Aliza is a 1st-generation Dominican-American Latina Orthodox Jewish convert (“Jewminicana") who later discovered she had maternal Sephardic Jewish Turkish ancestry. She is also a writer, blogger, educator & speaker. This blog chronicles her thoughts on being Hispanic & Jewish, focusing on identity, Judaism, Jews of colors, Latinos, diversity, race, ethnicity, conversion to Judaism, culture, multiculturalism, illness, disability, books, films, news & more….
With "Worth it? Really?" Blogger MaNishtana responds to the hateful comments posted in response to my interview in the latest issue of The Jewish Press.
Honestly, the whole thing just makes my heart hurt.
It's truly unfortunate what some confused, misinformed individuals believe I stand for (I have never pretended to represent anyone but myself) and how they've twisted my words and my life story to sully a beautiful interview and perpetuate hate right in time for Passover.
I hope that prospective converts do not for a second read those hateful comments and believe that this represents all of Judaism, because this certainly does not represent the Jews who will take you in and make you a part of their extended family.
I never imagined that I would end up being "controversial" or become "an eternal hate magnet" for believing that Jews should treat each other (and non-Jews and all people) with respect.
As with every Passover, I commemorate freedom, the freedom of being able to use writing to touch people's lives and always the freedom I attained, and never imagined I would, at 17 when I escaped my abusive childhood home.
But this Passover, I also pray for another kind of freedom, freedom from the baseless hatred that threatens to tear the Jewish people (whether they are converts, born Jews or Jews of all colors, stars and stripes) apart.
And I also hope for freedom from the way I have let people like these confused, misinformed individuals pollute my heart, my mind, my life and my love for Jews and Judaism.
A happy (and healthy) Passover to everyone!
P.S. Many thanks to those who have taken a break from their Pesach preparations to send me the loveliest of fan mail. Your support means a lot to me!
Wheew, I miss you guys. I hope you miss me! I have all these writing ideas rolling around in my head and no one to share them with. Not ready to make my comeback though but living life temporarily unplugged is interesting. Still doing a terrible job of juggling what I should be doing for my health and what I want to be doing for my career and my ever-changing role in the Jewish community.
In the meantime, I hope you all have a wonderful Passover. Not only am I in gorgeous Los Angeles for Pesach, but because the Jew of color world is so small, I just met the star of one of my favorite posts from last year when he recognized me at a local restaurant: "Sighting: The Black Jew".
Remember that even though you can't find me on Twitter or Facebook, you can still contact me the "old-fashioned way" via email (it's at the bottom of the blog).
Be sure to check out this great interview by Daniela Weiss-Bronstein in The Jewish Press. Thankfully, I did not make a fool out of myself. "Pretty Worth It in the End."
I know I keep saying I'm going on hiatus, I'm taking a break but something happens and I get sucked back in. I can't seem to help myself. Literally, can't seem to HELP myself. When I went on disability in 2006, I told myself I was going to work on my health. Instead, I became a cook-aholic. My body was a mess from doing a whole bunch of stuff (cooking up a storm, doing loads of laundry a day, etc) that to "other people" is a piece of cake but to me remains as difficult as climbing a mountain...in stilettos. Right. But I just kept comparing myself to "other people" and pushing myself until I could no longer push because I was immobilized by crescendos of pain.
When I got into this freelance writing thing, back into this blogging thing, and such, I thought it would help give me a purpose. And for a long time, it did. But again, before long, the purpose made my body a mess more often than it helped. I let things get out of hand. I've always put work first before anything else. Bad behavior when you're healthy but worse, when you're not.
Plus, when I told people I was freelance writing, blogging and such, no one took me anymore seriously than they had when I'd said I was on disability or a "household manager." You know, because comparing yourself to "other people" sucks but also, sometimes, other people suck. I've said it before and I'll say it again, people are more comfortable acknowledging and accepting that you're lazy than that you're a person coping with a challenging, debilitating chronic pain problem. The former makes them less uncomfortable. And this, of course, is where I note that I am NOT asking for your advice on how to cope with fibromyalgia because if I don't, you'll email me (or someone you know will) a whole bunch of things I should try that will make me "better" or "cure" it. In fact, I'll go even further right now and add that even if you DO have fibromyaglia or you are a good friend, I have no interest in discussing the subject of my health with you.
I wish that I could just "cut back" and in a lot of ways, I have. Slowly but surely, I've tried to prioritize my family and my health but like I said, I keep getting sucked back in. A friend told me he recently got off Facebook for a bit and he did the most unbelievable writing when he did and then alas, he got sucked back in again. And don't get me wrong, I don't think Twitter, Facebook or blogging are the root of all evil. Twitter, Facebook and blogging have connected me to people, ideas and information in a way I'd never imagined and sure, in ways that were quite maddening. "Talking" about serious topics via these mediums can be incredibly frustrating. The people who come to learn, learn something, the people who come to criticize, pester and annoy, just uncover that they have a new medium to do it.
So, I am going cold turkey. I will still be available via email (my email is at the bottom of the blog) though I have to admit I am over a month behind on them. I'll even still be around for carefully selected speaking engagements. But as of today, I will be closing down my fan page, my Twitter account and turning comments off the blog. Thanks for being great fans. Thanks for supporting me. Hopefully I'll come back...except if I don't. Now, I have to go. My hands are numb. I think that's a sign.
I think talking about my health to the NY Times, to the public on my blog has misled people to think that this topic is open for discussion and debate. I know many of you do not read my blog regularly. If you did, you'd know exactly how I feel on this topic and all of this entire post will seem redundant. Because I have been bombarded recently with so much email about it, I am creating this standard letter I can link to it when the same issues arise repeatedly.
When I make comments about my health in person or on the blog, it is nothing more than a "weather report." It's sunny, rainy or miserable. Like a weather report, my health changes from day to day, hour to hour. Rest assured, it is not a "cry for help." I am in good hands. But I do not discuss what I am or am not doing with regards to my treatment plan for my health problems with people who are not my very good, very cute doctors. I definitely don't discuss with with strangers.
In fact, I have found that because people who suffer from fibromyalgia and other chronic health problems are constantly, consistently, and chronically bombarded with "helpful suggestions, tips, information" from friends, from other sufferers, from strangers, from family members, from whoever has seen an ad for a particlar drug that week, I always advise people not to offer "any help" in this way, unless they've been directly, specifically and explicitly asked for it.
Indeed, I realize that this knee-jerk reaction is to show real concern and offer some type of support. But because it occurs so often in the life of someone with chronic health problems, at best, it becomes annoying, at worse, it can be condescending and intrusive. If you don't know or understand the health problem itself, if you can't even pronounce it, think twice before offering advice on it. Sure, you can ask questions but you must understand that you are not entitled to information so don't be surprised if the conversation ends very abruptly or awkwardly. Before even opening up this line of conversation, ask if the person feels comfortable discussing it with you. First and foremost, it is not the job of someone suffering from chronic health problems to educate every Tom, Dick and Harry about their particular diagnosis.
Instead of assuming that you might know what's best or what might work for a person suffering from a particular chronic illness.... The best help anyone can offer someone suffering a chronic health problem is always understanding and patience, especially by not joining the legion of people who constantly bombard those who suffer from chronic illnesses with 'help.'
"I'm sorry to hear that" goes a long way. "Have you tried this?" doesn't. But if you are in it for the long haul, if you'd really like to help this person on manage on a day-to-day basis, then it might be safe to add: (Assuming that the person who suffers from daily from the particular ailment itself and knows more about it and understands how they might need support on a day-to-day basis), "Is there any way, anything, I help you right now?"
People who are debilitated in a way that makes simple everyday tasks difficult could always use, quite literally, a hand.
144 post I wrote where I mentioned chronic pain/fibromyalgia
NOTE: As I reiterate numerous times whether I post about my health, please subvert any desire to respond to this post with a suggestion of "things I should try" for my health. I will ignore and delete any such comments whether they are posted here or emailed to me directly. If you are confused as to why, click on the "chronic pain/fibromyalgia" tag and read ALL of the previous posts.
A short video on growing up in Washington Heights:
I love the Heights. With Dominican food, Dominican people and Dominican Spanish at every street corner, I can't help but feel like I'm home when I come down from Riverdale to visit. I am, after all, a Dominican-American so why wouldn't I feel most at home in the epicenter of Dominican life in America? And now that I'm Jewish, I can appreciate the kosher food, Jewish people and well, that some of those Jews are actually speaking Spanish, too, once in a blue moon at the Golan Heights restaurant. (I also get overly excited when I spot people speaking Hebrew and am able to understand what's being said.)
But I HATED the Heights growing up there. Possibly, because my nickname was "white girl" and people meant it in the nastiest way possible, I didn't feel at home in Washington Heights. It took me years to realize why I really didn't fit in. From the point I was placed in bilingual kindergarten with kids who spoke mostly Spanish, whereas I spoke Spanglish, things were off. When I wasn't being teased for speaking too much English, I was being teased for not speaking enough Spanish. By first grade, even though I had plenty of Dominican friends, I seemed to gravitate towards other outsiders, the nerdy kids, the few black, Asian, Greek and Arab kids....
High school, which was an art school, with kids from all times of socioeconomic, cultural and racial backgrounds was a reprieve. So I was shocked when I had to deal with the same old thing in college, I'd dealt with in Washington Heights. In college, people, particularly Hispanic students, would ask if I was half-white. People would ask if I was really Hispanic because I felt more comfortable speaking English. Because they questioned my identity, I felt uncomfortable in it. Was I really Dominican? Nobody but me seemed to think so. I was stuck in some limbo: too American for Hispanics and not American enough, too exotic even, for whites.
It wasn't until I started writing about this issue for Latina magazine that I realized that it wasn't just being light-skinned and having kinky hair that made other people think I was biracial or somehow, less Hispanic. Unlike the parents' of many of my classmates, my parents had come to New York as teens (preteens in my mother's case) so there was this overwhelming cultural divide between me and a lot of my classmates. Somehow, I was first-generation American but I operated like second-generation American in a sea of immigrants who had very strong ideas about what Americans (whites) acted like and what Hispanics acted like...even if that wasn't what Hispanics were like "back home." I'd never had to "learn English" (which is probably why I find it so insufferable when people ask when I did). I'd never had to translate for my parents like so many of my friends did. I'd never suffered in some way it was expected I should have suffered.
And there was something else. In the Heights, in a school full of mostly Dominicans, you weren't just a nerd (or in my case, leader of "the Nerd patrol!" according to Jose Bozo), you were "white." You were acting white, talking white. And even if you weren't and didn't see it that way, you learned that even when you were in a school full of whites (in college), that even white people saw you as "acting white" but unlike your Dominican friends, they complimented you on it. Never once realizing that they made you just as uncomfortable as you were growing up when your Dominican classmates teased you for the same thing.
When people ask me, usually white Jews, why I'm so hung up on identity issues, I don't even know where to start. I remember being so angry when I Tweeted: "Are you afro-Caribbean if you aren't black but have an afro?" and someone responded, "Who cares?" Me, obviously. And not just me, people around me, people in my family who have always commented on my skin color, my hair, my English, my Spanish. They just don't ask the same questions in the same way.
What people see as "identity issues" is something I have been dealing with my whole life and will continue to deal with, on a much larger scale now as a Jew of color, often the only Jew of color in the room. I find that I feel most at home with Jews of color, most at home with other Hispanic converts, most at home with mixed people Jewish or not, people who have traveled similar roads, people who have lived in the in-between, lived with similar discomfort who don't ask me constant, probing questions but then wonder why I have so many "issues."
I also know, more than most, certainly better than Alice, that if I stumbled over a hookah-smoking caterpillar in Wonderland who asked, "Whooooooo are you?" I'd have one heck of an answer. Now if only I could get Tim Burton to make it into a IMAX 3-D experience.
Note: This blog was written in response to the YouTube video below:
"This is a battle for the soul of Judaism," writes David Harris about the Knesset bill "that attempts to bar any non-Jew who ever visited Israel from claiming Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return, if they convert to Judaism subsequent to their visit."
My husband's tribute to my good hair day and the hair covering that was swallowed up by it.
Most people are socially appropriate enough that they don't or won't comment on what's going on with your hair unless it's on fire. I think that's pretty fair. I mean, if you're having a bad hair day, aren't you the first to notice anyway? Do you really need other people raining in on your frizzy parade?
In my case, because my afro-tastic hair changes depending on the weather, when I last washed it, when I got a haircut (which happens VERY rarely), on how much "product" or which product I did or did not put in it or what hair covering I'm wearing that day, I think some people really just can't help themselves. To them, my head begs for attention. To some headcases, the very nature of how my hair grows is a "cry for help."
But honestly, that's really NO EXCUSE.
All (or most) of the following comments were made with the same yenta look on his or usually her face: 99% of the time.
Some of them were made with genuine concern and love: 1% of the time.
"Is that how you're covering your hair?"
"Is that really considered covering your hair?"
Every Purim, as a "joke" from someone: "That's a great afro wig!" (Teehee, teehee, NOT!)
"Oooooh, is there something different with your hair? Oh, it SEEMS like there is something different with your hair!" (Imagine Julia Child's voice now crossed with Brooklyn yenta.)
"Here, (subtext: I don't like the head covering on your head) take this head covering I don't use anymore!" (Funny enough, one time when this happened, the head covering was TOO big for my head. A miracle. The other time, I, literally, outgrew the head covering the next day.)
Even when pressed...when I don't just walk, literally, right out of the conversation when I realize where it's going (now you know why you're seeing my back walking away from you) and I dignify the latest stupid comment with an answer and I mention that my hair and my head covering is between me, G-d, my husband, my "this is off-the-record" rabbi and his poor put-upon straight-haired wife, I've gotten:
"Oh really, so what does your husband say about your hair?"
"Why doesn't your husband/his family buy you a nice sheitel?"
"Your husband really says he loves your hair?" (Look of disbelief)
"Oh really, what did your rabbi say?"
"Is that really a tefach of hair?" It's not my fault my tefach looks bigger than yours.
"Does your rabbi...(nonsense, nonsense, nonsense)?"
"Have you tried straightening your hair?" (Or "shaving your hair"?)
This last one is almost always said in the same condescending, trying-to-be-helpful tone used by people who have "helpful" tips to offer about how to help my fibromyalgia. My favorite instance where this happened, a good friend standing next to me cut the person off and said, "Aliza's tried everything. Thank you." Case closed.
People have offered to do straighten my hair for me. Seriously. With a hair iron. B-A-R-B-A-R-I-C...especially if you grew up on Dominican hair stylists who kick it old school and use giant hair rollers, a salon bonnet-shaped hair dryer, a handheld hair dryer, a good round brush and only sometimes, chemicals (unless it makes your too "fine" or "sensitive" hair fall out before like mine did). Did you see the episode where Phoebe on "Friends" burns down the apartment she shares with Rachel...with a hair iron? Tsk, tsk. Don't you know hair irons are evil?
I do know women with my hair type who do straighten it to be able to wear whatever hair covering's most socially appropriate in their community. I don't judge them even though I'm pretty militant about my curly hair. I don't judge them because I know how things are. I know how many women (even white ones) have come up to me and confessed (I am obviously a hair priest) to relaxing their hair or straightening it under peer pressure. I'm sure you're familiar with peer pressure, peer pressure like getting TEASED daily at school or at home or at SHABBOS DINNERS! How things are is that straight hair is "hot" (even mussed up and strategically tussled) and curly hair...is not.
But seriously, let's just go there for a second, when a white woman with straight hair (natural, flat-ironed or chemically relaxed, I don't care) has the audacity of telling me she thinks my hair needs to be straightened, all I can think is that she's begging for a throwdown. If it's a non-white woman, I just tell myself they got to you. They are very powerful. I forgive you. Stay strong, sistah.
But wait, my family is full of non-white women and I won't even take that crap from my mother, my grandmother (a former Dominican hair stylist of the most hardcore kind) or my 98-year-old great-grandmother who can't even look at my head without giving it a dirty look. So don't presume to think I'll take it from you. On Shabbos. Our day of rest!
Honestly, you don't want to know how many times women have made a disgusted look over my natural hair and differentiated in MY PRESENCE between good curly hair you can run a brush/comb through and MY kind of hair. There are thoughts in your head that you're never supposed to say out loud. I know this to be true because I've stuck my foot in my mouth, too, which is really hard when you have TMJ.
And then the same women have gone on to ask me why black women straighten it? Seriously? I've gotten this numerous times and every single time I'm incredulous. You think natural black women's hair is abhorrent but you can't figure out one reason why they straighten it?
Girl, did you miss the Glamour article where an editor got slammed after saying an afro was inappropriate for the workplace? Did you miss the clip from "Good Hair" where that poor black high school girl articulated the same damn thing?
And don't worry, I won't even discuss dreads, braids, cornrows or kinky twists as an alternative to hair straightening because again, with the throwdown bit. I know you think they're "too black" and "too militant" because I also remember being brainwashed to think the only options for women with hair like mine are straightening your hair...or straightening your hair.
Please spare me the "why are black women so hung up on their hair?" Please. If you don't, I will make fun of you for perming (means straightening for blacks, means curling for whites, means confusing to Hispanics) and/or doing strange things to your straight hair to make it FULLER, BLONDER and all related hairstyle malfunctions.
Now, I just tell clueless people to watch Tyra Bank's very serious show (take a second to banish "America's Top Model" from your mind) on natural hair. Thank you, Tyra! See it here: "Straight Hair At Any Cost?
If you need a little comedy, a little spoonful of sugar with your reality check, I recommend renting Chris Rock's pretty informative but kind of disappointing documentary on the black hair industry, "Good Hair."
If you're short on time, you can just get a clue by reading what that off-her-rocker Newsweek editor wrote about Zahara Jolie-Pitt's afro. This is what women with hair like mine (or hair even kinkier) are up against. The next person to presume to say out loud that he/she thinks my hair is knottier because it's curly, well, there will be a reckoning. That's for sure. If my hair's so knotty, why do you have to brush yours all the time?
Now, dear friend, if you're reading this and realizing you are one of those people who made these kinds of comments more than once around me and you're turning red in the face (from either embarrassment or anger), let me set the record straight, I am talking about SEVERAL people and SEVERAL instances. You are, unfortunately, not very original in this respect.
But just to recap, no, it's not cute when you or your children make racist comments about my hair.
No, it's not cute to offer that my hair makes a good air bag. Yes, I know you were being sarcastic and mocking the people who make stupid comments about my hair but...yeah, I'm just saying, just in case....
I also don't answer to "weirdo" or "you have weird hair."
I also don't like it being compared to "pubes." (Yeah, right up until then, I know you thought I was a mad raving over-sensitive manic, didn't you?)
No, it's not cute when you or your children touch (and pull) my hair without permission. No, it's not cute even when you ask for permission. I am not a petting zoo. No, not even if you bless it.
And when I HAVE let you touch it and you said, "Oh, I didn't expect it to be so soft!" I. Want. To. Slap. You. But all I can say is...oh, I'm sorry it doesn't feel like the crunchy Brillo you thought it would.
Plus, if you make a digusted face when I tell you I don't have to wash my hair more than once a week and that it never gets oily or "dirty," I will be forced to remark on the fact that your hair is THIN (thanks, Dana!), boring, shapeless, oily and obviously disgusting because you have to wash it every day, G-d forbid more than once a week! Yeech! (I took sick pleasure in schooling the unfortunate person who was my test-subject for this "try turning it around on them" venture.)
Now do you get it? The point is that you really need to learn what it feels like to have obnoxious comments made about your hair constantly and consistently. Just imagine what your life would be like in a curly-centric world where you couldn't find decent "normal" shampoo and conditioner in the local store, much less find reasonably priced ones, much less go a week without some stupid comment being made about your hair.
It may come as a shock to you but my father has straight hair! Many of my brothers and sisters do! Dominicans come in all shapes, colors and hair types. But as a culture, if you're hair's not straight, we make sure it's straightened from the minute it curls (mine started curling at age 3!). Pelo bueno=good hair/straight hair. Pelo malo=bad hair/not-so-straight hair. I learned these terms before I started kindergarten. Probably even before getting potty-trained. Just like you think twice about cursing in front of your kids, think again about what you say in front of your children about their hair or those people's hair.
Yes, I know you find it hard to believe but I am quite comfortable with my low maintenance styling routine, which mostly involves fluffing my hair back into shape every morning and spraying in (or not) leave-in conditioner. I spend about 10 minutes A WEEK on my hair. How much do you spend? No, straightening it is NOT "easier" for me. But it's sure as hell more societally acceptable. Try to hunt down some products for keeping curly/kinky hair natural in the black women's hair section and see how you fair.
Oh, the volumes (pun intended) I could (and have written) written on hair. And oh, the tongue lashing I wish I had the energy to give to every women or man who has negatively commented on the hair of any woman, Jewish or otherwise, especially my 'fro, and what is or isn't on it. You know who you are! Now get some shame over it.
Every once in a while, I do have a nice conversation about hair, mine or otherwise. A lovely rabbi's wife told me she had my back if I had kids with hair like mine. She's done plenty of research on her daughter's hair and how to keep it natural. Now, I have someone to turn other than my peeps at the Jewish Multiracial Network! All my mother taught me about taking care of hair like mine involved a lot of cursing, brushing (DO NOT BRUSH CURLY HAIR!) and backhanding me in the head with the brush. Ouch.
A dear woman once said: "People just don't get it! How you get these questions every day or at least anytime that you are surrounded by people, and especially on Shabbos when every inch of you, including your brain just wants to rest. They don't get how their prying, insensitivity, and just plain rudeness can make you cry when you get home or make you feel soooo not accepted or so angry that you may want to punch them."
And now, an update version of an all-time blog favorite!
My Rastafarian Beret &
Other Adventures in Hair Covering (with more details and jokes!)
Growing up, I thought obsessing about hair was a “Dominican thing.” Later, I found out it was also a “black thing.” And after converting to Judaism, I realized it was also a “Jewish thing.”
I can remember back to a time when I looked forward to covering my hair. It was exciting. So much cooler than a wedding ring. It was a big whopping sign that I’d gotten married. It made me feel special.
But then I started doing it. Every day was a bad hair day. The head coverings damaged and dried out my supersensitive kinky hair. I cried all the time. No matter how bad my hair looked, my husband told me he loved it. But I didn’t. I ended up shaving my head.
What I liked most about having no hair was that I could suddenly wear all those trendy hats I saw women at shul wearing. I could fit in. I didn’t look like that monster from the Alien movies or Marge Simpson because my afro was threatening to explode from underneath my hair covering. I looked like those dazzling women on coveryourhair.com.
But the hair grew back. My husband made me promise I wouldn’t shave it off. He agreed to spend money we didn’t have to support my hair: only the best hair products, only the best hair cuts from curly hair specialists. I became a hardcore lover of Ouidad though I dabbled in Miss Jessie's and wondered about Devachan.
When I went to get my haircut for the first time since growing back my hair, I took off my head covering which much shame. It was matted, brittle, dry, damaged, disgusting. And embarrassing. It didn’t matter how much product I put into it. When my hair stylist saw my hair come out of my head covering, she couldn’t hide her horror. She gasped.
But nothing could prepare me for what she said after she had combed through it.
“You’re losing your hair,” she said.
“What?”
“I see it in a lot of my Orthodox clients,” she replied quietly. “Especially the ones who wear wigs.”
“But I’m not wearing wigs,” I told her adding that a wig wouldn’t fit over my hair.
She ran her fingers through my hair. “It’s really thinning,” she said. “See how your hairline has receded?”
I hadn’t noticed. I hadn’t looked at my hair for over a year. It was too shameful. But she was right.
After she washed and styled my hair, it looked wonderful. Better than it had in ages. But as soon as she was done, I pushed it back into the large black headscarf my friends made fun of because it was “too frum.” The hair stylist pursed her lips but said nothing.
Covering my hair was ruining my self-esteem, causing my hair to fall out, but I wouldn’t stop. Forget my relationship with G-d or halacha (Jewish law), sadly I was more concerned that not covering it would have made me stick out more. Besides, I knew what people said about women who didn’t cover their hair. Other Jewish women were not “very observant” or "frum" if they stopped covering their hair but as a convert, I feared they would say worst. (See: "Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis Are Reversing Conversions By the Fistful")
Before you buy, check out my post on Update: My Head Covering Woes and a special thanks to the fan who offered to knit me a hat and led me onto Esty.com where a beret-tam-snood is only a click away. Someday, I'll tell you about the time Bubbie tried and failed to knit me up something.
Yes, I know how cute I look in a sheitel after my hair has quite been mercilessly tied down by a bandana. What you can't see is the Dominican women, who worked there, and my friends in the sheitel shop laughing uproariously as I pose. Especially since they saw the effort it took to get these sheitels on my head.
Okay, now I have to go wash the inside of my brain because I made the mistake of watching their videos that weren't racism related. Oy.
Also, I kinda wish I could just play this for people whenever someone asks me or says all the things the white people do in this video. But then I'd probably just get called "angry." Wouldn't you be angry, too?
But for four more of their episodes on racism, click here.
The feature-length documentary, LEAP OF FAITH, is the first film to explore the phenomenon of religious conversion. The film takes an in-depth look at one of modern man’s more dramatic and difficult spiritual journeys: a journey that moves the voyager to forsake the religion of parents, abandon the traditions of childhood and enter into a wholly new, often radically different system of belief and practice of worship. In LEAP OF FAITH we follow four families through their religious conversion from Gentile to Orthodox Jew. It is a decision that some will find courageous, others utterly absurd. We will witness a host of crises and triumphs and often surprising consequences. Seen from one perspective, our story is a story of ultimate devotion, from another ultimate betrayal.
At the New York Film Festival, I asked the directors (whose wives are both converts) when the film would be available on DVD so I could send a copy to each and every one of my family members in the Caribbean (and New York) so it could explain why I had converted in a way that I could never do in words. The film features a young Caribbean convert from Trinidad & Tobago who lets us follow her through the conversion process in New York City.
Actor Hank Azaria was born to Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jews parents. Wonder if his Ladino is as bad as my Spanish?
Earlier this Winter/Spring, I almost signed up for a Ladino class at the JCC Manhattan (groovy new site!). My sister, though, stepped in and said that I did not have THAT kind of money to be spending on taking classes in a language that none of my friends even speaks. And she added that I supposed to be spending time on my PHYSICAL health.
Instead, I decided to make a concerted effort (still hasn't happened) to meet with the Spanish-speaking Jewish club at the Conservative Adath Israel Synagogue of Riverdale. I did, however, kidnap a bunch of the members and bring them down to the Orthodox synagogue I attend. My brain almost misfired from switching from Spanish (to speak to my Hispanic Jewish friends) to English (to speak to my Russian, Italian, Polish Jewish friends).
Apparently, if I was in California, I would not be so lonely and pining away for Ladino. In "Habla Ladino? Sephardim meet to preserve language" (J Weekly), a bunch of Jews get together to keep Ladino alive and kicking.
Event: Women-only Launch Party for Taliah Performing Arts Center Date: Saturday, March 13, 2010 Time: 8:30pm Place: 303 Bond Street, Brooklyn, NY
For Immediate Release
Taliah Performing Arts Center for Women Official Opening Night Launch Party March 13th
New York, March 8, 2010 – Taliah Performing Arts Center, a women’s-only studio for acting and dance located in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, is officially opening this spring. Workshops for the spring semester will take place April 12 – July 1, with fall classes resuming October 2010. To celebrate the launch, the opening night party will take place at the studio – a 3,800 square foot performer’s oasis – on Saturday, March 13th at 8:30pm, and will include live music, improv and dance performances.
“Taliah is more than a studio or a performing arts center. It is where women are asked to come in with an open mind and an open heart so through acting, music and dance they can create, inspire, and be inspired,” says Tamar Madmoni Reich, founder of Taliah PAC. “I am so thrilled to be able to bring this project to life and celebrate women and the performing arts.”
Women will be able to choose from a menu of challenging classes and workshops to hone their craft from Scene Study, Improv, Movement for Actors, Voice Coaching and Shakespeare at the acting studio, to Flamenco, Belly Dance, Ballet, Jazz, Israeli Dance, Contemporary/Lyrical and more at the dance studio. Master teacher’s workshops and classes for children and teens are being developed for the future. All classes will be held at the studio, which was converted from a tow truck warehouse with the addition of a state of the art dance floor, glass facade, and theatrical lighting.
Performances by Taliah PAC faculty at the opening night launch party will include flamenco with Maya de Silva, improv with Elizabeth Fountain of Lipstick Jungle and Law & Order, music by Noa Lembersky of J. Viewz, belly dancing with Jehan and Sultana Taj, and Israeli dance with Sara Burnbaum.
Please join us for an evening filled with talent, enjoy our wine and chocolate bar, and support women in the performing arts at Taliah Performing Arts Center located at 303 Bond Street, Brooklyn. The women-only event will begin at 8:30pm and is free to the public. Must be 21 and over to attend. Gift bags will be provided for attendees; RSVP to info AT taliahpac.org is strongly encouraged.
Taliah Performing Arts Center for women is the first of its kind in New York City. With an emphasis on the craft of acting and the art of dance, taught by an acclaimed and international diverse group of teachers, Taliah is a space for women to have fun, tap into their inner child, dig deep into their souls, create, inspire and be inspired within the safety of an embracing women’s-only environment.
The latest show I've added to my Hulu queue is "Parenthood" and when I caught that one of the actress's names was Sarah Ramos, I decided to do some sleuthing. No surprise, with a name like Sarah Ramos that the actress is a Jewish Latina raised in Los Angeles!
Also, is it too much to ask that now that "Ugly Betty" (now I have something to watch all summer on DVD) is going off the air and TV is in dire need of some Hispanic people that perhaps they make a nice little show about some Dominican Jews? Take a little pinch of Carla from "Scrubs" and add a dash of Natalie Portman and call it a day.
Now, why did I ever turn down that job at Entertainment Weekly? Oh yeah, I was busy kidnapping my sister.
Event: Screening of "400 Miles to Freedom," A Documentary Film About Jewish Identity by Avishai Yeganyahu Mekonen and Shari Rothfarb Mekonen Date: Thursday, March 18, 2010 Time: 7pm Place: Northeastern University, 135 Shillman Hall, 115 Forsyth Street, Boston, MA
Free and open to the public
Co-sponsored by the Northeastern University Departments of African-American Studies, Art & Design, and Philosophy & Religion, Northeastern Hillel, and Students for Israel at Northeastern.
My hands (and heart) hurt too much to go into great detail over this latest conversion debacle which is why I haven't blogged about it though I have mentioned it on my fan page. Lucky for me "Redefining Rebbetzin" put together a great blog about it.
If you've been living under a nice little rock (I need to get one) then you may have missed the news on the infuriating, horrifying, enraging, despicable (should I saw more?) Knesset conversion bill.
People who think this bill will only affect those "foreign workers" in Israel who are "converting for less than sincere purposes" are wearing blinders. It will affect all converts and their families and the entire Jewish people.
At the Y in Washington Heights, Jewish kids and Dominican kids came together to stage a musical production about Sosua. A lot has been written about Sosua lately, many books and articles written about the small town in the Dominican Republic where Jews fleeing the Holocaust settled in 1938. Many of these Jews eventually left the Dominican Republic for America but not before creating a kosher cheese factory and a synagogue, and even a museum.
The evil dictator, Rafael Trujillo, ruling the Dominican Republic with an iron fist at that time in history, offered to let thousands of Jews settle in DR. Prior to making this offer, he slaughtered thousands of Haitians. The two stories about why Trujillo opened the doors to his country to Jews are very different. One says that Trujillo invited the Jews so they would intermingle with Dominicans and "whiten the race." Another story claims that when his daughter studied in America, she experienced a lot of racism but bonded with a Jewish woman.
There have been Jews in the Dominican Republic since 1942, when conversos came to the Caribbean with Christopher Columbus. To this day, there is a small community in Santo Domingo, which includes not just one synagogue but also a Chabad rabbi who now slaughters kosher meat there and who recently made news for hopping over from Santo Domingo to Haiti to help in the aid efforts.
To watch a clip of the students working together on the "Sosua" production, click here. (You need QuickTime to view this video.)
My friend and fellow blogger Hadassah of In the Pink asked me to post this......
"We have an occasional feature on my blog called My Judaism. Readers submit pieces of prose that talk about the reader's own personal Judaism. What Judaism means to them, what their spiritual journey has been, thoughts and feelings about belonging (or not) to this group of people. I welcome submissions from all. This is about a person’s own spiritual journey. I have always been so interested in why people convert to Judaism, why they decide to become more / less religious, why they decided to give it all up / take it all on, how being around Judaism has influenced them. There are so many lessons to be learned from everybody’s spiritual journeys.
I would love to have some more submissions and to give people a chance to get their stories out there.
For submission guidelines, please click here. To read those pieces already printed click here."
The feature-length documentary, LEAP OF FAITH, is the first film to explore the phenomenon of religious conversion. The film takes an in-depth look at one of modern man’s more dramatic and difficult spiritual journeys: a journey that moves the voyager to forsake the religion of parents, abandon the traditions of childhood and enter into a wholly new, often radically different system of belief and practice of worship. In LEAP OF FAITH we follow four families through their religious conversion from Gentile to Orthodox Jew. It is a decision that some will find courageous, others utterly absurd. We will witness a host of crises and triumphs and often surprising consequences. Seen from one perspective, our story is a story of ultimate devotion, from another ultimate betrayal.
At the New York Film Festival of this film, I asked the directors (whose wives are both converts) when the film would be available on DVD so I could send a copy to each and every one of my family members in the Caribbean (and New York) so it could explain why I had converted in a way that I could never do in words. The film features a young Caribbean convert from Trinidad & Tobago who lets us follow her through the conversion process in New York City.
"It may not be racist, but it's a question I'm tired of hearing"
Looking a bit brown still means being asked where you're from. So here's a ready-made answer for the overly curious
By Ariane Sherine
Last weekend, I had The Conversation for the 3,897th time – and this time, it took place in central London just two roads away from the hospital where I was born. As usual, it went like this:
Stranger: Where are you from? [Translation: You look a bit brown. Why are you brown?]
Me: London.
Stranger: No, where are you really from? [Translation: You are clearly telling me untruths. Brown people do not come from London.]
Me: London.
Stranger (exasperated): No, where are your parents from? [Translation: Now you're just being obtuse.]
Me: Africa and America.
Stranger (confused): Erm … so where are your family from, like, back in the day? [Translation: People who come from Africa and America do not look like you.]
Me: Iran, India, Africa, America and England.
Stranger (relieved): India and Iran! Do you ever go back?
At this point, I have to explain that it's hard to go back to somewhere you have never been. I've lived in London since I was a zygote, have a London accent and don't speak any languages except English – yet just because I'm cashew-coloured, I'm often questioned about my heritage. Over the last five years, I've been asked: "What's your caste?" (I haven't broken any bones); "Do you go to temple?" (only on my way to Embankment); and "Do you need special food?" (as though the answer's going to be: "Yes, St Peter isn't going to let me in if I've munched on a bit of dead pig/cow/giraffe").
It's not that I'm embarrassed about my ethnic background. (For more, click here.)
Whew, last night's speaking engagement in Teaneck, NJ at Temple Emeth was great! Temple Emeth is just plan gorgeous and the people were awesome!
It was also great to finally meet a couple of fans of the blog who I've been corresponding with for years and to catch up with some Jersey friends who I hadn't seen in a while. The event coordinator was surprised that so many people who showed up didn't regularly attend Temple Emeth. In fact, a lot of Orthodox people showed up!
I hope to write about the experience for the blog soon but I'm still behind on writing about my speaking engagement at Limmud NY in January, so, you know....
If you missed my Teaneck engagement, you might want to check me out in Rockland County!
Friday, March 19th, 2010/7-8pm SEPHARDIC SERVICE led by Stephanie Shefia Cohen with Rabino Stephen Leon and Rabina Deborah Brin, and a 17th century Converso poetry reading. Oneg follows. Reception for the authors at 6:30pm.
Saturday, March, 20, 2010 OFICIO DE LA MANANA, Crypto-Jewish Service led by Daniel Diaz-Huerta with Rabina Brin and Rabino Leon. 9:30-1O:50am
RABINO STEPHEN LEON, Congregation Bnai Zion, El Paso Texas "The Crypto Jews of the Southwest: How and Why They Are Returning to Judaism. " 11- 11:45am
CATERED VEGETARIAN LUNCHEON 12-12:45pm
DISCUSSION PANEL moderated by Hershel Weiss with Crypto-Jews and descendants of Conversos: Sonya Loya, Daniel Diaz-Huerta, Glorya Tschabold, Mario X. Martinez, Maria Apodaca. Poetry by Isabel Medina Sandoval. 1-1 :45pm
STANLEY M. HORDES, University of New Mexico "Sephardic Legacy In New Mexico: A History of Crypto-Jews." 2-2:45pm
DANIEL DIAZ-HUERTA, University of New Mexico "Crypto-Jewish/Converso Voices in the Golden Age of Spanish Literature." 3-3:45pm
GLORIA GOLDEN, Author & Photographer "Judaism in Memory and Spirit: 500 Years After The Inquisition." 4-4:45pm
HECTOR CONTRERAS LOPEZ, University of New Mexico "The Secret Word: An Introduction to the Writings of Luis Carvajal the Younger." 5-5:45pm
SEPHARDIC HA VDALAH SERVICE led by Rabino Leon and Rabina Brin. 6-6:30pm
CONCERT OF SEPHARDIC MUSIC with The Rebbe's Orkestra. 8-lOpm
I had to share this with you! It's about the always annoying question: "Are you Jewish?"
So, yesterday I went to a Purim party with two of my friends, one who is an Israeli Jew and another who is Dominican and Catholic. I am also Hispanic, though not Dominican. We went to a Chabad party and overall had a good time until the questions of "Are you Jewish?" came up!
Besides myself and my friend Juan, there was only one other person of color there but we were cool with it. During the time, we were there, my Latino friend Juan and I were the only ones that kept getting the questions:
"Are you Jewish?" "How did you hear about the party?" "Do you know what Purim is?”
At one point, this guy came up to talk to me and the conversation started off nicely and then he looked at me and asked, "Um, so how did you find out about this place?"
I told him I go to many Chabad parties and he said, “Are you Jewish? Because you don't look it.”
I was getting really impatient, so I said, “Oh, I'm sorry, do I have to look Jewish to be Jewish? Do I have to look Ashkenazi?"
He laughed and told me I looked Hispanic. I replied, “Well, maybe that is because I am Hispanic. And I hope you are educated enough to know that there are many Latino Jews."
He said, “Oh. Yeah, I know, I just never meet any."
We exchanged a few more words but I ended the conversation when he kept asking me how I knew so much about Jewish “things."
Even though I haven't converted yet, this exchange annoyed me. I was intimidated about going to Jewish events at my college because I didn't know if would be accepted. The population is almost exclusively Ashkenazi and most of the kids are really young, anywhere from 18 to 22. Turns out they are more accepting than most adults I've met at parties outside the community. At my college, no one has ever once questioned my identity.
Hope you had a good Purim.
Hispanic Woman Converting in NYC
***
Dear Hispanic Woman Converting in NYC,
SIGH. SIGH. SIGH. I've been there. I'm still there. But on Purim, I had some respite from those tired questions. Thank G-d. I had a fabulous Purim!
A bunch of us Jews of color got together for one Purim party and then party-hopped to another party. We managed to hang out with a bunch of (sensitive) white Jews who never once questioned us about our Jewishness, even when we made comments that offered that our Jewish backgrounds might be quite different than theirs. And not being questioned or interrogated actually made us feel more comfortable sharing ourselves and our stories and listening to theirs.
You can get the shirt above and other amusing fibromyalgia t-shirts at Zazzle. I'm also a big fan of "Fibromyalgia: Not for Wimps. But I do feel like a bit of a wimp. All the time.
Please watch the 60-second PSA below to learn more about fibromyalgia!
Hey, this year I'm hoping that one of my published articles from 2009 will win the 2009 Be'chol Lashon Media Awards "for excellence in reporting on global Judaism."
Up close and personal with author Ernest H. Adams about his memoir, "From Ghetto to Ghetto: An African American Journey to Judaism." Adams had some noteworthy things to say about his experiences during Jim Crow, joining in the Jewish community and what he thinks about the rift between the Jewish and African-American communities.
In this profile/review, I took a look at a fresh new memoir from Jewess Sadia Shepard and how it wrestled with the idea of hyphenated identity and particularly hers, growing up Muslim, Prostetant, mixed race and finding out she was Jewish, too!
In fact, all that lovely money from speaking engagements I'm doing in March is going to be forked over to the dentist in April. I have no dental coverage and even at the "student" clinic, I go to, there is no sliding scale and what they call "affordable" would make you cry. I have kept putting off dental treatment because I had to put my money elsewhere...towards shockingly hig prescription co-pays, towards everything that isn't covered by my ever-pricey health insurance and oh, to lend my sisters money for healthcare costs because they don't have ANY healthcare at all.
The first time I got a wisdom tooth pulled it cost me $1,000.
The dentist had planned to remove two wisdom teeth, one side of the mouth, but the first tooth was so impacted that it took him hours to get it out. And this was no student, but a nice (Jewish) Central Park West dentist who helped me get my fibromyalgia diagnosis after I came to him in 2005 with a phantom toothache I thought was a "cavity." No cavity, just fibromyalgia. I could not have made it through the next few months and the awful round of doctors I had to see to get my diagnosis (doctors who laughed, accused me of being mentally ill and who finally told me at least it was fibromyalgia and "not a brain tumor") if it had not been for this dentist's support.
Many times, I have visited me and he has not charged me. He knows my husband is in yeshiva and the dentist himself studied at one of the most prestigious yeshivas in Jerusalem even though he is no longer religious. When I told him I was converting shortly after beginning to see him in 2005, he told me that I was "crazy" but then gave me a "Jewish discount."
I am going to get the last three wisdom teeth pulled in April. All at the same time. This, despite the fact that my CPW Jewish dentist thought this was a bad idea because of my TMJ and most especially, fibromyalgia. Any kind of pain in one section of my body travels and causes havoc in other places. But I cannot afford to get it done this way, much less one costly tooth at a time.
The dentist, a student and oral surgeon, said "I should be okay" and putting me under should help. When I asked if she would be giving me extra painkillers afterwards because I am now "tolerant" to so many, she said no. I worried that she was concerned I was an addict trying to get extra pills but I explained about the fibromyalgia and the previous dentist's fears.
Still, she ignored me even when I added that I was "very, very concerned" about this undergoing this procedure. She said if problems arise, she will help me coordinate a refill. Somehow, I don't have faith. Especially considering that to schedule an appointment at this clinic, I had to call, wait on hold 10-15 minutes at a time, then hang up for hours before someone would deal with me. And every appointment lasts at least three to four hours. I went home feeling worried, petulant, sulky and hating doctors. Even though I am one of those crazy folk that loves dentists (and gynecologists!) because they are the only ones who have ever taken me seriously (before and after fibromyalgia) and treated me like a sane person!
Reading the blog "Dancing With Pain" and connecting with fellow chronic pain sufferer Loolwa Khazzoom, I have decided to do the following. I am going to do what I should have done before I ever even made the appointment for my wisdom teeth. I am going to call my former dentist and get his take on the procedure. I am going to get his cellphone number so that the other dentist can speak to him. I am going to get my rheumatologist on the line and get his take and HIS cellphone number. I am going to show up to the appointment with my husband, who people have no problem taking seriously, to help me advocate for myself, get that prescription for extra painkillers first before I allow them to operate on me.
I have tried the other route.
I have really suffered when doctors ignored me.
When I said I was asthmatic (albeit, allergic asthma) and I probably shouldn't take a medication with even possible side effects for asthmatics, the doctor ignored me and I had my first major asthma attack from a medication that listed it as a possible side effect. In his defense, he was as desperate as I was to find the drug that would help make my fibromyalgia manageable.
When I said I was worried about a medication that "gave me a really bad headache the last time," another doctor ignored me. The next time it put me in the emergency room where it was deduced I was allergic to sulfa. It took me two years to pay back the $1500. At the time, my income was $600 a month. $500 of which was for the three-block ambulance ride that had arrived after my recently kidnapped 14-year-old sister had called 911 because I lost consciousness.
I had also told them that many antibiotics failed me often and I worried it was because my mother never followed the directions and even used old antibiotics to "treat" my allergies and other ailments. Despite this, the doctor gave me cheap antibiotics, even when I explained I would pay for the more expensive kind with my credit card if I had to. I ended up in the emergency room having the most expensive antibiotic dripped directly into my body via IV.
So, Loolwa, I'm listening! And now, when doctors ignore all the hard earned information I give them about my health as someone who has lived it, the pain in the butt THEY will experience is ME. I will try to get past how demoralized and traumatized I am from dealing with all the doctors who have shamed me.
NOTE: As I reiterate numerous times whether I post about my health, please subvert any desire to respond to this post with a suggestion of "things I should try" for my health. I will ignore and delete any such comments whether they are posted here or emailed to me directly. If you are confused as to why, click on the "chronic pain/fibromyalgia" tag and read ALL of the previous posts.
The feature-length documentary, LEAP OF FAITH, is the first film to explore the phenomenon of religious conversion. The film takes an in-depth look at one of modern man’s more dramatic and difficult spiritual journeys: a journey that moves the voyager to forsake the religion of parents, abandon the traditions of childhood and enter into a wholly new, often radically different system of belief and practice of worship. In LEAP OF FAITH we follow four families through their religious conversion from Gentile to Orthodox Jew. It is a decision that some will find courageous, others utterly absurd. We will witness a host of crises and triumphs and often surprising consequences. Seen from one perspective, our story is a story of ultimate devotion, from another ultimate betrayal.
At the New York Film Festival, I asked the directors (whose wives are both converts) when the film would be available on DVD so I could send a copy to each and every one of my family members in the Caribbean (and New York) so it could explain why I had converted in a way that I could never do in words. The film features a young Caribbean convert from Trinidad & Tobago who lets us follow her through the conversion process in New York City.
Event: Celebrating the Musical Tradition of Turkish Jews Date: Sunday, March 7, 2010 Time: 2pm Place: JCC Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Avenue at West 76th Street, New York, NY 10023 Admission: $20/$25 (Purchase tickets in advance)
Details:
The diversity of Turkish culture is reflected in its rich musical traditions, among them the music of Jews who lived during the Ottoman Empire. We are privileged to present Ahmet Erdogdular, a world renowned musician, who will present songs of Jewish composers and cantors during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and Upper West Sider Daisy Sadaka Braverman, a Turkish-American linguist and singer, who will offer songs in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), the language unique to Sephardic Jews. The afternoon will include Turkish desserts! Co-sponsored by The Turkish Cultural Center.
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