August 12, 2022

VaEtchanan

Hello!

I've been thinking about changing this newsletter to be monthly rather than weekly. I imagine the events list would be less helpful but I've been itching to devote some of my creative energy elsewhere, which is hard to do in my current setup! What do you think? Reply to this email and let me know.

Jewish Calendar

Parshat Va'Etchanan

I love connecting the name of a torah portion to its content. They're generally the first unique word in the parsha, which in this case means "and he pleaded", referring to Moses asking yet again if he can enter the promised land before he dies. G-d says no. I think this fits well with Etz Hi this week: What of you is your own to give and what belongs to Hashem, and what of the long defeat?

Anyway, in this parsha, we get the shema and the v'ahavta, as well as a replay of the ten commandments (the shamor version, not the zachor this time: don't only remember the shabbat, but keep and/or guard it.)

This shabbat (the one after tisha b'av) is also called shabbat nachamu, the shabbat of comfort, named for the haftarah which opens with "'be comforted, be comforted, my people,' says Hashem."

Holidays

Talia Lavin's excellent the Sword and the Sandwich writes about Tisha B’Av and public mourning, connecting our ongoing pandemic with the holiday.

Elul is soon. One might even say this is real and I am completely unprepared. Rabbi Jordan Braunig will be doing his emailed daily spiritual prompts again, this time in partnership with Jewish Studio Project. Check out their other elul programming too, or Judaism Unbound's Elul Unbound.

Israel and Antisemitism

then

The Night of the Murdered Poets, in which Stalin's USSR had thirteen Jews killed, was 70 years ago today. Itzik Fefer was among those killed, and this yiddish poem Longing (read in translation) is beautiful, as is Chaim Grade's poem in the memory of those killed, including a wrangling with the political positions and actions of those killed, saying (paraphrased) "you told me to not speak against Russia; would you still say this now?"

now

The "not real jews" rhetoric is going around again, as is the closely related "how could I be antisemitic when I support Israel"? Don't buy into it. Jews who disagree with you, or with me, or with the mainstream jewish opinions, are still jewish.

More and more people are noticing that AIPAC is a shonde fur de goyim, with their pro-israel politics outweighing pro-jewish priorities.

I don't know much about French Jewish life despite having some distant relatives there, so I found this 972 article on why French Jews are overwhelmingly zionist interesting. The CRIF's role sounds similar to that of pro-Israel American groups, as did the difficulties with being in organized jewish life while antizionist (though this is getting easier in America, and I hope it continues improving worldwide).

Books and Language

Welcome to the queer yeshiva, writes Rabbi Lev Taylor.

The Jewish Farmer Network has a new zine available for preorder: Shovels and Shofars! It looks great, whether you're a farm person or not--many of us have (or have experienced) some kind of labor struggle involving time off for the high holy days, and besides, all our food comes from some farm somewhere.

Michael Twitty's new book Koshersoul, which is about Black Jews and their food, sounds great.

This review of Joseph Sassoon's The Sassoons makes the book sound absolutely fascinating. I'd obviously heard of the Sassoon family before, but didn't know much about their history or how they became rich, let alone how intertwined it was with British imperialism.

Is Yeshivish a new jewish language?

Let's learn in hebrew about algebra, or maybe have a punctuation lesson.

Miscellaneous

What's the history of the everything bagel? Unclear, but yummy, and there's even a a labor history (bagel bakers local 338) linked in that post.

"Jewish filmmaker Ethan Fuirst interviewed actors who portrayed Victoria at the Tenement Museum — after they were laid off during the pandemic."

I normally keep this online content only, but Boston is getting a Lehrhaus (study tavern)!

Jewish lesbian separatist Elana Dykewomon passed away recently at the age of 72. She was an evocative brilliant writer (though she did have some some very, ah, second wave feminist views of gender, and I do not know what she thought about trans people), and was one of the descendants of the baal shem tov as well as a member of JFREJ. Baruch Dayan haEmet.

podcasts

Buffering the Vampire Slayer, a podcast about Buffy, had an episode about Willow being jewish and witchy!

The podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff had two episodes about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising recently.

There Are No Prisons in Olam Haba | Bonfire

Proceeds from the shirt will be split between the Jewish Zine Archive and Matir Asurim.. The Jewish Zine Archive is selling our most popular poster/zine design in a t-shirt…

Events and classes

classes

Reparations & Indigenous Land Back Teshuvah with Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb of JeLiThin, September 5, 12, and 19

Judaism Unbound's UnYeshiva has five mini classes this September and they all look great, as usual. I'm particularly tempted by the one about Jacob Frank, but there's no bad choices here.

I'm not sure this is truly a class, but SVARA has an Elul Chevruta Lovefest from August 30th - September 20th.

events

8/12 African-Jewish Cooking: A Cultural Crossroads with Culinary Historian Michael W. Twitty

8/28 A Time to Embrace-Songs of Comfort & Hope from Ramon Tasat

8/25 Creative Rest: Queer Disability Joy from Julia Watts Belser and the Jewish Studio Project

8/27 Rosh Chodesh Elul

8/29 Book Talk: The Sephardic Way in Death and Mourning with Rabbi Yamin Levy

8/29 Queer Nigun Project Elul Virtual Circle (register here)

9/15 The House of Memory: Jewish Stories from Jewish Women of Latin America, with Marjorie Agosin

9/11 From Rachel and David to Maya and Ezra: Trends in American Jewish Personal Names

9/26 Rosh Hashana

Jewish Pet of the Week

The Jewish Pet of the Week is Phil Keisman's assistant Bongo!

<3

Meli