Living a multi-culti life

Over the past few years there have been lots of discussions in various corners of the world about cultural appropriation. This is an issue I think about often as someone who lives in a multicultural city.

I often use textiles that are associated with particular cultures in my work. I use bits of old saris in challah covers.  I love the strong graphic look of African mud cloth and it too gets used in my work along with waxed cotton prints commonly used for garment making in Africa.

Several days ago one of the sewing lists  belong to shared a note from a sewing pattern company. Apparently they  changed the name of a garment from "kimono" to something else because it was deemed culturally insensitive to use that word.


 I totally get that if I dressed up pretending I were from Ghana or spoke in a fake Rastafarian accent that would be creepy and cultural appropriation. There are other example of these sorts of creepy appropriations.

This video


crosses over the line to creepy.

Some of my friends discussed around Purim that perhaps dressing up in a Quipao was culturally insensitive.

My daughter did her senior thesis about the Quipao. i learns a huge amount from her research.  Interestingly, even though the dress pictured above is sold as a "traditional" dress, this style of dress is not traditionally Chinese at all. The Quipao was developed in the early years of the 20th century in China as a way to westernize women's dress. The earliest versions were essentially flapper dresses with an overlay of Chinese design elements. Later in the century it became a symbol in dress of the Chinese Republic.

Challah the most traditional of Ashkenazi Jewish breads is a a twin of northern European Christmas breads.

As I made the barley for Shabbat, I realized that I was using a combination of cooking techniques and flavors that spanned Eastern Europe, Italy, India and Morocco. I wasn't playing at being anything other than who I am in cooking and eating this dish.

 Lately I have seen videos of  church services where tallitot  and Torah scrolls are made part of the service.  That crosses the line into creepy appropriation. Part of the creep factor is that the point of the theology of these Christian denominations is that they have superseded Judaism---even if they think that parts of Judaism are really cute.

And then this morning this amazing video crossed my Facebook feed. I thank my friend Feigele for posting it. My initial reaction was "Oh! this is adorable! Two Hawaiian women doing a hula to a Yiddish  song. But if you listen to how the words of the song work with the dance moves, you may be moved to tears as I was. The Hula takes a great song and makes it better.




I remember hearing stories of how Irish and Jewish, Chinese and Italian neighbors living in close proximity in immigrant neighborhoods learned  music and flavors from one another. Now in the age of the internet our neighbors may live far away, but we can learn from one another and strengthen our own traditions.

When my son-in-law converted last year a friend told me how she felt that converts strengthen the Jewish people because they bring the perspective of their own cultures with them.  I think my friend was right.

Shabbat Shalom!