Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
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janinebaer.bsky.social
Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
@janinebaer.bsky.social
An #adoptee, my book "Growing in the Dark" explains who was behind the sealing of adoption records and the harm done by these laws. https://www.xlibris.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/572366-growing-in-the-dark
🕊️ "Never again" means never again for anyone.
Pinned
What were adoptees thinking last century? From 1989 to 1997 I published a feminist newsletter about the politics of adoption called "Chain of Life." All 42 issues are available as PDFs from the UC Berkeley digital library. 🌀https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/chainoflife/index.html
Digital Resources - OskiCat - The Library - University of California, Berkeley
digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
"Rabbi Zlotowitz contends that the natural parent has a right to anonymity. What civilization, what religious body could justify the separation of child from mother on the grounds that she is entitled to anonymity?

"The papers I signed in 1950 relinquishing my son...made no such promise to me"+
3/4
November 14, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
🥚 🧵 Gone but not forgotten.

In the 1980s I met activist adoptees and birthmothers in the SF Bay Area. Many have since died, including Sally Brown, at age 94 in 2022.

Her obituary (which I just found) says
"Sally was best known for her outspokenness...+
1/4

www.independentnews.com/obituaries/s...
Sally Brown
Sally Brown, a beloved resident of Livermore, died on Aug. 31, 2022 at the age of 94.
www.independentnews.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
My Antifa book is on the New York Times Bestseller list 8 years after publication.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me (and my family) in so many ways (including buying books). #NoPasarán
November 14, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
"...and her sense of justice. Her passion and her integrity earned her the admiration of all."

In 1986 she wrote this powerful letter, disagreeing with a Reform rabbi who had advised that there was no need for adoptees to know their original parents. Sally's letter is attached here in 2 parts:
2/4
November 14, 2025 at 3:09 PM
🕊️ This coming Tuesday, Nov 18, at 9:30am Pacific, join a zoom to explore —

“A Land for All: Two States. One Homeland.”

"This binational Israeli-Palestinian movement believes in a confederative future for the State of Israel and a State of Palestine" — a better kind of River to the Sea +
TUESDAY 11/18, 12:30pm ET
The tenuous ceasefire has brought a glimmer of hope. But with efforts to reach a traditional 2SS having repeatedly run aground, maybe it's time for newer, creative initiatives?
We'll host reps of A Land for All: 2 States/1 Homeland.
Register: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
November 14, 2025 at 4:57 PM
🥚 🧵 Gone but not forgotten.

In the 1980s I met activist adoptees and birthmothers in the SF Bay Area. Many have since died, including Sally Brown, at age 94 in 2022.

Her obituary (which I just found) says
"Sally was best known for her outspokenness...+
1/4

www.independentnews.com/obituaries/s...
Sally Brown
Sally Brown, a beloved resident of Livermore, died on Aug. 31, 2022 at the age of 94.
www.independentnews.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
Jamelle Bouie:
"This isn’t an ordinary moment. The president is openly lawless....he has turned much of what’s left of the federal government into a tool of authoritarian consolidation. ...terrorizing communities across the country." +
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/o...
Opinion | Democrats Sure Taught Trump a Lesson
www.nytimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
One month on from the Gaza ceasefire, progress is real – over a million meals distributed, hospitals reopened, children vaccinated.

But immense challenges persist.

Humanitarians stand ready to do more – if we can get the access, safety and support we need.
November 13, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
In case you haven't read it yet - check out @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social wonderful look back on the resistant to Trump in this past year.
A year on from Trump’s victory, resistance is everywhere | Rebecca Solnit
Americans have shown a tremendous amount and variety of opposition – more than some may realize
www.theguardian.com
November 12, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Justice Louis Brandeis, born on this day in 1856
November 13, 2025 at 11:08 AM
Jamelle Bouie:
"This isn’t an ordinary moment. The president is openly lawless....he has turned much of what’s left of the federal government into a tool of authoritarian consolidation. ...terrorizing communities across the country." +
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/o...
Opinion | Democrats Sure Taught Trump a Lesson
www.nytimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
VA Patients, Families, Groups All Agree

https://f.mtr.cool/skpfmonywq

A patients are joined by veterans’ groups that range from progressive to conservative, but all agree on saving the VA. Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon:  #va
patients
November 13, 2025 at 3:27 AM
"Goodman has continued to pursue investigative stories and highlight perspectives other broadcast media overlook. As the war in Gaza raged on, Goodman brought both Israelis and Palestinians affected by the conflict onto Democracy Now!"
“It came from my Jewish education that you asked questions and that you take nothing for granted,” Goodman says in the film. “And the way you deal with the world is with intense curiosity and not being afraid to stand by your principles."

forward.com/culture/film...
Amy Goodman has been a fearless journalist for more than four decades; she says her Jewish roots made her that way
The documentary ‘Steal This Story, Please!’ shows Goodman’s journey to co-founding ‘Democracy Now!’ and her plans to fight censorship.
forward.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:08 AM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
Last week, nine T'ruah rabbis and cantors joined Rabbis for Human Rights and other activists in the West Bank to help with the olive harvest and offer "protective presence" from settler violence. Settlers still attacked them. (1/3)
November 12, 2025 at 10:31 PM
“It came from my Jewish education that you asked questions and that you take nothing for granted,” Goodman says in the film. “And the way you deal with the world is with intense curiosity and not being afraid to stand by your principles."

forward.com/culture/film...
Amy Goodman has been a fearless journalist for more than four decades; she says her Jewish roots made her that way
The documentary ‘Steal This Story, Please!’ shows Goodman’s journey to co-founding ‘Democracy Now!’ and her plans to fight censorship.
forward.com
November 12, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Finally! 🎉

WATCH: Rep.-Elect Adelita Grijalva is sworn in, 7 weeks after election, teeing up Epstein vote
www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...
WATCH: Rep.-Elect Adelita Grijalva is sworn in, 7 weeks after election, teeing up Epstein vote
Democrat Adelita Grijalva was sworn in as the newest member of Congress on Wednesday, more than seven weeks after she won a special election in Arizona to fill the House seat last held by her late fat...
www.pbs.org
November 12, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
so many reasons to love indie book stores.
To Help SNAP Recipients, Bookstores Set Up as Food Banks
www.nytimes.com
November 11, 2025 at 10:13 PM
"We’ve reached a point where solidarity across difference — where a Jew supporting a Muslim candidate who believes in justice — breaks people’s mental circuitry."
My friend Libby Lenkinski speaking out on behalf of the Jews and Israelis for Mamdani contingent.
As she says so eloquently here, you can dislike her political views, but you can't erase her Jewish and Israeli identity. forward.com/opinion/7826...
Sure, be mad I voted for Mamdani — I'm still just as Jewish (and Israeli) as you are
An Israeli Jew who lives in New York City openly supported Zohran Mamdani. The backlash taught a painful lesson about our divided politics.
forward.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:25 PM
🥚 Last century, I went back to school to study the history of adoption, specifically who sealed our birth certificates? I finally found the 1936 book "The Adopted Child," quoted here. It was written by an adoption agency worker. Child welfare advocates didn't agree but secrecy prevailed.
Here's a little history about how adoption agencies made birthmothers anonymous: a 1936 quote by an agency worker who says secrecy was the birthmother's idea and her name is unknown. This was a script (of lies) to tell adoptees.
— "Growing in the Dark: Adoption Secrecy & Its Consequences," p. 68
November 11, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
November 11, 2025 at 9:08 AM
I like the idea mentioned on Democracy Now! that hurricanes should be named for oil companies.
www.democracynow.org/2025/10/29/j...
Climate Activist Mikaela Loach: Name Hurricanes After Fossil Fuel Firms
Jamaica remains in a state of emergency after being battered by Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest Atlantic cyclones in history. The Category 5 storm slammed into Jamaica on Tuesday with 185-mile...
www.democracynow.org
November 10, 2025 at 1:47 PM
Reposted by Janine Baer 🌈 ☮️ 🕊️ 🌁 🌻 🔯
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxTY...
Hummingbirds of Hollywood | PBS Nature Documentary
🌿
"...a woman finds herself on a transformative journey as she nurtures wounded hummingbirds, unraveling a visually captivating tale of love, fragility, healing, and the delicate beauty in profound acts of kindness."
Hummingbirds of Hollywood | PBS Nature Documentary
YouTube video by Nature on PBS
www.youtube.com
November 9, 2025 at 4:18 AM
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxTY...
Hummingbirds of Hollywood | PBS Nature Documentary
🌿
"...a woman finds herself on a transformative journey as she nurtures wounded hummingbirds, unraveling a visually captivating tale of love, fragility, healing, and the delicate beauty in profound acts of kindness."
Hummingbirds of Hollywood | PBS Nature Documentary
YouTube video by Nature on PBS
www.youtube.com
November 9, 2025 at 4:18 AM
"...This is the formula strongmen have used—more wealth for the wealthy, more bigotry for the working-class and poor—until the entire facade crumbles under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

On Tuesday, millions of American[s]...repudiated, loudly & clearly, the formula Trump & his regime have used."
November 9, 2025 at 12:32 AM
"Hear from the US Journalists Abducted from Gaza Aid Flotillas"

"...Alex Colston of Drop Site News, Emily Wilder of Jewish Currents & independent journalist Noa Avishag Schnall... about their experiences while detained &...what drove them to take this risk "

1hr 40min
⚠️ they were not treated well
November 8, 2025 at 10:51 PM