Hello friends! The lengths of sections are a little different this month: fewer events, more books and language, for instance. Hope it’s still good and entertaining, and as always check out the pet of the month at the bottom of the newsletter!

Jewish Calendar

The month of Av is associated with mourning and lament but I’m just not well tuned into that mode right now (thankfully, I suppose). The emotional arc of the year is complex and varied (despite the simple exhortations of “be happy; it’s Adar! be sad; it’s Av!”), and sometimes we fit into it and sometimes we don’t. It’s fine! I will celebrate rosh chodesh and see where Av takes me from there.

I usually don’t include in person activities but this one is in several cities: Rabbis for Ceasefire is organizing Tisha b’Av actions across the US.

Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and/or Antifascism

Coalition Work is Messy: Lessons from a History of Compromise and Influence, by Samira K Mehta (not yet read)

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg organized the Learn, To Do: A Training Series for This Moment series of webinars with notable activists. See also: What You Can Do Right Now from The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook.

Something I have been thinking about is how when you plug in with more organizations (formal or groupchat-based both count, for this) even in a cursory mailing list sense, you get to see more opportunities and the shape of what possibilities for helping are out there. The Workers Circle keeps emailing me about phone trees! Synagogues have mutual aid networks! Opportunities are everywhere! You don’t have to reinvent the wheel or do it all yourself.

Books and Language!

None of us need more books, except for when we do. Stanford University Press has a 40% off sale on and you can read about Jewish summer camp or Short Fiction by Jewish Writers from the Soviet Union or Nahmanides or Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity. Or more jewish studies books and some stuff that isn’t jewish I GUESS.

If you’re thinking ahead, you can preorder I Am Prayer: An Embodied Yom Kippur Companion from Ayin Press, written by Eden Pearlstein, Nate DeGroot, Jill Hammer, Marcia Meislin, and Jay Michaelson and illustrated by Jessica Tamar Deutsch.

There’s a pair of gorgeous art books (art zines? they’re 24 pages each) of yiddish words from Base Press: vol 1, vol 2.

My buddy Josh is selling notebooks (and smaller notebooks) designed special for learning hebrew or talmud!

SUNY Press has a new Labzik book coming out in January translated by Miriam Udel! I am here for cute yiddish dog stories.

Claude Cahun’s Disavowals, by Tausif Noor in Jewish Currents, is a review of the recent translation of Disavowals by Susan de Muth. I have fond memories of going to see an exhibition of Cahun and their partner Moore’s work at the CJM back in 2019, though I struggle with the frequent feminine gendering of both of them, as if they didn’t default to the feminine sometimes in French, as if they were still here to say they’d prefer otherwise.

Singing In Public - Melodies to Carry the Movement is a JFREJ songbook freely available online or order-able in print!

Neohasidic online magazine Gashmius has a call for submissions on the theme of shabbos, unfortunately also will also be “[their] final volume before an indefinite sabbatical.”

Jewish Folklore of Eastern Europe Zine: by Bence Illyés; Beyond the Golem and the Dybukk lies a forgotten world of Jewish magic. I know nothing about this project but I do love a zine and also Jewish folklore.

A Lil Lefty Guide to Ladino on instagram

“In Defense of Lost Causes”: Some Thoughts on the Reactions to Molly Crabapple’s Here Where We Live is Our Country: The Story of the Bund (not yet read, but the discourse has been interesting)

Miscellaneous

The Beit Midrash is a Cadre: Against Study That Stops at the Self and Toward a Study-to-Action Framework for Jewish Organizing, by Chava Shapiro. I am fascinated by ideas that work in the tension between study and action—and yes I know the talmud’s own tale on these topics!

From Demoness to Feminist Icon: The Truth About Lilith (not yet read)

RNS has a lovely article about IKAR’s morning zoom minyan.

Hear the Musical Legacy of Iranian Jews

The Sephardic Brotherhood of America is doing a Sephardic Community Demographic Survey.

Movement elder Aurora Levins Morales is seeking support, whether on patreon or one-time (bottom of linked email message), as she recovers from heart surgery.

הַל״ב מִצְוֺת הַתְלוּיוֹת בַּלֵּב | Thirty-two Mitsvot One Can Do With Consciousness Alone, by Reb Ahrele Roth (trans. Rabbbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi & Hillel Goelman)

Think you have fundraising juice in you but not sure where to put that? Check out Jewish Liberation Fund’s Money to Movement Lab! For more about JLF, check out their article American Jews are building vibrant, values-aligned communities. Why is philanthropy leaving them behind?, in part about the recent merger with Rise Up.

Merkabah 850 BC: a game ruleset by Benjamin Suchard

My On-Again, Off-Again Relationship With Tefillin, by DZ Kalman (not closely read, though I also have an on again off again relationship with tefillin—well, it’s off again right now. i hope to redevelop a morning weekday prayer practice, even if it’s just on Sundays)

How To Cleanse A Sanctuary, about flags on the bimah from an orthodox perspective

Classes and Events

Mati L. Boulakia-Bortnick has a bunch of discussion circles and classes around autism and judaism:

• #ActuallyAutistic discussion & affirmation circles for autistic jews (ongoing)

• Neuroqueer Talmud, “The Oven and the Outcast: R. Eliezer and Rabbinic Violence,” starting this October

• Beyond Inclusion: Disability, Neurodivergence, and Jewish Leadership, for leaders in Jewish spaces, this Oct and Dec

Check out Intro to Mussar with Kirva this August!

There’s a four session The Jews of Kurdistan: History, Culture, and Language course starting in August from Alan Niku at New Lehrhaus

Rabbi Avigayil Halpern is teaching The Past, Present, and Future of Queer Torah: Between Sunlight and Shade starting next week (!!).

Events

7/15 Trans Hallel Av

7/23 Halachic Left 5786/2026 Tisha B'Av: Shiur with Rabbi David Polsky and The Zone of Interest film screening

7/26 LGBTQ+ Belonging in Chevra Kadisha Communities

Pet of the Month

The Jewish Pet of the Month this month is Chirpy Cat! If you want more pics of her, check out her human’s craft blog at https://couchcrafts.wordpress.com/!

With love,

Meli