Vayakhel-Pekudei
This week's parsha is Vayakhel-Pekudei and we are chugging along between purim and passover! The soundtrack to this time is this remix of Flory Jagoda's Pesah Ala Mano.
Pesach begins the evening of 3/27. If you are planning a seder, hopefully it is happening online or only between fully vaccinated people (2-4 weeks after the last vaccine shot). I have been having a lot of feelings about it being the 2nd COVID pandemic passover. Fortunately Jewish professionals have been considering this as well, including the folks at Bayit who have put together a pdf resource pack slash haggadah supplement. Some additional haggadah content:
You do not need to make your own haggadah but if you want to, you can. Haggadot.com is a good resource for this.
If you are ok with hebrew only traditional text, Print-o-Craft Press puts out a beautiful Asufah Haggadah every year that’s a one-page-per-artist collaboration
I have not read Fedem's Haggadah: A Mouth That Speaks but it looks cool
Consider also previous sponsor A Haggadah Of Our Own
Escape the Plagues is an interactive game for all ages, purchaseable for $15 (pdf) or $30 (paper). It looks really cute and features a nonbinary character, which I always appreciate.
I've also started thinking about counting the omer. There's a whole bunch of supplements and helpers, from apps to help you remember to say the blessing to a workbook and a coloring book that focus on the mystical aspects. Previously I've used OpenSiddur's color-coded calendar of sefirot and A Spiritual Guide to the Counting of the Omer but I think i’m ready to move on to an actual physical book.
Three recent losses have hit different parts of the Jewish community. Most well-known is Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth (one of my favorite children's books) who referred to himself as a "culinary jew" but most would probably call a secular one. Artist and lay cantor Jewlia Eisenberg also passed away recently. I was only aware of her through her magic-related work aka the bowls project but she did a whole lot more. The third recent departure from this world is the guy who invented tofutti.
Which Lecha Dodi tune are you? I am several of these but in a pinch the tune i remember is existential conversations jew.
Unlike many on the left, the last thing I want is to contribute to separations between liberals and leftists, especially within judaism. Unfortunately, though, that's no reason to cover up actual history of these things happening. Assimilationism and pursuit of whiteness is bad, actually.
Speaking of Jewish leftism, Jason Flatt writes for Alma about the Jewish Case for Unions and fair worker treatment in general.
For some non-pesach shopping: there's a Jewish book (which I have not yet read) called Simantov included in the current SciFi StoryBundle!
Rereading the Rabbis is now on Sefaria for all your feminist Jewish text study needs! Found via this tweet.
Rebecca Pierce, Tema Smith, and Sherrina Gibson talk about being Black Jews in North America in this panel organized by Virginia Commonwealth University.
I would love any more resources people might have in views of tzedakah that are less based in charity (the haves give to the have-nots). I am looking forward to a lecture on maintenance ("food, clothing, or other in-kind provision to family members labeled dependents") from Pratima Gopalakrishnan, a feminist scholar of late antique Jewish religion and history, which may or may not scratch that itch.
Events!
3/13 3pm Central time, a panel on Jewish Lesbian Literature and Activism with Elana Dykewomon, Judith Katz, and Irena Klepfisz, moderated by publicist Michele Karlsberg. Viewable on the Saints and Sinners youtube channel live.
3/13 Sephardi/Mizrachi havdalah with Micha Chetrit (weekly)
3/14 Trans hallel Nisan led by the very same Micha Chetrit (fb, zoom)
3/14 Queer Yiddishist Schmooze in english or yiddish! Sign up here for the link.
3/15 What is Maintenance, and Why Does it Matter? lecture from Pratima Gopalakrishnan at Fordham University
3/16 4pm PDT Jewish Zine Archive has an event called The Passover Haggadah Is The Original Jewish Zine. Sign up here.
3/16 Fat Torah Matzah event
3/21 Sephardic Pre-Pesah Celebration with Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America. Register here; more info image via La Boz Sefaradi mailing list
3/21 11a PDT Third Seder: a Yiddish Passover Celebration, including a looooot of very cool klezmer artists.
3/21 Fat Torah event about freeing passover from fatphobia
3/24 Theater Dybbuk is doing a reading of Exagogue, an adaptation of a play from the 2nd century BCE.
3/24 Kissing Through Glass: The Prose Poetry of Avrom Sutzkever as a Constructive Response to Tragedy
3/25 JOC-led Queer Mikvah Project Passover (signup link)
3/27 sundown Passover begins!
3/28 begin counting the omer
3/28 Rabbah Rona is running a queer liberation seder
3/31 CBST's Trans Jews Are Here
3/31 Pink Peacock's fuck visibility: a liberation seder on trans day of visibility. Register here.
4/4 end of Passover
4/9 Beyond Productivity: How Shabbat Values Underscore Disability Justice Principles, a special friday night service from Kol Tzedek
The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Seraph, who tried to help out with the Four Questions last year but then remembered he could not read.
Thank you everyone, and as always send me anything you might want featured—cute pets included.
<3
Meli