Uncategorized
At a book-lovers’ mecca, a celebration of the Jewish Diaspora
On the left side of the ground-floor gallery at the Upper East Side’s Grolier Club — an institution that bills itself as “America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles” — you’ll find elaborately decorated, centuries-old Jewish manuscripts from the likes of Italy, France and the Iberian Peninsula.
On the right, there’s a similar assortment of manuscripts, also organized geographically. These manuscripts are remnants of dynamic Jewish communities that once existed in Muslim lands such as Yemen, North African and Iran/Iraq.
Collectively, these works form “Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The JTS Library,” the first-ever exhibition dedicated to Jewish books and manuscripts at the storied club, which was founded in New York City in 1884.
On view through Dec. 27, the free exhibit is also the largest exhibition to date curated by the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, which is home to one of the world’s largest collections of Hebrew manuscripts and printed materials. Among the 100 objects on view are documents that date as far back as the 12th century.
The elaborately decorated works on display comprise a wide assortment of texts, such as prayer books, Passover haggadahs and ketubahs or Jewish marriage contracts. Most of them are written in Hebrew. But there are some stark differences between the two sides of the gallery: Human forms are plentiful in the manuscripts from Europe, for example, while works created by Jews in Muslim lands typically reflect the Islamic art style, with elaborate patterns, floral motifs and very few depictions of people.
“Jews adopted and adapted the art of the country in which they lived,” Sharon Lieberman Mintz, curator of Jewish art at the JTS library, explained during a private tour. “When Jews were living in Islamic lands, they eschewed figural arts. There may have been a bird or two here and there, but not humans, with rare exception.”
Examples like these spotlight the ways Jews lived their lives throughout years of diaspora, and how they integrated themselves within their culture of residence.
“If you look at the outstanding works in our collection — manuscripts in particular, but not just manuscripts — [they] reflect the geographical distribution that you see here,” said David Kraemer, the Joseph J. and Dora Abbell librarian and professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at the JTS. “It is notable, but not intentional, that we don’t have material here from the land of Israel.”
Kraemer continued: “What that means is that during the ages that these works were being produced, and from which they survive, this is where Jews lived,” he said. “Very, very few Jews lived in the land of Israel, and there was very little production of this kind of material in the land of Israel.”
Left: Abraham Judah ben Yehiel of Camerino’s “Rothschild Mahzor,” from Florence, Italy in 1490. Right: A page from “Sermons and Collected Teachings,” from 17th-century Salonica, Greece. (Courtesy the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary).
Instead, the exhibit is filled with treasures from across the centuries and around the globe, including handwritten letters from the physician, rabbi, philosopher and author Moses ben Maimon — aka Maimonides. One such letter, penned in 1170 by Maimonides’ personal secretary, Mevorakh ben Nathan, is signed by the sage himself. It pleads for funds to ransom the Jews who were taken prisoner in November 1168 when the crusader king Amalric I of Jerusalem conquered the Egyptian city of Bilbeis, some 50 miles north of Cairo, which was home to a sizable Jewish community in the Middle Ages.
“So much of what happens, Jewishly, in North America is Ashkenazi-centric, which misrepresents Jewish life and history around the world,” Kraemer said. “When Ashkenaz was barely a blip, the vast majority of the world’s Jews lived in Muslim lands.”
The exhibit makes it plain just how embedded Jews were into the countries in which they lived. In the Italy section, there’s a page displayed from the Rothschild Machzor, a prayer book written by master scribe Abraham Judah ben Yehiel in Florence in 1490. An illustration depicts the children of Israel receiving the Ten Commandments as they’re decked out in the Florentine fashions of the time — with the receding hairline that was all the rage in during the Renaissance.
“When you look at these materials, you can’t just think of Jews as separated and isolated and ghettos and oppressed and all that kind of stuff,” Kraemer said. “That’s not what the story here is.”
Instead, the exhibit spotlights how Jewish communities reflected broader cultural trends, including fashion and art.
Just don’t ask the curators to select their favorites. Kraemer and Liberman Mintz both blanched when asked to choose three or four standout items in the gallery. Instead, we settled on finding particularly unusual works on display.
“The answer changes every five minutes,” Kraemer explained.
As an example, Kraemer points to a 17th-century manuscript from Salonica, Greece that he describes as “absolutely wonderful in its outrageous combination.” The page, from a collection of sermons and teachings, is a scholarly theological discussion — specifically, about how Moses, who was flesh and blood, was able to ascend to the realm of God, who is pure spirit. By contrast, the illustrations on the page — animals, birds and flowers — seem like something from a children’s book.
“Don’t we all somehow have those sensibilities built into us?” Kraemer mused. “We can be very, very sophisticated and very, very simple and childlike at the same time.”
All told, the exhibit, said Kraemer, is meant to challenge misconceptions about how Jews lived their lives during centuries of diaspora life.
“We have a lot of conceptions of what Jewish life was through the ages,” Kraemer said. “When one witnesses these materials — their splendor, their creativity, their embeddedness within the local culture, their languages, the visual language, all of that — it tells us that Jews and their neighbors were part of the same world.”
“In a world which has a very black and white vision of Jewish life and the relationship of Jewish life to the host cultures, this brings color to it,” Kraemer continued. “It wasn’t black and white. I mean both literally and figuratively — this brings color to the fullness of Jewish experience.”
“Jewish Worlds Illuminated: A Treasury of Hebrew Manuscripts from The JTS Library” is on view at The Grolier Club (47 East 60th St.) through Dec. 27. For more information, click here; to book a tour (highly recommended!) click here.
—
The post At a book-lovers’ mecca, a celebration of the Jewish Diaspora appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention
(JTA) — Local and national Jewish Democrats say they are sympathetic after Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said she would skip the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention over concerns about antisemitism and harassment.
“I don’t blame AG Nessel for not wanting to go and basically put herself in situations that feel untenable in this moment of time and don’t add any value politically, personally,” Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.
Alexander’s comment came a day after Nessel announced during a televised antisemitism roundtable that she would be skipping the convention next month, where party leaders will finalize the state’s Democratic candidate for Senate following a divisive primary that has focused in part on Israel and antisemitism.
“I don’t feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said during the roundtable. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She said she had filed a formal complaint within the party about a party official who had called her a neo-Nazi because of her beliefs. “Why is this person more accepted in our party than me?” she asked without naming the official. Her office responded to a request for comment by referring to the recorded livestream of the antisemitism roundtable.
Nessel’s declaration comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel. El-Sayed is surging in polls despite a reported $30 million spent against him by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and its supporters, whom he has made a target of criticism from the campaign trail.
Nessel’s comments also follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement convention in April, where Stevens was booed by attendees. A third primary candidate who later dropped out of the race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, said a convention attendee had targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.
The incident has fueled alarm among Jewish Democrats, according to Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“She’s not alone,” Soifer told JTA about Nessel on Friday. “We’ve heard from other Jewish Democrats who attended the Democratic Party convention earlier this year in Michigan, and there was a sense of discomfort amid what felt like a pro-Palestinian protest [that] may have even blurred the line for some into antisemitic sentiment — and it’s really concerning.”
Nessel has raised the alarm about antisemitism within the party for years, alleging in 2024 that Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice, had been antisemitic when criticizing charges Nessel filed against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan.
For her part, Alexander said she would be participating in the nominating convention and said she believed the chair of the state Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, had been “very accessible and very open to making sure that we, including our Jewish elected officials, feel safe in that space.” But she said she understood why Nessel was staying away.
“It would never even occur to me, but I’m not an elected official,” Alexander said. “It’s a different stake for me than it is for Dana. I understand her completely.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’
(JTA) — Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates used the label for the first time.
But the rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with conditions in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.
“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”
The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argues that using the term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis say.
“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continue. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”
The statement comes days after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. Jackson now faces Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election.
Platner’s romp to the primary victory featured routine use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.
The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Too many Maine Democrats are cynically willing to trade in that currency at the expense of our safety and dignity,” she said in an emailed statement. “We decided we needed to say something collectively, both about the specious and dangerous nature of the claim, and about how much damage has been done to our families and congregants.”
The statement Friday was spearheaded by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and signed by every congregational rabbi in the state, including Rabbi Bill Siemers of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor and Rabbi Erica Asch of the Reform Temple Beth El in Augusta. (Rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement in Maine did not appear on the signatory list.)
Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, said the federation hoped the “unity displayed here in Maine can inspire Jewish communities across the US to also unite against the extremist rhetoric harming our community and our children.”
Rabbi Josh Stanton, the associate vice president of interfaith and intergroup initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America, also hailed the joint statement.
“Maine’s Jewish clergy are setting an important example with their call to put aside inflammatory rhetoric and look to the common good,” Stanton said in an emailed statement. “At a time of rising polarization and declining civil discourse, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s efforts to unify the community around this important message are a mark of true leadership.”
Isaacs told JTA that she hoped Jackson would “support, understand, and advocate for all of Maine’s citizens, including the totality of Maine’s diverse Jewish community.”
“Work with us to figure out how to express outrage and legitimate critique of Israel’s government without succumbing to language that you might not know is an ancient antisemitic trope, or dismissing the security needs of Israel’s citizens,” Isaacs said of her message to Jackson. “Please have the courage to forge your own path, and not follow in the footsteps of Graham Platner, a man who should have never been normalized, endorsed, or empowered.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song
(JTA) — Boy George has withdrawn from his run as King Herod in London’s West End revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” days before he was due to take the stage and 24 hours after releasing “We Will Dance Again,” dedicated to the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the Nova music festival in Israel.
The 80’s pop star was scheduled to appear at London’s Palladium starting Monday as part of the production’s rotating cast playing King Herod, the Judean king who is best known by Jews for his expansion of the Second Temple and to Christians for his efforts to stave off the arrival of a challenger — the story of which is reflected in the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
Boy George will be replaced by actor Richard Armitage in the London production.
In announcing the cast change, Paul Kelmsley, the singer’s manager, did not directly mention the blowback the former Culture Club frontman was receiving for releasing a pro-Israel song but alluded to it.
“George has never been afraid to stand by his personal convictions, and I have always respected him for that,” he said. ”In this instance, I felt it was right to step aside, allowing the production to remain the focus, while ensuring everyone involved can move forward with mutual respect and goodwill.”
Boy George is defending his decision to release the song, saying he believes artists should be free to express their views even when they are unpopular. In “We Will Dance Again,” the singer rejects claims of genocide against Israel and proclaims, “If you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews.”
Earlier Friday, Boy George lashed back at the vitriol he was getting online. “What is most shocking is the amount of gay folk attacking me, ” he posted on X. “If you support terrorism you can in the words of Divine ‘Take your toolkit and go f—_ a garage,’” he said, referring to a quote attributed to the taboo-breaking transgender artist.
“When I say ‘they want to kill every last one of us’ I am also talking about us queers, not just the Jewish community,” Boy George said. “When will you wake up?”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song appeared first on The Forward.
