Any Jewish aspies/auties?

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I know my heritage better than you guys know, so unless you know me personally, please avoid making statements to the contrary. My dad is Jewish, but I was raised Catholic (and still follow it). Ethnically, I am half Jewish as a consequence.

I'm cool with that!

I am Jewish orthodox. I like Jewish moral values but I am agnostic.

It would be cool to create some sort of a group for Jewish aspies... Maybe on Facebook?

This is only in rabbinical judaism other than the reform and reconstructionist sects. Karaite jews and Ethiopian jews go by patrilineal decent. I am a karaite jew.

Additionally, I find that when people make the claim that there is no such thing as "half jewish" they do so with disregard to the fact that there are multiple concepts associated with the notion of jewishness.

1. Religion.
2. Culture.
3. Ethnicity.

To that end, I've noticed that there is a double standard among rabbinical communities to use the halachal definition of judaism when they claim that there is no such thing as "half jewish" but when talking about jews and the holocaust (my family were NOT Crimeans but rather Ashkenazi, and would have been victims of the holocaust had they not left Europe due to the pogroms before hand), they switch to the broader meaning to include those who were jewish by definitions 2 and 3 in their numbers.

One can say they are merely recognizing the fact that these individuals were considered jewish by the naxis and were killed because of it but in a way, it also seems self serving and exploitative and I think the rabbinical community owes it to those who were killed to stop saying "there's no such thing as half jewish". I once heard observed a haredi rabbi tell a person who was raised jewish and who's father was jewish and who's mother wasn't, that there was no point in him practicing traditions and observing a religion that was alien to him. No it was not alien to him. It was just as familiar to him and part of his identity as it was to the rabbi.

One has a right to their religious beliefs. If jewish, to you, mean someone who has a jewish mother (or converted under whatever standards you deem fit), fine, but then keep it limited to that scope then.

If you want, we can start a Jewish Aspie group that could meet via FreeConferenceCall.com. PM me if you're interested.

I think my Mom once said that my family has Jewish ancestry but I don't know much about it. Everyone in my family who is religious is a Babtist Christain but I'm an open atheist.

My three half siblings have German Jewish ancestry on their dad's side of the family but like my Mom's family they're all Babtists too.

I always admired the Jews as a cultural entity. I always wanted to convert to Judaism but never found the courage to make an attempt. I'd convert now, but I've since moved to a city which doesn't have a synagogue (the nearest one is probably an hour away).

I have some Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Grew up in a house with presbytarians who were dour, puritan, though they fully accepted Jews (though they didn't know about my ancestry) but hated Catholics in an irrational and crazed kind of way. Their religious practices were very superficial, paraded only for social reasons at certain times to embellish their cultivation of their status as upstanding and important members of their community. They attended church for christenings, weddings and funerals, but tended to lecture others on rectitude and godlessness if they perceived others as people who were less important and industrious than themselves..

There are some interesting studies about Ash. Jews:

1. generally score higher by a whole standard deviation on intelligence measures (flawed though these are) - this is well replicated. This is thought to partly explain why they have won some many Nobel prizes.

2. They have a higher rate of passing on mutated genes like Braca 1 and 2, Tay Sachs, and possibly Aspergers... this is because of the cultural imperative of Ashkenazi Jews being expected to marry only other Ashkenazi Jews, so that both parents in these "intermarried" families pass on more recessive genes resulting in more inheritable conditions than cultures that reproduce more randomly with more diversity in familial gene pools to pass on to offspring.

Braca 1 and AS are in my real family and are widespread in the still living members of my family and my extended family. Last year 23andme confirmed my Jewish ancestry, though it was something I had always suspected, and confirmed that most of my geographical ancestry over the past millenium was French.

I suspect my ancient Jewish family came from the Levant area from what the geneticists found, and probably lived in Spain before converting and migrating to Normandy and Paris, where they became prominent Catholic families and therefore easy to trace back for centuries. Some died on the guillotine as courtiers of the French king and queen after the revolution. It is fascinating to read their prison diaries online, as they waited for more than a year to be executed.

However I am me because I am me, I am not religious though I believe in the mysterious in my own way, and am tolerant of different religious and spiritual beliefs for the most part, though not political movements that cloak their aims in religiosity, which Zionism has done from its formation in the late 19th century when it was created by a founder someone with this zeal for political agenda that was in my opinion extremist.

3. I have noticed in my own colleagues that Askenazi Jews seem to have a pronounced flair and natural attraction to science, in various disciplines. I have this too, though it was never encouraged by the people I lived with as a child (they were business people uninterested in ideas and completely unrelated to me) and they considered my interest in it as a bizarre pastime; at least we had a love of music in common though...

Funny that you mention that.

Your parents must be from the prairie Midwest somewhere.

My Dad was from a strict German Methodist background in Hutchinson Kansas. He would get a laugh from folks here on the east coast when he quote one of his cousins in Bushton who would tell you that "Most of Jews here in Bushton are Baptists".

What dads cousin said sounds like a contradiction in terms on one level, but I always figured that he must have meant that most of the ethnic Jews who settled there after they immigrated from Eastern Europe tended to convert to Baptism but obviously they still had Jewish ancestry.

Apparently, from what you're saying, Jewish conversion to Baptism must have been a common thing in some areas at some point in time in the US.

Actually my entire family is from The Deep South. We live in Georgia.

Edit: I notice there are a lot of Babtist churches in the south so maybe it's the same here as it is in the prairie Midwest? I honestly don't know lol

But my family actually has a lot of different heritages. My Mom has Irish, German, and a little bit of Jewish and Cherokee Indian on her family's side and my real Dad had Hawaiian, Filipino, and British on the side of his family. My half siblings also have the same heritage through their Dad's side as my Mom including the Cherokee Indian. Where I grew up there's a high population of people descended from Irish and German families. I guess maybe I might have German Jewish ancestry too like my brothers and sister do.

I should try one of those DNA tests one day to find out for sure.

I was raised jewish up until actually when I had my bat mitzvah. My family still gets together for the holidays and for the most part celebrate fairly traditionally, but were not what I would consider religiously jewish anymore. I never really had a good understanding of how I felt growing up about the matter, but for as long as I remember I havent been a very spiritual person in general. I love how most if not everything is logically explained and rules are pretty clear, opposed to some other religions. I just can't really get into any type of organized religion or group.

Yes.

Raised Orthodox though
I was a Hebrew School dropout.