YU and OU Mark Start of Masechet Eruvin in the Daf Yomi Cycle with Special Lecture and YU Museum Tour 

Yeshiva University’s Center for the Jewish Future (CJF) and Yeshiva University Museum will be hosting a special lecture for all audiences by YU Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Hershel Schachter to mark the beginning of Masechet Eruvin in the Daf Yomi study cycle.  The lecture, titled “Eruvin: the Streets, the Strings and the Shabbat,” will be presented in cooperation with the Orthodox Union on March 13 at the YU Museum in Manhattan and complements the YU Museum’s exhibition It’s a Thin Line: The Eruv and Jewish Community in New York and Beyond (on display through June 30).  A curatorial tour and viewing of the exhibition will begin at 6:00 p.m., followed by the lecture at 7:00 p.m.  The YU Museum is located at the Center for Jewish History, 15 W 16th Street, near Union Square. Read the rest of this entry…

Covenant Foundation Awards YU Museum Grant for Educational Partnership with Lincoln Center Institute 

On the basis of an innovative arts-based educational program, Yeshiva University Museum is the recipient of a prestigious Signature Grant from The Covenant Foundation, which develops and supports Jewish education and community-building projects and programs in the U.S.

Yeshiva University Museum will receive $135,900 over three years to expand Re-Imagining Jewish Education through Art, an initiative that uses the arts and critical inquiry to enhance and deepen learning and appreciation of Jewish texts and of art.

Through the program, the museum adapts an arts-based educational approach and philosophy pioneered by the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education, and re-conceives and applies it in Jewish schools. Read the rest of this entry…

A Potent Symbol of Jewish Life in America, the Eruv Gets Unprecedented Exhibition at YU Museum

It divides private and public, sacred and secular, work and Sabbath. And you might live in one without knowing it.

The elevated train track on 3rd Ave was the western border of Manhattan¹s first eruv. Chatham Square (pictured here) was on the western edge of the Lower East Side. (YU Museum collection)

The eruv is one of the most fascinating, though little understood and sometimes controversial concepts in Jewish life. Now, for the first time, it’s the subject of an exhibition—It’s a Thin Line: The Eruv and Jewish Community in New York and Beyond—at the Yeshiva University Museum, near Union Square in Manhattan. Read the rest of this entry…

Yeshiva University Museum Presents Fourth Annual Stern College Senior Art Show

Artwork by Stern College for Women students will be on display at the Yeshiva University Museum in Revelation: The Fourth Annual Stern College Senior Art Show. Presenting 38 works by graduating studio art majors, the exhibition provides a window into the art-making approach, as well as the personal observations and insights of 11 young Jewish female artists.

Leah Fried, “Self Explanatory”

A rich mix of styles, techniques and technologies, Revelation includes digital photography, oil painting, stop-motion animation and stone sculpture, among other media.  The wide-ranging subjects reflect the students’ intellectual and emotional curiosity, from Lauren Kahn’s striking sculptures of New York City manhole covers to Dina Wecker’s minutely detailed pen-and-ink aerial Manhattan skyline to Jordana Chernofsky’s pointillist nature paintings to Melissa Zehnwirth’s glam-inspired screen print.  The show was guided by Traci Tullius, the acclaimed video and performance artist who leads Stern College’s studio art program. Read the rest of this entry…

Renowned New York Artist Designs Textiles for the Altneuschul in Prague, Europe’s Oldest Synagogue

Before a series of richly designed new textiles is installed in one of the most iconic, oldest and continually active synagogues in Europe, it will be unveiled at Yeshiva University Museum in the exhibition Old and the New: Mark Podwal’s Textiles for the Altneuschul in Prague from November 27, 2011–January 15, 2012.

Old and the New will be on display at the YU Museum from Nov. 27 –Jan. 15.

The textiles, which include a Torah ark cover, three Torah mantles and covers for the Torah reading and cantor’s desks represent the first major commission for the sanctuary of Prague’s Altneuschul in over 70 years. Built in 1270, the Altneuschul, or “Old-New Synagogue,” is celebrated for its architectural beauty and legendary provenance–myth has it its stones were brought by angels. It is one of the few Gothic synagogues in existence and sits at the center of Prague’s Jewish Quarter, a vibrant community famed for its scholars, mystics, writers and intellectuals. Perhaps the most famous of the synagogue’s legends is the Prague Golem, believed to lie dormant in the attic of the building to be restored again, if needed, to defend the Jews.

Mark Podwal, an internationally recognized New York-based artist, author and physician, has long been engaged with Prague and its famed Jewish Quarter. The textiles are the latest and most ambitious of his works relating to Prague’s Jewish Community.

“With its history, mystical legends and remarkable beauty, the Altneuschul is one of the world’s great Jewish monuments–and a living one,” said Podwal, who is known for his drawings on The New York Times Op-Ed page and is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Jewish Museum in Prague and many others. “To be able to contribute to the ongoing religious and communal function of the synagogue is a humbling honor. It was daunting but exciting to make works that reflect and speak to the character of Prague’s broad and rich Jewish fabric.”

Complementing the textiles in the exhibition is a detailed historic model of the Altneuschul (part of YU Museum’s permanent collection), a selection of complimentary graphic work by the artist, and a short original film that charts Podwal’s artistic engagement with Prague and features a behind-the-scenes look at the textiles’ creation.

“We are delighted and privileged to unveil Mark’s striking textiles and to give a New York audience the opportunity to appreciate their beauty as objects as well as their rich liturgical and cultural context,” said Jacob Wisse, director of the YU Museum. “We think viewers should, and will, appreciate the way a fresh aesthetic vision has been used to complement a historic site, and how the magic of the synagogue’s and its city’s story are brought to life through the exhibition.”

In collaboration with renowned New York textile designers Penn & Fletcher, Podwal used modern technology to create vignettes of the centuries-old Jewish Community. The six embroidered velvet pieces, which will be shipped for their dedication at the synagogue in March of 2012, are presented in the exhibition as they will appear in the Altneuschul sanctuary.

Old and the New: Mark Podwal’s Textiles for the Altneuschul in Prague is presented by Yeshiva University Museum in conjunction with the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in New York.

Public Programs and Gallery Talks

Wednesday December 14, 2011 (5-6 p.m.)

Curator’s tour in the exhibition gallery.

Sunday, December 18, 2011 (2-3 p.m.)

Artist’s talk in the exhibition gallery.

Monday, December 19, 2011 (6-8 p.m.)

Public program featuring the artist on the historic, religious and cultural context of the Altneuschul and the Prague Jewish Community.

Wednesday January 11, 2012 (5-6 p.m.)

Curator’s tour in the exhibition gallery.

Location:
Yeshiva University Museum, 15 W. 16th Street, New York, NY 10011, 212.294.8330, www.yumuseum.org

Hours:
Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday: 11 a.m.–5 p.m.; Monday: 5–8 p.m. (FREE); Wednesday: 11 a.m.–8 p.m. (FREE 5–8 p.m.); Friday: 11 a.m.–2:30 p.m. (FREE).

Admission:
Adults: $8; Seniors and Students: $6; Members and Children under 5: Free; YU Faculty, Administration and Students: Free with valid ID.

Dr. Jacob Wisse, director of the Yeshiva University Museum, visits the set of Good Day Street Talk and shares some of the rich traditions and cultural history of Rosh Hashanah. Wisse also previews upcoming exhibitions at the YU Museum, including Jews on Vinyl, Prophecy of Place and Graphic Details.

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Groundbreaking Exhibition Featuring All-Star Roster of Comix Artists Over Four Decades Has its NYC Premiere at YU Museum

The genre-bending influence of Jewish women in comics will get a rare spotlight as the acclaimed Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women exhibition arrives at the Yeshiva University Museum on September 25, 2011.

Escape from “Special”, by Miss Lasko-Gross, Fantagraphic Books, 2006

Featuring original work by 18 of the most influential creators, Graphic Details showcases work of all-stars from the pioneering Wimmen’s Comix and Twisted Sisters artists of the 1970s and 1980s to the superstars of the new generation.  Many of the cartoons in Graphic Details have never been displayed in public until now. The artists, who hail from the U.S., Canada, Israel and the UK include Vanessa Davis, Bernice Eisenstein, Sarah Glidden, Miriam Katin, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Miss Lasko-Gross, Sarah Lazarovic, Miriam Libicki, Sarah Lightman, Diane Noomin, Corinne Pearlman, Trina Robbins, Racheli Rotner, Sharon Rudahl, Laurie Sandell, Ariel Schrag, Lauren Weinstein, and Ilana Zeffren.

This well-reviewed and often-startling exhibition makes its New York City debut after successful runs in San Francisco and Toronto, and provides the first in-depth look at a vibrant and prolific niche of graphic storytelling—Jewish women’s autobiographical comics. While the influential role of Jews in cartooning has long been acknowledged, the role of Jewish women in shaping the medium is still largely unexplored. This exhibition of original drawings, full comic books and graphic novels presents the powerful work of artists whose intimate and complex work has influenced the world of comics over the last four decades.

“YU Museum is proud to host the powerful work of these artists who have not, until recently, been recognized for their important role in the world of graphic storytelling and new modern forms of Jewish autobiography,” said Dr. Jacob Wisse, director of the YU Museum.

Read more about the exhibit and upcoming public programs at the YU Museum here.

Quintan Ana Wikswo Explores History and Experience in Prophecy of Place at Yeshiva University Museum

In her first monographic exhibition and East Coast debut, internationally acclaimed visual artist and writer, Quintan Ana Wikswo, introduces her dreamlike and haunting large-scale, multi-panel photographs, poetry, video installations and interactive assemblages in Prophecy of Place, on display at Yeshiva University Museum (YU Museum) through January 22, 2012.

"Inquisition Plaza and Jewish Ghetto, Lisbon"

Wikswo uses damaged and salvaged antique military cameras and battlefield typewriters to explore the startling ecological beauty that obscures “traumatized” sites of crimes against humanity, and to uncover the intergenerational legacies surrounding them. These fiercely mysterious images and starkly graceful prose poems create a powerful encounter with violence and beauty revealed through a fractured, unsettling lens.

Created between 2008-2011 in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Finland and Russia, Prophecy of Place presents kaleidoscopic portraits of the astonishing and often invisible histories hidden at the heart of communities where Jews encountered exile, shelter and trauma.

Traversing 10 centuries, eight countries and five languages, the exhibition is a deeply immersive engagement with the legacy of Jewish survival and the struggle with other cultures through luminous, prismatic, multi-part contemporary photographs of villages, cities, shtetls and camps – sites where Jews have faced devastating attacks or attempts at cultural annihilation.

The works reverberate with contrasting abstractions of man-made, natural and ephemeral elements that reveal medieval cities, ancient forests or fields of wildflowers where thousands of people were persecuted or killed: the fields outside Strasbourg where mobs burned Jews accused of spreading plague; the Inquisition Plaza in the Jewish ghetto of Lisbon; the unmarked site of the Forced-Sex Brothel at Dachau; mass execution sites in the forests of Lithuania; and the disquietingly tranquil facades of Nazi medical facilities in Berlin.

“As historian and artist, I’m intrigued by human and ecological echoes at places fractured by trauma and political violence–sites of communal catastrophe that bear often invisible records of deep traumatic emotion. I look for points of intimacy and tenderness in these places on the earth that seem to utterly deny safety and comfort,” said Wikswo. “In locations with particularly painful histories, a certain resurrection of luminosity and beauty seems to me both absurd and essential.”

Included within Prophecy of Place are more than 35 large-format, multi-panel photographs; 10 video installations integrating poetic text, field recordings, and original music by prominent collaborating composers; and an interactive assemblage of artifacts and talismans. Visitors will have the opportunity to use a typewriter to leave notes, poems and prayers beneath polished black rocks on the table overlaid with a shifting projection of the artist’s poetry.

“Quintan Ana Wikswo is a gifted and original artist who creates stunningly beautiful and moving imagery of places with horrifically ugly provenance and background,” added Dr. Jacob Wisse, director of YU Museum. “The tension within her work reflects back movingly on recent and not-so-recent Jewish history, playing an important role of memorialization while also suggesting the possibility of a more hopeful and humane future. I think visitors to the exhibition will be struck and touched by the beauty and power of Wikswo’s work.”

Audio Gems Tell the Story of Jews in America; Retro-Fabulous, Mid-Century Show Has NYC Premiere at YU Museum

Born of dingy attics, roadside yard sales and dusty archives is an extraordinary array of Jewish recorded music from the 1940s through the 1980s, brought to stereophonic life in the Jews on Vinyl exhibition at Yeshiva University Museum from July 24, 2011 – January 8, 2012.

Mrs. Portnoy’s Retort, United Artists, 1969, Courtesy of Josh Kun and Roger Bennett

The introduction of traditional standards like Fiddler on the Roof and Eli, Eli into the American mainstream are due to some unexpected interpreters like The Temptations, Johnny Mathis, Louis Prima, Eartha Kitt and Herbie Mann. In this experiential exhibition, visitors are transported to the days of turntables by relaxing in authentically recreated mid-20th Century living rooms while listening to the sounds of the time.

Jews on Vinyl is based on the book And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost (Crown Press, 2008) by Roger Bennett and Josh Kun, and marks the New York premiere of this highly acclaimed exhibition organized by the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

What started out as a mutual affinity for kitschy Jewish album covers became a quest for identity, history and customs in the sleeves of LPs. To this end, Bennett and Kun embarked on an intriguing journey, scouring the world to collect thousands of albums, and pieced together these scratched, once-loved and now-forgotten audio gems to tell a vibrant tale: How Jewish culture became mainstream American culture.

Batman and Rubin, Mercury, 1967, Courtesy of Josh Kun and Roger Bennett

“For the Boomer and older generations, many of these album covers will evoke instantaneous recognition and a whole host of memories; here is the soundtrack of their past,” said Dr. Jacob Wisse, director of the Yeshiva University Museum. “For younger visitors, the music and LP covers present a fascinating, enjoyable and enlightening glimpse into the recent American Jewish past. Jews on Vinyl has great artistic, historical and sociological value, and appeal for all audiences.”

Featuring music, comedy, storytelling and other hybrid sounds, Jews on Vinyl reflects a rich heritage and raises important questions about the evolution of tradition and cultural assimilation in America’s melting pot. Much of the music is no longer available in any format and, through this exhibition, audiences will have the unprecedented opportunity to experience forgotten moments in Jewish-American pop history.

At the heart of the exhibition are four 1950’s style suburban living room vignettes where visitors can sit comfortably and hear MP3 sound clips from listening stations in the era of their surroundings. A wall-size installation features facsimiles of the records in the exhibition and album covers corresponding to a soundtrack of highlights played throughout the space are projected on an adjacent wall.

Throughout the show, the Yeshiva University Museum will offer a series of programs designed to delve deeper into the various genres represented in the exhibition and to provide historical and cultural context to the listening experience. For more information, visit www.yumuseum.org.

Listen to a sample teaser of Mickey Katz’s My Yiddishe Mambo.

The 1950s saw an explosion of creativity among Jews, including among Yiddish Speaker. Mickey Katz was a notorious Yiddish commedean, as you can here in this 1950s take on a Yiddish Mambo.  These types of tunes illustrate just how much traditional Jewish culture was finding its place in the increasingly diverse mainstream culture.

Graduating Artists’ Creativity on Display at Yeshiva University Museum

The eclectic assembly of art at the Yeshiva University Museum’s new and unique exhibition may surprise you.

In one corner, a mannequin wears a dress encrusted in a swirl of glass, feathers and beads, beside a model city whose gold-domed buildings recall a Temple-age Jerusalem. Stark photographs of a woman’s face and deep-hued oil paintings depicting Biblical scenes share wall space. That’s because the wide range of artwork in this show was created by an equally diverse group of artists—all graduating studio art majors at Stern College for Women.

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Called IMPRINT, the show is the second annual exhibition of senior students’ work, who served this year as both artists and curators of the show. “Every art student at Stern has made their own impression on the school,” explained Lauren Mintzer, SC ’11, who helped coordinate IMPRINT’s design with assistant studio art professor Traci Tullius. “We wanted to express that not only are we leaving our imprint behind, but this is really the first step on the greater journey of our careers as artists. IMPRINT highlights our individuality but also shows that bigger picture.”

At the show’s opening on May 25, the exhibit was flooded with friends, family, Stern arts faculty and members of the public who had come to admire the students’ creations. For Rachel Kupferman, SC ’11, whose immersive oil paintings confront issues of Jewish and universal self-identity, the experience was a rewarding culmination of her undergraduate experience. “Especially as an art student after four years, to have your work exhibited in a museum space just gives so much credit to the effort you put into it,” she said. “It feels like a very sophisticated and mature time in an artist’s life.”

Jacob Wisse, director of the Yeshiva University Museum and a professor of art history at Stern, felt the show’s homage to student work was well-earned. “We’re especially excited about IMPRINT because it demonstrates how the YU Museum serves as an outlet and resource for the talents and interests of our students and faculty, as well as reflecting the distinct character of the school,” he said, adding: “As an art historian, I’m impressed by the students’ creativity and range of work and by the degree to which they are engaged with substantive social and Jewish themes and issues.”

That engagement is evident in Kupferman’s painting, Viyater Yaakov Levado, which can be translated as ‘And Yaakov Struggled Alone.’ Inspired by the famous Biblical verse in which Jacob is said to struggle with an angel as his family flees his vengeful brother, the painting depicts an earthy figure in a dark landscape with his head in his hands, separated from a richer field by a narrow river. Kupferman was interested by the interpretation of the verse suggesting Jacob struggled with himself rather than an angel, confronting self-doubt and anguish. “I think that struggle can be applied in many situations,” she said. “For instance, I’m graduating college right now and am at a crossroads in life—what’s next? But it can also be on a grand scale: as Modern Orthodox people, how do we reconcile our past, our tradition, with this new and evolving modernity?”

For all of the student artists, IMPRINT was an opportunity to reflect on the warm, supportive community at Stern which fostered friendships in addition to creative growth. “I always felt like I had a very close relationship to my teachers and could go to them for anything,” said Michal Grun, SC ’11, whose work is a study of folds and color. “And you feed off the other students’ creativity and energy, sharing the same experiences, which makes a really exciting, unique environment.”

A highlight of Mintzer’s undergraduate experience was an art history course led by Wisse in Florence, Italy. “I definitely couldn’t have done that anywhere else without having to worry about aspects of my Jewish identity, kosher and Shabbos,” Mintzer said. “As part of a Stern course, I was really able to enjoy the environment and not feel pressured to do things that might go against my beliefs. It allowed me to be a part of the art world but also a part of the Jewish world.”

At IMPRINT’s opening, visitors were encouraged to leave their own mark on the exhibit, pressing ink imprints of their thumbs against a wall. The show, which will run through July 24, has already made its own impression on at least two visitors.

“My parents said, ‘It looks a lot different on a museum gallery wall than in our living room,” said Kupferman. For more information about IMPRINT, visit www.yumuseum.org.