Culture, Identity, Politics, Religion

Bourbon Tasting as Jewish Community

It has been a very dark time for Jewish news over the past few weeks. War and war crimes, chants calling for our death, us calling for others’ deaths, and overall nastiness.  Often times, even on the storied pages of Jewschool, we simply ignore the rest of the Jewish world during the perennial security operations taking place in the name of the Jewish people.
Yet there are other things happening in the Jewish world and some of them are good.  In fact some are even fun.  While this post deviates from some of the hard hitting topics we often discuss in this forum, it is an important one for more than the obvious reasons.
Together with a number of community partners, the JCCSF has started a summer Oneg Shabbat program called “Saturday Unplugged” that is free and open to the entire community. It brings people together to celebrate, eat, dance, and then Havdallah (yes it is a verb) together. And it is good.  It is a kid heavy event but there are activities targeted for adults, like the Bourbon Tasting I led this past Shabbat and the upcoming Beer Tasting run by the local  Almanac Beer Company.
The most striking thing about this Shabbat event was that everyone was really happy. As an active Jewish community participant over the past two decades, I can count on one hand the other times I have seen everyone happy (and having fun) at a Jewish event. People were laughing and engaging conversation.  For the number of children running around, there were surprisingly few crying kids.  There were also a number of younger folks who came to see Hot Buttered Rum (the blue grass band who played pre-Havdallah show) who had not been involved in anything Jewish since they were kids.
While folks having fun is not newsworthy, in our community it really should be. Even when Israelis and Palestinians aren’t shooting at each other, Jewish community news is extremely lachrymose.  Beyond the birth, b’nei mitzvah, and wedding announcements we don’t get much good news.  But we need good news to remind us that the Jewish community isn’t only about not being killed by the anti-Semites.
Ours is a rich history, filled with literature, art, and food as well as divergent politics. But we hardly take the time to remember let alone celebrate those aspects of our divers background. The unfortunate news axiom of it bleeds it leads has a detrimental impact on our community.  Young folks don’t show up to traditional Jewish community events for any number of reasons, but no one wants to take time out of their day to be told that they are going to be killed for who they are and therefore should take an active role in activities that will kill them.
This event was lovely and traditionally not newsworthy, which in our fear-based community news space, makes it extremely news worthy.
I spent my Shabbat afternoon speaking with more than 100 adults who laughed and sipped on Bourbon. Not so traditional but very restful and enjoyable. We celebrated a Shabbat together and had fun, and in my opinion, every once in a while, that should be front page news.

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