Hi. I’d like to introduce myself. My name is MaNishtana.
I’ve spent the past decade writing and speaking on racial and religious identity and how that intersection and perception manifests in America, in both the mainstream Jewish community and the Black American community, from racism to anti-Semitism, and how both affect Jews of Color. And I started that career today, eleven years ago, on the Ninth of Av.
And why did I? Well, I’ll let my younger self answer that question from 2009:
It’s the Ninth of Av again, and as I type this, I find myself lamenting (among other things) the death of the chatroom. Because right about now, I want to talk to some other Jews of Color. Get their thoughts on today. Because I can’t help but wonder: “Do we really need to spend this day contemplating the destruction of the Temple? Having our every thought today occupied with absorbing the severity and gravity of the exile?”
The obvious answer is “Yes.”
But I can’t help but note that after 24 hours of saying the liturgical dirges of kinot and the Book of Lamentations/ Eichah, spending the day in woe, and mourning a Temple destroyed due to “sinat chinam/baseless hatred”, at about 9:00pm tomorrow, the majority of my Judaism (at least here in America), will go around the corner to their Kosher Delight, or Estihana, or Garden of Eat-In, or Jerusalem Pizza, or kosher Dunkin Donuts or kosher Subway, talk to their neighbors/friends/family about the highs and lows of their fast experience, go to sleep, and the next day it’ll be back to business planning weddings, making shidduchs, going to shul meetings, tending their family business that thrives in their bustling community, not really giving a second thought (until the Ninth of Av rolls around again next year) to the exile that, yeah, they’re aware of, but doesn’t really affect their day-to-day lives. It’s more of a background white noise, really.
But the typical experience for my Jewish community? When the fast ends they’ll be checking voicemails from friends (and in some cases, family) who wonder why they didn’t come hang out last night (or for these past three weeks, for that matter). They’ll probably order a large amount of food they’re not going to eat but have to order anyway since the nearest kosher place is second-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning away and the minimum delivery order is $20 (if you’re lucky). Or they might just cobble something together from the local Met or Key Food. They’ll say hello to that neighbor who looks at them weirdly every Shabbat when they’re dressed and heading to shul (it doesn’t matter whether the neighbor is Jewish or not. Or even frum or not).
They might even, like myself, find themselves continuing on with their lives in Brooklyn, living (literally and ironically) on the border between “Black” (Flatbush) and “Jewish” (Midwood).
Unfortunately for JOCS, the exile isn’t as easily ignored. It’s less “the Ninth of Av” and more like “Tuesday.”
The reasons for which are apparent (magnified even) even on this of all days.
A quick read through kinot will reveal at least two dirges dedicated to the Holocaust.
I’m sorry.
I meant dedicated specifically to those who perished in “Churban Europe” [i.e., Poland, Germany, Lithuania, et al). However, as I recall (and by “recall” I mean “discovered after copious amounts of research”) in 1935, Mussolini (an ally of Hitler, you’ll remember) invaded and occupied Ethiopia until 1941. In that time he persecuted the Ethiopian Jewish community, yet somehow they get left out of Holocaust history. And so only “Churban Europe” happened.
“One may not study Torah on the Ninth of Av, because the study of Torah brings joy.”
Yes. Please, stop me from experiencing the joys of reading the Rashi’s racially slanted interpretation of Cham in Bereshit. Or Me’am Loez’s. Or the backpedaling explanation of how Tzippora wasn’t really Black or Ethiopian, but how “Her good deeds were as obvious as an Ethiopian’s black skin” in Bamidbar. WTF?
Every JOC who reads these and interpretations like these has reason to lament even more deeply than the rest of Judaism on the Ninth of Av. Because we acutely know that these trains of thoughts are unapologetically being perpetuated. And during the rest of the year.
Because we truly understand how far away Mashiach really is because of them. How much the “sinat chinam” that destroyed the Temple hasn’t significantly budged an inch in over 2,000 years. Just imagine if the Final Redemption kept getting delayed just one second for every odd look a JOC was given on entering a synagogue or a Judaica store or a kosher supermarket. Or while speaking Hebrew. For every “Gut Shabbos” sneezed at a JOC while they’ve been briskly walked past (not to mention the straight up ignored “Shabbat Shaloms” offered. Or even better “Thank you.”). For every fingertip handshake given. Every denied “overlooked” or “forgotten” aliyah opportunity in shul.
Just putting it out there, but does no one else sometimes feel empty or fraudulent saying “l’shana haba’ah birushalayim” on Rosh Hashana? Or at Seder? Or the rest of the time, you really painfully mean it? Do we really need to drown ourselves in all this today? It’ll just be the same thing all over again tomorrow.
It is truly overwhelming and a feeling and reality that permeates JOC lives far beyond the Ninth of Av.
For some reason, this year I can’t bring myself to spend the whole day contemplating what happened 2,000 years past when there is so much festering reality to ponder in the present.
Those, again, were my words eleven years ago to the day. And what much has changed since then, besides time? Mah nishtana? And what are we going to do about it?
Or, in another decades’ time, will I be posting twenty year old words that are still sadly relevant?