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Art

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Episode 15: A Day at the Met with the Mixed-Up Files

Beloved children’s book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler turns 50 this year. E.L. Konigsburg’s best-selling novel tells the story of two suburban children who run away to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. To celebrate the book’s anniversary—and to gear up for summer reading—Can We Talk? took two ten-year-old girls to the Met for an official tour retracing Claudia and Jamie Kincaid’s week in the museum. Tune in to join us on the tour and to hear an interview with Konigsburg’s daughter and a conversation with the girls about why the proper yet rebellious Claudia Kincaid still resonates with today’s young readers.

Liana Finck

Liana Finck finds new angles of approach into her life and Jewish history through her whimsical and expressive autobiographical cartoons.
Lynne Avadenka in Yeshiva University Museum

Will You Hear My Voice: Artist Lynne Avadenka Revisits Rahel

Adina Kay-Gross

I first heard the lyrics of Zemer Nugeh, a poem by seminal pre-state Israeli poet Rahel, as a 14-year-old at summer camp in the early 90’s. I had no experience with heartbreak or loss, and yet the haunting words affected me. I’d spend the evenings walking through open green fields, kicking up dust at sweaty folk dancing sessions, feeling inspired by nature and Hebrew culture and pining for the summer when I’d get to spend six weeks in Israel.

Topics: Art
"Lotte Lenya" and Delaney Hoffman's Photo

Bravery In Negatives And Movement: Lotte Jacobi

Delaney Hoffman

Art as a form of healing. Art as a form of escape. Art as a form of human connection, or livelihood, or emotional fulfillment. Art as everything that you need it to be. 

Helene Aylon's Self Portrait, 2004

Artists For A Cause

Ariela Basson

While my Jewish views are different from Helène’s, she and I have similar artistic views. Just like Helène, I think art can be utilized as a powerful weapon to fight various forms of oppression and injustice. I believe that art ought to be used more often in the everlasting fight for gender equality. 

Topics: Feminism, Art
Elisheva Cohen

Icons for the New Year: Elisheva Cohen

Tara Metal

This Rosh Hashanah, I’m thinking about change. We look at transformation as something that happens overnight, but if the women I learn about every day at JWA are any indication, change happens in surprising ways and at unexpected times. It can be sudden or slow, a product of one determined action or years of effort.

Topics: Art
Illustration from "The Body Journey"

Body Talk: Delving into The Body Journey with Creator Miriam Ross

Julia Rubin


In a society where we’re constantly told what we should love and what we should hate about ourselves, we can forget that our bodies belong to us. There is little space for women to create their own narratives, express their own fears, and admire their own features. Artist Miriam Ross gives women the opportunity to do exactly this in her project, The Body Journey.

Topics: Feminism, Art

Hilary Price

At age 25, Hilary Price became the youngest-ever syndicated cartoonist when King Features Syndicate bought her comic Rhymes with Orange for distribution in 1995.

Karen Berger

As executive editor for DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, Karen Berger helped change the tone of mainstream comics, championing complex, challenging stories like Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta.

Jenette Kahn

Jenette Kahn rebranded National Periodical Publications as DC Comics, reviving the failing company as a proving ground for both experimental titles and reboots of iconic characters like Batman and Superman.

Gertrude Stein / Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn

Art World Innovators

Fostering Artists and Sparking Creative Conversation

Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn

Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn has helped shape the art world both directly as curator of three art galleries and indirectly as the host of salons where artists of all stripes have met and begun surprising collaborations.
Olivia Link's Bat Mitzvah

Discovering the Art of Prayer

Olivia Link

Adults may scoff, and my friends may hypocritically mock me, but I can never deny that I would want to stand out in a crowd. Whether a college application, a creative thesis for school, or even the food that I bring for lunch, I want to discover a personal uniqueness that I carry so I can have some special pride in my stride. Luckily for me, I can already claim an artistic and spiritual individuality that I bring to the table as a female Jew.

Topics: Feminism, Art, Dance, Prayer

Jeanette Ingberman, founder of Exit Art, is born

January 23, 1952

"You never walked away from a conversation with art curator Jeanette Ingberman without having learned something.”

Beate Sirota Gordon, 1987

Meet Beate Sirota Gordon – Who Knew?

Elizabeth Pleck

Beate Sirota Gordon (1923-2012), feminist and Asian arts impressario, was only 22 years old when she wrote women's rights into Japan’s constitution. In her postwar career as a director of performing arts, first for the Japan Society and then the Asia Society in New York City, she introduced Americans to Asian visual and performing arts, from Japanese wood block prints to Burmese music to Vietnamese puppets.

Topics: Women's Rights, Art, Law

Los Angeles’ Woman’s Building remembered

January 15, 2012

In 1973, artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila Levant de Bretteville, and art historian Arlene Raven set out to find a home in Los Angeles for the Feminist Studio Workshop (FSW), their new independent school for women artists. The space they chose occupied the site of the old Chouinard Art Institute near MacArthur Park.  The Woman’s Building, as they called their new home, was a hotbed of creativity and inspiration for the next 18 years.

Helene Aylon Book Launch, October 10, 2012

Helène Aylon: Artist, Ecofeminist, Author

Gabrielle Orcha

The room was filled with an open, excited energy.

Anita Steckel with her Painting "Skyline", 1974

Of Peonies & Penises: Anita Steckel’s Legacy

Deborah Fineblum Raub

Anita Steckel was 82 when she died last March. But Anita, her many fans would insist, was way younger than most of us will ever be.

Gyno-Star: Feminist Superhero

Meet Rebecca Cohen and Gyno-Star, the world’s first explicitly feminist superhero

Leah Berkenwald

Wonder Woman, created in the 1940s, showed the world that women could kick butt.

Topics: Feminism, Art, Writing
"Self-Portrait (for Graphic Details)" Miss Lasko-Gross, 2010

The Comic Book Diaries

Jessica Leader

As part of Yeshiva University Museum’s “Graphic Details – Confessional Comics by Jewish Women” event, I attended the October 24th “Close and Personal: Jewish Women Artists and Their Graphic Diaries” panel at the Center for Jewish History, which featured authors from the exhibition in dialogue about the confessional nature of comic book art. The panelists come from distinct backgrounds: Lauren Weinstein is the lead singer of a metaphysical rock band; Miss Lasko-Gross is creating an iPhone app about religious fundamentalism; Ariel Schrag is a lesbian screenwriter for HBO and Showtime series; and Miriam Katin is a holocaust survivor. Yet these women share a commonality: they are comic book creators with semi-autobiographical stories about coming of age as a Jewish woman.

Topics: Art, Writing
"Miss Etta and Dr. Claribel," by Susan Fillion

Miss Etta and Dr. Claribel: A new look into the lives of the Cone sisters

Ellen K. Rothman

Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s and 60s, we got our doses of high culture at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Who is Frida Kahlo?

Leah Berkenwald

Tomorrow we celebrate the 104th birthday of Frida Kahlo, a Mexican artist known for her striking self-portraits. Kahlo's work was largely influenced by pain after a bus accident left her with permanent disabilities, making her an inspirational figure from a disability point of view.

In 2006, conceptual identity performance artist Maya Escobar (@mayaescobar) created a Youtube video called "el es frida kahlo," below.

Forget Barbie; Dress Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Instead

Renee Ghert-Zand

Adding to the various portrayals of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas that are part of San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum’s current “Seeing Gertrude Stein” exhibit, reviewed recently in the Forward, are a set of paper dolls of the two women.

Topics: Art
"Toys in Babeland," by Vanessa Davis

Graphic Details: Interview with Vanessa Davis

Leah Berkenwald

Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women is the first museum exhibit to explore this unique niche of autobiographical storytelling by Jewish women. The touring exhibit, sponsored by The Forward, features the work of 18 Jewish women artists. The Jewish Women's Archive is interviewing each of the artists about their work and their experience as a female, Jewish graphic artist.

Topics: Art, Writing, Memoirs
"The Imposter Daughter" by Laurie Sandell, excerpt page 1

Graphic Details: Interview with Laurie Sandell

Leah Berkenwald

Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women is the first museum exhibit to explore this unique niche of autobiographical storytelling by Jewish women. The touring exhibit, sponsored by The Forward, features the work of 18 Jewish women artists. The Jewish Women's Archive is interviewing each of the artists about their work and their experience as a female, Jewish graphic artist.

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