New Archive:

March 2001 Issue

BECAUSE

BECAUSE our roots are in the working class and the class
that exploits them & in the early morning hours we wonder
if we’re longing for a Jewish left or a left Judaism & we
often feel not quite at home in the communities we create
& we worry that anti-Semitism sounds like too strong a
word & we have more than one favorite deli and they are
both the best & we know in our souls what a ghetto is & we
come in all colors and orientations & we’re surprised that
progressive politics and Judaism can be untwined & we
know where talk of penny-pinchers, bankers and
unsuccessful garage sales leads & and it is worth knowing
if your mother was from Lodz or Riga or Cairo & we often
notice Saturdays & we’ve learned that you can always
choose your own response to any given situation &
Judaism is an infinite resource & it aches not to bring our
Judaism to our justice work & our homes must be places of
refuge and sanctuary lest we never forget & locks reminds
us of bagels not keys & our elders often fear yellow starts
of David are the reward for a vocal Jewish presence & we
were 14 year old girls working in sweatshops and leading
textile strikes & contradictory and mutually exclusive have
never been obstacles for stereotypes & we’ve never spoken
only one language & we should have learned to never
tolerate turning a blind eye & when racism rears its head
we can be invisible and feel sick about it for weeks & we
take McCarthyism, military solutions and hate-crimes
personally & the gypsies, homosexuals and intellectuals
were targeted too & because other people try to define what
it is to be us, WE ARE JEWS UNITED FOR JUSTICE.

By Simon Greer, Chair of the Coordinating Committee, Jews United for Justice (JUFJ).

For more information about JUFJ please call 202-884-7635 or jufj@earthlink.net

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