these are a few of my favorite things

May 16, 2012 by 7 Comments

Leaving D.C. wouldn’t be complete without waxing nostalgic, so following is a list of my favorite memories from my almost seven years in the District. It was hard to rank them, so don’t read too much into the order.

7. Riding in Bike DC. I just participated in this event last weekend, and it was especially meaningful because of my upcoming departure. On that beautiful Sunday, I traversed the 25-mile route with the constant mental refrain of “I love this city so much.” We got to ride almost the whole time without competing with cars, and I especially enjoyed Rock Creek Parkway, K Street, and the George Washington Parkway — the latter of which was a unique, and not to-be-duplicated, experience. It was amazing to head up the Potomac along that scenic road.

home page of The Washington Post on September 19, 2009

6. Shouting at Elena Kagan. In July 2010, I went for a run on Capitol Hill in the middle of the day. As I passed the Supreme Court (just east of the Capitol building), I recognized the diminutive woman walking along the opposite side of the street, whose image had dominated the news in the months leading up to her Senate confirmation. It took a few moments for this to register in my brain — and of course I was still running as I was thinking, “That’s Elena Kagan!” — so by the time I decided to “say” something, I had to yell.

cars on o st nw, just south of logan circle; photo by salem pearce

“Congratulations on your nomination to the court!” I shouted back at her. She turned around, smiled, waved, and shouted back, “Thanks!”

5. Surviving Snowpocalypse. I’m including this one in part because of where I’m headed next: soon several feet of snow will be a regular occurrence. On December 20, 2009, a historic storm dumped almost two feet of snow onto the greater-D.C. area. Everyone panicked: store shelves were emptied of milk (for some reason snow requires an increase in lactose consumption), and the entire city shut down. The storm made local blog Capital Weather Gang the must-read it’s become. This Texas girl had never seen so much snow at once, and my personal record held until the advent of Snowmageddon two months later.

with dan gordon at the new nationals park; photo by dara oliphant

4. Attending opening day at Nationals Park. For the past five years, I’ve shared Nationals season tickets with a group of friends, so we managed to get three tickets to the first regular season game, on March 30, 2008, at the new ballpark along the Anacostia. It was so cold that evening that I had to buy a red Nationals hoodie to stay warm. Then-President Bush threw out the first pitch — and was booed, much to my pleasure — I ate a hot dog from the kosher cart near our seats, and, best of all, Ryan Zimmerman hit a walk-off homer to lift his team over the Braves, 3-2.

chuppah at sixth & i; photo by matt goldenberg

3. Getting married at Sixth & I Synagogue. (I should note that I am here talking about my wedding — as opposed to my much more important marriage and relationship with my husband, lest my readers get the wrong idea.) The building is beautiful, and as I’ve documented well on this blog, Sixth & I has been the center of my Jewish life in D.C. On October 25, 2009, we stood under the chuppah, under the lofty dome, and made a commitment to each other. Sometimes I still can’t believe that we were able to have our wedding in such a meaningful place.

2. Having my photograph in the Washington Post — twice. Oddly enough, both were because of Sixth & I. The first time was September 18, 2009, right after my conversion. I had volunteered at an Erica Brown Rosh Hashanah event at the synagogue a few days earlier, and there I fell into a conversation with a Post religion reporter, who called me the next day to ask if a staff photographer could take my picture for the story. The photographer and I met at Sixth & I — and the resulting photo (above) was taken in its balcony. It appeared on the Post homepage as well as on the front page of the print edition.

enjoying the first fruits of sixth & i’s kosher food truck

The next time was May 22, 2011, the day after Sixth & I’s kosher food truck, Sixth & Rye, debuted. I dragged my then-intern along with me to wait in the hour-long line, and it was worth every second. Again, I just struck up a conversation with the Post photographer who was covering the event. The resulting photo (left) appeared inside the A-section of the print edition; my hands also appeared on the front page of the website and on the iPhone app.

1. Meeting Michelle Obama. On January 21, 2009, the day after the president’s inauguration, my husband and I got to go to the White House; I had entered and won the lottery that the administration held for 200 District residents to meet their newest neighbors. After a bit of a wait, in a line that snaked around the public rooms of the presidential residence, we made it into the room where the first lady stood. (Apparently we missed the president by just minutes!) First of all, Mrs. Obama is tall (and she was wearing flats on this occasion). Second of all, she has that quality that is the hallmark of all great politicians: the ability to make you feel like you are the only person in the room. I shook her hand and told her it was an honor to meet her. Third of all, she is a funny and charming lady. The man in front of us told her he was a Tuskegee airman and then shared a short anecdote. She punched him lightly on the shoulder and said, “Get out of here!”

And that is when I fell in love with Michelle Obama, way before all the rest of y’all.

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no milk and cookies

May 10, 2012 by 2 Comments

Or, in which I do not laud the president for his statement on marriage equality yesterday.

First: I absolutely support marriage equality. It makes me furious that in various parts of this country we are voting on and legislating against civil rights. Any two consenting adults should be able to get married — and this is one of those rare moral and ethical absolute rights. It should not even be an issue.

And . . . I’m not that impressed by the president’s televised statement that “I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”

I realize I’m in the minority among my progressive peers, if my Facebook feed is any indication. I acknowledge that words matter, and it matters what the president says: He can start and shift a national conversation. And, as a straight married woman, I can’t know what it feels like to have my relationship finally given the dignity that it deserves, by the most powerful man in the world, because my privilege is that my relationship has always been so accorded. In some ways, it was indeed an historic moment. (And I’m not completely hardhearted: I was touched by his crediting his wife and daughters for helping to shape his views on this issue. The women have always been my favorite Obamas.)

But many things about what happened yesterday — and, I suppose, what have been happening for a while, during the president’s “evolution” — were troubling. It’s hard to escape the fact that the decision to make this statement was born out of yet another vice presidential gaffe. Basically, Joe Biden went off the campaign script, and the president’s hand was forced. To avoid the impression that he and his running mate are not on the same page on this issue, the president quickly went on television to express what we’ve suspected he’s actually believed for a long time.

Indeed, the speed of the reaction (three days passed between Biden’s statement and Obama’s — did the president just happen to finish “evolving” at that point?) suggests that he already held the belief and was perhaps waiting until after the election to say so. His silence has then been a political calculation, about which I find very little commendable (particularly in light of the growing support for marriage equality in this country). It is incumbent upon us as human beings to speak out against injustice — and never more so when that human being is in a position of political power.

And even if I’m wrong in characterizing the action as political, and I take the president at his word that his personal belief has been evolving, I am still dismissive. A black man well knows the the history of injustice in our country’s marriage laws, and he should have been saying from day one, “I absolutely support equality because it is not okay to restrict marriage.”

Moreover, this seems to me a symbolic statement. Will he speak out against future measures like the one in North Carolina, which passed just the day before? Will he work to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which he has thus far only ordered the Justice Department not to enforce defend*? I want action with vague words. I don’t feel all that thrilled at what on its face was a simple statement of belief, the appropriate response to which is “duh.”

In the bigger picture, I share the concerns of many — particularly people of color, low income folks, and trans folks — in the queer community about the focus on marriage equality to the exclusion of other issues facing those constituencies (see also: hate crimes legislation). As a friend of a friend wrote on Facebook yesterday — and as my friend Alicia has eloquently written elsewhere:

WHAT about those of us who are raging queers? What about those of us who are poly, sex-positive, who don’t want kids, who have unconventional family arrangements? What about queers who have AIDS, who are homeless, who are gender freaks and warriors? Those of us who want working to dismantle the state, take apart the military, end capitalism, destroy the institution of marriage, and abolish prisons? What do we do when a movement for justice for LGBT people and the national discourse frames that movement as being about an institution that strengthens the power of a state that wages wars, puts people behind bars, profits off of land theft and slavery, and makes healthcare a right of the rich?

Marriage equality is a step. But I worry that the argument for it often devolves into, “Gay folks are just like straight folks. You don’t have to go out of your comfort zone to support marriage equality.” That’s insulting to everyone involved. I want support for people (straight people included) not to get married, too. I want support and attention for many, many other issues that, frankly, are more pressing for many folks than the right to marry.

Further, this does not change my position that I will not be giving the president anything other than my vote. He won’t have my time and money before the election as long he keeps signing bills allowing for indefinite detention, deporting record numbers of undocumented immigrants, and raiding medical marijuana dispensaries, to name a few issues on which he has utterly disgusted me.

Finally, while I’m on my soapbox, I’d really appreciate it if we could all stop using the term “gay marriage” (and the only somewhat better “same-sex marriage”), as it’s conceding the right’s narrative on this issue. “Marriage equality” affirms that existing marriage laws apply to everyone; we are not seeking to create a new institution for queer folks.

Marriage, as it stands (my issues with the institution, especially the state’s role it, notwithstanding), should be open to all.

*Update: My friend Brian Moulton, chief legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, points out that the Obama administration has been “not defending” DOMA — not “not enforcing.”

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praying with my feet

May 1, 2012 by 1 Comment

JOIN national summit program; photo by salem pearce (via instagram)

I spent last Sunday and Monday in New York, at the HUC-JIR campus, attending the Jewish Organizing Institute and Network for Justice (JOIN for Justice) first National Summit, the organization’s first. I heard about it through Jews United for Justice, one of my favorite D.C. organizations. As a rabbi, I want to do organizing, so it was a good opportunity to network with other Jews doing social justice work. Indeed, those two days I walked around thinking, “Yes. These are my people.”

Simply put, the conference was awesome, for little and big reasons. I am dork, so I really liked that everything ran on time and stuck to the schedule. (Not everyone showed up on time to sessions (myself included on one occasion!) but that’s a different kettle of fish.) Every session I attended had a written agenda of what was to be covered, and in good organizing fashion, the agenda was reviewed and affirmed before each session. What can I say? I like knowing that presenters know what they’re doing.

The conference also got me super excited about moving to Boston. Bostonophiles had told me what a great city it is for social justice, but seeing is believing. I heard about so much good work going on and/or based there (where JOIN itself is located!), through Moishe Kavod House, Jewish Association for Law & Social Action, Massachusetts Senior Action Council, Boston Workman’s Circle, Keshet, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, and more. I’m thrilled about the potential opportunities I’m going to have in rabbinical school.

And I heard some downright inspiring speakers: In the opening assembly, Simon Greer of Nathan Cummings talked about the Jewish legacy and future of social justice: “At the March on Washington, Jews blended in; at Occupy Wall Street, Jews stood out.” Ai-jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance spoke about community/labor coalition building: “All progressive movements, worker-related or not, bank on the utilization of the labor movement. We have to lift it up.” Marshall Ganz of the Kennedy School highlighted the necessity of a moral aspect to social justice work: “One cannot long last as a light to the world and a darkness at home” (in reference to the occupation of Palestinian lands). Gordon Whitman of PICO emphasized the importance of religious Judaism: “We can’t have just a secular Jewish social justice movement.” Nancy Kaufman of the National Council of Jewish Women: “Social justice comes from Jewish values — but has universal goals.”

One of my favorite sessions was “Mindfulness and Organizing Work,” led by Rabbis David Adelson and Lisa Goldstein. I really identified with Rabbi Goldstein’s section on text study as a mindfulness practice. As she noted, looking at a piece of text is the default Jewish spiritual practice in organizing — but doing so often puts participants into an intellectual space that can be anxiety-producing and can lead to tearing others down. “How can I demonstrate that I know more about Judaism than others? What if I don’t understand what someone else says? How can I show my independence of thought by disagreeing with the author?” Instead, Rabbi Goldstein suggested looking at text from mindful perspective: “What it wise, beautiful, true, or helpful about this text? What does this text teach me about myself and about where I am in the world?”

the prophet isaiah (i love the prophet art at huc!); photo by salem pearce (via instagram)

Personally (as opposed to professionally), my favorite part of the conference was seeing my old friend David Segal (now Rabbi David Segal). We hadn’t seen each other since high school, when I was his yearbook editor. We’d friended each other on Facebook within the past couple of years, so we had some idea of what the other was doing. But because of the time built into the schedule for relational meetings (thanks, JOIN!), we were able to make that deeper connection as adults and as organizers. I got to hear about his path to the rabbinate and to Aspen, and I got to tell him about my path to Judaism and to the rabbinate. When we parted, headed to different sessions, he told me a story that gave me chills.

A friend of his, also a convert and a rabbi, shared with him a midrash (or perhaps a midrash on a midrash?): Between creation and when the Israelites went out of Egypt, G-d is said to have visited and offered Torah to all of the nations of the earth, who ultimately rejected it; only the Israelite nation, at Mount Sinai, accepted it — becoming the “chosen” people. David’s friend noted that in each of the rejecting nations, though, a few people in the back of the crowd raised their hands and said, “Wait! I want it.” That is him, he said.

That is me, too.

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