Tevet 5784
Welcome to Weird Jewish Digest and Happy Chanukah, however you spell it! There are so many links this week, so skim along until you find something important and/or something you like.
Jewish Calendar
Chanukah
Check out some cozy art and Maimonideez Nutz's classic Happy Honk sweatshirt. Or, for an entirely different vibe, bravely facing the truth(s) of the chanukah story/ies, with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg.
Rabbi Bluth and Kohenet Naomi Izen have put together a PDF guide with suggested themes and thoughts for each night's candle. Rabbis for Ceasefire's resource also takes us through all 8 candles, or there's Rebooting Judaism's chanukah resources and jewitches' guide.
The Torah Studio is having a hannukah fundraiser--throw them a few bucks if you've got extra; they do good stuff.
Israel/Palestine and Antisemitism
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shares some lessons of growing up Black and Jewish.
H.P. Lovecraft was notoriously a racist and, less notoriously, an antisemite. His work was also foundational to horror fiction. Want to know what he thought of Zionism and Palestine?
Or, perhaps for a change in scenery, something about Christian zionism? Sam Thielman writes "Slouching Toward Jerusalem: Evangelicals love Israel. Why?". Talia Lavin writes These Evangelicals Are Cheering the Gaza War as the End of the World. I have not read either of these fully but they are relevant to today's politics (including, unfortunately, to the politics of Judaism) and maybe you want to know more.
The war
What is the responsibility of us bystanders in wartime? is it to communicate our opinions, or to understand the incomprehensible, to tease out meaning and intent, or to follow the truths of what happened before and is happening now; is it to become an activist, to pressure governments towards peace? (Our Queer and Jewish Grief Must Fuel Our Fight to Let Gaza Live, says Rabbi Elliot Kukla.)
I spend my days grappling with small everyday tasks and also the impossibility of living responsibly in a world with atrocities like the acts of both Hamas on 10/7 and the Israeli government/military's actions in Gaza. Maybe you do too. We can, at least, witness what is happening.
The death toll in Palestine continues to rise alarmingly since the end of the temporary ceasefire, with Israel attacking areas in the south of Gaza previously marked as safe. Refugees are having to flee for a second or third time since the bombing began. Nowhere is safe.
Yuval Abraham's extensive report, ‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza, discusses how Israel plans its attacks on Gaza, including the use of AI, the rising acceptable levels of civilian casualties, and the intentional bombing of Palestinian civil society buildings like universities and government offices as "power targets".
I take hope from the fact that I am not alone, that there are many of us calling for a ceasefire, from inside and outside judaism, from groups years into organizing and newly formed ones, even from rabbis and from other jewish professionals (sign onto the open letter here if you are one).
on the hostages
What happens when freed Israeli hostages and their families don't have the opinions the Israeli government wants them to have? Maya Rosen with Jewish Currents reported (prior to the temporary ceasefire), or read in the Times of Israel for a more recent update. More on the lack of free speech in Israel from Masha Gessen.
inside baseball and the jewish left
The ADL Is Making It Less Safe to Be a Progressive Jew by antisemitism scholar Ben Lorber touches on the ADL's categorization of JVP and INN as antisemitic. Meanwhile Jonathan Greenblatt himself is working with Elon Musk's antisemitism-riddled twitter/X. (Elon himself is antisemitic, too, even if he did meet with Netanyahu the other day. Part of a pattern for Netanyahu, if we're honest.)
Shaul Magid's book The Necessity of Exile features a chapter On Jews, un-Jews, and anti-Jews, discussing that thing where right-wingers like to call us not jewish or even anti-jews for our views on Israel. As a balm and counter to that idea, Rabbi Emily Cohen writes We Are All Jewish Enough For This Moment in HeyAlma.
Books and Language
Are you neurodivergent and looking to write about neurodivergent torah? Liz Shayne, Matthew Lawrence, and Simcha Weinstein are seeking submissions for an anthology due December 15th.
AK Press is putting out an English translation of the 1945 Yiddish language book The Jewish Anarchist Movement in America by Joseph Cohen. They've also got a graphic novel history of The Bund that looks interesting.
Ayin Press recently published Aurora Levins Morales' poem Summons in their column otiyot.
While the yiddish cabaret fundraiser has past, this conversation with organizers freygl gertsovski, Sorke Schneider and Willow Rosenberg in In Geveb is solidly worth reading! You can donate directly to Queer Yiddish Camp here, and find out more about Rad Yiddish on their website.
JQT Vancouver has been posting some wonderful historic images on their instagram, including this 1987 Women's Haggadah that features a labrys / magen david design.
Miscellaneous
In Bosnia, gentile musicians work to preserve the country’s Sephardic Jewish tradition. As always, I have mixed feelings about cultural preservation efforts led by gentiles, but this one seems fine--it's more about tributes to history than about revival, and at least one local expert interviewed in the article goes so far as to say "any Bosnian musician who wants to sing Bosnian Sephardic songs treats them as his own — and he should, because they are. I am happy about that. Just as his beautiful Mosques are mine, our beautiful Sephardic songs are his.”
Jericho Vincent wrote a beautiful and fascinating review of Shabbetai Tzvi's proto-feminist worldview in Life is a Sacred Text.
Beyond the Pale: a folktale adventure is a neat-looking table-top RPG "inspired by Jewish folklore and mysticism". It's fully funded and got a couple weeks left on kickstarter if you want in on it!
JOC Initiative is recruiting Jewish adoptees of color (non-insta link) as participants in a JOC-adoptee-led research project called Shades of Belonging.
Classes and events
Judaism Unbound is having a Torah for this Moment series on several upcoming Fridays (12/1, 12/15, 12/29, 1/12, 1/26, 2/9) aiming to bring together people with diverse views on Israel to study texts that apply directly to this political moment. For a similar meeting with more of a pro-Palestine focus, check out Shel Maala's Torah for Palestine on Tuesdays.
Shel Maala's next class is from Lexi Kohanski and dives into some zohar learning! Who Created These! A Mystical Journey into the Questions that Define Hashem meets on Wednesdays starting December 13th. I'm planning to take this one--maybe we can learn together!
There's still time to get online tickets to Yiddish New York (Dec 23-28), which includes evening concerts and more as well as their daytime sessions.
12/10 For queer people who need a little light in the darkness, there's one more Queer Nigun Project meeting this year
12/12 Join Hey Alma and Rabbi Emily Cohen in a Virtual Hanukkah Candle Lighting for Peace
12/12 A Conversation on Intersectionality, Water and International Solidarity: Our Role in Palestinian Liberation as Queer Jews, from Queer Mikveh Project
12/14 From Darkness to Light: Poetry in Celebration of Hanukkah
Radical Teshuvah is organizing an anti-nationalist doykeit teach-in on Dec 17th on zoom. Email doikaytbaybee@proton.me for more info!
Also on 12/17, What is Feminist Torah and how do I teach it?, a workshop from Rabbi Avigayil Halpern.
12/19 Illuminating the Movement: Stories of Hope, a PWYW end of year fundraiser from Jewish Liberation Fund
12/21 A Very Jewish Christmas: When Jesus Spoke Yiddish from YIVO, on Yiddish translations of the new testament.
JWA put online their January book talks, including one from Julia Watts Belser in conversation with Judith Plaskow.
1/14 A Medium for the Masses: The Yiddish Press and the Shaping of American Jewish Culture (YIVO symposium)
Pet of the Month
The pet of the month is my own cat Jam! As is probably obvious, I am out of pets of the month, but that's okay, she's the pet of my heart every month.
Do you want your pet to be the pet of the month? Reply with their name and a photo and I'll feature them next time!
<3
Meli