If Not Now, When?

Seraph Serpent Birkat Habayit, 2024

a (non-)traditional blessing for the home, commissioned earlier this year as a wedding gift for a wonderful couple who share my alternative/dark-fantasy Jewish aesthetic! having just finished Esther Hamori's book God's Monsters, i was already thinking about the nachash seraphim & was excited to integrate one as a guardian here. the original piece was sketched in Procreate and then finished traditionally, but the photo i took of it before sending it off wasn't the right quality for prints, so this is actually a digital re-inking of the same piece.

"...magic should be both accessible and versatile, and our tools and allies should reflect the need for both. It is my hope that a practitioner never feels defeated because they can’t afford expensive magical supplies, or because they have limited or no access to metaphysical or witchcraft shops, apothecaries, or the like. One’s magical craft can, indeed, thrive without all of that. After all, magic and witchcraft has always existed, before drop shippers and international delivery services, before influencers, before bloggers, podcasters, and publishers. Magic was always there and could always be worked, and that has never changed and never will."

-Practical Magic: Everyday Items You Can Use in Witchcraft; Part 1 (2025), Keziah Zibelmann (@sheydmade)

I am once again asking practitioners of magic, mysticism, and occultism to defer to Jewish voices and Jewish practitioners about the history and real-life impacts of appropriation of and theft from Judaism and Jewish mysticism instead of deferring to the opinions of non-Jewish occultists. I am also asking you to use discernment when engaging with revisionist history perpetuated by non-Jewish practitioners who profit or benefit from said revisionist history, such as claims that Jewish practitioners willingly "shared" or "gave" our practices with/to other communities, the refusal to acknowledge Jewish authorship, or the speaking over Jewish voices/attempts made by non-Jewish practitioners to speak for Jewish practitioners.

Now, I understand this can be overwhelming and many may not know where or how to begin, so I want to drop a recommendation. Fuck Your "Magic" Antisemitism: A Lesser Key to the Appropriation of Jewish Magic & Mysticism by Ezra Rose is an excellent place to start. This zine, which you can download for free (please leave a donation to support the author if you are able, and please share their work), is a wonderful treasure trove of history and resources. Per the author's description of the zine: FYMA is 'a guide to understanding the history and results of antisemitism in western occult and esoteric movements,  from the origins of "Solomonic" magic in medieval and Renaissance ceremonial grimoires, through the late 19th & early 20th century occult revival's "Qabalistic" ritual,  to ongoing appropriation and demonization in the 21st century.  A labor of love & spite, the zine is both a personal and academic look at a widely ignored topic.'

I have recommended this zine several times and have said that I think it should be required reading in witchcraft and witchcraft adjacent communities, and I stand by that. It's very, very good, and it is absolutely packed with thoroughly researched, cited, useful information.

One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen - cover of a Yiddish art journal titled Milgroym (Pomegranate), published in Berlin between 1922 and 1924. Thanks to the efforts of The National Library of Israel issues of Milgroym were scanned and published online. To find this beautifully edited and extremely elegant journal please visit the following link:

http://web.nli.org.il/sites/JPress/English/Pages/Milgroim.aspx

Don’t forget about other Yiddish newspapers from all around the world  published online at The National Library of Israel:

Dandelion Matzoh Cover / Tapestry

(June 2021)

Glass, hand painted mizrah plaque from Sopronkeresztúr, Hungary.

The Yahuda Haggadah, unidentified scribe, Franconia, Southern Germany, 1470-80. Handwritten on parchment, Ashkenazic script.

jewish + rromani lgbt solidarity!

Diary of a JewBu: a Jewish Buddhist's mood board (as requested)

"...at the table, Shabbat candles; in the living room, incense; at the doorway, a mezuzah; in the meditation room, a five-foot-high Buddha. If he glanced at the bookshelf, he would have seen dharma and kabbalah competing for space, and one was as likely to find Pali as Hebrew." -Kamenetz — the Jew in the Lotus (1994); ch. 1, pg. 10