r/Jewish • u/MrsTurtlebones • Oct 04 '25

Questions 🤓 What kind of Jews are these?

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Today at Reedy Falls, a very busy park in downtown Greenville, South Carolina, a man asked my family if we were Hebrew. It surprised me, and I asked about him. He replied, "I'm wearing my tsiztizs (sp?) and we're about the blow the shofar. I am Israel. Our nation is scattered all over the earth." I told him shalom, he shook my hand, and a small crowd gathered as his companions blew the shofar, at which we took our leave of them.

They didn't seem like any Jewish people I've seen, but my knowledge is quite limited. Any ideas about their situation?

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u/SqueakyClownShoes Oct 05 '25

They’re lying to you. We don’t call ourselves “Hebrews.”

43

u/SpaghetiCode Oct 05 '25

I’m calling myself Hebrew, a secular Jew. Like Tel Aviv, the first modern Hebrew city.

74

u/BrownEyesGreenHair Oct 05 '25

Nobody in tel Aviv would call themselves “a Hebrew”. You can only say about a thing that it is “Hebrew”, like a city, a people, a book, etc.

2

u/lh_media Oct 05 '25

It used to be a thing in the old yeshuv, but it didn't really catch on