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Questions to Ask Before Your Bat Mitzvah: A Marathon Reading

May 12, 2024 @ 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Please join The Poetry Project and Wendy’s Subway for a Mother’s Day marathon reading of the anti-zionist guidebook, Questions to Ask Before Your Bat Mitzvah.

This event will be hosted by Morgan BassichisJay Saper, and Rachel Valinsky, editors to the book, and feature live and pre-recorded readings by contributors, including including Gregg BordowitzLukaza Branfman-VerissimoDan FishbackTariq LuthunCollier MeyersonDori MidnightUna Aya OsatoDylan SabaMahdi Sabagh, and more!

This event will be livestreamed, and include live ASL interpretation.

Bring the young people in your life!

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Questions to Ask Before Your Bat Mitzvah invites 38 writers, artists, scholars, and activists to offer accessible reflections on 36 questions to help young Jews—and anyone else who picks up this book—feel grounded in the Jewish radical tradition, unlearn Zionism, and deepen their solidarity with Palestinians, offering the B’nai Mitzvah as an opportunity for political awakening open to all. Edited by comedic performance artist and activist Morgan Bassichis with artist and educator Jay Saper and writer Rachel Valinsky, with a foreword by seminal scholar-activist Angela Y. Davis, and illustrations by the artist Nicole Eisenman, this essential volume offers an accessible and challenging set of personal and collective responses to critical questions for our time.

Questions included range from “What even is a Bat Mitzvah?” and “I’m queer/nonbinary/secular/old/not even Jewish—are Bat Mitzvahs for me?” to “Why are there Israeli and American flags in my synagogue?” and “Why do people plant trees in Israel as a Bat Mitzvah gift?” and “What does the olive tree symbolize to Palestinians?” and “What does the watermelon symbolize to Palestinians?” and “What do Palestinian kids do when they turn thirteen?” and “How do I talk to my family about this stuff?”

Contributors: Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-RahmeImani Altemus-WilliamsSumaya AwadShirly BaharKholoud BalataMorgan BassichisBazeedGregg BordowitzLukaza Branfman-VerissimoIlise CohenJonah Aline DanielMaya EderyEsther FarmerDan FishbackAitan GroenerRabbi Miriam GrossmanNoah HabeebOlivia KatbiAurora Levins MoralesBrooke LoberTariq LuthunCollier MeyersonDori MidnightIzzy MustafaAidan Orly and Jonathan BrennemanUna Aya OsatoKhury Petersen-SmithRabbi Brant RosenDylan SabaMahdi SabbaghJay SaperIta SegevDean SpadeElena SteinSandra TamariKendra Watkins, and Satya Zamudio.

More about the book here.

Venue

The Poetry Project
131 E. 10th Street (at 2nd Ave)
New York, NY 10003 United States
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Organizer

The Poetry Project