The Story of JQT Vancouver Canada & Carmel Tanaka: Jewish, Queer, and Japanese - Part B

Michael Ross: 00:06:20

Let's talk for and about the LGBT communities around the world. I'm Michael Ross and this is straight friendly. So we, we just had some.

Some chit chat here and we're recording on a Friday just before Shabbat, and I think we cannot not talk about food. So, Dennis Gilbert, what you're making there?

Carmel Tanaka: 00:06:52

Well, in the five minutes break that we had between recording for this lovely podcast, I popped in my. My eggplant into the oven and I'm going to roast it.

I don't have a gas stove, which is really so unfortunate because I can't get that quite the charring. But I will broil it afterwards in order to as best as I can with my electric stove, create some more flavor. But yeah, I do like my eggplants.

I'll probably make a challah, which I love to infuse kabocha squash into the dough. So I call it Kabukala. That's my Japanese recipe. Y'all need to go make it now, please.

Michael Ross: 00:07:44

Maybe you can send us also the recipe that we will put here in the description.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:07:47

Who knows online? I'll send you the link. You can put it down right here.

Michael Ross: 00:07:54

It's so much around food.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:07:57

Well, it adds a nice color. It adds a little moisture and a nutty flavor. It's excellent for dipping into stews. I am quite a fan.

Michael Ross: 00:08:09

And, you know, when I only arrived to Canada, I arrived immediately to Hope bc, where I was house sitting. Hope. Who could know about Hope? Very symbolic place with its name. Hope to start my Canadian journey.

And the first time that we met actually was for a Shabbat dinner. And it was my first ever Shabbat dinner in Canada, which was amazing. The food was so amazing. So I can only share my feelings, not the food.

But who knows, maybe here's another NGO or project.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:08:55

Right? This is the joke in the family and among my friends now is, you know, I tend to start a number of projects.

The good thing is that I start them and I develop them and I nourish them and they grow and they become wonderful projects that can bring me a lot of joy. Also a lot of service, but mostly joy. But I keep seeing other ways to ignite my passions. And my latest one, I just had an epiphany.

You know that TV show Finding youg Roots on PBS with Henry Louis Gates Jr. Okay. It's where all these celebrities discover that they descend from yada, yada, yada, and they do genealogical digging. I want to be Henry.

I want to be the person who helps people discover where they come from and their roots. And I want to be the person that dishes it to them.

Michael Ross: 00:09:53

Oh, wow. Wow. And we're actually also going through. Both of us are doing some genealogical research. I.

I'm waiting for my DNA test results to see if there are any relations also to. To any Sephardic. We have some tail in our family that like all in Belarus and Ukraine, but with dark hair.

And there's some family story that maybe we. We are been living in Spain, but who knows?

Carmel Tanaka: 00:10:25

So we also have this family tale. Oh, really? Yeah. But it doesn't show up in my DNA.

Although I have to say, when filling out DNA tests and I did 23andMe, I regret saying what I thought I was.

cent trip to Israel, December: 2022

And I'm like, but now you're saying we're Spartan. It doesn't show up in my DNA at least with 23andMe. But perhaps if I did it with ancestry, it might be different. Who are you doing yours with?

Michael Ross: 00:11:39

I did actually ancestry and. But it goes only to around 200 years ago back. And now I'm doing some other tests. I forgot the company's name, where it goes 600 years back. Yeah.

Much more complicated test to do. But yeah, in my ancestry results, it was really shocking. Like, I knew also in our family, we're not really talking about the past. This very Soviet.

I know it's like from my. My grandmother only like few months before she passed away. I finally. I like her like Babula Grandma.

We speak in Russian like, I really want to know my story. And then like literally from the hospital, just in her last months, I finally discovered some of it of the stories.

And then in the DNA test, like, the result was like shocking. Like for me, 100% Jewish, Ashkenazi, East European.

What also proves the stories that the previous ancestors there were more Orthodox in different times? Actually, my parents are a Shidekh. But yeah, also.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:13:08

Michael, do you read Russian? I'm sorry, do you read Russian?

Michael Ross: 00:13:16

A little bit, yeah.

But I learned only When I was like 17, 18, like, very like, once the family moved to Israel with this whole Kurhi to what we call, you know, like, you have to delete any. Almost all of your identities.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:13:34

Same. Same in my family. Yeah. No more Polish, no more Yiddish, only Hebrew. The reason why I asked if you know, Russian us.

I've recently on a field date, picked up someone to help me translate a bunch of documents that are from Belarus, then it might have been Poland. That's where my grandfather's. My Saba's side of the family was from. Anyway, this is really diving into genealogy. Nerd land.

But I hope you're here for it, because I am that person in the family. There's always one person in the family who's super into their roots and wanting to know where everyone comes from, has the family tree.

I think I even have, like, the scroll right here. I can show you.

Michael Ross: 00:14:18

Like, show us.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:14:19

This is the Atlasovich family tree that my mom made. And it, like, hung in a room. You can actually see it hung around a room in Israel on a string.

And at a family reunion in: 1990

And, you know, like, it's really depressing stuff because you see only a couple lines continue, but the majority of them stop because everyone was killed in the Holocaust. Now, why is this important to me in my digging is I heard.

Actually, it's even before I heard, I was in front of the graves of my grandparents in Haifa with my mom, and I'm seeing the list of all the names of the family members who were killed in the Shoah but didn't have proper burials. I see it on my Safdas and I see it also on my Sabas. But my Sabah's list is hella small, and I couldn't understand why it was so small.

Whereas my saftas was like a laundry list. Everyone that she remembered who was killed.

And I asked my mom, and I was a child, I said, you know, I know Saba was married before and had a first wife and had a baby, your half sister. Why aren't they included in this list? And my mom was really taken aback by that because she had never put two and two together.

That her half sister, that she had a half sibling who was killed in the Shoalam.

And she remembered having a very small conversation, a very short and small conversation with her father when she was younger, saying, you know, wanting to inquire about the first wife and the girl. And he said, not only can I not remember their names, but I Can't even remember her face.

And that's how he dealt with the trauma of losing his first family. And so I've been living with this, how would you say? Just having to accept that their names were lost to time. And most recently I have been digging.

Now my mom did a fantastic job with the family tree, but this was before online archives and digitization and translation abilities and a lot of information that was formerly not accessible unless you were local and going to all of these places and digging through the boxes, it's now available.

So I just put in a few little, you know, details here and there, put some feelers out to archives and lo and behold found the registration card of my grandfather from Schlachten CDP Camp in Berlin. And listed are the two names of his two wives. And the first one is Chanel Shuster and the second one is Shifra Atlasovich, my safta.

But I know your last name is also you've got Schusters in your family. But hear this. I just found out even my mom doesn't know this yet, so I have to tell her.

I got the guy on field dating app to translate a few documents and we found a document that listed all the Jewish tenants on Uneskaya street in Pinsk, Belarus.

And it turns out there was a Hana Schuster sharing a two bedroom apartment apartment and a shared kitchen with a Leah Gottlieb, which is probably most likely the wife of my grandfather, Dov Gottlieb. And so there's two people, so we don't know why or how they might have been sisters.

I also know that my grandfather took on an alias, a Moshe Abramovich, which is not Dov Gottlieb. So we don't really know who's who, what's what. Maybe there's a lot going on here and I'm still trying to, trying to figure it out.

But the plot has thickened and we now know that my grandfather's testimony at Yad Vashem quoted his first wife being Leah Gottlieb. So then why does his registration card at Schlachten CDP Camp say Chane Schuster? Tune in next time for a future episode.

Michael Ross: 00:18:49

But maybe I'm, I mean like who, who knows? Like the, the idea of having a last name is, is kind of, kind of new.

It's like at least for, for those areas it been started being to be, to be used only around 200 years ago. And sometimes people were also called, let's say my last name. I wasn't, I wasn't born Rosovsky.

Eros, I'm saying, I mean, I was Roso and I found out what my relatives did in. In the US So I copy paste, But.

But actually it's also, let's say, like, the name means in Polish Russian, so the Jewish Russians, they got that last name that means Russian. And then that area was once again under the control of the Russians. And in Russians, you had Ovsky to the end.

So actually my last name meaning is double Russian. I don't know. And I. But I didn't grow up in Russian. Also, like in Israel, it's so.

In many things, it's so modern and different, especially, let's say with. With queer rights. That. Yeah, who knows? But really interesting because my father's mother, that grandmother that I thought about earlier, Ina.

Ina Schusterman, and all the. Who knows, Maybe. Maybe our ancestors, we're family.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:20:21

I mean, we're already family. Frozen family. Now you're stuck with me.

Michael Ross: 00:20:25

Oh, my God, I'm so lucky. Please, please let me be stuck with you. And actually, my mom, although she doesn't speak English, but she would love to help you.

And, you know, it's really interesting that with all the crazy stuff happening around the last year, since October 7th, like, my mom is real, was like, it's like a taboo. We. We don't talk about the ancestral stuff. But through one of those DNA tests, I found relatives in Frankfurt in Germany.

And apparently in that area, I have relatives both from my mother's side and my father's side.

So with this my whole digital nomading, Metudela stuff, we'll be spending the Christmas, Hanukkah and the New Year's Eve in Frankfurt, actually, where I will meet for the first time.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:21:18

Oh, my gosh, I'm so glad for you. So I'm planning to do my Berlin and Bialystok trip next year. I can't, unfortunately, get into Belarus. Pinsk is off the venue. But.

Michael Ross: 00:21:32

Yeah, let's talk about it for a moment. Actually, let's talk about the Belarus thing for a moment. You know, because when. When this whole October 7 thing started, like, I.

I was planning on spending some time abroad before it happened, but. And I was also working on creating a global startup for lgbtq. Plus, I'll be honest, I decided to pose with it.

It's really difficult for me now to deal with venture capital capital firms that boycott me for being Israeli, which I find crazy. Crazy. And with all that mess, all this trauma happening when I arrived. So, like, the first flight I could find was to Athens.

And from Athens, I continued To Portugal. And in Portugal, I received some really, really, really nasty messages on Grindr.

People could say, like, it's written what languages I speak, and Hebrew is written. And among the messages I received was like, to fuck off from Ven, but I'm not welcome.

And I find it to be so, like, crazy and hypocritical, because let's say Portugal or Spain, countries which I very much love, but these are also countries where we don't have to go that long ago in history. 500. Yeah, only 500 years ago. So this whole discourse of what is being a refugee, what is, like, all about, the stuff is really, really crazy.

And actually, I was thinking, what if I will go and just visit Belarus and I will finally see the house where my father grew up and my aunt and my grandmother and grandfather, but I cannot go there, because for us, as queer activists, it's. It's a huge risk. And sometimes even I hear from queer.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:23:28

Activists, even like any traveler, it's not. I've been told, unless you're on an organized tour, there's no going on and off the bus of the organized tour.

So if you wanted to do a detour to see where your family came from, that's not allowed. Only designated places are allowed currently.

Michael Ross: 00:23:50

Oh, wow. My aunt told me something like that, and I didn't believe her.

But now that you also say that, and this is also some part of this, of the Jewish culture, like, just now, I uploaded a new episode in the Hebrew version, where for me, like, Hebrew is my first language, where it's easier for me to express myself and have to have kind of more artistic podcast meaning, like dealing with my writing and more like kind of philosophical. And some people even call me in Israel the gay rabbi.

I'm not a rabbi, but I gave an example, like, around the last year, like, you know, I'm using this term of digital nomad, but it's a very nice, polished term for actually for being a refugee. But. And, you know, it's something which is not only through this year.

And I think, like, this traumatic year also reminded maybe us, or at least for me. And also what I've been talking in that Hebrew episode, I was. It was like a music. If some of you speak Hebrew, I would really.

It's like one of the episodes. It took me a year to make that episode. And I give her the kind of comparison of Binyamin Metudela. Do you know his story?

So, Benyamin Metudela me from Tudela, a village in Spain, and around the 11th or 12th century, 100 years, a decade before. Who was it? Microwave. No, I forgot, some explorer. Anyway, so Binyamin Metudela was a rabbi from.

And he went for a journey where he was traveling around Europe in the Middle east, visiting different Jewish communities and explaining about them.

And apparently this is one of the most important historical evidence of what lives looked not only of Jewish communities, but generally what life looked like during the medieval times. And he was going through Italy and Greece and Turkey. When he got to Lebanon, what today is Lebanon, he was in Saida and he got to Akko and to Haifa.

He even explained how in Haifa back then people tried to create a new kind of Sanhedrin. And he went to Jerusalem and went back to the Galilee and then continued, why not to Damascus, to Babylon, then to Yemen, went to Egypt.

And you know, in some way I think like today, these days we're talking about this digital nomading and stuff, but back then, no Schengen visa in Europe, you could visit also more parts of the Middle East.

And there's something that for me gives so much inspiration about that story of this ongoing Jewish nomading, you know, and received even in these days.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:27:31

Oh, I've definitely led a quasi nomadic life. I'm currently in Vancouver because I've got aging parents and I'm the primary caregiver.

But you know, without that as an attachment, I don't think I feel like I need to be in any one particular place. I feel like I can be at home anywhere. And I have and I'm very lucky to know a lot of people in a lot of different places.

And I mean, I just spent three weeks in Montreal, 100% could totally move there. I'm sure once I go to Berlin I'll probably feel similarly as well. I could totally move here.

Yeah, I think for me being able to travel has been the most. And I'm not just saying traveling, going to the Eiffel Tower and seeing all the touristy spots.

I'm talking about living in a place and spending time with locals and experiencing what life is like.

There has been the greatest university education for me and on top of it, being able to go to the very places where my ancestors came from and walking in the same villages where my great grandparents were has been truly world opening and very grounding experience.

As someone who grew up in the diaspora community on both sides of my family, and I've only done half of my journey, I'm now about to do the other side of the family. And it's time I've been putting it off for a long time to do the Holocaust trip because I know exactly, you know, how it's going to go.

I'm going to be crying all the time and I know it's going to be super emotional. But I'm prepared now and ready. It took me a long time, but I'm ready now to do that.

So I wish you well on your journey to Frankfurt and to meet your family and record, if you can, some bits and pieces and tell me how it goes.

Michael Ross: 00:29:55

Yes, yes, thank you. And Komal, do you want also to tell a bit, a bit more about the Japanese project?

Carmel Tanaka: 00:30:08

Sure. What do you want to know about it?

Michael Ross: 00:30:10

Everything. Everything. How come? How come that there are Jewish communities also in a place like Japan? Please.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:30:20

I mean, there's Jewish people everywhere. Growing up, I truly thought it was just my sister and I being the only combination of Jewish and Japanese until I met a.

At the time, what I thought was a Japanese Israeli who was just traveling through with her mom, her and her sister. Turns out her and I got to interview her for the Japanese project.

Her father, yes, did grow up in Japan, but came from the Korean community that stayed after World War II. And so that was really my only idea or knowledge of another mixed family that looked somewhat similar to mine until the Japanese project.

I wanted to celebrate Jewish and Asian Heritage Month, which falls within the month of May. And I got together different combinations of Jewish and Japanese families and put a call out for a zoom call during the pandemic.

And before you knew it, it kind of went viral. And we managed to, up until now, find 250 plus Japanese individuals, couples and families all over the world.

And I mean, it's been a project of a lifetime and a dream come true to meet other people like you, see what some of the similarities have been like. See what some of the differences have been like.

And even though I have met hundreds of us now, I still haven't found my exact combo that I find in my stance. I still haven't found an Israeli Ashkenazi woman with a Japanese Canadian man combination yet.

Michael Ross: 00:32:34

So I'm still holding out this recording. Who knows? Who knows?

Carmel Tanaka: 00:32:38

Who knows?

Michael Ross: 00:32:40

Wait, are we doing, are we doing matchmaking here?

Carmel Tanaka: 00:32:43

es goes live In May, next May: 2025

But more importantly, I just want people to celebrate Japanese joy. It's been a really tough time to be doing this project throughout this particular year.

Since October 7th, my project, I've been collecting interviews for three years now. And so now that I'm coming back and, you know, circling back to some of the interviewees and being like, okay, I've processed your interview.

Can you please take a look at this and let me know if there's anything that you'd like to edit out. I've been receiving some difficult feedback that this year has been really detrimental to the mental health of a lot of people.

They also, you know, not only do they not have the capacity to look at this interview, but some of the contents are triggering for them. They might not feel comfortable sharing anymore the fact that they're Jewish publicly.

They might not feel comfortable sharing their answer that they previously had on, you know, how are they navigating the Israel and Palestine conflict as Jewish and Japanese people?

Which is really difficult to hear that that's what they're struggling with because it unfortunately is taking front center over some of the more light questions like what are some of your favorite Japanese recipes in your family? And how do you celebrate Japanese joy?

So I'm really hoping that we will be able to come back to a time when we can feel comfortable sharing our stories.

I think it's really important as a community to share our stories and to be able to not only share them among other Japanese community members, but also with our friends, our family and beyond. And who knows, maybe this will encourage other community groups that are mixed to do a similar oral history project and share their stories.

The more we, I think, share our lived experience, the better. So here, here.

Michael Ross: 00:35:28

The production of this episode came to reality thanks to the support of the Friedrich Naumann foundation for Freedom in Jerusalem.

We were talking about the Japanese project and actually I have numerous questions here, but we really will have to finish in maximum, maximum, maximum 20 minutes and Yala go.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:35:51

Yeah, so I was retelling with you some of the reactions that people I interviewed up to, even three years ago are experiencing now as of October 7th, and how difficult it has been for people to just, you know, function on a daily basis, let alone, you know, review their content, which can be up to an hour long interview. I mean, that's, I think at the best of times, most people don't like to listen to their own voice or their own face.

And here I am asking them to do this at a really difficult time. So I've. I'm very thankful to you, Michael, because you came at a time in my life when you encouraged me to enter the world of AI.

I was very resistant to it, if you can remember.

And I discovered a program, I know it's the competitor of Riverside, but it's Descript and it has allowed me to remove the hours of video editing which I am not an expert in, and really made it user friendly for me to delete portions of interviews with just a click of a button, just the removing of certain text and it does the video editing for you. And that has enabled me to really not lament over the hours of editing that I already do per interview for the Japanese project.

Because before I don't think people fully understood how much time it takes to video edit and to render the videos.

And so when you're asking for really intense edits like blurring of the face and voice distortion and remove this and remove that, you know, that adds a lot of work to my plate and I can be processing these interviews until I'm 80 years old. I want it to be sooner rather than later that people get to hear these interviews.

So I thank you for that and I am very happy to announce my surprise to you was you did not know it was coming.

After a year of being depressed myself over not being able to do the project and have people be happy about participating in the project because we're all in depressed funks at the moment, I successfully with description did my first interview full edit and I sent it to the interviewee to review. And that is a huge win for me after really truly over a year of feeling unproductive, unable to move, really stagnant energy.

And I couldn't have done it without you and a few select people who've been helping me behind the scenes. So thank you.

Michael Ross: 00:38:53

Wow, thank you so much. Khmer. Thank you to you. I didn't know I was. I remember the struggle, let's say. Wow, wow.

You know, actually like I'm now also uploading few episodes about queer entrepreneurship and some some of the content that I lecture about.

I teach entrepreneurship and not related to LGBTQ plus stuff and 2s to spirit which I learned here and I decided to translate some production from Hebrew to English so our listeners can see that. And actually I think it's very interesting and important what you have just raised because I see entrepreneurship as change making as I said.

And there is so much of tikkun to do and one of the things which I'm worried the most about entrepreneurs talking from My personal experience is a burnout. And a burnout of change makers is less tikkun, less creation of a better place, especially in a time where it's very needed.

And I'm very thankful for you for. For sharing that because I do see that, how everyone can be a change.

Change makers for me many times, you know, like this whole field of this entrepreneurial field and the startup field and the venture capital field is very, very masculine, very. And now, but also been working with that. I wanted to work and create some global startup. And like startup is like, it's very, very, very difficult.

I didn't share it actually up until now on my podcast, but a few days before October 7th, I decided finally for a partnership and I had a partner for the startup, a cto, chief Technological officer who's a friend, was a friend of mine from the age of seven or eight.

And when October 7th happened, the day after or two days after, I wrote some posts on Facebook and unfortunately he decided to disconnect from me completely. Up until today, even now, I wrote him. I mean, okay, but I didn't write for anything. You know, it was something very much about humanity.

I mean, like, how. How many people can we lose? How many? I mean, like, I do see every soul as.

It's a very tragic moment, I think, not only in current and modern history, but probably generally, like it's probably. And I really hope that there will be at Kuma, that there will be a revival from this very difficult situation.

And if we will not act, if we will not bring message of reconciliation, of showing, diversity, of showing.

I do believe that actually entrepreneurs who are minorities, who have different backgrounds, have a lot of potential and a lot of kind of life experience, which is very, very important because we're solving many times we're solving real problems. And yes, there are different tools that can be very, very beneficial.

I would say that even like in this year, most of my lectures were canceled and also the time that we met, I was also very depressed being alone in this very expensive country. Very expensive, Very expensive. I have to say, very. Did I say it's expensive here in Canada? Very expensive.

You know, wherever place I posted, like if some place I know that I can find some hosting family or stuff.

I was feeling like that many of the people, including the Israelis and the Jews, they were only trying to sell to me and make money and, you know, communities and finding those people. And I'm so glad that, you know, actually I got to you through our cantor, Sharon. I was interested. Yeah, yes, yes, thank you.

Cheryl, thank you very much. Really, I mean like this is really this, you know, like we are in a time that this whole discourse about community or communities.

I'm sorry, worth nothing. Like in some. In some place.

And it's so wonderful to find actually that in this time of yes, digital media and all that it has the pros here, like with the archives and stuff, the fact that we can record now, the fact that we can use different tools that can enlarge our impact. But also like I do find some hope that with all this difficulty, like let's not separate between people, but let's try to connect.

And if now something is very much changing, probably our identities of all everyone are changing in this year because of the crazy stuff happening. But I really see like this is just like one example how a cantor, almost a rabbi.

Like maybe we are now in a time that there is a more need actually for that role that rabbis had. Like is being a rabbi is just about preaching and teaching some Bible phrases. Or maybe it's something that also. Yeah.

Like makes this connection that connected between us or with Shidokhim. Yeah, actually I would prefer to have some Yente instead of using Grindr, to be honest.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:44:59

Well, you also make an interesting, you know, case because you're talking also about your business partner that you had in that over a few posts that you did online that was able to erase a real human relationship that you had with someone who's both on a friend level and a business partner level. And we're seeing this right across the board.

What you did and did not post or did not say on your various different social media platforms is now being used against you by people who you've had very real relationships with.

And this is what I referred to earlier in this interview was about the frequency of friendship ruptures that I've experienced just because I'm Jewish and Israeli and for stuff I've said and haven't said, God forbid that I am for all the community groups and all the victims that have been impacted by this ongoing war and not just one particular side that is hasn't won the hearts of many people, unfortunately.

And so I think we live also in a really unique time where we're being assessed for what kind of people we are based on what we virtue signal to the world. And that erases our on the ground activism that we've done for years.

Michael Ross: 00:46:32

Yes, yes.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:46:33

And it's an erasure of and a real disrespect towards people who truly like, I don't need to prove to you how many Israeli, Palestinian or Palestinian friends that I have from Gaza or from West Bank.

No, that is irrelevant and I don't need to share that information with you in order to prove to you and the rest of the world that I am an ally and that I'm for someone for peace and coexistence and that I do care for everyone's lives.

However, this is the world we live in now where we can't mourn and grieve and vocalize the pain that we're going through as Israelis and Jews without also mentioning that we grieve and mourn for the loss of life on the Palestinian side. It's like the zero sum game which doesn't offer the fact that we can very much mourn for more than one community.

And I don't have to at the time of my grieving need to also virtue signal to other people that I'm also grieving for a community that is not my own.

Michael Ross: 00:47:44

Yeah, there was some, some suggestion here now, but Carmel, we have a lot to talk about. I very cherish that and I thank you for like phrasing following something which I didn't have completely.

The phrasing for the fact that like in our grief we don't own anything to anyone and showing some little of respect to people who've been, you know. Well, it's very ironically the few very last episodes that I produced in English just before, before the.

The COVID was when I Unfortunately a teenager, 18 years old who's a D from the Galilee in Israel. She was murdered for being lesbian. She was murdered by her brother.

And when event happened among the queer organizations in Israel and I'm quite known as the black sheep there. Straight friendly by the way was supposed to be.

My vision was to do it through the organizations especially the Gouda, but they didn't want to cooperate. And then eventually I found of this is how I've got to create straight friendly actually.

And the commemoration event that happened for her death was just a small one in Tel Aviv. And I was like, no, I mean like we, we have to do something.

We have to do something where it happened which is in the Galilee, just at the entrance of some Arab speaking village very close to my hometown and very close.

I was planning before this war to move from Haifa to the upper Galilee and just next to where I was planning to move and where I have friends from all colors, size, backgrounds, languages. And I was like no, this is the place where I live. This is like I already lost once some, some queer Arab Friend from. From the area. And no, I'm.

No, we have to do something. We have to do something and work on the. On. On education here. And I.

I was very afraid of, you know, being this white cisgender girl going and like showing the truth or the light or something. Like, you know, I'm very. Trying to be very, very sensitive with it.

But on the other hand, for being a Jewish activist in Israel and for having the Israeli version of straight friendly and with all my activism, I said I have a privilege that I can make a phone call to the headquarters of the police of Israel and get right away the confirmation to do such a protest to commemorate her memory. And we did that. And we received so many comments of activists who.

Or people who are like Arab speaking, LGBT from the area calling me, telling me, look, you're doing something very important, but are you sure you want to do it? Like, we cannot come because for us it can be dangerous because our community is less accepting here.

A situation of a girl that got murdered, you know, and we did organize that. We did organize that event.

It was very, very important actually those episodes, like, it was important for me also that her memory will not be lost and that there will be a real investigation.

So it's actually, you know, I'm just a podcaster and an activist, but I never thought that like I will have few episodes that will be part of a police investigation, you know, and. And you know, like it was supposed also to become to some. Let's say having this kind of very horrible.

I'm being currently boycotted by several venture capitals who are LGBT from several countries. This is why currently where I not doing a startup which supposed to literally save the life of.

Of lots of people and help like, help to make the life a bit easier and nicer for quite a big group of people around the world. Not measuring or like judging by any kind of. And like, you know, like it was so disrespectful.

And I really thank you for what you just said because the words are very important. You know, and I was also in this kind of. Yeah. Of depression of this whole last year of like. Like what the is going on. I mean like. But you know what?

Like it's about going like having the. Having the truth. Having that. Like, I really thank you. Like, we really as our listener can probably listen like that little that get her wunch made.

Like really. I'm so thankful for it. And I really hope that here it will cherish. I love you really. And I really hope that here. But we will empower more people.

But it's like, it's. I think it's really important to say here, but it's.

It's not about like, only like understanding the pain, but like, I would, I would use your terminology and I will be even more dramatic, of course, a gay drama queen.

But like, to say, seriously, like, and I'm saying to all of our listeners, no matter if you're like Jewish, LGBT or allies or not Jewish, any other kind of identity or personality, it's very important that you will be who you are. And whoever ever, ever thinks that he can boycott you or can tell anything.

And by the way, in Judaism, boycotting coret is the most horrible punishment, almost similar to death punish, to make someone to be correct, to be cutted out of their communities. So fuck them all. Okay? The truth is with us.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:54:00

I also think it's important to weave into this that people who have already gone through trauma and more than one trauma tend to be a little more resilient.

And so when October 7th happened, I mean, it obviously triggered for me memories of my cousin's shooting and just all the shootings that have happened in general to the Jewish community in North America and also to the queer community.

And so I think for me, I was able to kick into gear a little bit more quickly and offer some sort of leadership in the Jewish queer trans community outside of Israel, because I was already subjected to trauma.

And I found that most Israelis that I knew were able to function a lot better than some other people in the Jewish community because this is the reality that we've constantly been dealing with and living with. So. And I see that today. I'm. I'm not trying to compare trauma or go into oppression Olympics, but they're really can be said.

And I'm sure there's PhDs out there working on this or have already worked on it, that if you are part of an already marginalized community and have experienced trauma, then when more trauma happens. Yeah, you get triggered. But it's. It's not the initial shock like vaccination. It is.

It's like being poisoned in little increments at every single time so that when more poison comes your way, you don't completely lose the ability to function. Yeah. And that's a sad reality that our trauma has inoculated us to more trauma.

Michael Ross: 00:56:20

But also made us to be stronger. And maybe this is also a very important message in a message of also of education and also of.

In these times, we have to acknowledge diversity and the differences that, let's say like being in Canada, let's say, or in other country, like Jewish or Israeli is not necessarily the same. And being coming from a rural area, for instance, and so on and so on. We have to acknowledge the differences.

At the same time also, I really do believe that the cooperation is very important because what you just said, I wasn't thinking about, but I think it's really, really important and interesting and I wish that we could see and maybe through our content we will be able a little bit at least to. To. To be part of fostering that.

I do believe that Israeli LGBT and allies can learn a lot from some of the synagogues, the queer synagogues, at least those in the US Which I'm more familiar with.

And the same time also the Jewish people in the diaspora, let's say, can also learn a lot from the Israelis and the LGBT is talking about this multilevel of trauma or difficulty and the revival out of it and being strong, like unity is very, very important. It doesn't mean that like we have to agree about everything, but we can be definitely companions to each other and hopefully learn from our history.

We didn't have a time to talk about it this time, that's for sure. We'll have to do other episodes in the future, but let's say for now we didn't even talk and we would not have the time.

Unfortunately, also about some of them, like, there were also in Canada, some kind of.

If we're talking about Japanese heritage here in Canada, I didn't know until a few months ago of my visit that there were even like a kind of concentration camps. Right.

Also for two spirit to indigenous, there were also, I mean, like probably every society unfortunately has some dark sides as well, but we really have to learn about them no matter if there's no right or wrong here. It's about acknowledging the pain and learning, learning, try to make it better.

Carmel Tanaka: 00:59:04

I love that you're optimistic that we have to be more cooperative. I feel I'm just really jaded now and no longer have the compassion that I once had in my tank. I'm burnt out.

I'm, you know, having done community engagement for so long and so many years and then find out that just because of my nationality that I hold a citizenship to a country. I can be canceled despite all the years of work and support that I've done for other communities has been quite traumatizing for me.

So like you, I've been. I've lost business, I've lost partnerships, community partners. It's like my grandfather used to say, which my mom keeps repeating.

And he said this in Yiddish, which I, I don't remember how to say it, but something along the lines of it's difficult being a Jew.

Michael Ross: 01:00:11

It is, it is, but this is what it is. Yet 22% of Nobel Prize winners are Jews. The amount of startups that start in Israel, it has some, some reason for that.

I don't think that it's about the genes or something biological, inherited, but maybe it's something cultural. And I think that minorities have actually like groups that struggle.

They're also like every problem is an opportunity and oh, we have some real problems and real opportunities to solve. And also the message of like, hey, like what?

We have just, just been talking about this like you can't burn out the people who work for your communities. We are standing on the shoulders of our previous ancestors and activists and there will be the others that will be standing on our shoulders. Amen.

Carmel Tanaka: 01:01:09

Amen to that.

Michael Ross: 01:01:11

Carmel. Thank you very, very much. Todagha. I really, I love you dear.

I'm so glad that we did that and I hope that we gave some food for thought for our listeners. Also some apartment and also some, some self examination, especially now around the holidays. It's very important so some Shabbat Shalom.

Thank you very.