mutatis mutandis @jacobintransit - Tumblr Blog

Matthew Hodson: “ 20 years ago, 2 years after the arrival of combination therapy that effectively treated #HIV, the Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco’s LGBT newspaper ran ‘No Obits’ as its headline. It was the first edition not to report an AIDS death in almost 15 years.”

naamahdarling

Y'all need to appreciate that this was practically fucking *yesterday*.

your-singing-eyes

Paul Simonon

valtsv

your friend group in your 20s will consist entirely of people who are either a) gay b) have the same trauma as you c) work with you or d) all of the above

valtsv

and how could i possibly forget e) lives too far away from you to meet up irl more than once or twice a year

badnovels

yidquotes

THE CHEVRA KADISHA, meaning “sacred society,” is one of the oldest Jewish mutual aid traditions still around today. K’vod v’Nichum (Honor and Comfort), an organization that provides guidance and support to North American chevra kadisha groups, traces Jewish burial societies back to 13th-century Spain. Chevra kadisha customs traveled across Europe with Sephardic Jews fleeing persecution and flourished in Europe over the next centuries, such that the chevra kadisha is most often remembered as an early modern Ashkenazic tradition.

Historically, in addition to performing taharah and ensuring that the deceased is never left unattended from the moment of death to the moment of burial, the chevra kadisha might also help with sick care before the moment of death, or arrange and execute the funeral process. Its members were not always publicly known; their anonymity manifested the symbolic truth that the entire Jewish community rose to support the mourners among them.

Aspects of those traditions traveled to the US with Jewish immigrants and were once a boldly generative force in American Jewish life. Early chevra kadisha groups in 19th-century New York City spawned comprehensive Jewish grassroots mutual aid groups that often took the form of landsmanshaftn, aid societies for emigrants from the same areas of Central and Eastern Europe. These benevolent societies were more committed to popular participation and preventative community care than other Jewish institutions of that time, emphasizing democratic governance, offering the first opportunities for American Jewish women to create and lead their own community groups, and providing financial support to vulnerable families before their need became overwhelming. Even as these organizations expanded well beyond their origins in the chevra kadisha, the funeral arrangement and financial support they offered grieving families remained a significant draw for members. The values Jewish communities enacted through this approach to death—among them, egalitarianism, radical compassion, togetherness, responsibility, and human dignity—allowed them to survive in a nativist, antisemitic system. - Jordana Rosenfeld

glassheartedboy

Laughter/Trembling

“Judaism lives in the space between laughing and trembling”

We have always laughed in the face of death, hidden the way sobs heave,

No, darling, it’s just a belly laugh

In every generation a new Haman, complete with stupid headdress

And isn’t (that) the best punchline

The final laugh?

I can name myself in every language I have blotted yours out of

Isn’t this sweeter than wine?

@glassheartedboy

yidquotes

“The first time Hagar finds herself lost and afraid in the desert she has run away from her mistress. At that time, God answers her plea, and she exclaims, “You are El Ro'i …” (Gen. 16:13). Hagar calls God “the One who looks upon me” and names the well where she sits accordingly: Be'er-lachai-ro'i, “Well of the One who looks upon me.” What is it that God sees? Rabbi Aybu said that this kind of seeing means: You identify with the embarrassment of those who have been insulted and humiliated ( B'reishit Rabbah 45).”

— Rabbi Zoë Klein