Firstly, I recorded a Passover Jazz Poetry special for the Forward -
two videos and some ramblings - check out http://www.forward.com/articles/126922/.

This Sunday April 4th at 11 AM (!) I’ll be making a guest appearance
at the jazz-klez gig of the Talat Band at the City Winery. Can you
imagine? Roll outta the bed. Eat some matza. Go hear jazz and poetry.
It’s true! http://www.citywinery.com/events/61034.

Monday April 12th, 8.30pm I will be doing a performance poetry gig
with Matthue Roth and Vanessa “Hebrew Mamita” Hidary at the arty
basement of the arty Sixth Street Synagogue. Should be superfun.
Details: http://www.eastvillageshul.com/2010/03/24/spoken-word-fest/.

Monday April 26th, in the same arty basement, Samuel Menashe and
Stanley Moss, two fabulous poets, will read their work. I’ll
facilitate a panel afterwards on their personal Jewish poetics. Come
loaded! (with questions).

Oh and I kinda have a website now… http://jakemarmer.wordpress.com.
Work in progress. As we’re all - work in progress - and a piece of
work, at that!

Everyone is invited, readers and performers as well as friends and
lovers of Jewish Art. We look forward to seeing you there.

[Please plan to keep your set under 5 minutes. You may sign up to
read/perform at the Shul.]

Hila Ratzabi sees God everywhere, but seems a little afraid to talk about it. A frequent contributor to the Mima’amakim journal, Hila’s new chapbook The Apparatus of Visible Things deals with finding the invisible inside the things you see and seeing the invisible as the frame of the visible (there are other themes too, but that’s the one that most interests me). How this relates to God is not always clear, and how it relates to Judaism even less so, but throughout our interview Hila was game to discuss her feelings on God, Judaism, poetry and how these things come together (or sometimes don’t) in her work. (A few excerpts from Hila’s chapbook can be viewed on the Mima’amakim Poetry Forum, linked here.)

Aaron Roller: Can you tell me a little about yourself, particularly your background as a Jew and an artist?

Hila Ratzabi: My background and identity as a Jew and as an artist have two strains: internal and external. Externally, I was born to two Jewish parents (an American and an Israeli), educated at a progressive Conservative Jewish day school, and ended up doing a double degree at Barnard and the Jewish Theological Seminary (studying Jewish Philosophy, hasidut, kabbalah, and English and poetry). That’s the story that can be marked by history, but internally there was more going on that’s less easy to track. My spiritual development was always intertwined with art. As an adolescent and teenager I struggled with the question of the existence of God. At the same time, I started reading two books: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and The Artist’s Way. I began as a visual artist (though I’ve been writing poetry since I was 7), and as I read these books I found that my experiences making art led me to a feeling of empathy with the notion of a Creator. Furthermore, when I discovered kabbalah, I was dazzled by the concept of creation through language. All these ideas about God, language, and creation have followed me around for years and pop up in my poetry.

AR: I’d like to discuss the idea of God in your poetry, because it seemed to me reading your new collection that God is all over the place (omnipresent, perhaps?), though always slightly beneath the surface. Even the title, “The Apparatus of Visible Things” seems to imply a divine force without mentioning it explicitly. Was this intentional?

HR: I never consciously thought about God being hidden in the title, but that’s what I love about what happens when you have readers and interpretations - you discover/uncover your own intentions as an author, and the multiplicity of meanings encoded in a work of art. God is definitely all over the place in this collection, so much so that the poems I’ve been writing lately take a conscious turn away from talking about God directly. It’s always difficult to write about God, and there were many instances where I had to just delete the word “God” from an earlier draft of a poem because it felt like too much and the meaning was still clear without the word. Nevertheless, I am enamored with what I call “God,” though I do consider “God” to be a weak placeholder for what the concept aims at approaching. Sometimes I use the word “invisible” - these all have different connotations depending on the context. My poetry is inevitably grasping at something I will never be able to grasp; it slips through my fingers like water. But every time I look at the world and try to write, I’m convinced that there is something behind the curtain of what we call reality that needs to be addressed. Sometimes I call that God.

AR: While God does seem to be all over the place, there do not seem to be many overt Jewish references. This first question, I suppose, is whether or not you agree with that assessment.

HR: There are some Jewish references, but that’s more as result of my having been steeped in Jewish education my whole life. So you have the poem “Morning” which talks about creation and includes my own translation of the line from Genesis: “God’s wind brushes the water’s face,” which is normally translated as “The spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” But otherwise you are right to read my God references as not necessarily Jewish – mostly they aren’t. If anything, they are more influenced by my studies of Hasidism, which encourages a personal, direct relationship with God – which could exist entirely outside of a Jewish context. Jewish conceptualizations of God are my default starting off point, but not necessarily my end point.

AR: Well, I’m not ashamed to say I didn’t catch that reference to Genesis, being used to the more traditional translation, but that’s good. One I did get, that I wanted to ask you about, is the image of the invisible hand against the wall in “The Wall.” I think it was Luzzatto who used this metaphor to explain God’s sovereignty. He says that a human has limited power because once he’s finished building, the structure stands regardless of him. The world – in contrast – is sustained only by God constantly willing it to exist. So in essence, God keeps an invisible hand against the wall holding it up. I learned this a very long time ago, but it was such a unique image that it always stayed with me. When I saw the image in your poem, I knew I had to ask if you were referencing this older idea, or if the image came to you.

HR: I did not know that specific reference, so it’s a lucky coincidence that it came out that way. The meaning is definitely similar. Although in my poem, I leave it open-ended: sometimes you see just the hand, sometimes just the wall. I’m obsessed with the exact location where the visible and the invisible intersect, which was why the mime came to me as the perfect metaphor for that. It reminds me of why I write about these things – I feel like I have to insist that there is this “invisible hand,” regardless of how obviously there is no evidence in the physical of world of anything behind it. In a way, it is our job to invent God(s) or structures (i.e. the apparatus) to give us a sense that something is holding this world up. Without such structures, I might not be such a happy camper.

AR: That interest in the invisible informs many of the poems, particularly in the sense that all things seem to be filled with a secret vitality. I refer to the insect in “Sheathed Wing,” the pigeon in “Pigeon” and the wind and plants in “Fallen Tree.” Not to take it all too literally, but does this reflect some sort of panentheism, or are you just waxing poetic about the natural world?

HR: Yes, you could say this does reflect a kind of panentheism. In “Pigeon” I address the pigeon explicitly as a god, so the panentheism (all of nature is contained in God) leans into pantheism (all of nature IS God). You could also call the aspects of nature in my poetry synecdoches for God, which relates to the concept of panentheism. Whether or not that analogue is God, the invisible, or the unknown, it is the ultimate reference point, the signified, to use Lacan’s term. I enjoy the freedom and flexibility that poetry allows to imagine how that invisible “something” is manifest in the real world.

AR: Do you see any other poets dealing with the issues that are important to you as an artist and poet? Who are your influences?

HR: My main influence is Wallace Stevens, as I try to include philosophical insight in my poems balanced with vivid imagery and metaphor – a difficult balance to achieve without tipping too much in one direction or the other. Tomas Transtromer achieves this through startling metaphor, and he is an important poet I read. Gerard Manley Hopkins is a poet who knows God in a way that I’d like to. I also love the strangeness and deep attention to mystery in Li-Young Lee and Louise Gluck.

In terms of younger poets who are dealing with the issues important to me as a poet today, I would say the Dickman twins (Michael and Matthew). I’m very much in awe of their work and they (especially Michael Dickman) are saying some of the things I try to say in poetry.

AR: I want to thank you for making me search out the Dickmans because I had not heard of them and I enjoyed the work of theirs I was able to find on the internet.

I found it interesting that you sited Wallace Stevens as your main influence because he was also a poet for whom a major theme was the nature of invisible or imperceptible things (I’m thinking specifically of “Anecdote of the Jar” or “The Idea of Order at Key West”).  But Stevens seemed to suggest that it is the artist who generates significance in the invisible (e.g. by placing the jar on the hill the artist generates a previously nonexistent order in the surrounding landscape, making it somehow more than it was before), while in your poetry, it seems that the invisible world might be an objective reality that we have to work to discover. Assuming I am reading you (and Stevens) correctly, would you attribute that suggestion - that there is in fact an apparatus of invisible things - to a religious impulse?

HR: That’s a very good point, and you’ve hit on exactly my existential limbo. In a way, I feel the need to insist on there being an objective reality that is invisible, behind the illusion of the visible world. But on some level, I do believe that Stevens is correct - it is the artist that creates that order, imposes it on reality. If I’m completely honest with myself, I would have to say that the “real” reality is completely chaotic and disorderly, but I’m attracted to the religious perspective which demands that there is an objective order to reality. However, that same religious perspective is created by humans, so we have to acknowledge the human/artistic element in assigning order to the universe. But is the human impulse towards seeing order (where there may not be any) a hint of some actual hidden order? I can go back and forth on this forever with myself. I want to believe that the real world is patterned and planned by a God that I can access on some level, but perhaps in the end that god is just myself. And that’s a little scary.

Event Details:

-Upper West Side: Sunday, Jan. 10, 7:30 pm @ Cong. Ramath Orah (550 West 110 St.)

-Washington Heights: Motzei Shabbat, Jan 30, 8:30 pm @ Fort Tryon Jewish Center (524 Fort Washington Avenue)

-Lower East Side: Thursday, Feb. 25, 7:30 pm @ the Stanton St. Synagogue (180 Stanton St.)

The first Open Mic is coming up soon!  See you on Sunday, January 10 at Congregation Ramath Orah on the UWS!

[Note: Ramath Orah is an Orthodox synagogue; in deference to our hosts and the venue, we ask that participants choose to perform work that is profanity-free and, well, pretty 'kosher.']

Contact makimjournal@gmail.com with any questions.

When I mention my involvement in Mima’amakim to people they often remark, “I didn’t know you wrote poetry!” To this I am always forced to reply that no, I don’t really write poetry, and we’re probably all better off for it. However, I’ve always been drawn to Mima’amakim and the world of emergent writers in general because I read poetry, and I love it, and because I think it infuses the world with rhythm and order and beauty and the like. I don’t write it because I don’t think I’m very good, but also, more importantly, when the kind of events happen to me that make people want to write I think I just want to pick up the phone and chat. Or listen to music, or even read a poem. Yet I occasionally worry that there’s something boring, even parasitic, about being a reader of poetry.

Less than a century ago, this was far from the case. Fireside poets like Robert Frost read on the radio and captured the attention of Americans using poetry as a form of entertainment. However, something happened around the middle of the twentieth-century. A recent New Yorker review by Louis Menand (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/06/08/090608crat_atlarge_menand?currentPage=all) of a book called The Program Era offered an interesting history of the boom in American creative writing programs that began after World War II. It was only in the beginning of the twentieth century that the notion of a “workshop” or of a writing class in general came into parlance at all. It goes without saying that organic forms of this were probably taking place throughout history, but still it seemed that something changed when writing began to be taught in college. It seems silly to say that “writing” suddenly became something apart from reading; in order for reading to take place, of course, writing needs to happen - careful, thoughtful, crafted writing. However, the notion of writing as something you “do” on the way to being a lawyer or doctor, as a major or minor, or as a form of personal therapy and expression, these terms only really made sense in the beginning of the century. And as Menand noted in the article, this was a wonderful thing. This was something that could challenge the illusion that any work of art is somehow sacred or self-contained. A creative writing class can break down a seemingly insurmountable barrier between our selves and the written page. Everything, we learn, is subject to revision; every piece can benefit from the insights and comments of participants in the workshop; everything can be tweaked, tightened, and rewritten. This new ethos was what made it possible for organizations like Mima’amakim to exist, and the founding of hundreds of creative writing departments throughout the country.

However, although this new way of thinking about writing was a great stride toward creating an exciting, democratic culture of art in America, it also came at a price. I don’t actually know whether the price was a necessary one to pay, but as Creative Writing departments and English departments began to establish themselves as different, and it became entirely feasible for someone to write more often than they read- to write because it’s an independently important form of expression- reading began to pay a price.

While there are active poetry-writing circles and communities all over America, the reading of poetry has fallen into a state of disrepair. To make use of a personal, somewhat unscientific, statistic: after six years of riding on New York City subways, and spending much of that time stealing glances of fellow rider’s book-flaps, I think I may have seen an adult book of poetry once. Not very scientific, but I would imagine that everyone writing nowadays (including novels and short stories) has asked his or herself the question of who exactly is reading.

I’m not going to say that this new culture has arisen due to the popularity of creative writing classes, it’s even possible that these developments happened concurrently and independently. But as a community committed to writing I think we need to be careful, if only for practical reasons (but also for deeper ones), that we don’t become writers at the expense of being readers. Or to put a more positive spin on it- we need to find a way to read poetry that feels as creative and nourishing as writing. If not then the gap will continue to widen, and we will all experience more of the frequent suspicion that three quarters of audience members at open-mike readings are there because they are waiting to read themselves.

It is regarding this that I think we can learn a lot from Jewish tradition- particularly the Rabbinic culture of reading and rereading earlier texts and imbuing them with all sorts of meaning. For Rabbis, and scores of writers and artists throughout history, creativity was always inextricably tied up with reading- to the extent where sometimes the most fantastic literary fabrications were themselves couched as a form of reading. While I sometimes feel a little embarrassed that I don’t really write poetry, I only read it, I imagine if I was a scholarly male living in 2^nd century Babylonia I would have the opposite concern. However, a creative community that is too beholden to reading without leaving room for imagining would leave us with a similarly unfortunate gap. But that didn’t happen, or at least our wealth of Rabbinic literature is testament that this gap was bridged, even obliterated at times- until being a scholar became similar to, even interchangeable with, being a writer and creator of literature.

That, I suppose, is the kind of conversation that I wish existed today. When I started teaching English I remember planning to make sure creative writing would be a major part of my curriculum. “Break away from the staid words of dead white men!” I thought to myself, I wanted them to realize that the study of literature was a conversation that anyone can become a part of. But I soon realized, that even wonderful, brilliant teenagers, can traffic in staid clichés and tired tropes, and that there’s a crispness and relevance to the writing of many famous white men. Only occasionally did I see a real continuity between the reading we did in class and the writing I saw, and I realized that this kind of writing, while often interesting and fun to read, was not participating in a conversation at all. It was talking to itself.

Once again, I’m not really sure what the root cause of all this is, or even whether it is much of a reason to get riled up. But as a Jewish art journal, or a journal filled with poems that are consciously and sub-consciously in dialogue with other texts, we are in a unique position to combat this trend. I think there’s a common feeling that while writing is something that takes great discipline and care, poems, once written, are there to be “listened” to. This is good because poems should above all be sources of pleasure.  But it’s also a problem. A lot of the great pleasure that comes out of writing is precisely a product of the hard work that goes into it. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same for reading, but I think it can be. Creative reading means looking at a text with the same kind of energy and vitality we bring to other artistic pursuits.
Sarah Rindner was Editor-in-Chief of the 2009 Mima’amakim Journal.

Menachem Wecker

Menachem Wecker stands at the nexus of art and religion. Through his countless articles, reviews and interviews in publications religious and secular, his ongoing art column in The Jewish Press, and his groundbreaking blog Iconia, Menachem doggedly explores the relationship between creative and religious expression. In the course of his work he has crossed paths with Buddhists, Mormons, museum curators, academics, and one particularly amusing exchange with AskMoses.com.

It was during his Yeshiva University days that Menachem Wecker developed the workhorse discipline and night owl schedule that are the hallmarks of a top-rate journalist. He’d work till all through the night, taking on assignments and deadlines that would terrify even the most over achieving college student, returning to his campus apartment for just enough sleep to keep writing. I would know; I was his roommate for junior and senior years of college. During those years, Menachem was brash and controversial (qualities that came through in his writing as well in-person) but always engaging and compelling. Since graduation, the curiosity and compassion that were always present in his writing have moved into the foreground.

-Aaron Roller

AR: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, particularly your background and how you became interested in art?

MW: I grew up in Boston, where I attended day school for 14 years, during which there was minimal exposure to the arts. (There is not much time for painting and learning what Cubism and Fauvism are when you are busy with science, math, English, bible, Jewish history, Hebrew, Jewish law, Zionism, etc.) I started drawing and painting when many people do — as a child. I don’t think my stick figures stood out particularly as prodigy material, but a friend recently showed me some drawings of soldiers and pirates I made in elementary school, and I must say they weren’t terrible. I was encouraged by my grandmother, who is a painter like her father was, and my family is very artistic. Several of my siblings draw and paint, and there was always music playing in our house (except Shabbat and holidays, of course).

Throughout the latter part of elementary school and into high school, I took classes in drawing, painting, graphic design, illustration, paper-making, and book-binding at a bunch of schools in Boston: Brookline Art Center, Brookline High School, Massachusetts College of Art, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and Art institute of Boston. My mother found the classes for me, and we managed to convince the state education department to fund my courses at MassArt, which really allowed me to branch out (thus the paper making). By the time I graduated high school, I had more than 30 credits, and I was accepted to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but instead I went to study for a year in Israel, and then went to Yeshiva University in Manhattan, where I earned my B.A. in English.

At YU, I noted the lack of fine arts courses, and so I began writing for the student newspaper, where I became arts editor, then senior arts editor, then senior editor (whatever that meant). Essentially then, I became an art reviewer (parasite?) instead of an art creator, a shift with which I am still not entirely comfortable. At a conference, I sat next to Richard McBee, who, after we found ourselves correcting the same mistakes in the speaker’s talk about Jewish education and the arts, invited me to be a guest writer for his column on Jewish art at The Jewish Press. Since then, we share the weekly column, and I have published somewhere around 150 reviews in the JP to date.

AR: For almost four years you’ve been writing a blog called Iconia that explores art, religion and all the ways they intersect. For someone with such a strong (and almost exclusively) Jewish education, what made you decide to explore the art of other religions?

MW: That’s a really good question. I dealt with this topic in a piece I wrote for World Jewish Digest in October 2008 titled “Art Critic Unto the Nations,” but I am happy to try again here.

I had been interested in other faiths in high school, and used to read a lot of books on philosophy and comparative religion. I’d also been very interested in mythology (first through Edith Wharton, then Joseph Campbell and beyond). I didn’t connect my interest in Jewish art with my interest in other faiths until well after I’d been writing on Jewish art, though. It struck me that although I was fascinated by the ways Jews dealt with their faith in tangible terms through art, I was interested in the larger question of how people of faith brought their beliefs into their art. There were a few reasons I was so taken by this topic. The most important one was probably that although religious artists seemed to be creating work that was so personal (almost every piece was autobiographical, at least by implication), there wasn’t really a public for their works. People of faith often see the arts as a nuisance that must be carefully watched and censored where necessary. Artists, meanwhile, tend to be suspicious of religious people. But there are some people who are so moved by their faith and by the need to make art that they mix the two. This was one of the things that drew me to Mima’amakim initially as well. There was no other venue for poems like “Why I Roll Up My Beard,” “When the Poetess Married the Rabbi,” and one great one detailing a mikvah rendezvous with Carlebach, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and others [editors note: "Naked" by Yona Leroy, from the 2005 Mima'amakim].

AR: When considering religious art, often people think of the museums filled with crucifixions, annunciations and other Church-commissioned imagery. Yet as you point out, what appears in Mima’amakim is often personal and sometimes even conflicted in its consideration of Judaism. Are these two separate types of religious art? And is there something Jewish about this sort of personal artistic religious vision, or have you seen similar personal dynamics at play in the way that artists of other faiths consider religion in their artworks?

MW: What a fantastic question! This one hasn’t occurred to me before, so I will reply with just my gut instinct, and will cross my fingers (er… configure them like a Magen David) and hope I don’t get embarrassed by what I’ve said after further researching this.

My first reaction is that the “crucifixions, annunciations and other Church-commissioned imagery” is very often conflicted and personal. I would caution against over-stating Church commissions. Many of the pieces in museum collections were commissioned by private donors (royalty, bankers, etc.), and often for personal reasons. You will often see portraits of the donors “adoring” their personal or local saints, which might strike some as sacrilegious and presumptuous and others (like me) as a beautiful idea of the individual finding his or her place in a larger religious tradition by making the narrative both contemporary and ancient.

You will also often see works that are conflicted. I am sure many of the artists working on Christian themes were uncomfortable with certain violent or seemingly outdated parts of Christian history and even Biblical narratives, and I think the works should not be seen only as propagandist (though many have elements of propaganda), but as artists and patrons feeling their way through their religious faith and doubts in a visual vocabulary. It is worth noting as well that many of the devotional images (like triptychs, but also like Books of Hours) were meant for private prayer.

I sense, though, that the thrust of your question that might be more interesting to Mima’amakim readers is the latter part. The more I study art of different faiths, the more I agree with Quoheleth that there is little wholly new under the sun. Not only do artists of different faiths “borrow” from each other (often without attribution), as much as many professors of early Christian art would have us believe Christian artists invented a visual vocabulary of Moses without looking back at earlier Jewish traditions, but they often assimilate art of other faiths unconsciously. The representation of rabbits in Haggadahs might be a good example of this (see http://www.forward.com/articles/13112/).

To be clear, I’ve seen “personal artistic religious vision” in art by Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus, and Mormons. I haven’t studied all faiths, but I would bet the better part of my unimpressive assets that we would find the same feature across the theological spectrum. It just makes sense that artists, who are often on the periphery anyway, will find ways to relate to their faith both as individuals and as members of the group.

That being said, that does not mean that Jewish art is not unique in this regard. I’m one of the people who actually believes there’s an animal called Jewish art, and that it’s not just art made by Jews or art with Jewish content/purposes (think spice boxes, Rebbe pictures, etc.). My art teacher Tom Barron once told me that a Jewish painting is a painting that has a Jewish mother, and there is something to be said for that approach. So as much as I’d love to tell you that Jews are the only ones to have a truly personal art, I cannot do so in good faith, but I would encourage readers who are interested in this topic to look at the unique aspects of personal Jewish observance for elements that are artistically compatible. I’ve seen gorgeous artistic approaches to the Tallit and Tallit Katan that I haven’t necessarily seen in Mormon Temple Garments. There is surely something unique (though also derivative aspects) in Etrog boxes and in Mezuzahs and in Chanukiahs. This doesn’t make Jewish art the only effort in art of the personal religious experience, but there are certainly unique aspects.

AR: Just for clarity, what do you mean by “a painting that has a Jewish mother”?

MW: Luckily that’s a quote from my friend/teacher Tom Barron, so I don’t need to explain it! It might mean that if a painting’s conception originates in a Jewish source then the painting in turn is Jewish, but I’d personally rather leave it open for interpretation a bit. I am certain that if a painting has a Jewish mother, then it is Jewish itself. But maybe part of the right of passage for the Jewish artist is figuring out what that might mean, if that makes sense?

AR: Cryptic, but legitimate. Moving on, you’ve interviewed a wide range of artists working in different mediums, religious leaders, curators and academics. Who is the most interesting person you’ve encountered during the course of your writing?

MW: That’s a very tough question, and I am quite tempted to evade it. I’ve probably been most star struck by interviewing Oleg Grabar and Stanley Fish, but both were very short interviews. It’s hard to say who is most interesting though. I’ve spoken with a gallery director in Jordan, Mormons in Japan, Catholic clergy in Palestine and a Britain-based Hindu spokesperson. I will say this. I am most fascinated by the people I talk to who are most unlike me. I love learning from people who live in other countries or other parts of the U.S., and who are experts in faiths that I know very little about indeed.

AR: You made a reference to artists often being on the periphery. Why do you think this is? Is there any religion (or possibly a particular philosophy or religious denomination) that is more accepting of artists and the arts? Is there a particularly helpful model that you have encountered that integrates art and religion? (Sorry if that’s a lot of questions at once.)

MW: I think there is often a lot of pressure on artists (some personally imposed, some market imposed) to create works that are new. “New” often means provocative, particularly when faith communities are involved. There are certainly some religions and denominations that seem to be more accepting of the arts than others. You are more likely to hear art praised in a sermon at a Catholic service than you are at the Lakewood yeshiva, but I wouldn’t necessarily take that to mean that one is more accepting of the arts than the other. I have yet to find a denomination or faith that doesn’t have it’s own sort of art, and I prefer to look at diversity within the arts of different faiths rather than an either/or situation. In terms of a model that integrates art and religion, I often hear artists speak of being a vessel through which the divine imagination passes. I don’t think this is essential for creating religious art by any means - plenty of artists create without prophetic intervention - but I think some artists have found that to be a good explanation of some of the mysteries of the creative process.

AR: In reading through Iconia, it often seems like you’re on a mission. Beyond simply chronicling the religion/art intersect, it seems like you’re trying to discover something about the world or about yourself. Is their a larger objective that you’re trying to achieve through your writing and blogging?

MW: You might be on to something here. The mission, if Iconia can be said to have one, is to document the intersect and to (hopefully) inspire dialogue on that intersection. I don’t think it gets talked about enough, and I’m trying my best to change that as much as I can. In terms of discovering something about the world and/or myself, I sort of agree with you. I feel very lucky to have a passion that has been lucrative and fulfilling. Part of this seven-year-long (and counting!) obsession  of mine has been a learning experience about myself and the world. I’m not sure I went into it expecting that to happen, but it’s definitely happened and I am very thankful for that. The other piece, which wasn’t necessarily implied in your question, is that I prescribe study of the art of other faiths to anyone who solicited my advice (and some who don’t). I think it’s one of the best cures for provincial and hostile perspectives on religion, which we see even faith communities leveling at other faiths. So it might be fair to say I went into this just curious, I became a convert of sorts, and now I’m a religious-art evangelist.

NYC Event: Poetry as Protest

Please join Uri l’Tzedek and Mima’amakim on THIS Wednesday night July 22nd from 7:30-9:30pm at the Drisha Institute (65th and Broadway) as we spend an evening exploring the relationship between poetry and social justice. We will look at examples of poetic activism spanning the Romantic period, the Irish Revolution and the Civil Rights movement. We will probe these poems for what they contribute to contemporary social justice discourse, as well as raise questions and qualifications in regard to the relation between poetry and activism. Discussion points will include: Doesn’t explicit ideology make for “bad poetry”? What can literature really “do” when there is serious suffering in the world? And what can poetry, and perhaps art in general, uniquely offer as a medium for social criticism and protest? The evening will include poetry readings, discussions, and Jewish text learning.

Co-sponsored by AJWS-AVODAH. Dinner will be served.

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Jerusalem Event: Jerusalem Siege: Artistic Interpretations

An evening in creative contemplation of Jerusalem’s destruction. Join us on Monday, July 27, as poets and writers share their interpretations of Jerusalem, siege, exile and struggle. If you are interested in sharing 1-2 pieces, please contact Yehudit at 050-875-7489 or David at 052-566-4595 (pre-registration required). Copies of the 2009 Mima’amkim Journal will be on sale.

The event will take place in the outdoor courtyard of Museum of Psalms, Jerusalem from 7 - 9 pm. The Museum will be open before & during event.

*No music, appropriate for the 9-days.*

Entrance Fee: 25nis

In connection with this past week’s Torah portion of Pinchas, and in keeping with the generally dour atmosphere during these three weeks of Jewish mourning, we present Richard McBee’s A Jewish Woman’s Lament. Richard, an artist, poet and critic, wrote this poem as a complement to his 2008 painting Pinchas (Jack Ruby).

A Jewish Woman’s Lament By Richard McBee, May 5, 2009

Woe to the Jews

Woe to my freed people

Free

They contend

They cry

attack and bewail

Lust and defame

See only that which might fail

Hanker after the small spirit to maim

Oh my people must wander to learn

Just a little faith so long to come.

My sisters innocence could not stem the tide

Of male jewelry to fashion that calf astray

My sisters innocence could not stem their lust

Of male rapacious fray.

My sisters insistence on the goodness of our land

Was swept away by the timidity of our men.

My sisters insistence on stemming our tears

Was swept away

Male wailing haunts us this day.

I saw and mourned what kind of men we had

When the blue rebels came and shouted

clamber aboard the doomed cause.

I saw and mourned brothers and sons

Swallowed whole in earth’s fiery jaws.

A mercy of God on their souls

As male arrogance was removed from our midst

Their blue revolt obliterated by the Lord.

I began to learn of our God’s anger

I began to learn of His wrath

I saw how He protected us from Bilaam’s hate

I saw how He gave us peace over our enemies

I saw how He blessed our houses of modesty.

I saw how He loved us

And cared for us

And nurtured us

And defended us

With His peace

With His anger.

But our men were ruled by their groins

Driven by a salacious disquiet

Feckless in desire and easy pleasure.

Their semen boiled away their brains

As they exposed themselves to idols

Just to copulate with sluts of hate

They defiled their Jewish blood

They defiled their Jewish marriage

They defiled their wives honor

They defiled their wives home

Defiled with the stench of their fornication.

And oh my sisters the horror began

Oh my sisters God’s fury unfurled

Oh my sisters God’s command thundered

Oh my sisters the Judges slaughtered

Thousands and thousands

Of our husbands brothers and sons

Who would be left

Who would we love

Who could we find

To make our people whole again.

Then remember my sisters remember

A Jewish prince rushed out to destroy us all

Zimri grasped the foreign Princess Cozbi

He dragged her by her hair and flung her

Before our holy ark our holy Torah

He mounted her and had her

To finish his desecration

To destroy our God.

But our holy leader froze and knew not what to do

Moses our teacher could not move

His mouth silent his heart stuck

Neither the Law nor reason

Defended our people

Defended our nation

Defended our women

Oh sisters, our children.

So you remember my sisters

We prayed to Hashem

We said our psalms

We prayed to our God whose anger we knew

We prayed to our God whose love we knew

We prayed because it was all we could do.

We prayed for God’s answer soon.

Remember the flash the blinding light

A gun shot rang out

When suddenly he rushed in

When our hero Pinchas

Rushed in where no one dared

When our holy avenger

When our bloody Zealot

Slew the two sinners at the holy door

Slew the two who would destroy us all

Pinchas our hero

Our messenger for sure

The women Pinchas saved

Sisters, our women, our children

Sisters, our men, generations to come

Until the day our men sin again.

On Sunday, July 12th, join film enthusiasts, story tellers, and fellow Jewish activists, to experience “Youth Producing Change” - a series of short films created by youth from across the globe that premiered at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.

Together we will experience the vision of young activists who have channeled art and technology to share their perspectives, engage and empower their communities, and expose human rights issues close to their hearts.

With classic movie treats a plenty, you’re invited to relax, enjoy, and connect with other young Jews from across the city.

Following the screening, local Jewish artists and activists will enhance our movie-going experience by sharing their vantage points as they facilitate dialogue about art and activism. Together we will explore our values and the power of storytelling to promote social change.�

When: Sunday, July 12, 2pm-5pm�
Where: Congregation Beth Elohim, 274 Garfield Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn

To register: Click here.

For more information: Contact newyorkcityteam@gmail.com.

Classic (and kosher!) movie snacks will be served.

�
Program begins promptly at 2:15pm. Screening begins at 2:30pm, followed by facilitated group conversations.

This program is the first in a two-part series related to art and activism from a Jewish lens. Stay tuned for more information about “Poetry as Protest”, a July 22^nd event hosted by Uri L’Tzedek and Mima’amakim and co-sponsored by the AJWS-AVODAH Partnership.