RJ Blog

Dear The Mums, I know that I just wrote to you a week ago, but this past Sunday — and again on Monday — I was surrounded by so many things that you would love that I need to give you a quick update. On Sunday — thanks to Donnie C. Cutler’s mother, who invited me as her guest — I attended the annual luncheon of the Jewish Women’s Archive.  It was held in the big event room at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and had the weather been better (Did you forget to order up some good weather?), we [...]

by Tina Wasserman Today was a terrific day! I drove to Virginia to be at Temple Beth El in Alexandria. The wonderful ladies of that synagogue’s WRJ offered to help me prepare all the foods I am presenting at the Biennial this week. To thank them, I gave a talk about the history of Jewish food. We were all happy! There was one man in the kitchen cooking with us, and he was a terrific pastry chef. I am nibbling on the broken spice cookies as we speak! Here’s what’s cooking at Biennial…

by Elaine M. Bergstrom Just as public schools advocate math and science over the arts, art is often pushed aside or offered only for the younger students in our Jewish supplementary schools. You may find craft-making to reinforce holiday celebrations or a story from the Torah. But art instructors who are privileged to teach art today want substantial lessons that endure and enhance their students’ well-roundedness and sense of the richness of Jewish heritage.

by Isaac Brynjegard-BialikOriginally posted on Nice Jewish Artist Every summer I spend two weeks at URJ Camp Newman leading classes in papercutting. The students are all campers in a program called Hagigah, which is focused on Jewish expression through the arts — fine art, dance, music, writing, photography, video, and more. They’re all high school students, many of whom have been coming to Camp Newman since they were little, and the summer is always a great experience. One of the groups I worked with choose papercutting as their “major” — two hours per day, six days a week, for two [...]

by dcc Modern Art is often hard to connect to inspiration. From the multimillion dollar canvases of a single color to more infamous works that cause somewhat regressive public figures to over-react, art can often be lost upon the consumer of the work. Yet in many cases art for the sake of making a person think–even if the person misses the point–is a good thing Jewish art is all too often stale beyond recognition. Stymied by cut glass or needle point ritual items these pieces which pass as art hardly make the consumer think nor do they push the envelope [...]