Another dream I had: in a vast open hall, maybe a renovated barn, we danced. Like, all of us. Everyone I knew. It was a new dance; it was an ancient dance. Sometimes we moved perfectly in time with each other, as one. Other times, we did our own thing. The dance was beautiful, it was organizing — the Work of gathering people to change the world. Sunlight poured in through the open windows.
#
I write sci-fi, so every once in a while at an event I get this question: “Everyone’s always writing dystopias, hey how come no one writes a utopia novel, huh?” And like, first of all that would, by definition, almost definitely have no conflict related to the world itself, so let’s get that out of the way. (I’m sure someone could figure out a way to make it exciting; I am not that someone.)
Second of all, as with dystopias, utopias are not some far away impossible thing — they are right here with us, right now, in every single moment we’re alive. This is true in a very simple, very unfathomable, very personal way in that every breath we take connects us to everything else that is and ever was, and thus to divinity. Paradise. Recognizing that is of course the tricky part, but it’s there when we manage to make the time (it actually doesn’t take any time to recognize it but we trick ourselves into thinking it does, and we don’t have enough.)
That microcosm aside, there’s a larger paradise that opens up around us every time we gather to collectively raise our voices with the aim of making this world better, safer, more of a home and less of a warzone. This is sacred work. It is real world, street level work. There is no barrier or space between those two truths; they overlap.
On January 6th — Joan of Arc Day and the first day of carnival season here in New Orleans — we marched through the French Quarter for freedom in Palestine. The rally was organized by local musician Simon Moushabeck, who also arranged brass band renditions of Palestinian songs that our rally sent reverberating through the dive bars and tourist traps and haunted alleyways and out across the Mississippi. We carried signs and flags and banners and birds and kites and drums and our own beating hearts and tears and joy, sweeping all of it down those winding streets as we marched. Every now and then, the music would fade as the chants picked up, and then we’d round a corner onto another crowded throughway and the leader would count us in and the band would let loose and we’d move as one, falling into synchronicity with each step and bounce, fists raised to the night sky, we sang.
Here is paradise. Here, in the moment itself, and right here, in the memory. Here in the telling of the tale, and here in the way a story rises and grows with each new person who hears it.
Rallies can get very generic if you’re not careful. The gravitational pull of that default to no-culture or white culture can overtake a protest—seen it happen many times. Blankness becomes the norm where culture should thrive. It’s bad. But this recent surge in the movement to free Palestine has been anything but. At the statewide rally a few weeks back, we paused for the Call To Prayer; this massive, rambunctious flood through the streets suddenly stopped in its tracks not by authority but by divinity, by awe, as those beautiful notes rang out across the sudden silence. It was breathtaking to behold, be part of — the sacred moving effortlessly along the throughlines of our collective rage, grief, and unity.
Had the same feeling, although in a very different cadence, at Simon’s musician rally, and it echoes a larger conversation happening for many people in this time of crisis. For antizionist Jews, the question we’re confronting looks something like this: we cannot be defined by what we’re against, so what, then, are we for? What are we made from? What defines us? This is the quiet brilliance behind the organizational name Jewish Voices for Peace, a group I’ve started working with alongside many thousands of others. Yes, we are saying no to genocide and occupation, but at its core, the name signifies a positive identifier, a self beyond those things. This is also why many of us found historical precedent for our answer in the Bund, a socialist Jewish movement that arose at the same time as zionism, which it opposed directly (while not being defined by that opposition). The Bund organized the first anti-pogrom defense collectives, played a role in the 1905 Russian revolution, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, among other things. And while it’s been tactically asleep for many years, the majority of Bundists murdered or scattered by the holocaust, it’s having a comeback now for obvious reasons. More on that in a future post but you can learn about it here: https://derbund.org/.
There’s a famous Jewish tale about an old man planting a fig tree. A passerby asks (rudely, if we’re being honest) why he’s spending time cultivating a plant that he’ll never get to taste the fruits of since he’ll surely be dead by then. The old man explains that he was born into a world full of trees, plants, nourishment, abundance — the literal fruits of the labor of those who came before him, his ancestors; he is merely taking part in the ongoing sacred tradition of providing for those who will come next.
This is what I think about every time protestors shut down another major highway for Palestine and some random pundit, a guy who can’t be bothered to lift a finger to even mildly disagree with genocide, inevitably demands to know who they think they’re converting to their cause by inconveniencing commuters!?
There are so many answers to that question, but one of them is the same words the old man spoke to the passerby. Our ancestors fought for us to have the freedom to fight for our children. Our ancestors fought for us to have the freedom to raise our voices, shut shit down, raise every hell we know because our tax money is being used by Israel to slaughter tens of thousands in our name, and if we don’t have that freedom than it’s for us to take it and make our own so our children will.
As if often the case with stories, there’s another version of old man/fig tree tale that doesn’t get told as much, but perhaps, as also happens plenty, grew into one that does. In this version, it’s a carob tree, and the passerby is a mystic, miracle-worker, and scholar named Honi the Circle Drawer. The man tells Honi it’ll be seventy years before the carob tree bears its gifts to the world. After their conversation, Honi takes a nap in a cave, as one does, and when he wakes up, the world is a very different place: seventy years have passed, and the carob tree planter’s grandchildren are reaping the harvest of his labor. This narrative ancestor of Rip Van Winkle then goes to find his study group buddies, but the guys at his old spot quote his wisdom but don’t believe the man standing before them is Honi the Circle Drawer — no way he could be alive! So Honi dies of heartbreak 💔💀
Ok, that one takes a turn! Point is: there’s an element of the impossible here. Honi, playing the role of the doubting pundits, think it’s impossible that the man will live long enough to enjoy the carobs he’s planting, rendering the labor useless, ridiculous (“what’s the point of inconveniencing people with protest?”). Here, he’s not merely proven wrong by the planter’s compassionate understanding of life, ancestry, and creativity. The very living universe he seems to think he grasps so well then reveals itself to be more magical, expansive, divine, full of miracles, than even he, a miracle maker, can fathom. Time bends into itself, unstable, non-linear, playful, becomes a trickster. Honi, outmaneuvered, perishes.
We don’t know, is the thing. We want to know so badly, especially in times of chaos and war. We are desperate to know, even if it’s the worst news, we want it, because it feels stable, safe, compared to the brain-wrecking uncertainty of not knowing. And so we insist we do know: it’s this that will happen, for sure. Clearly, it’s that. We make gloomy predictions, the darker the better, then try to get cozy in the certainty of their claws. And, of course — we have plenty of reason for gloom. Look around. But none of the horrors of this moment change the absolute truth that we do not know what’s next, we cannot imagine it, the true magic of this world, we can only throw all of that imagining power into creating the most amazing, compassionate, divine world possible.
And that’s why we rally. Why we yell our demands at unlistening ears. Why we become listening ears to one another. Why we disrupt. Why we say no. Why we fight. Why we challenge ourselves to learn from each march and mistake and get better, smarter, fiercer — to deepen the neverending communal dance that is creating a new world, one built for all of us, as the sunlight pours in through open windows.
LINKS:
Guante’s resource for artists who want to speak out on Palestine but aren’t sure how: https://racketmn.com/for-artists-and-musicians-who-want-to-speak-out-about-palestine-but-arent-sure-how
A moving open letter from Jewish students at Brown: https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2023/11/an-open-letter-from-jewish-students
Writers Against the War on Gaza:
https://www.writersagainstthewarongaza.com/
And more links from
SupportPalestine Action:
https://www.palestineaction.org
Dissenters against the War Machine:
Apply pressure for a ceasefire now:
Take action with Jewish Voice for Peace:
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Take action with the Palestinian Youth Movement:
https://palestinianyouthmovement.com/
Take action with IfNotNow:
https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org/
Support Boycots, Divestmest, and Sanctions: