#your neighborhood? people who go to your school? your local cultural or religious community? your local music scene? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

benevolentbirdgal · 3 years

Text

A “brief” reference guide to modern Jewish denominations / Jewish Writing Advice / Jewish Identity / Jewish Reference Guide [graphic at bottom]

Writing a Jew or Jewish family? Aware that Judaism is not a monolith and want to honor that? Great! Need help with that? 100% cool - I’m here as your friendly (virtual) neighborhood Jewish professional to help. Just want to know more about Jewish denominations in comparison to one another? Also great! Fair warning - this is a long one. At least I included a graphic at the bottom?

Quick notes to acknowledge: As always, this is an American and Americanish perspective (and denominations as discussed here are MOSTLY relevant in the U.S. anyways). Additionally, the modern denominations as we think of them today really sprung from Ashkenazi communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Most extant U.S. synagogues, day schools, and groups follow Ashkenazi customs and align with a denomination born of Ashkenazi tradition (aligning with the approximately 90% of Jewish-Americans who are Ashkenazi or Ashkenazi plus another community). Sephardi, Mizrachi, and other Jewish communities have their own traditions and jurisprudence. Most organized non-Ashkenazi communities in the U.S. identify as nondenominational but most closely compare in practice to orthodoxy, and many non-Ashkenazi Jews (especially outside of major population centers that may have other specific subgroup’s synagogues) are members of and very involved in Ashkenazi-originating movements, institutions, and synagogues.

For the purpose’s of today’s discussion, we’ll start in the 19th century, because Karaites vs Pharisees vs Sadducees is a (his)story for another time. This also isn’t a history of how these denominations came to be-with the exception of some ultraorthodox groups, which may have sprung from the shtel a little earlier, all the below movements popped out of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I’m also going to list approximate percentage of the American Jewish population, and I’m going to (kinda) go in order from most to least strict/traditionally observant.

Ultraorthodox (aka Haredi): The strictest, more traditional and expansive observance of the Torah, Talmud, and minhagim (customs). About 1% of American Jews are ultraorthodox. Ultraorthodox is not a unified movement.

1a. Haredi, Satmar, and most other groups generally isolate themselves from the wider Jewish world and secular world.

1b. Chabad is also ultraorthodox, but specially seeks to interact with less observant Jews. I wouldn’t call it proselytizing, because they don’t seek to make gentiles Jewish, but they do try and find less observant Jews and bring them closer to Judaism, also establishes small synagogues around the country and world in isolated place.

1c. Ultraorthodox are the most visibly Jewish attired group, wearing Kippahs for all men and boys and tichels (headscarves) and/or wigs for married women. Very modest attire for all. In Ashkenazi Ultraorthodox communities, men also tend to only wear black and white, hats in addition to their kippah (for grown and married men), and wearing tzitzit (a garmet with four corners with strings attached worn under a shirt with the threads sticking out).

1d. Most likely to speak Yiddish or Hebrew as first language.

1e. No gender equality, very strict kosher, and intense community adherence to particular brand of Judaism.

1f. Communities generally led by a Rabbi and a Rebbetzin (Rabbi’s wife) as pair (rabbis are generally expected to be married).

1g. No female Rabbis, same-sex marriage, or intermarriage. Lots of children. Pretty much all boys have Bar Mitzahs, rarely do girls have Bat Mitzvahs.

1h. Services entirely in Hebrew (except maybe the sermon).

1i. Only count matrilineal Jews and converts-Jewish father and gentile mother doesn’t count for them.

1j. Very strict observance of prohibitions and commandments pertaining to Shabbat and holidays.

Modern orthodox: Orthodox, but with some adaptations to modern life. Roughly 9% of American Jews. Also some division within modern orthodoxy (with some congregations being more liberal than others, particularly in regards to women and LGBTQ+ folks), but there are a couple of major organizations that most modox rabbis and congregations affiliate with one another through larger denomination movements (i.e. the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America).

2a. Modern orthodox Jews regularly interact with other Jews who are more liberal. They tend to live in more Jewish communities but no issues with interacting with outside world.

2b. Modest clothing and men wear kippot everywhere (when safe). Married women also usually cover their hair (with wigs or tichels). Men also typically wear tzitzit.

2b. Gender roles, but progress being made. Handful of female rabbis emerging in 2010s/2020s. Whether women count in a minyan depends on the specific congregation and many modern orthodox shuls will have separate women’s prayer groups. The prevalence of Bat Mitzvahs also varies wildly congregation to congregation.

2c. Like ultraorthodox, communities are typically led by a Rabbi and his wife the Rebbetzin. Some acceptance of homosexual individuals as members of the community, but no same-sex marriage (some alternate ceremonies emerging). Like one out gay male rabbi. No intermarriage.

2d. Very strict adherence to kosher, would likely not eat at someone less kosher’s home.

2e. Usually have on the higher end of a “normal” amount of children. Services entirely in Hebrew (except sermon).

2f. Only count matrilineal Jews and converts-Jewish father and gentile mother doesn’t count for them.

Less traditionally observant than this is often known as “liberal Judaism” - around 90% of American Jews.

2g. Very strict observance of prohibitions and commandments pertaining to Shabbat and holidays.

Conservative: Brands itself as middle of the road Jewish movement. about 18% of the American Jewish population. No connection to conservative politics, most Conservative with a C Jews are liberal or moderate politically. Often called “Masorti” outside the U.S and hypothetically a unified movement under several connected organizations (i.e. the Masorti Olami and the Jewish Theological Seminary).

3a. Gender equality. Female rabbis and LGBTQ rabbis definitely an acceptable thing, but not as common as with Reform or Reconstructionist.

3b. Formally sanctioned ceremony for same-sex couples to wed under Jewish law since 2012 and affirmation ceremonies since 2006.

3c. Modesty in synagogues but comparable to regular American attire otherwise.

3d. Generally comparable family size to other American families.

3e. Kosher, but not as strict as orthodoxy. Many Conservative Jews have kosher homes but are willing to be more lax when eating out. Synagogues are always kosher.

3f. Services mostly in Hebrew, sermons and some prayers definitely in local language.

3g. Intermarriage is frowned upon, but many otherwise Conservative Jews will be married by a less traditional rabbi or justice of the peace to non-Jewish partners. Although Conservative rabbis do not perform interfaith marriages, many interfaith couples are in Conservative synagogues. In the 90s/2000s it was way less friendly to interfaith couples/families (laughs in having a goyish dad) but that has improved in the past 3-5 years substantially.

3h. Observance of prohibitions and commandments pertaining to Shabbat and holidays is regulated but less strict than orthodoxy. Varies a bit by community. A good example to illustrate this is getting to synagogue on Shabbat:

By the book (not necessarily reflected by attendees): Orthodoxy says you have to walk there (no driving), Reform says it’s no issue to drive on Shabbat, and Conservative says you can drive but only to get to shul and back.

3i. As with orthodoxy, only matrilineal Jews count. Most interfaith families with non-Jewish moms (or moms who converted post-birth of the kid), particularly those who want to participate in Conservative communities will convert the child as a baby so they can have a normal Jewish upbringing (beyond an extra blessing/prayer in the Bnai Mitzvah process and social awkwardness that oft accompanies interfaith families in Jewish spaces).

3j. Most dress comparably to others in geographic area (synagogue notwithstanding, see my other post). Men on the higher end of observant might also wear kippahs all the time as well. Outside of explicitly Jewish contexts, similar lifestyles to surrounding populations. Around the same number of children as in gentile families.

Reform: Not at all traditionally observant. About 35% of American Jews. More or less a cohesive movement linked by organizations (i.e. Women of Reform Judaism and the Union for Reform Judaism).

4a. Reform Judaism is the largest group. It generally views Judaism through the lens of social justice, repairing the world, and cultural heritage as opposed to religious mandate.

4b. Very big on personal choice in what one observes, I like to call it “choose your own adventure” Judaism.

4c. Keeping kosher is uncommon. Some shuls aren’t even kosher.

4d. Reform services use the least Hebrew, although this is changing in some places.

4e. Reform’s standard of Jewishness is 1+ Jewish parent(s) and raised doing Jewish things, regardless of which parent is Jewish.

4f. Very feminist/egalitarian and welcoming to LGBTQ+ folks. Highest number of not-straight rabbis and female rabbis.

4g. Intermarriage very common and can be performed by Reform rabbis.

4h. Reform Judaism was way ahead of the curve in terms of LGBTQ+ rights and religion. The movement has had members advocating for homosexual rights (protection in housing, employment, civil marriage, and other nondiscrimination protections) since 1965 (finally passing formal resolutions in 1977), began proactively including/welcoming out gay rabbis in 1990, created same-gender marriage Jewish ceremonies in 1996/7, and has made resolutions explicitly including bi and trans people as well since 2004 (stuff earlier than that generally specified “gay and lesbian”). An additional resolution was passed in 2015 regarding trans and nonbinary inclusion, alongside guides to help congregations do so.

4i. See #3j - also applies here.

Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform, are the biggest and “standard” movements people will most typically list and identify with, most likely to appear in surveys and studies, are older than everything listed below. Modern Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform all started in the 19th century and some Ultraorthodox groups trace back further than that. I’ve outlined some practical differences, but the basic theoretical difference is that Orthodox considers traditional Jewish law (Halacha) binding and you can’t change it, Conservative believes it it’s binding but the community can change it, and Reform believes that it’s nonbinding.

Some smaller movements:

Reconstructionist - Newest even remotely well-known and organized movement, founded in the 1920s as an offshoot of the Conservative movement. I would describe it as “build your own adventure but Halacha matters (or at least some of it).” The first thing almost every recon Jew I’ve ever met has told me when describing reconstructionism is that they invented the bat mitzvah in 1922, which basically translates to “tradition matters but also egalitarianism.”

Maybe 2%-5% of American Jews today self-ID as Reconstructionist, but I would argue that a lot of nondenominal practitioners have philosophies fairly aligned with the recon ethos.

Jewish Renewal: very small and relatively disorganized movement started in the 1960s. Attempts to bring Jewish tradition and modern sensibilities, hippie Jews who care about Halacha. Big on mysticism and music, doing Jewish enthusiastically, and a tendency towards more traditional observance in conjunction with progressive politics. Kind of the laid-back cousin of reconstructionism, although neither sprung from the other.

(Cultural) Humanistic Judaism: “Non-theistic” Judaism for atheist Jews who still want a connection to their history, culture, and celebrations.

Nondenominational - Nondenominational and post-denominational Jews are the fast growing group. Variety of liberal/non-traditionally observant beliefs and practices, but most will still contextualize themselves around the denominational scale.

#writeblr #jewish writing advice #jewish writing help #writing jewish characters #writing jewish spaces #jumblr #jewblr #writing advice #ref #reference #jewish ref #jewish reference #jewish denominations #judiasm #another long one still not sorry #info dump

302 notes · View notes

girlactionfigure · 3 years

Photo

There's something I need to get off my chest.

I'm an Ultra-Orthodox, Chassidic, Hareidi Jew. I live in Jerusalem, in an area that is exclusively Ultra-Orthodox Hareidi for street after street, suburb after suburb, for miles and miles. In all of these neighborhoods where the roads are blocked off and no cars drive on Shabbos, each black-hat-wearing family has many many children and literally no TV’s. I personally only ever wear black and white clothes, my wife only dresses in Chassidic levels of tznius (modesty), and my boys and girls all attend mainstream Hareidi Chassidic schools where the main language is Yiddish. My kids don’t and never will have smartphones, nor have they ever been on the internet at all. Period. They don’t know what social media is and they’ve never seen a movie — not even Disney animation.

Having lived exclusively immersed in this culture for the last 21 years, I think I'm sufficiently qualified and well-researched enough to state that the consistent depiction of Hareidim and Torah Judaism by mainstream media, from Netflix to the daily news, is somewhere between delusion, slander and the literal equivalent of racism. If you consider yourself less closed-minded than how you imagine we Hareidim to be, then permit me to share a few personal details about my family, and other families in our neighborhood, to see how well your mental narrative matches up to reality:

- Besides learning Torah each day, most of the men in our neighborhood work full or part-time.

- Many women in our area work. Some even manage their own business or company. These are not special or “liberated” women — it’s so normal here it’s not even a discussion point.

- My wife is a full-time mother by choice, who despite attending an Ivy League College, finds it a profound and meaningful thing to dedicate her life to. If she didn’t, she’d go get a job. Mind you, she also attends Torah classes each week, works out with both a female fitness coach (who’s gay) and a frum Pilates instructor, writes and edits articles for a couple global websites and magazines, and personally mentors a number of women. None of this is seen as unusual.

- Kids in our community go to Torah schools where they learn (surprise!) Torah. They are fluent in three languages from a young age and the boys even read and understand a fourth (Aramaic). All the kids learn grammar, math and science. Weekly after-school activities have included music (violin, drums, piano), Tae Kwon Do, swimming, art, woodworking and robotics. The girls' school teaches tools of emotional intelligence. The principal of the boys' school doesn't hesitate to refer to kids to OT if needed. I practice meditation with my children multiple times each week. None of our kids think the world is literally 6,000 years old. They devour books about science and think it’s cool. They know dinosaurs existed and don’t find that existentially threatening. They have a telescope with which they love to watch the stars.

- The women in my family (like the men) only dress modestly according to Hareidi standards. The girls don't find this burdensome or oppressive. Period. They aren't taught that beauty is bad. They're certainly not taught to hate their bodies, God forbid. Each morning when they get dressed, they are as happily into their own fashion and looking pretty as any secular girl is. They just have a different sense of fashion than secular culture dictates. (Unfortunately for me, it's no cheaper.)

- The local Hareidi rabbis we receive guidance from are deep, warm, sensitive, supportive and emotionally intelligent. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t go to them.

- My boys assume they will grow up to learn Torah, as much as they want to, and then when they’re ready, get a good job or learn a profession to support whatever lifestyle they choose. My girls assume they’ll be wives and mothers (which they can’t wait for) but they're also warmly encouraged to train in whatever other profession they desire. (My 9-year-old daughter, chatting with her friend in the living room, just commented, "I want to be a mother and a teacher and an artist." Her friend replied, "I'm going to be a ballet teacher.") All options are on the table, and their future seems bright.

- We love living in modern Israel, feel proud and blessed to be here, and frequently count and celebrate its blessings. Everyone in my area votes. Sometimes not even for Hareidi parties. I pay taxes. (And they’re expensive!)

- As a Hareidi person, I’m glad we have Hareidi representation in the government — though I don’t always love or approve of how the Hareidi politicians act, or what they choose to represent. For the record, I'm equally dubious about secular politicians, as well.

- While I don't spend much time in Tel Aviv, I do have a few close Hareidi entrepreneur friends who have founded high-tech start-ups there, and are — Boruch Hashem! — doing very well.

- We don’t hate all non-religious people. Our kids don’t throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos. I doubt they even know anyone who would do that or think that it’s ok. We frequently talk about the Torah value of caring for and being compassionate towards everyone. As a family, we proactively try to find ways to judge others favorably (even those people who throw stones at passing cars on Shabbos.)

- We invite all manner of religious and secular Jews to join our Shabbos meals each week and the kids are open, happy, and confident to welcome everyone. (No, we're not Chabad.) One of the many reasons for having such guests at our table is to teach the kids this lesson.

- While we would technically be classified as right-wing and we don’t at all buy the modern “Palestinian” narrative, we certainly don’t hate all Arabs, nor do we have any desire to expel them all from the land. We warmly welcome anyone seeking to dwell here with us in peace and we are pained and saddened to see the suffering and loss of lives of all innocent Arab families and children — as would any decent human being.

- Of the few local families I know whose kids no longer identify as religious, none at all chose to disown their kids. The very thought, in such lovingly family-dedicated communities, is hard to imagine. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying it's not as common as it's made out. Rather, these families have tirelessly, profoundly, compassionately committed to maintaining any connection with their children, and to emphasize that, no matter what, family is the most important thing. Because it is.

- We aren't just living our life blindly, dogmatically following empty religious rules; rather, we are frequently engaged with, exploring and discussing Torah's richness, depth and meaning. Our kids honestly love learning Torah, praying and doing mitzvos. They’re visibly excited about Shabbos and festivals. This lifestyle is in no way oppressive or burdensome for them. If you suggested to them it was, they’d laugh and think you were crazy.

- We Hareidim are normal people: we laugh, we cry, we buy too much Ikea furniture, and we struggle with all of life's daily ups and downs, just like the rest of you. Some of our communities are more healthy and balanced, some are less so; some of our people are warmer, nicer and more open, some are more closed, dogmatic and judgmental; some of our leaders are noble and upstanding, and some are quite frankly idiots…JUST LIKE ANY SECULAR NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE WORLD TOO. But having grown up living a secular lifestyle myself, and today being Hareidi-by-choice, I can testify that in these communities there is generally a greater and more tangible sense of well-being, warmth, tranquility, connection and meaning. We love and feel blessed to be living this life and wouldn’t want any other.

If this description of Hareidi life is hard to swallow, be careful not to push back with the often-used defenses like: "Well, you're just an exception to the rule...", "You're just American Hareidim", "You're baalei teshuvah", "Well, I know a bunch of Haredim that aren't like that at all"....because the truth is, while there might be many Hareidim who aren't like what I described above, it's still an accurate description of literally hundreds of thousands of Hareidim in Israel and the US — a decent portion of all Hareidim in the world. Which is my very point — how come you never see this significant Hareidi demographic represented in the media, television series, or the news? How come we mostly see the darkest and most problematic cliches instead?

And finally, if all the facts I've listed above about our communities are hard for you to accept as true, then perhaps the image you have in your head about Hareidim is less based on facts and reality and more based on stereotypes, fear, hate, and discrimination — like any other form of prejudice in the world.

Care to prove me wrong? Well, you're welcome to come argue it out with me and my family at our Shabbos table on Friday night. It would be a joy and honor to have you.

Doniel Katz

63 notes · View notes

thekillerssluts · 3 years

Photo

My Relationship to Performance Has Changed

A great rock-and-roll show means openness, confrontation, and a kind of danger, and those ideas right now feel too heavy to lift.

Last October, before the second pandemic wave took off in New York City, I had one last band practice in my backyard in South Brooklyn. Five of us were working on songs from my new solo record. Normally we’d play in the basement, but it’s pretty low-ceilinged, and we’d read Zeynep Tufekci’s recent Atlantic article on viral spread, so we were all hyper-focused on air circulation. My bandmate Sara had contracted COVID-19—and recovered—in March, but the rest of us had no immunity. Besides, we suspected that we were in for a long winter and might as well hang out outdoors.

It was warm in the sun. After hauling the drums, keyboards, keyboard stands, guitars, and amps outside and plugging everything in, I hadn’t wanted to bother setting up microphones, so we had to play softly to hear ourselves harmonize. When we paused for lunch, someone leaned out of a fourth-story window in the apartment building next door and yelled: “Are you done or are you just taking a break? I have things to do, but I really miss live music!” “Me too, man!” I called back. “Should be just a break.”

Six months and a difficult winter later, the break is ending. I’m seeing more and more Instagram posts for shows that aren’t just wishful thinking. Low-capacity indoor shows are popping up in New York. Outdoor—maybe even full-capacity indoor—concerts are coming this summer. Am I ready to play? Ask me every other day and the answer changes. I’m torn. I’m desperate for sound engineers to get back behind the board and bartenders to start earning tips. I want venues to thrive again, both as places for art in neighborhoods and for the sake of the network that keeps music culture alive in America. I want my booking agent to feel excited again; he loves music so much. And I want musicians to make a living. So many people have been so screwed by the past year. I guess I just want everyone to get paid.

But the actual performance; the rebuilding of the sonic cathedral, as Dave Grohl wrote last spring; communally reaching for rock-and-roll transcendance? I’m not there yet. I’m not concerned that I’ll get sick. I received my second vaccine shot at the end of March and am ready to high-five strangers on the subway. My hesitance has an element of crowd-shyness, which we’ll all get over. But in my own performance, I don’t know how to meet this moment. A great rock-and-roll show means openness, confrontation, and a kind of danger, and those ideas right now feel too heavy to lift.

I used to think of performance in purely aesthetic terms. In the movie La Strada, a clown wearing angel wings does a high-wire act across a crowded piazza. For his finale, he brings out a table on the wire and, while balancing, tries to sit and eat a full plate of spaghetti. The heroine of the movie watches him with an almost religious ecstasy. When I first started performing, I strove for transcendence and stupidity, high concept and low art. My focus was on keeping myself in the air.

When my band Arcade Fire was playing mostly to people who hadn’t heard us before, we felt that the best way to get them to open up was to blow the windows and doors out. At an early show in Lawrence, Kansas, my brother, Win, bashed Styrofoam tiles out of the venue’s ceiling with his mic stand. We pushed as hard for an audience of six people (two of them my parents) upstairs at AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island, as we did in front of tens of thousands in the desert at our first Coachella show (during which I accidentally cut Win’s guitar cable in half by repeatedly smashing a cymbal into the ground).

At a certain point, as people got to know our music, my relationship to performance changed. The energy from the crowd was greater than anything coming from the giant speaker stacks. The audience wasn’t a challenge to overcome, or an opponent to conquer. We became a team. Not in an abstract, lovey way but how a sports team operates—pushing one another to do better, sometimes failing, sometimes frustrating one another, sometimes just joking around.The high-wire act of live performance—Will the music come together?—was still there. I’ve even sometimes tried to make the metaphor real, climbing arena scaffolding with a drumstick in my teeth and a drum strapped over my shoulder to play 30 feet in the air. Some of our crew members hate it—“Will! You have children now!”—but climbing up there doesn’t actually feel that dangerous, and a little nervousness is good. I’m reaching for primate simplicity and catharsis: The crowd needs tension to experience release.But now I have no desire to make tension. I want people to feel safe and comfortable, and I wonder whether creating a feeling of danger and openness is antithetical to that. I know that cultivating a perception of safety and actually making people safe are different. On tour, in a big venue, every night our management and local security have a briefing. It’s partly to set a vibe—People are here for music. Everybody be chill. If some teenager sneaks into a closer section, please let them. But the briefing is also serious—where the medics are located, what the escape routes are. Most of the time, these safety measures are invisible. I worry that post-pandemic precautions, as welcome and necessary as they are, will be depressingly visible. Some elements, such as temperature checks, will be inane. Some, such as requiring vaccination, will be important. Regardless, they will also set a tone—not You are entering a place for music, but You are entering a secure location. Dancing is hard when you’re looking at your feet; singing is hard when you’re thinking about everybody else’s breath. I bet the crowd could get over this. I’m not confident I could. With limited capacities and tight procedures, I worry that the stage will feel like the VIP section of the VIP room at a members-only club. Sterile, lonely, all of us chillingly aware that we are part of a ticketed event.

I have another concern that’s hard to shake. After this pandemic year, I’m more aware of the responsibility I have not only to the people who buy tickets, but to the driver making deliveries to the show and to the family of the woman working arena concessions, people who really don’t care about what I’m doing onstage. Vaccination numbers will grow, and the pandemic will end, God willing. I’m not worried about the spread of the coronavirus in particular. But these links of responsibility remain. The analytical part of my brain turns off when touring starts. Before scrambling back to normalcy, I want to make sure that this sense of connection becomes embedded in how I think. I would really love to just be a musician—but I’m also an employer and a player in an industry that has chewed up and spit out plenty of people, especially in this past year.

My hesitations are all about shows, though, not music. Over the past year, I’ve rarely played music with others—a few practices and filmed performances; work on the new Arcade Fire record in November; a handful of Zooms with bandmates to help a school’s PTA fundraiser or support a candidate in the city-comptroller race. But in all of those instances, I’ve experienced an ease, a rightness to the communication—not through the screen with whoever was listening, necessarily, but the people I was playing with. That connection felt restorative, like having a night of deep sleep that repairs parts of yourself you don’t know how to access.

I know people are ready for live music, ready to forget themselves in a wash of sound, ready to loudly talk with their friends over the song they don’t like that much. And so, for heaven’s sake, go to Neumos in Seattle when shows come back. Go to the Hideout in Chicago. See your favorite band, or somebody new. Plenty of artists don’t share my nervousness. I don’t want to add worry to the world; I’m just figuring out my new relationship to performance.

The magnolias are out in New York, and some of the apple trees are blossoming. Temperatures are creeping past 60. The vaccines keep rolling out. The future seems more possible. If I miss an emotion from live shows, it’s not any moment of transcendence. I miss the time just after, when, dazed and excited, you still feel the reach of some universal gesture, but the only thing concrete is the people around you.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/world-changed-what-makes-live-show-successful-didnt-arcade-fire/618625/

#Arcade Fire #will butler

14 notes · View notes

surveys4ever · 3 years

Text

25.

Section 1 – Who were you?

Think back as far as you can. What is the first memory you have? I think meeting my (now) dad for the first time when he and my mom were dating. I was very upset because he was short and that’s not what dads were supposed to look like in my 3 year old eyes since my bio dad was super tall.

What is something you remember enjoying very much as a small child? Playing Barbies, watching Barney, Happy Meals, being with my grandma.

How old were you, when you made your very first friend? Probably preschool.

Are you still friends with this person today? Facebook friends, yeah. Real friends, no.

Was there a story somebody read or told you that has stuck with you? No one ever read to me after I learned to read for myself so one day I was sick and I came home and curled up with my mom on the couch and asked her to read me a Little Mermaid book I had and she did, even though I had to get up to go shit myself halfway through and it meant a lot to me at the time.

What is something you get an immense feeling of nostalgia from? Hannah Montana for some reason. It was my favorite show and we didn’t get the Disney channel so whenever we went to a hotel, nobody could tell me fuckin NOTHING because we were watching Hannah Montana whether they liked it or not.

As a child, were you a sore loser or a sore winner? I was the only child for 8 years and then the oldest after that so I never lost at anything and now when I do, I feel like I'm the biggest piece of shit loser there’s ever been. So that’s fun.

Did you go through the "naked phase"? I learned that you didn’t have to sleep in pajamas and you could just sleep naked so I did it for a while but then realized that I much preferred pajamas.

Which television shows do you watch the most as a child? I loved TV so basically all of the 90′s/early 2000′s shows there were.

Did you play with siblings, neighbourhood kids or by yourself? Either with neighborhood/school kids or by myself. I didn’t ever really have siblings who weren’t my kids, if that makes sense.

Is there something you really miss from your childhood today? I miss back when everything was simple.

Section 2 – Likes and interests

Would you ever like to try competitive pinball playing? Ummm, no.

Do you knit, crochet or cross stitch? I’m trying to teach myself to crochet.

Have you ever, or would you like to attend a gaming or comic convention? No thx.

What's your opinion on online multiplayer games? I really liked Among Us for a while there but I don’t really enjoy how rude everyone is on online games.

Do you like to go cycling? If so, where? Uh no.

Have you ever tried woodturning? If not, would you like to? Never tried it, don’t really have any desire to, but it can be relaxing to watch!

Do you enjoy drawing? If so, what do you usually draw? I do! I usually draw graphics for YouTube videos or doodle over Instagram photos, draw things to put on shirts with my Cricut, etc. I use my iPad for so many things.

Have you ever attended a painting class? If so, what did you create? I haven’t but I would like to!

How about a creative writing course? If so, did you get any feedback? I took Creative Writing literally every year it was offered in high school and I always got awards for having the top marks in the class.

What is your favourite form of exercise? No thank you.

Section 3 – People

Who is the most important person in your life (besides yourself)? My husband.

Do people generally approach you easily? I think so!

Do you get along with people well? If not, what's the problem? Yeah! I’m pretty friendly and easy going.

Do you enjoy being in crowds or do you prefer your own company? I would much prefer my own company than crowds.

Which one of your friends have you known the longest? I still talk to the girl I was best friends with in the 6th grade on occasion so like 17-18 years?

Do you find it easy to make friends now? If not, what makes it difficult? As an adult who works from home, making friends is hard as fuck.

What is something about people that annoys you? Something I've noticed in recent years is just how entitled and greedy everyone is. Everybody wants something from you or for your skills to benefit them without them putting in any work or paying you for your time. It’s just gross.

What is something about people that you really like? We have really, really harsh winters and if you ever find yourself in the ditch for whatever reason, there will be a lineup of cars stopped behind you to help you push it out or let you chill in their car while you wait for a tow truck. On the really bad blizzard days, there are groups of men in big trucks that literally L I V E to go around and help pull people’s cars out of the ditch. It’s the only time I feel like there’s actually a sense of community around here.

If you live alone, what would be your criteria for a roommate? I honestly would never have a roommate because they could either be your friend or a stranger and living with friends is a good way to ruin a friendship if your living styles aren’t similar and living with a stranger just sounds like a nightmare.

How about criteria for a spouse, if you're single? I am married but my criteria was honestly that I just wanted him to be kind and funny and I got that tenfold with my husband.

In general, what's your attitude towards people? I can’t stand to be around grumpy people. If all you do is gripe and complain about literally everything, I’m out. No thank you. Why is your hobby being angry? Take up knitting or something for christ’s sake.

Section 4 – Habits

What is something you do every day without fail? Baby talk the dog and snuggle with Beebs.

What is your typical breakfast? I’m a leftovers for breakfast kinda gal but lately I’ve been having a bagel and watermelon.

Which article of clothing do you like to wear the most? I loooove me a good baggy T-shirt and booty shorts.

Is there a TV show you watch habitually? We’re currently watching Unhhhh while we eat dinner every night, haha!

Where do you usually spend most of your day? I really only sit in 4 places--bed, the couch, my makeup/work desk, or my sewing desk. Depends on the day which one I’m at.

Is there a product that you do not want to run out of? Moisturizer. I’m a dry son of a bitch.

What is your preferred mode of transport? Car!

Do you usually have something playing in the background when you're home? Nah. I’m in silence a lot of the time.

Where do you usually get your groceries? Walmart for the bulk of it, a local grocery store for the specialty items, and Target if we ever run out of something midweek because I cannot handle Walmart more than once a week.

How often do you go to your local park? Like once or twice a month in the summer!

Which of your hobbies do you indulge in most often? Sewing and Sims currently!

Section 5 – Favourites and dislikes

What is your favourite fruit? Watermelon!

How about your favourite berry? Strawberries are the only berry I like.

Which food do you highly dislike? Fish. It’s all disgusting.

What is your favourite song, and why? I hate this question. Who can pick one definitive favorite song out of the bajillions of songs that have been written??

What is a movie you cannot stand? Anything with Seth Rogen in it, any movie that's got a 3+ after it (looking @ you, Fast & Furious), and all the fuckin’ superhero movies that have the same ‘ah yes, this undefeatable bad guy that we have absolutely no chance against and will undoubtedly kill us all--but we’re going to pull through at the last second with the power of friendship!’ plot line.

Which trait in a person do you find most appealing? I don’t know how to describe it--certain people just have that spark and you can always tell right away if they’ve got it or not and those are my favorite kind of people.

Which trait puts you instantly off? If they’re religious it’s an instant no from me, dog.

Who is an actor/actress who you dislike so much you can't watch them? I really, really dislike Tom Holland. I honestly think he’s a terrible actor.

What colour are your favourite shoes? White!

What is a smell that disgusts you to no end? B.O., on me or others. I just can’t deal with it.

Which door handle/door knob do you like the most in your home? They’re all the same.

Section 6 – Culture

What is something very typical to the culture of your home country? Apple pie and baseball are the only things coming to mind atm.

Do you enjoy art? If so, which form of art is the most enjoyable? I do! But I prefer art that you can look at and know the artist is incredibly gifted and/or has put in a ton of time and effort to master their skills. None of that million dollar paint smear on a canvas shit.

What is something about another country's culture you don't understand? I feel like other cultures take their family and their family’s approval way too seriously. That might be rich coming from someone who doesn’t have a very good relationship with their family but I just don’t understand what the point of making yourself miserable to make your family happy is.

Do you ever attend the theater? If so, which play did you see last? Last thing I saw in a theater was Shangela perform a drag show, haha!

How about the opera or the ballet? Nope.

Which dance troupe do you enjoy, if any? ...they still do that?

Do you attend concerts or gigs? If so, which band did you see last? Not as much as I’d like to as no one good really comes here very often. Last band we saw was X Ambassadors and Paramore!

Are you interested in foreign food? I’m not uninterested but I’m not super interested either.

If so, which country's cuisine do you enjoy the most? Chinese...albiet probably a very Americanized version of Chinese.

Do you enjoy stand-up comedy? If so, who is your favourite comic? I doooo! Bo Burnham and Drew Lynch are my favorites.

Do you contribute to culture in some way? If so, how? I try to? I’m an influencer so I definitely have a platform of a couple hundred thousand people. Not sure what exactly I contribute tho.

Section 7 – Charity

Do you volunteer your time to anything charitable? If so, what? Newp.

Do you donate money to any charities? If so, which ones? No. I don’t trust a lot of charities, to be quite honest. A lot of them are very shady and I’d rather donate money directly to someone who needed it rather than it getting tied up in a charity where it might never actually see the people they claim to be helping.

If you have pets, are any of them rescues from shelters? We adopted our dog from one of my husband’s coworkers but she probably would have gone to the shelter if we didn’t take her.

Do you donate your old clothes, linen etc. to charitable organizations? Yes! We almost always have a bag of donations in our trunk that we always forget to take to the thrift store when we go.

If someone you know is in need, is it in your nature to offer help? If I can, yes!

Have you ever donated Christmas presents to children of poor families? We used to do that when I was a kid.

Have you ever had to rely on other people's charity? One Christmas when I was really young I remember my parents signed up for a sponsorship through the Salvation Army where a family adopted us and bought us Christmas presents and Christmas dinner or whatever.

How do you feel about donating to charities endorsed by celebrities? I would never donate to a charity simply because it was sponsored by a celebrity but I guess its the easiest way for a charity to get the word out that they need donations.

Is there a charity you absolutely never ever will not trust? PETA, Salvation Army, Goodwill, and that breast cancer one with the horrible CEO.

Have you ever donated to a cause that had a person going door to door? No. I extra wouldn’t if someone came knocking on my door asking for money.

In general, what is your opinion on charity? I already did my rant about them, haha.

Section 8 – Entertainment

Which was the very first video game you remember playing? Ocarina of Time I believe!

Which was the very first film you remember watching? That I don’t remember. Maybe that Barney movie with the magic egg?

What is your go-to form of entertainment? TikTok usually.

Do you have a large collection of DVDs/Blu-Rays? Nah. We have a drawer but we usually stream everything.

How about music albums? Beebs collects vinyls!

Do you prefer to have your music on vinyls, tapes, CDs or digital? I prefer digital and Beebs likes vinyl.

When and where do you like to entertain yourself usually? Either the bed or the couch.

Do you ever binge watch shows? If so, what are you binging now? Usually! I’m sadly in between shows rn.

What kinds of books do you like to read, if any? I honestly don’t read anymore.

Is there a book series you're currently collecting? ..

Is entertainment something you prefer to enjoy alone or with someone else? I have my shows and then we have shows we watch together. So there’s a time and place for both!

Section 9 – Internet

Do you always have access to the Internet, wherever you go? If not, why? Yup!

Which website do you frequent the most? Website website? Google. App website? Instagram or TikTok.

Which search engine do you prefer and trust the most? Googs.

What do you use the Internet the most for? Social media or entertainment.

Do you judge people who have their phones out all the time? If so, why? Random people? None of my business. But if we’re spending time together and I’m trying to have a conversation with you and you're not paying attention to me because your nose is glued to your phone, I’m gonna be pissed.

If your connection goes down, what do you do? Go do something that’s not on the internet?

Is there something you wish you could do online that isn't possible yet? I still wish you could smell things through the internet.

Do you remember the first time you used the Internet? When was it? Yes! I believe the 2nd/3rd grade?

What was a website you used to frequent that doesn't exist anymore? I loved the Disney website with all the games.

Do/Did you ever have your own website? That was the thiiiing back in the day.

Isn't it great how much knowledge and info we have at our fingertips? It’s great but also overwhelming.

Section 10 – And finally...

What is something you consider to be highly controversial? Politics, apparently.

What kinds of jokes do you like the best? I love a good pun.

Is there a person who makes you laugh effortlessly? Oh definitely.

Which part of your body do you like the least? My eyes.

What's something random, out of context you remember from your past? I don’t do well with really vague questions.

Do you wear shoes indoors? No, I’m not a heathen.

What's the silliest thing you've worn on your body in public? I don’t think I usually wear silly things.

What's the most important thing in your life right now? Just spending time with my fam. Trying to get over this anxiety.

What is the most distant point on the planet that you've been from home? Florida.

Do you enjoy trivia games? If so, which one's your favourite? We love some Trivial Pursuit in this house!

Are you more logical or emotional? My emotions take over and then my logic brings it back in. Equal parts, baby.

#survey

1 note · View note

everydayanth · 4 years

Video

youtube

STARTING AT 21:48

TRIGGER WARNING: The thumbnail doesn’t convey the tone here. This is footage of anti-protestors “protecting” a columbus statue in a park in PA. Things get violent, over-sensory, and include mob-mentality stress. Shortly after the timestamp indicated, there is mad disrespect to Native history and culture, a lot of ignorance and generalizations about the local Black communities.

If you don’t want to watch it: I am referring to a point where many white Americans are challenging a journalist asking them about policing, BLM, and politics, and one, to paraphrase, is worried that the journalist is going to cut it to make them look racist and call them white Americans, and he wants to be clear that they are “white Americans of Italian descent with deep roots in the area!” When pressed about Native American roots in the area, they erupt in swears and cuss at him, the same guy yelling “what do you want me to do about it?” Throughout the exchange, another guy is riling them up about media twisting their stories while the journalist continues to explain that he is live streaming and it therefore cannot be cut up. The Italian flag can be seen on shirts, bags, and waving in the background.

I can’t stop thinking about this.

I ran into this in every corner of the US except the deep south cus I haven’t really been there yet (teen years don’t count). White Americans who want to belong to a cultural community continue to cling to their heritage culture in often stereotypic ways as a a way to separate them from the “whiteness” of white America and belong to a local community.

I can’t stop seeing it everywhere. But I know there is no one line, its all grey, and belonging to something bigger than yourself is a powerful connection for humans, as social creatures with dynamic identities and emotions, it can be a grounding place.

But when I see stuff like this, I wonder how the heritage cultures see it. What do you think video clip of this in Italy?

What do the Dutch think of all the Calvinists and Dutch Reformed Church communities in West Michigan? I actually asked a few Dutch people once, and one old guy goes “well... they left for a reason, and no one stopped them for a reason” lol.

Cultural identities were assimilated harshly, or else held onto in unexpected ways. When I look at it, my Dziadzia is Polish, from Poland, but he was a baby when they came, or born shortly after, so his siblings speak Polish (you know I hung out with great aunts and uncles all summer), but he doesn’t, he was pushed to be American. Technically, he’s a first generation immigrant, and I’ve connected to a lot of Polish-Americans and Polish people through experiences and linguistic pieces I never considered to be Polish before.

In contrast, my dad’s Dutch parents lived in the Dutch part of town and went to a Dutch church and read from the Dutch (well, Frisian, I was in my 20s when I learned what that meant or why it was important) family Bible and my nana spoke to us in her thick accent and the d and v sections of my schools were the largest (de- and van- surnames) and we did Tulip Time and renamed areas Holland and Zealand. So while they had assimilated, it was in a VERY Dutch area, and assimilation was quite minimal. Some of my aunts and uncles are very... white-American, while others and my dad (he’s one of 6, my mom is one of 8) are very much Dutch and stayed in the Dutch neighborhoods and churches. It took me a lot of training to start capitalizing proper nouns guys, you don’t understand, then I studied German and I turned in a paper to this really harsh English teacher and he made me stay after class and yelled at me because proper nouns had been left uncapitalized while regular nouns were capitalized... it was a bad day lol.

The Irish are critical of the Americanized St.Paddy’s day (understandably) and the souvenir shops seem to welcome Irish-Americans with open-arms and family crests on every type of knick-knack tchotchke you can imagine, while I have also heard Irish-American claims of identity dismissed in documentaries and series about Gaeilge as their own separate thing, with their own history that has become distinctly not-Irish in culture, location, language, or history (though the British enemy stayed the same).

There are tons of anglophiles in America who idealize England and watch the royal wedding and consume British media with glee.

I’m not too sure about Spanish or French identities in America because growing up in MI, I learned the basic French from Canadian friends and their families, but I associated that with Canada, not France. When did it become different? Like Cajun, is it its own identity? Seems like it, tbh. And I associated Spanish and Portuguese language with friends from Central and South America because I didn’t really know of anyone from Spain or Portugal heritages and learned about them in school as the colonizers (along with Italian). Strange how that framing works to displace blame/responsibility, huh. In that Dutch school and I had to learn about the Dutch East India Trading Co from frickin’ Pirates of the Caribbean? Psh, says enough.

Bavarian has become the American stamp of German heritage, despite many families being from the lowlands or surrounding areas. A German friend got so fed up with the association one time, he yelled at everyone about electronic music, jumpstyle, and green energy so long that we ended up not playing soccer and just listening to him rant about what “German” was not. It was Oktober, and it was a college town, so I get it lol.

Eastern Europeans seem to often get stigmatized while Scandinavians... I dunno, seem to assimilate or keep to themselves? There’s a Danish population in a small town in MI that is very proud of its roots but beyond a parade and some flags, some round pancakes and me struggling eternally with the Danish language, there wasn’t too much of a focus on it. There’s also a large Finnish population in the UP (NOT Scandinavian, Nordic, I know, sorry), and they retain many Finnish words and phenotypic traits, flags wave over porches, but again, for the most part, they’re just... Michiganders.

My view of this could also be very skewed because while I’ve lived in tons of states over the past 6-7 years, that doesn’t change the 20+ I spent growing up in MI, a place that is very insulated and island-cultured, making a steady clash of hot/cold and high/low-context cultures in a concentrated area.

Anyway, European friends (or anyone), do you think about this? Is this a conversation topic for you? How do you view white Americans who stand by or maintain ownership of a European identity?

White Americans who know or claim a heritage often have a story about a family member who rebelled and came to America. Do you have those stories from the opposite POV, a wayward family member who left to America and was never heard from again?

For everyone: is there a point where a cultural heritage becomes an idealization? Where you are no longer an active participant but a bystander? Is there an American replacement or did assimilation remove that? Or did assimilation create it?

There’s an Ancestry.com commercial I think about a lot. The guy wears a kilt or Leiderhösen, I forget which one first, then does some research on ancestry, and finds that his family had their history wrong, so he traded in one for the other. Is this cultural appropriation? At what point do you lose ownership? Or do we always own our roots? What about when our roots get too tangled to trace, or cut off altogether, by our own family’s nonchalance (as in, not remembering or maintaining) or forced by a stronger power?

Is it a different conversation when talking about personal costuming for an event vs anti-protests using their European heritage as a platform to deny change? Or is it the same act to different degrees or in positive/negative lights?

If you are White-American, did you grow up with a heritage culture in your family or community? When did you start to notice it? How has it impacted your identity?

I know these questions also extend to BIPOC and immigrant/religious minority cultures in America, but due to histories of stigmatization, demonization, oppression, genocide, slavery, and appropriation, it seems like that has to be a different conversation. Clinging to roots when someone has cut you away or is trying to uproot you to assimilate is different than willfully leaving, which seems different than being forced out as a refugee or due to internal conflict/crises (famine, war, etc.), these are different conversations to me.

I’ve just been thinking about this a lot.

#identity #society #culture #white american #white privilege #anthropology #heritage #ancestry #high low context #context culture #hot cold cultured #family history #roots #personal identity #appropriation #community #belonging #psychology

15 notes · View notes

jewish-privilege · 5 years

Link

In the synagogue’s March newsletter, Ricki Gerger, president of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., castigated those who ask fellow congregants who don’t “look like them” such questions as, “Are you Jewish?” “When did you become Jewish?” and “Tell me about your journey to Judaism.”

“I have never in my life been asked a question that challenges my identity as a Jew … but any-color-but-white Jews are asked about that all the time in just about any Jewish space,” she wrote. “Look, not everyone who comes to our synagogue is white. We have some folks here who don’t look like most of the people here. So? … In 2019, it’s time to get comfortable with the growing diversity of our kehillah,” or community.

The Conservative congregation’s rabbi, Aaron Alexander, estimated that about 10 percent of the synagogue’s 6,000 members are Jews of color.

Now, an analysis of Jewish population surveys commissioned by 25 national or local Jewish communities across the U.S. has concluded that Jews of color have been systematically undercounted for decades. And an analysis of the three most comprehensive studies available — the American Jewish Population Project (2013-2019), the 2017 San Francisco Bay Area Community Study, and the 2011 New York Community Study — has led researchers to estimate that Jews of color now represent an estimated 12 to 15 percent of American Jews.

“I hope our research will be used to inform community planning and resourcing, and that there will be a shift in the Jewish community to understand itself as multiracial,” said Ilana Kaufman, director of Jews of Color Field Building Initiative, the nonprofit group that commissioned the analysis.

The analysis was done by the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the University of San Francisco. Using calculations from Brandeis University’s American Jewish Population Project that put the total American Jewish population at 7.2 million, they estimate there are about 1 million Jews of color in the U.S.

Ari Kelman of Stanford University, the lead researcher, noted that the only Jewish population survey to “breakout Jews of color” was the New York study, which found that there were 87,000 households in which there were non-white, Hispanic or multiracial Jews out of the 694,000 Jewish households in the eight-county area, or 14 percent.

...A spokeswoman for UJA-Federation of New York, which commissioned the New York study, said its Jewish population surveys are conducted every 10 years and are “committed to understanding the full diversity of New York’s Jewish population. Our last Jewish population study … was one of the first community studies to include questions about race, and our next study will similarly aim to present the most accurate picture of the New York Jewish community.”

...By the year 2050, demographers estimate that the U.S. will become majority minority, observed Diane Tobin, director of Be’chol Lashon in San Francisco, which she founded in 2000 after adopting an African-American child and beginning to raise him Jewish. Its goal is to strengthen Jewish identity by raising awareness about the ethnic, racial and cultural diversity of the American Jewish community.

Nearly all of the Jewish population surveys commissioned in the past, Tobin observed, were focused on “the behaviors of Jews who populated our synagogues and JCCs and sought to learn what they wanted.”

But by zeroing in on Jews of color, the New York survey learned they are more likely to consider themselves “partially” Jewish, to be intermarried and “to feel uncomfortable at Jewish events and activities.”

“They are less likely to identify with a denomination, observe holidays, connect to Jewish institutions, or feel part of a Jewish community,” the survey continued. “And although they are a highly urban group, they are much more likely to live outside of the ‘primary’ neighborhoods of Jewish residence. Instead, they tend to reside in areas with relatively low Jewish density.”

Isaiah Rothstein, 30, an Orthodox rabbi who grew up in a multiracial Lubavitch family in upstate Monsey, said he knows “many Jews of color who were born Jewish and who take their Judaism and religious life very seriously. … I also know Jews of color who don’t go to synagogue because they don’t feel a sense of belonging. It is changing a lot, but most Jews of color do not feel comfortable in the synagogue.”

The old joke about Goldstein going to synagogue to pray to God and Schwartz going to talk to Goldstein is very apropos, according to Rabbi Ruth Abusch-Magder, Be’chol Lashon’s education director, “because part of the reason we go is to be with people we know.”

Rabbi Lina Zerbarini, spiritual leader of Kehillath Shalom Synagogue in Cold Spring Harbor, agreed, saying: “People go where they feel they are not going to have issues, and it is not comfortable for people to walk into a synagogue and have people ask why they are there. When I adopted three black girls, the first question was whether I would raise them in the Jewish community because they would not see people like themselves in Jewish settings very much.”

“I would suggest that for most of our 4,000-year history we have not been white, and the experience we have in the U.S., where so many Jews think that Eastern European Ashkenazic Judaism is normative, is not,” she added.

(In Israel, less than half — 47.5 percent — of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazic.)

The absence of Jews of color in the Jewish community is seen by Kaufman, director of the group that commissioned the study, as “in some ways a result of racism.” But Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, spiritual leader of Central Synagogue in Manhattan who was born in Korea to a Jewish American father and Korean Buddhist mother, said she believes that although there are “inherent biases, I don’t know if I would call it racism. There has been an Ashkenazi normative assumption by Jews in America that color our perception of who we are and what the Jewish community is.”

“We in America are an aberration, and we should see this [study] as a reclaiming of the mixed multitude of the mosaic of Jewish diversity that we have been since the beginning of our diaspora existence,” she added.

...Be’chol Lashon’s director of community engagement, Lindsey Newman, said she works with “Jews of color and ethnically diverse backgrounds to address their needs. I am hopeful because this conversation is now on the mainstream Jewish agenda in a way it has not been in the past. … We want to help build communities where Jews of color are seen and celebrated for the benefit of the entire Jewish community. A Jewish community that acknowledges its own diversity and is able to engage across differences is a stronger and more just Jewish community.”

Rabbi Abusch-Magder acknowledged that “we’re at the beginning of really understanding this and talking about this in the Jewish community. We don’t necessarily even know how to begin to unpack it.”...

784 notes · View notes

anonymoustalks · 4 years

Text

It has a Confederate soldier memorial and statue out in front I'm shocked they didn't make them take it down

(6-18-20) You both like Politics.

Stranger: Hey

You: hi

Stranger: What's up

You: mhm sleepy mainly

You: you?

Stranger: Nice

Stranger: Just showered now I'm sitting here

You: mhm anything you care a lot about?

Stranger: Social issues

You: like?

Stranger: Hmm abortion, guns, religion, immigration

Stranger: Transgender people

You: okay

Stranger: You?

You: mhm I'm abstract

You: I'm kind of a hippie haha

Stranger: Oh haha

Stranger: I'm conservative

You: but I believe in being nice

You: that's fine

Stranger: Haha good

You: people have different beliefs

Stranger: That's fair

You: where are you from?

Stranger: US

You: one of the more liberal states or conservative?

Stranger: South East

Stranger: Conservative haha

You: oh it's late

Stranger: Oh yeah 2 am

You: I'm northeast haha

Stranger: Lol

You: what kind of things do you like the most?

Stranger: Like in general?

You: sure or big picture

Stranger: Food, guns, movies, video games

You: mhm guns for entertainment?

Stranger: Not sure what else

You: like shooting range?

Stranger: Yeah like that

You: mhm I've never been

Stranger: It's fun

Stranger: I'd like to go camping sometime

Stranger: I never have

You: really? you should

Stranger: Yeah I really should

You: does anyone in your family do much camping?

Stranger: Nah nobody

You: aww haha

Stranger: Haha

You: my family doesn't either, but I've gone a few times with friends

Stranger: That's good

Stranger: How old are you

You: 26 you?

Stranger: 20

You: mhm how is college this year?

Stranger: Well schools were totally shut down for a while haha

You: is yours opening in the fall?

Stranger: Yeah I'm pretty sure if nothing changes

You: I guess it's nice to go back

Stranger: You think we will go back into lockdown if the virus gets worse

You: idk, I think it's hard to say

Stranger: I don't think my state will

You: I think they might if the hospitals get overhwhelmed

You: otherwise I think many states will care more about the economy

You: even if there are infections

Stranger: Right bye grandma

Stranger: We gotta fix the economy

Stranger: Haha

You: it's hard to make value decisions...

Stranger: Yeah it really is

You: I guess that's politics in a sense

You: What do you think? family or economy lol?

Stranger: I have many older family members who the virus could easily mess up

Stranger: Or kill

You: right

Stranger: My grandmother is 89

You: mhm

You: so for you, you would prefer it if the lockdown stayed?

Stranger: Hmmm it's really hard to say

You: mhm

Stranger: Cause it really is wrecking the economy staying in lockdown

You: mhm

Stranger: But the risk is much higher now

You: yeah, I don't really envy the people who have to make that choice

Stranger: Pray and hope for the best basically haha

You: I guess that's for the best I guess

Stranger: Right

You: are you very religious?

Stranger: I wouldn't say very

Stranger: I don't go to church and I'm not going start now

You: ah, why not?

Stranger: But I do believe in God and all that

Stranger: Well you know the virus I meant during the virus time

You: oh yeah haha

Stranger: Sorry haha

You: sorry lol

Stranger: But maybe one day I will

You: for some reason I read that as you never went to church?

Stranger: Oh I never have I mean I've went like a long time ago

You: oh okay

Stranger: When I was still a kid basically

You: does your family still go or were they not so religious?

Stranger: They weren't so religious yeah

You: mhm kay

Stranger: They are religious but they just don't like church for whatever reason

Stranger: I guess mom has hangovers Sunday morning lmao

You: ohh

Stranger: I'm kidding but she does drink

You: yeah

You: although I can kind of vaguely relate to not wanting to go

You: I don't like to go to things in groups

Stranger: Well church at least down here has a lot of uppity bastards

You: I feel like a person's relationship with God is also a very personal thing

You: uppity?

Stranger: That treat church as like this thing like for connections

You: oh...

You: that's not cool

Stranger: Instead of going for religion

Stranger: Uppity like wealthy and snobby

You: ahh okay

Stranger: You know those types?

You: yeah, I feel very uncomfortable

You: my family also immigrated so there's a cultural difference for me too

Stranger: Where they come from

You: china ^^

Stranger: So you're Chinese?

You: yup, ethnically

Stranger: Cool

Stranger: Haha

Stranger: I'm white

You: there are not many asians on the east coast lol

Stranger: They are more west coast

Stranger: Haha

You: yep

You: I was like the only one in my high school

Stranger: Lol

You: yeah it can be awkward at times

Stranger: My highschool had no Chinese people

Stranger: We had like 1 Indian

Stranger: It was mostly just white people haha and some blacks

You: mhm

You: it's the same for us except not many blacks either

You: New England is very white

You: lol

Stranger: Haha

Stranger: We only have that big black population due to them staying after slavery

Stranger: Without the black people this place would be like all white

You: mhm

Stranger: Hmm how many gay people did it have?

You: up here?

Stranger: Yeah

You: we are pretty liberal so we had a couple

Stranger: We had like one gay one and one bisexual

Stranger: And maybe one trans but I don't know

You: mhm I think we had more lgbt people than that

You: how big was your high school?

Stranger: Pretty small compared to a typical high school

Stranger: I mean we only had 1 floor

Stranger: No upstairs

You: ahh that's pretty small

Stranger: You actually had to leave and go to the other high school in the county if you wanted certain classes

You: did you grow up in a rural area or something?

Stranger: Oh yeah lol it's all woods around the highschool

Stranger: And around my house

You: ahh kay

Stranger: Pretty cool I always thought

Stranger: But lonely too

You: yeah nature is nice

Stranger: Cause unless you go out of town there is really nothing to do for young people

You: right

You: were you always involved in politics?

Stranger: We have a movie theater that some old man owns and he plays new movies for like $5

Stranger: That's like it haha

You: oh those kind of small places are cool, at least I think so

You: I like small random bookstores and stuff

Stranger: I hope he isn't closed I mean I haven't checked

Stranger: I hope Coronavirus didn't kill his business

Stranger: Oh yeah we have lots of little random stores

You: mhm yeah...

Stranger: We have a little historical building downtown that uses to be the courthouse

Stranger: It has a Confederate soldier memorial and statue out in front I'm shocked they didn't make them take it down

You: is your local county/town/city more conservative or liberal would you say?

You: compared to your overall state?

Stranger: Very conservative socially

Stranger: Even the democrats are socially conservative they just are left money wise

You: mhm

Stranger: So thats probably why haha

You: yeah I guess that makes sense

Stranger: That was there when the building was a actual court house

Stranger: So a black guy going to court sees that lol

You: yeah I wonder what they would feel

Stranger: I broke the law in the wrong neighborhood

You: mhm I feel like it's a kind of scary thought

Stranger: Exactly it probably makes you think is the judge or jury racist

You: yeah

Stranger: The sheriff is like related to me

You: ohh really?

Stranger: Distant family

Stranger: Yeah

You: that's cool

You: is it like a small town family thing where all the families know each other?

Stranger: Lol yes everyone figures out everyone's business

You: oh lol

You: my town growing up had a significant catholic community, and they were really tightly knit

You: like some of the teachers, students, all went to same church

Stranger: Yeah it's pretty close knit here

Stranger: This place is weird

Stranger: It's like one county with three little small towns that are very close

Stranger: That almost overlap

You: huh

Stranger: Haha

Stranger: Isn't that great?

You: I mean it's interesting I guess

You: I wonder how things turned out that way

Stranger: Like you could drive 5 or 10 minutes and be in the other town

Stranger: And 15 to the other

You: I'm surprised that like with a school your size, you don't have something like a regional high school or something

Stranger: The biggest town in the county has a highschool

You: ahh

Stranger: And out in the boonies between the other two was mine

You: right

Stranger: Haha it's just interested

Stranger: Interesting

You: yeah it's interesting for me to hear

You: do you ever get new people moving into your town in stuff?

You: or is it pretty much always the same families?

Stranger: And if you shoot a gun in the yard the cops don't come haha

Stranger: I've had a neighbor do that

You: is your area mostly safe?

Stranger: Oh yeah

Stranger: My brother had a guy try to break in once

Stranger: But he scared him off

You: mhm

Stranger: Just the same families

Stranger: Rarely you'll get like a immigrant family coming

You: yeah we have a lot of moving up here

You: not necessarily immigrants, but people moving in and out of state

You: that kind of thing

Stranger: Oh I see

Stranger: You in a big city?

You: no, suburb, maybe like 45 minutes out?

Stranger: Oh I see

You: yeah, but I think a lot of people move here when they get a job somewhere

You: I guess they move out if they follow their career elsewhere

Stranger: We move out of town when we want a good job haha

You: oh lol haha

Stranger: Unless you do a store, cop job, or military

You: mhm

You: you have a military base nearby or something?

Stranger: We do have a small community college

Stranger: Oh yeah we have a national guard Armory

Stranger: You can be there I think

You: mhm

You: yeah it's cool to hear about the kind of place you grew up

You: and sort of think about how that affects politics on the bigger map

Stranger: Oh yeah lol

Stranger: That's a little about the south

You: a little about the south?

Stranger: Yeah my southern state

You: oh okay

Stranger: Haha

You: is the older generation in your area more conservative than the younger folk?

You: or not really?

Stranger: Oh definitely

You: hmm you sounded like you were pro-lgbt but not trans, if I'm guessing your position correctly?

Stranger: Yeah I don't like trans people

Stranger: But some gays are fine

You: only some? ^^

Stranger: Haha

Stranger: The ones that are normal people are fine

You: ah okay

Stranger: Like I don't like the really feminine ones or activist

Stranger: I'm bi

You: mhmm

You: okay that's cool

Stranger: Thanks

You: I'm surprised because I would have thought you would have been more supporting of other lgbt people

Stranger: Ohhh

Stranger: I guess it's my upbringing

You: you don't like the activists because... they stand out too much?

You: or...?

Stranger: Right

You: too liberal?

Stranger: I don't like the obviously gay guys

You: mhm

Stranger: And that too

You: are you out to your family?

Stranger: No

Stranger: Not yet

You: do you think you will some day?

Stranger: At some point maybe

You: mhm I get it

Stranger: But only if I'm with a guy

You: what about with your friends?

Stranger: Otherwise I'm not going to risk them having a bad reaction

You: yeah it makes sense

Stranger: I'll probably tell friends

You: mhm but you haven't?

Stranger: No just a online friend

You: aww that's sweet though ^^

You: I think it's good to be out to someone

Stranger: He's gay so he gets it

You: yeah

You: I'm happy for you

Stranger: He likes me but he lives very far off

You: aww yeah distance is a problem

Stranger: He's a British guy that wants to come move here haha

You: oh haha

You: I feel like that must mess with your timezones lol

Stranger: Lol hes conservative and likes Trump

Stranger: That's funny for a gay British person

You: yeah but hey, your sexuality doesn't define you

You: you can be conservative, liberal, whatever

Stranger: Yeah he's always sleeping when I get up

Stranger: Haha

Stranger: Or something like that

You: mhm do you like him?

Stranger: Oh yeah I do

Stranger: He's great

You: oh that's great ^^

Stranger: Haha you like hearing about this don't you

You: yeah I love hearing about this

You: it makes me smile haha

You: it's really sweet, seriously

Stranger: Maybe it is haha

You: mhm I'm happy for people when they find things for themselves

Stranger: Me too

Stranger: do you like someone?

You: yup

Stranger: Who?

Stranger: Guy or girl

You: mhm... I have a complicated situation

Stranger: Ohhh

You: oh? xD

Stranger: Are you a guy or girl?

You: well first of all, what do you think?

Stranger: I can't tell haha

You: lol

You: I guess that makes me happy

Stranger: Which are you?

You: mhm you can think of me as a guy I guess

Stranger: You trans?

You: I'm kind of have an androgynous perception of myself

Stranger: Ohhh

Stranger: I like to think of myself as masculine and all that

You: technically it's nonbinary, but most conservative people don't take that very seriously

Stranger: So you're non binary?

You: I'm not really that much of a labels person

Stranger: I don't know about that one

You: but yeah, if you want to put me in a group, that would be the most accurate description

Stranger: I know what it is but I don't know how that works

You: oh what I mean by "labels" is that I don't think the terms are important

Stranger: Oh I see

You: like bi vs pan vs whichever other term

Stranger: I don't like pan

Stranger: To me it's no different than bi

You: mhm

You: to me they're very close to interchangeable

You: but for some reason people have a preference for which term they like

Stranger: I see

Stranger: Bi makes more sense to me

You: mhm

Stranger: Bi means 2 and you like both sexes

You: yup

Stranger: Haha

Stranger: And do you like a guy or girl?

You: idk there's people who spend too much time thinking about this and come up with terms for a lot of things

You: uh, I lean towards liking guys, and a little bit less towards girls

Stranger: Ohhh

Stranger: You like a guy now?

You: nope I'm with a girl now

Stranger: Ohhh

Stranger: I gotcha

You: like if I were to give it numbers, like usually I'm more into guys like 80% of the time, and girls like 20%

Stranger: That's how I am

You: mhm awesome lol

Stranger: Lol

Stranger: It was great talking to you but I should go I think

You: okay, it was great talking!

Stranger: Goodnight

You: night

Stranger has disconnected.

#omegle #politics #southern #conservative #religion #coronavirus #transgender #lgbt #bisexual #pansexual #race #minority #confederate statues

1 note · View note

iconiceyesedinburgh-blog · 5 years

Text

What Skills Do You Need To Work For Blizzard Entertainment As A Graphic Designer?

Though going to university can help you pursue the artistic profession of your desires, setting you up with the correct set of skills and skills, it isn't for everybody. Graphic design is great coaching for design work in lots of fields, which is why you will find graphic designers working in areas of specialization ranging from print design (books and magazines), to identity design (logos and branding), to product design, packaging design, Web design, and more. For while many people have been right about the best way all this pres- entism would have an effect on investments and finance, even expertise and media, we had been completely fallacious about how living within the now” would find yourself impacting us as folks. There was additionally a dialogue as to when the patroller may start doing their job-it was agreed upon, based mostly on the advice by Mr. Maduna that they should start immediately(although few days left that they need to receives a commission- and amongst the residents. Beneath particular questioning, he replied that the Colored Proteas could play towards the Rugby Springboks any time.6 November, The executive committee of the Worldwide Soccer Federation (FIFA) rejects an Ethiopian proposal to expel South Africa. With the coming of "Nyaope", which is decimating and wiping many generations of the African People, as has been witnessed first-hand here in Orlando East, and have posted articles written about it by the locals and some already banned FB'ers, that, the folks have now begun to work and build up on the street committees, and they're taking shapes from a pair or single household giving their sons and associates an obligation to patrol the streets and certain space-boundaries(small areas but strategic. This point can be dealt with a lot in-depth to debate the unknown civilization of Mzantsi that can be dated way back to 200,000 years ago(with pictures to present it a much more significant South African African historical structure and reality. Aimed at the impartial-minded, Find out how to be a Graphic Designer, Without Dropping Your Soul addresses the issues of young designers who wish to earn a dwelling by doing expressive and significant work and avoid changing into a hired drone engaged on soulless initiatives. Listening carefully and totally to the video, it does shed some gentle concerning the ancient ruins, but it lacks the historical, oral and customary views of the Africans, and these might be found amongst the folks themselves. Till the day we Africans of Mzantsi stop thinking of and for our particular person selves only, till they day we Africans of Mzantsi say sufficient is enough; and, until we come to our senses and go and see for ourselves what I'm speaking about or everyone seems to be writing about what these medicine are doing to us, our individuals, relatives and communitiesNation, we are going to forever be in our cocoons and do nothing, and we are clearly dealing with something extra harmful than HIV AIDs(Which is still battering and wiping the core of our communities), we'll ultimately taken-snuffed by the genocide we at the moment are facing. Graphic Designers design (or create) graphics to fulfill particular industrial or promotional needs, such as packaging, displays, logos, or imagery for print and digital uses including banner adverts, social media posts, web site graphics, journal advertorials, and many others. It's about time we stopped aping and emulating ineffective and different cultures foreign to us(though we must always understand international cultures) however we can't be the folks of international cultures as a result of they don't seem to be ours and they are not us. Most researchers, writers and authors agree that they got here seeking gold to restore the environment across the synthetic planet they called Nibiru, what some call Planet X. Our Galactic historical past, that many on our world are only now accepting as legitimate, was influenced to a terrific diploma by many off world Alien races and this has contributed a terrific deal to all kinds of social, religious and even physical, issues our current civilization endures, to at the present time. What's hanging about his cloning of humans in the purported lost civilization are improbable machination and creativeness on steroids as a result of this lis clear in that, throughout the talk, the Africans of South Africa are not even talked about, considered, nor their culture not attached or used so as to perceive the traditional ruins and so forth. A convergence of historical circumstance and a rise in innovative cellular applications may make Africa the first publish-PC continent, as a result of the vast majority of Africans would not have the posh of laptops, iPads, Kindles and the like (Wanjiku, 2011). Above I have been attempting to establish the human origins of mumanity from the nation of Mzantsi (South Africa), and have but to talk about about the acutal History, Culture, Customs, Traditions, Oral Traditions and history, Scared Rites Practices, languages, music, dance an traditional garb. Blue IQ had identified tourism as a serious progress space for funding, and its market research confirmed that for tourists visiting South Africa, a big part of the attraction is the ANC's world fame for having triumphed over oppression. No matter our understanding of the varied ways through which European methods of education sometimes failed African individuals, Africans proceed to be depending on the European method; an method that carries no high expectations of us. In local web designers iconiceyes.co.uk edinburgh , the European system relies largely on assumptions that we lack the intellectual and cultural capacity for thigh ranges of feat. I then worked as a pc-know-how journalist and PR author for about 15 years… writing for (and generally enhancing or managing) magazines like Well-liked Computing, Networking Management, Infosecurity News, Lightwave, Leaders, and the Harvard Business Review. Graphic designer employment is anticipated to grow by 4% (or eleven,000+ new jobs) from 2016 via 2026, slower than the 7% common progress price for all occupations, however this statistic could be very business dependent; for instance, graphic designers in print media (newspapers, magazines, catalogs, and so forth.) is predicted to shrink by 22%, while the job market for digital designers (web sites, computer systems and functions, and many others.) will develop by 20% over the same decade. On this explicit case in his travels in Botswana and Zimbabwe, we look specifically at his sojourn in Mzantsi."The word Boer merely means "farmer"and in the minds of the Africans it means a foreign "trekker', and is not synonymous with our word 'boor'. There are someplace round 300 totally different universities, postsecondary colleges, and unbiased establishments which can be accredited by the Nationwide Association of Schools of Artwork and Design Any of these can provide you with the necessary qualifications to get a job ready with the graphic designer job description. The image we get at the moment of Africa in past ages from the historical past taught in our schools is that Africans were savages and that, though Europeans invaded their lands and made slaves of them, they assert that they were in a method conferring an important an excellent favor on them; since they dropped at them the blessings of Christian civilization. If a graphic designer is part of a advertising or growth team, they often work inside a studio with other creative talent Some firms have a number of graphic artists resulting from their specialties in areas like video animation, images, or illustration. Understanding how to hire a graphic designer and ourselves prior to now and in actual time is of prime importance right here: the Present future, would require us to pay attention to ourselves and the way we conduct or live our ways of life: Tradition, and so forth. Just like with planning a business, it's essential to perceive who your online buyer is. There are lots of factors that will play into the way you design your website based on who you create it for. James Sofasonke” Sofasonke Mpanza, a neighborhood chief and advocate for higher housing for African folks residing in Johannesburg'. It was a really enjoyable expertise which explains why I decided to change my main from Information Technology to Graphic Design. By the point you might be completed with studying this information it is possible for you to to talk in regards to the internet development course of competently and never get taken advantage of by among the less than principled web designers out there. When you've got the flexibility to take easy product packaging and elevate it to the level of artwork, you might be a graphic designer in the making. The graphic designer's job is to successfully talk the meant message of the undertaking at hand visually to a specified audience. Graphic designers create and affect branding, which can help to promote services to 1000's - sometimes millions - of shoppers from all all over the world. The only recommended training to be able to full the duties within the web designer job description consists of a bachelor's diploma in net design. In-home graphic designers work in an organization's advertising and marketing or creative division. For example, some create the graphics used on retail merchandise packaging, and others may go on the visible designs used on ebook jackets. As a contract graphic designer, you might be your individual boss, set your individual schedule and pursue your individual initiatives. Many professional graphic designs speak of the satisfaction of making one thing visible or constructing a brand identity that can be seen by 1000's, if not hundreds of thousands of people. Photographs of designers reflect this and have a tendency to contain them looking at designs or their pc screens.

1 note · View note

ashleysouniqueblog · 5 years

Text

A Guide on “How To” Habana

If you came across this blog post, you may already have found out that planning a trip to Cuba from America is not the easiest task. There is not much information online and the information that is online conflicts. This may be since some of the information is 4-5 years old and things there are in the development stages. I too had a hard time finding information and this is what made me determined to pass on real experiences and suggestions.

My trip to Havana, Cuba was a full 3 days, from Thursday to Sunday. I planned this trip for myself along with 12 others. So here are some key takeaways:

1. Flights: In order to a book a flight to Cuba from America you have to fall into one of the 12 OFAC Categories. All airlines require you to choose one before being allowed to book the flight. Make sure that you choose correctly as you will be asked again when it’s time to check in and when you land in Cuba. Also, Visas must be purchased at check in or at the gate they can range anywhere from $20 to $100 depending on the airline and departure city.

· Visiting family

· Humanitarian projects or to provide support to the Cuban people

· Official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments and certain intergovernmental organizations

· Journalistic activities

· Professional research

· Educational activities by persons at academic institutions

· People to people travel

· Religious activities

· Public performance, clinics, workshops, athletic or other competitions and exhibitions

· Authorization to provide travel services, carrier services and remittance forwarding services

· Activities of private foundations, research or educational institutes

· Exportation of certain Internet-based services

2. Housing: Booking an Airbnb instead of staying in a hotel falls under OFAC “Support for The Cuban People” also if you do choose to stay in a hotel make sure it is not on the U.S. Department of State Restricted List. Quality Airbnb’s tend to get booked quick so make sure you are giving yourself time to life the life you want to while in Cuba. Make sure you communicate with the house host as some houses have strict rules. For example, you may not be able to bring outside food or drinks into the home, no guests can come to the house, no parties, no loud music, men may not be able tot sleep in the same room, etc.

Due to my group of people being over 10 people the options we had for Airbnb’s were off the back limited as we later found out that the city does not accommodate large groups very well. Furthermore, I found an Airbnb called “Blue Mansion Hostel My Way”. This home had none of the house rules as above and the host was more than accommodating while communicating with me before I booked. La Casa Blue Mansion Airbnb pictures does not do this house any justice. This house was beautiful and huge we had more than enough space!! Online it says that there were double beds in most rooms then 6 single beds split between 2 bedrooms. When we got there the single beds were Queen sized and the double beds were King sized. Everyone in my group had their own bed, and even some had their own room. Every bedroom had separate bathrooms and ample towels etc. There was 24/7 security, house cooks and waitstaff were on standby for whatever you may need, or request. This is a very clean family house and it has a very cultured feel. My group spent a lot of time in the many patio areas around the pool or in the bar club area that also had a pool table. We were very pleased.

3. Currency: Visa, Mastercard, American Express or any other debit/credit card is not accepted in Cuba so bring enough cash with you for your entire trip. US dollars is hit with an extra conversion penalty and lose value dramatically is you convert directly from USD to CUC. Therefore, we converted USD to EUR prior to our flights, then converted from EUR to CUC once we landed in Cuba.

Cuba has 2 currencies: CUC and CUP. You should always get CUC as it is more widely accepted, and CUC has the higher value. For instance, CUC is 1 to 1 to USD/EUR/CAD (roughly), while CUP is 1 to 25 USD/EUR/CAD. CUC is what we seen prices in tourist areas listed, while businesses that displayed CUP were in neighborhoods. Of course, food was cheaper in neighborhoods.

How much to bring? We were there for 3 days converted between $500-1,000 USD and once the trip was over we pretty much converted most of it back. It’s safe to bring more than what you’ll expect to spend just in case. Also, if you save your receipt from exchange centers in the airport, within 30 days they allow you to convert back without a fee at the same rate you purchased.

4. Airport Experience: When you first land in Cuba, you will be outside and will walk into the building. The customs agents and TSA are 90% women. Their uniforms are quite interesting as the military style miniskirts and black fishnet stockings fit very sexy. I was pleasantly surprised. Waiting on baggage claim was okay until my bag was literally the last one out on the belt and the moment I grabbed it, agents wanted me to step to a table on the side for an extra check. The bag that I checked was actually school supplies that I was planning to give to the kids at a school near our Airbnb. They were speaking Spanish and I only caught on to key words like “violation”. I was started to wonder why? There was nothing I brought that was against the law, just folders, composition notebooks, crayons, markers, and chalk. As they checked the pages on the notebooks they had all my friends who were waiting close the door come back to scan all of our bags through a metal detector. Shortly after, they let us go. Weird.

5. Airport Transportation: We booked airport transportation through our house because several of us took different flights and landed at different times. The house had someone waiting with a sign at every single one of our flights. Airport Taxis literally wait in the airport line all day to get someone who is going into the city, not from one terminal to the other. So, keep that in mind for your departure date because it will be hard to find a ride from one terminal to another.

6. Taxis: Taxis in the city are cheap. You’ll be fine but ask how much before you ride off with them so that you aren’t shocked by the rate. We allowed our house to organize taxis to and from the city and club. We were dropped off at different meeting points and gave him a time to pick us up. He was always on time.

7. WiFi: Most American cell phone plans do not work in Cuba. So as soon as you touch down you most likely will not be able to contact anyone. Hotels and Wifi parks sell WiFi cards $2 for an hour of online activity. Two guys in my group found a park and waited in a long line to get one. The rest of us did not see any of the WiFi parks. Some people were able to make calls from there cell at $2.49 a minute, but they could not receive a call. We were there for 3 days so soon after we stopped worrying about being able to get on social media and focused on enjoying the time and people that were right in front of us. If you are anything like me, be prepared, plan ahead. Download Maps.Me and download the Havana, Cuba offline map. Also, take screen shots of restaurants, addresses, important information, flight information, etc. as it is very likely you will not have connectivity.

8. Giving back to the Cubano kids: I planned a school drive as a form of giving back to the Cuban kids. We all brought supplies we thought may be scarce or just needed to be replaced to give to them. With the help of our Airbnb host we were able to get the Principal of a local school (I will not name the school) to allow us into the school to give the kids supplies. They were happy children with big bright smiles in their uniforms. This warmed my heart.

9. Restaurants: Most dishes we found in Cuba of course were seafood. But you were able to find chicken, salads, and pizza as well. I won’t detail all of them but 2 in particular. There is the O’Reilly 304 Gin Bar and Restaurant. We were all completely amazed by the bartender and all of his concoctions of drinks. We also met the manager Julio we completely accommodated us and had a million stories to tell of U.S. celebrities who has stopped by his spot. One thing I must say is that we were wondering what was taking so long with our food and soon after Julio and another guy comes in with fresh veggies and a string line of fish just caught out the ocean! Not to mention the food was seasoned very well! Make sure you try the salsa for the plantains, you will not be disappointed. Another day we went to Del Mar beach but met at Rachon Don Pepe, a beach hut restaurant. There drinks were $2.50 each! If you find yourself in the area stop by and get the lobster tail and boiled shrimp with hot sauce! There is also a pinacoloda spot next door that will completely give you beach vibes.

10. Beaches: The most popular beach that everyone says to go to is Veradero. This beach is 3 hours out of the city. Planning this trip, I did not want to have to commute 6 hours for anything, so I did some research on other beaches and found Del Mar. ‘Playa Estes Del Mar” was absolutely perfect!!! We all fell in love from the moment we walked up a sand hill and got to the top and saw the crystal-clear water and warm smooth sand. If I could I would go back just to have another day on that beach.

11. Cuban People: I’m not sure if I just didn’t know what to expect Cubans to look like but they look like us! The country is full of beautiful black and brown people! I absolutely loved the looks. Everyone we encountered either did not say anything to us or was very nice and talkative. I believe they are just as curious of us as we are with them. A lot of Cubans are artists, I was not expecting so much beautiful art! If you have the chance stop by the market and bring extra cash to buy some timeless pieces of art and paintings.

12. Night Life: Our first night in town we went to a place by the name of “Mio y Tuyo”, drinks and food was cheap, and they had a good DJ with the videos to the songs playing in the background. We found out later that is place is someone’s home. They made the first floor of their home into a club. Cool right? Our second night, we went to “Fabrica de Arte Cubano”. This place is about 7 clubs in one big building with patios. Each club played a different type of music but all of them made you want to stop and dance. All throughout the building was a display of art from local artists, which I absolutely loved. The bartenders make all the drinks hand crafted and none of the mixers come from machine. Everything was from fresh ingredients. The 3rd night we were going to go to “Fantasy” but we ended up throwing a party for ourselves in our Airbnb club (the house seriously has its own club).

13. Tours: Book the Vinales Cigar rolling and Horseback riding tour, it’s an all-day tour but is worth it, so plan to have 1 full day of your trip there. If you are short on time as we were, there is a Cigar Factory and Rum tour in the city that is roughly 3 hours, and they are only open on weekdays. If you book an Airbnb, allow the house host to book the tours for you as they have direct contacts to these businesses. But I do recommend not to pre-book the old American car tours. Online prices were average $45 per person, while walking up to them and negotiating they quoted 60 CUC per car (split between 3-4 people in each car) for a city tour and to drop us off at a Restaurant in Del Mar (30-40min out the city).

14. Time is not of the essence in Cuba as it is in America. They are not in a rush to do anything. If you set a time for your taxi to pick you up and you are not ready they will wait on you. You cannot pay to skip the line at the club (trust me we tried to offer $$$), you must wait in line. There is no quick bite to eat as all the food is made to order and the drinks are handcrafted with detail. So, find some patience.

I hope my tips help you and yours enjoy your trip! Follow my group and our tags on IG: @AshleySoUnique @Wolf_of_Peachtree @DrCarlaMoore @Corrien3 @__Jayalessia @_miamor @_meaganh @Supreme.bliss @modernmillennia @teddy_atl @blkgrl_ashley @lala_kki @quinashai_chelette

#SomewhereInCuba #Travel #Habana #Havana #Cuba #Havanacuba #Habanacuba #blacktravel #travelisthenewclub #travelnoire #westaytraveling #weworktotravel #blacktravelfeed #blacktravelgram #jetsettingchicks #travelblacktakeover #travelandleisure

3 notes · View notes

howardschatzphotography · 5 years

Text

On Seeing, A Journal. Above and Beyond: David Brooks December 11th, 2018

My most recent visitor to the studio for my Above and Beyond project is David Brooks, a Canadian-born American conservative commentator who writes a political and cultural column for The New York Times. He is a regular contributor to the PBS NewsHour and to NPR’s All Things Considered, and has been a reporter and op-ed editor for The Wall Street Journal. He is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard and also a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic. Brooks has written and edited several books, including the anthology Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing (1996) and Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (2000), On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense (2004), The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (2011), and The Road to Character (2015). HS: You've said "politics is being overtaken by tribalism.” Would you expand on that? DB: We used to have community, and community is based on common affection and trust. Jane Jacobs, who wrote Death and Life of Great American Cities, described looking out her window one day and seeing a little girl trying to get away from a guy kidnapping her. And she (Jacobs) couldn't help, and she thought: Maybe I should go down and intervene. And then she noticed that the butcher’s wife had come out of the shop, the fruit stand guy had come out, somebody had come out, the locksmith, and the guy was surrounded. And it turns out it wasn’t a kidnapping, it was a just a dad calling his daughter. But, that's what community is like. And she describes it very famously as a ballet on the street. And we used to have those ballets in a lot of neighborhoods, where people could trust each other, they looked out for each other, they kept each other safe. Over the last 50 years, we sort of lost that, we lost social capital, as they say, and we’re more isolated and alone. And when people are isolated and alone, they do what the revolutionaries tell them to do, which is they revert to tribe. And tribalism looks like community, because it is a kind of bonding and belonging, but it’s based on mutual hatred and not mutual affection. So, it’s always us/them, friend/enemy distinctions. And if you look at polarization today, it’s not that people love their own political party so much, they just hate the other one. That's the motivator, that's tribalism. HS: Hasn’t humanity always been tribal? Isn't it in our bones? DB: Well, it’s in our bones to make friend-enemy distinctions. It’s not in our bones to have a set of communities that rule out other communities, that have to be hostile to other communities. But it is possible to have a set of people where I'm in my community, you're in yours, I've got nothing against you and we’re probably joined by a higher community, which is our national community. HS: How do you find civility? DB: I think you have to get away from that sense that people who have that are naked and alone in a world that's hostile. Where people can't be trusted. And so, my basic view is, you have to start with local dinners with neighbors, where people actually get to know each other. HS: I'm sure that happens, probably all over the United States, in various little towns, but it doesn’t seem to be infectious, it doesn’t seem to last. DB: Yes. And there are a lot of reasons for that. I would emphasize the culture of individualism that says, "I need as much space as I can to be myself." It’s also probably true that as we get more diverse, it gets a little harder to form communities.Then there are some values; we value privacy above all. And so, in most nations around the world and at most times in America, it was very normal to go up to somebody’s house who you sort of knew, and knock on the doorbell, or ring the door. And now that never happens. You would think, no, I'm invading their privacy. I'm not going to do that. We put incredibly high priority on privacy, also on work. We work really hard and then when we get home, we just want to relax, we don’t want to socialize. There's a lot of value put on that.

HS: The gulf between peoples seems pervasive all over the world. Within any country, there are us and them. Muslims and Hindus. Christians and Jews. It’s seems like your dream of a loving, compassionate vision is something that’s not within the human genome. DB: I covered the Soviet Union coming down, the coming together of community there. I covered Nelson Mandela coming out of prison, the end of apartheid there. I covered the unification of Germany. And you saw these surges of people trying to come together across differences. And we had a country here, a political system, where it wasn’t complete partisan warfare, the way it is now. That's been a deteriorating issue we’ve had for 30 years. HS: I think it goes way back, such as famous politicians who hated George Washington. DB: Of course, politics has always brutal, but then politicians also worked together across party lines. Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, famously, hated each other, but they served in the same administration. And if you looked at the votes in most parties or most congresses, there was plenty of overlap. If you look at the Supreme Court, only two percent of cases 20 years ago, were decided on party lines. Now it’s well over 20 percent. There are concrete measures of growing tribal distrust. If you’d asked people a generation ago, do you trust the institutions of society, 70 or 80 percent said, yes; and now it’s only 20 percent. HS: Is this deterioration a sign of the end of our civilization? I mean, all empires self-destruct eventually? DB: Yes, it could be. When Gibbon described the end of the Roman Empire, he described it as a collection....Not a really functioning society anymore. Just a collection of isolated individuals. So, it could be, but I sort of doubt it. We go through bumpy times. If you look at 1968, it was way worse. If you look at 1932, it was worse. There have been times in our country where we’ve been in similar circumstances to today. HS: Is Trump as our president a symptom or a cause of our problems? DB: Well, it’s a symptom and a cause. He was elected because so many people are disgusted with Washington and hate what’s been done to them, or are disgusted with outsiders. And now he gets himself at the center of attention every single day by making friend-enemy distinctions, by saying those are evil people, we’re good people. He grew out of this distrust, but he plays on it and exacerbates it. HS: Can we survive him? DB: I think so. It won't be easy, I don't think our politics is going to recover for a long, long time. It will take a social recovery before we get a political recovery. But say he lasts another two years, we’ve endured two years of it, so far nothing. We’ve had a deterioration in norms and how we treat each other and think of each other. If he’s gone in two years, maybe it’ll get worse, maybe we get another version of Trump. But it’s possible that you can snap back. I just think that nothing is determined in life. And there are parts of the society that are actually kind of healthy, our economy, things like that. HS: Nothing’s determined, you can't predict the future for anything ever, really. What bothers me is the silence of good Republicans. There are bright Republican Congressmen and Senators. There are conscientious nation-loving human beings who are mute. They shudder that they have this president, but they relish what he brings them. DB: I've had many conversations with them on this subject. And, of course, I would like them all to speak up. And they say: Well, look at all the people who’ve spoken up, their careers are over. And so, what good would it do the country for my career to be over? Trump would still be Trump. You’d get some lunatic in place of me. And so, I’ll wait for my moment. I give them credit for some strength in that argument; if you speak up against Trump and you're in the Republican Party, you lose your next primary. The loyalty among Republican voters is to Trump. And not even to the party, just to Trump the person. HS: You've said: Trump takes every wound and repeatedly pokes holes in it. What do you mean exactly? DB: In our nation’s history, the most famous wounds are racial wounds. And so, he pokes at any racial prejudice and racial division. Religious wounds, city versus rural, pretty much all the divisions you can think of in society. The native versus the immigrant…he inflames one side or another of these divides. It’s just his marketing strategy. But, partly, it’s hard not to believe that he doesn’t have some level of bigotry. And then, finally, I think he just was raised in a culture of distrust. That the outsiders are out to get us, that life is a do or die battle. HS: What leaders do you most admire today? DB: I like a lot of senators. But mostly the happiest people I know are mayors, because they're actually doing stuff. The unhappiest are members of Congress. For example, a mayor I admire, though he’s controversial, is Rahm Emanuel of Chicago who came into a city that was vastly in debt, with school systems that were totally failing. He got the city out of debt and he closed some schools, and I think graduation rates have increased phenomenally, more than any other city in America. Not only because of him, it’s been through a ten-year project. And he’s just announced he won't run again, so he made a lot of enemies doing this stuff. But I think there are tens of thousands of children in Chicago now who have better education because of what he did. In Washington, you find people who are doing the best they can under bad circumstances. General Mattis, the Secretary of Defense, is doing the best he can in a bad circumstance. Some of the senators, Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, a Democrat. Ron Wyden, Ben Sasse, a Republican. They’re trying to do legislation in a bad circumstance. So I give them respect. HS: How would you change these negative circumstances? Obama tried. DB: He had the right feelings, he didn't have the right relationships. He didn't have a relationship of trust with the leaders of Congress, even in his own party. I don't think he liked hanging around with politicians, they just weren't his cup of tea. HS: How do you personally maintain a conservative bent, yet work for the New York Times? DB: I have a worldview. If I didn't have a worldview, I couldn't do my job. It’s informed by Edmond Burke and Alexander Hamilton, both of them conservative-ish guys, at least by the traditional definition of conservatism. So, I think my views are reasonably predictable. When you're writing for The Times, you're writing for a mostly progressive audience. And in that case, you just try to show respect. HS: Can you change people’s minds? DB: I think you can. I really think you can. By saying: Well, you believe X, here are the nine facts to prove that Y is possible. You can give people, a better way to live and their norms and values will subtly change.

HS: But what about the 40 percent of Americans who are pro-Trump, despite the fact he’s allergic to the truth? DB: I wish they would change their minds. But I spend most of my life with these people, and they say: Listen, I needed a change. I know he’s a jerk. I don't pay attention to all that circus stuff, all those tweets. But the economy is doing better, I feel like he’s shaken up Washington. I mean, they have their reasoning and it’s not completely idiotic. HS: You worked on a police beat in Chicago. How did that influence your thinking? DB: Profoundly, even though it was a very short time. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do journalism, I knew I wanted to write. But when I did the police beat, I came home every day with a story, and it was fun and exciting. I was super left wing, and the parts of Chicago I covered were some of the worst parts of Chicago at the time -- Cabrini Green, and the Robert Taylor Homes -- these big projects. And what I saw was earnest, well-intentioned social reform that had disastrous consequences. And it taught me that society is really complicated. And if you're going to do change you should do it incrementally. And be aware that you're probably going to have a lot of bad consequences you can't anticipate. And that's more or less Edmond Burke’s philosophy, so it turned me a little more conservative. HS: What is your process? You must have a time when you write, and then when you read. You must have time when you go to movies or have fun. DB:The fun part is the hard part. My rule is the more creative the profession, the more rigorous the schedule has to be. So I write from eight ‘til noon every day. And my wife knows to get out of my way. Before I've written, I'm just not a good person. After that, I relax. And so, if I've got my thousand words in then I relax. I listen to movie soundtracks. I need music, but I can't have any lyrics, so I listen to music soundtracks. HS: What are your thoughts about immigration? DB: I'm wildly pro-immigration. I was sort of raised by my grandfather, who was an immigrant and had a strong immigrant mentality. So, I admire the hustle of people who are immigrants. And then, just objectively, I think that immigrants are great for this country. They're less prone to commit crimes than natives. They're much more economically creative than the rest of us. Their family values are better. They're much more communal. HS: And our racial division in this country? DB: I'm somewhat optimistic about it. Since Ferguson, there's been a period of truth-telling. A lot of African-Americans saying things they wouldn't necessarily say in public or in mixed company. And that has not always been pleasant. But I think it’s a necessary stage to go through. I travel around the country with a team from the Aspen Institute, and we hold these dinners with people who are working in communities. And sometimes our dinners will be 40 percent African American, and sometimes the mood is really angry. But, I think that has to be expressed for us to move on and understand the situation in the country. HS: Are there opinions you've written that you regret? DB: Oh, for sure. I was a strong supporter of the Iraq war, that was pretty clearly a mistake. When I was young, before my kids were born, I would write hit pieces on people. Really criticizing, making fun of people, taking advantage of my verbal abilities to make others look small. And once my kids were born, then I said, "No, I don't want my kids seeing me as this kind of person." And so, I more or less stopped writing them.

HS: You often talk about the soul and heart and how people have the desire to do good. DB: Maybe that's midlife awakening. A lot of our problems come from giving that desire to be good short shrift.

#davidbrooks interview portrait art photography howardschatz npr politics news

4 notes · View notes

jasonfilbert · 3 years

Text

Vicarious Vaccinations

Yesterday! A red letter day! Hazzah! Hip! Hip! Hooray! Yesterday was the day I had been waiting for. What day is this, one might ask? Was it the day of my daughter's birth, which we have been waiting nine months for? The day that I was told, I had been the mega millions winner? The day that I finally received total enlightenment? Putt. Putt. “Nanananananana”? (Bill Murray)

No! Yesterday was the day that I had been waiting for. A day of anticipation, the way that an evil fat child waits for their coal on Christmas morning. Yesterday, I received the first of what I suspect will be several phone calls. A call from a desperate person asking for a religious exemption from a work enforced vaccination mandate.

To be clear, our church is not a place that says people should not get vaccines, yet I also believe as well as would be our church stance that it is “My body, My choice.” Funny how only five minutes ago that phrase meant something, I don't think anyone thought it meant. Words matter at least until the Newspeak Dictionary is completed somewhere in some later chapter of the book.

I hold the idea of bodily autonomy close and precious. I would have no problem issuing an exemption. However, the fact that there are now strangers calling and asking for said exemptions feels a bit like hearing knocking on the sealed door of Noah’s ark, or possibly Ken Hamm’s. Furthermore, it raises similar questions, both social and organizational.

Many have said that “politics is downstream of culture.” Yet, oftentimes people forget to think of this in terms of the relationship that exists (or at least should exist) between the Church and the society at large. I feel I can say with assurance that if the above statement is true concerning the relationship between culture and politics, I can also assert that the culture which forms the political arguments, is downstream of the Church.

Organizationally, we do not have the luxury of setting a domino trap meant to strike a match that will fall into a can of gasoline and set the house on fire, only to then tip the first, sit back, and stare confused claiming no knowledge of the crime. In short, the mechanics of the problem do not detach the cause. No matter how far away the flyer of the drone is, they are still responsible for the death of the good guy and his seven children. (Although, arguably there is a solid case in this instance that those responsible would have been the ones who issued the order. Albeit the operator could have denied the order, but in this case why would they?) I digress.

We must understand that socially and culturally, there are grave issues at stake in this discussion. First, of all (and after consulting with a lawyer) I have come to realize that even exemptions are no guarantee of job security. If such an order is given the only path to a legitimate exemption would be that institutionally, we would have been advocating against vaccines in general for years. We have not been, nor have I personally or corporately said that the Covid Vaccine is (in the words of Bobby Bushe’s Mamma) “Of the Devil”.

In light of this it appears that there really is not recourse for those that fall in the line of modern mainstream evangelicalism. The cynic in me might even propose that the cult of the emperor is seeking to push people toward the cult of the cult. The goal: to divide, isolate, and anger through marginalization and poverty.

Additionally, I feel that it should be seen socially (and bleeding into the organizational level) that the greater Church in America has failed to hold the systems of our government accountable. We have had megachurches for 40 plus years in this country. Yet, all the while we were too busy with youth groups, lazer shows, identity based ministries, and Barney to find some folks that would be willing to go to the local school board meeting. We were too concerned with fall festivals and seating arrangements, dress codes and alliteration, comfort and ease, and by it all we failed our communities. We failed our social calling to live the Gospel in public.

Yet, I am also tempted to say that we failed our neighbors. Socially and organizationally, how many of us were content with seeing faces on Christmas and Easter and asking for some great “love offering” praying for the pitance our culture could offer to us. The church played a pivotal role in forming one of the most moral and ethical societies to ever exist. Without this freedom would not have survived the 19th century. Yet, cheap hucksters took over and lived from the fat of that land. A populace that was charitable, but increasingly self absorbed. A populace willing to turn an eye as practical critical theory, game of pulpits nonsense ravaged the church.

It is into this that we arrive at one of the greatest concerns I have as a pastor. What do I do with the frantic stranger? What do I do with those “christians” who have not cast a shadow on the floor of their local church for years, yet now found themselves “religiously” opposed to a vaccine. “Christians” who have passively watched as millions have sacrificed their own children to the Asherim of our culture and now find themselves agreeing with “My body, My choice”. In short, I fear there is not much we can do. Not much that the church can do, short of encouraging the once closeted Christians to embrace the loss of of all things for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:8-10)

The greater question facing many who have found themselves looking for a vicarious vaccination through an organization that they have had very little to do with is a simple one; are you truly belonging to Christ? Currently we are not in a situation in which the church should violate authorities in order to accommodate people that we do not know. Clearly, if there were children being taken from parents, lives being taken in the streets, the church should see the ethically right decision to lie, obfuscate, and resist. Yet, we are not there yet. However, we are at a point in which many need to assess what it is that they value.

Yet, I suspect that simply, having warm fuzzies for a felt board Jesus you met in a distant Sunday school is not enough. This sort of relationship will not lead toward sacrifice and self denial. You will eventually submit. You will eventually offer your children. You will willfully own nothing and you will be happier for it.

Yet what of the sheep? Will they willfully submit? Will the faithful, those who did not forsake the assembly? Will they also seek a vicarious immunity to the pains of this world? My expectation is that they will not. Yet, the outcome for them will be remarkably different. These individuals, by biblical accounts already have the vicariously assured immunity of Christ risen. For these there is no great frantic rolodex, no great worried google search “churches in my neighborhood”. These individuals know the church, they know the leaders and the shepherds that have loved them, and cared for them through so much already. And I imagine that either by Covid or some other great upheaval in the near or distant future, there will be many in the coliseum waving their clean vaccinated hands crying, “Crucify them!”... “Crucify them!”... “Crucify them!”... There will be no shame in their faces, and their children will grin at the sight.

0 notes

benevolentbirdgal · 3 years

Text

“Thirteen″ Tips for Writing About Synagogues / Jewish Writing Advice / Advice for Visiting Synagogues

So your story includes a Jew (or two) and you’ve a got a scene in a synagogue. Maybe there’s a bar mitzvah, maybe your gentile protagonist is visiting their partner’s synagogue. Maybe there’s a wedding or a community meeting being held there. For whatever reason, you want a scene in a shul. I’m here as your friendly (virtual) neighborhood Jewish professional to help you not sound like a gentile who thinks a synagogue is just a church with a Star of David instead of a cross.

Quick note: The are lots of synagogues around the world, with different specific cultural, local, and denominational practices. The Jewish community is made up of roughly 14 million people worldwide with all sorts of backgrounds, practices, life circumstances, and beliefs. I’m just one American Jew, but I’ve had exposure to Jewishness in many forms after living in 3.5 states (at several different population densities/layouts), attending Jewish day school and youth groups, doing Jewish college stuff, and landing a job at a Jewish non-profit. I’m speaking specifically in an American or Americanish context, though some of this will apply elsewhere as well. I’m also writing from the view of Before Times when gatherings and food and human contact was okay.

Bear in mind as well, in this discussion, the sliding scale of traditional observance to secular/liberal observance in modern denominations: Ultraorthodox (strict tradition), Modern Orthodox (Jewish law matters but we live in a modern world), Conservative (no relation to conservative politics, brands itself middle ground Judaism), Reconstructionist (start with Jewish law and then drop/add bits to choose your own adventure), and Reform (true build your own adventure, start at basically zero and incorporate only as you actively choose).

Synagogue = shul = temple. Mikvah (ritual bath) is its own thing and usually not attached to the shul. Jewish cemeteries are also typically nowhere near the shul, because dead bodies are considered impure.

A Bar/Bat/Bnai Mitzvah is the Jewish coming of age ceremony. Bar (“son”) for boys at 13+, Bat (“daughter”) at 12+, and Bnai (“children”) for multiples (i.e. twins/triplets/siblings) or non-binary kids (although the use of the phrase “Bnai Mitzvah” this way is pretty new). 12/13 is the minimum, 12-14 the norm but very Reform will sometimes allow 11 and anybody above 12/13 can have theirs. Probably a dedicated post for another time. Generally, however, the following will happen: the kid will lead some parts of services, read from and/or carry the Torah, and make a couple of speeches.

Attire: think Sunday Best (in this case Saturday), not come as you are. Even at very liberal reconstructionist/reform synagogues you wouldn’t show up in jeans and a t-shirt or work overalls. Unless they are seriously disconnected from their culture, your Jewish character is not coming to Saturday morning services in sneakers and jeans (their gentile guest, however, might come too casual and that’d be awkward). 1a. The more traditional the denomination, the more modest the attire. Outside of orthodoxy woman may wear pants, but dresses/skirts are more common. Tights for anything above knee common for Conservative/Reform/Recon, common for even below knee for orthodox shuls. Men will typically be wearing suits or close to it, except in very Reform spaces. 1b. Really, think business casual or nice dinner is the level of dressiness here for regular services. Some minor holidays or smaller events more casual is fine. Social events and classes casual is fine too. 1c. Even in reform synagogues, modesty is a thing. Get to the knee or close to it. No shoulders (this an obsession in many Jewish religious spaces for whatever reason), midriffs, or excessive cleavage (as I imagine to be the norm in most houses of worship).

Gendered clothing: 3a. Men and boys wear kippahs (alt kippot, yarmulkes) in synagogues, regardless of whether they’re Jewish or not out of respect to the space. Outside of Jewish spaces it’s saying “I’m a Jew” but inside of Jewish spaces it’s saying “I’m a Jew or a gentile dude who respects the Jewish space.” Outside of very Reform shuls, it’s a major faux pass to be a dude not wearing one. 3b. There are little buckets of loaner kippahs if you don’t bring your own and commemorative kippahs are given away at events (bar mitzvah, weddings). Your Jewish dude character not bringing or grabbing one is basically shouting “I’m new here.” 3c. Women are permitted to wear kippahs, but the adoption of a the traditionally masculine accessory will likely be interpreted by other Jews as LGBTQ+ presentation, intense feminism, and/or intense but nontraditional devoutness. Nobody will clutch their pearls (outside of ultraorthodoxy) but your character is sending a message. 3d. Tefillin are leather boxes and wrappings with prayers inside them that some Jewish men wrap around their arms (no under bar mitzvah or gentiles). Like with the kippah, a woman doing this is sending a message of feminism and/or nontraditional religious fervor. 3e. Additionally, prayer shawls, known as tallit, are encouraged/lightly expected of Jewish males (over 13) but not as much as Kippahs are. It is more common to have a personal set of tallit than tefillin. Blue and white is traditional, but they come in all sorts of fun colors and patterns now. Mine is purple and pink. It is much more common for women to have tallit and carries much fewer implications about their relationship to Judaism than wearing a kippah does. 3f. Married woman usually cover their hair in synagogues. Orthodox women will have wigs or full hair covers, but most Jewish woman will put a token scarf or doily on their head in the synagogue that doesn’t actually cover their hair. The shul will also have a doily loaner bucket.

Jewish services are long (like 3-4 hours on a Saturday morning), but most people don’t get there until about the 1-1.5 hour mark. Your disconnected Jewish character or their gentile partner might not know that though.

Although an active and traditional synagogue will have brief prayers three times every day, Torah services thrice a week, holiday programming, and weekly Friday night and Saturday morning services, the latter is the thing your Jewish character is most likely attending on the reg. A typical Saturday morning service will start with Shacharit (morning prayers) at 8:30-9, your genre savvy not-rabbi not-Bnai mitzvah kid Jewish character will get there around 9:30-10:15. 10:15-10:30 is the Torah service, which is followed by additional prayers. Depending on the day of the Jewish year (holidays, first day of new month, special shabbats), they’ll be done by 12:30 or 1 p.m. Usually. After that is the oneg, a communal meal. Onegs start with wine and challah, and commence with a full meal. No waiting 4-8 hours to have a covered-dish supper after services. The oneg, outside of very, very, very Reform spaces will be kosher meat or kosher dairy.

To conduct certain prayers (including the mourner’s prayers and the Torah service) you need a Minyan, which at least 10 Jewish “adults” must be present, defined as post Bar/Bat/Bnai Mitzvah. In Conservative/Reform/Recon, men and women are counted equally. In Ultraorthodox women are not counted. In Modern Orthodox it depends on the congregation, and some congregations will hold women’s-only services as well with at least ten “adult” Jewish women present.

In Conservative and Orthodox shuls, very little English is used outside of speeches and sermons. Prayers are in Hebrew, which many Jews can read the script of but not understand. Transliterations are also a thing. In Reform synagogues, there’s heavy reliance on the lingua franca (usually English in American congregations). Reconstructionist really varies, but is generally more Hebrew-based than Reform.

We’re a very inquisitive people. If your character is new to the synagogue, there will be lots of questions at the post-services oneg (meal, typically brunch/lunch). Are you new in town? Have you been here before? Where did you come from? Are you related to my friend from there? How was parking? Do you know my cousin? Are you single? What is your mother’s name? What do you think of the oneg - was there enough cream cheese? What summer camp did you go to? Can you read Hebrew? Have you joined? A disconnected Jew or gentile might find it overwhelming, but many connected Jews who are used to it would be like “home sweet chaos” because it’s OUR chaos.

In Orthodox synagogues, men and women have separate seating sections. There may be a balcony or back section, or there may be a divider known as a mechitzah in the middle. Children under 12/13 are permitted on either side, but over 12/13 folks have to stay one section or the other. Yes, this is a problem/challenge for trans and nonbinary Jews. Mechitzahs are not a thing outside of orthodoxy. Some older Conservative synagogues will have women’s sections, but no longer expect or enforce this arrangement.

Money. Is. Not. Handled. On. Shabbat. Or. Holidays. Especially. Not. In. The. Synagogue. Seriously, nothing says “goy writing Jews” more than a collection plate in shul. No money plate, no checks being passed around, even over calls for money (as opposed to just talking about all the great stuff they do and upcoming projects) are tacky and forbidden on Shabbat. Synagogues rely on donations and dues, and will solicit from members, but don’t outright request money on holidays and Shabbat.

Outside of Reform and very nontraditional Conservative spaces, no instruments on Shabbat or holidays. No clapping either. Same goes for phones, cameras, and other electronics outside of microphones (which aren’t permitted in Orthodox services either). 11a. In the now-times an increasing number of shuls have set up cameras ahead of time pre-programmed to record, so they don’t have to actively “make fire” which is “work” (this is the relevant commandment/mitzvah) on Shabbat, so services can be live-streamed. 11b. After someone has completed an honor (reading from the Torah, carrying the Torah, opening the ark, etc), the appropriate response is a handshake after and the words “Yasher Koach” (again, Before-Times).

Jewish services involve a lot of movement. Get up, sit down. Look behind you, look in front of you. Twist left, twist right. A disconnected Jew or gentile visitor would be best off just trying to follow along with what an exchange student we had once termed “Jewish choreography.” Some prayers are standing prayers (if able), some are sitting prayers. It’s just how it is, although a handful of prayers have variations on who stands.

#jumlbr #jewblr #jewish #jewish writing help #jewish writing #jewish characters #writing jewish characters #jewish representation #writing advice #writeblr #writing jewish spaces #how to write synagogues #another long one sorry not sorry

228 notes · View notes

johnhardinsawyer · 3 years

Text

No Longer Strangers

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

7 / 18 / 21

Ephesians 2:11-22

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

“No Longer Strangers”

(A New Harmony)

Have you seen these flags that are flown at homes and businesses and put on t-shirts and bumper stickers? They look like American flags, but instead of being red, white, and blue, these flags are black and white. Have you seen these flags? Now, I’m not entirely sure what brought these white and black flags about, but someone, somewhere, is making some money selling them. I guess some people think they look kind of cool – and, maybe they do – but I’m not entirely sure what, exactly, these flags mean to many of the people who fly and wear them. I mean, I kind of know what these black and white flags mean, but a flag is a symbol – a powerful symbol – filled with so much meaning. Now, I want to be careful and say that I’m not trying to make a judgment statement here about who flies which flag. I am concerned, though, because it has begun to feel like the United States of America finds itself living under different flags – different ideologies, different forms of expressing ideas and loyalties – “United” in name, only. There is so much dissonance and very little harmony. We’re estranged from one another – strangers in this strange, yet beloved, land.

This is not the first time it’s been this way. Our ideological and cultural differences can cause us to operate in different social worlds, different media worlds, different social media worlds, even different physical worlds in terms of which town or neighborhood we choose to live in (or which town or neighborhood welcomes us in). We might live in the same country, and we might technically be speaking the same language as our neighbors – like English – but we’re really speaking different languages about what is important, and true, and good to us. And it is so hard for us to understand one another. It happens between people of different races and cultures. It happens between people of different ages, and generations, and socio-economic backgrounds, and access to technology. It happens within families and in schools. It even happens in the church.

So, whether we’re talking about God, or who we voted for, or where we think the country is headed, or what we think about the complexities of race relations and the police and school curriculum and all of the historical and emotional baggage contained therein, there are so many ways that people can be so far apart on so many things. We are strangers from one another – and, as we were taught as children, strangers can be dangerous, so. . . we stay away from one another, and the divide grows.

And then, along comes today’s reading from the Letter to the Ephesians and it totally upends the tribalistic differences to which we might cling. Because in Jesus Christ, any differences we might think are so important – any differences we might have to those around us – are wiped away and everyone is given a new identity. The artificial barriers of thought, and feeling, and education, and money, and other things that we humans build, are dismantled. Anything that separates us is torn down.

The Letter to the Ephesians was likely written by someone who was close to the Apostle Paul – one of his followers, perhaps. And the letter is written to the church at Ephesus, but it is really meant to be read by church – including ours.

Just so you know, the ancient city of Ephesus was a port town in present-day Turkey – across the Aegean Sea from Greece. Back in the time this letter was written, Ephesus was already well over 1,000 years old, and it was a thriving place with beautiful buildings, and a gigantic road from the harbor to the city – a first-century super-highway where eight chariots could ride side-by-side. Ephesus had a huge amphitheater, and a library the size of our sanctuary (a rarity in the ancient world), and the temple of Artemis, which was at least four times the size of our sanctuary.[1] In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus – the goddess of the hunt.[2]

So, in addition to the local – native – people, and the Greeks who conquered and settled the area, and the Romans who later conquered and settled the area, people from all over the known world traveled to and through Ephesus over the years, bringing other cultures and religions with them. These included Jews from Palestine and, later on, Christians. As you might imagine, this bustling melting pot of cultures, and races, and religions, was not without conflict. Sound familiar? It was like there were multiple flags flying over the same city – as many flags as there were viewpoints and loyalties. And, apparently, there were people who thought that their way of living and practicing religion was the best way – that they were the in-crowd and everyone else was out. There might have even been people in the church at Ephesus who felt this way about other people in the same church. Can you imagine? Shocking, I know, but people back then didn’t have many options in terms of churches. It’s not like they could pack up and leave to go to the other church down the street. There was only one church at Ephesus.

And then this letter arrives, stating that God has a different way of life, and faith, and community in mind for us. There’s only one church, after all, so maybe we should live and work to make it so. Now, many of the people in the church were so-called Gentiles – they were not ethnic or religious Jews, descended from one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Instead, they were locals, of Greek, or Roman, or some other lineage, and they had heard the good news about this Palestinian Jew, Jesus Christ, and had come to believe in him. Just prior to today’s passage, we can read the words later made famous by Martin Luther and other Reformers: “[f]or by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. . .” (Ephesians 2:8) Another way of putting it is that, in the very act of coming to have faith in Jesus Christ, you and I are saved by God’s grace. So these Gentiles in Ephesus, who have come to trust and follow Jesus, now find themselves as members of Christ’s body. They are adopted, as we heard last week, and are given a new identity as God’s own children.

There’s only one problem, though. They go to church with people who love Jesus, too, but who look down their noses at these Gentiles because they are not Jewish. I mean, Jesus was Jewish, so shouldn’t everyone who loves Jesus be Jewish too – with all of the Jewish rules and regulations, including being circumcised? To which the author of the letter to the Ephesians says, basically, “Don’t you know that God is up to something new and different for all of humanity, not just one small part of it?”

You see, there are these things that divide us as people. Maybe it’s where we’re from, or what we believe, or who our family is, or what we’ve been taught about who we are. And all of this makes us different from those people, whoever they may be and whatever flag they may be flying or pledging allegiance to.

But, as the author of today’s passage writes,

. . . now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (2:13-14)

In other words, Christ Jesus bridges the divide between human beings and, through his loving sacrifice, he draws us close together and makes us one people. No more walls. No more hostility. No more flags. Only the cross of Jesus Christ.

Can we still fly a flag? Yes, if we need to. Can we still love our country or our heritage? Of course! But, in Christ Jesus, our true country is God’s kingdom and our true heritage is built upon the loving and faithful foundation of prophets, and apostles, and Jesus, himself.

In so many ways, the dividing lines that we draw and walls we build might feel like our natural default setting as human beings, but they really go against who we truly are – who God made us to be. As the Celtic Christian author, Philip Newell, writes:

Like never before in the history of humanity, we are becoming aware that what we do to a part we do to the whole, that the parts will not be well as long as the whole is neglected, and that the whole will not be well if the parts are neglected. We know that it is meaningless to speak of being truly well as parents if our children are unwell. We know that we cannot claim true wellness for our nation as long as other nations are suffering. And we know that the human species can in no sense be considered healthy when the body of the earth is deeply infected. Wellness is found not in isolation but in relationship. . . [The Holy] Spirit is breathing a new vision of oneness into our awareness today. And it transcends the narrow boundaries that our nations and religions have tried to place around us. A new and vast Pentecost is stirring in the human soul. How will we serve it?[3]

Now, this was written ten years ago, long before Covid-19 vaccines and Delta variants, but it somehow rings quite true in the face of all that we’re facing. We are connected to one another, even if we don’t act like it. I find Newell’s question compelling. The Holy Spirit “transcends the narrow boundaries that our nations and religions have tried to place around us. . . How will we serve it?”

How will we serve the Holy Spirit in the spirit of the oneness to which God is calling us, and leading us, and perhaps dragging us against our wills as we pray with our lips for things to be on earth as they are in heaven and yet live in such a way that we would gladly have nothing to do with a neighbor who thinks or acts or lives differently from us?

This is tough stuff, my friends, but in Christ Jesus, the God who might seem so far off from sinful and petty human beings, like you and I, brings us near. And in Christ Jesus, the people who might seem so far off from us are brought near, too – from Mitch McConnell to Nancy Pelosi, from rainbow flags to MAGA hats, from Tucker Carlson to Bill Maher, from Black Lives Matter to Blue Lives Matter, from wherever you may be – and whatever flag you fly – and how you see the world to wherever those who are most strange to you and estranged from you are.

How will we serve the Spirit? By living and working and serving and loving until all people are no longer strangers. We have our work cut out for us – whether that work takes place deep in our own hearts or out in the world, dismantling our pride and our prejudice and making us one. Who is farthest away from you and how is the Spirit moving you to become one? In Christ Jesus, God is creating a new humanity that embraces our very human need for one another – our need for harmony and wholeness and peace. . . even with those people who seem so far off from us.

We have been saved by grace and this is not our own doing, but may we respond to God’s grace by living and working for God’s harmony, and wholeness, and peace.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

-----------

[1] Watson E. Mills, ed. Mercer Dictionary of the Bible (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1990) 255-256. James L. Blevins - “Ephesus”.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis.

[3] J. Philip Newell, A New Harmony: The Spirit, the Earth, and the Human Soul (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011) xiii-xiv.

0 notes

dipulb3 · 4 years

Text

Decades after Klansmen killed 5 during protest, a North Carolina city's apology comes too late for some

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/decades-after-klansmen-killed-5-during-protest-a-north-carolina-citys-apology-comes-too-late-for-some/

Decades after Klansmen killed 5 during protest, a North Carolina city's apology comes too late for some

Over 40 years later, the North Carolina city has formally apologized for the deaths of five people during an attack by Ku Klux Klan members and the American Nazi Party.

The Greensboro Police Department has declined to comment on the resolution.

The resolution is the latest in efforts by cities and states across the US to acknowledge past tragedies. The shifts in response come as the country reckons with racism and police reform in the wake of nationwide protests and the deaths of Black men and women at the hands of police.

“We have been pushing for this all 40 years, ” Johnson said. He describes the resolution’s passing as a weight off of his shoulders.

“My children have had to grow up on the cultural view in this city that I was an evil person, that I set this up, that I knew it was going to happen and that I wanted a fight with the Klan and so forth,” he said. “Just a lot of nonsense but I think that has cleared up a little bit now and we’re given a little more credit for trying to do the right thing.”

The attack, commonly referred to as the Greensboro Massacre, happened on November 3, 1979, when Communist Workers Party members met for a “Death to the Klan” rally, according to an account of the massacre and its aftermath published by The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

The multiracial group of protesters gathered at the center of the Morningside Homes, a housing development in a majority Black neighborhood. Days before the rally, Klansmen and neo-Nazis from across North Carolina heard about the planned demonstration.

As the marchers gathered, the Klansmen followed the demonstrators.

The two groups taunted one another until shots were fired, though according to UNC at Greensboro, it’s unclear where the shots originated. As tensions escalated, Klansmen and neo-Nazis grabbed firearms from their car and began exchanging fire with demonstrators, ultimately killing five.

Cesar Cauce, Dr. James Waller, William Evan Sampson, Sandra Neely Smith and Michael Nathan lost their lives in the massacre.

“This apology is 41 years too late,” Councilwoman Michelle Kennedy said during a virtual City Council meeting on October 6. “On behalf of the 5-year-old kid that I was then and the terror that that sparked for me and the fear that I saw in people’s faces for the first time in ways that as a White woman I will never fully understand, I am sorry for what the city of Greensboro failed to do on that day and for the things that we did.”

“There is nothing in my professional life or really in my adult life that means more to me than saying what we are saying tonight and the only thing I regret is that it didn’t happen 41 years ago,” she said.

Why the resolution says police were complicit

The resolution acknowledges that the Greensboro Police Department knew about the planned attack by the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party but failed to warn the marchers from the Communist Workers Party (CWP).

A police informant told the Klan about the planned rally. The “longtime Klan member and former FBI informant was hired by the police to attend and report on meetings of the Klan and local communist organizations,” according to UNC at Greensboro.

The informant told the police about the Klan’s plans for an armed confrontation, but the resolution says that the police did not in turn warn the CWP about the potential for violence. Police were already wary of the march and the CWP activists.

A day after the incident, warrants were issued for 14 Klansmen and neo-Nazis. Less than a month after the massacre, on December 12, the men “were each charged with four counts of first-degree murder, one count of felony riot, and one count of conspiracy.”

A year later, after a weeklong deadlock at trial, the all-White jury “returned a not guilty verdict on all five murder counts.” In 1983, new charges were filed in the case, but a second trial again led to acquittals.

Eventually, after a trial in a civil suit filed by victims against the City of Greensboro and others, “on June 6, 1985, $351,500 was awarded in the wrongful death of Michael Nathan. Smaller amounts were awarded to survivors Tom Clark and Paul Bermanzohnm, while no money was awarded to the estates of Waller, Cauce, Sampson, and Smith,” according to UNC at Greensboro.

Not all were in favor of approving the resolution

Despite the board’s vote earlier this month, two council members did not agree with the apology.

“It was a horrible, horrible day with the tragic loss of life but I do not believe that the City and the Police Department knew of the events that were about to take place on that fateful day,” Councilwoman Marikay Abuzuaiter told Appradab in a statement.

Both Abuzuaiter and Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann voted against the resolution, because they say language in it suggests that police knew about the impending attack and, according to their review of reports regarding the incident, those are unsubstantiated claims.

“I find myself in the difficult, indeed impossible, position this evening of being in support of a formal Resolution of Apology but unable to support this resolution based on its language indicting the City of Greensboro Police Department and other City personnel for an event that occurred 41 years ago and one which has been exhaustively investigated and vetted,” Hoffmann said during last week’s meeting and in a statement to Appradab.

After reviewing three investigations and reports from 1980, Hoffmann said, “neither report found evidence of willful or wanton conduct by the officers of the GPD prior to the actual altercations between the opposing parties.”

“I wish this event had never occurred; we always grieve the loss of life,” she said. “But I find nothing in the contemporaneous reporting of this event that convinces me of collusion or malicious action or inaction on the part of the Greensboro Police Department or City personnel.”

“I unequivocally reject the thinking that while this Resolution indicts a police department of 41 years ago, it does not impact our current Police Department and Chief. The words of this Resolution continue to place our Police Department and our City under a cloud of negativity as we strive to continue moving forward and making progress in all areas in a year that has been difficult and challenging.”

A continuous 40-year push, but why now?

In 2009, a Greensboro City Council statement of regret was passed, according to Hoffmann, with which she and Abuzuaiter were personally involved through their work and membership on the city’s Human Relations Commission.Then, after the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one person was killed and 19 were hurt after a speeding car drove into a crowd of counterprotesters ahead of the “Unite the Right” rally of White nationalists and other right-wing groups, an apology motion was made. That motion passed 7-1.

Rev. Johnson, who was involved in leading the 1979 march, told Appradab that even though the city council issued a statement of regret in 2009, it was unclear what they were regretful for.

“I think there are three things involved in an authentic apology: One is clarity on what exactly you’re apologizing for, two to the best of your ability to say why you think this happened, what was fueling it and three, what is going to be done about it.”

Johnson said these elements were addressed to some degree, but not fully.

“The city has been very reluctant to criticize the police department and if they had actually told the truth right after ’79, many of the police, probably, including the chief would have had to go to court and possibly have been convicted,” he said.

Last year, Johnson formed a group of religious leaders, participants and eyewitnesses to the events of 1979 to meet with members of the city council to craft a resolution.

Last Wednesday, Johnson’s community- based organization, The Beloved Community Center hosted a Facebook Live with survivors and supporters in response to the city’s vote and apology.

“I want us to appreciate the magnitude and the depth of what happened,” he said in the video. “But having said all that, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the City Council.”

The resolution also says that every year, the City of Greensboro will honor and award five graduating seniors at James B. Dudley High School with “Morningside Homes Memorial Scholarships,” an academic award of $1,979 in memory of Cauce, Waller, Sampson, Smith and Nathan.

The scholarships will be given to students who submit pieces of an expressive medium, or other forms of expression focusing on racial and social justice issues.

0 notes

jewish-privilege · 5 years

Link

Eric Lidji is a man who cares deeply about modest ambitions. He has lived in Pittsburgh on and off for 20 years. It is a city perfectly sized to his sensibility, neither very small nor very large—a place known to but mostly ignored by those who do not live there. Lidji, 36, has held many jobs; most recently, in late 2017, he became the director and only permanent staff member of the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives, a repository of early-20th-century local Yiddish-theater posters as well as records from dozens of small-town synagogues in western Pennsylvania. But even before he became an archivist, Lidji’s work has always been the same: He is a diarist of small delights, a chronicler of curios, an ardent psalmist of Pittsburgh’s quirky charms.

Like many of the 49,000 other Jews in the Pittsburgh area, Lidji was socializing at a local synagogue on the final Saturday in October last year when he heard the first rumors of a shooting at the nearby Tree of Life synagogue. The news was soon confirmed: Eleven Jewish worshippers had been murdered. Lidji felt paralyzed: Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, was still ongoing, and he wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t until a few hours later that something clicked, and Lidji felt a certain desperation stirring alongside his sorrow. Already, people were laying artwork and stones, which Jews customarily place on graves, on the sidewalk around the synagogue where the shooting had taken place. Many of the accumulating objects were fragile and homemade, with no clear owner or steward, left outside without protection against Pittsburgh’s notoriously wet weather. This was not just an outpouring of grief, but a proliferation of artifacts—artifacts that, in Lidji’s view, should be preserved.

On the Monday morning after the shooting, Lidji met with half a dozen colleagues who work in other divisions of Pittsburgh’s Heinz History Center, where the Jewish archives are housed. Together they formed a task force, fanning out to as many vigils, funerals, and religious services as they could. They filled their bags with copies of programs and approached speakers after public events, asking them for their notes. Whenever Lidji spotted someone carrying a sign, he would hurry over and hand them a business card, hoping they would call him when the card reappeared at the bottom of a purse or in a pocket emptied for laundry and offer to donate what they had made. Sometimes he felt overwhelmed. On the Tuesday after the shooting, he showed up at a protest against President Donald Trump in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh’s historic Jewish neighborhood, to find thousands of people gathered in the streets carrying signs and banners. “It felt like … archiving the ocean,” he told me.

The grim reality of Jewish history is that Lidji is not the first archivist of his kind. Medieval Jews buried family heirlooms in the walls of their houses in times of plague, fearing that they might be blamed for the disease. Scholars founded the Yiddish institute YIVO in the early 20th century, recruiting ordinary Eastern European villagers to collect photographs and folktales of a culture threatened by pogroms and mass migration. Emanuel Ringelblum led a covert effort to collect and bury artifacts documenting life in the Warsaw Ghetto in the early years of the Holocaust, before its inhabitants were murdered and its remaining structures burned to the ground.

...Since the attack, Lidji has experienced a personal religious transformation: After nearly 15 years of haphazard Jewish observance, he started attending services every day. But there were other reasons to show up for prayer: It has proved a useful venue for winning people over to the cause of archival collection.

...After the attack, Lidji’s first big challenge was becoming more visible to the community: being unobtrusively, insistently present at memorial events, and building relationships with community leaders. His second big challenge was convincing the Pittsburgh Jewish community that its history is worth preserving.

The first time Lidji felt “any sense of accomplishment,” he told me, was when a man who had been “polite but reticent” about the archival project came over during morning minyan one day and announced that he had found “the perfect object.” On the day of the shooting, a boy had been celebrating his bar mitzvah at an Orthodox synagogue about a mile away from Tree of Life, and continued the service even as news of the shooting reached the community. The bentscher, or book containing the prayers said after meals, captured the moment perfectly, the man told Lidji: It featured the boy’s name and the starry Pittsburgh Steelers logo wrapped around the date, 10.27.18. Lidji eventually got hold of one of the bentschers.

The most significant items Lidji has collected have what he calls “the shine,” a certain raw, emotional quality that indicates an object’s clear connection to the past. In the week after the attack, students at the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh gathered and expressed their feelings on Post-its. “My childhood illusion of security as a Jew was shattered,” one student wrote. Lidji and his colleagues collected programs from memorial events, some more pointed than others: A community with a large Bhutanese population hosted a vigil, where attendees seemed to feel acutely the dangers of being an ethnic minority. A large Reform Jewish congregation, Rodef Shalom, hosted a small event where the preschool director reported that ever since the attack, the children had been obsessed with building elaborate protective structures out of blocks.

...A few weeks after the attack, Lidji got a call from a local family who wanted to donate a sign they made for the first memorial vigil, on the night of the shooting. When the mother brought her two children, 3 and 5, to the archives, the older child asked why they had to give the sign away. Sometimes, Lidji told her, things are so important that we have to make sure they will be around for a really long time. Right, the girl’s mom added. One day, you will be able to bring your grandchildren to see this sign.

In late summer, Lidji picked up several vanloads’ worth of material from Jewish organizations around town, ranging from condolence notes to quilts to paper cranes they had received in the preceding months. Lidji said it will probably take him at least a year to go through it all. And there’s more: Tree of Life and the other two congregations that were in the building during the shooting received an estimated 10,000 letters in the days after the attack. It is unclear where they will end up.

“People will tell this story someday, and they’re going to tell it using this information that we’ve all left behind for them,” Lidji told me. “We’ve only done as good a job as we could do. We couldn’t save everything.”

...Lidji has had to figure out how to start telling the story of the Pittsburgh shooting, a story with much larger and darker implications than any he’s had to tell before. At first, it was Jewish organizations in and around Pittsburgh that approached him to help them make sense of the shooting—the Orthodox yeshiva where he went to high school, an area synagogue where one of the victims’ children attend services. Eventually, he started getting requests from people who live farther afield. In June, Lidji spoke at a convention in Colorado of mostly non-Orthodox chevrot kadisha, or sacred societies, made up of the members of Jewish communities who oversee the washing and burial of the dead. The convention was held not long after a gunman allegedly killed 51 people and wounded dozens more in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and also not long after a 19-year-old man allegedly opened fire in a synagogue in Poway, California, murdering one woman and injuring three others, including a rabbi and an 8-year-old girl.

Lidji began his talk with a story he sometimes tells when he’s trying to explain the deeper meaning of the archives project. Psalm 90 begins, “A prayer of Moses, the man of God.” According to Jewish tradition, most of the Psalms were composed by King David, who was born centuries after Moses died. How, Lidji asked, could David have known what Moses had said in his prayers?

In answer, Lidji offered his interpretation of a line from the Radak, a medieval Jewish commentator, painting a scene of dramatic discovery: King David, unable to sleep and wandering around his palace at night, finds a pottery jar containing a mysterious scroll bearing Moses’s prayers. How meaningful it must have been, Lidji said, for David to hold in his hands the words of the Jewish tradition’s greatest prophet. Psalm 90 itself describes how insignificant human events must seem to God: For in Your sight, a thousand years are like … a watch of the night. And yet the Jewish people, Lidji explained, have been able to maintain continuity in part because their archives have let them “come back later and be reminded.”

The bar mitzvah boy who persevered through his prayers even as his synagogue went on lockdown will one day die. The little girl who gave her sign to the archives will one day die. From dust to dust: A century hence, no one who witnessed the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and its aftermath will be around to explain why they loved Squirrel Hill. If it survives, Lidji’s archive will be all that’s left to tell a more textured story. Depending on what comes next, those stones and signs and notes of grief could tell radically different stories: of a rare aberration in American Jewish history, or the restarting of an ancient clock.

#long post #pittsburgh shooting #z''l

133 notes · View notes