Vaera
Hello everyone! I am not feeling well this week (it's not covid, just a cold), so this may be a somewhat off-kilter jewsletter with more errors than usual. Also, it's the secular new year soon and I'm gonna mark the changeover by trying to stay up til midnight in my own living room.
A Prayer for 2022:
— Rabbi Emily Cohen (@ThatRabbiCohen) December 31, 2021
May we strive to be our best selves in these worst communal moments.
May we treat ourselves and others with gentleness and love.
May we remember that the worth of every human being is their being and not their doing.
May we seek to build a better world.
CW's: plague(s), taphonomy (giant corpse speculation), nazis (in the context of resistance to), god-eating i guess?
Jewish Calendar
This week's torah portion is Vaera, which gets us into 7/10ths of the plagues. In Etz Hi this week ada wrote about the multi-plague that is frogs and dealing with frog carcasses, or how the rich had to deal with the frogs but the regular people of mitzrayim had to deal with the aftermath; to which i add: if we merge this with the one giant frog midrash, that is one big carcass! Were the people of mitzrayim dealing with potential explosion? or cutting off bits to harvest (though with less cultural significance than the Makah, presumably) and try to use before further decomposition? Or just trying to get their space back and free of big ol' frog?
Look, i'm just saying there's potential here for one hell of a story, and also that megabeasts don't decompose peacefully, and taphonomy is fascinating.
Israel, Zionism, and Antisemitism
A few times lately, I've seen very online zionists say things like "don't call Ashkenazi Jews European, it's offensive". Michael Sappir's got a little twitter thread about some of the reasons why that's a deeply weird take.
The Tribune's got a neat piece on jewish resistance fighter Hilda Monte.
Miscellaneous
Anti-theists: “Religion stops you from asking questions”
— bly (@ReligiousStudie) December 30, 2021
Jews: “if god had a physical form, would it be kosher to eat god?”
I've seen sooooo many "here's our favorite stuff this year!" lists, but Sefaria's staff's favorite texts this year is one of my favorites, not necessarily for its content (though that too!) but by how much it shows the staff behind the platform really do care about its content, including some staff members who aren't super experienced with text study talking about how they use topic pages and pre-prepared sheets instead. Thanks, Sefaria. You rock.
the spinoza excommunication drama is somehow still going.
I've finally started watching The Club (Kulup) on Netflix. I believe I linked some Jewish pieces about it, and about the use of Ladino in it, when it came out back in November; but I gotta say, it's better than I expected, and I'm learning some dark shit about the history of Turkey while watching this period drama, which honestly is one of the things I love about period dramas. Apparently season 2 is coming in January.
Jewitches' well-researched article The Jewish History of Tarot is actually about how, while Jews have used Tarot cards, the cards themselves are not a product of judaism.
This book that has illustrations by Yosel Cutler and Lui Buninhttps://t.co/NDsTKr92aD pic.twitter.com/gbcJOs4vdz
— elizabeth (@shvlman) December 28, 2021
The Giant Robots of Babel sounds fascinating.
Not sure how I feel about Germany's Meet a Jew program
A friend sent me this blogpost about 11th century Jewish Andalusian poetess Qasmūna bint Ismāʿil, daughter of Shlomo haNagid. I love the few snippets we have of her work, and the way her knowledge and unique perspectives are explained and contextualized.
Nadine Batchelor-Hunt wrote for the bbc about her visit to Ethiopian Jewish communities in Israel and how she felt about it, as a Black Jewish woman.
My favorite thing about the mediterranean countries is that people have been living there for so damn long sometimes you find an ancient synagogue under someone's basement.
This liturgy diagram needs way more dotted lines.
Events!
1/2 Speculative Wisdom bookclub discusses The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
1/3 TransHallel (or unofficial DIY alternative hallel)
1/4 Turning to Tkhines: Voices in the Vernacular (suggested donation $25)
1/9 Matir Asurim Penpal training
1/9 Queer Nigun Project Song Circle
1/9 Historical and linguistic overview of Jewish languages in Iran (more info)
1/10-1/14 Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest
1/16-1/17 Tu Bishvat
1/16 IJV Tu Bishvat Seder
1/16 Workers Circle tu bishvat seder
1/18 Torah beyond zionism: Israel and the Book of Joshua with Rachel Havrelock
1/26 Black Studies and Jewish Studies in Conversation: Du Bois Before Warsaw, Fascism Before Racism
1/27 Shakespeare & Yiddish with Ilan Stavans
1/30 Judeo-Hamadani, Judeo-Isfahani, Judeo-Yazdi, and other Median languages (more info)
Jewish Pet of the Week
The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Momo, an 11 year old Gemini tortoiseshell cat who always makes this face :|
Happy new year!
<3
Meli