Reply To: Kosher Cruise

I don’t want to blame frum Jews who do shake hands as making non-shaking frum Jews look bad or extreme.

From the outside perspective, it does seem inconsistent and confusing when I met someone who was frum and shook hands, and even hugged individuals of the opposite gender.

Now that I am more acculturated to variations in observance and perspectives, I realize that Jews who are frum are individuals with various beliefs and in various places of observance.

—-Related to the part about family members who get offended, that bothers me a lot. I think it’s disrespectful for someone to get angry at someone taking the initiative to set boundaries on one’s beliefs.

I found certain family to be much more accommodating to my diet when I only ate plant-based foods, which was based on secular beliefs, than they were to interacting with my frum friends.

People can relate and want to join in on eating more healthy.

As for being more religious, spmetimes the ones who are happy and proud to be where they are, to the extent that they built their lives around this unorthodox identity, take respecting someone else’s observance and beliefs as an attack on their own.

The nisayon of keeping shomer negiah works both ways.