February 17, 2023

Adar 5783

Welcome to Weird Jewish Digest! This month we have Bayard Rustin, two megillah puns, so many events and classes, and an illustrated pet of the week!

I'm trans, so I'm having a difficult news week, so I skipped out on providing emotionally difficult content (israel, antisemitism, disasters, et cetera) this time around. I do recommend staying on top of things elsewise if you can; the absence from this newsletter doesn't mean nothing is happening.

That being said there is still one link relating to the holocaust towards the end, about a documentary.

Jewish Calendar

Before the next issue of Weird Jewish Digest goes out on March 17th we'll go through the following parts of the weekly torah reading cycle:

• 2/18 Mishpatim / מִּשְׁפָּטִים newsletters from that week in 5781 and 5782. It's also Repro Shabbat, and NCJW has options for how to celebrate in community and at home.

• 2/25 Terumah / תְּרוּמָה; newsletters from that week in 5781 and 5782

• 3/4 Tetzaveh / תְּצַוֶּה; there's a newsletter from that week in 5781, but last year I took this week off.

• 3/11 Ki Tisa / כִּי תִשָּׂא; newsletters from that week in 5781 and 5782

Black History Month

BHM is of course February, not a month on the Jewish calendar, but several Jewish organizations have chosen to recognize the month in one way or another, including Yiddish Book Center's weekly reader about yiddishist antiracism and The Workers' Circle posting about Bayard Rustin who spoke at their 1970 gathering. I wish the text of his speech was available!

Of course, Black people and Jews are not two separate categories, as can be directly experienced via the powerful quotes on Bechol Lashon's BLM page. Reminder to also support Black Jews' work during this month, such as Ammud JOC Academy (which is for all Jews of Color but has Black leadership).

Purim

Sefaria's Whole Mugillah, the text of the scroll of esther printed on a mug, is the best purim merch I can think of. Purim is preceded by the fast of Esther, and opensiddur recently added some prayers specifically for that fast.

Yes, this is real--History of the World Part II is coming! It will be a series streaming on Hulu in early March, including on Erev Purim.

Books and Language

It's jewish book week the 25th of Feb through the 5th of March and there's a bunch of online events (if you click the first filter and choose virtual) on topics like Jews and the diamond trade, or Meir Kahane, or a book about Stella Levi's remembering Rhodesli Judaism, or Mel Brooks.

This tweet's scroll is not a fishbook--it's a meGILLah!

Let's learn about the punk yiddish library in tel aviv's central bus station!

I love this Prayer for One who Transitions by Eitan Meshullam Chai, which is based on tefilat haderech (the traveler's prayer). If you want to learn more about that prayer, Sophia Zohar put out a cute little Travelers Prayer zine.

Tumblr user HiddurMitzvah also put together a zine about the art of abandoned jewish cemeteries of Hungary.

Some poetry for you: The Golem Visits the Marc Chagall Exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery

Kafka's diaries have been available for a while, but heavily expurgated. The most recent translation leaves that stuff in, including at least one example that made me say "there is no heterosexual explanation for this" out loud. I do not think I will read the diaries in full--a lot of the stuff that went back in is, sincerely, very gross--but I am glad that they are available.

brin solomon, creator of the inclusive siddur project, published a meditation on translation of wordplay in the form of an alphabetical acrostic. Amazing!

https://mobile.twitter.com/sheydgarden/status/1623708320476397574

There's a very cute game called Pentiment set in 16th century Bavaria where the characters speak in a variety of lettering styles and typefaces, including (apparently) yiddish! Anyone got a screenshot for me?

Miscellaneous

Lilith intern Alexa Hulse interviewed Evelyn (Evi) Torton Beck about Jewish lesbianism across generations!

Elizabeth Shulman-Nadolny has been posting some excessively gorgeous examples of talit katan lately.

I am deeply unnerved by the ad for christianity during the super bowl, but Tasha Kaminsky came up with some absolutely hilarious "what if we ran an ad for judaism" posts in a twitter thread starting with the following:

https://twitter.com/tashakaminsky/status/1624939075479248898

Hebrew College, a seminary for rabbinical and cantorial students, has officially decided to let students in interfaith relationships be admitted and ordained. This is, to put it mildly, a big deal, and a victory for a number of Hebrew College students (including some in interfaith partnerships themselves) who have long been pushing for this change.

When talking with friends who would like to be clergy about what has held them back, the ban on interfaith relationships in most rabbinical schools (besides Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and, now, Hebrew College) is one of the most common reasons why it is not feasible. Hooray for one big barrier being removed!

https://twitter.com/RJELevi/status/1625215281491501056

This Greek documentary about Jewish Greek WWII experiences sounds fascinating, especially the parts about Jewish resistance and Volos and Crete's attempts to stop the deportations of Jews.

Calls for submissions and applications

• Are you an artist? The radical jewish calendar wants you(r art)! Full detailed call for artists available here.

• Jewish Currents has a call for pitches for their Winter issue, which will be Florida themed.

• "Paper Brigade, the print literary journal of Jewish Book Council, is pleased to announce its annual open call for short sto­ry submissions".

• Are you a Jewish woman thinking about writing a book of Jewish textual analysis? Check out Sefaria's Word-by-Word: A Jewish Women's Writing Circle, a 3 year cohort-based program with mentorship and a stipend.

• If you're writing a Jewish horror or other genre fiction, Madness Heart Press may be the place for you!

Events and classes!

Online classes and series of talks

• Friend of the jewsletter Jaz Twersky will be teaching Pursuing Justice: Walking Whole-heartedly in a Broken World 3/7-4/25!

• Yiddish Book Center's Shakespeare & Yiddish: An Online Course will be running this March as well.

• Shel Maala's next class is Intensions of the Heart: How Deafness and Disability Define Halakha, and it runs March 5th through April 2nd

• Drisha's yiddish poetry class sounds interesting too, and they run Feb 21 through March 21st

• Are you a Mizrachi or southwest asian/north african jewish leftist? the mizrachi + JSWANA left project has a six part zoom workshop starting 2/26 about migration stories and global justice. Sign up here.

• Jewish Art as Self Defense runs from 2/28-3/21. Learn from Black, Queer Jewish artist Ayeola Omolara Kaplan, one of the minds and hearts behind the radical jewish calendar.

• There's an online talk series from the Sephardic Brotherhood of America about the Sepharadim of Romania, running 3/2-3/16

• JTS's spring learning series of public talks is all about borders and in-betweenness, and there's some fascinating ground covered in there: Between Law and Narrative in the Talmud 2/27, Conversos and the Question of Jewish Belonging Throughout History 3/20, and more!

Events

Some of these events were found via The Forward's new Yiddish Community Calendar. Check it out if you want more yiddishkeit, including yiddish-language events!

2/17-2/18 Repro Shabbat

2/19 Saved! A Virtual Performance by Kolektiv Goluboy Vagon  

2/19 Kolot/Voices: Writing Creative Nonfiction with Ayelet Tsabari

2/19-2/20 #Farbindungen23 Yiddish Futures conference (register)

2/21 Transhallel Rosh Chodesh Adar (zoom registration link)

2/21 “The Jews and Global Geography” lecture

2/23 Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People book launch

2/23 Milk and Meat: A Queer Jewish Comedy Show

2/26 Culture in the Shadow of Futurelessness: How did Yiddishist writers and poets look to culture and poetry to aid their community in the 1930s, and how did they reckon with the limits of culture itself? - Lecture with Ken Moss

2/27 Between Law and Narrative in the Talmud

3/2 The Ninety-Minute Mishnah: A Crash Course on Torah 2.0

3/2 The Global Reach of the Yiddish Theater—The Vilna Troupe, God of Vengeance, and Yiddish Performance the World Over

3/6 Purim (yes, already!)

3/8 Between the Lines: Sephardic Food and Culture

3/8 Filling the Well: A Monthly Embodied Creativity Salon

3/23 Rosh Chodesh Nisan

3/20 Conversos and the Question of Jewish Belonging Throughout History

3/27 Columbia Rare Book & Manuscript Library Curatorial Shorts: An Anti-Fascist Yiddish Children’s School in 1930s Paris

3/30 Understanding Rabbinic Innovation: Five Sources of Law from Laynie Solomon at SVARA

Jewish Pet of the Month

The Jewish Pet of the Month this month does not have a name, and properly speaking isn't a pet, but he is definitely jewish; Cesario Lavery, a zamler (yiddish book collector) who sent a donation to the yiddish book center, left little illustrations on each box of donated books, such as this little fella:

If you have a pet you'd like to have featured as Jewish Pet of the Month, let me know! Reply to this email with a picture and the pet's name and I'll pencil them in for a future issue.

<3

Meli