Nisan 5783
Welcome to Weird Jewish Digest!
I am having surgery the week this is going out (good surgery! it's fine! feel free to put me in your prayers for healing though 🧿🪬🧿) and thus I am pre-producing a lot of the content. I hope i will be recovered enough by next month to send out a jewsletter then, but both this issue and that one may be reduced, and next month's may be delayed depending on my capacity.
Jewish Calendar
Before the next issue of Weird Jewish Digest goes out, we'll go through the following parts of the weekly torah reading cycle:
3/18 Vayakhel-Pekudei / וַיַּקְהֵל־פְקוּדֵי newsletter from that week in 5781. In 5782 they came separately: vayachel, pekudei.
3/25 Vayikra / וַיִּקְרָא; newsletters from that week in 5781 and 5782
4/8 Pesach / פֶּסַח ; newsletter from that week in 5781; the holiday straddled two fridays in 5782.
Pesach
I'm working on this early and very few people have pesach links yet, but you can at least pre-buy your haggadahs, like the israeli black panther haggadah from jewish currents or one of print-o-craft's beautiful asufa haggadot. There's also these lovely matzo printed kitchen towels as part of Sara Dudek's indestructible food project. The Pink Peacock does have a registration link up for their trans liberation seder.
Counting the Omer
The Jewish Language Project is putting together an omer counter and hoping to get some support for it. Keep an eye on their website and social media for more info as we get closer to the time.
Israel and Palestine
The way diaspora jews discuss Palestine and Palestinian existence is deeply fucked up. The center big-tent option is anti-antisemitism coalitions (including groups who, on their own, don't espouse this) consistently stating that any criticism of israel is antisemitic, and the right wing is full of examples like a hospital art gallery of art made by Gazan children being removed because UK lawyers for Israel can't deal with Palestinian existence in public.
Meanwhile, I don't know how to talk about the pogroms and terrorism that have been carried out lately against Palestinians but I can't say nothing while a renewed nakba is happening. For more on the use of the term pogroms, see JTA showcasing a variety of people with different perspectives; mine is that pogrom is not reserved for Jewish victims, such as when yiddish writers referred to the tulsa race riots as pogroms. Whether we use the word pogrom or terrorism or something else entirely, violent atrocities continue to occur in the name of israel, in the name of judaism, both as sanctioned military activity and by settlers. It is an uncomfortable time to be jewish, when fellow members of am yisrael (the people israel, not to be confused with the state or the land) will do these things proudly. Emily Tamkin writes about this moment in The New Republic, and if you read just one link, i recommend that one.
I'm glad more people are paying attention, and hope some of the newly aware folks are paying attention to Palestinians, not just Israeli protestors for Israeli human rights, and as Rabbi Jill Jacobs of Truah says of some of the american voices speaking up to criticize israel for the first time:
https://twitter.com/rabbijilljacobs/status/1633434756414074880
We have long existed on the left, on the edges, in IfNotNow and JVP and Jewish Currents and and Truah, sitting during the prayer for the state of israel or skipping it entirely in our services, having hard conversations with our friends and relatives and rabbis. We are here too, as jewish as the rest of the political spectrum is.
Books and Language
I love the Blasphemous Tattoos for Apostate Jews zine.
Jews for Exigesis, a quick (ish) run-through of the ways jews approach text study and holy text interpretation, by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Ayin Press has two musical folios out: Kapelya: Unveiling a Feminine Sound in Hasidic Song and Once Upon a Time the Fire Burned Brighter: Ballads from the Yiddish Gothic.
Hey neobundists and other jewish labor bund fans! YIVO will be digitizing the jewish labor bund's archives. Very exciting addition to their digital resources.
You can also now play DnD in yiddish.
https://twitter.com/DeltaTeePrime/status/1632222287608020992
Miscellaneous
This article about queer modern orthodox youths was a great look into a world i'm less than familiar with, including their reactions to the Yeshiva University LGBTQ club mess.
I am so very proud of the trans halakha project's teshuva writing collective (see Alyx Bernstein's post about her experiences for additional info) and excited for the reveal of the teshuvot, which are being presented 3/26 at the project's Day of Learning.
I instantly knew what the carp in the bathtub hat was referring to, but i still like the explanation from Hallel Yadin in Smart Mouth.
Events and classes!
3/20 Conversos and the Question of Jewish Belonging Throughout History
3/23 Rosh Chodesh Nisan
3/23 “Torah in the Time of Plague”: A Conversation with Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler & Prof. Ethan Leib
3/26 A Day of Learning with the Trans Halakha Project
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
4/1 Crying Nazi Dinner Theater: An Antifascist Purimshpil (Part 3)
4/5 Pesach begins
4/6 Pink Peacock trans liberation seder (7pm UK time)
4/13 Pesach ends
4/20 Undzer Biblyotek: Montreal’s Jewish Public Library at the Center of Yiddish Culture talk
Jewish Pet of the Month
The jewish pet of the month this month is Sufi, short for Sufganiyah, all dressed up in his little namesake bandana!
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