Vayechi
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CW's: drugs (LSD), genocide (shoah), Trump, nazis, violence.
Jewish Calendar
This week's torah portion is vayechi (there's even a playlist about it). Jacob is near death, having lived 17 years in mitzrayim. He blessed Joseph's children, during which he shuffles the first and 2ndborn (but both get a blessing, this time!). It feels to me that this parsha is more of an endcap on Jacob's story, symmetric with its beginnings and tying up the ends of his offspring; Joseph technically does die at the end of this parsha also, but the themes of his particular story, of wealth and famine and social positioning, are more firmly tied into the beginnings of Exodus, and the rise of Moses.
On that note, we are finishing up bereshit, and the previously recommended etz hi has been collected into a lil pdf-book commentary. Pay what you want! it's got footnotes!
https://twitter.com/ThatRabbiCohen/status/1470760961074253829
We also had a minor fast this past week, asara b'tevet (10th of tevet), commemorating the beginning of the siege of jerusalem and separately the beginnings of the septuagint. I've been thinking a lot about cultural clashes between a hegemonic power and a minority group, both for the everpresent reasons and for more immediate ones like asara b'tevet and reading Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series, but that's not the main component of my thoughts on the holiday. Instead, I've been thinking about time and our perceptions of its passing.
We commemorate the beginning of the siege here in Tevet, and its unfortunate end in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem with the 9th of Av. These fasts are six months apart, but the events they commemorate are 30 months apart, messing with my (and i assume other people's as well!) idea of the span between events. If we remember these events annually and assume the timespan between the events they commemorate was six months, what happens to the missing two years? does it disappear from our minds, erased from remembrance? It feels different from events separated by a longer time, or those more fully dissolved into myth--it is clear Purim's events occurred more than a year after those of the Exodus from Mitzrayim, for instance--but the difference between six months and two and a half years is smaller.
But also, it is two whole years. The rough length time the world has been dealing with COVID-19 fits into that: forever, and also no time at all. Grief, among other things, weirds time and our perception of it, a familiar situation to anyone who made endless "march 290th" jokes through 2020.
Asara b'Tevet has also been declared a communal day of mourning by Israel, originally for people who died in the holocaust but whose relatives aren't sure when. It is part of the trio of fasts mourning our exile, with the 21st of tammuz and the 9th of av. A collection of messy things, of mourning concepts, of beginnings of great losses and mournings of unknowns; of marked sudden permanent changes, the beginning of us figuring out how to live in the new world created by our circumstances--or the invading empire--or this virus--or our neglect of public health infrastructure.
It feels a fitting holiday, this year in particular.
Israel, Zionism, and Antisemitism
https://twitter.com/BrittneyBush/status/1471590891735289857?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Alex V. Green's piece The New Zionism is an excellent writeup of the obnoxious trend that is white ashkenazi jews referring to them as "indigenous judeans". As ever i wish there was inclusion or at least mention that some jews are indigenous to a whole variety of places--not all of us are white ashkenazim, you know? But once you bring mizrachim into this discussion, you do have to deal with the whole thing where mizrachi stories are misused by zionists to imply a wider indigeneity to the levant.
Meanwhile ex-President Trump (ptoo ptoo ptoo) seems to have decided that american jews are bad because we don't have enough loyalty to israel, turning the dual loyalty antisemitism on its head and not-fulfilling-stereotypes into a negative.
and two surprisingly positive features in part about nazis:
"Russia will return to Greece the prewar archives of Jewish communities that were stolen by Nazi forces, the Mediterranean country’s Jewish council said Thursday."
"Today we’re going to be talking about Jewish gangsters who fucked up Nazis." (Thanks Andy.)
Misc
If you have read way too many Nice Kind Informative Letters About Jewish Holidays, you may enjoy this thread about the upcoming holiday Christmas.
Looking for input:
A Reform rabbi is looking for nonmonogamous jewish people to fill out a survey on polyamory and judaism.
are you a trans jewish composer?
The folks behind London language learning group Babel's Blessing are fundraising to start a queer yeshiva!
This obituary of Renay Mandel Corren written by her son is amazing.
Because she was my mother, the death of zaftig good-time gal Renay Corren at the impossible old age of 84 is newsworthy to me, and I treat it with the same respect and reverence she had for, well, nothing. A more disrespectful, trash-reading, talking and watching woman in NC, FL or TX was not to be found. Hers was an itinerant, much-lived life, a Yankee Florida liberal Jewish Tough Gal who bowled 'em in Japan, rolled 'em in North Carolina and was a singularly unique parent.
I recently found the website Pulling at threads: Rediscovering the forgotten rituals of Eastern European Jewish Women, including tkhines, incantations, and more. Beautiful!
The Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris has a new exhibit about MENA Jewish history and culture, and articles about it feature some gorgeous art and artifacts.
https://twitter.com/JewishLanguages/status/1471572471887249411
PROTOCOLS issue 10 includes The Fez As Storyteller, a selection of Baghdadi Jewish artist Camille Eskell's work, and Searching For Temples, about the history of labor temples / union halls in Los Angeles (among other things).
Also not to miss: an entire thread of illustrated yiddish letters, with my favorites being the bear daled and lenin lamed.
https://twitter.com/samshonkoff/status/1471196494250139656?utm_source=pocket_mylist
And a couple recordings to round it all out:
Awafi Kitchen, JVP, and Radius of Arab American Writers put together an event about Beidth al Tbeet's history and posted the recording on youtube for all of us to enjoy.
Tchiyah's Intro to Jewish Prayer class series
Events!
12/16 Di Feygl Sho (every other Thursday)
12/21 Bubby and Them screening and discussion event with SMQN, Keshet, and SAJ (zoom registration link)
12/24 Nittel Nacht with Rad Yiddish
12/25-12/30 Yiddish New York, which includes a 4 day social justice workshop
12/26 Jews vs Aliens: A Chanukah Story, an RPG playthrough
1/18 Torah beyond zionism: Israel and the Book of Joshua with Rachel Havrelock
Jewish Pet of the Week
Amrod! We don't get enough fish around here. Do you have a fish? Send me a photo and a name and they too can be Jewish Pet of the Week!
https://twitter.com/katriddell/status/1459276868931268619
See you next week, and shabbat shalom!
<3
Meli