Why I Care About Trans Day of Remembrance as a (“Cisgender”) Gay Man

Why I Care About Trans Day of Remembrance as a (“Cisgender”) Gay Man

This Former-Pagan-Now-Jew Looks Back at Another Upcoming Halloween

7 Cheshvan, 5773

Today is October 23, 2012 - which means (according to the American secular calendar) a week from tomorrow is Halloween. For many (if not the majority of) Americans it is a social event that over the centuries has been hoisted (or foisted, depending on your p.o.v.) to the level of holiday. While not federally recognized (stupid government, I imagine many undoubtedly groan), it does affect people across class, race, age and gender. Costumes will be bought or made (people still make costumes, right?); candies will be purchased; bellies will still ache the morning after. As a nation we spend an estimated 6.9 billion dollars on the last day of October. You read that correctly - that's billions as opposed to millions and all during a tentative recovery from the worst economic crash in a generation. Cue Keanu Reeves.

While a significant marker (especially in an unabashed capitalist society) money does not solely define Halloween’s status in our nation’s collective consciousness. The day gleefully and insidiously reaches into other corners of our daily lives like an ever-growing sticky spider-web. It spills out of our TV’s to the screams of a thousand horror movie victims; it will be the theme of many a school parade or dinner party; it takes over the Hallmark card rack down at the local CVS. We even semi-consciously raise it among the other calendar milestones whenever we spot Christmas tree decorations out on the shelves before the 31^st. Each holiday in its due time, dammit!  

For those who practice Wicca, the day is called Samhain and is the start of a new pagan year. Needless to say, it figures prominently on the Wiccan calendar and in Wiccan consciousness. Throughout the autumnal season Nature has been shedding its skin, preparing for its death-like sleep of Winter. For the prior eight weeks the barriers between the living and the dead have been thinning, allowing the living to intuit the dead - and the dead the living - more than any other time of year. Respect is given to ancestors. As magic is wrought to look ahead, meditation turns inwards, an introspection led by the kind hand of the Crone. Death is contemplated not as a period at the end of a that run-on sentence which is Life but rather as an ellipsis, leading simply yet profoundly, to the turning of a page…

I know this because I used to be Wiccan, identifying as a child of the goddess, first as a son, then as a daughter. Celebrating Samhain at the time was as natural for me as breathing. Ever since I was a child the day had been somehow magical, filled with mysterious delight. It somehow existed beyond the costumes and the parties, connecting to something much more ethereal. When I finally stopped trick-or-treating (sad to learn one could actually grow out of the tradition) I began telling ghost stories. I watched as many scary movies during October as I could, growing an affinity for old Hammer films. (Tim Burton became a bit of a god/dess send.) My friends would intuit this about me. Trips to pumpkin patches were mandatory for me. One Latina partner unofficially dubbed me “Grand Calabaza” or her Great Pumpkin. So when I identified as Wicca and celebrated Samhain I was joining in on a spiritual dance I seemed to already know the steps to.

I do not know exactly when but at some point I started moving beyond Wicca. 

I didn't want to admit it at first. Wicca had had so much incredibly meaning for me it seemed somehow like an act of infidelity to look beyond its tenets, to think outside its mindset. I had fully expected to die – and be reincarnated – as Wiccan. And yet didn’t feeling guilty over the thought of leaving Wicca kinda already mean I had? I was surprised, saddened and confused (and on some unconscious level relieved). What had happened? When had Wicca - and by extension, Halloween - stopped being so special? Where had its meaning gone to? Where was the magic? (See what I did there?)

There was no exact moment I could pinpoint, no foundation-shaking moment for me. It had happened slowly, with the turning of the seasonal wheel. Although the music of the magical universe still played on I found I had stopped dancing, had in fact stepped quietly off the dance floor. I still respected those who spun widdershins – nothing but love, nothing but love – but the pan-pipe tunes no longer called to me. I could be thankful for the experiences which had brought me to where I was but to linger would somehow be an exercise in futility. For me the party no longer enthralled. That I sensed this with the same intuition being Wiccan had honed in me seemed proof that the Universe was not without a sense of irony – or without hope.

I have blogged elsewhere how I came to Judaism so I will not repeat it here. I will say that while I harbor no latent longings or angsty regrets, I do come to October 31^st every year with what feels like a unique perspective. First is this “Been-there/Trick-or-Treated that” feeling. Being Wiccan gave me a particular look behind Halloween’s metaphysical curtain. I feel somehow privileged for the view and the experience of the dance and feel no need to return. (Again, nothing but love.)

I also feel like a distinct outsider. This was driven home for me when, two years ago while I was still in the process of converting, I took a trip with a Temple friend up to Salem, Massachusetts. It should not surprise you to learn that the cultural site of The Salem Witch Trials has become a touristy ground-zero for those who celebrate Halloween, pagan or not. I was anxious going up, wondering how I would react and admittedly I felt a dissipating sadness while wandering through the crowds. Yes, I used to be a part of this revelry – and I had made the conscious choice not to be anymore. And while it felt strange to be on the outside of this party, this dance, it also felt right – just as becoming pagan in my Twenties had felt right. When we finally left I felt as though I had come to kiss Wicca goodbye and move into my future - a Jewish homecoming I cannot help but think the loving, nurturing wise goddess would have approved of.

So this is how I come to the perennial dialectic (or is it a debate?) regarding American Jews and Halloween. While I will not judge those who fall on either side of this divide, I know how I feel as a Jew about the day. While I can (and have) traced Halloween’s origins back to ancient Celtic culture, and can even argue that it has been shaped in some part by the Christian elements of the United States, I cannot say it is Jewish in any way, shape or form. Nor could I reasonably argue that Purim is the Judaic version of Halloween, as some gentiles figure. As such, I am at peace in not celebrating it on either a cultural or spiritual level. I also feel no peer pressure to do so. (I must note that, currently being without a child, I cannot imagine what Jewish parents in America must wrestle with at this time of the year and fully respect whatever decisions they end up making.) 

Of course, in taking this particular and particularly public stance I often receive a slew of responses from my gentile friends, ranging from the shocked How-can-you-NOT-celebrate-such-a-cool-night! stare to the far more annoying Oh-you-poor-Jew-I-feel-so-sad-for-you look of pity. But for me it only makes sense. Halloween has no context for me as a Jew. For me it’s impossible to untangle the night from its spiritual or historical roots - and none of those roots run back to Israel. As I no longer cavort with the spiritual world, read Tarot or divine dreams the thought of dressing up to confuse wandering evil spirits makes little sense. And echoing the sentiments of other Jewish commentators, I’d rather be in costume giving out food for Purim than collecting candy on October 31^st.

I understand that on both an inter-personal and macro level this can be a hard decision to take within a society so culturally invested in Halloween (remember, nearly $7 billion dollars last year). I also understand from a very personal vantage-point what Halloween means as a spiritual event. Yet oddly (or perhaps not) as a former-pagan-now-a-Jew I find it easy to walk among the revelers, appreciating their party even as I do not partake of it anymore, and am amused that they would have more of a problem with it than I do. That’s all right, though. I need only answer to myself, my Jewish community and HaShem and we’re all just fine with my decision.  

On Sukkot, honoring the homeless | Jewish Journal

On Sukkot, honoring the homeless | Jewish Journal

Celebrate Bisexuality Day! (Jewish version...)

Celebrate Bisexuality Day!
(Keshet lists some notable bisexual Jews...)

Postcards from ימים נוראים: Overdue Thoughts on Kol Nidre

7 Tishri, 5773

The backstory: Although I have been going to my synagogue since Spring of 2010 and then converted in 2011, this year – 5773 – will be the first time I will be witness, and indeed a part of, Kol Nidre. As fate would have it, I did not make it during the previous two HHD seasons. The first year I was honestly lost in and subsequently overwhelmed by the High Holy Days – as strange as it sounds, the only way I could get through my first Yom Kippur was to be absent for Kol Nidre. Last year I was in bed with an awful head cold, which, as I had also stopped eating or drinking, and along with a change in meds, would contribute to my fainting in the middle of YK services the very next day. (Text received during my ER visit from one of my rabbis: “Are you all right? Did you mean to faint right before Mi Shebeirach?” Heart my clergy!)

Today I can relate that I am neither over-awed nor under-the-weather and am excited for this long delayed first Kol Nidre, especially with some new understandings I have recently come across.

Continuing backstory: A few months ago, Kol Nidre was the subject of a pre-Elul Torah study. As it was one of my HHD mysteries, and having been absent from it over the last two years, I immediately sat up to catch the discussion as it flew around me and ricocheted off the walls and ceiling. (My Torah Study group is wonderfully if not fearlessly active in their spiritual wrestlings. The WWE has got nothing on us.) Many characteristics of Kol Nidre I understood immediately – it was a legal formulation and not a prayer (check), written in Aramaic and not Hebrew, (check) wrapped in a beautiful haunting melody (check), which basically begins the Yom Kippur Services for the next 24 hours (check check check).

Yet there was one aspect I kept intellectually tripping over: the disavowing of vows. Um, why would there be a legal document read before Yom Kippur (the day of forgiveness/atonement) which seemed to allow any oath mentioned over the last year to be disavowed? Confusion reigned. Why bother genuinely asking for forgiveness and atonement from both another individual and God if we were saying any oath we made could be so broken?

You can probably guess what happened next. I raised my hand and voiced that question. No sooner had the words formed in the air than someone along the back row muttered “She’s wrong”. (Which is kinda the last response you want to hear in Torah Study.) The rabbi leading the group that morning responded by using my question to discuss how Kol Nidre was historically the basis of so many age-old anti-Semitic justifications. (Which, on second thought, is REALLY the last response you want to hear in Torah Study.) [1]

(Note to the designers of the ubiquitous “Intro-to-Judaism” courses: please consider including some special discussion regarding Kol Nidre in HHD lessons. That is all.)  

Now, some moons later, I am delving into a set of books called Rosh Hashanah Readings and Yom Kippur Readings, both edited by RabbiDov Peretz Elkins, so I can better understand, appreciate and participate in the HHD, which is unabashedly my favorite season of the Jewish calendar. Needless to say, I am pouring over the Kol Nidre section in search of some context to hang my questions on. And finally, upon reading more deeply the liturgical/halakhah/Biblical/historical background of Kol Nidre, I heard the clilk! of understanding from within, like that moment the key opens the tumblers of a particularly stubborn lock .   

* * *

(If the following aspects of Kol Nidre is all remedial Sunday School for you please skip to last line. No worries; I forgive you.)

My understanding now of the halakha roots to Kol Nidre can be traced all the way back to the Torah’s admonition against making frivolous oaths and promises. (Remember, this caution came in the ancient time of Balaam and blessings and curses, when it was thought that what came out of our mouths not only spoke of what was within ourselves but had power to create and destroy, heal or harm, in the real world. Much as it does now, even though we seem to forget this loaded truth online and off in the real world.) Your word was – or at least should be – bond. Specifically to each other and especially to God.

Kol Nidre seems to understand that despite the Torah’s warnings and the best of intention from us Jews, “frivolous”[2] oaths will pass from our lips to God’s ear. (Welcome to the human condition.) Therefore, before we can ask for God’s forgiveness and mercy, we must first deal with processing all those unfulfilled promises. This strikes me as amazingly functional in religious, emotional, psychological and even sociological terms. In this respect, Kol Nidre is the vehicle that helps us get from one side of Yom Kippur to the other. (I also now understand that Kol Nidre is specifically for oaths between us and God. We're still on the hook for buying that round next Saturday night because the Red Sox lost. Again.)

Additionally, there is a strong historical connection between Kol Nidre and the Conversos of Spain. [3]Faced with conversion to Christianity or death, they chose life in anti-Semitic medieval Spain as hidden Jews. How important Kol Nidre must have become for them in keeping their spiritual integrity intact during such times! (And from a socio-political p.o.v., it is therefore no surprise that anti-Semitics would hold up Kol Nidre as proof-positive that Jews would not keep to their forced conversions, embrace another belief system under the threat of torture and death could not be trusted at their word.) A beautiful drash in YKR also draws a connection between the Conversos of Spain and those of the Queer Community who find that too must hide their true identity in an unforgiving and cruel world. (I really cannot recommend these books enough.)

What Kol Nidre means in 5773 is something I am still gleaning and certainly welcome any-and-everyone else’s interpretation. (Anti-Semites excluded. Clearly.) 

With only two-and-a-half days (daze?) to go, may you have an easy fast this Yom Kippur, may your name be sealed in the Book of Life and may you (continue to) have the sweetest of years!

---

[1] Torah Studies assume some background knowledge of the topics under discussion.

[2] Yom Kippur Readings: Inspiration, Information, Contemplation, p20 – ed. Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins

[3] ibid (p. 22)

"Giving to The Needy is a Jewish Obligation"

Rabbi On The 47 Percent: Giving To Needy Is A Jewish Obligation
(Rabbi Soffer is one of my Rabbis at Temple Israel. And an all-around cool guy.)

And yes, as some of the commentators of this article point out, giving to the needy should be a human obligation which transcends spiritual beliefs - but clearly it's not practiced as such, which for me makes Tzedakah all the more urgent, important, and meaningful.

שנה טובה 5773!

It is daylight now, a cool autumnal Rosh Hashanah morning. The sun has just cleared the 

Boston skyline and found the blue sky blameless. Sigh - I am not quite as innocent but 

then, who is? The roommate is up, shaking off the Monday blues to get ready for work. 

Meanwhile I am happy to note all my professors have responded to my notice of absence 

from their classes today with "Happy New Year!"'s. It is still disorienting (although less so 

than in previous years) to me how the secular world goes on during Rosh Hashanah. Yet 

this year - 5773 - there is something else. From within the disorientation a sense 

of special divergence, a distinguishing difference, emerges. I am appreciating how this day, 

these Days of Awe, this Tishri, and this year of 5773, exists outside the norm. It imbues 

each moment with a profound and celebratory quality that I cannot quite define, nor am I 

sure I want to. I feel no need to analyze it more than that; I am at peace and joy just being 

in it.    


Goals: 

Embrace more question marks. (One of my rabbis is quoted as saying the question 

mark is the quintessential Jewish symbol. Couldn't agree more.) Keep feeling my feelings 

(rough one, that). Trust more. Love more. Read more Jewish texts - liturgical, Holocaust, 

philosophy, Israeli fiction and non-fiction. (Fun one, that. There are not enough hours in a 

day.) Learn and speak Hebrew, Biblical and modern. Get more present with and my 

congregation (another rough one, as I am socially awkward to a fault. And yet people keep 

asking me to sit with them. See Goal #1.) And, always, keep walking that narrow bridge...
                                                                   
                                                                          * * *

I do not know who you are, where you come from, what makes you laugh and cry or how 

you love. But may you be inscribed in The Book of Life and your new year be sweet...

Call Your Zeyde

Yes, I know it is a year old. But its joy has no expiration date...

Rosh Hashanah Rock via AISH

(Mitt Romney's people called. His Rosh Hashanah message is forthcoming...)

STREET SHOFAR

"Tekiah G;dolah!"

Like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? You’ll love Judaism | Hollywood Jew | Jewish Journal

Like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? You’ll love Judaism | Hollywood Jew | Jewish Journal
Because if I have to trip over this pseudo-alt tripe everywhere I go (e.g. - a cafeteria cashier was reading pages between customers while a co-worker was gushingly singing its praises), then it's nice to have a smart, nuanced Jewish response out there...

Like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? You’ll love Judaism | Hollywood Jew | Jewish Journal

Like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? You’ll love Judaism | Hollywood Jew | Jewish Journal
Because if I have to trip over this pseudo-alt tripe everywhere I go (e.g. - a cafeteria cashier was reading pages between customers while a co-worker was gushingly singing its praises), then it's nice to have a smart, nuanced Jewish response out there...

What is my worth as a childless single Jew?

1 Elul 5772

So lately I have been wondering what my communal and individual worth is as a single childless Jew.

I know (thanks to some very long nights with the Internet’s glow as my only nightlight) and acknowledge and appreciate that I am neither the first nor the only Jew to have asked this question. What solace I derive from this, while being poignant, also feels somewhat scant. Some Friday nights all I can do is sit awkwardly among the families and couples during Shabbat services, or note how I was the only single childless person at my last Pesach, or even amid the High Holy Day crowds. (I was blessed when, having fainted during last year’s Yom Kippur – yes, I was that person whose new meds and adherence to fasting landed me in an ER – I had an impromptu escort from the congregation who knew I was without family and did not want me to be alone. Just one more reason why I heart my temple.)

This ache of mine comes with an exacting irony. For the longest time being childless was my narrative. Various aspects of my past informed this personal chronicle. While I won't share all the details I will say that seeing so many family members and friends end up divorced was influential. (Honestly, how many times can you sit with someone who has either cheated on, or been cheated on by, their spouse and not wonder if being single is the equivalent of dodging the proverbial bullet?) Also - and this is hard to admit – I was sure I would make the world’s worst parent. I had my fair share of personal excesses, which while never landing me in jail or causing anyone else harm certainly made my judgment questionable at the time. Additionally, I existed for the longest time in the back corner of what felt like the universe’s deepest, darkest closet, shackled by shame over who I was. How could I expect to raise a child to grow into their best potential Self if I could not do the very same thing? Hypocrisy and I make for some very poor sleeping mates. (If you're reading this, sorry hypocrisy.)

Some of my partners had children and we got along pretty well, although I was often told that as I was not their biological parent, what did I expect? All the same it was a particular gut-wrenching anguish to have the children I watched grow up during the course of a thirteen year relationship turn away when I came out. It felt doubly so to be told not to contact most of my nieces and nephews during this same time.

Finally, I was given the opportunity to correct a long-standing medical problem – but in exchange I would lose my reproductive abilities. If you have been reading so far you can probably guess what my decision was. I made my choice convinced I had no regrets (if by “convinced” I mean ignoring and ultimately justifying away all the doubtful twinges).

So here was my narrative - childless-by-choice, wiser than the average divorcee - a story written chapter by chapter, decade after decade. I refuse to label this a “fiction” as I think that diminishes its importance. Instead I will call it a necessary false-consciousness which I eventually convinced myself was my truth. (The sociological equivalent term for this is known as developing a “taste of necessity”.) Looking around at all the ruined marriages and relationships (including my own), seeing how the coming-out process had stripped me of so much family, I felt comfortable that I had safely distanced myself from so much costly damage and eventual wreckage.

Then I converted to Reform Judaism and so many things changed.

No doubt some of you are thinking, “Well, ye-ah”. (I know I would be.) But whoa nelly, not so fast. At the risk of sounding like Donald Rumsfeld, while I certainly expected some changes and I even expected some unexpected changes, I did not think these particular feelings were going to float to the surface and make themselves known.

   

IMPORTANT WAIVER HERE!!!! I have to tell you that my temple, from the clergy and board members to the congregants and staff, have never made me feel less-than in ANY way shape or form. I can tell you that I currently carry forward more self-esteem than ever before, in no small part because of my spiritual family. This diminishment does not stem from my environment but from me.

Yet I would be disingenuous if I said that this very same environment did not give significant importance to family-making and had no effect on me. I would be telling untruths if I said that being a happy witness to weekly Jewish life-cycle acknowledgements such as marriage blessings, baby-namings and bat/bar mitzvahs Kiddush chanting hasn't made me more aware that I am without a family. I would be less than honest if I told you that when the rabbi said I would raise my children as Jews during my blessing my heart didn't lurch in a profoundly sad way. I would be lying if I told you I never felt like a Jew with limited worth. Not all the time, mind you. Perhaps not even often. But yeah.

Of course, Jewish worth is not based upon one’s capacity to mother, father or raise a household but by I would imagine one’s being a good Jew. And apparently there have been quite a few remarkable good childless Jews before me (including my Biblical namesakes). There are also quite a few commentaries, for example here, here, and here. (Trigger warning: some promote the idea and attitude that not having children or being single is a singular “disadvantage”, which tells you something of the author’s sense of normative.)

I wish I had some clever denouement to leave you with but honestly, being this transparent saps away any potential wit. Here’s what I know as today’s end credits roll: I remain grateful for my spiritual family; I am grateful and proud to be a Jew, and I cannot believe the worth of these two truths can and/or will be solely defined for me by the capacity to have or raise a family. So I leave you with this: Rabbi Harold Kushner writes in his book To Life! that being a good Jew isn’t defined by the amount of prayers you pray or how many times you end up at your synagogue (or, I imagine, how many children live under your roof) but rather, by always striving to be a better Jew. 

I may not know where any of my answers await but just for today, that goal seems like a good place to start from.

Shavua tov!    

Five Things That Make Us Go Ummm

Five Things That Make Us Go Ummm


(Keshet is a national grassroots organization with offices in Boston, Denver, and the Bay Area that works for the full inclusion and equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Jews in all facets of Jewish life-- synagogues, Hebrew schools, day schools, youth groups, summer camps, social service organizations, and other communal agencies. Led and supported by LGBT Jews and straight allies, Keshet offers resources, trainings, and technical assistance to create inclusive Jewish communities nationwide.
www.keshetonline.org)

Goodbye, Miriam.

Goodbye Miriam.

Alone

I sit beside this grave

Hollowed out and filled in without the benefit of song and remembrance.

Just so much sand and dust and bone slipping from between my quivering fingers.

The hot wind kisses my cheek and runs invisible fingers through my hair.

In the oven-baked air I can hear the fading rattle of so many timbrels.

Around me dance the ghosts of celebratory praise.

I close my watering eyes and can see, further back,

 a young girl following a floating basket from behind a screen of riverside reeds.

A testament of sisterly love

even if later she will feel the need to question her brother’s authority.

(I have to smile. Ah, siblings…should we or God have expected any less?)

That desert wind now tickles my ear: Why are you still here? Look around - your tribe has moved on! With their every step the promised land grows larger on the horizon. Do you really want to be left behind?

No…but neither do I want to leave this spot of sand and bones in a desert of sand and bones,

to perhaps one day become a single barely-glanced-at, seven word sentence

destined to be swallowed whole in an endless tome.

The wind dries my tears and carries away my words: “!זכרונם לברכה”

I feel I can stand now, with a prayer on the edge of my parchment lips

that the blessings of her memory shall never overwhelm

all that I need to carry.

American Slavery as Forerunner to Nazi Germany? Surprise! (At least to me)

5, Av, 5772

(It is my experience that, as someone who has converted to Judaism – I am not a fan of the Jew-by-choice moniker, btw – I see my journey to and through the mikveh as a demarcation line from which aspects of Life can now be seen through a before-and-after lens. The Holocaust/Shoah is one of those for me. At some future point, when I think I have the strength to do so, I will try to tackle that subject as a whole. Good luck with that, right? For right now, I can only process it through tears and cries one piecemeal fragment at a time. This is one of those times.)

  

So there I was, two hours into a three hour, twice-weekly summer session course on race, listening to a discussion on nuances of the invention of race in the United States, when I made a disturbing connection.  In the left hand margin of my notebook (a space I often reserve for practicing Hebrew script whenever lectures become tedious) I began to write out all the identifying markers of race that were being discussed. Our latest chapter focused on the Invention of Race as a social construct coinciding with the rise of capitalism, especially in colonial (or, more accurately, colonized) North America. This theory, at least in my mind, makes perfect sense. Capitalism needs labor to thrive (i.e. – expand by making profit for profit’s sake). The Europeans who had “discovered” the “new” world had systematically decimated the Native American population through warfare and disease. (Later would come more warfare, broken treaties and forced exodus) The ongoing system of indentured slavery just couldn’t keep capitalism afloat – the poor who had either been kidnapped or bartered their way to the USA via working contract would eventually be freed or could escape and blend into the dominant population by virtue of their skin color. This simply would not do.

            Enter the African Slave Trade, already a burgeoning labor market (or so it was defined by the people of the time) for the colonies. Here was a seemingly endless supply of relatively cheap labor that had some working knowledge of the type of farming needed (especially in the South), could produce generation after generation of manpower, conveniently had no legal standing or representative voice and most importantly was readily identifiable. The text’s hypothesizes that before Columbus ever stepped foot on American soil there was no such thing as “black” or “white” (or Mexican, Asian or even Native American) as racial descriptors. Up until then differences in people was seen through the European-centric prism of “civilized vs. uncivilized”. But in the wake of Columbus’ ‘discovery’ there came the colonies, the near extermination of the indigenous peoples and the implementation of an economic system which demanded cheap labor to maximize profit, and therefore an easily exploitable people was needed to maintain it. As a result, a system of White Superiority/Domination and Black Inferiority was installed.

            

            What follows is a slow adoption of institutionalized racism which becomes hidden under the guise of generational “storytelling” which describes the differences in “races” and its subsequent racial hierarchy as religion and then religiously ordained, evolving into Manifest Destiny, followed by scientific justification as “proven” through anthropology, biology and frighteningly, eugenics. (For the Marxist theorists out there, you can think of it as a racial FalseConsciousness which once again servies the bourgeoisie.) From this “storytelling” (in addition to other sociological factors) emerges an ideology which in turn gives birth to a number of “slave codes” (later morphing into “black codes” which will inform the Jim Crow Laws). Non-whites are now framed as overall inferior races, animalistic in nature, impossible to ever be fully civilized, given to the most base human urges (especially sexual). They are animals to be used, abused, even murdered without twinges of conscience. Laws emerge which separate them from the rest of society. They cannot vote, own property or businesses. They are not seen as having any legal agency. They must not intermingle socially with the general public (therefore keeping the horrors of their lives as slaves secret). White Supremacy enforces identification based upon a purity of bloodlines (from which emerges the “one-drop rule”). Phenotype also becomes an identifying marker. At one point the popular magazines of the time, relying on pseudo-science, ponder what should be the answer to “The Race Question” or “The Black Question”.  Eugenics is given serious consideration in mainstream conversations.

Sound familiar?

            I certainly thought they did. As the classroom conversation continued I began writing down all these aspects of racism in pre-Civil Rights’ United States, noting with growing unease the similarities to The Nuremberg Laws of Germany circa 1930’s. The connection shook me. I had been long socialized and taught through the discourse of history textbooks and popular media that Nazi Germany was a social aberration, an unlikely powder-keg of a compliant citizenship, fervent militarized nationalism, an oppressive economics and of course long-standing antisemitism that only needed the spark of insane charisma to ignite. That the Holocaust/Shoah had not been repeated since seemed to prove the idea of anomaly. (Yes, let’s admit right here and now that there have been – and tragically continue to be – worldwide genocides. I will not degrade the memories of those lost or the families shattered in any of them by comparing who suffered more. That is not my point (and is a gratuitously lurid discussion IMO). What I am hoping to relate here is that the framework of the Holocaust is commonly portrayed as historically and socially anomalous and the “fact” that it has not been repeated as such since would seem to bear that out.)

Now I learn that there is a history of institutionalized racism in the United States, often left critically unexamined and therefore I will argue is purposely hidden, that not only pre-dates but probably informed Nazi Germany. The “races” were certainly different but the development of their antagonism and the mechanisms of how they played out bear too much resemblance to be declared coincidental abnormalities.

(I am sure there are those out there who will say, Steph – or whatever my critics call me – do you really think this is unique enough to be worth blog space and my time? Hel-lo, known this for years! There are whole dissertations on the subject. Get thyself down to your college bookstore already! To which I would reply that I do not doubt this personal revelation is new. Little under the sun is, to paraphrase. For me, the point is that even if this information is the most widely read chapter of all college texts, it is still not readily accessible to the general population, which I think it should be.)       

Parshat Pinchas: Women Standing up for their Rights in the Bible

Balaam and Curses and Blessings, Oh My!

17 Tammuz, 5772

An examination of Parashat Balak yesterday led us not only to ponder the nature of the biblical Balaam as prophet, pagan or both but thehistorical evidence for the real-life existence of the son of Beor (a title which has a very GoT/LoTR/FoTR resonance to it, IMO) as professional curser in ancient Middle East; and not only the juxtaposition of curses and blessings in the Torah (apparently it was a bit of a trend) and viewing Blaam’s blessing as lyrical poems but the historical perspective on the use of curses in theancient Middle East and a reading of some modern-day Yiddish curses (from which the examples below have been culled):

“Selection of Curses

from Nahum Stutchkoff's Thesaurus of the Yiddish Language

Khasene hobn zol er mit di malekh hamoves tokhter.

He should marry the daughter of the Angel of Death.

Meshuga zol er vern un arumloyfn (iber di gasn).

He should go nuts and run around (through the streets).

Vi tsu derleb ikh im shoyn tsu bagrobn.

I should outlive him long enough to bury him.

Got zol im bentshn mit dray mentshn: eyner zol im haltn, der tsveyter zol im shpaltn un der driter zol im ba’haltn.

God should bless him with three people: one should grab him, the second should stab him and the third should hide him.

A groys gesheft zol er hobn mit shroyre: vus er hot, zol men bay im nit fregn, un vos men fregt zol er nisht hobn.

He should have a large store, and whatever people ask for he shouldn’t have, and what he does have shouldn’t be requested.

Hindert hayzer zol er hobn, in yeder hoyz a hindert tsimern, in yeder tsimer tsvonsik betn un kadukhes zol im varfn fin eyn bet in der tsveyter.

A hundred houses shall he have, in every house a hundred rooms and in every room twenty beds, and a delirious fever should drive him from bed to bed.

Migulgl zol er vern in a henglayhter, by tog zol er hengen, un bay nakht zol er brenen.

He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by night.

Es zol dir dunern in boykh, vestu meyen az s’iz a homon klaper.

Your stomach will rumble so badly, you'll think it was Purim noisemaker."

Because yeah, that’s how we roll at Shabbat-morning Torah study…  

More Dances with My Muses...

Hyphens as Minus Signs

“Oh,” he smiled without a trace of malice, “so…you’re a Jew-by-Choice, then.”

As if those hyphens were actually minus signs that, when subtracted from the sum of the whole,

equaled a person somehow less-than, a fraction shy of authentic.

Oh, I wanted to reply. So…are you going to break the bad news to Sarah, Yitro, Ruth, the thousands of millions at Sinai, and Rabbi Akiva, too?

Or should I? 

*********

Lashon Hora

Sadly, tragically, I got to know you before I ever met you

In a neon-lit concrete dive - 

late night, cigarette smoke,

with cocktails over easy.

Introductions were made by way of an eager third party

who, upon hearing your fabled name, dressed you up for me in the most bedazzling of improprieties…

Of course, I saw nothing wrong as I had met so many other celebrities in this way before…

Only this time,

my last time,

I finally understood what was happening here.

In a neon-lit concrete dive - 

late night, cigarette smoke,

with cocktails over easy.

And now, whether in one year, fifteen or twenty

I will never know

the thrill unraveling that ancient mystery

of meeting you,

another human,

for the very first time.  

******************************************************

The Shape of a Jew

The Nazis got it wrong. (Of course.)

You cannot tell a Jew by the size of his nose,

the curls in her hair

or by measuring the circumference of a seemingly Semitic skull.

What Hitler could never understand was that Jews are measured

by the width of their open arms,

the height of their communal pride,

the length of their shared histories,

the depth of their curiosities

and the exact circumference of their circumcised hearts.

Queer Jewish activist. Same sentence. Of course.

(The spirit and action and unending pursuit of social justice was one of the aspects of Reform Judaism that originally beckoned me through my temple's door. It seemed that many of the activists whose  ר֫וּחַ I was inspired by were, in some way shape or form, Jewish: Emma Goldman, Allan Ginsberg, Gloria Steinem, Harvey Milk, Lisa Edelstein, Elizabeth Taylor, Kate Bornstein, Bella Abzug, Leslie Feinberg, Judith Plaskow, Barbara Streisand... Now you may argue that correlation does not equal causation and for some of the aforementioned, their Jewishness was in fact antithetical to their activism. And I would respond, yep, you are absolutely correct. Still, I believe there are no coincidences....only, perhaps, a dearth of critical analysis.

Here is one more individual who I would add to the list :) 

Gay Marriage’s Jewish Pioneer

For first time, Israel to recognize Reform and Conservative rabbis - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

For first time, Israel to recognize Reform and Conservative rabbis - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Amid the vicious anti-immigrant rallies (really? in secular Tel Aviv no less?), continuation of institutionalized sexism and lack of a substantive Middle East peace plan, this reason to hope...

Reading The Prohibition Against Homosexuality In Context - My Jewish Learning

Reading The Prohibition Against Homosexuality In Context - My Jewish Learning

Not Your Bubbe's Yentl

Let us rally for Holocaust survivors while we still can - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Let us rally for Holocaust survivors while we still can - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

This Jew Foursquare Mayor, Checking In and Checking Out.

24 Nisan, 5772

So what does James M. Curley, Raymond L. Flynn and I all have in common?

We were all mayors in Boston.

Well, to be accurate the first two were actual mayors of Boston. I, on the other hand, was a mayor in Boston. A Foursquare Mayor, multiple times, in fact. On campus. In my adopted town.  And yes, even at my Temple. Like so many other places I inhabit during my day I simply “checked in” whenever I was physically there - for Shabbat Services, Torah study, Hebrew lessons, minyan, etc. I would do this unconsciously, sometimes “stealing” the title from the current Mayor, only to watch it get “stolen” back days later. I didn’t really give any of this much thought, maybe a shrug or two. Being a Foursquare Mayor of anywhere is not exactly something to put on a C.V. or in a frame, a legacy to hand down to your children or something to teach the next generation. It is certainly not why I moved to The Bay State and especially not why I became a Reform Jew. 

But that whole not-giving-it-much-thought thing? That became the problem.

Recently I became Mayor of my Temple – again – and as a result was unexpectedly contacted by a local trendy newspaper. The reporter explained they were running a series on unique local Foursquare “mayors” and was wondering if I would consent to an interview and having my picture taken inside or outside the Temple. My first response? Great! I am a proud Jew and have no problem representing as such.

But something didn’t feel right.Something kept rolling around in the back of my brain like an annoying pebble in a shoe. It wasn’t just that the reporter wanted to take pictures of me on a Friday night. (I emailed him: Really, Friday night??? He admitted he wasn’t up on the whole religion thing.) It was wanting to take a picture of me in front or inside my Temple. My temple. That felt wrong all the way down to my core. My Temple is not a trendy newspaper article in a local hipster read or a ‘mayorship’ that can be/should be ‘won’ , ‘lost’ or ‘stolen’. This is a home to me, a place of community, shelter, even sometimes aliyah. It’s where I come for spiritual meditation, spiritual healing, spiritual questioning, spiritual family. Did I really want all that experience, all that meaning, all that joy, to be reduced to a couple of inches of clever print? Can any of that be awarded by some app?

I don’t think so. 

So I made a decision - a good decision, an authentic decision. I politely declined the reporter’s offer. Then I abdicated my Mayorship for good. I will not be checking in at my Temple anymore. I should write the reporter and thank him, thank him for reminding me that my minyan prayers, Shabbat Services, Torah study or any of my being Jewish need not be validated like this, and that what is real in my world will never be awarded via the internet or be found on the printed page (well, outside The Torah, that is).    

Pesach Sameach!

Dayenu, Coming Home - The Fountainheads Passover Song

("Yeah, you're missing with the Children of Israel")

The Two-Minute Haggadah

How to Conduct a Seder

It Runs in The Family 

Passover’s Perennial No-Show

The Ten Commandments

Family Guy's The Ten Commandments

Dayenu: Karaoke Version

Following the Breadcrumbs

Everything is NOT Going to be Okay

I'm Going to a Seder
(The Shlomones - of course)


The Passover Story of the Four Sons...Brought to Life, G-dcast Style!



Breakin' Free - Fountainheads Passover

Exodus and Revolution

“Standing on the parted shores of history

We still believe what we were taught

Before ever we stood at Sinai’s foot;

That wherever we go, it is eternally Egypt

That there is a better place, a promised land;

That the winding way to that promise

Passes through the wilderness.

That there is no way to get from here to there

Except by joining hands, marching together.” 

Michael Walzer

Life in Israel: VaYikra: The Greatness Of The Sin Offering

(Posting interesting divrei torah from around the Web...)

Life in Israel: VaYikra: The Greatness Of The Sin Offering: I don't normally post divrei torah  here on Life in Israel. That is usually, or used to be, reserved for a different blog (that has been dor...

"I Am Jewish"

Why my Reform Judaism and Al-anon no longer mix...

18 Adar, 5772

Shalom. My (Hebrew) name is Ziva Devorah and I am a grateful member of Al-anon.

Well, actually, ‘was’.

Back in 2004 my life was in need of a new course adjustment. For years I had been driving pedal-to-the-floor straight for any emotional cliff I could find, stinkily thinking that the only way to redemption was to pull a Thelma-and-Louise. My therapists-at-the-time kept subtly referencing Al-anon until I finally broke down. There were dozens of different Al-anons meetings throughout my county, most to be found inside of churches, the more ubiquitous meeting spot for 12 Step Groups. As the Program says, there are no coincidences…

My first visits to ‘the rooms’ were rocky. I would sit uneasily in the circle, ever aware of the crucifixes on the wall, The New Testaments never far out of reach. Although it was clearly stated every week that we were to surrender our stubborn will to “the God of our understanding”, it felt more like a convenient clause to dance around the unspoken truth that the God we were talking about (especially inside a church) was a Christian one. This was made manifest whenever the group leader for the week decided to close the meeting with The Lord’s Prayer. Um, secular much? As a practicing pagan at the time, I silently twitched as I dutifully held onto hands in the closing circle and tried to mentally recite the Charge of The Goddess. The other voices kept drowning me out with their earnest choir.

I finally found secular space at a local LGBT community center.  At first this seemed ideal – not only were there no overt religious iconography adorning the walls but there was a free-flowing queer aesthetic underlining the atmosphere. Shares included same-sex relationships, problems with intolerant families, negotiating public and private identities in the real world. Honestly, even the coffee tasted gay.

For five years I sat in circles and shared my shares. I would end up leading some meetings, took on the position of treasurer for a while, got myself a sponsor, even went to a regional round-up. I worked the principles of The Program into my thoughts and therefore my daily life. Certain aspects of Life slowly became more stable and in response I became more reliant on The Program. Yet some aspects nagged at me – like calling it The Program, which sounded vaguely cultish. Like the demand to surrender one’s will. Like how, although I was surrendering to “the God of my understanding”, it never felt like this was something that fit into my pagan understanding of The Goddess. In fact, it always felt like I was forcing a round peg into a square hole.

Then I moved three states away to a new city, a new population, a new home. I worked with my now long-distance sponsor to find a suitable queer Al-anon. We finally located one – in a church. The room was narrow and not very well lit, smelled vaguely of the church incense of my altar-boy days.  A crucified Jesus hung on the wall bleeding piety and guilt. Across from me loomed an imposing stained glass church window.  Maybe I should have focused more on its myriad of beautiful colors but instead all I could feel was twitch in its shadow.

     After two awkward meetings I stopped going. There were other sites but I never made it to any of them. I was having problems finding meaningful long-term employment and my living space was no longer safe. Life circumstances had become dire. (True believers, insert your cause-and-effect argument here.) As I ran about putting out all these existential fires, I checked in with my sponsor (who kept pushing me to meetings) and dutifully read my daily readings, all of which was Program-approved but never put food on a plate, a paycheck in my bank account, or opened the door to a safe space. All I was told to hang on, keep hanging on, get to meetings, meetings would solve the problems (especially if I used them as networking opportunities) something would give, something would break, a miracle was just around the corner, just keep reading, keep praying, keep going. All of which sounded well-meaning but not very practical. Somehow it seemed to imply my impending homelessness was tied to my Program-identified character flaws. If I could only figure them out and pray on them harder (???) all would end okay. 

I know this about myself - I am at my best when I am proactive, not waiting on a lottery-ticket miracle to save me.  I began investigating new beliefs, an examination which would lead me through the doors of what would become my Temple. There I found a welcoming nonjudgmental community; a new spiritual system that spoke of an interactive God; that allowed personal explorations of its tenets and promoted collective questioning. It was here I found safe space.

As I spent more time with the temple’s community I spent less time in contact with my sponsor, until we mutually decided to end that particular relationship. I have recently found it has been months since I cracked open my dog-eared copy of “Hope for Today”.  Question marks buzzed about my head - when had this happened? What had changed in the last two years that Al-Anon had increasingly less pull in my life?

Of course, there is no discussion about Al-Anon or similar programs without an examination of its tenets. Below are the common twelve ‘steps’ such groups use, an incremental progression which moves the user from self-awareness of one’s own limited power to asking for divine help through a surrendering of one’s will to a Higher Power, a listing one’s ‘character flaws’ to the God of one's understanding and another, making amends through asking forgiveness, and finally a sharing of the Program’s benefits with others:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Despite the 12 Step Program’s insistence that it is user-friendly in its egalitarian embrace of religious plurality, I can’t help but feel its platforms rest upon a very Christian-centric foundation. For instance, the first steps seem to describe a lost sinner who can never truly find real direction and achieve a blameless state, so is therefore in eternal recovery from an original sin. Then there is Step # 5 - Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs – which imply a dynamic similiar to being inside a confessional.  Steps 6 & 7 - were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character and Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings imagine a sort of baptism which erases all previous wrongdoings. Additionally, seeing the Al-anon user as intrinsically flawed through character (which actually predates Erving Goffman's notion of stigma being an "abomination of character") speaks to sin as being an inescapable state of being from the moment of conception. This ascension ends on Step 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs - a thinly-veiled call to proselytizing on behalf of The Program (which is odd since the Program also advocates “attraction over promotion” through its own Tradition 11).

Finally, there is the Program’s idea of a “God of my understanding”, which in my opinion imagines the relationship with one’s Higher Power in Christian-like dimensions. First, this rapport strikes me as incredibly one-sided - there is no interaction as the conversational flow goes from the forever recovering addict to a God who is delegated to a distantly-removed, invisible role. He also sits in judgmental via the ability to erase all sin. Redemption is granted only through a full and continuous confession which concedes a continuous need to sin, therefore setting up a constant cycle of need. Oh, and there are no discussions allowed – no spiritual probing here, no room for doubt in ‘the rooms’…all of which strike me as a very non-Jewish way to have a relationship with one’s Higher Power.

Now one could argue (as many have) that AA and Al-anon hold as many Jewish values as it does Christian/Catholic (or any other spiritual brand). Some say AA stands in perfect counterpoint to the myth that Jews don't drink. To which I say, if that’s what you believe, who am I to say differently? None of what I have written should be construed as a blanket condemnation of AA or any other program based on its model. If someone, if anyone, can draw true meaning and healing from practicing a 12-Step Program, awesome.

 I can only speak for me, and in speaking for me, Ziva Devorah Bat Avraham Avinu v’Sarah Imanu, a converted Reform Jew, all I can say is that my relationship with the God of my understanding no longer fits inside the rooms. I am surviving and thriving as a grateful member of the tribe outside those closed doors just fine.

Thank you.        

(12 Kislev, 5773

Addendum: While reading some research for an ongoing paper on shame, I came across a study by Hayes regarding 12-Step Groups and their reliance on shame and labeling theory. It struck me cold that here was another aspect of 12-Step Recovery that is no longer compatible with my being a Reform Jew. Shame and shaming strike me as distinctly Roman Catholic, the belief system I was born into. And that only makes sense - original sin and eternal damnation lose much of their attractiveness (especially as social control mechanisms) without shame. Additionally, as any missionary worth his holy book knows, you cannot proselytize (Catholicism, at least) if you cannot shame.
My experience of Reform Judaism has been the opposite. There is no overt shame or shaming; there are no ceremonial institutions built upon shame. Guilt, maybe - definitely - but not shame. As such, group dynamics which rely on shaming no longer strike me as spiritually enlightening or socially functional.)