Speaking Their Voices - Women and Girls of Beit Shemesh

Beit Shemesh is a neighborhood of approximately 80,000 in Jerusalem, Israel. It is home to an ultra-Orthodox sect of Jewish people, along with many other residents. With an increase of immigrants, especially of American expatriates, there are rising tensions between the ultra Orthodox and other Orthodox residents. Most recently, an uproar began over the establishment of a new national religious school for girls, Orot Banot. Upon the opening of Orot Banot, there were violent protests from the most ultra-Orthodox men who feel the students don't abide by the special extra stringent rules of dress and lifestyle espoused by the ultra-Orthodox community.  Many of these girls, as young as 7 years old, have been harassed, cursed at, spat on, and have had rocks thrown at them all in the name of what? God, real estate, "self-preservation"? This is mind boggling! Check out the video below.



Despite (and perhaps because of) these horrific offenses, women and girls in Beit Shemesh are speaking out! Their voices will not be extinguished. Anti-extremist rallies have also been held and hopefully will continue - if nothing else then to protect the right of our girls to live in a safe, violence-free world.

Professor X and the Half Breed - Half Breed Haven

Magneto holds his hand up and with all his might, attempting to bend the metallic water tower he sees in the distance. As he furrows his brow, he thinks about the sadness and anger that fuels him, about how different he is from the rest of the world.

Professor X can see the future, his telepathic powers helping to save lives and cities. Like Magneto, he feels out of place, but there is this powerful emotion that rings inside his head, telling him Belong! Belong!

Last weekend after meeting these two X Men for the first time (yes, I know I am many decades late…) I had to ask:

What does the half breed do with his or her pain?

The X-Men, of Marvel Comic fame, present two courses of action for all of us half breeds.

Conform (to society, blend in and hide our superpowers) or Separate (and celebrate our difference even if it means a life of eternal isolation)?

In the few months since I began my blog, Half Breed Haven, I have pondered this question trying to understand both what a half breed is, (Is it someone who is of mixed race or religion? Is it anyone who feels out of place? ) and what influences a half breed’s decision-making process around the question posed by the X Men- Conform or Separate?

At times I am Magneto, angrily crushing the skulls of those who don’t except me and then there are moments when I am Professor X, eager to be considered an honored member of the place where I am.

I caught myself acting like Magneto this week when I couldn’t pronounce a word with the right Hebrew accent and I said to my staff, “You know what I mean, I can’t say it in your accent” separating myself from everyone in the room. The looked at me quizzically, perhaps not understanding why I was isolating myself from them.

Happily there are also times when I feel like I really belong, like that email I got from my boss a few days ago telling me how eloquent I am in Hebrew and how I can’t use the “new immigrant” ticket anymore to differentiate myself from the people around me.

Unlike Magneto and Professor X, more often than not, my reactions to feeling out of place are unconscious and reactive. My out of place-ness does not dictate everything I do, but it is always there, hovering above my soul like a humming bird, flitting around in and out of sight, reminding me that I am loved when I feel like a wall flower and kicking me in the butt when I am feeling powerful, part of the group. I am a half and half breed- I have the fury of the outcast Magneto and the determination to belong of Professor X.

I guess we are all half and half -breed- We are at once like Magneto and Professor X, toying with these alternate states of belonging and loneliness, forever searching for a place that makes us feel normal, whatever that is…

WCC guest post contributor Tamar Zaken is a social worker, informal educator and writer who lives in Jerusalem. She is the Director of Volunteer Service Learning at Memizrach Shemesh- the Center for Jewish Social Activism  in Israel. She started halfbreedhaven.com, a blog about mixed ethnic/racial identity, in order to explore her Kurdish/Hungarian/Jewish/American/Israeli identities, and to create a place for other halfbreeds (however they may define themselves...) to discuss, deliberate, enjoy and celebrate their halfbreed heritage.

Speaking Her Voice - Alana Joblin Ain

Alana Joblin Ain - poet, creative-writing instructor, freelance writer and all around creative spirit - generously shares with the WCC her amazing talent and voice.

The Slower you Travel, the Further You’ll Get

Sometimes I want to feel solidarity with Silda
but instead I think
this is none of my business
and wish there was a station above the News called “Good News”
and instead of people asking what I do, they’d say “what are you looking for?”

At the gym I am superstitious about what number locker
I will put my lock on
I look into the window of Pole Dancing class
and wonder if I don’t sign up because I’m shy?
or because I’m married?
or because I’m married to a Rabbi?

If I could go back and offer advice to an earlier self,
I’d make it specific like

Don’t drink
while working
in a foreign country
during a war –

Something to account for every occasion.

The slower you travel the further you’ll get, a woman tells me,
for no reason, without turning around
and keeps walking towards something only she knows.

Return

God— it comes back so easily. I meet someone
who grew up in the town
where I once sat

on an old sheet in the park
watching fireworks explode
over Zeppelin tracks

first with my parents, then with the boy
I loved his fine sandpaper
sideburns, lemon and cedar

chips, Italian ices melting on the sheet.
Pink and yellow sky trail of
hazy dust heat­—

Bang.

A pot falls to the floor
when I am just a baby,
I do not flinch.

My father realizes something—
fluid— trapped in my ears, I could not hear
at all, those first months

learned the world through gesture, shape—
my mother’s ripe lips moving close together,
then apart, into language I could not live without.

Alana Joblin Ain grew up in Philadelphia. Prior to making New York City her home eight years ago, she earned her B.A. at Oberlin College, studying English and Religion, followed by seven months of writing poems in Israel's desert, as part of the Arad Arts Project. Alana earned her MFA in poetry at Hunter College, where she also teaches undergraduate creative writing. Her work has appeared in Quarterly West, Crab Orchard Review, and RealPoetik. She and her husband, Rabbi Daniel Ain, live in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

For more information about Alana or to receive permission to reprint her work in another publication, please contact info@womenscollaborativecircle.org.

What do a Bedouin woman in Israel and a woman in Philadelphia have in common? A lot!

Traditionally, Bedouin women living in the Middle East are not allowed to work outside their home, let alone make a salary that contributes to the greater financial and social welfare of their tribe and family. However, a new generation of Bedouin women are changing that belief.

A JTA online article, Bedouin women weave tradition, economics together by Jo-Ann Mort, reports that these women are finding old ways to create new lives for themselves and their daughters: "Though the method is old, the women who run the project are part of a new generation of Bedouin women whose work is empowering women who for millennia were denied social and economic opportunities in their conservative society." The project is called Lakiya Negev Weaving, led and supported by a grassroots organization called Sidreh.

The women who are employed gather in their homes to weave together traditional Bedouin colors or a contemporary palate to create rugs to be bought and sold throughout Israel. In addition to the work, women who are employed with Lakiya must agree as a condition of their employment to take part in educational seminars in women's health care. Economic sustainability, education, and social gathering provide a formula for social change.

Ok, so what do these Bedouin women have in common with a Philadelphia woman?

Freedom!

Ahyana King has been getting local press and recognition latetly for her new line of socially conscious and stylish t-shirts called Phreedum.

Phreedum is an independent novelty t-shirt company for men, women, and infants. Phreedum is dedicated to providing unparalleled creatively constructed clothing to the socially conscious, fashion-forward individual. Ahyana uses the creativity of fashion design to raise money through the sales for non-profit organizations currently addressing societal challenges such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, and access to education. She also has a book scholarship fund for men pursuing an undergraduate degree in education or social work and women pursuing an undergraduate degree in math or sciences.

For Ahyana, Phreedum has provided her not only with a creative outlet, and a unique way to express herself, but has been a vehicle to create individual and social change. Now that is empowering!

More information about Negev Bedouin Weaving, please visit http://www.lakiya.org/.

For more information about Phreedum, please visit www.phreedum1984.com.