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Submitted by Trish Munro
Election season started Labor Day weekend with debates and forums, endorsements, mailers and door-knocking. As a member of the Alameda County Dems, I interviewed candidates for local offices, trying to determine if those running understood the roles of school board, park districts, city councils, and county supervisor. The stakes for this election are high; election season takes a big chunk of my life.
Shortly after Election Day, the American calendar will shift to the familiar rhythm of the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year holidays: weeks with no school, days off of work, and enveloping holiday music, sights and smells.
The Jewish holiday season, no less consequential — although with very different themes — began just after Labor Day weekend.
Throughout September, the call of the shofar heralded the coming holidays. Then came Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, replete with honey, apples and round challahs, all symbolizing the blessings of a sweet and whole year. The following 10 days culminated in Yom Kippur, a day of complete fasting and prayer, heavy with the themes of repairing the harms of the past year.
Still to come is the harvest festival of Sukkot, when Jews build temporary, fragile booths that symbolize both wandering through the desert toward Israel and thanks for the harvest. The Jewish holiday season ends with Simchat Torah, celebrating the never-ending cycle of Torah — a time to dance with the Torah and community.
That’s the Jewish holiday season. If I could, I would completely immerse myself in holiday observance. But, even under the best of circumstances, the Jewish calendar does not fit into the American calendar. Back-to-school nights are regularly scheduled on Rosh Hashanah eve, midterms on Yom Kippur. Observing the holidays means phone calls to parent groups or notes to teachers — every single year. That is the simple reality of being a minority.
This year is anything but the best of circumstances. This year, the worlds of election politics and holiday observance clash, pulling me apart.
Last year, Simchat Torah fell on Oct. 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, murdering, raping, burning and mutilating over 1,200 people and taking around 250 people captive. One hundred of them — living and dead — remain in captivity. The victims and captives are mostly Israelis (Jews, Arabs and Druze), but also tourists and guest workers.
Even before the bodies had been counted, protests against Israel began. It took months for too many — women’s groups, human rights groups — to acknowledge the horrors of that day. The Red Cross has yet to visit the hostages.
I watched in shock, but without surprise, as the ancient antisemitic tropes so obvious in the far-right were mirrored in implicit form on the far-left, as the weapons of the abuser — deny, accuse, reverse victim and attacker (DARVO) — were deployed against both Israel and Jews. I felt and I feel betrayed by those I have stood with for my whole life.
There is much that can be said — has been said — about the ongoing war and destruction, the pain and suffering felt by so many innocent people across the Middle East. But that is for another time.
Right now, I am mourning for the world before Oct. 7. Right now, I am angry that too many believe that Jews have no right to a place where Jewish holidays can be observed whole. On Yom Kippur morning, the Reform movement’s liturgy exhorts Jews to “choose life”.
So, despite everything, I will put on my walking shoes, count my stack of door-hangers, and head out to knock doors for this consequential election. Because I choose life. One vote at a time.
Editor’s note: Trish Munro is a former member of the Livermore City Council (2018-22). She represents AD16 on the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee. She is also a sociologist of American Judaism and the author of “Coming of Age in Jewish America”.
