Commentary: The 60-Year-Old Quinceañera (Originally Facebook Comments and Replies)

 A 60-year-old madre y abuela officially celebrated having come of age three quinces of milestones later—which her día de su quinceañera and the adult-quinceañera celebration being the bookends to the three quinces. Before anyone makes fun of her, I offer a little cultural context for people whom might not otherwise get it: a quinceañera celebration in traditional Hispanic culture is equivalent to a bar- or bat-mitzvah celebration in traditional Jewish culture. In Aztec culture, it did (and it marked when a girl was considered of marriageable age by the Aztecs). When the Spanish colonized Mexico, quinceañeras quickly blended into the Aztec-Catholic syncretism. Eventually, the celebration of quinceañeras (and quinceañeros) became a pan-Hispanic celebration. By the way, boys subsequently celebrated being quinceañeros in the same way that Judith Eisenstein (née Kaplan) celebrated the first known bat-mitzvah ceremony. (I was actually surprised to find out that celebrations of quinceañeros are actually as ancient of a tradition as celebrations of quinceañeras, as they are not emphasized enough in formal education or other sources re quinceañeras. One source actually talks about 15-year-old Aztec boys being considered quinceañeros and therefore old enough to fight for the Méxica people). 

To make fun of a woman for having an adult quinceañera celebration (or as Art Ocasio on Facebook put it, a “four times the fun” quinceañera celebration at 60) is culturally insensitive at best. Besides, in Jewish culture, there’s the equivalent 13 + 70 = 83 for second b’nai-mitzvah celebrations. It usually is done for Holocaust survivors (many of whom are still denied recognition, having been persecuted by the Soviet and Arabized governments instead of the Germans and their accomplices). 

Commentary: LGB+ People Aren’t the Modern-Day “Sodomites”. So, Who Are—And How Do We Respond Like (And Also Unlike) Lot?

 When I saw the following thread and the comments, who the modern-day Sodomites and Gommorahns are clicked. LGB+ people (except for LGB+ people who support transgenderism) don’t want to take over bathrooms and locker rooms, sports and entertainment, and other things that women had to fight to gain for women. Transgenderists want to take from women what women—including LBA+ women—had to fight to gain. Besides, many LGB+ people (despite the thorns in the flesh that are homosexuality and bisexuality) either remain celibate or enter “lavender marriages” for the sake of God; and most LGB+ people absolutely resent being lumped in with transgender-identifying people—especially as transgenderists prey on people with gender dysmorphia and other people whom could be deceived into believing that one can change one’s gender.

In short, as I responded to the following thread—the first part which is screenshot which my reply: 

“The misogynists are modern-day Sodomites & Gomorrahns, and worse. They want a completely-womanless society (as Lot’s daughters & wife were implied as the only women in Sodom), and they attack men whom defend women (Lot unfortunately was not willing to defend his daughters).”

 

Look at the relevant passage from Bereshit (Genesis, JPS 1917 translation):

“ But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young and old, all the people from every quarter. And they called unto Lot, and said unto him: 'Where are the men that came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.' And Lot went out unto them to the door, and shut the door after him. And he said: 'I pray you, my brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters that have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing; forasmuch as they are come under the shadow of my roof.' And they said: 'Stand back.' And they said: 'This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs play the judge; now will we deal worse with thee, than with them.' And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and drew near to break the door. But the men put forth their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and the door they shut.”

Of course, we respond like Lot did by speaking out against sin and leaving God to bring about ultimate judgement. We respond unlike Lot did by not adding sin upon sin. By the way, notice that HaSefer Bereshit does not condone either what Lot did to his daughters or his daughters did to him (I also wonder if they heard of what their father considered and did what they did partly as revenge. That would make the prohibition on revenge more pertinent.).

In other words, we speak out against transgenderism and ultimately leave God to bring judgement upon transgenderists. We do not engage in “red-pill” (black-and-white pill) pushing, “Christian” nationalism, or other misogyny or other bigotry. Unlike Lot, we leave God to fight fire (e.g., licentiousness and misogyny—including transgenderism) with fire (Lot’s offering of his daughters to be raped was an attempt to fight destruction with destruction, and only God can fight fire with fire and destruction with destruction). 

Like Lot, we speak the truth as though it is water against fire (as—like the Sodomites and Gommorahns, and even worsely—transgenderists are intent on femicide, harm against LGB+ women and men, and harm against men whom stand up for women’s rights. 

(We also do not take revenge on misogynists of any kind—and misandry is a fire-against-fire kind of revenge that only ends up hurting all women as well as the non-misogynistic men).

A Comment(ary) That Became Too Long For Instagram: Los Idiomas de Mis Padres y Madres

 In reply to @vertigo5110: especially my Jewish family is the same way. The gentile languages that they spoke or speak include: 

1. English
2.  Irish (as the Farrells were conversos—and a certain cousin got mad when I found out!) 
3. German
4. Slovakian¹
5. Only the Magyar that everyone in the Hungarys (including what was then Upper Hungary) was forced to speak (and the ones who are in what was and is Hungary Proper speak)
6. Polish (with some going as far to pretend that they were Polish and Lithuanian Catholics)
7. Portuguese (João Enrique Ferin de Lisboa later took “John Henry McCoy” and, as a converso, had an ugly divorce from his tsores-in-di-tuches wife). 

The closet thing that João’s great-grandson (my grandfather) Francis X. Allen had to Ladino was Yiddish (which my mother has never learned or showed interest in learning). My father’s paternal grandparents, meanwhile, somehow communicated in mutually-unintelligible Polish and Slovakian (They either learned from each other or, more likely, spoke in Yiddish. Besides, two of my paternal grandfather‘s paternal uncles—Jankie and Susi—were lucky enough to have Yiddish names that they used openly as nicknames within the family.). On the flip side, the father of Dad’s paternal grandmother would have successfully hidden his Hebrew name if his daughter Helen Ropel didn’t give it away before she died ^הערה.

I myself: 

1. am working on learning and/or continuing to learn Hebrew, Yiddish, Esperanto, Polish, and Ukrainian (with the latter two for genealogical purposes), and yo todavía estudio el idioma de español. 
2. am also working on learning Portuguese (primarily for genealogy along with Polish and Ukranian).
3. was additionally learning Russian to speak with a friend whom grew up under Soviet oppression. I nonetheless stopped Duolingo lessons on Russian shortly after the Russian invasion into Ukraine, and I am learning Ukrainian in solidarity with Ukraine as well as acknowledgement of how both of my paternal grandfather’s parents had roots in Ukraine ². 

¹With Mihály Trudnyak né Nagy and Anna Munková going as far as to pretend that they were born in Poland and as Polish or Slovakian Catholics. Mihály was born as an “illegitimate” Nagy to parents in Budapest with no foot in Kacwin. As for Anna Munková, she was passed off as a forcibly-baptized sister in Levoča and not Łapsze Niżne.

^הערהI should’ve known that he used “Stephen” and “Stef” to calque for “Yosef” or—as she gave it—“Joseph”. The misspelling “Fosco”, as in “Joseph and Julia Fosco Rusnak”, may have been a mistake. “Joseph”, as I quickly figured out, was conversely not a mistake. As far as I know, Julia Rusnak née Foczko (Fosko) rarely or never used “Fosco” in her lifetime, although she did have relatives in Romania. By contrast, Joseph “Andrew Steven”/ “Andrew Stef” Rusnak even invented a brother named “Stephen” to cover up his Jewish origins—as he and all of his siblings were born to Crypto-Jewish parents and forcibly baptized. His paternal grandparents even had to go through a dispensation in order to get married, and his grandfather was living in Austrohungarian-occupied Chiuzbaia at the time.

²My grandfather’s father was born in Tsuman’ on the day of the Kyiv pogrom—October 23, 1904. His mother—whom was in route to visit, as I later learned, a recently-widowed cousin in Buzhanka—quickly had to turn back to Szumowo called “Shumeve”, and she had to register his birth and have him baptized there. She herself had become a Crypto Jew after the Farber-Kogan incident that occurred in Białystok only weeks before the Kyiv Pogrom, and she and Great-Granddad—as well as an unknown child—barely survived the Bialystok Pogrom and its fallout in Shumeve—and I don’t call her being raped and with a child whom noticeably goes in and out of the records as really having “survived”.

As for the paternal family of Pop-Pop’s maternal grandfather, they were Jews and Trudnyakovs from Odesa long before they ended up as “Trudynaks” in Kežmarok and Budapest.

Midyear/High Holy Days Resolutions

 During the High Holy Days of 5783, I resolve to:

1. Do more of what I asked others to do (e.g., pursue tzedek v’shalom) in my commentary for Yom Teru’ah. 
2. Do more anaerobic exercise—even if doing so can be a little difficult due to an albe-friendly puppy named Reilly exercising her apparent right to kiss the inside of “Momma”’s nostrils (which can hurt and make breathing through her nose difficult)!
3. Be a better “Momma” to Reilly—including by doing a better job with making holiday and other special-occasion cards with Reilly.
4. Write more.
5. Respond to messages, emails, etc. more, and be more socially interactive in general.
6. Manage my ADD, OCD/Anxiety, Depression, and Anxiety better.
7. Read both the parashot and the haftarot more (as I read the parashot and haftarot only once a week), and read Tanakh and Yigdal (the B’rit Chadashah) in general more.
8. Take abuse, intentional and unintentional, less personally. For me, abuse is ultimately about the abuser.
9. Be more forgiving and less prone to holding grudges, and be more trusting of יהוה in general (including in that יהוה will ultimately bring tzedek, even if not in this lifetime and in this age).
10. Walk more in the ways of יהוה, and not let myself be affected by what people whom don’t fear or dread (even if they claim to fear and dread) יהוה think.

PS If you’re interested in letting me know about your own midyear and High Holy Days resolutions, please let me. Also keep in mind that I moderate comments on my blog, and that no spam or k’tav hara becomes a part of the comments section. In fact, both spam and k’tav hara get deleted or even reported to Google. 

Reilly Rosalita Czarnecki, the Frannie Laskey of Maltipoos

 

A Little Different: Before- and After-Grooming Pictures of Camille

Before, and not keen on going for a ride in “Mom-Mom”’s car or getting her picture taken

After, when she didn’t have her back turned to “Auntie Nicole”. 

PS Getting pictures of Reilly was impossible, and “Momma” plans to feature Reilly in (אם ירצה יהוה) an upcoming Yom Teru’ah card, anyway.

(בני אגם מתכננים, ויהוה צוחק.)

 

Commentary: Reflections On Yom Teru’ah 5783 (Rosh HaShanah HaRabim 5784)

 Long ago, someone alerted me to Page 251 of “The 9/11 Commission Report”. Once I found out and fully processed that I am among the “‘Jews, not necessarily the United States’” that the perpetrators of 9/11 targeted, I realized very quickly that Jews in the United States and elsewhere cannot be (as the saying goes) shirking violets. Regardless of individual religious, political, and other backgrounds and beliefs, Jews (whether in the U.S., Ukraine, or elsewhere in the Jewish Diaspora, or in ‘Eretz Yisra’el) need to look out for each other and those around us. For starters, as we enter the seventh month of 5783 (which some will observe as Rosh HaShanah 5774), let us do what יהוה commanded those of us in the Diaspora through Yirimiyahu hanavi: “seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the LORD for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.” (Sefer Yirimiyahu 29:7, JPS 1917)

On September 12, 2001, the Jewish communities in New York and other trauma-affected cities sought the cities’ welfares—even though we Jews (whether or not we knew that we are Jewish) were the main victims, whether indirectly or directly (and many Jews were direct victims of 9/11, with Danny Lewin, ז״ל, being the first victim). Resigning to injustice, hopelessness, and dying should therefore not be an option 22 years later. As Yom Teru’ah 5783 comes up, let those of us whom are Jews in the United States seek the welfare of the cities in which we currently reside as we sought particularly the welfares of New York, Shanksville, Pennsylvania; all cities in Arlington County in Virginia, and other directly-affected cities in 5761 (also right before Yom Teru’ah in that year). Let us raise a teru’ah (shouting) to the God of Israel to bless and keep especially all Jewish communities in the United States during the Yamim Nora’im. Let us raise a teru’ah to the God of Israel to bring shalom to U.S. ally Ukraine, and to bless and keep especially all Jews in Ukraine (whom are facing hostility that is born of the same Antisemitism that Jews in the United States faced. Both the Russian government and the perpetrators of 9/11 have made their Anti-Israel sentiments known over the decades, and Vladimir Putin intends to harm especially Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Jews in Ukraine.). 

As we wish others “G’mar Chatimah Tovah b’Sefer HaChayim” (“A good sealing in the Book of Life”), let us work to bring tzedek v’tikvah v’chayim v’refu’ah (justice and hope and life and healing) within our own lives and the lives of those around us—including those within our communities (both our local Jewish communities and the gentile communities among which our Jewish communities happen to be). 

P.S. Let us also raise the old teru’ah, “Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim!” (“Pray for the shalom of Jerusalem!”)