The US Election Results and Justice: What Will You Do? A Jewish Feminist Perspective by Ivy Helman

I met with a new friend/colleague of mine this past week.  We were discussing the election results, and I was discussing the work I do in the field of religion.  Living and teaching in Central Europe, I have quite a lot of experience navigating the study of religion in a place that is quite atheist and/or actually anti-religion.  In fact, it has been somewhat of a struggle to have the study program, Gender Studies, in which I teach, recognize its importance.  Many of my colleagues, I think, are under the impression that religion is personally not important and/or just not that important in general.  Yet, as I have mentioned here, and as my new friend brought up as we sat over coffee, religion underpins so many aspects of our patriarchal society.  

Therefore, we have to talk about it.  We have to understand it.  We have to recognize the ways it has shaped and influenced so many aspects of our shared history.  We have to acknowledge how it does so still today.  And, most importantly, we have to wrestle with it as feminists, who so desperately yearn for a post-patriarchal world. 

Because religion has played an immensely influential role in Western patriarchy and continues to do so.  Yet, not all religions on this point are equal.  Christianity, for example, has bolstered and been used as justification for slavery, colonialism, capitalism, the destruction of the environment, and the oppression of women.  While the external effects of Christianity have contributed to the destructive ways of patriarchy, we must also acknowledge that Christianity is also internally patriarchal.  It is this internal patriarchy that has for example again delivered  Trump another election victory in the United States.  And, this internal Christian patriarchy is also extremely white supremacist.  

White supremacy is not the path to justice.  It harms immigrants, women, the elderly, the queer community, transpeople, people of color, and religious and ethnic minorities.  It justifies its harm by holding racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and anti-semitic beliefs that it calls those beliefs divinely-inspired or divinely-given.  In addition, it selectively reads scriptures and distorts the historical personhood of Jesus to serve its cause.  Yet, the work of dismantling white supremacist Christianity has been started and must continue to be done by Christians.*

As a Jew, I want to offer two ideas that speak to my sense of justice and how to respond to the situation in which we find ourselves.  The first one comes from Deuteronomy 16:20.  It reads, “Justice, justice you shall pursue, in order that you live and take possession of the land that God, your God, is giving you.”  It is part of the divine instructions given to the Israelites as to how their judges should rule within the Promised Land.  Yet, it has always also had significant meaning among those of us living in the diaspora: that we must continually work to bring more justice into the world. 

In other words, it is part of our life’s mission to pursue justice and that sense of justice extends outwards to the general functioning of society.  This, to me, means: a society in which we, as women, have autonomy over our own bodies; in which racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, and anti-semitism do not exist; in which people are cared for and supported through old age and in the midst of poverty; in which the homeless find shelter and the hungry food; in which all have access to clean water, education, and fulfilling work; in which the environment is cherished and all our interactions with it are sustainable and promote its flourishing; and in which we all live in peace.  This is justice to me and worth all of my effort to pursue it.

Second, Rabbi Rami Shapiro writes in Wisdom of the Jewish Sages: A Modern Reading of Pirke Avot, “Rabbi Tarfon would say: ‘You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.  Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.  Do justly, now.  Love mercy, now.  Walk humbly, now… the payment of the righteous is tranquility: knowing that ‘this, too, shall pass’,” (41).  This teaching, to me, speaks to the fact that we must continue our justice work in the midst of disappointment, discouragement, and despair.  We may not finish the work we bring in our lifetime, but that does not absolve us of its need.  We are obliged to bring justice at least one step closer.  What will you do?

* Resources by Christians addressing white supremacy: Carter Heyward’s The Seven Deadly Sins of White Christian Nationalism: A Call to Action.

1. Danté Stewart’s “Christian Unity isn’t Possible while White Supremacy Rots the Foundation.”

This source has many great resources from a variety of perspectives.