Shabbat Shalom, Nefesh community! We’d love for you to join us for Service tonight, Friday May 7, 7pm Pacific time.
Superbloom: Nefesh Spring Fundraiser Update 🌿 🪕
Thank you, community! We are at 75% of our $25,000 goal thanks to all your donations and sharing.
- Here’s how you can share with friends and networks on Instagram and on Facebook
- Share this link directly: Email, text, DM: https://bitly.com/nefesh-gofundme
Shavuot Approaches 📖 🧀
- Join Nefesh on Sunday, May 16, as Shavuot begins at sundown. 7:30pm PT. We honor this tradition with study, song, poetry, and shir berenj: delicious rice pudding with orange blossom water. Nefesh Tikkun Leil Shavuot.
- Register here for Nefesh Shavuot as community members share teachings
- What is Shavuot? Shavuot 101
- Nefesh White Jewish Anti-Racist Dialogue meets earlier that day, Sunday 5/16, 2:30pm PT
- Final sessions for this cycle May 16 and June 20, details here
- Much more below about social justice, racial justice, and Tikkun
- Shavuot with Hartman @ Home: a selection of reads
Tikkun Olam and Social Justice ✊🏾 ⚖️
- Next Lev Shalem with Nefesh, Monday June 7, 2021:
Lev Shalem is a monthly space for Jewish people and allies committed to social justice as a volunteer and/or staff person. It will be a heart-centered circle for support, connection, and spiritual resources to ground and sustain us. June’s meeting is co-facilitated by Nefesh Kin Ethne Dennis and our Community Weaver Ian Schiffer. Register for Lev Shalem Zoom here
- Jewish Institutions: This Is What Jewish People of Color Need You to Know Presented by District Community Playback Theatre Sponsored by The JOC Mishpacha Project. Sunday May 9, 6pm Eastern Registration
- To move forward on the bridge between white supremacy culture (SURJ is offering a webinar on it May 13th) and a White Jewish Anti-Racist identity, we’re sharing this article from Vanissar Tarakali “From White Racial Shame to Empathy for People of Color” which includes the video Cracking the Codes: Joy DeGruy “A Trip to the Grocery Store” (and also attaching a quote from Brene Brown). While the author uses a Buddhist perspective, we offer it in hopes that there are some resources, prompts, and reflections that might be supportive in acknowledging and working against the shame that gets in the way of us being actively anti-racist and whole white jews.
- May 13, 8pm ET: SURJ Webinar. Join us for a night of discussion, sharing, music, and more to deepen our understanding of white supremacy culture and commit to the work of dismantling it. ASL and live captioning provided. Zoom registration
- Nefesh Tikkun Team Abolitionist Action Hour 5/19: Join the Nefesh Tikkun Team for our first Action Hour and Meeting: Wednesday May 19, 6:30 PT. Our first 30 minutes will be for people interested in Nefesh’s Tikkun Team and then 7-8PT will be focusing primarily on taking action for abolitionist campaigns (aiming to dismantle prisons, policing, surveillance, militarism, and all systems of violent state control). Together we’ll pressure decision makers to agree to community demands from around the country through phone calls, emails, petitions, and more. Whether you’re newer to abolition work or you’re already actively engaged in anti-policing and anti-prison campaigns, this is the space for you to hear concrete action steps we can take individually as Jews from all backgrounds to help build a more liberated future for all.
- May 20 REPAIR presents “The Roots & Persistence of White Nationalism in the United States”
- Featuring Hector Amaya, Ginna Green, and Shannon Speed, this conversation engages the origins of white nationalism in the United States, and its longevity across generations, geographies, and political moments
- Save the date! Thursday, May 20th, 12:30pm PDT/ 3:30pm EDT on Zoom
- Registration and details: https://roots.eventbrite.com
- Eastside Jews presents “Intersectionality and Class: From ‘Leaning In’ to Solidarity”, a 3-part class May 12, 19, 26. Class is limited to 30 people, register here!
For Queer Jews 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
- Emet, the Nefesh Speaker Series launches with Abby Stein, trans author and activist, on Tuesday May 25. We are thrilled to have Abby, author of Becoming Eve, in conversation with acclaimed artist, director and Emmy-nominated producer Nefesh Kin Zackary Drucker, producer of the Emmy-winning series Transparent, whose most recent project is Lady and the Dale on HBO. Register for 5/25 speaker series: Abby Stein
- Trans Halakha Project:
- Over the past decade the Jewish community has been blessed with the increased visibility of trans, intersex, non-binary, and gender non-conforming folks in our communities. The unique lives, bodies, and experiences of this growing subset of our community demands a new halakha (pathways and practices of Jewish expression). The Trans Halakha Project, housed at SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva, aims to curate existing resources that have been developed for trans Jews and by trans Jews, identify new areas of halakha that have yet to be developed, and finally to create opportunities for developing new halakhic literature and practice guides that speak directly to these areas of need.
- BLOG — HOT OFF THE SHTENDER: THE TRANS HALAKHA PROJECT: MOVING US TOWARD THE NEXT UNRECOGNIZABLE FUTURE
- Nefesh Queer Jewish Book Club returns soon! Want to join? Have a movie, book, or speaker to suggest?
Community Care ⛑ 🤲🏽
- New Resources: See our COVID Care page for this and more.
- WellFed from NuRoots is back: The COVID-19 crisis continues to tighten budgets and has forced many — Jewish young adults in particular — to live without reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food. Many of our community members are facing challenges caused by the pandemic, and hunger and food insecurity are among them. In response, the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles is making more $250 gift cards immediately available to redeem at grocery stores through our program, WellFed. If you’re a Jewish young adult between the ages of 18 and 40, live in the Greater L.A. area, and are experiencing any kind of food insecurity, this resource is for you.
- Nefesh: Covid Care resources – Give and Get Help
Nefesh Community In the World 👨🏼🎤 📘
- Letter from Jonah Blechman, Nefesh Kin: how you can help SUPERBLOOM, our spring fundraiser, be a success as Nefesh continues into our 2nd year as an independent community
- May 4 was National Foster Care Day. Check out Second Nurture, our partner, and give as you can. Second Nurture partners with Jewish and other communities to prioritize foster care and adoption.
- Next Nefesh cohort is May 23: information and support session for Second Nurture
- New music from Ari Herstand, Nefesh band member!
Shabbat Shalom, friends!
