Curiosity and Racism are the Same Thing?

Adam McKinney, left, and Daniel Banks bring their program on Jewish identity to Temple Beth-El in Great Neck. Their presentation, “Belonging Everywhere,” includes a film they made about a Jewish community in Ghana. Courtesy of American Jewish Committee.

Jewish Week article, Pressing for a 'Global' View of Jewry" interviews two local artists, both Jews from a multicultural background, who are now leading dialogues on Jewish identity. But article will people listen if what they hear is anger?


From the article:

“People of European heritage don’t get asked, ‘What are you doing here? Why are you here?’” Daniel Banks said to a reporter. "Only Jews of color or perceived to be of color are asked those questions."

At another point, Adam McKinney was discussing the steps he’d like audiences to take in fighting racism, including the development of new curricula, when Banks suggested that people also examine “white privilege in the Jewish community.”

Neither do McKinney or Banks allow for the possibility that their perceptions may be wrong, especially in a city with a healthy share of progressive synagogues and rabbis. Asked whether they may be confusing curiosity and racism, Banks said he considered the two “inseparable.” Those asking about his background, he said, are making assumptions about Jewish identity that shouldn’t be made.

Blood is life

My mother-in-law commented during a recent Barnes & Nobles shopping spree together that I am perhaps a little too attached to vampires.

This is probably because I wanted to sob over the fact that I would not let myself purchase Breaking Dawn, the last in Stephanie Meyer’s the teen vampire romance saga Twlight, and Undead and Unworthy, Book 7 of MaryJanice Davidson’s Queen Betsy romantic comedy. It was a tough choice. Dramatic human-vampire-werewolf love triangle or sidesplitting hysterical pratfalls and interjections from my favorite Vampire Queen. But I just couldn’t, wouldn’t, purchase both! Between memoirs and books on writing memoirs, my book allowance for August was at an end.

At the register, my mother-in-law decided to surprise me by paying for my copy of Breaking Dawn, which my husband had promised he would buy me BEFORE our flight to New York because I had played so nicely with others during family time with his family.

My response to my mother-in-law’s generosity was to screech. “OH MY G-D! I SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN BOTH VAMPIRE BOOKS!”

She smirked at my greediness.

But the clerk behind the counter took pity on me. She gave me this button after I squealed when after I spotted it looped into the Barnes& Nobles nametag that hung from her neck.

“I think she probably thought I was a teenager,” I said looking down at my bedraggled outfit, which included the black hoodie with new button pinned to it prominently.

My husband nodded.

And yesterday, I thought about vampires again while reading this week’s parsha (weekly torah portion), Re’eh.

After reading repeatedly that blood isn’t kosher, I announced:

“It must be really hard being a Jewish vampire.”

He looked up from the pile of Hebrew books he was learning from with a look of utter confusion. All he could manage was, “Huh?”

“Well, I mean, you know, they need blood to survive. Blood is life. And they, like, can’t have any if they’re Jewish.”

I promise that I had other deeper comments and questions about the parsha. But it's no wonder that my husband doesn’t take me very seriously.

Jews of Color: A Minority within a Minority

Check out this article, Minority within a Minority, from Aish that focuses on Jewish of Color and their unique challenges. It is a reprint from The Jewish Press.

The article focuses primarily on Jews of Color who are African-American, arguably I presume because they are the most "visible" minority within a minority and because the writer is herself African-American. I would argue though that the rest of us, Latino, Asian and other are just as visible and I should strive to write an article that encompasses us all.

What's more historic?

Senator Barack Obama accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in front of 80,000 people Thursday night at Invesco Field in Denver. (Photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times)

I've never been one for politics. So, it's no secret then that while my husband was watching Barack Obama speak at the Democratic National Convention on his Mac, I was on the living room couch watching a bad movie, the Beatles love letter, Across the Universe, on our HDTV which is hooked up to a upconverting DVD player but no cable service provider. This week's fibromyalgia flare-up is affecting my taste obviously, not just my body.

I'm well aware after seeing the status updates for most of my Facebook friends that I missed a historic speech. But this morning, when John McCain announced that his running mate is a woman, Gov. Sarah Palin (John McCain Chooses Palin as Running Mate), I wondered if we were back to that old question of this campaign: What's more historic? Electing a mixed race African-American/white candidate or a white woman?

As a mixed race woman, I argue that the winner is still Barack Obama, that a black president trumps a female vice president any day. But no matter the winner, this campaign is turning out to be a pretty historic one overall.

Back in NYC

Observations: NYC is really dirty. Can't believe I have to walk. I'm not paying that much for avocados! Where is the organic fruit?!

Spent most of the day recovering from the flight back home...

Fibromyalgia: 5 points. Aliza: ZERO.

Wrapping up

Hello, little blog, I have clawed my way through hours of writing for my book, for homework (for my online classes at Gotham Writer's Workshop) and in response to emails from readers and I have found my way back to you.

My trip to Los Angeles is almost over. I'm multitasking by packing and writing. I am afraid that I'm in for a bit of a culture shock when I get back to New York. I (and my fibromyalgia) will miss the lovely Los Angeles weather and the delicious lack of humidity. And then there's the little things I'll miss! The ease of getting around by chauffeur/husband. The late night jaunts to Barnes & Nobles to pick up the next in the series of my newest addiction, the Twilight saga by Stephanie Meyer. The Judaism classes at Aish. The incredibly cheap writing and art classes at Santa Monica College. And of course, all the people I met in-between. This is officially the first trip to Los Angeles that I haven't hated. And did I mention all the space in my two-bedroom, two-bathroom duplex? I won't welcome the claustrophobia of my New York apartment.

Meanwhile, the news alerts from The New York Times keep on coming in. The latest specifically tailored to my multicultural identity included an article where Rabbis Debate Kosher Ethics at Meat Plant and another article where Latin Music, Intimate and Grand, Holds Court.

P.S. My little sister has promised to leave the latest of the Stephanie Meyer series in my bed so I can read it first thing after my flight from Los Angeles and nobody better tell me whether Bella goes for the vampire or the werewolf!

Better to Be Fat and Fit Than Skinny and Unfit

I like to tell myself that I'm the healthiest sick person I know. Thanks to a pain management program that demands 30-minutes of daily heart stimulating exercise, I get more exercise than most of my much skinner friends. Despite this, according to my BMI (calculated online), I'm overweight for my height. And I'm not getting any taller.

In spite of my BMI, unlike most people I know, I'm not exercising to fight the battle of the bulge (though that'd be nice, too), I'm fighting the

battle of the popping of painkillers. So, at least, I'm not "skinny fat," a term I grabbed from a recent article in one of my women's magazines which argued that too many people are "skinny fat," meaning pretty physically unhealthy despite being physically thin. Now, a NY Times article tries to argue that it's Better to Be Fat and Fit Than Skinny and Unfit.

Photo Credit: Stuart Bradford.

Air hugs and kisses...

My latest piece, "Air Hugs: Fibromyalgia and the Power of Touch" is now up on Chabad.org. The piece focuses on what my battle with fibromyalgia taught me about touch. It also gives the reader information about fibromyalgia and how I've learned to cope with it.

Thunderous Laughter

Robert Downey, Jr. plays Australian method actor in African-American role in Tropic Thunder.

Ben Stiller movies usually make me very, very uncomfortable. Kind of like the way I feel about Jack Black movies but at least in those, I have found myself laughing in spite of myself every now and again. Ben Stiller movies after There’s Something About Mary have mostly made me wince and cringe. So, it was with some apprehension that I let my husband drag me to Tropic Thunder. Not only is it a Ben Stiller movie, it’s a Ben Stiller movie that includes Jack Black AND uh, Robert Downey, Jr. playing an Australian method actor playing an African American in the movie within the movie within the movie within…. When the credits rolled, I braced myself to be offended.


And I was. There’s a reason why handicapped groups everywhere are asking people to boycott this film. Tropic Thunder is a satire that pokes fun at many things Hollywood, including Hollywood's penchant for giving away Oscars to actors who play handicapped roles. Ben Stiller’s character in the film, Tug Speedman tries to get away from his action star persona by taking on such a role. The role is deeply disturbing in the way it portrays handicapped people. But we’re not supposed to laugh here, we ARE supposed to cringe. Cringeworthy spectacles abound in the film.


But I liked it. In the end, I found myself watching one of the funniest films I’ve ever watched. And Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr., Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey were all in it. That’s right, people, Tom Cruise is FUNNY in this film. (My husband didn’t even recognize Cruise.) The kind of funny that will have you rolling in your seats and bursting into laughter on the way out of the theater. The kind of funny that makes you rent and buy the DVD just so you can rewind it over and over and over again. Tropic Thunder is one of the few Ben Stiller films that manages the right balance by leaning towards the big laughs instead of the stuff that makes viewers look away.

Converts on the True Colors of the Jewish Community

Interfaithfamily.com just reprinted an article of mine from PresenTense Magazine.


Check out: Converts on the True Colors of the Jewish Community.




"Do Jews who negatively react to my skin color forget that they were once slaves in Egypt and strangers in another land?"

Rapper Y-Love (aka Yitzchak Jordan) was interviewed for the piece.

Coming Out

From signnetwork.com.

I'm having a hard time relating to this article, When Converting Telling Your Family Might Be The Hardest Part.

Oh, right, maybe that's because when I told my father, he laughed.

When I grow up...

A favorite author of mine who’s been keeping me up these late nights is Pulitzer Prize winner, Jhumpa Lahiri. I would like to pretend that I alone discovered this national treasure but the fact that her most recent collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, debuted at #1 on the New York Times best seller list would prove otherwise. Aside from being addicted to the way she writes, I am drawn to the subject matter. Her characters are most often Bengali immigrants to America and the first-generation children they struggle to raise here. Every story is a struggle between cultures that spans generations.


In her stories, I find myself making an instant connection with the first-generation Bengali-American protagonists, all at once straddling two cultures and feeling like outsiders and insiders in both and none. Washington Post writer Teresa Wiltz put it best when she titled her article about Lahiri, “The Writer Who began With a Hyphen.” Lahiri is a hyphenate writing about hyphenates: a Bengali-American representing all those hyphenates out there, even little ole Dominican-American me.


After reading how many a character of Lahiri's finds love in the arms of an “American” (strictly the white, unhyphenated variety), I found myself curious to find out if Lahiri had made her own choice. (It’s good to note here that her characters also find love in the arms of other Bengali-American characters.) On Google, I was all too pleased to find out that Lahiri had married “one of us,” a Latino with a Guatemalan mama. Go us! And okay, her hubby also has an American (of Greek extraction) father. Go, white people (that’s a shot out to you, honey!)! So, Jhumpa married another hyphenate. And created more hyphenates in her children: Bengali-Latino-Greek-American babies being brought up in a multilingual, multicultural, multiracial heaven. Okay, AND she lives in Brooklyn, only my most favorite New York City borough after Manhattan which totally seems besides the point but isn't. (Really.)


So, can I pretty please be Jhumpa Lahiri when I grow up?

Quotes from the Washington Post article that hit home:

On growing up in Rhode Island: “There was a persistent feeling of other, not feeling American enough, not Indian enough, of constantly straddling the fences, of stretching identities.” (ME, TOO! Only if you replace Rhode Island with Washington Heights!)


Of visiting the homeland: “But on visits to America, she was the American.” (ME, TOO! Only in the Dominican Republic. And I wonder if she was “the rich American” because even though we were on welfare, everyone was sure we had money because we were Americanos.)

A Nation Divided: Coping with Racism in the Jewish Community

Here is my latest piece for Interfaithfamily.com. I'm posting it before it's published on the web and will eventually replace this text with a link to the website:

A Nation Divided: Coping with Racism in the Jewish Community

“So where you from?” they ask.

“New York,” I say.

“No, really. Where you from?”

“New York!” But I know they’re not really asking which state I hail from. I’ve been under the inquisition enough times to know. Plus, it helps that some people’s curiosity has gotten the best of them and led to questions like:

“Where are your parents from? Where are your grandparents from?” and even “No, where were they from before that?” Excuse me, but what kinds of questions are these from people I’ve just met?

And yet, I’ve always gotten these kinds of questions. Questions that I attribute to features that don’t always peg me as Hispanic but more often biracial (half black/half white). These same features don’t strike many people around the Shabbos (Sabbath) table as “Jewish” in the Eastern European sense. Looking “exotic” tends to make people very curious.

Still, it strikes me as funny to call myself a Jew of color. Especially when my nicknames growing up were “Snow White” and “Vampire.” But there aren’t many Dominican Jews (though I’ve met a few). And I mean Dominican Jews who can trace their lineage back to the island before the Dominican Republic took in Jewish refugees during World War II. So, I guess you could say I am a little exotic.

Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t a Jew of color. I just want to blend! But the results of blending have been, at times, unsettling. When people don’t know I’m a Jew of color, I become a “racial spy.” Jews and non-Jews alike sling hurtful comments in front of me, believing that I must be not one of “them.” That it’s okay to be racist because there aren’t any non-whites at the table. Or no one Jewish around. But during the “joke” about the Mexican housekeeper, I protest, “Hello? I’m offended!” And somewhere, later, I’ll have to pipe up to defend the Jews.

And sometimes, that’s just the kick in the pants these people need. To be reminded that a “joke” that’s not okay in every circle might not be okay in ANY circle. But I still have so much anger.

When the news comes up at the Shabbos table, one woman says disdainfully: “Why do they have to sing the national anthem in Spanish? Our national language is English. Everyone should speak English! One language unites us.” She nods, looking around for agreement.

But I, bilingual Spanish-speaking me, respond: “As if those guys on the news didn’t speak English? I mean, they translated the national anthem from English. Maybe, you should stop speaking Hebrew, being all Jewish, because it isn’t very American after all? Or maybe culture and language doesn’t have to DIVIDE us.”

Why am I always the one offended? The one always there to defend.

I’ve also been the “racial representative.” Representative for people of color everywhere. But I realize when someone asks, “So, seriously, why do Hispanic women dress like that?” that they really believe I have some magic crystal ball connection that helps me understand all people of color. Long after realizing anger has gotten me nowhere, I’ve tried to change gears, tried to take a second to assume the best in people. They’re not trying to be racist. (Even though, they are.) Sometimes, I say, “How should I know?” But more often than not, I find myself representin’: “People from different cultures have different dress codes” and “So, you think we should all start wearing burkhas (the enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions for the purpose of cloaking the entire body)?” People try to understand different cultures through the lens of their own and too often decide that anything different is “weird.”

Judaism doesn’t want to make people feel “weird” so it’s actually socially unacceptable to ask someone if they converted. If someone converted, they’re Jewish and that’s enough with that. But people will ask indirectly. And though I am a convert, I wonder about all the Jews of color that aren’t. The common assumption is that a person of color can’t have been born a Jew. But we need only look at the rich landscape of colorful Jewish faces in Israel (not to mention America) to see that this assumption is untrue. The best defense again is EDUCATION. “No, sir, as a matter of fact, not every Jew is a bagel and lox eating, pasty-faced, curly-haired neurotic with a big nose! Spread the word!” Okay, so I’m still a little angry.

Unfortunately, the Jewish people are no strangers to racism. They perpetrate it as much as the next guy. Someone asked me: “How could a people who have suffered the Holocaust be so racist?” Because Jews have suffered centuries of anti-Semitism that has created an “us” versus “them” mentality that continues to poison interactions with non-Jews and Jews who don’t fit into cookie cutter boxes for race and ethnicity. I’ve met a half-Asian, half-white girl whose Jewish affiliation became nonexistent after her Hebrew school classmates terrorized her with racially charged attacks. I had an Asian convert tell me that after all the racism he’s endured, he remains tied to Judaism only for his son’s sake.

My mother used to tell me that black people were evil, Mexicans slept with their brothers and sisters and white people had it all. And maybe, it would have been easier to believe these things if I didn’t have a black best friend, a Mexican friend and a white husband. The way to combat stereotypes, racism, is to tear them down with the actual knowledge that comes from meeting and knowing people who are different (but not so different) from us. Segregation only leads to more segregation. So what?

I’m not a big fan of assimilation. But in some ways, I’m an assimilated Dominican woman. Still I think that cutting myself off from the rest of the world would have left me pretty lonely on that little island in the Caribbean. It’s all about balance. Being a Modern Orthodox Jew to me is about being true to Judaism while living it up in the modern world. Safeguarding my Judaism but also participating in the best the world outside has to offer. We can’t be “a light unto the nations” unless we understand "them" and the world around us.

So as an Orthodox Jew of color, I’m all about…EDUCATION! I educate whoever’s in need: about what it means to be Orthodox, a Jew and a person of color all rolled into one. Sometimes, I educate whether or not the ill-informed are ready to listen. Maybe it’s the former teacher in me but I just can’t allow people to walk around “all ignorant.” And neither should you.

Crying on Tisha B'Av

My first Tisha B’Av was spent at the OU in Jerusalem. The best part of this might shock you, but it was definitely that there were plenty of people there that were twice or three times my age at services. When it came time for Eichah to be read, I sat in a chair with all the little old ladies. When they asked why I was sitting in a chair and not the floor, I told them about my fibromyalgia and they told me about their own aches and pains and of course, remedies. Was it that sense of camaraderie or being in Jerusalem that made my first Tisha B’Av so special?


I wish this Tisha B’Av in Los Angeles was also meaningful. Despite attending classes in preparation for the day, I found myself feeling less than prepared. When I walked into shul for Maariv, I already felt sick to my stomach and I knew I was setting myself up for failure.


I looked around the synagogue. There were only about four little old ladies sitting in seats. The rest of the women were already spread across the thick, carpeted allergy-inducing floor around the seats. I took a seat in the back. And it felt like everyone was staring at me. Or maybe I was staring at them? Perhaps, this is what my husband once called the “social” discomfort of being handicapped after his yeshiva spent a week studying disabled people and Judaism?


I piled four siddurim (prayer books) in my lap and propped them up as a makeshift book stand in my lap. I refused to get up for the Amidah figuring that if I hurt myself during that portion of the davening by standing up and holding a book in my hands, I wouldn’t be able to make it through Eichah. But as it turns out, I only barely made it through Eichah anyway.


Through Eichah, I tried to focus on the reading in front of me but found it difficult. I felt so uncomfortable high up there in my little seat. Thankfully, my husband had slipped me a book with English and Hebrew translation that was different than the two being used by the rest of the congregation. But unfortunately, I had no way of knowing where the rest of the congregation was in the reading even when the rabbi, thoughtfully, called out page numbers. Oy.


After Eichah, the davening (praying) seemed to go on forever and I couldn’t recognize any of it to find my place in my book. I felt myself falling deeper and deeper into a sadness that had nothing to do with Tisha B’Av. It had everything to do with being the girl who always had always had the right answers growing up, being dubbed by my whole family “the smart one” for most of my life, and now being Jewish and feeling like a fraud. Taken down a notch, now “the stupid one.”


When the pain finally crept its way down from my face, into my neck and nestled itself into my leg, I decided to leave. Didn’t even realize that services were almost over. I made it down the block and around the corner before I started sobbing. Feeling so confused about my place in the world. The Jewish girl, the rabbi’s wife, the convert…who knows all about Tisha B’Av but still can’t follow services. The girl who feels at home at Judaism but who, sometimes, feels so alone.

Jews come in all shapes, colors and sizes

I just picked up In Every Tongue: The Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People by Diane Tobin, Gary A. Tobin & Scott Rubin. Currently, I’m reading the chapter called “Feet in Many Rivers: Navigating Multiple Identities.” There were many other interesting chapters I could have started with but this one drew me in right away. It’s no surprise I guess then that my last Memoir Writing teacher told me that “identity” seems to be the common theme of most of my writing.


Here is a quote that jumped out at me:


“The way in which diverse Jews struggle to reconcile their Jewish religious identity with their racial or cultural identity seems to depend, in part, on the individual’s path to Judaism. Those who converted to Judaism tend to feel a sense of completeness, of joy, at having found their way to Jewish religious practice. Religious fervor carries them through the struggle, and they are sure of who they are, since they have had to undertake an arduous journey to claim that part of their identity” (56).


This quote above definitely expresses how I feel about my own struggles with identity.

Another quote from a different chapter, "Who is a Jew? Ideology and Bloodlines:"

“Questions of legitimacy become particularly import for Jews of color. Racially and ethnically diverse Jews are regularly subjected to the test of proving that they are real Jews instead of imposters or infiltrators. Do they have papers? Did they convert? While many of these same issues characterize Jewish views of converts and those that different groups of Jews have of each other, this testing is more often administered to ethnically and racially diverse Jews, if only because they appear so different from the majority community in the United States” (99).


Though I haven’t had a chance to really look at too much of the book (and I've already uncovered some points with which I disagree), I’m really looking forward to it in its entirety. Racism is on my mind this week, probably, because I’m currently working on a piece for Interfaithfamily.com about race and the Jewish community. One of the topics I mention in the piece is this question of legitimacy that is too often posed to Jews of color. I, too, agree that this is an American problem to a certain extent. In Israel, I never experienced this question of legitimacy as much as I have in America. In fact, in Israel, no one questioned my Jewishness, even though at the time, I was not yet a Jew.

Loss & The Three Weeks

Someone gave me the heads up about ButYouDontLookSick.com recently and I wanted to link a good post I found there "The Pain of Disease and the Triumph of Togetherness":

An excerpt:

"There’s a pain that can be worse than any physical disease.

It’s the loneliness you feel when you see your friends go out and do things without a second thought and how that is an impossible dream for you. How the simple act of attending class or going out to supper becomes a mountain you just cannot scale, because of the varying weights that disease dangles along with it. It is so difficult when you are all alone and those you love are where you want to be and they don’t even understand the magnitude of how much you would love to have that normalcy to be there. I would love to be able to not deal with a single consequence and only reap the rewards of fulfilling that task with them, but I can't always do that...."

I was telling a friend recently that I lost many friends when I decided to convert. They wanted to get away from the "religious fanatic" as much as possible. Then I lost friends when I left my teaching career. Our schedules just no longer matched up. But what made the most impact was fibromyalgia. Some of my friends still don't understand that schlepping downtown to hang out means I'm making a great sacrifice. Schlep today and it might be pain all day tomorrow. Or fatigue. Or the calm before the storm. I am just tagging along on the roller coaster rides that are the whims of my body. And it sucks that I can't devote as much time as I'd like to my friends without "paying for it" later.

I think the post above really articulates what it's like internally to live with chronic pain. It's not just your body that hurts.

I went to Aish class on getting into the mood for Tisha B'Av. It promised that we would "learn how to emotionally connect with the most painful day in Jewish history (in a good way)." I've never really had a problem connecting with Tisha B'av. I just wanted to study it and talk about it, so I went to the class. In fact, I had already attended a class on Tisha B'Av the night before. In the second class, I spoke up and mentioned that it's easy to connect to the day when you've experienced some sort of loss. I said that it's easy to transfer that grieving process to the grieving process we're meant to experience during The Three Weeks.

On Tisha B'av, I find myself thinking of all the losses I've experienced: the loss of my parents, the loss of my health, the loss of my little sister and so many others. And like the teacher offered during class, I like to imagine that if the temple were rebuilt and the Messiah finally clocked in, there would be a world without these kinds of losses. And as I learned in the first class I attended, I now also look to all the destruction on Tisha B'av, all the desolation in my life, and hope for the future, celebrate renewal and the time to "buck up" and rebuild.

Okay, I promise to post some more funny stuff soon!

Learning & the Rabbi's wife

Aish rules! One of the best things about living in Los Angeles is that Aish is only a couple of blocks away. Because I’ve been taking classes at Santa Monica College though, I haven’t had a chance to take advantage of this little miracle. In New York, going to Aish means a long subway ride down (and then back up from) the Upper West Side. It’s a journey I’ve only made once because treks don’t generally mix well with fibromyalgia. But just a little walk from the duplex where I’m staying, Aish LA beckons with its weeknight programming.

I’ve been beating myself up lately about my Jewish knowledge. When I tell a friend that I use my (rabbinical student) husband as my own personal Jewish encyclopedia, she assures me that she does the same. But she’s the one who makes time out to learn with hers. Learning with my husband isn’t half as fun as it might sound. We have very different learning styles and very different things that we’re interested in. Plus, it makes me feel stupid. Like, okay, he knows that I don’t know this stuff but I mean, do we have to talk about it? Yes, he says, because you keep bringing it up. Real mature.

As if I could ever know enough about Judaism. But that’s not the problem. I think the problem is what lies ahead. Knowing that I’m going to be a “Rebbetzin” in two years! Even though at that point, I’ll only have been Jewish for…four years. And it’s not like my Jewish learning has increased since I became Jewish. Fibromyalgia has interfered with many things, including my favorite way to learn, attending classes, and my second favorite, reading books with my little “arthritic” hands. My friends have offered to learn with me one-on-one but though I forced my students to work in pairs, I was never a big fan of this “chavruta” style of learning.

So that leads me to Aish. Where I feel like I’m learning something new while reviewing something old. Where a barrage of Hebrew doesn’t make my eyes cross. Where my classmates know about as much as I do or less. And even where I stick out like a sore thumb in my head scarf, long-sleeved shirts and skirt, which seem to confuse people who think that I must be an all-knowing Orthodox girl. I confuse people even more when I announce my husband is a rabbinical student. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know everything?”

Where do I get a t-shirt that says that even though my husband’s a rabbinical student, would-be rabbi, I don’t actually know anymore than I actually would if he was a doctor, a zookeeper or a stockbroker? If I was the doctor’s wife, would anyone really expect me to advise them on their bowel movements? I think not. But boy, it would be sweet if I could plug a USB port into my husband’s brain and then download all the information he’s accumulating on Judaism. Sigh.

Surviving Superbad

Melissa Mosley/Columbia Pictures

From left, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera in Superbad.

I try to watch everything. I have always been a pop culture junkie. Looking for my next escapist fix. In junior high school, I created a giant binder devoted to my addiction. My friends would pass it around, “ooohing” and “ahhhing” over the latest news on our favorite celebrities, films, TV shows and such. I pieced together these tidbits from my Entertainment Weekly subscription and various teen rags I picked up at the local magazine rack.


I tell you this so you’ll understand when I confess an awful truth. I just saw Superbad. And I liked it.


The film arrived ever mysteriously via my Netflix hook-up. Netflix has told me all too frequently that I cannot add anymore DVDs to my queue unless I must remove some. But apparently while I was cleaning up my queue, I did not delete Superbad.


While my friends were visiting Los Angeles, the little red Netflix packages arrived bearing gifts: Superbad and American Gangster. After careful thought, we chose the violence and sexual content in American Gangster over the teenage fratboy humor of Superbad. Five of us (my husband bailed to sleep) watched the film together one late night.


I remember watching the violent and sexualized scenes in American Gangster and wondering if anyone else in the room was uncomfortable. Ever since going frum, I have found myself much more sensitive to things that normally wouldn’t have made me bat an eye. (Okay, total lie. I used to cover my own eyes over these types of scenes growing up.)


But I didn’t find myself covering my eyes watching Superbad. Once I managed to get over the hump of the crass teenage boy humor of the film (and there was a lot of it), I found myself actually not wanting to turn the film off. My friends and I had vetoed watching this film together because we were afraid of that its rated R “pervasive crude and sexual content, strong language, drinking, some drug use and a fantasy/comic violent image” wouldn’t sit too well with all of us. But in the end, Superbad surprised.


Underneath layers of, well, crap, there was a soft, doughy center. I found myself smiling at its sweetness. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “Superbad? Sweet?” Well, yeah. Sure I made some faces about the asinine humor. In fact, I think I made the “teacher face” I had formerly reserved for the eleventh grade boys I used to teach. But in the end, Superbad was really a sweet, little story about a friendship between two boys.

Um, now, don’t go renting it on my account, though? I don’t think Rebbetzins are allowed to endorse Superbad.

Honoring My Parents

A coworker of mine was planning her wedding. She was telling us about it when she went a little off topic and started discussing her relationship with her mother. All I could think was, “WHOA, this sounds like an abusive relationship.” And I tried as kindly as possible to point that out as the conversation headed increasingly south. But I realized as I told her this that there was a stark difference between our point of views. We both agreed that it was an abusive relationship. But she loves her mom. And because I don’t understand that bond, I realize quickly that I am somehow more objective but still missing the point of why this abusive relationship continues.


In my last post on parent-child relationships, I talked about a review for Julia Blackburn’s book, The Three of Us. An author quote that I briefly mentioned in the blog, really struck a chord with me: “I have to be fond of my mother, simply because I have nothing else in this ... world to cling to,” Blackburn wrote at 16. I also realized that I had no other adult to cling to as a child. So I kept my mother’s abuse a secret, afraid of her and afraid to be without her. My aunt was a great role model as were my teachers but the secret detached me from them. I was isolated because of it. Because I felt that if people didn’t know this great secret about my life then they really couldn’t know me. But unlike Blackburn, I couldn’t cling to my mother. I would have been risking my soul, my heart, my mind.


I tried to cling to my mother. But she rejected me. Over and over again. But she gave me what to cling to in spite of herself. In my three younger sisters, I found all the love that I wasn’t getting. I found a reason to keep going, to keep living, to survive. But I hated the commandment that asked me to honor my parents. How could two such dishonorable people deserve honor? How could G-d ask this of me?



While I was in the process of converting, a friend, who knew that I was still struggling with the 5th commandment to honor my parents, emailed me the following piece by a frum therapist Benzion Sorotzkin, “Honoring Parents Who Are Abusive.” Several points made in the piece shocked me. Passively submitting to chronic abuse wasn’t part of “honoring” my parents. I didn’t even have to forgive my abusive parent because that might do more harm to me. “Where possible, it is best for the child to move away. If interacting with an abusive parent makes a person emotionally ill then the child is exempt from this obligation.” What? Wow.


But it turns my stomach when the piece mentions that the therapist experiences many challenges when treating Orthodox adolescents. It’s really difficult for these patients to acknowledge that their parents are abusive, that this abuse is “against Torah and inexcusable.” When I read this, I think that I am grateful that I knew at such a young age that my mother’s actions were “inexcusable.”


My sisters and I have been told all too often that we need to forgive our mother. “We are very comfortable saying to an abused boy, ‘Sure, it’s unfortunate that your father is abusive, but that’s how he is and he isn’t going to change. You are obligated by Torah to honor him so just get over it.” I’ve heard words such as these. Even the Children’s Services caseworker on my sister’s custody case told her that she should love her mother no matter what. And this was after hearing my sister cry through stories of my mother’s abuse. Thankfully, according to Sorotzkin’s interpretation Judaism doesn’t ask me to just “forgive and forget.”

And yet I still honor both my abusive mother and negligent father when I do good deeds and act as a good person. But I honor myself by refusing to remain silent about the injustices that too many children have had to experience.

Raised by Wolves?

I get the NY Times the only way I can afford it...for free, online. I receive emails hounding me with news alerts, headlines, book and film reviews on a daily basis. I do an utterly horrid job of keeping up.

Today I was surprised, given that I wrote a previous post about being "raised by wolves," to find that the same title being used for a NY Times book review of a recent memoir. The memoir, The Three of Us by Julia Blackburn, details the author's "appalling upbringing at the hands of monstrously self-involved, catastrophically unfit parents manages to be completely distinct yet hauntingly familiar." As I read through the review, I think to myself: "Boy, would this lady and I have a lot to talk about!" Even more interesting, the reviewer claims that forgiveness is a large part of this book. In a sense, the author is forgiving her parents, even her nymphomatic mother who she says she had to cling to because she had no one else. Hmm, forgiveness.

People are often shocked to hear that I don't celebrate Mother's Day with my own mother. That I haven't actually talked to my mother in ten years. That the last mother's day card I bought was for my aunt a few years ago and the only ones in my posession, I received from my little sister all through the four years she lived in my custody. I can't relate to these people who believe that everyone loves their mother no matter what. They can't imagine the horrors a mother could commit against her own children. But I suppose that G-d didn't want them to imagine anything such, at least, not until they were introduced to me. These people stare at me with the same curiosity that I stare at them. "You love your mother?" I wonder. "How could she not love her mother?" they wonder. Both of us sit perplexed as if staring at each other behind a wall of plexiglass at a zoo.

In writing about my mother recently, I've been told to make humanize her character. "She seems like a monster," they tell me. "What's the other side?" I insert the only things I can imagine humanizing her with, not the happy stories from my childhood because I don't remember many that involve her, but with the sad truth of my mother's mental illness and her own abusive childhood. And there were instances where even in her illness, she sought to protect us from an oh-so-terrible outside world, even if she couldn't protect us from herself. "But mental illness doesn't explain why a mother throws knives at her children!" someone insists. If it doesn't, then I don't know what does.