Article / Archive
“I’ll walk with you and hold your hand.” I will always remember that precious display of alliance I received as a closeted queer child. I was in high school and wanted to attend my first Pride event. The words over the phone felt like a beacon, guiding me as I investigated my fresh understanding. I identified as bisexual at that time. No one else knew.
Tears of overwhelming feeling flowed down my cheeks. That voice belonged to a veteran community activist, also Jewish and a lesbian. Both of us navigating complex identities, a journey which epitomizes the entire Jewish experience.
Our people have a history of prosperity and tragedy, illustrated by Jewish author Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus” on the Statue of Liberty. Her piece entreats wayfarers and established souls alike to unveil the meaning of what it means to be an American and a Jew. Like my queerness, my Jewish identity is bound in layers that I have yet to unpeel. Unraveling exposes peril as well as hope, as I am often forced to choose which part of myself I can show. As a young person, I had no words for many of my feelings. What I did have was the advocacy to which I was exposed at a very early age.
Community activism was a household feature of my childhood. Our Jewish identity – like so many liberal American Jews – was based on the cultural components of food and language, as well as on the values of education and repair of the world. In adulthood, I continued to show up with people of multiple backgrounds in support of those deemed “other.” Most of the time, I was one of only a handful of Jews; sometimes the only one. In left-leaning spaces I experienced “nice” antisemitism, the kind that forces one to decide if they will attend an event on Pesach or leaves one pondering at a blue and white Christmas tree. Antisemitism where what isn’t said flashes like a neon bulb in ancestral consciousness. Antisemitism in the very act of refusing to include the world’s oldest hatred when other types of marginalizations are specifically named.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7th pogrom, as a queer and transgender Jew, I must now also decide whether to wear my Magen David at queer events. I browse Facebook pages of event organizers to determine if there any “warning signs” that “Zionists” – which means most of the world’s Jews – are not welcome. I feel betrayed by so many of my queer and left-leaning siblings whose shelter does not include me. In multiple spaces outside of my welcoming shul, I am forced to withhold the most spiritual and authentic parts of my being.
Pride Month is a metaphor for embracing the stranger. Not only the stranger in the crowd, but that which is both hidden and blossoming in oneself. Being out as both Jewish and queer/trans carries deep hope and complexity in these times. Our legacy as Jews emboldens us to wrestle with the divinity of love and the depth of identity. How can we embrace the holy sparks that connect us? How can we dare not?
Queer folx must be soul-keepers and dream-weavers, illusion-makers and earth-benders. We must resist breakage and remember the lessons of our ancestors – Marcia Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Harvey Milk (z”l), Cherríe Moraga, Leslie Feinberg(z’l), Crow Two-Spirit member Osh-Tisch, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and so many other protectors. We must uphold their names as we persist in their memory. Florida, Oklahoma, Utah, the Dakotas and so many more – you target us, you attempt to shatter us, you denounce and condemn. We are too powerful for you and your tiny views, your privileged blinders and flailing fears. We are primordial and brilliant suns, not for you to hurl your rot onto the decrepit canvas of trans misogyny. We who are Jews know what hate means; we who are trans and queer Jews are all phoenix rising. We need us as the body needs breath. We also need our allies and our accomplices, each and every one, to show up, in whatever way possible. We have always been here, and we will continue. Gender cannot be bound, restrained, dismissed, disregarded or “rectified.”
We ancient partisans, battle-scarred and weary, will not “go quietly into the night”; our light is not yours to cast out. There is no darkness here, either – there is the beauty of the “all” and the “in-between’; and that which cannot be named. I promise you, my siblings, that we will survive, because we can do nothing less than that. I promise you, the fearful and the haters, that you will destroy yourselves, before you destroy the world. I promise to fight. Who will fight with me?
* * *
Milwaukee born and raised, Sxdni Small grew up on the city’s Northwest side, in a Jewish household where books and community organizing were household staples. They attended Milwaukee Public Schools and then college in Stevens Point. Sxdni is a member of Emanu-el of Waukesha.
“I’ll walk with you and hold your hand.” I will always remember that precious display of alliance I received as a closeted queer child. I was in high school and wanted to attend my first Pride event. The words over the phone felt like a beacon, guiding me as I investigated my fresh understanding. I identified as bisexual at that time. No one else knew.
Tears of overwhelming feeling flowed down my cheeks. That voice belonged to a veteran community activist, also Jewish and a lesbian. Both of us navigating complex identities, a journey which epitomizes the entire Jewish experience.
Our people have a history of prosperity and tragedy, illustrated by Jewish author Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus” on the Statue of Liberty. Her piece entreats wayfarers and established souls alike to unveil the meaning of what it means to be an American and a Jew. Like my queerness, my Jewish identity is bound in layers that I have yet to unpeel. Unraveling exposes peril as well as hope, as I am often forced to choose which part of myself I can show. As a young person, I had no words for many of my feelings. What I did have was the advocacy to which I was exposed at a very early age.
Community activism was a household feature of my childhood. Our Jewish identity – like so many liberal American Jews – was based on the cultural components of food and language, as well as on the values of education and repair of the world. In adulthood, I continued to show up with people of multiple backgrounds in support of those deemed “other.” Most of the time, I was one of only a handful of Jews; sometimes the only one. In left-leaning spaces I experienced “nice” antisemitism, the kind that forces one to decide if they will attend an event on Pesach or leaves one pondering at a blue and white Christmas tree. Antisemitism where what isn’t said flashes like a neon bulb in ancestral consciousness. Antisemitism in the very act of refusing to include the world’s oldest hatred when other types of marginalizations are specifically named.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7th pogrom, as a queer and transgender Jew, I must now also decide whether to wear my Magen David at queer events. I browse Facebook pages of event organizers to determine if there any “warning signs” that “Zionists” – which means most of the world’s Jews – are not welcome. I feel betrayed by so many of my queer and left-leaning siblings whose shelter does not include me. In multiple spaces outside of my welcoming shul, I am forced to withhold the most spiritual and authentic parts of my being.
Pride Month is a metaphor for embracing the stranger. Not only the stranger in the crowd, but that which is both hidden and blossoming in oneself. Being out as both Jewish and queer/trans carries deep hope and complexity in these times. Our legacy as Jews emboldens us to wrestle with the divinity of love and the depth of identity. How can we embrace the holy sparks that connect us? How can we dare not?
Queer folx must be soul-keepers and dream-weavers, illusion-makers and earth-benders. We must resist breakage and remember the lessons of our ancestors – Marcia Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Harvey Milk (z”l), Cherríe Moraga, Leslie Feinberg(z’l), Crow Two-Spirit member Osh-Tisch, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and so many other protectors. We must uphold their names as we persist in their memory. Florida, Oklahoma, Utah, the Dakotas and so many more – you target us, you attempt to shatter us, you denounce and condemn. We are too powerful for you and your tiny views, your privileged blinders and flailing fears. We are primordial and brilliant suns, not for you to hurl your rot onto the decrepit canvas of trans misogyny. We who are Jews know what hate means; we who are trans and queer Jews are all phoenix rising. We need us as the body needs breath. We also need our allies and our accomplices, each and every one, to show up, in whatever way possible. We have always been here, and we will continue. Gender cannot be bound, restrained, dismissed, disregarded or “rectified.”
We ancient partisans, battle-scarred and weary, will not “go quietly into the night”; our light is not yours to cast out. There is no darkness here, either – there is the beauty of the “all” and the “in-between’; and that which cannot be named. I promise you, my siblings, that we will survive, because we can do nothing less than that. I promise you, the fearful and the haters, that you will destroy yourselves, before you destroy the world. I promise to fight. Who will fight with me?
* * *
Milwaukee born and raised, Sxdni Small grew up on the city’s Northwest side, in a Jewish household where books and community organizing were household staples. They attended Milwaukee Public Schools and then college in Stevens Point. Sxdni is a member of Emanu-el of Waukesha.
