Yitro
Hello everyone! What a week. Let's all take an extra deep breath and do restful shabbat things.
CW's this week are: antisemitism (including last saturday's hostage situation), Palestinian death mention, shoah mention
Jewish Calendar
This week's torah portion is Yitro, where Moses's father in law is like "you are gonna burn out if you keep this up", and we get the revelation of the ten commandments at Sinai. I love the synesthesia interpretation brought in by Josh Fleet of Rising Song Institute. Listen too.
File:Decalogue parchment by Jekuthiel Sofer 1768.jpg - Wikipedia
Israel, Zionism, and Antisemitism
Last shabbat there was a hostage situation at a Texas shul and the Rabbi saved the hostages. NPR interviewed Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker about the experience: "We can't forget about who we are. Hospitality means the world." What a mensch!
Since it happened there's been a variety of discourse about safety, security, police, racism, islamophobia, and antisemitism, though very little of it mentioned the hostage taker's past and present mental health problems (BBC did). And separately, Emmaia Gelman writes: how do we get some nuance into antisemitism discussions? Probably by decentering the ADL.
I’m collecting statements and recordings of online events from rabbis, communal organizations etc about the Texas shul hostage situation.
— David Selis (@DavidRSelis) January 18, 2022
Please email relevant materials across denominations and locations in English, Hebrew & Yiddish to: jewishpoliticsarchive@gmail.com
"A Knoxville couple is suing the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, saying a state-sponsored Christian-based adoption agency refused to help them because they are Jewish."
Sometimes the conspiracy theory antisemitism loops right back around to hilarious.
Israel continues murdering Palestinians and I continue to not know what to say or do about it. Holocaust remembrance day is coming up too and I don't know what to do for that either. I wish i/we could stop remembering but that's not how trauma works.
Miscellaneous
Nesi Altaras wrote about Kulup/The Club for Jewish Currents, including some cultural context. He's also quoted in this article about Jews in Turkey before the 1492 expulsion from Spain, pointing out that some of us Jews (including Romaniotes!) were around in Ottoman lands before then.
Zaman Collective's winter 2022 issue looks amazing.
Wordle exists in hebrew (another) and yiddish and ladino (another).
The thing that truly BLEW MY MIND about halacha was this @VBMTorah interview with Rabbi Haim Ovadia and @RavShmuly, a Sephardic rabbi, where he says that many progressive Jews keep more halacha than they think they do.https://t.co/GlLZF0p2NR
— A Rose, Blue And Wild (@BlueNWildRose) January 21, 2022
The Jewish Book Council announced their 2021 National Jewish Book Award Winners and finalistss, including a number of things i've mentioned in the jewsletter before and a few that I don't remember seeing. New-to-me picks include cookbook winner Bene Appétit: The Cuisine of Indian Jews, which I plan on getting and cooking from whenever I can, and finalist Invisible Enlighteners: The Jewish Merchants of Modena, from the Renaissance to the Emancipation.
How Did Jewish Children Learn to Write a Thousand Years Ago? Fragments from the Cairo Geniza may be able to tell us.
"ashkenaz goth" describes several of you readers, i know it does.
DM: you are faced with a golem created by the Demi-Lich Fa…
— Motley Jëw (@ShammaBoyarin) January 20, 2022
Me: who is a Kabbalist?
DM: what? No he’s undead.
Me: if he created a golem he must be a Kabbalist.
DM: fine he’s a Kabbalist. The golem protects…
Me: is he a Lurianic Kabbalist or Abulafia?
DM: you are facing an ogre.
Classes coming up
Glikl and her Sisters: The Creative Lives of 17th-Century Jewish Women, March 8–29, 2022, $75-100, through the Yiddish Book Center
A Rabbi and a Priest: Let's Talk, through the Jewish Liberation Theology Institute, 1/23-2/13, $197
judaism is so gay, with Rabbi Nikki DeBlosi, 2/28-3/21, $75
Sha''tz Like A Boss (learn to lead weekday shacharit), 2/6-3/20, $100-250
Diaspora Judaism & Reconciliation: Locating Ourselves in the Conversation at Lishma, 2/2-3/9, $36-72
Events!
1/24 Radical Yiddish Workers’ Song Circle with Linda Gritz and Pauli Katz
1/26 Black Studies and Jewish Studies in Conversation: Du Bois Before Warsaw, Fascism Before Racism
1/27 Shakespeare & Yiddish with Ilan Stavans
1/30 Judeo-Hamadani, Judeo-Isfahani, Judeo-Yazdi, and other Median languages (more info)
1/30 New York Ladino Day
1/30 and 2/6 Cultivating Culture: A Virtual Gathering of Jewish Farmers
2/2 Transports to Extinction: The [holocaust] deportations from Greece's Sephardic Communities
2/10 Dagesh: The Lil’ Dot That Could Shel Maala class (sliding scale $0+)
2/16 The Daring Jewish, Immigrant, Lesbian Life of Eve Adams
2/17 The Flippy Vav: Time-Travelling Prefixes and Ancient Biblical Storytelling Shel Maala class (sliding scale $0+)
2/24 Revolutionary Jews from Spinoza to Marx book talk
2/24 Jastrow: The Dictionary, The Man, The Queer Icon Shel Shel Maala class (sliding scale $0+)
Jewish Pet of the Week
The Jewish Pet of the Week this week is Beatrice. Her human Noach Esav submitted this photo via replying to one of these very emails! I invite you to submit pet pictures this way also, if you'd like.
<3
Meli