It's the week of Passover too

It's the week of Passover too ... to which I have to say ... DUH! 

The Christian story of Jesus' repudiation of and triumph over empire is embedded in the Jewish observance of the people's escape from slavery by the agency of God -- the Passover. 

My friend Emily Simon needed a good old-fashioned Seder meal and gathering this Passover season. She shared a reflection on Facebook which I reproduce here -- this speaks to where many of us are.

These are very hard and painful times in which to be any kind of human, but I have struggled even more than usual with what it means to be a Jew.

It’s Passover, America is being dismantled, and our supposed Holy Land of milk and honey is being run by a monstrous totalitarian right-wing autocrat whose regime gleefully murders other people’s babies in the name of our defense, and we must oppose him with our full chests while standing firm that Palestinians have the right to live freely in peace. Thousands of Israelis routinely take to the streets to say the same thing.

But if you’re Jewish in radical leftist spaces right now and you take to the streets in America, there is a strong chance that the person next to you will open their face like the sun and say “oh I’m so glad you’re one of us, and you accept Khazar theory and agree that Israel should not exist and that the Jews are diabolical white colonizers who have historically and repeatedly brought all violence upon themselves, and really the only way to end all of this is for you guys stop trying to be Jewish while living anywhere at all!”

And then you have to rearrange YOUR face and come up with a plausible excuse to go home.

Meanwhile OUR monstrous wanna-be totalitarian right-wing autocrat claims to be fighting antisemitism, which is a repulsive transparent joke. None of these guys are on the side of our safety and liberation, ever.

Project Esther is an insult to Esther, to any Judaism I’ve ever known, and anything any worship-worthy God could possibly want. It casts most modern Jews as “enemies of the Jews”, which just helps us all keep having to run from country to country and getting killed anyway.

And, also…antisemitism is ancient and violent and virulent and flaring and spreading, and most people who harbor it would absolute swear they don’t WHILE saying antisemitic things to your face, that’s how embedded and insidious this prejudice is, and when Jews talk to each other we often talk about how terrifying this moment is for us, and how that terror complicates the necessary work of getting us all free.

This year I found myself yearning to be at a good old-fashioned radical leftist social-justice-focused Passover seder, so I could stand in the tradition of Jewishness that I honor and treasure. Tikkun Olam. Until we are all free, we are none of us free.

No one was inviting me to one, so I threw it myself.

Twenty of Nathan’s and Milo’s and my wonderful goyishe Minnesota sober lefty friends packed my little Saint Paul house (to be clear, 25 people do NOT fit in my house for a sit-down dinner) and I ran them through a 10-minute Haggadah I wrote, stealing from a bunch of sources I’ve been reading to help me find my way.

I asked my spiritual family to show up, and they did.

We celebrated our shared values and commitment, and we ate chopped liver and gefilte fish and matzoh ball soup and a gorgeous brisket one of my friends made. I got to use my mother’s and grandmother’s china and silver, lovingly sent to me last spring by my beautiful cousin.

Why was this night different from all other nights?

Because I did not feel ambivalent and compromised and complicit. I didn’t feel hopeless and discouraged and despairing. I felt firm in my own soul and strengthened by the community of my fellows, full in heart and mind and belly. I was so grateful for every single bit of it, and so freshly determined not to waste the privilege of my own freedom, however it looks, however long it lasts.

I’m putting this here to remind myself that I have a huge, living network of strong-hearted like-minded hard-working fellows, across the world and from all eras of my life, and that so many of you are here right now in this weird digital place.

Next year, who knows where.

In the meantime, thank you.

I hope we keep coming together, in the kitchens and the streets.

The link in Emily's text is my addition -- I didn't have to know what sits behind it. Now I must. The picture is also my addition.