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1. Why are Fringes Sacred?
The Pitttsburgh murderer attacked Jews because we were acting upon Torah's teachings, welcoming refugees fleeing from oppression. (See Deut 23:15-16). So -- in the wake of Pittsburgh, shall we protect ourselves by abandoning our commitment to compassion? Shall we hide from others who we are, by hiding from ourselves who we are?
That would mean hiding from Moses and Miriam, from Amos and Jeremiah and Isaiah, from the unknown woman who first sang the Song of Songs, from Hillel and Akiba and Bruriah, from Rabbi David Einhorn of Baltimore who in the 1850s was forced by his own congregants to leave the city when he called for the abolition of slavery, from Clara Lemlich who rose unknown from a crowd of women workers to call for the great shirtwaist factory strike of 1909, from Rose Schneiderman who said only a working-class arising could prevent future Triangle Shirtwaist fires, from Martin Buber and Henrietta Szold, from Heschel and Vorspan and Kaplan, from Muriel Rukeyser and Alan Ginsberg and Leonard Cohen, from Judith Plaskow and Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.
Hiding ourselves from the Burning Bush and the Breath of Life.
Or we can choose to be who we are, choosing to join others on the fringes of American society – along with bold Black America, brown-skinned Americans
and Mexicans, Native Americans, refugees and immigrants, independent-minded women, transgender aand non-binary people along with all the GLBTQ communities.
And remembering that in our tradition, it is Fringes that make the garment holy.
Why do fringes make the garment holy? Because fringes are threads of connection between our inward selves and the world beyond –reminding us that we end not with a sharp edge, a fence or a wall, but with a fuzzy mixture of “my” cloth and God’s air.
All the communities that live on the fringes of “America” connect us with the “Other,” the Beyond. Cut us off, and America will die of strangulation.
-- Rabbi Arthur Waskow
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2. Wearing a Kippah
In early 2017, I was a panelist in a program about confronting white supremacy. My fellow panelists were an African-American woman, a Latin@ transgender people, a Native American man, and an Asian woman.
I believe I was the last one to speak. When it
came my turn, I said, "There is a difference between my fellow panelists and me. Unlike them," I said, removing my kippah, "I can pass."
It is time to stop passing. It is time to announce loudly and clearly what side we are on and that we are not afraid. I propose all of us wear kippot in public, at all times. I began wearing mine two weeks after the inauguration, for just that reason. Let's do it, and let's encourage others to do so as well.
The day we do not stand up to those who want to make us fear is the day we lose.
-- (((Alan Wagman)))
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3. A Rabbi's Public Letter to Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania
Mr. Toomey, Your words of sympathy for the Jewish dead at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh included in Sunday's Inquirer are "crocodile tears" as you and your colleagues in the US Senate have aided-and-abetted the incitement-to-hatred of Mr. Trump.
You have voted against the welcoming of refugees and immigrants, against affordable health care for all, against the preservation of a
sustaining earth for future generations, against the human needs of the poor whether elderly or young or working or disabled, against women (and occasionally men) who have been harassed or abused or raped by those in "power", and for the dehumanizing of "the other" -- whether Jews or Muslims or people of color or women or GLBTQ.
Your sympathy would be better expressed and better received if your service to the people of this state included care and empathy for all in need, rather than cold-blooded disregard for the pain you have caused through your support of a corrupt president and his minions.
-- Rabbi Phyllis Berman
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4. Letter to President Trump from Pittsburgh Jewish Leaders
Yesterday, a gunman slaughtered 11 Americans during Shabbat morning services. We mourn with the victims’ families and