Month: April 2016

Culture

There Is Lonely: Sin, Alienation, and Grieving for Prince

For the love of God, the 5-foot Minnesotan symbol of American depravity has cut to the essence of the problem of sin: It is loneliness. When I sin against U, I am ruptured & alienated from U; from the suppressed, best, true version of myself; from humanity; & from God, the 1 Who always sees me in my potential goodness, no matter how far and how persistently I stray. This is the deepest loneliness. Dealing with guilt and brokenness is at its core about treating our alienation and restoring solidarity, about reviving the truth that we are 1 with our fellow humans and with our best potential.

Israel

Yes, Pro-BDS Jews are Part of Jewish Communities Too

Why does Beinart paint Jewish pro-BDS millenials like me as detached from Jewish communal life and identity? Maybe he wants to portray liberal Zionists like Simone Zimmerman as the ‘good Jews’ who still care about the Jewish people, and so, as a foil, he needs to characterize us as the ‘non-Jewish Jews’ who don’t. But not only is that inaccurate and offensive, it makes a mockery of the very values of inclusion he claims to cherish and admire. The power and promise of IfNotNow, the anti-occupation movement started by Zimmerman and other former J Street U students, is that, so far at least, it brings pro- and anti-BDS Jews, Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews together in a broad community of prayer and song, resistance and struggle against communal complicity in the occupation. By placing Jews like me outside the ‘bonds of Jewish peoplehood’ and claiming we are post-Jewish universalists who don’t care about the Jewish community, Beinart reinforces the very divisions and exclusions he praises millennials like Zimmerman for breaking down.

Politics

Bernie Sanders Hires, Suspends Simone Zimmerman as Jewish Outreach Coordinator

Well, that was awkward.
Just a few days after announcing that it had hired Simone Zimmerman to be its national Jewish outreach coordinator, the Bernie Sanders campaign suspended her position yesterday, in reaction to loud, right-wing criticism of her positions, activism, and language in opposing the Israeli occupation and its enablers. I had planned yesterday to take on her chorus of critics for their ethically compromised and sometimes farcical gotcha-combing of Zimmerman’s very public and proud paper trail. Now, I must add some serious, head-shaking, profound disappointment in the Sanders campaign for what really looks like management amateur hour.

Religion

Parshiyot Tazria & Metzora: Lessons in Leprosy, Infestations & Isolation

The Torah’s picture of one afflicted with leprosy is one of isolation. For me, my four month battle with bed bugs was possibly the loneliest experience of my life. Everything from the self-conflicting instructions on how to prep my apartment to the tortuous fights with my landlords; From the exterminator who refused to tell me what chemicals they were using in my apartment (that didn’t work anyway) to the fear that I would be one of those who would still be dealing with the creatures two years later… I was terrified that each treatment in my apartment…would kill me and I was scared to leave my apartment for fear of spreading my infestation elsewhere (which actually rarely happens). And the worst part was, like many others I was ashamed to talk publicly about my situation even though IT WASN’T MY FAULT!

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