Crossposted from Pursue. Jewschool is a co sponsor of Inside the Activists’ Studio.
On Sunday, May 20, Pursuers in NYC will gather for Inside the Activists’ Studio: Finding Your Voice in a Global Movement. The event will feature an incredible array of local Jewish change-makers speaking on a panel, presenting workshops, or performing. As a sneak peek, we chatted with workshop presenter Emily Saltzman, who will co lead a workshop with Erin Markman (click to read her interview).
What inspires you to work on issues of allyship (being an ally)?
Mutual learning and meaningful connection inspire me to do this work. Learning from and reflecting on personal relationships is one of the main ways that I have seen myself grow over the years. I find human connection to be incredibly powerful, so I hope to work toward removing barriers that would prevent that connection from occurring. For me, true allyship is an integral part of organizing for folks who hold privileged identities and should not be taken lightly. I do this work because one of the effects of oppression is that it dehumanizes us. It prevents us from connecting to each other in meaningful ways or it can stop us from connecting at all. Many of us have heard of stories where folks–typically white–work in mixed-race spaces in hopes of delving into their own experience in their privileged identity. This can most certainly be helpful and challenge folks to think deeply about the spaces that they occupy, although many times it falls on the folks of subjugated identities to educate the others. It is for exactly this reason that folks with privileged identities need to also have space to process their experience, socialized ideas and internalized superiority. There are feelings, values, thoughts and hurtful language that needs to be processed and challenged prior to and alongside all-identity organizing. While these spaces can be incredibly helpful and transformative, they can become problematic if not done alongside organizing in spaces where a variety of identities are present.
Allyship is taking a stand–both internally and externally–where we can use our privileged identity (or identities) to elevate an issue that is often silenced. Developing an ally identity allows us to challenge ourselves internally while also providing space to challenge other members of our privileged identity group externally. A large part of ally identity development is knowing when to step back and simply be present, which can be quite a challenge. The allyship development process is constantly evolving and non-linear in nature, which can also cause us to want to “give up” or “check out.” We need to take the necessary measures to support our development and connect with folks that can nourish this process while simultaneously holding us accountable.
How does your Jewish identity relate to what you do?
Growing up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, I was not connected to a Jewish community, and I didn’t learn how to integrate Jewish values into my social justice work until moving to New York City. I felt drawn to issues of social justice, equality and equity from a young age, but I did not have strong Jewish leaders that modeled this work for me. My family was one of a handful of Jewish families in my suburb, and I was often treated as an anomaly by friends and teachers. While I did not experience overt anti-Semitism until college, I did feel isolated and alone at times. I was commonly used as the “token Jewish person” in class to discuss the young adult classics like Number the Stars and The Devil’s Arithmetic. At the time I felt special and excited that my classmates and teachers wanted to discuss a section of Jewish history but, looking back, the support was empty and fleeting once the reading unit was over.
I mention this all to say that seeing the world through a Jewish lens has greatly affected my career and organizing path. To be seen as an “other”–overtly and covertly–allows one to begin noticing the social hierarchy. Fortunately I was never harassed to the point of violence, but these formative experiences stayed with me into adulthood.
When I moved to New York, I was bombarded with so many different illustrations of Jews and Judaism that it was difficult to tease out what felt right for me. Participating in AVODAH allowed me to see the connection between Judaism and social justice for the first time. My experience in AVODAH was unique in that I took part in very few Jewish learning opportunities prior to becoming a Corps member, so nearly everything we discussed in AVODAH was new to me. I was so intrigued–and thrilled–that there were younger Jews like me who had figured out a way to integrate Jewish culture, values and traditions into social justice work. After leaving AVODAH, I continued to pursue social justice ventures through my graduate program and noticed that so many of the folks I met were also queer-identified Jews. The active queer and trans community of Jewish organizers continues to support my journey. The resiliency and creativity that stems from this intersection inspires me both personally and spiritually to do this work.
What are you most excited about at Inside the Activists’ Studio?
I am thrilled to be part of such an energizing and exciting event! I have been disconnected from Jewish-based organizing for a while and I’m very much looking forward to learning from my peers and re-awakening this piece of myself. Oh, and I’m also looking forward to the delicious treats from Adamah!
Why should folks come to your IAS workshop?
Folks should join Erin and I if they are feeling stuck in their current ally identity journey, want to think deeply about how they wish to take a stand (internally and externally), are interested in learning from others’ experiences, are looking to form connections with folks doing similar work, and are interested in developing an accountable space to support this dialogue.
In addition to her own distinguished career, Achinoam Nini (aka Noa) has a history of working on behalf of peace and reconciliation. Notably, she has partnered with Israeli-Arab singer Mira Awad, a Christian and resident of Haifa, on a concert tour and as the country’s entrants 2009 entrants into the Eurovision contest. This creative collaboration brought them wide attention around the world, mostly of the positive sort.
On Yom Hazikaron, the acclaimed international Israeli musical artist performed for a gathering of Combatants for Peace, an organization of former fighters and their families on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This recent performance brought on attention of a much uglier, vile sort from extremist corners in Israeli and North American Jewish corners.
Calling her “Garbage” and “Rat” and far worse. They’ve taken to facebook calling for a boycott of Noa’s performances, and Noa has responded.
My new go-to primer on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine, published by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East (PRIME), a team of 24 joint researchers and educators in the region. And though it’s intended more for educators than for armchair historians, it’s supremely innovative and recommended for us all.
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. More »
Jewschool founder Mobius aka Dan Sieradski is part of the panel at this very interesting event at the 14th Street Y on “The Future of Jewish Culture.” A full press kit is here. A quick look at the panel shows it covers not only various sectors but geographies and aims to address a significant amount of ground in an evening:
“After a decade of flourishing Jewish creativity, major Jewish cultural enterprises are being forced to scale
back operations or close entirely. Using recent funding cuts as a springboard to examine the most pressing
issues facing new Jewish arts and culture, “Now What?” addresses:
New perspectives on American Jewish identity
Waning support for quality Jewish art and culture
Strategies for cultivating Jewish art and culture in the future”
May 15, 2012 7pm, 14th Street Y, 344 East 14th Street (between 1st and 2nd Ave.), New York, NY 10003
If you’re in the area and are interested, sign up here. Naturally, this is a subject that deserves and requires significantly more time than a single evening. The need to advocate for, plan and implement a national Jewish Cultural Policy could be the focus of a week long conference with representatives from major communal institutions and umbrella organizations, local presenting arms and various elements from artists and performers to independent organizations. It could also be a great panel to recreate at the General Assembly because the message points need to be heard by people who hold the purse strings and those who put the money in that purse
Michael Dorf has attempted similar efforts at International Jewish Presenters Association Schmooze conferences which tried to create a Jewish SXSW on the heels of the annual APAP Conference. FJC did a bit of planning and even implementation with its New Jewish Culture Network. All of these have been significant achievements but none go far enough. We need buy-in from establishment organizations and entities, these efforts fall short.
As someone who runs a Jewish cultural initiative, I’m very interested in this and am excited that its taking place. I’d be interested to know who’s attending and if any funders or folks from the institutional community will be within earshot. And of course, as a non-New Yorker, I’m glad to see there’s three other regional centers represented on the panel.
On Sunday, May 20, Pursue NYC, together with New Israel Fund-New Generations and the Young Leaders of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), presents Inside the Activists’ Studio: Finding Your Voice in a Global Movement. The event will feature an incredible array of local Jewish change-makers speaking on a panel, presenting workshops, or performing. As a sneak peek, Pursue chatted with workshop presenter Erin Markman.
What inspires you to work on issues of allyship (being an ally)?
The pursuit of liberation and love! That might manage to sound both grandiose and trite, but I really, deeply, mean it. I want to work toward a world where we all strive to be allies to one another, recognizing the systemic oppressions that circumscribe our lives and the interpersonal oppressions we perpetuate, and working collaboratively to undo both. That’s what’s going to make our movements work. It’s what’s going to move us forward together.
I want to do my best every day to hold myself accountable in the domains in which I have institutional privilege—being white, or able-bodied, or cisgender, for example. I want to hold myself accountable for assumptions, for microaggressions, for the false histories I’ve been taught, for the “-isms” I enact, for the oppressions that live inside me. I want to hold myself accountable to speak up, to challenge systems, policies, and practices that perpetuate oppression, especially when that act of challenging feels frightening. And I want as many relationships as I can get that make allyship explicit. I want relationships with people who expect allyship from me, who feel they can hold me accountable when they want to, who feel they can call me out in the moment or send me an email after the fact. I want to be told when I’ve hurt someone unintentionally. I want to be told when someone feels I’m missing, or misunderstanding, or misrepresenting an idea because of my privilege. I want that kind of accountability not as an academic exercise but as a lived component of interpersonal relationships. And I want to be given permission to hold others accountable as well. I want that accountability because I think it’s necessary to move us all toward where we want to go.
I want this with the urgency and rage and pain that oppressive systems elicit, but I’m trying hard not to let my desire to be an ally be driven by guilt (though I certainly still grapple with guilt). I want it to be about love. Because I don’t think I can love fully without consistently being in the process of undoing and relearning, of fighting against policies and practices of oppression and also fighting what I’ve internalized. Pursuing an ally identity is always messy and often painful and never-ending, but it is also a process full of love. It’s how I’ve loved my friends the best, and it’s how they love me best as well.
Systems of oppression, including the ones that bestow privilege on us, contribute to a world that robs us all of our humanity. The act of fighting against those systems which benefit oneself is, in my mind, in the service of pursuing mutual liberation. Audre Lorde makes the point beautifully:
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is any one of you.”
How does your Jewish identity relate to what you do?
My Jewish identity is something that I’m still in the process of building and shaping and probably always will be! Allyship informs that process a lot. I love working with my Jewish friends to cultivate a Jewish identity that is rooted in anti-oppressive thinking and action and in which allyship plays a central role. For example, I’ve loved using a haggadah at our Seders that we’ve worked together to modify—building in discussions of racism, LGBTQ identities, and liberation struggles around the world. For me, that’s how my Jewish identity grows, and it often feels very joyful and playful. But there are real challenges as well. I’ve seen Jewish identity arise in very complicated ways in conversations about white privilege, for example. I’m working to cultivate a Jewish identity that pushes me to examine my white privilege and how I can take action to be a white Jewish ally. I want a Jewish identity that pushes me to be an ally to Palestinians. I want a Jewish identity that pushes me to address Islamophobia in the U.S. I want a Jewish identity that pushes me to stand up against all oppressions, and to ask others to do the same, all while authentically challenging anti-Semitism as it arises. I’m not there yet, but all of this work is about process!
What are you most excited about at Inside the Activists’ Studio?
I’m most excited about learning and building community. I love intentional spaces where we all come together to build and share. I’m very appreciative that the space has been organized—I know how hard that is—and I’m really looking forward to being a part of it.
Why should folks come to your workshop?
Folks should come to challenge themselves to think deeply and broadly about what it means to be an ally and why allyship matters to our movements, our relationships, and our internal selves. And they should come to challenge me, too! Our workshop is designed to be a site of group learning, in which we as facilitators are also learning, and I’m really looking forward to that. So I hope that people come to learn with me, bringing their experiences and sharing their stories. I anticipate it will be challenging and dynamic and will allow people to bring their full selves to the space.
Rabbis for Human Rights continues their efforts to persuade Efi Stenzler, JNF’s World Chairman, and Russell Robinson, CEO of JNF-USA, to stop planting on legally disputed land in Al-Arakib. Click here to send these two officials an email, see further details below the fold. More »
Crossposted from Pursue. Jewschool is a co sponsor of Inside the Activists’ Studio.
On Sunday, May 20, Pursue NYC, together with New Israel Fund-New Generations and the Young Leaders of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), presents Inside the Activists’ Studio: Finding Your Voice in a Global Movement. The event will feature an incredible array of local Jewish change-makers speaking on a panel, presenting workshops, or performing. As a sneak peek, Pursue chatted with workshop presenter Sarah From of Do Your Best Work about how she found her own voice:
What inspired you to work on issues of personal ecology with activists?
Over a decade of work in nonprofits, I saw how lack of sleep, email overload, unmindful leadership, and inadequate personal organization could hinder the work. As I began to experiment with different strategies and tools to manage my own workload, I became more interested in the bigger picture. That is, how does the way we work for social change reflect the values we are fighting for? And what’s the cost if we’re changing our communities and the world but running ourselves into the ground in the process? The work I do now is to help social change leaders and organizations identify new ways of working that promote sustainability, productivity, and alignment with purpose and values.
How does your Jewish identity relate to what you do?
Four years ago, I was working on criminal justice reform and on the verge of burnout when I attended a Selah leadership retreat. There, I learned how personal sustainability could be rooted in Jewish tradition. The big “a-ha” for me was that as a Jew, I am obligated to work for justice and I am obligated to rest. Too many Jewish social justice activists take the first obligation seriously and ignore the second.
What are you most excited about for Inside the Activists’ Studio?
I’m excited to provide space for activists to identify new and more sustainable ways of working. I love helping people who are both incredibly passionate and incredibly overwhelmed to find more spaciousness in their work and non-work lives.
Why should folks come to your IAS workshop?
Our movements are only as vibrant as the quality of the energy we are able to bring to them. By attending to your own sustainability, you can better use your time, energy and attention in service to the world you want to create.
Half Jewish Beastie Boy Adam Nathaniel Yauch (aka MCA, aka Nathaniel Hornblower) has passed away after a three year battle with cancer. He was 47. He was a practicing Bhuddist and active in many Tibetan causes. His passing comes a moth after the seminal hip hop act was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Share your Beastie Boys thoughts in the comments.
This is the final post from our guestposters, Rae Abileah and Ariel Vegosen, Jewish Voice for Peace volunteer youth activist members on the ground at the United Methodist general conference leading up to the divestment vote.-ed.
When it comes to the nonviolent tactic of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, the United Methodist Church now has B and S covered. But without the D, is it just BS? No, not entirely.
Yesterday, May 2, the 2012 General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) failed to pass a measure to divest from three companies – Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and HP – profiting from Israeli occupation and human rights abuses of Palestinians, but succeeded in resolving to boycott Israeli settlement products. We were in Tampa at the UMC conference this past week as part of a Jewish advocacy team for boycott and divestment, and returned home to the San Francisco Bay Area just a day before the vote took place. Yesterday we watched the UMC livestream, twitter and twitter feed on the edge of our seats. The outcome was a deeply divided church that takes a firm stand against Occupation but isn’t yet willing to put its money where its values are. And “yet” is the operative word here, because the church is clearly now one step closer to a day when this will happen. More »
It won’t come as any surprise that the mission of repairing the world takes on many forms, including that of advocacy for the social rights of various groups. We have historically seen Jews and Jewish organizations at the forefront of rights based campaigns. In the 50s and 60s it was in the civil rights movement. More recently, we have been active in support of Darfur in opposition to a 21st Century genocide.
A century ago, we’d be talking about the Jewish role in the fights for labor rights, the 8-hour working day and workplace safety. But rather unlike today, those fights were not for some other oppressed group, but by and for Jewish workers, as part of the American labor movement.
In recent years, a thriving social justice movement has emerged that includes service-oriented Jewish organizations. These include Avodah and Bend the Arc, who joined previously established groups like the Workmen’s Circle, Jewish Labor Committee, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. Recent campaigns that received support from Jewish organizations include the fight for a domestic workers’ bill of rights and for agricultural workers raising tomatoes in Florida. More »
Not to get too overwrought, but here’s my blog post in response to a Zionist Organization of America press release in response to my JTA op-ed in response to their JTA op-ed. Throughout the press release, notice how many of my points are avoided by going on an ad hominem rampage against me.
NEW YORK, May 1 – David Wilensky’s op-ed on “the correct use of Title VI” (Apr. 27, 2012) was an amateurish attempt to condemn an important new legal tool for Jewish students who are now protected from anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation and discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. He claims that the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) – which spearheaded the effort to achieve this civil rights protection – is misusing Title VI “to stifle legitimate discourse” and as a “bludgeon” to advance “far-right political viewpoints.” These ridiculous charges are baseless. Wilensky cites no evidence for his claims, merely engaging in silly name-calling.
I don’t know where they got “‘the correct use of Title VI’” from, but it doesn’t appear anywhere on the version of it on the JTA website. Given that they got the date wrong by about week (it was published on 4/18, not 4/27), I’m gonna guess that the mystery phrasing and the incorrect date were taken from the publication date and headline that accompanied my op-ed in one of the local Jewish papers that runs JTA material on about a one-week delay. (I could take a cheap shot at the ZOA for being so web incompetent that they don’t have a Google alert set up for the name of their own organization, but that would be “silly name-calling.”)
Speaking of which, can anyone point me to the part of my op-ed where I engage in “name-calling” of any sort — “silly” or otherwise? (Rest assured, when I do engage in name-calling I take it quite seriously.)
As for my writing being “amateurish,” I guess the “-ish” suffix lends that some validity as an opinion. As it turns out, I make my living doing this writing thing so I’m technically the opposite of an amateur. I hasten to point out that Klein and Tuchman are the amateurs here. I don’t know much about Tuchman, but she’s lawyer. Klein on the other hand is a well-known pillar of the professional reactionary community. I don’t think much of this screed, but since I’m no professional paranoia-peddler, I’ll refrain from passing judgement on its level of amateurishness. More »
I wrote recently about how certain Jewish organizations need to stop talking shit about Occupy and instead capitalize (you’ll pardon the pun) on the shared history of Jews and revolutions for social and economic justice in order to engage young Jews. Today, certain Jewish organizations, would be another in a long line of excellent opportunities to do that, as thousands of people take the streets for International Workers’ Day.
I’m not going to rehash the history of Jews in the labor movement, or point out the irony of right wing Jews trying to distance themselves from Occupy in light of that history. May Day demands that we remove ourselves from the daily practice of exploiting of ourselves.s. We won’t work, we won’t use the bank, we won’t go to school, or at least, we won’t do these things in the way we normally do them, and we’re asking everyone to take the streets, instead of asking others to do what we would not. We’ll gather together in public space, celebrating the possibility of a different world, while refusing to participate, for at least today, in the one that’s broken. Sound familiar?
Of course, there will be many, many ruckuses, as there should be on the way to fighting back. See you in the streets! More »
This is a guest post by David Kelsey. David is a former baal teshuvah who left ultra-Orthodoxy after witnessing the dark side of Jewish fundamentalism. He is a proud fourth generation secular Jew who has written about the recruitment techniques of kiruv organizations and their Liberal backers on Jewschool before, especially NCSY and the Jewish Student Union (JSU).
The Washington Post has shamefully printed an advertorial for Aish HaTorah in DC without even marking it as such.
In September, Aish will launch a new Sunday School program for children ages 5-13, encouraging diversity, and imbuing the vibrancy, relevance and joy of Jewish life, regardless of background or affiliation.
In fact, despite Rabbi Buxbaum’s denunciation of “labels and sects,” Aish promotes a specific brand of black hat Judaism, which includes contempt not only for secular and Liberal Judaism, but even Modern Orthodoxy. More »
This is the second of a three-post series from Jewish Voice for Peace volunteer youth activist members on the ground at the United Methodist general conference leading up to the divestment vote. The second post is from Rae Abileah. -ed.
On Tuesday morning just as the sun rose over the Keys, I touched down in Tampa, Florida to join a team of volunteers and organizers working to support a United Methodist resolution for church divestment from three companies that profit from the Israeli Occupation: Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett-Packard. Walking into the Tampa Convention Center only hours later, I asked myself, “What am I, a Jew, doing at this conference, and can I make a difference?” 72 hours later, I know exactly why I’m here. More »
It wasn’t over when the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor, but it is for the Gamma Chapter of AEPi at Penn. The oft quoted words of Animal House’s Brutus hang in the air as, in the wake of serious hazing infractions, the chapter voted to return its charter to the National Headquarters and go Pseudo greek, whatever that means. After being put on double secret probation, the fraternity chapter, which had a 98 year history on campus and was one of its consistenly highest achieving academically, the University had enough.
Yes, they are bastions of male objectification of the female, yes, a source of aggravation and lack of academic seriousness, yes they throw great parties (and sometimes bad ones) but they’re not all bad, and they’ve come a long way since the Animal house era and even the 1990′s. That’s especially true for AEPi, which is nationally, engaging in leadership training for college men (that phrasing does sound parochial I admit), partnering with Hillels and raising significant funds for important charities. It shouldn’t be painted with the saime brush as those undergrands at Penn. In fact, the fraternity has posted very public statements on its website and its President Andy Borans was quoted as having exerted pressure to close the chapters.
I respect that. For the Gamma and Zeta Deuteron Chapters of AEPi, yes, it is indeed over. For now…
esponda
Peggy Olsen is shacking up with datingone. Roger Sterling married and is now divorcing one. Don Draper slept with not just one but two. The agency hired one, fired one, and now has hired another.
JEWS! In this season’s premiere, we met Michael Ginsberg, annoying up and comer hired as a copywriter for SCDP because Roger Sterling thinks a new account news a Jew. When Ginsberg arrives home, his immigrant Tateh bentches his son on his getting a new job (dovbear tried dissecting this). Its not the first Jew we’ve met on the show (I always thought Harry Crane might be ‘passing’ after uttering Ganef and Tsuris) but its the first outright Jewish moment since season one.
Mutual learning and meaningful connection inspire me to do this work. Learning from and reflecting on personal relationships is one of the main ways that I have seen myself grow over the years. I find human connection to be incredibly powerful, so I hope to work toward removing barriers that would prevent that connection from occurring. For me, true allyship is an integral part of organizing for folks who hold privileged identities and should not be taken lightly. I do this work because one of the effects of oppression is that it dehumanizes us. It prevents us from connecting to each other in meaningful ways or it can stop us from connecting at all. Many of us have heard of stories where folks–typically white–work in mixed-race spaces in hopes of delving into their own experience in their privileged identity. This can most certainly be helpful and challenge folks to think deeply about the spaces that they occupy, although many times it falls on the folks of subjugated identities to educate the others. It is for exactly this reason that folks with privileged identities need to also have space to process their experience, socialized ideas and internalized superiority. There are feelings, values, thoughts and hurtful language that needs to be processed and challenged prior to and alongside all-identity organizing. While these spaces can be incredibly helpful and transformative, they can become problematic if not done alongside organizing in spaces where a variety of identities are present.
My new go-to primer on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is 
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