Making Space to Find the Lighthouse

I’m inspired by @julesavivrose to share most of the letter I sent two weeks ago, withdrawing membership from my local Zionist congregation, including my child’s enrollment in chadash, where we eventually discovered the root of some mysterious issues that had been going on (not just at chadash but on the bus as well) had to do with our family’s pro-Palestine stance. I omitted some bits that were about my kiddo or that reveal personal details, but this is 90% of the letter.

The day I sent this was a really hard day, including deep disappointment in the quick and very brief response from the rabbi (no response at all from the chadash director), but I’ve realized in the two weeks since sending this that the agonizing over whether to leave was taking up all of the space in my life where Jewish practice had been.

I’ve created more art, studied more Torah, and enthusiastically attended more services and Jewish gathering in these two weeks than in the several months prior. A local friend sang the praises of @tzedekchicago, so I went to their Shabbat service the same night I sent the letter and I immediately felt at home.

This year feels like a big, BIG lesson about the aching, tunneling wound that is made by a person trying to fit in spaces that don’t want all of that person. I may have spent just a week in the hospital fighting sepsis in the end of February, but I have been septic with a lack of true community for months, and sending this letter cleaned that wound and made space for healing, for the medicine of finding a new Jewish home where I had finally made space for one.

I have worried in recent months that being anti-Zionist would eventually cost me my Jewishness, and it has definitely cost me a community that I thought I needed, but finding truly aligned and safe community has allowed me to feel more Jewish than I have in a long time. Thankful to @wabbi.wosen and @tzedekchicago for being the lighthouse a lot of us need right now.

Shavua tov. Chag sameach. Free Palestine. Wear a mask. Zionism isn’t Judaism and liberal zionism isn’t a thing. Good night.

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