Why Thanksgiving?
Dear Lab/Shul,
How does a Jewish community address Thanksgiving? I asked this question in a recent staff meeting, not because I necessarily thought we shouldn’t, but because I wanted us to get clear with one another on what’s at stake in our relationships with this complicated holiday.
In my own family, Thanksgiving typically meant long road trips down Interstate 5 in California, driving through the heart of the Central Valley, with its vast, methodically ordered fields and pungent stench of manure. Having relatives in California, the Midwest, and the Northeast, Thanksgiving became the natural gathering point for a family that had neither Christmas nor a reliable date for Hanukkah to ground our “holiday season.” For many years, it was the one time of year when most of these branches of my family agreed to prioritize getting to the same place at the same time.
In that sense Thanksgiving has played a powerful role in my family’s ability to participate in the dominant American story: over generations of assimilation into whiteness, the ritual of gathering around the Thanksgiving table was one way that my family learned to seem “American,” instead of seeming “Other.” Complexities of family dynamics and Americanness aside, at a basic level this has often felt nice, good: a way to fit in and belong.
But as I got older, it has been increasingly uncomfortable to reckon with what this holiday also means, to recognize it as a symbol of the explicit violence of colonization and genocide and the slower but no less violent violence of cultural erasure through a whitewashing of colonial history.
Thanksgiving, in its dominant presentation, makes invisible what we need now, more than ever, to see clearly: that the formation of national and cultural identity in America has always been inextricably bound up with the denigration of indigeneity.
For many of us Thanksgiving is a time to gather and feast with loved ones. A time to mourn loved ones who no longer sit at our table. And, for many of us, Thanksgiving is a day that holds a different kind of grief. What does it mean if all of these things are true? And what does it ask of us in terms of the way we might tell a more complete and holistic story together? This Thanksgiving, I invite you to consider your own relationship with this holiday and with the land you call home.
Maybe this is the year to bring it up at your holiday table if you celebrate, or with friends or family if you don’t.
The Lab/Shul community finds many ways to mark this day with meaning. Scroll down for some options to celebrate and support arts and athletics this coming weekend, with gratitude and joy. And as we shared last year, please also consider tuning in to the livestream of the National Day of Mourning, an annual event organized by United American Indians of New England. You may also want to consider donating to the Manna-hatta Fund, which is a land tax for non-native settlers and their descendants who live in the Five Boroughs of what we call New York City, also known as the ancestral and unceded homelands of the Munsee Lenape, Lekawe (Rockaway), Canarsie, Wappinger, and Matinecock people.
However you mark these meaningful days – may your heart be full with gratitude and love, nourished by comfort, and ready to rise for justice and care – for all.
With warm wishes from the Lab/Shul family to yours,
Ben Freeman
Lab/Shul’s Associate Clergy
Turkey Trot or Race for Reconciliation?
An invitation from Stephanie Kane
You may or may not be aware of the tradition in many running communities in the US to run a “turkey trot” over Thanksgiving weekend. Instead of, or in addition to, vegging out on the couch and enjoying delicious food, football games, the parades, and/or the dog show, people wake up bright and early to run a few miles, often to raise money for charitable causes.
I am a member of the Prospect Park Track Club, an inclusive, open, and diverse group of runners, and this year in an effort to better walk our talk (or run our talk, if you will), we have rebranded our Turkey Trot as the Race for Reconciliation and we have partnered with the American Indian Community House (AICH) whose mission is to improve and promote the well-being of the American Indian Community and to increase the visibility of American Indian cultures in an urban setting in order to cultivate awareness, understanding and respect. AICH provides services and community to members of more than 72 nations, including the Lenni Lenape, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and Shinnecock, all of whom are the original people of New York. From health and wellness services, to cultural events like exhibitions and artist residencies, to advocacy, to fostering inter-tribal community, AICH’s mission and services are more essential than ever.
Through our partnership, we are raising money for the AICH and have invited teen runners from tribal nations around the country to participate in the race. Although the race is now sold out, there are still many ways you can support AICH this Thanksgiving season and throughout the year. You can learn more at aich.org and you can support AICH by becoming a monthly donor to the Mannahatta Fund!
Stephanie Kane is Lab/Shul’s B Mitzvah Program Coordinator
