Susan Rosenberg, An American Radical
January 27th, 2012 by
Cover of An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country (2011) by Susan Rosenberg.
I guess it’s inevitable, when you’re at a book talk by a 1970s radical political activist who was wanted by the FBI, went underground, got arrested, and spent 16 and a half years in federal prison, that someone will eventually ask the question “How do you understand what you did and why?” Susan Rosenberg gave a brief but honest attempt to answer the question, ending with a shrug and the explanation, “It’s a different book.”
This is perhaps the most striking thing about Rosenberg’s memoir, An American Radical: Political Prisoner in My Own Country. Unlike most other memoirs of the 1960s-70s radicals--and I’ve read a lot of them (Jane Alpert, Bill Ayers, Cathy Wilkerson, Susan Stern)--this one isn’t a personal exploration of how one follows idealism to extremism to violence and eventually emerges back into civil society. Instead, Rosenberg has written a book that, while deeply personal and moving, uses her own story to make a powerful case against what she calls “the prison industrial complex” in America.
Beginning with the night of her arrest as she transported 740 pounds of explosives and weapons to a storage unit, she traces her years through the prison system, much of it spent in small group isolation as the U.S. government experimented with new ways to incarcerate and break what they called terrorists and what she calls political prisoners. Along the way, she does come to terms with her actions and reject her previously held beliefs about the need for organized, armed struggle against the government. But the focus of the narrative is not one of repentance, forgiveness, or redemption, but rather about how one person resists the dehumanization of the prison system and finds ways to retain her own identity and build relationships within a brutally repressive environment.
At Rosenberg’s reading last night in Brookline (co-sponsored by JWA), she spoke about the ways her Jewish identity deepened during her time in prison. From the night of her arrest when she was identified by the FBI as a “kike,” her experience of incarceration threw into sharp relief how much being a Jew mattered, both as a locus of hatred and as a source of personal resistance and solidarity with other Jewish prisoners.
But the focus of her remarks was the deep, ongoing injustice of the American prison system, and her book serves as a platform for her activism on this subject, raising awareness of the brutality, appalling conditions, and political repression taking place in prisons across the country. It is both ironic and absolutely fitting that Rosenberg’s commitment to fighting racism with the Black Liberation Army led to her profound encounter with the most entrenched institution of racism in this country--the criminal justice system--thereby stoking her lifelong commitment to social justice activism and human rights. Far from being broken by her prison experience, Rosenberg emerged from it with her core values not just intact but strengthened.
So if you’re looking for salacious details about the life of a revolutionary, you won’t find them in this book. But what you will find is well worth the read: a call to action, and a testament to what is most essential to the human experience--love, family, community, and an irrepressible desire to improve the world.
Remembering Judith Resnik, the first Jewish American woman in space
January 26th, 2012 by![Resnik, Judith - still image [media]](http://jwa.org/system/files/imagecache/bio_mainimage_medium/mediaobjects/ResnickJudith.jpg)
The first Jew and second woman to travel to space, Judith Resnik lost her life in the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, in which six other astronauts were killed.
Institution: NASA
View of Mission Specialist Judith Resnik sitting on the floor of the middeck on September 8, 1984. Beside her on a notebook is a note which says "Hi Dad". Above her head on the middeck lockers are various stickers such as "Beat Army", "Beat Navy" and "Air Force: a great way of life". Beside her is a [sticker] which reads "I love Tom Selleck."
Judith Resnik never showed any particular interest in space travel – but when NASA began recruiting women and minorities, she decided to apply anyway. It was Star Trek actress and NASA recruiter Nichelle Nichols, whose job was to focus on finding women and minorities for the space program, who successfully enlisted Resnik to join NASA. It was 26 years ago this week that Resnik and her fellow astronauts died aboard the space shuttle Challenger when it exploded just after takeoff.
Born in Akron, Ohio, Resnik was born in 1949 to an upper middle-class Jewish family. Always a bright child, she grew into a disciplined academic, graduating with bachelor’s, masters and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering. She worked in the missile and surface radar division of the electronic company RCA and later as a biomedical engineer in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the National Institutes of Health just outside Washington, D.C. In 1978, she was working as senior systems engineer for Xerox when NASA selected her for the space program. She was just 29 years old.
Of 8,000 NASA applicants, only 35 were accepted into the program; Resnik was one of just six women. After successfully completing a one-year training period, she spent six years focused on the operation of a remote-control arm designed to move objects outside spacecrafts. In August 1984, she became the second American woman (and the first Jewish American) in space during her first mission as a specialist on the orbiter Discovery. During thatseven-day mission, she held a sign up from space that read, “Hi Dad” and became famous for her zero-gravity mane of dark, curly hair. That year, Resnik told an Akron community forum, “I think that astronauts probably have the best jobs in the world.”
Resnik was a mission specialist on orbiter Challenger, the famous space shuttle that launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center the morning of January 28, 1986. The launch was live-broadcast and widely watched because crewmember Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from Concord, N.H., was the first member of the Teacher in Space Project, designed to generate student interest in mathematics and space exploration. Just 73 seconds into its flight, the Challenger broke apart due to mechanical failure, killing all seven crewmembers in the explosion, including both Resnik and McAuliffe. Congress posthumously awarded Resnik the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Today, Resnik is largely remembered as the city of Akron’s most famous and perhaps most beloved daughter. The grounds of Firestone High School, her alma mater, are the site of an Ohio Historical Marker telling her story, and in 2010, Resnik was one of 10 finalists proposed to be made into a statue to represent the state of Ohio in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol (though Thomas Edison ultimately won the vote and the statue). Helen Norin, Resnik’s first cousin, told Akron’s West Side Leader of her deep love of science and her dedication to the space exploration program. “When she heard NASA was looking to incorporate female astronauts, immediately it just grabbed her,” Norin said of her cousin. “She worked hard for that.”
The abortion/Holocaust analogy and the reality of abortion during the Holocaust
January 26th, 2012 by
Cover of Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust (HBI Series on Jewish Women) edited by Sonja M. Hedgepeth and Rochelle G. Saidel.
A few months ago, a friend of mine told me about a screening of the film "180" at her university. It was being hosted by the campus anti-choice group (the event would also include snacks, which we joked would be 'fetus flavored popcorn'). The film is one of several which compare abortion to the Holocaust.
The more dramatic the comparison, of course, the more likely it is to overwhelm people and distract them from their ability to think clearly about it. The argument that permeates "180," which features a whole bunch of college aged students who don't know who Hitler was, is that making the association between choice and abortion is the same as saying that one should excuse the Holocaust, since it was with state sanctioned autonomy that Hitler instituted the mass execution of Jews and other populations.
On the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it's important to take note of how the anti-choice movement is utilizing this tactic more and more, and expanding it. This isn't a new trope, it's simply another vehicle, similar to that of who brought you the infamous billboard stating: "The Most Dangerous Place for an African American Baby is in the Womb." Apparently, the way to get people on your side is to draw an irrational and offensive parallel between a genocide and human rights violation (i.e. slavery or eugenics) and the right of a woman to control her own bodily autonomy and life. Remove the "guise" that abortion is about the human right of women to choose to be pregnant, and replace it with the idea that a mass murder is going on that's tantamount to the attempt to literally wipe out whole populations.
Two weeks ago, the finalists and winners of the 2011 National Jewish Book Award were announced. Among the finalists in the Women's Studies category is Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust, edited by Sonja M. Hedgepeth and Rochelle G. Saidel. The fact that rape took place during the Holocaust isn't surprising; we know rape and other forms of sexual violence to be a tool in subjugating women and by extension, entire communities.
This was the first book I'd ever heard of that interrogated and exposed the topic specifically, leading me to Gisella Perl, a Jewish, religiously observant gynecologist who performed abortions while imprisoned in Auschwitz. Without medical supplies or hygenic conditions, Perl saved the lives of pregnant women who otherwise would have been sent to Mengele's laboratory for medical experiments and then to the gas chambers and/or the crematorium.
When I read about Perl, I thought, this has got to complicate the thinking of the folks who would liken abortion to the Holocaust...right? (Spoiler: wrong.) Rhoblogspot.com, an antichoice blog featuring a graphic that says, "Abortion is a Holocaust, Not a Final Solution," above a picture of the Supreme Court, "analyzes" the "case" of Dr. Perl, and comes to the following conclusions:
-
There is no situation where abortion is morally obligatory, including Dr Perl’s situation in Auschwitz.
-
There is no situation where abortion is morally permissible, though there may be mitigating circumstances that reduce moral culpability in rare, extreme situations.
In short, they believe the fact that Dr. Perl saved the lives of women who would have literally been tortured to death by medical experiments, if not sent directly to the gas chambers, is not as important as the fact that she performed abortions, making her at best morally bankrupt.
For me, what's terribly complicated about Perl's predicament is that women ultimately were coerced into choosing, instead of having the opportunity to decide whether or not to stay pregnant. (This is all undoubtedly made more thorny by acknowledging the reality of rape and other forms of sexual violence during the Holocaust.)
Once again, we can see through the veneer: this isn't about the lives of children, it's about asserting control-over a narrative, over religion (Christianity is the lens through which the anti-choice movement more often operates), and over the autonomy of women.
Gabrielle Giffords resigns from Congress
January 25th, 2012 by
This morning, Gabrielle Giffords offered her official resignation from Congress to Speaker John Boehner. From MSNBC.com:
A crying Wasserman Schultz applauded the strength of her colleague. "I am so proud of my friend," she said, placing on her hand on Giffords' back and wiping back tears. "It will always be one of the great treasures of my life to have met Gabby Giffords and to have served with her in this body,” the Florida congresswoman added.
"Even though I know we won’t see each other every day," she concluded, "We will be friends for life." The two then embraced, as Wasserman Schultz began to read Giffords' resignation letter.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Arizona’s first Jewish congresswoman, Giffords was shot during a rally in Tuscon in January, 2011. Against the odds, she survived the shooting and has bravely embarked on the difficult journey of recovery. In November, 2011 Giffords won us over with her first public interview, an emotional conversation with Diane Sawyer on ABC News.
Gabrielle Giffords is unquestionably a “Jewess with Attitude.” Raised by her Jewish father (the grandson of a Lithuanian rabbi) and her Christain Scientist mother who believed in letting her children decide their religious identity for themselves, Giffords embraces Judaism. She told the Arizona Star; "it provides me with grounding, a better understanding of who I came from." Giffords is featured as a “Cool Jewish Woman” on JWA’s new website for bat mitzvah-aged girls and their families, mybatmitzvahstory.org.
State of the Union: The Obama we voted for
January 25th, 2012 byAs I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been a harsh critic of Obama’s leadership or lack of it since he took office, not because I supported Clinton (which I did but I got over it), but as someone who understands the responsibilities of a chief executive to create meaning, articulate a vision, and put forth an agenda for people to work from. From the time he was elected until now, his vision kept shrinking rather than expanding and his penchant for appeasing even the unappeasable has been nothing short of maddening.
That unwillingness to put a stake in the agenda ground left the Democrats in Congress adrift. The result has been that even when Obama scored accomplishments such as heath reform, it never felt like a victory. Because it was never clean cut, never a righteous fight.
But I have to say he knocked it out of the ballpark tonight in his State of the Union Address (full text here). His energetic delivery, piquant story telling, and frequent appeals to the highest American values made me remember the Obama I voted for in 2008 and thought had disappeared entirely.
It was brilliant to start and end with foreign policy and homage to the military, whose selflessness and teamwork contrast so sharply with the circular firing squad that is Congress. “Imagine what we could achieve if we all had the selflessness of the troops.”
Best line of the speech IMHO: **Fight obstruction with action.**
Where have you been these last three years, Mr. President? Welcome back.
It was so smart (albeit a little smoke and mirrors) to connect the multiple wars people are so tired of with the post WW II economic boom and the rise of the middle class. Now, there is HOPE. “The defining issue of our time is how to keep that dream alive.” “Fair shot, fair share, everyone play by rules.” “Reclaim American values.” He took the mantle personally by talking about his own grandfather’s military service and using the GI Bill to get an education afterward.
I couldn’t help thinking how darn lucky Obama is that Hillary Clinton is such a team player. So many of these foreign policy victories were hers. He did acknowledge that though she had been his primary opponent, as Secretary of State, she was in the room when the decision to go for Bin Ladin was made. (I try not to be like the sexist media and comment on female politicians’ looks, but it was great to see her looking radiantly, authentically Hillary, with her longer hair and the return of her much-maligned headband.)
Segue to taking credit for creating 3million–or was it 4?–jobs after Bush lost so many. And for protecting consumers after the big bad banks screwed them. And for saving GM, which has shown once again that the American workers are the best. He touched the heart of every businessman, who has probably read the classic business book, Built to Last.
Did he read my blogpost? He did what I asked him to do–emphasize expanding jobs in the sectors that heavily employ women, in myriad ways. Lauding teachers, expanding community colleges, and on.
I won’t continue with the usual SOTU Christmas tree of mentions dangled before constituencies waiting anxiously for their personally important issues. The important thing is the overall effect. This Obama can demolish any of the current Republican candidates.
No wonder the pundits were speculating on whether the GOP would try to draft a faux moderate like Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels since all their current choices are deeply flawed. They tried to soften their hard-edged image by putting Daniels up to do the requisite retort. He started out statesmanly, then quickly shifted to blame everything from joblessness to the pox on Obama. The only interesting moment was when he coined a new phrase, “trickle down government” as tar to stick together his various disparagements. Otherwise, it was same old same old. Whine whine. Negative, bitter. Attack. No vision, no action.
What Obama left out:
Didn’t mention Paycheck Fairness Act though did mention equal pay to big cheers.
Didn’t mention putting the Freedom of Choice Act back into his priority list, or even the recent rulings expanding contraceptive coverage.
Didn’t talk much about health care at all.
If he mentioned major women’s initiatives such as the Executive Order Instituting a National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security, I missed it.
But there was great symbolism in the first time an openly gay military officer sat with the first lady and the end of Don’t Ask Don’t tell was lauded. Same with Warren Buffett’s secretary nodding approval when the president pointed out the unfairness of her paying a higher tax rate than her boss, and the camera panning Laurene Jobs each time the word “innovation” was mentioned. There was also the almost unbearable sadness of seeing the courageous but still wounded AZ Rep. Gabby Giffords bidding farewell for now to her Congressional colleagues.
All in all, I’m breathing out, relieved that the president performed so well. Commentators said that the State of the Union speech isn’t nearly as important or watched as it used to be. But I’m a sappy enough patriot to listen to every word, and to embrace the theater of it as an incredibly important declaration that our democracy lives for all of us to fight passionately another day for what we believe.
Gloria Feldt is the author of No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change the Way We Think About Power and a JWA Board member. This post was reprinted with permission from gloriafeldt.com
"I am Jewish" spoken word speaks volumes
January 25th, 2012 byAndrew Lustig is not a Jewess – but his words are applicable to all of us, male and female, young and old, who identify as Jewish. From pop culture to politics, family to food, bigotry to Birthright, holidays to the Holocaust, Lustig’s spoken word poem “I Am Jewish” covers the myriad ways we express our Jewish identities and recognize our history as a people.
Click the image to watch on Youtube
Posted on January 11th, Lustig's video already has more than 153,000 hits. One of favorite parts of the video is “I am constantly struggling to understand my Judaism outside of religion," which is a perfect, simple way of explaining the way I feel about Jewish. I am not necessarily religious (and in fact, there are times when whether I identify as agnostic or even atheist), but I feel so deeply connected to my Judaism, to the faith of my mother and her mother before her, that I cannot imagine there ever being a time in my life when I say I am anything other than Jewish - and all that comes with it.
Do Lustig’s words resonate with you? In what way?
Link Roundup: Remembering Roe v. Wade
January 23rd, 2012 by
Ottawa Pro Choice Presence at the 2010 National March for Life. Image by Jenn Farr via Flickr.
Marking the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade approaches on January 22nd, National Council of Jewish Women CEO Nancy K. Kaufman explained why women should continue to “guard against efforts to roll back choice.” The Guttmacher Institute reported that in 2011 individual states introduced more than 1,100 anti-choice proposals, 135 of which were enacted in 36 states. [The Forward]
On Friday, the Obama administration rejected requests made by the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to exempt religiously affiliated employers from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to cover the full cost of contraception in employer-sponsored insurance plan. Religiously affiliated institutions that currently do not cover contraception will have until August 2013 to do so, while houses of worship will remain exempt from the new law. [Ms. Magazine]
In a bold move, the Israel Medical Association (IMA) barred its members from attending the PUAH Institute’s annual fertility and halacha conference because the event excluded female speakers. The PUAH Institute responded to the boycott by announcing its plans to host a women-only conference over the summer, leading author Elana Sztokman to criticize the organization inadequate “separate but equal” solution. [Jerusalem Post] & [The Sisterhood]
In an Op-Ed (in a decidedly secular newspaper), Rabbi Dov Linzer revealed that according to the Talmud, it is up to men to control their own sexual urges, as opposed to forcing women to dress modestly. Linzer added, “At heart, we are talking about a blame-the-victim mentality. It shifts the responsibility of managing a man’s sexual urges from himself to every woman he may or may not encounter.” [NY Times]
Female Torah scribe Hanna Klebansky shared how she uses her work to combat gender segregation in Israel. [Haaretz]
This link roundup was originally posted on the Lilith blog. For more coverage on the latest news stories, follow Lilith Magazine on Twitter at @LilithMagazine.
"In the Land of Blood and Honey" premieres at Holocaust Memorial Museum
January 20th, 2012 by
Angelina Jolie (not a Jewess but a definite do-gooder) visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum last week to premiere In the Land of Blood and Honey, a film she wrote, directed, and co-produced.
The film, Jolie’s directorial debut, is set in war-torn Bosnia in the early 1990s, and though it is not about the Holocaust, its title alone draws clear parallels between events in the former Yugoslavia and the horrors of WWII. It begins as a love story of sorts, the fictionalized tale of Ajla, a Bosnian Muslim artist, and a Danijel, a Bosnian Serb policeman, who are on a date when a bomb goes off inside the club where they’re spending their evening. Ajla is eventually taken prisoner with other Muslim Serbian women and is repeatedly raped and made witness to brutal atrocities. Eventually, she becomes the captor and willing lover of Danijel, who is, of course, on the opposite side of the ethnic cleansing against her people.
Writes Jewish Journal Editor Susan Freudenheim, who attended the premiere, “Blood and Honey proved the most gripping and memorable film I’ve seen in years. I have not stopped thinking about Jolie’s remarkably intelligent depiction of very complex characters and her truly vivid understanding of this war’s violence against women, in particular.”
To this point, Kathleen A. McHugh, director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Women, notes that the film is not just important as a tool for remembering past atrocities but as warning of what could happen in the future – and what is, in fact, happening right now in places like Sudan and elsewhere across the globe. “This film was made so that this human rights crisis won’t be forgotten and to remind the world that the situation there is still very fragile.” McHugh said. “Women are frequently the most vulnerable in civil wars, and they are the recipients of some of the worst outcomes of ethnic strife and violence."
The word “genocide," coined in 1943 to describe atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, today extends beyond the Holocaust to encompass such atrocities across the globe. Fifty years after the world promised “Never again” to allow such atrocities to take place, the international community largely turned its back on Bosnia amidst similar ethnic cleansing, and it continues to do the same as genocidal activities take place across the world.
Mike Abramowitz, director of the Museum’s Committee on Conscience, wrote in an email announcing the debut of In the Land of Blood and Honey, “The Holocaust survivors who founded the Museum sought to honor the memory of the victims by working to prevent future genocides. I hope you'll take this opportunity to learn more about our work, educate others that genocide can be prevented, and join us in creating the future that Holocaust memory demands.”
As a people intimately acquainted with genocide, Jews should feel obligated to take action when others face similar threats. Noteworthy Jewish leaders Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service, and Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, have joined other international figures in pledging to help end and prevent genocide. If you want to learn more about how you can do the same, sign the Museum’s pledge and explore its Genocide page to learn more, educate others, and take action.
They will spit: In the tradition of Miriam, Jewish women will continue to challenge the establishment
January 19th, 2012 by
Miriam and Aaron complain against Moses, engraving from "The Bible and Its Story Taught by One Thousand Picture Lessons, vol. 2", edited by Charles F. Horne and Julius A. Bewer, published by Francis R. Niglutsch, New York, 1908.
The ultra-orthodox establishment in Israel is reportedly losing sleep over women’s demands for equality. While the conflict has serious socio-political implications for national survival, I find myself haunted by one detail of the men’s reprehensible behavior. I am focused on the act of spitting as a particularly loaded expression of men’s disdain for non-compliant women.
We need look no further than the Book of Numbers, Chapter 12 to find a precedent for this unsavory form of daughter censure. When Miriam objects to her brother Moses’ exclusive leadership, God’s anger flares up against her. To show the uppity lady who’s who, God smites her with skin-corroding leprosy. Moses asks that his sister Miriam be healed of her disease and God responds, “ve’avee’ha yarok, yarak” … “if her father had spit,” continuing with “would she not be shamed for seven days?” Miriam speaks out in protest; her heavenly father metaphorically spits in her face. Despite Moses’ plea, (not to mention Aaron’s consequence-free collusion) now she has the corroded skin of a leper. Miriam the upstart must be excluded from the people of Israel for seven days before she can show her insubordinate face again.
When I first came across this almost casual reference to an apparently familiar custom of fathers spitting in their daughters’ faces, it sounded all my alarm buttons. With no discernible discomfort, our commentators agree that in the ancient Near East spitting is one of the most humiliating of disgraces, long considered a suitable response to reprehensible behavior. But there is no outrage about God’s invoking this paternal practice to justify his own treatment of Miriam. In this context, I must presume that spitting in a daughter’s face is relatively routine, something a man might well have seen his own father do to, say, his sister when they were both children. Very possibly, his mother endured the same at the whimsy of her father when she was a girl. When a man, or a father or a God with religious authority spits, cherchez la femme ("look for the woman") who provoked it.
And wherein lies the injustice? After all, a disenfranchised Miriam speaks out of turn. A provocative Miriam questions Moses’ choice. Moses is a great and humble man. Moses is chosen by God for exclusive leadership. Though it may be but metaphor, God spits in Miriam’s face much as an irate father would do and Miriam is clawing at her flaking skin.
Ve’avee’ha yarok, yarak…. The action is hypothetical (“if her father had spit”) but the text repeats the verb for spit twice –yarok, yarak or spit, he did spit - assuring us this was to be no accidental emission. If this kind of projectile is not launched impetuously, then it must be calmly premeditated: Let the saliva rise like sap, then ingather, savor, swoosh, ready, take aim and fire. What follows is a daughter’s shame; the ejaculating papa is aiming to demean.
The opening chapter of Exodus, read this week, brings us to a very different place. Pharoah’s plan to wipe out the Jewish people is thwarted by two courageous midwives who refuse to dispose of Jewish newborn boys according to decree. Atypically, these two heroines are identified by name – Shifrah and Puah. And it turns out, one Midrash tells us, that Puah is none other than a defiant young Miriam in disguise.
Puah means the confrontational face and we are reminded that Miriam is a young girl who has been defying male decrees ever since childhood. Earlier on she confronted her own father, a tribal leader named Amram, who decided that under the genocidal circumstances, no man should cohabitate with his wife and thus “beget children for nothing.” The girl-child Miriam lets her father know that his decree is even more dire than Pharoah’s, thereby convincing Amram to relent and remarry his wife. Amram does so, inspiring all the other Hebrew men to do the same.
Miriam’s activism assures that the Hebrew nation does not die out. Even so, Miriam’s repudiation of her dad is not fully welcome. The code-name Puah singles her out as an agitator, a non-compliant woman to be identified by her confrontational face. The uplifted face that challenges male leadership in Numbers is the very same face that her criticized father might have, could have, and possibly should have spat upon when she questioned his leadership in the past. Despite her assurance of national survival, hers is a face that risks disdain.
So then, the fringe behavior in Beit Shemesh is not without a cultural context, arguably, it can even claim a Biblical precedent. But Miriam’s story confirms that women’s confrontation of the ruling establishment is just as vital a part of our tradition. Moshe Halbertal is quoted in the New York Times as saying that in Israel today, feminism is the issue that most threatens the male religious authority, posing “an immense ideological and moral challenge that touches at the core of life.”
So then, spit, they will spit and Miriam-Puah will increasingly lift up her face in defiance along with women both in Israel and around the world. The hope is that once we wipe off the adversary’s spittle, we can move beyond polarization to an inclusive strategy for shared survival.
How should we respond to Neo-Nazi internet trolls?
January 19th, 2012 byLast week, Talkin’ Reckless (my personal blog) was the subject of a blog post on a Neo-Nazi website. Ever since then, I’ve been getting a lot of shockingly graphic, anti-semitic, hatemail. I’m talking “Elders of Zion”-type shit. To be honest, I was taken aback. I can’t say I’ve ever had that kind of Nazi-speak directed at me, personally, before. I’ve grown up not completely sheltered from anti-semitism, but luckily it was rare. Much more common was just ignorance, like the kind revealed in the “Shit Christians Say to Jews” video. But there’s a big difference between ignorant comments and hateful comments. And boy howdy, was I getting some hate.
Now, I know as much as the next person how important it is not to feed the trolls. And these Nazi commenters are trolls of the worst order — the angry, threatening kind. I tried to ignore the whole thing. But everyday, new anti-semitic threats and slurs kept showing up in my inbox.
Two of my grandparents are Holocaust survivors. They lived in the Lodz ghetto in Poland and were both sent to Auschwitz, although they didn’t meet each other until after the war. I always felt that they, and my dad (their son), were paranoid about anti-semitism. I mean, the paranoia was pretty damn rational for them, but it never felt like a real threat to me. Then again, I had never received emails from people saying they’d like to put me in an oven before.
I’ve taken a few days to think about it — whether I should respond, and if so, what I should say. I figured out what I wanted to say long before I decided whether I should say anything at all. I made a video. And then I agonized about whether or not to share it.
“You’re just going to bait them and get worse hatemail,” said a friend. “Why are you taunting them?” It’s true. I probably will get more hatemail. But is this just feeding the trolls, or is this a chance to say something important? To call attention to the reality that old-school anti-semitism still lives (even if it is in a small and pathetic sort of way).
In the end I thought about my grandparents. How would they feel if they knew their granddaughter was getting this sort of hatemail? They loved to say things like “I didn’t survive the Holocaust so you could drop out of high school and become a janitor.” Or maybe it was my dad who loved to say that… (“Your grandparents didn’t survive the Holocaust so you could get a tattoo!)
Well here’s what I have to say: My grandparents didn’t survive the Holocaust so that I should stand silently and be bullied by racist idiots.
It may not be the most mature way to handle internet trolls, but at least I live in a world where I’m free to express myself, free to be Jewish, and free to delete emails without reading them.
So, without further ado, this is what I have to say.
[Warning: The video contains the "B" word and the "C" word and scary, anti-semitic hatespeak.]
This post was originally posted on Talkin' Reckless.
Twitter
Flickr
YouTube
Facebook