Fat liberation’s Jewish past—and future: A new wave of activists advocates for legal and cultural change

ABSTRACT In this collection of interviews with Jewish fat liberationists, Merissa Nathan Gerson traces the centrality of Jewish women to the beginnings of the fat liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s. She links the history of Jewish women’s involvement in fat liberation to radical black queer fat acceptance in the 1960s. Incorporating the theorizing of Sabrina Strings, Merissa underscores how fatphobia began during the Enlightenment as a way to associate fatness with savagery and racial inferiority. This led to the racist creation of the BMI and the continuation of white supremacy within WASP-centered beauty norms. Jewish women especially have internalized these white American esthetic ideals, leading to what Rabbi Minna Bromberg terms “diet culture as idolatry.” Many of the interviewees, who come from a diverse range of religious practices and professions, describe the ways their Jewish mothers emphasized dieting as a way to control “Jewish wildness.” They challenge the idea that fat is unhealthy and maintain that Jewish communities must confront their fatphobia. Three key Jewish ideas are interwoven throughout: bezelim elohim, tikkun halev, and tikkun olam [made in God’s image, healing the self or the heart, and healing the world]. These three tenets articulate how Jewish traditions already include the philosophies needed to go beyond fat acceptance to advocate for fat liberation.