TVCJ members attended a vigil for the murdered anti-Nazi protester in Charlottesville.  May our lives always bring honor to her memory.

Tri-Valley Cultural Jews condemns President Donald J. Trump’s proclamation, delivered yesterday via Twitter, that transgender Americans will no longer be allowed to serve in the United States armed forces in any capacity. It seems apparent that President Trump is aligning with conservative and bigoted interest groups and is targeting a group that he deems as less valued to him. At TVCJ, we stand with our LGBTQ community and are proud of our guiding principles:

As Jews, we know all too well the suffering of war, oppression and hatred.  Our people have been refugees over and over, in every time and place.  We know what happens when refugees are refused admittance to safe countries, as happened to our people in the 1930s and 1940s, when xenophobia, fear and hatred denied European Jews safe haven.

Today’s refugees are Syrians, almost half a million of whom are displaced from their homes, terrorized by their own government, and victims of internecine hatred.  Thousands have been waiting in miserable refugee camps while they have been vetted for up to two years by the American government.  Those refugees have already been deemed safe to admit to America.

We call on the American government to admit Syrian refugees.  We call on the American people to welcome them.

Tri-Valley Cultural Jews.  Member community of the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations.

Clara Gray was a Holocaust survivor from Hungary. After the war, she and her husband Emery came to America with nothing but Emery’s discharge papers and Clara’s memory of the food she cooked as a child. In America, they first lived with Clara’s sister, who had come over earlier, on a farm in the midwest. Needless to say, the ingredients available there were nothing like those Clara had used in Hungary. So, she adapted. She made traditional foods using modern (well, 1950s modern) American ingredients. When she passed down her recipe for lokshn (noodle) kugel, it included a can of crushed pineapple!

The Jewish Culture School students heard this story when they used her recipe to make a delicious lokshn kugel, each deciding which dried fuits to add to the recipe. They enjoyed cooking and eating, but more important than that (I know – more important than eating?), they learned that Jewish tradition adapts to new times, new discoveries and new places. If they had tried to make kugel using the recipes available in Budapest in 1935, they would have had no kugel at all. Modern Jewish life, like Clara’s kugel, is a blend of old and new folkways with lots of choices each individual can make about which elements to include in order to make the kugel most delicious for his or her own tastes.

I performed my first wedding ceremony in 1987, but before I did, I agonized over whether I should perform a ceremony that wasn’t available to everyone.  As it happened, a couple of my gay friends told me – in these exact words – “Don’t be stupid.”  So I performed legal wedding ceremonies between men and women and non-legal wedding ceremonies between people of the same sex.

A couple of times a year, a gay couple (back then both men and women were just called “gay”) would come to me and ask me to perform a “commitment” ceremony.  I would say no. I would tell them I did not perform commitment ceremonies but that I would be happy to perform a wedding ceremony for them.  And I did.  These weddings were not legal, but they were real.

I’m proud that our Secular Humanistic Jewish movement has always supported the right to marry and we were the first Jewish movement to include openly gay clergy members.  I’m proud that the Jewish community is at the forefront of every fight for equality.

While I am sensible that struggles remain, America has come a long way.  It took Black Americans almost 400 years to attain equal legal rights.  It’s not even 40 years from Stonewall, and we’re on our way to equal legal rights for people of all sexual orientations.  We’re not there yet, but we’re on our way.

At our Passover seder, we ask why we say “dayenu” – it would be enough for us – even though we know each thing we are happy for is not everything we need, want or hope for.  We say “dayenu” because it feels good to be on our way.  When we say “dayenu” it means we celebrate each step toward our goals as if  it were enough – and then start out on the next step. It means that if we reject each step because it is not the whole liberation, we will never be able to achieve the whole liberation. It means to sing each verse as if it were the whole song – and then sing the next verse!

So, yes, there’s still inequality, brutality and bigotry.  There’s still progress to be made.  But we’ve made another huge step forward, so let’s celebrate.  Let’s say DAYENU!

TVCJ joins the American Jewish World Service in urging you to get involved in a movement here in the U.S. that aims to end violence against women and girls, stop hate crimes against LGBT people, and hasten the end of child marriage around the globe.

Join @AJWS for a celebration of #Chanukah and the launch of its new campaign promoting the rights of women, girls and LGBT people worldwide on December 9 from 7-9PM at Brick and Mortar Music Hall in San Francisco!
Space is limited, so reserve your space today!

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