Little Death

In this episode, I chat with my dear friend Elijah Lake Holstein, part dissident town crier, part goof-ball gesture, part Yiddish cantor. Traversing stories of childhood sickness and somatic hallucinations, Elijah speaks frankly about his near-death experiences living with chronic illness. From the “feminization” of Jewish men throughout history to Israel’s campaign of hyper masculinity today, our discussions cover topics of gender and Zionism that echo themes of Jewish male patheticness, weakness and defeat explored in Elijah's artwork. We break down the prolific lyrics from his debut album, drawn from anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist Yiddish poetry and protest songs dating back a century. Through his many expressions, Elijah’s through line is an insatiable curiosity for unearthing what remains hidden in our Jewish cultures and his unwavering dedication to the liberation of Palestinians.Elijah Lake Holstein is a multi-(un)disciplinary artist and composer gratefully living and working on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ peoples - so called Vancouver. His debut album released under the moniker Exiliahu is titled Why Have You Stolen the Blue and White Colours from Our Honest Sky. The album’s lyrics are drawn primarily from the anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist Yiddish poetry and protest songs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ***Follow Elijah’s work:  The Companion (@inkydew)Exiliahu Elijah’s Rec: Lincoln in the Bardo by George SaundersEpisode Sources:Messiness is Where the Creativity Exists with Céline Semaan  Slow Factory

For this episode, I speak with Seattle-based abstract artist, Leif Forrest Clamor. In this mind expanding conversation, we cover everything from queer joy to personal liberation to art as a medium for honesty. Experiencing the death of their father, best friend and partner consecutively within the span of three years, Leif speaks of the emotional transformation that has come through navigating such unimaginable loss. Leif combats the conditional formula for processing grief that prescribes depression as the only way to mourn. Alternately he asks, what can I do to personify a loving life in honour of the ones that have come to pass? Through self-observation, Leif offers three reminders when experiencing the loss of a loved one: the power of connection, the freedom to choose your own path, and the importance of sharing your story with others that are able to witness your whole humanity. Laugh and cry with us in this heartening conversation about what it means to keep on living after death, the significance of forming an unshakeable bond with ourselves, and finding home with our chosen family where we can express ourselves without limitations. Leif Forrest Clamor has been a professional abstract artist for 17 years. He’s done paid non-credited digital graphic art and printwork for restaurants and zines in Brooklyn, NY. They have had works professionally displayed in: Melbourne, FL, West Palm Beach, FL, Orlando, FL, New York, NY, Seattle, WA (Neighborhoods: South Lake Union, Capitol Hill, Belltown and SODO). Clamor is a new artist to the Seattle area since 2019 and has participated in window displays in South Lake Union, featured work in Ballad and Capital Hill neighbourhoods.***Follow Leif’s work:  @safewithleifLeif’s Rec’s: Deviant Matter by Kyla Wazana TompkinsThe Last Day by Owain Owain

Is Zionism a death cult? For this special mid-season episode, host of Little Death podcast, Dvorah Silverman, delves into the manipulative mechanics of Zionism across time, the resistance movements that have always existed in parallel and how modern Zionism has shaped our present-day (distorted) realities. Employing Michael Langone’s 3Ds of cult dynamics - Deception, Dependence and Dread - Dvorah breaks down Zionism's persuasive recruitment tactics, insidious control of information and the repercussions of leaving for those who dare to question. To illuminate the “exceptional” case of Israel, Dvorah shares their journey of unraveling the cultishness of Zionism, the cracks in the ingrained narratives that led them to anti-Zionist movements and the surfacing guilt and shame in the cult recovery process. Ultimately, Dvorah stresses the criticalness in finding belonging amidst anti-Zionist communities and relationships through cross-cultural solidarities in order to begin to heal and combat the cult of Zionism for a Free Palestine within our lifetimes. Episode Sources: ⁠What is Zionism?⁠ ⁠More than a century on: The Balfour Declaration explained | Al Jazeera⁠ ⁠Khaled Hourani: The Story of the Watermelon⁠⁠Israelism Documentary⁠⁠What Does Israel Fear From Palestine? By Raja Shehadeh⁠⁠Cult Dynamics 101⁠⁠–⁠⁠ Conspirituality⁠⁠“Deception, Dependence, and Dread” By Michael Langone⁠⁠Doppelganger – Naomi Klein⁠ ⁠Israel Projects 2009 Global Language Dictionary⁠

In this episode, I am joined by local Queer Jewish ritualist, matchmaker and cultural connector: Madison Slobin. Divulging a once fearful relationship with ghosts and death, Madi vulnerably invites us into her subconscious to reveal ancestral encounters and the portals of connection that became possible once she was open to them. She offers her experiences with supernatural visitations from her Ashkenazi grandparents and the ancient Jewish divinatory practice of dream interpretation. During the pandemic, this led Madi along a hallowed path towards co-creating “the place/s” (hamakom) where she wanted to be. Elaborating on the concept of “spiritual technology”—ritual that offers both threads of tradition and is also useful to our realities today—encapsulates Madi’s ultimate sacred aspiration: to show up in instinctually spiritual ways that honour the gifts of our ancestors and cultivate lasting connection in modern times.Madison Slobin is a Queer Jewess who grew up in Vancouver. By day, she works for Vancouver Aboriginal Child & Family Services as their Lifelong Connections Coordinator. In this role, Madison focuses on connecting youth in care to their biological families and Indigenous communities. Outside of work Madison coordinates a number of projects: she is the co-founder and coordinator of Shiva Delivers (Jews in solidarity with Black Grief), Hamakom (a Jewish community that centres the voices and experience of marginalized Jews) and YVR Yenta (a modern matchmaking collective). Madison has also recently organized her building and coordinates a number of projects to strengthen solidarity amongst renters living in the neighborhood. In her free time Madison watches reality TV, grows vegetables and takes long strolls around the city.Follow Madi’s work:  @[email protected]@shivadelivers@yvryenta Madi’s Rec's: Episode 16: Jewish Views of the Afterlife w/ Simcha Raphael - Jewish Ancestral Healing | Podcast on SpotifyBeyond the Pale by Elana Dykewomon | GoodreadsAre You The One? Season 8Episode Sources:Women's Memorial March calls for justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women  What Is Phasmophobia (Fear of Ghosts) and How to Cope?, By Very Well HealthJewish Divination-An Introductory Discussion, By JewitchesThe Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism, By Rabbi Geoffrey W. DennisHistory of the Word Companion, By Merriam Webster

In this episode, I sit down with the tender and tenacious Shaurie Bidot as they invite us along a pilgrimage of ancestral wisdom, remembrance and blessings from their Latin heritage originating from the Indigenous Taíno tribe of Puerto Rico to their roots in the American South. From the context of growing up in the South as a queer Afro-Latinx Sephardi Jew, Shaurie offers their formative perspectives on death as a grounding practice and spiritual guide in how they approach personal relationships and liberatory politics. Informed by their multi-racial, multi-cultural and ethnically diverse landscapes, Shaurie explores grief practices as a way of life through their organizing, advocacy and art. Through performance and visual art mediums, they bring us along in their vision of immortalizing the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) language and Sepharic traditions. Fusing the personal with the political, they trouble white supremacist views of Jewishness and the insidious ways Sephardic culture and heritages have been systemically disrespected and disregarded by dominant Ashkenazi Jewry. Ultimately, they remind us of the power of art as a sacred way to communicate with ancestral realms in the hopes of transporting us towards more tender futures. Shaurie Bidot is a queer Afro-Latinx Jewish activist and interdisciplinary artist who has been in movement building for 10 years. They are currently the Executive Director of Vancouver Women’s Collective, a non-profit organisation helping all who self-identify as women, non-binary and gender non conforming, foster health, wellness and equity through feminist approaches to advocacy, shared knowledge and low-barrier programs and services. Shaurie is also a co-founder of a local anti-Zionist grassroots activist organization that fights against imperialism and white supremacy locally and internationally. Their passion and calling in life is to push for equity and justice within their surrounding communities and serve those who are currently being affected by modern day colonialism.Shaurie is a contemporary painter and interdisciplinary artist whose mediums delve into performance art, film, sculpture and ink illustration. With an academic background in Latin American art history and decolonial theory, Shaurie’s praxis is guided by their commitment to deconstructing western and heteropatriarchal notions of fine art and art theory. Their work focuses on depicting and materialising the unique recesses of human emotion and abstract feeling. For Shaurie, art and the practice of creating is a spiritual one that allows them to externalise feelings and emotions outside of corporeal or tangible limitations. For them, art is an act of world-building, community activism, unity and love.Follow Shaurie’s work @shaurie.bidot and www.shauriebidot.comShaurie’s Rec: Jasper Avery, Number One Earth Episode Sources:Ashkenormativity is a Threat to All Jewish Communities, By Hey AlmaConceptions of Death in Judaism, By JewitchesWhat is Ladino? By My Jewish LearningThe Sephardic Way in Death and Mourning, By Rabbi Yamin Levy

In Part 2, I continue my rich conversation with Jess on how identities are crafted in relationship to our histories. We share laughter over Yiddish comedic traditions where grief meets hilarity and absurdity. Jess makes insightful connections between death and body humour as possible pathways of Jewish diasporic resistance. They share an excerpt they wrote as a Writer in Residence that was inspired by the passing of their grandparents, or their Bubbe and Zayde. In confronting their own internalized Zionism, they reckon with the devastating material reality and urgency of Israel’s national project of land theft in Palestine.Jess Goldman is an anti-Zionist Jewish writer, comics artist, and amateur puppeteer based on the traditional, unceded lands of the Sḵwxwú7mesh, səlilwətaɬ, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm peoples. Their writing has been published in Maisonneuve, the CBC, and Room Magazine. A graduate of University of British Columbia’s MFA in Creative Writing Program, their writing explores that sweet spot where Yiddishkayt and queer culture joyfully collide. Follow Jess @yentlthewriterJess’ Rec’s:Dazzle Camouflage: Spectacular Theatrical Strategies for Resistance and Resilience by by Ezra Berkley NeponJewish Dark Continent: Life and Death in the Pale of Settlement by Nathaniel Deutsch

In Part 1 of the episode, I kibitz (chitchat) with Jess about what it means to be a queer diasporic Jew at this moment and in relation to Ashkenazi history and culture. They touch on the possibilities and limitations of what lies in the past, such as the influence of historical anti- and non-Zionist resistances on liberatory movements today. From this context, Jess troubles Jewish authenticity, or the idea of a single, valid Judaism and how modern Zionism has erased the diverseness and multiplicity of Jewish identities across the diaspora. They discuss the importance for them in embracing a longing for Yiddishkayt (Jewishness), or shtetl (town or village) culture in the Pale of Settlement, including Yiddish language, writing and arts as a path towards cultural rootedness. Together we explore the potentialities of “enoughness” as settler Jews in exile on stolen lands. Jess Goldman is an anti-Zionist Jewish writer, comics artist, and amateur puppeteer based on the traditional, unceded lands of the Sḵwxwú7mesh, səlilwətaɬ, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm peoples. Their writing has been published in Maisonneuve, the CBC, and Room Magazine. A graduate of University of British Columbia’s MFA in Creative Writing Program, their writing explores that sweet spot where Yiddishkayt and queer culture joyfully collide. Follow Jess @yentlthewriter

For Little Death's first guest interview, I sit down with my friend and fellow disruptor Ry Sword Avola to talk about the ways they are grappling with death and grief in this moment - from the context of their own familial history, as well as their queer and trans chosen community. They share about the evolution of their spirituality and the curious connections that are made possible across time and space with their loved ones as they transition. We discuss the grief that comes in witnessing gruesome and violent images on social media and how digital spaces can create opportunities for both activation and social harm.Ry Sword Avola (they/he) is an artist, facilitator, and organizer that helps develop and deliver social justice, emotional literacy, and healthy relationship education. Living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations, Ry is a descendant of Scottish, English and Sicilian settlers. They currently work as a supervisor of a YWCA program called, Dating Safe, that provides healthy relationship and violence prevention classes to secondary school students. Ry also co-facilitates with an initiative called, Real Talk, that holds conversational spaces about dating and relationships for adults with cognitive disabilities. They have a BA in Social Justice and Peace Studies and an MA in Globalization and the Human Condition.

In Part 2 of the first Little Death interview with yours truly, I share about my experiences growing up with death, as well as the cultural practices and Jewish grieving rituals that surrounded me. I speak about conflating Jewish culture and faith with the racist ideology of Zionism, and the fear-mongering and gaslighting experienced by Palestinian peoples through a normalization of violence in Israeli society. I discuss the interconnectedness between ongoing struggles for Indigenous peoples on these lands and in Palestine. Ending with how liberation in the present can be found in small moments of joy and what dreams I hold for the future to come.Follow Em @shamelessembodiment Follow Dvorah @dvorahsilverman

In the first Little Death interview, my dear friend, Emily Goldsmith, takes over as host. Em is a queer artist, actor, educator, fellow witch, yogi, writer, and comedian. Em asks me the same questions that I will ask others throughout this season: Who are your people? What role does grief and loss play in your life, work, activism and artistic endeavours? And how does this inform the ways you dream up liberatory worlds? Em and I reminisce on how we first met and why we resonate with the term, “queer platonic partner,” in the radical ways we show up for each other that go beyond conventional friendship. We touch on queer occult practices and I share about my ancestors, transestors, chosen family, and queer community that ground me in an otherwise shaky world. Follow Em @shamelessembodiment Follow Dvorah @dvorahsilverman