Joy Ladin's extraordinary memoir Through the Door of LIfe: A Jewish Journey Between Genders begins with a short chapter I wish I could excerpt in full. Instead, I will link you to it; it was published in Zeek, as the essay A Blessing Over Progesterone. Here is how it begins:

Every day I say a blessing in Hebrew over my medication: “Blessed are You, O Lord our God, who has kept us, preserved us, and brought us to this time.” That blessing is traditionally said at the beginnings of holidays, on the eating of new kinds of fruit, and at any joyous occasion at which Jews want to heighten their sense of gratitude by becoming mindful of the singularity of the moment and the precariousness of the lives that have brought us to it. It is not said on the taking of medication; it is specifically not to be said over daily events, for which there are different blessings; and it is never said over a disease.

The medications I take — progesterone tablets, which I swallow whole, and sweet circles of estrogen that I dissolve under my tongue — are synthetic versions of the powerful hormones that naturally define and regulate many of the physiological characteristics of normal female bodies. I don’t have a normal female body. Born without the capacity to produce more than trace amounts of female hormones, for decades my body instead has produced testosterone, masculinizing my face, bones, muscle, hair, and skin. Though there are few aspects of my physical form unravaged by testosterone’s effects, thanks to my medication, those effects are diminishing. For the first time in my life, when I look in the mirror, I see someone who has begun to resemble — me.

Every trans person has a coming-out story. Most of these stories involve struggle for acceptance -- from oneself and from others -- and often these stories are heartbreaking. Joy's struggle takes a very particular form: she dealt with the impact of her transition while teaching at the women's college of Yeshiva University, the flagship institution of modern Orthodoxy. She writes:

Orthodox Judaism, like most traditional forms of religion, considers the things transsexuals do to fit our bodies to our souls to be sins. In my case, those sins included wearing women's clothing and taking hormones that destroyed my fertility. I was also violating customs and conceptions of gender that, while not mandated by Jewish law, are held to with religious conviction by many Orthodox Jews[.]

That conviction is so strong that Joy feared that even receiving tenure at Stern would not be enough to keep her in her job once she transitioned. And transition was necessary. "My gender identity crisis had destroyed my marriage, shattered my family, and turned me into an unwelcome stranger in my own home," she writes. Upon receiving tenure, she moved out of the home she had shared with her wife. "My children were grief stricken, angry, and baffled by the double blow of losing their happy family and the strange transformation of the father they loved."

When she explained to her dean that she was beginning the process of transition, she was forbidden from setting foot on campus. But she was allowed to return to teaching in 2008. After much negotiation (including which bathrooms she would be permitted to use), she returned to her life as an academic.

Finally, September arrived, and with it, my first happy day in a long time. After years of hiding and pretending, I was finally going to stand before my students and colleagues as the person -- the woman -- I knew myself to be. More important, after centuries of intolerance, an institution representing Orthodox Judaism was about to welcome an openly transgender employee...

My office was heaped with the same stacks of papers, the same teaching anthologies, but the name beside the door said "Dr. Joy Ladin." It was a miracle. I -- the real me -- was here, in plain sight. I walked through the halls, waiting for my transition to matter to someone. It didn't. Teachers rushed to and fro, students talked on cell phones or swayed back and forth in prayer. People had more important things to do than think about my gender.

After this beginning, we leap back in time. We see a man standing in the shower, listening to his three beloved children screaming happily with their mother, "the woman he has loved and been loved by since he was seventeen." He knows he must be burning with happiness at his beautiful family, but he can't feel it. He is numb. He speaks to God -- he prays aloud -- first saying thank you, then admitting his exhaustion. "And then, as the pain of the distance between himself and the life he is living overwhelms him, he prays a prayer he knows can never be forgiven: 'If it's okay with you, and it would be okay for them, please let me die.'"

Oh, my heart.

We see Joy as a boy (these historical passages written, for the most part, in the third person -- a fine distancing technique, and a painful articulation of the extent to which that boy's childhood never felt like her own) discovering at an early age what she was...and knowing she wouldn't be welcomed by her parents if they knew. We see her learning to pass as a boy (learning to be a boy is, she writes, a separate problem.) We see her meeting her beloved in college; telling that beloved who and what she is; and agreeing to a life in which she will hide. Thus began a pattern which would continue for years:

I would be consumed by gender dysphoria and unsuccessfully seek professional help; my wife would offer me a choice between becoming myself and being loved. It was a horrible choice but not a hard one, and with practice it got easier -- almost as automatic as averting my eyes from girl-things as a child. I didn't know what life as a woman would be like, but I knew what life was like without my wife's love.

Later, Joy writes, "My wife knew something was wrong with me, but she believed -- she wanted to believe, and I worked hard to enable her to believe -- that the problem wasn't a threat to our life together, that it was a character flaw or a neurosis, a willful refusal to allow myself to be happy. Happiness was right there, all around me, like a fragrance, if only I would let myself breathe. // But for me, being a man meant holding my breath. If I couldn't breathe as myself, I wouldn't breathe at all."

This memoir is characterized both by emotional honesty and by linguistic precision. Here's one moment from the book which moved me deeply. Joy is teaching about persona poems. She writes:

I wish I could stop talking about personae in poetry and tell my students the truth -- not just the truth about me but what the truth has taught me about the image of God. I wish I could tell them how hard it can be and how necessary it is to embody that image, to find it in oneself and to find the self that can make God visible in the world. When you look in the mrror, I want to say, you see your own faces; when I look in the mirror, I see the mystery of God's creation. Look at what makes me so hard to look at. If you can see the image of God in me, you'll see God everywhere.

The image of God manifest in Joy comes through so clearly on the printed page.

As a boy, Joy came near to suicide many times. She describes the taste of Clorox flooding her mouth (although, ashamed, she found herself unable to swallow the toxic substance.) She doesn't draw the direct parallel, but it's clear that she imbibed more than her share of toxicity in other ways. And the tough stuff doesn't magically end when she transitions. Joy is open about the suffering which she knows her choice to live as herself causes to her wife (ex-wife, now) and her kids.

Part of what I love is that she writes about this journey through a profoundly Jewish lens. She writes, referencing the end of Deuteronomy:

Three thousand years late, I had finally reached the steppes of Moab. There, before me, were life and death, blessing and curse. The choice was finally clear, but now I could tell which was blessing and which was curse, and for whom. How could the death of our lives together be life to me? How could a life that was a curse to them be a blessing to me? Easier, infinitely easier, not to make any choice, to deny, as I had so long denied, the possibility of choice, to choose, if I had to choose, to simply fade away...

But that wasn't the choice I made.

Later in the book she compares herself to the patriarch Jacob, disguising himself in goatskins to fool his blind father into giving him the blessing meant for his more obviously masculine twin Esau. But mama Rebekah, she writes, knew who Jacob really was; Joy feared that once the truth was out, her mother would never speak to her again. The scene where she describes the phone call in which she came out -- and her mother's (thank God) loving and accepting response -- made me gasp with relief.

Joy describes learning to walk again, learning to talk, learning to buy clothing, learning to make choices about her hair. I don't know why it never occurred to me that coming out as trans in this way would involve a kind of second adolescence -- complete with the acne sparked by a new inrush of hormones, anxieties about one's body and one's clothing choices and one's movements, and the horrifying fear that perhaps one isn't lovable after all. Joy describes, too, the overwhelming inrush of feelings: having chosen to be herself, to become, all of the defense mechanisms which had kept emotion at bay come tumbling down.

"You sparkle," said an old friend, the first time she saw the new -- the real -- me. "You're sparkling," my therapist confirmed. "It's like a layer of pain has fallen away, said a rabbi who had known me for years. I couldn't see that sparkle -- I felt too awkward, too raw, too grief stricken -- but I knew what they meant.

I was born cis-gendered; I can only imagine what Joy describes. But I know what it is like to find one's home, to find a kind of spiritual acceptance of which one had barely dared to dream, and to come away sparkling. (That's the word I often use to describe how I am after a few days on retreat with my Jewish Renewal community.) And Joy describes her journey so poignantly that I can't help but place myself, if only for a moment, in her new shoes.

Joy writes about needing, literally, to find her new voice in order to continue teaching, the work she loves and the only space in which she had reliably been able to feel intimacy and connection. She takes voice lessons in order to be able to speak again. Once again, I find myself thinking: this is so clearly, and beautifully, a memoir written by a poet! She is delightfully attentive to metaphor and meaning.

The scene where Joy confronts God -- "You have no idea how it feels to have your children reject you" -- and then after a moment corrects herself (if anyone understands that experience, surely it is God, from Whom we so often turn away) -- is one of my favorites in the book.

The scene where she remembers a 2002 visit to the Kotel -- perhaps the most painfully gendered space in Judaism -- makes my innards twist. I know how much it angers and frustrates me, as a liberal Jewish woman, to be denied the opportunity to pray as I would wish to pray at the Kotel (see Morning prayer at the Western Wall...almost, 2008), or to read about the harassment Women of the Wall receive when they try to participate wholly in Jewish life at that supposedly most-holy Jewish place. I can only imagine what it's like to visit the Kotel and be consigned to the men's section when one's whole being is screaming to be on the other side of the mechitzah. Joy writes:

As my son and I walk closer, I feel sicker and sicker. To approach the sacred, I have to erase what, despite all the repression and resolutions and lies to myself, I know and have always known I am.

That's in 2002. There's also a 2008 visit to the Kotel, which is poignant for all the ways in which that earlier trauma is healed (Joy is now living as a woman and can't imagine otherwise) and also the ways in which she's conscious of new and different forms of suffering. (The so-called separation barrier or security fence, which seems to be successfully keeping Israelis safe from suicide bombings, often divides Palestinian villages in half, keeping families apart.) Joy writes:

According to both religious traditions, Jews and Muslims are children of Abraham.

I certainly am. I sacrificed my true self again and again for more than forty years, and for more than forty eyars I never heard a whisper of an angel telling me to stay my hand.

But that doesn't mean the angel wasn't calling.

I still remember hearing Leslie Feinberg, author of Stone Butch Blues, speak at Williams when I was an undergrad, probably in 1994. Leslie read from the book and then spoke with us about hir life. About the fear of being pulled over, presenting as a man, when hir driver's license was still legally required to say "F." The talk was eye-opening and heartbreaking. I find myself thinking of it again as I read Joy's memoir; thinking about all the ways in which our collective task of creating a healed creation, in which no one need fear living as who they know themselves to be, is not yet complete.

"I need to feel my heart becoming equal to whatever road I'm on, no matter how steep," writes Joy in one of the book's final chapters. She's ostensibly talking about cardiovascular health during a walk on a winding rural road, but the truth of the line rings clear in all four worlds. Later, she notes, "According to my voice teacher, the only way I could find my female voice was to realize that there was no difference between what I was and what I wanted to be." Sound spiritual advice, too.

Another favorite passage: the one where it is revealed that a student (who shares my name) knows Joy's story. Joy writes:

Rachel knows -- knew -- probably has always known -- that I'm trans. When she's talked about poetry, God, dating, she was talking to me, the real me, the transexual me, the woman she knows was a man.

She sees, has seen, has perhaps always seen, me.

Bare walls, discarded computer equipment, crushed ceral, love of poetry, love of God, and all.

For what more can any of us hope than to be truly seen for who we are, and loved not despite ourselves but in and through who we ultimately are and can't help but be?

This is a brave, unflinching, beautiful memoir. If you think this is the sort of thing you would like, by all means, go and read. (And if you think it isn't, nu, try it anyway, because it's really good.) On Amazon; on BN; on the publisher's website.

Five years ago I worked with one of my nieces to put together a siddur for her bat mitzvah celebration -- a siddur for mincha, maariv, and havdalah. That siddur featured my niece's poetry, artwork, and midrash along with the basic liturgy for this time of day and this day of the week. I put the siddur online after her big weekend, and have received many requests to use and adapt it since then.

What I'm sharing now is a revision of that siddur. I've made several changes. Most notably, I've modified how I incorporate Uva L'Tzion, the prayer which speaks about redemption and encourages us to call out like the angels; I've improved the transliterations and the visual balance of English and Hebrew text on the page; and I've added a few simple images to make the pages more beautiful. And I've done a bit of abridging here and there to keep the service at a manageable length for my community.

This is a template version which does not contain any personalized material. When I use this siddur at my shul, I include the b'nei mitzvah's Torah portion (on the page which helpfully indicates "Torah portion goes here.") It's easy to also include other material from the b'nei mitzvah if s/he wants to add any creative work or special readings, and/or to customize the prayers as desired (e.g. using "Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu" or Shayndel Kahn's "It's Upon Us" in lieu of the more traditional Aleinu.)

You're welcome to make use of this siddur if it's helpful to you. I revised it for my own current use in part because my shul owns the two-volume edition of Mishkan T'filah, the Reform siddur: one volume for weekdays and festivals, one volume for Shabbat. Which is great for those with fragile wrists, who wouldn't be comfortable holding a weekday-festival-Shabbat edition all in one book...but since Shabbat mincha is in one book, and weekday ma'ariv is in another book, holding a Shabbat mincha + weekday ma'ariv service is difficult. Asking people to juggle two hardback books seems logistically challenging; handing out a simple 12-page staple-bound siddur is simpler.

This file was created using Mellel version 2.9.1; if you want to edit your own version, and you need the Mellel file, let me know. Comments / reactions welcome, as always!

Mincha / Afternoon Offering

we offer ourselves & our hearts
during the special time of Shabbat afternoon
and we call one of our own to Torah as b'nei mitzvah

Ma'ariv / Evening

a short & sweet evening service

Havdalah

sanctifying the separation between Shabbat
and what comes next

 

 

A new liturgy for Shabbat afternoon and evening
created for Congregation Beth Israel / www.cbiweb.org

ed. Rabbi Rachel Barenblat
velveteenrabbi.com | velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/

  Download MinchaMaarivHavdalahSiddur [pdf], 813 KB

I follow Mya Guarnieri on twitter, so when her post at +972 -- After race riots, Israelis celebrate holiday with African kids -- went live, I read it immediately. (The race riots in question happened last week in Tel Aviv -- I wrote about them in my post For you were strangers in the land of Egypt.) Here's an excerpt from Mya's latest essay:

After last week’s race riots, the mood in the area is dark, tense, pessimistic. While our conversations took place in public, a number of Africans told me that they are scared “even right now.” These were grown men who were frightened for their physical safety on busy streets in broad daylight.

So I was moved to see a couple of bright spots in the area. The Garden Library -- the initiative of local NGOs, including Mesila -- was up and running yesterday. Asylum seekers and migrant workers were perusing the books while Israeli volunteers played with African and Filipino children.

In the grass to the side of the Garden Library, a small group of Jewish Israelis and the children of African asylum seekers marked Shavuot by reading the Book of Ruth together in Hebrew...

This sign reminds that while racism and xenophobia are huge problems in Israel society, there are some Jewish Israelis who oppose hatred of foreigners (photo: Mya Guarnieri)

The whole piece is very much worth reading.

After posting a link to her essay, Mya tweeted "Caveat to last tweet: that bright moment does not mitigate or whitewash, in any way, the prevailing racism in Israeli society." In response, I tweeted back saying "Bright moment doesn't change underlying issues, but it does my heart good."

Mya's bio on +972 tells me that she's working with an agent on a book about migrant workers in Israel. I can't wait to read it.

I'm delighted to be able to say that my poem "In the Same Key," which appears in 70 faces (Phoenicia Publishing, 2011) will be anthologized in Before There Is Nowhere to Stand (Lost Horse Press, 2012) alongside poems by many poets I respect and admire, including Naomi Shihab Nye, Alicia Ostriker, Mahmoud Darwish, and Merle Feld -- and many poets whose work I don't yet know but am excited to discover.

In 2009, as Operation Cast Lead unfolded, editors Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler (both Jewish descendants of Holocaust survivors) issued a call for poetry. I responded to their ad in Poets & Writers, which read:

Are you Jewish or Palestinian? Of Palestinian or Jewish heritage? Please submit poetry for an anthology that strives for understanding in these troubled times. All points of view wanted in the belief that poetry can create understanding and understanding can dull hatred.

The collection which resulted from that call for submissions is now available:

In her introduction, Alicia Ostriker writes:

"Nation shall not lift up sword against nation," prophesied Isaiah in the 8th century BCE, neither shall they learn war any more.” Presently we are not holding our breath waiting for that moment. Jews have a story. Arabs have a story. Jews and Arabs can both be experts at seeing themselves as victims and the other side as implacable foes. As my engineer friend in Tel Aviv says, “It all started when he hit me back.” The story of Israel/Palestine is ugly, tragic, human. But the book you hold in your hands exists to remind you that the story is not finished.

The editors had hoped to also feature an introduction by a Palestinian poet, but were unable to make that happen. Instead they chose (with permission) to include their correspondence with, alongside two poems by, Vivian Sansour "in lieu of an introduction."

You can order the book directly from Lost Horse Press, or pre-order it from Amazon. A percentage of profits will be donated to Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (the Oasis of Peace), a cooperative village in which Jews and Palestinians of Israeli citizenship live together in a community based on acceptance, mutual respect and cooperation. (I've written about Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam before.)

Contributors to the anthology are working on setting up readings in a variety of places, mostly in the US and in Israel / Palestine. I'm working on setting up a reading in western Massachusetts for the three of us who are local to my neck of the woods; I'll post about that once it's organized.

I'm looking really forward to reading this anthology. I suspect that I will find the poems in this collection moving, heartbreaking, uplifting, saddening, beautiful -- as I find the place, and the peoples, at the anthology's heart.

Midrash holds that the children of Israel fell asleep on the cusp of the revelation of Torah. This is the reason usually given for the custom of the tikkun leyl Shavuot, the late-night or all-night study session whose name means "healing on the eve of Shavuot." The healing needed is a kind of spiritual rectification, a chance to make up for our own mistake. When we stay up late studying Torah, we are saying to God (and to ourselves) that revelation matters to us; that we want to be open to the Torah which is coming. We don't want to oversleep this time.

Curiously, the midrash also tells us that God was pleased with the Israelites, and ensured that no mosquitoes bit them that night, so they could enjoy a deep and restful slumber. Perhaps, as the author of Angels, human beings, and the Torah argues, they went to sleep because they knew they couldn't grasp the full meaning of Torah with their conscious minds. They wanted to receive revelation in their dreams. And God got that; God was pleased! But God still asked Moshe to wake them up so that Torah could be given to people who were spiritually (and physically) awake.

In the Hasidic understanding, the Torah which we know in this world is a physical manifestation of -- and also a pale reflection of -- the supernal Torah which is known to God on high. Bereshit Rabbah (a classical commentary on Genesis) teaches us that when a person sleeps, a portion of their soul ascends on high and is united with God; upon waking, the soul returns to the body. Who can know what Torah was revealed to our ancestors in that holy sleep? Their souls (or, as another midrash has it, our souls -- since we all stood at Sinai, every Jewish soul which has ever been or will ever be) ascended on high and connected with God. And then they woke up, and received revelation in a different way.

I've long loved the custom of the tikkun leyl Shavuot. Late at night, the world feels different. I can believe that revelation takes a unique form in the wee hours of the night. When I used to stay up all night for fun in college, I relished both the silliness and the philosophical insights which arose at, say, three a.m. When I did my year of hospital chaplaincy, many years later, I found that some of my deepest and most meaningful encounters took place in the wee hours. Maybe we're more vulnerable in the middle of the night. Maybe we're open to things in a way which is different than the ordinary waking day.

Of course, since Drew was born, I don't stay up so late anymore. (Indeed: he's two and a half and I still haven't shaken the habit, learned during his first year, of keeping jealous track of my hours of sleep. When I wake in the night, I can't help counting how much sleep I've managed and how much I know I still need in order to function in the new day.) I've learned since having a child that sleep is a precious commodity, not necessarily replaceable, and that when I don't have it, I don't function well.

And yet, come Shavuot -- come Shavuot, I offer God my wakefulness until the darkest hours of the night, two and three and some years even four. Over the years, I've come to see the tikkun leyl Shavuot as a mysterious blend of waking-consciousness and dream-consciousness. My body is awake and I am giving myself to the experience of Torah study: in that sense, I'm repairing the mistake made at the night before Sinai. But after a while I'm not exactly awake -- not awake in the same way as during the ordinary daytime, anyway. Who knows what the revelations may come when I'm in that strange spacey middle-of-the-night headspace and heartspace? Once a year, I have a date with God; I can lose a little sleep for that.

Still, I can't help being struck by the mixed messages in the midrash. On the one hand, God kept the mosquitoes from biting on the eve of the theophany at Sinai. God wanted to ease our sleep, to help our souls reach the deep Torah which can be accessed not with the waking mind but with dreaming consciousness. And on the other hand, God told Moshe to wake us up (and our central holiday practice is one of attempting to "heal" our error in oversleeping.) Because the spiritual, heady, dreamy aspects of Torah which we can access while we're sleeping are only part of the revelation. The other part -- perhaps the practical tangible part, the this-worldly part -- has to happen while we're awake.

This is one of the reasons I love teaching Torah poetry in the middle of the night at Shavuot. Poetry can function on levels beyond the purely intellectual. Like dreams, poems often work associatively. They recast ideas and images in new ways. Reading Torah poetry in the middle of the night feels a bit like a waking dream -- a chance to fulfil both the mitzvah of staying awake for Shavuot, and the mitzvah of opening ourselves up to the revelations in our dreams.

Chag sameach! I hope you're having a wonderful Shavuot so far.

I promised I would share the poems I taught last night at the tikkun leil Shavuot co-created by my shul and the shul up the road in Bennington. Here you go -- enjoy!

Poems of Ruth

woodcut by Jacob Steinhardt

Shavuot 5772 / 2012

Poems by Marge Piercy, Rachel Barenblat, Catherine Tufariello,

Tania Runyan, Victor Hugo, Kathryn Hellerstein, Anna Kamienska

Download RuthPoems [pdf]

One of my favorite verses in Torah is Deut. 10:19,  וַאֲהַבְתֶּם, אֶת-הַגֵּר  כִּי-גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם / v'ahavtem et ha-ger, ki gerim hayyitem b'eretz mitzrayim: "and you shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." It's a powerful ethical teaching; it's a big piece of how Ethan and I try to live our lives. (Indeed: earlier today I shared a serious post which borrows that verse as its title.)

It also makes me grin because of a multilingual pun. The Hebrew word ger means stranger or foreigner. The Mongolian word ger means a small round dwelling -- what most Americans would call a yurt.

I got interested in gers about ten minutes before I first landed in Mongolia. As the plane descended to the Ulaanbaatar airport, I saw green hills dotted with white. The little dots were sheep - the big dots were gers.

Gers are circular houses, lived in by many Mongolians and by some other central Asians. They're portable, lightweight, spacious, well insulated and comfortable. While more people know the Russian word "yurt", many Mongolians prefer the word "ger".

So writes Ethan in his photo-essay Behold the Power of String, written (and posted) in 2004, the year we built our first ger in the backyard out of "non-dimensional lumber" (saplings held together with twine.) The following year we built our second ger, this time out of latticed wood. We've reprised it every year since.

On New Year's Eve Day, we assemble the frame, cover it with shiny insulation and then with canvas, line the floor with tarps and plywood and then an assortment of old blankets and rugs. It becomes our extra guesthouse over New Year's Eve.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Some years, the ger framework has served as our sukkah, too. I love our homegrown ger. It's beautiful, it's fun to build, it's fun to camp out in. (If you can't see the embedded slideshow, you can go directly to the Homegrown ger photoset at flickr.)

But I have to admit, our old ger pales a bit in comparison with our new one, delivered and assembled by the guys from Groovy Yurts:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

(If you can't see the second slideshow, here's my Mongolian ger photoset.) The giant semi-trailer arrived on our street this morning; Yves and Felix cheerfully loaded the pieces of the ger into my Toyota Rav-4 (with Drew in his carseat, enjoying the show) and we drove it up the hill. Then I did my best to keep Drew out of their way while they assembled the ger from its component parts.

We're going to build a platform for it (it's better for the ger to be raised slightly, rather than placed directly on the -- right now very wet! -- ground.) And I know Ethan has hopes of bringing it with him to Boston at some point. But it is so cool, and so beautiful, and Drew thinks it is so nifty, that I'm not sure it's ever leaving our back yard again.

Love the ger? Absolutely.

Photo of the anti-asylum-seekers rally in Tel Aviv by Tomer Neuberg.

My friend rabbinic student Marisa James shared this photo on FB, adding, "At the anti-asylum-seekers protest yesterday in Tel Aviv - the slogan on the shirt reads "death to the Sudanese." I'd love to know where the girl wearing the shirt would be living today if her ancestors had been deported back to where they came from. Or if she would be living at all." Her comment struck a chord with me, and it's been resonating in me uncomfortably all day.

I've been reading news stories about the violence against Sudanese migrants at the recent rally in Tel Aviv. Here are a few: Hundreds demonstrate in south Tel Aviv against illegal migrants (Ha'aretz); Israeli politicians are fanning the flames of anti-migrant tension (the Guardian); Africans attacked in Tel Aviv protest; MKs, 'infiltrators' are cancer' (+972); Politicians stoke hatred for African Refugees (NIF newsletter). The rhetoric is ugly (right-wing members of Knesset calling illegal migrants "a cancer in our body"); the violence and beatings (Ha'aretz reports that "nine people were arrested, some while they were beating Sudanese migrants") even more so.

Here in the States our discourse around immigration, and migrant workers who are here illegally, can get pretty ugly too. (I'm not going to dig up links, but we all know it's out there; instead I'll link to The Damage of Anti-Immigrant Laws and Rhetoric, an excellent interview which deserves the signal-boost.) If it's troubling to mistreat illegral migrants who are seeking a better life for themselves and their families, how much more so when the mistreatment is of those who seek asylum.

Of course, there are voices within Israel -- including members of the Knesset -- who are outraged by the rhetoric and the violence. (See, e.g., Gal On: Stop Inciting Against Illegal Aliens!) MK Gal On argues that the violence we've just seen in Tel Aviv is ultimately caused by economic hardship -- which makes sense to me; when people are feeling economically and socially marginalized, they lash out at someone more marginal than they.

Violence against those who are powerless happens everywhere. And it shouldn't. But one could argue that it especially shouldn't happen in a state which aims to embody Torah ideals. "You shall love the stranger," Torah tells us, "for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." (For some beautiful commentary on this verse, and how it applies today, see Va'ahavtem et ha-Ger: Love the Stranger; also Love the Stranger [pdf] by Rabbi Mordechai Liebling.)

Jewish history is filled with exile and wanderings. Our community retains the memory of being marginalized and mistreated. When economic times were tough, time and again, we have been the victims of attacks, of prejudice, of pogroms. I'm reminded of another verse from Torah: that which is hateful to you, do not do to another. (The sage Hillel famously cited that verse as a summation of the entire Torah -- adding, of course, "all the rest is commentary; go and learn.")

In Ha'aretz this morning I read an essay by Sudanese refugee Adam Ibrahim, who writes:

If you don't want us here, don't turn your rage at us, because we have no choice. I have nowhere to go. I just want to live in safety. I agree to be deported to any African country, other than Sudan. I just want to live with dignity, without people talking about the color of my skin, and I want to stop feeling hostility on the streets.

It is important for me to say that we are not a burden on society. We work for less than minimum wage in jobs that Israelis wouldn't want to do themselves anyway. We pay rent, and make do with organizations that we established ourselves. It is hard for me to hear Eli Yishai's statements in the media. Their impact on Israelis is tremendous, since in Israel everyone listens to the news.

The state is spreading negative propaganda against us – they say it is unsafe here because of us. I feel that the Jews are doing to us the exact same thing the Germans did to them.

(That's from his essay An African migrant's plea for a few basic rights.)

Props to my friends and colleagues in Israel who are standing up against this wave of anti-immigrant hatefulness. (ETA: props to the New Israel Fund for Our Book of Ruth, which connects this situation with the book of Ruth which we'll read in a few days on Shavuot, and to Rabbis for Human Rights for Today Ruth Would Be Considered an 'Infiltrator,' Forbidden From Gleaning.)  If you're wondering what you can do to help, The African Refugee Development Center does good work, and they're raising funds to support their community in the wake of the attacks.

I'll close with a few words from Haggai Mattar, from his essay How I Survived a Tel Aviv Mob Attack (again in +972):

Morning is now up, broken windows of shops and houses need mending, and the peace is somewhat restored. At the end of the day, we must remember that most of the people in our southern neighborhoods largely live together in peace. Many try to bridge gaps and find solutions. Many on both sides know that their enemy is not the asylum seekers or the local Israeli population but the government – which is both creating this impossibly flammable situation and throwing burning matches into it. But this is not the end of the story. It is only the beginning.

What would it take to change the story -- to move from this beginning into a story of compassion and connection?

VR Podcast Episode 3: Shabbat Morning Service.

This is an experimental edition of the Velveteen Rabbi podcast. Instead of featuring me talking about some aspect of Jewish life and spiritual practice, this is a prayer service podcast -- a recording of a Shabbat morning service at my shul. I co-led this service with ALEPH rabbinic students Rhonda Shapiro-Rieser and David Curiel.

The siddur we are using is Mishkan T'filah, the current Reform prayerbook, though hopefully this recording is enjoyable (and is something you could pray along with if you were so inclined) no matter what siddur you have on hand -- or indeed whether you have one on hand at all.

The only part of this recording which is bound to a certain moment in time is the Torah reading, which comes from last week's portion, Behar-Bechukkotai. If you find it disconcerting to hear a Torah reading after the assigned date for that portion is past, you can always fast-forward that part.

Several of y'all have asked if I might consider offering prayer podcasts in this way; I'll be curious to see if this works for you! I've edited out the weekly announcements (which come at the end of our service); the recording is otherwise unaltered. It was made in a rather unsophisticated way, so sound levels may vary.

My deepest thanks are due to David and Rhonda for leading the service with me, for sharing their voices and their ruach (spirit), for playing their instruments (ukulele and sruti box) alongside mine (guitar), and for giving me permission to share this service as a podcast here.

To listen online or download:

1 hour, 50 minutes, 30 seconds / 106.2 MB MP3 file

ShabbatMorning

If you're so inclined, you can subscribe via iTunes.

All feedback is welcome and appreciated, always.

Shavuot in the toddler house


You don't remember, but
    you gathered at Sinai
        with the ganze mishpacha

the broadcast came
    in every language at once
        our spirits electrified

Torah in our mouths
    like mother's milk
        sweet as wildflower honey

You don't remember, but
    you learned the deepest Torah
        floating in my salt sea

an angel kept you company
    and taught you holiness
        you somersaulted with joy

you didn't know
    only traces would remain
        on the hard drive of your heart

You don't remember, but
    you spent night after night
        drawing down my Torah

I'll spend my remaining years
    learning the Torah of you
        every day revelation anew

This is the latest addition to my growing collection of "toddler house" poems, which I wrote -- and share -- in anticipation of the festival of Shavuot, which will begin this coming Saturday night.

"The ganze mishpacha" is Yiddish for "the whole family" -- an allusion to the midrash which says that the souls of all Jews who have ever lived or will ever live were mystically present for the theophany at Sinai. The idea that the divine broadcast was heard in whatever language each person understood / needed also comes from midrash (and is echoed in the Christian scriptures, as well.) The Torah-as-mother's-milk metaphor comes in part from the tradition of eating dairy at Shavuot. The image of an unborn child learning Torah in the womb and forgetting it upon birth comes from Talmud (Niddah 20b.)

All comments / responses welcome.

 

It's after Drew's bedtime. He's asleep in his crib. We've finished dinner. The sky is turning a glorious deep fading evening blue. I step outside to see if there are stars; I can only spot one, but I hear the first veery thrushes of the season. Their spiraling song amazes me again, and I call to David and Amberly and Rhonda to come outside and hear them with me. I say the shehecheyanu; I haven't heard this song since last year.

We return to the indoors, sit and natter a little longer. A short while later, when we go back outside, there are three stars. It's time.

We stand in a circle. I light the braided havdalah candle and hold it high, its many wicks making a bright flame which dances and casts shadows across the deck. I feel like Lady Liberty, holding my torch aloft.

We sing " לַיְּהוּדִים, הָיְתָה אוֹרָה וְשִׂמְחָה, וְשָׂשֹׂן, וִיקָר / layehudim haita ora v'simcha v'sason v'ikar" -- "'For the Jews there was radiance, and happiness, and joy, and honor' / so may it be for us!" (The quote is from Esther 8:16.) Let us be a light, I think, in the week to come.

We take turns offering the havdalah blessings -- over wine, over fire, over sweet spices, over separation -- interspersed with the melody we were already singing. This is a melody we learned from Rabbi Marcia Prager and Hazzan Jack Kessler. Some say the melody is by Shlomo; others say it's by Moshe Schur, written for Reb Aryeh. I grew up on Debbie Friedman's melody; it takes me back to summer camp and to childhood and to havdalah with my family of origin. But this other one stirs something deep in me.

Hearing it, I am mystically hyperlinked to the havdalah ceremony at the end of every Jewish Renewal Shabbat I've ever experienced. The end of smicha students' week at the old Elat Chayyim, in Albuquerque, in Ohio, at Pearlstone. The end of every DLTI shabbat and Elat Chayyim retreat Shabbat. It's so beautiful, and yet so bittersweet. It means Shabbat is over. The retreat is ending. It's time to return to ordinary life. I remember weeping through havdalah, time and again, not ready to say goodbye to the Shabbat bride or to my friends.

And yet here I am now, standing on my own deck at my own house, and I have brought those friends -- and the Shabbat bride! -- home with me. We are singing the same melody, with the same intentions, with the same heart. In our faces I see the radiance of Shekhinah.

After the candle is doused in the wine, as we sing Eliahu HaNavi and Miriam HaNeviah, David dips a finger into the kiddush cup and paints a drop of the sanctified wine above each of our eyes, an embodied blessing that we might see the world through the eyes of Torah and blessing in the week to come.

Shabbat comes, Shabbat delights, and then Shabbat leaves. But the connections we make with her, and with one another, remain.

Havdalah candle image by Kim Romain.

Ready for a Shabbat picnic.

Sometimes it's a little bit challenging to be the rabbi and. The rabbi and mommy. The rabbi and sometimes solo-parent. The rabbi and hostess. And and and.

I'm hosting two of my dear ALEPH friends here as houseguests this weekend. They'll be co-leading services with me tomorrow morning. Leading davenen with friends is truly a joy. Our ruach (spirit) is reflected and refracted and magnified somehow between us; it becomes more than the sum of its parts. And there's something about hearing these longtime friends' voices in my ears as I pray which always lifts me up.

Ethan's out of town, on a truly nutty whirlwind of a trip from here to New York to Boston to Toronto to Texas to Virginia to here again. (At least I think that's how the itinerary goes. It's easy to get confused.) And -- unrelated, but also relevant to my weekend -- we have plasterers in our house right now, on their second week of repairing extensive water damage from a formerly-leaking roof.

We're blessed to have guys who can make our ceilings whole again. And Ethan is blessed to have interesting work which takes him to interesting places! But I'm realizing, in retrospect, that this is why I've been running around like the proverbial headless chicken these last few days: because I'm trying to be the rabbi and.

Yesterday I stocked up on diapers and Drew-compliant foods for the weekend. (Mommy task.) This morning I led meditation, set the Torah scroll for tomorrow, spent a few hours working toward weekend's Shavuot and bar mitzvah plans (rabbi tasks) -- and then dashed to the store, bought groceries for houseguests, came home and popped a chicken in the oven to roast, made up the guest beds. (Hostess tasks.) Meanwhile checking synagogue email. (Rabbi task.) And making sure I had a check for our daycare provider and for the plasterers. (Household task.) And tidying Drew's toys. (Mommy task.) And putting up the umbrella on our deck table so that we can eat a quick and early Shabbat dinner outside (hostess task), since our kitchen and dining room tables are piled with drygoods and home-canned pickles thanks to the plasterers moving things around. Now I'm preparing for tonight's speaker at shul (rabbi task) and periodically checking the roasting potatoes (hostess task.)

It reminds me a little bit of the way we used to have to scurry in Jerusalem to complete our Shabbat preparations before everybody closed for Shabbat. Most stores and restaurants in West Jerusalem aren't open on Shabbat, so Friday morning and early afternoon is a flurry of crazed shopping and cooking and dashing about. But then the evening light on the Jerusalem stone turns pink and gold, and you light the candles and bless the bread and wine, and peace settles in.

I'm looking forward to peace settling in tonight...even though the "peace" of a working Shabbat isn't exactly the peace of total relaxation. I'll be back at shul tonight (babysitter for Drew), and back at shul tomorrow morning (dropping him off at a friend's house for a few hours.) In some ways, the real Shabbat menucha (rest) comes tomorrow afternoon when my work obligations are over and my houseguests and I can relax into chasing an active toddler around the backyard. Okay, "relax" might not be the right word even then, but I know it will be sweet.

Wishing a sweet and joyful Shabbat to all who celebrate.

Here's the d'var Torah I'll offer tomorrow morning at my shul; if you're joining us for Shabbat morning services (which I'll be co-leading with two dear rabbinic school friends, Rhonda Shapiro-Rieser and David Curiel) you might want to skip this post so you can hear the d'var fresh!

When I teach this Torah portion, the exhortation to let the land lie fallow every seventh year (the shmittah year) and then to let it lie fallow again in the 50th year, the yovel (usually translated as Jubilee), someone always asks: was this ever really done?

Short answer: I don't know. Some say yes. Some say no. Some point to the rabbinic argument that these laws are meant to be followed only under very specific circumstances, e.g. when the majority of the world's Jews once again live in the land of Israel.

But I think the question misses the point. When it comes to Torah, I'm just not that interested in whether or not these stories "ever happened." Instead, I want to ask: what can this text teach us about our people's core values, about our ongoing struggle to lead righteous and meaningful lives?

The Torah tells us, quite clearly, that the earth deserves a Shabbat just as we do. Just as we do all our work for six days, and take the seventh day as a Shabbat to Adonai, a "sanctuary in time," a space of holiness in which we assert that there is something more meaningful than the bottom line -- the earth, too, lives by these same cycles.

We sanctify time by marking it out and measuring it. Right now we're counting the seven weeks of the Omer, the 49-day journey from Pesach to Shavuot, freedom to revelation, which culminates in the 50th day, Shavuot itself. Torah teaches us that the earth, too, lives by these same cycles. We think in terms of days and weeks; for the earth, which lives in geologic time, the counting is in sevens of years.

We may not be able to imagine letting the entire earth lie fallow for one year out of seven -- for two years in a row when the cycle of seven sevens is complete! -- but we can learn from this week's Torah portion that the earth is made holy through rest, just as we are. Maybe this is Torah's version of the Gaia Hypothesis, the theory that all life on earth is closely interconnected into one inconceivably complicated organic system -- that the whole earth is a living being, and we are its cells.

Letting our fields lie fallow is good farming practice. But the Hasidic rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev argues, in a text we'll read today during our Torah study, that we're commanded to let the earth rest not only because it's good for production -- just as we rest on Shabbat not only because it feels nice -- but because it's a mitzvah. A commandment. We do these things because God told us to.

The paradigm of "commandedness" may not be the most comfortable one for us. In modernity, and maybe especially at the liberal end of the Jewish world, we may bristle at the notion of doing something "because I told you so."

But my teachers in Jewish Renewal have given me another understanding of the word mitzvah. In Aramaic, sister language to Hebrew, mitzvah means connection. Perhaps, then, we can understand a mitzvah as a connective act: something which connects us to one another, to our tradition, to our understanding of holiness, to our aspirations for a better and healthier and holier world.

We give ourselves, and our planet, the gift of regular rest not just because it seems like a nice idea, but because it's a mitzvah: a connection. It connects us up to the source of all blessing, and when that connection is real and sturdy and alive, abundance can flow into us and into our world.

Crossposted to my From the Rabbi blog.

If you could talk to your 16-year-old self, what would you say? What advice, warnings, or encouragement would you give your younger self?

Dear me.

Let's see, you're sixteen. Still grateful to have escaped the dire fate of "sweet sixteen and never been kissed," though it's hard for you to shake the sense that something must be wrong with you because the ones you have a crush on never want to date you. Oh, honey, that's going to get so much better -- take it from someone who knows.

You're -- what, taking AP bio, right? Thrilling at the strangely grown-up feeling of drinking hot tea made over a bunsen burner in the bio lab with Mr. Kaestner at 7:30 in the morning, before any of the other classes have begun. Taking Latin, too, if memory serves -- translating the Aeneid with Lindsay, line by gloriously ancient line. Many of the memories you're making now will last.

People talk about how these are the best years of your life. And yes: there's a lot that's wonderful about where you are now. But there's a lot that's awkward about this moment, too -- I get that. You're not sure who you want to be. You don't always feel at-home in your own skin. You're desperate to be loved and wanted, and secretly afraid that you're too weird to find the kind of connection you yearn for. (You're not. I promise.)

College is going to be so good for you. You're going to meet some extraordinary people, many of whom will still be among your nearest and dearest in twenty years. You're going to find your tribe. Indeed: you're going to find several, in college and beyond, and they will be among your chosen-family for the rest of your life.

There are so many books and ideas and discoveries ahead of you, and they are going to make your universe impossibly vast and your heart impossibly full. Oh, there's so much good stuff coming! Thandeka, The Jew in the Lotus, Jane Kenyon, Reb Zalman...

Keep writing poetry. There's a reason it feels so central to who you are: it is. Writing will always be one of your best ways to explore your own inner landscape and to find kindred spirits.

Enjoy everything there is to love about where you live now. Walk on the Riverwalk, eat Tex-Mex as often as you can possibly stand it, notice the birdsong and the scent of giant magnolia blossoms, swim in the Guadalupe.  I don't think you're ever going to live in Texas again, but you will always love the big sky.

Tell Lali and Eppie you love them, just because you can.

I know that you often feel like a square peg in a round pegboard. You're offbeat and intellectual and geeky, and that's not always comfortable.  You're not sure yet whether you want to be the girl in Birkenstocks and flowy skirts or the girl in bluejeans and a preppy buttondown. Guess what: you can be both. You can be other things you haven't even imagined yet. And you will.

I could tell you all about the quirky, beautiful, steady life you're going to build for yourself: the marriage, the vocation, the son. But you'll have more fun discovering them for yourself.

Really I just want to say: be kind to yourself. You are loveable. (You are loved.)

Love,
Thirty-Seven

I'm not sure where this meme originates, but it might be Maps by special guest Elizabeth Eslami; I first saw it at Dale's post Glimmer. Both are beautiful and worth reading.

"How about a cd, mommy?" says Drew in the car. "How about the orange one! How about Shawn!"

"The orange one" and "Shawn" mean the same thing: Morning I Will Seek You, by my friend and teacher Shawn Zevit. I like to listen to it in the mornings on the way to daycare and then to work, and apparently so does Drew. (The physical cd itself has an orange face, if that weren't clear.)

I like beginning my day with prayer. Modah ani l'fanecha -- I am grateful before You, living and enduring God; You have restored my soul to me, great is Your faithfulness. (I've written about that prayer before.) Halleli nafshi et Adonai -- my soul sings out to God, I will sing to God with my very life... (That's the first two verses of psalm 146.)

That verse from psalms came up in spiritual direction recently. I was bemoaning the reality that I still don't manage daily liturgical prayer as reliably or wholly as I wish I did, as I feel I ought to. My mashpi'ah gently reminded me of this verse, and it was a revelation. Of course! I will sing to God b'chayyai, with my life. My life is the song I sing to God; that's what I should be aspiring to. It's okay if that song doesn't always take the classical full-text liturgical forms.

Drew is at a moment in his life where he doesn't often want me to sing to him, unless I'm singing the alphabet song or "twinkle twinkle little star" or "Old McDonald had a farm." The one exception is at bedtime; he lets me sing our bedtime songs every night, curled for one delicious moment into my arms. But otherwise, when I sing -- whether it's the morning prayer for gratitude, or the Shabbat blessings -- he shushes me and tells me firmly to stop.

But apparently he doesn't mind listening to Shawn sing. I'm grateful for that! And I trust that in time, I'll be able to teach Drew some of the melodies I love best for the prayers I try to weave into my every day.

If I were to assemble a reading list, or book discussion group curriculum, on the Middle East, what would I choose? That's the question which prompted this post. This is a list of 20 nonfiction titles: some by Israelis, some by Palestinians, some by outsiders; some more historical, some more personal. I think it's valuable (both spiritually and intellectually) to juxtapose disparate voices and to open ourselves to stories we might not otherwise hear.

I welcome thoughts / responses/ suggestions. I've pondered using this as the curriculum for an in-person discussion group at my shul -- or for an online discussion group (different bloggers claiming different titles and hosting conversations about them?) -- but for now, it's just a curated reading list.

City of Oranges: An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa, by Adam LeBor

I read this book while living in Jerusalem; my review is here at Velveteen Rabbi. Here's an excerpt from my review:

The book tells the history of Jaffa (and to some extent also Tel Aviv, its neighbor) through the histories of six families: three Arab (Christian and Muslim), and three Jewish. Through letters and diaries and interviews with the current generation of these families, LeBor paints a picture of what life was like in Jaffa ninety years ago...and how it has changed, repeatedly, between then and now.

LeBor has chosen a fabulous way to make history clear. It's one thing to say "Muslims and Jews and Christians used to interact in a mode of genuine respect and friendship," but it's another thing entirely to tell the story of an Arab family attending a Jewish wedding, or how Jews and Arabs both used to gather at a Jewish-owned spice shop or an Arab-owned bakery. The stories of real families make the history engaging and meaningful...

LeBor doesn't take sides, and he doesn't editorialize -- though I come away with the sense that he loves Jaffa a great deal, and that he respects and admires all of the families he interviewed over the course of writing the book. In the end, it seems to me that Jaffa serves as a microcosm... The narratives of these interwoven families stand in for all of the narratives of every family who's inhabited this land in reality or in memory, through arrival and departure and return.

The Hour of Sunlight: One Palestinian's Journey from Prisoner to Peacemaker by Sami al Jundi and Jen Marlowe

I reviewed this recently; I think it's excellent. Here's a taste of my review:

This book wasn't always easy for me to read, but it is powerful and it is worth reading, especially for anyone who (like me) may have more access to Israeli narratives about the Middle East than to Palestinian ones... Ultimately he joins two of his teenaged friends in making a pipe bomb which they intend to plant at a fruit and vegetable market -- a story which is not easy for me to face by any stretch of the imagination. But even as he's treading this ground, he's also working at an Israeli sandwich shop and developing a crush on a young Argentine Jewish woman who's in the process of making aliyah. His relationship with Israel and Israelis is always already complicated.

Once he enters Israeli prison -- colloquially known as "university," because of the system of self-improvement and education developed there by Palestinians -- the book becomes doubly fascinating to me... Probably the most moving part of the book, for me, begins once Sami is out of prison and slowly beginning to form relationships with Israelis despite the tremendous difficulty involved in finding common ground. ami becomes involved with the Seeds of Peace Center for Coexistence, where he meets co-author Jen Marlowe. They write beautifully about that journey. That part of the book brings me both joy (watching Sami's trust and hope grow) and also inevitably sorrow (because I know, reading this now, that the changes for which he hopes have not yet come to pass.)

There's a brief excerpt from the book at Spirituality & Practice, and the co-authors are interviewed on GRITtv.

A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

Amazon says: "Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this extraordinary memoir is at once a great family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history.

It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was twelve and a half years old, his mother committed suicide, a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen and joins a kibbutz, changes his name, marries, has children, and finally becomes a writer as well as an active participant in the political life of Israel.

A story of clashing cultures and lives, of suffering and perseverance, of love and darkness."

You can read an excerpt at the NPR website.

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan

Amazon says: "In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR's Fresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation."

The author offers excerpts -- two chapters -- on the book's website.

The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine by Miko Peled (also available from Amazon)

Amazon says: "In 1997, a tragedy struck the family of Israeli-American Miko Peled: His beloved niece Smadar was killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. That tragedy propelled Peled onto a journey of discovery. It pushed him to re-examine many of the beliefs he had grown up with, as the son and grandson of leading figures in Israel's political-military elite, and transformed him into a courageous and visionary activist in the struggle for human rights and a hopeful, lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians...

The journey that Peled traces in this groundbreaking memoir echoed the trajectory taken 40 years earlier by his father, renowned Israeli general Matti Peled. In The General's Son, Miko Peled tells us about growing up in Jerusalem in the heart of the group that ruled the then-young country, Israel. He takes us with him through his service in the country's military and his subsequent global travels... and then, after his niece's killing, back into the heart of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians. The book provides a compelling and intimate window into the fears that haunt both peoples-- but also into the real courage of all those who, like Miko Peled, have been pursuing a steadfast grassroots struggle for equality for all the residents of the Holy Land."

You can read an excerpt -- the introduction, and chapter seven -- here at Mondoweiss.

A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs, edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr

This book collects the annotated letters of Martin Buber's, spanning 60 years of his thinking about Zionism. One of my rabbinic colleagues notes, "Many of us know and admire Buber's I and Thou but generally do not know the history of his whole and complicated relationship with Zionism. His is a Zionist perspective, but one which is fundamentally different from the path which history ultimately followed."

The book description on Amazon reads, in part: "Theologian, philosopher, and political radical, Martin Buber (1878–1965) was actively committed to a fundamental economic and political reconstruction of society as well as the pursuit of international peace. In his voluminous writings on Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine, Buber united his religious and philosophical teachings with his politics, which he felt were essential to a life of public dialogue and service to God.

Collected in A Land of Two Peoples are the private and open letters, addresses, and essays in which Buber advocated binationalism as a solution to the conflict in the Middle East. A committed Zionist, Buber steadfastly articulated the moral necessity for reconciliation and accommodation between the Arabs and Jews."

The Jewish State, by Theodore Herzl

This little pamphlet, written by the father of political Zionism, articulated his vision of a homeland for the Jews. (It's also available as a free downloadable e-book at MidEastWeb.) Amazon says: "Theodor Herzl was born in 1860 in Budapest, Hungary, and raised by an Orthodox Jewish father and an unobservant Jewish mother. It was quite a journey from there to becoming the founder of the World Zionist Organization and an influential figure in the establishment of the state of Israel. Fueled by anti-Semitic attitudes of late-nineteenth-century Europe, Herzl promoted the concept of an entirely Jewish state, a homeland for Jewish people, in Palestine. He published "The Jewish State" in 1896, in which he outlined a theory to employ diplomacy to get other powerful nations to support the foundation of such a nation, and thereby liberate the Jews from a constant state of poverty and repression."

The Question of Palestine by Edward Said

Amazon says: "Still a basic and indespensible account of the Palestinian question, updated to include the most recent developments in the Middle East- from the intifada to the Gulf war to the historic peace conference in Madrid."

I think these two would make fascinating reading together.

I Shall Not Hate by Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish

I've mentioned Dr. Abuelaish on this blog before -- see The Gaza war: so many worlds destroyed. Here's how Amazon describes his book:

"A Palestinian doctor who was born and raised in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, Izzeldin Abuelaish is an infertility specialist who lives in Gaza but works in Israel. The Gaza doctor has been crossing the lines in the sand that divide Israelis and Palestinians for most of his life--as a physician who treats patients on both sides of the line, as a humanitarian who sees the need for improved health and education for women as the way forward in the Middle East. And, most recently, as the father whose daughters were killed by Israeli soldiers on January 16, 2009, during Israel's incursion into the Gaza Strip.

It was Izzeldin's response to this tragedy that made news and won him humanitarian awards around the world. Instead of seeking revenge or sinking into hatred, he called for the people in the region to start talking to each other. His deepest hope is that his daughters will be 'the last sacrifice on the road to peace between Palestinians and Israelis.'"

There's an eight-page excerpt from this book available online.

Jobnik! by Miriam Libicki

This is an autobiographical graphic novel, which I thought might give an interesting perspective on the experience of a Diaspora Jew joining the IDF, as well as an interesting viewpoint on the second intifada.

Amazon says: "Miriam Libicki, an American Jewish girl from a religious home, enlists in the Israeli Army one summer against everyone's better judgment. Many qualities seem to make her unsuited for IDF life: her Hebrew isn't great, she is shy and passive, and she has a tendency to fall in love with anything that moves. If that weren't enough, the Al Aqsa uprising, a.k.a the second Palestinian Intifada, erupts a few weeks after she is stationed as a secretary in a remote Negev base. Will Miriam survive threats of terrorism, the rough IDF culture, and not least, her horrible taste in men?"

Also, this book looks like it might lighten things up a bit, which could be a good thing.

Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel and Palestine by Sami Adwan, Dan Bar-On, and Eyal Naveh

I bought this book as soon as I read the excellent review at Jewschool, which explains:

This book's simple yet ingenious innovation is a layout common to every English-Hebrew siddur: the right facing page is the Israeli narrative and the left facing page is the Palestinian side, each describing the same events. As Sari Nusseibeh's back cover blurb says, it's a "pioneering effort not only in the context of Israeli-Palestinian politics, but in the writing of history."

I don't recommend trying to read both narratives at once, since parallel chapters are real, full histories with footnotes, photos and stories. Trying to do so will give you a headache. But for the first time, opening a chapter to, say, the Balfour Declaration immediately makes both sides' claims and reactions easy to find. No skipping around, flipping to the next chapter, or trying to keep it all in your head...

Those of us versed in both narratives may be quite familiar with the different traumas important to both sides. But to see them so vividly and loyally portrayed side by side reminds me of how important efforts like this remain. For avid consumers of Middle East histories, this is an innovative quick reference guide. And for those entirely new to this issue, I highly recommend any book that is simple, clear and fair to both sides — for which this approach is uniquely, brilliantly qualified.

Occupied with Nonviolence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks by Jean Zaru

One of my rabbinic colleagues describes this as "A beautiful, short and very personal book."

Amazon says, "Jean Zaru, the longtime activist and Quaker leader from Ramallah, here brings home the pain and central convictions that animate Christian nonviolence and activity today. Zaru vividly paints the complex realities faced by all parties in Palestine - Jews and Muslims and Christians, Israelis and Palestinians, women and men. Yet even as Zaru eloquently names the common misunderstandings of the history, present situation, and current policies of the parties there, she vividly articulates an alternative: a religiously motivated nonviolent path to peace and justice in the world's most troubled region."

Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001 by Benny Morris

Amazon says: "At a time when the Middle East has come closer to achieving peace than ever before, eminent Israeli historian Benny Morris explodes the myths cherished by both sides to present an epic history of Zionist-Arab relations over the past 120 years. Tracing the roots of political Zionism back to the pogroms of Russia and the Dreyfus Affair, Morris describes the gradual influx of Jewish settlers into Palestine and the impact they had on the Arab population. Following the Holocaust, the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948 resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel, but it also shattered Palestinian Arab society and gave rise to a massive refugee problem.

Morris offers distinctive accounts of each of the subsequent Israeli-Arab wars and details the sporadic peace efforts in between, culminating in the peace process initiated by the Rabin Government. In a new afterword to the Vintage edition, he examines Ehud Barak’s leadership, the death of President Assad of Syria, and Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, and the recent renewed conflict with the Palestinians. Studded with illuminating portraits of the major protagonists, Righteous Victims provides an authoritative record of the middle east and its continuing struggle toward peace."

One of my Israeli rabbinic colleagues says, "If you are going to read one book about the Israel-Palestine conflict, read this one."

Once Upon a Country: A Palestinian Life by Sari Nusseibeh

One of my rabbinic colleagues calls this book "very informative and formative for me."

Amazon says, "A teacher, a scholar, a philosopher, and an eyewitness to history, Sari Nusseibeh is one of our most urgent and articulate authorities on the conflict in the Middle East. From his time teaching side by side with Israelis at the Hebrew University through his appointment by Yasir Arafat to administer the Arab Jerusalem, he has held fast to the principles of freedom and equality for all, and his story dramatizes the consequences of war, partition, and terrorism as few other books have done. This autobiography brings rare depth and compassion to the story of his country."

An excerpt from the book is available at the NPR website.

Shared Histories: A Palestinian-Israeli Dialogue, ed. Paul Scham, Walid Salem

Amazon says: "There is no single history of the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli historical narrative speaks of Zionism as the Jewish national movement, of building a refuge from persecution, and of national regeneration. The Palestinian narrative speaks of invasion, expulsion, and oppression. It's no wonder peace remains elusive. This volume attempts to present both histories with parallel narratives of key points in the 19th and 20th centuries to 1948. The histories are presented by fourteen Israeli and Palestinian experts, joined by other historians, journalists, and activists, who then discuss the differences and similarities between their accounts. By creating an appreciation, understanding, and respect for the 'other,' the first steps can be made to foster a shared history of a shared land. The reader has the opportunity to witness first hand a respectful confrontation between the competing versions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

My Israeli rabbinic colleague says, "The leaders and participants of this project have managed to produce a serious and constructive dialogue between working historians that really does present major facets of the history of Palestinian Arabs and the Zionist movement. Regardless of whether or not you agree with every word, this book is a joy to read and offers interest and information on every page for both beginners and professional historians."

My Father Was a Freedom Fighter by Ramzy Baroud

Amazon says: "The frontline in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Gaza is constantly reported as a place of violence and terror. Ramzy Baroud's memoir explores the daily lives of the people in that turbulent region: the complex human beings -- revolutionaries, mothers and fathers, lovers, and comedians -- who make Gaza so much more than just a disputed territory. At the heart of Baroud's tale is the story of his father who, driven out of his village to a refugee camp, took up arms to fight the occupation while trying to raise a family."

One of my rabbinic colleagues says "Devastating book about the history of Gazans through the eyes of one mans' son."

Heres an excerpt.

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren

Amazon says, "Though it lasted for only six tense days in June, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war never really ended. Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing intifada, is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Michael B. Oren’s magnificent Six Days of War, an internationally acclaimed bestseller, is the first comprehensive account of this epoch-making event.

Writing with a novelist’s command of narrative and a historian’s grasp of fact and motive, Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities—Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin—rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. And the balance of power changed—in the Middle East and in the world. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, Six Days of War is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation."

One of my Israeli rabbinic colleagues says, "This book has won praise from both friends and foes of Israel, and is probably the best history of the war to date."

In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story by Ghada Karmi

Publisher's Weekly says: "Karmi, a doctor and founding member of the British political group Palestine Action, relates her quest for cultural identity after her 'fragile... and misfit Arab family' leaves Jerusalem for England during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Ironically, they resettle in a Jewish neighborhood in London; Karmi, aged nine, quickly begins to assimilate--becoming an avid reader of English literature and befriending Jewish neighbors--despite her mother's insistence on traditional Palestinian culinary customs, dating mores and family codes. Over the next two decades, events in the Middle East make their non-Arab neighbors increasingly hostile and her Jewish friends' pro-Israel fervor grows; after the Palestinian terrorist hijackings of the 1970s, some acquaintances refuse to speak to her. Karmi becomes an impassioned pro-Palestinian activist, and in 1977 she begins practicing medicine in a Palestinian refugee camp in South Lebanon--and finds that her Western upbringing and habits make her even less welcome there than she was in England. Karmi writes engagingly, weaving Palestinian political and social history through her personal recollections and giving the age-old emigré dilemmas a timely twist."

One of my rabbinic colleagues says: "The first half of the book, that describes her experiences in Jerusalem as a child during the Nakba, is riveting."

Home to Stay: One American Family's Chronicle of Miracles and Struggles in Contemporary Israel by R' Daniel Gordis

Daniel Gordis is well to the right of Gershom Gorenberg (whose book appears below), so the two might make interesting juxtapositions -- two Americans who made aliyah (lit. "ascent" -- which is to say, they immigrated to Israel), but whose viewpoints and politics differ substantially.

Amazon says: "In the summer of 1998, Daniel Gordis and his family moved to Israel from Los Angeles. They planned to be there for a year, but a few months into their stay, Gordis and his wife decided to remain in Jerusalem permanently, confident that their children would be among the first generation of Israelis to grow up in peace.

Immediately after arriving in Israel, Daniel had started sending out e-mails about his life to friends and family abroad. These missives—passionate, thoughtful, beautifully written, and informative—began reaching a much broader readership than he’d ever envisioned, eventually being excerpted in The New York Times Magazine to much acclaim. An edited and finely crafted collection of his original e-mails, Home to Stay is a first-person, immediate account of Israel’s post-Oslo meltdown that cuts through the rhetoric and stridency of most dispatches from that country or from the international media. This is must reading for anyone who wants to get a firsthand, personal view of what it’s like for a family on the front lines of war."

The Unmaking of Israel by Gershom Gorenberg

I'm a longtime fan of Gershom's writings at his blog South Jerusalem. Here's Amazon's description:

"In this penetrating and provocative look at the state of contemporary Israel, acclaimed Israeli historian and journalist Gershom Gorenberg reveals how the nation’s policies are undermining its democracy and existence as a Jewish state, and explains what must be done to bring it back from the brink. Refuting shrill defenses of Israel and equally strident attacks, Gorenberg shows that the Jewish state is, in fact, unique among countries born in the postcolonial era: It began as a parliamentary democracy and has remained one. An activist judiciary has established civil rights. Despite discrimination against its Arab minority, Israel has given a political voice to everyone within its borders.

Yet shortsighted policies, unintended consequences, and the refusal to heed warnings now threaten those accomplishments. By keeping the territories it occupied in the Six-Day War, Israel has crippled its democracy and the rule of law. The unholy ties between state, settlement, and synagogue have promoted a new brand of extremism, transforming Judaism from a humanistic to a militant faith. And the religious right is rapidly gaining power within the Israeli army, with possibly catastrophic consequences.

In order to save itself, Gorenberg argues, Israel must end the occupation, separate state from religion, and create a new civil Israeli identity that can be shared by Jews and Arabs. Based on groundbreaking historical research—including documents released through the author’s Israeli Supreme Court challenge to military secrecy—and on a quarter century of experience reporting in the region, The Unmaking of Israel is a brilliant, deeply personal critique by a progressive Israeli, and a plea for realizing the nation’s potential."

You can read excerpts from Gorenberg's book at Slate: The Mystery of 1948, Israel's Old-Time Religion.

I should also mention Emily L. Hauser's excellent reading list Reading the Conflict: An Israel/Palestine reading list, and the Middle East Books Bibliography, from which some of these recommendations were drawn.

To all who celebrate, I wish a happy Mother's Day! Here's to mothers of all kinds: our mothers and grandmothers, the "other mothers" (caregivers and teachers and nannies) in our lives, to we ourselves who are mothers -- may we all feel rightly celebrated today. And to all who struggle with infertility and miscarriage, for whom today may bring more sorrow than celebration, may that sadness be soothed and healed.

As mother's day has approached, I've been thinking again about how best to get Waiting to Unfold, my collection of mother poems, out there into the world. I remain hopeful that someday it will see print! Meanwhile, in honor of the day, I'll reprint the final poem from that manuscript here. Enjoy!

ONE YEAR (MOTHER PSALM 9)

A psalm of ascent

 

When the doctor brought you
through my narrow places
I was as in a dream: tucked behind
my closed eyes, chanting silently
we are opening up in sweet surrender.
The night before we left the hospital
I wept: didn’t they know
I had no idea what to do with you?
Even newborn-sized clothes
loomed around you, vast and ill-fitting.
I couldn’t convince you to latch
without a nurse there to reposition.
But we got into the car, the old world
made terrifying and new, and
in time I learned your language.
I had my own narrow places ahead,
the valley of the postpartum shadow.
Nights when I would hand you over,
mutely grateful to anyone willing
to rock you down, to suffer your cries...
But those who sow in tears
will reap in joy, and you
are the joy I never knew I didn’t have.
I have paced these long hours
bearing a baby on my shoulder
and now I am home in rejoicing,
bearing you, my own harvest.

(If you're so inclined, you can read the commentary I offered when I first posted the poem back in November of 2010.)

Via this post at Jewschool I found a pretty wonderful piece of community media called Mind the Gap in Crown Heights:

(If you can't see the embedded video, above, you can go directly to it at YouTube.)

This is a radio and film piece made as part of Radio Rookies, "a New York Public Radio initiative that provides teenagers with the tools and training to create radio stories about themselves, their communities and their world." Here's how the video is described on YouTube:

Four teenage girls, all new immigrants from the Caribbean, arrive at a high school in the heart of what was the epicenter of the Crown Heights riots 20 years ago. As newcomers they know nothing of the long history of tension between the Black and Lubavitch Jewish communities in the neighborhood. They set out to try to educate themselves about a culture so different from their own, in the midst of stereotypes and misinformation about Jewish people.

Editor's Note on video: The Crown Heights Community Mediation Center works to improve inter-group relations in Crown Heights by creating a safe space where people of different backgrounds are encouraged to discuss hard conversations, through activities and workshops. For example, the scene in the video where Amy Ellenbogen, the Center's Director, poses a statement about co-existence in the neighborhood is a part of a game, "The Human Barometer", where participants move to different parts of the room to show if they agree, disagree or feel neutral about the issue.

It's wonderful to be able to watch and listen as these four girls from the Caribbean begin to learn about their Chabad Lubavitch neighbors -- and vice versa. Of course, the encounter isn't always comfortable or easy; but I give these kids props for their curiosity and their genuine desire for encounter.

As I think on it, there are a lot of stereotypes which could stand to be shattered not just in the Jewish communities' relationships with the broader world, but within our own communities, too. For instance, the liberal Jewish kids I teach and the young people who attend yeshiva in a Chabad setting -- those are groups of youngsters who never have a chance to connect and who almost certainly have all kinds of unconscious prejudices and misconceptions about one another. I guess that's always true.

I wish it were more possible to create more of these kinds of encounters, both within the Jewish communities and between our communities and others! But meanwhile, kol hakavod -- mad props -- to Selena Brown, Chantell Clarke, Sabrina Smith, and Tangeneka Taylor for going outside their comfort zome and making something really wonderful.

For more on this:

In Crown Heights, Getting Past Stereotypes Through Learning, in the New York Times

THE ONE WHO TURNED BACK

Maybe you envisioned
your husband's grave
choked with weeds

maybe you knew
the Israelites would scorn
your foreign features

the sages say
God gave you four sons
because you wept as you left her

the pundits whisper
once Naomi was gone
you spread your legs for anyone

did the men of Moab
grind your body
like bruised corn

did you birth Goliath
and rend your garments
when you lost him too

did you live for centuries
destined for the sword
of one of David's men --

or did you bathe
your aging parents
and die a quiet spinster

comforted by the scent
of the wild rosemary
outside your childhood home?

In preparation for the lesson I'm going to teach at my shul's Tikkun Leil Shavuot (late-night Torah study gathering -- beginning 9pm, Saturday May 26; let me know if you want to join us!), I've been collecting poems arising out of the Book of Ruth. (Including my own The Handmaid's Tale (Ruth), which I posted here last year.)

To my surprise, no one seems to have written any poetry (contemporary or otherwise) about Ruth's fellow sister-in-law Orpah. So I settled in to see what I could write.

Most of the details in this poem come from classical midrash about Orpah -- there's a good online compilation in English at the Jewish Women's Archive called Orpah: midrash and aggadah. The final two stanzas have no basis in classical tradition, and come purely out of my own imaginings.

I welcome whatever response(s) this poem evokes in you.

Sometimes I think about what might surprise Drew, later in his life, when we tell him stories about before he was born or about his early years. The first time we ever did a video-skype call with my mother in Texas, she told him a story about being a little girl on a party line, and I thought: wow, we have come an incredibly long way, technologically speaking, since his grandma was a girl. To Drew, the fact that we sometimes "have dinner with" his Texas grandparents via Skype is entirely ordinary. He's never lived in a world where that wasn't possible.

Drew isn't old enough to know what a President is, but someday he'll learn that his parents voted in the historic election in which we elected our first African-American president. (I even wrote a Torah poem about it.) Drew has a deck of Presidential cards (like baseball cards, but featuring Presidents; picked up in the dollar bin at Target, I think) and when he scatters them on the floor, they are a sea of white faces -- all except for one. But maybe by the time my grandchildren are ready to vote, it won't be so remarkable anymore to think that this nation could (begin to) overcome its legacy of racism in this way.

Drew also isn't old enough to know what marriage is, though I'm grateful that he's growing up in a state in which gays and lesbians have the same right to marry as male-female couples do. His lesbian aunties on his dad's side were married here some years ago. His mama the rabbi officiates at gay weddings with great delight. And now we have a President who has openly affirmed his support for gay marriage, too.

I hope that by the time Drew is old enough to understand, the notion of a state passing a law against gay marriage will seem as misguided, plainly hurtful, and outdated as the notion of a state passing a law against someone of one race marrying someone of another. (I'm far from the first to note the painful similarities there.) I don't know who Drew will love; right now I'm pretty sure he loves his family and his friends and Thomas the Tank Engine, and that's as it should be. But I hope and pray that by the time he's ready to marry, if and when that day comes, he (and his generation) will have the right to marry, period. And not just in a handful of states, but anywhere in this country.

Because marriage is awesome. Getting married means standing up beside someone you love and speaking words which change your relationship to one another in a magical, powerful, and honest-to-God holy way. And after you get married, you get to be married, which is even better. Being married means loving someone, growing and changing along with someone, meeting the highs and the lows of a lifetime along with someone, navigating the bills and the laundry and the household chores with someone, discovering how lovemaking changes after ten and fifteen and fifty years with someone, learning from someone, giving to someone, for as much of a lifetime as you can manage.

Of course people can do those things without being married. But being married is is one of humanity's most time-honored ways to do them. And I'm grateful to have a President who supports the ability of my queer friends and loved ones to enjoy the same rights and privileges that my husband and I are blessed to receive. Shehecheyanu, v'kiyimanu, v'higianu lazman hazeh!