To Traif or not to Traif
© Melina Magdalena 2008
Remember Bert and Ernie – how unbearably earnest, serious and dorky was dear Bert, in contrast to joyous, quirky Ernie? Bert did have his moments of course; who could forget his paper clip
collection? This week I’ve been feeling a little like Bert and like Doin' the Pigeon.
The Jewish Lesbian Group Anthology has finally been published on-line. There’s a poem of mine in there that I hadn’t read since submitting it to the group several years ago. The anthology contains other well written, moving writings from Jewish Australian lesbians.
Making Spaces is about my relationship with my grandmother. I never did show it to her, always intending to share it with her once it had been published. I hope I never make that kind of mistake again.
Reading through some of the other contributions, I laughed and I cried, and was surprised at one point to be shaken by a surge of unexpected rage. This Summer when my sister and my niece were visiting Adelaide, they came over to my house one stinking hot afternoon, with the rest of the family. My niece (under two years of age at the time) was hungry. I bustled about my kitchen, preparing her a kindy lunch. For the uninitiated, that’s a plate of healthy finger food made attractive to the preschooler; less messy than some other meals I could mention. I had some sultanas, cheese, cracker biscuits … “I’ve got some fritz in the fridge”, I said to my sister. Do you think she’d like some of that?
My sister, a vegetarian for many years, had reached a difficult decision to allow her child to eat meat at least in the meantime. My brother-in-law is not a vegetarian. But she whipped her head around at me and snapped “I might allow my child to eat meat, but I’m not letting her eat traif!”
This was not the anger of someone who was feeling insecure. Unlike other aspects of mothering that had been internalised battlegrounds for my sweet sister, this time she clearly felt she was on higher moral ground.
I was swamped by a flood of shame. How could I have suggested that my precious niece put anything filthy and forbidden into her sweet little pure mouth? What kind of Jew am I? What kind of aunt am I? What kind of sister am I?
I’ve taken a little trip down memory lane this week. You know how it is – once you’re sensitised, everything feeds into the sensitivity. In my new NAP Teacher’s training course this week another new teacher made a remark about the assimilation of German Jews and how their assimilation into the German culture was the trigger for the Holocaust. Charming. Is this really the kind of person we want in 2008, around our newly arrived Australians? I don’t think so.
Then there was the blog post I came across, which starts with the paragraph
"I am so sick and tired of the terms slut and whore. I find anyone who uses these terms without thinking is being selfish. These words have caused a lot of harm. The terms slut and whore and the fact that they are still around today is a product of not only the fluency of language, where the word slut has evolved from it's original meaning of “dirty” to mean a demeaning word for sexually active women, and the word “whore's” etymology can be derived from the Danish word “hore” and the Swedish word “hora”, both meaning “one who desires.” (Stephanie Insiengmay, Leogurl’s Blog)
This post works its way through etymological, cultural and religious origins of some the differences between men and women and cultural expectations of our respective sexual behaviours. It’s an interesting piece of writing that resonates with me on many levels, as a woman, a Jew, a lesbian, a rape survivor. Insiengmay eventually reaches her core question – does the Bible condone rape? Well might she pose that question.
I return to the idea of my Jewishness and deplore my lack of authority over this aspect of my identity. What do I know? What kind of Jew am I?
The little I know of the Bible, Torah and other Judeo-Christian texts highlights to me the lack of woman’s voice. For the most part, these texts were produced and promulgated by men who saw no need to include the experiences and voices of women. They are male-dominated, patriarchal documents to which for the most part, I cannot relate. I’m not interested in being the kind of Jew who adheres to something just because others do, when it is meaningless to me.
And when I look at the Bible, I don’t see all of myself reflected in its stories.
As a human being, yes – some stories touch me to the core. I think particularly of Jonah, and how I chose my Jewish name to be Jonina Shirah – dovesong, recalling how a very reluctant Jonah allowed himself to be dragged into the spotlight at last, to deliver his important message. I think of Penelope Farmer’s Eve; she the innocent, who had such a brutal rebirth into a terrifying world of responsibility for others when she had not yet found herself. Lilith of course has been erased from these texts. I think too of Mary of Magdalene, for whom I am also named. And I recall the radio program I heard last week, in which it was postulated that Christianity and Judaism may yet revise their common links on the basis that Jesus would not have separated himself from his people, in order to found a separate, anti-Jew religion. Of course, it was a Christian who made this claim. As a Jew, I don’t have any problems with Jesus the teacher, healer, poet, human, friend.
As a woman, I also think of Esther/Hadassah, she who had it good. She risked it all, to call attention to the need of her people. Like Esther, I am privileged, and am frequently reminded of my responsibility and my opportunities to work towards a fairer and happier world for other women. I think of Na'amah, also written out of the official texts. She was Noah’s wife, who saved the seeds of a drowned world that the world emerging might flourish and feed the survivors. I think of Dinah, who was raped and discarded as damaged goods, unworthy of carrying on our traditions and our line. I think of Lot’s daughters, valued only for the currency of safety the violation of their bodies might award their cowering father.
As a Jew, I love the traditions and stories of Pesach. I am particularly drawn to Zipporah, Moses’ wife. She embraced the strange, the uninitiated, the haunted, and at least according to the animated version of the story, Prince of Egypt, she accompanied him back to the scene of the crime, to help in the liberation of her people. Again, I know little of how she is represented in the texts of my people. I know that Miriam cops a raw deal, and I love the feminist revisitations and interpretations of her power. I wonder about other Jewish heroes and humans, male and female. I know so little of them.
As a lesbian, there is none of my self in these texts. And this is painful. No matter its origins, we are fixated on sex and sexuality in this world, and my identity is skewed in turn. I probably give too much weight to my unbelongingness, but such are the circumstances that surround me and reflect my inner concerns.
Like so many of the men of the Bible, so many of the men who people my world are unpleasant, rough, inconsiderate, mean, cruel, stupid human beings. Not only the men who question the role of provocative t-shirts in inviting women to be raped; not only the man who blames the German Jews for their own annihilation; not only the man at my table today who argued over the use of some words, instead of working towards finding some shared, legitimate meaning to enable us to get on with the task at hand. These are incidental, momentary glimpses into the things that occur in my world on an everyday basis.
When I look around me and see men who are almost all embittered, angry, apparently dispossessed power trippers, who reflect the ills of the communities and the twisted aspects of their social upbringing, it’s no wonder I find so little value in reading the texts of my heritage. They were probably created by men who felt the same way - insecure angry little nothingnesses who falsely enlarge their grandeur because they could not bear to see themselves as such insignificant motes, in this gorgeous, mysterious, vast universe.
So back to the question – how do I justify having fritz in my fridge, and seeing no wrong in serving it to my little niece? If you are what you eat, and I eat fritz, the connection is clear. It is not to Traif or not to Traif, but it is:
What kind of person am I?
Am I Traif?
Apparently, I've been routinely misspelling the word, anyway! Now I know why Miss Holier Than Thou made a point of showing me the correct spelling in a recent text message. Whew! I need to process this anger, and how!
When I started to think about the word, it was easy to reel off a list of adjectival synonyms (though Traifitself is a noun – filthy, dirty, disgusting, damaged, horrible, diseased. And so it goes.
Of course traif is actually the opposite of Kosher, or halachic, or in Muslim-speak, halal. It is the preoccupation of millions who believe that how they prepare their food and keep their homes is more important to G-d, than putting food in the mouths of the hungry. It is the opposite of clean, pure, wholesome and (in current terminology) crunchy.
I looked it up on Google and was taken to a site that claims the word Traif is in some parlance, used to refer to lesbian. Clearly, I am on the right track here. Shall I continue to self-flagellate, never mind that that practice belongs to the adherents of another tradition altogether, to which I do not lay claim? Am I damaged goods, no use to the pure, unmarried, upstanding man who seeks his wife to complete his life, cook and clean and bear his children? So be it.
Why would I wish to forsake being who I am, in order to adhere to and live up to the demands and expectations of others, who would deny me my freedom to live and express myself according to my own moral compass of right, wrong and all the shades of grey in between? Can these others prove to me my failings and my failure to be human? Where is the evidence that the colours that surround us are not more important than the black and white? Why must worth be calculated always upon the brutal dichotomy of an absence and presence that can be seen and measured with the eye and the hand? What about the wildness of spirit, the illumination of heart, and the brilliance of gut?
So if, because, maybe I in my feminist lesbian jewish essence am Traif, is it possible for me to reclaim this, in the same way others have reclaimed queer, wicked, filthy and bad? Can I ameliorate Traif and rekey it to emote and connote only its positive qualities?
Because for me, I think now that Traif has mostly positive qualities. I know who I am. I know where I’ve come from. I know who I am being, and who I am working to become.
