August 5, 2022

Devarim

Hello friends! Great to see you.

Jewish Calendar

Devarim

We start the last book of the torah this week! Devarim (meaning words or things or stuff) is a much better name for it than Deuteronomy.

It has been forty years since our heroes left Mitzrayim. Moshe, and by extension Hashem, has some last reminders and storytelling and lecturing to do. Kind of a lot of all of that, actually. Makes me think about a couple young israelites standing in the crowd being like "it's. it's right there. i can see it." "just let the old guy have one last run, ok?" I have to put myself in this mode because honestly hearing about someone else's road trip for the second time is not as interesting as having been there yourself, even a really important generation long pilgrimage road trip.

Mourning in Summer

This sunday marks Tisha b'Av. It's a day for grappling with loss and death and violence, and senseless hatred (sinat chinam) which was (theoretically) at fault for the destruction of the temple in the first place.

Tisha b'Av is a fast day. If you struggle with not fasting, whether you shouldn't for medical reasons or something else (not my business!), check out A Mitzvah To Eat and/or their recent writeup in EJewishPhilanthropy.

Speaking of Sefaria, they've recently uploaded a complete translation of eicha rabba, a rabbinic commentary on Lamentations, which is read on (you guessed it) Tisha b'Av.

There are many kinot, sad-beautiful lamenting song poems, about atrocities the Jewish people have faced over the centuries: most are about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, yes, but there are also some recounting the expulsion from spain in 1942 and other events. Speaking of the Romans, Yeshiva University's library has a very cool photo of three rabbis observing tisha b'av at the arch of titus in rome in 1926, casting a hope-for-the-future gloss onto the holiday, a contemporary version of which reappears in Xava de Cordova's drash on Makkot 24b.

Israel and Antisemitism

There was another airstrike in Gaza this morning, following a pattern of them occurring shortly before Israeli elections. At least eight people died as a result, including a young child. I have nothing to say about this, just a profound sadness at the unnecessary loss of life.

Antisemitism

During Hungary prime minister Viktor Orban's CPAC speech he blamed nazism on people not being Christian enough. Sure don't like that or its implications.

Bigots keep distributing antisemitic flyers in residential neighborhoods, most recently in Nashville, TN. In January of this year there was a round of them in Denver, Miami, and San Francisco; in April, Highland Park, Illinois (yes, that one); in July in the Twin Cities in Minnesota; and also this week in Vermont.

I do not know what we--big we, meaning regular people, jews and nonjews, who see this as horrible and derogatory--can do about this besides point out that it's bad, and trash any we see around. What an anemic response!

I do have a better idea of how to use education to counter antisemitism in a very different kind of space though. Ezra Rose has a new zine out called Fuck Your Magic Antisemitism about the antisemitism endemic to western occultism. I highly recommend it. Full disclosure: i did a little bit of editing work and am in the acknowledgements as a result. Pay what you want, including $0, and let me know if you want me to irreverently edit your zine.

Miscellaneous

The Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People kickstarter is SO close to being funded with ten days left! c'mon! buy a book!

The Workers' Circle's recent Yiddish Abortion Stories event is up on Youtube!

Events!

8/6 Eicha (The Book of Lamentations) Reading with Disability Justice Torah Circle

8/7 Tisha b'Av observed

8/7 Women's Megillah Reading: Eicha/Lamentations

8/7 Kinnot (Dirges/Elegies) Workshop with Disability Justice Torah Circle

8/7 Tisha B'Av and Queer Grief with Jaime S. K. Starr. LGBTQIA+ folks only.

8/9-8/11 Jewish Zine Fest

8/11 Tu b'Av Cabaret (register here)

8/12 African-Jewish Cooking: A Cultural Crossroads with Culinary Historian Michael W. Twitty

8/28 A Time to Embrace-Songs of Comfort & Hope from Ramon Tasat

Jewish Pet of the Week

This is Percy! He recently moved in with Brin, who posted this lovely photo:

<3

Meli