November 12, 2021

Vayetzei

Hello!

One of the links this week came from a trivia newsletter I subscribe to. Guess which one!

Content notes for this week's newsletter are antisemitism, anti-palestinian opinions and violence, white supremacy

Jewish Calendar

This week's torah portion is vayetzei. One of the many things that makes me go "....huh" in here is a, let's say, interesting understanding of livestock patterns and genetics.

Jacob wants to go home. Laban wants to pay him for his work over the past years tending the flock. Jacob asks for all the dark sheep and the spotty speckley goats, and Laban agrees, but then removes them to somewhere else before Jacob can claim them for his own, along with all the stronger better animals even if they don't fit that description, so that Jacob wouldn't be able to get away with the best parts of the flock.

So Jacob gets crafty. Downright Lamarckian. He takes some big sticks, and carves their surface so they're striped or spotted or mottled, showing light and dark together--patterned like his share of the livestock, and puts them right by where the goats drank water and mated.

Genesis 30:39

and since the goats mated by the rods, the goats brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted…

And apparently Jacob further manipulated things, stratifying the animals into stronger and weaker (or early-breeding and late-breeding, depending on your translation), and preferentially making the stronger or earlier-breeding animals have sex near the rods, to increase the chances of earlier (or stronger) animals with stripes to be given to Jacob when he leaves.

From the beginning of this parsha, Jacob and Laban's dealings have to do with trickery (work for seven years to marry my daughter! oops wrong daughter seven more years of work~ okay fine i'll pay you, in animals, but minimize the animals you can take). And here is Jacob tricking him back. I don't like that Jacob learned this, that this is a lesson he took from the world being unkind and humans being manipulative--that he should manipulate them right back. Some commentators try and defend Jacob's actions, reframing them as not-devious, or simply describe and comment, or say this silly stick business working was hashem helping out. I think an early author (or editor, or redactor) didn't like this either, and put hashem-as-actor back in, saying that any surprising increase in spotted animals, why, that's G-d's doing! not mine. So too with Laban: he said he could hurt Jacob but isn't, for fear of Hashem. So G-d brings them together, and they make a peaceful pact. The end, I guess.

We all agree--the commentators, the original person writing down these stories, and myself--that the three characters enacting this dynamic are Hashem, Jacob, and Laban. Where we differ: which parts is Hashem responsible for? Which parts Jacob, and which parts Laban? Are people being messy and human and conniving, or is all Hashem making a special point (which I suppose is a bigger theological question than some questionable livestock reproduction)?

Humans love to find patterns, all of us. We see patterns where they are and where they aren't. Patterns where they are, like sometimes people are manipulating you on purpose; patterns where they aren't, like putting striped sticks to end up with striped animals. Patterns that sometimes we see and try to break out of, cycles of deception and lies. Patterns that we sometimes participate a little too long in because it's more comfortable than doing what's right, or because it's a matter of survival.

Are we setting ourselves up like this, or is hashem? How much agency do we have to choose a better way? Unanswered questions, but at least we do have examples of breaking the toxic patterns to follow--even in situations like Jacob's, where the patterns went on longer than they strictly speaking should have.

Early Judaism Family Tree – UsefulCharts

Buy a 24x36” poster showing the family trees of ancient Jewish kings, priests, and rabbis.

Israel problems and antisemitism problems

Israeli government representatives are not representatives of the jewish community as a whole, no matter what they would like you to think, and protests of right-wing conservative israeli representatives' appearances--which the person in question is--is not antisemitic and definitely not kristallnacht.

The israeli government has once again claimed to share proof that the Palestinian NGOs are a PFLP front. (They are not, and the released documents do not show any such thing and are from the "background information" section of a military court plea bargain of someone who worked for a different nonprofit entirely, and did not herself have any direct PFLP affiliation.)

Israeli settlers continue their pogroms in the west bank, and Israel is further upping their use of facial recognition surveillance technology, which I just learned includes an app for settlers to use that plugs into the same facial recognition risk assessment database as the military version.

Bari Weiss is starting a new unaccredited cancel culture university alongside a bunch of other "oh no" folks. (Professor Moustafa Bayoumi has a great op-ed about it, pointing out how Palestinians are one of the groups who actually are suffering from a lack of free speech in the US.)

Zioness is once again behaving badly.

Batya Ungar-Sargon, shonde of the jewish press, was on fox news being embarrassing and continuing the pattern of right-wing jews enabling antisemitism around the world. This week included no fewer than three ongoing trials of white supremacists/alt right/neo nazis in the news (all of which are viewed encouragingly by the legal system and media). Surely that's enough? Surely we don't need Jews supporting the American right wing's drift further into overt white supremacy?

Miscellaneous

Tweet thread list of jewish women in turtlenecks alert!

Next time someone sneezes a bunch around you, don't forget to say "bivas, kreskas, engrandeskas, komo un peshiko en aguas freskas! Amen!"

Rabbi Sarah Zober (alum of Hebrew Union College) has a excellent thread about the recent sexual harassment report put out by HUC, including a direct link to that report. The pattern is familiar: allegations rock an organization; a committee investigates and finds a number of them are true, especially the ones that happen to center on respected men who have already retired, not the ones still working there or otherwise revered by the organization; they consider the matter closed. I hope this is not the end of the reckoning. I wish HUC and all other schools luck in their removing the sexists, the harassers, the racists, and all other bigots out of positions of authority, since I want to be clear: this is an issue in every institute of higher education and many other organizations besides.

Orthodox Rabbi Asher Lopatin wrote a piece about the right to abortion as a piece of religious freedom.

Rabbi Emily Cohen's online education series Gan has module 2 launching soon on topics of prayer.

Uncle Monster's Spooky Fright Time Hour podcast featured Shirika Panda, a jewish toilet demon, in one of their recent episodes! Listen here, or check out some leonine fanart.

I read two very good but very different trans pieces about jewish gender, one by Rax King about Mel Brooks and another by Rabbinical student Ari Tovlev in honor of Transgender Awareness Week.

Chanukah is coming and we are the miracle! In addition to Ms. Zohar's lovely honk collection linked above (and the Judith-and-Holofernes "i give great head" sticker), here's some neat-looking shopping opportunities from jewish artists and craftspeople:

• Judean Rose Studio's handpainted dreidels

• Laila Tov Creations' chanukah collection of earrings leaning heavily on mizrachi symbolism

• Sarah Aroeste's Ladino chanukah album Hanuká

• Hanuka dogs sticker sheet!

• don't forget not to shop through Wirecutter this discount season unless their union is recognized!

• Leah Koenig sent out a recipe for crispy polenta fritters, one of many delicious fried options to cook at home.

Events!

11/14 Documenting Endangered Jewish Languages: Practical, Ethical, and Cultural Issues (panel with speakers of Judeo-Shirazi, Judeo-Arabic, Jewish-Neo-Aramaic, and Judeo-Georgian)

11/14, 11/28, 12/11 Singing into Warmth & Light: 3-Session Workshop with Rena Branson (sliding scale, $54-108)

11/15 The Voice of the Mothers: A Look into Sephardi Feminist Approaches to Tradition with Dr. Angy Cohen ($10)

11/16 Why am I Bukharian if I am not from Bukhara? ($10)

11/16 Creole Ambivalence: The Politics of Jewishness in Caribbean Suriname, 1890-1959

11/17 Rad Yiddish Presents: A Reading Circle of Poet Rokhl Korn facilitated by Dr. Miriam Isaacs

11/18 Trans Day of Remembrance & Resilience: A Night of Learning (with SVARA, Keshet, and Shel Maala)

11/23 A Bukharian Jew in Uzbekistan ($10)

11/23 The Jewish Metropolis: New York from the 17th to the 21st Century

11/27 YidLitWith...StopLine3 yiddish culture salon

11/28 Chanukah begins

11/30 Reclaiming Identity: Jews of Arab Lands and Iran share stories of identity, struggle and redemption

12/2 The Rich History of Jewish Papercuts, with Deborah Ugoretz. The art, not the injury.

12/12 Ladino Day at UW

12/15 Conversation: Yiddish and Social Justice

Jewish Pet of the Week

The Jewish Pet of the Week is Pip, who helps their human make talitot at the appropriately named Black Cat Judaica!

<3

Meli