The challenge of "internalized anti-Jewish oppression" and finding Jews in Seattle
From David Basior in the new media source, Jew-ish Seattle:
The oppression of Jews here is about our invisibility. Much of this is internalized, and we as Jews find ourselves not expressing our Judaism publicly — to our co-workers, neighbors, volunteer/activist organizations, for example. How it is experienced by those of us as “out” Jews is often by being tokenized or by confronting workplaces, communities, individuals, or educational institutions as entirely unaware of any Jewish culture, holidays or history in general, thus making it even harder to show ourselves.
Seattle Jews, weigh in!
Full story.
I just moved to Seattle this summer, so maybe I haven’t been around long enough to really know what it’s like, but my experience has been very different from what is described in this piece. I attended high holiday services organized by a “non-institutionalized” Jewish Co-op http://www.kavanaseattle.org/ and when an important meeting at work was scheduled on Rosh Hashanah, many Jewish employees complained. Although it was too late to reschedule the meeting (of about 100 people) a senior executive sent me a personal email apologizing and pledging that it wouldn’t happen again. Maybe my relatively limited experience in Seattle is the exception, but this article didn’t resonate for me at all.
I appreciate “shep” weighing in on this. I was shocked to see my article on Jewschool, but am happy to get it in this forum and would love to hear from and rally Jews in Seattle. Shep’s response is a great response and I hope their experience remains visible and positive. I find, especially with the Jews who grew up here, a fear to speak out as Jews that I am not used to from Jews who grew up in large Jewish centers. Clearly there are mainy variables at work here, but I do beliee this to exist as a whole. The point for me, shep, is that your workplace schedules that meeting on Rosh HaShanah at all…and that it wasn’t canceled or rescheduled. Bottom line, I’d much rather get together and create some kick ass Judaism here in the northwest together than argue the points of my article. I do know about Kavana and have worked with them. They are a great community, but mostly young families in a different socio-economic bracket than myself and my community of Jewish friends. Wanna meet up?
Also, check out Eli Sander’s piece on “Seattle’s Jewish Problem: from the Stranger in December 2006: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=122431
great article right on
seattle is beautiful