O pinion
Embrace the Screen-free Chanukah Challenge
BY CORINNE E. YOURMAN
THIS FALL, in the midst of a
pandemic that has marked an
uptick in our reliance on tech
to keep us learning, working,
connected and entertained, a
group of former tech execu-
tives in Silicon Valley released
a cautionary documentary
called “The Social Dilemma.”
The film has received critical
acclaim for exposing the ways
that tech companies monitor
our online behavior, then use
that information to feed us the
very ads, videos and news that
they calculate will keep us on
their platforms for as long as
possible — not for our own
benefit, but to maximize their
profits. The film advances the
claim that the result of all this
monitoring and interfering
has been a host of social ills,
from impaired teen mental
health to increased political
polarization. Just one year earlier, in the
fall of 2019, Webby Awards
founder and Emmy-nominated
filmmaker Tiffany Shlain
released her book “24/6: The
Power of Unplugging One
Day a Week,” a personal,
spiritual and intellectual
journey through her family’s
decade-long celebration of a
24-hour “Technology Shabbat,”
beginning at sundown every
Friday. In her book, she mines
Jewish and other sources
(including Abraham Joshua
Heschel’s lovely volume “The
Sabbath”) to recommend the
Tech Shabbat as a human-cen-
tered approach to managing
the tech in our lives.

Jewish but not observant,
technologically-savvy but able
to cast a critical eye on the
tech industry, Shlain makes
the compelling argument that
everyone — Jewish or not,
religious or not — stands to
benefit from a day’s respite
from their digital devices
each week. Shlain credits her
Tech Shabbats as enabling her
to carve out much-needed
offline time to devote to family,
self-reflection, creative pursuits
and rest.

Shlain’s book stands in
bright relief against the dark
dystopian glare of “The Social
Dilemma.” While the Silicon
Valley executives interviewed
for the film visibly struggle
to suggest ways we can take
back our autonomy from the
relentless pull of notifications,
streaks, autoplays and click-
bait, Shlain clearly believes it’s
possible. As she puts it, if we
are able to take regular breaks
from our tools, including our
digital devices, then it signi-
fies that we have the ability to
control them (rather than be
controlled by them).

And while it will take far
more than a weekly screen
sabbatical to revolutionize the
business model of big tech and
make it more humane, the Tech
Shabbat is an empowering step
in the right direction.

Shlain’s idea isn’t new, of
course, since many in our
community already take a
weekly 25-hour respite from
all forms of work, including
use of digital devices, every
Shabbat. But Shlain aims to
make the practice of a weekly
tech sabbatical universal and,
for naysayers and doubters,
even doable, meaningful and
necessary. Her book is there-
fore also a practical how-to
for those who have never
experienced a tech sabbatical,
particularly a weekly one, with
tips for surviving and thriving
offline each week. Her reliance
on an ancient Jewish practice
to manage the contempo-
rary problem of technological
overuse and overdependence is
extraordinary in its simplicity.

Judaism to the rescue again!
In the fall of 2018, a year
before Shlain’s book was
released, a friend forwarded
to me an article about a
different Jewish tech sabbat-
ical — a 30-minute screen-free
Chanukah challenge. The
challenge was
simple: Celebrants were encouraged to
put down their smartphones
for 30 minutes after lighting
Chanukah candles, to more
intentionally celebrate the
holiday. Proponents of the challenge
recognized the incompat-
ibility of sacred time and
tech, Chanukah candles and
smartphone use. Watching the
flames and enjoying Chanukah
treats, songs and dreidel games
require us to look up and out
toward candles and, if present,
family and friends. In doing
so, we adopt a physical stance
and conscious mindset that
triumphantly commemo-
rate miracles small and large,
historic and present day.

Conversely, smartphones
and other personal digital
devices set invisible partitions
between us as we hunch over
and look down, creating a sense
of isolation and imparting an
impression of loss, retreat and
defeat that is incompatible with
the spirit of the holiday.

As this is the year of Zoom,
we may find ourselves joining
loved ones near and far to
celebrate Chanukah collec-
tively, by screen. Which is
fine. But what if our commu-
nity accepted the Chanukah
challenge this year and
dedicated time to be with
family and friends, present
or pixilated, by setting aside
personal use of digital devices
for a brief 30 minutes, even for
just one night of the holiday?
And then perhaps we might
be inspired to do it again, every
week, from sundown Friday
until nightfall on Saturday, to
elevate the holiness of Shabbat
or — depending on one’s
needs and personal point of
view — to break loose from
big tech, reconnect with family
and friends, foster creativity
and autonomy, experience
human flourishing, be more
present and mindful, or restore
moments of rest and meaning
that, since biblical times, have
been our Jewish birthright. l
Growing up, I experienced
“othering” from the white and
Christian communities in my
hometown of Montgomery.

When I was a Hebrew school
teacher for my synagogue,
a police officer was stationed
every week to ensure that we
could meet safely. Students
in elementary school would
invite me to their mega-church
services and try to “save” me
from my impending doom in
hell. My mom packed what
other kids would call “smelly”
lunches and gawk at the bento
box items that I thought were
far better than their Lunchables
pizzas. Many people assumed
I was great at math, but after
asking me for help, they quickly
realized otherwise.

I’ve been called “exotic
looking” and have heard
a variety of attempts at the
ethnic guessing game. Every so
often, even outside the South, I
get a confused stare. People try
to decipher my mixed identity
by just ... staring at me, hoping
to identify what isn’t normal,
what isn’t white.

While the racism and
discrimination I faced was
painful, the lasting pain has
come from the communities I
Corinne E. Yourman, a resident of
Potomac, Maryland, is a screen
time advocate at the Children’s
Screen Time Action Network.

My Parents’ Love Is Not a Punchline
BY HANAH BLOOM
I’M THE DAUGHTER of a
white Jewish-American dad and
a Japanese immigrant mom,
and I grew up in Alabama.

As you can guess, this made
16 DECEMBER 10, 2020
growing up in the American
Deep South quite interesting.

Amid the external anti-
Semitism and racism I faced,
the joke within the Jewish and
Asian communities that my
parents were meant for each
other hurts the most; it trans-
lates into a gross invalidation
of my parents’ love. Although it
could be plausible that the two
groups can bond over shared
minority experiences, the more
nefarious explanation for this
so-called “perfect match” is the
model minority myth.

My parents met in a “meet
cute” fashion of situational fate.

My mom won the opportunity
to tour the Yokosuka naval base
twice as a civilian. Who was
the handsome American sailor
serving as the tour guide both
times? My dad. The family joke
is that my mother “won the
lottery twice.”
After the two fell in love,
I was born in a U.S. naval
hospital in Italy with an
Italian birth certificate, a
Japanese birth certificate and
an American birth certificate.

After my dad retired from the
Navy, we moved to an area
with an infamous history of
hostility toward people of color
and non-Christians: sweet
home Alabama.

JEWISH EXPONENT
See Bloom, Page 31
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM