Tamuz 5785
Hello friends and welcome to the month of Tamuz!
Jewish Calendar
Tamuz has one holiday, a minor fast that kicks off the Three Weeks of mourning culminating in the 9th of Av. Plus, a slightly belated happy juneteenth to all Black jews out there, and happy pride month to all us lgbtqia+ jews.
Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and/or Antifascism
So, Israel’s at war with Iran. Most reactions i’ve seen have basically been “oh no” (if you are israeli or iranian and feel that way, you can sign an open letter here). Hannah Feuer at The Forward has a nice article about the Jewish community in Iran and their political situation. Also, there is still a genocide ongoing in Gaza.
Shane Burley interviewed Benjamin Balthaser for Jacobin about the Jewish Left(s) (based in part on Balthaser’s new book Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left):
“The narrative you’ll hear from many Jewish historians is this canard that radicals came from Europe, but as soon as they assimilated, they became proper liberal Democrats. That’s not actually what happened. Instead, these millions of Jewish immigrants became socialists on arrival. The longer they stayed, the more confidence they had in expressing their radical politics.”
More from Balthaser reviewing a variety of books questioning or reviewing the history of the zionist jewish consensus.
Notes on Nationalism: A Comix Collection zine from Shavuot 5785 by Rena Yehuda Newman
On the antifascism side of things, Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba have posted a chapter of their book Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care on “Violence” in Social Movements. I have only heard good things about this book!
Books and Language
I have a soft spot for tkhines so I was thrilled to see this yiddish-english collection of them in open siddur project’s weekly email.
Gashmius, neohasidic online magazine of my dreams, is requesting submissions on the theme of Teshuvah for their next edition.
Bechol Lashon and FairSquare Graphics came together to make a comic book anthology centering Jews of Color’s stories.
Cambridge has had a royal professorship of hebrew for nearly 500 years and this time it’s a Jewish man filling the role. More on British Jewish history (though the much more recent end!) here.
the Yiddish Book Center, the National Library of Israel, YIVO, and the New York Public Library together launched a Universal yiddish library
Queer Yiddish Stories: Highlights from the Yiddish Book Center’s Collection
Sorry for the instagram link, but I loved this “let’s reconcile” print, complete with a samovar in the picture, just like in the song.
Miscellaneous
The Why of Torah is Torah: Our Need for Torah Lishmah, or torah for its own sake, by Rabbi Avigayil Halpern. I’m someone who grapples with the idea of knowledge for a purpose vs for its own sake regularly, and often specifically jewish traditional knowledge, this was helpful for me to read. “[H]ow can we take Torah out of the capitalist framework we live in that pushes us to use all our time ‘productively?’” indeed!!
New Jewish Agenda Organizing Committee: Allies of the Gay and Lesbian Jewish Community, a blog post by Melissa Silvestri from AJHS featuring primary sources
Approaching Trans Halakha: A Practical Guide With Theory by Lexi Kohanski, a beautiful punch of a framework published in R’Avigayil Halpern’s substack Approaching, starting with “Dead flies make the perfumer’s oil stink.” and getting deeper and weirder from there.
A Jewish bridge builder’s burial, 15 years late: The strange afterlife of Lawrence Rubin.
Events and Classes
Workers Circle yiddish classes are happening again this summer!
6/22 A Queer Nigun Project: Community Concert on Zoom ✨🌈🎶🎉🌸💜
6/24 Yetzirah Jewish Poetry Conference
6/26 At Lunch with Rachel Cockerell, author of Melting Point, a book about “the Galveston Movement, a long-forgotten project that brought 10,000 Russian Jews to Texas pre-WWI”
6/26 Olam haBah: resourcing the world we dream of, from Rabbis for Ceasefire (more info)
7/7 Sefaria Super Sleuths: Expertly Explore an Ever-Expanding Jewish library
7/10-7/13 Yidstock 2025: The Festival of New Yiddish Music, with concerts available via livestream
Pet of the Month
Tessa! Lovely green eyes and little white chest patch, brought to us (as always) from a friend of the Jewsletter.
With love,
Meli