What I am hoping is that we – and by we I mean all of us with some stake in this conversation: Jews, Palestinians, LGBTQ people, activists and advocates for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine, social justice advocates broadly  – can move toward a public conversation about how we operate in these moments of tension and crisis, and how we can do better.

Tonight, two men with drastically different stories were scheduled for execution. Troy Davis was convicted based on eyewitness testimony in the 1989 murder of a police officer. Of those eyewitnesses, seven have recanted or contradicted their testimony, many citing police intimidation. One of the remaining two has been implicated as the actual killer, and has allegedly threatened one of the witnesses who claimed that he confessed the crime to her.

Community, Liberation

Boston Dyke March was on a Friday, the week after Philly Trans Health. My friends had thrown together a pre-Dyke March Shabbat potluck, and I spent most of the afternoon and early evening – blissfully – a little distant. As someone who is so often at the center of organizing queer Jewish community in Boston, it’s a lovely relief when things happen outside of my professional realm, and I can just be there. This day in particular, against the backdrop of a beautiful Pride week and on the end of a soul-nurturing stint in Philly, I sat back on my mental heels and watched our community breathing. My friends and colleagues and community members and chosen family and partner came together with food and blessings of abundance. People laughed and sang and ate and celebrated and I loved getting to watch it, but at a bit of emotional distance.

Philly Trans Health

The day after the conversation with my grandfather, I landed in Philadelphia for the Philly Trans Health Conference – the largest trans-specific conference of the year. My friend and coworker Asher and I were presenting a couple of workshops, but we had a lot of time to attend sessions, connect with people, catch up with friends, go dancing, and just relish being surrounded by SO MANY trans & queer folks.

As I start this, I’m on my fifth flight in two weeks, flipping through Micah Bazant’s powerful TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine, and I can’t stop thinking about what is feeling like a theme developing from the last few weeks. There are these snippets of moments that I’m trying to string together to create something cohesive and whole. I’m not sure yet what that whole looks like, but I’m pretty sure it’s about femme identity & chosen queerness, about visibility, passing, and safety. It’s about what liberation looks and feels like, and – appropriately – it’s about pride. This will probably be more than one post, because I’m wordy and because why not kick this blog off with a bang?