Kislev 5785
Welcome to the jewsletter for Kislev, month of the big winter holidays!
First, an apology for a mistake I made in the last newsletter: I said Tzedek Chicago was part of the congregations purging anti-zionists from their staff, when I meant Mishkan Chicago. It was a brain-slip mistake and i’m sorry.
Jewish Calendar: Kislev/Chanukah
The next jewsletter will go out mid-Chanukah, since chanukah straddles the months of Kislev and Tevet. In any case, don’t forget to buy your candles and/or gelt in time, or your happy honk sweatshirt!
Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and Antifascism
If Jewish unity means accepting bigotry and dehumanization, count me out, writes friend of the jewsletter Larry Yudelson. Why must we bend, again, to the right to include conservatives in the big tent, with all their horrible rhetoric and hatefulness? let’s not.
Religion News Service covered Halachic Left, a primarily American movement of halacha-following Jews who support the end of the occupation and “a just and equitable future for Israelis and Palestinians.” They put out Jewish tradition-rooted and text-based supplements also grounded in human rights and a weekly dvar via email if you sign up on their website.
Full disclosure, I have not read either of these links; but if you are curious about how conservative efforts to fight antisemitism are Bad For The Jews, check out Emily Tamkin (on Trump) and Dove Kent (on Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther), both in The Forward.
I’ve decided due to political nonsense to add an occasional antifascism section to this big downer of a header. Some of these are explicitly Jewish but others might not be.
Don’t Just Do Nothing: 20 Things You Can Do to Counter Fascism: Jewish Anarchists share their zine on It’s Going Down’s blog
Elad Nehorai wrote about slow community resistance work
Interdependence is a Survival Skill, But Shouldn’t Feel Like Building a Bunker
Books and Language
Siddur Tatir Tz’ruah, an anti-zionist/diasporist with a traditional liturgy base and full transliteration, is crowdfunding on indiegogo with generous sliding scale rates! I’ve ordered myself a copy to enhance my afternoon/evening davening experiences.
Rabbi Abby Stein’s next book, Sources of Pride: Jewish views on gender and sexuality anthologized from Biblical, Talmudic, Midrashic, Rabbinic, and Chassidic sources with contemporary and personal commentary, is up for pre-order from Ben Yehuda Press.
Ezra Rose put together a beautiful business card sized amulet for trans and gender nonconforming travelers, based on a prayer in tefilat trans and traditional hebrew amulets
A prayer for trans justice by Rabbi Emily Aviva Kapor-Mater
Jewish YA author Sacha Lamb was interviewed by Julia Goldberg in The Pen Ten. It was cool reading about the process of writing and publishing such a Judaism-inflected book as The Forbidden Book.
Corbin Allardice’s semi-bilingual Poems from the Jewish are beautiful.
In Geveb's book reviews are always solid, including this Review of Horizons Blossom, Borders Vanish: Anarchism and Yiddish Literature by Anna Elena Torres and Zackary Sholem Berger’s language-centric coverage of Seidman’s Freud.’
Let’s learn about incantation bowls through a review of Seder Mazikin: Law and Magic in Late Antique Jewish Society!
Miscellaneous
The Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF will be closed for at least the coming year, since Jewish community funders moved their money around to double-down on Israel and counter antisemitism in the wake of Oct 7th. The result is a community-level embarrassment, as far as I’m concerned (and as far as David Wilensky is concerned). In other diaspora Jewish museum news: Poland’s Jewish museum marks its first decade, made tumultuous by politics.
A Brief History of the Many Times Jewish Theater Has Been Censored, from Sheldon Skoboloff in HeyAlma
Many years ago, David Shiffman had a Star Trek themed bar mitzvah.
Em Habanim’s amazing transfeminist neohasidus covering Kohelet 7:26-28 is amazing.
Shopping
Jewitches’ store is having a 20% off everything sale with code 2025. They’ve got candles, they’ve got jewelry, they’ve got stickers…
Sarah Day Arts is also having a big sale, and per instagram will be potentially going into a different business mode at the end of the year, so get your stuff soon!
Yiddish Book Center has some cute hand-printed chanukah cards
What is Neuroqueer Torah? asks The Autistic Rabbi(nical student), covering and incorporating various luminaries of “outsider torah” traditions into a new approach centering neurodivergence and queerness.
Events
If you’ve got Sundays open in December, friend of the jewsletter ada morse will be teaching for Shel Maala. The class is called In Every Tongue: Finding Your Voice in the Torah of Translation. There’s also the Trans Halacha Project / Shel Maala crossover lecture series Be Fruity! And Multiply?
The Yiddish Book Center has put information on the next section of their yiddish classes online. If biblical hebrew is more your jam, check out Biblical Hebrew for Everyone, which is two semesters of classes starting in January. You’d get to learn with me as a fellow student!
12/1 The Critical Mythology of Yiddishland with Dr. Avia Moore (of KlezKanada), “explor[ing] the complex and layered meanings of the term Yiddishland”
12/2 Rosh Chodesh Kislev Trans Hallel
12/3 Opening Doors: The Unlikely Alliance Between the Irish and the Jews in America: a book talk with Hasia R. Diner in conversation with Terry Golway.
12/3 Songs for the Heart: A Kislev Song Circle with Aly Halpert, from Rabbis for Ceasefire
12/8 UW Ladino day, featuring a talk on “The Familiar” with Author Leigh Bardugo
12/18 “Rimonim” Virtual Book Launch with author Aurora Levins Morales and Mónica Gomery
2/2-2/3 Bad Yiddish Farbindungen yiddish studies conference
Pet of the Month
Today’s Pet of the Month is Dima, animal companion of E. J. Pryor!
Until next time,
<3
Meli