Naso
Hello everyone! This week we read parshat naso. More census-ing, some rituals, the birkat kohanim. You know, the one with the Spock hands. (Yes, I know Nimoy got it from Judaism, not the other way around.)
https://twitter.com/BL_HebrewMSS/status/1395769722961018889
CW: antisemitism, anti-Palestinian violence, war crimes, police violence, frank honesty about my political opinions
Lately, Israel has been doing violence against Palestinians and Hamas has been bombing Israel. There was a ceasefire, but it was broken by Israeli police attacking Al Aqsa mosque on a Friday again. One of the instigating factors for this wave of violence is a rash of evictions in East Jerusalem. The city of jerusalem has been a multiethnic multireligious place for thousands of years. When Jerusalem is not that, it's because someone kicked a lot of people out of their homes and sometimes out of Israel in general, which is bad, and has happened to the Jews in a really big way, and it's sucked, and we have written about it a lot, based foundational aspects of our culture on it even. I support Palestinians in their fight to end apartheid, and I support the israelis that stand with them in favor of this goal. #SaveSheikhJarrah and institute Palestinian right of return.
https://twitter.com/papertigerx_/status/1394165792040787970
There's been demonstrations of support around the world for Palestinian freedom, but unfortunately various randos have been doing antisemitism and blaming it on that context. The vast majority of Palestinians, including movement leaders, are not antisemitic and do not condone violence against Jews. Instead, it is much more likely that the current violence in the middle east is being used as an excuse by right-wing antisemites (at least in the US--I'm less plugged into antisemitism causes elsewhere). As always, be critical of framing and context in accounts of violence against jews.
https://twitter.com/TinySnekComics/status/1392518674322448386
Seeing more diaspora jews speak out against Israeli apartheid, and against Israeli violence, and about their own experiences of unlearning zionism, has been a tiny faint silver lining amidst the horror. It's okay for your feelings to be complicated about this. It's okay to both love and hate israel, especially if you can separate eretz yisrael--the land, with all its history and context--from medinat yisrael, the current state governing Israel. It's okay to process those feelings with your loved ones, and with books and articles, and to come out somewhere differently than where I stand, politically. But do watch or look at or read at least one thing by a Palestinian about their experiences, ok?
https://twitter.com/sheydgarden/status/1393975433935396871
The Nib has several relevant comics lately, including this extremely cute queer singing telegram story and a strip about Israel BS that touches on several frustrations I share. If you share my love for nonfiction comics, you can also buy a book about someone confronting zionism during a Birthright trip or an educational book about Palestine published in 1996.
While outlets like the NYT are considered harsh on Israel, actually, based on outside quantitative analysis, their writing shows bias against Palestine and Palestinians.
Google has an internal employee group of antizionist jews and I think that's neat. I believe the overarching organization, Jewish Diaspora in Tech, is for employees of other tech companies as well.
https://twitter.com/sweetpavement/status/1394348756309405699
Let's go shopping for diaspora oriented/BDS-compliant judaica! Buy temporary tattoos! Find someone to write you a mezuzah scroll! Wear bagel and lox earrings! Read Louisiana Kashrut: Stories and Recipes from the Jewish American South! A little hamsa necklace with a moon on it!
https://twitter.com/Simcha_Gross/status/1393877511252193284
Neat recording alert: Jewish Prayer in Many Languages, Shavuot edition is available. The Shabbat music one is Tuesday, June 15.
"The Monastic Genealogy of Hoḫʷärwa Monastery: A Unique Witness of Betä Ǝsraʾel Historiography" looks fascinating. direct pdf link.
https://twitter.com/hels/status/1395770386999128064
Russ and Daughters, a famous long-standing family-run ashkenazi appetizing place, got copied by a goyishe-owned restaurant calling itself The Borscht Belt. I watch a lot of food TV and it feels like other week on Chopped there's a white guy who married a woman of color and opened a restaurant based on her culture and it's fascinating seeing that happen in the context of Jews instead of, say, Vietnamese people.
EVENTS
5/23 From Northwestern University's Arab-Jewish Culture, Identity, and Language: Past and Present series: Performance and Conversation With Tair Haim, Acclaimed Soloist of the Band A-Wa
5/23 SMQN event: Junt@s: A U.S. + Latin American Queer Hangout
5/23 Radio Drama: "The Dead Man" By Sholem Asch, translated by Caraid O’Brien
5/25 Salomea Perl & Women Yiddish Prose Writers
5/25, 5/27 Reading Jewish Texts in an Age of Climate Change lectures from Julia Watts Belser, a disabled rabbi
5/26 SMQN Chai & Chat with Sigal Samuel, author of Osnat and Her Dove
5/27 SVARA Open Bet Midrash: Hyperlinks: Exploring Around and Off the Daf
6/3 Jews and Jazz: Before the Beginning, with Henry Sapoznik
6/6 Ancient Jewess Magic, a talk by Mika Ahuvia, author of On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture
6/9 Hishbati Rachel Havrelock Occupation and Conquest in the State of Israel and Book of Joshua, registration required
6/10 Jewish Anarchist Women 1920-1950: The Politics of Sexuality
6/13 Jews and Prison: Jewish Values Behind the Walls, presented by Elaine Leeder
6/13 From Anti-Semitism to Anti-Racism: From Antisemitism to Anti-Racism: Jewish Perspectives on Defunding the Police Subtitle was "Why Jews Should Support Defunding the Police"--unsure if the content has changed.
6/13 The Birdverse & Beyond - Author Talk with R.B. Lemberg, a wonderful queer jewish spec fic author
6/15 Jewish Prayer in Many Languages: From Sephardic Seattle to Syrian Brooklyn, Part 2: Shabbat
6/15 Stories From The People: A night of LGTBQ+ Jewish History. register here.
6/16 Hishbati David Kraemer Dis-Placing Zion: Ketubbot 110b-111a and the Claim for the Babylonian Center, registration required
6/17 Yuval Evri (King’s College London) and Angy Cohen (University of Calgary): Foreign in a familiar land: language and belonging in the work of Jacqueline Kahanoff, Albert Memmi and Jacques Derrida.
6/20 Hishbati Zackary Berger Are the Ways of Peace Enough? Jewish Autonomy, Community, and Obligation in Healthcare, registration required
The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Shmuli, who like his human supports a free Palestine! He likes shoulder time.
That's all folks! see you next week.
<3
Meli