Dietary Privilege

Michelle's Response to "Why Do Your Kid's Allergies Mean That My Kid Can't Have a Birthday?"

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You are a bully.  In your article, you single out a specific group of people for conditions which many of them cannot control, and insist that they be treated differently, or ignored completely, because of their special needs.  You are no better than the girls who harassed me every day at lunch because my food looked and tasted differently than theirs.  You’re no better than the friend whose birthday party I attended, but who let me sit alone in the party room finishing up a crumbly gluten-free cupcake while she partied with the other guests elsewhere.  You are no better than the counselor at my day camp who tried to force-feed me a soft pretzel because he was ignorant and lacked compassion.  And you are no better than the girl on my study abroad program who started complaining that my gluten free meals were preventing her vegetarian meals from containing gluteny goodness.  Your article was petty and immature.  You care more about what you’re eating than what others around you are feeling.

Let me elaborate:

Right off the bat, your sarcasm is condescending and off-putting.  There are more items than “air” that are “gluten, nut, and egg-free,” and store-bought.  If you did your research, you would know that brands like Enjoy Life produce snack products that are free of the 8 most common allergens, including gluten, nuts, and eggs, and are actually tasty.  In fact, there are people who are allergic to gluten, nuts, and eggs and manage to eat more than just air.

If you think that you’re reaching the end of your rope trying to accommodate a child’s allergies for ONE classroom celebration, imagine trying to be the mother of a child with a serious or life-threatening allergy (by the way, I’m not a mother yet, but I’ve learned from my own mother that anything that puts your child in pain is considered serious by motherhood standards).  Allergies don’t stop existing just because homeroom is over and your homemade peanut butter cookies are all eaten up.  Imagine being my mother, 22 years ago, when no one had heard of Celiac Disease and even nutritionists didn’t know what “gluten-free” was.  If you’re at the end of your rope now, you must have a very short rope—it’s a good thing your children don’t have allergies because you wouldn’t be able to handle them.

The truth is, every kid wants to eat the “made-from-scratch cupcakes, the ones made with fresh butter, sugar and yes, real flour with real gluten in it”, but not every kid can.  And younger kids might not even remember that they can’t until it’s too late.  You don’t want your kid to miss out on homemade goodies because of other kids’ allergies?  Well, I don’t want my kid getting sick, or worse, because your homemade goodies looked too good to resist.  If it’s really that important to you to make something homemade instead of buying something in a store--because yes, these things are expensive, but some people have to pay 8 dollars for a loaf of bread or they will never be able to eat a sandwich.  Can you imagine a childhood without ever eating a sandwich?—then buy ingredients that everyone can enjoy and figure out how to make something yourself.

You might think you understand allergies—but were you ever a child with allergies?  Were you ever a 5 year old who couldn’t participate in the classroom party because of your egg-white allergy?  I don’t ask my friends to accommodate my special needs either—but they do it anyway, because they want to, because they care about me, because they don’t want to exclude me.  And sometimes they make mistakes and accidentally add an ingredient which isn’t gluten-free, or sometimes the item they have bought or prepared isn’t the tastiest, but my friends are the kinds of people who accommodate everyone, even without being asked.  You need new friends.

No one is asking you to deprive a child of anything—that’s the point.  No one should have to miss out, not even the kid allergic to nuts, eggs, and gluten.  You clearly already know how to accommodate food allergies because you have done so before, for the kids on your son’s soccer team, or for his classmates.  The reason people are resorting to gummy bears and juice boxes (which by the way, don’t sound so bad to me) is because they are uneducated and don’t know about all of the options.  So before you throw your hands up and give up, why not speak to the parents of the kids who are allergic to items, and see what they suggest?  Most parents are super knowledgeable and happy to help, especially if it means their child will be included.

Also, I don’t appreciate you referring to my dietary restrictions as “allergy insanity.”  Perhaps you are right—maybe all birthday parties should be banned, especially if store-bought items can’t be trusted as safe.  Just so you know, these days the FDA has much stricter guidelines about what labels need to go on foods, to avoid the very thing that happened to your classmate in high school when she ate a Twix.  Most prepackaged food items are now over-labeled—meaning that companies alert you to every possible trace of any allergen, even if the food was nowhere near that allergen at the time that it was made. 

It’s not that hard to be an accommodating, caring compassionate person.  Every day, parents whose kids are diagnosed with various allergies need to figure out how to accommodate their child’s needs while also helping them to live as normal a life as possible.  Just because you don’t want to put a little bit of effort into figuring out a treat that is safe for everyone doesn’t mean a child should be singled out and made to miss out on the fun.

I grew up in a world where food made me different, an outsider, the “other.”  Twenty-two years later, I still can’t sit down to a meal without someone commenting on the way my gluten-free food looks or tastes, or expressing surprise at the fact that what I am eating is gluten free, especially if it’s the same thing they are eating.  Sure, kids will be kids, but some kids never grow up.  Your article isolated and bullied me into feeling emotions that I have not been made to feel since elementary school.  It was rude and inconsiderate, and your points were selfish.  And worse yet, you lumped everyone with food allergies together—completely ignoring the vast array of intolerances and the way they manifest.

The truth is, I see articles like yours as a symptom of the “fad diet” phenomenon that has plagued society for the past 5 to 10 years.  I wish to separate myself from people who are giving up gluten by choice and let you know that many people have legitimate allergies.  Celiac Disease, by the way, is not even an allergy—it’s an autoimmune disorder where my body attacks the very proteins (gluten) that are supposed to nourish it.  I’m not choosing to eat gluten free because I think I’ll lose weight, or feel better—I have to keep gluten free in order to continue to live a healthy life.  People who are truly diagnosed with Celiac Disease risk malnourishment, cancer, and eventual death if they do not stick to their diets.  So while it might seem ridiculous that so many people have dietary restrictions these days, the prevalence of accurate testing and the increased knowledge of physicians actually allow children to lead happy and healthy lives from a much younger age than once was thought possible.  Of course, their emotional happiness is compromised when they interact with hateful people like you.

No one’s telling you that your kid can’t have a birthday, or even a birthday party, because other kids are allergic to the ingredients you see as necessary to include in a birthday treat.  I’m not asking you to stop having birthday parties for your kids because of my dietary restrictions—I’m not even telling you not to send in treats with your child.  I just ask that you have a little compassion and respect for those people who cannot participate in the celebration, because, as you so clearly stated, you can’t have a birthday party without a cake.

It's Only a Drill

I remember doing fire drills and inclement weather drills during school.  The fire alarm would sound, and the entire student body would slowly snake its way out of the school building, at a pace that I always thought would not do us any good in the event of an actual fire.  Then we’d line up on the field, which was right next to the school building.  Effective.  For inclement weather drills, we would crouch down, facing an “indoor” wall, and tuck our heads in between our legs.  I was always skeptical of these drills as well—if there was any sort of “inclement” weather, I’d want to run away, not crouch down in an unmovable ball such that I couldn’t see the problem coming.

I’ve been doing drills for my entire academic career—that’s the only way to be prepared in the event of an actual emergency.  But when I found out that Israel’s Department of Defense would be running a drill in conjunction with the Department of Education to prepare its students for an emergency—I spent 24 hours shaking with nerves.  I couldn’t eat.  I couldn’t sleep.  And when I did sleep, I dreamt that it wasn’t a drill anymore and I didn’t know where the shelter was.  I carefully planned out every move I would make the next morning so that I would be prepared—and I begged Andy to stay home from school so I wouldn’t be alone.  (He didn’t).

In the states, fire drills are done on a micro scale—a school, or school district, or a business decides to do a fire drill.  People participate begrudgingly because they know they have to.  The emergency drill here in Israel took place on a National level— sirens went off throughout the entire country, with the exception of a few towns close to Gaza.  So even though I'm not a student, and I wasn’t even in a “public location”, I still heard the emergency drill sirens.  To be honest, I expected them to be louder and scarier—but I heard them anyway.

A few minutes before the time that the sirens were scheduled to go off, I made my way down to a busy intersection near my apartment.  It sounds counter-intuitive, but I knew that I would need to see people going about their daily lives and unconcerned with the siren in order to be convinced everything was ok.  And that’s exactly what happened—I heard the siren start to wail, and I saw the pedestrians keep walking to their destinations without picking up the pace, and cars continue driving instead of pulling over.  I even watched as a cab driver checked in with another driver to ensure it was actually a drill.

Convinced, I headed back to the apartment.  The siren was still wailing (it was supposed to last for 90 seconds).  As I climbed the steps in my building, I met two of the Yeshiva boys living in the building—one still in his pajamas, and the other in the midst of the shower process.  They were checking to see that everything was ok—they hadn’t heard that it was a drill.  So I told them “it’s just a drill” and in the blink of an eye, they had returned to their former activities.  I was not so chill or nonchalant about the situation.  It took me a few minutes to calm down and get my heart rate back to normal. 

People used to tell me when I was younger that after I got my first bee sting, I wouldn’t be so afraid of bees anymore.  The truth is, my first bee sting hurt so much that I might have become more afraid of bees as a result of it, if that was even possible.  I figured after this drill, I would at least know what the siren sounds like and I wouldn’t think that every little sound I hear is the siren anymore.  The truth is, the siren was quieter and subtler than I thought it would be—it sort of sounded like a strong wind blowing by a window instead of the shrill shrieking I expected.  So… I may be even more on edge about the sounds I hear from now on, especially the techno music played by the Yeshiva boys downstairs, which sometimes sounds eerily similar.  Here’s hoping today was the first and last time I will hear the emergency siren in the Land of Israel.

Pluralism, son...

I recently came across this article on Facebook, about a project where Jewish students were asked to write their fears or stereotypes on their bodies and pose for photographs, with the captions “I am not my…”.  Here is the link: http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/161489/provocative-photo-project-goes-viral-among-orthodox-students.  I applaud these students for their honesty and genuineness—I’m not even sure what I would have chosen to write if I had had the chance to participate.  I came across one picture in particular that really spoke to me.  The words written on her forehead read “I AM observant”, and the caption reads “I am not my pants.”

This is an issue I’ve wanted to write about for some time now, but I haven’t been able to find the inspiration to actually put my thoughts to paper.  Until now.  Through the various projects I find myself involved with, I have interacted with a number of religious Jews who had never heard of Conservative Judaism and were interested in asking me questions about it.  I love talking about my Judaism and my relationship to my religion—it’s always growing and changing, and I think that means that my Judaism is strong.  But there’s a difference between wanting to learn, and being rude or ignorant.  I’ve been told that egalitarianism, one of the main tenants of Conservative Judaism “just doesn’t make sense to religious Jews”, and I’ve been asked “what do you have to say for yourself?” in response to women leading services, which is, apparently, against halacha (Jewish law).  I’ve also been accused of picking and choosing which halachot to observe. 

It seems to me that some of the Jews who live, work, and pray in Israeli society every day, may not be aware of what a Conservative Jew is, and once they begin to ask questions, they also begin to dismiss what I think is a beautiful part of Judaism—the struggle.  The struggle is attempting to figure out how to practice Judaism in a meaningful way.  I don’t think Judaism is supposed to be easy, or clear.  I believe that there are supposed to be many ways of expressing and interacting with your Judaism, and that all of them are valid as long as they are meaningful to you (ie: Pluralism).  I choose to express my Judaism by keeping Shabbat and observing Kashrut, but that might not be the path for other Jews.  The problem arises when we are told by other Jews that our Judaism is “less than”, or “invalid”, or even… not actually Judaism. 

So I wear pants and don’t cover my hair even though I’m married—but that shouldn’t tell someone who doesn’t know me how I choose to observe my Judaism.  Why is it necessary to distinguish what kind of Jew someone is by indicating whether she wears pants, or he wears a kippah?  It’s the classic issue of judging a book by its cover.  And I admit that I am guilty of this too—but it’s something I am trying to stop.  I’ve met a lot of different types of Jews while living in Jerusalem, and not everyone looks the same or dresses the same, or practices the same.  And you wouldn’t know what they choose to observe just from looking at them.

I wholly believe that in order for a Jewish State to exist, it must be a Pluralistic Jewish State, accepting of all forms and expressions of Judaism.  This means accepting both in official policy and on the ground—from one Jew to another.  The truth is, even without organized “movements”, like “Orthodox,” “Conservative,” or “Reform”, people will continue to express their Judaism in a way that is meaningful to them.  Jews are a small, and often persecuted, part of the world. We need to come together, and support each other.  In the future, it won’t matter what you call yourself—to the world, we are all “Jews”.  And in Israel, we should all be “Jews” too.  The face of Judaism is changing, and will continue to change—Jews in Israel and the Diaspora need to be ready to love their neighbor as themselves, to accept strangers into their homes and communities, and to not separate themselves from the greater Jewish community.  These are Jewish values I try to live by—so maybe I “pick and choose” which halachot to follow—but maybe, everyone else does too.

A Letter to the Wo/man Who Woke Up the Entire Neighborhood This Morning

Dear Sir or Madame,

Let me set the scene for you: It is 8:00 on a Thursday morning, and after a hard week of classes, work, and obligations, my husband and I are still sleeping.  You see, since moving to Israel, we have discovered that Thursday is the only “weekend” we get, since Friday morning is spent preparing for Shabbat, Saturday is Shabbat, and Sunday is the first day of the work week.  Our street is a quiet, shady side-street in a lovely, family-oriented, religious neighborhood.  

Suddenly, we are startled awake by the obnoxious sound of your car horn—a constant blaring shattering the still morning silence.  We wait, hoping it will stop.  Maybe you are driving carpool and want to alert your passenger that you have arrived.  Nope.  It continues well past the socially appropriate amount of time to continue.  There’s no use in trying to fall back asleep—I can barely hear myself think because of how loud your incessant honking is.

A quick trip to the mirpeset reveals that a car has been inconsiderately parked in the middle of our one-way street—a car which you are now stuck behind and cannot drive around.  I see that I am not the only person who has been interrupted in their morning activities and who is intrigued as to why it is necessary to alert the entire neighborhood to your woes.  I wish to remind you that people are often sleeping at 8:00 in the morning—but alas, I can neither speak loudly enough nor clearly enough (in Hebrew) to make my grievance known (unlike yourself). 

The man who belongs to the abandoned car returns, and stops by your window to… explain, protest, offer a peace offering of coffee?  He tries to tell you where he was, and to inform you of the commotion you have caused.  He keeps repeating the same phrase in Hebrew, warning you of your disruption of the peace.  You, however, will have nothing of it, and continue to honk your horn until the man gets into his car and drives away.  In fact, you wait until the car in front of you begins to move before stopping—you weren’t happy enough that the man had returned, you weren’t happy enough that the man got into his car, and you certainly weren’t willing to engage in dialogue with the man. 

As both cars drive away (yours a little too close to the car in front of you, if you ask me), the neighborhood returns to its peaceful state—men and women return to their work, children return to their play—but, alas, I cannot return to sleep for you have kept me awake for too long.

This poses an interesting thought experiment—who is really at fault in this situation?  You, the trigger-happy-horn-honker, or the man who parked his car in the middle of the street (presumably to run an errand quickly and then return)?  Or, is it both of you?  Or neither of you?

I try to be understanding, and give people the benefit of the doubt, but it’s your fault for disturbing the entire neighborhood.  Sure, it was inconsiderate of the man in front of you to abandon his car in the middle of the street, but I was still able to sleep while he was doing so.  You were the one who decided to wake up the neighborhood, to inconvenience the street instead of just one person, to act in a rude, selfish, and inconsiderate way. 

Our street is small, and does not get much traffic—perhaps you were rushing somewhere and thought of our street as a nifty shortcut.  Perhaps you live on our street and were trying to drive to work or whatever it is you do at 8:00 in the morning.  I’m sure your intentions when you woke up this morning were completely innocent—I doubt you planned to take on the responsibility of being a wake-up call for an entire neighborhood.  But you became the villain in this story when you decided to make an entire community suffer for the actions of one man.

Maybe your unwarranted wakeup call should actually serve as a wakeup call for yourself, as well as for the greater global community.  Individuals are unique and act according to their own desires and needs.  Oftentimes, these needs are selfish—rarely do they infringe upon others’ rights or needs.  But when they do, it is unfair to make that one individual serve as a spokesperson for that individual’s entire community.  One altercation with a person does not necessarily accurately predict how a future interaction with a different member of that person’s community will play out.  So next time you find yourself personally affronted by one person’s actions, please—do not make the rest of the community suffer because of it. 

Thanks—

Michelle

Faith

This year has been a year of exploration and self-reflection for me.  I have had the time to do a lot of thinking about issues that aren’t usually at the forefront in my mind.  I can only hope these opportunities are making me a better person.  In the course of two weeks, I was fortunate enough to have two experiences which I never expected I would have—I visited Petra, Jordan, and I visited the Dome of the Rock.

Petra is a beautiful old city, carved in the stones that make up the sides of a valley in Jordan.  It’s over 2,000 years old and is home to ancient burial tombs, beautifully sculpted facades (like the one made famous in Indiana Jones), and plenty of remains of idols and shrines. 

The Dome of the Rock is simply magnificent—blue and colorful, exquisitely detailed.  While I was on the Temple Mount, Church bells rang out throughout the Old City, and just underneath the exit, we found the Kotel.  Just another reminder of the “oneness” of human kind—of how we all fit together. 

I recently visited the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the second time, and the awesomeness was not lost.  It is huge and engulfing, at once holy and spooky.  There, too, I was reminded of the “oneness” of human kind, when we exited the Church and were greeted with the Muslim call to prayer.  All these sites had the effect of making me feel not just small, but puny, though not insignificant.  Just one more cog in the experience we call “life”. 

And it has me wondering if believing in something greater than oneself is a part of human nature.  All three of these sites (two of them religious) are pure expressions of praise towards a manifestation of a higher being.  They are simple in meaning, though not in design, and are genuine and true.  We have proof that 2,000 years ago, and even further back than that, people were appealing to something greater than themselves for support and help with all facets of life.  In the time that these beautiful monuments to Greater Beings were constructed, people didn’t need “proof” that something more than them existed—they just believed.  Faith, though hard to achieve in its purest form, is a beautiful thing.

Each of these sites reminds me that we are all just looking for answers, and though we might not arrive to the same conclusion, our paths look pretty similar. 

Tutoring (is a gerund)

It has been about two months since I began tutoring after school with ENP.  The teacher and I review grammar with the high school students and practice reading comprehension by reading various books and stories.  Sometimes the girls we work with need help with homework or a specific task.  Today, the girls asked to use our time together to review for their upcoming English test.  Among the things they asked to review were the present perfect tense, gerunds, and a story from their workbook.  I have to admit that I was a little disappointed when the girls asked to review gerunds, because I had personally taught them gerunds only a few weeks ago, and they seemed like they understood. 

We reviewed the present perfect, which we had talked about in December when I first began working with the girls, and we read the story from their book together.  As always, the girls impressed me with their knowledge of and familiarity with English.  Finally, it was time to review gerunds—I was nervous to see what they remembered. 

The teacher wrote the first sentence on the board, and asked the girls to complete the sentence using the gerund form of the verb.  One of the girls immediately called out the correct answer and was able to explain that a gerund is a verb that uses “ing” and becomes a noun when used in a sentence (ex: “Swimming is fun” instead of “I like to swim”).  Two of the girls leaned over to look at me and said “you taught us that!”  I couldn’t help smiling from ear to ear, beaming proudly that the girls remembered what we had worked on!

As the girls finished up their worksheets for the afternoon and began to pack up their books, one of the girls thanked us sincerely, from her heart.  “Thank you so much,” she said “What would I do without you?  I really mean it.”  She also called me a tzadikah (literally: a righteous person) for helping her create flashcards during the class.  The other girls chimed in with thanks as well, and we wished them luck on their exam.  While each week is rewarding, and provides me an ongoing opportunity to get to know the girls I work with and to develop meaningful relationships with them, it is sometimes nice to have experiences like this, which remind me why I am volunteering in the first place.

Tutoring with ENP

This is a reflection that Michelle wrote a few weeks ago, after her first experience tutoring Ethiopian-Israeli high school students in an after school English enrichment program.

When I signed up to help tutor Ethiopian-Israeli high school students in English, I didn’t realize that I was going to learn a few things about the English language too!  On my first day as a volunteer in one of ENP’s academic assistance after-school programs, the teacher taught a lesson on the Present Perfect tense.  Present Perfect—has anyone, ever, heard of this?  I was sure I used it all of the time, but I had no idea what it was!  And so, I listened closely to the lesson, alongside the 4 high school girls who I was there to tutor, and learned how to create sentences and questions using the present perfect sense—for example, “Have you eaten today?  Yes, I have eaten a sandwich.”

Even though I have been in ulpan for almost 4 months now, it only took me five minutes to decide that English is much harder to learn than Hebrew.  There are no rules in English, the way there are in Hebrew.  And Hebrew only has three tenses, where English has things like the Present Perfect. 

After the teacher taught the lesson, I worked with two of the girls to complete a supplementary worksheet to review the use of the Present Perfect.  I was asked to only speak to the students in English—and they understood every word I said!   The girls I worked with were extremely intelligent and articulate, even in a language that is not their mother tongue.  They completed the worksheet with ease, and helped translate words for each other that they did not understand.  It was lucky that I was able to explain the English words that they didn’t understand in Hebrew. 

As a high school student who was overextended, with constant after-school commitments, I know firsthand how hard it is to concentrate and remain energetic after a full day of school.  But the four girls who I had the joy to meet last week, and who I am really excited to continue working with, were on the ball!  They were energetic, smart, engaged, and they really wanted to learn.  They were excited to be part of this program, and to receive supplementary work which will further challenge them and expand their knowledge regarding reading, writing, and speaking English.  I’m looking forward to establishing meaningful and lasting relationships with these girls, as I aid them in the development of their English speaking skills each week.