Category — Events

The film “Cut” will be shown this coming Tuesday at the West Side JCC. I have to say that the crowd I met downtown at this film was sympathetic to a large extent. I wonder if the JCC crowd will be hostile…

Anyway, if you are around, it is an excellent movie on what for me, at least, was a very difficult issue for a long time. I became troubled by circumcision even while still in a haredi yeshiva, because of the commentaries I read on the subject. They suggest similar effects of male circumcision that are given for performing some forms of FGM on girls. Which makes sense. Some forms are quite similar. It was shocking to me to read these arguments absolutely in line with our sages on anti-circumcision sites years later, and infuriating to then see so many in the Jewish community denounce these people as liars, frauds, and “anti-Semites,” even though they are often in-line with our own texts. But I no longer expect honesty from the Jewish community, and I have come to peace that I can’t expect to find a solution within Judaism. Once you stop trying to resolve both worlds, it gets a little easier. Everything stops hurting quite as much. It still hurts, but not with the same urgency.

My review of the film is here on Jewschool. There is apparently a quote from it on the DVD back cover.

After talking a little, a woman educated in Boro Park waits for myself and a friend to walk into chulent.

“It’s okay, Miriam,” I said. “We aren’t haredim. Women can go first.”

I have a couple of female friends I have known awhile now. They had a party recently. I knew it was going to be a macher scene, and my friend who doesn’t know this crowd as well as I do was anxious about possibly running into an ex-girlfriend. So we figured we would get a little baked before we went, to take the edge off once there.

That turned out to be a very, very bad call. The place was packed…packed beyond belief. How many frat boys can you get into a telephone booth in the 50’s packed. You just couldn’t get in. And it was loud.

During this time, I caught the separate side-glances of a couple of friends. The two women I have known for awhile. But they didn’t stop to wave or anything. To be fair, it was their party, and that makes it more difficult.

But a different woman screamed when she saw me. Demanded I come over right way. I couldn’t help but feel the contrast.

My buddy was freaking out, and wanted to grab a bite, and felt he had to leave RIGHT NOW. I was pretty hungry myself, perhaps in no small part because of the evening’s earlier activities.

Before we left, I said hello to one of the two women, but I felt she didn’t really want to be interrupted with her conversation, and that she wasn’t all that happy to see me. She didn’t mind or anything, she just felt no particular pleasure that I was there. She could take me or leave me, and under the circumstances, when there were other people she preferred to talk to, well…

I left with the hard truth. We have a past, and we have known each other for awhile. Not a romantic past, an overall decent past, with building and fights, reconciliation and support. Both women have been kind to me, and always presented a great challenge to me to do more with myself, because of their own success with their talents. And they will continue to be. But I understood that they just…aren’t quite friends. I would love them to be…but we just…aren’t.

I left dejected. It had taken maybe a maximum of ten minutes.

But…the other woman—not the one I said hello to—well, she called me the next day, and told me she was sad she didn’t get to talk with me. And then she did something quite nice and unexpected a couple of days later.

During our phone conversation, I didn’t tell her how hurt I had been or anything, or really let her know her call had made me feel so much better. I mean, I said I was glad she called, but more politely…not in a tone that she would understand completely.

But I am so glad she called.

We feel left out. Forlorn. Alone. You know, sober.

So we turn to Ariel Beery, and his pals and (many) gals. For leadership. Chizuk. For a sympathetic ear.

Photo courtesy of CK. Ear courtesy of Jaded Topaz.