What we grieve for is not the loss of a grand vision, but rather the loss of common things, events and gestures.... ordinariness is the most precious thing we struggle for, what the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto fought for. Not noble causes or abstract theories. But the right to go on living with a sense of purpose and a sense of self-worth--an ordinary life.
Irena Klepfisz...I am an outsider, a lesbian, a shikse. The Jewish community is not my community. But as a Jew--as a Jew in a Christian, anti-Semitic society--the Jewish community is, and will always remain, my community. Enemy and ally.
Irena KlepfiszMost Jewish feminists and gays that I know remain angry and frustrated by Jewish progressives. Deeply committed to progressive causes, frequently in the vanguard of political action, Jewish feminist and gays find ourselves fighting for the rights of others without the secure knowledge that others will fight for us.
Irena KlepfiszHow do we work together? For if we want liberation for women, then we're committed to building a society in which these distances--of class and economics--dissolve, and all our authentic differences--cultures, personalities, sexualities, talents, and aspirations--emerge and are equally nourished.
Irena KlepfiszTo most middle-class feminists, as to most middle-class non-feminists, working-class women remain mysterious creatures to be โreached out toโ in some abstract way. No connection. No solidarity.
Irena Klepfisz...Jews must learn to say without excuse, without equivocation: despite our history and our powerlessness in the past, despite allthe injustices that we have endured--today, now, the Palestinians are the victims of oppression, and their oppressors are the Israelis.
Irena KlepfiszThe aspirations of most people--security, pleasure, leisure, meaningful work, creative and intellectual pursuits--are to be supported. These desires and dreams are not shameful. In supporting them, we are showing solidarity with working people, for whom these are luxuries and not givens.
Irena Klepfisz