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yuletide2021-10-23 02:13 pm
Mini-challenge: Jewltide
Jewish themes are understood in a broad and varied way: from the religious to the cultural sphere to historical events, and this includes also how these big topics influence the lives of the characters on a smaller, daily-life scale. If a character puts importance on their Jewish identity in some way, this is already reason enough to include them in this challenge, even if Jewishness is a subtle background flavour in a canon text.
Jewltide is open to anyone, no matter whether you identify as Jewish or not, and I just ask all participants to act in good faith and tread respectfully.
If you would like to see more Jewish representation and want to point people towards your requests, please leave a comment under this post and mention your AO3 username, relevant fandoms/characters, your letter (if you have one), possible prompts or anything you want to highlight. Here's a handy template:
I have also started compiling a list of fandoms in this year's tagset that feature Jewish characters or Jewish themes: feel free to add more to the spreadsheet. (It's open to editing for anyone who has the link, so just be careful with it, please. Unfortunately, spreadsheets tend to get messed up easily.)
Sometimes Jewish characters are, to put it mildly, less than flatteringly depicted in canon media, and sometimes the way Jewish themes are approached may irk us. I would still like to allow such media in this mini-challenge, with the caveat that if you want to see fic for it, you should address possibly problematic aspects in the comment (here on DW and on the spreadsheet). The beauty of fic is that it can fix where canon falls short. <3
I expect our list to grow, so I will update this post accordingly. For now, we have these fandoms listed on the spreadsheet (in alphabetical order):
- Addams Family (Sonnenfeld Films)
- Alpennia - Heather Rose Jones
- Babylon Berlin (TV)
- Beetlejuice (Perfect/Brown & King)
- Being Human (US/Canada)
- Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
- Bombshells (DC Comics)
- Call Me By Your Name (2017)
- Clueless (1995)
- Covert Affairs
- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
- Dance of the Vampires (Broadway 2002/2003) - Steinman/Ives/Kunze
- England Series - K. J. Charles
- Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
- Fantastic Four (2015)
- Fantastic Four (Comicverse)
- Fantastic Four (Movies 2005-2007)
- Fantastic Four: Unstable Molecules
- Fiddler on the Roof
- Fudge Series (Judy Blume)
- God of Vengeance - Ash
- His Royal Secret - Lilah Pace
- Houdini & Doyle (TV)
- John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme Season 9
- King Falls AM (Podcast)
- Little Shop of Horrors - Menken/Ashman
- Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
- Oliver Appropriate - Say Anything (Album)
- Rabbinic and Talmudic Judaism RPF
- Russian Doll (TV 2019)
- Seinfeld
- Shiva Baby (2020)
- Spinning Silver (Naomi Novik)
- Tanz der Vampire | Dance of the Vampires - Steinman/Kunze
- The Alienist
- The Magic School Bus
- The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
- The Mary Tyler Moore Show
- The Try Guys (Webseries)
- The Will Darling Adventures - K. J. Charles
- These Violent Delights - Micah Nemerever
- Water Rats
- Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass - Sonya Taaffe
- Yudah Cohen Series - Rebecca Fraimow
no subject
Letter Link: My Letter
Fandom(s): Wind Will Rove - Sarah Pinsker
Character(s): I requested this fandom with no characters, because I just wanted to read more about this setting. There are no canonly Jewish characters, but I welcome making canon characters Jewish or Jewish OCs.
Comment: This is a sci-fi short story, about travellers on a generation ship, but it's also about tradition and memory and music, what you keep and what you don't and what inevitably changes. The story is set a generation after an event that wiped out most of the ship’s memory banks of things like art and literature and music and history. The ways the ship’s culture(s) evolve to deal with that loss are fascinating to me. Some people try as hard as they can to hold onto tradition unchanged, some people respect tradition but want to take it in new directions, some people reject tradition altogether. (There’s one character, Nelson, who is basically the Wicked Son from the Passover Haggadah—but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s wrong.)
Judaism is only mentioned in passing, but “Wind Will Rove” feels like a very Jewish story to me. I would be fascinated to see what happens with Judaism in this context.
If you'd like an optional jumping-off point, there’s a Hasidic story that I love, which "Wind Will Rove" reminded me of, about the Baal Shem Tov. The story says that whenever he was struggling with a particularly difficult or complex problem, he used to go to a certain place in the forest, light a fire, and say a prayer. Then he was able to resolve the difficulty.
After the Baal Shem Tov passed away, his successor did the same thing. He prayed: “Lord, I do not know how to light the fire, but I know where the Baal Shem Tov used to go pray in the forest and I know the prayer. It will have to be enough.” He went to the secret place in the forest and recited the prayer, and it was enough.
When the Baal Shem Tov’s successor died, the next rabbi prayed: “Lord, I do not know how to light the fire, and I do not know how to find the secret place in the forest. But I know the prayer, and it will have to be enough.” He recited the prayer, and it was enough.
And then it came to the time of his successor, and the rabbi prayed: “Lord, I do not know how to light the fire, and I do not know how to find the secret place in the forest. I do not even know the words of the prayer. All I can do is tell the story and hope it will be enough.” And it was enough.
~~~
My other requests this year involve characters who aren't Jewish, but I always welcome Jewish themes and references.