Grandma Says No!

A little over a year ago my last living grandparent died. Grandma Nettie was ninety-four years old. The youngest in a family of Jewish immigrants from central or eastern Europe, Nettie was born in Philadelphia in 1925. Soon after Nettie’s birth her mother died and her father, not being able to afford to keep his family together, sent his younger children to live in an orphanage in Brooklyn - “The home”, as Nettie and her siblings called it. 

Although they were poor and didn’t always live together, Nettie’s family remained intact and she felt a deep bond of love, especially with her closest siblings. Growing up poor and Jewish in Brooklyn during the depression, Nettie developed a strong sense of politics. As a teenager she joined the Young Communist League and other leftist political groups. In her early adulthood, on a retreat out of the city with one such group, she met Jerry, fell in love, and eventually started a family.

Nettie and Jerry were of a generation of American Jews who materially benefited from the acceptance of Jews into American Whiteness. Their lives followed a quite common Jewish migration pattern within the United States in the twentieth century - from a poor childhood in urban New York City, to a middle class adult life on suburban Long Island, to retirement in southern Florida. 

Less common was the fact that through their upward economic movement, and despite some of the cultural norms they adapted into, they maintained the leftist politics and values of their youth. In 2008, they hosted a dinner party for people in their retirement community where I went with a couple of friends to talk with their community about the election and urge their friends to vote for Obama. 

Nearly ten years later, during what would be the last time the whole family celebrated her birthday together, Nettie was holding court in the way she often did - her children and grandchildren, now all grown, were sitting around her in her living room as she went on an hour or so long, semi-interrupted, monologue in which she offered commentary on each of us that covered everything from how we looked, what we were up to in our lives, what we were and weren’t eating, what we should or shouldn’t be doing, how we should or shouldn’t be living… like the matriarch that she was. 

At one point in this rambling monologue, she got very serious about the political legacy that she wanted to make sure we, her grandchildren, were carrying out. Political action, values of decency, humanity, fighting for the marginalized and oppressed… standing up for those whose voices are being silenced, whose rights are being trampled, this above all else was what Nettie wanted for and from her grandchildren. 

Then, in what may or may not have been an intentional injection of humor, she looked at me and said, “I’m not worried about Jonah”, referencing a recent time I was arrested at a protest, “but some of you, I’m not sure”, and she slapped my cousin Nathan who was sitting right next to her. The room broke into a deep familial laughter as Nathan, a confused, “what did I do?” look on his face, began trying to defend his own record of political activism. 

The next time the family all gathered together was a year and a half later, a month after Nettie died, and just over a year ago. We sat around my uncle’s living room in upstate New York, Nettie’s children, grandchildren, and a few member of our extended family, some who I hadn’t seen in years. As we sat there remembering her, as though waiting for her to hold court in the way she would, my sister brought into the space an impression of Nettie that was so spot on that the distant family members who had never heard it before looked around, half expecting to see Nettie walking into the room. And though her body was not there, her presence could absolutely be felt as my sister channeled not only her voice but her full spirit, going around the room commenting on each of the children and grandchildren, how I looked, what my uncle was and wasn’t eating, what my cousin’s were and weren’t doing with their lives. Deep familial laughter filled the room.

And then the stories started flowing. We were remembering her, we were fulfilling her dream that her family would stay a family after she was gone. At one point my brother came in with what would become the story of the afternoon:

In the late fall of 2004 Nettie came to New York City and was staying with my mother and brother in their apartment on the Upper West Side. One night, in the middle of the night, she got up to get a glass of water from the kitchen and she fell. She tried calling out for help but her voice, uncharacteristically soft, did not carry through the apartment, so she called 911. 

A little while later, my mother was woken up by paramedics banging on the door. Half asleep, as she walked towards the front door, she looked towards the kitchen and saw her mother on the floor. Confused by the scene in front of her, she let the paramedics in and led them over to Nettie. They helped her get up and regain her balance. After some initial examination, Nettie had regained her composure and was feeling more embarrassed than anything else. The paramedics were insisting on taking her to the hospital but she refused. She wanted the incident to be over and never spoken of. 

In order to allow her to remain at the apartment and not be taken to the hospital, they began asking a series of questions to ensure that she was in a sound mental state. She was doing fine with the questions. She could say where she was, who she was visiting, what the year and date was. Then they asked her who the president of the United States was. She, gathered herself together, looked at them with the fortitude of a dignified elder and said emphatically, “I hate him and I won’t say his name”

The room burst in to deep, loving, and unmitigated laughter. A laughter full of pride, full of awe, full of grief. That was our Grandma Nettie… the ferocity, the integrity, the “I don’t care who you are or what the situation is, I will not back down from standing by my values and beliefs”. The power of a grandmother saying “No!” In the way only a grandmother can.

As the laughter died down and the tears were being wiped away, one of the distant family members, one who I barely knew, another elder, another grandmother, started to speak. “You know”, she said in an almost embarrassed but also proud voice, “I have to tell you, that happened to me last year, and I said the same exact thing.” 

The room burst again. More laughter, more tears, more awe and pride in the strength and power of our elders, in the fortitude and determination of our grandmothers. 

This past Friday, hours before sunset on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died. I was surprised at how hard it hit me. I was sitting at home, in the ceremonial space I had set up for the holiday - round challah fresh out of the oven, candles not yet lit, wine, apples and honey, pomegranate juice and seltzer all by my side - my laptop open to the services at Lab Shul. I was already in a place of deep emotional reflection and spiritual openness from the beautiful music of the service. Rabbi Amichai was giving his d’var, a call to action, to entering this new year with the determination to build the better world we aspire towards. 

And while he spoke of the crises that we face, of the responsibility we have to take, I glanced over at the chat and saw that someone had posted that RBG had just died. I didn’t quite believe it, and at the same time I knew it was true, knew it had to be true. A few moments later, Rabbi Amichai returned to the screen and shared the news with the community. It was just as we were about to say the Mourners Kadish, the prayer to honor those who have died. Then he lead the community through this blessing, tears streaming down his face, his voice breaking with grief. 

Moments later the service was over. I closed the tab on my computer and sat there for a minute, tears now running down my face, then logged into what has become my regular Friday evening Shabbat zoom gathering. As people started logging in having just heard the news or hearing the news for the first time, we sat together, as together as people alone in their living rooms can be, mostly wordless. Tears continued while we made our way through the initial rituals, my voice breaking as we dedicated candles to this powerful woman, to the values she fought for, and to the space she left that we must all fight to fill. 

When I think about why this death hit me so hard, hit so many so hard, I think it might be that Ruth Bader Ginsberg was a grandmother. She had grandchildren who she loved and who loved her very much. But she was also held the role of grandmother to many, a beloved and respected elder, a voice of reason and conscience in a cacophony of anything but. She held together so much of what so many of us cherish and value. RBG was far from perfect. Even she would tell you that she was not right about everything. But over the last quarter century, she consistently modeled what it looks like to “not desist from doing your part”.

In the end, much of her part was to be that grandmother’s voice, to be that elder who stands up and says, “No”. No, you will not discriminate on the basis of sex. No, you will not have dominion over women’s bodies. No, you will not dismantle the voting rights act. No, you will not continue this march towards fascism. She did not always win. Her, “No” was often a dissent from the ruling opinion. But she made sure that her words would be heard, that they would be recorded, that they would continue on as guidance, as precedent.

As we get closer to November, I find myself experiencing more fear than I am used to. It is a fear that is older than me, a fear I can’t quite get a handle on. It is a fear that makes me want to take everything and everyone I care about and hold them close. It is a fear that wants me to make contingency plans and also knows that there are some things that cannot be planned for. 

I am under no delusion about the world we are living in, about what time it is on the world’s clock. I know that so much of what we face is not unprecedented, that so much of what I fear is already the reality for so many. This government is already experimenting on women bodies, already locking kids in cages, already engaged in the extrajudicial murder of Black and Indigenous bodies by agents of the state. The land is already on fire and under water. This land has already seen apocalyptic genocide of it’s Indigenous stewards. And yet, there is work that can be done. It may not be completed in my lifetime but I cannot stand idly by. I must act and continue to act in whatever ways I can. 

My Grandma Nettie, at ninety-four years old, was so worried about the state of this country that her last wish before she died was that all of us, her children and grandchildren promise to vote for Biden. It was, for her, one last way to say “No” to the current regime, to the direction this country has been headed. 

Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s last request was that her replacement not be named until the next president is installed. It was, for her, one last way of saying “No” to the current regime, to the direction this country has been headed.

These grandmothers and so many other grandmothers are saying “No”, have been saying “No”. For generations, grandmothers have put their bodies on the line, they have held families together, they have offered us their wisdom and guidance. They spent their lives doing their part. The work is not complete. We must not desist from doing ours.

Responsibility & Action

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil…”

-Hannah Arendt

In a world of total moral collapse there was a small minority who mustered extraordinary courage to uphold human values.... They stand in stark contrast to the mainstream of indifference and hostility that prevailed during the Holocaust. Contrary to the general trend, these rescuers regarded the Jews as fellow human beings who came within the bounds of their universe of obligation.

These words are pulled from the Yad Vashem (Holocaust Remembrance Center) website. The Jewish community holds a special place of honor for non Jews who have, in our time of need, when we were the targets of violence and systemic oppression, chosen to put their lives on the line to stand alongside us and stand up to injustice on our behalf. We call them the Righteous among Nations, and we hold them in the highest regard.

I think often of these people, the ones there are books and movies about, but also the ones whose names will never be known, sometimes not even to the people they stood alongside of. I think most often of the ones who helped my grandparents; who gave them money, a place to stay, who got them papers, and eventually helped them make their way to safety and freedom. 

When I think of these people I think about their courage, I think about their strength. These people were able to transcend the conditioning of their oppressive society, they were able to stand as their sovereign selves and take moral action inside of an immoral social norm. And that is why they are held in such high regard.

There is an evil which most of us condone and are even guilty of: indifference to evil. We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrongs done unto other people. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself; it is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous. A silent justification, it makes possible an evil erupting as an exception becoming the rule and being in turn accepted. 

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel spoke these words in a 1963 speech, just three paragraphs before his famous phrase, “some are guilty, but all are responsible”. But he was not talking about the holocaust or referencing antisemitism, he was speaking about racism in America. He was speaking about the need for all of us, no matter how pure we judge our own hearts, no matter how much we trust our own intentions, to recognize that our hearts cannot in fact be pure, our intentions cannot in fact be trusted unless we are actively taking responsibility for the ills and evils of the society in which we live. 

… an honest estimation of the moral state of our society will disclose: Some are guilty, but all are responsible. If we admit that the individual is in some measure conditioned or affected by the public climate of opinion, an individual’s crime discloses society’s corruption. In a community not indifferent to suffering, uncompromisingly impatient with cruelty and falsehood, racial discrimination would be infrequent rather than common…

This past memorial day a police officer in the city called Minneapolis brutally murdered George Floyd, a forty-six year old Black man in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day. Three other police officers stood by and let it happen, choosing to yell at the people filming the murder rather than intervene to stop it. Who was guilty? Who is responsible?

Two weeks earlier police officers in the city called Louisville shot and killed Breonna Taylor, a twenty-six year old Black woman in her bed after breaking into her apartment in the middle of the night. A local judge had signed a “no knock” warrant, giving police “permission” to break into her apartment. Who was guilty? Who is responsible?

For the last ten years stories and videos of law enforcement (or white people who’ve taken it upon themselves to “enforce” the laws of white supremacy) killing, murdering, lynching Black people have filled media and social media platforms across this country. We, all of us who live in the land that is now called America, but specifically those of us who are not Black, those of us who are not Indigenous, those of us with white skin, those of us who are not constantly living in fear that our bodies will be destroyed by the very people society claims are there to protect us, have stood by and watched it happened. Some of us, every few years, have taken to the streets to demonstrate our grief, our rage, our disapproval of this system of white supremacist violence. Some of us do more, some of us do less. And the killings continue, the lynching, the murder, the racial terror continues… Who is guilty? Who is responsible? 

The same year Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel gave that speech, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his now famous letter from a Birmingham Jail: 

I MUST make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection”.

There are many people today, in this moment, as cities around this land burn, as populations of Black and Indigenous communities are dying at alarming rates, who are using Dr. King’s own words and image to do the very thing that he, in this letter, condemns. They say, of course I am upset by the police killings, but meeting violence with violence is not the answer. They say, of course racism is wrong, but burning down your own communities is not the way to bring about change. They say, I want to support you, but why can’t you protest peacefully, like Dr. King did? In essence they are saying, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action.” 

There are many things I could say to these people. I could point out that in every case, in every city where the demonstrations are turning into violent confrontations, the cause of the aggression, the instigators of the violence, have been the police. And in every place where we have seen demonstrations remain peaceful, it is because the police chose not to engage with force. I could point out that the destruction of property, primarily owned by faceless corporations who have been actively destroying locally owned small businesses for decades, should not be considered in the same category as the ongoing murder of citizens by agents of their government, not to mention the fact that much of the property destruction and looting is being instigated by white nationalist terrorists or undercover state agents themselves. And, I could point out that many of the “peaceful protests” that Dr. King led followed the same exact patterns of the protests today - non-violent demonstrators being met with extreme violence by agents of the state. 

But these points only scratch the surface. These arguments are the beginning of a way out. The most important point goes a lot deeper and requires a fundamental shift in one's understanding of this country in which we live. 

This country is on fire. It is not a new fire. This country has been on fire since before it was a country, since the first European settlers began murdering Indigenous communities and stealing their land, since those same settlers began kidnapping people from Africa, forcing them into bondage, and murdering them to “maintain order”. There has never been a time in the last five hundred years that the white supremacist power structure in this land that is now called America has stopped murdering Indigenous people and stealing their land. There has never been a time in the last four hundred years that the white supremacist power structure in this land that is now called America has stopped murdering and brutalizing Black people to “maintain order”. 

This country is long past the moment where the eruption of evil has gone from being the exception to being the rule. We were, all of us who are alive today, born into a world in which the evils of anti-black racism and the erasure of Indigenous peoples have long since become accepted. Neutrality, which was never a real thing, is now, in this moment, an active condoning of anti-black racist violence. 

So to the moderate white bodied people who may or may not consider ourselves moderate, to the people who are enraged in this moment and the people who are scared in this moment, there is a question I want to ask each of us: what is it going to take for you to make up your mind to be good?

What is it going to take for you to make up your mind to be good, to actively choose good over evil? What fundamental change are you going to make to the way you have been living your life? Not just today, not just this week, not just when it is convenient, not just when it is visible.

None of us who are alive today came up with the idea of a racial hierarchy. None of us chose to build a country on stolen lands and the backs of stolen people. None of us invented this system that offers safety and comfort to some at the direct expense of the safety of others. But it is the system we live in. White Supremacy has been stitched into every fabric of this society. Every second we are not actively working to undo it, to challenge it, to rip it from our assumptions and unconscious habits, we are letting it sink deeper into us. 

Professor Ibram X. Kendi teaches that there is no such thing as “not racist”; that a person, an action, a policy, within the context of a white supremacist society, like this country we call America, cannot be “not racist”. It can be racist or it can be antiracist. There are no neutral acts, there is no passive way to combat racism. If a person, an action, or a policy is not explicitly antiracist, then by default it will perpetuate the racist status quo, it will be racist. 

While it may be true that none of us who are alive today are guilty of creating the white supremacist power structure that set into motion this society we are living in, each of us, especially those of us in white bodies, those of us who benefit from this power structure, are responsible for choosing to either go along with it, or actively fight against it. For if we do not actively choose to be good, to be antiracist in our thoughts and actions, then we will surely find ourselves participating in and perpetuating racist evil. 

So I ask myself and I ask you one more time: What does it look like in your life to choose being actively good over being passively evil? What fundamental change are you going to make to the way you have been living your life? Not just today, not just this week, not just when it is convenient, not just when it is visible. What are you going to do today, tomorrow, next week, on a daily basis to combat the white supremacy you have inherited, to stand up to evil and the indifference to evil, to center antiracist thought and take antiracist action in your life?

Sharing Stories of Liberation

We were never from here. Our ancestors were wanderers who arrived in this land. Here, we were allowed to live and grow, sometimes even thrive, for many years. Then, because of their own insecurities and fear of us as outsiders, our neighbors ruthlessly imposed upon us crushing labor and all forms of oppression. 

Thus begins the story at the center of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Passover is a celebration of liberation, resistance, and solidarity. It tells one of the oldest liberation stories that humanity has. The story of an enslaved people, the ruler who oppresses them, the unlikely hero who liberates them, and the god that offers to redeem them. It is a holiday that asks us to honor in memory the times in our people’s history when we were enslaved, oppressed, exiled and slaughtered. And it asks us to honor, stand in recognition, and speak out in support of all of the people in the world today who continue to be enslaved, oppressed, exiled, and slaughtered. 

The holiday demands that we wrestle with privilege. We recline in our chairs and indulge in our meal as though we were kings and queens. We drink and sing and celebrate our freedom. We are expected to enjoy the privileges we have and we are expected to examine those privileges as well. We are asked to discuss suffering, to contemplate oppression, to honor resistance, to celebrate life, and to fight for a future in which all people are free. 

Freedom, in the story of Passover, was not without cost. It was not by peaceful means that the Israelites were liberated from slavery in Mitzrayim. There was bloodshed. There was suffering. The plagues were a rejection of an oppressive society, manifest as increasingly violent incidents of disruption to the status quo. All of those who were complicit in the oppression of the Israelites were not allowed to simply walk away. They all suffered the wrath of the plagues. 

But it was not only the plagues that made this story possible. The story of Passover is also a story of resistance: The midwives Shifra and Pu’ah refuse the order to kill newborn Hebrew baby boys; Miriam takes her baby brother to the river to hide him; the Pharaoh’s daughter saves that baby boy from the river when she must have known him to be a Hebrew; and that baby Moses, from his house of privilege, grows up and kills a slave master. Resistance can take many forms and can come from many places: from the margins where oppression is the strongest, from inside the halls of power, from the children who have yet to accept the agreements of the oppressive society, and, like the plagues themselves, from the unknowable forces of the universe. 

We too live in a society that is built on oppression. We too live in a time when the status quo of that society must be rejected. There is slavery and exploitation in our world. There is a small ruling elite in our world. Fear of the people and the demonization of children are very much alive in our world. When we see the soldiers of the powerful, the agents of the state, killing black and brown children because they “look like criminals”, how different are they from Pharaoh’s soldiers that killed newborn Jewish boys? And when we internalize the demonization of these children because it is so pervasive in our society, what does it say about us? When we believe the line, “I was scared for my life” because we too have been scared of an “unruly” teenager with a black or brown face, what does that say about what we have become? How hard must our hearts have gotten that we let the fear that has been pumped into us affect the way we see children? When the ten plagues came, all the “houses of Egypt” suffered and only the oppressed were saved. 

If that kind of reckoning were to happen today, who among us would be passed over? Would any of us be protected or would the privileges we carry place us among the “houses of Egypt”? Would we sing on the shore with Miriam or drown along with the rest of Pharaoh’s Army? And what does it mean that we might each have different answers? That the we that are gathered in this mixed multitude might have different stories, be granted different benefits, hold different statuses, and represent different expereinces?

What does resistance look like today? What can resistance look like for us? What are the ways that each of us can resist the oppressive status quo whether we are sitting closer to the halls of power or closer to the margins? 

For thousands of years, all across this world, Jews have been gathering together, telling this story, asking these questions, eating this meal and singing songs of freedom. Our songs focus on our desire for peace and love, but the story and many other passages speak to a propensity for violent retribution and anger. This holiday demands that we grapple with the tension between the longing for peace, the desire for retribution, and the realities of violence that live at the heart of any liberation struggle. 

Tonight, all across the world, Jews and the non-Jews who have become our friends and our families will gather together, as we are commanded to on this day, to tell this story of liberation, to regard ourselves as though we had personally come out of Mitzrayim, to tell our children that we were slaves and that they are the children of free people. 

Every generation grows up hearing the stories of those that came before us. These stories shape who we are, how we see the world and what we choose to do in it. As we gather around our seder tables tonight to tell the story of Passover, let us invite in the many liberation stories that live in the memories of our communities, of our neighbors, of all those with whom we want to be in partnership. Let us tell our stories. Let us listen to each other’s stories. Let us ask each other questions. Let us find the places where the fulfillment of our stories depend upon the support, solidarity and action of our friends and partners. Let us use those moments as templates for current action. Let us continue to be interested in listening to each other's stories. Let us be reminded that it is in the intentional telling, retelling and sharing of these stories that we find meaning in this world. And where there is meaning there is endless possibility.