Bereshit
Hello!
I am taking next week off since I will be in a cabin far away from other humans and also the internet.
Content notes for this week's newsletter are indian residential schools, apartheid, antisemitism, racism, anti-Palestinian violence, and sexism.
Jewish Calendar
This week's torah portion is Bereshit! You know this one. In the beginning Hashem created the heavens and the earth. Everything else followed. (And humans: was the first one an androginos? Or two-faced, or a golem, I guess? Bereshit Rabbah is kinda wild, y'all.) And the garden of eden, and the tree of knowledge, et cetera. Cain and Abel, the first murder, the beginnings of humanity and lists of lineages that connect stories, all the way from Adam to Noach.
And then G-d went "ah shit, why did i do this," which makes me profoundly sad, because--looking at humanity, can I really blame Hashem for thinking that? Rabbi Dara Lithwick connected this week's parsha to Canada's first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, about residential schools in Canada, on the Bayit blog. Americans, don't feel superior, our country also had these.
Next week, Noach. But I won't be here so you gotta study it elsewhere, like in ada's weekly parsha email Etz Hi, or in the new pop culture parsha podcast.
https://twitter.com/moontwerk/status/1443930291375116296?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Israel problems and antisemitism problems
The Medieval Podcast had Adrienne Williams Boyarin on to talk about Christians and Jews in 13th-century England, and ups and downs of England's Jewish communities. No transcript though, unfortunately. For a different historical era, I read for the first time this 2014 essay by Adele Reinhartz about whether translators from ancient greek should use the term Jews or Judeans. Apparently it spawned a whole discussion forum paper series.
https://twitter.com/IrMiklat/status/1443749314421878791
Last Tuesday, on Simchat Torah, settlers violently attacked Palestinian village Khirbet al-Mufkara, including using tear gas on children. It is reasonable and accurate to call this violence a pogrom, as 972 Mag did in their coverage. It makes me sick.
HaAretz did a feature on white south africans converting to judaism, moving to israel, and becoming settlers, and the apartheid jumped right out. I do not want to contribute to anti-convert sentiments here; I agree these people are jewish and have the same right to move to Israel as every other jew--that is, an opportunity that exists but should not be taken up or viewed as a right. Their judaism is real and also their actions as settlers, being part of the same right wing settler movement as the Khirbet al-Mukafara pogrom, are racist.
I appreciate Ben Lorber's reading too, observing that a lot of people joining Judaism are doing so at the political poles, and what does that mean if anything?
https://twitter.com/alfarojoshua3/status/1443117001195544584
David M. Perry wrote an op-ed about Roald Dahl's antisemitism which, yes, was very much a thing. Personally, as a trans Jew, I found the end of the article unsatisfying, where he expresses his daughter's support for JK Rowling despite the daughter's views about trans people conflicting with the author's. I am not saying he should forbid his child from reading Harry Potter, but surely the same logic follows as what led to Perry's dislike of Dahl?
Anti-vaxxers, this time in Alaska, are continuing to use the yellow star in their protests, sometimes alongside homophobic comments.
Meanwhile, Israeli government representatives do not want anti-zionists teaching about Israel/Palestine, which is not surprising I guess; and when Desmond Cole brought up Palestinian rights while speaking at a Toronto school, he was called antisemitic for IHRA antisemitism definition reasons.
Miscellaneous
https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1441013550672121860?utm_source=pocket_mylist
The Yiddish Book Center's most recent email of works from their online collections, selected by Jennifer Young, is excellent. I wish I understood yiddish so I could read the linked sexual health manual! "As the publisher of Unzer gezunt, Liber believed that it was his role as an intellectual and a medical professional to create freely accessible materials related to sex, sexual diseases, and birth control. People could change their own lives for the better, he believed, only if they had easily accessible knowledge to help them do so." I mean, wow!
In Australia, a recent survey of jewish community workers found a lot of sexism. "Underpinning many of the problems is a pervasive mythology that a communal organisation is 'like a family,' and therefore does not require the formal processes of a professional workplace, the study found," a problem that often shows up in secular nonprofit employment as well.
https://twitter.com/Jewish_Bookery/status/1353734369853255680
While I'm not 100% with the conflation between assimilation and self-hating, this brief highlighted section of Massoud Hayoun's When We Were Arabs about the Alliance Israélite has absolutely moved the book up my to-read list.
Haredi journal Cross Currents published a LGBTQ-positive (including trans-positive, if awkward and still misgendering) editorial. It's a big deal.
LUNAR: The Jewish-Asian Film Project is fundraising for their second season! They've met their goal, so the project is definitely happening, but no harm in giving them a little extra. I am sure they'll do great things with it.
https://twitter.com/beccaliyah/status/1442339233369403397
Kendra Watkins' piece about studying talmud in chevruta with another Black trans Jew is great:
We learn from each other, witness each other’s brilliance, hold each other accountable, and offer each other a soft place to land when the text (and the world it represents) hurts. Together we can reach backwards into our tradition to find tools and strategies, and practice the love and care it takes to move us towards a world liberated from anti-Blackness and transphobia. We know that when we bring ourselves to meet each other and the rabbis in any given text, we aren’t passively receiving a set of laws; far from it. We receive the offerings of our ancestors and offer parts of ourselves in turn, and we are both changed because of it.
If you want to try out chevruta study in a class setting, Shel Maala has a new course coming up about Xanuka! It runs for 8 weeks from 10/17 through 12/5, and is offered on a sliding scale and will have live captioning. If the topic isn't your jam but the learning style is, SVARA's fall classes are also open for registration. And don't forget you can always pick a friend and a text and do the best you can learning and discussing together as you go.
Events!
9/23, 9/30, 10/7 Shmita: Our Radical Ancestral Eco-Justice Solution for a Sustainable Future w/ Rabbi David Seidenberg (suggested donation $18-36, NOTAFLOF)
9/30 Secular Yidishkayt and Social Justice in the US South, with Josh Parshall by Yiddish Book Center
9/30 Don't Ask Don't Pray: Gender Resistance and Sexual Recognition in Reform Jewish Holiday Rituals
10/3 Let it Go, a workshop on shmita & body liberation from New Synagogue Project, Hinenu, and Fat Torah founder Minna Bromberg, PhD
10/3 Isle of Klezbos concert, $10 or free for museum members
10/5 Postmemory, Psychoanalysis and Holocaust Ghost: The Salonica Cohen family and trauma across generations, from Sephardic Digital Academy. (more info available in La Boz Sefaradi newsletter)
10/7, 10/21, 11/4 [Jewish Protection Magic class](Jewish Protection Magic) with Dori Midnight, sliding scale $72-$333
10/10 From Where Do Stories Begin: Reading Montreal Poet Ida Maze. Register here for Rad Yiddish event links and mailing list
10/10, 10/17, 10/24 Mizrachi dance lessons on Moroccan, Bukharian, and Yemenite dance, $10/session
10/12 Race, Religion, and Black Jewish Identity in the Early Twentieth-Century U.S.
10/12 What the Jewish Left Learned from Occupy, from Haymarket Books and Jewish Currents
10/14 Decoding the Mishnah lecture from Mira Balberg
10/26 Burning Bushes: Queer Yiddishism and the lesboerotic, with Mira Schlosberg and Hinde Ena Burstin. (Australia-based, 9 PM PDT)
Jewish Pet of the Week
The Jewish Pet of the Week is Sarah's (of Sarah Day Arts) new dog Santi! His ears are approximately the BEST.
https://twitter.com/sarahdayarts/status/1443395006937534466
<3,
Meli