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Meet 29 remarkable women who lived and worked in the historic Lower East Side
(New York Jewish Week) — The Museum at Eldridge Street (probably) isn’t haunted, but ghosts were what artist Adrienne Ottenberg had in mind when she created the works now on view in the new exhibit at the 1887 landmarked synagogue, “On the Lower East Side: 28 Remarkable Women…and One Scoundrel.”
“When I first came to Eldridge Street, it was falling apart,” Ottenberg recalled of her first visit to the historic building in the 1990s, prior to the 20-year, $20 million restoration completed in 2007. “And it’s magnificent. It’s magnificent even when it’s falling apart. And I thought, oh my god, it’s haunted.”
Now, some of these neighborhood “ghosts” are getting a second life, courtesy of Ottenberg’s mixed-media works of art, which are on display at the museum through May 5, 2024. The exhibit features portraits of 29 notable women, born between the mid-1800s and early 1900s, who lived or worked in the Lower East Side or frequented the teeming immigrant neighborhood— including well-known Jewish figures like poet Emma Lazarus and activist Emma Goldman.
But the exhibit also showcases less famous neighborhood women, like Dora Welfowitz, a garment worker and union member who perished in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and Belle Moskowitz, a social worker turned political advisor to Gov. Al Smith. So little is known about one of the subjects that she is identified simply as “Anonymous Chinese Actor,” highlighted here for her participation in a benefit for Jewish victims of a 1903 pogrom in Kishinev.
Researching and creating these portraits was “a gift,” Ottenberg told the New York Jewish Week, explaining that it gave her the opportunity to reconnect with her Judaism and delve into her own family history. Ottenberg’s father was Jewish (a Freudian analyst, to boot, making him a “certain kind of Jew,” she joked) and her mother was not; all told her parents “really didn’t have much interest in bringing us up in Judaism,” she said.
These days, however, Ottenberg, who lives in Chelsea, is married to someone who is “deeply religious” and attends synagogue every Saturday, though she noted that neither he nor his family ever put pressure on her to meet a certain level of observance. “We do all the holidays,” Ottenberg said, later adding, “All the positive things were there for me in Judaism. The warmth, the family, the celebrations…I feel so lucky in that.”
In “28 Women…,” Ottenberg’s portraits are printed on silk and cotton banners and depict the women against or interspersed with street maps of the Lower East Side. “I always start with maps,” Ottenberg, a cartographer by trade, said. “I believe a map can reveal something. A map is about connections, physical connections, but it’s also about other connections as well: emotional connections, connections through time.”
Unfortunately, time is what many of these women’s stories have been lost to — and that fleeting nature of existence is something Ottenberg considered when selecting the medium for her creations. “I wanted that quality of etherealness and the ephemeral quality, which fabric does,” she said. “If you have something on paper, behind a frame, it doesn’t feel ephemeral. But fabric, when you walk past it and it floats in the air, you can sense the transience of, hopefully not just their lives, which are gone, but our lives as well.”
The idea for the exhibit originated in the fall of 2022, after the museum’s curator and archivist, Nancy Johnson had a discussion with Ottenberg about showing her work. As Ottenberg spent time in the synagogue, the idea of spotlighting lesser-known local women took shape, with the early process informed by a friend of Johnson’s who has “made it a personal passion to find out about women from this neighborhood,” Johnson said.
Ottenberg, according to Johnson, “did a lot of reading and talking and walking.” Both conducted research, with Ottenberg citing the Library of Congress, Google Scholar and the New York Public Library as invaluable to her process.
Ultimately, “the selection process really was who moved me, and who I felt had impact, big and small,” Ottenberg said. She also wanted to ensure that a wide breadth of women were included, such as Helen Tamaris, who used dance to speak to the country’s racial injustice, and Elizabeth Tyler, one of the first Black registered nurses and the first Black visiting nurse at The Henry Street Settlement.
“When we have these temporary shows, I always like to do something that kind of resonates in this space, that has to do with the stories that we tell here and the people who pass through this building and this neighborhood, so this did that big-time,” Johnson told the New York Jewish Week. Ottenberg “really looked for connections to this neighborhood, and it turns out that it was a place where a lot of activist women were, either worked here, or lived here, or passed through here, or were inspired by things that happened here.”
For each portrait, there is a corresponding story of the woman’s life available to hear for free via the Bloomberg Connects app. Written by Johnson, the stories are told in the first-person, and recited mostly by the museum’s docents, former staff or those with personal connections to the subjects. (The story of Mirele Poil, a Jewish garment worker who successfully organized a walkout in her workplace, leading to a union contract, is voiced by her great-granddaughter, Diane Shur.)
Some of the women featured in the exhibit played a critical role in creating the world we know today — and until recently, were unknown to Ottenberg and much of the rest of the world. Take Fania Mindell, who co-founded the Brownsville Clinic with family planning pioneers Margaret Sanger and Ethel Byrne and was responsible for translating materials on birth control into languages like Yiddish and Italian. Ottenberg was “delighted” to learn about Cora La Redd, a Black dancer and singer who lived on Broome Street and performed regularly at the Cotton Club.
Ottenberg said the show is the culmination of a year of work, over which time she “fell in love with these women.” And she’s not the only one: As a reporter toured the exhibit on opening day, a museum-goer thanked Ottenberg, saying, “It was so nice to meet Emma Goldman again. I hadn’t thought about her in a while.”
“Don’t you love her?” Ottenberg asked — and the visitor confirmed she did.
Even the “scoundrel” of the exhibit found her way into Ottenberg’s heart. “I could not resist Stiff Rivka,” Ottenberg said of a notorious pickpocket who flew under the radar by camouflaging herself as a rich woman, dressed to the nines for Shabbat.
“It wasn’t just all these amazing women, doing these incredible things — there were people doing really questionable stuff,” Ottenberg said.
Though 21 of the women in the exhibit are Jews, a wide variety of ethnicities are represented in order to honor the truly multicultural history of the Lower East Side. “The unintended consequences of this 19th-century neighborhood mix of cultures and languages and poverty and reinvention was a Lower East Side that let loose new American ideas about education, equality and justice,” Ottenberg said in a press release. “It was a place women could step into a larger role for the people around them, and they did not ask permission to do it.”
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The post Meet 29 remarkable women who lived and worked in the historic Lower East Side appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a news conference, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Jim Bourg
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been slapped with an ethics complaint by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative watchdog group, for holding an event with former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire.
Last weekend, Khaire took the stage with Omar in support of her reelection campaign. AAF argued Khaire’s presence at Omar’s campaign rally constituted a violation of the US Federal Election Campaign Act and demanded the congresswoman step down from office.
“We are deeply concerned by Ilhan Omar’s illegal campaign rally with the former prime minister of Somalia. Omar already has a long history of statements indicating her disdain for America and allegiance to Somalia, but this goes beyond statements,” the AAF wrote.
“Now her campaign has taken action to involve a foreign leader in an American election. She must resign immediately and return every dollar raised for her at this disgraceful rally,” the watchdog continued.
The organization argued Omar potentially committed two infractions against the Federal Election Campaign Act.
First, AAF alleged that the congresswoman “knowingly accepted former Somalia Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire’s services at her campaign events.” They asserted this action exceeded the “limited volunteer services permitted by a foreign national and involves impermissible decision-making.”
Second, the watchdog claimed that Khaire was possibly “compensated by a prohibited source.” The organization suggested that Ka Joog, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that focuses on “empowering Somali American youth,” organized and funded Khaire’s trip to America. AAF argued that Omar likely “knowingly accepted a corporate contribution associated with Mr. Khaire’s travel and lodging costs” with the goal of boosting voter turnout among Minnesota’s Somali-American community.
During Omar’s campaign rally in Minnesota last weekend, Khaire gave an impassioned speech, urging the audience to vote for the congresswoman.
“Support her with your votes, tell your neighbors and friends, and anyone you know to come out and support Ilhan Omar,” Khaire said. “And knock on every door you can so that she can be re-elected.”
Khaire then added, “Ilhan’s interests aren’t those of Minnesota or the American people but those of Somalia.”
“No one is above the law — even members of the Squad” of far-left lawmakers in the US House, AAF president Thomas Jones wrote in a statement. “Not only were Khaire’s comments about Omar deeply disturbing, but the rally was also a blatant violation of US election laws. Omar must resign immediately and return every dollar raised by Khaire for her campaign.”
Omar’s campaign counsel David Mitrani denied that the congresswoman violated any elections laws.
“This ethics complaint is another attempt by the far-right to smear the congresswoman,” Mitrani told the New York Post.
“Congresswoman Omar’s campaign had absolutely no involvement in requesting, coordinating, or facilitating Mr Khaire’s appearance or his comments, and accordingly there was no violation of law,” he continued.
Khaire’s claim that Omar’s “interests” are with Somalia rather than the American people raised eyebrows, with critics pointing out that she has previously criticized the American Jewish community for supposedly maintaining “allegiance” to the government of Israel.
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said during a 2019 speech in reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying organization aimed at fostering a closer US-Israel relationship.
“Accusing Jews of harboring dual loyalty has a long, violent, sordid history,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, in response to Omar’s comments.
During her five-year stretch as a US representative, Omar has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of enacting “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. She has supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, an initiative which seeks to economically punish and isolate the Jewish state as the first step toward its elimination.
The congresswoman came under fire after waiting a whole two days to comment on Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of over 1200 people across southern Israel. Despite slow-walking a condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities, she was one of the first congresspeople to call for Israel to implement a “ceasefire” in the Gaza strip.
Omar enraged both Democratic and Republican lawmakers after she referred to Jewish college students as being either “pro-genocide or anti-genocide” while visiting Columbia University in April.
The post Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager
Samuel Woodward, recently convicted of the hate crime murder of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a gay Jewish teenager from California. Photo: Orange County Sheriff’s Office
A jury in Orange County, California on Wednesday convicted a neo-Nazi of the hate-crime murder of a gay Jewish teenager he lured to the woods under the false pretense of a furtive hook-up.
According to court documents, Samuel Woodward — a member of the Neo-Nazi group the Atomwaffen Division — stabbed 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein over two dozen times in 2018 after pretending in a series of Tinder messages to be interested in a first-time homosexual encounter.
Bernstein was unaware of Woodward’s paranoiac and hateful far-right ideology, however. The now 26-year-old Woodward had withdrawn from college to join the Atomwaffen Division — whose members have been linked to several other murders, including a young man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents — idolized Adolf Hitler, and would spend hours on Grindr searching for gay men to humiliate and “ghost,” ceasing all contact with them after posing as a coquettish “bicurious” Catholic.
“I tell sodomites that I’m bi-curious, which makes them want to ‘convert’ me,” Woodward said in his diary quoted by The Los Angeles Times. “Get them hooked by acting coy, maybe then send them a pic or two, beat around the bus and pretend to tell them that I like them and then kabam, I either un-friend them or tell them they have been pranked, ha ha.”
In another entry, Woodward wrote, “They think they are going to get hate crimed [sic] and it scares the s— out of them.”
On the day of the killing, Woodward agreed to drive Bernstein to Borrego Park in Foothill Ranch, where he stabbed him as many as 30 times and buried him in a “shallow grave,” according to various reports. He never denied his guilt, but in court his attorneys resorted to blaming the crime on his being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and feeling conflicted about his sexuality, LA Times reported. As the trial progressed, his attorneys also made multiple attempts to decouple Woodward’s Nazism from the murder, arguing that it was not a hate crime and that no mention of his trove of fascist paraphernalia and antisemitic and homophobic views should be uttered in court.
“No verdict can bring back Blaze. He was an amazing human and humanitarian and a person we were greatly looking forward to having in our lives, seeing wondrous things from him as his young life unfolded” the family of the victim, who has been described by all who knew him as amiable and talented, said in a statement shared by ABC News. “From this funny, articulate, kind, intelligent, caring, and brilliant scientist, artist, writer, chef, and son, there will never be anyone quite like him. His gifts will never be realized or shared now.”
With Wednesday’s guilty verdict, Woodward may never be free again. He faces life in prison without parole at his sentencing on Oct. 25.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C.
Did the protesters even realize who would be on the field when they showed up?
The post Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C. appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.