WELCOME to the Gallery page for Women Rising Radio!This is to be YOUR PAGE, we want you to post here, we want you to send us videos, photos, poems,  essays,  anything you are moved to express here.   There’s plenty to LISTEN to in this website,  so this page is YOUR PLACE to RESPOND!    Send your posts to Women Rising Radio producer Lynn Feinerman:  dvashah (at) gmail (dot)com.

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Meet Chana Basha Helfand: Artist, Activist,
Writer and Jewish Advocate For Palestinians
Read her Autobiography and her Illustrated Essay,
“Our Salvation”

At age 16, I asked myself this question: “What does it mean to be a good Jew?” 
At age 47, I ask a different question: “What does it mean to be a good citizen of this planet?”

I was born into a conservative Jewish family and attended Hebrew school in a conservative synagogue where Zionism and Judaism were fused. For ten years, I dreamed of becoming a rabbi. Settling down in Israel was my lifelong plan. But I hoped it would come after extended travels abroad. I so dearly wanted the comfort of the familiar Jewish world I grew up in. At the same time, my soul craved something vastly different. It was the 13^th century Sufi poet Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī who spoke to my spiritual hunger more than any Jewish text ever had. The first time I fell in love, it was with a Protestant. 

Just like a “good Jew” who asks many questions, I questioned my way into Orthodox Judaism and I questioned my way out. I outlived the suicide letter I wrote at age 25, but the god of my childhood did not. Until that suicide note, I had believed that Adonai (god) loved me dearly, knew how much pain I was in, and when it became unbearable, would either do something to help me or take me home with him. The fact that he didn’t or couldn’t left me questioning everything…almost everything: my dream of Israel survived even the death of my god. I never questioned Israel, despite my college Hebrew professor’s stories of all the racism he had suffered (he was an Iraqi Jew), despite a friend’s insistence after her trip to Israel that the real Israel was nothing like we’d been taught. I didn’t even listen to my own experiences when I was first in Israel, at age 16. I told myself again and again: “You’re home. You’re home.” But Israel felt nothing like home. 

Looking back, was it willful ignorance that had me believing Israel was really the “Jewish homeland” I’d been taught? Was it a lack of knowledge as to how to go about building my own home and community and a desperate need to believe that some place in the world would just give them to me? Was it a refusal to see the racism and prejudice that had been in me? Or an inability to deal with the monstrous pain that would come in 2009 after I learned about the Nakba, about the decades and decades of savagery committed against Palestinians by the state of Israel and Zionist terrorists even before Israel came to be? (Until then, I thought “the conflict” was about religion with equal atrocities committed by both sides.) Perhaps all of those things and more. 

On day two of what was going to be the beginning of my permanent move to Israel, when my housing fell through, it was a Palestinian woman named Wafa who offered me help when Jews did not. I refused her, instead waiting for and wanting “my people” to help me. They didn’t. And when I returned to Wafa three days later, still without housing, crying, asking for forgiveness, asking for help again, that’s exactly what she gave me—without one unkind look, without a single word of reproach. What she gave me, in fact, was the same unconditional, nonjudgmental love that my beloved bubbe (grandmother) had given me. 

I had always considered myself a peaceful person. I never wanted anyone to be hurt. Never believed in war. Always thought nonviolence was the answer. 

And yet, without raising a single weapon, what violence had lived in me? Is it violence to put your own tribe above others? Is it human? Is it love that makes you want to see the best in “your tribe”, even when they commit the worst crimes? In the name of “good” and “love”, so much savagery is done.

I left Israel after a month. I understood it was Palestinian land, and I did not feel I had a right to live there. I started a process of learning about Palestine and Palestinians and unlearning Zionism. I started speaking to people about this one-on-one, but never in public, for so many reasons: my own terror of the spotlight, fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, and a previous conviction that my voice was too powerless to make a difference.  

The start of the genocide in Gaza turned me into an activist almost overnight. Everything is a process, but I wish my own process had happened faster. We are responsible for each other. Not for our individual tribe. Not for the human race. But for the planet, and every single creature that lives upon it. 

I have heard so many Palestinian/Israeli peace groups say: don’t be pro-Palestine. Don’t be pro-Israel. Be pro-solution. So what does it mean to be pro-solution? To me, it means: free Palestine from all colonial rule, and free our own minds and hearts from whatever it is that still shrouds them in silence, ignorance, and fear.

Our Salvation

Containers.

The first time I heard this word used on a daily basis, I was volunteering in a
refugee camp. The pre-fabricated boxes that pairs of families were crammed
into were aptly called “containers”.

The second time I heard this word on a frequent basis has been recently, in my
art therapy course. Art therapy sessions are supposed to function like
containers for the clients’ emotions and art: nothing is supposed to leak out
before the start time, and nothing is supposed to seep past the stop time. Not
tears. Not paint. Not the anguish we enter therapy rooms to try to transform
into something that will heal us instead of destroy us.

When the session ends, we close the lid and close the door. We put on a brave
face, and keep going, and going, and going, and going. To prove our strength?
To prove our sanity? To prove that we are bigger than what befalls us? I don’t
even know anymore.

What if we do something different? What if we contain nothing? What if we let
out all our rage, pain, fear, and grief in one primal scream?

What if we stop trying to explain our wounds and our scars, our identities and
our pasts? What if words are just the same masks as our smiles? The same
borders as our countries? Nothing more than outstretched arms ending in
stop-sign hands that say: don’t come too close? What if what we most need to
communicate can’t be said with words? What if all this talking is part of the
problem?

What if we fill the boardrooms and classrooms and dining rooms and streets
with wails?

What if we let our bodies ROAR their unbearable grief instead of forcing them
to keep carrying it?

What if instead of drowning from within, we let ALL the tears out?
What if we spill buckets of water,
all the water that the starving are forbidden to drink,
all the mud they have tried to distill into streams of life, in a holy and hungry
attempt to LIVE,
all the tears we have already wept,
all the tears we no longer shed, because pain has turned numb as a survival
strategy?

What if we stop trying to survive and believe we are capable of truly living?
Believe we deserve so much more than we’ve been taught?

What if we flood everything?
No more dry hands or faces.
No more clean palettes or rooms.
No more containers.

What if we just stop and…
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One haunting howl after another.
After another.
After another.
After another.
After another.
After another.
After another.

Until those who are not screaming stop in their tracks, their cores quivering,
terrified by this total rewrite of the script.

Maybe first, they’ll look at us like we’re crazy.
Then maybe they’ll start screaming for us to shut up.
And then maybe, out of frustration, they’ll give up their words, give up on
words, and just be raw and real and cry.

And then, in this collective howl of pain,
in this shared wail of grief,
in the sea of sorrow that will finally carry all our masks away, wake the
sleepwalkers, and embrace the broken WE with the reality of unity,
maybe we will feel the healing power of oneness in our bones,
that both the “I” and “you” in “I need you” apply to every single soul.
Maybe in that raucous, unstoppable squall,
in that ocean of private anguish that we finally make public,
in that storm of suffering that we fear will kill us,
we will do so much more than hear the life stories that we’ve long refused to
hear.

Maybe our pain will mix so thoroughly, that we will no longer know whose
wounds belong to whom,
whose scars ripped open whose heart.

Maybe in the drowning,
every wall will crumble,
every gun will rust,
every bomb will become waterlogged and unable to detonate,
every identity that is not our “sacred sibling” will get washed away,
every life will remember that death is coming, no matter what you do,
and we are wasting our time on anything that is not love.

Maybe in that collective collapse
we will at last feel
the power of feeling everything
instead of fragments,
of STOPPING.
instead of going on.

Maybe, forsaking words,
we will again hear and understand the language of the mountains,
the breath of the butterflies,
the magic and mystery of the grains of sand,
the wisdom of the ants,
the petition of our sacred Mother Earth
hemorrhaging from our trespasses
and yet
denying no one and nothing a place here.
On the contrary.
To every single soul she still sings:
“You are welcome here.”

Maybe this is our salvation:
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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LISTEN to an Emergency Election Protection Town Hall, with election protection advocates Harvey Wasserman, Jennifer Cohn, Andrea Miller and others. LEARN what we can do now to protect our election coming up in November 2020.

Our Women Rising Radio program #39 goes deeper into the work of Jennifer Cohn and Andrea Miller… LISTEN HERE! 

https://www.facebook.com/BuildaMovement2020/videos/2678082082404417/

WANDA CULP, INDIGENOUS TLINGIT ACTIVIST PROTECTOR OF THE TONGASS FORESTS OF ALASKA, IN A GREETING DANCE AT THE 2018 WOMEN’S ASSEMBLY FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE.

Listen to Wanda’s talk in Women Rising Radio #36.

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Program #33  “With Healers At Standing Rock”:

Women Rising Radio 33: With Healers at Standing Rock

AT STANDING ROCK:  Photographer  CAMILLE SEAMAN

Camille Seaman  was born in 1969 to a Native American (Shinnecock tribe) father and African American mother. She graduated in 1992 from the State University of New York at Purchase, where she studied photography with Jan Groover and has since taken master workshops with Steve McCurry, Sebastiao Salgado, and Paul Fusco.  She is a photographer and explorer. Her photographs have been featured in National Geographic and TIME magazine.  Seaman worked the magic of her photographic eye at Standing Rock, and Women Rising Radio features a few of her photos:

 

 

 

 

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Emma McCool, Poetess, Rapper and Performer, delivered her poem in solidarity with STANDING ROCK at University of San Francisco:

Pipe Dreams
by Emma McCool

Standing
I will not back down
Rock
solid, like the ground beneath my feet
The ground that stretches across miles and lays beneath my brothers and sisters at the
front lines
Lines of pipes like veins leading to and filling up the pockets of those consumed by
greed
consuming others to fulfill that need
Those lines will not be drawn there
There is too much to lose
There has been too much lost already
We’ve found that we are stronger in numbers
and the number of times they fire rubber bullets in our direction
will never compare
to the number of times our people have had their homes taken from them
Ripped from their hands and handed over to strangers
What I find strange is
home is where the heart is
And for me that’s what makes this the hardest
to watch
to know
to feel
to be a part of and apart from
Because
a heart is meant to be connected to, to beat within, and pump throughout
So how
are people supposed to allow
for their homes, their heart land, to be poisoned and defiled for no reason
other than
oil
A black liquid,
slicker than blood
but not thicker by a long shot
And the blood that has been shed from the shots fired by officers
has offered more ammunition to fight harder
than ever before
Because
before there was you or me
or the home of the brave and land of the free
there was the earth
Earth mother
who gives life
whose life force flows
sweet clear
water
leading to and filling up the cups of those who need it
and
those who don’t
Who beat her and mistreat her until her life force turns black
and can no longer maintain its sweetness
nor sustain the ones who need it
It needs to stop
Say no to frack
And on the subject of beating and mistreating
Do not attack the peaceful and justify your injustice
by writing it off as you just
doing your job
Because
we are all serving and protecting
but who and what is the only thing that is separating us
And maybe hoping for this all to end
For people to drop their weapons and drills and leave as friends
is nothing more than
a pipe dream
But I would rather dream of no pipes
than sit back or stand to the side
and let people’s basic human rights be denied
So I remain
Standing
I will not back down
Rock
solid, like the ground beneath my feet

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HERE IS OUR 2016 DN CONVENTION COVERAGE, FROM CORRESPONDENT AND DELEGATE CECILI ANTARES

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FINAL DISPATCH AND VIDEO FROM CECILI ANTARES: The DNConvention, A Carefully Orchestrated Con Job?  

The Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia brought delegates from all over the country to represent and cheer on their respective candidates. Parties from each side came to the event on Monday with the enthusiasm and pride that they were representing thousands of voters, collectively millions.

Many of the Bernie delegates, however, were immediately at odds with their Hillary counterparts as well as those running the convention –  some Bernie delegates having their credentials taken away, many of them herded into the back of the convention floor and virtually silenced.  Many expressed that they felt extremely unwelcome, and unable to have their voices heard. During convention speeches they were not able to bring in their own signs, and were told to hold up signs the convention officials gave them, and only at specified times.  They were even told not be overly loud or upset –  with the threat that they would be kicked out of the convention.

After two days of this, compounded by the frustration of hearing from Bernie himself that it was important to get behind Clinton, many delegates felt like the whole event was stacked against them. On Tuesday, when the evening came with roll call voting and the end result of Hillary becoming the nominee, the delegates made a planned exit to show their displeasure.

During this time I had the chance the speak with several delegates and attend protest marches outside of the DNC.  Those involved were furious, emphatically stating that they were not going to be forced or coerced to get behind a candidate they did not believe in or trust.  

The delegates did not want to have to hold signs saying ‘stronger together’ or be told over and over not to boo when a speaker talked about issues they were fighting against.

After the mass DNC exit, many delegates decided not to come back, saying they would only be faced with rudeness and opposition, and would rather stand with protesters. Others today decided that they would stay and make their presence known, wanting to represent those supporting Bernie, and properly representing those who voted them into their delegate positions.

Thousands of Bernie supporters, Black Lives Matter activists, Women’s Rights activists and other outraged voters stayed on the streets for the next two days of the DNConvention. One of the Bernie delegates, Jenna Squires from Missouri, vents her frustration here:  

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WALKOUT from DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION in PHILLY JULY 26th 2016, FROM THE HISTORIC BERNIE SANDERS MOVEMENT:

The TUESDAY Marches      from Cecili Antares

The energy on Tuesday was palpable for those in downtown Philadelphia. Marches for Bernie Sanders ‘Bernie or Bust’, Black Lives Matter, Shutdown the DNC, and mental health advocacy surrounded City Hall in the afternoon, shutting down surrounding streets. Thousands filled the roadways, all with their own cause and voice, shouting to be heard. On the inside of the Convention floor, delegates finally cast their roll call votes from each of their states, the the final result being that BERNIE called for Hillary to be the Nominee. The announcement spurred a huge gathering outside of the Convention at Wells Fargo Center, where all marches eventually came together and congregated in mourning, in protest, and in support for each other.  The air was almost buzzing at that point, and I would imagine the chants could have been heard for miles away. There were different sentiments among protesters.  Many were angry, expressing their view that Bernie Sanders was the most deserving candidate.  Many more peaceful though, and sung together in large circles, pressing for a continuation of Bernie’s ‘Political Revolution’.

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POWERFUL WOMAN DELEGATE SPEAKS OUT!  CLAUDIA STAUBER’S VIDEO AT THE CONVENTION:  THIS GRANDMOTHER SAYS JUST WHAT WE FEEL AT WOMEN RISING RADIO…and expresses our deep concern:

Follow live

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by Cecili Antares

As a young woman (I suppose I would still be considered a millennial) I feel the weight of the economic and systemic issues that we face as a nation, and the need for positive change. I have always been involved in my local community in one form or another, from environmental clean up efforts to advocacy for women’s health issues and cancer patients. (Ecothon through Montessori, coastal clean-ups, Women’s Cancer Awareness Group, Relay for Life, DAAC. Ask me for others.)

As soon as Bernie Sanders announced his presidential candidacy, I was drawn to his platform. I have always felt that our nation’s wealthiest, and its biggest corporations, had too much involvement in government policy. Here was a candidate who was finally speaking out about it. His urgency on climate change and economic inequality greatly reflected my own concerns.

I first became involved with the Sanders campaign in January of 2016 through Bernie Light Brigade North Bay, working alongside Occupy activist Maggi Munat. From there on I volunteered with Santa Rosa Junior College for Bernie and Bay Area for Bernie, eventually becoming an organizer for the Santa Rosa Bernie Campaign Headquarters.

My involvement in these groups and in the campaign introduced me to a great number of people who were not only selfless, genuine, and focused on progressive solutions, but were extremely dedicated. I saw my concerns reflected by them, and understood that the issues we were facing were crucial.

Read More Here