Bows, Bells, and Bodily Autonomy
Happy Holidays! Even as we celebrate this time with our families, we are thinking about the current threats to the right to an abortion. As the narrative continues to suggest religious communities are advocating for restrictive abortion policies, we want to make clear that we are people of faith who support access to safe abortions, not in spite of our faith, but because of it. In the upcoming months we will work to make our voice heard and think about how we can best support those who know what is best for themselves, their bodies, and their families.
My mom grew up in Beachwood, Ohio, where her dad, my grandpa, ran a Jewish pharmacy in Cleveland that stayed open on Christmas. To my mom, Christmas meant being a teenager stocking shelves, ordering her little brother around, dancing through the aisles to jingle bell rock. She still waltzes around the kitchen to Christmas carols — written by Jews, she'll point out — and calls her sister to reminisce while my brother and I go pick up the Chinese food.
I love Christmas. My family and I have a familiar rhythm for the holiday, with familiar food and familiar music. We buy each other gifts and take the day off. I said this once in a high school class — "I don't think there's a war on Christmas, because as Jews, my family and I love Christmas" — to which a classmate told me that is the war on Christmas. Okay, maybe. And of course, not every non-Christian feels the way we do, and their ways of celebrating — or not — should be respected.
But we're still over here rocking to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Johnny Marks, definitely Jewish). From my family to yours: Merry Christmas, and happy new year.
- Maddie
In the News: Reproductive Justice Under Siege
As Supreme Court debates abortion, dueling theologies protest outside by Jack Jenkins, RNS
“‘The people who will be most harmed by an overturning of Roe are going to be those people who are poor … those people who traditionally are also Black, brown and Indigenous,’ she said. ‘The God that I know and follow lives at the intersection of all those things and would be looking out for the ones who will be most oppressed.’”
Catholics for Choice Celebrates Actions of Pro-Choice Catholic Biden Administration to Make Abortion Pills More Accessible, Press Release, Catholics for Choice
"Lifting restrictions on mifepristone makes early abortion and miscarriage care much more accessible, and that is an undeniably good thing. Catholics for Choice refuses to let the extremist forces of the so-called Religious Right speak for all people of faith. We know that abortion access is an essential human right, and we’re grateful for the pro-choice Catholic leaders in this administration who made the reversal of unjustified policy possible.”
National Council of Jewish Women Condemns Supreme Court’s Ongoing Failure to Block Texas Abortion Ban, Press Release, NCJW
“As Jews, we recognize the fundamental importance of protecting constitutional freedoms, including the freedom of religion. National Council of Jewish Women advocates for access to abortion because of our Jewish values, not in spite of them. Jewish tradition views abortion as essential health care, not only permitted but in some cases commanded when a life is at risk.”
Religious Profile: bell hooks, Buddhism, and love
On December 15, 2021, bell hooks passed away, causing a ripple around the world. We mourn the death of the groundbreaking writer, thinker, and feminist whose works pushed on conceptions and intersections of race, class, gender, and structures of oppression and domination.
Critical to her self-identity was her Buddhist Christian faith, which she called the foundation of her life and works. In a 1992 conversation with Tricycle Magazine, hooks describes the role of spiritual practice in informing her values:
“If I were really asked to define myself, I wouldn’t start with race; I wouldn’t start with blackness; I wouldn’t start with gender; I wouldn’t start with feminism. I would start with stripping down to what fundamentally informs my life, which is that I’m a seeker on the path. I think of feminism, and I think of anti-racist struggles as part of it. But where I stand spiritually is, steadfastly, on a path about love.”
Her daily spiritual practice consisted of committing to love, or in other words, committing to a life beyond dualism, eroding “dualisms of black and white, male and female, right and wrong” which reinforce a culture of domination. Seeing past dualities and committing to love instead requires a commitment to humanization, collective agency, and involvement with the world. hooks believed that an understanding that “things are always more complex than they seem” is more useful and difficult than determining there is one right and one wrong, a good or a bad, and choosing a side. Her philosophy promoted engaging in ideas and action in order to liberate, and engaging in a daily spiritual practice to keep herself disciplined and grounded.
Jobs
AmeriCorps VISTA - Muslim & Arab American Resource Corps
Resettlement Program Manager - Jewish Community Family Services Chicago
Senior Government Affairs Associate - J Street
Multiple Positions - Bend the Arc
Social Media Manager - Interfaith Youth Core
Program Associate, Public Engagement - John Templeton Foundation
Multiple Positions - Council on American-Islamic Relations
Interreligious Council Development Officer - Religions for Peace International
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