Iyar 5785
Hello friends! I am having a bit of a struggle week so my goal is to get something out that has the bones of a good email in it, and hopefully if you’re reading this I’ve succeeded. I’ve let myself skip some more horrific stories in the Israel/Palestine and Antisemitism section as part of this; if you want to really stay on top of things you’ll have to get your news elsewhere.
Jewish Calendar
Rosh Chodesh Iyar is my hebrew birthday! Holidays for this month include pesach sheni (we love a second chance to share vintage lesbian seder graphics or make your own gefilte fish) and Lag baOmer, a break in the semi-mourning that is the omer count featuring a bonfire party and some haircuts.
Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and/or Antifascism
There have been at least two recent antisemitism audits, one from the ADL (i’m linking to a criticism) and one from Tel Aviv University. If I had the spare brain space i’d do an in-depth comparison of the two—definitions, results, scope, etc—but who has brain space these days?
Survey says: Jews don’t like Trump. (Except for some nasty right-wing exceptions.) We don’t like what he’s doing about antisemitism, we don’t like his policies, we just plain don’t like him. We know this from our actions protesting, our organizations’ statements and coalitions (though Jewish Federations didn’t like that) but it’s nice to know from the survey too.
As one of the Trump administration’s many bad ideas, they recently contacted a bunch of Barnard employees to find out 1) if they’re jewish 2) their political views 3) if they’ve experienced antisemitism on campus. “‘The federal government reaching out to our personal cellphones to identify who is Jewish is incredibly sinister,’ said Barnard associate professor Debbie Becher, who is Jewish and received the text.”
Jon Danforth-Appel writes in Jewish Currents: Is “Not In Our Name” Jewish organizing around Palestine inflating our culpability as Jews—and downplaying our complicity as Americans? I don’t think I agree but I do think it’s worth discussing what degree of our complicity is from being Jewish Americans rather than Americans in general.
Elad Nehorai writes on detangling antisemitism from anti-palestinian hate.
On the antifascist side of things, I appreciate Talia Levin’s most recent newsletter entry, Disability, Eugenics, and the Value of Human Life, which affirms disabled existence and worth in a deeply fulfilling way while being real about the struggle to exist in a country whose administration doesn’t want you to exist, never mind thrive.
Books and Language
In Geveb is turning ten years old! Throw ‘em a bit of money if you’ve got spare.
Radical Ziskeit zine has a call for work submissions!
Jewish Poetry Project has a buy 2 get one free sale on. You can check out some samples in this bluesky thread.
In other poetry news, a friend introduced me to the work of Rabbi Irwin Keller recently, particularly his book Shechinah at the Art Institute, “part memoir and part poetry collection”, which looks amazing.
The Em haBanim, a transfeminine neohasid, has a collection of prayers related to vaginoplasty, including preparation and recovery, up on OpenSiddur.
Folky yiddishist group (and friend of the jewsletter) Brivele has a new album out 5/1! Titled Khaveyrim Zayt Greyt and released through Borscht Beat, it sounds like it is going to be great.
Miscellaneous
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg did a whole overview of tzedek tzedek tirdof in her newsletter recently, including a highlight reel of ways the United States has been, uh, not doing that. “as we think about the process of seeking justice, it must always be done in just ways”: imagine a better world, then live it into existence.
A variety of very smart people have been writing about freedom and liberation, or exile and diaspora, or other similar-yet-different pairs of concepts but honestly I only had those two (though they do also interweave conceptually).
The latest in articles about where-Jews-used-to-be tourism is Salonika (Thessaloniki, Greece)!
Events and Classes
Check out Rabbi Avigayil Halpern’s upcoming Queer Niddah online course!
4/28 TransHallel Rosh Chodesh Iyar
4/28 Oral Histories of the Soviet Jewish Diaspora in the US, 1973-1980, a lecture
4/28 From Contraction to Expansion: Jewish Spiritual Tools for Fighting Authoritarianism and Antisemitism
4/29 Jews and the KKK: Antisemitism, Vigilantism, and Resistance
5/8 The Quality of Mercy — Act I workshop, “An operatic re-telling of The Merchant of Venice thru a queer and Jewish lens” by friend of the jewsletter brin solomon (support this production via crowdfund here)
5/8 Jewish and Christian Women Desiring Women in the Early Roman Empire, part of UW Stroum Lectures: Jewish Women in Antiquity: Untold Stories of Leadership, Enslavement, and Desire. Both lectures look great but I am not certain the 5/6 lecture will be available on zoom.
5/8 “Bringing ‘Tikkun Olam’ to the South: New York Jews in the Civil Rights Movement” lecture
5/8 Sephardic Public Figures in the Argentine and Brazilian Left: Revisiting an Entangled History, the last in a Sephardi Modernities seminar series
Pet of the Month
The pet of the month for Iyar is Rohini, pictured here celebrating her human Annette Yoshiko Reed’s Guggenheim Fellowship!
With love,
Meli