It is said that the destruction of the Temple was caused because of baseless hatred, sinat chinam. The continuation of this hatred is why we arrive at the present moment, still in exile. Yet at the deepest source of a baseless hatred so timeless and intergenerational is, perhaps, the most personal kind of hatred: self-hatred, internalized antisemitism, wrought of trauma and shame. The Baal Shem Tov teaches that the greatest exile is when one doesn’t know they’re in exile at all. Who better to speak to shame than the exile of the exiles, the queer Jew? It is the Jewfag’s deep awareness of exile which may contain medicine for the old wound that haunts all of klal yisrael. Written by a queer, transgender Jewish author, this poem asks that on this T’sha b’Av, we see that pain of yearning through a lens of teshuva – return to self, return to our Maker, a return each other. Perhaps, healing baseless hatred is only possible through Ahavat Yisrael, building the world through love of what we are. Only then may we merit redemption, collective liberation, and the world to come.
Jewfag wears jewfailure on its skin
Jewfag has very porous skin, very
human skin, absorbs
sharpie, chemicals, glances, the word
yes, the air contains many particles
maybe that explains why a Jew
hates itself
“Self-hating Jew!”
Joke’s on you:
We all hate this self the same
We have all been battered and blamed
ourselves
Little Jew, you have no
power but the blame
takes the edge off
from no-control, stiffnecked small
nation alien inside landed nation +
how hard it is to look at our strangeness
in the face of my face
if you hate yourself enough
you can live the lie you shrink so invisible
they can’t kill you
if you hate yourself enough
they won’t kill you
the lie
come
little Jew
(for there are only small Jews, like
so many precious stones)
sit on my lap, in my arms
so we can look at this great
ugliness
that took root blamelessly, not yours
not ours
how you hate yourself older than you are
how it arrived imperceptibly
together, let us
look at it together
with great care
on shabbat evening perhaps, in the
darkest part of the sabbath
when twin wicks lick low
I will not draw the knife between us
my honor: I will not spill it, that blood
which binds us, I will not
break the blessing of this intimacy
that blessing which
binds us:
No Bad Jew
like a balm, please
lift up your shirt so I can whisper it in
to your porous
skin
it is so hard to touch the wound
it is so old it is so hard to see it
we dress it in many clothes to never
face it:
rhinoplasty, nationalism, joyless prayer
we are and we aren’t
like other people
come,
let me touch it
I cannot heal you or me
if I live only between my eyes
