Weekly Checklist 12/1/23
For Your Political Health:
Ezra Klien of the New York Times is one of the most informative voices on the Jewish Left and I hardly ever miss his podcats, In this edition, he meets with Rabbi Sharon Brous, which has managed to hold the paradoxes of being for the Jewish people and for the Palestinian with more grace and prophetic wisdom than most. They discuss the “great dream” that Israel represents for generations of Jews; Brous’s Yom Kippur sermon reckoning with the moral cost of Israel’s decades-long occupation and its increasingly right-wing government; the “existential loneliness” she and many in her community felt on Oct. 7; the antisemitism she witnessed in the wake of Oct. 7; how experiences of exile throughout history have shaped the Jewish psyche and speak to us now; stories from her visit with residents of the Kfar Aza kibbutz as they mourned their dead; why “bearing sacred witness” is a core spiritual commitment; and more.
For Your Musical Health:
Desire Marea’s Genre-Melting Music Stirs South Africa, and the World. The 32-year-old’s work in Zulu and English traverses styles and explores queerhistories. This week he releases a new EP, “The Baddies of Isandlwana.”Marea spent seven months training to become a sangoma, and while stereotypes of hyper-masculinity can pervade traditional spaces, he found quite the opposite. “I trained with a lot of other queer sangomas — almost as if queerness was a spiritual condition,” he said with a warm laugh. “From what I understand, it’s a very well-known thing, but even our ancestors support it. I don’t have homophobic ancestors.
Read More Via The New York Times
For Your Peaceful Health:
AS1ONE, THE WORLD’S FIRST ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN BOY BAND, PLANS ITS AMBITIOUS DEBUT
The group landed in Los Angeles on Oct. 6 to start recording its first album together. Now, as its identity is tested, its members are determined to realize a "humanitarian" mission.
From this Billboard Article: On the surface, the six young men check all the usual boy group boxes: They strike the requisite balance between dreamy and adorable and sing ballads and bangers with heart-melting harmonies about girls, love, and “dancing like the whole world is watching,” as one of their songs proclaims. But while each knew they were signing up for a boundary-pushing endeavor simply by joining a group composed of Palestinians and Israelis, they couldn’t have predicted that their message of unity would be so intensely tested before they had even released any music.
For Your Queer Movie Going Health:
Netflix’s Rustin Creates a New Blueprint for Films About the Civil Rights Era
From the New York Times: Click Here to Read More
Bayard Rustin is beyond deserving of a biopic. From his Quaker youth, Rustin devoted his life to the movement for Black Freedom. By adulthood, he had matured into a brilliant intellectual, skilled debater, and grassroots organizer. Rustin’s teachings about radical pacifism and the power of direct nonviolent action influenced Dr. Martin Luther King’s own politics. Yet Rustin remained in the shadows of the movement as King and others rose to national prominence. Certainly, his identity as an out (by 1960s standards) gay, Black man in a movement with strong religious overtones was a factor. As were his ties to the Communist Party in the 1930s. LGBTQ activists and historians have worked since Rustin’s death, in 1987, to center his legacy in U.S. civil rights history. And finally, Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground production company has brought Rustin’s story to life in a feature-length film.
For Your Reading Health:
Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew
During a time when it seems as if the Arab people and the Jewish people have always been clashing, this wonderful memoir by Avi Shlaim challenges that narrative. Once there was a flourishing Jewish community of Iraq, numbering over 130,000 with a history going back 2,600 years.
This all changed around the time of Israel’s birth, according to the author, as more Jews arrived to Arab lands escaping persecution.
Writes Amazon: “This memoir breathes life into an almost forgotten world. Weaving together the personal and the political, Three Worlds offers a fresh perspective on Arab-Jews, caught in the crossfire of Zionism and nationalism.”
Its a lovely book
