May 27, 2022

Bechukotai

Hello and welcome. I wish these times were less full of horrors, but here we are, doing our best to survive. I am glad you are here.

CN: child sex abuse, shoah, nazis

Jewish Calendar

Parshat Bechukotai

We are blessed and we are cursed. We are heartsick and we are remembered. We are finishing a book of the torah this week (vayikra/leviticus).

Omer counting

I have a daily email reminder that will send you the text of the blessing along with something about that day's sefirot.

Heavy stuff

Antisemitism, Zionism, Israel and Palestine

Vashti's The Pickle newsletter once again has what the kids call "a banger", this time about how Germany's anti-antisemitism laws affect antizionist jews.

Last summer a march by neo-Nazis was allowed to take place in Weimar at the same time as a Yiddish culture festival. These are actual Nazis. But if someone says, “I would like to mourn a murdered journalist” – that’s antisemitism.

Magda Teter reviews three books about the post-WWI pogroms of Jews from 1918-1921, a period I didn't know much about before reading.

Esther Bergdahl writes about 1945 publication The Bloody Record of Nazi Atrocities, and specifically about a six panel comic illustrating arrival at a nazi death camp. Highly recommend reading this article, even though it is emotionally difficult.

Sexual assault

A famous OU rabbi passed away recently. He was an enabler of child sex abuse in Orthodox youth group NCSY. It is sickening to learn the pervasive spread of this obscene abuse of power. For a deeply affecting twitter thread, read up and down from friend-of-the-jewsletter Larry Yudelson.

See also: Elana Sztokman was interviewed in Ha'aretz regarding her forthcoming book When Rabbis Abuse. I appreciate her response when asked whether this is more common in judaism than other communities: that question is unanswerable right now, and also not relevant. It is happening here, and we within the community need to ensure it stops.

I want to be clear that this is not a problem unique to orthodox judaism, though of course the specifics of how powerful people gain and wield their power abusively vary based on the cultural context. This week Camp Ramah in the Berkshires (affiliated with the Conservative movement) was sued over dramatically mishandling a sexual assault case (though that one involved one camper assaulting another, not a staff member assaulting a minor), and earlier this year the Reform movement published a horrifying report covering sexual misconduct in and around their youth groups.

I say this not because it is the same--it isn't--but because it is tempting, as a non-frum jew, to think we are beyond these problems. To think our synagogues are somehow past the idea of sexual assault because we don't have a mechitza during services. To think that because we have a woman rabbi, women in leadership, therefore we can't have that kind of problem here. Unfortunately, no. To actually protect children, we must stop the excuses and shuffling reported rabbis around. We must stop putting offenders in positions of power. We must enact consequences for those who commit abuse.

Miscellaneous

Ayin Press released Ayin Two: The Holy Fool this week on their site, including a selection of amazing and unexpected art and writing. Mark Horn on tarot. Adina Allen & Pat B. Allen on God as Holy Fool: Embracing the Chaos of Creation. Truth in Gay Clothes, or Gagarin’s Space Suit: Part I and part II by Jenny Romaine & Yevgeniy Fiks. Fooled by Holiness by Zohar Atkins. So much to chew on.

Greek Reporter has an article about Romaniote Jews (aka my yiayia's community) featuring a wonderful 1930s purim picture.

I like following scholars on twitter because i find out about neat stuff like this what is ancient jewish liturgy? article. Also dream intepretation, cairo geniza style.

Jewish Currents' special feature collection about Soviet Jewry is now online.

Jewish digital storytelling fellowship alert! Eight months, there's a stipend, applications due June 1.

Workers' Circle summer yiddish and ladino classes are up for registration on their website! The yiddish classes include some very cool looking specialized intermediate and advanced options (poetry! dialects! songs!) as well as all kinds of regular stuff at all levels.

I just found out about two new ladino podcasts that launched earlier this month: Ladino Refranes and El Ponte.

Bulk up your jewish book reading lists with the replies to this tweet requesting books published in 2022.

Events!

New event additions to the list are bolded.

5/31 TransHallel Rosh Chodesh Sivan

6/1 IJV Online Chavurah - 2022 Shavuot Session

6/2 Feli­cia Berlin­er in Con­ver­sa­tion with Abby Stein, on (among other things) gender and sexuality in orthodox judaism.

6/3-6/5 Festival Sefardí, a hybrid event with poetry, song, stories, and more.

6/4-6/5 ShavuotLIVE 2022: a 24-Hour Festival of Jewish Learning! 5pm eastern-5 pm eastern.

6/5 Introduction to Abolition with Matir Asurim

6/7-6/10 Yidstock

6/8 Forging Our Own Derekh: (Re)-defining Halakha with the Trans Halakha Project (trans and nonbinary people only)

6/12 Cain and Fable: Radicals Re-Exploring the World's First Murder with Shel Maala

6/12 Book Talk: Women Writing Jewish Modernity

6/12-6/14 Kavod v'Nichum North American Chevrah Kadisha and Jewish Cemetery Conference

6/16 Working toward a Healthy Generation: An Archival Show-and-Tell on Jewish Women’s Health in Eastern Europe

6/30 Antisemitism and the Impact of Philanthropy on Public Discourse (part of a series)

7/29 Queer Disability Shabbat (queer and disabled jews only, please, but with expansive definitions on all three of those identity labels)

Jewish Pet of the Week

The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Timothy J. Drake Riesman Cat! Timmy here was accidentally celebrating weed legalization in Rhode Island by discovering the catnip in the garden.

Shabbat shalom!

<3

Meli