Unhappy Halloween

I’m at Curves, the women’s gym I frequent, when someone mumbles something about kosher Halloween candy. This causes Lynn, one of the women who works there, to respond: “If you’re worried about whether or not Halloween candy is kosher, why are you celebrating Halloween?” A fair question from a non-Jew, no?

When I decided to stop celebrating Halloween, my sister was very upset. Giving up Christmas, she understood. Giving up Valentine’s Day, okay. But Halloween?! Wasn’t that going too far? Did I mention that my sister is a Wiccan who believes that Halloween is a religious holiday? Eventually, she conceded this point. And I asked to borrow her Halloween costume for Purim. Just kidding.

The Wrong Side of a Mop Handle

Like Alejandra Vazquez, I, too, was beaten by my mother with a mop handle at eleven years old. Unlike Alejandra, I survived. I did not survive because of any intervention from authorities. I survived because my mother chose not to kill me that day. Like any good abuser, my mother threatened to kill me if I told anyone our family secret.

After the incident, I told a friend I wanted to kill myself. She told a guidance counselor, who held a meeting with me…and my mother. The guidance counselor asked me in front of my mother if something was wrong. I did the only thing I thought would help me survive. I lied.

My cycle of abuse would not end until I was 17 years old when I ran away from home to live with a maternal grandmother who had always known about my mother’s mental illness, if not the extraordinary lengths of her abusiveness. Abuse that included throwing knives, bludgeoning my sister’s skull with a pair of rollerblades, and routinely striking us so savagely that it led to bruises, scratches, black eyes, bloody noses and split lips. After worst incidents, like the time that left me limping after she beat me with a telephone receiver, my mother ensured that we missed school so no one would see “the signs.”

I do not blame my mother. Only an obviously mentally ill person abuses her child. All too frequently we wait until a child is beaten to a bloody pulp or dies before we begin to ask questions. Teachers and police officers are mandated reporters of child abuse. Family members and neighbors are not.

When I was 21, I kidnapped two of my three sisters. They were fourteen and eighteen. Because one was underage, it led to a three-year custody battle the media never heard about. My lawyers were afraid if we publicized the case, people would think I was in it for my mother’s welfare checks. I believe we implicitly cooperated in a cycle of violence that is usually mirrored by vows of silence.

Throughout the court case, the burden was on me and my sisters to prove my mother’s abuse and negligence. The words of three young girls, two who were adults, were not enough. The testimonies of the friends they told and the teachers who suspected abuse were not enough. None of it was enough to ensure that my then seven-year-old youngest sister was at any time removed from the home.

The Administration of Children’s Services not only ruled against us, the head caseworker told my sister, “Sometimes a family is like burnt toast. You just have to scrape off the bad parts. There are children in Africa who are actually beaten so you should not think your situation so bad. Your mother is your mother no matter what.” Even after exhibiting mentally ill behavior during meetings with the court-appointed physiatrist, ACS did not side with us. I won the court case despite this because a judge ruled that “extraordinary circumstances” dictated my sister remain in my custody and at 17, they would not force her to do otherwise.

But who is routinely checking in on my youngest sister? The same agency that took my mother’s side? The same teachers who overlooked “the signs”? The family members who will participate in a lie? The same neighbors who will wonder about the crazy woman who lives next door but never intervene?

I live in fear of a day when I will open up the newspaper and find that it is my little sister who has been beaten to death. But instead, I open it and find that a little sister I’ve never met has been murdered. I hear that she has four siblings. Are we shocked that at least one has also seen the wrong side of a mop handle?

As long as we enable the abusers and take power away from the victims, child abuse will continue. As long as we sit by and watch silently while that “crazy woman” in line at Target slaps her kids in front of us, child abuse will continue. And the only ones to blame will be us. All of the adults who let it happen again and again.

Because a Baal Teshuva is a Convert's Best Friend

"My Uterus is None of Your Business" has made its way to BeyondBT, a blog for baalei teshuva the world over. Check it out. You can post your comments to the article there or read up on the many, varied comments from other readers. Right now, there seems to be an ongoing debate of my choice of titles. My use of the word "uterus" (not a naughty word, but a female reproductive organ) is being deemed as not very frum (pious).

Gratitude

From the NY Times article, Brooklyn Woman is Questioned in the Death of her Daughter, 11:

"The mother of an 11-year-old girl who arrived in New York from Mexico last month used a mop handle to beat her on Thursday — a thrashing so severe it left the girl listless, vomiting and confined to bed, the police said. Sometime between then and Sunday morning, they said, the girl died."

When I read this, I thought of the time my mother beat me with a mop handle and I was grateful that I survived.

Keeping my hands to myself

Back from Los Angeles and of course, incredibly jet-lagged. Oy. And I'm scheduled to go to a Yael Naim concert tonight. The best laid plans of mice and men....

I figured I'd write up more about my trip before I head out for the evening. One particular awkward moment sticks out in my mind. After a great meal with some of my in-law's friends, one male guest reached out to shake my hand. The man is married to a Jewish woman and recently had a non-Orthodox conversion.

But when he stretched out his hand to me, I kept my hands to myself. My husband wasn't sure if that was the right decision and I started to doubt myself, too. The host laughed it off, mentioning that he had once given me the awkwardest hug in the world. I clarified that it was probably more awkward for him than me.

After all, it's not like I've never touched a man before who isn't my husband, but fibromyalgia pains and a special sensitivity to touch have made me look at touching...the opposite sex or otherwise, as something significant.

But I worry that people will mistake my actions for fervent religiosity. That the Modern Orthodox crowd I run with in Los Angeles might think that I think I'm better than them somehow because I don't touch. Not that my actions are based in a deeply thoughtful choice that is intertwined with pain and religious preference.

In case you missed it, I previously published an essay about: Fibromyalgia & The Power of Touch.

A title first

Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis

It’s just a title, right? I mean, it doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not I wear my ugly orthopedic shoes to shul (synagogue) or just don my sneakers. It’s not supposed to make my stomach hurt when I think about how difficult it is for me to follow services sometimes. It’s not the only reason I cover my hair one way and worry I should do it up in some other way.

REBBETZIN.

My publisher wants to put that before my name under the as-yet untitled memoir I’m writing. “When’s your husband finishing rabbinical school?” he wonders. Two years. Is that when I’ll become a title first and a person second?

Whose funny idea was it to give me a title, anyway? By the time people start taking that title seriously, I’ll only have been Jewish about four years. That makes me a Jewish four-year-old. With the Hebrew skills of one, too.

This is G-d’s funny sense of humor, right?

Which is why when someone asks me at the shul where my husband is interning, “Are you ready to be a rebbetzin?” I start to nod and shake my head at the same time. I start to talk but all that comes out is a squeak.

How many years do you think it will take me to get used to the idea of being…Jewish? A wife? A REBBETZIN?

I guess we’ll see. Because I’ll be doing it all very publicly.

Silence, A Response

Remodeling the world.

Some bad book I was reading was making fun of suburbanites and how much time they spend talking about remodeling their homes. I found this curious because I had yet to walk into such a conversation out here in Los Angeles. And then it happened.

During one Sukkot meal, I happened upon talk of “redoing” kitchens and other stuff. Just as I was thinking about changing classes (in my case from welfare to someday middle class, currently hanging with some upper class folk), one dark-haired woman asked the fair-haired speaker, “Oh, you’re husband’s been doing all the work on your home?”

The blonde replied, “Well, yeah. Mostly. But you know, for some of the work we hired a Mexican.” Honestly, the words were verbalized in italics. Did I imagine the way she wrinkled her nose? And I stood there silently despite my article about how racist people need to be educated. Did she mean to be racist? Did she realize what she said was racist to me? The dark-haired woman hazarded a shocked glance my way after the comment. Did she know I was thinking, “for some of the work we hired a Dominican!”

And then at the same meal, I let another one slide. A man said he was “marrying a shiksa” right in front of his wife, who is in the process of converting to Judaism. My mother-in-law gave snuck a startled glance in my direction. But neither of us had the courage to speak up. Neither of us mentioned that he was calling his fiancé an abomination.

Why is it so difficult to speak up against the small injustices in our lives?

Aliza's J-O-B

Here’s a love letter I sent to some of my friends and family today after many blows to my ego.

“You know, I think that I should say something. All of y'all are very sweet but you seem to have forgotten that I DO HAVE A JOB.

Job #1 I hate. It's getting healthy enough so that I don't have to be entirely dependent on others. Look at me tying my shoelaces all by myself now. And brushing my teeth. And combing my hair. And making dinner. And not dropping things 24-7. And not walking around like a pain zombie. Ooh.

Job #2 is writing my book which is not as easy as it looks and pays horribly right now.

Job #3 is called FREELANCE WRITING. It's a tough gig and it doesn't pay really well at the beginning but if I pick up some steady gigs, I can really do pretty well. I made $1500 on my first big writing job. $650 on the second. I'm getting paid in pounds from Britain. I've got a pretty steady gig with Chabad and Interfaithfamily.com. I'm working on others. An article for one women's magazine might turn into anywhere from $1500-$4000 in one lump sum. (PRAY FOR ME!) I'm taking a bunch of classes including one with sheeesheee people at Columbia.

See, I have a job. It's not a good job in terms of money but the job satisfaction is pretty sweet. And mostly, I don't have to leave the house to do it. Contrary to proper belief, I am just fine going to work (my computer) in my pajamas and my underwear.”

Aliza at work (and out of her pajamas).

Hispanics at Risk

My great-grandmother recently celebrated her 96th birthday. My grandmother just started collecting social security. So as you can imagine, there has been a pretty good run of good health in my family. No history of cancer. No history of Alzheimer’s. Just a bad case of high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

My husband, however, has two grandparents in their 80s who are suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s. According to More Alzheimer’s Risk for Hispanics, Studies Find, that’s when most people begin to suffer from these illnesses. But more and more immigrant Hispanics are showing signs as early as their late 50s and early 60s. However unfounded, this is the type of news that makes one descendant of immigrant Hispanics more than a little uncomfortable.

It's all in the family

We're in Los Angeles for my husband's internship at a local synagogue. And as a perk, we get to spend time with the family. Yay, family?

My mother-in-law reminded me of a little known family fact at the last Sukkot meal. Converts usually face a lot of obstacles in family harmony when they decide to convert. My father thought it was funny. My mother would probably keel over if she knew. My sisters took it well...except for that time I told them Halloween had become a holiday I stopped celebrating. A couple of my friends stopped talking to me all together and decided that I hated Jesus.

But the person that took it the worst is someone I've never met. My mother-in-law's brother decided that earlier on that my Orthodox conversion wasn't kosher. Because it wasn't performed by a handful of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) rabbis that he thought would perform it most appropriately. My mother-in-law and her brother have stopped talking altogether over MY conversion.

Sigh.

Close Encounters of the Weird Kind

So, I was recently on Facebook when one of my readers decided to start instant messaging me. In her defense, I did post a link to my Facebook profile on my blog. So, it should have been okay, right? Um, right.

But it wasn't. Though I tried to keep up the conversation, I felt more and more like my privacy was being invaded. Here was a person I'd never met firing questions and comments at me as if we were buddies. It became increasingly uncomfortable until a bad Internet connection cut us off. In the end, I think she decided she didn't want to be my Facebook friend either. And I decided that I should take a Marketing professional's advice and create a Facebook fan page.

Hope you'll check it out: Aliza's Fan Page.

Getting religious

Squeezing writing into Chol Hamoed Sukkot takes a kind of discipline that I apparently have not mastered.

I'm squirreling away at trying to come up for a title for my book. And no, it's not finished. But the publisher wants a title. Between my catchy ones and his "textbook" ones, we have yet to find a middle ground.

Meanwhile, I happened upon a New York Times review, Hallelujah Chorus, for the new memoir of a former favorite author, Anne Rice. It chronicles her return to Catholicism. This is a woman who wrote about horny vampires and S&M.

From the review:

"So the stages here are set for many — many — deployments of the word “miracle.” One of the more challenging or, if you will, trying aspects of accounts by people who have been “saved” is that everything is viewed as a personal intervention by Jesus himself.

Which is to say that confessional (and profess-ional) literature is like faith itself: to believers, a tone poem of perfect lucidity and logic; to the unconvinced (in whose camp I squat, nervously clutching Christopher Hitchens’s pant leg) it can sound a little, well, fruity. "

My goal is to make my book not fruity.

Back to lala land...

It seems like I just got back from my summer in Los Angeles. Yet, in seven hours from now (I should be sleeping), I'll be cruising at high altitudes on my way back.

My husband will be working at his internship at a local synagogue. I'll be trying to squeeze in chapters of my book in-between all the upcoming holidays. And with my fibromyalgia under control lately, I might even make Rebbetzin-like appearances at services. I know I'm being a bit ambitious. Might be that new year's glow.

I’m more Latino than you

Someone asked me if I feel more comfortable talking in English or talking in Spanish. I told them English. They responded, “I feel more comfortable talking in Spanish. I guess I’m more Latino than you.”

Sigh.

Now, I know how poor Jessica Alba feels. Her family didn’t pass on the language according to her interview with Latina magazine a couple of months back. Latina magazine, which by the way used to be in English and in Spanish, is now in English only with a few Spanish language ads sprinkled in.

My upcoming piece focuses on “losing the language.” How Spanish started on the same foot as English in my life but became the language of my home as I was sent off to school and outgrew early bilingual elementary education. It is based on my blog, Losing the Language.

Being Latino is more than language. It's about the shared heritage and the blood lines that tie all of us together.

The S-Word

I was strolling about the internet trying to come up with titles for my book when I found this "great" Jewish t-shirt website. I was all set to buy my husband, "Trust me, I'm a rabbi" until I saw...

"Shiksas are for Practice."

The site claims that "each of our shirt ideas is carefully appraised by the Judgement panel to determine its humor, good taste, jewiness and originality." I'm sorry, does "Shiksas are for Practice" fall under humor, good taste, jewiness or originality? Wait, I know. It's falls under my guidelines for truly DISGUSTING.

I'm sure this is what we mean by being a light unto the nations, yes?

Words Aliza thinks are dirty and should never be used by Jews or anyone for that matter:

• Shiksa
• Shvartza-That similarly used derogatory word for African-Americans
• Goy (when used in nasty references to non-Jews. My sister though does want a "Shabbos Goy" t-shirt)

I'm not white, I'm Jewish

“I’m Not White, I’m Jewish” is the name of the song featured in the YouTube video above. The rap song has clear sociological issues. As the performing artist strums along to his guitar, the camera pans around the room of Jewish preteens. And every face in the room? White, of course. But hey, as the song claims, “I’m not White, I’m Jewish.”

It’s no secret that signs across the United States used to read “No Niggers, No Jews.” But at some point in time, Jews started to enjoy the benefits of white privilege in America. It is that same white privilege that the song attempts to deny. Who wants to be white when whiteness seems to equal racism? Who wants to be white if that somehow takes away from Jewish identity?

But things are much more complicated than that. At least, they are in America.

White is a race. Jewish is an ethnicity. Not all Jews are white. America has a complicated racial landscape. It insists on singular cookie cutter identities when people are actually enjoy rich swirls of racial and ethnic identification. There are white Hispanics and black Hispanics, because Hispanic is also an ethnicity. Still Hispanics across the board do not enjoy white privilege…unless, that is, they can “pass” for white.

Somewhere along the line, Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews started passing for white. And it is these Jews that enjoy white privilege. Though they’ll try to deny it. Why? Shame. The same shame that any self-respecting white person has about America and Europe’s history of racism. So, instead of associating themselves with racism at all, they deny their whiteness and their white privilege. If I went around denying that I was Hispanic or Jewish, would anyone take me seriously?

My husband and I read many books on racism together to try to understand where the other was coming from. My husband became irate when reading on particular book that focused on institutionalized racism. “What the hell is that?” He was infuriated by the idea that he was somehow complicit in institutionalized racism. It took years of being in an interracial relationship before he realized that in many ways, we are all complicit. He noted that institutionalized racism even comes in a Shampoo bottle that you see every day at the drugstore. It says that pin straight hair is “normal” and anything otherwise, is not.

White Jews, despite their whiteness, enjoy a privilege that other whites do not. Despite looking white, they are still considered the Other. They are not the Protestant Christians one thinks about when they picture “American.” They, like other minorities, identify as a hyphenate. They’ll announce…“Hi, I’m a Jewish-American,” the way I tell people I’m a “Latina-American-Jew.” Jews ARE different than other whites.

Still, it’s one thing to focus on one part of one’s identity. In the Hispanic grocery store, I’m a Latina first, an American Jew second. In synagogue, I’m a Jew first, an American Latina second. It’s quite another thing to deny part of one’s identity, “I’m not white,” because of discomfort or because one sees themselves as something else. Face it, in America, how one sees themselves is only part of the equation, how one is perceived is the other. That’s why in America, Barack Obama is just black, instead of the more politically (and biologically) correct term: “BIRACIAL.”

Also check out:

Stuff Jewish Young Adults Like: Denying that they are white

And the slightly more academic...

I’m Not White, I’m Jewish But I’m White by Paul Kivel

The songwriter speaks about what he hoped the song would accomplish: (Tune in at minute 5:20)

On Dominicanness

Junot Diaz was quoted as saying he had to suppress his Dominicanness. Of course, he points out in a piece in Dominican Today that this quote was taken grossly out of context. Who would want to suppress their Dominicanness, in fact? (Not me. And certainly not Junot, who's stellar Oscar Wao novel is a tribute to Dominican Americans everywhere.)

Diaz notes: “I’m trying my best out here, in a country that thinks all Dominicans are animals or criminals and it would be nice not to be simplified by a Dominican news source. I get that enough from the gringos,” said Diaz in an email received Friday.

Hispanic Heritage Month Post #3: The Authors

I didn’t discover Hispanic authors until I was in college. Until then, I thought the only people that wrote were white with the exception of a few black ones. When I uncovered my brethren were writing, I launched myself head first into their writing.

The heavy hitters

For a while, I was addicted to Oscar Hijuelos. I’ve probably read ever single one of his books, starting with Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love, which became the movie that launched Antonio Banderas into the superstar stratosphere. Yikes, I just signed onto Amazon and Hijuelos has a new book, Dark Dude. But honestly, the cultural bending The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien was one of my all-time favorites.

Julia Alvarez. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. She’s a Dominicana who writes about being a Dominicana in America. Much of my childhood trauma could have been nursed away by reading through her fiction and pseudo-fictional accounts. My favorite is How the Garcia Lost Their Accents and Yo! But currently, Once Upon a Quinceanera is downloaded onto my IPOD. I found Saving the World extremely evocative and moving.

Okay, Esmeralda Santiago is Puerto Rican! But that’s okay. According to my grandmother, I’m a little bit Puerto Rican, too! Though I haven’t read her titular memoir, When I Was Puerto Rican or the follow-up, Almost a Woman, I absolutely devoured The Turkish Lover. Ay Dios mio, I was totally heartbroken over her love affair.

The newbies
Junot Diaz has gotten much press on my blog. I wasn’t a big fan of his short story collection, Drown. My conservative ears just weren’t having that slang he wields so well. But I adored The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It made me proud to have grown up a “GHETTO NERD IN THE HOOD!”

Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia taught me more than I ever thought I’d know about Cuban culture. But her next novel, The Aguero Sisters was delicious. High on melodrama with a back story on Santeria that was not to be missed! When a student I was tutoring told me she was reading the first book for class, I raved about it in one big scary rant.

Aliza Valdes Rodriguez has also been a notable mention on my blog. I admit that her trashy, beach reads featuring Latinas are not the highest form of fiction but they are juicy, albeit salacious reads. I tried to tear myself away from Dirty Girls On Top, even hiding it in my purse so no one would see, but in the end, I couldn’t put it down.


And I love Angie Cruz. No, it’s not just because she’s also Dominican and she grew up in the Heights. It’s because once I got one nibble of Let it Rain Coffee (which of course is a sendoff to the Juan Luis Guerra song), I decided to email her about how much I loved it over and over and over again. And she responded!

The golden oldies

Pablo Neruda is no Shakespeare and thank G-d for that! I am not into poetry as much as I once was but I rediscovered Neruda in Spanish and English in my husband’s large, ever expanding poetry shelf in our bookcase. Despite the deft English translations of his poems, his beautiful poetry is proof that some things are better said in Spanish.


Yes, I’m doing a total disserve by not mentioning Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez among others. Did I mention Jubana!: The Awkwardly True and Dazzling Adventures of a Jewish Cubana Goddess by Gigi Anders? No, of course, I didn’t. I am so rushing through this blog to get a cracking on some writing for my book before Yom Tov (Jewish holidays) strikes again!

Sheitel Envy

My blond blue-eyed friend and I were having a nice chat about the horrors of covering our hair. She mentioned her hair losing some of its streaky blondness. I mentioned that I can't actually fit a sheitel over my head. What with my hair being so...TALL.

She said: "You know, I could totally understand why you wouldn't want to wear a sheitel. Your hair's got personality. Why would you want to have some white woman's dead hair on your head?"

Some times people just say things better than I ever could have said them myself. Hair is a complicated subject for me. We'll leave it at that.

None of your business?

"My Uterus is None of Your Business" is my latest piece published in The Jewish Chronicle of London.

Tickets, please!

Scoring High Holiday tickets has been a hot topic of interest in my online conversion group. Leave it to Chabad to make things even a little more interesting.

Ghetto Girl Goes Jewish

As of this week, Jewish Living magazine is now defunct. I did, however, get a nice PDF of what would have been my upcoming article on my conversion alongside a bigger piece on the "Conversion Conundrum."

To see the piece, click here: "From Ghetto Girl to Rabbi's Wife".

Catholic Schools are a Head Scarf's Haven

A recent article in the NY Times sickens me. In “French Muslims Find Haven in Catholic Schools,” Muslim students have decided to forgo public school for Catholic schools after the 2004 ban on head scarves in public schools. I’m guessing that freedom of religion there isn’t one of the rights we enjoy so casually here.

Headmaster of St. Mauront, Jean Chamoux is quoted as saying: “If I banned the head scarf, half the girls wouldn’t go to school at all. I prefer to have them here, talk to them and tell them that they have a choice. Many actually take it off after a while. My goal is that by the time they graduate they have made a conscious choice, one way or the other.”

Chabad Goes to Harlem

Rabbi Shaya Gansbourg with his children,Rashi (l.) and Yossel at the Chabad of Harlem, a synagogue and community center at 437 Manhattan Ave.

When I decided to convert, I was living in Harlem. There wasn’t much of a Jewish life to be had. I could walk 40 blocks (and I sometimes did) to my synagogue on the Upper East Side. I ended up moving to Washington Heights, the cheapest area I could afford to live in on my budget. Plus, I had a sense that being Dominican and almost Jewish that I would fit in.

“Led by Chabad, diverse group of Jews make up new presence in Harlem,” an article at Crownheights.info is making me wish I was back in Harlem.

Friends of Other Races?

This month’s issue of Glamour magazine poses an interesting question: “Do you have friends of other races?” And then, more poignantly, do you have CLOSE friends of other races?

I don’t want to offend my white friends. But I might. Here me out, though.

I have always been someone who has had friends of other races. Close friends, in fact. Growing up, my group of friends resembled a meeting of the United Nations. Among the countries represented were (of course) the Dominican Republic, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Pero, China and Korea, etc. And this was all before I began attending a downtown arts high school where my population of friends grew exponentially more diverse.

But ever since entering the Jewish community, I’ve found myself craving more friends of color. Seriously almost slobbering from the craving. Craving, especially, friends with Dominican cooking skills. I am experiencing, for instance, a significant drought in Hispanic friends. But I’m working on it. I did attend my second ever Jewish Dominican wedding last week.

I think that having friends from different races (and different classes) has always been an eye-opening experience. Not that I’ve ever really been sheltered but I loved learning about different cultures firsthand: learning that my Bengali friends ate with their hands at home, trying my Chinese friend’s latest treats from Chinatown and learning all about Judaism from Jewish friends, which put me in my current predicament, of course.

Living in an Orthodox Jewish community and not being exposed to much else, I find myself feeling increasingly sheltered from people of other races and cultures.

No, I don’t have any REALLY CLOSE friends of other races and honestly, I don’t like it.