The Heller Museum, Ben Yehuda Press, and Jewish Book Council cordially invite you to the book launch for Accept Our Prayers: An Amidah Companion Writings by Bayit: Building Jewish
Featuring: Trisha Arlin, Rachel Barenblat, Mike Cockrill, Elisheva Cropper, Joanne Fink, David Markus and David Zaslow
Wednesday, October 21 at 6 p.m. Hebrew Union College’s Heller Museum
The Amidah prayer is the ancient heart of Jewish communal prayer. But liturgy is merely a recipe. Prayer requires the addition of intention and heart. In Accept Our Prayers, the Bayit collective – writers and artists, poets and liturgists, rabbis and laypeople – responds to each blessing of the Shabbat Amidah through contemporary prayers, poems, meditations, commentary, and visual art. Each blessing’s creative responses are preceded by its complete text in Hebrew, English translation, and transliteration. Together, these works invite us to encounter familiar liturgy anew and to bring the words of our mouths into deeper conversation with the meditations of our hearts.
Read this book—and, more importantly, pray with it—to enliven your experience of Jewish prayer, whether in community or alone. You could choose from its selections and assemble them into your own Amidah, or take a deeper dive into a single chapter and let it inform how you encounter that blessing—in synagogue, on a hike, at home, wherever and however you may be. Prayer leaders can use Accept Our Prayers both to deepen their own practice and to inspire the communities they serve.
Accept Our Prayers An Amidah Companion by Bayit: Building Jewish $24.95
Join Ben Yehuda Press on Wednesday April 22 at 3pm (ET) for a reading from Joelle Maxx Milman. She’ll be sharing from her debut poetry collection, “Repartings, Poems of Poems of Haftara”
The collection contains two parts, woven together: original poetry, written in response to the weekly portion of prophetic text read aloud in synagogues, alongside linguistically adventurous translations of the prophetic texts themselves.
The event will be in Google Meet.
You can join the reading directly by clicking on this link:
We commissioned original music for our original prayers in Blessed Are You, Wondrous Universe: A Siddur for Seekers. Both editions of the book contain sheet music. Three composers — Shefa Gold, Eileen Kozloff, and Zach Mayer — provided the tunes: 13 original melodies for 9 of the Siddur for Seekers’ original prayers.
About Ben Yehuda Press: Ben Yehuda Press is an independent Jewish press committed to publishing all kinds of books for all kinds of Jews. Our wide range of titles include non-fiction, liturgy, poetry, anthologies, and fiction, with a focus on work that is thought-provoking, passionate, and unique. We pride ourselves on fostering an inclusive environment for both emerging and established voices in the Jewish literary world.
Position Overview:
Ben Yehuda Press is seeking an enthusiastic and detail-oriented Editorial Fellow to join our team for the summer. This paid fellowship offers hands-on experience in publishing and especially in the editorial process at a small indie press. As an Editorial Fellow, you will play a key role in supporting the team with submission evaluation, reviewing and suggesting notable excerpts of books-in-production, drafting publicity materials, and participating in regular editorial and staff meetings.
The expectation is for the Editorial Fellow to be online and working for 4-hour stretches, two weekdays a week during U.S. business hours. 2 hours a week may then be used at the Editorial Fellow’s discretion. To ensure that all interested candidates are able to apply, the exact days of the week “at the office” at Ben Yehuda Press will be coordinated during the interview process.
Responsibilities:
Review and provide feedback on submissions, both in writing and during team discussions
Participate in regular editorial and staff meetings
Provide general administrative support to the editorial team, including managing files and correspondence
Identify book excerpts to put online and update books on the BYP website
If interested, assist with refining behind-the-scenes submission systems and metrics
If time allows, assist with drafting back-of-book material and/or publicity materials
Requirements:
Currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in English, Journalism, Communications, Jewish Studies, or a related field (see note below)
A strong interest in literature, especially adjacent to Jewish culture, history, and identity
A passion for storytelling and a desire to work in the publishing industry
Excellent writing, editing, and communication skills
Strong attention to detail and the ability to meet deadlines
Ability to work independently as well as collaboratively in a team setting
Proficiency in Google Suite
Proficiency in WordPress a plus, but not required
Please note: While we think this position would be ideal for an undergraduate student, anyone interested in the Editorial Fellowship is encouraged to apply and we will consider all applicants.
How to Apply: Please send your resume, cover letter, and two references to Associate Publisher Julie Sugar at info [at] benyehudapress [dot] com with the subject line: Application — Editorial Fellow.
Schedule: All applications will be considered on a rolling basis, with a final application deadline of April 30th. Interviews will be held by May 7th. An offer will be extended no later than May 16th.
Compensation: Fellow will receive $1,500 for the six-week fellowship, and will be expected to spend 10 hours a week on Ben Yehuda Press.
1. Puzzle
Jacob blesses his grandchildren:
let them multiply as fish
in the midst of the land.
Such a strange blessing!
2. Land and Sea
God does not mention fish
when He makes the things of the water.
God and the Torah only mention fish
when God makes people:
they will rule over all things,
they will rule over the fish of the sea.
When God rescues Israel from Egypt at the Sea
the Children of Israel saw the great Hand of God,
and they believed in God.
We are land dwellers.
Things of the water do not exist for us
until we and they are brought into connection:
until we rule over fish,
until God protects us with His Hand.
Then these things come into view,
and they exist for us.
3. Blessing
To be a fish that thrives on land
is to live that connection
that seems impossibly unapparent
between the world where we exist
and the world beyond—
between the land and the sea,
between our lives
and the Hand of God.
Jacob blesses his grandchildren:
live that hidden connection so firmly
that it becomes you.
____
Genesis Chapter 1, 48:1-15; Exodus Chapter 14
How is your Tisha b’Av going? We thought we’d share an excerpt from one of our newest books, Hyman by Lawrence Bush. This satirical novel by the former editor of Jewish Currents focuses on Rabbi Hyman Babushkin, the (fictional) leader of the (fictional, but probably quite familiar) Encounter Judaism movement that he founds after leaving Orthodoxy. You can order the book from us with free shipping.
The beginning of Chapter Seven focuses on a pivotal event in the rabbi’s life, one that falls on Tisha b’Av…
“The 9th National Summer Encounter of the Encounter Judaism movement, gathering at the ninety-acre Fellowship Farm retreat center in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, with the theme, “Jews of the Future,” has been scheduled, at Rabbi Babushkin’s urging, for the weekend of Tisha B’Av. Traditionally a day of fasting and abstinence, Tisha B’Av (the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av) commemorates the destruction of Judaism’s first and second temples in Jerusalem — the first by the Babylonians in 587 BCE, the second by the Romans six centuries later — along with many other horrors that are deeply etched into Jewish memory.
Eight registrants had voiced complaints in advance about the scheduling, ranging from What kind of conference does not have food? to I want the Encounter to be enlivening and uplifting, not filled with tragic memory.
Reb Hyman had responded to these concerns indirectly with an intriguing message in the registration packet, mailed out ten days in advance:
Not to worry. Our Tisha B’Av will be a feast day. The Temple still stands tall, but it has gone Planetary!
Five of the complainants, all from Orthodox backgrounds, had nevertheless cancelled their reservations. Reb Hyman felt unperturbed, however. In the nine years since the Summer Encounters began, this one had attracted the largest registration ever, three hundred strong counting the children, and nicely diverse in generational terms, from young parents to baby-boomers in their fifties and sixties. Most of them, he knew, had little familiarity with observing Tisha B’Av and were simply looking forward to experiencing his creative spin on the day.
But first came the sabbath, which traditionally takes precedence over all other Jewish holidays and had therefore bumped the Ninth of Av to the Tenth, Saturday night. By then, the crowd had been well- nourished with organic vegetarian meals and enraptured by the creative spirituality and sharp intellectualism of various workshops: a Thursday-night session led by Rabbi Bobbi Greenbaum and Dr. Becca Cantor on “What Could It Mean for Judaism When Women Take Over?”; another Thursday-night session led by Monica Zimmer, a psychotherapist from Toronto, titled “Blessings on Your Head: Parenting and the Spirituality of Surrender”; a raft of kinesthetic workshops on Friday morning, including “Elementary Contact Improvisation,” “Walking with the Trees,” and “Following in the Footsteps of Rabbi Nakhman of Bratslav”; a Friday lunch concert by Hyman’s teenaged pianist son Daniel, followed by his brief exposition on “Why Is Synagogue Music Generally So Lame? (and What To Do About It)”; and a Friday afternoon plenary led by Rabbis Isaac Cantor (New York) and Deborah Feigenbaum (St. Louis) on “The Critical Hyphen: Jewish Social Response-Ability.”
There had also been group Friday-afternoon mikvehs (sex-segregated, bathing suits optional) in Fellowship Farm’s stream-fed pond; a brief outdoor performance by the children of Encounter Kindercamp; and four varieties of Torah study on Saturday morning, followed by a three-hour prayer service.”
…..after this Shabbat event, Tisha b’Av proper begins, including a lineup of Tisha b’Av seder guests, and various rituals, sometimes bizarre, sometimes genuinely touching:
“Babushkin walks over to the one of the giant Post-it sheets and uncaps a marker that has been clipped to the page. “I guess you could call me a universalist to the nth degree. I strive to be as Jewish, as richly Jewish, as I can possibly be — but I do so in service to humankind. That may sound very grand, but ‘grand’ doesn’t mean ‘untrue.’ I do believe that we, our Encounter Judaism movement, we are catalysts of a broader transformation. We are catalysts, and we can join with other catalysts to bring about a reaction that can cause all the human elements to meld into a compound of mentshlikhkayt! And when that happens, that’s when moshiakh, the messiah, comes. That’s when we enter the messianic age by treating one another as human beings, made in the image of God!”
On cue, Reb Deb steps up to read passages from Jewish sources about the messianic age: “From the Jerusalem Talmud, Berakot 2:4: ‘On the day the Temple was destroyed, Messiah was born.’”
Babushkin repeats: “On the day the Temple was destroyed, Messiah was born.”
She reads: “From the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97b: ‘All the calculated dates of redemption have passed, and now the matter depends upon repentance and good deeds.’”
Babushkin repeats: “Repentance and good deeds.”
She reads: “From Franz Kafka: ‘The Messiah will come only when no longer necessary.’”
Babushkin repeats: “When we no longer need him. Thank you, Deborah.”
Now he walks to one of the Post-It sheet and prints words beneath the heading, “WHEN MOSHIAKH COMES . . .” “Forgive my handwriting,” he says, then reads aloud what he has written: “When moshiakh comes . . . the White House will be renamed the Rainbow Room.”
The room fills with laughter. He walks to the next pad and writes again: “Those who steal will be given what they want.” And again, to a third pad: “The President will be in therapy at least twice a week.”
When the laughter subsides, Babushkin holds out the marker. “It’s your turn, kinderlakh. What will happen when mentshlikhkayt becomes the way of the world? What does the revolution look like? You know, it’s easy for us to say what we don’t like about this world, but can we envision a better one, and put it into words? This is your chance to help write our new, universalist Torah.”
Max from Teaneck steps up, takes the marker from Reb Hyman’s hand, walks to a fresh sheet, and starts writing.”
Like Bashevis’s “Stories from Behind the Stove”, Sutskever’s “Ode to the Dove” was also written after the Holocaust. But this poem is a message from a completely different world than Bashevis’s stories. The poet’s mission has nothing to do with “creating a country or a public,” explains Berger in his introduction to the book published by Ben Yehuda Press. The poet is an individual who creates his own temple of sounds.
“Here, with the pen, I conduct my own, silent chapel.”
Berger emphasizes that Sutskever actually uses the international word “temple” and not the literal “beys hamikdesh.” In this way, Sutskever continues the tradition of the Polish romantic poets Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and Cyprian Norwid, whom he studied in the Polish-Jewish high school in Vilnius.
Berger ends his introduction with a question: To whom does Sutskever turn in this poem, which was written in 1954 in Tel Aviv?
And he speculates. “Perhaps to the dead who drag the poet from his bed and embrace him at night.”
Usually one reads Sutskever’s poems in poetry anthologies, one after the other. Berger’s book slowly soaks in the difficult rhythm and long lines of a single poem.
On each page, the reader’s gaze wanders between the Yiddish source above and the English translation below, and between the pages one pauses at the charming background illustrations by Liora Ostroff.
No digital copy can replace this experience of slowly reading and turning the pages.
First, a personal note. I felt I was in mourning when Rivka died. I loved her like I loved my own mother.
Now about Rivka.
Her husband, Mula, and she were twin souls. The Torah says about Jacob and his son Binyomin, נפשו קשורה בנפשו, “one’s soul was bound up with the soul of the other”, and that’s how it was with Rivka and Mula.
Here are two examples (from their lives together).
For Rivka life on Kibbutz Ha-Ma’apil was a slice of Eden. First, she watched the things she planted grow, and that was therapeutic for her. Then she became a teacher of Kibbutz children. In a poem entitled “With my students of the Rimon Class” she says of the children “and I discover/that the honey-/is in fact you”.
But for Mula life on the kibbutz was most unpleasant. He was a painter and he wanted to paint more than the few hours a week that the kibbutz allotted to him. He told Rivka he wanted to leave and without hesitation, she told him she would go with him. So the two left the kibbutz together.
Years later, when Rivka was studying for an MA in literature at Columbia University, Mula was homesick for Israel (He was simply unhappy in the Diaspora). When he told Rivka this, she reacted much as Ruth said to Naomi: “Wherever you go, I go, too.” And so the pair left for Israel together.
I was always surprised at Rivka’s optimism.
When I asked her about this, she said: “What can I do? God created me like this”.
I got a similar response when we watched a film about Rivka at Bet Leyvik.
There I saw Rivka in uniform holding a rifle. “Rivka”, I said, “you never told me you were a soldier!” She responded with “What could we do? They attacked us. We fought in self-defense.”
Another time, when we sat around the table shooting the breeze at Bet Leyvik, one of the folks there announced that he had something to say, but he begged every one’s pardon, he would speak in Hebrew, and not in Yiddish.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Rivka said. “Hebrew is also a Jewish language.”
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