How many times in the past few years have you heard the phrase, “unprecedented times?” In our house, it has practically become a meme. Asking, “How are you?” has taken on a certain ominous air. People sigh or nod knowingly, because how can that question even be answered in this time of oligarchical power-grabs, attacks on American democracy, legislative onslaught against so many marginalized folks, and global crisis? 

We are lost for words. 

At a recent team meeting, my colleague Eli Lurie Sobel asked our team, “How aren’t you?” They asked in jest, for a moment of levity, but I think this could be a sincere inquiry: “How aren’t you? Where would you like to be, if we’re not there yet? What do you yearn for?” Perhaps this question is actually an opening for radical imagination, to dream up liberatory futures.

Indeed, with Pesach around the corner, this time of year brings themes of freedom, of our ancestors moving from mitzrayim — the narrow place  — to liberation. This foundational Jewish story motivates us towards expansiveness, towards working for others’ freedom enmeshed in our own.

I wrote last year that I attended an online workshop facilitated by the Jewish Zine Archive titled The Haggadah was the Original Zine. Indeed, many haggadot are wondrous compilations of storytelling, poetry, blessings, traditional liturgy, musings, snippets, artwork, printed-out memes, photocopied addenda, missing staples, dried wine droplets, and stray matza crumbs nestled in spines.

Zines themselves have a radical history of information-sharing, community education, art and music and storytelling  — multiple strands of dreaming and imagining collaged together. Song lyrics alongside photocopied artwork, activist calls-to-action beside dog-eared community resources. Tucked inside library books, distributed at concerts, shared among friends: tiny collaged “haggadot” across our world.

And speaking of collage as sacred text, in Pirkei Avot 5:22 we learn that Ben Bag Bag said: Turn it [Torah] over, and [again] turn it over, for all is therein. Torah contains cycles and spirals that we revisit each year  — teachings for liberation across generations. Haggadot are shared at seder tables. Zines are passed among friends. Jewish collage artist Maya Kosover speaks of their students using snippets of paper from her Bat Mitzvah to create a new artwork. What can be both grounded in tradition and community, and remade for our expansive vision? What can we collage together for our movements, for liberation?

If we were to create a zine telling the story of this current moment and how we all got free, what would it include? How will we tell future generations that we faced a 21st century Pharoah, and we triumphed? How aren’t we now, but how do/did we get where we’re going?

Perhaps the zine would include:

• A hearty soup recipe that nourishes exhausted and heartsore friends.
• Court transcripts of how we challenged every threatening executive order targeting LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants, and marginalized populations.
• Receipts from local stores selling necessary supplies, for all of our mutual aid and care.
• Old passports, no longer needed, with borders abolished and no person “illegal,” no invalidating gender markers required.
• Fabric from Pride flags we waved in defiance and joy.
• Stickers and leaflets from street campaigns against fascism.
• Pages from our movements’ zines #zineception.
• Sheet music and song lyrics from solidarity chants.

And so much more. What would you add?