[The tallis is a fringed Jewish prayer shawl, usually woven from silk, wool or linen. Not every Jew chooses to wear a tallis and Jewishness is plural. We respect the choices of our fellow Jews, be they religious or secular.]
My father kept his silk tallis in its velvet bag, in a drawer of the telephone table in our hallway. He would pick it up on his way out the back door whenever the synagogue was short of its quorum for prayer. He would not have dreamed of taking the tallis out of its bag before he arrived at the sanctuary doors.
I have never worn my tallis in public either, because prayer is such a private and separate event.
However, throughout Israel’s campaign to shatter Gaza, the tallis has been on display as never before. Rabbis have blocked bridges, railway stations and the Congressional rotunda. They have been arrested while wearing their tallis and reciting prayers. They have set the symbols of Jewishness against the powers that fund and permit genocide.
Now those spiritual leaders are rabbis to us all. Bring it, they are urging us. Bring everything we have and place it visibly in the service of justice and peace. Throw all of our Jewishness against the ethno-nationalism that props up the walls around Gaza and hardens the walls around too many hearts.
Last weekend Dayenu and Alternative Jewish Voices members did just that. We welcomed and farewelled the Sabbath at Israel’s consular offices in Auckland and Wellington. We prayed for an end to this genocidal madness.
We stepped from pedestrian into sacred space by preparing to put on the tallis. We said a short reflection and then the prayer for being wrapped in this deeply personal garment. The prayer is whispered within the tent of the tallis itself. Then, solemn and a bit self-conscious, we settled the prayer shawls on our shoulders and looked out at the friends gathered around us. We conducted short services of prayer and song on the sidewalk.
In Wellington, I asked the group to think of my colleague’s grandchild, just born in a tent in Rafah. Her family named her Salaam – peace. We sang so that Salaam might hear Jewish voices raised for peace, for justice, for a life with her – not at her expense.
In our small groups on the street, we wore the tallis to bring Jewishness more fully to our solidarity. Jewish solidarity with Palestinians requires us to confront our responsibility as well as our own trauma – and after all that it requires us to choose the risks of peace rather than the risks of war.
Jewish solidarity is thus not an act of self-abasement but of a fuller participation in our world. We have been raised in the harms of Zionism and we can be agents of change. Our responsibility is not self-hating, it is adult and repairing.
People are familiar with Hillel’s 2000-year-old injunction, If I am only for me, then who am I? Jewish solidarity replies by being for each other.
Relational Jewish philosophy or theologies like Martin Buber’s say that Gd is present in the space between fully present equals. We recently read a Torah portion in which Gd situates Gd’s voice in the space between two winged carvings.
Solidarity happens in that space between us when we stand together, look straight at each other and imagine in each others’ eyes a land beyond war – from the river to the sea.
In both Auckland and Wellington, our prayer services were joined by non-Jews. Thank you: it felt so good to be surrounded by friends. Being Jewish in public while the White Right is mainstreaming anti-semitism is not risk-free, but as with any form of racism or threat, we face it together. We face it knowing that others will stand with us because we stand with them.
I wear my tallis to say privately hineini – I am here. I wore it in public to append the fuller meaning, hineini – and I am ready. I am ready to enact a Judaism beyond Zionism in a world where we thrive in our mutual bonds.
Marilyn Garson
Sh'ma Koleinu - Alternative Jewish Voices (NZ) 