Elul 5784
Hello everyone! Honestly, there are so many links I could have added to the newsletter this week I just didn’t have time to review first. It’s a busy time for me.
My next newsletter will have some options for high holy days online; if your shul has online options and you want it featured here, or if you know of / recommend any place in particular, reply to this email!
Jewish Calendar
Elul, the month of cheshbon hanefesh (soul searching), has historically been a burden on my (ever-critical, depression-prone) mind; but this year I feel clearer and more able to function. We’ll see how the month itself goes, but I’ve been taking a musar class via Kirva and it’s been mildly life-changing as far as how I approach both soul-searching and the next step of accountability; the approach to sharing in our class is one of communal loving accountability, which balances (or attempts to!) the loving gentle side with actual accountability; it is so much better than the self-castigation i tend to find (or invent, if it’s not present) in a musar or elul context. Teachers matter; community matters. My group is focused on disability wisdom, but an antiracism-focused cohort will be starting in September and I’m sure that will be at least as good. If you want a seasonally appropriate taste of Kirva with less of a commitment, they’ve got a two-part teshuva workshop.
On a more literal jewish calendar note, the Radical Jewish Calendar for 5785 is available, as are probably other jewish calendars! Don’t forget to order yours in time.
Israel/Palestine and Antisemitism
As I write this newsletter, I feel pieces of myself chafe against the boundaries of politics, as I spent the third week in August surrounded (digitally) by people following every minute of the DNC and also people morally opposed to it for pro-Palestine reasons. The Forward continued this division, profiling a Jewish member of Uncommitted while also focusing on Jewish unity inside the DNC itself (or is the American Jewish Zionist consensus collapsing?). Here is the speech Uncommitted wanted to give, if they’d been given a speaking slot, and while we’re in politics mode an excellent piece about Walz’s past as a holocaust educator.
I don’t consider college campuses my business, but if you do check out this Antisemitism on Campus: Understanding Hostility to Jews and Israel report, which shows that the group of students hostile to jews and the group of students hostile to israel barely overlap.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to allow insufficient food entry to Gaza, causing the population to go hungry, and their military recently began fervent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank as well.
As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel, writes Omar Bartov.
I highly recommend reading Fantasy, Faith, and Despair in the West Bank, in which Aron Wander covers hope as well as despair, for this world and the next.
Books and Language
The Radical Bubbelahs zine is available for download or print! It is “[a]n anthology of 15 Jewish comrades telling their stories, and sharing art of how they came to be the radical bubbelahs they are today.”
Friend of the Jewsletter Maia Brown wrote a tkhine for returning to a place after generations in yiddish and english. I am a sucker for any reference to the psalms of (the sons of) korach, so I extra like this. “zol mayn tsurik’ker zayn far a tiḳḳun”: let my return be a repair indeed.
Trandescantia UK has a post about using the name of the plant sometimes called wandering jew.
Dwell in Revolution: Ancestors for a Judaism Beyond Zionism is a collected zine/art project focusing on our anti-zionist jewish ancestors around the world, aimed specifically at enriching the custom of inviting ancestral guests in for Sukkot.
“Kol Tzedek is proud to share a new prayerbook, P’tach Libi: A Siddur for Shabbat and Festival Mornings. It includes full Hebrew liturgy and full transliteration, as well as gender-inclusive and gender-neutral language for both the davener and the Divine.”
Check out Benjamin Rosenbaum’s “The Ghost and the Golem”, an interactive novel / text-based game set in spring of 1881.
Miscellaneous
One of my favorite mutuals on Jewish Bluesky (Jewsky, I suppose) passed away since the last newsletter went out: Tikkun Olamunist, aka Jeremy Gross. Baruch Dayan haEmet.
Halachic Left put out a shul organizing toolkit, which looks like it’ll be plenty useful for those of us on the less-halachic left also.
I am always here for stories of the relationship between jews and cafes (as I wrote much of this week’s entry in a café!)
From Fear to Awe: A Spiritual Journey towards Hopeful Politics, writes Rabbi Sandra Lawson
Rabbi Lauren Tuchman writes Disability as Beloved by G-d for lilith magazine, about ableism in religious communities and building better options.
Events
Judaism Unbound is starting a series of monthly Friday Night zoom events focusing on kabbalat shabbat, one prayer at a time. They also have a collection of three session mini-classes starting this September, including one on hasidism and neohasidism from a Gashmius founder
Aron Wander is teaching an online Intro to Judaism course through Hebrew College.
The Torah Studio is running a great-looking series on feminist torah called Our Torah, Ourselves on Thursdays this September!
Yosef Rosen is running an Art of Kabbalah course this Sept-Oct.
9/4 TransHallel
9/4 Jewish Zine Fest
9/4 Virtual Song Circle: The Song is in the Field with Aly Halpert
9/9 Matir Asurim Info Session & New Member Orientation
9/9-9/23 (weekly) Rabbi Sarah Bracha Gershuny on Life, Death and the Days of Awe
9/9-9/25 Sacred Time and Liminal Space: Ashkenazi Folk Magic at the Threshold class with Rokhl Kafrissen
9/12 Radical Yiddish Games Night
9/15 Jewish Currents Live (will be streamed to digital ticket-holders, per the FAQ)
9/15 In Every Tongue: Finding Your Voice in the Torah of Translation
9/15-9/16 Kavod v’Nichum's 22nd Annual Chevra Kadisha Conference, for “anyone curious about Jewish end-of-life rituals and practices”
9/17 In the Footsteps of the Jews of Greece
9/18, 9/26 Kirva’s Teshuvah Workshop 5785
Sept 2024-Feb 2025 Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out cohort through Kirva, a group bringing together Musar and social justice
Sept 2024-May 2025 Washington Coalition of Rabbis online Intro to Judaism Class
11/3-11/17 Queer Yiddish Camp!
Jewish Pet of the Month
The Jewish Pets of the Month are my parents’ dogs, Jake (not pictured) and Elwood (on my lap below). Yes, they’re named after the Blues Brothers, and they are wiggly and adorable dachshund-beagle mixes.
That’s all! see you next time.
Meli