How to use Jewish But Not Jewish

Click Begin in the top-right of the home page. Enter an email and a password. That's it. You don't need to confirm anything by email to start using the app, although you can verify your address from Settings later.

Yes. On the sign-in page, click Send me a sign-in link. We'll email you a one-time link that signs you in directly. The link expires after a few minutes. This is the recommended way to sign in if you don't want to remember a password.

Click Forgot your password on the sign-in page. We'll send you a reset link. If you have two-factor on, you'll still need your authenticator code after resetting.

A short, gentle conversation with a quiet AI companion. The point is for me to learn enough about your family that I can build you a personal path through your own corner of Jewish history. Ten or fifteen minutes. You can pause whenever you want.

Pace is how fast you want to move (slow, moderate, steady). Heaviness is how much hard material you can take today (low, medium, high). Religion stance is whether you want me to mention small traditions and rituals as gentle options or to skip them entirely. Content warnings turns on or off the small notices before heavier material. You can change any of these later in Settings.

Yes. Click Speak instead to record one reply with your microphone, or click the voice mode toggle to make the whole conversation hands-free. The AI's replies will be read aloud and the mic will open automatically. Voice mode falls back to text if your browser doesn't support speech.

When you feel like you've shared enough. There is no required number of exchanges. Click Done at the bottom right whenever you're ready, and the app will start building your path.

A handful of chapters built around your specific family story. Each one is a small piece. The first chapter is usually about the place your people came from. We go from there, slowly. Heavy chapters are followed by lighter ones on purpose.

Usually within a few seconds. If the path page says 'Your path is being prepared,' refresh once and your chapters should be there.

Yes. The numbering is a suggestion, not a rule. Open whichever one is calling to you.

Yes. Your progress is saved. The path waits.

A short personalized intro, sometimes a panel about places connected to your family, the chapter prose body broken into breathable sections, an embedded short video, a reflection prompt, your private notebook, and three small signal buttons at the bottom.

Each chapter has one carefully chosen short film or documentary clip on the same topic, picked to give you a way in that isn't just text. You don't have to watch it. It sits between the body and the reflection prompt so you finish reading first.

No. Marking complete just moves it to the 'finished' state on your path so you can see what you've walked through. You can keep coming back to a chapter you marked complete.

Close the page and come back later. There's also a Skip option if you want to move past it permanently. The path adjusts.

Inside every chapter, near the bottom, there's a small notebook box. Anything you write there is encrypted and only readable by you. Not by an administrator. Not by anyone with database access. Not by us.

Yes. Each entry has a small remove option. Removed means gone, no recovery.

No. Nothing you write is ever used to train any AI model, anywhere. Ever.

💛 This landed marks the chapter as something that resonated. 🔖 Come back later marks it as something you want to revisit. 👎 Not for me tells the path to deemphasize this kind of material. None of them are visible to anyone else. They quietly help me build a more honest path for you.

No. They're optional. You can skip every chapter without ever pressing one and the path will keep working.

Click Settings in the top-right header. Profile lets you update your email. Preferences lets you switch language between English and Spanish (the whole app and the URL switches with you), and pick which AI provider to use.

Settings → Preferences. The same Pace, Heaviness, Religion stance, and Content warnings options are there. The path adjusts the next time you open a chapter.

Settings → Sign-in and security → Update password. You'll need to enter your current password first.

Settings → Sign-in and security → Set up two-factor. Scan the QR code with an app like Google Authenticator, Authy, or 1Password. Enter the 6-digit code to confirm. You'll get a list of recovery codes after. Save at least one somewhere safe.

Sign in normally with your password, then enter one of your recovery codes when prompted. Each recovery code works exactly once. After signing in, go to Settings and turn off two-factor, then set it up again with your new device.

Settings → Sign-in and security → Manage two-factor → Turn it off. You'll need your current password.

Yes. Visit /family_invitations/new and enter a sibling's, parent's, or cousin's email and a short personal note. They get a private link to a sign-up page that already knows you invited them. When they accept, they get their own private version of the path with their own notebook.

No. Notebook entries are private to each person, even within a family. The only thing shared is the family record (names, places, what you both know about your shared ancestors).

Both versions are preserved. No one's version overwrites another. If you want to leave a small letter inside a specific chapter for a family member to find, that's a future feature in development.

Yes, with a token link. From a chapter page, you'll see a small Share option (currently only available via direct API in this build, full UI lands in a polish round). The link is good for 90 days by default and shows the chapter to anyone with the URL.

No. Sharing only includes the chapter prose and the embedded video. Your notebook entries stay private.

Yes. Free forever. No paid tier. No premium anything. No advertising. The cost of running it is covered by donations from people who found something here and wanted to keep it open.

Click /support from the main navigation. Pick a one-time amount or a monthly recurring amount. You'll be sent to Stripe Checkout. Donations are tax-deductible if applicable in your jurisdiction (check with your accountant; we don't issue receipts automatically yet).

Yes. The donation form works whether you're signed in or not.

Your email, your password (hashed, never plaintext), the family information you share during intake, the chapters you've opened, and your notebook entries. Notebook entries are encrypted at rest with keys nobody outside the application server can read.

No. Never. We don't run analytics on third-party services. We don't track you across the internet. We don't share anything with anyone.

On a single server we operate ourselves, in a Postgres database that nobody else has access to. Backups are encrypted.

Click ES (or English from the Spanish site) in the top-right header. The whole app, including the URL, switches across to the other domain. Your account preference also updates if you're signed in, so you don't have to flip the switch every time you visit.

Click the sun/moon button in the top-right of the header (visible on tablet and desktop, hidden on phones to save header space). The choice is saved in your browser. On phones, dark mode follows your operating system setting automatically.

Clear your browser's localStorage for this site, or just toggle until you land on the mode that matches your system. Once you've manually picked, the manual choice wins until you clear it.

Settings → Delete account. Type the confirmation phrase exactly and click the coral Permanently delete button. Your account, your family record, your notebook entries, your chapters, and everything attached to you is gone immediately, with no recovery.

If you change your mind before clicking the button, just navigate away. Once you click, there is no undo.