A New Year Begins with Opening Event
The excitement and anticipation of the new NCJW/Essex year was on display the night of September 26. NCJW/Essex President Andrea Rakitta Mintz captured the feeling as she spoke at Opening Event at Temple Beth Shalom in Livingston. She recounted the amazing work we do on menstrual equity, reproductive rights, community projects including the Back 2 School Store, and much more.
“The common thread is making life better for women, children and families AND safeguarding individual rights and freedoms,” Andrea said. “Those two things always go hand-in-hand and fuel what we do – and how we do it… Let’s continue to do great things together.”
Thank you to Ellen and Don Legow, whose generous support makes this annual event possible, and a special shout out to event chairs Susie Botwinick and Jodi Chisarick, who, with an able assist from VP, Engagement Lisa Katz, planned and brought the event to life. Special thanks to Cantor Sharon Knoller for her invocation, to Deborah Legow Schatz who introduced our speakers, and to Lauren Tabak Fass, who expertly guided the conversation with our speaker, Tara Schuster.
A Self-Care Journey
Tara Schuster spent years as a successful storyteller, and she certainly had an interesting one to tell at Opening Event. Her journey – from difficult childhood to professional success in the television industry, to an understanding of how self-care is the key to self-actualization and an important part of standing up to antisemitism, to a new purpose of sharing her story to help others – made for compelling listening and left us with a few things we can do.
She opened with a self-described “bummer” about the toxic relationship she had with her parents growing up, and how much the absence of those bonds influenced everything that followed. An awakening came on her twenty-fifth birthday.
“The only person coming to rescue me is me. It wasn’t my fault, but it is my responsibility,” she recalled.
And a Google doc was born. Tara organized her thoughts and ideas and questions into one online space. Everything from “what are my values?” to “what vegetables should I eat?” made it onto the doc, and through that work, she began to re-parent herself.
Re-parenting sounds scary, but it a simple concept: learning how to be yourself, and according to Tara, organizing that work around self-care.
Skeptics say self-care is selfish, or struggle to define what it really means. And, in our busy lives, who has the time anyway to pour more and more resources and time into yourself?
“I firmly believe self-care is also community care,” Tara explained. She pointed out the safety instructions before every airline flight include the instruction to put your oxygen mask on first, then help the people around you. Self-care is fundamentally the same: you cannot be good for others, unless you are okay yourself. It is not self-indulgence, and our own healing is core to being part of a community.
Tara also believes standing up to antisemitism and being a proud member of the Jewish community are essential parts of self-care. Her experiences in Hollywood and comedy, populated in both myth and reality with very Jewish, very self-deprecating and often very liberal people, reinforced her feelings that entertainment should be imbued with the joy and pride of being Jewish. “It’s incredibly dangerous, especially now, when we see things being promoted and celebrated in popular culture that rob us of our dignity,” she said.
Fighting back means speaking up, even when it’s hard and uncomfortable. Tara’s example of explaining to a fitness instructor that playing a Kayne West soundtrack after his attack on Jews to accompany a class felt insensitive and like an affront to her as a Jewish student. Initially defensive, the instructor eventually came back to Tara, confessed to not realizing the context and the harm, and vowed not to play that music in class again. Tara returned, buoyed by her action, and with more confidence to speak up the next time a similar scenario presented itself.
“Little interactions in our daily lives can change the culture,” she said. “We are the culture. And, I promise the more we do it, the easier it gets.”
Cut to the end, and the news is positive. Tara shared that she and her father continue to work on their relationship, an ongoing process that writing her first book kick-started. “The book had to go through legal review, which is perhaps the most painful part of writing a memoir,” she said. “When I showed it to my father, he said ‘it’s all true, in fact, it was much, much worse’, but don’t change a word!”
The honesty in that exchange was a breakthrough, and the only way they – and anyone else – began to heal.
Self-Care Takeaways
The evening concluded with Tara sharing a few accesible ways to practice self-care, and wishing us well on our self-care journeys:
Journaling
It is one of our most profound tools and it is free and easy to do. Start with simple prompts like “what am I feeling today?” or “here is one burden I would like to lift” and start writing. Getting the thoughts out of your head and on to the page can be transformative.
Gratitude Practice
Say out loud or write down what – or who – you are grateful for. Start simply and do it regularly. Over time, the narrative flips and your negative thoughts subside, replaced by feelings of joy and happiness.
Get Physical
The science says that moving your body is a good thing. Make the time, even if it is 20 minutes a day, to walk, sweat, put down your phone and clear your head of distractions.