September 8, 2023

Tishrei 5784

Welcome to Weird Jewish Digest! We're about to be starting a new year. Do you have any intentions for how you want the new year to go? I'm hoping to include more personal writing in the jewsletter in the coming year rather than just links. Is that something you'd like to see? Let me know!

Jewish Calendar

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

• 9/9 Nitzavim-Vayeilech / נִצָּבִים־וַיֵּלֶךְ; newsletters from those weeks in 5780, 5781 (nitzavim, vaiyelech), 5782 (nitzavim, vaiyelech)

• 9/23 Ha’Azinu / הַאֲזִינוּ; newsletters from that week in 5780, 5781

• 10/8 Vezot Haberakhah 5784 / וְזֹאת הַבְּרָכָה; newsletters from that week in 5781, and 5782

The reason for there being so few is the upcoming holidays, many of which land on Shabbat this year.

High Holy Days

Thankfully, plenty of groups are doing zoom high holy days. Here is a selection of congregations offering zoom-based or streaming services across time zones:

• Kadima (Seattle, WA, reconstructionist)

• Beth Israel Center (Madison, WI, trad egal)

• Kanisse (NYC, Sephardic Egal, yom kippur only)

• Kol Tzedek (Philadelphia, PA, reconstructionist)

• IKAR (Los Angeles, CA, independent egal)

• Tzedek Chicago (Chicago, IL, guitar in services)

• Yelala (UK, reflective/meditative)

• Lab/Shul (NYC, musical and meditative)

Laura Elkeslassy is also doing introductions to high holy days liturgy with a focus on Sephardi/Mizrachi content on Sept 11 (Rosh Hashana) and Sept 19 (Yom Kippur). More info available on facebook.

Ki Tavo may be the parsha that nobody likes, but the sephardic rosh hashana seder is the custom everyone likes. Rabbi Daniel Bouskila writes about both in The Jewish Journal

If you need large print or braille materials, make sure to hit up The JBI Library by phone or email. If you are looking for JOC-centric resources, check out JOCI's list.

Antisemitism (honestly, this is ridiculous)

There has been entirely too much news about antisemitism lately, centered mostly around the ADL and elon musk. What it boils down to is: white supremacists convinced Musk that the ADL is why twitter is failing. Missing from how many non-jewish sources are discussing this is how "the ADL" is being used as shorthand for "the jews". This is antisemitism. This is nakedly, explicitly bigotry.

The ADL is not a perfect organization, frankly, but that is not the point; they are reputable in terms of defining white supremacist hate organizations and that is specifically why they are coming under attack--white supremacists are declaring the ADL as anti-white, and one of the richest, most powerful men in the world is publicizing their grievances.

If you say you are against antisemitism but act like this, you are not against antisemitism--you are an antisemite.

You ever feel like you're just banging your head against the wall accomplishing nothing? no? just me? Well. let's get to some fun links.

Books and language

"Yiddish Is Having a Moment" says Ilan Stavans in the New York Times opinion section, which I am conflicted about linking to due to the paper's severe transphobia.

There's a newly available database of yiddish "shund" fiction, roughly translated as trash or pulp, consisting of the forverts' archive of such materials, including (yes) god of vengeance.

Ayin Press published a collection of Turkish Jewish poetry translated to English titled The Water Alphabet.

Bayit and Ben Yehuda Press are coming together to make a new Shabbat morning siddur, and it looks beautiful :)

Miscellaneous

Happy 123rd birthday to the Worker's Circle!

Cairo is the latest example of a city celebrating a restored historic synagogue without involving any actual Jews. Maybe all five jews in the city of ten million people had a good reason to stay home that day, but either way the optics are not great.

Maybe you want to get into the origins of things? Dr. Tamar Ron Marvin writes about The Origins of Sefardi Jewry this week.

Despite my being across the country from it, Kehila Kedosha Janina has a special place in my heart. Check out this profile of this unique Romaniote synagogue in The Forward.

Miryam haNevi’ah, written by rabbis Leila Gal Berner and Arthur Waskow, is a staple at progressive havdalah ceremonies; apparently it has something of a lost lesbian history as well.

Gashmius, the progressive neohasidic online magazine, has a new feature called Table Talk, where a number of experts all share their thoughts on a topic (in this case, prayer).

While I'm closer to the subject of the essay than its target audience, Akiva Weisinger's What I Wish Orthodox Rabbis Understood About the People They Write Off essay was interesting to read. I think it's missing that traditionally-observing people kicked out of orthodoxy don't necessarily want to be a part of orthodoxy, though there's definitely room for more communication between the groups.

Classes and events

Class series

Everyone's put up their fall classes!

• Between Heaven and Earth: Yiddish Women's Folklore, Rituals, & Magic, Wednesdays 10/11-11/1, among other Yiddish Book Center online courses.

• Paideia, based in Sweden, is running a Queer Jewish Journeys in Media class over zoom starting 10/4!

• From the Shtetl to the Kettle: Ashkenazi Herbalism online class series from Herbalists Ayelet Hashachar and Brunem Warshaw.

• Shel Maala and the Trans Halakha Project are bringing us Compiling the Next Trans Codex: Learning from the Writers of the Trans Halakha Project (10/19-12/21), a series of nine talks from members of the trans halakha project's teshuva writing collective. Alternately, check out the rest of SVARA's fall 2023 classes!

• Judaism Unbound also has fall 2023 classes up, including classes on crafting ritual, prayer, embodied transformation, and unlearning jewish anxiety.

Events

9/10 JVP Rosh Hashana 5784 - Sephardi Mizrahi Virtual Seder for All

9/12 Emma Goldman, Radical Anarchism, and the Opera lecture

9/12 The Politics of Philanthropy & Collective Giving as a Means of Movement-Building, from New Israel Fund and Jewish Liberation Fund

9/13 Jewish Holiday Names: a lecture by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein about people named after holidays (register)

9/16-17 Rosh Hashana

9/18 Exploring Roman Jewish Break Fast Traditions for Yom Kippur with Leah Koenig

9/20 Make Your Own Local Lulav with Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman

9/21 Miriam Karpilove and the Yiddish Newspaper talk

9/25 Yom Kippur

9/29-10/6 Sukkot

10/10 Writing Our Own Answers with the Trans Halakha Project

10/24-25 Rising Tide Gathering 2023: Elu v’Elu, Both/And: Multiplicity in Mikveh

Pet of the Month

The Jewish Pet of the Month this month is Maisy, an adorable tuxedo cat belonging to friend of the jewsletter Reid!

See you next month!

<3

Meli