“Loving Our Own Bones” Video and Book Discussion

When

Sunday, March 2, 2025    
10:00am – 11:30am

Event Type

In honor of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion month in February, Beth El’s Inclusion Committee will host a 30-minute viewing of an interview and discussion with Rabbi Julia Watts Belser about their book, Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole.

A scholar, activist, public speaker, and poet, Rabbi Belser has been called a “fearless writer” who delves deeply into sacred literature. Braiding the insights of disabled, feminist, Black and queer thinkers alongside her own experiences as a queer disabled Jewish feminist, she gifts us with a radical act of spiritual imagination. Her interpretations of Jewish texts are enlightening and inspiring, and her readings demonstrate how disability wisdom can guide us all toward a powerful reckoning.

After the viewing, a discussion will be led by an Inclusion Committee member. The focus will be on intersectionality of identities, how those identities provide us with privileged or oppressed status in society, and the importance of our unique perspectives towards understanding of Jewish texts, rituals and creating community. Copies of the book will be put aside in the Beth El library and available for borrowing before the event.

Some background from Inclusion Committee co-chair Carrie Fuchs:

As Martin Buber teaches, no one was, is, or will ever be created just like each of us. We define ourselves by many unique and intersected identities — race, ethnicity, culture, religion, sex, gender, socioeconomic status, education, age and ability. Kimberle Crenshaw, a professor at Columbia Law School originally coined the term ‘intersectionality’ or intersectional theory to understand the lives and oppression of African-American women, and captured the ways in which multiple identifications come together in unique ways for each person.

Joe Kort, Ph.D, in “Understanding Intersectional Identities” (Psychology Today) observes that through an understanding of intersectionality, “overlapping identities and experiences are taken into account in order to understand the complexity of prejudices and privileges people face.” Mike Klein, in his book chapter on “Teaching Intersectionality through ‘I am From,’” demonstrates that while we are all “geographically from somewhere, we also identify ourselves by our families of origin, experiences, ideas, histories and ethnicities, hopes and fears.” He concludes that through the exploring and “sharing of these identities, we learn to live together across our differences.”

There are parts of each of us that we may feel intersect to define us most prominently. How do the many contributors to your identity interact with each other and society to define who you are? Has it changed over time? Is it context-dependent?  What role does your unique perspective operate in your family, community and the world? What does your own unique combination bring to and enrich Beth El?

Skip to content