Cheshvan 5784
Welcome to Weird Jewish Digest! I do talk about the war in this one, but there's plenty of other content as well.
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: on 10/14 Bereshit; 10/21 Noach; 10/28 Lech Lecha; and on 11/3 Vayera.
Israel/Palestine
I want you to have some context on what is going on in Israel/Palestine, especially with the amount of heated discussion happening on social media. Here are a few explainers and processing-related links about the recent ongoing violence:
Why did Hamas invade Israel?, Vox explainer
The Hamas Attacks and Israeli Response: An Explainer and “We Cannot Cross Until We Carry Each Other”, both from Jewish Currents
What Does It Mean to Stand With Israel?, Emily Tamkin (Her round-up including left-wing Israeli opinions is also excellent)
Speech and Speechlessness, Talia Lavin
In Gaza and Israel, side with the child over the gun, Naomi Klein
I mourn all involved losses of life. I hope this does not end in genocide but fear it might, as there are calls for eradication of Palestine from those in power. I do not know what to do from afar, besides donate to Medical Aid for Palestinians' emergency appeal or Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders). For self-care advice tailored to this context, see Jay Michaelson's latest post.
As the writer Laila Lalami said on Bluesky, "The occupation is an intolerable crime, and resistance to it is a fundamental right, and murdering civilians is wrong, and collective punishment of an entrapped population is immoral. We live in a world of ands, not ors."
From my link collection prior to these events: Mondoweiss' discussion of Judaism On Our Own Terms, including what the future of antizionist judaism can look like.
Books and language
The Forverts' detailed overview of the YIVO-curated exhibit Palestinian Yiddish, on how yiddish was used in the years prior to (and soon after) the founding of the State of Israel, sounds fascinating, especially the linguistic interactions between the Jews who spoke Arabic and the ones who spoke Yiddish.
In Geveb has a number of fascinating articles lately, ranging from Ain’t No Party Like a Shnorer Party: The Wild and Short Life of a Literary Support Group to an interview with the founder of shund.org.
Max K. Strassfeld wrote about his book Trans Talmud on Ancient Jew Review in Transing the Talmud or Reading the Talmud "Badly". Though the analogousness of these rabbinical gender or intersex categories to contemporary transness is not universally accepted, they're definitely an interesting window to investigating how the ancient rabbis considered gender and sex categories.
For a much older book, Rabbanit Dr. Liz Shayne writes on Finding Justice in Jonah, on the story of Jonah and autism.
Food
Vittles Magazine has a number of fascinating articles in their British Jewish Food Week, including The Shop, about a cypriote family's quintessential jewish deli, and Where Has All the Tchulent Gone? The changing tastes of orthodox Jewish Manchester, as well as one about the "Ottolenghi-ification" of Jewish Food, as "MiddleEastMediLevantia" replaces traditional Ashkenazi-inspired options.
You can put pretty much anything in a grape leaf and I'll eat it, but this recipe from Susan Barocas for lemony rice yaprakas is classic.
Miscellaneous
Sometimes a link will send you down a weird little research rabbit hole. For me, this happened when OpenSiddur shared the 1925 Jewish Science and Health: Textbook of Jewish Science. Jewish science, it turns out, is like Christian Science, Church of Christ Scientist, Mary Baker Eddy, that whole thing, with a key difference: Jewish Science does not forbid medical care. It was led by the "first Jewish American woman with a pulpit" from 1948 to 1972. For more on that woman, Tehilla Lichtenstein, check out her entry on Jewish Women's Archive! Jewish Science-related groups still exist today, though often no longer called that; a 1991 LA Times article offers a view of the west coast contingent.
Wax, Hide, and Gall: Jewish Ancestral Crafts are Making a Comeback in the U.S.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is at it again (complimentary) with this excellently detailed timeline of judaism from 1200 BCE through 1886. I don’t think I realized until reading through it how close in time Sabbatai Zvi and the Baal Shem Tov were.
Canadian readers might be particularly interested in new newsletter The Shtetl Crier, which features Canadian and online events.
While The Religion of Reproductive Rights Claims: The Jewish Fight to Legalize Abortion is the only explicitly jewish article in the revealer's Religion of Reproductive Rights series, several are worth reading.
The Queer Mikveh Project is hiring a remote admin coordinator and community organizer!
Trans Rabbi Elliot Kukla tells his story to queer website them.us, and gay orthodox Rabbi Rabbi Shua Brick was profiled in The Forward--including noting that Rabbi Brick did not comment on same-sex relationships and halacha, and that he does not perform weddings or conversions, and that some of the support behind him is contingent on him remaining celibate. Still, it's something.
Society of Rafa ━ A Heartfelt TTRPG of Healing & Spirits is fundraising on Kickstarter with only a few days left!
Classes and events
Class series
The Sheydy Bunch: a Halloween Talmud Series on Amulets & the Demons Next Door, from Shel Maala, looks amazing! It starts Oct 22nd and runs through November 19th.
Jewish Women in the Medieval World is a four-session series (Nov 2-30th) of lectures about, well, Jewish women in the medieval world from Jewish Women's Archive.
SVARA's The Unrecognizable Jewish Future conversation series from Oct 15th-29th covers Reading Ourselves into History, Creating New Precedents, and Seeding What's Next.
Mitsui Collective has a 3-day foundations course on embodied Jewish learning and practice on Oct 30th, Nov 20th, and Dec 18th.
The Workers Circle is running a class on Yiddish Culture and The Jewish Labor Movement: 1880s-1960s from Oct 23rd through Nov 16th.
Jewish Farmer Network's Torah of Farming Fall 2023 course runs for 7 weeks starting on Nov 7th, for anyone who is jewish and "a current, lapsed, or aspiring farmer".
Events
10/15 Fighting Fascism: A Symposium on Jewish Responses From the Interwar Period to the Present Day, from American Jewish Historical Society
10/24-25 Rising Tide Gathering 2023: Elu v’Elu, Both/And: Multiplicity in Mikveh
10/25 Yiddish and Ladino: Forking Paths, a talk from Ilan Stavans
10/30 Jewish Magic from Greece to Galicia, featuring Dr. Devin Naar and Olivia Devorah Tucker
11/1 Getting Started with Jewish Studies Research at The New York Public Library, including an overview of the library's online tools available to everyone
11/1 Woman, Rabbi, History Maker: Tracing Religious Leadership Through Life Stories; panel discussion with Hebrew College and Jewish Women's Archive (more info)
11/4 Radical Jewish History: The Rise and Fall of the Ladino Left with Prof. Devin Naar, from New Synagogue Project
Pet of the Month
The Jewish Pet of the Month this month is Vienna, a little noodle-legged baby dog!
As always, thanks for reading!
<3
Meli