Casting off Sins
A group of students, faculty and community members from Champaign-Urbana gathered Thursday to observe the Jewish ritual of Tashlich. Tashlich takes place during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and involves a symbolic casting off of sins through the tossing of pebbles or bread crumbs into a natural body of water. In this particular Tashlich service, event leaders used an adapted script from Jewish Voice for Peace that took as its focus the casting off of both personal and collective sins, particularly those of the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the recent firing of Professor Steven Salaita.
The group of roughly 30 participants gathered on a bridge over Boneyard Creek on UIUC’s campus at sundown. With the reading of each collective sin, the participants tossed a pebble into the creek while responding in unison, “We take responsibility and we will work to make it stop.” The list of sins read aloud were as follows:
1. Allowing the attack, starvation and strangulation of Gaza and allowing the claim to be made that it is no longer occupied.
2. Allowing fear, instead of compassion, to dictate our actions.
3. Becoming pessimistic about the ability of lasting peace and justice to be built in Palestine.
4. Allowing violence against Palestinians to be committed in our name as Jews and as Americans.
5. Not speaking out against anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia.
6. Not learning about the diverse experiences of Palestinian peoples.
7. Not fighting for the rights of Israeli Palestinians.
8. Elevating Anti-Semitism above other oppressions and refusing to see its interconnectedness with racism, classism, transphobia, homophobia and xenophobia in our communities.
9. Forgetting that Jews come from many cultural traditions
10. Making invisible and marginalizing Jews of color around the world, including Israel where they are the majority of the population.
11. Being afraid to speak because of stigmatization in our communities.
12. Distancing ourselves from religious practice or religiously observant Jews due to assumptions about what they stand for.
13. Hardening our hearts instead of remembering what it means to be oppressed and dispossessed.
14. Allowing the absence of a Jewish counterweight to Zionism in C-U and UIUC.
15. Feeling powerless in the face of the theft of Palestinian land, the destruction of Palestinian homes and the silencing of Palestinian voices, like that of Professor Steven Salaita.
- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/09/champaign-hashanah-professor#sthash.YYbnEsGY.dpuf
The group of roughly 30 participants gathered on a bridge over Boneyard Creek on UIUC’s campus at sundown. With the reading of each collective sin, the participants tossed a pebble into the creek while responding in unison, “We take responsibility and we will work to make it stop.” The list of sins read aloud were as follows:
1. Allowing the attack, starvation and strangulation of Gaza and allowing the claim to be made that it is no longer occupied.
2. Allowing fear, instead of compassion, to dictate our actions.
3. Becoming pessimistic about the ability of lasting peace and justice to be built in Palestine.
4. Allowing violence against Palestinians to be committed in our name as Jews and as Americans.
5. Not speaking out against anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia.
6. Not learning about the diverse experiences of Palestinian peoples.
7. Not fighting for the rights of Israeli Palestinians.
8. Elevating Anti-Semitism above other oppressions and refusing to see its interconnectedness with racism, classism, transphobia, homophobia and xenophobia in our communities.
9. Forgetting that Jews come from many cultural traditions
10. Making invisible and marginalizing Jews of color around the world, including Israel where they are the majority of the population.
11. Being afraid to speak because of stigmatization in our communities.
12. Distancing ourselves from religious practice or religiously observant Jews due to assumptions about what they stand for.
13. Hardening our hearts instead of remembering what it means to be oppressed and dispossessed.
14. Allowing the absence of a Jewish counterweight to Zionism in C-U and UIUC.
15. Feeling powerless in the face of the theft of Palestinian land, the destruction of Palestinian homes and the silencing of Palestinian voices, like that of Professor Steven Salaita.
- See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/09/champaign-hashanah-professor#sthash.YYbnEsGY.dpuf