reflections on my east coast tour

I begin with gratitude. Lilacs, vegetable gardens, ancient sugar maples, a porcupine sighting, sunny weather and spring’s emerald canopy graced my eleven day tour in Western Massachusetts and Boston. A big shout out to Woolman Retreat Center, Ollie Schwartz, Darla Stabler, Earnest Vener, Liat Melnick, Joshua Blaine, Rabbi Leora Ableson, the Jewish Liberation Fund and my dear friends Rebecca and Carolyn for the considerable effort it took to make a six gig tour feel like a work vacation!  

The L’Shem Kedushat retreat brought together queer Jews who are engaged in learning how to process and create diaspora Torah scrolls. I was especially impressed with the way people across the spectrum of attitudes and beliefs about Palestine/Israel and Jewish chalacha created a loving and accepting environment in pursuit of learning how to prepare Torah scrolls from fleshing the animal to getting it ready to be written upon. My role was facilitating Jewish dance, sharing circles and of course, telling stories.These cultural/artistic components of Jewish tradition helped us forge a Mishkan at Woolman Retreat Center in Deerfield, MA.

It was delightful to stay at Woolman in order to welcome another cohort of aspiring and veteran Jewish storytellers for a two day retreat. Each person workshopped stories that spanned long jokes, biblical and rabbinic folktales, Hasidic tales and personal accounts. In particular, we were moved by Jules Pashal’s story of a young girl’s struggle as a fat activist in ways that lifted up their beauty and agency and concluded with an image of a bird flying over their body floating effortlessly in a pond. Such an expansive and healing tale. After a week immersed in people seeking to expand their Jewish artisanship skills, I headed to a sold out performance in Northampton of Magida on Sacred Ground. Moving on to a wedding at a Jewish summer camp for the weekend, I was moved once again to realize how important it is to so manyJewish people that recognition of the genocide of Palestinians is part of everything we do during Jewish ceremony and gathering times. Boston was also wonderful - especially being in a multi-faith community working at building the movement for interfaith solidarity with Palestine.  I am grateful for the interest in Replanting Seeds of Jewish Revolutionary Nonviolence as a path forward.  

Jewish storytelling in a shomeret shalom framework of values was a dynamic success. Storytellers workshopped beautiful stories and learned the art of the craft through performance opportunities.  Members of Patreon and the Guild will have access to resources provided by Guild subscribers to Patreon and the Jewish storytellers google group from August - December2024.