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Landscape with Pollard Willows, 1884, Vincent van Gogh

Medium: oil,canvas

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Lil Nas X for Guardian Weekend Magazine.

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My favorite of the ten plagues was the frogs. Like you’ve got locusts eating the crops, livestock dying, blood instead of water to drink, death of the first born.

And then just. Frogs. Like just more frogs than anyone would find convenient really. Like the Torah just describes it as frogs are gonna be just everywhere and it’ll be a really inconvenient time. Everywhere you go you gotta deal with frogs sitting about and it’ll be annoying cause frogs will be on all your stuff and you have to shoo them away all the time.

A very Jewish plague I must say.

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things some medieval english medical practitioners did

beat up the competition & threw them in the mud

pretended to be a physician & surgeon despite having “no skills”

used their medical books as down payments for loans

served time for accidentally overdosing patients

got executed for counterfeiting coins

got sued for accidentally killing a rented horse, claimed the horse died from “a natural infirmity”

got sued for quitting job without notice

got rebuked for trying to quit the clergy

sued people (as part of a side job as “keeper of the poultry market” ??)

“involved in homicide”

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my religion in dnd be like

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A bird with a pen. Vie privée et publique des animaux. 1868. e-rara

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“…well.”

“This probably isn’t good.”

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I hate/love when you finish a really good book and you are left in like a daze cause it was so good

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From betterbooks.com

More hilariousness. I hope you enjoy it.

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I’d been meaning to make a rec list for a while, but now I’m finally getting around to it! I’ve read or started to read most of the books on this list, and I own 95% of them. If I haven’t read it, but someone has recommended it to me, I’ve included it. I know that there are books I’ve read or have been meaning to read that aren’t on here because my memory is shit and I never write anything down. Titles link to Goodreads.

An asterisk (*) indicates a book I haven’t read yet. A pound sign (#) indicates a book I haven’t read yet, but which others have recommended. A tilde (~) indicates a book I’m in the process of reading and would recommend up to the current point (aka “I don’t know if this book has a terrible second half, but so far it’s good”). Italics indicate a personal favorite.

Fiction:

Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories by Sholem Aleichem

The Brothers Ashkenazi by Israel J. Singer * 

The Golden Dreydl by Ellen Kushner

Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth #

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon ~

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok #

The Instructions by Adam Levin

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant #

The Second Mango by Shira Glassman

The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar 

The Mathematician’s Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer ~

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper (I might not have included this one except that a friend whose opinion I trust absolutely loved it.) 

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss #

The Doverkeepers by Alice Hoffman *

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks *

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker #

The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern *

Friday, the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman 

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch 

The Family Moskat by Isaac Bashevis Singer #

Moving Waters by Racelle Rosett *

The World to Come by Dara Horn

Maus: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegleman (Shoah tw)

Nonfiction:

The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate by Ruth Fredman Cernea

Boychiks In the Hood: Travels in the Hasidic Underground by Robert Eisenberg

The Jewish Body by Melvin Konner 

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs (Jacobs is Jewish, but spends half the book following Jewish traditions and the other half following Christian traditions, just as a note.) 

Living a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant (also would rec “Choosing a Jewish Life” for converts, etc)

Gonzo Judaism: a Bold Path for Renewing an Ancient Faith by Niles Goldstein

New American Haggadah edited by Jonathan Safran Foer (lovely design and dual translation)

Kosher Chinese: Living, Teaching, and Eating with China’s Other Billion by Michael Levy

O Jerusalem! Day By Day and Minute By Minute, the Historic Struggle For Jerusalem and the Birth of Israel by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre #

Inside Israel: The Faiths, the People, and the Modern Conflicts of the World’s Holiest Land by John Miller and Aaron Kenedi #

The Receiving: Reclaiming Jewish Women’s Wisdom by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone ~

The Rabbi’s Daughter by Reva Mann #

Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue by Susan Grossman ~

Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams by Rich Cohen #

25 Questions for a Jewish Mother by Judy Gold and Kate Moira Ryan

The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Hillel: If Not Now, When? by Joseph Telushkin

1000 Mitzvahs: How Small Acts of Kindness Can Heal, Inspire, and Change Your Life by Linda Cohen

Mornings and Mourning: A Kaddish Journal by E.M. Broner

My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge, and Belonging by Rachael Naomi Remen

Jewish Literacy by Joseph Telushkin (this is more of a “skim when you want to” kind of resource book, rather than a narrative.) 

Born to Kvetch: Yidish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods by Michael Wex *

The Defiant Muse: Hebrew Feminist Poems From Antiquity to the Present by Shirley Kaufman

The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond by Ben G. Frank #

Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area by Fred Rosenbaum *

Blood Relation by Eric Konigsberg *

Up, Up, and Oy Vey! How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero by Simcha Weinstein #

Mandarins, Jews, And Missionaries: Jewish Experience In The Chinese Empire by Michel Pollak *

The Hyena People: Ethiopian Jews in Christian Ethiopia by Hagar Salamon *

Cookbooks:

The Holiday Kosher Baker by Paula Shoyer

The Joy of Kosher by Jamie Geller (seriously, I have never made a recipe from this book and had it come out anything other than absolutely delicious)

Classic Italian Jewish Cooking by Edda Servi Machlin

The Foods of Israel Today by Joan Nathan

Feel free to add others! 

Tagging shiraglassman and newlyjewly​, re: the “books” ask.

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““I said, do you know why Batman and Robin have to fuck each other?” He took out his wallet and pulled out a ten-dollar bill, nonchalant, building up to the punch. The bartender shook his head, half-smiling, waiting for something good. “Now, why is that?” he said. “Because they can’t go fuck themselves.” Deasey tossed the bill onto the bar. “The way you can.””

— The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon

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I can’t believe that I only just found this today.  From Jamie Caliri’s website:

This piece was made as part of the development process for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

They asked me to explore animation concepts. I thought it would be much more fun to actually shoot a section of the script to intertwine live action and animation. It was a fun surprise for the producers.

We shot in downtown LA.

Directed by Jamie Caliri.

DP – Angel Decca

more soon

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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.