Vayikra
A quick note to start off: I'm shifting the newsletter from Substack to Buttondown, so it may look a little different this week and going forwards. In the future please refer people to https://buttondown.email/meli to sign up, but I believe all subscribers and the archives have shifted over successfully. I will be sending out a separate small notice email to make sure nobody gets lost in the switch-over, so you may get two emails this week instead of the usual one. Apologies for the inconvenience!
Anyway this week we read Vayikra and start a new book of the torah (Vayikra/Leviticus) with many specifics about sacrifices.
A few jewish publications have put out content by and about asian jews, as attention shifts to the racism asian americans face in the light of racist murders and attacks that community has experienced recently. Please also see this callout of white jews for not being there for our JOC community members or acting in solidarity against racism.
Yaphet Kotto, the Black Jewish actor, passed away this week. Z''L.
I recently found out about FENTSTER, a window art gallery in Toronto, and its current online hosting of PRISM: A Convening for Jewish Artists of Color. There are two excellent blogposts on Lilith Magazine's blog where two of the participants interview each other. Korean Jewish fiber and dance artist Maxine Lee Ewaschuk was also featured in Lilith Magazine's blog, in part for her participation in PRISM.
Speaking of online galleries, Queens College has an excellent series of photographs of Romaniote Jewish sites, including Kehila Kedosha Janina synagogue and museum in New York and Janina/Ioannina, the city my yiayia was from. (I may have included this previously; apologies if so, but I ran across it again and couldn't resist.)
I know we're all tired of dr. seuss-gate or whatever we're calling it, but i really liked this Jewish Currents guest newsletter from Miriam Udel, a scholar of yiddish children's books.
https://twitter.com/SeamusBlackley/status/1371291739672125441
This bagel tweet is the start of a whole historical baking thread and i highly recommend it.
A new non- and anti-zionist beit midrash called Hishbati launched this week! Their sessions are Sundays at 2 PM eastern time starting 4/11. Sign up here.
Jewish Anarchist anthology There Is Nothing So Whole As A Broken Heart has been released in paperback and ebook formats.
Sephardic digital academy videos are now being added to youtube in addition to facebook and thus are more accessible to non-facebook users.
Many mizrachi jews celebrate nowruz, the persian new year. Nowruz happens annually on the spring equinox. Bechol Lashon had a special kabbalat shabbat for it, which has already happened but is streamable online.
https://twitter.com/LuxAlptraum/status/1371592718040891401
Learn about kosher for passover ouzo and also greek jewish history, in that the distillery in question was owned by the current pfizer ceo's dad.
Duolingo's first course in yiddish is launching soon, finally!
I finally read the article Is He Jewish by Mari Cohen, about jewish dating sites and "jewish continuity" (shudder). Better alternatives if you're a queer jew looking to date include Queer Jewish Speed Connecting tomorrow (3/20) and nascent matchmaking service Yente Over the Rainbow.
Yente Over the Rainbow is currently soliciting opinions from queer or otherwise LGBTQIA Jews (and LGBTQIA people in the conversion process who may or may not consider themselves jewish yet), particularly from underrepresented perspectives, including (but not limited to) Jews of color, Sephardi/Mizrachi/Bene Israel/Beta Israel/otherwise non-Ashkenazi Jews, polyam Jews, disabled Jews, and converts. The demonstration should take about an hour, and you will be paid $20 canadian for your time. Sign up here. The form does have a capped number of responses, so people should respond fairly soon if they'd like to be included.
https://twitter.com/Jewyorican/status/1371536876415426564
I just found out about this Transcending Jewish Trauma Map and Toolkit and am not quite sure what I think about it yet but I'm glad it exists.
The Radical Jewish Calendar is currently recruiting artists for inclusion in their 5782 edition.
Anyway, events!
3/20 Queer Jewish Speed Connecting. Sign up with this form
3/21 Practice Liberation: A Pre-Pesach Retreat (sliding scale $18-$180, recommended $54)
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 12pm Fat Torah event about freeing passover from fatphobia
3/22 Mysticism and the Environment
3/22 British Library's Hebrew manuscripts department is having a virtual viewing.
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 A Social Justice Seder led by Rakhel Silverman and Sy Gitin with Kavod Boston
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.
4/9 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 Ada's cat Felix, who is all laid out and ready to relax his way into shabbat but would appreciate more bellyrubs.
Thanks for subscribing, and see you next week!