Solidarity Looks Like a Poem in Pairs
Solidarity looks like:
A Black queer Jewish femme baking Bagels for Suhoor.[1]
A Muslim mayor with a plate of Hamentashen for Iftar (breaking fast).
A feminist Rabbi remembering every person in the haram and on the other trafficked girls in Esther.[2]
My Rabbi dressed in drag, leading his first Purim at our Synagogue.
A watermelon kippa on Kabbalat Shabbat.
A seder at a Free Palestine protest in the quad.
An anti-zionist Haggadah from JVP.[3]
A Cadbury egg on the Seder plate I made when I was 6.
A keffiyeh and a tallis, side by side.
Denouncing antisemitism—The Squad.
South Africa holding court at the ICC.
United members–one hundred twenty three.[4]
A "Yes" states sacred action.[5]
Let your grief be a lighthouse
And rage, your motivation
in your darkest truth is someone’s safest harbor
Your hallowed humanity
Deserves to breathe and take
a beat
To walk out there, exposed, and fill your hollowed heart
With prose
and hope
and new starts to take
outside
and echolalia, the guide—“You know we’ll never come back. Follow the sun as it’s heading out west.”[6]
Your luggage or mine,
Some cargo
passed over,
Stand and
delivered generations.
Hold your head
and tulips, high[7]
Poetic justice is not a paradox
Peanut butter and fluff
Your loss makes mycelium, like pith on a tiny kishu orange,
My Collective connections
Breed
all who grow in defiance,
seeking light,
struggling upwards while hidden on the forest floor,
laying groundwork
The Source
again
bending not to snap or pop
Taller now, boughed out.
Exiting the web but not the network[8]
Rooted to the spot, for now
And wherever you find more mishpocha[9]—your karass[10], your tribe or your peeps…
Reciprocal care is a play, for keeps.
Next year, with reparations.
Read L.C. De Shay's piece on solidarity between Jews and Muslims "Bagels for Suhoor: The Road to Shared Liberation". ↩︎
Read Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg's piece from Purim, standing in solidarity with everyone, including sex workers "on the other trafficked girls in Esther; because the girls in the harem matter, too". ↩︎
Check out JVP's Liberatory Passover Haggadah, free to download here. ↩︎
See which 123 countries stood in solidarity, voting YES to adopt "the U.N. resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity.". ↩︎
Learn why writing is a Sacred Action and a perfect tool to process—not to perform. ↩︎
Listen to Josh Radin's "Hey You"—phrases from this song have been stuck in my head on repeat, 4 years and counting. ↩︎
Watch this Italian film, "Bread and Tulips"–about finding your people and living your own life on your terms. ↩︎
Subscribe to YK Hong's blog "Liberatory Toolbox," for prompts and actions to make progress on your own liberatory and solidarity practices. ↩︎
mishpocha is a yiddish word for family, close social unit, or clan. ↩︎
karass, a term from from Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, meaning a group of people brought together in this life to “do God’s Will without ever discovering what they are doing.” a "soul family" or group of souls connected over lifetimes. ↩︎
WHY WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR? Turn your rage into rainbows with micro-reparations. Take action to move money now!
1. Book Sharron Hurley Hall to speak and subscribe to Sharon's Anti-racism newsletter . Learn via SARN's monthly reading lists and from inspiring interviews with activists who model solidarity.
2. Support Robin Divine's creative work and writing, purchasing her guides to Black Owned Businesses and Mutual Aid 101. Close the wealth gap through direct community care payments.
3. Hire burnout coach Taj Smith via packages of 6 or more 1:1 sessions find healing and support to continue your own activism and recovery burning out. Give direct mutual aid; gas money always welcome.
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