Sh'lach (L'cha)
Hello everyone!
Content Warnings for this issue are: antisemitism, racism, pogroms, race riots, Israel/Palestine
A few housekeeping notes: Next week's newsletter might be late (sent out on Saturday instead of Friday) depending on personal schedule constraints. Also I'm taking the week of 6/25 off.
This week's torah portion is Shelach, or Shelach L'cha. I don't know why some places use the one-word name and some use the two-word name. In it, G-d tells Moses to send out scouts to find out who all's in Canaan, what's the natural resources, et cetera. The scouts brought back some fruit and also some bad news: the people are hostile and powerful. The israelites panicked and wished for death, G-d got annoyed, Moses negotiated with him, and the end result is that the israelites now have to to wander the desert until all of the original mitzrayim generation would die out (40 years). We also get the mitzvah of challah, separating out a bit of dough while bread-baking, and the 3rd paragraph of the shema, about tzitzit.
https://twitter.com/rabbisandra/status/1400396891779698688
Rabbi Sandra Lawson's interpretation here is resonant with Mariame Kaba's discussion of hope as a discipline, and Rebecca Solnit's hope in the dark, and Jesi Taylor Cruz's approach to utopian thought. Instead of wishing backwards for the known experience--miserable, but familiar--of slavery in mitzrayim, or wishing for death instead of facing the difficult path, if we aim to have courage we can move forward towards a better world. It probably will involve quite a bit of lost wilderness wandering though before we get to the big-idea one-word goals like abolition, or justice, or liberation.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/new-sephardic-generationHappy Pride Month! Print-O-Craft has put A Rainbow Thread anthology on sale for $18. I've added a bunch of pride events to the list below too.
I enjoyed this clip of an interview with Zohar Weiman-Kelman, Speaking Directly to the Bubbes: Transmission Between Jewish Lesbian Writers and Yiddish Poetesses as well as the rest of the LGBTQ+ Pride Month Stories playlist from the Yiddish Book Center.
https://twitter.com/refaelscialom/status/1400562233273425924?s=12
Look, I don't like telling people they are reacting incorrectly to oppression. But if you are being racist in your attempts to push back on antisemitism, you are doing it wrong. An alternative: fighting antisemitism as a critical piece of a racial justice agenda, like this short thread from Jewish Voice for Peace about ways to dismantle antisemitism from a place of solidarity while resisting the lure of lateral oppression.
This week was the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Riot, the destruction of Black Wall Street and quite a bit more. It seems like a lot of Jewish writers (re)discovered a truth: "race riot" is American for pogrom. Joshua Shanes wrote about it in The Forward titled The Tulsa Massacre Wasn't A Race Riot, It Was A Pogrom; Zoe Tzamudzi points out being a pogrom doesn't have to mean it's not a race riot. Another article I've seen featuring that particular connection include Jessica Kirzane talking about yiddish writers and race, including times when Jews have participated in antiblack racism in the US.
Meanwhile, a fart joke is not a pogrom. Consider, though, that it's not actually a good idea to participate in pointless online harrassment campaigns of individuals; and if large amounts of name-calling online (or even more intense online harrassment) did make for a pogrom, she certainly would not be the first victim of such.
https://twitter.com/calicojoh/status/1390783872057569282
Jewish Trade Unionists and Workers in Solidarity with Palestine website and call to action from US and Canada based trade unionists is lovely to see. There's also this open letter from Jewish leaders.
Use your own judgment, but I would recommend this Jewschool post What I Heard When I Listened to People at the March for Palestine as something to send to Zionists trying to understand the Palestinian side of things.
A teacher was fired from Barrack Hebrew Academy for being antizionist on Twitter. Yes, he probably should not have publicly tweeted about his job particularly in the ways quoted in the news article, but Josh Eidelson also points out that the teachers used to have union and the protections that can come with that but do not any longer. (See also: Emily Wilder's firing from the Associated Press.)
Meanwhile, Isabel Frey interviewed Michael Sappir about the particular entanglements of zionism and anti-antisemitism in Germany, which has fascinating (to me) similarities and differences from how it's all handled here in the US.
https://twitter.com/crohnsbaby_/status/1399360110540070915?s=12
Jewish Currents is asking readers to fill out a survey in advance of its 75th anniversary.
UW's Asian Studies Library has a neat online exhibit about the Jews of Kaifeng, China.
I learned something that blew my mind the other day and tweeted about it: Meir Kahane was Arlo Guthrie's bar mitzvah tutor. Can you imagine.
https://twitter.com/DICKIMINAJ/status/1400958818704494593
The new director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, was sworn in on a copy of Pirkei Avot because of its emphasis on Tikkun Olam and I think that's lovely.
Recordings!
- Marlene Meyerson JCC has uploaded recordings from their Tikun Leil Shavuot.
- CBST has uploaded sessions from the Trans Jews are Here convening.
- Julia Watts Belser's Reading Jewish Texts in an Age of Climate Change talks were wonderful. I love that she discusses climate change from a disabled feminist perspective, I love that she supplied a multi-disciplinary recommended reading list after the fact, I love that she spoke realistically but also hopefully about disaster preparedness. More from Dr. Belser on the COVID-19 pandemic and disabled experiences of it here, in Disability and the Politics of Vulnerability.
The Jewsletter Soundtrack this week is Northwest Folklife Festival's Big Jewish Show.
https://twitter.com/klezkanada/status/1400091436943654916
Events!
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
6/6 SHIN DC is hosting Baghdad & Beyond – Moving Beyond the Stereotypes on the Farhud’s 80th Anniversary
6/6 Jewish LGBTQ+ Representations in Film and TV lecture from Miles Nadal JCC covering Angels in America, Transparent, Bent, and Yentl. More info
6/9 Hishbati Rachel Havrelock: Occupation and Conquest in the State of Israel and Book of Joshua, registration required
6/9, 6/23 Resource Generation's Jewish contingent is having a series on Visions of Jewish Safety.
6/10 Jewish Anarchist Women 1920-1950: The Politics of Sexuality
6/10 Chef Michael Twitty: A Culinary Celebration of Love, Pride and Freedom w/ Okra with SHIN DC
6/10 SVARA Open Bet Midrash: So You Learned a Sugya…What’s Next? zoom registration link
6/10 Jewish Anarchist Women 1920-1950: The Politics of Sexuality
6/10 Queer Jewish Speed Connecting, special pride month edition
6/13 Simcha! Learning & Celebrating Queer Jewish Joy
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
6/13 Jewish Federation 2021 Community Pride Seder
6/13-6/15 Kavod v'Nichum conference about jewish death practices from a non-Orthodox POV, including traditional and less-traditional tracks.
6/15 How Is Fat Liberation a Jewish Social Justice Issue?: A 20-Minute Webinar
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.
6/18 Juneteenth Kabbalat Shabbat from Bechol Lashon.
6/20 Hishbati Zackary Berger Are the Ways of Peace Enough? Jewish Autonomy, Community, and Obligation in Healthcare, registration required
6/20 JamJews Pride Fest
6/20 Pink Peacock queer midsummer party
6/23 Hishbati Reb Enn "The Glass is Half Jewish: Intermarriage and Mixed Heritage Jews", registration required
6/27 Hishbati Everett Gendler "Confronting 'Jewish Nationalism': Might It be an Oxymoron?", registration required
6/30 Hishbati Barat Ellman "Who or what is Israel?", registration required
7/11 Hishbati Lina Morales "Were It Not for the Fear It Inspires: Prayers for the State and Hishtadlus", registration required
The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Cecil Oatmeal, a lovely little orange kitten who deserves every snuggle.
<3
Meli