning to be able to accept the death. I thought it was very

interesting that during this process they do not even sleep in their own bed. The shiva is basically

a time for the family to talk about the loss and to be comforted by each other. A shiva takes place

only for family members that are older than thirty days. Honestly, this kind of makes me sad. It

made me think of babies that are born prematurely and don’t make it past a week or two. I know

if I was in that situation as a mother I would definitely need time to mourn. When I first think of

passover I picture something like Thanksgiving. Passover is a time to commemorate over their

past with the slavery in Egypt. I think it is very meaningful that Passover is such a big holiday

for the Jewish religion. This section was really starting to stress me out because I could not

figure out anywhere to physically go and I was not sure I wanted to go into an actual temple

considering my own religious views. I did research on Arizona State University affiliated Jewish

groups; however, none of the groups had events before the due date. I went to the Hillel building

but since they had no events going on, it was literally just a building. After thinking long about

what I could do to fulfil this section I thought of asking people I know that are Jewish to take me

through a type of virtual, verbal tour of what these events would be like if I was there.
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Section 6, Inquiring into People/Person

Part 1, Summarize the observation, including responses and notes (~200 words):

One of the interviews I did was with my friend from high school Arianna Drapkin. She

grew up in a Jewish family so being apart of the religion was something she just grew up with.

My interview with her covered many basics regarding the religion and what connects her to it.

We also talked about youth programs she was apart of prior to college. She was apart of a youth

group starting in third grade and ending in eighth grade. She also enjoyed The North American

Federation of Temple Youth, which was a big group of several youth groups from temples across

the United States. She soon had to stop going to events because they often interfered with her

gymnastics team’s events. Being Kosher is something very important to the religion; however,

her family never was to strict on the kosher eating rules. Being Kosher means that you follow the

Kosher laws that state that meat and dairy can not be eaten in the same meal. They are also not

allowed to eat pork, shellfish, or any meat containing blood. When there were specific holidays

where an important diet was apart of the practice, Arianna and her family would follow the

kosher laws.
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Part 2, Principle Quotes or Observations with an explanation of value:

6. “ I enjoyed being a part of both my youth group and NFTY because it was a great way to

meet friends and see that there are more Jews out there. The significance of this is that it

seemed to help a lot when she had the support of other Jewish people her age around her.

7. “I do not keep kosher, but I suppose the importance of keeping kosher comes from only

eating animals and foods that God has deemed as clean.” The significance of this is that

you can be apart of the religion and not be Kosher 100% of the time.
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Part 3, Reflect on the process, occurrences, and results of this research, including inferences
about the significance of your observations and interview responses. (~300 words):

This interview was very enjoyable for me because I spent a lot of my high school days

with Arianna and there was still so much to learn about her. At lunch in high school there were

many “holiday” days where she would only eat Matzah for lunch. Matzah is basically bread

without the ingredient yeast. The matzah without yeast creates a very thin-like cracker. She gave

me some to taste and to me it tasted a lot like the stale crackers that the christian church gives out

during communion. Being Kosher is something very important in the Judaism religion. The laws

that Jewish people follow come from the book of Leviticus which comes from the Torah. Matzah

is eaten a lot during passover. It is used as a crouton like food in soups and also eaten like a

cracker. During passover yeast like grains are forbidden therefore, matzah was created. The

bread also dates back to the Torah as God commanded then to create a bread that does not

contain yeast or rising ingredients.

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Section 7, Soundscape Links

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MYIBII3jWDqaWD2bDrDuNorxaNHrQrol/view?usp=sharing
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Section 8, WP3 Proposal

When I started this project I knew the bare minimum about the Jewish religion. The

research question I explored was “What is the Judaism religion and what does it mean to be apart

of this community?”. Before I started this project I knew close to nothing about this religion. All

I knew was that they did not beileve in a “Jesus” and I knew that some types of Jews were

Kosher. This project allowed me to explore and ask questions that I could then build off of for

interview questions. To start this project off I interviewed Arianna Drapkin. I was able to

practice interview type questions with someone I am comfortable with, which I believe

ultimately taught me a good lesson as well and allowed for me to get comfortable with the

process. All of my researched helped me to answer my question of “What does it mean to be

apart of the judaism religion?”. Some of the most important questions I asked were ones that

tapped into the emotional connection to religion like, “What makes you feel connected to the

religion?” or “How do you and your family celebrate passover?”. I believe that these questions

should be answered because they all stem back to “What is Judaism?”. I believe one of the best

ways to truly get to know someone is by asking them and learning about something they are truly

passionate about. Religion is something that many people around the world are very passionate

about. Religious rituals date back far into the past and I believe that it is important to have an

open mind to religions around you. It is so important to accept people for who they truly are

whether or not you believe the same things they do. I believe these questions need to be

addressed to show people how important love and unity is. My favorite part of the research

process was learning about the mourning process Jewish families go through when someone

passes away in their immediate family. I do not know if it was the emotional connection I have
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to mourning right now or if it was just the fact that I was learning something completely new that

grabbed my attention. After conducting my research I know a lot more regarding the religion and

I also have a better understanding of events that Jewish people are apart of. Given my research, I

propose an essay that will inform its audience about who and what Judaism is.
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References

Drapkin, A. (2018, October 14). Personal Interview

Drapkin, A. (2018, October 24). Personal Interview

Peretz, S. (2018, October 21). Personal Interview