Category Archives: Q/A

All questions and answers posted on Ask a Jew!

Was Abu Dhabi once part of ancient Israel?

Today’s question is from Daniel.

Was Abu Dhabi once part of ancient Israel?

No, Abu Dhabi was never part of ancient Israel. Abu Dhabi is located in the United Arab Emirates and lies in the Arabian Peninsula. Ancient Israel primarily spanned territories in the modern-day Middle East around the eastern Mediterranean region, mainly comprising parts of the modern State of Israel, Palestinian territories, as well as portions of Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.

Why do Jews run America

Today’s (or last year’s question!) is from Chris and is as follows.

So I was on a site recently and there were many Jews online there. They were joking that they run the west. Since all major media outlets are owned and operated by Jews I have a question.

If Jews are running America then why would they allow all these Jew hating Muslims into our country? Now Jews don’t feel safe. Doesn’t make sense

The quick answer to this is simply because Jews don’t run the major media outlets. While there are Jews that hold shares in businesses such as news outlets there simply is often not a majority to “control”. Regarding running America the same applies and it is simply lies from people to further hate Jews. Sure there are Jews in positions of policy and law-making but there isn’t a Jewish forum that controls America and if they did I am still waiting for my cut.

Shedim in Judaism is not universally demonic.

Today’s question isn’t one submitted on this website but instead one posted on Reddit many moons ago. This is the question.

One of the predominating thoughts in fundamentalist Christianity is that pagan gods of the Old Testament were demons in disguise. Its gotten to the point that any time discussion about religion gets involved with cultures that Moses and his descendant Prophets heck the Jews never got into contact with during the Biblical period such as say the Chinese, there is immediate accusation that these cultures’ deities are demons posing as humanoid divine beings.

I cannot tell you how many blogs there are out there by Christian fundamentalists accusing Shiva and the Hindu gods as demonic entities or videos on Youtube proclaiming Buddha is a servant of Satan (under the wrong assumption that Siddartha Guatma is worshipped as the God of Buddhism), etc with frequent citation of Deuteronomy 32:17 and Psalm 106:37 as proof.

With that said I am curious on the Jewish pov? Is Shedim correctly translated as demons like most English translations of the bible state the verses?

Or is there so much misunderstanding on shedim and “demonology” of Judaism by Christians? If shedim is correctly translated as demons, do they apply to all other Gods including Amaterasu, Mithras, Ganesh, Zeus, the Trinity of Christianity, and Allah (even if Muslims and Christian believe they are the same as Yahweh)? Or are they only region-specific around Israel and the border countries around her today?

https://reddit.com/r/rabbi/comments/kf4grh/are_all_pagan_gods_particularly_religions_judaism/
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Gentiles and Yahrzeit

First of all, I would like to apologise to the poster for this question. I am not sure how I missed it but I imagine it is long and pointless for you to read it. With that said I think it is still helpful for others.

Can gentiles observe Yahrzeit and recite Kaddish in English for a very close Jewish friend even though his family will be observing with their community?

Question by Sheri
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To kill or exclude?

Today’s question is about Witchcraft!

Shalom, Im a Christian Trying to understand and converse the old scripts to understanding today, my question is how Should i understand exodus 22.18
”“You shall not allow a woman who practices sorcery to live.”
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭22:18‬ ‭AMP‬‬
Today many Sorcerers live in my country and in exodus 20 it says do not kill.
How do you

Question from Gabriel
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How do Hebrew numbers work

For today’s question, I am going to explain how the Hebrew numbering system works even tho the core of the question is about converting something into Hebrew – something I don’t do on this website or it will be the only type of question that gets published.

How do you spell 5782 in Hebrew… I have found three different spellings: תשפ״ב היתשפב היןפב – Also how do you spell 5783? Thank you

Question from Sherry

So to answer it real quickly: 5782 = ה׳תשפ”ב and 5783 = ה׳תשפ”ג. With the Hebrew translation aside let’s go into how we got to this number and why it is written as it is. As of when I published this answer the Hebrew layout was correct but WordPress being WordPress may flip the text later on so leave a comment if it has and I will fix it.

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What is a High Sabbath?

For today’s question, we have the following.

What is the difference between a Sabbath day and a ‘High’ Sabbath day?

Question from Sherry

Thank you for the question and it is one you will find if you search for it you will find answers mostly from a Christian point of view. Within the typical Jewish faith and culture there isn’t a “High Sabbath” but you will find the closest term is Yamim Noraim or High Holy Days.

Yamim Noraim are important days within Jewish faith and culture which has their own rules and customs when it comes to those high holidays. Most High Holy Days most Jews will get involved with even if they are not that religious and are generally treated the same as if those days are the Sabbath

So what is a High Sabbath then? In short, it is a term found in Messianic Jewish and not one you will typically find within Judaism but they are days Messianic Jews and Christians treat the same as if it was the Sabbath.

So to answer the question – the difference is a “High Sabbath” is a day treated like the Sabbath within the Messianic Judaism faith but Judaism does have something much alike known as High Holy Days.