Tomorrow, we will broaden our scope to contemplate both synagogue attacks…
No more than five minutes after sending out our email last week, where we promoted tomorrow’s Manosphere webinar in the context of January’s synagogue arson in Jackson, Mississippi, I opened my Facebook to see live coverage of another synagogue attack, this one 30 minutes from my house.
While holding the terror and fear, I have been sitting with the absolute miracle that with well over 100 people in the Temple Israel building at the time of the attack - including many preschool students - the only fatality was the shooter. Thank God it was only as bad as it was.
Temple Israel is a fixture in the Metro Detroit Jewish community. It is the largest Reform synagogue in the country. It has the only egalitarian mikvah in the area, and I have been privileged to officiate numerous ritual immersions there for friends and community members. Two nights before the attack, I was sitting around a table with one of Temple Israel’s rabbis. These kinds of things hit a bit different when they’re so close to home.
Unfortunately, too many of us now have stories like this to share.
Earlier last week, I reached out to a colleague in Belgium, to check on her after a synagogue about an hour from where she lives was bombed.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen colleagues posting about synagogues being shot in Toronto.
One of the first people to reach out to me as the Temple Israel attack was unfolding was someone whom I had reached out to this winter, when she was in Australia during the Bondi Beach shooting.
Another person who checked in on me last week was someone who lives in Providence, RI, whom I had checked in on when the Brown University shooting event happened this winter.
It’s as if we’re all just on a single thread, checking in on whichever of our people are closest to the latest attack.
In the aftermath of the Temple Israel shooting, we have been trying to decide whether to postpone tomorrow’s Manosphere program. We have been wondering:
Does it make sense to talk about a synagogue attack from January when one just happened last week?
Does it make sense to talk about the role of the manosphere in January’s attack, when this attack was motivated by a totally different set of circumstances?
How can we hold all of it?
We have decided to move forward with tomorrow’s program, while modifying it to integrate various pieces that have been raised in the events of the last week.
We will broaden our scope to contemplate both synagogue attacks, what’s similar between them and what’s different, how increased radicalization is impacting Jews across different contexts, how misogyny and patriarchy play out within the manosphere and the broader society, and we will still think together about what we can do.
This is an overwhelming topic at a very overwhelming time, but we think it’s worth coming together to create space to process, reflect, unpack, and learn about why synagogues are being attacked from a variety of directions, what about the specific and more general cultures is leading to that, and what we can and should do about it.
We hope you will sign up now and join us.
-Rabbi Nate
The Manosphere
March 19th, 7-8:30pm ET
In this session, join three experts in their fields - Jennifer Pozner, Ben Lorber, and Rabbi Salem Pearce (full bios at the bottom of the event page here) - to learn more about the history of the manosphere and gender-based violence, the intersection of the manosphere with antisemitism, Christian nationalism, and broader far-right movements, how it all relates to the arson in Jackson, ICE attacks on immigrants, and the misogyny of our current political reality, and what we can do about it
We are living within a historical context, culture, and administration shaped deeply by the influence of the manosphere. Join us Thursday, March 19th to get acquainted with this highly influential and highly dangerous subculture so we can be part of uprooting, diffusing, and transforming it.