Fraytik tsu Nakht Shabbes for Cultural Jews

Our January 17 Fraytik tsu Nakht Shabbes for Cultural Jews is open to all, beginning with our community's Secular Humanist Shabbes observance (songs and readings) followed by a potluck dinner and an engaging speaker to stimulate our learning and discussion.

Admission: a contribution to the pot luck OR pay $18.00 per person (children are free).

Please register before Tuesday, January 14 to help us make sure there's enough food for everyone.

This month's topic:  Jewish Maternal Cannibalism: The Roman Siege of Jerusalem and its Medieval Afterlives

According to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, a citizen of the Roman Empire, a Jewish woman called Maria ate her own baby out of desperation, or mercy, or defiance, or madness, during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. This can hardly be a true story—it seems the perfect blend of Biblical prophecy with Greek popular literature of the time—but its questions of futurity, food, famine, and maternal and Jewish guilt caught the imaginations of medieval writers from England to Ethiopia, in languages ranging from Old Norse to Judeo-Arabic. Mo Pareles discusses what happened to this story across many different translations, and what its cross-cultural relevance can tell us about the political life of motherhood and the intertwined stories of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Note: Keeping in mind the setting and the presence of kids, there will be no graphic details in this talk! However, it will not be appropriate for everyone, so there will be an alternative hang-out space for kids.

Our speaker: Dr. Mo Pareles is a medievalist, student of Yiddish and Ladino, and associate professor of English at UBC, where they are co-instigator of the Jewish-Muslim Cultures in Europe Project. They are also a member of the Peretz and an interim board member. Mo is the author of Nothing Pure: Jewish Law, Christian Supersession, and Bible Translation in Old English (University of Toronto Press, 2024).

Image: Miniature depicting the siege and conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, artist(s) unknown (at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris)