Sivan 5785
Hello friends and welcome to Sivan!
Jewish Calendar
We’ve been counting the omer, some of us with sefirot, and now we’re almost done. Shavuot is coming soon, and with it a bevy of all-night study sessions, like Judaism Unbound’s ShavuotLive going from the evening of 5/31 through 6/1, or Rabbis for Ceasefire and American Council for Judaism’s Revealing Liberation: The Torah of Solidarity starting at 8 AM 6/1. (I made a scheduling snafu and instead will be celebrating by going to the doctor for routine preventive care. oops.)
Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and/or Antifascism
Jews for Food Aid in Gaza is a big-tent effort to bring together Jews who support food aid being delivered to Gaza. More on hunger being used as a weapon of war against Gazans here. You may have heard Israel is letting food in; they let single-digit numbers of trucks in per day (some sources say five; others nine), which is an incredibly small fraction of the needed amount. People are starving. This is a genocide (more and more are admitting it) and we need to stop it.
A horrible thing happened in Washington DC on Wednesday night. Two staff members of the Israeli embassy were leaving the Capital Jewish Museum when they were shot and killed by someone who said Free Palestine. This antisemitic violence helps nobody, and most people actually in the struggle for Palestine agree. I am worried how this act will be twisted by arch-conservatives in the days and weeks to come.
On the complete other end of importance, The New York Times Really Asked [children’s entertainer] Ms. Rachel If She’s Paid By Hamas because she advocates for the safety of Palestinian children. (She is not Hamas nor in any way is she harming Jews, and the StopAntisemitism account is a scourge.)
Is the crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism the new Red Scare? For the wider policy context see Project Esther, which recently got a NYT writeup. Related: “We, a diverse coalition of Jews at Columbia and Barnard, wholeheartedly reject the invocation of Jewish safety as a pretense to persecute, detain, and deport fellow students and community members without due process of law.”
Jewish Currents, or more specifically Aryeh Bernstein and Maya Rosen, asks “How Should Activists Relate to Risk?”, delving into protective presence work in the West Bank.
Books and Language
"The first Mendy & the Golem series followed the exploits of Mendy Klein, who found a Golem in their father's synagogue. The Klein siblings & their Golem (named Sholem) get into all sorts of scrapes, & walk out of them with a moral based on Jewish texts." (Wikipedia) This is Vol 2 #9 1983 (1/3)
— Adne Sadeh (@adnesadeh.bsky.social) 2025-05-23T11:31:27.049Z
“Philly’s forgotten history as a hub of anarchism with a thriving radical Yiddish press”
The Jewish Language Project has started season 2 of their Heritage Words podcast with the first episode featuring Asher Shasho Levy, called Bringing Maqam to a San Francisco Knis.
From Chagall to Diego Rivera: A Personal Top Ten [Yiddish Illustrations] by David Mazower
Review (by Alexandra Polyan) of The Dream of Social Justice and Bad Moral Luck: Eight Jewish Lives Under Stalin: I thought this review was fascinating!
Miscellaneous
Who is a good Jew? asks Jericho Vincent. I am not convinced they answer their second question (Who is a religious person?) but that’s a big question to expect an answer to.
Ayin Press’ Embers of the Ottoman Empire folio is VERY cool, offering “glimpses into the life, material culture, and thought of Jews living amid the dissolution and echoes of the Ottoman Empire.”
Gashmius has also released a wonderful collection with the theme of “bodies”, covering gender and clothing, disability and surgery, somatic introspection, and more.
Collectable Jewish Monsters and Magic Cards are for sale at Madness Heart Press
This recent Epic Jewish Grill Platter post from Leah Koenig’s The Jewish Table was mouthwatering, inspiring me to get out the grilling tools and find a grill.
Borscht Beat put together a cross-genre sampler playlist on bandcamp of a bunch of their jewish music releases!
Rabbi Lauren Tuchman writes on Rest, Renewal, and Listening to Our Deepest Yearnings and the magical number 7.
Events and Classes
The Autistic Rabbi(nical Student) is leading a talmud study course on gender this June and July.
The American Council for Judaism is doing a non-zionist (perhaps anti-zionist? I’m not sure) Intro to Judaism class called Judaism Beyond Nationalism June through October.
One of the previously linked events I wasn’t able to attend, From Contraction to Expansion: Jewish Spiritual Tools for Fighting Authoritarianism and Antisemitism, has a recording available on Youtube.
5/25 Sefaria’s Sinai in the Cloud Shavuot learning event
5/28 TransHallel Rosh Chodesh Sivan
5/31-6/1 Judaism Unbound’s ShavuotLive
6/1 Rabbis for Ceasefire and American Council for Judaism’s Revealing Liberation: The Torah of Solidarity
6/4 Shaping Tradition 2025, a SVARA fundraiser
6/8 The Yiddish Book Center at 45 lecture, with Aaron Lansky
6/24 Yetzirah Jewish Poetry Conference
7/10-7/13 Yidstock 2025: The Festival of New Yiddish Music, with concerts available via livestream
Pet of the Month
A quick google confirms that the month of Sivan roughly conforms to the sign of Gemini—twins!—so I figured we’d re-run the gorgeous twosome of Lexie and Davey, belonging to friend of the jewsletter Alicia!
With love,
Meli