Days of Awesome

Oct 7 2024

My Yom Kippur service is not like everyone else's, because my brand of Judaism isn't.

It is one influenced by the journey of Africans before and after our own kidnapping.

It is one that helps me connect with my ancestors and their struggles.

It is one that gives me a way to make sense of the world and the community that I live in, instead of despairing in it and hating G-d for it.

It is how I know G-d is real and always present, no matter where I am or what I'm doing.

My Judaism isn't just a culture or a religion, it's a way of life.

So nope. You're not going to get a completely traditional service out of me; because, there is nothing traditional about my life or my experiences as a Jew who is Black in this country.

There will be portions that are traditional and recognizable to other Jews, but some parts that will be new. Just like in our everyday lives. There are some things we have in common, but in other ways we are foreign to each other. And that's fine.

I've spent my whole life learning how to be Jewish like everyone else, and a year to understand I don't have to be.

Judaism belongs to me and Jews like me as much as it does anyone else. I've done it the  "right way", for long enough.

Now it's time that I do it my way.

See you on the block!

#DaysofAWEsome

#Yomkippuronthecorner

August News From The Block

This month, we continue to fundraise and create “Pink Light Safety Zones.” The zones will provide extra protection for other blocks around the city where neighborhood kids can't go outside to play for fear of being shot. With your continued generosity, we've acquired signs, cameras, and lights for 75th and Stewart St.

We have also proposed a piece of legislation that isn't geared toward punishing would-be shooters as much as it is dedicated to protecting Chicago’s children and the sanctity of their childhoods.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are no longer enough for our children. They all need and deserve reasonable safety measures in their city.

Please sign the petition asking for Speed Bump Safety Zones in our neighborhoods Linktr.ee/ontheblock.org

I was hoping that I’d be able to give you guys an update sooner, but I shouldn't have thought that in the first place. Turns out that not only can Chicago winters freeze your eyeballs, but they can also give you seasonal amnesia. I forgot how grueling summers can be. They are a hot blast but they are still hard work. This summer has been unlike any other summer on the block for me.

This summer, for the first time in nearly a decade, I had to deal with three days of shooting on the block while children and volunteers were present, It’s been hard for me to wrap my mind around it. Sure, I get that we aren’t in the safest of neighborhoods, but it always felt like when we were there. The instant I realized the “fireworks” we thought we heard weren’t fireworks at all, the lenses in my rose-colored glasses shattered. I heard gunshots, and I looked around, and I didn’t see the children. My heart stopped beating.

Now that everything is calm and I can reflect on it, I understand how people who lose loved ones to gun violence can grieve themselves to death. I see why survivor groups exist. I know now that if my grandson or one of the other children had been shot, my heart would never beat again. I’m getting choked up just writing about it. I was afraid for the lives of kids on my block and in this city, but now I’m terrified. That was the day a critical issue became THE most important issue to me.

People in this city are tired of being afraid of getting shot! We don't plan our lives around when we can enjoy all of the fantastic things this city has to offer. We plan around the safest times we can leave home, the safest routes, and the safest places we can go. It's no longer about doing what you enjoy and when. It's doing as much as you can without being shot.  I'm tired, y'all! We all should be.

We've been convinced that everything in this country, in the world, is more important than our families not being murdered, and that has to change NOW. I'm not going to let anyone forget my grandson is here and deserves the right to grow up, and so do your children and grandchildren.

In nearly a decade on that corner, we've come up with safety plans other than just sitting on the corner to see and be seen. We have built strong relationships with people in the community. This hasn't just been about feeding people, and then waiting for the powers that be to figure out how to create more opportunities for people to learn how to feed themselves.

This hasn't been about recognizing that there needs to be more skills training and job opportunities for young people and constantly bugging local elected officials to support our recommendations. We can’t wait that long; we have to do it ourselves.

Following two shootings on the block in a span of three weeks, we're not saying at all that someone NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE SHOOTINGS. We realized a long time ago that we are those “someones,” and we know what that something is. 

All we need is for the city to do the work on the parts that legally, we cannot.

See You On The Block, 

Tamar

Please sign the petition here. Linktr.ee/ontheblock.org

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June 2024 Week Two At Camp After Camp – Camp

Shooting on the block two days in a row. This has never happened to us before and I've had to ask myself some new questions.

First, if someone's kid gets shot while they're playing on that corner, I feel like it's so crazy out here that it becomes my fault! Because how dare I have kids outside playing in the summertime?!?! I knew that neighborhood was "unsafe". Kids that live in places like that should be in homemade bunkers with their cellphones, right? That's what they get for having poor parents!

Second, is it just time to stop trying? Is it time to just pack it up? Have we actually lost the city? Is it more about just trying to not die here than actually trying still have a life here? These two things are very different.

Somebody fired at least 10 shots yesterday while kids were playing and it took police nearly ten minutes to arrive! Isn't that what shotspotter is for?

How did nearly 70 people get shot in Chicago over the weekend and there's all the violence prevention organizations and prevention tech getting funded to keep that very thing from happening?

It's not getting better. It's getting worse. We're gonna ask for speed bumps one more time, and we're gonna use our own money to put up cameras and pink flashing lights to deter shooters by letting them know they're being recorded and KIDS ARE PLAYING HERE!!!

This is not just a last ditch effort for us. It may be the last chance some of the kids in our neighborhood have. I get that it's not big, huge, mega tech or well funded and approved by "crime" experts in a lab, but it's more than anyone else is doing for us now. I pray this can work, because if it doesn't this may be my last summer on the block for one reason or another?

See you on the block,

Tamar

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