#tikkunity

Tikkunity #11: Addressing and remedying Ashkenormativity

Mod here. Mizrahi is a “lumping in” category that, in being pretty vague, probably covers most folks who are hurt by Ashkenormativity. However, if you are a member of a non-Ashkenazi community that doesn’t fall under the term Mizrahi, please send me a message so we can figure out whether to expand this post, give you another space, etc.

Let’s use this post to elevate the voices of non-Ashkenazi Jews so that their needs can rise to the surface. However, I recognize that Ashkenazi Jews may be able to speak to practical matters (e.g. how their community has been able to make certain changes). Respondents, if your response is specific to a perspective, community, or experience, please include a relevant FOR.

While I’ve had to do a lot of learning as I engaged more deeply and broadly with my Judaism, knowledge wasn’t my main barrier. And while @ask-jumblr has helped fill lots of folks’ factual needs, and even facilitated the giving of personal, social, and spiritual advice, I think we, as a jumblr community, are in a unique position to help each other improve our irl Jewish communities.

I tried to make a master-post/hashtag called #JewishCommunitySolutions but it flopped for some really good reasons. Not only was it a clunky tag, but it had a weird, rigid format and I was trying to build it from scratch. And over time it started to weirdly remind me of Hitler’s “Final Solution” terminology which was just weird, awful, and...um nope.

Despite plan A’s failure, I still there’s both a need and an ability for us to help each other improve our off-internet communities. Jumblrs have posted about racism, financial barriers, and unclear communication, among other issues. From my off-jumblr network, I know that issues of accessibility, and shul drama can also make communities less than welcoming. As a post on the original system mentioned, many synagogues also face pressing structural and financial problems.

I wondered how y’all would feel about a lower-key designated tag for questions along these lines. I would be happy to facilitate this through @ask-jumblr, both by posing questions and by posting them. However, I wouldn’t want that to stop anyone from posting with the hashtag on their own blog. If we start getting repeat questions, I could make a page off of @ask-jumblr with the chosen #hashtag as a title to let people find--and contribute to--old quandaries repeating in their own communities, or that they’ve got new ideas on how to solve.

Below are my current hashtag ideas, but I’d really love to hear yours too. Especially because I’m not super impressed by my own:

#HospitalityHavruta

#Edah or #EdahEdits

#Tikkunity

#SynagogueSuggestions

If you’ve got opinions, please make them known! Yes, that includes thinking one (or all!) of these is laughably bad! If there are ways to grammatically improve these tags, please let me know too. My Hebrew grammar skills are mostly guess & hope I get corrected...

If any of this is relevant to you, I’d love to heard from you. If you like what I’m doing, don’t like what I’m doing, like what your “irl” community is doing, or don’t like what they’re doing, then I really hope you feel comfortable reaching out; I’d be honored to hear from you. I want to make sure that any Tikkunity post(s) I make serve(s) the community it’s intended to serve and starts the conversations that need to happen.

Mod here. Anon, thank you for bringing attention to, Tikkunity, a project I’ve been running out of this blog! (I’ve updated its page in response to you ask so that it’s easier to find information about Tikkunity.)

Many asks coming into this blog deal with individuals’ questions and conflicts. But the issues brought up by askers often reflect larger challenges or troubling trends in our Jewish communities. At the same time, I had friends “irl” asking me questions about how to build new Jewish communities and improve their own.

In response to this need, I started a category for community building/improvement asks with its own page and archive, and I named it “Tikkunity”; a portmanteau of “Tikkun” (תיקון), meaning roughly repair and the English word “community.” (Some may recognize “Tikkun” from the phrase “Tikkun olam.”)

My goal with Tikkunity has been to address larger problems in our Jewish communities. Some of these issues, like inaccessibility and racism, reflect systematic flaws. Other questions might address challenges of building Jewish communities, like finances, security, or developing innovative and responsive programming.

Creating Tikkunity on @ask-jumblr has provided it with the blog’s open and non-hierarchical communication (as well as its audience!), while harnessing its FOR (frame of reference) system so that readers can evaluate relevancy and credibility of responses.

Using @ask-jumblr​ as a platform allows marginalized communities (e.g. JOC, people with disabilities, single parents) to express their concerns and needs with relative convenience and accessibility, and with the protection of relative anonymity (e.g. a throw-away side-blog). It also allows budding professional and layleaders to network and share solutions.

Often, Tikkunity questions have been about inclusion, but they can also be about programming, finances, effective tzedakah and chesed, most anything. The list of past Tikkunity questions (https://ask-jumblr.tumblr.com/tikkunity) should provide some examples, but it isn’t exhaustive in terms of questions or themes.

If you think you might have an idea for Tikkunity, you can message me or send in an ask directlty. When they are in-line with Tikkunity, I will format asks as Tikkunity posts (see example here) and incorporate them into the project. I can also work with you to build a Tikkunity post (see this example) addressing you or your community’s needs or struggles.

While I have written many of the Tikkunity posts, I believe that you know yourself and your commmunity better than I do. Just as FORs allow community leaders and members to sort through the credibility of potential solutions, I believe that working with people experiencing the problem first-hand will lead to a more accurate starting point and “diagnosis” in the Tikkunity question.

How can we kindly provide corrections? What elements or aspects of a correction make it a positive experience for growth?

How can we grow from corrections? How can we think about corrections in a way that makes them sting less? helps us benefit from them?

How can we gracefully respond when a correction is unwarranted? (e.g. actually due to a community-accepted difference in practice, opinion; the person correcting is actually ignorant; the correction was provided in an inappropriate situation or context)

How can we build community cultures that perpetuate positive attitudes around correction, and help us to use correction to grow?

How has your Jewish community shifted its chesed/tzedek/tikkun olam/social justice/etc. work during covid-related changes? What’s been working and what hasn’t?

How have they altered programming to meet new needs or to keep all parties safe?

Mod here. I hope it’s alright, but I’m making this ask Tikkunity #10:

Tikkunity #10: Understanding and respecting people from Jewish communities and families of the former-USSR