Wendy Kenin – Jewcology

Senator McCain gets punked by a righteous #indigenous youth! #SaveOakFlat #SaveSacredSites

August 17, 2015 No Comments

Adriano Tsinigine Dine Navajo Youth serves papers to Senator McCain August 14, 2015 Navajo youth Adriano Tsinigine served papers to Senator John McCain to #SaveOakFlat! August 14, 2015Original photo at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1597159437211246 In a heroic demonstration of bravery and resistance Navajo student Adriano Tsinigine approached Senator John McCain during a visit to the Navajo Nation capital of Window Rock August 14, 2015, and asked to have his picture taken with the politician. Photo ops were part of the day honoring the Navajo Code Talkers, as were protests which made news for chasing McCain off the Navajo Nation – quite an historic day for the Navajo! Tsinigine’s special handshake for Oak Flat was caught on video and also went viral. Here’s the young man’s account on facebook of what happened, from his photo share on the wall of the facebook page Apache Stronghold: Adriano Tsinigine > Apache Stronghold Showing my support from the Navajo Nation. Met Mr. McCain, and asked for a photo, then I pulled out my ‘Protect Oak Flat’ card and when he seen it, he looked me right in the eye and said “Get out of here, now!” Haha, this ma’ii is just afraid of us, because of how powerful we are… I personally met Tsinigine last month in Washington DC where I was livestreaming and photo-documenting the Apache Stronghold rally in support of the Save Oak Flat Act on the US Capitol July 22, 2015 (scroll to the bottom of this page for links). After a long eventful day, I accompanied a group of mostly Apache women from Apache Stronghold in Union Station as we sat to regroup and order some food. Tsinigine was in DC with a delegation of Navajo students and approached the Apaches to introduce himself and express his solidarity. I left shortly after to find myself some cooked kosher food. Why protest McCain about protecting a sacred Apache ceremonial ground still in use? McCain created this whole mess by tacking an amendment on to the National Defense Authorization Act at the eleventh hour which passed in December 2014, to give the region of protected federal wilderness to Rio Tinto, an international mining company, following years of Congress’ repeated rejections. McCain has a history of circumventing or establishing laws to enable theft and development of indigenous lands. I wrote an article for the Navajo Times in 2008 about Navajo people in northeast Arizona who resisted relocation while McCain led the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and were now opposing McCain in that year’s presidential election. The locals in the Hardrock Chapter have compared McCain to Colonel Kit Carson. For decades, McCain has been behind legislation that forcibly removed traditional Navajo people from their ancestral sacred lands and constrained residential maintenance and repairs on homes in an even broader region to make way for coal extraction and other developments. The Apache war with Senator McCain is not new, nor is McCain’s disdain for democracy. In southeast Arizona, the San Carlos Apache have been fighting against the desecration of Mount Graham, Dzil Nchaa Si’ An, for decades. An international alliance including The Vatican, the University of Arizona, and other partners built the Mount Graham International Observatory beginning in the 1980’s with an exemption from the Endangered Species Act because McCain crafted riders to federal laws that would amend them to permit the militarized and astronomical development on protected public lands that are also indigenous sacred sites. A Men’s Journal 2008 article revisits this process that McCain spearheaded to remove the impact of federal law on developments and land acquisition. David Hodges, policy director of the Tucson-based Sky Island Alliance, recalled McCain working behind the scenes in 1988 to craft a rider that exempted the construction of the “Pope Scope” from the Endangered Species Act on the sacred Apache mountain. McCain’s model was applied across the entire southwest border region in seizing private, public and indigenous lands to construct the US-Mexico border wall exempt from environmental law, thousands of miles of which are traditional Apache territory. McCain’s creepy cooperation with The Vatican in paving the way for the international observatory on Mount Graham is a nauseating echo from the centuries of brutal colonization by the Catholic Church across the indigenous southwest and the centuries before that of governmental alliances with the church and higher education institutions in imposing the deathly Inquisition on Europe’s women, Jews, and other so-called heretics. We are witness to these same establishments continuing their pursuit of power and oppression to this day. This all is taking place the same week that the Jewish performing artist Matisyahu was uninvited from [and later reinvited to] a festival in Spain for his political positions – and no other artists were given the litmus test. Where I live, the indigenous peoples of California are currently protesting Pope Frances’ intention to canonize Junipero Serra, the friar who built the mission system in California and terrorized much of the natives peoples of the region, as I reported in my most recent Jewcology blog entry. Which is why this image of Adriano Tsinigine is so powerful! I love seeing this photo of a bright-eyed, clear-minded young man applying his wit, smarts and convictions in strength and grace to this opportune moment to stick it to McCain the devilish politician who has legacies behind him of conniving against the indigenous and the American people. Toda reba Adriano! Ahéhee’! Thank you! ### Apache Convoy to DC: Washington DC 7/22/15 Documentation from Wendy Kenin @greendoula Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/498012587042267/ Rally At the US Capitol in support of the Save Oak Flat Act Recorded Livestreams Part 1 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/68360721 or https://youtu.be/YQipDAjEeCc Part 2 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/68364537 or https://youtu.be/sYWvHg5-xLc Part 3 http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/68365983 or https://youtu.be/sHISiMN3pD0 Excerpt of Apache Stronghold Convoy To DC member intros http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/68365615 or https://youtu.be/MkT3v286MjU Attempt to Lobby – Confrontation at Rep Gosar’s Office http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/68385413 or https://youtu.be/StA2k3eqBDs Interviews with Apache Women about Oak Flat http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/68388644 or https://youtu.be/3db9QNqaBrA Anyone can create a highlight from the ustream videos. Otherwise, youtube is the preferred place to watch. #SAVEOAKFLAT: Carol Haozous of San Carlos Apache Tribe Interview http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/68388644/highlight/642989 Wounded Knee Deocampo of CA in support of #SaveOakFlat #ApacheStronghold Rally at US Capitol http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/68360721/highlight/643171 Photos Facebook “best of” photo set: https://www.facebook.com/greendoula/media_set?set=a.10152922125830863.1073741840.721895862 Flickr full album link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/greendoula/sets/72157653948034223

While Everyone Is Excited About This Progressive Green Pope, He’s About To Canonize The Catholic Genocidist Junipero Serra

June 19, 2015 1 Comment

When the highest Catholic spiritual leader promotes an historic Franciscan evangelist and colonist, it hits home for Jews too. Many of today’s Native Americans and Jews are in fact survivors of the same Catholic program. Yay! The Pope wants to stop the destruction of the Earth. Awesome! He even referred to the Earth as “her!” Great! Boo! The Pope intends to canonize Junipero Serra the friar who evangelized and colonized California. Native Americans across California, many who are practicing Catholics, are protesting the Pope’s plan but Catholic institutions have already been celebrating, such as Pontifical North American College and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The sainting of Serra has been a long time coming, but Pope Francis has fast-tracked the move. Our Sunday Visitor reported January 21, 2015: The cause for his canonization was first introduced in 1934. Pope John Paul II declared Father Serra “venerable” in 1985. Three years later, the pontiff accepted a miracle worked through Father Serra’s intercession and beatified him. Another miracle was needed to declare him a saint, but, to the surprise of many, Pope Francis waived the requirement due to the widespread acknowledgement that the priest had lived an exemplary life. In 1987, “Serra’s remains were exhumed from a crypt below the Carmel Mission Basilica as part of a process called ‘canonical recognition,’ and several bone fragments were removed,” reported Mark I. Pinsky for the Los Angeles Times. Yet mass graves of indigenous peoples remain beneath numerous of the missions that Serra founded. Serra’s legacy is of forced conversions, institutional abuse, slavery and cultural genocide. Native Americans across California have been resisting the canonization of Serra for decades. This year’s protests have taken place in public spaces and through social media campaigns. An article by Deborah A. Mirandah from January 2015 recounts the history of Serra’s crimes and the consistent protest from the indigenous community of the sainthood. Many opposing the canonization draw the parallel between the genocides of the Native Americans and the Jewish Holocaust, but the connection is much closer. The Inquisition: The Roots of Serra’s Brutality The Inquisition was overcoming Europe since the early 13th century and reached Spain in 1481. Thousands of Jewish conversos were put on trial, imprisoned, or burned at the stake, culminating in 1492 when Spain expelled the Jews. That year, Columbus wrote in his diary on his first voyage to the New World, “Thus, after having turned out all the Jews from all your kingdoms and lordships, in the same month of January, your Highnesses gave orders to me that with a sufficient fleet I should go…” Franciscan missionaries traveled to the Americas with Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, under an order from the Spanish Crown to convert the Native Americans and colonize the New Spain. Columbus’ longterm goal was to finance the liberation of Jerusalem from the Muslims and make it Catholic. Two centuries later, Serra brought the Spanish Inquisition beyond New Spain and built missions along the West Coast of what is now California. Serra’s genocide was continued by the capitalist gold miners and by 1870, 90% of the indigenous population in California was gone. When the highest Catholic spiritual leader promotes an historic Franciscan evangelist and colonist, it hits home for Jews too. Many of today’s Native Americans and Jews are in fact survivors of the same Catholic program. The Catholic Church has a history of oppression against many cultures, not only those that are Jewish and Native American. The Inquisition swept across Europe, through Spain and Portugal to North, Central, and South America, and through Asia. The Church holds artifacts from many peoples globally in the Vatican Museums, including many sacred objects. But Jews and Apaches were lumped together in a conspiracy theory that Father Charles Polzer, the Curator of Ethnology at the Arizona State Museum, announced around 1992 with regard to a movement to protect sacred Apache land from an international observatory that the Vatican was a part of. Documented by Peter Warshall of the Mount Graham Coalition, Father Polzer, “claimed that opposition to the telescope complex is “part of a Jewish conspiracy.” The conspiracy “comes out of the Jewish lawyers of the ACLU to undermine and destroy the Catholic Church.” It makes sense proponents of the Vatican’s international observatory would see it this way, because the telescope’s objective is evidently to extend the Inquisition into the heavens. Warshall reported, The stated present purpose for the “Pope’s scope” is to help find extraterrestrials. As the Vatican’s leading astronomer and representative in Arizona, Father George Coyne, says: “The Church would be obliged to address the question of whether extraterrestrials might be brought within the fold and baptized.” Today, the same Apache community that continues the struggle to protect Mount Graham is fighting to save Oak Flat ceremonial sacred site, which was given over to an international mining company in a last-minute addition by Senator McCain to the National Defense Authorization Act in December 2014. Congressman Grijalva introduced the Save Oak Flat Act on June 17, 2015, to repeal this capitalist government abomination. Ecological Debt Owed To the Indigenous Of California Radical theologian Matthew Fox wrote in the Huffington Post June 11, 2015, “And it is sad that, as many nations and peoples await Pope Francis’ encyclical on Eco-theology and Climate Change, he would follow his predecessors’ example in favoring the perpetrators of colonization and genocide over the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere and their living legacy of respect for nature…a legacy that is vital to the survival of the life on Earth as we know it today.” The Wall Street Journal quoted the Pope’s Encyclical Letter On Care For Our Common Home released June 18, 2015, and in it, the Pope does refer to the continuing, modern-day war on the indigenous, but not in name: The North owes the South an ecological debt because “developing countries, where the most important reserves of the biosphere are found, continue to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and

Adam Sandler’s New Shanda – Racism Against Native Americans – Is A Reminder For Jewish Justice Activists

April 26, 2015 2 Comments

by Wendy Kenin @greendoula News broke last week that a dozen Native Americans and a cultural consultant walked off the set of Adam Sandler’s new Netflix film under production because it was misrepresenting Apache culture and spouted derogatory lines about women and indigenous people. I stand with them! It gets personal for us Jews who are activists for social justice when successful Jewish business persons in the entertainment industry perpetuate racism in mainstream society. On the heels of a long term campaign which erupted last year to change the name of the football team that Dan Snyder owns from Redskins, Adam Sandler has thus far been silent while his name has trended on social networks over the Natives who walked off the set. Yet Deadline.com reported that Netflix actually jumped at the opportunity to defend Sandler and justify racism in the media by issuing a statement: “The movie has ‘ridiculous’ in the title for a reason –because it is ridiculous,” said a spokesperson for the streaming service Thursday. “It is a broad satire of Western movies and the stereotypes they popularized, featuring a diverse cast that is not only part of — but in on — the joke.” There’s nothing funny about racism and “ridiculous” is no excuse. The many Jewish activists who have been taking to the streets with the #BlackLivesMatter movement should be finding ways to educate others on the harmful ways Native Americans are depicted by the media and hold our Jewish brethren accountable. Newsweek interviewed actress Allie Young who walked off the set in protest with others, and gave some more insight into the horrific suggestions depicted in the film. The script posed more issues, including offensive names for indigenous women, like “Beaver’s Breath” and “Wears No Bra.” In one scene, a Native American women is passed out on the ground. A group of white men pours liquor on her, and she wakes up and starts dancing. “In Indian country, we’re battling that issue right now,” Young said. “It’s 2.5 times more likely for an indigenous woman to be raped or sexually assaulted. Movies like this perpetuate that and just add to the stereotypes of our native women.” Actress Allie Young has first hand experience with the social challenges that plague the original peoples of this continent as a result of historic and current policies, evidence of ongoing colonization. She echoes what the many campaigns to change racist school mascots around the country assert about the impact of these negative representations on the identity of Native youth. “I take this very personally because my little brother committed suicide when he was 17 because of racism,” Young said. “In his suicide note, he said, ‘It’s hard to stay alive when you’re brown and gifted.’ I want to take a stand for native and indigenous youth. I want them to see their people portrayed as something better.” American Jews who are aware of the continuing legacy of governmental forces continuing the historic theft of land against indigenous peoples deplore these evolutions of social oppression. This September, despite prostests the Pope is planning to canonize Junipero Serro, the friar who founded the mission system in California in the 1700’s which enslaved and brutalized the indigenous peoples of the West Coast – and celebrations have already begun among Catholic institutions. In the past month, the State of Michigan sold sacred, treaty-protected land to an internationally owned limestone mine in the largest public land deal in the state’s history. In December, Arizona’s Senator McCain buried a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that gave sacred Apache land Oak Flats to an international copper mine. Over the past decade, the US federal government has militarized and confiscated historic indigenous lands for thousands of miles in constructing and securing the US-Mexico border wall. These new developments are just the latest while rape of the land affects indigenous peoples across the Americas from the Tar Sands to Patagonia. We must stand against antisemitism on college campuses and around the world. We must protect our sacred and burial sites in the Holy Land and everywhere that Jews have lived. We must protest institutional injustices, endorsement of abuses and military violence by our governmental, corporate and faith leaders. And we must call on Adam Sandler to apologize and join in solidarity against racism in the media. Whether it’s supporting the women on the front lines of indigenous struggles, endorsing campaigns to end racist mascots, becoming educated and sharing information with others about today’s plight for environmental justice or objecting to the bigotry that the media perpetuates in our society, American Jews and the organizations we are part of must increase our alliances with the indigenous peoples as they lead.

#Yemima, Rachel Imeinu and the Merit of Righteous Women

October 31, 2014 1 Comment

There is a place in Shabbat tefillot where we should have “Yemima bat Avraham Avinu haKadoshah” in mind together with all who died Al Kidush HaShem. It’s the part called “Av HaRachamim” found before Ashrei of Musaf. Karen Yemima Mosquera Barrera, 22, was buried on the Mountain of Olives in the Holy Land this week. The story of Yemima’s life is becoming known during these days preceding the anniversary of the death of our matriarch Rachel. “She was buried at midnight of Oct. 27th – on the Mount of Olives. The cemetery facing the Old City of Jerusalem – the site famous for being the place where the righteous ones will first be resurrected at the End of Days,” wrote Chaya Lester, co-founder of Shalev Center, spoken word artist, and tour guide in the Holy Land in the Jewish arts online publication Hevria. “It is the greatest spiritual aliyah that any man or woman has ever attained in the history of Am Yisrael, granting her the privilege of being buried on the highest point of the Mount of Olives and earning her the title ‘HaKedoshah Yemima bat Avraham Avinu, H”YD,’”wrote Sabrina Schneider, women’s health and childbirth worker and relative of Yemima. “Among many other things that were said in her hesped, one Rebbe said she will be the first to rise from the dead.” Schneider’s posek, Talmid of HaGaon Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, t”zl advises all of Am Yisrael that there is a place in Shabbat tefillot where we should have “Yemima bat Avraham Avinu haKadoshah” in mind together with all who died Al Kidush HaShem. It’s the part called “Av HaRachamim” found before Ashrei of Musaf. Schneider has been posting updates to her facebook wall since the senseless tragedy at Ammunition Hill light rail station October 22, 2014, where the first to die was 3 month old baby Chaya Zissel Braun. A look into on Yemima’s background was published in Voices Magazine blog when she was in critical condition at Hadassah hospital October 24. Reports included information for praying, offering charity, or doing other mitzvot for her recovery. The Foreign Ministry of Israel flew in Yemima’s family from Ecuador following the attack. The Jerusalem Mayor and the Ecuadorian Ambassador to Israel were at the funeral, but no state representatives attended. “My daughter died in God’s name. I don’t want her death to be in vain,” said Yemima’s mother Rosa Cecilia Barrera at the funeral. “Her dream was to come to Israel to start her life. I am heartbroken. No one can heal my sorrow. “It pains me that these terrorists are so full of hate and they set out to murder innocent people… She was murdered just because she was Jewish.” In fact, Yemima was murdered on her way to study Torah. Rachel Cries for her Children Earlier this year, we heard from the mother of a kidnapped boy, when she spoke at the United Nations in defiance of a request from the government of Israel appealing for the safe return of her son and the two other abducted boys. Rachel Frankel, director at the Jewish women’s studies institute Advanced Halakha Program at Matan and Jewish law instructor at Nishmat, continued on as a spokesperson for the missing and then murdered children. Rachel Frankel said kaddish at the funeral for her 16 year old son Naftali Frankel on July 1, 2014. It was the first time most Israelis and Jews on the planet saw and said “Amen” on a blessing spoken by a woman. “Rachelle Fraenkel became a public leader, a national heroine and, just as important, a religious heroine as well, over the 18 days that her son and his friends were missing,” wrote Haaretz reporter Yair Ettinger. Rosa Cecilia Barrera and Rachel Frankel are two of many mothers grieving the loss of their children to violence, terror and war. May these mothers and all the mourners be comforted. Our great matriarch Rachel Imeinu cries, in the Jewish bible, the book of Jeremiah, grieving the exile of her children. And the Creator annuls a decree against the Jewish people in her merit, promising that they will return home. Heart and Prayer of the Jewish Matriarchs As we read in the book of Samuel during Rosh Hashana, Hashem “remembered” Chanah and blessed her with a child after her heartful pleas. The way that Chanah prophetically prayed at the holy site became the basis for how Jewish people pray the Amidah – sober and standing, with their lips forming their words from the heart. We have a story about Yemima praying Shemona Esrai, and it serves as another model for devotion. Yemima prayed the Amidah so devoutly that she did not notice that a 7.1 Richter earthquake hit, describes Varda Epstein in her blog post after attending Yemima’s funeral. This experience as well as a dream that her mother had, propelled Yemima to go to Israel from Equador, her country of origin. “She would bring her mother and her sister over to Israel and help them follow in her footsteps,” Epstein wrote. In a report in Israel HaYom, Yemima’s teacher compared her to another great biblical woman, Ruth. “She was like Ruth the Moabite, who came here and sought to be part of the Jewish people… She really loved Israel, and was connected to it in an exceptional way.” Yemima converted to Judaism 5 months ago. Like so many people across the Americas today whose ancestors were forced to convert to Christianity or die, many descendants of Converso Jews have retained some rituals, and Yemima’s mother had inherited the customs of lighting candles Friday nights, and covering mirrors in the home after the death of a family member. Yemima is not alone in her passion to return to her Jewish spiritual roots, a phenomenon among Conversos from the American Southwest and southward. In Jewish tradition, converts are highly regarded for making the incredibly heroic life transformation. A week after her burial, next Monday night November 3, 2014 is on the Hebrew calendar 11 Cheshvan

A Green Opportunity to Share Love with Israel – Steven’s Garden

September 23, 2014 3 Comments

Founded by Tamar Bittelman z”l, memorial community garden in Tzvat reaches its “chai” birthday and new generations. There’s a precious community garden nestled between buildings on a crowded cobblestone street high up in the city of Tzvat, Israel. It began 18 years ago as a memorial community garden, in memory of a son who passed too soon, and it became a city landmark. Today this sacred place, enjoyed by and open to all, is receiving loving support toward renewing the shared space. The Garden Seeds: Untimely death of a son, grief of a mother, new friendship First, a mother was seeking a way to honor her son who was killed by cancer as a teenager 20 years ago this past spring. Shirel Levine was considering planting a tree in his memory as she was grieving over her tremendous loss, as an American living in northern Israel. She met the wife of her doctor, and this righteous woman Tamar Bittelman (of blessed memory) expressed a deep compassion with Shirel for the loss of her son. Within 10 minutes of their first encounter, Tamar suggested a garden, and she offered to help set it up. Steven’s Garden in Tzvat was first established with much communal involvement. The grand opening involved the unveiling of a mural, live music, food and celebration. Tamar and her husband Noach built the first garden beds and then weekly taught local children how to plant and grow food there. The garden lived on, and has been maintained over the years at a low-cost for the benefit of the community. Somehow Steven’s Garden reached me throughout the years as I reside in the Western US. When I lived in Tucson in the 1990’s, I knew Steven’s sister and so our mutual friend Susan Silverman – also a gardener – ecstatically informed me about this sweet community garden when she visited Tzvat some years later. I personally met Tamar Bittelman in 2004 when I moved to the East Bay in California where she was teaching kindergarten. It wasn’t until 2010 that I discovered Tamar was a founder of Steven’s Garden, when my daughter’s kindergarten class at Oakland Hebrew Day School raised funds as a tzedaka project for Steven’s Garden, and purchased a lemon tree that was planted there. I visited Israel in 2011 for the only time ever with my children, and we visited the tree. Several young yeshiva bochers were enjoying the garden, sitting with their siddurim and chatting reclining on the bench under the mural. It was a joy to finally see this garden for myself, right across the street from the famous Kabbalah artist David Friedman’s studio. Tamar Bittelman Tzeddekes: The Garden Founder’s Legacy Tamar Bittelman was not only a kindergarten teacher but was also a co-founder of the Beit Midrash Ohr HaChaim, a unique unaffiliated independent Torah-learning center located in Berkeley, California from 1998 – 2012 under the spiritual guidance of Rabbi Herschel Yolles, the Samborer Rebbe z”l. Tamar started numerous gardens during her life, including a garden adjacent to Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley before its renovation in 2004. Tamar’s Tzvat garden legacy is an echo of the story of her grandmother, Esther Beker Reinin of the pioneering Sturman family who was part of Hashomer, an original Jewish defense organization in Palestine first established in 1909. Beker Reinin was part of the historic security organization, serving on horseback protecting the sprouting Jewish settlements. She was also involved in an agricultural school in Israel. Every year at the Beit Midrash Ohr HaChaim in Berkeley, Tamar would sponsor a kiddush to honor the anniversary of her grandmother’s passing, and she would retell stories. There was even a story of when Tamar was walking along a road in a kibbutz in Israel, and a some old-timers walked by her and stopped, and told her, “You look just like Esther Beker Reinin.” Many of today’s Jewish environmentalists have met Steven’s Garden’s founder Tamar Bittelman. Tamar attended the 2011 Hazon Food Conference in Davis, California where her husband Noach Bittelman the Acupuncturist presented on Jewish health and spirituality, the Earth, and the Holy Land. One year after we attended the Food Conference, Tamar edited my first blog article for Times of Israel, where I recounted a special woman’s circle that we held at the Hazon event, in the broader context of women’s central role in redemption of the world according the Jewish tradition. Tamar and Noach Bittelman moved back to Northern Israel from California in 2012. During her last visit to Berkeley one year ago, Tamar was excited to learn of my newest project, a Hazon CSA which is in its inception stages and includes in its food security concept residential and communal gardens, and a pop-up kosher vegan soup and salad restaurant. She made an extra call to me during her trip to share her enthusiasm for Young Urban Moshav, and agreed to serve on the Board of Directors. Sadly, and to the shock of many who have declared her righteousness, Tamar passed away unexpectedly after returning to Israel, on a holy Shabbos during daavening 24 Shvat 5774 (January 25, 2014.) Tamar’s family has set up HaMorah Tamar Kindergarten Fund at Oakland Hebrew Day School in her memory. Tamar is buried in Tzvat, the same city in Israel where Steven’s Garden, which she founded 18 years ago, continues to grow. The Memorial and the Garden Renewal Steven’s mother described on Radio Free Nachlaot in August 2014 how others recount to her that they feel Steven’s beautiful energy in the garden. A memorial garden is an example of the environment as habitat outside our bodies for our emotion, spirituality, and communal sharing. It is a place of comfort and healing. Steven’s Garden holds the empathy of a woman hearing another woman grieving for her lost son, the generosity of creativity that builds and enriches the community, and comfort for mourners. It is a legacy of a grandmother and then granddaughter who loved, guarded and nurtured Eretz HaKodesh and the people of

Redeeming humanity: The Jewish approach to women

September 7, 2012 No Comments

Women are at the center of Jewish life, and need to be central in the Jewish environmental and social change movement. Jewish women — as a collective entity — must draw lessons from the global conversation on economic development, which acknowledges that empowering women is the central key to societal harmony. Then steps need to be taken to strengthen our own circle and extend support to all women. Jewish birth workers today serve women in medical and non-medical settings locally and globally, and women’s wellness inside and outside of the Jewish community. Birth workers in the Jewish community are intimately entwined in the historic mechanisms that place women in the center, as they are involved with women who live according to the ancestral customs. Jewish birth workers today have thousands of years of Jewish history and experience to build from. So what happens when a doula and a midwife-in-training meet at a Jewish environmental food conference? They share observations about how the women are relating to each other and the roles women play at the conference. They connect over Jewish ancestral matriarchs and cry together over Mama Rachel, in their first conversation. They hold an informal women’s exchange at a table in the cafeteria during the conference’s parting meal. And when they both join the planning committee for the next conference, they propose a “Women’s Circle” which comes to fruition. In the summer of 2011 when over 50 women at the Hazon Jewish Environmental Food Conference came together, the women went around the circle and answered the question, “What does being a Jewish woman mean to you?” It was a challenging question, and it brought out deep emotional stories. By the time we reached the end of the circle, we had learned new things; that the question itself being posed to Jewish women in the room might be hurtful for transgender or other gender-identified persons, that feeding kids healthy foods is challenging, we even learned that men had wanted to participate. The prevailing thread, the topic that came up over and over was that of infertility and childlessness. The women of all ages in the room laughed, cried, listened and found connections with each other that they had not discovered before. Global context: Women are central to resolving social strife The current backdrop to the recent conversation among women at a Jewish environmental conference is a massive, visible global discourse on how economies and societies thrive when women are educated, employed, and have access to contraception. Humanity’s collective consciousness is finally recognizing the centrality of women. This recent recognition is unprecedented on this scale, as seen in the following international conferences: At the UN Conference on Sustainable Development May, 2012 in Rio, women were noted in new policies, but not seen as a critical answer to worldwide betterment. A prevailing reaction from non-governmental organizations to Rio+20 was the re-assertion that women’s wellness and reproductive rights are proven to be indispensable to sustainable development strategy. A Global Summit on Women convened in Athens, Greece in the end of May, 2012, bringing hope to another country in crisis. There, women executives from some 70 countries reaffirmed and established new professional networks – international alliances of female businesswomen who understand the important part they play in shifting power dynamics across the planet. The London Family Planning Summit in July 2012 brought together advocates and policy makers that addressed contraception and abortion in the context of women’s rights, also with a broader understanding of its implications for economic development. Soon after, All Africa published an editorial July 25 which identified family planning as crucial to overcoming humanity’s global challenges: In addition to improving public health, satisfying unmet need for modern contraceptives would bring a host of other benefits. Enabling women to control their fertility and time their births means better chances for higher educational attainment, increased employment opportunities, and enhanced social and economic status. Family savings and investment would rise, spurring economic growth and reducing poverty. These advances at the family level would in turn make social and economic development goals easier to achieve, benefiting society as a whole. News on women’s rights from the Holy Land that reaches mainstream media in the United States tends to focus on freedom of expression and religious oppression. Domestic violence is rampant in Israel, where one out of three women experience sexual assault in their lifetimes, and there has been a call for prioritizing funds to combat sexual violence like national security. Disparities are evident, as over half of Palestinianwomen are subjected to physical violence. Palestinian women protested against domestic violence in Bethlehem this month, while a Haifa women’s shelter that serves Palestinian women is at risk of losing its funding. Meanwhile, the “war on women” is raging in the USA. Squabbling in the US Congress stalled the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act for months and lawmakers broke for August recess without passing it. Violence in teen and adult relationships is epidemic. With 1 out of 5 college women experiencing sexual assault, social innovations are taking place to engage youth in helping develop strategies and common understandings of the crises before us. Despite the hold-up of the Violence Against Women Act in Congress, August 10 President Obama signed an Executive Order Preventing and Responding to Violence Against Women Globally. In the US, eradicating violence against women is a beginning step to clearly supporting women. Childbirth being a gauge for any nation’s healthcare system, women who give birth in US hospitals are not receiving evidence-based care, while a New Zealand study demonstrated that the same midwives at homebirths were better educating their clients than in hospitals. About one third of births in the US are by cesarean, and one fifth in Israel. United States maternal mortality rates have nearly doubled since 1990, and rank 50th in the world while spending more on healthcare than any other country. The US has enormous disparities between birth outcomes for different populations of women. At the same time, on

This Ecofeminist Doula’s favorite Jewish practice? Mikveh!

September 28, 2011 No Comments

There are so many reasons to love the mikveh (Jewish ritual bath). My love for mikveh inspired me to keep kosher, observe the Jewish Sabbath, and cover my hair as a married woman. Here are a few of my personal favorite things about the mikveh: 1. Immersing into the Earth’s waters Mikveh water must meet certain requirements of being naturally existing, as from a natural body of water or harvest from the rain. Any large enough body of naturally occurring water can be a mikveh. The ocean is the largest mikveh in the world. When a woman immerses in the mikveh, she is entering the womb of the feminine Earth, calledAdamah in Hebrew. She strikes a fetal position pose, and then is spiritually reborn upon exiting the waters. “When we refer to G‑d’s presence within our world, giving life to all things, then She is the Shechinah,” writes Tzvi Freeman about why we don’t call G-d Mother. “When we refer to G‑d’s transcendence beyond this world, we call Him The Holy One, blessed be He. G‑d does not change or have parts, G‑d forbid. Both are the same one and singular G‑d, just looking at that G‑d from different angles,” he writes. G-d is female, G-d is male, and G-d is everything and can be interacted with and described from each of these aspects. The feminine aspect of G-d, the Shehina is present and dwelling among us when Jews perform mitzvot (commandments), such as davening (praying) together, or learning Torah together. Freeman continues, The Holy One, Blessed Be He unites with the Shechinah when we accomplish mitzvot correctly, hence elevating spiritual harmony in the world. When a woman immerses in the holy waters of the mikveh, she is physically uniting with that feminine Shechinah and in fulfilling the mitzvah uniting the Shechinah with The Holy One, Blessed Be He. The Shehina dwells in the wilderness where Creation is ever-abundant, and also dwelled in the Holy Temple which explains all the miracles that happened there. Through her immersion in the mikveh, the woman embodies this powerful, fertile life force that travels with her. Observance of the marital laws that include the mikveh brings the Creator into the relationship with the husband and wife, elevating their union. 2. Ancestral Customs for personal hygiene, social networks, and intimacy Before a woman immerses in the mikveh, she must meticulously clean her body according to certain procedures, to ensure that nothing will obstruct any part of her body from being touched by the holy waters. She has been preparing for seven days since the end of her menstruation. The moments preceding and during immersion are guarded by a female attendant, a witness to help ensure that the woman is totally clean and totally immersed. Mikveh is a basic element of living a Jewish life. According to Jewish law, building a mikveh takes precedence over building a house of worship. Women are known to gather and spend time together on mikveh night before returning to their husbands. Bathing and the opportunity to connect with other women is guaranteed down time every month, guarded by the custom and engagement of the Jewish women in the local community. I personally love knowing and practicing the hygienic customs of my ancestors! It’s not only about how we keep ourselves clean, it’s also about how we prepare ourselves for intimacy with our beloved. Generally speaking this monthly ritual for the married woman provides a rhythm of intimacy for husband and wife. Our own Jewish tradition has within it a structure for balance and renewal of healthy sexual intimacy. 3. Centrality of the woman’s rhythms Not only does a woman learn to track her menstrual cycle according to the Hebrew lunar calendar and the traditional timing systems through the practice of mikveh, but the rhythm of her menses greatly impacts her relationship with her husband and family, and hence the womens’ cycles guide social dynamics in the community. It makes so much sense to have the women’s core rhythm, which is intrinsically connected and divinely balanced with the moon and the tides, be central to the Jewish calendar. I feel so proud that this woman-centered consciousness is embedded in the heritage of my Jewish ancestry. The woman learns to track her menstrual cycles according to ancient calendar methods. She tracks her cycle dates in relationship to the lunar month, the Jewish calendar, and her internal rhythms. The ancient practice of tracking our cycle in this way is incredibly rooted and grounding, as is the traditional women’s celebration of Rosh Chodesh, each new month, ever since Sinai. 4. Spiritual Strength I discovered traditional Yiddishkeit (Judaism) during my childbearing years, and then had the opportunity and great blessing to have relations and conceive children while involved with the holy mikveh. This action bestowed spiritual blessing on my children, as well as applied retroactively to any of my previous children and the generations of babies born since my grandmothers ceased using the mikveh. I know these things because they were passed to me through an unbroken oral tradition, a living practice that I accessed because I sought out people who maintain and guard these traditions. As it is a carefully implemented mitzvah, I have had the privilege of using the mikveh in this way because I am a married Jewish woman married to a Jewish man. So many variables in my life could have been different. I feel totally blessed to have mikveh in my life. 5. Timeless Wisdom A translation of the root of the Hebrew word mikveh is “place of hope.” Today, when humanity seems to be on the brink of both enlightenment and self-inflicted destruction, I am grateful to have this spiritual practice to arouse my sense of hope. The Jewish understanding of gender, spirituality, and the earth offers a foundation for ecofeminist views on patriarchal wars and environmental degradation now and in the past. Women at the mikveh pray for fertility, peace, everything. Understanding the mikveh and all that

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Author: Wendy Kenin

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