While enjoying baby carrots for lunch, I decided to google “Famous Jewish Women.” The search results led me to viewing work by Joan Roth. And what do I find??? Photos galleries of “Bukhara”, “Women in Seattle,” and “Women in Baltimore.” http://www.joanroth.com/bukhara/index.html

I was born in Bukhara, came to Baltimore as the result of immigration to USA, and moved to Seattle. In a matter of few seconds I was taken back into my past, back in Bukhara, and flew over Baltimore, and landed in Seattle.  I am feeling very emotional, a bit sad, and warm.

This week’s New Yorker (or maybe last week’s…I’m bad at checking my mail) has a piece about Rabbi Dennis Shulman of New Jersey that begins with one of my favorite ledes of of all time.

Throughout American history, the number of blind rabbis serving in Congress has remained steady at zero.

And then ends with this quote:

“We agreed that there should be a conspiracy by the blind to take over all levels of government,” Shulman said.

I love it.

You can read the middle parts here.

Yesterday the House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing to African Americans for both slavery and the nations subsequent years of Jim Crow shenanigans. So that’s nice…I guess. But the first thing I thought when I read the headline was, “wait, you mean this hadn’t happened already?” Slavery ended in the U.S. almost 150 years ago, people, and congress is only just now getting around to saying its sorry?
Apparently, however, a congressional apology is a pretty rare thing. CNN provides a short list of other notable, recent apologies:

In April, the Senate passed a resolution sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, that apologized to Native Americans for “the many instances of violence, maltreatment and neglect.”

In 1993 the Senate also passed a resolution apologizing for the “illegal overthrow” of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893.

In 1988, Congress passed and President Reagan signed an act apologizing to the 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were held in detention camps during World War II. The 60,000 detainees who were alive at the time each received $20,000 from the government.

Full story here.

This morning I got the latest in a series of tiny emails between an old Israeli lover of mine, and old friend. (Since apparently the hot topic lately is whether or not we’re sleeping with Jews, he happens to be Jewish, though practices in a non traditional fashion, as I often do… but our comparative philosophies on our Judaisim, as well as our romantic politics, are best reserved for a seperate dialogue. It’s possible a hookup will occur if I visit him, depending on circumstances, though one of the considerable factors will _not_ be whether or not one of us is seeing someone, unlike most people.)

A littl background on this boy: We picked each other up at shul, because he had long hair, tats, and talked about his motorcycle adventures and english degree while passionately pontificating on a religious idea that was set up as a debtate. we wound up on the same side of the idea (don’t remember what it was,) and later we wound up going over to his house to jam, after which, he taught me the brucha for marijuana, and we had totally epic sex.

This created an interesting scenario, because during our off-and-on roughly 6 month casual affair, I was attempting to see 2 other Jews we both knew, one of whom (the girl) was seeing him… and the boy-Jew wasn’t comfortable with the broadcasting jokes about who was sleeping with whom among the more conservative (read: “normal”) Jews in the crowd.

And people wonder how I got a “bad” reputation. :)

Anyway, I sent him a silly cartoon the other day cause it made me think of him (among a bunch of folks), and we started exchanging short emails. The last one I received this morning, which when summed up, amounts to the following pertinent conversation:

Josh:
I LOVE IT! I am sending to all my guitar-struck lovers…
hugs from the east coast
ps- you going to israel any time soon? I am moving there aug 17…

Me:
For real? why? What’s the story?
And maybe. I’d have to save about $500 for the passport, gateway city tix. deposit… you know how it goes.

Josh:
livingroutes.org- I am coordinating their first ever israel program- pretty exciting

I checked out the website for the organization he’s talking about—it’s really awesome! MY intentional-community-living ass got all droopy and soppy over wanted tp see what this program is all about. Now I think I really have to try to make it on a Birthright trip before I get too old.  I really want to stay a couple extra days and visit him and that place. The hard thing is, I have to get my own passport, and pay for a deposit and gateway city tickets… I make less than $900/mo and can barely afford my own rent, and I’m trying to get out of debt, and I’m trying to save money to get a studio for daytime private lessons and nighttime rehearsals with a band, and to record my first album… I know the rest of the 2 week trip to israel is completely free and taken care of and it’s “a steal.” I know there are grants, but I still had to back out before, because I couldn’t afford to get the passport in time. Perhaps if I make a plan a year in advance, especially with extra incentive to go,  I might be able to pull it off. My birthday is in September, so I’ll be 26 all summer long next year. :)

I don’t know how the hell I’m going to save up that kindof money, but I’m going to try. If anyone has any “my whole family is poor and I don’t come from a long line of Jews (parents are converts) and I’m poor too” grants to help, please let me know how I can apply. The chance to see israel, and go say hi to an actual Israeli friend to talk about the country I visited (Josh grew up there) is too much of an opportunity to pass up.

Maybe I can grab a trip that happens during pride. God, I have a weakness for Israeli women. But I’ve never met a queer one. I hope to god the gay ones like American girls like the straight ones like American boys… probably the only luck I’ll have meeting a rad, fiery Jewish girl. Or at least, one that wants to have sex with me. Is that too much to ask?

Few days ago, I ran into an Ashkenazi rabbi, who upon meeting me for the first time told me that I am pretty smart for a Sephardi woman. Given that I have quite a big mouth on me, I quickly replied that I can totally relate and understand where he is coming from, because for an American he isn’t all that dumb.

Rude and nasty comeback…. In all fairness and honesty, my automatic defense pilot didn’t accomplish much. I reacted to a negative comment negatively, which created even more negative energy. If anything, finding myself saying such hurtful and bigoted comment only made me mad at myself.

It is sad to be a recipient of bigotry at the end of a leader who is supposed to promote integration among the Jews, and fight bigotry!