Cool Jewish Events: Inside Jewish India/Matzah & Chutney: Jewish in Mumbai

Event: Inside Jewish India/Matzah & Chutney: Jewish in Mumbai
Date: Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Time: 7-10pm
Place: Tantric India Bistro, 123 Stuart St., Boston, MA 02116
Admission free.
Must RSVP: tahliaos AT jdcny DOT org or call 212-885-0811

Cool Jewish Events Opening Night 14th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival

Event: Opening Night of 14th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival
Place: The Center for Jewish History 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY
Date: Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Time: 7:30pm

Admission:
$30 General Admission
$25 ASF & YUMuseum members, students and seniors
$250 Opening Night Friend (includes the above for two (2) + VIP
pre-screening reception and listing in Festival Program)

Festival Pass:
Admission to all Center for Jewish History screenings (except Opening & Closing Nights)
$100 General
$75 ASF & YU Members, students and seniors

Honoring the Festival founders -Dr. Janice Ovadiah, filmmaker Mr. Haim Shiran
and Mr. Morrie Yohai -with the ASF (American Sephardi Foundation) "Pomegranate Award."

Opening Night/Film: COCO

New York Premiere

see trailer

In this comic drama written, directed and starring Gad Elmaleh, Coco is a flamboyant self-made man who becomes a royal pain when planning the biggest show to date - the bar mitzvah of his son Samuel. This event will become, for him, a moment of truth about his role as a father and for realizing what is important in life.

Director: Gad Elmaleh. France, 2009, 95 mins. French w/English subtitles. Brief partial nudity

Sweet Sixteen and This Convert Wanted to Be a Rabbi

Watch video above.

The story of Aliza Bulow is pretty inspiring. At just 10, she knew she didn't want to be Christian and by 16, she had moved to Israel with the intention to convert and become a rabbi. Finding out that as an Orthodox Jew, she couldn't become a rabbi, she was undaunted. Though a rabbi stressed that as a convert without generations of Torah knowledge, Aliza was at a great disadvantage, that didn't stop her. Over 30 years later, she teaches Torah and counsels other rabbi's wives.

Related:

"Harry's Magic" by Aliza Bulow

Quote: As I tucked him into bed he said, "Why did you have to convert?! I feel like I'm in prison. You should have waited until the children were born so we could all choose for ourselves!"

Quote: On the tape, Rabbi Mordechai Becher was comparing the world of Harry Potter to that of the Jews. He explained that just as Harry lived in a parallel dimension in this world, so do the Jews.

"When Chocolate Isn't Enough" by Aliza Bulow

The all too INFAMOUS Hole in the Sheet

Note: Video displays some male nudity (a clip from "The DaVinci Code"). Your call if you want to watch, otherwise, just read the little bit below.

MaNistana's latest video is based on...well, read on.

Orthodox Jewish Sex Ed.:

Now, what I heard from a friend who heard it from a friend of a friend of a friend is that having sex through a hole in a sheet is very lenient. The more machmir (strigent) position is using a hole in the wall. (Sigh. I feel dirty just writing that but I have to point out how stupid misinformation gets passed around.)

My little sister, who is not Jewish (Why does everyone keep asking if my sisters converted too? Do you think it's like catching or something?), said that she would have found this funnier if she hadn't answered this question ("Do Orthodox Jews have a sex through a hole in a sheet?") so often after telling people her sister is an Orthodox Jew. She notes that also doesn't discuss the sexual habits of Japanese people (she's an Asianophile) or for that matter any of her siblings...with anyone.

By the way, the first I was asked this question was at work. The second time at work. The third time...you get the picture. How...inappropriate.

Also, it isn't it remarkable how bloggers Jew in the City aka Allison Josephs and MaNishtana aka Shais Rison, who is obviously much more risque and sarcastic, differ in their approaches to educating people about the habits of Orthodox Jews? Sort of just blows that myth that we're all penguin clones out of the water. Um, yeah.

But you're "too" X to be Dominican

Today, at the little corner store, I survey the calling cards behind the counter and ask the (Indian?) guy to hand me the "el Dominicano feliz" (The Happy Dominican) card.

He slides it over hesitantly.

"You're Dominican?" I let him go on for another 5 minutes. He has that utter look of disbelief I know well. "No, really? Dominican? Really? You can't be Dominican." I have my big ugly gray winter hat on and all he can see is 1/4 of my face, my staid little brown coat from the GAP (three years ago) and my fake cashmere scarf.

"Yes, I'm really, really, really Dominican."

"But you're so..." I'm not sure what he says next because he has to repeat it over and over again and I can't understand it with his accent. I swear he's saying "WHITE!"

"What? Huh?" I just stare at him blankly. Maybe I'm not hearing him right?

"But you CAN'T be Dominican," he starts again and then stops. "You're so QUIET." He enunciates the last word so I'll understand. Man has good comic timing.

Not to be outdone, I flash him a Cheshire Cat smile. "Only when I'm buying my calling card to call home." Cryptic?

He smiles but he's still shaking his head in his disbelief. "Dominican? Really?"

Aliza Hausman...breaking stereotypes wherever she goes. Especially when she's too tired to move her mouth.

Update: As I was calling my father and peering at the card, I realized the card is owned by a Jewish-American telephone company! I bought a Jewminicano calling card without knowing it!!!

Cool Jewish Events: Off and Running Movie Screening

Event: "Off and Running" Movie Screening
Date: Sunday, January 31, 2010
Time: 4:15pm
Place: IFC Center, 323 Sixth Avenue., @ West Third St., New York, NY
Note: The film is also has showings from Friday, January 28, 2010-Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Special Screening co-hosted by Be'chol Lashon, Jewish Multiracial Network, Brooklyn Jews and UJA Women's Group, with Q&A moderated by UJA's Carol Spinner

Happy hour Mingler to follow at The Dove Parlour (288 Thompson Street between Bleecker and West 3rd Streets).

Synopsis:

With white Jewish lesbians for parents and two adopted brothers, Brooklyn teen Avery grew up in a unique and loving household. But when her curiosity about her African-American roots grows, she decides to contact her birth mother. That choice propels Avery into her own complicated exploration of race, identity and family that threatens to distance her from the parents she’s always known.

NR, 76 Minutes
First Run Features, USA

TMI for the Rebbetzin-in-training-wheels?

Can I tell you a secret?

"Sure," I say.

Was that TMI? (TMI=Too much information)

"I'm a Rebbetzin (almost). There's no such thing as TMI with the Rebbetzin," I say. Then I get quiet for a second and I add, "Plus I'm Dominican, what's TMI?"

A Convert's Best Friend

If it wasn't for my non-observant Russian Jewish friend becoming Orthodox and inadvertently inspiring me while he was trying to explain why he'd done it (because no one in his secular life understood why), I might not be here today. Quite literally, a ba'al teshuva is a convert's friend.

In fact, it was another ba'al teshuva, a woman, who went to Hebrew classes with me, explained what everything (cholent! gefilte fish! Israeli salad!) was at the big Kiddush after services and told me where to buy my first knee-length skirts (Target). Someone had helped her and she helped me and now I'm helping others. Someone made a bad movie about this called "Pay it forward."

Sure, I had a lot of help from FFBs (frum-from-birth Jews or "lifers" as the writer below calls them who grew up Orthodox) but many of them didn't understand, not really, how hard it was to live one way your whole life and then decide to up and change it all because no matter how much you tried, you couldn't kick the Jewish habit (it's addictive!). It was the friend who was a ba'al teshuva, the friend who was a convert, who remembered giving up sandwiches in the beginning because Birkat Hamazon, the prayer for after you eat bread, was too long and foreboding at first.

Read: "Who is a Ba’al Teshuvah? Thoughts of a Now-Orthodox Adult Raised in a Non-Orthodox Family"

You don't look...

An improvised joke I made at a recent speaking engagement....

I spent the first 26 years being told "funny, you don't look Dominican" and I'll spend the next 36 being told "funny, you don't look Jewish."

Since I am Dominican and Jewish, clearly I look nothing but puro Jewminicana. What do I have to get a t-shirt?

Neither Dominican or Jewish is a race.

Now, don't even get me started on "Funny, you don't look American."

If you step off a plane in Santo Domingo, New York or Jerusalem, you'll see plenty of Jews, Dominicans and Americans who look like me.

You need to get out more, people.

Why do I have to repeat myself? Because people aren't listening.

Related: Lala Vazquez on "You Don't Look Latina"

"Funny, You Don't Look Jewish" by moi

Hebrew Mamita Vanessa Hidary on "Funny, You Don't Look Jewish":

Cool Jewish Events: Second Annual Reelabilities NY Disabilities Film Festival

Event: Second Annual Reelabilities NY Disabilities Film Festival presented by the JCC Manhattan

Date: Thursday, January 28, 2010-Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Time & Place: Multiple locations and times throughout New York City

Admission: Festival pass is $40

"Do You" and Stuff-Part 2

Whoa. Six more months until my husband becomes a rabbi and I need to take off those training wheels (from my new Rebbetzin-in-training wheels title). I don't know how much or in what capacity I will be able to help out at my husband's shul but I know that I would love to make synagogue a more meaningful place for myself and others (especially those who don't fall into the "standard" married with children box because too many of my single friends, even the singles with kids, feel like synagogues think they're invisible. I really want synagogue to be a place where converts and Jews of color feel welcome, like so many synagogues made me feel welcome. I know that I have only so much say on how to make this happen but I will do whatever's in my power to make it happen.

Yeah, no joke, attending all these events is a strain on my body. It can be beyond exhausting and lead to flare-ups. I'm still pushing myself, even if I'm not on the computer as much. It's hard to break bad habits and mine has always been ignoring my body, my limits and pushing further in a way that isn't healthy (emotionally, physically or otherwise). The sitting, the sitting (walking, standing, stretching is much easier on my fibromyalgia) and the schmoozing...oy. If you've ever met me in person, you know how I love to schmooze. I love to connect with people and I keep meeting so many wonderful people at these events, especially because (at least on the on-set) I really have time and energy to invest in them now that I've begged off a bit from my freelancing career. At the WH&HD event, I especially enjoyed talking to a retired social worker who told me about how her family had helped founded more than two synagogues in Riverdale and who offered that her current volunteer work, in hospice care, was beyond fulfilling.

On Friday night, I attended the free weekly dinner (sponsorships ALWAYS welcome) at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale which had its annual, inspiring and rousing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event (I missed it but my friend blogged about it here in all its complex and inspiring detail). This wasn't a good month financially and we weren't able to have people over Shabbat (except for one of my siblings) but I invited 10 people (many with cats who can't come to my home and vice versa) to "Abraham & Sarah's Tent" as the meal is called and they loved it. I have gone more regularly lately and it's become sort of like that saying about that old show Cheers "where everyone knows your name."

At "The Tent," I split my guests into two sections, bilingual-Spanish/English and English-only and I spoke the most Spanish I have in a while and probably ever at a Shabbat meal. I wish I could have paid more attention to all my guests but I was so pleased that when the meal ended, everyone wanted to continue to talk and connect. Some of us walked home together and continued to talk and talk and talk in the brisk weather that night. The sign of a great Shabbat meal is when you don't know where the time went, you have no place you'd rather be and you don't want to leave!

A friend asked me over Shabbat if I missed writing. I said "no." I think the quickness of my reply surprised him. I still write in my head all the time. I write in my journal (I have three different sizes I carry or leave in separate rooms of the house) and I don't always get to type it up. I could say the same about missing drawing (click the "art" label if you'd like to see my pieces). I don't. Yet, there was a time in my life when I couldn't go an hour without sketching (probably before the fibromyalgia made doodling a luxury as well). I love writing. I love drawing. But at some point they stopped fulfilling me in the way I needed and though I plan to go back to them, I want to do it with the same fervor and passion I had before.

This past summer in Los Angeles working with converts and newly observant folks, taking stand-up comedy classes, dropping in and out of art classes, made me realize that there are things out there outside of my usual bag of tricks, outside of my "work," that make me happy in ways I had never imagined. Also, notably in Los Angeles, I was much more positive about my writing career. In LA, people respect that even if you haven't been published everywhere (or anywhere), there is a lot to be said for the process of writing and how much harder it is getting for writers to get published these days no matter how good their writing is. Like many professions, writing, particularly freelance writing, is one of those perpetually underpaid professions because what you get paid rarely reflects the amount of work you've put in.

Non-creative types don't realized how much work behind-the-scenes doesn't get published or see the light of day. In New York, it's always "where have you been published?" or "when will it be published?" or a snide remark about how little they think of writing and writers. Trust me, it's not these nasty voices that keep me from writing the way I did before. Still, I can't tell you how many times people haven't bothered to roll their eyes when they asked, "What do you do?" and I responded "writer" or worse, "blogger."

I realized I had a hard time achieving work/life balance not exactly easy when you're a writer (or in the case of that linked story, anything else on top of it, like a Mom, wife, sister, person!) at the expense of my health and that somewhere deep down I was trying to please those nasty voices that didn't think I mattered unless I'd been published in places they thought were prestigious.

One of my pieces that was published in a particularly prestigious paper incapacitated me for weeks. I'll spare you the awful details. So yeah, someday, I'll get back into the writing groove in a way that I think is less under the radar and that is more about me and my goals. A writer/lecturer at one event I attended noted, in such a frank way, that she had completely put her public speaking career on hold to work on her book, such is the all-consuming nature of writing a book and she refused to discuss when the book would be finished. "Preferably before I die," she said.

Back in New York, I am really wishing my home were more accessible, my energy was more consistent and high and my funds less limited so that I would have the opportunity to do more of the work I enjoyed doing in Los Angeles here in New York. As it stands right now, I am trying to connect with every Dominican Jew in New York before I leave and I am still trying to keep up with the questions I get emailed daily and such from fans (sorry I'm still 15 letters behind!).

In New York, I've realized that there is an obsession with the idea that people are only as important as how much is in their back account or how many PhDs they have that they aren't using. Maybe this is an obsession everywhere else, too, but I've lived all my life here "in the city that never sleeps." Yes, I realized the Orthodox lifestyle, which includes private Jewish education for all the many children we're expected to have while getting those PhDs is quite expensive, helped along by a culture of overachieving.

At one recent event, I heard a woman voice that the reason she, with all her degrees, should be a stay-at-home mother is because all of her degrees--none of them in early childhood education--make her a more suitable person to raise her kids. "Why would you want anyone less educated taking care of your child?" she said as if her logic made perfect sense. Forget that some people are just better with kids and what this obviously says about her thoughts about women with less than shiny Ivy League degrees tacked oup on their walls...oh yeah, do you see where that road leads? I get that she was trying to defend why someone would go to Stanford and then spend all day "playing" (this is what the "working mother" called it) at home. The "Mommy Wars" and "Whose a feminist or not?" wars are still in full effect in Riverdale for sure.

No, I don't make a lot of money sitting on the phone or at the coffee shop just listening to people talk about their Jewish inner lives. I know there are more lucrative ways to do this but I'm not looking for advice in that area. I'm just doing what makes me happy. Me! Happy! I lived the first 25 years of my life surviving by the skin of my teeth, surviving so that others (my sisters) could survive, surviving because I didn't know how to do anything else. I think I've more than earned a little "happy."

I know a lot of people (especially women) who give, give, give, give (or work, work, work) right up until they enter a fresh grave too early. I want to give but I also want to just try living. No, LIVING. L-I-V-I-N-G. I can only surmise but I imagine living is much more fun that surviving. I want to see where that takes me. So I'm trying to stop and smell the roses (okay, not really, come on, with my allergies? Please!) and figure out how I can spend whatever time I have on this Earth doing Jewish and being the best Aliza Hausman I can be. Yeah, it's corny but luckily you're not allergic to corn, are you?

"Do You" and Stuff-Part 1

I know, I know, I still have to tell you how much I loved Limmud! But for a second, I have to rave about all the wonderful Jewish learning experiences I've had lately in Riverdale.

I love classes. What I miss most about my time on the Upper East Side was the amazing wealth of classes that were available at my local shul (shuls really as shul-hopping was common). I spent almost every Shabbat in shul all day. As soon as we were done with lunch, we'd head back for an exciting shuir (class). I think the shul on the UES was good at multi-level programming or maybe it wasn't and it was just programming that targeted me (the newly observant) at the time.

While I can learn independently quite well, I prefer learning in a classroom with other students, especially those who ask the questions I don't think to ask. So aside from trying more creative ways to learn (I'm about to make contact with my Partners in Torah telephone learning chavruta/partner), this week, I also caught a interesting parsha class at Kingsbridge Center of Israel, a shul down the hill from Riverdale where my good friends have recently become "the rabbi and Rebbetzin of the shul."

My friends have such creative events because they're just starting out and they want to attract new members. From an event where we learned about the benefits of raw food (adventures and fulfilled my quota of trying to get more vegetables in my diet!) and got to eat amazingly tasty events---I don't care that it looked like dirt, kale mixed with apple juice just tastes awesome--to an upcoming event I featuring a Moroccan food Shabbos with half the proceeds (which I'm sure the shul needs) going to Haiti.

I wonder if some shuls have either gotten complacent in their programming or if they aren't in touch with how to target the varied populations in some shuls. As a former teacher who struggled with "differentiated instruction" (teaching in a way that reached many different students at many different levels), I understand the issues. At the annual Women's Health & Halacha Day at the Riverdale Jewish Center yesterday, many older women offered that this was the first year they felt there was really programming that targeted them instead of young singles and young marrieds with children or who are trying to have children. One woman was asked to be on the planning committee for next year and she said she's definitely going to sign up.

At WH&HD, I actually went to more than one of the events targeted to older women because the baby-centered sessions really didn't interest me or relate to my current experiences. Strangely enough, I can relate more to "empty nest syndrome" than I can to "pre-marital and prenatal testing." In fact when I spoke up at the "empty nest syndrome" session and I was treated like a clueless child (the same happened at the osteoporosis session), I had to clarify that not only did I experience it when my sister who I had kidnapped at 14 had left the home for college, I am actually quite a bit older than I look.

I wonder if too many Orthodox shuls are doing the same old same old (which indeed has to continue because I wouldn't want to shut out people who love what the shuls are already doing). But I think especially for the newly religious and converts without yeshiva backgrounds, this doesn't always work. (And while I offer this criticism, I do want to say that I also understand, I have seen first-hand with friends working at shuls how hard it is to coordinate ANY kind of programming.

By the way, yes, I do know that it is quite a luxury to complain about programming when so many of my readers live in one shul towns. In Riverdale, there are at least four or five Orthodox synagogues within walking distance, not to mention Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative synagogues with really great programming, too. I know in areas where the Jewish community is not so large things are very different. Riverdale, aside from the synagogues, has more than one kosher market, a kosher fish market, more than one pizza place and two bakeries, etcetera, etcetera. I realize my husband and I might end up in a very different kind of place but I've also realized that I will be in a different position (unable to really criticize the programming in the same way because I'll have to put up or shut up---create the programming I need or stop complaining). That will be an interesting change.

See tomorrow's post for "Part 2" of this longish post...

It's a TEFILLIN BOMB!

Only if you're living under a rock have you missed the news that a plane was diverted because a flight attendant mistook a White Plains Jewish teen putting on tefillin for a terrorist. Yes, they thought it was a (tefillin) bomb.

No, this is not part of my stand-up routine but it will be.

Read:

"Religious Device Causes Scare On US Air Flight" (CBS)

"Police Explain Diversion of Flight to Philadelphia" (NY Times)

"Jewish teen's tefillin sets off bomb scare that diverts US Airways flight from LaGuardia Airport" (New York Daily News)

SIGH.

So, okay, yeah, it's time to admit that some of the stuff us Orthodox Jewish folk do looks kinda crazy to non-Jews!

I remember my husband strapping on tefillin at the airport in front of Alyssa Milano who was on our flight from New York to Los Angeles and I thought, "Great, Alyssa Milano thinks we're crazy. Now I can't ask for her autograph."

My husband, of course, said, "Who's Alyssa Milano?"

This is what happens when you grow up without a proper television.

(Another time, I ran into Alyssa Milano's costar in Beverly Hills. It was my first time in Beverly Hills and my husband said, "People expect they'll run into celebrities around here. Like, you know, that guy's probably a celebrity" and he pointed at some random passerby. And I said, "OMG! That's Leo from Charmed!" You can imagine what my husband said.)

Anyway, this is a truly inspired piece: "What Non-Jews May Think of Some Jewish Rituals"

Cool Jewish Events: Friday Night Moroccan Dinner/Proceeds to Haiti

Event: Friday Night Moroccan Dinner (Half of the proceeds will go to the Haiti relief fund!)

Date: Friday, February 5th, 2009

Time: 6:15pm-8:15pm

Place: Kingsbridge Center of Israel, 3115 Corlear Avenue, Bronx, NY 10463

Admission:

$18 per adult

$30 per couple

$5 per child

Pay on website or by check (Put "Friday night dinner" in the memo)

RSVP: Natalie AT kcishul.org (Put "Friday night dinner" in the subject line

Stop trying to get me to use speaking software

You have been warned.

I own speaking software. Mostly, it sucks. I type faster than it can keep up. (I type over 100 words per minute.) I even bought a PC, instead of a Mac, because the speaking software was PC-only. AHHHHHHH!

Speaking software hurts my face. I use it very sparingly. Personally, being able to chew my food (face) is more important to me than being able to comb my hair (hands).

Remember what I said about making suggestions about things people should do for their health when they haven't asked you for them. Keep the suggestions to yourself unless someone actually says, "Hey, my hands hurt, is there something you can recommend I use?"

Yes, I know you are trying to be helpful and didn't realize you had strayed into the territory of being annoying. Yes, I am being defensive. Because if I had a $1 for every time someone told me to get speaking software, I would be a very, very wealthy girl. Can you imagine how tired I am of hearing the words "speaking software"?

Public service announcement from Aliza's Pained Little Body

P.S. To the kind (no sarcasm) reader who just sent me a comment about "speaking software," this blog is not personally directed to you. I've been meaning to write it for a while and you just reminded me of that fact.

P.P.S. As someone who was diagnosed with carpal tunnel nearly 10 years ago, I have tried things you can't even imagine...from $300 "ergonomic" keyboards to a mouse you can control with your feet or your forehead.

The Problem with Video Blogging

You have to get out of your pajamas to do it.

Update: Another Orthodox Jewish blogger has dared me to blog in my pajamas.

Update! This was almost a video blog.

I just finished up getting interviewed and photographed (a two-hour process) for an upcoming piece on fibromyalgia. Can't wait to see the finished product. As with any interview, there's that anxiety that some of what you've said will be misinterpreted (as happened with my interview on Christmas and conversion with the NY Times). Plus, what if I look fat in the photos?! (I mean it is winter! I gained 10 pounds. Oh no!)

Also, apparently, being interviewed and photographed is like running a marathon for me because right now, all I want is a nap but I'm dragging myself to the gym in 15 minutes, fibromyalgia be damned! My friends are fascinated about how I've managed to become semi-famous without leaving the house very often. Welcome to the life of a freelance writer/blogger/speaker. Being semi-famous isn't always what it's cracked up to be but I'll whine about that later.

Anyway, I have so much to say about Limmud NY and I may or may not get a chance to blog (or even video blog) about it next week. Limmud is such an incredible experience, especially for someone who didn't have the luxury of day schools, yeshivas, camp and such. I schmoozed with so many people, I'm surprised my face didn't fall off (thank you, dear muscle relaxers!).

I also networked a bit at Limmud and thanks to my "Memoirs of a Jewminicana" session and my stint on a diversity panel, I am in the process of lining up more speaking gigs. Despite how much I love writing, I think I prefer speaking gigs to freelance writing but to be honest, both are pretty taxing on my body. Mostly, I think for me performing is much more invigorating than writing.

Okay, okay, my evil timer is warning me that my 15 minutes are up. Please, please, please keep the letters coming. It's taking me longer to write back now that I'm trying to retrain myself to use the computer less and less but every letter is appreciated! I love hearing about your stories, your journeys to Judaism, and all the wonderful (and sad) things you share with me.

By the way, a special welcome new readers! Even if you've been reading for a while, this blog goes all way to the 2005 when I began the conversion process and there's always plenty to read in my portfolio!

And now a word from our sponsor (sigh, if only we had one!)...

Miss me?

Dear devoted reader,

Though I might not be blogging as much as I used to (in an effort to achieve balance between my love of writing and my desire to focus on my health), I am posting interesting tidbits on Twitter and my Facebook fan page. Be sure to check them out! Enjoy!

XOXOXO,

Aliza

P.S. There goes my timer! I am only allowed on the computer in 15-minute intervals. Sigh.

Sorry, I'm allergic, REALLY, REALLY, no, REALLY allergic

I've written extensively about how fibromyalgia has isolated me from others but I've never really written about how my allergies do that.

Growing up, my allergies were pretty awful but my mother would take me to the allergist only intermittently and often only so she could get prescriptions for my allergy medications that she would then sell for money. Most of my childhood, I had a tissue permanently attached to my nose and a chronic sinus infection to boot. I was really allergic to a lot of things but at home, it was the cockroaches and the dust that kept me sick. I wasn't even allowed to dust really because I would break out in hives when I tried. I also developed hives one day at police day camp when I warned the police officer I couldn't do push-ups in the grass and he made fun of me, ignored me and then made me do it anyway.

Still, as an adult, my allergies mostly "mellowed" out, especially when I got away from cockroaches...or so I thought. Despite not believing anything else my mother said, I believed her when she said (or was it the witch doctor who said it?) that I would "outgrow" my allergies. That's how I found myself taking in not one, but two and then three kittens.

The first kitten made my eyes itch so I tried to keep it out of my bedroom. The second kitten was supposed to be a playmate for the first and everything was fine (okay, I needed a lot of tissues again) until finally, the third kitten moved in.

When the third kitten moved in, I developed allergic asthma and no air purifier (especially not those sad ones from Radio Shack that aren't HEPA) was powerful enough to keep it at bay for long. I had exceeded my allergy threshold, without even ever having heard of the term, and fried my immune system (my fibromyalgia got much worse when my allergies did).

I finally had to give the kittens away. I even moved to a new place (it can take dander up to and beyond 6-8 months to die even after the pets have been removed) but the new place was infested with cockroaches so I had a hard time breathing at home AGAIN.

The next place I moved to didn't have cockroaches but it collected an inordinate amount of dust so I had super powerful air purifiers the size of two four-year-olds running at all times. And I still had to move everything that could collect dust (the dresser, the night tables, the curtains, everything) out of the bedroom.

Somewhere along the line, I started getting allergy shots again, taking medication regularly, carrying an inhaler and more. What fun! All those sexy handouts on making your home "nearly allergy-free" that the allergist had handed my mother when I was a child but which she had ritually discarded, I read like an instructional manual on how to keep myself breathing in the face of allergens.

(Now, dear reader, resist the urge to comment with a list of crazy-ass things you think would help my allergies. I've heard them all. I'm not asking for your advice about how to deal with my allergies, I'm telling you how they affect my life so you can sympathize with me and other allergy sufferers. I promise, you will be sorry if you try to post "suggestions" for things I should try.)

I really tried not to let my allergies "get in the way." Like early on with my fibromyalgia, I didn't want to tell people about it and I certainly didn't want to inconvenience them (yeah, check out my self-preservation) with my allergies. So I stayed inside my husband's family home even though they had a little dog. And I lost my voice, my eyes got swollen and my chest almost caved in before I put my foot down and said I wouldn't set foot in the house again.

Whereas before I had only worried about there being food I could eat on Shabbat when we went away for it because of my IBS (and then high cholesterol), now I had to worry about my allergies...but not before falling on my face a couple of times first.

I got a major sinus infection when I stayed at my husband's cousin's house because a bird lived in the bedroom I was staying in. Of course, I didn't find out I would be staying in this room until I arrived at their house right before Shabbat. I explained my allergies but all anyone did was take the bird out of my room, which did absolutely nothing for my allergies because, of course, the problematic dander was everywhere already.

Another time, I broke out in hives when I stayed at another cousin's home (they had a cat) and they gave me a bed that obviously had cat hair all over it. And yet, another time, I discovered that our hosts were putting us in the basement, with all that horrid deep, sunken-in old carpeting, and even though we drove to Best Buy and bought an air purifier just minutes before candle lighting, I still got a sinus infection and spent most of the Shabbat laid up on my back, trying to decide if my allergies or my fibromyalgia, woe is me, would kill me first. I didn't make the best impression as a Shabbos guest as you can imagine.

Oh, and did I mention that the time I tried to pay my first shiva call, I got there and discovered that they had, not only that deep, sunken-in carpeting, but TWO dogs. "Oh, but they're hypoallergenic," I was told. I learned the hard way, I double-checked with the allergist later, that no dog is hypoallergenic, they're just LESS allergenic and for a person like me, that just doesn't cut it. Fifteen minutes into the shiva call, I was wheezing and generally, fighting to breathe.

So when our good friends decided they were going to get a cat, we (because both my husband and I are both highly allergic) explained we wouldn't be coming over anymore. But they thought we were "kidding" even after I explained that my sister who lived with a cat for a while had to change out of her clothes (down to even her socks) before entering our home. I am, after all, so allergic that I can have asthma attacks just by sitting with people who have dander clinging to their clothes even if no animals are around. I learned this, too, the hard way.

Our good friends went ahead and got their kitten and they were dismayed by what seemed like an over-reaction to them. Not only wouldn't we come over, we wouldn't let them into our home (unless they were willing to wear the equivalent of a Hazmat suit). For weeks, months, years, they explained that they were really clean, that they could put the cat in the other room, etc. I didn't have the heart to tell them (or rather I knew they wouldn't listen if I did) that sometimes just sitting next to them at shul, with that little bit of dander on their clothes, had forced me to use my inhaler.

Now, whenever we get invited out for Shabbat, I always ask if the host has pets. If they do, we don't go. When we go away for Shabbat, I always bring my own portable air purifiers but I still pack a couple of Benadryls to be able to breathe in a dusty and/or carpeted home. (I also bring snacks in case there isn't any food I can eat even after I've told them about my food "problems.") But I still can't control whether or not they invite guests who have pets. One time when I started having an allergic asthma attack at someone's home on Shabbat, I didn't understand why (especially since I was already doped up on Benadryl because of the carpeting) until the five other guests started talking about their beloved cats.

Sadly, this past weekend, I left the Limmud NY conference early, not just because I had (of course) over-taxed myself and pushed my fibromyalgia to its limits, but because my husband and I were both really allergic to the hotel, especially our hotel room. The longer we were there, the worse our allergies got even with our air purifiers going at full blast.

Late Saturday night when the sinus headache set in, I decided we had to leave the next morning. Evil sunken-in carpeting that was probably older than both of us? Check. I was fine as long as I stayed out of the room and roamed the rest of the hotel but my husband was downing Benadryl left and right even in the (also, heavily carpeted) hotel lobby.

Recently, I made plans to go out to the "middle of nowhere" (a two-hour ride that would have exacerbated my fibromyalgia) for an event I was really excited about, only to discover last minute that the event was being held in someone's home and that they, of course, had a cat. I was lucky, I had remembered to ask before we made the drive out. You would think I would have this downpact after this many years but I forget that many, many people have pets.

When I explained why I couldn't attend, the people on the other end went through the usual routine:

"Oh, I have allergies, too, and the cat doesn't bother me."

"Oh, we'll put the cat in the other room."

And on and on and on until I broke out the usual "my allergies are REALLY severe" spiel and used some helpful anecdotes to get the point across. (In the future, I'll just be forwarding them this post.) Even though I understood that when people say these things they are just trying to be "helpful," I hate that I have to go through this spiel every single (damn) time.

Why do I always get pushed into having to explain or apologize for my health problems? Why don't people ever take them (whether it's my cholesterol, IBS, fibromyalgia or allergies) seriously? What is wrong with healthy people that they are so often and so infrequently insensitive to those of us who aren't lucky enough to be healthy, too?

Sometimes, I imagine that people with food allergies (not pet, dust, cockroach, trees, grass and everything else allergies) have it easier. When you tell someone you're allergic to peanuts (or in my case, Brazilian nuts and hazel nuts) these days, people usually take you seriously, right? Well, not always. I've heard many horror stories about grandparents "secretly" trying to build their grandchildren's immunity to nuts by force-feeding them...right up until the kids end up in the emergency room fighting for their life. So maybe, it's just one of those "the grass is always greener" things.

So, honestly, when I tell you I'm REALLY, REALLY, highly and severely allergic, please resist the urge to roll your eyes and try to pretend like you know more about allergies, especially mine. Please, just listen. And if I seem a little defensive, it's because I've had to have this conversation over and over and over again, more often than you can imagine.

I have a dream....

To blog or not to blog

Here is the list of things I'd like to be blogging about right now:

Last week's wave of Facebook updates where women posted the color of their bras in an effort to raise breast cancer awareness

Writer's block (other people's, not mine)

Prospective converts who rabbis (and the current Orthodox conversion climate) scare off

Yoga (and how I was told in Israel that it was "idol worship")

Something that starts with a "B" but I can't read my own handwriting

Ball chair

Something that starts with a "J" but again, I can't read my own handwriting

Vampires and grief

Homebody

Why I love New York

Stress and trying to beat it back

Pain mood swings

My first shiva call

Sleep habits

Why speaking software sucks and people should stop suggesting it to me

Vacation (and all the places I wish I was at right now)

Haiti

Sex in yeshiva (disclaimer: meaning what rabbis learn about sex in yeshiva!)

Allergies (and how they're getting in the way of, well, everything)

Limmud NY (and how truly awesome it was, how I schmoozed myself into a coma, all the sessions I went to, all the sessions I wish I'd gone to and all the unforgettable moments and the irony of meeting so many Riverdalians there....)

The stack of Jewishly related movies sitting right next to my laptop

Healthcare reform

Kindle

Akira Ohiso's book "Surviving"

MLK and why I stopped talking about racism in the Jewish community

Why I quit my career as a fashion illustrator before it even started

Why being broke in my early 20s was more fun than being broke in my late 20s

But because my body is telling me that after just two days of Limmud NY, it needs me to curl up with a yoga video, 30 minutes of exercise at Curves (an all-women's gym) and a good book, I'm going to have to go do that. I have to stop ignoring my body (oh, wait, that's another blog post I've been meaning to write!) and start ignoring my blog.

Smoking Pot on Shabbat?!

This one time someone told me a story about how her Shabbat guests sneaked off to smoke a joint. Of course, my mouth dropped. After all, there was a time when I thought Jews, maybe not just Orthodox Jews, were a holy people without blemish or imperfection. Okay, so I was just, perhaps, a tad bit naive.

But seeing as how I'm not only just a goody-two-shoes, I'm the kind that you probably would have smacked in school for turning you in for doing something "fun," I won't even comment on the above story. I will, however, link you to this hysterical post by a new blogger about smoking pot on Shabbat (and trust me, it's not the smoking pot on Shabbat that I think is hysterical, after all, I am a Rebbetzin-in-training wheels!):

Read: "Doing Drugs Manhattan-style"

Earthquakes and Jewish Art

Haiti:

If I wasn't entirely too exhausted to blog, I would write something deep and heartfelt about the recent devastating earthquake in Haiti. (Please check out my fan page and Twitter feed for links about the earthquake and how you can help the people of Haiti.) The capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, is far enough from the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo, that my family in Santo Domingo was safe but close enough that they felt the earthquake and its aftershocks.

Already, I have Jewish friends (Orthodox and not) who are mobilizing to aid Haiti however they can, whether through donations or more hands-on help.

Overdoing it:

Unfortunately, while I've been trying to take it easy lately (I really have taken to writing much less in the last couple of months), I haven't really been 'doing' less and after falling asleep at 11:30pm yesterday, I woke up at 3:30pm today. I really, really needed the sleep I guess. I wish I could say I feel rested but actually, I feel terrible. I want nothing more than to curl back into bed with a glass of chocolate milk, a painkiller and perhaps a good book but I'm trying to work on my Limmud NY session where I will be performing my "Memoirs of a Jewminicana" speech.

And last but not least...

If you have any money to spare after scrabbling together something to send to Haiti, please check out this fun Jewish art!

Related: One Rabbi's Response to the Haitian Earthquake of 2010

But why don't you just tell people you're Dominican?

Someone suggested that when I go to any Jewish function, I should just give everyone a two-minute bio about myself so that people will stop staring and acting totally bizarre if they think I don't "look Jewish."

But often when I tell Jews that my family is from the Dominican Republic (and I was born in New York, though this last part goes unheard because two seconds later, they ask what it was like growing up in the Dominican Republic), they go into a rant about how much they LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE the Dominican Republic or how much they want to visit and that's when it gets pretty AWKWARD.

(Most notably, the least awkward conversation I had with a Jew about the Dominican Republic was with an Italian Jewish woman I met at the Chabad in Florence, Italy who told me she had lived Santo Domingo for over 20 years and raised her son there. She knew more about the Dominican Republic than me and her Spanish was faultless. If I remember correctly, we spoke in Spanish because I didn't speak Italian and she didn't speak English.)

Guatemalan Maya Escobar made a video about the awkwardness that ensues when you tell someone Jewish (or just white) about your "native" country called "Gringa Loves Guatemalan," even down to the bad Spanish they use to effusively discuss how much they LOVE LOVE LOVE Guatemala. It showcases beautifully how people in the Jewish community respond when I tell them I'm first-generation Dominican-American....

So remember, folks, I am not a Dominican travel agent, I don't want to know about your vacation there, I don't want to you to practice your broken Spanish with me and I have no idea how you can prevent getting malaria in the Dominican Republic...I was born in New York for G-d's sake!

Related: Maya pretends to be a college student who thinks it's awesome that Maya, THE LATINA, is at their school.

Naked at the Airport

Great so though I'm covered head to toe in all but a burqa, the security dudes at the airport (will soon) get to see me naked anyway?

Yeah, yeah, terrorism, I hear you, but I'm feeling quite the little prude right now. I'm not sure what's worse, that those dudes (and dudettes) get to check me out (even if they are in another room reviewing the scans) or that they get to check out the little kids waiting in line behind me, too. Soooo many ways this could go wrong.

Wherever you stand on the new and improved scans that give Superman's X-ray vision a run for his money, "European rabbis [are] worried over body scans". They're certainly not alone.

Related: "How Modern Airport Security May Run Afoul of Jewish Law"

Cool Jewish Events: The Black Jew Diaglogues

The Black Jew Dialogues Kicks Off 2010 Nationwide Tour in New York City

The Black Jew Dialogues, the social-justice comedy that has been taking college campuses across America by storm, will kick off its 2010 nationwide tour in New York City with performances at LREI High School in Manhattan on January 12 and Temple Israel Center in White Plains on January 13.

Written and performed by Emmy award-winner Ron Jones and Larry Jay Tish, the comedy deals with the history and nature of prejudice and racism. Combining fast-paced sketches, improvisations, multi-media and audience participation The Black Jew Dialogues has been on the vanguard of a new and vital conversation about race and culture, not just for African-Americans and Jews, but for all Americans.

Though the show was produced for the theatre, the show has gained a substantial following on high school and college campuses across the country because of it's clear messages of tolerance and understanding which The Washington Post calls “funny” and The Boston Globe praises “gets to the heart of what divides people.”
Given the complex role that race and culture continues to play in America, as well as the divisive tone of political rheteric, it is rare that young people get to ingage these issues with their peers in a productive way. The hilarious show is always followed by a thoughtful and heartfelt discussion.

“We know the show is changing lives and attitudes. Issues like affirmative action, gender rights, and stereotypes come up in almost every discussion” said Jones. “They are eager to talk. We have had students share some amazing things. We sometimes talk with small groups hours after the show is over and on the web.”

With hundreds of sold-out performances in its wake, The Black Jew Dialogues is setting out for its busiest tour schedule ever. Following New York the show hits the road for performances in Indiana, California, Colorado, Wyoming, Maine, Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Louisiana,
and Georgia.

Contact: Ron Jones | ron AT theblackjewdialogues.com | 617-828-7491
For more information visit http://www.theblackjewdialogues.com

Did Jesus, the Messiah, exist or not? WHAT!

¿Existió o no Jesús, el Mesías? Did Jesus, the Messiah, exist or not?

Tras hacerse esa pregunta, cientos de cristianos colombianos se han convertido al judaísmo. Noticias Caracol devela el misterio de estos conversos que llevan la kipá y el talit. Algunos, incluso, sugieren que son descendientes de los llamados ‘marranos', a los que la historia ubica en el siglo XV.

After taking that question, hundreds of Colombians who were Christians converted to Judaism. Noticias Caracol unraveled the mystery of these converts who wear the kippah (yarmulke) and tallit. Some even suggest that they are descendants of the so-called (marranos) 'pigs', which Spanish Jewish places history in the fifteenth century.

See the video (in Spanish): "¿Existió o no Jesús, el Mesías?"

Seriously, what kind of name is that for a news report on Columbian Jewish converts?!

Hat tip: Rabbi Juan Mejia

Related: "36 Under 36 2009: Juan Mejía, 31"

To see the video with English subtitles:

Cool Jewish Events: Three-Part Series on Honor

Event: Three-Part Series on Honor: "Honoring Parents: Kibud Av"
Date: Monday January 11, 2010
Time: 7:45pm (but be sure to show up at 7:00 PM for dinner and drinks)
Place: Manhattan Jewish Experience, 131 West 86th Street - 10th floor, New York City
Cost: The cost of the class is a suggested donation of $10 at the door.

RSVP by emailing: west AT jewishexperience.org by today, Monday January 11 at 12PM. The cost of the class is a suggested donation of $10 at the door.

Upcoming Schedule:

*New Cycle begins January 11th*
Three-Part Series on Honor
January 11 Honoring Parents: Kibud Av
January 18 Others: Loving Kindness
January 25 Environment: Tu' Bshevat

Oh, I wish I could be everywhere at once!

Dear Aliza: Ashkenazi Jew or Sephardic Jew or Just Jewish?

Dear Aliza:

Is it proper to say "I am a Ashkenazi Jew" or "I am a Sephardic Jew", the truth is you are a Jew, just a Jew?

Ashkenazim and Sephardim are practices of culture, so no one is Ashkenazi or Sephardic. They just have the customs of those particular cultures. If an "Ashkenazi" Jew went to Spain, he would most likely be practicing Sephardic then he would respectfully be considered Sephardic or at least his children would. There are other Jewish cultures around the world but not as recognized.

If I went to Ethiopia, would I be Ethiopian? I would practice Ethiopian Jewish customs eat their food (no gefilte fish). So, are these (Ashkenazim and Sephardim) authentic labels for what Judaism is or the practices that come from distinct cultures?

Do Sephardic Jews from Spain, Turkey, and North Africa all have the same practices? Should they all have they're own distinct or specific names? Or should we just get rid of the labels and call ourselves Jews and nothing else?

Just Jewish

Dear Just Jewish:

I think I am Ashkefardic (kinda like Lisa Alcalay Klug). I follow Ashkenazi customs but (Spanish) Sephardic customs literally call out to me (and it's not just because I want to eat beans and rice on Passover). I'm also a Dominican-American Jew (Jewmincana for short). I'm also Hispanic. I'm a woman, a writer, a blogger. Oh, I'm also an afro-Dominican...when my hair is especially tall and I look quite fab-ly tanned.

Saying someone is Ashkenazi or Sephardi usually simply identifies that someone is linked to a certain background (Eastern European, Spanish, Turkish, Greek and more), traditions and practices. It doesn't say anything about what kind of Jew they are.

I have friend who is a black Jew (neither Sephardic or Ashkenazi, another who is a (Ashkenazi) Cuban Jew, another is a Sephardic Jew from Mexico. Of course, people need to get a clue that there are more Jewish customs than can be labeled simply "Sephardic" or "Ashkenazi" as the Jewish community extends to the far reaches of the world.

(By the way, Ashkenazim and Sephardim and other Jews have managed to move and live in places all over the world and they've kept their cultural traditions from their native countries. So, even in Ethiopia, if you were Sephardic, you'd keep your customs. Maybe, sure, you'd go to the local Ethiopian shul or start your own Sephardic one. You wouldn't neccessarily just adopt Ethiopian minhagim.)

These are not labels people use to separate themselves from each other. Except in the case of that Israeli school that actually segregated Ashkenazi from Sephardi students because they thought the later were subhuman or all the other hate crimes that take place between Ashkenazim versus Sephardim and even the Jewish people who don't fall into those categories.

They're "labels" (and I hestitate to use that word because you gave it negative connotations but also because it's a misinterpretation) that people use to CELEBRATE where they come from and I wouldn't take that away from anyone and say, "No, you're JUST JEWISH." These aren't just "labels," we're talking about. These are a person's cultural traditions, heritage, native countries, language, etc. that we're talking about.

Every time someone has told me I'm "JUST JEWISH" after I've identified as a Dominican-American Jew (Jewminicana for short) it's felt like a slap in the face. As if they were saying, I couldn't celebrate being Dominican and American as well because that somehow took away from being Jewish or even, for some people, threatened Jewish identity. It's a denial of parts of my identity.

And sadly, more often than not, it was these kinds of people, "JUST JEWISH" people, who told me very early on after I converted to learn Hebrew and Yiddish but not bother with Ladino or teaching my children Spanish. Some even said "You're Jewish, you're no longer Dominican."

I once joked on Twitter "Am I afro-Dominican because I have an afro?" And a white Jewish friend replied, "Who cares?" Can't say it didn't sting. Who cares? Me. It's my identity we discussing. But I'm familiar with the "Just Jewish" refrain because I hear it really often when I identify as a JOC, a Jew of color.

Should we get rid of the labels male and female, too? Is that too confusing for people? Is it too confusing for people that our president is half-black and half-white. It seems like that sometimes. Maybe people have a hard time handling mixed identity, diverse identities, etc. But that's not my problem.

You can go ahead and call yourself "JUST JEWISH" but just don't tell me what I can identify myself. And what happens when we pretend everyone is "JUST JEWISH," do we force every Jew in Manhattan to follow Ashkenazi customs (even though Sephardim were here first!) and every Jew in South American Sephardic customs (because they speak Spanish!)? It can get hairy to walk down that road of either ignoring/downplaying or misinterpreting someone's cultural pride, instead of respecting and understanding the home cultures, traditions and customs of all the Jewish people.

How would you feel if you said you were Jewish and someone said, no, you're "Just American"? Posed to me, I would say, "Why can't I be Jewish AND American?" I am after all the girl who wishes she could tattoo her forehead with a sign that reads "Dominican American Jew, born New York, has fibromyalgia" so people will stop asking me stupid questions. Probably, they would ask more.

The cultural identites of Jews are vast and diverse and wonderful, a testament to how far reaching Judaism is. That's what I'm proud to call myself a Jewminicana. But as a Jew, I'm connected to Persian Jews and Greek Jews and Columbian Jews and African-American Jews and so many people from all over the world, from all different backgrounds talking completely different languages...just by virtue of being Jewish. (I'm also connected to non-Jews from the Dominican Republic and America. Pretty neat!) That's why when my American (Russian/Polish) Jewish husband in France, he can find a French Jew who speaks Hebrew. In Italy of all places, I did pretty well finding Italian Jews who spoke Spanish. My Italian and Hebrew weren't so good.

My homelands are still the Dominican Republic (via my parents), America (via my birth) and Israel (via conversion) but being Jewish connects to places I've never even heard of and can't even find on a map: Uzbekistan? Uganda? Guatemala? Laugh at the last one but I really suck at Latin American geography! I am, after all, American...and worse, a New Yorker who thinks the whole world revolves around New York City (which I'm trying to get over). I'm also someone who is deliriously proud of her Jewish and Hispanic connections.

Aliza

P.S. If you're asking Is Diversity Good for the Jewish People? Rabbi Tzvi Freeman and I agree that the answer is yes!

Good news is good news

I've got a heck of a conversion news roundup coming up next week if I can get it together. Some of the news is bleak, some of the news isn't so bad. Generally, I've noticed that news isn't always so uplifting and I've worried that reading so much sad news about conversion would really affect how I felt about my decision to convert. I know while many people have told me they are always eager for my news roundups that others say that can't read through so many depressing news about conversion to Judaism.

But there is good news that doesn't make THE NEWS very often. For instance, stand-up comedian Yisrael Campbell, an Italian/Irish convert to Judaism, recently announced that he and his wife had a little boy that now joins twin older siblings. If you haven't seen Yisrael's show "Circumcise Me" then you have until February to catch it off-Broadway. (See details for a discount on this previous blog.) And if you're thinking, what's the big deal, so this guy and his wife had a kid, then you really need to see this show so that you understand how much of Campbell's previous life (which included drug and alcohol abuse) before finding Judaism suggested that little miracles like this wouldn't and couldn't have happened to him. He really worked a great deal to make them happen.

Blogger Chaviva of Just Call Me Chaviva recently announced news worthy of a double "Mazel tov!" She recently completed her Orthodox conversion and got engaged soon after. (She met her fiancée on JDate after completing her Reform conversion.) Chaviva writes beautifully and with great profundity of her journey to Judaism (from Reform to Orthodox) and despite her recent trip to the mikvah, in many ways, it's a journey that really has just begun and I know I'll be reading closely to see where it takes her.

So there are countless happy stories about converts and if I can manage it, I'll make sure you hear about those stories, too.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

If you're keeping abreast of my fan page then you know that my sister and my husband have threatened to hide my computer and/or my appointment book because I am "over doing it." And this is since I decided to take a step back from the many projects I was working on. Okay, so I did notice that I kept double booking and triple booking myself for the same days, sometimes even at the same time.

So much to do...but so little energy, time and money to do it. As usual, I'm having that age old problem of not being able to balance as well as just ignoring my body when I shouldn't. I hope that I can spend the next couple of months in New York, trying to get my priorities straight. I know it will be a lifelong battle but I've got to start making changes FAST. In the meantime, thanks to a horrible dose of chronic fatigue and pain I am curled up with TV, yoga DVDs, books and of course, my parsha cartoon.

Parshat Shemot from G-dcast.com

More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com

Cool Jewish Class: The Remarkable Saga of Spanish Jewry

The Remarkable Saga of Spanish Jewry

Brigitte Sion, born in Switzerland to Sephardic parents and now an assistant professor at NYUwill guide you through the history of the descendants of Spanish Jewry-a history of secrecy, forced conversion, exile, dispersion, and endurance-and examine the state of the Sephardic community today.

6 Mondays, Jan 25-Mar 8, 7-8:30 pm, $90/$110

For more information check out:

The JCC in Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at 76th St., New York, NY

Other Cool Jewish Classes at the JCC this Winter/Spring: (click on JCC link above for more information)

The Jews of Roman Italy

Ladino for Beginners

Judaism 101

An Insider's View on the Siddur

From Prato to Ghetto: The Jews of Renaissance Florence

Cool Jewish Events: The Jews of Cuba: The Road to Paradise and the Land We Called Home

Event: The Jews of Cuba: The Road to Paradise and the Land We Called Home
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Time: 7:30pm-9pm

Place: Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, 8900 Little River Turnpike, Fairfax, VA 22031
Cost: $8M/ $10NM

Presenter Miriam Levinson is an expert on Jewish Cuban history!

In 1927, Miriam Levinson’s grandfather set out for Paradise (the United States) and wound up in Cuba. For the next 30 years, her family called Cuba home—a Jewish paradise on a tropical island. A Jewish community of more than 15,000 settled in Cuba during the 20th century. In the 1950s, Cuban Jews were at the height of their prosperity. After the revolution, most of the Jews left Cuba, but it remains close to their hearts.

Miriam Levinson, an Ashkenazi Jew, was born in Cuba and relocated to the United States with her family in the late 1950s. She heads the Jewish Community Center Travel Department in Chicago, where she gives talks on Jewish life worldwide. For more information, visit www.jccnv.org.

Related:

The film Adio Kerida follows Ruth Behar on a Cuban-American search for Sephardic memories. You can purchase the movie for $29.99 from Women Make Movies.



Filmmaker Ruth Behar has also published two related books: "An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba" and The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart.

Cool Jewish Events: Torah, Music & The Word! Featuring Y-Love and Matthue Roth

Y-Love with Moshiach Oi! Torah Hardcore Punk Band

Matthue Roth
(Jew Slam Poet -Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam)

Event: Torah, Music & The Word!
Date: January 9, 2010 (THIS SATURDAY)
Place: Carlebach Shul, 305 West 79 Street
New York, NY 10024-6151
Time: 8pm (Doors open at 7:30pm)

Jewish punk rock/hiphop unity show, with Torah from Rabbi Naftali Citron, featuring Matthue Roth and Y-Love!

Don't get brainwashed!

I told a friend who is in the conversion process that I still read stuff like the Sookie Stackhouse series and watch stuff like the show True Blood (though I wish they'd move it to the USA cable network so they could "clean it up" like they did with syndicated episodes of Sex and the City). She was shocked. She wanted to know if my husband approved. Somehow after a couple of emails back and forth, the conversation ended with me saying: "I don't think my husband thinks I'm going to have premarital sex because I'm reading Sookie Stackhouse books. I mean, I'm married already!" Yeah, and now I've immortalized this on my blog. Thank G-d he doesn't read it.

But since becoming Orthodox, I read and watch things through very different eyes. I've very cognizant of the strangest things, like people touching each other (even just affectionately between men and women, nothing graphic) on film and before I see someone eat something on TV, I say the blessing in my head for whatever they're going to eat. I notice when women are dressed immodestly in a way I know I was desensitized to before. But do I think watching and reading these secular TV shows and movies "pollute" my head? It's a risk I'm willing to take. My love of film, TV shows and books of all kinds doesn't come between me and my Judaism. I doubt that reading a few vampire novels is going to make me go bite people. I'm not reading or watching this stuff brainlessly and not thinking about what it says and what it's trying to tell me. In fact, I think much more sensitively of the stuff I see in the media and in Hollywood.

Lately I've run into too many converts who are peer pressured by mentors (rabbis, friends, other converts, etc) to leave more and more of their secular lifestyle behind. Okay, giving up pork is one thing but giving up all the movies you like, all your non-Jewish friends and family, all your books and stuff in quick succession smells like brainwashing to me. If it feels good, more power to you. (I was elated to give up pants so I didn't have to do "the dance" to squeeze myself in them.) But it might be brainwashing if well, you feel awful all the time for one and then you find yourself "reverting" and hiding the secular things you still want to do. Basically, you've quickly been turned into one of those ultra-Orthodox people who have a TV hidden in the dark room in their house that nobody knows about because everyone in your community would shun you if they did.

Yes, your lifestyle's going to change dramatically when you convert to Judaism but if it's giving you an ulcer or post-traumatic stress disorder then you're going to fast (easy does it!) or you're in the wrong community for you. There are many different movements within Judaism (even just within Orthodoxy itself). One synagogue in one little neighborhood is a world unto itself, I think, sometimes. There's a lot of things people should be ashamed about but on the whole, I think that even most of the crappy stuff we did in our past life molded us into the person we are today and we wouldn't have gotten to this point if we hadn't done it.

This statement always cracks me up and I probably can't pull off the coolness required to deliver it but remember you gotta "do you." This is your life and you can't spend the rest of it hiding in a dark room sneaking movies. Or well, if that is what a fulfilled life is to you then you gotta learn to roll with it I guess. Okay, now I'm starting to sound like a mini-Oprah. It's time to log off! Yoga, physical therapy, medication, sleep, stretch, gym, stationary bike, repeat, rest.

Cool Jewish Events: Defining Sephardic: A Roundtable Discussion on Sephardic Identity

Event: Defining Sephardic: A Roundtable Discussion on Sephardic Identity
Date: Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Place: Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York City
Time: 6:30pm

"Defining Sephardic" will launch ASF (American Sephardic Federation)'s Next Generation Culture Cafe and explore identity in the Sephardic/Mizrahi communities of New York.

Moderated by: Lacey Schwartz, filmmaker and New York Director of Be'chol Lashon.

Featured Speakers: Zena Babayov, Communications Master's student at New York University and active member of the Bukharian community in Forest Hills; Mijal Bitton, Originally from Argentina, she is a junior at Stern College of Yeshiva University, and an active member of the Sephardic Community of Great Neck; Sion Setton, Director of Youth programming at Manhattan's Safra Synagogue and descendant of Iraqi, Syrian, and Egyptian heritage; and Matieu Furster, A software engineer with both a Moroccan Sephardi and Russian Ashkenazi heritage.

Sexy Latinas and the Rise of the Hot Jewish Girl

Recently I explained to someone that I was upset because someone referred to me as "sexy Latina! Sexy Latina! Sexy Latina!" as if they were talking to a small child or one of those dogs that fits in your purse. I felt like a rattle or dog bone was being shaken and shoved in my face at the time. This wasn't the first time I'd been subject to stereotypes about Latinas. At one dentist appointment, my Jewish doctor noted that I was going to be a "really hot Dominican Jewish Rebbetzin (rabbi's wife)." I smiled back rather painfully at the comment. If you don't understand why this was inappropriate, stop reading the post and go read something else (preferably about women's issues or feminism or why even positive stereotypes are a problem in general).

When I've complained about being objectified as a "sexy Latina" stereotype, inevitably, a white Ashkenazi Jewish girlfriend has remarked that she wishes she was thought of as a "sexy Jewish girl" and objectified in the same way. I explained that this was probably because Jewish girls are all too often thought of as high-maintenance, loud, grating, ballsy and big-nosed and every thing but sexy. Rarely do you hear Jewish girls being referred to as sex kittens in the way us "fiery" and "lusty" Latinas often are. Seriously, what is wrong with the world, what has happened to feminism, when Jewish women have to start praying they'll be objectified and taken less seriously than they already are? Eek!

I literally get sick every time I read yet another article by a Jewish man explaining why he doesn't date Jewish women. A long list of stereotypes usually ensues that only clarifies how scarred said Jewish male is over his relationship with his mother or his sister or some Jewish woman that done him wrong. The fact that Jewish women, like Latina women, come in all shapes, sizes, colors, cultural backgrounds and personality types is apparently lost on these men. Yes, even Jewish men can be self-loathing anti-Semites when it comes to their ideas about Jewish women.

A few Jewish men continue to long for that forbidden "shiksa" (HATE THAT WORD!) and as I've mentioned before places like Shalom Shirts even immortalize the trend with shirts that read "Shiksas are for Practice." Since I was once "used" for target practice, I can tell you I wanted to punch someone over that shirt. I know a great deal of female converts (and even born "exotic-looking" Jewesses), white, black, Asian and otherwise, who would punch someone over this shirt, too. Or, more likely, burst into tears.

I get too many letters from Jews of color telling me horror stories of Jewish men who would date them, use them, abuse them and then rather unkindly inform them that they could, "of course," never marry them because it would kill their Jewish mothers. (A male friend related to me in front of my husband that if he had brought me home, his family would have keeled over and died. Thanks buddy, now get your freakin' fat foot out of your mouth. Some thoughts aren't meant to be said aloud!)

I think it's sad that (Orthodox) rabbis (seriously, I can't make this stuff up) have to warn women in the conversion process who aren't white (or who even are white but "exotic" blondes!) that they might be taken advantaged by Jewish men in this way. I know a Jewish father who worried about sending his little Latina to Jewish schools because of the same issue.

Lately, I've been reading a lot of news on "the rise of the hot Jewish girl" so it seems that some of my Jewish girlfriends have got their wish. In the same vein that non-Jewish women are signing up for JDate because "Jewish men make good husbands," now Jewish women are being touted as exotic fantasies akin to the kind Latinas were thought to provide.

At a talk on racism at Brooklyn College, I said that some Jewish men thought that dating me was like taking an all-inclusive Caribbean vacation with white sand beaches, endless blue ocean and piña colada to boot. I'm sorry, that's not a compliment. It's racist. I'm not a fetish, I'm a person and ya better recognize.

Related Video:

Jewess Maya Escobar pokes fun at Latina and Jewish stereotypes:

Jewish American Princess:



Orthodox Jewish Woman:



Latina Role Model/Sex Vixen:



Hebrew Mamita Vanessa Hidary responds to being told "You don't look Jewish" as a compliment:

How to be a Kosher Vampire

I think it was one of my blog readers that recommended I check out "The Morganville Vampires" young adult novels and I finally got around to doing it because the series was sooooo cheap on my Kindle. I barely made it through the first novel in the series because I had a hard time relating to the teenage characters but now I'm on sixth book right now. And by now, there have now been countless appearances by a Goldman family, an entire family of Jews (right down to the grandchildren) who was forcibly converted to vampirism!

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up...unless you're author Rachel Caine who really DID make this all up.

Whenever I see Jews in pop culture, I feel two things wrestle each other in my heart. The first is an incredible sense of dread as I sit there waiting for the inevitable stereotypes (usually either the "dark" looks with kinky Jewfro hair and a big nose to boot or the neurotic, nebbishy tendencies). The second usually comes when I realize the representation is fair...a sense of pure joy! I feel the same thing when I see Latinos represented well in Hollywood or mainstream culture. It's a feeling that one is no longer invisible to society at large, a joy at being made visible.

The Goldman family is introduced in the middle of a pretty bloody war between the vampires who have been living mostly peacefully in a little Texas town called Morganville. So far, there are no Latinos in this part of Texas but at least there are Jews (just the Goldmans). There are some African Americans, too, and even an Asian vampire. When we first meet the Goldmans, they refuse to fight on Shabbat during the war saying that they will only take up arms if they are directly attacked. The non-townie vampire, Mr. Bishop, who is leading the attack against the Morganville vampires, is frequently described as being an anti-Semite and it is suggested that this is an anachronistic throwback to the times he's lived in because well, no one with any sense would be a anti-Semite today!

The Goldmans are mostly minor characters so we won't get to hear too much about how they live their lives Jewishly in spite of being vampires. So far, all we know is that they are shomer Shabbos but as an Orthodox Jewish reader, I found myself asking all sorts of other questions and I wasn't alone. When I posted about the Goldmans on my Facebook fan page, here are the responses I got:

Rachel Ann Anolick: ooook, now how did that work?

Hadassah Sabo Milner: hmm wonder what the halachic (Jewish legal) view is on drinking blood? isnt blood treif (not kosher)? or are they "vegetarians"? (only animal blood? Have you read the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series? I cannot get enough of her.

Rachel Ann Anolick: blood definitely is treif, from animals or humans. I guess if you need to eat it to not live?

Hadassah Sabo Milner: quite a conundrum, and can you drink blood on shabbat?

Rachel Ann Anolick: Hmmm, since it involves wounding a living being...ah the problems of a frum vampire. They never end do they?

Aliza Hausman: I've done Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris but haven't checked out the Anita Black series. Also love the vampire series by MaryJanice Davidson.

Hadassah Sabo Milner: KoD (my husband) says I am obsessed with vampires. Laurell K Hamilton writes the Anita Blake series. Lots of erotica in there too, just so you know...

Rachel Ann Anolick: do you like horror in general? If so have you ever read Ligotti? And if you like Vampires did you try the Vampire podcast Underwood and Flinch?

Actually, I'll read just about anything...except philosophy but there is a special place in my heart for horror, science fiction and fantasy, which like the English classics I read as a child, were able to take me far, far away from the nightmare of my childhood even if only to a place where others were struggling to survive.

Aliza Hausman: But the point is, Rachel that even after being turned into a vampire is that one can strive to be the best Jew they can be. :) Even if it means becoming a "vegeterian" ala Twilight or getting all your blood from a blood bank....