One of the things that I did when I went to Poland this summer was, I insisted that there were lesbian -- because I know what's going on over there -… - Irena Klepfisz

My vision of di froyen fun undzer mishpokhe includes Sephardim who speak Arabic and Ladino, proud lesbians, sabras, rabbis, single mothers, witches, elected government officials, and so many more. Some of them appear before me as individuals, others as shadows longing for daylight to disclose their identity.

(What is the most amazing thing about life?) IK: That it persists despite its fragility. Everything sort of hangs by a hair's breadth and yet somehow it manages.... You hear such horrible stories about people's lives...war, abuse, poverty-that anybody survives is remarkable. Audre Lorde once said, "None of us were meant to survive." There's truth to that, and I remain amazed that so many of us do. It's extraordinary that we can even walk around and function in a minimal way, much less in a productive way. For whatever turmoil goes on internally with people and the pain that they experience at night in their dreams, they still manage somehow to construct lives during the day which are meaningful to other people and to themselves.

Perhaps this experience as a lesbian and feminist is the reason I try to avoid the "us" and "them" division and try to find common ground in both worlds from which to launch various battles. The "us" and "them" division-"us" meaning progressives and "them" being the mainstream-is too simple and veils a more complex reality. It also smacks of smugness and self-righteousness, which I find alienating. It assumes that the progressive world has everything to offer the mainstream and the mainstream's main activity is to unlearn its evil ways. This is neither useful nor accurate. I am, for example, often pained by the ignorance of many Jewish progressives in relation to Jewish history, culture, and religion and wish we would have more contact with the mainstream community and get our Jewishness on firmer ground.