The Christian lady preacher and the queer Jewish poet
If I could give every new pastor a gift in their first year of preaching, I’d give them a friend like Jessica Jacobs.
(Illustration by Samia Ahmed)
Today Jessica called me from Massachusetts. She’d been on a long bike ride when her handlebars broke and she nearly crashed. While walking the next couple of miles to a repair shop, she decided to check in on me. I’d been blue over the weekend and avoiding calls.
This time I picked up. Jessica is a Jewish poet and the founder of Yetzirah, the first literary organization in the United States for Jewish poets, so I knew she’d be horrified and entertained by the story I’d just heard of a long-dead parishioner who had once hosted a seder at church. The woman had served hot dogs, and she’d refused help from a local Jewish friend, saying she didn’t want the seder to be “too Jewish.” When guests arrived, they found a table set up with personal photos of her trips to the Holy Land.
“Are you trying to rage-fuel my walk to the bike shop?” Jessica asked.
