Netivat Sofrut: diary of a Soferet

Adventures of a female sofer learning to heal the world by doing Holy Work...writing a Sefer Torah

נחזיר את השכינה למקומה בצייון ובתבל כלה

"Let us restore the Divine In-Dwelling to Her Place in Zion & infuse Her spirit throughout the whole inhabited world."

So wherever we are, let us bring the Peace of G@d's Presence.

: Name: Soferet; Location: Vancouver/London, British Columbia/UK, Canada

SCRIBAL EVANGELIST As the only living certified Soferet (סופרת - female Jewish ritual scribe) & the first woman to practice sofrut (creation of sacred Hebrew texts) in over 200 years, I feel an obligation to blog about my experiences of The Work. I am also currently researching the foundation of a lost tradtion of women practicing this holy craft. For more on the services I provide, please see Soferet.com; Sofrut Nation. I am now available to engage with students, male or female, wishing to enter into the preliminary stage of learning sofrut. You are welcome to join me on this path. "Tzedeq, tzedeq tir'dof - Justice, justice you shall pursue." Devarim/Deuteronomy 16:20.

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Wednesday, January 19, 2005

INDEPENDENT JEWS

BS"D

& no, I'm not talking about the Kuzari. Check out Birobidzhan for the colorful history & only then have a look at the Official Government Site of the Jewish Autonomous Region of Siberia, which still exists today.
Unbelieve-a-kuh-kuh-buh-buh-kle ;+>

4 Comments:

Anonymous said...: Unbelievable. This has got to be my favourite part:
"The region is one of the most favourable places in the Far East as for climatic conditions. Winter is not snowy but cold. Summer is warm and humid.

...Average temperature of July is +20°C. Maximum temperature is +40°C. Average temperature of January in the south is -24°C. Minimum temperature is -49°C."

+40 and -49 is "most favourable"???

Gosh golly gee, thanks Russian dudes! You're too good to us.
Alissa; 1:23 p.m.
Soferet said...: BS"D
yeah, & to think that here on the Canadian west coast we barely tolerate the sunny 28C summers & rainy 5C winters. That's in, man, I'm making aliyah to Siberia!
;+>
You're hilarious, Alissa. I miss you. When are we going for a karfey?
Say hi to Morey & Maimo for us!; 1:45 p.m.
Anonymous said...: If you look at public signs, official documents, etc., written in Yiddish in Birobidzhan during the height of Stalinism (not during the first decade or two of the region, and not currently), you will see that Nun and other letters with final forms do not use their final forms in Birobidzhan Yiddish of that period - only the "normal" forms (e.g., both Nuns in "Lenin" look the same in a Birobidzhaner schoolbook in one of the exhibit-pages). I read somewhere (in a book on Birobidzhan, whose title and author I forget) that the Stalinist government mandated this (for a whole) for the following reasons: /1/ to simplify typesetting/writing (the publicly given reason) by eliminating something not logically necessary, and /2/ (the probably more significant reason) to make it a bit more difficult for Birobidzhaners who'd learned the "new way" to read Yiddish (or Hebrew) written by people elsewhere.; 10:51 a.m.
Soferet said...: בס"ד
That's fascinating. I didn't know any of this, but when I read it, I'm just not surprised...
Thanks for writing.; 11:51 a.m.