Thursday, January 12, 2023

It's very pink ... and got my attention

This mobile billboard was not something I expected to encounter while trotting around in damp Golden Gate Park.
 
The sponsoring organization is something called Jewbelong. The organization bills itself as a gentle, benign resource for Jewish people who feel disconnected from Jewish religion and culture. In their words:
Most Jews know that Judaism can be a little intimidating, which for some people is a good enough reason to run for the door. Or maybe you gave Judaism a try, but you didn’t get enough out if it to keep you coming back. The fact is that Judaism sometimes gets a bad rap and that’s led to too many people missing out on the good stuff. JewBelong is out to change all that.

I'm sure they've got a constituency, though this doesn't describe most of my Jewish friends who have found other, more traditional, ways of investigating a culture that the secular US can conceal and obscure. (The same secular forces also erase nuanced Christian belief and practice; instead we get evangelical megachurches, with a a dash of Christian nationalism.)

Exploring the Jewbelong website, there seems a bit of a lean toward US commentators I think of as part of the performative American Right, like Bari Weiss.

But hey -- anti-Semitism is real and apparently increasing. As is willingness to discount the humanity of Palestinians in conflict with the Israeli state which claims to represent the height of Jewish culture. There's plenty to concern humane people of all religious traditions. 

It may be significant to see whether the arrival of this pink themed campaign is a harbinger of an enduring effort -- or just another scream for notice passing through the fertile terrain for justice demands that is the Bay.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Are the posted comments static, or do they change as the van moves through the City? Is there an Oz-like wizard in the back of the Van making changes to the message or making cheese blinzes for the crew?

janinsanfran said...

No clue ...