Today, communities around the world are observing Transgender Day of Rememberance, honoring the memories of the 30 people killed in the last year simply for trying to live their lives in ways that honestly represented themselves as who they were. The link above lists local events, including Shabbat services in Michigan and San Francisco tomorrow night, an interfaith vigil in Boston tonight co-sponsored by Keshet, and a couple of other explicitly interfaith vigils that don’t list explicitly Jewish organizers but would most certainly be excellent places for Jews to show up.
As important as moments of silence and reflection are in honoring those who have been martyred, it’s equally important to give voice to their stories and to the stories of those who are living lives in the face of a world that doesn’t understand. Along those lines, S. Isaac Dowd has written a beautiful reflection on the day, from the perspective of a transgender Jew over at JVoices.
As was noted on these pages earlier today, an important countercultural critic died today. I thought I’d put up some video. Carlin did a lot of religious bits. His exegesis may be suspect but how many people get paid for their analysis of text anyways? Here he is talking about the 10 commandments as a marketing decision:
It’s a sad day for us fans everywhere. George Carlin: Zichrono Livracha.
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day (or, if you’re in Israel, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day). Israel takes the day quite seriously, at least officially. Restaurants and “places of entertainment” are supposed to be closed by law. Many Israeli TV channels are only broadcasting a still picture of a candle or an Israeli flag and a message that “broadcasts will resume after the end of Holocaust memorial day.” Other channels are showing Holocaust-related programming.
This morning at 10:00, the air raid/Shabbat siren sounded for two minutes, as usual. As usual, traffic came to a halt, people got out of their cars and stood at attention, passersby stood still, and everyone on the bus stood up. At my intersection, though, the taxis continued to zoom through, weaving around stopped cars, and the construction workers kept working, while the garbage collectors paused. On a friends’ corner the taxis stopped. I wonder whether the difference has to do with capitalism or the drivers’ degree of identification with the Jewish narrative or something else.
As another friend commented, it is also disturbing– though powerful– that the mode of remembering Holocaust victims here is via an air raid siren. Last night’s official government ceremony at Yad Vashem also had military undertones strewn throughout. The ceremony began with the entrance of a military honor guard with large guns. Throughout the ceremony they were told either to stand at attention with their guns or to stand at ease. The constant commands about shifting guns back and forth felt odd, distracting, and out of place.
Other parts of the ceremony were moving, particularly the stories told about six particular survivors who were present. The accompanying pictures were powerful, and I learned a number of things I hadn’t known before (including the fact that there were Nazi camps in Norway). I was especially struck by the fact that the oldest of the survivors was only 13 when the Holocaust began. This means that in very little time there will be no more survivors. I wonder what that will mean for the way in which Israel commemorates the day.
Sure, we disagreed about a number of things. You liked to tote guns around and champion the 2nd amendment. You opposed Affirmative Action and became a Republican later in life. You campaigned for George W. Bush, George Bush Sr., and Reagen. You boycotted Ice-T.
But at one point in your life, you supported the Civil Rights movement and became inextricably linked as an icon of Jewish Biblical history. For many of us, before our political awakening, we knew you as the man who carried the tablets down from the mountain. Or, a different subset of us knew you as the man who fell to his knees and cried out, “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”
So God bless, Charlton Heston. May you be remembered for good (at least on TNT’s annual pre-Passover Ten Commandments screening).
586. “If a man has a wayward and defiant son …. Thereupon the people of his town shall stone [the son] to death.” (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) = don’t be a wayward and rebellious son
587. “For her he may defile himself.” (Leviticus 21:3) = the exception to #590 is that a priest may become tamei (unclean) by coming into contact with a dead body when a close relative dies; likewise, everyone (not just priests) is to mourn for deceased relatives.
588. “[The high priest] may not defile himself even for his father or mother.” (Leviticus 21:11)
589. “[The high priest] may not go in where there is any dead body.” (Leviticus 21:11)
590. “[A priest] may not defile himself for any [dead] person among his kin, except for the relatives that are closest to him.” (Leviticus 21:1)
591. “Set a king over yourselves, one chosen by Adonai your God.” (Deuteronomy 17:15)
592. “You must not set a foreigner over you, one who is not your kin.” (Deuteronomy 17:15)
593. “[The king] shall not have many wives, lest his heart go astray.” (Deuteronomy 17:17)
594. “[The king] shall not keep many horses.” (Deuteronomy 17:16)
595. “[The king] shall not amass gold and silver to excess.” (Deuteronomy 17:17)
596. “You must proscribe them — the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.” (Deuteronomy 20:17)
597. “You shall not let a soul remain alive.” (Deuteronomy 20:16) = of the nations in #596
598. “You shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” (Deuteronomy 25:19)
599. “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 25:17)
600. “Do not forget.” (Deuteronomy 25:19) = what Amalek did to you
As Jews worldwide honored on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust, a 75-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in Monday’s shooting at Virginia Tech College that left 32 dead and over two dozen wounded.
Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter, who had attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, “but all the students lived - because of him,” Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.
Several of Librescu’s other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he blocked the gunman’s way and saved their lives, said the son, Joe.
“My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,” Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. “Students started opening windows and jumping out.”
May his memory, and the memories of all those who were tragically taken from this world, be forever a blessing.
A few hours ago I received a phone call from Susannah Heschel to say that her mother Sylvia, who has been sick, had died.
The funeral will be held 10 a.m. tomorrow (Tuesday) at Riverside Chapel, 76th and Amsterdam Avenue on the West Side in New York City.
Sylvia (nee Straus) was the widow of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who died in 1972. They met in Cincinnati, where she had become a skilled and serious pianist. (He was teaching at Hebrew Union College.) They were married shortly after he began teaching at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1945.
Susannah has said that her mother “was a wonderful partner for him…. She brought music to him, which clearly influenced him deeply. He suddenly began to use musical metaphors for the religious life; they are to be found everywhere in “God in Search of Man.’
It has also been apparent to those who knew both Sylvia and Susannah that Susannah’s staunch feminism was encouraged not only by her father’s spiritually rooted ethics but also by her mother’s strength and example.
May the memory of Sylvia’s own life-melody and her steadfast devotion to both husband and daughter serve as a consolation to her friends and as a blessing to the world.
