My Mother Grew up in Israel

I don’t agree with the Israeli government.  

And I love being Jewish.

Over the last couple years, I’ve returned deeply to my Jewish roots, a tradition I grew up in and now deepened my understanding of. 

My mother was raised in Israel. 

My grandfather moved the family from France to Israel because of the antisemitism they were experiencing in Europe.

I grew up with a lot of love for Israel in my heart. The idea of a homeland for a persecuted people, and a place that helped my family thrive after surviving the Holocaust felt holy to me. 

And today, I carry a lot of grief.

Grief that safety for one people has become enmeshed with so much suffering for another. Grief that Israeli government is like all governments - tied to a very sick global parasitic class - getting off on destroying life (literally). Grief at the helplessness I feel in the face of it all. 

And god and Judaism have given me back my hope, faith, strength, values, history, language, code, insight, power, fearlessness, trust, devotion, laughter, joy, celebration, creation, understanding in my place in the universe, and illumination in these dark times. 

Being Jewish is genuinely one of the greatest blessings of my life (honestly right next to being Black and Trans - thank you god what a gift to know and wield these magics). 

And in less than a week, I’m throwing the biggest festival I’ve ever produced alongside an incredible team of epic Jew’s, some who have been in my life for 15 years. 

Yes, a Jewish Music and Arts Transformational Festival www. chavayafestival. com 

I’m more excited than I’ve ever been for an event I’m producing, and I’m also struggling more than I ever have with my silence.

I haven’t shared publicly about my thoughts on Israel and Palestine because the Left feels like such a minefield. I know there are people who will immediately decide who I am based on this post, one sentence or a word, instead of listening to the complexity and the stories of real human beings or asking me what I know. 

For the last two years, I’ve been holding the stories of my people - my friends, my family members, who live in Israel, visit Israel, are currently in bomb shelters in Israel, have been to Gaza, married Palestines, supported peace work between both groups, are friends with Palestines, etc.

Real stories, from real people.

I’ve been trying to humanize people instead of reposting headlines and memes. Listening, asking questions, trying to understand why everyone is acting as they are. 

I don’t have any answers, and neither do they - this conflict is older than the bible itself, more complex and less black and white than we think, and CANNOT and should not be stereotyped by groups of people with labels. 

All I know is this: that this is an ancient family feud. With the physical inability to take space from one another. Funded by fascist and terrorists on both sides. 

And what I know is it’s the least Jewish thing I’ve ever seen… 

Out of the hundred of things I know and love about Judaism (and there is soooooo much more for me to learn). My favorite thing has got to be Shabbat. Every Friday night, we enter a deep deep portal of rest. They say Shabbat is like a bride, the divine feminine energy and presence coming to wash over you so that you can sync into what I like to call God’s time. You know, when you lose track of time and things just become so expensive. 

Shabbat is a code. 

A frequency that you enter through song and prayer. 

Singing to God with your voice and a harp, asking God to unwind all of the things that bind you, asking the angels of the most high, the Angels of the Queens of Queens and the Kings of Kings to come down and bless you, and leave when they must. 

Shabbat last 24 hours until Saturday night. We come back out of Shabbat through smelling cinnamon and spices grounding us back to earth and extinguishing a braided candle in wine.  

They say Shabbat is a taste of the world to come. That one day the world will be at rest. The world will be blanketed in the energy of the divine feminine. That there is a world to come that knows peace. 

We won’t see that peace in our lifetime. But for now we just get a taste every friday night to Saturday.

May the Palestinians know life and love, and may the Jews know safety and humility.   

I would love to do Shabbat with you one day.

Shabbat shalom