Nisan 5784
Welcome to Weird Jewish Digest! This week we have some post-purim links, passover preparations, cholent, horrible behavior from Israel, a new siddur release, and more!
Jewish Calendar
Post-purim
There's a number of (mostly) purim-related links I wish I'd included in my previous newsletter but was unable to:
Seeing Esther's Face: Neurodivergent Torah for Purim, from Rabbanit Dr. Liz Shayne on the Maharat blog
Facing Amalek: Reading the biblical injunction to genocide amid a genocide, in Jewish Currents
How Jews are addressing the megillah’s bloodiest chapter during wartime this Purim, a JTA article about the Shalom Center's Chapter 9 Project
ian / יוֹחַאי (yokhai) Boniface-Greene wrote a dvar for Disability Day of Mourning and parsha Ki Tisa on disability, ableism, and balancing grief and joy--not explicitly about Purim but still relevant.
A solar interlude
There is an eclipse coming up covering a number of cities in the eastern half of the US! Jack Zaientz reports: you're probably not supposed to say a bracha, but some disagree and suggest Oseh Maaseh Bereshit, a blessing of reverence and wonder at creation.
Pesach haggadah
The Sephardic Brotherhood of America uploaded an entire traditional Sephardic haggadah pdf and tunes for your review, or the 2024 Asufa Haggadah, a yearly art project based on the traditional contents of the haggadah. Or consider a newer haggadah such as Thursday Bram's A Haggadah Of Our Own, or the upcoming antizionist queer Pillar of Fire Haggadah. Besides haggadot, there's Taste and See, a psychedelic pesach zine to guide your explorations of the holiday.
Many left-wing jewish groups are coming together to host Freedom for All Seders. If you are interested in hosting one, fill out the form here.
I'll be sending out a special mini passover edition of this newsletter in two weeks with online seder options and other relevant links. Please reply to this email with any information you have on online Passover or omer counting content, or just to say hi!
Israel/Palestine and Antisemitism
Israel continues doing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, using mass starvation as well as attacks on the population. It is difficult to see any point besides reducing aid delivery in the targeted three-part attack killing seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, leading that organization to pull out of Gaza entirely amidst widespread starvation. I do not know if this will end the war, but it certainly changes things; whether or not it should, after tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, is another matter.
Israel's military is also using AI in remarkably evil ways, as +972 magazine reports ("It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them" based on barely-checked AI output) yet again.
I recently learned about the Kaddish for Palestine page, with weekly sermons/essays in mourning for lives lost in Gaza from a religious antizionist jew.
What is The Responsibility of Witnesses to Genocide? One thing we can do is speak out as jews, in and outside our communities, in support of a ceasefire. The Center for International Policy offers some recommendations, including pushing our representatives towards a ceasefire.
“It’s Our Duty to Talk About All Struggles”: An interview with Collectif Golem, a left-wing Jewish group in France fighting antisemitism and the far right, in Dissent Magazine.
The ModernMedieval newsletter had an article about historical Holy Week antisemitism in the iberian peninsula and how it shows up today in the matajudios beverage.
Books and Language
I believe I previously linked In Geveb's New Yiddish Poetry from the Israel-Gaza War; they recently posted a collection of letters to (and from) the editor regarding the post, also (in my opinion) worth reading.
brin solomon's Siddur Davar Ḥadash has been released in its full first edition, in both html and PDF, featuring nongendered hebrew, full transliteration, and absolutely beautiful translation. (full disclosure: i helped edit the translation)
Sacha Lamb, author of When The Angels Left the Old Country, has a new book on pre-order featuring dybbuks and probably some other jewish content.
MariNaomi interviewed Leela Corman for The Comics Journal about her new book Victory Parade, women's wrestling, genocide, yiddishkayt in art, and more.
Miscellaneous
Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin has begun exploring Medieval kabbalah in her always-excellent newsletter, currently pre-zohar.
Starting on April 8th, you will be able to bid on some lovely art to support queer and trans online yeshiva Shel Maala.
If you're an artist yourself, the 9th Radical Jewish Calendar is hosting a call for artists through April 21st.
Investigations into sexism are underway at Ziegler, the Conservative Rabbinical seminary in California. I personally found out about this via Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg's Life is a Sacred Text, which linked to a confidential form collecting experiences. (I also enjoyed Rabbi Ruttenberg's recent overview of Jewish amulets. Very worth subscribing in general imo!)
David Zvi Kalman interviewed Rabbanit Dr. Liz Shayne about neurodivergent torah and autistic prophets.
Did you catch this longread about cholent from Benjamin Dubow? Delightful footnotes. Well-formatted. Mouthwatering descriptions. What more do you need in food writing?
New in Devin Naar's Moabet column for Ayin: a column on Sephardic Art and the First Modernist Sephardic Artists. Or, if ashkenazi art is more your thing, check out Reclaiming Aspects of the Jewish Past and Remixing Them: An Interview with Performance Artist Julie Weitz in In Geveb.
Events
If you're in the Seattle area, come see the excellent Maia Brown present the inspiration and fruits of her residency at Town Hall Seattle on April 13th and May 19th!
Classes and other recurring events
Disability Wisdom As Soul Care, a ten-session Mussar practice group led by Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, runs from May to September
Torah Studio's drop-in classes just started another semester, including torah study, art midrash, and (soon) zohar!
New Judaism Unbound mini-courses for May include Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Teachings on Prayer and Sephardic and Mizrahi Identities: Beyond Ashkenormativity
Omer Pulses with Nomy Lamm & Elana-June operates 4/16 - 6/11, a liberation and queerness-oriented omer counting group journey
Presence and Absence: Images of the Divine in Kabbalah, with Rabbi Margie Jacobs and the Jewish Studio Project, runs through May and June, diving into the Zohar to find the shekhina through art-making.
Faces of Oppression; Faces of Liberation: Untangling the Intersections of Antisemitism, White Supremacy, and Transphobia starts April 29th through Boston Workers' Circle
4/7 The Voyages of Memory: A Conversation with authors Marjorie Agosin and Ruth Behar
4/7 Hineinu: Stories of Palestinian-led coresistance from Masafer Yatta, featuring the Center for Jewish NonViolence's current Hineinu cohort
4/7 Savor passover, a sephardic event with lilith magazine
4/8 Yiddish and Ladino: Forking Paths, a lecture from Ilan Stavans
4/8 Queer Yiddishist Shmueskrayz
4/9 Special Torah for Palestine featuring Hadar Cohen (insta, registration)
4/11 Ija Mia: A Night of Sephardic and Ottoman Music
4/14 Moses: Provocations from a Disabled Prophet, from Rabbi Julia Watts Belser
4/18 Encounters with Judeo-Spanish Culture in the MENA & Beyond: 12th Annual ucLADINO Conference
4/24 Miriam's Seder: A Passover Journey Through Water from Beit Kohenet
4/28 Jews Against Margnialization: Passover Edition, an intergenerational Jews of Color event (JOCSM only)
5/5 For Times Such as These Seasons of Our Joy: The Radical Power of Jewish Holidays to Transform the World, with Rabbis Ariana Katz, Jessica Rosenberg, and Arthur Waskow
Pet of the Month
Friend of the jewsletter Lusa is this week's pet of the month! Check out her fashionable look.
See you in a couple weeks for pesach!
<3
Meli