"The opposite of war isn't peace..."

From my twitter: "Apparently, I rebel/rise by finding (anew) my Jewish community and getting involved in my local library."

I'm Jewish. I lived in our new apartment for almost two months before I was brave enough to hang my mezuzah on the door. Doing so felt like a small act of defiance. This admittance that I exist.

In many ways, I can "pass". My name, maiden or married, not to mention my first, do not sound Jewish. I am fairly secular, I do not keep kosher or Shabbat, and for years, I only showed up at synagogue on the High Holidays. It is only moving to Pittsburgh, in trying to find a community, that I have started going to any sort of synagogue again. And even then, it has been Friday night services once a month.

The desecration of the Jewish cemeteries obviously has me shaken. Even while my relatives are buried in New York, it is still my community, my sense of culture and tradition.

This Friday is Shabbat Across America. It is also the one Friday a month we go to synagogue (or shul, as you may also hear me refer to it). This too feels a little like an act of defiance. This knowledge in supporting and participating in my being Jewish. This throwback to say "I am here. I exist. You have tried to kill us before, and we survived. We eat, we drink, we will continue to survive."

(My non-Jewish, Atheist husband is coming too. Because he knows it is important to me to go.)

I also mentioned libraries. Outside of being a Librarian, I will be volunteering in my local library. Starting in April, I will be DMing an all-female, ages teen and up, D&D group. Open to anyone who identifies as female. Where, hopefully, we will kick some ass, take names, and learn how to stand up for ourselves.

(More on that to come soon.)

(For now, we go back to Information/Media Literacy via the Internet, and annoying my Senators/Representative.)