Waving Goodbye

I went to bed early after an evening of increasing, colorful light and laughter with my daughter. Spent the last day of the year chatting with phenomenal friends who always give me positivity and wise advice. Rejected the stubborn hubris and lack of seychel – common sense – of others.

I would say an important thing in life is to be willing to look old ideas, old frame of references squarely in the eye – and toss them away when they no longer make sense. Growing is thrilling.

Rigorous intellectual honesty matters to me. I am compassionate – but not respectful of a lack of the former.

Over five years ago, a day or so after my mom’s funeral, an old friend took us out for dinner overlooking the ocean. He said something that really surprised me – “I always thought of you as one of the most brilliant people I know.” This man is remarkable – double board certified in two fields of medicine. I haven’t thought about his comment since. But as I looked into the lights of the menorah, I did last night.

Why was this so shocking to me? I have identified as a feminist since before I was even a teenager. And yet… I never fully owned that in some respects, I’m brilliant. I have a keen mind, capable of looking at a subject from a 360° perspective – and able to see connections to ideas that create new perspectives.

I often got A+ on my literature and poetry and politics papers in college – but didn’t fully take that in. I worked hard to achieve career success – and with a mentality truly unthinkable in this age of social media and self-promotion, valued and loved my work much more than my successes. I just kept my head down.

When I left an abusive marriage I thought, how did this abuse happen to me? I’m a feminist. I worked at Ms. Magazine, ffs.

It happened because evil and abuse exist in the world. Full stop. No matter how smart we are, we have emotional wounds that need to heal. It’s part of our soul’s journey. Even when the evil is so gargantuan it defies understanding or comprehension.

Until you’re dead and gone, it’s not too late to change. Even then, I believe the soul continues its evolution and journey. But that’s for another discussion.

On the last day of 2024, I said farewell to all the bullshit. (I hope!) 2024 was a year of reckoning. So I’m going to take this on.

I think Feminism has lost its way, lost its meaning. It was a year when Feminists refused to believe women. As a group, they wouldn’t even acknowledge the atrocities, the barbaric sexual violence that was perpetrated against Jewish women. Heartbreakingly, still being perpetrated against the hostages.

The younger feminists are so intersected they reject the core essence of feminism. The older ones are so stuck, immersed in a leftist mentality that they’re unwilling to challenge themselves to be objective. And the Jewish feminists? They’re so busy taking care of everyone else they neglected to value and care for themselves as Jews. Worse, utterly betrayed the Jewish people.

I really don’t like when people can’t admit they’re wrong. For me, being a loving mom, is an exercise in entertaining the possibility that I’m wrong, nearly every day. It means really listening. And apologizing when appropriate. It’s appropriate a lot.

In 2025 I’m going to really take a good, hard look at whether Feminism holds meaning. There is a saying religious Jews like to repeat: “Don’t judge Judaism by the Jews.” I always disliked that saying. Religion is supposed to make you a better person, an ethical person. That’s its job.

At this point, if I judged Feminism by the Feminists, forget it, it’s a goner. The amount of perverse, hypocritical, horrific things personally said to me by feminists this year. Oy! It’s exhausting to even try to recount them. I won’t give them air. But their arguments were not only specious, they were evidence of an unexamined, internalized patriarchy even more ludicrous than that on the political right.

In 2025 I’m going to have to really examine what this label means to me, and if it fairly represents me anymore. The core values I hold – those are eternal. I have much more to say on those. And trust me, I will.

Apparently, I went to sleep tired in 2024. And woke up in 2025 with a vengeance.