Episode 3: With Water and Dignity
In this episode of Kaddish, guests Dr. Joy Ladin and Noach Dzmura discuss transgender taharah, the ritual washing of the dead before burial.
"It takes some strength of soul and not just individual strength but collective understanding to avoid the void. And to stand up demanding to be seen and heard." Adrienne Rich
November 15 is Trans Day of Resilience
November 20 is Trans Day of Rememberence
Transcript
In this episode of Kaddish, guests Dr. Joy Ladin and Noach Dzmura discuss transgender taharah, the ritual washing of the dead before burial. "It takes some strength of soul and not just individual strength but collective understanding to avoid the void. And to stand up demanding to be seen and heard." -Adrienne Rich.
Mentioned orgs and links:
Sacredstonecamp.org
kaddishpodcast.com and bit.yl/kaddishpodcast (DEAD LINKS)
Names mentioned to check for spelling: Dr. Joy Ladin, Noach Dzmura, Alex Rae Stern, Chelsea Noriega, JB Brager, Sid Weisman, ever Hannah.
For transcript errors: rorymalone@protonmail.com
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Transcript:
[R. Ariana Katz]: Hey everyone, I'm sorry for the delay in this month's episode of Kaddish. Last week I traveled to Standing Rock, North Dakota as part of a clergy day of action and prayer to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from being built. It endangers tens of thousands of people's drinking water, violates tribal lands treaties, and has desecrated the sacred sites, including sacred burial sites of the Sioux. I don't have to tell you that the desecration of burial ground is an issue dear to my heart, as well as the right to sovereignty and freedom from spiritual and physical violence. To learn more about the indigenous fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, to support the Water Protectors, go to sacredstonecamp.org, follow the hashtag no DAPL online. I also recommend following groups like Indigenous Environmental Network and Indigenous Rising Media on Facebook for on-the-ground updates. The call from the movement is "Mní wičhóni", water is life. This is certainly a time when life feels tenuous. And the future feels uncertain.
It is with that intention that I bring you episode three. I'm Ariana Katz and this is Kaddish.
[R. Ariana Katz]: In last month's episode, "Wash and Be Clean", we heard from Rabbi Linda Holtzman and David Zinner as they discussed what taharah was and why it matters for the living. Taharah is the ritual washing of the dead before burial, the dressing of and praying for. The people that do a taharah are part of a group called a Chevra Kadisha.
Doing this work for many of us is the holiest part of our lives, being with the dead before they are buried. Taharah is a right to every Jewish body. Just like being treated with dignity and death is a right that everybody deserves. We know that this is not true in life. The ways in which bodies of the living are too often treated with violence, disregarded, objectified, and coded as dangerous. So, what is it about taharah, that can give the living more meaning?
In this episode, we'll explore how taharah, this ritual washing, is an issue and site of potential, and site of need, for transgender people. When bodies are at the forefront of how people think about transness and bodies are for sure at the frontline of taharah, how is taharah a transgender issue? It's my honor to have Dr. Joy Ladin and Noach Dzmura on this episode to talk about just that.
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: My name is Joy Ladin. I hold the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University. Some years ago, I became the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. When I returned to teach there after my transition from living as a man to living as a woman, as far as I know, I'm still the only one. The floodgates somehow have not opened to the Orthodox Jewish world.
Taharah is a trans issue for trans Jews who are either themselves engaged enough in Jewish tradition that they want to be buried according to Jewish tradition, or, who have relatives, who regardless of their own beliefs will want to follow Jewish tradition in, in burying them.
[R. Ariana Katz]: Typically speaking, traditionally speaking, for a taharah, men will wash and prepare men, and women will wash and prepare women. Taharah operates in the gender binary. Joy explains;
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "So the gender binary is a way of thinking about being human, that assumes that all human beings are always and only male and female, and what we call gender and what we call sex, gender identity, gender expression- the gender binary, bundles all of those together, and thinks of them as more or less inseparable, and all tied to the sexual difference between normative male and female bodies. So that version of the gender binary is central to a lot of, not, not all of, but it's central to a lot of Jewish tradition and Jewish law. And those of us who don't fit the gender binary, either because we have gender identities that are at odds with the physical sex of our bodies, or I would guess that Jews who are intersex would also have these issues. So the question is (what) what do you do with these bodies? How do you treat them respectfully, who prepares them for burial who watches (watches) over them and washes them so forth."
[R. Ariana Katz]: Trans Jews are part of the Jewish community. They are rabbis, leaders, family members, congregants, and friends. And yet we have not adapted many of our rituals to meet their needs. Noach Dzmura describes the consequences some trans Jews have faced because of this. Noach has been exploring trans and Jewish identity for, well;
[Noach Dzmura]: "I am a transgender man, and I have been a Jew for 14 years. No, that's not right. Not quite 13. Not quite a man, as it were. I edited a book called "Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish community". And it won a Lambda Literary Award, hoo- hoo! (exclamation). When I was editing, “Balancing on the Mechitza”, I received a submission from a young transgender man who was in the middle of transitioning from female to male. At the same time, he was converting from another religious tradition to Judaism. And he had just received a diagnosis from his health care practitioners that he had a brain tumor and that he would have to under radiation and surgery and that there was a strong possibility that he would not survive.
And to him the question of how he would be buried as a young man came really rapidly to the fore, and he asked his rabbi, and his rabbi told him what happens when a Jew dies, and it left him with no place in Jewish memory. All I could do is imagine the devastation that that would yield."
[R. Ariana Katz]: And even after extensive planning taharah can go awry. After all, we lose control in death. And it's up to our loved ones to determine how our bodies will be treated. But back to Joy:
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "I think that trans Jews who do identify within Jewish communities at some point or another, are going to feel some anxiety, in most cases about how they will be treated. And I also know of cases where trans people die, and their families who are taking care of them treat them as the gender that they were assigned at birth, without regard for their own sense of themselves. And from the family's point of view, this is not necessarily seen as doing something bad to the trans person. Because people who, who, engaged in this see humanity in terms of that gender binary, so they're just following what seems to them to be true. But from the perspective of the trans person and the people who support the trans person's sense of themselves, it is a pretty awful form of desecration, like (um) taking the person’s life away from them, rather than honoring it in the process of burial."
[R. Ariana Katz]: In the news, we mostly only hear stories about trans people after they've died. That's why activists have called for Trans Day of Resilience, along with Trans Day of Remembrance. They say Trans Day of Resilience recognizes and supports trans women and femmes of color in their lives and leadership, not just in death. It is an extension and reimagining of Transgender Day of Remembrance, the annual event memorializing people, mostly trans women of color, killed by anti-trans violence. Trans Day of Resilience goes beyond remembrance, and uplifts, the resilience and power of trans and gender nonconforming communities of color. Trans people are important, not only after they have died, but when they are living, breathing people by talking about trans taharah are we wrongly upholding just the same narrative?
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "Well, I think that one of the great things about taharah, is it's, it's not based on the assumption that Jews are only important when they're dead. And actually, this is one of the problems with the hangover of the Holocaust, there’s a sense that what matters is Jewish death and in many places there’s a very attenuated sense of what it means to live Jewish lives. But taharah is based on the assumption that this is a normal part of every Jewish life. That's why we have it, it's not that you are only important at the moment of your death, it's that because you're a Jew who was living a Jewish life, which means for the Jewish community, part of these networks, then, this is a normal outgrowth."
[R. Ariana Katz]: For Joy, taharah wasn't something she thought about, until after she moved beyond suicidality. And once she started seeing her death as an event that would matter to the living, she saw a communal and spiritual aspect of it.
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "(I think it's) kind of the opposite. I think that when communities engage in this kind of planning, they're saying, all right, we're gonna have trans Jews, they're gonna live here, they're not just gonna have like, people are not just gonna dump their bodies on the doorstep and say, do something with that. And because they're, they're living with us, they're part of our communities, their deaths are also going to be part of our communities. So, I would feel like it's the opposite."
[R. Ariana Katz]: Taharah is not only a healing ritual for the dead and for mourners, by focusing on honoring life, taharah disrupts narratives that center on death, as Jewish death and trans narratives often do and have. In this way, trans taharah is even more important. So how do we do it? How do we go about creating taharah that is respectful and inclusive of, that truly honors trans and gender non-conforming bodies and lives?
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "One thing that I would want as a trans person is to know whether community would honor my wishes, (in) the chevra kadisha. So, if I have a gender nonconforming body, but I make it known that I want my body to be treated as female versus male, will that work? Do they need a special group of people in those circumstances? Or, you know, is everybody on the chevra kadisha committees normally? Are they willing to deal with that?"
[Noach Dzmura]: "I keep speaking and people are saying how do we do this? How do we do this? Just do it. Don't be afraid, find trans people, speak to us, find out how we live. So you can take care of us when we die."
[R. Ariana Katz]: It matters that the chevra kadisha is trained for any kind of taharah that comes its way. To do the work to become a chevra that is prepared for trans taharah requires commitment, education, and clarity of purpose.
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "For the community to (to) do this work, to put it on their agenda, and actually it has to be an ongoing part of the chevra kadisha process because you know, when people join a chevra kadisha, they need to be trained. And so that training, trans awareness, and preparedness for dealing with gender nonconforming people has to be built in as part of that training. So, it's not something you can talk about once and then forget about. So, in that process, the community has to confront questions that are really uncomfortable, but they have to be honest about it, because it's not going to do anybody any favors. If you have policies that people in fact, are not willing to put into place or they're not comfortable putting into place, you have to be able to create a space in which it's safe, for everyone to say how they really feel. And to have conversations that work those things through instead of trying to come up with an ideal policy, you have to come up with what will work in your community and keep working on it. It's like everything else in a community that keeps evolving and changing as people come and go and needs change. So what if somebody identifies as something other than male or female? Does the community provide a prepackaged option for "other", which is entirely possible? Do they? Are they open to specific requests by a non-binary person? And again, you kind of have to be honest about this. It would be good if communities had kind of a template that they put out the range of possibilities, if they're open to a non-binary chevra kadisha. Whose responsibility is it to find people for that? Is it the communities? Is it the person's? Is it some kind of combination?"
[Noach Dzmura]: "When we teach taharah we say, what goes on in the taharah room stays in the taharah room. When we teach taharah we say, we're prepared to serve everybody in the same way. This is the great equalizer. Our greatest principle is K'vod Ha-Met. When someone's body proposes a challenge, perhaps the body is disfigured, has surgical scars, perhaps the body has changed somehow by medical interventions, we teach our taharah teams to strengthen themselves by engaging in the spiritual practices of opening their hearts larger than whatever personal discomfort might be trying to slam their hearts shut.
Transgender taharah and taharah for gender nonconforming people requires another kind of strengthening of our taharah teams.”
[R. Ariana Katz]: Finally, once we have been open with one another, and once our communities have done some honest planning, we have to address the prayers that are said during the taharah. As before, the current system is heavily based in the gender binary. As the washing happens, verses from the book of the Song of Songs are read over the deceased, declaring how beautiful they are. For many this dissonance is the holiest part of the taharah ritual in which they encounter and remember the beauty and definity in each person for whom they do the taharah.
The liturgy splits at this moment and offers different texts for men or for women. Both Joy and Noach have thought a lot about taharah liturgy and how it could be used to honor trans and gender nonconforming Jews, and to help the chevra members see the beauty of every person on the taharah table. Joy is a scholar of the Song of Songs, and is a proponent of using this text despite its heavy gendering. Some Jews, myself included, have had trouble appreciating the Song of Songs, but Joy makes a hard sell.
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "Apart from the gendering of the gender that is built into the language of the pronouns and the verbs, (you know), it's built into the structure of Hebrew, um, these descriptions are not gender specific. I mean, they're I don't I don't know many guys who, you know, heteronormative guys, who have been hoping that somebody would tell them that their heaps of curls are as black as a raven or that their lips are roses dripping flowing (inaudible). One of the things about this kind of over-the-top language, is that by focusing on hyperbole about different parts of the body, parts that are not gender specific, I think it kind of diffuses the whole gender thing, like you can't see a male body if you read through these descriptions. And at least from our culture, you know, maybe at the time that this was written, only men's lips were seen as roses, it's hard to believe, I don't know, they certainly don't come through as gender descriptions to us now. And the only part of it that feels otherwise to me is you know, when it says your breasts, twin fawns in a field of flowers, and I have to say, if I try to see somebody's breasts as fawns in a field of flowers, it's hard to see them as breasts. And I think you would not have to do very much to say the same things to somebody who identifies as non-binary. I don't think you would have to change it very much."
[R. Ariana Katz]: There's very little about eros, desire for G-d or another human being. But the Song of Songs is full of emotion and desire, and actually features women's voices.
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "In terms of why queer Jews might value it, I think one reason is that many Jewish communities tend to be pretty uncomfortable with any form of open desire, like is that seen as somehow, not something that's supposed to happen in Jewish communities. And this doesn't apply to trans Jews, particularly but gay and lesbian Jews, if (you) say you're gay and lesbian people will often say, you know, you're communicating openly about your sexuality. And that's not- you shouldn't be doing that in a synagogue."
[R. Ariana Katz]: Unlike Joy, Noach, isn't quite satisfied with all of the traditional taharah liturgy. He thinks that rather than reinterpreting, what we need to do is rewrite.
[Noach Dzmura]: "I did a lot of thinking about that liturgy piece, and there's a lot in it. So, I started this process several years ago, I've studied the halachic criteria for assignment to a particular category in the Jewish binary gender system. I've spent a year studying taharah manuals in chavruta. With a partner who is interested in some of the same questions. The liturgy is a lot more complex than simply the act of washing. There is the language for G-d, the belief system that the texts undergird. The whole notion of purity- when you wash, you’re rendering of body pure, what's purity? What is purity to a trans person? Purity is something for queer people to wrestle, for all people to wrestle, at a deep level.
In chavruta, my partner and I work to get to the root of why particular liturgical bits were included. And when we felt comfortable, we had isolated the reasons, we worked to change the words, so they wouldn't be offensive to people with feminist, queer, and gender fabulous sensibilities. We ended up with complete rewrites, and a loss of the poetics of the Psalms. So, I like to make bold substitutions by people who are the-uh-logians and the the-X-logians, as well as poets."
[R. Ariana Katz]: Being ignored in tradition erases a group of people in two ways. It denies any history that they ever existed, and it negates any reality that is currently lived. Trans-affirming taharah affirms trans lives as well as trans lives in the moment of death.
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "So it slows things down to need to (to) know that we need to find out about people's gender in order to (to) do the taharah process, but that also creates space for everybody to be known more individually in relation to their gender. Well, my mother is a woman, but she was always, (you know), staunchly independent and feminist, she'd horrified at the idea that this ritual was going to that she was going to lose her modernity and her individuality in it. Right? So the individuation that happens when we register, gender variability, for the sake of trans people, creates space for everybody to be known, individually, in much richer detail in terms of gender.
If it was understood that taharah needed to proceed as a recognition of something about the individuality of a person's relation to gender, I think it might (uh), I think there might be a lot of people who would feel a benefit from that. So, like the gender pronoun thing, I think, is mostly not useful to people who are not trans. And it's uncomfortable even for a lot of trans people. But that's because it doesn't tell you anything about anybody. Right? I don't learn even if so, okay, so you're presenting as female, I guess you're a woman. And you're telling me that you have pronouns of she/her. I'm not feeling like we've gotten a lot closer. But if it was understood that taharah needed to proceed, as a recognition of something about the individuality of a person's relation to gender, I think it might, I think there might be a lot of people who would still benefit from that."
[Noach Dzmura]: "Trans people deserve rituals that encompass their lives. Most trans people have bodies that do not entirely or completely do the work of conveying their gender identity and expression. It's up to us to ask the questions of the living, about who that person is, to know the entirety of a body that is not contained within its flesh."
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "I don't, you know, I definitely do not speak for any trans person other than myself, but I know that I feel, I've always felt, steeped in the sense that, you know, my body as a trans body is monstrous, and ugly, and undesirable. And the taharah tradition uses these texts to express the beauty and wonder of human bodies at a time when everybody’s body, no matter how gender normative, is usually not looking that great by conventional standards.
And the, you know, to me, it's, it's incredibly moving to think of somebody addressing my body as, as though it were beautiful, and worthy of love after, after I'm dead, because that is something that I, for most of my life, I never thought I would have even while I was alive."
[R. Ariana Katz]: When a group is not reflected in tradition, it both erases the history that they ever existed, and negates the reality that they do. Trans-affirming taharah declares that each body that comes before a chevra kadisha is worthy, holy, and real.
Our teacher Rabbeinu Adrienne Rich explains just as much.
[Noach Dzmura]: "Adrienne Rich says, when those who have power to name and socially construct reality, choose not to see you or hear you, it's as if you looked in a mirror and saw nothing. Yet you know you exist and others like you. That this is a game with mirrors. It takes some strength of soul and not just individual strength, but collective understanding, to resist this void, this non-being into which you are thrust, and to stand up, demanding to be seen and heard."
[R. Ariana Katz]: At the very core of the values of a chevra kadisha is dignity. A taharah team that is not trained in honoring and celebrating and bringing greater dignity to everybody that comes before it, is missing a core piece. Trans-affirming taharah is one of the many ways that the chevra kadisha can be prepared to celebrate and honor the people that come before them. At this moment, this liminal space, this passage into death.
One of the few things that we can be certain of, is that k'vod, honor, is the greatest gift we can give the dead.
[R. Ariana Katz]: Thank you for listening to another episode of Kaddish. A huge thank you to Dr. Joy Ladin and Noach Dzmura for their wisdom, depth, generosity, and warmth in creating this episode. You can find their work online in bookstores and wherever Jews are found, show them some love. We have formally launched our fundraiser to support this work. If you've listened and like what you've heard on Kaddish, please consider donating. You can go to our website, kaddishpodcast.com to learn more. Or bit.yl/kaddishpodcast to see the fundraiser directly. [Note: links are dead]. We've got some awesome perks including our headstone logo made by JP Brager. It's on a three-inch vinyl sticker. It won't come off your water bottle until you try really hard.
I'm also working on a grief venture -a zine of poetry, poems and songs. It'll be coming out in the winter. Please consider donating as you're able. Thank you so much.
Our next episode will be about reproductive loss. If you have stories to share, questions to ask, resources you need, please email me at Ariana at Kaddish podcast.com. You can follow us online, Kaddish podcast.com, on Twitter at Kaddish podcast, Facebook, look it up yourself. And in the news- the Jewish Exponent and Ritual Well just ran two pieces and some more things are coming out shortly. If you want to write for the blog, you're on, get in touch. A shout out to our brand-new producer, Alex Stern. Alex produced this episode and will be on the Kaddish team moving forward. Show her some love at Alex Rae Stern. Thanks to Chelsea Noriega, JB Brager, Sid Weisman, ever Hannah, as always, thank you to the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford for their generosity and getting this project started.
I'm Ariana Katz and this is Kaddish.
[Dr. Joy Ladin]: "Obviously, you're not interviewing a lot of people who have gone through the taharah -your podcast, (would) become very famous if you could pull that off."