Events Archive at the Center for New Jewish Culture.
Events Archive at the Center for New Jewish Culture.
ABUNDANT, RICH LIVES: RETURNING TO THE LESBIAN HERSTORY ARCHIVES SLIDESHOW, May 2024. A conversation between NJCF fellow, writer, curator, and photographer Ariel Goldberg, and longtime activists Alexis Danzig and Deborah Edel. As Lesbian Herstory Archives volunteers and community members, Deb and Alexis each worked closely with the slideshow in the late 1970s through the 1990s. The LHA slideshow was an ongoing project of the Archives that provided countless moments of education, connection, and personal transformation.
SONIC MUD: ABOVE GROUND, Album release party and performance, December 2023. New Jewish Culture Fellow Julia Elsas has spent the last nine years exploring the sonic potential of ceramic sculpture. During her time as a fellow, Elsas reimagined the Biblical musical instrument referred to as the “Ugav.” Contemporary interpretations of the Ugav describe it either as a reed or stringed instrument, while others interpret it as a pipe, end-blown flute, water organ, harp, or simply a love charm. Elsas brings the Ugav to life by creating playable sonic sculptures that are then activated by SONIC MUD, a band of professional musicians.
THE NECESSITY OF EXILE - by Shaul Magid, a book launch, December 2023. What is exile? What is diaspora? What is Zionism? Jewish identity today has been shaped by prior generations’ answers to these questions, and the future of Jewish life will depend on how we respond to them in our own time. In The Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance, celebrated rabbi and scholar Shaul Magid offers an essential contribution to this intergenerational process, inviting us to rethink our current moment through religious and political resources from the Jewish tradition.
THE DREAM PAST: A SONIC CONJURING, The Sway Machinery, September 2023. A new project of the “unclassifiable and uplifting” Brooklyn rock band - The Sway Machinery. Featuring the double-front of vocalists Yuli Ya’el Be’eri and band-leader Jeremiah Lockwood, the ace horn section of band-cofounders Stuart Bogie and Jordan McLean, and the great beauty of drummer John Bollinger, The Dream Past extends the band’s long running project of cantorial revival—excavating the otherworldly potentials of Jewish sacred music and lost melodies to instigate a party, break boundaries between communities, and touch the past.
MATERIAL/INHERITANCE: Contemporary Work by New Jewish Culture Fellows, Jewish Museum of Maryland, March - June, 2023. Featuring the work of 30 artists whose work has been supported by the New Jewish Culture Fellowship (NJCF), the exhibit builds on the current renaissance in boundary-pushing, community-building contemporary Jewish art cited recently in Artforum.
SEEING IT FOR THE TREES, a performative lecture by Liat Berdugo, Jewish Museum of Maryland, 2023. First commissioned for the exhibition “Material / Inheritance” at the Jewish Museum of Maryland (March 2023), this performative lecture critically examines the role of forests in the formation and maintenance of Zionism. Instead of using a central screen, this performative lecture uses live computer code to text images to the phones of audience members during the event.
HANUKKAH PARTY FT. ANTONIA LASSAR, December 2023. Jewish social media star Antonia Lassar (Just For Laughs, UCB, Mandel Fellow) was in town for one night only for this hilarious and meaningful night of Jewish comedy. Her dynamic show blends standup comedy and communal singing to tap into community building, nostalgia, and big-time summer camp vibes. It's a deeply personal story that asks: could our epidemic of isolation be solved entirely with a Debbie Friedman sing-along?? Audiences rave that this show is for every kind of Jew! From secular to frum to Jew-ish— everyone is material!
THAT'S HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN: A tribute concert to Leonard Cohen. Nobel laureate and modern-day prophet Leonard Cohen's timeless body of work as a songwriter, performer, and poet, spans more than 50 years and explores religion, politics, isolation, love, and mortality. His creations delved fearlessly into the essence of human existence, often doing so through the lens of Jewish history, texts and tradition. As we commemorate his 7th yahrzeit, cantors and ritual artists from Across Brooklyn join guitarist Dan Nadel, vocalist Shira Averbuch, and an ensemble of world-class musicians to celebrate his life and music.