December 16, 2022

Tevet 5783

Welcome back to Weird Jewish Digest! This month we have chanukah (including the world's largest lego menorah), gorgeous old (and new) jewish books, several online classes and events, and a kitten.

Content notes include: genocide (shoah, removal of Yemenite Jewish children), other antisemitism, and islamophobia.

Jewish Calendar

Before the next issue of Weird Jewish Digest goes out on January 20th, we'll go through the following parts of the weekly torah reading cycle:

• 12/17 Vayeshev / וַיֵּשֶׁב newsletters from that week in 5782 and 5781

• 12/24 Miketz / מִקֵּץ; newsletters from that week in 5782 and 5781

• 12/31 Vayigash / וַיִּגַּשׁ newsletters from that week in 5782 and 5781

• 1/7 Vayechi / וַיְחִי; newsletters from that week in 5782 and 5781

While we're in month mode, check out this very old new month prayer from tractate Soferim, and a blessing for Kislev while we've got a few days of it left. I also love the look of the Kislev offering from Jewish Zine Archive.

Chanukah

Chanukah begins the night of December 18th, which is very very soon. I for one am excited for the fried food.

Sefaria put together an intro to kabbalistic thought on chanukah consisting of a few sheets from previous years, alongside Eight Nights, Eight Riddles emails! Hadar Cohen is doing a daily email series as well for $8, and Judaism Unbound and The Torah Studio are joining up for Apocryfest, an email series about the apocrypha.

I'm going to be a part of JQT's Hanukah Hotties this year! For each day of chanukah, there's an interview with someone talking about who they are and what they do. I'm night seven!

Reboot's got a chanukah resource kit on their site, concentrating on the themes of light in the dark, and Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood put together a PDF Chanukah guide with traditional songs and recipes.

In Moroccan Jewish communities, there is a tradition to have a big fire at the end of chanukah with all the leftover candles and oil, which is rad as hell. They sing this song during that ritual. If you know how to sing this, let me know! I'm curious about the tune.

The world's largest lego menorah is at a Jewish day school near London.

Tumblr user AimMyArrowsHigh put together panfandom chanukah bingo, a bingo board meant to celebrate fanworks about jewish characters.

Izmir's chanukah Sephardic culture festival sounds great. I would love to attend someday!

Chanukah Shopping

• BuyOlympia's got a few cute chanukah cards

• Judaism Unbound's chanukah gift guides (plural!), covering books, wearables, and giftcards.

• HUC-JIR jewish language project has some real cute chanukah related designs on their redbubble

• Collection of chanukah gifts from Jewish creators of color via Bechol Lashon

Antisemitism and Israel

Uriel Kon's travelogue article about the single jew deported from a particular greek island during the shoah was masterful, in my opinion, and echoed some of my own experiences trying to understand the horrors experienced by greek jews: it is (due to heroic efforts of our people) relatively easy to find the same few pieces of information, that will occur in books and museums and photographs and family stories, but anything outside that is drastically difficult to find let alone verify. I did appreciate the reference to the Jews in ELAS, which was new to me--while I knew there were Partisans among the Greek Jews I did not know of ELAS in particular.

I am pleased to see JStreet and other liberal jewish groups standing up for Ilhan Omar, who is often called antisemitic due to her lack of support for israel. It is past time to step away from the conflation of pro-Palestine politics and antisemitism. See also: Noah Kulwin's piece for Jewish Currents on the ADL's misbehavior covers once again the conflict between Israel-no-matter-what politics and an orientation towards justice.

The Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel was an absolute embarrassment and said that Reform and Conservative jews are not jewish. He is quite incorrect, and I went on a bit of a rant on twitter about it. Also, the cultural context of claiming us less-halacha-abiding jews are not jewish is Not Great, it being a common tactic of right-wing antisemites at home and abroad.

A museum exhibit in London "highlights the overlooked role of diaspora Zionist organizations in the kidnapping and adoption of Israel’s Yemenite children." It's important to look back not only at the horrors done to us Jews, but at the horrors done by jews to other jews, so we can try and make them right.

Here's some links about contemporary antisemitism, including (but not limited to) The Ye Debacle:

• I did not read this whole explainer of current tradcath anti-abortion antisemitism but it does seem like useful information.

• Here is some information on Black Hebrew Israelites and why they've been in the news lately, and Ye stuff.

• Relatedly, Jay Michaelson explained why there are, actually, kind of a lot of jews in hollywood (spoiler: it's a relic of antisemitic restrictions on how jews could earn a living x regular american classism)

• Reading Isaac Chotiner's interview with Mort Klein aged me seven years.

• Police are not your friends, Germany edition.

Books and Language

Speculative Wisdom, Tchiyah's science fiction reading group, will be discussing A Psalm For The Wild-Built in January. I love this book. It's not jewish and nothing much happens, but there are high emotional and social stakes, and it's a gentle exploration of characters trying their best despite the occasional existential crisis. This book confirmed that, amongst my friends, I am the most likely to run away to be a tea monk.

Elizabeth R Mcclellan wrote a Jewish sci fi horror poem that is absolutely worth your time.

There's still a few weeks left to submit content for Fleyshik: A Fat Jewish Zine!

Let's learn about rare jewish book auction house Genazym, its yeshivish audience, and how judaica auctions are pretty weird.

I highly recommend looking through these 10 treasures from the New York Public Library’s 125-year-old Jewish collection, even if you only skim for the pictures--a lovely crash course in jewish print history!

Book Shopping

• Print-O-Craft Press' How To Write A Torah

• UPenn Press books are all 40% off through the end of the year, including their History of Jewish People and Culture series and the rest of their jewish studies collection, as does University of North Carolina Press. UNP/JPS has a partial chanukah sale on too. Basically if there's a university press book you want, check their website or social media (or UPressSalesBot on twitter) for a discount code.

• Ben Yehuda Press has two new titles releasing this week: Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People, and Moon Writing: Poems by Betti E. Kahn

Miscellaneous

Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler Eat? Or, for more recent (and more likely to be kosher) history, The Sword and the Sandwich covers corned beef sandwiches this week.

The People's Bubbie, Shatzie Weizenberg, passed away the night of November 30th. May her memory be a blessing.

Disability Justice Torah Circle has an official newsletter through SVARA now and it looks amazing!!

Events and classes!

Recordings of past events

• The Talmud and Other Trans Archives

• It Could Lead to Dancing book talk and discussion about dancing and jewish modernity

• Ze’evi Tovlev's senior cantorial recital and "Nonbinary Liturgy: Gender-Expansiveness in God and Ourselves." (Thanks, Rabbi Ruttenberg!)

Online classes coming up

The Yiddish Book Center's winter 2023 classes, which range across multiple skill levels, are on their website along with their January intensive. For Hebrew or Arabic language learning instead, check out This Is Not An Ulpan's online offerings.

Longtime friend of the jewsletter Shel Maala has a new class running on Sundays from Jan 8 to Feb 5 called Herbal Rabbinic Tea: Hormones & Contraception as Plant Magic in Jewish Text.

Or, for a different kind of class, check out the three session January series Why We Remember: The Concept of Postmemory with Dr. Marianne Hirsch through the Museum of Jewish History.

Lynne Lieberman is teaching a class about free will and the prophets this January through early February.

Next March brings us Adamah At Home, a three week intensive about that whole jewish farming thing.

Events

12/18 Yiddish Khanike Party with The Workers Circle

12/18 Disability Justice Torah Circle Chanukah Candlelighting

12/20 A Musical Journey in Search of Iraqi-Jewish Roots with Yoni Avi Battat and Joe Alterman

12/20 Hanukkah Piyutim Workshop from My Jewish Learning and Laura Elkeslassy

12/21 Liberating Jewish Philanthropy: The Torah of Giving from Jewish Liberation Fund and Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb

12/22 Queer Hanukah with Rabbi Denise Eger

12/22 A Very Jewish Christmas: Jesus and Shabbtai Zvi, from Heretic to Hero lecture from YIVO

12/24-12/29 Yiddish New York (hybrid, with multiple ticketing options)

1/22 A Psalm for the Wild Built book discussion

Jewish Pet of the Month

The Jewish Pet of the Month this month is Jack, a 3-ish month old kitten! Look how adorable and pointy he is. I'm dying. Someone bring me a kitten, stat.

<3

Meli