Shvat 5786
Good afternoon! We’ve got tu bishvat, we’ve got some bad shit going down in the real world, we’ve got the niqqud of the niqqud, we’ve got The Vatican Stole the Menorah and We're Going to Steal it Back (the game)!
Jewish Calendar
tu bishvat higia chag hailanot! The festival of the trees is coming this month, even though for most of us it’s not anywhere near the time for fruits yet. The sap begins to rise in the trees (which can mean whatever we want it to mean) and we can look forward to the end of forever-seeming winter; for me, this means the incoming-in-weeks-not-months cherry and plum blossoms. There’s a couple tu bishvat events linked below, or you can hold your own tu bishvat seder with friends and family—feel free to email me for tips!
Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and/or Antifascism
An arsonist set a synagogue on fire in Mississippi on January 10th. Nobody was injured but the building and the most of the torahs it housed were damaged. The shul housed the Institute for Southern Jewish Life as well. They caught the guy who did it; he seems to be a right wing turbo-christian.
Meanwhile, the EEOC demanded the names and personal details of the Jewish students, staff, and faculty at University of Pennsylvania as part of their anti-antisemitism tactics; but this is hinky at best. See: UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration’s demand for ‘lists of Jews’ / Five Upenn-Affiliated Groups and Civil Liberties Attorneys Move to Join Lawsuit Opposing EEOC’s Demand for Jewish List
There is a liberal zionist essay on the jewish left and its unhingedness I have not read. Nevertheless, two responses to it bubbled up through people I follow, and I place these here in case you need them: one from Shaul Magid and another from Ben Lorber. I have not read these responses either; my energy for this kind of thing is limited these days.
The ADL’s turn away from civil rights was years in the making — Oct. 7 accelerated it, by Arno Rosenfeld (read a short interview with him at Documensch!)
Regarding the antifascism, it is a rough time. Sending love to anyone affected by ICE raids, whether that’s due to their occupying your city or being a POC/immigrant/other targeted group. In general, I found Margaret Killjoy’s The Punk Rock Good Life to be helpful hopeful reading; maybe you will too.
Books and Language
Jennifer Hudak’s poem The World to Come is beautiful. and about death.
“How hundreds of forgotten klezmer tunes have been rescued from oblivion: Thanks to a mammoth Klezmer Institute digitization project, we can hear Jewish music that hasn’t been played for generations”
In a new album, Yiddish becomes a language of queer belonging, a look at Ira Khonen Temple’s work.
Check out Brin Solomon’s The Niqud of the Niqud if you’re interested in the nuts and bolts of putting together a digital-first siddur with particular language concerns and an eye away from repeating work. Or of someone learning to code!
Support Ahavat Hadassah: An Album of Yemeni Jewish Song by Anat Halevy Hochberg
Miscellaneous
A prayer for every day in the Gregorian year 2026, by Miriam Rubin
The Vatican Stole the Menorah and We're Going to Steal it Back is a game you play with friends. and dreidels.
Jewish Postpartum through the Stories of JOC in the United States, an art project by Ayeola Omolara Kaplan and Rose Espinola.
Swinging Parties and Ayahuasca Ceremonies: U.S. Hasidic Rebels Are Redefining Jewish Orthodoxy
From Jewish Currents’ Chevruta section, How Should We Engage in Communal Rebuke? This topic has been on my mind recently; it is good to see others engaging with it as well.
Classes and Events
1/18 Jewish and Yiddish Reactions to the Destruction of Gaza: a Panel
1/18 Upside-Down Love: A Conversation with Sari Bashi (book talk centering on a relationship between the author and her Palestinian husband and their lives in the West Bank)
1/21 Online Concert & Album Celebration with Rena Branson ft. Madelyn ilana
1/25 Gather and Grow at Home Virtual Chevra Kadisha Conference
1/25 Celebrating Year One of the Disability Torah Project! More on Disability Torah Project on their website.
1/25 Prof. Omer Bartov in Conversation with Halachic Left
2/1 Winter in Yiddishland with The Workers Circle
2/1 Tu Bishvat seder with Boston Workers Circle and Kavod Boston
2/2 Tu Bishvat Seder with Shel Maala; more info on instagram
2/9-2/23 Stranger than a Golem: The Hidden World of the Maharal of Prague
2/12 Exploring Hasidism: Meet the Baal Shem Tov
2/12 2026 Conference on the Jewish Left from Boston University
3/1 Seriously Playful: Using Purim Torah to Reveal Big Lessons, from Ammud JOC Torah Academy
3/24 Shared Struggles, Shared Stories: Black Power, Jewish Politics, and the Fight for Justice book talk
3/29 Passover: The Script, The Set, The Spectacle, from Ammud JOC Torah Academy
Pet of the Month
The Pet of the Month this month is Ishtar Picklejuice! May her floofness in this outdoor pic bring us all joy. (Full disclosure she may not be a fully jewish cat! but that’s okay, we love jew-ish cats too.)
With love,
Meli