March 11, 2022

Vayikra

Hello everyone! This week in jewsletter we have: a tiny aleph, magic invisibility foccacia, demographic panics are racist, two online archive projects that almost made me cry, and a judeo-arabic for super-beginners class.

It's a stressful time. CW's this week are: antisemitism, israeli racism, ukraine war, abortion criminalization, outdated trans language

Jewish Calendar

This week's torah portion is Vayikra, the first in the book of (duh) vayikra. It has a little aleph in many manuscripts.

If you ask the chabadniks this is a lesson about Moses and humility. In one of the genealogy lists we write Adam's name with an oversize aleph, in correspondence with his outsize opinion of his own importance; Moses had an over-low view of his own importance, so he is shown with the little aleph. Or, maybe, it's unclear whether the aleph should be there, offering a double-reading of "happened upon" rather than "called".

Both these readings play with how strongly to weigh intention rather than chance. Are our roles (decided by G-d or found by us, your choice) a good fit through deservingness or though happenstance or both? Is the importance in the beginning, as with full-of-himself Adam, or in an unwanted-leadership-to-liberation journey, as in Moses? Living fully and responsibly is a feat of balancing ego and humility, one of the great challenges of life. I know I am very much still working on it.

PS. Here's some more info on the various differently sized letters in the torah.

It's almost Purim!

Ariya Sharif and Mira Zylali write about Kurdish women's tradition of Leil Purim.

Roz Alexander has a new f/f novella out: a masc for purim! Cute name, cute premise, all very jewish.

TTRPG zine Esther and the Queens, a playable purim retelling through a feminist and queer lens, is fundraising on Kickstarter and has a demo available on itch.io. Looks cute!!

There's also Vashti Strikes Back!, a radical purim schpiel radio drama available online from 3/16-3/20. Preview online now!

Israel, Zionism, and Antisemitism

Just in case you needed one more reason Jewish philanthropy is profoundly broken, David Klion profiled Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, his $500m of donations to jewish charities (including a russian propaganda holocaust museum and Israeli settlements), and his relationship (economic and otherwise) to Putin. He also put together a followup for their Thursday newsletter relating to the current war in Ukraine.

meanwhile in israel, "true democracy" and "jewish majority" are two principles that continue to conflict, this time in the knesset's new law denying Israeli citizenship to Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens. Demographic panic in Israel is as nakedly racist as it is in the US.

Miscellaneous

It has been on my mind lately--a lot of Jewish minds, really--how much being a refugee (or not) is just a roll of the dice. Normally I try to keep the stressful things to the "israel, zionism, and antisemitism" section, but too many bad things are happening. This article about Ukraine refugees living in a former yeshiva in Poland (the same one that hosted an amazing variety of visitors in the 1930s), or Jewish humans (not just buildings) doing similar work to get people to safety, are too relevant to not include, but not (on the face of things) directly about Israel, Zionism, or antisemitism.

Also, if you need another article reminding people that abortion access is a queer jewish value, here you go.

Below the Line, a collection of feuilletons from an amazing variety of newspapers in many languages, just launched a new website. There's a celebration event on 3/15 I've added to the list below. I could honestly get lost in this collection all day and I'm just barely restraining myself.

When gay trans man Lou Sullivan was asked by a straight trans guy how to bring up his transness, he more or less said "have a long talk about the movie Yentl". Objectively hilarious.

The Parchment Project is looking for challah baker volunteers to submit their leftover parchment papers!

Step 1        Bake challah on a white parchment paper (around 15” × 10”)

Step 2        Save the parchment paper

Step 3        Take overhead photos of your challahs

Step 4        Email your photos and info, then mail your parchment papers

There's a wonderful inventory and categorization project of texts from Italian Jewish communities to look forward to. Archives like this enable future research in beautiful and necessary ways, and the inclusion of censorship information from particular copies is giving me a lot of feelings as is their PERFECT logo with the hebrew vowels.

In other Italian jewish history news, magic invisibility foccacia.

The talmud is ridiculous and beautiful (and frustrating), says Akiva Weisinger in a gorgeous thread:

khōréō Volume 2 is fundraising on indiegogo! I love thoughtful writing about and within diasporas (Jewish and otherwise), and their volume 1 included a story about observing sukkot on a generation ship which gets it bonus points as far as i'm concerned.

April Rosenblum is looking for a way to fund a proposed research project on Jews, Race and White Flight. Got any ideas?

Sefaria's library has added in some pretty cool new stuff lately!

Classes coming up

• Working Knowledge: Labor in Jewish Thought 3/7-3/28, four standalones from Dr. David Zvi Kalman

• From Narrowness to Freedom: Preparing for Passover with Fat Torah 3/13-4/10, $90

• Jewish Anarchist Salon, a series of talks and discussions, 3/13-5/15 (drop-in)

• Kabbalat Shabbat Liturgy Study, Mondays 3/14-5/2

• Prayerbook Hebrew class with Synagogues Rising, Mondays 3/14-5/23

• Learning the Alif Baa Through a Judeo-Arabic Lens, a beginner-level course in alef-bet, alif-baa, and rudimentary Judeo-Arabic, with bonus letter mysticisms in Islam and Judaism. 3/27-5/22

• Reinventing Conversion: Discover Its Origins, Imagine Its Future: a one-shot from Shel Maala, 3/30

• Queer Yiddish Camp, an online intensive, 5/15-5/27. More info!

Events!

3/13 Gender-Inclusive and Nonbinary Hebrew: Innovations and Classroom Applications

3/13 Vashti Party: an Afternoon of Torah Learning for the Fallen Queen

3/14 Shirei Shmita Concert & Community Tisch

3/15 Legal Knowledge and Everyday Practice in Medieval Ashkenaz lecture. How representative of everyday life were rabbinic responsas of the time?

3/15 Below The Line: The Feuilleton and Modern Jewish Cultures Website Launch

3/15 Not The Patriarchy's Purim from NCJW

3/15 Saving the Rabbinic Library of Izmir talk

3/16 Taanit Esther with Hadar: a full day of online programming, including mincha services

3/17 Shushan Purim Talmud Watch Party with special guest special guest Miriam Anzovin (register)

3/19 Crying Nazi Dinner Theater: An Antifascist Purimshpil (Part 2)

3/22 The Israeli Black Panthers’ Struggle for Human Rights (register)

3/24 Trans Halakha Project One-Year Anniversary Celebration! (trans people only)

3/24 Haggadah zine workshop

Jewish Pet of the Week

The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Thicket, a bulldozer of a fluffy bunny. Check out her FLOOF LEGS.

As always if you want to submit an animal for Jewish Pet of the Week (or just to show it off), reply to this email or send me them on twitter. I love cute animals!

Shabbat shalom,

<3

Meli