That's what Christmas means to me!

I have done a Christmas Day Caravan every year for the last seven years Year eight is happening in just a few days. And every year, I get the same question: How does a Jew lead a Christmas Caravan every year? The short answer is because that’s not ALL that I am. Yes, I am Jewish, but I also belong to my family and the Black community. Both of these come with their own set of traditions and responsibilities. And being Jewish doesn’t make me exempt.

 I still have to do my part. 

And my part looks like all my Jewish friends who may not be so busy on Christmas morning along with many of my non-Jewish friends who have made the caravan their new Christmas morning tradition, loading our cars with toys and sharing the love with kids all over the city who may not have much under their trees

 Our involvement may be motivated by different things but the goal is the same:: to fulfill the commandment of showing actual real love to our neighbors. 

We’re not phoning it in. We aren’t hitting a send button. We’re on your street. In your yard and knocking on your door. We are showing up together. And we may even hug you? 

That’s how the spirit can move you in the moment. 

 I didn’t just get this way, though. As I said, there are traditions and responsibilities in Black families, and mine is no exception.   

My uncle Terrell participated in the very first Toys for Tots in 1972. They weren't giving away new toys at that time; they were just giving out refurbished ones. He did that from his hospital bed at a local rehabilitation facility. He was a paraplegic, and he became that way after he was shot in the back by a police officer when he was just 18 years old. 

He would eventually succumb to that injury just a few days after this picture was taken, on Christmas Day. He was only 34 years old. 

He died a few years before I was born, but my mom and her siblings talked about him constantly, so he never really “died”. They saw him in their children, whom he never got to meet. One of us had hair like his, and some had his complexion. It was made clear that he would always be a part of our family because he was part of each of us. On some level, we got to experience love for him through the palpable love our parents had for him. It was really kind of remarkable. It was almost as if he were to walk through the door; I would've known exactly who he was. However, I'd never laid eyes on him. 

It couldn't have been easy to be a young man confined to a wheelchair when he should've been out loving, living, and enjoying his youth. 

He had plenty of reasons to be filled with bitterness. But he wasn't. 

He still gave. Everything he had. And from his hospital bed, he made sure some poor kid somewhere got a gift for Christmas. He was the definition of what I would one day come to know as a mensch: a person of honor and integrity. Also, a person who is admired for their kindness. That’s who he was. 

My grandmother was a lot like him, or vice versa. I grew up in the house with her. And she was amazing. She had these magical bottomless pots and pans and a tiny home that seemed to have endless places for people to sleep. She was the go-to, the port in the storm. She, too, gave. Of her whole self. All the time. She didn’t have any money, but people still always sought her out when they were struggling the most because it’s not always money that people need. Sometimes, it’s kindness, concern, and a bit of familiarity.

.  On Christmas, she always had oranges, pecans, and walnuts. I always enjoyed all of it, but I wasn’t aware until adulthood that this was another one of those traditions. It was passed down from slavery. Fruit and nuts were considered an extravagance that “generous” owners would bestow upon their slaves on Christmas Day.

Along with their gifts, they got a day off from work and time to visitt with family and friends from other plantations. 

I don’t know if the focal point of Christmas was ever the birth of Jesus for her, or honestly, any of them? It always felt to me as it does now, a day off to spend doing something nice with and for each other.

When I started Jewish Day School, we gave tzedakah and canned goods to food pantries. She would give me a dollar and two cans of vegetables and send me on my way. She was happy that the values of giving and caring about the welfare of others that I was being taught at home were being reinforced in my classroom and in my faith. 

So, it shouldn't have been surprising when I could not sit on the sidelines while kids in my community were in need of so much. It wasn’t just what my faith dictated that I do or even my own fear. It was in my DNA. I was hardwired to care. Just like my uncle and my grandmother was. We talk about generational curses, and boy, do we have them, but I live my generational blessing every day. And to the dismay of some, I live it even on December 25th. 

As a Jew, I can’t imagine intentionally not giving or helping someone in need on that day because it may be taken the “wrong way.” And as my grandmother's granddaughter, I don’t have it in me. Long before I knew what the words Tzedakah, Mitzvah, or Mensch meant. Long before my family reverted to Judaism, they were good people who lived a life full of Torah and didn’t even know it. Taking care of one another went back to the ships when we were separated from our homeland and families. Slavery created legions of orphans and widows and strangers, and we survived by the kindness of each other. It was us looking out for children who were sold away from their mothers and still needed watching over when they were strangers on a new plantation. It was helping the newcomers coming up from the south and piling into a Black Belt on Chicago’s Southside when it was already bursting at the seams. It was my grandmother and my auntie Vera putting the little they had together to feed both families. It’s my cousins, who aren’t my cousins, but they cried when my grandmother died too. 

Now imagine me not helping those same people if they were in need on Christmas because I’m Jewish? These are the same people who put the chicken on the grill first at summertime cookouts and make sure there’s perch at the fish fries, but I can’t give them toys for their children on December 25th? They can try to accept and respect who I am, but I can’t reciprocate? 

I am of a people within a people. Both are whole and fully formed cultures with separate histories and identities, and one can’t or shouldn’t be diminished to be fully visible to the other. They both deserve respect. And to sacrifice one on the altar for the other is to kill both. I’m never more proud to be Jewish or more faithful to it than when I get a day to opt-out, but don’t. That’s just how I was raised.

I'm not celebrating Christmas or anything like that. There's just room in my Judaism to still support those that do. 

Planning For The Future is The Only Thing That Lights Up The Present. . ,

The outcome of the last election wasn’t what many of us had hoped for. AT ALL. But here we are. 

Many of us feel a level of despair that makes the aftermath of Election Day 2016 seem downright jubilant. Others feel confident that they made the right decision and that the incoming administration will put cheap gas in their tanks and seventy cent  a dozen eggs on their tables. I truly hope that that’s what will happen.But I sincerely doubt that it will. 

Like it or not, we should all really be hoping that they’re right because if they aren’t, it won’t be good for any of us. One thing I know for sure is that we can’t afford to sit around and say that’s what THEY get for voting for him. “They” aren’t some group that inhabits another part of town or the country. They are our neighbors, co-workers, and family and friends. You can be mad as you want, but what happens to them will ultimately happen to us too. There will be no separation along the lines of who you voted for. 

If things go sideways after Inauguration Day, as most of us fear they will, literally all we will have will be one another. We will not only have to learn how to care for one another, but we may even have to learn a new way to survive. 

That’s what I’m planning for. 

I refuse to be angry with other poor people who didn’t vote the way that I did. It doesn’t matter anymore. Moreover, it’s counterproductive. A fight with each other is a fight we no longer need and can no longer afford. We did that before the election, and look where it got us. 

Before, during, and immediately after the election I saw several cracks in our community, one of which was an enormous lack of information. It wasn’t just disinformation or misinformation. There was no information. And the missing information Black voters needed was, in my opinion, vital.

Instead of being angry at Black voters, who many of us feel voted against their own best interests, I am committed to bringing more information and context to Black folks. I’m introducing a new podcast where I will invite elders to tell the stories of their migration and their histories. I believe those stories have value and that they will be helpful for younger generations to better understand why so many Boomers vote for Democrats. Our young people need to hear about how we got here. I am convinced that providing Black voters with more context and information will provide them with a better understanding of the world around them. Perhaps this will help create a different, better informed voter in 2026, 2028 and beyond.  

I’ve also decided that I am going to learn as much as I can about MUTUAL AID (PLEASE, Google it if you don’t know what that is), and I am committed to working with as many other organizations as possible to make sure that the people in my neighborhood and on my block can get what they will need to survive if their SNAP or Medicaid benefits are cut or even eliminated.

My organization, Mothers and Men Against Senseless Killing (MASK) will be partnering with Black farmers to buy fresh meat and produce for people who don’t have access to healthy food. We will also be working with those same farmers to create a whole campus on the block. This will require the acquisition of the six vacant lots behind the liquor store on 75th and Stewart Avenue that currently belong to the City of Chicago and to two private owners who haven’t paid taxes on the properties in nearly two decades. On those reimagined lots, kids  will learn agronomy and animal husbandry (Yes, in CHICAGO!!!). On the lot that MASK currently inhabits, we will continue to offer traditional supplemental educational classes. This is important for so many reasons, not just because there may come a time in the not too distant future when we have to be able to provide our communities with meat and vegetables of our own. 

MASK is grooming young people to become elected officials. We want to create a new generation of leaders we don’t have to hold our noses to vote for or are seen as the lesser of two evils. 

We don’t need to worry only about the next four years. We need to address and alleviate the deep divisions that exist now so that polarization won’t be such a massive problem in the future. 

Living in the past is hopeless. And thinking and planning for the future is the only thing that lights up the present. 

Other than leaving the country, what are your plans? I would love to hear them.

Tamar

8 shot, 3 dead, and the City holds a meeting to discuss all of the violence...

A nice gesture, but reminiscent of so many other gripe sessions public officials are forced to hold in the wake of the rare not so rare crimes that are so violent they still somehow manage to shock us.

It was right around this time last year that this administration held a similar meeting where they introduced a new “Safety Plan”, yet oddly enough, I haven’t noticed any uptick in safety levels since then. I have no reason to believe that this administrations new plan will yield different results than their previous one. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to hear the people out, but it becomes an insult when you make them believe that their voices matter when they really don’t.

And I  say this from experience; I was contacted by City Hall following a shooting on the block over the summer, while the children were playing. I was promised a meeting to discuss my ideas for keeping my children on the block and potentially all over the city safe from drive-by shootings.

That meeting has yet to happen. But, maybe if it had, PERHAPS, SOME of the shootings that have occurred in the past four months could've been prevented?

Maybe not Monday's mass shooting, but maybe the one where a teenager was shot in his head in broad daylight on 75th while the Democratic Convention happened just a few miles away, or the one where the 7-year-old was murdered on the West Side in front of his house. Perhaps over 100 people wouldn’t have been shot over the 4th of July weekend, and maybe one of the 19 who died might still be here.

Most people in this city don't have their own private security detail. And not everyone can live in well-to-do areas with less crime. The mayor and other elected officials are far less likely to become victims of violent crime in this city than the people who voted for them.

I keep asking whose job it is to come up with the plans that will actually make us safer. Is it the mayor's office or the police, or is it  anti-violence organizations?

If not, why do we even exist? Are we included in our cities safety planning strategies, or are we just here to manage the discomfort of people in the community living in dangerous conditions?

Is it the job of the people who walk around with security details, or is it left to us, the people  that the security is there to protect them from?

Who knows better what's going on in our neighborhoods than the people who live in them. There's never an answer to that question. And more people die because we're either not educated enough, not connected enough, or not contrite enough to advise the mayor and his advisors on how to keep us safe. It’s a shame that summer is coming again in a few short months, and there will be more shootings and more meetings about violence prevention after some particularly violent weekend.

But no one will be listening because it’s not time to ask for our votes yet.

Tamar