Vayera
Hello! Today is the 19th of marcheshvan, also known as cheshvan. The parsha of the week is Vayera. The Torah’s still hanging out with Abraham, we have the Sodom and Gomorrah story in which there’s two episodes of bargaining about people’s worth—first Abraham with G-d about the worth of the cities of mostly bad people, then Lot with those people themselves in a much more skeezy and/or desparate way. As an American let me tell you I feel for the people arguing that we probably shouldn’t be all killed because some of us are terrible, even though here it’s not quite as bad a ratio.
This is also the first time I am sending this out after the beginning of shabbat. I’m choosing to blame it on world events stress and the time change.
Gritty and Klezmer: two tastes that taste great together.
While the live events have completed, JVP’s election week care package divided into POETRY & WRITING, PODCASTS & RECORDINGS, MUSIC, PRAYER & BLESSINGS, ART-MAKING, BODY & BREATH and TZEDAKAH has no deadline. They had those links in all caps and I do not feel like changing them.
Some informative articles that came out and classes coming up:
I have not yet read this article from leftist publication Against the Current titled On Jewish Revolutionary Internationalism, but I plan to. It discusses jewish involvement in ending apartheid in South Africa. The same issue includes a few other Judaism-related articles, including an obituary of intersectional marxist Nettie Kravitz.
I browsed around Henry Sapoznik’s blog learning about Black Yiddishist cantors including Thomas LaRue Jones. Fun fact: the second woman cantor we know of was Black.
Ruben Shimonov will be doing a talk about LGBTQ+ Sefardi/Mizrachi Jews, including the active New York area/Facebook group he runs, Sefardi/Mizrachi Q Network. I went to his talk on this at Limmud Seattle and it was great. Sign up here for free.
Sephardic Brotherhood of America’s next class series includes Exploring Sephardic Judaism in the Modern Era and an italian jewish calligraphy workshop.
The Jewish Pet of the Week is Viktor, who along with his fellow feline Zephyr helps Jessica Olin attend services on zoom. He is a good baby who would never steal trash.
See you next week!
<3
Meli