Vayelech
Hello!
Content notes for this week's newsletter are: antisemitism (incl parroted by Jews), 9/11, islamophobia, workplace sexual harrassment, antiblack racism (lynching mention)
Jewish Calendar
https://twitter.com/BenYehudaPress/status/1436362798041341954
This week's torah portion is Vayelech. Moses talks about being old and not crossing the river into eretz yisrael; Instead, Moses will die outside the holy land, Hashem will go in, and Joshua will follow Hashem, and the people will follow Joshua. And then some warnings about how Israel will mess up and worship idols again and Hashem will get angry and bad things will happen; and when those bad things happen this torah will confront you with your mistakes. This is all lead-in to a lecture poem that makes up most of next week's parsha.
A neat tidbit in the 4th aliyah specifically mentions reading this teaching to all of israel, including jews and nonjews in the community, on sukkot during the shmita year (which is in checks calendar a week and a half oh no).
Days of Awe
I will be doing a pop-up shabbat morning service tomorrow, 9/11, starting at 10 am pacific time on zoom. The meeting password is ShabbatShu.
Yom Kippur is this upcoming Thursday. I've listed a bunch of options on virtual services in the events section, but in case you're too overwhelmed to register for anything MyJewishLearning has linked to several that are streaming for anyone.
https://twitter.com/roseberrycomix/status/1435354247747588103?utm_source=pocket_mylist
Politics and bigotries
The ADL called out Jewish Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel's comparison of vaccine mandates to the shoah. That man is so embarrassing. Do we think his "play footsie with Jew-haters" comment is explicitly about Jonathan Greenblat's recent apology op-ed regarding the ADL's islamophobic position ten years ago regarding the "ground zero mosque" proposal, which was a community center not a mosque and not actually at the 9/11 attack site. CAIR's twitter thread about the op-ed echoes my facepalm-related feelings. See also: Jewish Currents' look into the conflicts between ADL's civil rights work and their pro-Israel work.
It was recently the 20th anniversary of the UN's Durban antiracism conference, in which anti-zionism really did devolve into forthright antisemitism, fueling Jewish distrust of international human rights groups and furthering the false idea that antizionism and antisemitism are inextricable. Ron Kampeas delved into its history for JTA. The article butts up against my more pro-Palestine leanings in some of its construction, as I do think the state of Israel is racist against Palestinians and its policies can be accurately termed apartheid; however, it does chronicle and contextualize the places where antizionism slid directly into Protocols distribution and Hitler-glorifying antisemitism in and around the NGO forum. There is a Durban IV event happening this year for the 20th anniversary and some countries are boycotting for antisemitism at Durban I as well as continuing through Durban events II and III, such as Ahmedinejad's holocaust denial. What we do, or don't do, about this today feels very tangled.
Meanwhile, in Jewish Currents Maya Rosen discusses the Shabbat terrorism habits of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The connection to sunday lynchings in the jim crow south feels entirely apt and extremely disappointing and upsetting. Why would you celebrate shabbat by attacking anyone? Hashem gave us the torah and this is what you do with it?!
https://twitter.com/JessicaKirzane/status/1435984443433537538
Miscellaneous
73 Forward is a new Jewish abortion access movement group launching in October.
Theater Dybbuk is between seasons of their podcast, but recently featured episode 6 of season 1 (transcript available in PDF form), which looks at intergenerational trauma through the lens of a 1994 Lilith Magazine piece by the child of Shoah survivors--and unlike many discussions that feature the term "intergenerational trauma", actually uses the context of trauma responses, their use as survival skills at the time, and their passing-on through the generations.
University of Alabama Press has a 40% off all books sale, including books on topics like Jews in the American South, Sephardim in the Holocaust, Rabbis during the civil rights movement, and Jewish farmers in New Jersey.
"Dungeons & Dragons has united a diverse group of rabbis. But their commitment to social justice has faced a challenge." is a hell of a way to say "a multidenominational group of rabbis plays D&D, including after one of them left his job because he sexually harassed the cantor." I am not saying they needed to kick him out but it feels jarring going back and forth between fun-loving D&D content and, well, sexual harassment content. I hope the D&D project is good and also that the teshuva happens in a way that actually meets the needs of the victim.
The excellent @moontwerk did a whole lil thread about dyeing cloth with pomegranate rinds!
Americana music blog Adobe and Teardrops assembled a lovely playlist of Jewish country music, in this case meaning country music specifically about judaism or with jewish themes. She also shares her story of being a 13 year old antizionist jew in the wake of 9/11 and separating from Judaism, then returning to it (teshuva!) in the late 20teens. I am gonna go listen to a whole bunch more Nefesh Mountain after this.
Dara Horn's book People Love Dead Jews was reviewed in the New York Times.
My friend brin is looking to hire someone to build a website for its siddur! Preference given to trans Jews, but anyone Jewish and interested should reach out.
https://twitter.com/BL_HebrewMSS/status/1436026078137659401
Events!
9/11 10 AM PDT pop-up shacharit led by me, with pw ShabbatShu. We will use the reconstructionist Kol HaNeshama siddur screenshared pdf, which is mostly transliterated.
9/12, 9/13, 9/14, 9/23, 9/24, 9/26 SVARA's drop-in Mishna collective, Days of AWEsome edition
9/12 Virtual Walking Tour: Jewish Porto, Portugal, $18-36
9/12 Skylit: A Flag of No Nation by Tom Haviv, with Ben Ratskoff, Sophie Levy & Arielle Angel, discussing "the uses and abuses of Mizrahi politics, nationalism, and the search for an anti-nationalist poetic form." (source)
9/12 The Last 100 Years of Ashkenazim in Mexico: Shifting Identity Definitions
9/12 National Sephardic Selihot (will also be livestreamed on facebook, just like last year's)
9/12 IJV Online Chavurah - Book of Jonah Session
9/12 Yom Kippur Drash from Hadar: Can We Reverse the Irreversible? Teshuvah for a Broken World by Dena Weiss
9/12 Kol Nidre: Audio-Visual Dramaturgies – Part 1 (of 4)
9/13 Does Time Make a Difference? A Conversation about Hours, Weeks, Days, and Years in Jewish Antiquity. Registration link
9/14 Sephardic Yom Kippur: A Day of Joy (zoom link)
9/16 Yom Kippur
Kanisse Egalitarian Sephardi, EDT, evening/morning/evening
New Synagogue Project, egalitarian non-denominational, EDT, YK Kol Nidre, morning, Neilah, sliding scale $18+
Tzedek Chicago, pro-Palestine Reconstructionist, CDT, YK evening/morning/evening, $25-30 per service
Kehilla, shmita focused renewal-ish, PDT, YK evening/morning/evening, Shabbat Shuvah, sliding scale $20+
Hinenu Baltimore, reconstructionist, EDT, YK evening/morning/evening, sliding scale $0-75 - Beit Tikkun), music and politics, PDT, YK evening/morning-thru-evening, sliding scale $36-250
Workers Circle Yom Kippur, leftist yiddishist secular, $25-36
Kadima, hippie Reconstructionist, PDT, YK evening/morning/evening, sliding scale $0+
Etz Chaim, Reform, CDT, no registration required (youtube streaming)
Kohenet, "chant, embodied practice, Torah reading, and more", EDT, sliding scale $45+
Jews in all Hues, JOCSM-led, EDT, sliding scale $0+
9/19 Sukkot Drash from Hadar: The Gap that Can’t be Breached: Longing for God's Presence by Rabbi Avi Strausberg
9/19 High Holidays: Cannabis & History from Mirushe Zylali
9/19 Medieval Spain: A Conversation on Art, Literature, and History, co-organized by Fordham’s Center for Jewish Studies and The Met Cloisters, "focusing particularly on Jewish presence within and across the geopolitical regions at the meeting points of Christian- and Muslim-ruled Spain"
9/23, 9/30, 10/7 Shmita: Our Radical Ancestral Eco-Justice Solution for a Sustainable Future w/ Rabbi David Seidenberg (suggested donation $18-36, NOTAFLOF)
9/20-27 Jewish Ancestral Healing summit
9/30 Secular Yidishkayt and Social Justice in the US South, with Josh Parshall by Yiddish Book Center
9/30 Don't Ask Don't Pray: Gender Resistance and Sexual Recognition in Reform Jewish Holiday Rituals
10/10, 10/17, 10/24 Mizrachi dance lessons on Moroccan, Bukharian, and Yemenite dance, $10/session
Jewish Pet of the Week
The Jewish Pet of the Week is this silly elegant boy Miche!
https://twitter.com/jextdo/status/1424900781833166850
Such a peaceful snooze. I think I will also take a nap.
See you next week, or perhaps tomorrow at Zoom shul!
<3
Meli