Virtual Offerings Archive
Cheshvan Full Moon Mikveh ~ Ancestral Allies, Communal Grief & Descendant Dreaming
Wednesday, November 13th, 2024
4pm-6pm PST / 7pm-9pm EST
Join Queer Mikveh Project for our monthly Full Moon Mikveh; a monthly gathering to soften, heal, build community and strengthen collective resilience through somatic grounding, creative expression, ritual and connection.
In the Northern hemisphere, Cheshvan is a time of welcoming the darkness. Deciduous trees shed their leaves, and teach us about letting go. The veil is at its thinnest, and in Jewish tradition, we honor the deaths of our matriarchs Sarah and Rachel. After months of concentrated festivals at the apex of the Jewish yearly cycle, Cheshvan brings us space for rest and reflection.
Last month, we experimented with bringing educational elements into our Mikvehs. This month, we return our focus to making ritual together. In our time together, we will hold space for communal grief. We will invite in the support of our ancestors, to support us in processing the tidal waves of grief that are moving through the collective in this time of unending genocide. We will hold spacious time for connection with other queers who desire a Judaism beyond Zionism. We will connect with our descendants and ask what they require of us to move towards a world that embodies collective liberation.
Sukkot Full Moon Mikveh ~ Dwelling in Temporality
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Join Queer Mikveh Project and Rosa Blumenfeld-Romero of Reclaiming Indigeneity for a Sukkot Full Moon Mikveh; a monthly gathering to soften, heal, build community and strengthen collective resilience through somatic grounding, creative expression, ritual and connection.
Sukkot reminds us of the temporary dwellings of our ancestors, who moved through the world in precarious conditions. We honor that memory by standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon as Israel commits murder, displacement and creates conditions of extreme precarity in our names.
We reflect on what it means to create home within the temporality of diaspora, choosing to be good guests on the land, rejecting colonialism in all its forms. We will learn together with Rosa as she shares teachings from her Decolonizing Judaism curriculum. We invite all who long for liberation and solidarity, knowing that our strength comes from our interconnectedness and our shared struggle for a world where all people have the right to return, to live, and to thrive.
As we dwell in the virtual sukkah—this pop-up shelter that mirrors the impermanence of home in diaspora—we hold healing space in community as our hearts break again and again. We know that the most profound sense of home we can cultivate in diaspora comes from spiritual harvesting grounded in solidarity, mutual care.
Elul Full Moon Mikveh ~ Tending the Temple
Wednesday, September 18th, 2024
4pm-5:30pm PST / 7pm-8:30pm EST
Join Queer Mikveh Project for our monthly Full Moon Mikveh; a monthly gathering to soften, heal, build community and strengthen collective resilience through somatic grounding, creative expression, ritual and connection.
This month, we come together under the Elul full moon—a time of reflection, connection, and preparation for the High Holidays. This grape-ripening season invites us into presence with the aliveness of creation. We ground in our commitment to honoring all life as precious. This spiritual practice is the seed of all our work for liberation. We are up against systems of violence, but we are also part of a collective energetic shift—one that moves towards life.
In the spirit of our tradition, we prepare to do teshuvah as a collective. We orient towards repair and realignment as a pathway for renewal. As we take personal and collective accountability, we also make space to celebrate the ways we’ve been alive.
To strengthen the weave of this community we are building, we’re introducing a new opportunity to build personal ties. This month, we are introducing Queer Mikveh Buddies. For those who choose to opt in, we will pair you with a buddy to travel through the High Holidays with. From the Elul full moon until Yom Kippur, we’ll be sending daily prompts for Chesbon Hanefesh, accounting of the soul, and inviting you to share your reflections with each other. If you’re interested in being paired with a buddy, please fill out the Queer Mikveh Buddies section of this form by 9/15.
All are welcome to join this community, woven by shared desire for healing and communal transformation. All are welcome to join who are moved by what is left unsaid, wish to truth tell through their grief (and be vessels for collective grief from beings we may not yet have located in the crevices of our hearts and the fissures of earth and sky.) All are welcome who long to move towards joyful presence and commit to deeply living. All are welcome to join who yearn to belong with the seen and unseen at the intersection of ugliness and possibility.
Come as you are. Come in the crab shell of quiet, rest and retreat. Come release into the blossom of delight and roll around in the cross-pollination of communion. Wherever you are, however you are. Come as you are.
This event is a joint fundraiser for Queer Mikveh Project and a community mental health clinic in the occupied West Bank.
All allies welcome regardless of religious affiliation, gender or sexual orientation.
ASL Interpretation will be available.
Full Moon Mikveh ~ Tammuz Grief Circle
Sunday, July 21, 2024
Join Queer Mikveh Project for our first Full Moon Mikveh; a monthly gathering to soften, heal, build community and strengthen collective resilience through somatic grounding, creative expression, ritual and connection.
This month we'll gather with the fullness of the Tammuz moon. Tammuz -- the month where the sun shines its brightest -- where our ancestors lived in the precarity of the unknown -- will the sun burn up all our crops? Will we grow enough food to survive the winter? Will we grow enough collective power to survive climate chaos?
This Tammuz we are present with the precarity that the people of Gaza have been living in for the past nine months. As we open to grief for the unfathomable loss and suffering, we will join together to express our grief and our longing for communion. We will transmute our grief into spiritual and material support for the people of Palestine. We will generate blessings for protection, and mutual aid towards surviving the precarity of Israel-made famine.
We will gather two days before 17 Tammuz, a fast day commemorating the breach of the walls of Jerusalem before the destruction of the Second Temple. 17 Tammuz marks the beginning of the three week mourning period leading up to Tisha B'Av. In this community, we refuse to exceptionalize our ancestral trauma. We refuse to exceptionalize our grief. We mourn and heal and build together in the spirit of collective liberation for all people.
COMING TO THE WATER: A Conversation on Christian Zionism & Water Ritual for Palestine
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
5pm-7pm PST / 8pm-10pm EST
Join Queer Mikveh Project & Christians for a Free Palestine to better understand Christian Zionism & how we can leverage our Jewish & Christian traditions towards Palestinian Liberation.
We’ll learn about the white supremacist, colonial origins of the Christian Zionist movement and its role in the creation and expansion of Israeli settler colonialism. We will also learn about the Indigenous Christian Palestinian community, and the fight for Palestinian water rights. We will explore our shared core values, and join together for a water ritual to honor our ancestral practices and bolster ourselves for the ongoing struggle for Palestinian liberation.
Featuring Jonathan Brenneman, Cole Parke-West and Sarah Nahar.
Are Jews Indigenous? A decolonial, anti nationalist, Indigenous & Jewish perspective
Virtual events on Sunday, February 4th, 2024 & January 8th, 2024
Come hear from Rosa Blumenfeld-Romero, an Indigenous woman from the Muisca people in Boyaca, Colombia, and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. She is the founder of Reclaiming Indigeneity LLC and has been doing Indigenous coming home work for the past 10 years.
The right wing has weaponized Indigeneity to justify the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza right now and the Occupation of the last 75 years by saying that the Jewish people are Indigenous to the Holy Land.
Some questions that Rosa will be addressing: What are nation states for? What is the difference between a historical connection and a current identity? Where do antisemitism and Indigeneity intersect? What are our responsibilities to stand up to this myth as Queer Jews? What about Mizrahi and Palestinian Jews?
Our Role in Palestinian Liberation as Queer Jews: A Conversation on Intersectionality, Water and International Solidarity: Part 2
Virtual event on Monday, December 18th, 2023
Queer Mikveh Project invites you to a conversation about the ways we as queer Jews are particularly positioned to support Palestinian liberation. We’ll explore and deepen our understanding of the intersections with queer liberation, climate justice and international indigenous solidarity. We’ll focus on the themes of water and how the oceans connect our struggles and give us strength to truth tell and take action for water sovereignty in Palestine. As queers and as Jews, Zionism is enacted doubly in our names. We invite you to join with other anti-Zionist queer Jews to learn, connect and strengthen our capacity to dismantle Zionist myths in our solidarity work.
Featuring Dean Spade, Zephyr Elise, Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt, Mordecai Ettinger and Penny Rosenwasser
Our Role in Palestinian Liberation as Queer Jews: A Conversation on Intersectionality, Water and International Solidarity: Part 1
Virtual event on Tuesday, December 12th, 2023
If you’ve ever been curious about any of these questions, this panel is for you:
What the heck is pinkwashing? Or greenwashing? Why do people keep using the claim that Jews are indigenous to Palestine as a way to justify Zionism? Who are Jewish Palestinians? What is the water crisis in Palestine? What are the intersections of Disability Justice and Palestinian solidarity? How can we use our bodies (which are mostly made of water) as agents of change to align with global movements for liberation? How can we mobilize our Jewish and queer communities in the work for a free Palestine?
Featuring Hadar Cohen, Rae Abileah, Rosa Blumenfeld, Bennie Gross and Dov Baum.
Water Ritual for Palestine
Virtual event on Sunday, November 12, 2023
A ritual to honor water, grieve the genocide in Palestine and to sustain us in our continued action for liberation.
Please join Queer Mikveh Project for a water ritual during this heartbreaking and horrifying time. The immensity of what we are being asked to hold as witnesses is a fraction of what Palestinians are going through right now. The current denial of Water and access to the Ocean, essential to Palestinian life, are being denied as tools in this genocide. There is a long history of water control by the Israeli government, and Gaza has been in a water crisis for years.
We come together in solidarity with all indigenous people to truth-tell, hold space for healing and dedicate our gathering to: Ending the genocide in Gaza NOW! An immediate ceasefire. Ending the occupation in all of Palestine which endangers Israelis, Palestinians, and everyone in the region. Ending ALL militarism worldwide.
We are coming together for the sake of collectively healing the land, the waters and ourselves. WATER IS LIFE
With Kyle Rocco East, Zephyr Elise, Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt, Rosa Blumenfeld-Romero and Rebekah Erev
Days of Awe: Queer Mikveh Ritual
Virtual event on Sunday, September 10th, 2023
Welcome the Days of Awe with ritual and community with the practice of Mikveh (Jewish ritual immersion in water) through a queer lens. While the historical roots of mikveh come from ancient notions of purity and impurity, this workshop will explore ritual immersion as a spiritual technology for healing the body, mind, and spirit for all bodies.
Using Mikveh we will come together in community to collaborate in our healing, interdependence and transformation through ritual, prayer, and song. What we can let go of to be most present for our upcoming holy days, be in community, sing, pray and revel in the holy mayyim hayyim, living waters.
Featuring contributions from Harriette Wimms, Aliko Weste and Rebekah Erev
Mana Wāhine: Native Hawaiian and Jewish People of Color Conversations on Intersectionality
Virtual event on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023
Join a diverse group of women from the Native Hawaiian and Jewish communities as they discuss their experiences, community work, and thoughts on intersectionality.
An AHAverim Webinar Series co-sponsored by Queer Mikveh Project.
Featuring Māhealani Ahia, Allison Shiozaki, Kohenet Dr. Harriette Wimms, and moderated by Dr. Maya Soetoro
We All Need Friends: Allyship on Turtle Island to Indigenous, First Nations, Métis, Inuit & Native Peoples Workshop & Ritual
Virtual event on Wednesday, November 23nd, 2022
With Thanksgiving, Native American Heritage Month, and the Indian Child Welfare Act under threat at the Supreme Court, it can be overwhelming to figure out how to act honorably at this time of year. In this workshop we will go over a brief history of colonization, some steps that you can take to move towards harmony with Native peoples and look at what behaviors we need to change to be good guests on stolen Native land. After the workshop we will add a ritual element of water immersion in honor of murdered Indian children who did not come home from Residential Boarding schools. As Jews, we honor their memories by immersing in solidarity with Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island.
With Rosa Blumenfeld of Reclaiming Indigeneity.
Sukkot Rain Mikveh
Virtual event on Sunday, October 16th, 2022
Join us as we lift up the work of indigenous-led Water and Land protection work and the diverse queer voices of the Jewish diaspora. This virtual Mikveh event will celebrate the power of rain and water as we gather together for a Sukkot under the digital Sukkah. We will harvest the magic of our collective water-bodies to rain down healing from injustice and to envision and live into a liberated world where all beings have access to clean water.
We will receive offerings from Dr. Harriette Wimms, Rose Espinola, Imani Altemus-Williams, Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt and more.
Passover Liberation Edition: Smoke & Steam!
Virtual event on Thursday, March 25th, 2022
Join QMP for a ritual celebration of fire and water and the healing capacities of each. Join from your bathtub, with a cup of tea or a bowl of water. Bring yourself, the names of your benevolent ancestors and the names of the people Indigenous to the land you live on, as we will pay reverence during the event.
With Dr. Harriette Wimms, Rebeccah Santa Ana Stromberg, Kat Johnston, Zuriel the Kolker and Dr. Koach Baruch Frazier.
Preparing Our Bodies for the Days of Awe
Virtual event on Wednesday, September 16th, 2020
Join us for a Queer Mikveh to welcome in the Days of Awe. During the last days of Elul (the Jewish month of mercy and forgiveness) we come together in community to collaborate in our healing and transformation. We gather in ritual in order to let go of any schmutz from 5780, reflect on what we can let go of to be most present for our upcoming holy days, be in community, sing, pray and revel in the holy mayyim hayyim, living waters. Hosted on Zoom.
Bathtub Queer Mikveh
Virtual event on Thursday, March 26th, 2020
At the prompting of beloved fellow priestess Orev Katz, a Queer Mikveh for this moment is called. Immerse in the unknown, be with community. Get a head start in letting go of chametz. Join us for a Queer Mikveh to welcome in Nisan the month of liberation. Hosted on Zoom. Join from your bathtub, with a cup of tea or a bowl of water. There will be a short ritual, guided meditation and song. Bring yourself and the names of the people indigenous to the land you live on.
With offerings from Lukaza Branfman Verissimo, Mica Amichai, Rebekah Erev. and other guests.