Episode 10: Ezra Furman

 

I had the absolute joy of interviewing Ezra Furman, a friend and talented musician. I've known Ezra in some capacity for almost 5 years now, and the way we've gotten to talk about our Jewishness, and especially about tzitzit, has truly affected how I think about my position in the world. Listen to us discuss Ezra's first interactions with tallitot, her role as a queer Jew in rock and roll, femme tzitzit, and more. Check out her music on Bandcamp and Spotify, it's brilliant stuff.   

 

Music by Home Despot, who is on Spotify here and Patreon here

Some definitions from our conversation:

Reconstructionist Judaism- One practice/tradition of Judaism, impossible to capture in a sentence. Further exploration of it found here.

Shul: synagogue

Galut: exile

With any questions or comments, email me at emma@advahdesigns.com

 

Fringes Podcast Transcript

Transcript by Tim Hipp at www.transcribeyourpod.com

Episode 10 

Emma June:Hello. I’m Emma June, and welcome to Fringes, a no frills kind of podcast where I talk to trans and gender non-conforming Jews about our experiences with tallitot and tzitzit. Tallitot are Jewish prayer shawls and tzitzit are the knotted fringe at the bottom of them. For deeper definitions, check out the first episode. In today’s episode, I got to interview a friend of mine, someone who has inspired me and how I think about art and Judaism. She’s so very thoughtful and wonderful. Here is Ezra Furman.

Ezra Furman: My name is Ezra Furman. Pronouns are she/her and they/them. And I guess that’s it. I mean, you can ask things about me. I’m a queer Jew who writes songs and lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Emma June: Amazing. I think that’s good. It’s a great-

Ezra Furman: All true. 100% true.

Emma June:  All true. This isn’t two truths and a lie.

Ezra Furman: There might be a lie in here somewhere.

Emma June:  Well, I guess I would love to start by hearing what your first memories and recollections of tallitot and tzitzit are.

Ezra Furman: Yeah. Well, surely in some prayer setting, which either… It would be one of two things. It would be at my parents… The synagogue we went to when I was a kid, which was Jewish Reconstructionist congregation in Evanston, Illinois. JRC. And I guess probably that’s the first time I saw them, but I might not have noticed them until I went to school starting in kindergarten at Solomon Schecter Day School in Skokie, Illinois. A private Jewish school where we prayed together every morning. And the adults were wearing tallit for sure. That’s a school in the Conservative Jewish movement.

I’m trying to think if I have a more memorable memory-memory. They were just around, and I knew it was my destiny to wear them when I was eventually bar mitzvahed. I would get-

Emma June:  Was that the first time you wore one?

Ezra Furman: It was the first time I wore one. Yes. On my bar mitzvah day. And yeah, I got one… Yes. My parents got me one and I don’t know. I guess I was glad to get it. Sort of. It just was like business as usual. It was just like, “Yeah, this is what you do. I’m on board.” It didn’t mean… I think maybe the bar mitzvah, I kind of thought… It was at that Reconstructionist shul, JRC, and I kind of took it seriously that I’m gonna be an adult in the community now. That’s what I was told, and I was like, “I guess this means that I… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll serve on the board. Maybe they’ll ask me my opinion about services.”

And I think I was a little out of proportion, but it was this feeling of like I could feel it when I put on the tallit. Like, “Oh, this gives me a status. This gives me… I’ve gone through a milestone.” And I did feel the like, “I can be taken seriously, more seriously in this setting now.”

Emma June:  Yeah. And-

Ezra Furman: And thinking about that really makes me… It really highlights… It’s just in itself a reason for egalitarian use of tallitot. Like it-

Emma June:  What do you mean?

Ezra Furman: Well, just because like if I felt that, that means that in communities where women don’t wear tallit, they don’t feel that. I mean, they… Surely, they feel it in other ways, for other roles and things that they age into, but not in that way, and it might… You can deny that it has an elevated… It elevates men against women. You can say that, but I think you can feel that somebody who wears a tallit feels this special… It’s like a royal garb in a way, you know? Felt that way to me when I turned 13. That’s all I know.

Emma June:  And do you wear one now?

Ezra Furman: I do when I… Yeah. When I pray. Which is when I pray in the morning, which is not every day, but definitely every… multiple times a week.

Emma June:  Does it still make you feel royal?

Ezra Furman: No. I think that royal… I think that feeling was like everyone was looking at me wearing it, and I was told it meant something communally, and I think the bar mitzvah in general made me feel that way. And then, you know, less than a month later I understood that like oh, there’s no change in anything. Nothing’s different after I had my bar mitzvah at synagogue. I’m still a kid and those are adults.

I think when I wear it now, I feel like a bit of protection feeling. Actually, it’s like not even protection. It’s that feeling when you wrap yourself up in a blanket to watch a movie on the couch or something. It’s like it holds me in this specific setting, you know what I mean? Like to me, if I wrap myself in a blanket and watch a movie, the blanket is part of the scene. It’s part of the genre of thing that I’m doing. And so, it holds… It makes the experience more itself. And so, same thing, like when I’m praying with a tallit, it makes the prayer experience like that’s definitely what’s happening. I’m less likely to forget the mood and the associations I have with it, which is like prayerful, and concentrating, and open, and connective.

Emma June:  That’s really the point of the tzitzit and the tallis, like in terms of the mitzvah of wearing it. So-

Ezra Furman: Yeah. How do you… What do you mean, the point?

Emma June:  Well, I guess in my understanding, wearing tzitzit is like a reminder of your commitment to G-d and commitment to feel mitzvot, or to fulfill mitzvot, and I think that’s something you’re doing when you’re praying and when you’re praying every morning. And so, for it to feel like a-

Ezra Furman: Right, it reminds you what you’re doing while you’re doing it. I will say, like that is… I feel like that’s the tallit gadol does that. I think the tallit katan is extra special and I haven’t worn it much lately. But the tallit katan that you wear all the time… That seems more connected to the reminder function, because it’s always… It’s with you all day.

Emma June:  Right.

Ezra Furman: And I… Just talking about it is making me want to wear it more often. There have been times I’ve worn it every day. I don’t wear it so much and I think it does have something to do with gender, me not wearing it lately.

Emma June:  What? Yeah, what do you mean by that?

Ezra Furman:  Well, every year I think I’m more secure in my femininity, and more… Just it’s a slow build of more and more always looking feminine. I mean, it’s been a while now that I always look at least a little fem, but yeah, and it’s like I feel better and better as I go on and look more feminine, and the tzitzit is like… It is a… I guess it’s become to me, it feels like a reference to not only my Judaism, but unfortunately to Orthodox Judaism. Not that I’m… I’m not trying to knock Orthodox Judaism in particular, but I don’t think it should only have that association. But for me, it does. That was just… I never saw people wearing tallit katan, I don’t think, except people who were Orthodox, until much more recently in life.

And to be reminded all day of Orthodox Judaism… and that’s a kind of Judaism that rejects queerness usually in different degrees for different people who call themselves Orthodox. But yeah, it’s just a… You can imagine how it might be a bit of a drag to always have that reminder on your body of one sect. One sect that is often hostile to queerness. So, it’s a complicated thing for me. I mean, because… and I wish it wasn’t a reminder of those kind of rejections, and I wish I had more association with fem people wearing tallit katan. And I know some people. I know some fems who wear tallit katan, for sure. But not that many. It’s more rare.

And it’s-

Emma June:  It’s definitely more rare

Ezra Furman: And it’s difficult, because I… Tallit katan and in a way, like you said, the tzitzit thing in general is kind of the perfect example of one of my very, very favorite things about Judaism, which is being reminded all day of G-d, and honoring G-d, and how it’s not a thing where you go… At least for me, the way I do Judaism, and I think… Yeah, the way I do Judaism, it’s a thing you go into a house of prayer for and then that’s where you leave it. It’s like on every door post I say blessings before I drink a cup of water, before I eat anything, and after, and every time I go to the bathroom. There’s just lots of references to G-d, to the infinite, transcendent power, and I love it. I love that it’s in my mundane life. Because I think that’s where those reminders ought to be. I want to remember the big picture all day long.

So, philosophically, I would be the perfect person to want to be wearing tallit katan. But it is a little bit rough with some of its… It does have some negative associations to me.

Emma June:  What has pushed you to wear it when you do? Because you mentioned, like sometimes you wear it and I feel like I’ve seen you in a tallit katan a few times.

Ezra Furman: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I do still wear it sometimes. Hang on. Yes. I don’t know. I think… Well, the first thing that pushed me to wear it is I started… I first wore it when I was a teenager. I was maybe 15 and I decided, “I’m gonna try to be observant of all of Orthodox Judaism.” And yeah, I went to Reconstructionist shul, and like this was not something anyone else in my family, hardly anyone I knew was doing. So, yeah, I wanted to wear tallit katan and I did, and I’m interested in Jewish observance that pushes against what I would do if I wasn’t, if I didn’t think of them as kind of commandments.

I feel that’s part of the value of Jewish observance, is like it makes you do things that you wouldn’t do. And not only that, it pushes against who you already are a bit, and that is kind of one thing that matters to me about it. I want to be pushed out of my default mode. It has a lot of… It’s got that in common with my gender awakening, I think, because my default mode was to seem cis gendered and do what made other people feel comfortable, and do what didn’t make… You know, that felt the easiest thing to do. And I slowly learned that I had to do things that were not the easiest thing, or it was corroding my soul to take the path of least resistance.

Yeah, I think my default self is just like… My default mode is not good for me.

Emma June:  Yeah. Well, I guess I’m curious then how you… I guess I’m hearing you kind of connect some of these feelings of ways that you push yourself to be Jewish and to be trans. Like kind of it sounds to me like bring forward your best self or what feels like creating in that direction? I don’t know if I’m interpreting you correctly.

Ezra Furman: I don’t know about… Yeah. Yeah, best self, or… Yeah, I guess best self. That’s a fine way to put it. Yeah.

Emma June:  Well, I guess then I wonder how you being trans and the ways that you’re choosing your femininity connect to wearing a tallis or a tallit katan for you. If at all.

Ezra Furman: There’s something about… Well, what I wish was different about wearing tallit is that it has masculine associations, and those… I’d like it to have fewer. I’d like it to be more gender neutral or in some ways associated with femininity than it is in my mind. I know it can be, and I love seeing women and feminine people wearing tzitzit, because it helps that shift for me. But it does… has a bit of a masculine push to wear these things. So, in a… I don’t know. In a way, it’s kind of… Well, listen. I mean, one factor to why I felt it really necessary to begin dressing feminine is that when you’re dressed a certain way, you can’t just hide it.

And one thing in my life that my Judaism and my transness have in common, and my queerness, is that they’re hideable. And if I meet someone who I know is not cool with either one of those things, I can completely hide them. I can turn them off. And in one way that’s a luxury, and in another way it’s something I just had to learn to not do anymore. And so, one thing I really have valued about dressing and looking feminine is that I can’t just hide whenever it’s convenient. I just am wearing what I’m wearing.

And I think it’s true about tallit katans also. I mean, you can hide. You can tuck those in. But… I mean, they’re still there. And if you do let them hang out, then it’s like you’re really being visible in a way that you can’t just back out of.

Emma June:  Yeah. It’s a show of kind of unapolageticness.

Ezra Furman: Well, it’s… Yeah. It’s a commitment.

Emma June:  Or confidence. Yeah.

Ezra Furman: It doesn’t let you assimilate at every convenient moment.

Emma June:  Yeah. I know you’ve been having a lot of thoughts and feelings, especially around assimilation.

Ezra Furman: Oh yeah.

Emma June:  As a Jew, as a trans person.

Ezra Furman: Yeah, yeah.

Emma June:  I’m curious if you’re starting to touch on it, if there’s something particular about a tallis and assimilation, queerness, that’s on your brain?

Ezra Furman: Yeah, well, it’s… Tallis is one of the most obvious signals of Judaism and to wear on is to be identified by most onlookers. Yes. We have been talking about, we’ve had some conversations about this. I’m feeling very anti-assimilationist lately. And also, anti-separatist. By which I mean I think people with these invisible identities, such as Jewishness and queerness, should be really out there with it all. And to me, I think that is the best… It’s the best thing for us, it’s the best thing to have a sort of message. These groups, we have something to teach to humanity at large I think. And I think we just have to get it out there and not always translate it so much, actually.

The not translating is really important. Like don’t say like, “Oh. Well, this thing is our version of the thing that you do.” Just like… Just talk the way we talk to each other and let that talk be heard and in the world as itself. I think… Yeah. Talk in our own voice, in our own accents, and I also think… Yeah, then the anti-separatist part of it is like I don’t think we should… You know, we can have a retreat for a weekend, but I think we should live in the world and impact it, and be impacted by it, and keep our accents, and keep our weird names, and wear the weird stuff we wear.

Emma June:  Yeah. One thing that I really… Oh, how do I want to phrase this question? Well, like one thing that I have seen you do that I have taken as a public display of certainly Jewishness, and femininity, and queerness, and all of these things, is performing and performing in tzitzit or performing in a kippah or both, and like in a dress, and like raging. I mean, I guess like I wonder what it means to you to perform on stage as a queer Jew in all of that, and in the garb that makes that visible to your audience full of people you don’t know?

Ezra Furman: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I like to. That frontier is a place where my queerness is way out ahead of my Jewishness. The visibility of my queerness is… I’ve made that obvious part of who I am in public. And my… And then I’ll talk about my Jewishness sometimes in interviews, sometimes… Yeah, sometimes I wear tzitzits hanging out of a skirt or something. Sometimes I wear a kippah. A kippah often falls off when performing, because I tend to thrash around a bit, you know? So, it’s… It can get askew. I would actually kind of like to use that effect more. Someone with an askew kippah could just be like… could become a new symbol of rock and roll abandon.

But yeah, so that’s something I notice. Why is it… I don’t know if it’s been harder to push forward my visible Jewishness, but like it… Maybe it feels like there’s more of an existing tradition of visible queerness in secular music than there is visible Jewishness. I’m not… There’s also something about being Jewish has an association of like not coolness, which-

Emma June:  Yeah.

Ezra Furman: And a jokey… Like it’s a joke in Hollywood movies if a Jew in a black hat or tallit shows up in a movie. Sometimes that’s just the punchline is there’s a person who looks Jewish here. And then he talks in an Ashkenazi accent. It’s hilarious by itself. Which really just pisses me off. But yeah, it’s because we’re deep in Galut, you know? We’re in exile. We have been outsiders in other people’s countries so, so much, that we internalize their disgust and ridicule into… Yeah. We turn it into like a, “Hey, isn’t this… Maybe we can have fun with it.” But it’s like it is an embarrassment. We have this built-in shame about our beautiful culture. And we don’t think of ourselves as beautiful, or sexy-

Emma June:  Or rock and roll.

Ezra Furman: Yeah. Cool. Whatever. And it’s because nobody… I don’t know. Nobody does. Nobody has… I mean, it’s also, there’s more to say about that. Like rock and roll pushes often in a not religious, pious direction. It’s impious and irreverent, and religion is pious and reverent, so that’s a thing too.

But it matters so much sometimes to… I mean, people see me being visibly Jewish on stage and they’re like, “Yo, that matters. Nobody does that. That makes me feel at home to see you and looking like that and treating that as something to not apologize for.” That dynamic is also really big for looking queer on stage. I mean, that’s like… It’s shaped who even comes to my shows and it’s like part of what my work means to people when it does mean something to people. It usually… My fierce and not apologized for queerness is a part of that content of the work and impact of it.

Yeah. I think it’s worth recounting that we met each other… I believe we met each other first time in person was at that show in Cambridge, a few days after the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Emma June:  It was. Yeah.

Ezra Furman: Yeah. Yeah. And all that week I was wearing tzitzit and wearing kippah and just… I don’t know. I mean, I think I tried to say something about it. I mean, I was just like in a state of such heartbreak that week, and trying to make it through lines like, “I don’t think all this showing up at synagogue a quarter past seven,” from my song Maraschino Red Dress $8.99 at Goodwill, from the album Transangelic Exodus, available at your local online record whatever, for the low price of… et cetera.

Yeah, that was when… We talked after that show for a while.

Emma June:  Yeah. I introduced myself to you. I mean, we had talked online some before, but I was in my own stupor following that shooting and like really didn’t know what to do with myself, and I think day of saw that you were performing and it wasn’t sold out, and knew that you were a queer Jew and was like-

Ezra Furman: It’s time.

Emma June:  Well, I’ve always wanted to meet her, and today’s the day, and I went, and I went in my tzitzits and-

Ezra Furman: That’s right.

Emma June:  And like I remember you saying something on stage along the lines of like, “This has happened. I know it has happened. I know what I’m wearing, and what I look like, and I need to say that I’m Jewish and I’m upset, but I really can’t speak to it.” And you were like, “Just know that every time I’m singing, that’s… and screaming, that’s me speaking to it.” And I think I remember just also then screaming and feeling like this is what I needed from the world. It felt like such a gift. And then, yeah, afterward we talked about both being in tzitzits and-

Ezra Furman: You gave me some… You gave me those Yiddish-

Emma June:  And that feeling.

Ezra Furman: … iron-on patches. Or sew-on patches.

Emma June:  Yeah.

Ezra Furman: Yo, but I don’t know, I really noticed that me being trans and me being Jewish can be publicly visible and I make them visible on purpose. And I feel like it is teaching me something about the… how minority communities can thrive. I’m trying to like discern some message in it about that. And that what I’ve discerned, I think, or started to discern is like just more visible is good. I don’t know. I mean, it’s always hard to argue that when it comes with the threat of violence, as it really does.

Emma June:  It definitely does.

Ezra Furman: Yeah.

Emma June:  I think… I mean, I don’t know, I guess I just think it’s always a personal choice, but it is a powerful one when you can make it and feel able to make it.

Ezra Furman: Yeah. But I do see a benefit of like speaking, not teaching people who don’t know about it, not explaining yourself, just being yourself without… with minimal explanation. And let that be what acclimates people to it.

Emma June:  It makes a lot of sense to me. I think I feel-

Ezra Furman: Does that make sense?

Emma June:  … pretty similarly. Yeah, at least in that I want… I think I want to bring people into my world, not to have to… Or sorry, not bring people into my world, but like have them become a part of my world because they stick around. Understand things because they try.

Ezra Furman: Glimpse your world. Yeah.

Emma June:  If they don’t already know immediately. And not to make that actively hard for anybody, but just not to cater-

Ezra Furman: Yeah, but not spend your energy on like walking them through it.

Emma June:  Right.

Ezra Furman: Yeah. Did you see that movie, Disclosure?

Emma June:  I still haven’t. No.

Ezra Furman: That documentary? Oh, yeah. I mean, something I liked about that is I think it was all… The interviews were all with trans people and the filmmakers were all trans, and you could tell. You know, you could just tell in the interviews that they were… These were trans people talking to each other.

Emma June:  Yeah.

Ezra Furman: Like just in the jokes they could make and the things they didn’t have to explain. Yeah. Good documentary. Recommend it to all listeners.

Emma June:  Like another question I have and something I think I’ve talked to a bunch of the people I’ve interviewed before about is just like kind of trying to find… We’ve kind of talked here about how… I don’t know, like a tallis is traditionally masculine, and also in general thought of or created to exist on this binary that we don’t exist in, and like in order to wear a tallis, I think, or other ritual objects, I think sometimes we have to be creative about how we make ritual our own.

Ezra Furman: Yeah.

Emma June:  Or there’s like an active struggle with ritual to feel included in it. At least some of the time. And I’m curious if there are ways that you’ve felt creative or kind of in charge of making the practice of wearing a tallis your own?

Ezra Furman: Well, I mean, I feel like I must point out that like in the Bible, there’s nothing in this commandment that suggests that it’s only a commandment for men. I don’t really understand how it became a men-only thing. I mean, I guess it’s… There must be a similar answer to a lot of things that are men only in Jewish practice. But like I guess I just say that to say that to me it seems wide open for all to claim, and to degender, because it just got gendered along the way and it doesn’t seem thematically… It doesn’t seem necessary at all for it to be gendered. Like even religiously. Although I’m no great scholar of halacha. I will admit that.

As for me, there’s just… I don’t know if I’ve been so creative with it, but I just enjoy the way it interacts with my non-masculine self. Like I just… It’s just fun to be like… I’m like wearing a short dress and the tzitzit are trailing out of it, or I’m wearing the tallit katan over my bra, and you know, when it’s something like this with… I’ve seen very little precedent for that kind of thing. Every little detail like that takes on a sort of power. It’s like this is such a tiny percent of the way… I don’t know, of the people wearing tzitzit, this is such a… No one’s doing it like this.

And that makes it feel like just the way that I wear it, it actually… I don’t know, it’s like dropping a little… I can’t think of the right metaphor. I was gonna say like food coloring into a cup of water and like the whole thing turns pink. It feels like it transforms the whole practice for me and how it resonates, and that demasculinizing of the mitzvah of tzitzit, which I think needs to happen, I can feel myself doing that. And even if it’s only for my own associations with it, I can feel the needle move.

That’s kind of cool. Really talking about this really makes me want to wear a tallit katan more often.

Emma June:  It’s very cool.

Ezra Furman: Again. It’s like some things, you don’t want them to be dysphoria triggering, but you kind of should admit when they are, you know? Be kind to yourself. You can’t talk yourself out of dysphoria for a political reason. Yeah, and I’m actually at a point… I don’t know. I’m way delayed on actually doing something about this, but I really want to have some more femininity in my tzitzit life, and I think if I had like… Yeah, just I think if the four-cornered garment was more like kind of feminine, and maybe it could even be sort of a kind of like a bra or something with tzitzit on it, I would be so much more psyched to be fulfilling that mitzvah.

Emma June:  Yeah.

Ezra Furman: It would be like, yeah, hiddur mitzvah really, for like in a really big, impactful way. Hiddur mitzvah meaning like making the mitzvah more beautiful-

Emma June:  Right.

Ezra Furman: Which is a concept I guess in the Talmud…. Jewish practices.

Emma June:  I know, I mean, there are so many… Not that you particularly want to wear it this way exactly, but I just had kind of the image of like Orville Peck’s mask.

Ezra Furman: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Emma June:  Like the fringes from that, but like almost like a flapper bra, I guess, and then-

Ezra Furman: Oh yeah, yeah.

Emma June:  But with the tzitzit on the corners of it.

Ezra Furman: Oh my God. It would be so dope.

Emma June:  I don’t know, like why haven’t I seen anything like that? That’s ridiculous.

Ezra Furman: Yeah, there’s so many possibilities. Yeah, when you think of how fringes are used in fashion, it’s just like there’s so many possibilities.

Emma June:  Where is my cowboy bra tallis katan?

Ezra Furman: Right? And it’s like you think it’s because like, “Oh. Well, the demand is so small. Who wears? What percentage of the population is interested in wearing this kind of thing?” But like if there was more of it, I bet so many people who have never worn any kind of… any tallit katan, would be like, “Oh, hell yeah. I’d love to adorn myself in that. It’s dope.” You know? And then we could just be doing what Chabad does, getting more people to observe mitzvahs. Just… You know. Some-

Emma June:  Just with our aesthetic beauty.

Ezra Furman: … queer gorilla tactics.

Emma June:  Yeah. I mean, it’s just a… I think it really… It’s like a… What is the phrase? Like, “If you build it, they will come.” If you make it, then people will see it and want it. But if it doesn’t seem like an option, then how could it be an option?

Ezra Furman: Right. Yeah.

Emma June:  Yeah.

Ezra Furman: Let’s go into business together.

Emma June:  Yes-

Ezra Furman: With a Chabad house rabbi.

Emma June:  Oh, G-d. I don’t know if I can do that part.

Ezra Furman: Yeah, you might be right. That might not be a… We might not be birds of a feather.

Emma June:  But I’ll open an Etsy shop.

Ezra Furman: All right. All right, do it then.

Emma June:  Okay. I will. Watch me. I just have to learn how to sew.

Ezra Furman: Yeah. I definitely don’t know how to do that.

Emma June:  Yeah. Well, these things seem possible. Very possible.

Ezra Furman: I’d be a loyal customer.

Emma June:  Well, I think… I mean, that’s what I have in the way of questions for you, but do you have any I guess other lingering thoughts or things you wanted to make sure you said or shared that haven’t come up?

Ezra Furman: Well, I guess I like thinking about… I think we all walk around with like a cloud over our heads, and you can control what’s in that cloud. A cloud of… You know, this is like why I listen to music in the car on headphones. To walk around with something that makes my neutral life have… It’s a different content. I think that’s what… I think that’s the essence of the idea of the mitzvah of tzitzit. And you know, even if you’re not wearing tzitzit walking around all day, I just want to bless you, listener, whoever you are, that you’ll have a kind of a tzitzit-like thought, or mood, or intention in your heart as you walk through the world in these uncertain days. That’s my blessing to you, that maybe anything could be a tzitzits, and you know, it can be whatever you want it to be.

Emma June:  Amen.

Ezra Furman: Amen. Thanks for talking with me on the podcast.

Emma June:  Thanks for talking to me.  

Emma June:  Thanks for listening to Fringes, my passion project sponsored by ADVAH Designs. For more definitions, as well as a transcription of the episode, please check out the show notes on our website, ADVAHDesigns.com/Episode10. That’s A-D-V-A-H-D-E-S-I-G-N-S dot com/E-P-I-S-O-D-E-1-0. As always, the interviews I do and the stories I get to share through this podcast cannot possibly capture the breadth of experiences in the world. I’m inevitably leaving people out. That said, this project is growing. If your story feels left out and you want to share it, please reach out to me at emma@advahdesigns.com. That’s E-M-M-A at A-D-V-A-H-D-E-S-I-G-N-S.com. A huge thanks to Sarah Resnick, my producer, and to Home Despot, the incredible musician behind the music. And thank you for listening. This episode contains the last interview I have recorded. While episodes will no longer be regular, I will still be open to recording more and will release episodes on Fridays when available.

This project is so joyful. I’m really excited to see how it changes from here. Truly, thanks for all your support.