Eruvin Exhibition and Lecture Add Context and Insight to Daf Yomi Study

What purpose do eruvin [ritual enclosures] serve? Where can they be constructed? What makes them kosher?

As Jews around the world delve into the subject of eruvin for daf yomi, the daily cycle of Talmud study, Yeshiva University and the Orthodox Union sought to shed light on an ancient practice that is still very relevant to Jewish life today. An evening of programming on March 13 fused the historical, cultural and practical dimensions of eruvin showcased in a new Yeshiva University Museum exhibition with rich halakhic grounding provided by RIETS Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Hershel Schachter. A leading halakhic authority, Schachter delivered a shiur [lecture] titled, “Eruvin: The Streets, the Strings and the Shabbat.”

“Seeing the issues faced by Manhattan and other Jewish communities in completing an eruv­—when a train track goes up and when it goes down, is the sea wall kosher or not—and hearing from such a wide range of people who struggled to bring klal Yisroel out of their homes on Shabbat takes Torah learning to a unique and different level,” said Edward Stelzer ’90YC, a member of the YU Museum’s board of directors. “Many of us don’t have an opportunity to check an eruv on any given Friday, but this museum has the power to help us internalize the issues of eruvin and experience them almost firsthand by bringing the topic home to us in an immersive, powerful way.” Read the rest of this entry…

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…

Dov Lerner on Yeshiva University Museum’s Eruv Exhibition

Shabbat is designed to be a day of rest, relaxation and communal prayer. Due to halakhic restrictions on their carrying items from one place to another, however, observant Jews can become prisoners in their own homes. The rabbis, therefore, wherever they could, came up with a way to circumvent this issue: the eruv. The word literally means “mixture”; and views on the eruv are themselves mixed and hotly debated. The Yeshiva University Museum now has an exhibition devoted to the eruv called, “It’s a Thin Line: The Eruv and Jewish Community in New York and Beyond.” The museum launched the exhibition with a day-long symposium reflecting the debates that the eruv has occasioned.

Among the Sabbath laws is an injunction against transferring an object from a private to a public space or moving it within the public space itself. The prohibited activity is often simply called “carrying.” The activity is heavily regulated, and the rules are complex. Halakhic literatures are occupied by questions of how to define a public or private space and what constitutes a transfer.

For purposes of this idea of “carrying,” the rabbinic discussions generally identify four types of space: reshut harabim, or public space; reshut hayahid, or private space; makom patur, an exempt area; and karmelit, related to the word for “garden,” which is legislatively treated as a kind of limbo, a public space that nevertheless has some characteristics of private space.  The karmelit is the only space around which the construction of an eruv is permitted. The eruv’s artificial architecture—often consisting merely of poles and wires—defines the confines of the space as private and, thus, allows carrying within its bounds. Read the rest of this entry…

YU Museum Exhibit Details the Jewish Encounter with Modern Medicine

The memo on display at the Yeshiva University Museum exhibit Trail of the Magic Bullet: The Jewish Encounter with Modern Medicine, 1860 – 1960 is short and to the point:  “Never admit more than five Jews, take only two Italian Catholics, and no blacks at all.” The document was signed by Milton Charles Winternitz, dean of Yale Medical School from 1920 to 1935.

The College of Medicine's namesake, Albert Einstein, with a model of the institution that proudly bears his name.

Having fled the growing anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe in the years preceding World War II, multitudes of Jews that emigrated to the United Sates were met with such informal yet widely enforced quotas, used at the time to limit the number of Jews, African Americans and other ethnic groups admitted to medical schools and other fields.

In response to this, Yeshiva University President Dr. Samuel Belkin began to advocate and plan for a medical school under Jewish auspices that would be run without quotas based on racial or religious prejudices. That medical school would come to bear the name of the famous Jewish scientist and philanthropist Albert Einstein, whose primary wish was that the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University would support and welcome all creeds and races. The history and motivation behind the establishment of the College of Medicine is detailed as part of the museum’s multi-media exhibit. 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…

Exhibition Presented by YU Museum in Collaboration with Einstein Explores Jewish Encounter with Modern Medicine

Modern medicine emerged in the second half of the 19th century, as innovative technologies and new theories of disease paved the way for extraordinary medical advances. For Jews, and for the Jewish community at large, the field of scientific medicine presented new opportunities, new challenges and new ways to engage with modernity. Through an array of original medical instruments, artifacts, documents, letters, photographs and video, Trail of the Magic Bullet: The Jewish Encounter with Modern Medicine, 1860-1960, explores the Jewish encounter with modern medicine on an individual, communal and religious level. The exhibition, on display at the Yeshiva University Museum through August 12, brings the conversation up to the present, concluding with a specially produced film that examines key issues in contemporary Jewish bioethics.

Einstein's Rabbi Dr. Edward Reichman speaks to local high school students.

On March 21, Trail of the Magic Bullet was the centerpiece of two educational initiatives. In the morning, in a program organized by Ilana Benson, museum educator at the YU Museum, 80 students from four Jewish New York area high schools used the exhibition as the jumping off point for discussions around the role of halakha in medicine and the training of the Jewish medical student across history. Science, pre-med and AP biology students from Yeshiva University High School for Boys, Yeshiva University High School for Girls, DRS Yeshiva High School and Yeshiva of Flatbush participated. In tandem with tours of the exhibition, Rabbi Dr. Edward Reichman of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine led the students in discussions of key medical case studies and gave an interactive lecture on the history of the training of Jewish medical students. In addition to seeing a range of rare medical artifacts, documents, posters and letters, the students from these schools had the chance to engage on topics such as organ donation, genetic testing and general Jewish medical ethics.

In the evening, the Yeshiva University Medical Ethics Society also brought 40 undergraduate students to the museum to experience the Trail of the Magic Bullet exhibition, and to participate in another lecture given by Reichman. The students heard about and discussed the experience of Jewish doctors in the modern medical field and developments that have facilitated the participation of Jewish doctors within modern medicine. The program featured a rich and engaging discussion around such issues as the acceptance of Jews into secular medical schools, advancements in medical technologies, and the role of halakha in connection to the medical field and contemporary bioethics.

Surgery, Newark Beth Israel Hospital, early 20th century / Collection of the Jewish Historical Society of New Jersey

These two programs highlight the educational impact and potential of the exhibition and attest to the value of the collaboration between the YU Museum and Einstein.

The exhibition celebrated its opening with a program on February 29, 2012, which featured a discussion by Dr. Edward Burns, executive dean of Einstein, on the Jewish role within the medical profession; and the screening of “Heal, You Shall Heal” (produced and directed by Ilana Trachtman), a film that was commissioned and developed by YU Museum in conjunction with the exhibition.

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.

Festival of Jewish Folktales Honors Peninnah Schram

On November 6, students, academics, professional storytellers and members of the public gathered at the Yeshiva University Museum to share tales rich with tradition, personal meaning and religious discovery during “Folktales of Israel: A Festival of Jewish Storytelling Honoring Professor Peninnah Schram,” an event organized by YU’s Center for Israel Studies.

Jess Olson, associate director of the Center for Israel Studies, offers greetings at the Nov. 6 event.

“So much of the story of the Jewish people is feeling and sharing the warmth of our tradition,” said Yeshiva University President Richard M. Joel. “People like Peninnah Schram, who has been here with us at Stern College for 42 years, work to ensure that true communication does not become a lost art, but continues to involve words, heart and soul.”

Co-sponsored by Stern College for Women, the YU Museum and the American Zionist Movement, the conference featured storytelling legends such as Dr. Dan Ben-Amos, professor of folklore and Near Eastern studies at the University of Pennsylvania and editor of the major series Folktales of the Jews; Rabbi Saul Berman, professor of Jewish studies at Stern College and an inaugural fellow of the Tikvah Center for Law and Jewish Civilization at New York University Law School; and Ellen Frankel, former CEO and editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society.

In addition to keynote lectures that considered the significance and role of storytelling in Jewish education and tradition, performances explored tales which ran the gamut from a legend about the staff of Elijah to a young woman’s emotional first journey to the Western Wall. Schram’s colleagues and former students also spoke about her influence in their own development as storytellers.

“Jewish tradition, being part of the oral world literature, contains the jewels and the core of oral traditions the world over,” said Ben-Amos. “In that sense, storytellers like Peninnah are drawing upon a tradition that is dynamic, classical and an influence on world literature. It’s a real pleasure to celebrate the contribution Peninnah has made in oral and written storytelling—she is a pioneer in the field.”

“Folktales are an essential part of Judaism because of the way we tell ourselves about our past determining our future,” said Dr. Steven Fine, director of the Center for Israel Studies. “Bringing this element of the mesorah [transmission of tradition] to life is what YU is all about.”

The festival honored Peninah Schram, professor of speech and drama at Stern College.

For Yaelle Frohlich, a former student of Schram’s at Stern College who is currently pursuing a master’s degree at YU’s Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, the festival was an opportunity to celebrate a mentor and to delve deeper into a field that has fascinated her since childhood. “I came as a fan of Professor Schram’s, but also because I have a special love of Jewish folklore,” said Frohlich. “The chance to hear about it from an academic perspective was too good to miss.”

The festival culminated with a heartfelt performance from Schram herself, as she shared the complex relationship of her grandparents, parents and children to Israel in a piece called, “Five Generations Rooted in Israel.” She was also presented with an honorary volume of collected folktales, Mitzvah Stories: Seeds for Inspiration and Learning. Published by Reclaiming Judaism Press and dedicated to Schram, the book contains 60 original stories by professional storytellers, members of the rabbinate, and others.

“This is better than an Oscar,” said Schram, who is a recipient of the Covenant Award for Outstanding Jewish Education and the National Storytelling Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award. “An Oscar stays behind glass but this book is a living document with never-before-told stories centered around mitzvot—you can dive right in.”

She added: “It’s up to each of us to take these stories in our rich Jewish repertoire and transmit them the next generation. We must wear the mantle of responsibility to perpetuate the Jewish oral tradition.”

Center for Israel Studies Presents a Festival of Jewish Storytelling Honoring Peninnah Schram on November 6

Yeshiva University’s Center for Israel Studies will present “Folktales of Israel: A Festival of Jewish Storytelling” on November 6, 2011. The festival, co-sponsored by Stern College for Women, the Yeshiva University Museum and the American Zionist Movement, is free and open to the public and will take place at the YU Museum, Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Peninah Schram, renowned Jewish folklorist and storyteller will be honored at the Nov. 6 festival.

Bringing together internationally renowned story tellers and scholars, the festival will be dedicated to the art of storytelling in and about the Land of Israel. The festival will highlight the beauty of Israel and its peoples, presenting through scholarship and performance some of the ways that storytellers have transmitted their love of Israel through the ages.

The festival honors Peninnah Schram, a world-renowned Jewish folklorist and storyteller who is professor of speech and drama at YU. Schram is a recipient of the prestigious Covenant Award for Outstanding Jewish Educator (1995) and has been awarded the National Storytelling Network’s 2003 Lifetime Achievement Award “for sustained and exemplary contributions to storytelling in America.”

“There is power and beauty in shared stories,” said Schram, who has authored ten books of Jewish folktales. “Since storytelling is a dialogue, it creates more understanding and community between people serving as a thread between hearts. This event will celebrate the stories of Israel that are so connected to each of the storytellers and the keynote speakers. I feel blessed to be honored by this magnificent festival.”

Featured storytellers at the festival include: Arthur Strimling, Barry Bub, Cherie Karo Schwartz, Ellen Frankel, Goldie Milgram, Jennifer Rudick Zunikoff, Laura Simms and Noa Baum. Keynote presentations will be given by Dan Ben Amos, professor of folklore & Asian and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Pennsylvania; and Rabbi Saul Berman, associate professor of Jewish Studies at Stern College.

“Folktales of Israel brings together scholars and performers, students and rabbis to celebrate all that is good about Israel,” said Steven Fine, director of the Center for Israel Studies and professor of Jewish history. “At this moment in Israel’s history, telling Israel’s stories is an act of hope and promise.”

For more information, to view the full schedule or to register for the festival, visit www.yu.edu/cis.