We met for our 18th Birthday at a political time we could never have imagined when we were founded in 2007 – an ongoing genocide in Gaza and a political coup swallowing our government at home. Fringes is not an activist group, but we are a community of activists, each fighting to the make the world better around so many different issues. We come together as a havurah for a prayer life that holds, nourishes, and strengthens our activist hearts, and we needed each other today in way we never have before. As Gwendolyn Brooks wrote in her poem about Paul Robeson:

we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business
we are each other’s magnitude and bond.

Download and read our February Liturgy here.

Music this month included:

Eich Nashir by Tany Yitzchok

We Will Not Be Controlled by Abigail Bengson

Adonai S’fatai Tiftach by Craig Taubman ( but we sing “haemet/the truth” rather than “tehilatecha/your praise”)

As one of our psalms we read a poem by Danielle Badra built around a line from Gloria Anzaldua, “We are not reconciled to the oppressors who whet their howl on our grief.” To respond, members typed into chat everything which we will not accept or to which we refuse to be reconciled. Our answers made our own powerful psalm. Click on the first image to open the gallery.

For the Blessing of Redemption, we used re-imagined liturgy from Elliott, “Lest in the Future Our Silence Be Held Against Us,” to again affirm that what is happening in our government is wrong, and that we will not be silent about this. The liturgy is read call-and-response between all voices and a single voice, with the Hebrew liturgy sung in between each section: Oh Yah, open up my lips and my mouth will speak the truth. Click on the first image to view the gallery.