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D'var Torah for Rosh Hashanah (2nd Day)
2 Tishri 5769
October 1, 2008
by Tova Stabin
Shana tova. Gut Yuntiff.
Thank you for inviting me to speak today.
I must admit how odd it feels for me to be here and that’s some of what I want to talk about today.
Let me start with one type of beginning. Maram called my house to ask me to speak when I was in New York with Mayim and Anne gave her the phone number I was using so she could ask me directly. Let me explain that I don’t really like talking on phones, and I don’t usually have a cell phone, but we got these in New York so we could be in touch with each other in case we got lost from each other in the subway, for instance (an aside – cell phones don’t work usually in the subway, but that’s a different story). I didn’t think anyone aside from my family knew the phone # and I’m not used to cell phones, so I was awkward when Maram called, but let me explain the setting for the call more. Mayim and I were standing in front of a very loud roaring two or three story high mechanical dinosaur in the Times Square Toys R Us. I was trying to listen to her ask me to talk on Rosh Hashanah while the dinosaur roared behind me and in front of me was an indoor two-story ferris wheel and Times Square. Considering we were in Toys R Us, I felt like singing the old Sesame Street Song of “Which two things don’t belong together?” And that too is how I saw my speaking here today – how is this working class kid from Brooklyn going to manage to stand up in this new shul on Rosh Hashanah and talk as honestly as I can about class issues (since that was the topic I had mentioned to others would be a good Rosh Hashanah theme) and their relationship to Rosh Hashanah, teshuvah, or even the binding of Issac, which is today’s parsha?
The disparate images have stayed with me every time I thought about my d’var. The more I thought about it, the more it made some sense that it would help me approach today. Given to metaphor – let me take you on the metaphoric journey of my mind – not to worry, just for a minute. I’ve been trying to and continue to try to talk about Jews and class for many, many years, including in this community. Sometimes I feel like I can’t figure out how to talk about it more clearly, how to get people to hear me – sort of like how I keep trying to move the cell phone near my mouth thinking that will help the other person hear me better and no matter how many ways I move the phone, I still feel like I’m not getting through a lot, and I’m not sure what the problem is – me, them, the world? Sometimes I feel I’m not there at all, and indeed sometimes I’m talking for a while before I realize I’ve been cut off. Talking about class can be like that too.
Class is an issue people in the U.S. especially don’t like to talk about very much – how class affects us, not necessarily how we can “help the poor,” or the recent bailouts and talk of “Main Street.” It’s like the proverbial elephant in the room, or perhaps a roaring dinosaur you’re trying to ignore. Some days I feel I’m turning in circles, trying to get somewhere when all I do is come back to the same place – sort of like being on a ferris wheel. And, as an aside, each ferris wheel car in Toys R Us is decorated like a game and Mayim really wanted to take a pictures of the one like the game Monopoly. Hmmm, said my metaphoric mind, but I left it alone. So there I was in the place of my childhood, where my working-class Jewish roots come back so strongly and where I can feel so comfortable, and I was trying to make a connection with the Jewish community I live in today where I feel comfort, joy, support and spiritual sustenance at times, and where I can and have also felt discomfort, frustration, like an outsider, invisible, and powerless. I thought about the Times Square of my past; when I was a kid it was filled with prostitutes and drug addicts. Now, as some call it, it’s “Disney-fied ” Cleaned up. Pushed the street people somewhere else where we don’t have to see them or think about them, like they weren’t here at all or at best, a faint memory of the past; surely nothing our children need to think about.
Let me read you part of a poem I wrote many years ago after one of my aunts died.
whispers
I.
who will right
your story
betty
aunt betty
great
aunt betty dead now
with stories buried
alive
i didn’t really know
don’t talk about
don’t ask
don’t say what you know
out loud
in hushed tones and
yiddish
they spoke
as if we lived with
no foundation
any loud sound
of your kind
would make
a house
fall.
II.
the oldest sister, sadie,
was the madam.
you and your sisters
only workers
in that house;
but of all the sisters,
you looked the part most --
bright red lipstick
the exaggerated mole off your left lip
red rouge
too much foundation
and
occasional mink throws
over cheap working class clothes
gifts from assorted men
you brought to bar mitzvahs
to impress us we were
i was
as i loved maybe feared
touching soft fur
amidst whispers.
III.
you were the hardest to hide,
you looked the part the most
prostitutey,
i called you,
to rhyme with fruity tutty,
the candy too expensive to buy
forbidden like you
i stared daily at the candy store shelf,
wondering what flavor fruit
would taste like
the sex you wore on your sleeve
and i felt
before i could understand
what was in my mouth at twelve
michael wanted to be my pimp
he took care of all the girls
across the street
in the tenement we used to live in
everyone whispered
it was about to fall
the foundation was going,
who could live there now but junkies
and prostitutes
whose names whisper
in my memory
sounding like
sadie
like betty
like me.
IV.
michael had lots of girls
and he wanted me.
he knew things i needed
showed me how to hit a punch ball overhand
so i’d have more power i needed
that fancy candy so he bought it for me
and followed me to the "y" on summer mornings
put me against a tenement wall
kissed me touched me
whispered
i could’ve been his girl
like they whispered
about betty’s red lips
like they whispered
about my trips
across the street
that house and betty’s house
lost across whispers
of three generations
of jewish wimmin
your life and mine
a generation lost
in between and
your death
a third strand
i braid now into our lives
with sacredness
like the three strands
of a sabbath challah
blessed
but quickly
torn apart eaten
braided back
into the havdallah candle
we light
to separate out the sacred
then extinguish it’s fire
in sweet wine
before it
burns out
the memories
of
a new week
a new sabbath
a new sacred
a new year
a new separation
a new decade
a new blessing
a new generation
will not
burn out
nor whisper
the tales
i’ll tell out loud
and remember…
When I come to services on Friday nights and we sing l’cha dodi, I always read the drash there. It talks about a Yiddish saying (excuse my Yiddish) “bo’I veshalom shteyt der oreman oybn on – During Shabbos prayers, when the entire congregation turns its back to the alter, the pauper standing at the back is suddenly in the front…it is the poor, the shy and the stranger in the back rows who are given the honor of welcoming her [the Shabbat] first.” Though I don’t tend to cry much, I often do when I read that because I find myself looking for the spirits of my family back there. As a child my family literally sat in the back row of the conservative synagogue we joined when I was about 8. Most friends and relatives I knew went to Orthodox synagogues, as we had previously. I recently asked my mother about this, as these people were not Orthodox. She replied that everyone (her word) went to Orthodox synagogues because you couldn’t afford to belong to a conservative or reform temple. So, when we did join the conservative temple where you buy tickets for the holidays, we sat in the back row. I like the idea of the back row honoring Shabbat first, but when I look for the spirits of my family sometimes they show up and often they don’t. The daily realities of my aunts and my family and my own life are not often accounted in the “mainstream” Jewish community, even in the back of shul. If their stories are told, it is often with a nostalgia of those “working class Jews” grandparents, great-grandparents, maybe our parents; or it is framed as us “helping those poor people.” Surely, it’s not often spoken of as if there are working class or poor Jews sitting here with us or that they might have something to offer the “rest of us.”
A number of years ago I was doing a poetry reading back east. I read the poem I read to you today, as well as other poems and stories about working class Jews. When it was time for questions, a woman got up and told me that there were NO working class Jews because ALL Jews went to college and ALL were professionals. I thought my own story not compelling enough, as I identified myself as a working class Jew and had gone to college, so I talked about my sister who did not go to college, was a single mom with three children, and worked 7 days a week in the Dunkin’ Donuts, midnight shift. The woman repeated that there was no such thing as working class Jews. Talk about invisibility.
On another occasion, I got distracted from a great talk about Jews and labor issues. In the beginning of the talk, the person framed their discussion as if all Jews were middle class, didn’t like to talk about class because of their perhaps “precarious” position as middle class, but also Jews. There was much to learn from this talk and I was glad to hear these issues raised, but they spoke to the room assuming everyone there was also a middle class Jew. This assumption is pervasive, even when we acknowledge there are some “poor” Jews.
In an interesting TBI discussion about money, an article was used where the second sentence stated “While an estimated 7–10 percent of the Jewish community lives at or near the poverty level, Jews comprise one-third of America’s multi-millionaires…” and proceeds further about the wealth in the Jewish community and how the wealth and the stereotypes about Jews and money can make “…economic clout feel like bad news, or at least embarrassing.” The author continues that we, and let me emphasize that word “we,” however, as Jews can look towards good Jewish values about tzedakah, sharing wealth, etc. and not feel so bad about having money. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, the author never talks about that 7–10 percent of Jews again. Indeed, they are so dismissed that the rest of the article speaks of how Jews, as in Jews as a group, should and could deal with our wealth, as if we were ALL Jews with wealth. That 7–10% of people do not exist in the “we” of the Jews. What are their values about money and poverty and being Jewish? What do they contribute to the conversation? Where are their voices?
Let me give you a brief analogy: TBI is a member of the Community of Welcoming Congregations working towards full inclusion and equality for LGBT community members. That outward and explicit mention of welcoming LGBT is very important to me as a lesbian. It helps me feel included, even if things aren’t always perfect, I feel recognized, even though I am only part of, hmm, about 10% of the population – about the percentage mentioned of Jews living in poverty. Let me note that when people talk about the government poverty line, which was about $20,000 a year for a family of four for 2006, it’s based on the “thrifty food plan,” by the Department of Agriculture. Surely while food costs have risen considerably as late, they are nothing compared to the cost of housing, health care, gas, heating, etc. That said, I’d venture to say that one could say maybe 15–20% of Jews are low income, working class, or perhaps one illness away from poverty. Look around you. Count four other people aside from yourself. There’s a good likelihood that one of them, if not you, are seriously struggling economically, are not middle class or not from middle class backgrounds. Why are these members of our community dismissed in a sentence? Why don’t we notice their dismissal?
While the culture at large doesn’t like to address directly our class based society, there are particular reasons, I believe, that Jews may not want to discuss it. When I do trainings about anti-Semitism I spend a lot of time talking about the historical origins of Jewish stereotypes. As I imagine you know, there’s a wealth of them (no pun intended). We have years of history of being, for instance, only legally allowed in certain professions and then being persecuted for being those professions; and we’ve been “accused” of being communists and greedy capitalists in the same breath.
In more contemporary times, we can also look at how sexism and racism interact with classism to create anxiety for Jews. For instance, we have the stereotype of the old world working-class Jewish mother who overprotects her son, feeds him chicken soup, keeps him tied to her apron strings and prevents him from really getting out in the world to succeed; then we have “another” side of this with a younger Jewish American Princess (JAP), who is middle class, but still an outsider – you can see her coming down the street with her garish clothes and jewelry, and a booming voice. In this scenario, Jewish men, it appears, first get held back from making it from overprotective mothers, and then have a hard time passing because of their loud garish wives. There is no quite equivalent type of common stereotypes for Jewish men. And, the underlying racism here is to be noted, as these stereotypes are envisioned as Jews who are light skinned, Ashkenazi Jews – the ones who can make it at least somewhat easier through class barriers for they “pass” as white more easily. And, there is no coincidence, I believe, that the term “JAP” also seems to have appeared shortly after World War II, when JAP was used offensively against the Japanese people. These interactions between class and race and gender in the Jewish community also speaks to the work we need to do to be more inclusive as, I believe, this “contemporary” stereotyping comes both from outside and within the Jewish community.
But I want to pull back from theories and statistics, to how this plays out in our lives. There are many ways in which our Jewish community and this specific one is very supportive of dealing with poverty, tzedakah, and inclusion. I know, for instance, that I coordinate volunteers for TBI’s monthly work with Food for Lane County and lately we have more volunteers than are needed, which is great. People donate themselves and their time from a deeply felt heart place. I know the Talmud Torah has done study and mitzvot on tzedakah. I know personally the temple has been very respectful about allowing my family to pay less because of our family financial situation over the years. These are important, and to me they are a start, not a finish and they don’t tell the whole story. What they can leave out, I feel, is the daily reality of our lives and who makes up our community and who gets listened to. It’s why it’s easy to look at that article and not notice we never talk about the 7–10% of poor Jews.
When I do diversity trainings and talk about privilege I talk about an article by Peggy McIntosh that says privilege can be like carrying an invisible knapsack on your back filled with tools you get to carry with you every day. When a light skinned person walks into a store and is not followed, it’s likely they don’t think how nice it is to have the shopkeepers believe you’re not going to steal something because of the color of your skin, but it’s a privilege you carry nonetheless, even if it is unrecognized.
Let me tell you a few examples how I see class privilege playing out in the Jewish community.
I once had discussions with a group of people about going to have dinner together for one of the days of Chanukah. People had lots of opinions about where and what to eat, what was good food and atmosphere, reflective of the holidays and who we were, etc. What was considered a “nice” place, a “good place” was frequently, not totally, equated to how expensive the place was, though this wasn’t spoken of directly. These so-called really “nice places” were more than some could afford comfortably. Some gingerly said that wouldn’t work for them because of the expense. Other people offered to use their money privilege (not the words they used, but my words) to help the others go to a “better” place. We’d have a “better” time. These people who offered money felt insulted that they were not embraced for this effort when they were trying to be helpful and share their wealth, as it were. I absolutely agree that they were trying to be helpful and generous, but let me unpack the invisible backpack here. Class is not only about your income and wealth, though surely and obviously it’s about that, but it’s also about what you eat, how you speak, how you dress, your “aesthetic” sensibility, if you will, your values and it’s about power and privilege. When someone with class privilege tells me they’re going to help me out by helping me to afford what they believe is a better choice, it doesn’t sit well. They are assuming that expensive places have more intrinsic value. Implicit is that what I see as reasonable, fun, tasty, isn’t good enough, needs fixing by people with money and class privilege, and if I’m lucky and they’re generous, they’ll fix it for me. I don’t feel the need to be fixed. I imagine most of us could find people with more money and means than ourselves and they might always be able to go to a “better” restaurant, but who’s getting to define better, our values and what kind of power does that give them?
I have a poster by my desk at home with a quote by an aboriginal woman that says “If you have come to help me, then you are wasting my time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound with mine, than let us work together.” I spent many hours talking with my son Mayim about this when he was younger because he didn’t understand why it was bad to help someone. It’s not bad to help someone, I told him often, but it’s important to have deep respect for who they are and what they offer so you can help each other. It seems simple, but I know its not.
One of the reasons I’m surprised to be up here today talking is because I don’t generally hear people talking from a working class or poor perspective in the Jewish community, here or in other places. Ok, I’m not here every week, but I come to services regularly, keep my eyes open for things of interest. I’ve heard and learned from scholars and people who study poverty and work. But my aunts aren’t here talking from the bimah. I haven’t heard a grand introduction for someone who’s a waitress, a drywaller, or a receptionist and how their work and life is amazing and has given them wisdom to share with us. My sister once told me how good she felt when a friend of mine told her she must have to work so hard and be so skilled to work in the Dunkin’ Donuts – she talked about how strong you had to be to lift the trays of hot donuts and how much you had to know about people because of the array of customers that come in from midnight to 7 am.
And as it’s the Days of Awe, let me make this confession. To be diplomatic, I’ve been at best “under employed” for most of the ten years we’ve lived in Eugene and for some of the time unemployed. I am a persistent person and have had the privilege to have a higher education through grants and loans and such and a partner with a steady librarian job. That’s allowed me, to an extent, some privilege of choice – I have not had to take a job in a factory for many years and I’ve often been able to take jobs that I felt had social value. Still I have spent many hours piecing together a training here and a piece of writing there. When I am here and people say “what do you do?” I often joke and say “about what?” It’s a protective joke so I don’t have to talk about how frustrating it is not to have work, how bad it makes me feel about who I am, how depressing it is, how it effects my self worth daily and that people want to know what you “do,” and that means what’s your work and if you don’t work, what ARE you doing, when in fact it takes so much time to look for work constantly and it’s so exhausting. I usually proceed to say “oh this and that” teaching and writing and research…all true. I take responsibility for my own lack of courage to be honest and to be part of what is hidden about Jews and class. AND I don’t think my lack of feeling safe to be out and open about the reality of my employment situation in our community is only about me. I’ve spoken with others who have told me similar stories of feeling unsafe to really bring up class and money issues. One person told me they felt like if they did, they’d never be able to show their face here again. I know that’s not everyone’s experiences, or even everyone’s experiences who are working class or poor or unemployed – but I do know that it’s some people’s experiences some of the time.
I can’t tell you “chapter and verse,” certainly not today, of what the Jewish community in general, as well as here, would look like if it were an “inclusive” community in terms of class issues. I do know that like with other issues of inclusion it takes work and examination, really looking at issues of power and privilege, and opening ourselves up to new ideas and changing and adjusting the lens of how we look at ourselves and each other and how we act. As Jews we understand discrimination, being “othered” and we’ve had lots of experience with being discriminated against with stereotypes about class and money. We need to define what this means for the Jewish community and make sure everyone has a say in it. We need to change, which gets me back to, teshuvah and Rosh Hashanah and being asked to speak here today.
It was my initial understanding that when I spoke, I was to speak more directly about the akedah, the binding of Issac. While I do love thinking, talking or writing about Jewish stories, I admit the story of the binding of Issac is not only difficult for me, but indeed if you think connecting a Times Square Toys R Us dinosaur and ferris wheel to Jews and class was a stretch, throwing in the akedah was quite the challenge. Of course being who I am, I spent hours reading, researching and talking to people about it and devoting some of my best insomniac moments to thinking about it, trying to find a way not only to make connections, but to say something other than – oy, this story is a problem for me.
But since I was talking about class and how I grew up, I thought about my introduction to this story. I won a scholarship award in Hebrew School when I was young and I received a big green book of bible stories as a prize. I loved that book. Though I happily lived down the block from the library, I didn’t own books, and certainly not big green ones with fancy drawings in them. The first story in the book was the binding of Issac. It fascinated me and I was drawn to it. Honestly, I can’t really remember why. All I can suppose is that my childhood was very stressful, because of the stress of poverty, as well as abuse and violence that was part of my everyday life, and, somehow, it was comforting to know in this simplistic telling that you were tested and rewarded, that you could have a great faith, and that in the end, your parent and god would indeed finally save you. As an adult, I’ve had, to say the least, a much harder time with the story and why we read it on Rosh Hashanah. Is the ultimate story about faith – being asked to and then being willing to sacrifice your child? Not for me. But I read and I read, and found a number of interpretations where they show you all the clues in the text about how Avraham knew all along he wasn’t going to kill Issac, that’s why he said, for instance, “G-d would provide a goat,” and that when he ties up Issac, Avraham was testing G-d to see him stop him from killing Issac (what was Issac thinking, I wondered?).
But while I’ll not be doing another d’var here today on the akedah, one interpretation seemed helpful. It put the story in some historical context, where human sacrifice was more common in those days and this story was indeed to show people that this was a G-d that would NOT have human sacrifice and this was a dramatic way to show that; dramatic indeed. So maybe we need to dramatically look at Jews and class in these different ways that one can with the akedah – like the innocence of a child looking through a picture book trying to find comfort and faith; like the critical analyst of an adult who wonders what meaning this could have and feels rightfully angered at the apparent holding up of blind faith that creates injustice to themselves and their children; and like a person who moves past innocence and anger and reflects deeply, considers historical context, what should NOT be done, and then tries to find daily and long term ways to move toward inclusion for all of our community to create a future inclusiveness for all our children for generations to come.
My aunts and I thank you for listening. Shana tova.
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