Elul 5785
Hello friends! The coming month is Elul, which means we are almost at high holy days. I’m not going to put in recommendations for online services in this edition of the newsletter, but if you are looking for a place to go feel free to email me with some details about what you’re looking for and I’ll recommend you some places.
Jewish Calendar
Elul is a month of introspection, of teshuva. I have struggled with it in terms of mental health in past years and am (to be honest) mostly ignoring it this year; it is so, so hard to keep the truth of “i, an imperfect human, have done some things wrong, and need to figure out what they are and atone” in mind with a depression-fueled brain that sees hints of “i am bad” as fuel for mental illness spirals.
It is, nevertheless, a good time to start thinking of the new year, including your jewish calendars for next year, and start planning for the high holy days.
Friend of the jewsletter ada morse is running a class on Rebbe Nachman’s Elul torah, and SVARA has added an elul reader to their library featuring insights from Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, Rabbi Becky Silverstein, Kendra Watkins Saperstein, and more. There’s a couple additional Elul-centric classes linked below as well.
Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and/or Antifascism
Emily Tamkin on Primo Levi made me want to read Primo Levi.
Jewish Currents has been putting several articles worth reading on their site, including Simone Zimmerman’s Rhetoric without Reckoning about why so many liberal zionists seem to have made the turn to criticizing israel at the same time, and what we can do to make this a true community reckoning; and Charisse Burden-Stelly’s Anatomy of a Red Scare, about red scares past and their present analogues.
This article on Middle East scholar Assaf David combines a short biography with his perspectives on the horrors in Gaza and the time since Oct 7th. (unpaywalled archive.is link for non subscribers)
Shane Burley reviews Benjamin Balthaser’s book about the concept of The International Anti-Zionist Jew. I believe I dropped a link or two about the book last month as well, so it may be a bit familiar, but this summary is excellent.
Jonathan Greenblatt has continued being wrongheaded and terrible. I have seen more articles lately pushing back against his leadership of the ADL (archive.is link). It’s something.
“Rather than isolate themselves or leave, Medway’s Jews have defended their existence through coalition-building and communal care. That makes this tiny community of under one thousand Jews a holdout for the Jewish diasporist practices that once flourished across Europe.”
The largest Reconstructionist synagogue is set to cut ties with the denomination over Israel tensions: as Reconstructionist Rabbinical College has become more tolerant of antizionists, core members of the overarching denomination have become less comfortable.
And, last but not least, Jewish Voice for Peace has a Project Esther explainer, including highlighting aspects which have already been enacted by the Trump administration.
Books and Language
LIDER MIT PALESTINE לידער מיט פּאַלעסטינע: New Yiddish Songs of Grief, Fury, and Love was released a few weeks ago by a wide-ranging group of yiddishist musicians and it sounds excellent.
Mordechai Martin writes Crocodile Tears and Laughing Up Your Sleeve: On the affects of Yiddish
Ayin Press has some great-looking books and zines out now, like Shabook Zine all about shabbat, or coming out soon, like Madison Safer’s The Garlic Eaters and The Merging of Two Oceans: Nine Talks on Sufism & Hasidism by Pir Netanel Miles-Yépez.
Judaism Unbound, the class-providing podcast network and all-around cool project set, is putting out a book and associated workbook!
Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple is available for preorder, coming out next April.
Nafshi Ivitikha Balailah (I yearn for you with all my being in the night) — a piyut by Mosheh ben Yaaqov ibn Ezra with rhymed translation by Emma Lazarus. Also poetry on OpenSiddur but quite different: a german/english paraliturgical Aleinu on appreciating the abundance of the world by Rivka Jaussi.
Ben Yehuda Press is kickstarting Midrash Hazak: Torah Wisdom by 70 Over 70, a book of torah portion commentaries full of wisdom from elders.
Where Do Jewish Cookbooks Belong?
Miscellaneous
Disability Torah Project has had some excellent posts lately, including Rabbi Lauren Tuchman’s Torah on the Body and (aqar, masc.!); Possibilities Beyond Absence by Cliel Shdaimah
There’s a new queer jewish personal ads network out there at https://queerjews.com/!
How Orthodox Jewish families are finding ways to support their trans children
Sarah Day Arts closed their shop, but the remaining inventory is available at jewitches including some cute-ass washi tape and necklaces.
“Camp Nitgedaiget is considered the first cooperative proletarian year-round vacation resort in the United States. The resort’s name came from ‘nishtgedeiget,’ the Yiddish phrase for ‘no worries.’”
I liked Religion News Service’s review of the Halachic Left symposium. Did you go, in person or online? What was it like?
Classes and Events
Washington Coalition of Rabbis is running their online intro to judaism class again this year starting in September.
Judaism Unbound’s elul mini-classes look great, featuring such luminaries as Rena Yehuda Newman on comix midrash and Robin Banerji on the siddur. For other elul classes, ada morse is running a class on Rebbe Nachman’s Elul torah on Mondays, and on Wednesdays, there’s a Feminist Perspectives on Teshuva class from Rabbi Avigayil Halpern.
Jewish Women’s Archive is running a Belles and Butches: Jewish Women in the American South class Thursdays in September.
Finally, there’s one of the rare in-person classes or retreats I include in here: a weave your own talit workshop with the Weaver’s Croft in Marshfield, VT.
Events
8/24 Selichot: Seriously Seeking the Divine During The Month of Elul, from Ammud JoC Torah Academy
8/30 Offerings for Solidarity with Cindy Baruch Milstein by Pittsburgh Jewish Zine Fest
9/7, 9/16 Critical Crossroads: In Conversation with Emily Tamkin and Anthony Russell (part 1, part 2)
9/7, 9/30 Kirva’s Teshuvah Workshop for 5786
9/14 125 for 125: Online Yiddish Song Marathon from the Workers Circle
9/16 “The Jewish Problem, Then and Now: Rethinking Louis Brandeis’s Liberalism” symposium from Harvard Law School
Pet of the Month
The pet of the month this month is Pico, cat of Rabbi Emily Cohen, who recently celebrated his Meow Mitzvah!
With love,
Meli