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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 16h

(Correction: from 2008. How was this almost 20 years ago?)

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 16h

I'm reviewing documentary on purity balls (from over a decade ago, when I last showed it in my purity class) on 2x speed, and although the subject matter is disturbing, I am finding it incredibly funny hearing its subjects talking like chipmunks.

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Dr. Chance Bonar @chancebonar.bsky.social · 18h

UVA Religious Studies just released its first zine! Go check out contributions about Rabbi Akiva, Japanese sci-fi, and a translation of the Martyrdom of Hermione (by yours truly) heyzine.com/flip-book/39...

heyzine.com

Palimpsest | PDF to Flipbook

Created with the Heyzine flipbook maker

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Was that considerate?! Was that polite?!

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Phoenix Calida @phoenixcalida.latinsky.app · 12/10/2026

I hate the term consensual sex work so much. Despite trafficking existing in other industries, You don't say consensual nanny. You don't say consensual construction worker. You don't say consensual fruit picker. Consensual garment worker. Consensual nail tech. See how goofy it sounds?

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

NatCon, what a show. (The other obvious Spanish Inquisition joke doesn’t work because I have difficulty believing that anyone didn’t expect this).

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And-Boo 👻 Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Matthew and Luke to Mark:

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

This was the first riding day with actually pleasant weather in ages, so I was especially happy to spend some extra time hanging out with the Sandwich* after our lesson. (His actual name is Reuben, hence the nickname).

1. A photo of a rural paddock area from between the ears of a bay horse. It’s situated among gentle rolling hills. The sky is blue and some leaves are juuust beginning to turn.

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white2tea @white2tea.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I haven’t had this in so long and now I want some. Alas my fresh raw Puer hell continues

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Alexiana Fry @alexianafry.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Consider this a more enjoyable way of trying to tackle that really bad stereotype. Maybe you need to talk about your book, or show your employer that you do, in fact, do some "public scholarship." I'm welcoming all of it. Sign up here by October 12th! tally.so/r/QKGNag

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Alexiana Fry @alexianafry.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Calling all scholars of religion who are attending the upcoming #aarsbl26 meeting in Denver! I need your help, as I am using the current fun trend exemplified by "Subway Takes" to introduce the public to the world of (and the necessity of) religious studies - broadly speaking.

a gradient background with orange, teal, and magenta is the background. In a cream text, there are the words one line at a time "HOLY HOT TAKES." The first H has wings on it, the first O has a halo on it. The second o in the second line has flames on top of it, and the t has a "devils tail."

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Possibly becoming a partisan of the bamboo-roasted style. I've loved it with shou pu'er and red thus far. Should I try it with white next, or with sheng?

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I should really try it gongfu style, but honestly I always want a whole mug of it. I put this morning's brewed leaves to cold brew overnight, and I'm excited to try it iced tomorrow. #TeaSky

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I keep forgetting to take a picture, but so far my favorite thing in my latest @white2tea.bsky.social order is the 2022 Byah!, a bamboo-roasted red. Sweet, fruity, and syrupy. Strong blackcurrant and buckwheat honey, shot through with the chlorophyll/sugarcane juice from the bamboo.

white2tea.com

2022 Byah!

Pressed in autumn of 2022, this tea was rested until spring 2023 before release. A hand roasted bamboo black tea, the 2022 Byah! is a high-end Yunnan sun dried tea steamed in fresh bamboo and charcoal...

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Garth Marenghi's Catbus @catbus.phd · 06/10/2026

the origin of good posts

Edward Gorey, Message from Beyond

a group sitsxat a table peering up into the dark where a disembodied arm proffers a written message

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Zohran Mamdani is living proof it is possible to be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic, and some antisemitic anti-Zionists AND some right-wing Zionists will never forgive him for that.

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Since it needs to be said: Anti-Islamic bigotry and anti-Arab racism are very real and deserve to be named and studied and confronted on their own terms. But "antisemitism" never meant "bigotry against Semitic peoples," and saying so is bad historiography.

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The term was popularized by Wilhelm Marr in the 1880's, to racialize Jews and to cultivate the idea that he hated Jews on modern scientific racial grounds, not premodern theological grounds. No one *is* a Semite; the term was invented as part of racist pseudoscience. This is ahistorical nonsense.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I don’t think I implied otherwise! I think that dealing with the vitriolic responses can’t be fun for anyone, no matter how proud they are of their work. All I’m saying is that the team clearly has a level of intestinal fortitude that Iack, and I admire them for it.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

This statement is excellent. I stand in admiration of--and *incredibly* glad I am not a member of--Mayor Mamdani's comms team. For members of that team today, I imagine the willpower it takes not to run away and hide in a dark closet with a lifetime supply of brain bleach is heroic.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

What if, instead of going in to campus to teach today, I instead stayed home and snuggled Chroma, who is squeaking piteously at me?

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

New academic anxiety dream unlocked: students leave in the middle of my lecture for the beach, which is suddenly right outside my classroom.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Assume I am also using a fresh mask for each wear session. (I have TRIED reusable elastomerics. I genuinely cannot stand them OR get a good seal around the bridge of my nose with them).

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I'm actually starting isotretonin in a month or so, but I could really do with some shorter-term solutions in the meantime Assume I am doing the usual adapalene/benzoyl peroxide/acids/moisturize.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

What do people do about mascne? I've been getting some truly horrible cystic zits on my chin & on my neck & earlobe where the rubber bands meet the mask itself. (Aura-style masks seem to be my best balance of "good seal," "can tolerate it for 60+ minutes," & "looks less ridiculous than some.")

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Like, come on. Adoptionism is right there! Or if you are willing to accept a medieval heresy, Bohemian Adamism seems like a good time.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

If you must profess a classic heresy, you can do FAR better than Marcionism, which is just boring. Have a little imagination, people, sheesh. *This is a joke, not an invitation to ‘splain theological anti-Judaism to me. Those who do will be summarily mocked and blocked.

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Eric J. Harvey, Ph.D. @blindscholar.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Edit: blind people notice the pattern just fine, lol. Must be some other explanation.

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Lux 🌸 Alptraum @luxalptraum.com · 05/10/2026

I feel like people think if we say "rape/DV are things you can heal from" we're saying "so it's no big deal if someone rapes you," which is NUTS. You can heal from a broken leg! It still fucking sucks to break your leg and you shouldn't break other people's legs!

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Once again, I have dealt with/begun to deal with several things on which I have been procrastinating for months and which took up maybe an hour total of my time. This may or may not be connected to all the sleep I caught up on this weekend and/or getting book proposals off my desk.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Also if the book has a hero, it’s Hannah as she appears in Berakhot.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

In this book we are concentrating on “shuckling so hard you launch yourself across the room,” “stimming in the temple and not giving a fuck what the asshole priest thinks,” and “being blunt enough and knowing your Torah well enough to rules-lawyer God into giving you what you want,” among others.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Just in time to kick off ADHD Awareness Month, I have, FINALLY, submitted a book proposal for "The Neurodivergent Talmud" to a press.

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Sam Brody @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

and - this is the key here - it is ALSO at the foundation of the resistance to that narrative insofar as that resistance is also “progressive,” I.e. relies on a progressive teleology of stages (e.g. feudalism, capitalism, socialism). Indigenous critics of the left have long seen this as well

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🎃Meli👻 @mismatched.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There’s a lot of threads right now going around about antisemitism on the left and this one is one of the best—talking about its role in the structures of leftist ideas past and present

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Sam Brody @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

this doesn’t mean they were wrong to hate capitalism (which is how the right would like to read that history). it just means that their language for expressing that was structurally, constitutively anti-Jewish. you see it in Proudhon, you see it in Marx, you see it in Bakunin, et al.

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Sam Brody @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Overcoming Judaism is the foundation of the “progressive” narrative that later pits civilization against the savage, positioning Christianity and whiteness as the apex of history. You don’t get that without antisemitism as the foundation

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It’s sort of just hitting me that if the car had turned half a second later the outcome could have been a lot worse.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Bike lanes need to be physically separated and highly visible, period.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This morning on my way to work, a car turning right didn't see me in the bike lane and I crashed into the side of it. I'm fine--completely uninjured, the driver was fine and very kind and apologetic, and I think the bike is fine. But it could easily have turned out much worse.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

When they get back in power, Democrats need to go all-in on higher education. We need a campaign of reinvestment in public universities across the country that makes the Morrill Land-Grant Act look like nothing by comparison *and* a GI Bill of Rights-style program of tuition grants.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

That and, in my estimation: she had three children and five grandchildren, and I do not think there is a single neurotypical among them.

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Oh, here's one more story: We were out for dinner at one point, and for whatever ridiculous reason I decided to tell her the joke about cheap beer being like sex in a canoe (it's fucking close to water). Joan casually responds: "Oh, I've done that."

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Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

She was, in sum, a difficult person in both the best and worst senses of that term, and I hope she is able to rest well. Joan Seif Yonah bat Yosef v'Malka 1929-2026

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