My partner and I are getting married in a little over a month. She, a lawyer, and I, a professor, live in the Czech Republic. Technically, we aren’t getting married because the Czech Republic doesn’t have marriage equality. Our relationship will not be recognized in the U.S. For that, we need to be married in a state or nation that has marriage equality. Germany might soon. Other options would be a number of EU countries or the United States, but that doesn’t affect our status in the Czech Republic. Finally, our marriage will also not be recognized by some in Jewish circles as well since the ketubah, the Jewish marriage document which possesses legal status in Jewish courts, is between two women.
There is nothing legal about our Jewish wedding except one could argue its Jewishness. So, the day after our wedding our relationship will have the same recognition as it had the day before and the day before that. This would not be the case if we were a heterosexual couple. It reminds me of the countless commitment ceremonies that took place before marriage equality in the United States. They were not prohibited (like the marriages that slaves had because slaves weren’t considered people under the law or eligible to enter into legal contracts while in bondage (see pages 301-302). Yet, similar to the “contubernal relationships” of slaves performed by their masters or other slaves (page 302), they weren’t particularly legal either. Despite the ceremony, there was no change in status of the couple within society. Yet, recognition was and still is an important component of both struggles for rights. In fact, according to Darlene Goring in “The History of Slave Marriage in the United States,” (345-346), the process of gaining legal recognition was very similar for both ex-slaves and the marriage equality community in the United States. Continue reading “Reflections on Marriage by Ivy Helman”
Let’s see if the following course of events makes sense. A few Wednesdays ago, I was thinking about possible topics for this post considering it would be Mother’s Day. In the midst of thought, the warning sirens in Prague began. They were only being tested but, nontheless, I immediately thought of tornados. You see tornados, as awful and devastating as they are, make me think of thunderstorms and lightning. I love a good thunderstorm, the louder the better.
It is, I think, quite common knowledge that most Jewish holidays relate to the seasonal cycles of the Earth. Sukkot celebrates the fall harvest. Chanukah sheds light on the winter darkness. Tu B’Shevat marks the end of the dry season and so begin the prayers for rain in Israel. For Purim, we throw off our winter doldrums and let off a little steam to settle our cabin fever. Pesach is no exception: welcome spring: birth, renewal and even creation. The leaves return to the trees, baby animals are born, flowers bloom, warmer weather arrives and somehow the possibilities of the coming summer are endless.
In light of the recent attacks on Jewish cemeteries —the desecration of 
Embodiment is a feminist principle which has, as its basis, two fundamental criteria. First, humans require their bodies to live. We must acknowledge that our existence is tied to our bodies. This fact grounds us in this world. Here, and not in some other-worldly place, we live out our lives. We are dependent on our bodies and what the world provides for our survival. In other words, humans are inseparable and interconnected to this world. Humans are not above nature as the Western hierarchical dualist mindset would suggest.
Isaac Luria, a Jewish mystic in the city of Sfat, told this tale of creation in the seventeenth century. It caught the Jewish imagination and has been wildly popular as a Jewish creation myth ever since. It captures our longing for wholeness and our experience of brokenness. It also offers a parallel with the Big Bang (a hot seed of light that expands into the universe as we know it) that many find quite compelling. I have loved this story for a long time. To me, it is reminiscent of the story of birth: an empty space that becomes full, then leaks out into the world as a new being. Yet as a feminist who is also committed to sustainability, as more news of our planet’s scorching rolls in, I find this myth is beginning to crack. 
Never has it been more difficult for me to affirm that “love trumps hate” as during this unprecedented United States election season. After watching the Republican Convention last July in mute horror, I took to bed for several days, overwhelmed by the presentiment that everyone–blacks, women, Jews, Latinos, Muslims, queers– other than a certain breed of white American males was doomed to shameless malignment and persecution. The palpable hatred in Donald Trump’s acceptance speech seared me, arousing my ancestral memory of various persecutions of Jews, Muslims, and others–not something I usually think about or choose to foreground. For several months now, I have been haunted (and almost paralyzed) by fear.
Hence Ani Tuzman’s 
