by Amelia Dornbush

7 Jewish Feminist Ways to Celebrate May Day

Illustration by Julia Alekseyeva.

Illustration by Julia Alekseyeva.

May Day is International Worker’s Day and probably the greatest holiday of all time. As has been previously been written on Lilith.org, it should also be considered a Jewish holiday. And what is a Jewish holiday without rituals to observe?

Here are 7 Extremely Jewish Feminist ways to celebrate the first of May.

1) Don’t work. It’s a chag. It’s yontiff! Join the general strike. But if the men are not doing as much labor as everyone else to prepare for the holiday, shun them all.

2) Talk your synagogue into flying a red flag. Take a picture. Tweet it at us. I know one of you can do it.

3) Publicly call out the shondas fur di goyim. The list of contenders right now is really long, so be discerning and don’t just go for the obvious choices like Ivanka and Sheldon!

4) Join a picket line. Education workers are engaged in work stoppages across the country today, so march alongside them. Never crossing a picket line is an excellent embodiment of Jewish values—and if anyone does so in your presence, boo them like you’d boo Haman but with even more vigor.

5) Memorize the lyrics to “daloy politzei. And belt the song at the top of your lungs. That way you’ll be ready for your next Brooklyn Shabbos. If memorizing old Yiddish songs isn’t your thing (fair), you can always go with “Bread and Roses” commemorating the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike whose leaders included women like radical Jewish feminist Rose Schneiderman who popularized the iconic phrase.

6) Preserve Jewish continuity by buying a diaper and painting it red. Hold it up in the air while publicly pledging to raise your interfaith children (or your friends’ interfaith children if having kids isn’t your thing) in the spirit of May Day.

7) Above all, give the fascists hell. Solidarity forever!


The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lilith Magazine.

© 2011 Lilith Magazine