Lessons From a Badass Grandma
This is a photo of my Grandmother, Sophie Meth. She survived the Holocaust, fleeing Germany in the late 1930’s by way of a train across China. On the boat to Ecuador, she taught herself enough Spanish to get by from a few books she’d picked up along the way. When she arrived in the United States, she opened a small business, selling lingerie — most of her clientele Latin American Immigrants. By the end of her life she spoke 5 languages and was an unequivocally beloved figure in her Upper-West Side community.
If you can’t tell, my Grandmother was an unapologetic badass. She would be horrified by what is going on right now, but I also know she would be driven to action. For her Jewish family, for her latina friends, for her humanity.
It can be difficult to remember how extraordinarily and painfully precedented are the events that are currently transpiring. We are witnessing a revival in white supremacy that begs to be compared to the worst of history. All the while, the Jewish establishment remains emphatically silent: on the Muslim ban, on neonazi puppet master Stephen Bannon, on the tip-toeing towards destruction of a 2 state solution (in the form of a Trump-enabled-Netanyahu settlment disaster)
Trapped by trauma of the past, unable to envision a future that involves standing in solidarity with other oppressed peoples, the old-guard Jewish institutions cry out “Never Again!” But their silence in this moment reveals their understanding of this phrase to be limited to a hollow mantra. They are failing to be the moral leadership for a generation of young Jews — Jews committed to an end to the occupation in Palestine and freedom and dignity for all people. AIPAC, the largest and most influential “pro-Israel” lobby in the U.S has invited Donald Trump to their annual convention.
We will be there to meet him.
If these words resonate with you, join me at the Jewish Resistance at AIPAC
We will be the moral leaders our institutions refuse to be. IfNotNow, when?
