Kosher Queers – Details, episodes & analysis

Did you miss us? As a treat, we've crafted some deluxe Kosher Queers bonus material for you; here's all the short parsha summaries we did throughout the two years of making the podcast, all neatly collected in one place. Get ready for a lot of very rapid speech.

Transcript available here!

Tip us on Ko-fi! Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Lulav, and our transcript was written by Jaz Twersky. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.

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This week, we talk about the dubious metaphor of Gog and Magog, name our city Pluralism and then rename it again, talk about crumbling empires, and reflect on what we’ve learned about the text over the last two years. We do that because this is our last episode of season 2 and thus, the formal end of the podcast!!!! Bye y'all; thanks for these last couple years. (But stay tuned for a small surprise in the feed coming soon.)

Transcript here.

Lulav listens to the podcast Emojidrome, which you can support on their Patreon. The bracha for immersion that Lulav said in the shower is available here, and more commonly used when visiting a mikvah. The local  indie printing press that Jaz visited was Reflex Letterpress, and if you're in Boston you can also rent out the space or take classes there. If you're not in Boston, you can still order custom prints, buy pre-made prints from their Etsy page, or follow them on Instagram at @reflexletterpress. "Cis", in case this hasn't come up in the two years we made this podcast, is NOT an acronym for "comfortable in skin". It means "the two things we're considering are on the same side," or, in gender terms, that the gender you are is the same as the gender you were assigned at birth. 

"The Crucible" is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller that dramatized the 1692 Salem witch trials as an allegory for Congressional attempts to ferret out communists and homosexuals — real or imagined — that is usually referred to as "McCarthyism". Also, turns out Eretz Yisrael IS on a fault line, and according to the Geological Survey of Israel, there is a rough average of one earthquake per day. Lulav mentions some things from the 1996 computer game Civilization II: its global warming mechanic, and a famous scenario where the world's resources are wholly devoted to war. Lulav also references the song "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads.

Please do what you can to stop Line 3, which is an oil pipeline that violates native treaties, crosses hundreds of bodies of water, and has the potential to be a major pollutant.

Tip us on Ko-fi! Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Ezra Faust, and our transcript was written by JJ Jensen, who you can follow on Twitter @pantspossum. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.

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This week, we talked about creating accessibility rather than uniformity, finding joy for the future out of really tough situations, and keeping kindness on your person in as ordinary a way as wearing your clothes. Also, we shared our first consolation with you; tell us yours, either on social media or at kosherqueers@gmail.com

Content note: we discuss suicide at a whole bunch of different points throughout the episode, non-graphically.

Transcript available here.

Lulav's cool and queer or Jewish bit for this week is the works of gray Folie, whose Patreon you can find here. They've completed Drop-Out and Fresh Meat. Jaz's Consolation was the poem "Hammond B3 Organ Cistern" by Gabrielle Calvocoressi. Jaz also mentions the podcast Ear Hustle, made out of San Quention prison, about life while incarcerated and now also life after incarceration, and specifically talks about their most recent episode, "Home for Me Is Really a Memory." The Friends at the Table episode where they discuss true names can be found here. Lulav made a joke about Mega-Gojira. Apparently that's not a thing, as she discovered with a cursory google and checking this list, but we should be very afraid of Mechag-d.

This week's reading is Isaiah 40:1-26. Next week's reading is Isaiah 49:14–51:3.

Support us on Patreon or Ko-fi! Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Ezra Faust, and our transcript was written by JJ Jensen, who you can follow on Twitter @pantspossum. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.

Support the show

This week, we're discussing leaving home and name changes, so, big queer feelings are happening up in here. Also, catch us comparing matriarchs and patriarchs to Brokeback Mountain, prescribing appropriate polyamorous behavior, and debating whether you should fight for your home or be willing to relocate when things get rough there. Also, Jaz gives Lulav a confusing rating scale.

Full transcript of the episode available here.

The camp song that Jaz sings/butchers at 4 minutes in is "L'chi Lach" by Debbie Friedman and you can hear it sung properly here. The #Parshachat discussion question mentioned at 32 minutes in can be found here.

Content notes: a police siren can be heard from 21:44-21:55. This episode also contains references to slavery multiple times

Support us on Patreon! Send us questions or comments at kosherqueers@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @kosherqueers, and like us on Facebook at Kosher Queers. Our music is by the band Brivele. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union. 

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We're talking this week about two completely unrelated stories which are for some reason put in the same parsha! Find us talking about animal husbandry best practices, gay rainbow promises, and some very bad linguistics that manages to have some very good politics.

Full transcript of the episode available here.

At 18:18, Jaz reads the blessing over rainbows. If you'd like to read it yourself, it's here in Hebrew, English, and transliteration.

Content notes: climate apocalypticism all over this episode, but particularly starting at around minute 17. From 20:30 to 25:45 there is a discussion of one section that includes drunkenness, possible incest, deeply messed up family dynamics, and slavery.   

Support us on Patreon! Send us questions or comments at kosherqueers@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @kosherqueers, and like us on Facebook at Kosher Queers. Our music is by the band Brivele. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union. 

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The new cycle has begun, and we're talking this week about things that happen in the beginning, which is turns out is a lot of things! Find us talking about fruit that gives you social anxiety, being cursed with heterosexuality, and the mysterious presence of humans who really shouldn't be able to exist yet, narratively speaking, and yet are somehow there anyway.

Full transcript of the episode available here.

Around 26 minutes in, Jaz says they'll try to find the source for the rabbinic interpretation that Abel brought the best thing, and Cain brought a mediocre thing. You can find at least one source for that here, from Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 21:5, though more may exist.

Content note: climate apocalypticism around minute 35 as part of a discussion about the Flood

Support us on Patreon! Send us questions or comments at kosherqueers@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @kosherqueers, and like us on Facebook at Kosher Queers. Our music is by the band Brivele. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union. 

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This week, we launch our pilot episode with the haftorah portion for the week, Isaiah 60. Find us talking about paradigms of scholarship, collective land ownership, and how to translate "the breasts of kings." Also, listen to the second half of the episode to hear us answer fun questions about ourselves and how this podcast will work in the future!

Around 30 minutes in, Jaz mentions a story but can't remember the citation. It's from Sifra (a midrashic text) in the section Kedoshim, Chapter 4:9. You can read it here.

Content warning: From about 14:50 to 15:15, there is an emergency siren in the background

Send us questions or comments at kosherqueers@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @kosherqueers, and like us on Facebook at Kosher Queers. Our music is by the band Brivele. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union. 

Support the show

Kosher Queers starts a glorious 5780 cycle on 24 October, and we're blessing your ears with our wisdoms & giggles in our pilot on 19 September.

Send us questions or comments at kosherqueers@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @kosherqueers, and like us on Facebook at Kosher Queers. Our music is by the band Brivele. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.

Support the show

This week, we talk about paradigms of childrearing, giving people space for low-stakes disagreement, and also Kanye lines from 2010.

Transcript available here.

You can probably still do games on Dreamwidth. Also, Lulav is running and Jaz is playing a game of Heart: The City Beneath by Grant Howard and Christopher Taylor, which you can buy a PDF of here. Lulav references "POWER" by Kanye West, which you can see here.

Support us on Patreon or Ko-fi! Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Ezra Faust, and our transcript was written by JJ Jensen, who you can follow on Twitter @pantspossum. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.

Support the show

This week, we talk about abolishing air forces, the human capacity to change large social institutions, and driving lessons. Plus, Jaz can't remember things about Christian theology but does know you can learn different lessons from history, and Lulav is always down to fight Hashem out back behind your fast food joint of choice.

Transcript available here.

Here are our episodes with Jill and the Hawk! Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott is a public domain work available for your bedtime reading wishes, though be forwarned that it is extremely racist against Chinese people specifically. "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer is another public domain work that we talk about, which has the advantage of being funny, but also, includes old slang that I don't understand, so it seems likely that it's bigoted, but not sure against who.  You can also check out Finnegans Wake by James Joyce if what you really want from your public domain works is for them to give you a headache.

Also Lulav references the quote "I can excuse racism but I draw the line at animal cruelty" from the show Community, that was turned into a meme. Plus, Jaz talks about Bo Burnham's new comedy special, "Inside" and the book of Lamentations (or Eicha). Also, the thing that Jaz was quoting, about the US not being a democracy was by Nikole Hannah-Jones as part of the 1619 Project, and was in particular the article, "Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true."

This week's reading is Isaiah 66:1-24. Next week's reading is Isaiah 1:1-27.

Support us on Patreon or Ko-fi! Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Lulav Arnow and Ezra Faust, and our transcript was written by JJ Jensen, who you can follow on Twitter @pantspossum. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.

Support the show