Mishpatim
Hello! there is something different this week--I received a lovely offer to sponsor an issue of this newsletter!
This week's newsletter is sponsored by A Haggadah Of Our Own, Thursday Bram's lovely Pesach haggadah. The haggadah options include an edition specially suited to screenreaders, and all hebrew is transliterated. There is also a host's guide included with wide-ranging background on traditions of the seder as well as the choices that went into this particular haggadah, along with the expected logistical guidance on hosting. I offered to include it for free and she still wanted to give me money, so you know it's good stuff.
If you have any strong feelings about my accepting and disclosing sponsorships for my work here, or are interested in sponsoring an individual issue, let me know.
It is the 30th of Shevat today, and rosh chodesh Adar. I don't quite know why rosh chodesh is two days but it is sometimes. It is also lunar new year! Here are a list of resources from Bechol Lashon including explanations of the holiday and articles about it from Asian jews. Their Lunar short film conversations sound fascinating.
This shabbat, while we read the many rules and mitzvot of parshat Mishpatim, is also Repro Shabbat. In addition to services, there's text study opportunities galore and a reproductive freedom havdalah with a speaker who served as regional chaplain for Planned Parenthood for 16 years.
This scan is from a collection of protectives and amulets and I think it's neat.
A Jewish writer writes about jewish writing.
The Sephardic community lost multiple elders recently, including Flory Jagoda and two members of the Sassoon family. As a result I've seen several articles about Ladino float by. The Jewish community also lost powerful union organizer Karen Lewis. May all their memories be a blessing. I hope none of you have to use this, but there is now a platform for making remote shiva easier.
Artist Meredith Gould has some beautiful hamsas and mezuzahs for sale on her etsy, including this one:
Jewish Currents put together an extensively researched article about the ADL (and a behind the scenes interview with its authors), specifically focusing on conflicts between its social justice aims and its uncompromising support for the state of Israel and how these have intensified in the post-Foxman era. The general gist here is not new, but it's a good summation of the issues including thoughts from social justice advocates within the ADL and those outside it who have been criticizing the group for a long time.
In a strange coincidence of timing, I also just listened to the judaism unbound episode about Jewish Liberation Fund, a group hoping to cover some obvious gaps in who gets funded by larger jewish philanthropic organizations. I have mixed feelings about the role of nonprofits, but in the meantime they are a way to get money from point A to point B, and I like this group's point B's. Particularly (from their vision statement):
[A]cross the American Jewish philanthropic landscape, within Federations and within many family and community foundations, the norm has become to institute policies that limit funding to organizations and projects that adhere to an anti-BDS[1], Zionist political framework, within their own work and among the organizations with which they partner. These policies and practices do not simply impact organizations doing work within the Israel/Palestine sphere; they have widespread silencing, alienating, oppressive, and divisive effects, sending the message to communal leaders and members that they are unwelcome within the Jewish community unless they adhere to a particular political analysis.
Who wants to sing along to "a historical repatriation of 'El Dyo Alto,' or 'Kantika de Noche de Alhad'"?
There is always room to make Jewish community more accessible.
And now, events. Special thank you to friend of the jewsletter freygl gertovski for sending me a list of several left-inclined jewish purimshpils, all included below.
2/15 Are Comics Jewish?, a Jewish Currents event with Dr. Julia Alekseyeva, Matt Lubchansky, Eli Valley, and moderator Abraham Riesman.
2/16 Protests, Panthers, and Politics: Rethinking Blackness in Israel from Brandeis. Zoom registration link
2/17 Resource Generation, a group of rich young adults trying to ethically become less so, is having an event about the relationship between zionism and philanthropy.
2/19 Urban Adamah and Wilderness Torah Kabbalat Shabbat, if you’re looking for “song, poetry, meditation, and prayer” to bring in Shabbat
2/21 Kehilla is putting on an event about Building Anti-Racist Jewish Community
2/22 ALEPH (the Alliance for Jewish Renewal) is having a webinar about the ecological roots of Pesach.
2/22 Rebecca Pierce and Anthony Russell talk about the experience of being Black and Jewish.
2/24 premiere broadcast of 'I am Jewish: Honouring Black Jewish Experiences'
2/25 we have PURIM!
JOFA women-led megillah reading. Non-facebook sign-up here. (evening 2/25 and morning 2/26)
Megillah Across Brooklyn service and megillah reading with short family friendly pre-party (fb link)
Egal sephardi international online megillah reading
Shushan Rise Up: A Purim Celebration “Olam Hadash: A Whole New World, A Very Howard Ashman Purim Special”, includes megillah reading and shpil https://www.kol-tzedek.org/purim.html
“P7: Preposterous Pandemic Post Patriarchal Prophetic Purim Portal”
"Doikayt Now! A Purimshpiel for the Current Moment” zoom signup link
Kadima (my shul when I go to offline shul) is doing a low-stim (= no yelling, no graggers) multilingual megillah reading where people read the different chapters in many different languages. Details available on the kadima calendar.
2/27 Purim: weekend edition
3/7-3/9 KlezNorth, a UK-based klezmer festival
3/11 https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/event/3-11-talk-israel-through-a-colored-lens/
3/17-8/31 Folklore of Ashkenaz YIVO class
The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Boots! Check out these glorious stripes.
Whew! There was a lot of stuff this week, huh? See you next time,
<3
Meli