Greetings folks! Welcome to A Song of Zion, our weekly check-in and virtual minyan for Jews on Daily Kos. This is an open thread, and we treat it as a safe space for Jewish folks here. Non-Jews are welcome but we ask that they listen more than speak. No squabbling, please: if you want to fight, please step outside. (H/T wasplover)
Happy Chol HaMoed folks! Hope everyone celebrating had a great Pesach. Before the holiday, I read this story about how the Jewish community would likely opt to just not talk about politics during this time.
From the article:
When my grandfather was alive, we rarely saw eye to eye. Our disagreements were too numerous to count, and they’d multiply whenever we were together. No setting was too sacred for us to forego our spats. Even the Passover Seder could become the backdrop to our bickering — the Jewish equivalent of arguing around the Thanksgiving table. But despite our differences of opinion, we always sat together at the same table. There was always room for both of us.
This year, Jews around the world celebrate Passover in a moment of profound trauma and discord brought on by the massacre on October 7th and the ongoing war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And there seem to be fewer chairs around our seder tables. Rather than arguing vigorously together, we are retreating from one another. Supporters of the war are retreating from those who oppose it, and vice versa. We no longer sit together.
After reading the article, I thought, “nah, not my family”. We argue about everything. I was even looking forward to heated conversation, and getting to talk and argue amongst other Jews about the current state of affairs- and getting to tell folks when they were wrong. But we didn’t. We mechanically went through the rituals, and then engaged in conversation about anything except “that”. It was weird. This is in the family where one cousin declared they’d vote for Trump, my aunt loudly dressed him down in front of everyone. I’m now left feeling a confused and a bit sad. I’ve never experienced this “elephant in the room” feeling within my family before.
I also read an article about shtetle Passover traditions. Two were very familiar. The first, wearing new clothes, I try to do every year.
The second:
Gorin included an interesting observation of cigarette smokers on Passover. Smoking is permitted on the holidays, but lighting a match can only be done from an existing flame. Well then, how does a smoker light his cigarette when he’s away from home? Gorin described it like this: if a man was seen walking down the street, smoking a cigarette or a pipe, someone who needed a light would approach him and use the smoking man’s cigarette to light his own. The second person would walk on, and then other passers-by might in turn ask him if they could use his cigarette to light their own, and so on. Everyone helped each other.
It takes me back to the days when I was in the Orthodox community. At that time the smokers would quietly sneak a light from the stove and head outside all together where they’d kabitz about life, the holiday, or whatever.
So how did everyone here find it? Was your family gathering awkward? Did you hear a great drash? Wear anything new?