40s, queer, bi lesbian, agender, they/them. Archivist/librarian, tailor, goth, trash goblin. Converting to Judaism. Socialist. Social Justice Rogue. Usually bored and surly. Full of profanities, snark, salt, politics, and whatever fandoms I'm currently into. Fash and exclusionists of any stripe can fuck right off back to whatever dumpster fire you crawled out of, post haste.
Jane Yolen was a Jewish-American childrenâs author, poet, and young adult novelist. Yolen wrote more than 400 books for children and adults,
If you didnât become acquainted with the work of Jane Yolen as a student being assigned her famous, award-winning Holocaust time travel nove
If you didnât become acquainted with the work of Jane Yolen as a student being assigned her famous, award-winning Holocaust time travel novella âThe Devilâs Arithmetic,â itâs likely you will once you become a parent, reading one of her many, many, many books for kids. My young boys are especially partial to her âHow Do Dinosaurs?â series with its captivating, realistic dinosaur illustrations and snappy, funny text (and yes, thereâs a Hanukkah âHow Do Dinosaursâ book).
The prolific childrenâs book author, who was the recipient of multiple childrenâs book awards and six honorary doctorates, passed away this week at age 87. She was just about to release her 450th book. âMonsters of Fife: Terror Birdsâ will come out posthumously on July 14.
Yolen wasnât raised particularly Jewish, and her exposure to religion was mostly at relativesâ homes, she recounted in a piece for the Jewish Book Council. As a teen, she did become fascinated with Jewish texts and traditions, getting confirmed at her local Reform synagogue; she was one of the first girls to read from the Torah on the bimah at that temple. And she minored in religious studies at Smith College.
But it took a while for Judaism to become part of her childrenâs book-writing career. In fact, she was two decades into her career when she got ânoodgedâ into writing Jewish tales.
It all happened in the 1980s, she wrote in her essay for the Jewish Book Council: âOne of my ediÂtors, who hapÂpened to be a rabbiâs wife, asked me why I had nevÂer writÂten a JewÂish book. And I had to think long and hard about that. And she noodged. Boy! Was she an expert noodge. The result was âThe Devilâs ArithÂmetic.â And then the JewÂish stoÂries began to tumÂble out.â
The books that came tumbling out were as gripping and wonderful and magical as the rest of her oeuvre.
There came magical stories about Jews and dragons and golems (co-written with her son, Adam Stemple).
She published illustrated books about Miriam and other biblical women (and even the childrenâs book adaptation of the famous âPrince of Egyptâ).
She came up with her own twist on the tales of the Wise Men of Chelm.
She perhaps became most known for her three young adult tomes that tackle the Holocaust in novel ways. She wrote the âSleeping Beautyâ inspired âBriar Roseâ and the âHansel and Gretelâ-esque âMapping the Bones.â And of course, she penned the Nebula Prize Winning âThe Devilâs Arithmetic,â about a Jewish teen who finds herself transported to 1942 Poland, which continues to be taught in schools to this very day, even as one Texas school district pulled it out of the curriculum for AI-detected âDEI content.â The book was famously turned into a 1999 film starring Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy, Paul Freeman and Mimi Rogers.
Yolen also wrote books about Jewish holidays: âMilk and Honey,â and the lovely âJewish Tale Feastsâ (with her daughter, author Heidi Stemple), a book that my Jewish food-loving family adores.
Heidi, Adam and their brother Jason were all by their motherâs side when she âpassed gently with no pain or stress,â Heidi shared on Instagram. Adam was playing his music while Heidi read from her motherâs book âOwl Moon.â
âAs you all probably know, she had one of the most brilliant creative minds of our time,â Heidi wrote of her mother. âShe has mentored, inspired and nurtured so many authors and illustrators through her words both on the page and off. But, beyond that, she was our mother and grandmother.â
May Jane Yolenâs memory be for a blessing; her books will certainly remain part of our lives for a long, long time.
Kneading bread dough is the most grounding thing for me. So I decided to make some rolls to relieve some stress and make something nice.
@stealingyourbones has made some delightful food abominations, which taught me I can replace the water in bread with almost any liquid.
So I tried Miso.
The yeast loved it and frothed up super fast. Mixing miso broth with the egg and oil smelled funky. The dough didnât rise any fluffier than usual but the texture feels good. Then I decided to roll in some black garlic and green onion. Iâd add nori crumbled up but I ran out.
This is amazing. It tastes like if miso soup was solid. The flavor is immaculate. Itâs just missing the nori flavor. I can add that next time because I am 100% making this again.
- mix in slowly with a fork until itâs hard to stir with the fork, then stir together with hands until it stops sticking to your skin when you rub your hands together.
- knead the dough about 10min until it starts pushing back (it gets springy)
Let the dough rest for 30min.
(I make a redneck proof box by microwaving a cup of water and quickly replacing the water with the dough bowl and shutting the door to give it a warm place to nap. Do not microwave the dough itself by reflex.)
Roll out the dough and add any flavors you like. For the miso soup bread I chopped up a couple black garlics, and a handful of green onion. Roll it up like cinnamon rolls, cut into 12, and roll each into a ball shape.
Stick in a greased 9x13 casserole dish and let the dough rise to double size. (About 40min-1hr depending on how warm your kitchen is.) (the redneck proof box wonât fit my casserole dish so I stick the rolls on top of the oven while it preheats with a dish towel over it.)
Preheat the oven to 350 and when the dough looks nice and squishy bake it for 20min.
You can brush butter on top if you want. That would look pretty and help a sprinkling of furikake stick after you pull it out of the oven. If you wanna up the miso taste you can also spread a very thin layer of miso paste in before you roll it up with the other fillings. Iâm gonna try that next time.
Bake! Eat! Enjoy! Knead all your frustrations into the bread then cleanse it with fire! Lemme know how yours turn out đđâšđ„
your daily reminder that kafka was a jew watching in real-time as jews became society's ungeziefers and were relegated to ghettos. Your daily reminder that ungeziefer is not just a bug, but vermin.
Hot take: people having an interest in niche crafts/activities does not automatically make them autistic. People having deep knowledge of niche crafts/activities does not automatically make them autistic. Can we please stop calling complete strangers autistic simply because they have hobbies?
Saint John of The Cross, A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ.
Caravaggio, Saint Francis in Ecstasy (1595)
Stephen D. Moore, Godâs Beauty Parlor.
Florence & The Machine, Big God | Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy (1611)
Peter 5:6
Gaspar De Crayer, Saint Augustine in Ecstasy (1638) | Psalm 63:1
First three sections from âSpiritual experiences and altered states of consciousnessâŠâ by Charlotta Carlström | Drummer, issue 1 (1975) | Flyer for the archival group âLives of Secular Saintsâ (c1990s)
Things have gotten so P.C. nowadays that you can't even call a forklift a forklift. Suddenly, every piece of "power lifting equipment" in your shop needs a special name. Even the mutant bullshit like telehandlers don't want to be called something cool like zoom-booms anymore.
The other day, the intern and I are out at Subway. Van saying "lift trucks" comes by. Picture on the side? You guessed it. Forklift.
"Skip," my intern explains - I don't like to be called boss, and he's nice and doesn't do that - "that's what the manufacturers want us to call them now. A forklift is too reductive, obscures nuance. Imagine if you had a huge shop full of these things, you'd need to know the difference between a reach truck and a stacker."
He makes an excellent point, which I admit by silently chewing on my Mesquite Chicken Power Bowl. I have ordered it meticulously, in order to accommodate my unique dietary needs. Some people think that's unimportant, and I should just get one of the combos and not explain myself to the Sandwich Artist every time. They're wrong, it's critical that I be recognized for who I am. Safer for everyone, too.
Even though it draws so much embarrassment when I misname the things, I just can't get over how every forklift insists on its own special name. My grandfather never had to put up with that kind of nonsense. He'd just get out there in the morning, lift up a car with whatever he had on the jobsite, and steal the catalytic converter. Then he'd go to the bar, and sob in the bathroom for a couple of hours at home by himself without ever explaining to any of us what was going on. Probably saw all this coming.
okay, so, I know it's an annoying question but I trust you far more than I trust myself when it comes to research on Israel and Palestine. Mostly because I'm incredibly ADHD and because I have the tendency to go into utterly unrelated rabbit holes.
I was wondering if you know where I can find an exhaustive list of events before 1948, that prove peace was never truly a thing? I know of the Arab revolt and Hebron massacre, but I'm almost certain there were others, but idk how to even look these up. (I'm quite bad with that stuff).
I can later look these up and find sources about them, but idk where to start is my problem.
Thanks in advance!!
I also want to thank you, from the depths of my heart, for helping me learn more about this history!! You're so well-versed and you carry yourself in arguments/debates and express yourself with such elegance and eloquence. Thank you!!
Attacks by Arabs against Jews in Israel pre-dates Israeli settlements, pre-dates Israel's so-called 'occupation,' and pre-dates the establis
On October 7, 2023, a pogrom took place in Israel for the first time since the creation of the Jewish state.
so my pet american buffalo had a baby boy, and now that he's all grown up he's decided for himself that he likes more than one gender. in fact, really grown. he's got a son of his own now. and even he's about to go off to college. i'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about the moment. my bison's bi son's "bye son."
Today at work a little crow fledgling was just having the worst damn day. The little goober kept trying to shove its way into the door and screaming at its reflection while I was helping a lady look at a bed.
I pointed it out to her and together we regarded the infant screaming.
After she left my coworker came up and informed me there was a bird on her car. I went out to look and lo, the fledgling had scrambled up onto her windshield and was pecking forlornly at its reflection.
It stayed perched there in the hot sun, trying to move higher up the car with no success but too scared to fly down. She was agitated that it was on her car since she didnât know if it would leave on its own.
âItâs a baby,â I told her, âItâs still learning how to fly.â
âThatâs a baby?! Itâs so big!â
âYeah, itâs just a little guy.â
I went out to investigate. The parents began screaming and swooping. I placated them with crackers which they accepted without relenting their screaming. My coworker said she could now see that the creature on her car was indeed a baby with the sleek black parents swooshing angrily around in the air.
We regarded the baby together. After a while I started noticing it was showing signs of fatigue and distress. Mouth gaping but not begging for food, wings drooping. I went back out to check on it.
I was debating moving the baby; the day kept getting hotter and it didnât have the energy or skill to relocate itself. My coworker also wanted the bird to stop pooping on her car. So eventually I announced, âIâm gonna move the bird.â
âYour gonna grab it? Arenât you scared?â
I looked at her in bafflement. I grew up around every imaginable kind of fowl. The only bird Iâd be scared of would be some of the big flightless ones. Even geese/swans are manageable if you just grab their necks before they really get flapping. The parents were not gonna go for my eyes like magpies and in general crows tend to recognize when youâre trying to help. âItâs just a little baby guy. Itâs fine.â
I approached the baby amidst its parents shrieking crow obscenities down upon me. I scooped it gently like the burger.
I cannot begin to convey how soft that baby crow felt. It was the downiest most pleasant tactile thing that Iâve maybe ever held and the experience was only slightly marred by the goober trying ineffectually to bite me. It was stymied by the fact that it ainât my first rodeo.
I brought it ten feet away to a nice shady tree. I held the baby gently so it could get its feet under it on the branch. It seemed a bit confused at this point but eventually gripped the branch and I stepped back and threw peanuts in self defense while the angry parents swooped showily around at me.
It stayed there pretty much the rest of the day. Its parents both checked in to make sure I hadnât murdered it then flew back to where we could see a nest. So best theory is that this dingus was the first to start fledging and couldnât actually return to the nest after launching.
I told my wife afterward and they went, âYou. You touched the bird?!â My coworkers husband was also flabbergasted that Iâd been brave enough to grab it. My coworker said she was just gonna shove it off her car with a broom.
As if they didnât know who they married. As if I am not someone who would confidently help a stray cat or wrangle a chicken.
I informed them that barring gloves I had thoroughly washed my hands twice and it was worth it to get the silly infant off a slippery car and into the shade.