New Voices Magazine has a different kind of light to bring to each night of Hanukkah: Jewish zines. As a long-time collector of zines of many stripes, our Editor is excited to spotlight a series of their favorite independently published zines throughout the holiday. This page will be updated each day of Hanukka with another zine feature, to increase the indie-publishing light alongside the growing glow our channukiah. For the fourth night of Hanukkah, read a statement about Ushpi(zine) by Linke Fligl, a queer Jewish chicken farm working to create a collection of diasporic zines. You can download and read this digital zine here!
Ushpi(zine) is the first publication of Ki Li Ha’Aretz, a zine series on themes of Jewish diasporism created by Linke Fligl, a queer Jewish chicken farm and cultural organizing project on Schaghticoke land in the Hudson Valley, NY. LF is a community land project inspired by a vision of diasporism inherited from the writings of Melanie Kaye Kantrowitz (z”l). Diasporism is a framework that holds us in the deeply reverent and complex stories of Jewish relationship to land. Jews are a people with agricultural and nomadic roots; some of us are indigenous to where we live, some are refugees, some were kidnapped and brought here against our will and some are descendants of immigrants. We carry histories of displacement, annihilation, exile, as well as participation in the ongoing settling and colonization of indigenous land.
וְהָאָ֗רֶץ לֹ֤א תִמָּכֵר֙ לִצְמִתֻ֔ת כִּי־לִ֖י הָאָ֑רֶץ כִּֽי־גֵרִ֧ים וְתוֹשָׁבִ֛ים אַתֶּ֖ם עִמָּדִֽי V’ha’aretz lo timacher litzmitut, ki li ha’aretz, ki gerim v’toshavim atem imadi And the land will not be sold forever, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers, temporary dwellers with Me. (Vayikra 25:23)
Ki li ha’aretz translates as “for the Land is Mine,” a reminder from the Divine that all land is sacred, beyond human colonization and ownership. As Robin Wall Kimmerer says, “To love a place is not enough. We must find ways to heal it.” We know that individual and collective healing without land is impossible. We need land to live. We must do the work to reconcile our past and current realities to imagine a different diasporic land-based future. 
Diasporism offers a path to that future, one of teshuvah (return) and remembering. This path requires reckoning with the imagined and sacred space of Eretz Yisrael, the modern nation-state of Israel and the occupation of Palestine. It requires reparations for histories of enslavement, genocide and systemic oppression of Black and Native communities. How can we find right relationship with land where we are, given our divergent histories and experiences of how we got here? How can we reconcile these histories with what is needed and possible now? What do our traditions teach us? What is your lineage? What is your story? How are you wrestling with the very personal questions of your relationship to the land(s) you call home?
This compilation features work from an incredible group of more than 20 writers, artists and ritualists. In its pages, you are invited to find words that move you and stories that see you. Find guidance for bringing the kavanah (intention) and kedusha (holiness) of this holiday into your practice through poems, liturgies, prayers, self guided rituals, art and writings that wrestle with ideas of sukkot, home, land, people, belonging and this political moment. Celebrate Sukkot on the land where you live. Build a kleyneh (tiny) sukkaleh. Write your love letter to the queer Jewish diaspora. Learn Birkas Kohanim (the Priestly Blessing). Find belonging in the searching & find prayer in the silence.
We hope that this zine series can be a tribute to the creative and deep resilience of our communities, to those who came before us and to the generations to come.
Download and read this digital zine here. Read more about Jewish zines and find the other Hanukkah Jewish zine features by visiting our holiday landing page here.
