Shmini
Hello everyone! This week in jewsletter we have some book discounts, an antiquities smuggling update, a few new classes, and a new Pesach section! And also a puppy.
https://twitter.com/eli_rosenblatt/status/1505593762570854402
CW's this week are: firey death, antisemitism, anti-Palestinian oppression, Ukraine war
Jewish Calendar
This week's torah portion is Shmini. We are halfway through! This parsha has the halfway point in the torah based on letter count marked by a big vav, and the middle by word count as well.
We have the first priestly ordinations, then two priests Nadav and Abihu offer the wrong sacrifice in the form of strange fire (eish zarah) so G-d sets them on fire and they die. There are many explanations around the tragic deaths of Nadav and Abihu, and what it might mean, ranging from those who rule halachically in the presence of their teachers die to don't go to shul drunk to all variety of other things. The thing with the teachers feels off, but I like some angles of it: we read in Sifra Acharei Mot that Nadav and Abihu didn't ask Aaron, didn't ask Moses, didn't even ask each other before departing from the mitzvot, and this is why they were punished so severely. Plenty worth considering, including how one of them is going "hey bro! get a load of this fire!" in the illustration Ben Yehuda Press chose this week.
https://twitter.com/BenYehudaPress/status/1507386853380571143
It's almost Pesach!
https://twitter.com/RuthGeye/status/1507402632662560775
I'm not ready either, but it's time to start figuring out haggadah and seder stuff. Ben Yehuda Press has 15% off Passover books, including Liberating Your Passover Seder: An Anthology Beyond The Freedom Seder by Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow and Rabbi Phyllis Ocean Berman.
https://twitter.com/transbitch/status/1500599588553699332
An early entry in omer-counting links: a coloring book! Color the Omer came out last year and looks like a super cute way to observe the custom.
Ukraine war and Antisemitism
Check out this Ukraine solidarity toolkit from yiddishists with ukraine, ייִדישיסטן מיט אוקראינע
bagels apparently have a dark history. is nothing sacred. what is this world we live in.
Worth thinking about: when anti-globalist rhetoric is and isn't antisemitic thread from Ben Lorber. TLDR pay attention to context and who is saying it. I am still chewing on the part of the thread starting about here.
https://twitter.com/BenLorber8/status/1504623692634017801
I don't know how much it matters whether right wingers are thinking directly about jews when they invoke the "liberal upper class atheist globalist" stereotype. The context of Lorber's thread is that Candace Owens said some things about Zelenskyy that may or may not have been antisemitic, and people are saying (correctly) we need to be careful when we are accusing Black people of antisemitism. This seems like an intent and impact question--and I don't know what the impact is or isn't, in terms of the social consequences to Jews and to Candace Owens.
To be clear, I do think the tweet is antisemitic, not because she used the term globalists but because she said she will always see this (jewish) man as working against the interests of his own people no matter what he does. (While also using the word globalist.) I don't think it's a degree of antisemitism to try to get someone fired over it, but i do think it's enough to call it antisemitism.
Israel and Zionism
Israel's actions against Palestine can be interpreted as either an occupation if it's temporary or apartheid if it's permanent, and it's looking pretty permanent.
Sierra club had a whole thing around Israel trips. Should they be cancelled? Should they happen, but in a way that tries to undermine the greenwashing of Israel?
And now, my favorite of the heavy stuff. There is an update to the ongoing Michael Steinhardt saga (previously featured in this very jewsletter): several items are still missing, including a fish he owes to the Palestinian Authority.
Several of the items being transferred to Israeli custody were originally looted from the West Bank. One missing object, a fish-shaped amulet, will be handed over to the Palestinian Authority if and when it’s found.
Miscellaneous
There's another cemetery geniza found in Egypt and the Egyptian antiquities authority broke in and removed its contents. Not ideal. Learning more about genizot can be fun though!
Today was the 111th anniversary of the triangle shirtwaist factory fire. More from teen vogue and the remember the triangle fire coalition.
https://twitter.com/NatanFarber/status/1507009300438269961
I've been watching a pretty decent show on PBS Passport lately called Vienna Blood, and it's definitely jewish, no matter what HeyAlma thinks. The main character is a secular jew grappling with antisemitism in a variety of settings. I feel like probably that's enough. (Admittedly I have only skimmed the Alma article, seeing as I want to avoid major spoilers and am only partway through the first season.) Anyway, if you need a mystery show to fill in some background noise, you could do worse.
Let's learn about Bukharian Jews and their Persian history!
Between the Reform movement considering shutting down the Rabbinical school program at their Cincinnati campus and the Conservative movement drastically lowering tuition at one of their schools, it sure seems like large institutional rabbinical schools are struggling to maintain the number of applicants they want. Probably these aren't linked, but them happening at the same time feels weird.
https://twitter.com/onthemainline/status/1507150138627829762
“Everyday People’s Troubles”: A Brif History of Yiddish Advice Radio in the United States
Shalom PDX absolutely knows the way to my heart with these jewish cat magnets.
TropeTrainer has been resurrected via emulation!
AK Press has 25% off everything on their site, so it's a great time to buy jewish anarchist books (or nonjewish ones!)
https://twitter.com/MHP_Horror/status/1506374010363293697
Classes (and a conference) coming up
New additions bolded! trying something new!
Judaism and Public Health: Living in the Shadows of Pandemics conference 3/27
Working Knowledge: Labor in Jewish Thought 3/7-3/28, four standalones from Dr. David Zvi Kalman
Jewish Anarchist Salon, a series of talks and discussions, every other Sunday 3/13-5/15 (drop-in)
Romemu Brooklyn's Spirit in the Sky with Rabbi Scott 3/30
Reinventing Conversion: Discover Its Origins, Imagine Its Future: a one-shot from Shel Maala, 3/30
Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, taught by Rebecca Chess, 4/7-6/30 Thursdays
Cooking Class: Cooking for a Sephardic Pesah Seder, 4/7, with Susan Barocas and Sibel Pinto
Pirkei Avot for Goths 4/25-5/31 Tuesdays with Sophia Zohar
Queer Yiddish Camp, an online intensive, 5/15-5/27. More info at the website!
Events!
3/27 Yiddish Ukraine: Songs and Stories from Yiddish Book Center
3/28 An Evening of Prayer and Healing for Ukraine with Kavod v'Nichum
3/28 One Year Later: Updates from the Trans Halakha Project
4/1 Book Talk: Artifacts of Orthodox Jewish Childhoods. "With their essays in Artifacts of Orthodox Childhoods: Personal and Critical Essays, edited by Dainy Bernstein, as a jumping-off point, Meira Levinson, Hillel Broder, and Miriam Moster discuss these artifacts through scholarly and personal lenses. They consider the normative and subversive aspects of a Middle Grade series about Devora Doresh, Orthodox girl detective; the long-lasting effects of a child's first siddur (prayer book); and the dynamics at play in ultra-Orthodox songs about Chanukah."
4/2 Queer Yiddish Camp Cabaret Fundraiser! Two hours of live music, poetry, dance, burlesque, and queer antics!
4/3 Sustaining Justice: Maintaining Hope & Conviction for the Long Haul from Kehilla Community Synagogue, with Aurora Levins Morales, Naomi Ortiz and adrienne maree brown
4/3 Seattle Limmud Pesach Mini-Festival
4/13 Translation, Migration, Mobilization: What does it mean to bring a text across languages? How might translation help make visible, collaborate with, and contest other forms of movement, migration, and mobilization? From Jewish Currents
4/17 Pink Peacock trans liberation seder!
Jewish Pet of the Week
The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Bruce, a tiny baby puppy whose human recently made non-spyware baby monitor software for puppywatching purposes. Since she's a young wiggly thing, the best bruce content is video which is less embed friendly so be sure to click through those links.
https://twitter.com/SubalternGames/status/1501019837652508681
Shabbat shalom,
<3
Meli