Tamuz 5784
Hi everyone! I missed you over the past month; how’s it going?
Jewish Calendar
Tammuz contains one holiday: a minor fast on the 17th of Tammuz, commemorating ancient catastrophe (though smaller hardships than the major fast of the 9th of Av).
This time of year, I think about the concentration of timelines into loops. For us, the three weeks are, well, three weeks; for the events commemorated by these holidays, for the original ancient Israelites, there were years (and three weeks) in between. I also love how For Times Such As These connects summers full of protests and political liminal viability to this month, changing it into one of fizzing potential, of time accordioning in and out—of years condensed into weeks and hot northern hemisphere summer weeks that feel like years.
I’m also thinking about how much semi-mourning time we get in the spring and summer. We counted 49 days of omer, which some experience as slight mourning, from Pesach until Shavuot, then we are currently experiencing forty days of normal life; then the fast of tammuz, with some more mourning in the three weeks culminating in Tisha b’Av.
Israel/Palestine and Antisemitism
Palestine is still undergoing a genocide at the hands of Israel, through intentional starvation and withholding of aid as well as military actions. Alma Igra writes about Hunger Time and Palestine, on the food politics of the whole situation and its recent and not-so-recent past.
I loved reading this interview with Jeffrey Wilkinson and Raja Khouri, one Jewish person and one Palestinian one, about their book and the work they’ve been doing to bring people together and work through traumas.
Halachic Left (a really cool organization) and a few other groups put together another packet of readings, this time for Shavuot, covering topics related and unrelated to the situation in Gaza.
As pushback to pro-Palestine protests, New York is threatening a mask ban, which would harm medically vulnerable folks and anyone else who wears a mask regularly. If you are in new york, you can push back on this by signing the open letter at https://www.jewsformaskrights.com/. If you are in any area contemplating such a ban, please push back against it by contacting your relevant local politicians.
The ADL, huh?
There are whole things about the ADL recently I’m not even touching on in here, but Shane Burley and Jonah ben Abraham reviewed the ADL’s latest antisemitism audit according to the JDA definition of antisemitism instead of the IHRA one:
“In addition to identifying more than a thousand items we believe were misclassified as antisemitic—all cases of speech critical of Israel or Zionism—we found that the data included misapplications of the organization’s own standards and often did not provide enough information for us to assess the group’s judgment.”
Meanwhile, Wikipedia editors categorized Jonathan Greenblatt’s ADL as an unreliable source on Israel and, secondarily, antisemitism. This is due to the way the ADL tries to position itself as both an advocacy group (which it is) and a neutral data-collector (which it, sadly, is not). Some jewish groups pushed back and asked Wikipedia to reconsider their opinion; wikipedia did not.
It’s difficult, right, because you don’t want to blanket counter every message the ADL puts out; you don’t want to say antisemitism isn’t rising when it does seem to be, anecdotally; and yet, the primary source of this idea (the ADL) is full of BS about it (inconsistent and just bad definitions of antisemitism), which even the Forward’s opinion section (by author Rob Eshman) agrees is due for some real consideration—something I don’t think we’d see if the wikipedia decision was an out-of-nowhere accusation.
Books and Language
Shane Burley and Ben Lorber’s new book Safety through Solidarity has come out to some great reviews. Some excerpts: on zionism (may have been linked previously), on jacob and esau, on how to fight antisemitism. I’m looking forward to reading this one, myself.
Yiddish in Braille - a Mayse, from Abby Howell on the In Geveb Blog, is a fascinating look into setting up yiddish learning for a blind person.
Izzun Books has a new project—an “exercise in liturgial minimalism”, a weekday siddur that clocks in at less than 100 pages while still looking badass.
Bayit is running a kickstarter to pull together a visual machzor project, which looks like a super neat supplement to high holy days experiences!
Check out Liora Ostroff’s golem print “Truth / אמת”
The Yiddish Book Center emailed out a couple links about zines in their collection
Miscellaneous
What does it mean to have a commitment to secularism? There was a fascinating discussion on secularism, religion, and the left on Jewish Currents’ podcast (which, like all podcasts, I do not listen to) and in the resultant letters to the editor section. I am not secular and do not see a contradiction in terms in bringing together aspects of religion with a leftist jewish tradition. Probably Jewish Currents’ old-school wasn’t for me, and that’s fine. I feel like a once weekly parsha commentary in one email is not encroaching on much, but I also have two other weekly parsha emails in my inbox intentionally!
Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement’s rabbinical school, is going to start ordaining intermarried rabbis. This is a big deal, and a long time coming.
Over at JTA, Andrew Silow-Carroll interviewed historian Michael Willrich about his research on Emma Goldman and Harry Weinberger, a lawyer who supported Goldman through her battles with the government.
Open calls and suchlike
I ran across an open call looking to reach tattooed jews and jewish tattoo artists for a dissertation on Jewish identity construction and tattoos; if you are interested please email safiatattooproject@gmail.com.
Are you an LGBTQ Jew of Color? Keshet has a survey for you.
Gashmius Magazine is seeking out a holiday fellow (with stipend) to create accessible holiday resources from original-language hasidic texts. Is this you?
Events
First, a recording: More Kosher Than You Think, a roundtable on antizionism featuring Marisa Kabas, Shaul Magid, and Seth Sanders
7/2 and subsequent Tuesdays: Threading Stones: An Elul Tradition class with Ritualwell
7/8 Trancestors and Chalices, a one-shot learning session with Yelala and Shel Maala
7/9 Queer Yiddishist Shmueskrayz
7/11-7/14 yidstock online concert pass
7/21 Safety through Solidarity book event with Ben Lorber, Shane Burley, and Cindy Barukh Milstein
Jewish Pet of the Month
The Jewish Pet of the Month this month is Joshua Raclaw’s Baby Cat!
See you next month!
With love,
Meli