Yael Rice

Strict side profile photographic portrait of a regal, flat-faced, teddy-bear-like ginger tux male cat sitting on a magazine and other junk

Look at this noble, furry creature sitting on an issue of The New Yorker

From a letter of recommendation I've just sent off:

"______ is that rarity of rarities: a born researcher, a subtle thinker, a curious mind, a scholar of the highest ethics, and—perhaps rarest of all—a pre-modernist." 😀

#premodern

And front page of the local paper ☺️

We camped outside all night to get concert tickets.

I figured :-) As you probably well know, there’s a class of ms type known in Arabic as safina, meaning ship or ark. I like to picture these little oblong books sailing the stacks

It’s giving pothi

Please enjoy this moment of quacky levity, brief respite for trying times

In 3. Not what I was expecting!

To spice things up, I always pick my startword from Connections :-)

Is it CODEX?? (Kidding, don’t tell me, no spoilers please!)

Island is on my list. Rivers opens at the court of Ashurbanipal—a promising start!

Just inhaled The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, on the heels of reading There Are Rivers in the Sky. Both dark _and_ life-affirming, the ideal antidotes/escapes for the current moment :-/

More of this, so please share recs

Amazing! And thank you for sharing the link!

What’s the book you’re photo’d with?

He knows what he was doing

I hope you’re blasting health economics podcasts throughout the house this xmas morning

Brava!!

Four Frictions: or, How to Resist AI in Education - Public Books We are calling for resistance to the AI industry’s ongoing capture of higher education.

"We envision a resistance that is...a repudiation of the efficiencies that automated algorithmic education falsely promises: a resistance comprising the collective force of small acts of friction."

"How to Resist AI in Education" by me & @cnygren.bsky.social
www.publicbooks.org/four-frictio...

"I wrote: "Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire. It rewards Hamas terrorists. It emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.""

"The attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney today was a vile act of antisemitic terror. I mourn those who were murdered and will be keeping their families, the Jewish community, and the Chabad movement in my prayers. May the memories of all those killed be a blessing. While we are still waiting for all the facts to emerge, what we already know is devastating. At least 11 dead, including Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who held deep ties to Crown Heights. At least 29 injured. Another Jewish community plunged into mourning and loss, a holiday of light so painfully reduced to a day of darkness. This attack is merely the latest, most horrifying iteration in a growing pattern of violence targeted at Jewish people across the world. Too many no longer feel safe to be themselves, to express their faith publicly, to worship in their synagogues without armed security stationed outside. What happened at Bondi is what many Jewish people fear will happen in their communities too. On Bondi Beach today, as men with long guns targeted innocents, another man ran towards the gunfire and disarmed a shooter. Tonight, as Jewish New Yorkers light menorahs and usher in a first night of Hanukkah clouded by grief, let us look to his example and confront hatred with the urgency and action it demands. When I am Mayor, I will work every day to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe—on our streets, our subways, at shul, in every moment of every day. Let this be a purpose shared by every New Yorker, and let us banish this horrific violence to the past."

Compare the statement about the antisemitic terror attack in Australia by the Israeli Prime Minister with the one by Zohran Mamdani, and ask yourself who more truly cares about condemning antisemitism, as opposed to using it to promote unrelated politics.

Photo of a miniature embroidered Christmas sweater with the face of a black and white cat on it.

No one warned me that embroidering was addictive. I’ve quit my academic gig — this is my full time job now

Come be my neighbor! You would also get @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social as a colleague!

UMass-Amherst is hiring “a specialist in the visual arts, architecture, and/or material culture of the Islamic world” !
careers.umass.edu/amherst/en-u...

Printed image of the vera icon

Bummed that I’m gonna have to report this student for submitting work that is not their own

Photograph showing the opening pages from a juz' (section) of a Mamluk Qur'an manuscript

Does it make sense for a Mamluk-era manuscript of juz' 16 to open with Q18:57 rather than Q18:75? Sharing the opening pages here.

Does anyone I know have an image of documenta XV (2022)? Ideally one showing after artworks were taken down??

I was there too! Made me tear up 🥹

I know. Still disgusted by it (obviously) and the fact that it had a “like.”

I don’t get it. Are you saying that the synagogue had to be “cleansed” too?

My alma mater, too, and I’m (once again) extremely disappointed

The job market for human-type ministers will now tank

Torn and crinkled brown-ish parchment manuscript with about 30 lines of Judaeo-Arabic text, set on a light blue grid background. The uploader has highlighted portions with red boxes and transliterated with inserted Arabic text, reading الله and واجهاد نفسه في حب خالقه

Here's an 11th-century Jewish manuscript that refers to God as Allah and wishes for the reader to have "jihad of his soul in love for his Creator"