Ani aḥot ḳetannah shelakhen/m / I am your little sister.
I have to move out. I have to get out. Everything is small, and closing in around me. Even if God understands, I don’t, and it doesn’t feel okay. Everything inside me is welling up, trapped in a net of isolation, despair, and helplessness. Happy new year – this one tastes sour. I appreciate your well wishes, though. I love them. I hold onto them like I hold onto the air I breathe.
In interfaith families, emotional abuse can present itself ‘late to the party,’ manifesting long after marriage and childbirth, when decisions about how to raise a child come up or familial prejudice becomes more pronounced. I was born to a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father. Aspects of holidays some families take for granted, I can’t. Like many others in my position, my religious autonomy is limited by the logistics of the rituals that my respective religious cultures involve. Almost everything I learn and practice is self-taught. This lack of freedom is intensified by non-religious/ethnic belittling, like shaming clothing choices (none are modest or nice enough), food shaming, body shaming, etc. that limit, to near-none, the ways I can comfortably exist in my family’s house. Like many, I am living at home because of the financial constraints created by COVID-19, being freshly graduated from college, and limited employment opportunities.
The pandemic is making it near impossible to find a job. I don’t have enough money to move out, which means I don’t have my own space to celebrate, away from people who would complain I was celebrating, tell me that spending money on food for the simanim is frivolous, or shut me down with antisemitic words. My Judaism is my birthright, but no one is funding it; at least not here. No one is sending me away to my own Jewish space. Loving each other doesn’t always erase our inherited biases.
I can’t listen to my music too loud, or sing along to it. I’ll get complaints. I’ll have “started” or “asked” for trouble by wanting to celebrate the most recent Jewish holiday. My tongue trips over words. My eyes well. I live in a house where almost everything I do is wrong. I can’t really call my girlfriend, either, for the same reason. I want to be a part of a Jewish community – I even want to make my own. But housing instability and unemployment make this impossible while I live in my family’s home.
The way that Judaism in the United States is practiced is deeply entrenched in class politics. There is little to no financial support for young Jews acquiring the materials needed for engaging in meaningful ritual, let alone a space in which to practice them: synagogue membership is prohibitively expensive to most; Jews on the margins are often unwelcome in these upper middle class spaces. It seems the only American-based grants for supporting individuals in observance and culture-work are for Israeli applicants. These class politics also make many people hesitant to engage in direct acts of charity or aid that could help Jews in abusive or precarious situations escape. Questions like “What will my money be used for?” and “I don’t know this person personally, and it’s not my problem.” You need funds to fulfill misvot, and many of us have none.
Tikhleh shanah vəḳiləlotéha / May the old year with all its curses end.
This Rosh Hashanah, I wondered: Can something be done on your behalf if no one knows you exist? If you can’t pay to walk through the gates, and are kept too hidden to show your face? It’s so hot outside. I’m so lonely. I hope God doesn’t know about all the promises I’ve broken. THEY does, though. I know.
I want a job I can do more than anything in the world. I know some people don’t dream of labor, a lot of people don’t, but I do. The pandemic has made it incredibly difficult for many young, especially working-class Jews, to get jobs – regardless of our qualifications. I live somewhere with poor transportation infrastructure and can’t afford a car, so can’t get an in-person job. If I could afford the materials for practicing my Judaism, I would still need a space of my own, first. Many young and working-class Jews don’t have that kind of space, whether we’re living in constricting, emotionally abusive households, or in exploitative, Christian-run homeless shelters.
I dream of a dwelling and I dream of labor. Labor that makes my eyes well with joy. Labor that I can use to send money to my friends. I dream of labor, and I dream of the rest that comes after. I dream of after. I want to be in after. There’s no rest when you’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. I can’t listen to God while listening for the front door anymore. I want the beauty of rest, and of Shabbat, without waiting for the moment I’ll be violently jolted out of it.
Communal care within Jewish communities looks like financial support that is not contingent on whether or not you agree with the identity or politics of the person you’re supporting. It looks like remote and accessible jobs for Jewish folks and an increased number of grants for those of us engaged in research and resource-making. It would look like concerted efforts to lift Jewish folks out of abusive or controlling situations via emergency funds and volunteer networks that we don’t quite have yet. It would take a village; it would take a kfar for kapparah.
I’m a Jew, and I couldn’t celebrate Rosh Hashanah this year. I’m a Jew, and I can’t get out (yet?). I’m a Jew, and I wish you would see me. I’m a Jew, and I wish I could show YOU/THEM – and you and them. I’m little, but I’m still here. I am part of your wider community, whether or not you see me. So are other Jews in my situation. Do you see me? Do you see us? Please see us. Please see me.
Taḥél shanah uvirəkhotéha / May the new year with all its blessings begin.
