Silence=Death Project, Silence=Death (Poster). Image courtesy of the NYPL, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building /Manuscripts and Archives Division
Arts and Culture
Past & Present, Art & Activism: The Silence=Death Poster
As a founding member of the political collective that produced the image most closely associated with AIDS activism, Silence=Death, I’m frequently asked to speak about this poster. Over the decades people have thanked me for it, telling me the poster was the rallying cry that drew them to political activism.
I have a slightly different take on that. In essence and intention, the political poster is a public thing. It comes to life in the public sphere, and is academic outside of it. Individuals design it, or agencies or governments, but it belongs to those who respond to its call.
News and Politics
The Jew in the Street: A New ZEEK Column About Standing Up for Justice
Fathers, mothers, children, raising barricades,
Workers’ battalions taking to the streets.
Father left home early, to the factory gone,
Won’t be coming home to us any time too soon.
The kids know well the reason why father won’t return,
He’s taken to the streets today and brought along his gun.
Mother too is in the street, off to sell some apples,
Leaving orphaned in the kitchen all the pots and dishes.
Don’t expect to eat, says Khanele to the boys,
Because Mother has gone to help Father…
— “Barikadn,” Yiddish song, written by Shmerke Kaczerginski, 1926
At this moment of national confrontation, as we prepare our Thanksgiving feasts, we ask ourselves: who do we relate to? Not whose side do we take, for there is humanity, divinity, in all people — even in the evil Laban. No, the question is a deep question of identity, of Jewish identity.
News and Politics
Letter From Missouri: Why I Stand With the Ferguson Protestors
The past three months have challenged us to “walk the walk” as a congregation. As a community that embraces Jews of color, and has always been committed to challenging the injustices of racism in St. Louis, we could not stand idly by as Michael Brown’s death touched a nerve throughout the nation, and forced St. Louis to confront the reality that there are two Fergusons, and two Americas.
As the story unfolds, it is clear that we cannot let the narrative be reduced to an oversimplified battle between police and protestors.
News and Politics
Why the Jewish Now (and Future) Can’t Be Confined to the Paradigms of the Past
“Give me ten emesdike yiddin and I will change the world.”: A response to Jack Wertheimer and Steven M. Cohen’s “The Shrinking Jewish Middle.”
Any middle only exists in relation to the margins that frame it. When we contemplate counting numbers to define the health of the Jewish community, the time has come to consider new criteria.
Life and Action
Call for Submissions! Write about Resistance!
This Chanukah, ZEEK will run an intergenerational series celebrating resistance and the future of the Jewish left in the United States.
Send original pitches, personal essays, reported articles, chatty opinion pieces, feature stories, and creative nonfiction to zeek@zeek.net, with “RESISTANCE” in the subject line. Deadline for pitches is November 26.
News and Politics
Here’s Why Compromise IS the Wrong Strategy
One of the sound bites we’ve suddenly started hearing a lot since Election Day is about how politicians will start working together to address our nation’s problems.
The word mentioned the most? Compromise.
Leave compromising to the politicians. Social justice advocates must stand firm when it comes to positions on social justice issues and Jewish values.
Arts and Culture
Poet Q, Poet A: Six Poets Talk Topography & Landscape in Their Poetry
This is the first installment of Rosebud Ben-Oni’s series of poet-poet conversations in ZEEK about Jewish identity, poetry, and more, featuring poets Erika Meitner, Eduardo Gabrieloff, Hila Ratzabi, Jason Schneiderman and Emily Jaeger. Future installments include discussions about mapping rituals, authenticity, whiteness, and privilege, shifting Jewish identity and humor. We start, here, with this roundtable on location and topography.
News and Politics
The Other Great American Divide: Pushing Economic Justice Forward
Midway through the day of the Morning After, it’s sinking in that next year in the United States of America, there will much more red from sea to shining sea.
Instead of focusing on how the current divide between right and left (or right and middle, etc.), it’s worth appreciating how the Other Great Divide played out in the polls: the economic divide. And, just as important, to recalibrate and re-energize. With the gulf between rich and poor greater than it has been since 1929, the most basic of economic justice measures found its way onto ballots in the form of the minimum wage.
News and Politics
A Personal Reflection: After Election Day, Moving On
No matter what the pundits and polls say, there is often a moment early on during marathon Election Night coverage when those of us glued to the TV and Twitter decide it may not be so bad after all –- that surge of protective optimism that keeps you up way too late. For me, that optimism came from reports of higher-than-usual-midterm-election turnout.
News and Politics
Urgent: Voters Needed. More Urgent: Overturning Laws that Disenfranchise Millions
Midterm elections are just days away. And like many in my community, I’m doing my part to get out the vote. We’re making calls, knocking on doors, and — because Minnesotans can register to vote on Election Day — we’ll keep going until the polls close.
In the 10 years I’ve worked in Jewish social justice, I’ve knocked on a lot of doors. I’ve had people yell at me, hug me, offer me a snack, and slam the door in my face.
The hardest response to take, though, is usually, “I can’t vote.”
![[the current issue of ZEEK]](../../image/2/100/0/5/uploads/leftistethicistgraphic-52842c6a.png)
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