NEW YORK – As protest movements under the banner of Occupy Wall Street grow in
cities across the United States, a parallel movement deemed “Occupy Judaism” has
sprung up as well.
The protests are now scenes for vivid experimentation
in Judaism as well as society. Like the succot built at several protest sites,
Occupy Judaism is an indication that there are Jews among the “99 percent” of
people protesting their sense of disenfranchisement and dissatisfaction with
inequalities in American society.
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really affected by the economy,” Rabbi Alana Suskin, a participant in Occupy DC,
said. “There may be one synagogue in the country where no one has lost their
jobs. Jews also have their poor. It’s the unspoken elephant in the room. Not
everybody’s well off. Probably most Jews are part of the
99%.”
Allegations have been made by some, including New York Times
columnist David Brooks, that the Occupy movements are anti- Semitic. Suskin said
such concerns were effectively defused by the reaction she and other organizers
had to their efforts to erect a succa for the holiday in the Occupy protests in
the nation’s capital.
When her group approached organizers about building
a succa in MacPherson Square in DC, Suskin said, the organizers “were thrilled,
and we received offers of help and supplies.”
Occupy Wall Street and its
regional cohorts, Suskin said, are an “American movement for justice, and as far
as I can see the people around us recognize that Jews are Americans just as they
are, and there isn’t, as far as I can tell, any evidence that the 1% term is any
kind of coded message about Jews.”
In fact, organizers said, the protests
afford American Jews an opportunity to rethink their relationship to their own
religion. One of the organizers of Occupy Judaism, Daniel Sieradski, was
involved in putting together the New York Kol Nidre service by the protest site
which attracted between 700 and 1,000 participants last week. Siedradski called
such services “civil disobedient
davening (praying)."
“It started with one
Tweet and got 1,000 people,” Sieradski said, adding that New York’s Kol Nidre
Occupy service was traditional egalitarian, and included secular and
ultra-Orthodox Jews alike.
Sieradski called the Occupy movements “one of
the most exciting things to happen in American Judaism."
“We’re giving
people an outlet through which to express their Jewish values that no other
Jewish institution has been able to provide them with,” Sieradski said, adding
that he hopes that the long-term momentum of the movement will lead Jews to
“occupy our own Jewish institutions, rendering them responsive and accountable
to the needs of the community."
“Most Jewish institutions are dominated by
their wealthiest donors, whose views might not be in line with that of the wider
Jewish community,” Sieradski said. “It’s our community and our tradition
as much as it is anybody’s, and they need to make space for us.”
Ideally,
Sieradski said, the Occupy Judaism movement will have the effect of “making our
tradition a living, breathing justice movement."
“These may be traditional
rituals,” Sieradski said of endeavors like the Kol Nidre services and succot
being erected in protests nationwide, “but in the context of admonitions of the
prophets and American Jewish history, they are an opportunity to create
consistency between our beliefs, our heritage, our practice and our
values.”
One of many Facebook pages set up to coordinate Succot
celebrations at the Occupy protests is Los Angeles’ “Not Just A Succa: A JUST
Succa at Occupy LA.” Citing the charge of the prophet Isaiah, the page reads,
“There is no more important time than right now to be present, really present,
in the streets of the United States to decry the injustice of those who are
suffering under crushing debt, foreclosure, lack of health care; to decry the
injustice that the 1% who brought the economy down are still in their offices
‘earning’ bonuses while the other 99% of us are trying to figure out how to make
it to the end of the month.”
Occupy Judaism has started to emerge as a
movement of those who are unhappy with not only the state of American society,
but perhaps of Jewish life in America as well.
“We chose to erect and
occupy our succa here at Zuccotti Park,” a statement from Occupy Judaism read
regarding the New York succa at the protests. “There is no better place to
celebrate the festival of Succot this year than right here at Occupy Wall
Street. We stand in solidarity with all those who are challenging the
inequitable distribution of resources in our country, who dare to dream of a
more just and compassionate society.”