Queer Mikveh Project
Join us for our newest offering September 16th 2020, on Zoom
Past event:
You are invited! NODAPL QUEER JEWish RITUAL, this Sunday at 4:00pm at the Albany Bulb beach, Albany, California
Let’s join together in beautiful resistance to the once again ongoing threat of the Dakota Access Pipeline using Jewish ritual. This is a transitional ritual. The intention is to usher in the transition through prayer and ritual -- from a capitalist, fascist centered policy to a liberatory, earth and people centered policy and the end to the Dakota Access Pipeline. All queer Jews and anyone else who feels called to this ritual are welcome to join! Please read through this entire document if you want to attend (so you know what you’re getting into ;)
Things to know and order of ritual:
We will begin the ritual at 4:00pm, it will be short and sweet, ending by 5pm (at the latest!). The first part of the ritual will be dry and involve an honoring of Ohlone land, singing, burning of cedar, prayers, altar building and a collective meditation.
The mikveh (immersion in water) is completely optional (as is how much clothing you choose to keep on or take off). We will begin the mikveh with a “sound mikveh,” creating healing with the water in our breath to make healing sound. This will usher in those who wish to completely or partially immerse in the ocean (the ultimate mikveh that becomes a mikveh when we intend it to be so).
The mikveh will be the absolute last part of the ritual so you can get in warm clothes and cars immediately afterward. Please bring extra towels and warm drinks!
We are MAKING A FILM! So this ritual will be filmed. If you’d like to come but don’t want to be filmed we can arrange that. We will have consent forms for the film. (more info on the film below)
Accessibility: The Albany Bulb has accessible by wheelchair parking and from there a wheelchair accessible path partially to the beach. There is a distance of 100 feet or so from the path to the beach through the sand and dirt. If you need assistance joining the ritual please let us know and we will do anything we can to make sure you can join the ritual.
What to bring:
Warm clothes, towels, warm drinks
Items for the altar from your cultural background (please do not bring appropriated items from cultures that are not yours).
Your spirit of love, healing and resistance.
Why the Albany Bulb?
The Albany Bulb is a place that was created out of trash and transformed into beautiful resistance and art by houseless people for decades. Now these people who made it their home and community have been violently forced to leave. For many hundreds of more years, the Ohlone people who are indigenous to this land have had their land stolen from them. Most of us are guests here. We honor the history of the Albany Bulb as land that has been reimagined and created in beautiful resistance as well as destroyed and dishonored many times over.
What is a mikveh?
A mikvah is an ancient Jewish ritual water immersion commonly used for conversion to Judaism, for brides, and for niddah, the practice of cleansing after menstruation. For Jews, water signifies the transformative movement from slavery in Egypt, through the parted Red Sea, and into freedom. Entering a mikvah is a transformative and healing experience and we have long wondered why it is not available to more people, including the significant transgender and queer populations in Jewish communities.
What is a queer mikveh? (working definition, we welcome feedback!)
A physical or spiritual space that uses the technologies of water and the Jewish practice of mikveh to mark transitions. Transition to be interpreted by individuals and individual ritual. Queer mikveh in it’s essence honors the story of the water. The historical stories of the water we immerse in, the stories of our own bodies as water and the future story we vision. Queer mikveh is accessible physically and spiritually to any and all people who are curious about it. You don’t have to be a practicing Jew to enter Queer mikveh. You don’t have to be Jewish. It is an earth and water honoring ritual. It honors the land it is on as intentionally using queer mikveh for healing colonialism. Queer mikveh is a ritual of Jews in diaspora. We believe the way we work for freedom for all beings is by using the gifts of our ancestors for the greatest good. We bring our rituals as gifts. It acknowledges that those of us who are not Jews Indigenous to Turtle Island are on a path to live on lands that are not historically our peoples. We honor the indigenous ancestors of the land we live on, doing mikveh as an anti-colonialist ritual for collective and personal liberation.
What is the Queer Mikveh Project?
The Queer Mikveh Project is a community, an advocacy tool and an art practice.
Mikveh, a powerful Jewish water ritual of transformation and healing is often not accessible to queer and transgender people because these spaces are segregated by gender. The Queer Mikveh Project creates space within Jewish ritual for those who have felt excluded because of white supremacy’s influence on U.S. Judaism (aka assimilated Eastern European dominated Judaism) transphobia, homophobia, nationalism or because what has been presented to them hasn’t felt accessible or relevant to their experience. The project introduces people to the experience, history and relevance of mikveh as it relates to queer liberation through events, ritual, literature, art and a participatory documentary film. Our work is also focused on supporting Indigenous people in their work for water rights and water protection. As most (though not all, there are Jews who are Indigenous and we honor their experiences) of us are Jews in diaspora, guests and settlers, we have a unique opportunity understand what it means to make home on lands we are not Indigenous to. The ritual of mikveh and element of water illuminate how we do our work: a process of flowing transformation.
As water changes stone slowly, with persistence, so is the work we do. This slow building, land honoring and diasporist project is coming together with a lot of attention and focus to center Jews of color, Jews by choice, disabled Jews, working class Jews, and trans and non-binary Jews. We use our ritual tools with the intention of bringing healing to the Jewish people (because of harmful U.S.& Israeli violence and assimilation to patriarchy and capitalism) and to Indigenous people’s who’s land we make home on. A part of our fundraising efforts go to Indigenous groups working to restore cultural sovereignty, this means the people of Turtle Island, and Palestine, whose futures have been forever marked by the violence of our settling.
We will continue to give a large percentage of profits raised to Indigenous people who steward the land and Black liberation land projects.
