"Tell me about your experience/upbringing as a Filipino Jew and the challenges you have confronted as a Jew of Color?"
Shalom Akira-Sensei,
I prefer to share timely personal information, so I've reserved relevant links with regard to my background - readily available - which you are more than free to peruse, dissect, and inquire about: especially in person.
With that, I'm a batman, generally. Ima was the primary nurse for New Square's Rebbitzen in the 1980s (I distinctly recall her smiling and waving from her bedside. The neighborhood Orthodox children reminded me of the kids in Quezon City, Philippines, as a child. I'm not sure who threw stones at me anymore.).
Ima worked the night shift for many, many years. I think I've inherited her insomnia, in that regard. I take short naps during the day. I suppose I can wake up on time for mid-day prayers more often, actually...
Ima really was quite beautiful in her innocence and long, ebony locks, upon immigrating Stateside. We don't talk much to one another these days. A silent, bitter recognition. And her hair has had the appearance of a Sheitel, since (she's a cancer survivor).
I'm still growing up in Bahay Shalom, where being a Philipinoy-Ephraiymit is a work-in-progress, much like an impending marriage: loneliness - a memory album of loved ones my only companion - until a Ketubah exchange at the altar.
But I love the company of birds - from sparrows to duchifat to ravens to doves to eagles to twitterim=)
Ibenim
In Honor of Aliza Hausman's Inquistiviteness
I prefer to share timely personal information, so I've reserved relevant links with regard to my background - readily available - which you are more than free to peruse, dissect, and inquire about: especially in person.
With that, I'm a batman, generally. Ima was the primary nurse for New Square's Rebbitzen in the 1980s (I distinctly recall her smiling and waving from her bedside. The neighborhood Orthodox children reminded me of the kids in Quezon City, Philippines, as a child. I'm not sure who threw stones at me anymore.).
Ima worked the night shift for many, many years. I think I've inherited her insomnia, in that regard. I take short naps during the day. I suppose I can wake up on time for mid-day prayers more often, actually...
Ima really was quite beautiful in her innocence and long, ebony locks, upon immigrating Stateside. We don't talk much to one another these days. A silent, bitter recognition. And her hair has had the appearance of a Sheitel, since (she's a cancer survivor).
I'm still growing up in Bahay Shalom, where being a Philipinoy-Ephraiymit is a work-in-progress, much like an impending marriage: loneliness - a memory album of loved ones my only companion - until a Ketubah exchange at the altar.
But I love the company of birds - from sparrows to duchifat to ravens to doves to eagles to twitterim=)
Ibenim
In Honor of Aliza Hausman's Inquistiviteness
I worked as a Mental Health Worker in Westchester, New York (home to Professor Xavier's Shul for Gifted Youngsters) - when I'd have a smoke during lunch breaks. Remember the time, when the concentration camps were finally liberated? When the prisoners were given cigarettes by the soldiers: and ravaged them, they were so famished? One day, I realized I had no matches left in my book. Since Filipinim are known to scavenge for food in shantytowns, I naturally bowed my head, my vision cast to the ground, the periphery about me, dejected. Like Abba. Suddenly, I notice a bird land on the stairs leading up to the entrance of the youth ward. I observed it, as it pecked away, knocking on the concrete - weeds and tiny sticks and leaves, rustling. Instinctively, the bird took flight, when I noticed a single, unlit match buried among the thorns.
Kumah Aba,
Eliyahu-Akhi
http://www.youtube.com/generationsackcloth
http://www.youtube.com/piyyutim
http://www.youtube.com/generationsackcloth
http://www.youtube.com/piyyutim
