Some recent news items indicate a misunderstanding of the Foundation’s mission and its democratically-run operations, and so require a response. Our mission is to invest in creative individuals in order to nurture a vibrant and enduring Jewish identity, culture and community. We are one of the relatively few organizations in the Jewish world to support individual artists and scholars, and we have been doing so for 50 years.

Fully half of the Jewish Studies programs in the U.S. have one or more faculty members who have received our support, while our Jewish Studies Expansion Program has enhanced Jewish Studies at 12 colleges and universities. We facilitate the Schusterman Visiting Israeli Artists program to promote cross-cultural dialogue in the States, and our new American Academy in Jerusalem, modeled on the prestigious Academies in Rome and Berlin, will bring influential American artists and thought leaders to Israel.

The films that receive support from the Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film are selected in a rigorous, two-tiered system during which they are evaluated by filmmakers, distributors, critics, and Jewish studies scholars. They are then submitted to the Board’s Executive Committee for review. Even our most challenging documentaries receive glowing reviews from the Jewish and secular press.

In the fall, the Executive Committee voted against endorsing a resolution which in practice would have run counter to our mission and conflicted with the Jewish values of dialogue and the free exchange of ideas which we hold dear.

We abhor boycotts of Israel. Every day, we work passionately to build bridges between America and the energetic, diverse democracy that is Israel. And we work equally to encourage the creativity of artists and scholars, without whom the Jewish community would be a much poorer place.

Respectfully,

Dr. Judith Ginsberg, Co-Chair; S. Fitzgerald Haney, Co-Chair; Elise Bernhardt, President and CEO

Lone Voice in the Written Void

It was my parents’ yahrtzeit last week.  Julian, on our staff, found a shul where I could say kaddish.  Congregation Magen David was closest to the hotel – a short 3 miles, for which I needed to leave at 6:30am.  My Russian cab driver wasn’t paying much attention to me or the paper I handed him but when we arrived in front of the synagogue – which though modest, jumped out in the middle of the plain block where it was located – he asked why I was going.  To say Kaddish, I explained, and so it was clear I was Jewish and of course so was he, from Odessa, somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit. Auspicious beginning…

The shul is Sephardic so I was surprised, as I entered up the women’s staircase, by the sound of Russian.  There were a handful of old men on the other side of a modest mechitza. The shul was brightly lit by at least 10 chandeliers (each with a small tag dangling, acknowledging its donor) and it was quite handsome.  Artwork on the walls, signs in Hebrew not to talk during prayers or Torah reading.  One old man acknowledged my presence. There wasn’t a minyan and I was concerned – not only that I couldn’t say kaddish but that this was the last of a “tribe” of men who got up early, daily, to say their prayers.  What would happen to other people who need to say kaddish on a Friday in the middle of summer?  Fears unfounded: over the course of the next 20 minute men of all ages arrived, the voices and cadences swelled.  What struck me was no matter how fast the baal tefila read (and one old fellow was unbelievably speedy, though every word was perfectly articulated) the sense of urgency and fervor was always present. These men knew the meaning of the prayers. Their phrasing, cadences, pitch and emphasis, raising their voices, even shouting out certain words together was so different from my recollection of the muttering I associate with orthodox prayer.  And even on Friday morning there was a drash – on the importance of carrying out the small mitzvoth such as feeding your animal before yourself.  In spite of my antipathy to the separate seating, etc, I was encouraged that a young man led part of the services (it seemed almost choreographed how leading got tossed around the room without any stop – like a great game of volley ball).  I left most satisfied and delighted by this odd discovery.

Later that evening…

Not being sure what I’d find for Friday morning, I arranged to go with my friend Francesco Spagnolo to attend Kabbalat Shabbat at Sha’ar Zahav, the GLBT synagogue in the Castro where his wife Sharon is the Cantor.  My 15 year old son was with me, as was Francesco’s and Sharon’s cherubic five year old son Ariel.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, mostly because it is a very progressive shul. Raised conservative and allergic to bad English translations, I was predisposed to dismissing what I expected to be a watered-down version of my favorite service.  But I’d planned to say Kaddish and I’d invited my brother to join me.

What a surprise was I in for.  First off the Synagogue, in an old church, is gorgeous.  We are greeted by the Shul VP and another member and asked to put on a name tag (hmmm- is this something most shuls do so people learn each others names? novel).  Francesco introduces us to several amazing people including Rabbi Eliot who works in a Jewish healing center.  The hallways of the shul are clean, well lit and the community room has beautiful decorative painting along the top.  But the sanctuary itself is a marvel.  The high ceiling slants up with warm wooden beams, light streams in from skylight and windows and the benches are arranged in a semi circle so the bima is close.  The congregation is glorious.  One young person with long pink Mohawk is next to a white mom with her dark skinned daughter.  Same sex couples, trans folks with babies, and lots more. The minhagim are wonderful. New folks are asked to introduce themselves (some do, not all). Everyone puts their arms around each other when we start singing Hinei Mah Tov.  Different congregants read parts of the “context” from a gorgeous new prayer book, which the congregation put together a year ago. It has gorgeous poetry, drawings and photos, and fantastic information.  (It did not surprise me to read later in their newsletter The Gaily Forward, that Joellen Green Kaiser, the powerhouse editor of ZEEK, is an active member of the shul). There are 6 versions of the Amidah and many rewrites of prayers with changes of gender, acknowledgement of queer perspective and all through a very Jewish lens.  So exciting.  The singing is robust – it is all in Hebrew and the songs range from old regulars to a complicated Algerian tune for Adon Olam.  Sharon does a wonderful drash – a completely different take on the parsha that had been commented on early this same morning – about how God’s “carrot” is to take care of the crops, insure our well being, etc if we do for God and that the “stick” is that God doesn’t do that.  She took reward and punishment into the realm of love and how love can be shown, even in a workplace situation, and that it is worthy for its own sake…I’m botching it badly but it was brilliant.

The end of the service sounds so corny but it was really lovely.  Everyone joins arms across the aisles for Oseh Shalom, and then after Kiddush, everyone touches someone else as the challah is blessed. Its so welcoming, Hamish, genuine and deep in its reflection of Jewish values. I felt doubly blessed.

July 8

Sunday  afternoon we met James Snyder, head of the Israel Museum, for coffee at their little café.  In spite of an incredibly tight deadline to finish the last touches on the museum before its opening, he was his usual dapper and charming self.  Our visual artist Shelley Jordon and choreographer Reggie Wilson, who had performed at the Museum in the 80’s, joined us!  A wide ranging discussion about the museums and the future of culture in Jerusalem, with a short visit by senior curator Suzanne Landau was followed by an incredible tour led by an astute volunteer.

Later that evening we joined Jerusalem Season of Culture curator Itay Mautner and his deputy Karen Brunwasser for an incredible evening of tapas, live music and dancing  in the aisles – a joyful event in the deepest alley of Mahane Yehuda market. Apparently this bi-weekly gathering with different ethnic music (this time Greek) draws hundreds of Jersualemites of all ages, including the lead singer of the international band, Dag Nahash,  and a bunch of young international journalists.

Early the next day we left for Yad Vashem.  While I expected to be upset and moved, I wasn’t prepared for the power of what I call The Architecture of Mourning which Moshe Safdie created. Starting with Michal Rovner’s video scroll of life before the Holocaust, projected on a vast triangular wall we went through the brilliantly crafted exhibits, with our guide, Senior Art Curator, Yehudit Shendar, who helped focus us on little gems of art woven in throughout.  The material was difficult and unimaginable, but it was the arrival at the view of Israel at the top of the ramp that really undid me.

That evening, Jonathan Safran Foer had a conversation with Etgar Keret, another insanely funny author, for packed house at Mishkenot.  The next evening our planning fellow, Josh Sirefman, gave a brilliant public talk about planning and his observations about Jerusalem.  Architects, planners and city officials came from all over the country and the conversation was truly optimistic.  Our last day started with a conversation with Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur (Planning and Environment Portfolio) who was so delighted by Josh and his vision that she invited him back for a conference she is planning, and just before Nicole’s talk, Josh and I met with the aforementioned visionary,  Erel Margalit, who was also impressed and wants Josh to return to  Jerusalem.

Shelley has been talking with curators who are interested in an exhibition of her work, and Reggie too will return at some point to work with one of the many dance companies who he had a profound impact on (I’ll talk about Reggie’s brilliant teaching in some other missive).  So from the perspective of a very clear criteria for success – “were the fellows invited to return” – we had a major one.

June 28, 2010

So much to digest. Environmental Lawyer Richard Laster organized an incredible group of people working across borders and languages to figure out solutions to arguably any cities most pressing problem – water and sewage. We focused on the Kidron valley where a master plan is being drawn up with the cooperation of Israelis and Palestinians.

I’m too new to the geography and the characters to give this precise coverage but we had the good fortune to be accompanied by Muhammed Nakhal – a Palestinian planner who is working with a team led by Arie Rahamimoff and Liat. Their maps of the topography and plans for the connection of water from Jerusalem’s two valleys is both visually beautiful and inspiringly innovative We were driven by Naim Awisat, a Palestinian entrepreneur who has built several clinics in East Jerusalem which engage Arabic speaking doctors from Hadassah hospital. He is working on creating a health club on an empty patch of land so kids have something to do.

His own children (2 boys, 4 girls) are stunningly beautiful and he and his family welcomed the 10 of us into his home (part of a compound they share with his 8 brothers and their families) where we ate home grown olives, bread dipped in homemade olive oil and zatar. Our group included Vered Doctori-Blass, a Research Supervisor of the Koret-Milken Institute Fellows Program who is also a founder of Engineers Without Borders, and Eival Gilady and his associate, Andrea Diamond of The Portland Trust, an investment group based in London which is focusing on economic development in Israel and the territories.

We traveled to the West Bank where we saw Bedouin villages and the beautiful, 1500 year old Marsaba Monastery which is alongside an incredible canyon (with huts dug in the sides for the Monks to meditate in). As they don’t allow women in, we sat in the shade of an olive tree and enjoyed the amazing site. The abject poverty and trash is striking in comparison to new buildings going up, the stark desert behind it all, the Jerusalem monuments in plain site.

I’s like to close by quoting Arie who describes the levels of engagement he is interested in helping achieve – coexistence, collaboration, then partnership. If the Israelis and Palestinians could sit around the table like we did, we would be well on our way to the first two if not all three.

Let us give thanks for the freedom that is ours, and let us never ever take that freedom for granted. Next year, may all who are today denied freedom reach the Jerusalems of their longing, united at last, free at last.

There is hatred to be unlearned and dignity to be restored. There is tolerance to be taught, and new understanding to be planted.

Slaves do become free and tyrants are vanquished. No longer by miracles, as in days of yore, but by dedication — our dedication, our defiance, our devotion.

‘Avadim hayinu’ we once were slaves and we relive our redemption each year at this time. We escaped from Mitzrayim, the ‘narrow place’; yet there is the danger that we ourselves are creating a place of narrow thoughts and narrow minds. If we do that, then we do not deserve to sing the song of freedom.

So much has been achieved but can we really say ‘dayenu’? No we cannot; it is never enough. Only when the last shackles lie broken on the ground, then, only then.

Chag Cherut Sameach,
Theo & Tamara

Bullet holes still mark the walls of the room where Nir Katz, 26, and Liz Trobishi, 16, were killed, and over a dozen other young people were wounded, at the hands of a masked gunman.

The Foundation for Jewish Culture mourns the loss of life and sends its prayers for a speedy recovery to all those injured. We stand with the LGBT community in Israel as it begins the hard work of returning to normal.

(via the Forward)

I had the great honor and privilege of working with Merce in 1987.  Thanks to my dear friend Bessie Schonberg, we met to discuss his participation in a crazy idea I had to bring dance to Grand Central Terminal (it was not the beautiful station we see now and I had no prior experience to recommend me).  It seemed to me that this place where time and space met, in the center of the city, was the ideal locus for his work.  Astonishingly he agreed, and was game enough to have his company dressing room in the old OTB office off the main floor (which he shared with them, albeit, in a curtained off area).  He had no airs, only quiet enthusiasm, and after two nights of 8000 people sitting on the floor watching for an hour with rapt attention, he commented, “so many people, free to come and go, and who stayed and were relatively quiet…”

To the end, he was thoughtful, thought provoking and kind.  As in all things, his exit was extraordinarily elegant.  His enormous presence will be deeply missed.  Our sympathy to his company and all the dancers, musicians, visual artists, administrators, presenters, and audiences who participated in his work and who it so profoundly touched.  May his memory be a blessing.

-Elise Bernhardt, President and CEO, Foundation for Jewish Culture

Jvoices(.com), seconded by jewcy(.com), was dissatisfied with this treatment of Stanton’s story, which, like all stories linked to big issues (this time it’s racism), should have been an invitation to dialogue and introspection.

I was apprehensive at first: “disproportionate attention is paid to her gender, racial background, and path to Judaism when her work and character should receive equal coverage, if not be at the forefront” -  we know that her race is less important than her theology, but this doesn’t make it irrelevant.  Please don’t make this some kind of plea for silent mainstream acceptance on the basis of the belief in a post-racial fantasyland.  We’re past that kind of daydream, right? Please?

Well, as it turns out, we actually are.  The need to downplay Stanton’s race comes from the appropriate placement of her story into Judaism’s racial history.  This, in turn, requires the breakdown of the “systemic polarization” of race in America into black and white, omitting the in-between shades.  When we do that, we realize that Judaism, and its clergy, has a racially diverse history, and that Stanton’s ordination, while indeed the first of something, is not nearly as momentous as people want it to be.

But is that it, then? We’ve got Jewish clergy in all shades of brown, so it doesn’t matter that Stanton is black?  No: we’ve got Jewish clergy in all shades, and all shades matter. That is the point.

Now you’re allowed to ask why that matters.  Even though it shouldn’t.  Or should it?  The undercurrent implicit in all this is that the mainstream, popular (i.e. non-scholarly) history of Judaism has been “Ashkenaized” and that it’s time to undo the damage.  But does this consist of race becoming an axis along which Judaism is structured (along with denomination and geography, feel free to think of others), whereby we acknowledge race and its effect on the individual’s personal Jewish experience?  Or does it, in an appeal to our post-racial utopia, get a somewhat less pronounced treatment, lingering in the backs of our minds, but lingering nonetheless?  If we add another hyphen to American Jewish identity (black/Asian/hispanic/Indian/white/etc. – Jewish – American), will it act as a divisor, or will it serve to acknowledge forces that have long been ignored?

Or maybe it’s just been way too long since any of us actually went to shul.

-Isaac TheIntern

Starting from the belief that the arts and cultural exchange programs have the unique power to create new connections between people locally and globally, Muslim Voices: Arts & Ideas was designed to share and celebrate the arts and culture of Muslim societies. According to festival literature:

“Islam is the world’s second-largest religion, with an estimated one billion-plus members—approximately 600,000 in New York City, with nearly 100,000 in Brooklyn alone—but many non-Muslim Americans have had only limited exposure to the faith, its civilization, diverse cultures, and traditions. Arts and culture play a vital role in helping us learn more about each other by providing new perspectives and fostering the mutual respect that leads to peaceful co-existence among people.”

By all accounts this was an extraordinary festival showcasing world-class arts and culture ranging from the contemporary to the traditional. I encourage you to visit their website and learn more about it.

The fact that major secular arts and culture organizations embarked on this enormous undertaking to create understanding and dialogue with the Muslim world should raise important and pressing questions for those involved in Jewish culture. For instance – why does it seem so unlikely that a secular institution would spend significant resources to explore Jewish culture, arts & ideas? And if they were to do so, what would that festival look like? Would it continue to reinforce a narrow vision of Jewish identity or would it reflect the global, diverse, complicated and multifaceted tapestry that is World Jewry?

This is the dilemma we, as North American Jews, face. Constantly confronted with an identity based on the existential threat of persecution and the concomitant impulse to erase difference, we are caught between otherness and assimilation. But what would a Jewish culture look like that celebrates our otherness? What would it mean to really look deep into Jewish history and tradition and be proud of our difference, rather than what makes us the same? What if we celebrated our Jewishness not as an act of existential defiance but as a celebration of over 5000 years of rich cultural history?

Our challenge is to push ourselves beyond who we think we are and embrace a more global, contemporary vision of Jewish culture. It is not about choosing between Israel and the Diaspora, it is about acknowledging that the Jewish people exist as both a stateless and a landed people, that our hybrid culture is both an inheritance and a responsiblity. We must seek the essentially Jewish while acknowledging that this essential strain has incorporated countless other cultural strands and influences. Non-Jews and Jews alike frequently assume they know what Jewish is – and all too often both are wrong. The idea of ONE legitimate Jewish expression is belied by the facts on the ground. Jewish thought and culture is an extraordinarily flexible and adaptable meme. How can we own our difference in a celebratory way? In a sense we need to re-otherize ourselves from a place of pride, not shame.

As important as it is to maintain Jewish identity in the present, it is equally important to envision the Jewish future in a multicultural, global, networked world, to move into the future looking forwards at what could be, rather than backwards at what has been. Just as the Muslim Voices festival helped to create a compelling cultural exchange that enlightened and educated a general population on the Muslim world, we should be thinking about Jewish culture exchange that tells more stories than just the Ashkenazic narrative, Israel and the Shoah. We should feel inspired to uncover a broader, wider, more encompassing and life-affirming narrative of Jewish culture, one we can share with the rest of the world as proud inheritors of a fantastic history, not merely survivors of persecution and oppression.

Look into the future and tell me what you want to see.

- Andy, Director of Strategic Parnerships at the Foundation for Jewish Culture