Happy Purim and Why I Don't Like King Achashverosh

Happy (late) Purim! For those of you who don't know what Purim is, I shall explain. Purim is a Jewish holiday which falls on the 14th day of Adar (on the Jewish calendar, which is lunar), and falls on the 24th of February this year. Purim revolves around the story of the Book of Esther, or the Megillah. People dress up in costumes and eat hamantaschen (triangle shaped cookies with fruit filling) and give each other baskets of treats called mishloach manot. 

Here's the story of Purim:

Once, there was a king called Achashverosh who was rather fond of excess. One day, King Achashverosh held a seven day feast for the princes of the 127 provinces of his kingdom. On the seventh day, the king was pretty drunk and was showing off, so he called for his wife, Queen Vashti to be brought before him in her royal crown (the rabbis take this to mean in only her royal crown) to show off her beauty. The Queen refused to come, so, upon the advice of his royal advisers, the king banished her. 

Then the king decided that he needed a new queen. He ordered that all the young women of his kingdom be presented before him so that the could choose a new queen (basically an old fashioned beauty pageant). One of these women was Esther, the niece of Mordechai. Esther was Jewish, as was Mordechai. The king took a liking to Esther and decided to make her he new queen. Before Esther married the king, Mordechai told Esther no to reveal that she was Jewish. 

At this point, there's a whole side story in which Mordechai discovers an assassination plot against the king and reports it, saving the kings life, but that's not really important to the story.  

Anyway. The king had an evil adviser named Haman (everyone boos whenever Haman's name is mentioned during the telling of the story). Haman was the most powerful of the king's advisers and everyone bowed down to him when he walked by. Everyone that is, except Mordechai. Mordechai said that he couldn't bow down to Haman because he was Jewish, and Jews could only bow down to their god. 

Haman decided that this was absolutely unacceptable, and that as payback, he would have all the Jews killed. He talked to the king, got his permission to write a proclamation about it, and cast lots ("purim" in Hebrew) to pick the day of the executions. 

Mordechai, understandably upset by this proclamation, sent a letter to Esther telling her that she had to save her people. Esther wasn't big on the idea because it involved her going to talk to the king without being summoned (a crime punishable by death). But in the end, she went. She invited the king and Haman to a feast. At the feast, she revealed to the king that she was Jewish and that Haman was going to have her people killed. The king was appalled, sentenced Haman to death, replaced him with Mordechai, and issued a new proclamation allowing the Jews to fight back against the people trying to kill them. 

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Now then, the thing that bothers me about this story is King Achashverosh. When young children, or really any children, are taught about Purim, he is referred to as "the silly king" or "the foolish king". The thing is, if you take a look at what King Achashverosh actually does in the story, there's nothing silly or foolish about him at all.

Lets start at the beginning. The king sends for the queen to show her off (because he's showing off his other property) and he orders her to come, according to the rabbis, in only her crown. Hm. Nice guy. I understand that customs were different at that point of time, but no matter how you look at it, it's rather demeaning to be ordered to present yourself in a room full of drunk men wearing nothing at all. 

And then, when she refuses to come, he decides to find a new queen because the queen must be obedient. Through this decision, he ruins Vashti's life. At that time, women were not considered to have any worth without their husbands (I'm not saying that this was a good thing, but that's how it was), so Vashti was left disgraced, with no way to provide for her self, and no hopes of finding a new husband.  

I also find it interesting that no blame at all is put on Achashverosh for the decree to kill all of the Jews. Sure it was Haman's idea, but it's not like Achashverosh didn't know about it or was tricked into it. The text makes it clear that they had a nice discussion and Achashverosh agreed that it was a fine idea for all the Jews to be killed. He just left it up to Haman to iron out the details. Funny how this is always glossed over in the retelling of the story.

So yeah, King Achashverosh wasn't a particularly silly or foolish. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing and he made some terrible decisions. I also find the language choice somewhat worrisome. When I learned about what King Achashverosh actually did, I learned about in the context of, "this is not an okay way to treat women, King Achashverosh did the wrong thing". The issue is, a lot of Jewish kids wouldn't learn about it that way. I worry that kids will learn what King Achashverosh did and associate that with the fact that he was silly or foolish. The connection would then be that his actions were just silly, nothing to worry about. In my opinion, that's not an okay connection to make.


On that note, I'll leave you with a song by the Maccabeats about Purim. Enjoy!

Look Before You Leap

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a post online which informed me that people were trying to get a law passed in Georgia which would allow gay students to be expelled from public schools. I was rather surprised by the post because a) I'm generally pretty up to date on this type of thing and I hadn't heard about it at all and b) there's been enough negative publicity about Tennessee's "don't say gay" bill that I would have assumed that  this would have been added onto that.

Anyway, the post, which had gotten tons of notes of support and reblogs, linked to a petition, so I went there to see if there was any more information. The petition still didn't have a particularly coherent explanation. It made said that over 100 schools in Georgia don't allow gay students and that these schools were receiving public funding. The petition, if anything, confused me more, as it sound as though different Georgia schools had different policies with regards to whether gay students would be expelled.  At the bottom of the petition, there was a link to a New York Times article, so I clicked that in hopes that the article would explain what in the world was going on.

What I learned in reading the article was that the schools involved in this are private schools. And that changes everything. Basically, what's happening is that in Georgia, state money is being used for scholarships to private schools, some of which don't allow gay students. And see, that's a completely different story. Georgia public schools banning gay students and Georgia giving money to private schools some of which ban gay student are two very different things.

Now I'm not saying that I agree with these schools' policies at all. Personally, I think that the policies are awful. But that's part of private school, they get to make their own rules about this type of thing. And if they're a religious school who wants to make rules about gay students attending their school, that's their prerogative. Whether the government is allowed to fund scholarships to these schools is a question of constitutionality and separation of church and state stuff, and honestly, I don't know if it's allowed or not.

My main point is, please look before you leap into something on the internet. The fact that the post stating that Georgia public schools planned to ban gay students was reblogged over 40,000 times is concerning. It's awesome that that many people were up in arms about the idea, but the amount of ignorance that people displayed there, supporting something without even knowing what they were really supporting is not a good thing at all.

It also showed a basic lack of logic and understanding of politics. If you think about it, the whole thing really wouldn't make sense because, first of all,  where would a gay student go if they got expelled? Wouldn't they have to go to school in a different state? And second of all, the sodomy laws in Georgia were struck down by courts, so why would a state a state in which its not illegal to be gay now allow their students to be gay?

On top of that, the fact that the poorly articulated petition got over 50,000 signatures is concerning. If you were to read the petition, you would think that the petition was being sent to the head of the Department of Education (who isn't the appropriate person to send it to at all, by the way), when in fact, upon closer examination, it is being sent to the Georgia State Schools Superintendent (who is a more appropriate person to send it to). Basically, this petition was super vague and misleading and still managed to get 50,000 signatures.

This ties into something much bigger. With the increased ability to organize and spread awareness through the internet, comes the increased possibility that your true message will get mixed up with misinformation or lost completely along the way. Now that people can show their support with just a click of their mouse, they don't even bother to understand what they're supporting. People need to be careful to make sure that they know what it is that they're supporting instead of blindly supporting a cause which may or may not really exist. With increased access come an increased responsibility to check things out before we jump onto the bandwagon.

Why Group Work Doesn't Always Work

Right now, I'm really fed up with group work. We do a lot of group work in CAP; it's part of the program. I suppose that the reason that we do so much group work is that CAP is a communications based program and it's important to learn to work with others. The thing is, group work doesn't often work out all that well.

First of all, often times, teachers will tell students that they are allowed to form their own groups, but that they should work with people who they don't usually work with or someone who is interested in doing a similar idea, as opposed to their friends. Anyone who has ever been a student can tell you that that doesn't actually happen. As soon as a teacher says that students are allowed to pick their own groups, students start looking around, making eye contact with their friends, with that subtle head cock and nod that means, "lets work together". The second part of the teacher's statement either completely goes unheard, or is met with an eye roll and then ignored. Teachers notice  patterns of student behavior in their classrooms, so I'd be surprised if they didn't notice this; however, this never seems to change.

Fine. I'm not saying that I want teachers to assign groups for every project. But I don't understand the point of making the statement if both teachers and students know that it isn't actually going to effect the makeup of the groups. I'm also not saying that I don't like working with my friends. I enjoy it as much as anyone else. But if the whole point of group work is to learn to work with diverse and different groups of people, it doesn't really make sense to always work with the same group when given the opportunity.  Also, if this is the goal of the teachers, it doesn't make sense that they allow this dynamic to exist unaddresed. 

Another big issue that I have with group work is the distribution of work within the group, which is very rarely equal. Often, one member of the group will wind up doing most or all of the work on a group project. I think that most of us have probably been in both the position of the person doing all of the work and the person doing very little work at one point or another.  Being in the position of the former is extremely frustrating. The whole point of a group project is that the teacher is asking students to do something that is not meant to be done alone, either because it's too big to do alone or because students are meant to learn something from each other. Teachers base the amount of time given to do a project on the assumption that the work load will be shared between students.When one student has to do all of the work, the project loses a lot of it's meaning. In addition, the project becomes an unfair burden on that student's time. For example, in a group of three, the student who does most of the work often winds up spending three times the amount of time expected of one student because they have to carry the burden of their peers work as well. 

 I'm also not saying that this always happens. Sometimes groups are very well balanced. From what I've observed, on of the reasons that friends consistently work together is that work gets distributed more fairly among friends, or if one person winds up with all the work, it is more because they are willing to do it and less because no one else is. 

In CAP, we all have a lot of work right now. The work load is pretty overwhelming as it is. So when you have to do not only the work assigned to you, but also the work of others in a group, it's just ridiculous. I think that ultimately, we all benefit when everyone does their fair share. 

What it's Like to Live in Takoma Park/Silver Spring: Cheder

So the assignment here started out being  to make a movie about what it was like to live in Silver Spring, but we were given a lot of leeway on how we wanted to do that, so I decided to focus more specifically on my Jewish community. As the video says, I'm a member of a parent taught Hebrew school. I've talked about it a little in my previous post about my bubble.

 The parents in Cheder rage from Atheists to Jews to Christians, all of who want to give their children a Jewish education. Because of this, we get a more diverse perspective from our teachers than one would get at many other more conventional Hebrew schools.

I've been going to Cheder for ten years now. I am the only person left from my class (age group) at this point. After having a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, it is no longer required to come to Cheder, so everyone else my age has stopped coming. I continue to go to Cheder because I really enjoy the community it provides. For me, Cheder is a group of supportive families who I know will look out for and care about me. This year, because I don't have anyone else in my age group, I was given the opportunity to decide what I wanted to learn about, so I am studying women in the Torah, a topic which personally interests me.

The video shows clips of each of the classes at Cheder (except for the first and second graders).
The first class shown is leaning about Jewish immigration to America and specifically discussing the role that Jews played in the labor movement.
 The second class shown is learning about Sodom and Gomorrah. The teacher is explaining that the name of a character is not given in the text so one would have to look at the midrash (the rabbi's interpretation of the text.
The third class is of a Hebrew class in which the students are learning the colors.
The forth class is another Hebrew class in which students are discussing the vocabulary for objects around the classroom, specifically the word for floor (transliterated to reetzpah).

The audio from these clips is somewhat difficult to understand. Listening to it at a higher volume could be helpful.

More on Gender

So previously, I've written posts on my thought about gender. Just to reiterate, what I've said in those posts is basically that gender is really just a social construct, something created by the society in which we live to make distinctions between people that often don't really exist. In present day, this is a pretty radical view, but I'm not the only person who feels this way. I thought that today I'd highlight some artists and authors who express this same view.

First I'd like to talk about the song, "When I was a Boy", by Dar Williams.

Dar Williams is a folk singer. She writes songs about a variety of social issues, as well as her own experiences. I had the privilege to see her in concert at my sleep-away camp this summer. She explained that this song was about her experience as a "tomboy" when she was little. This song really captures the way in which gender is something forced on people by the society around them. The speaker in the song talks about having many traits, as a child, which are stereotypical assigned to a boy. As she grows up, she finds herself conforming to the societal expectations of a girl, yet she feels like she has lost something. She also feels like she can't share the way she was as a child with anyone. The same goes for the man who she speaks to at the end of the song.

I think that this song reflects the experiences of a lot of people. No one perfectly fits into the societal ideals for gender; however, our society places such a big emphasis on fitting into a gender (specifically, your biological sex) that people give up pieces of themselves to do so.

Next I'd like to talk about Andrea Gibson. Andrea Gibson is an amazing slam poet. Her poetry deals with gender, sexuality, class, bullying, and war, among other things. I'd like to specifically highlight her poem "Swing Set". The poem can be found on YouTube under the search "Andrea Gibson swing set"; however, the link isn't posted here due to language. Before you continue reading though, please watch the poem. 

This poem touches me in a way that I'm not sure that I can describe. I've definitely experienced some of that childhood curiosity myself, working at summer camps, and just being around kids. Last summer, I worked at a camp for a three week session. During the last week, one of the second graders who I had been working with every morning and afternoon for the full session came up to me and asked, "Are you a boy or a girl". A conversation very similar to the one described in Andrea's poem ensued. I got the same question from other campers, one of whom wouldn't talk to me or sit near me because she thought I looked like a boy. In various places, I'll catch a little kid, generally about three or four years old, looking at me and I'll smile at them or say hi. Sometimes, as they walk away, I'll hear, "Daddy, that boy was my friend" or "Daddy, that boy was nice, I like him." Their parents will glance back over their shoulder to look at me again, before giving their child an indulgent smile.

As she points out, it's the adults and older kids who care. In that moment when the parents glance back to look again at the teen who they didn't bother to really notice, there is a look of judgment on their faces that doesn't exist for their kid, as the parent wonders, "is that a boy or a girl". The bathroom incident that she describes has happened to me more than once. And the thing is I live in an extremely tolerant area. It's not like I'm bullied for looking the way that I do. A lot of people don't care at all. So if I still have to deal with some of what she describes in this poem in an area as liberal as the one in which I live, I can only imagine what it must be like for people who aren't as fortunate.

While I agree that (for the most part), young children don't care that much about whether you (as an older person or figure of authority) fit gender norms, at the same time children are extremely aware of gender. Although there is no judgment in the question or assumption that I am a boy, there still is an understanding of what girls and boys are supposed to be like and look like. This understanding, instilled in people at such an early age, has the potential to provide the basis for judgment and intolerance later in life. It also has an enormous effect on the way in which they live their own lives and change themselves to fit into this understanding.

Finally, there is Kate Bornstein, an author, playwright, and performance artist. Bornstein is best known for the books she's written on gender theory. Her books talk about gender as a social construct, moving beyond gender, and her personal experiences as first, a transsexual woman, and then as someone who does not identify with any gender. Bornstein's books discuss gender in a way that is frank, educational, and engaging.  I agree with a lot of what Bornstein says. She basically says what I'd like to say but in a better and more coherent way.  Bornstein has a gender workbook titled My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely (which you can find if you search it on Google books). There isn't that much of it on Google books, but there is a gender aptitude quiz that I really suggest that you take. The quiz really gets you thinking about your own gender and how you relate to the concept of gender.

Charter Schools and Saving the World

I watched the documentary The Lottery, a film about the lottery to get into the Harlem Success Academy, a high performing charter school in New York City. A charter school is a school that receives federal funding but is not subjected to some regulations of other public schools.

This lottery is, for some of the children, their one shot at a good education. These students generally come from lower income families, whose parents can’t afford to move to an area with better schools, or take their children out of the children’s zoned schools and place them in a private school. The film portrayed both this charter school, as well as charter schools in general, in a very positive light.

This film was an hour and a half long, but took me close to two and a half hours to watch, because I kept pausing the film to take notes and to talk with my mom.


My mom's job has to do with civil rights in education, and she is generally against charter schools because she has seen them used in the context of parents in the south who put their kids in charter schools because their children's zoned school (also known as home school) is too "integrated". She also says that many charter schools seem to think that they are above the law and don't have to follow various federal 
nondiscrimination laws.


She takes the position that instead of making charter schools, the money that would go to charter schools should be used to improve already existing schools.
What really struck me about the schools in the movie is the enormous difference between the performance of the students in the Harlem Success Academy and the students at the zoned schools.

I don't think that giving money to the already existing zoned schools would be able to save them in this situation. It would take a full overhaul of the education system in New York and maybe in America to do that. 

It seemed that the difference between the charter schools and zoned schools in the movie was that zoned schools expected the students to fail. No one at the zoned schools expected the students to succeed in life, and consequently, most of them didn't. In the Harlem Success Academy, the teachers hadn't given up on the kids. They were still pushing their students to succeed, regardless of what the world thinks of their chances at success.


And that's not something that can change with more money. That's something that will take school systems reassessing the way that they approach education as a whole.


From there, my mom and I started talking about how unions played into education. In the movie, the teachers union was presented as harmful to schools because union contracts make it difficult to get rid of incompetent teachers and make any change to the schools efficiently. This is something that charter schools don't have to deal with because they can hire teachers who are not members of the teachers union.


This was something that I was very conflicted about because I think that unions are important, but at the same time, I recognize that the currently, the way that the unions function may not be the most efficient or effective.


So my conclusion on that was that the unions also need to be reformed. Not gotten rid of, which how the charter schools dealt with them. That is not a real solution. But improved so that teachers and students and parents all get their needs met.


At this point, I came to the conclusion (and shared with my mom) that the world needs to be reformed. Just in general. The schools, the unions, the economy, gender, the government, the entire structure of our society.


And I know that that's ridiculous. It’s unrealistic and overly idealistic. I realized it as I said it. And my mom also pointed it out to me. She said that she fundamentally agrees with me, that this type of thing takes time, that change is a long and continuous process. She also pointed out that change takes all types of people. The idealists and the realists.
 
I think that she makes a good point. I think that people often forget that it takes both sides of the spectrum to make a difference. The idealistic extremists and their strong beliefs are needed to make change. But the more logical, realistic people also need to be there. These people create a balance, giving reality checks, helping things stay structured and not get lost in the craze of ideology.
 
I often tend to be an idealist. Some people think that that’s pointless, that  idealists are stupid because they ignore the realities of life for the world that they think should exist. I think that being an idealist is also valuable. Without idealists, the ideas for a lot of the progress in the world wouldn't exist. At the same time, realists are also needed to keep any movement grounded in reality.
 
So I don't think that I can fix the world. I don't even think that I really know what needs to be fixed. But I hope that I can make some kind of difference. I think that as crazy as it can sometimes be, my way of looking at life is valid too.

A bit about PFOX

This week I'm going to talk about my documentary topic, PFOX. I'd like to open with the clarification that this is going to be an impartial post. I am writing this to post some information about this organization  not to share with you my personal beliefs.

I'm writing a blog post on this because it seems that many of my peers know of PFOX, but don't really know anything much about them, which I think is never a good thing, especially when it comes to a topic that is this controversial. When the PFOX flier was sent out last year at Blair, some of the people I talked to didn't really understand what the flier was saying. Now when I say that my partners'and my documentary topic is PFOX, some people vaguely remember that they were"the flier people", but not much else.

PFOX, or Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, is a national nonprofit organization. It was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Virginia. It state that it id an organization that works to educate the public on sexual orientation and the ex-gay community. It also says that "PFOX supports an inclusive environment for the ex-gay community, and works to eliminate negative perceptions and discrimination against former homosexuals."

To give this some context, PFOX describes ex-gays as people with unwanted same-sex attractions who, "Make the personal decision to leave homosexuality via secular therapy, Homosexuals Anonymous support groups, faith based ministries, and other non-judgmental environments."

PFOX supports the idea that people should have the option of "self-determination", or that people should be told that with the proper guidance, they can leave homosexuality.

According to PFOX, "PFOX families love their homosexual child unconditionally. Unlike other organizations which insist that parental love is conditional on affirming homosexual behavior, there are no conditions on our love for our children. We do not have to approve of everything our children do." 

The website links to PFOX's statement of principles (if you click this link, please don't skip the intro), a site that opens with the statement that ""Path [the site] is a non-profit coalition of organizations that helps people with unwanted same-sex attractions (SSA) realize their personal goals for change -- whether by developing their innate heterosexual potential or by embracing a lifestyle as a single, non-sexually active man or woman." In other words, PFOX's principles are that people should have access to organizations that help them leave "unwanted same-sex attractions".

PFOX feels that "former homosexuals" are the least visible minority group in America. PFOX works to gain recognition and acceptance for "ex-gays" and the organization itself, which is often met with a negative reaction from the liberal community

PFOX, an organization who's main target audience is children and teens, sends fliers explaining itself and its goals to school around the country. As I'm sure that some of you remember, Blair was a recipient of those fliers last year. Some of you may not have received the fliers, as some teachers made the decision to not had them out to students. I can't find the specific flier that our school received but this flier is similar and has pretty much the same information.

PFOX also supports students in starting an Ex-gay and Straight Friends club at school. The website explains that this club would be a safe environment for students to discuss "alternatives to homosexuality". It states that "gay student clubs encourage questioning youth to immediately self-identify as 'gay and proud.' With an Ex-Gay Alternatives club at their school, students who struggle with same sex attractions have the option of receiving all the facts on sexual orientation in a fair and balanced manner instead of being pressured to adopt a gay identity."

Honestly, I'm going to stop short of drawing any real conclusion here because I don't know how to do that in an unbiased manner. I feel like this post isn't all that substantive because I couldn't put any of myself into it. This was very difficult for me. Maybe it was a good exercise though. I think that it is a valuable skill to be be able to explain one side of a very charged topic while removing your personal opinions from your explanation.

  I plan to return to this subject when I'm done with the documentary. In the meantime, please, please, please, comment with your own opinions. Do you agree with PFOX? Disagree? Interested in starting an Ex-gay and Straight Friends club at Blair? Think that would be a bad idea? Really, I would appreciate all reaction in the form of comments.

I'll leave you with this video posted on the PFOX YouTube channel: