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Miriam Yasgur

Project
Barnard: Jewish Women Changing America

Judith Rosenbaum interviewed Miriam Yasgur on October 29, 2005, in New York, New York as part of the Barnard: Jewish Women Changing America Oral History Project. Yasgur discusses her progressive Orthodox Jewish upbringing, her struggle with feminism in that context, and her journey to integrate feminism and religious practices into her life, including her art.

Animal drawings by Liana Finck on orange gradient background

Making Space

Judy Ruden

In Liana Finck's exploration of the kabbalistic concept of Tsimtsum, the idea of God's contraction as a means of creation, I find the beginnings of a Jewish feminist future. 

Mindy Weisel

Project
Washington D.C. Stories

Deborah Ross interviewed Mindy Weisel on October 19, 2010, in Washington, DC, as part of the Washington D.C. Stories Oral History Project. Weisel reflects on her childhood, the impact of her family's Holocaust legacy, and her journey as an artist to express emotions, find beauty amidst darkness, and foster person-to-person connections for hope and healing.

Amalie Rothschild

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Jean Freedman interviewed Amalie Rothschild on August 19, 2001, in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Rothschild details her life journey, from growing up in Baltimore suburbs, studying art, getting married, raising her children, and pursuing a successful career as an abstract artist and sculptor, while navigating her Jewish identity and the evolving role of women.

Janet Kaplan

Project
Women Whose Lives Span the Century

Rachel Alexander interviewed Janet Printz Kaplan on November 6, 1997, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as part of the Women Whose Lives Spanned The Century Oral History Project. Kaplan discusses her upbringing in Brookline, her experiences at Temple Israel, her love for art and dogs, her marriage and family life, community involvement, and her close relationship with a German exchange student who was born in a concentration camp.

Letter from Nāzuk bat Yosef

A Millennium of Jewish Women’s Voices

Sarah Bunin Benor
Abby Graham

HUC-JIR's Jewish Language Project shares their recent exhibit highlighting Jewish women’s voices throughout history in twenty Diaspora Jewish languages.

Muriel Pokross

Project
Women Whose Lives Span the Century

Ellen Rovner interviewed Muriel Pokross on December 20, 1996, and June 30, 1997, in Belmont, Massachusetts, for the Women Whose Lives Spanned the Century Oral History Project. Pokross reflects on her experiences during significant historical events, her efforts to aid Jewish refugees, and her career as a rehabilitation counselor, while emphasizing the passing down of values and her close family bonds.

Susan Leader

Project
DAVAR: Vermont Jewish Women's History Project

Sandra Stillman Gartner and Ann Buffum interviewed Susan Leader on July 23, 2008, in Andover, Vermont, as part of DAVAR's Oral History Project. Leader discusses her family's history, her upbringing in rural Vermont, her passion for pottery, her education, and her reflections on raising children in the Jewish tradition.

Olga Shmuylovich

Project
Soviet Jewry

Alexandra Kiosse interviewed Olga Shmuylovich on July 24, 2016, in Boston, Massachusetts, as part of the Soviet Jewry Oral History Collection. Shmuylovich details her upbringing in the Soviet Union, her involvement in the Jewish artist movement, her artistic journey under the mentorship of Solomon Levin, her immigration to the United States, her artistic career in Boston, and her inspirations from Jewish culture and history in her artwork.

Alan Gerson

Project
Katrina's Jewish Voices

Rosalind Hinton interviewed Alan Gerson on August 3, 2007, in New Orleans, as part of the Katrina's Jewish Voices Oral History Project. Gerson discusses his family history, childhood as a Jew in New Orleans, college experience, artistic pursuits, evacuation and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, emotional toll, community support for artists, disillusionment with the government, and a vivid memory of an abandoned beach ball after the storm.

Anita Brenner

Anita Brenner, an anthropologist, journalist, and art historian, was born in Aguascalientes, Mexico, to Jewish immigrants from Latvia and grew up in Mexico and Texas. She was an important part of the Mexican Renaissance cultural scene, and the internal tension she experienced as Mexican, American, and Jewish provided her with insight into both Mexican and Jewish identity.

Collage with Image of Molly Picon from "Yidn Mitn Fidl," Background of Wallpaper of Shooting Stars

Activism Through Art: Molly Picon's Legacy

Abigail Gilman

I think about Molly Picon, and how she utilized her love of storytelling to bring laughter to those who needed it, to foster pride and compassion in the Jewish community, and to fight to keep Yiddish theater alive.

Vera Frances Salomons

An elusive figure, Vera Salomon, who belonged to the interconnected network of Anglo-Jewish families known as “the Cousinhood,” is best remembered for founding and funding the L.A. Mayer Museum of Islamic Art in Jerusalem. This was the culmination of a longstanding philanthropic commitment to Jewish life in what would become the State of Israel.

The Berber Bride in the Salon, by Esther Benmaman, 2002

Rethinking the Canon: Today's Moroccan Jewish Women Painters

Tamara Kohn

Who belongs in the canon? And who gets to tell the stories of Moroccan Jews?

Topics: Art, Jewish History

Gertrud Bing

Art historian Gertrud Bing was a key figure at the Warburg Institute, a research library focused on the afterlife of antiquity in the art of the Renaissance. Beginning as personal assistant to the Institute’s founder, Aby Warburg, and ultimately becoming its director, Bing helped develop and disseminate iconology, a methodology that investigates the social, historical, and cultural meanings of themes and subjects in artworks and that transformed twentieth-century art history.

Ruth Adler Schnee wins the Kresge Eminent Artist Award

January 28, 2015

On January 28, 2015, at the age of 91, Ruth Adler Schnee was honored with the prestigious Kresge Eminent Artist Award in recognition of her influential career as one of the founding figures of contemporary textile design in the United States.

Jewish Women’s Comics and Graphic Narratives

The history of Jewish women’s comics and graphic novels can be traced back to early and mid-20th-century progenitors. With the underground comics scene of the late 1960s/early 1970s, several Jewish women laid the groundwork for the themes, styles, and communal ties that would be taken up by the post-underground. In the 21st century, the works of Jewish women in comics and graphic novels is booming.

Mirta Kupferminc

Mirta Kupferminc (b.1955) is an internationally recognized contemporary Argentine Jewish artist. For the past four decades, she has explored memory, culture, history, and language, in a variety of art media.

Cover Illustration from Micah Bazant's "TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine": an illustrated figure with horns, and a star of David drawn on their chest, holds a needle and scissors connected to thread stitched across the figure's chest.

How “TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine” Taught Me to Be a Sexy, Smart, Creative, Productive Jewish Genderqueer

Avivit

I discovered Micah Bazant’s “TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine” in early high school, at a critical juncture (read: identity crisis).

Topics: Art, Religion
2019-2020 Rising Voices Fellows Zine Cover Page Cropped

An RVF Zine: Reflecting on the 2019-2020 Rising Voices Fellowship

Rising Voices Fellows

The 2019-2020 Rising Voices Fellows reflect on their time in the Fellowship and on their collaborative zine-making process.

Topics: Activism, Art, Writing
Collage by Lila Goldstein

Collaging in Quarantine

Lila Goldstein

Collaging is an old hobby of mine that has taken on new value during this pandemic.

Topics: Art, Crafts
Sneaker with butterflies on it

Butterflies and What They Mean to Me

Lila Zinner

I love butterflies because, to me, butterflies represent freedom and bliss.

Siona Benjamin

Born in Mumbai, India, Siona Benjamin is an artist now living in the New York City area.

Olga Shmuylovich

An artist whose work is rooted in Jewish identity, Olga Shmuylovich spent the first part of her life trying unsuccessfully to emigrate from the Soviet Union, until finally resettling in Boston with her husband, also an artist, in 1992.

"The Liberation of G-D Proclamation," by Helene Aylon, 1990-1996

Helène Aylon: Rescuing G-d from the Patriarchy

Peri Levin

As far as I was concerned, religion was a conservative cult, and Abrahamic faiths didn’t seem to be interested in powerful women expressing themselves. I recently discovered Helène Aylon, an artist whose projects and story bring these struggles of faith and feminism into focus.

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