May 28, 2021

Beha'alotcha

Hello everyone! Content Warnings for this issue are: mention of nonsexual nudity; illness as punishment; antisemitism; climate change disasters; child death; free palestine; giving up a pet due to poverty.

This week we read parshat behaalotcha. Hashem explains he takes the Levites into his service instead of taking each family’s firstborn. There’s pesach sacrifice instructions and 2nd chance pesach but only if you REALLY gotta. And my favorite! The G-DCLOUD!! People talk a lot about the backwards-facing Nun’s in this parsha but the G-DCLOUD is where it’s at. There’s also the story where the people won’t stop complaining and moses is overwhelmed and G-d says you want to eat meat? i’ll give you SO MUCH MEAT it’ll come out your nose. Then Miriam is shitty about some stuff and gets tzaraat temporarily.

What can we take from this? Plenty of things. When Hashem tells you to rest fucking rest. When you have enough, be mindful of how and when you complain, maybe. i don’t think “don’t complain” is the lesson, but “don’t overwhelm your leadership with complaints about food when you have food at home” might be.

There has been a lot of discussion lately about antisemitism on the rise. I want you to keep three things in mind: 1) you are allowed to be scared, but 2) don’t blame it on Palestinians, and 3) be mindful of the scale of what is actually happening. Part 1 needs no contextualization, I hope; feelings are feelings.

Regarding part 2, not blaming Palestinians on the march for their rights: it has been my experience, and this has been echoed by others, that any antisemitism i experience in pro-Palestine spaces is by white “allies” who need to do more soul-searching. The vast majority of the antisemitism i have experienced outside those spaces has been from white supremacists. Palestinian leaders, and influential people allied with the pro-Palestine movement, have said they do not stand for antisemitism done in their name.

Part three of my thinking relies on a few additional points. Mari Cohen at Jewish Currents analyzed all 43 entries on ADL’s tracker of antisemitic incidents between May 7th and May 24th. Quite a few of the reported incidents are antizionist but not anitsemitic. From a different angle, Hannah Lebovits has a wonderfully clear and gentle twitter thread about macro, meso, and micro-scale experiences of oppression as experienced (or not) by most US-based Jews.

Former ADL head Abe Foxman made this whole mess worse by referring to accurate reporting of child death as blood libel. Sometimes I want to take this kind of hardcore zionist by the shoulders, look them in the eyes, and say: you are not helping. You are hurting the Jewish people. Please stop.

Palestinian Freedom Isn’t a Threat to Jews

For years, there has been a cynical campaign to cast the struggle against apartheid in Israel as a threat to Jews – but growing numbers of Jewish people refuse to accept that their safety relies on the oppression of others.

Rabbi Miriam Grossman was interviewed on NPR about how anti-pipeline protests at Standing Rock affected her views on Israel, and how that’s affected (or not) her relationships with congregants and with her family.

The Pink Peacock had one of their windows smashed in. I hope their insurance covers it, but if you’d like to donate to help them on the (unfortunately very bumpy) road towards opening their space, now would be a fine time.

I love this HeyAlma article about artist Siona Benjamin and this excerpt from Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s new book at Lilith about (among other things) Star Trek and gender.

I had no idea the challah internet was a thing but apparently it is!

This week I watched the 2021 Stroum Lectures from Julia Watts Belser, Reading Jewish Texts in an Age of Climate Change. Both the first, Grappling with Risk, Reimagining Hope, and second, Gender, Disability & the Politics of Survival were wonderful.

If you want to do some nonzionist learning, Hishbati posted their Summer class list!

Jewish Currents is hiring two remote positions: an assistant editor and a development director.

Apparently, back in 1913 S Ansky designed an ethnographic survey with questions like “Is the Angel of Death glad to take a human soul?” and “Does a male dybbuk posess a female or vice versa?” Unfortunately the survey did not happen, but I love the questions.

Theater Emory will be streaming the lovely papercut puppet show Labzik: Tales of a Clever Pup for free through June 5th. It’s based on a 1935 yiddish children’s book. Rokhl Kaffrissen wrote about it for Tablet.

The soundtrack to this week’s Weird Jewish Digest was rv’s Get Set to Rest show on rip it up radio, a lovely wind-down pre-shabbat.

EVENTS

6/3 Jews and Jazz: Before the Beginning, with Henry Sapoznik

6/3 From Lox to Latkes: How Food Shapes Our Cultural & Religious Identity from 18doors, a group that focuses on interfaith families

6/6 Ancient Jewess Magic, a talk by Mika Ahuvia, author of On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture

6/9 Hishbati Rachel Havrelock Occupation and Conquest in the State of Israel and Book of Joshua, registration required

6/10 Jewish Anarchist Women 1920-1950: The Politics of Sexuality

6/10 SVARA Open Bet Midrash: So You Learned a Sugya…What’s Next? zoom registration link

6/10 Jewish Anarchist Women 1920-1950: The Politics of Sexuality

6/13 Jews and Prison: Jewish Values Behind the Walls, presented by Elaine Leeder

6/13 From Anti-Semitism to Anti-Racism: From Antisemitism to Anti-Racism: Jewish Perspectives on Defunding the Police Subtitle was “Why Jews Should Support Defunding the Police”–unsure if the content has changed.

6/13 The Birdverse & Beyond - Author Talk with R.B. Lemberg, a wonderful queer jewish spec fic author

6/13-6/15 Kavod v’Nichum conference about jewish death practices from a non-Orthodox POV, including traditional and less-traditional tracks.

6/15 How Is Fat Liberation a Jewish Social Justice Issue?: A 20-Minute Webinar

6/15 Jewish Prayer in Many Languages: From Sephardic Seattle to Syrian Brooklyn, Part 2: Shabbat

6/15 Stories From The People: A night of LGTBQ+ Jewish History. register here.

6/16 Hishbati David Kraemer Dis-Placing Zion: Ketubbot 110b-111a and the Claim for the Babylonian Center, registration required

6/17 Yuval Evri (King’s College London) and Angy Cohen (University of Calgary): Foreign in a familiar land: language and belonging in the work of Jacqueline Kahanoff, Albert Memmi and Jacques Derrida.

6/20 Hishbati Zackary Berger Are the Ways of Peace Enough? Jewish Autonomy, Community, and Obligation in Healthcare, registration required

The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Zissel!

I hope you have a peaceful shabbat.

<3

Meli