Jewish Magic, Healing, & Art: Summer 2022 Cohort
Course Description:
A 6-week online opportunity to participate in a community of makers, healers, artists, activists, queers and our friends as we explore ancient and modern magic, healing and art of diasporic Judaism. Patriarchy has obscured many ancient Jewish rites associated with the occult and the magic of the everyday. Practices of the home and those kept by women and nonbinary people have often been forgotten or concealed because of violence, assimilation and white supremacy.
But our practices of resistance and earth reverence live in the altar of the Shabbat table. They are inscribed in the clay of our doorway mezuzah. They live in the spices we smell during havdalah, the scent taking us back to the earth our ancestors stepped on while harvesting these sacred plants. In this summer cohort, we will illuminate what has been hidden and celebrate a revived Jewish practice through song, chants, lectures, guided meditations, medicine-making, and the crafting of magical objects.
This space affirms that your life is Jewish magic, and the ways we collaborate with the energy of life has potential to heal our world. Magic manifests in many ways including through our art, work with plants, organizing for social change, and the ways we intend for our life to be a ritual. Some of the ancient Jewish teachings we will explore in this cohort include water rites and mikveh, amulets, mirror magic, Jewish time and the moon, incantation bowls, the Sefer Yetzirah (Jewish mystical text that predates the kabbalah), magical practices working with plants and animals, Jewish astrology, angels and demons.
We will also learn from 4 amazing guest teachers who are queer Jewish magic practitioners, artists, healers, community organizers and change-makers. These teachers center ritual, magic, and social change within their art practices and will guide us in doing hands-on activities together. In addition to our study of ancient Jewish teachings, we’ll receive inspiration from these contemporary artists, community organizers, and ritualists who are innovating work for the healing of all beings. Together we become the living dream of our ancestors.
Your Teachers and their session descriptions:
Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo (They/them/Lukaza) is an artist, activist, educator, storyteller & curator who lives/works between Ohlone Land [Oakland, CA] and Powhatan Land [Richmond,VA]. They invite the viewer to recall and share their own lived narratives, offering power and weight to the creation of a larger dialogue around the telling of B.I.Q.T.P.O.C. stories. Learn more at: www.lukazabranfmanverissimo.com
Lukaza will be offering time and space to come together and make collectively built rituals. Through writing exercises, every day altar making, mail-art and space to come together, what are the rituals that feed us? What are the rituals that liberate, resist and love? Let's all light a candle together.
Nicki Green is a transdisciplinary artist working primarily in clay. Her sculptures, ritual objects and various flat works explore topics of history preservation, conceptual ornamentation and aesthetics of otherness. Often constructing heavily ornamented painted glaze surfaces and experimental, organic building techniques, Green explores material and object integrity by utilizing transness as a lens with which to look at the world. Find out more at: www.nickigreen.org
Fermentation Magic: How has fermentation been used in a Jewish historic to nourish and how can we reconsider fermentation as an inherently queer, alchemical flexible practice? We'll look at the intersections of mikveh/washing and consider the ways in which fermentation could be integrated into weekly rituals to connect deeper with our bodies, our communities and our histories.
Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt is an artist and cultural worker engaging in place-based art and research projects. Her recent work in textiles, ceramics, video, and print reflects studies of cultural and land-based practices of her Jewish and Filipino ancestors. She received her MFA from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa in Honolulu in 2020 and is pursuing her doctoral studies in Sculpture as a MEXT Scholar at Hiroshima City University in Japan. Learn more at: www.rrrebecca.com
Let's talk about the animate-ness of vessels, from shells to chatsubo, Japanese tea storage jars! Rebecca will share her research from Hiroshima around Philippines ceramic history, ancient Jewish inscribed pots, and the role of jars as animate beings: communicators, wombs, multipliers, and contact points to the ancestral world.
Mazal Masoud Etedgi
Mazal Masoud Etedgi (they/them/theirs) is a trans/non-binary artist, arab/mizrahi/amazigh jew, first-gen, spoonie/chronically ill person, herbalist, Drama Therapist, clown, and cultural organizer. Maz utilizes imagination, play, and ritual as tools for liberation, healing and connection. You can find their herbal medicine apothecary at bsamimapothecary.com @bsamim.apothecary
In this workshop, Maz will share about plants in the Torah and in SWANA traditional herbal medicine that are supportive for individual and collective protection, as well as connection to the Divine. For the experiential portion of the class, we will co-create an amulet made with cloth, herbs and string. This amulet is known by many names in the Sephardic, Amazigh and North African practices (respectively): bulsika, za’aboula, choukara and tsherot.
Lead Teacher: Rebekah Erev
Rebekah Erev (they/them) is a queer artist, teacher, ritual leader/kohenet, community herbalist, dreamworker, cultural organizer and healer. For over two decades they have practiced and taught a Judaism steeped in the old ways, ancestral and earth reverence and visions of the world to come. They celebrate diaspora with Dreaming the World to Come and with Queer Mikveh Project, a community, advocacy tool and art practice. Learn more here.
Rebekah will be teaching the first and last sessions along with teaching a portion of all six sessions. They will teach about mirror magic, healing and magical herbs, the moon, incantation bowls, amulets, the Sefer Yetzirah and the Hebrew letters as portals, Jewish astrology and more. You can expect to do ritual, meditate, have group conversations, create ritual objects and discover many gems of Jewish magic. You will also make meaningful connections to your own life and social justice while working with Rebekah!
Dates:
Class takes place on 6 consecutive Thursdays from 3 - 5:30pm PST (with a ten minute break).
Thursday June 30th, 2022
Thursday July 7th, 2022
Thursday July 14th, 2022
Thursday July 21st, 2022
Thursday July 28th, 2022
Thursday August 4th, 2022
Access Information:
This online series of live sessions will be hosted on Zoom with ASL interpretation and live closed captioning. You are welcome to join our summer cohort regardless of your spiritual background; if you have beginner or advanced knowledge of Judaism, interest in converting to Judaism, or are a Jew by Choice. No prior knowledge of Judaism or Hebrew is required for participation in this cohort.
Sessions Include:
-Six live sessions that are each 2.5 hours in length. The first and final sessions will be facilitated by Rebekah Erev, and there will be a different guest teacher for each of the other four sessions.
-Hands-on practices, rituals, meditations and activities facilitated by Rebekah and guest teachers.
-Access to session recordings until September 1st, 2022.
-Option to receive a ritual box containing objects and materials for creating your own ritual tools (see below for more information).
Cost:
This series of classes is available on a sliding scale. The true cost of this series is $750 per student. If you have access to financial security, own property, or have personal savings, you would not traditionally qualify for sliding scale services. If you are able to pay for "wants" and spend little time worried about securing necessities in your life, you have economic privilege and power in our community. This price is for you.
If this isn’t you, you can determine your place on the sliding scale below. You may fit anywhere between the $350-$750 range. See the green bottle graphic below from Alexis of Worts & Cunning Apothecary about the sliding scale system to assist you in identifying what your payment for this class should be.
Partial and full scholarships are available for this series – QTBIPOC, Disabled, and raised/working poor and working class folks especially, we encourage you to apply with this simple form if accessing this class is at all unavailable to you due to finances. We don’t want financial reasons to be a barrier to participation.
As an act of Ger (Guest laws and Land Back) a percentage of proceeds from this class will go to supporting the work of Rose Island Farm.
Enrollment in this course is not refundable.
Ritual Box:
We’ve created a ritual box to accompany this series of classes and to support you in doing magic with us together! Each box contains materials we will be using during the class activities. It includes: a ritually engraved mirror, herbs and bottle for making your own anointing oil, a set of small tapers from Narrow Bridge Candles, a bag of clay for making an incantation bowl, fabric and string for making herbal amulets, pickling spices, herbs from Rebekah’s garden and beyond (cedar, rose, yarrow, dandelion root and more!) original art by Rebekah and Lukaza, evil eye beads and more. You can add a ritual box on to your registration for $75. This add-on to your registration is only available for students within the United States, and the price includes the cost of shipping.
Testimonials from Last Summer’s Cohort (an adjacent series)
“One of a kind, welcoming, opening. A truly beautiful interweaving of love, connection, magic, ritual, herstory and belonging. I felt the presence of benevolent ancestors, both honoring and becoming. The study and way of learning really worked for me; conversations, verbal reflections, rituals of doing helped integrate it all. Being together with all these beautiful people was most salient for me. “
“This class has felt really nourishing for me in rebuilding a relationship to my identity and ancestors in a way beyond loss. I loved the physical making of objects and medicine as a way of bringing the lessons of this class into my home and life. I love the discussions and stories and reflections each person brings into the space. I’ve never been in such a nourishing Jewish space that felt welcoming of all my political and personal identities.”
“Rebekah Erev shares such a wealth of knowledge and passion. Their commitment to accessibility across disabilities is so clear and important. The class has given me so much. I’m so sad it’s over but I would do anything for more.”
“I liked how many types of activities we did. As someone with ADHD, I can easily lose focus, but in this class there was so much interesting material presented in so many ways. It was a deeply impactful experience in the growth of my spiritual identity. Our work together brought awareness of so many ideas in Judaism that have been obscured or lost because of patriarchy. Not only did Rebekah as a teacher bring a wealth of knowledge, but they made space for others to share their own. By the end it truly felt like we built a compassionate community of powerful, wise practitioners.”
