The comedian’s sister’s protest of gender inequality at the Western Wall makes a case for holiness, not against
By Rachel Shukert
After more than a decade of rape jokes, d*** jokes,
and sly inversion of all forms of racism, we’re all pretty used to Sarah
Silverman and her comedy, which in this era of Girls, “hipster racism,” and
hundreds of YouTube videos of the aspiring stars of tomorrow strumming folksy
songs about their various bodily functions can seem both oddly prescient and
oddly quaint in its resolve to shock. So, it’s only fitting that another Silverman has emerged on the scene, intent on breaking down a set of very different boundaries: Susan, the comedian’s rabbi sister, who along with her teenage daughter Hallel Abramowitz was among the latest group of women to be detained by Israeli authorities to appease the unbending ire of a bunch of absurdly powerful men dressed as John Galliano. Their transgressions, committed as part of the social action group Women of the Wall, seem to be the usual ones of wearing tallit, reading Torah, and other acts of “gender-bending” that the ultra-Orthodox seem to think will turn the entire Temple Mount into something resembling an extra-fierce episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race (we should be so lucky). The comedian herself was quick to Tweet her support: “So proud of my amazing sister @rabbisusan & niece @purplelettuce95 for their ballsout civil disobedience. Ur the t*&s! #womenofthewall.”
Continue reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment