May 6, 2022

Kedoshim

Welcome back jewsletter friends! I missed you last week but it was also nice to have a break. This week we have: holiness (whatever that means), @swordsjew being badass, Yiddishland Pavilion, and a cat named Bubbe.

CN: abortion talk, bad politics

Jewish Calendar

Parshat Kedoshim

Be holy like Hashem is holy. There is a lot we could dig into here. Some of the guidelines in the parsha have aged better than others. There are no more well-being offerings at The Temple, but leaving the gleanings of the field for the poor and prompt payment of wages are clearly still relevant in our world, and love your neighbor as yourself (which i say every morning I daven) will forever be relevant. Also maybe don't be a necromancer.

And then there's the sex stuff, including one of the notorious anti-gay verses. And several death penalties. Ah, Leviticus.

I do think the initial exhortation to be holy like Hashem is holy has something to it, though. What that means is up in the air. I have sometimes considered it to include practicing creation, or creative arts, in the realms available to us. Or responsible shepherding of ourselves, other people, nonhuman creatures, as in the sefirah of malchut, or maybe work to embody the other sefirot.

What do you think?

Omer counting

I have a daily email reminder that will send you the text of the blessing along with something about that day's sefirot. It looks like it's getting caught in a lot of spam filters and I'm very sorry about that. Please tell your spam filter it's not spam.

There's options on instagram too, including one for chronically ill/disabled jews and another centering queer jews, or some wonderful daily art.

Abortion, Antisemitism, and Israel-Related Topics

Well, a draft from the supreme court aiming to cut down abortion access and hinting at several other rights was leaked. Many of us responded by donating or raising money for abortion funds while tweeting through it, but none as expertly as @swordsjew Talia Lavin living up to her username and opening a champagne bottle with a sabre after raising $20k+ in donations to a Mississippi abortion fund.

Judaism allows for abortion in many cases, and declares it the best possible option when the pregnant person's life is at risk. Jezebel has a pretty good piece quoting various Jewish leaders about abortion, including rabbis from multiple denominations, and a group of orthodox rabbis put together an open letter speaking out against Oklahoma's anti-abortion bill.

Hey remember when a conservative (politics not movement) jew did a whole "how would G-d vote" book in the early 2000s and tried to bend everything around to his principles? Larry Yudelson and Yori Hanover wrote a rebuttal to it that is briefly free on kindle. Yudelson is an absolute mensch from what i've seen online, and he has a great thread on twitter talking about the book, including how it also fits this political moment.

In other news, Jonathan Greenblatt is embarrassing and incorrect. Antisemitism can and sometimes does exist on the left; but antizionism is not antisemitism, and supporting Palestinians is not a reflected image example of right-wing white supremacy.

Miscellaneous

Last week's Bandcamp Daily was about klezmer! Yay!

There was some great internet stuff for may day too, like this RaDR thread on Judaism and labor rights, or this pamphlet about Yiddish anarchist poet David Edelstadt.

Check out some VERY cool jewish vampire art on instagram.

Ma Nishtana: Why is this Night Different?, a Passover-themed TTRPG, has met its kickstarter goal. You still have 8 days to pre-order a copy or otherwise support it!

If you have also been enjoying the HECK out of Our Flag Means Death, feel free to message me about how much you love it (because I extremely do also), and more relevantly you might appreciate listening to Jess Nevins' Encyclopedist podcast episode about Jewish Pirates.

Appealing to a higher authority: why cannabis provides a unique opportunity for the kosher industry

I relate deeply to Canan Bolel's Me, Myself, and I (and Marginal Bodies of Ottoman Jews), which I saw shared on facebook recently.

"To be both Black and Jewish is to hear two stories of a Paradise both loved and lost," writes Tova Harris for JoC Initiative

I love Yiddishland Pavilion, an online art exhibit centering around ideas of Yiddishland: A Country Whose Language Has No Military Terminology.

Classes coming up

• Jewish Anarchist Salon, a series of talks and discussions, every other Sunday 3/13-5/15 (drop-in)

• Unyeshiva mini classes (3 weeks each, 5/16-6/5). Isaiah, Karaites, psychedelics, gender, whatever.

• SVARA classes, including summer talmud zman 6/14-7/21

Events!

5/10 Italian Opera for the Yiddish-Speaking Masses in Early 20th-Century America – Pt. 5: Why Promote Italian Opera Via the Mame-loshn?

5/10, 5/12: "Does the United States Have a Jewish Question?" and "Belonging in Question: Jews in the American Civic and Legal Imagination" lectures from Lila Corwin Berman

5/12 Tsvelf far Ukraine: A 12-hour Yiddish Music and Spoken Word Concert

5/15 Jewish Queer Languages

5/18 Moving Through The Omer: An Online Workshop with Mark Horn, from Romemu's online queer kehilla

5/15-5/27 Queer Yiddish Camp, an online intensive, 5/15-5/27. More info at the website.

5/25 Multilingual Jewish Prayer Throughout History: Performance and Analysis

6/7-6/10 Yidstock

6/12-6/14 Kavod v'Nichum North American Chevrah Kadisha and Jewish Cemetery Conference

Jewish Pet of the Week

The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Bubbe! Look at her sheyne punim.

Shabbat shalom!

<3

Meli