Terumah
Hello everyone! This week's torah reading is about the building of the tabernacle, which some people find boring but I always love because I am a craftsperson at heart. What fabrics did they use? What metals? How was the menorah shaped?
By the way, i got a helpful reply to the rosh chodesh uncertainty last week: 29 day months have 1 day Rosh Chodesh but 30 day months have 2. This is simplified from when Rosh Chodesh scheduling was based on someone going "hey there's no moon around" and playing telephone to spread it, which takes a while. Thanks to Hannah Davis for explaining! If you have comments about this or anything else in the newsletter, you can reply to the email in your inbox and it will in fact go to me.
One of my lovely goyishe partners got me a gift from Emily K's teespring store. I love how Emily integrates new words and slogans into vintage leftist jewish art, like yelling bund man saying anti-police slogans and Black Lives Matter (BL''M, in yiddish). Her non-merch site has additional cool stuff too.
Check out some extremely cute polymer clay judaica jewelry from UK-based Tchochke. They do carry non-jewish-specific items as well like socks earrings, which if I wore earrings more often I'd be sorely tempted by.
There's an extremely cool sounding Boston-area popup restaurant of iraqi-Jewish food and culture called Awafi Kitchen. Events are posted on Awafi Kitchen's instagram. If you're in the area and thinking about checking it out, please tell me how it is!
Events! I am guessing i will go to two of these, total, but they are all very cool and possibly relevant to your interests. Apologies for the mismatched formatting, but it’s a slog to make it in any way consistent and there are so many, please slow down everyone, we are not even at pesach yet and I am tired.
2/20 there's two havdalah options for Sephardi/Mizrachi folks, one on west coast time from Micha Chetrit Sephardi Mizrachi Havdalah at 6pm PST and SMQN's Sephardic & Mizrahi Havdalah at 6:30 pm ET.
2/20 The Hadassah Brandeis Institute has a lecture on The End of Iberian Jewry and The Beginnings of a Sephardi Diaspora: Through the Eyes of Women (more info at HBI link)
2/21 @ 3:30pm ET: SMQN Chai & Chat - Purim Edition with scholar of Jewish Iranian studies Houman Sarshar
2/21 Kehilla is putting on an event about Building Anti-Racist Jewish Community.
2/21 2PM EST In the Lands of Osman: Jewish Genealogy in the former Ottoman empire lecture from Michael Waas of Hollander-Waas Jewish Heritage Services (simulcast on facebook here)
2/22 ALEPH (the Alliance for Jewish Renewal) is having a webinar about the ecological roots of Pesach.
2/22 Rebecca Pierce and Anthony Russell talk about the experience of being Black and Jewish.
2/23 @ 8:30pm ET: Coast to Coast: A Pre-Purim Social Mixer with SMQN and JQ International's Persian Pride
2/23 Mizrahi Feminist Studies & Stories: A Purim Workshop with Sivan Battat (non facebook link)
2/24 Premiere broadcast of 'I am Jewish: Honouring Black Jewish Experiences'
2/25 we have PURIM! Collection of lefty purim events on facebook that I haven't collated with the below lists due to lazy.
JOFA (Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance) women-led megillah reading. Non-facebook sign-up here. (Both evening 2/25 and morning 2/26)
Megillah Across Brooklyn service and megillah reading with short family friendly pre-party (fb link)
Egal sephardi international online megillah reading
Shushan Rise Up: A Purim Celebration,both megillah reading and shpil from Kol Tzedek in PA
P7: Preposterous Pandemic Post Patriarchal Prophetic Purim Portal from Lab/Shul
Doikayt Now! A Purimshpiel for the Current Moment (zoom signup link)
Kadima (my shul when I go to offline shul) is doing a low-stim (= no yelling, no noisemaking) multilingual megillah reading.
2/27 Purim: weekend edition
Crying Nazi Dinner: An Antifascist Purimspiel, a dramatic reading of a really bad quality lawsuit a nazi tried to bring against antifascist Emily Gorcenski.
2/28 ASU Jewish Studies' Judaism, Science, and Medicine group's Judaism and Climate Change one-day conference
2/28 @ 11am ET: SMQN Chai & Chat with writer and educator Isaac Adjei Ofori-Solomon
3/4 Jewish Bookbinding Workshop from MyJewishLearning. Plan ahead enough time to buy a materials kit!
3/7-3/9 KlezNorth, a UK-based klezmer festival
3/11 UW's Jewish Studies department brings us Israel Through a Colored Lens: African American Perspectives on Mizrahi Israelis
3/11 The Hadassah Brandeis Institute's event America and the Crypto Jewish Presence: Reclaiming the Legacy of Sepharad (more info at HBI link)
3/11 Seder Leading 101 event
WHEW.
Your reward for scrolling through all this is Jewish Pet of the Week Molly, who makes extremely good faces and has gorgeous fur.
Shabbat shalom, everyone.
<3
Meli