We’re excited to host Rabbi Minna Bromberg, PhD, to lead us in Belonging for Every Body: Fat Torah Workshops for Building Inclusive Spiritual Community on Sunday, January 9. In our workshop, Rabbi Bromberg will lead our learning about how weight stigma can block our ability to form relationships with ourselves, with each other, with God, and help us deepen our appreciation of just how rich and fat the Torah can be—nourishing our souls and helping us find paths to liberation. We exchanged emails with Rabbi Bromberg to ask a few questions as we look forward to the workshop:
TBE: We see in your bio that you live in Jerusalem! Do you notice a difference between weight stigma in Israel and in the US?
MB: Like other forms of systemic oppression (sexism, racism, etc.) weight stigma definitely expresses itself differently in different cultures. And I’d love to talk about this more during our workshop. One thing that I think folks who know something about Israeli culture might be surprised to learn is that—despite the stereotype of Israelis being more “up in each other’s business” than Americans—I personally experience about the same number of complete strangers commenting on my body here as I have in most places I’ve lived in the States. I think this actually says something about how bad the fatphobia is in the US: people who do not have a cultural tendency to talk to strangers nonetheless feel compelled to give me their unsolicited opinions about my body and/or my eating.
TBE: Have you noticed a change in the way we talk or think about our bodies during the pandemic and, if so, how do you return to Jewish texts and teachings to guide us in this moment?
MB: The pandemic has certainly exacerbated our worst tendencies as a society around how we talk about and treat our own bodies and each other’s bodies. We’ll talk in our workshop about the difference between internalized weight stigma (our own judgments of our bodies) and systemic weight stigma (the discrimination in healthcare, employment, and education that people in larger bodies face). But the pandemic has definitely made things harder on both fronts: people of all sizes are having all kinds of body image issues around weight gain during this time. And the largest among us have faced fear mongering around fatness and illness, threats of rationing care, and dismissiveness of our actual needs. One personal example: I thought it was great that fat people were getting priority during the vaccine rollouts in some places. If we really are at higher risk of bad outcomes, the response absolutely should be to treat us like any other high risk group. I was noting this in an online forum only to have one commenter say that it was really unfair that I was getting the vaccine before she was because my size was a “lifestyle choice,” Being fat is a lot of things, but it’s definitely not a lifestyle choice. Through it all, I find support and solace in our traditions teachings on the inherent and infinite worth of every human being.
TBE: What do you hope we’ll gain from our first Fat Torah workshop, both as individuals and as a community?
MB: My hope: You’ll come away from our workshop with an ability to identify different kinds of weight stigma within us and among us, and understanding of how anti-fat bias can be a barrier to full inclusion for people of all sizes, and a sense of the joy of creating communities where all bodies are welcome.
About Rabbi Minna Bromberg, PhD
Founder and president of Fat Torah, Rabbi Minna Bromberg, PhD is passionate about bringing her three decades of experience in fat activism to writing, teaching and change-making at the nexus of Judaism and body liberation. Her forthcoming book is Belonging for Every Body: a Fat Torah guide to building inclusive spiritual community. Minna received her doctorate in sociology from Northwestern University, with a dissertation on identity formation in interfaith couples, and was ordained at Hebrew College in 2010. Since then she has led a 250-family Conservative congregation in Reading, PA, released a fifth album of original music, and run the Year-in-Israel program for Hebrew College rabbinical students. In addition to her work with Fat Torah, Minna is a voice teacher who specializes in helping people use their voices in leading prayer. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband, Rabbi Dr. Alan Abrams, and their two children.
