From Minna to Minna: re-membering a four-stranded braid of immigration, (white) Americanness, Jewishness, and fat liberation

Abstract

ABSTRACT We trace our maternal line’s journey across four generations as they weave into and back out of (white) American diet culture, out of and back into observant Judaism. Using our memories, against the backdrop of larger social-historical forces, we put forth a method of “re-membering” ourselves: our bodies and our wholeness. The first Minna in our story, Minna Yorkowitz, arrived as an immigrant to New York in 1905. She was a large woman and an observant Jew. Her daughter Ida rejected everything having to do with Judaism and saw thinness as a way of fitting in. Ida’s daughter, Margaret, sought her own (re)connections with Judaism while struggling well into adulthood with restrictive eating and internalized fatphobia. Minna Bromberg, Margaret’s daughter, deepened her connection with Judaism, connected with the fat liberation movement and, as a rabbi, seeks to deploy Jewish text and tradition in liberatory ways. Our “Fat Torah” approach looks at how diet culture is idolatrous and guilty of undermining the inherent worth of every human being. We offer a “re-braiding” that allows us to bring together each of our lives into a new wholeness.