This is a letter written by Rabbi David in 2018 as we led up to the 2nd Seattle Womxn's March. The logistics and links are last year's, but the sentiment remains true!
Dear Kadima School Families,
When we marched together last year for the historic Seattle Womxn's March, it was evocative of "my legs were praying," as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said of his marching with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery nearly 43 years ago.
In 2017, Kadima was able to organize a Shabbat meet-up, sing, make signs that called to our Jewish ancestors who fought for justice, have a dvar torah, motzi, and kiddush, and join the streets with 174,942 other local humans. That day, we taught our children what righteous indignation looks like. What showing up as Jews to resist oppression looks like. What joining together to celebrate womxn looks like.
Now in 2018, another Womxn's March is scheduled for the third Saturday of January, followed on Sunday by Womxn Act on Seattle: a day of action, network building, and learning on Sunday. As Kadima, we have chosen to still have Kadima School on Shabbat morning and encourage our people to attend the day of events on Sunday - particularly join Kadima teacher Ariel Zaslav at Casa Latina on Sunday at 10am for a panel on Intersectional Feminism featuring Kadima member Diana Falchuk and others. Find your local hub here and behold the opportunities for learning and community building!
We fully support the Womxn's March and have in no way decided to run our regular Shabbat programming as a protest to the march. We encourage our folks to join us at Kadima this Shabbat because this year has taught us about the many ways to resist.
When we as Jews are ourselves, make Shabbat, speak Ladino or Yiddish, interrupt silence, tell a joke to ease the tension, cook for 40 when there's only 4, or show up however we show up visibly as Jews doing our Jewish thing, we resist. Our existence and our remembrance of our ancestors is an everyday resistance that we celebrate each time we come together in Jewish community. This is our heritage.
And so, this weekend, we have some choices to make. Kadima School will happen at its regular time and place with the beginning of a very exciting chug session, an adult session focused on being Jewish at home from 10-11am over bagels and coffee, and catered lunch, as always. All with the continued joy and wrestle of doing our Jewish thing in a not-so-Jewish surrounding. And we persist.
What will we teach our children? That sometimes we march, and sometimes we study and play together, and sometimes we rest. That there are many ways to resist, and Shabbat is part of the long game. That being together as Jews is a priority in a world with many and sometimes competing priorities.
May this Shabbat be one of a special heightened awareness that “us being us” is a radical and powerful and brave act that we cannot take for granted. And may we laugh, may we resist, and may we eat. See you this Shabbat at Kadima and St. T's for the exciting continuation of the rest of our lives. And on Sunday, should this Shabbat end and we are again obligated to go out to do the work of Tikkun Olam, may we find expansiveness and connection in the networks we grow and learning we do, from a place of being grounded in who we are and how we have each other.
If you choose to head to the march after Shabbat School, we encourage you to self-organize (and take the Kadima banner if you’re up for it!) and find a way to form an organic and spontaneous (or not) Kadima contingent that catches the end of it. As of now, the march says it kicks off from Cal Anderson Park at 11:30am, so leaving Kadima after some lunch at 12:30 or so would mean you would still make a meaningful chunk of it.
Your individual family choice will be celebrated whatever you choose, just know that we want you with us and that, in and of itself, is a radical act.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi David
Dear Kadima School Families,
When we marched together last year for the historic Seattle Womxn's March, it was evocative of "my legs were praying," as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said of his marching with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery nearly 43 years ago.
In 2017, Kadima was able to organize a Shabbat meet-up, sing, make signs that called to our Jewish ancestors who fought for justice, have a dvar torah, motzi, and kiddush, and join the streets with 174,942 other local humans. That day, we taught our children what righteous indignation looks like. What showing up as Jews to resist oppression looks like. What joining together to celebrate womxn looks like.
Now in 2018, another Womxn's March is scheduled for the third Saturday of January, followed on Sunday by Womxn Act on Seattle: a day of action, network building, and learning on Sunday. As Kadima, we have chosen to still have Kadima School on Shabbat morning and encourage our people to attend the day of events on Sunday - particularly join Kadima teacher Ariel Zaslav at Casa Latina on Sunday at 10am for a panel on Intersectional Feminism featuring Kadima member Diana Falchuk and others. Find your local hub here and behold the opportunities for learning and community building!
We fully support the Womxn's March and have in no way decided to run our regular Shabbat programming as a protest to the march. We encourage our folks to join us at Kadima this Shabbat because this year has taught us about the many ways to resist.
When we as Jews are ourselves, make Shabbat, speak Ladino or Yiddish, interrupt silence, tell a joke to ease the tension, cook for 40 when there's only 4, or show up however we show up visibly as Jews doing our Jewish thing, we resist. Our existence and our remembrance of our ancestors is an everyday resistance that we celebrate each time we come together in Jewish community. This is our heritage.
And so, this weekend, we have some choices to make. Kadima School will happen at its regular time and place with the beginning of a very exciting chug session, an adult session focused on being Jewish at home from 10-11am over bagels and coffee, and catered lunch, as always. All with the continued joy and wrestle of doing our Jewish thing in a not-so-Jewish surrounding. And we persist.
What will we teach our children? That sometimes we march, and sometimes we study and play together, and sometimes we rest. That there are many ways to resist, and Shabbat is part of the long game. That being together as Jews is a priority in a world with many and sometimes competing priorities.
May this Shabbat be one of a special heightened awareness that “us being us” is a radical and powerful and brave act that we cannot take for granted. And may we laugh, may we resist, and may we eat. See you this Shabbat at Kadima and St. T's for the exciting continuation of the rest of our lives. And on Sunday, should this Shabbat end and we are again obligated to go out to do the work of Tikkun Olam, may we find expansiveness and connection in the networks we grow and learning we do, from a place of being grounded in who we are and how we have each other.
If you choose to head to the march after Shabbat School, we encourage you to self-organize (and take the Kadima banner if you’re up for it!) and find a way to form an organic and spontaneous (or not) Kadima contingent that catches the end of it. As of now, the march says it kicks off from Cal Anderson Park at 11:30am, so leaving Kadima after some lunch at 12:30 or so would mean you would still make a meaningful chunk of it.
Your individual family choice will be celebrated whatever you choose, just know that we want you with us and that, in and of itself, is a radical act.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi David
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