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The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and CultureAuthor: Joshua Rose
We are right at the beginning of what some have called "The 21st Century Jewish Cultural Renaissance," and The Genesis is the podcast watching it unfold, in real time and up close. Each week Rabbi Josh Rose has a conversation with a different Jewish artist or cultural figure to explore questions of artistic creativity, individual Jewish identity, Jewish expression and how Jewish arts are reshaping what it means to be Jewish. Our main focus in on the artists from Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture, and Jewish artists in the Pacific Northwest. Rabbi Josh also engages national leaders (Rabbi Shai Held of Hadar, Seth Pinksy of New York's 92nd Street Y) about the broader world of Jewish culture. So, if you're interested in 21st century Jewish life, Jewish ideas, Jewish arts or just good conversation, you're in the right place. *The Genesis was originally a podcast of Co/Lab, founded by Rabbi Josh. Today the Genesis is a production of Art/Lab where Rabbi Josh continues to shape its unfolding. Language: en-us Genres: Religion, Religion & Spirituality Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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S3E21 Is Creativity the Bridge Between the Jewish Past and Future?
Episode 21
Tuesday, 18 November, 2025
Today's conversation is with artists historian and Jewish educator, Leila Wice, someone whose life pretty much explodes the idea that Judaism has to be either religious or secular, or traditional or creative. In fact, it can be all those things. Leila is an art lab alum but started out as a historian of 19th century Japan, so she's journeyed quite away. She was obsessed with the idea that objects or texts as she talks about, and she'll actually share an object with us,, which you can see in video. It exemplifies how an object can become a text and also exemplifies how reinvention and creativity lie at the core of her vision of what it means to be Jewish Over time and with a big push from Art La, her sensibility moved from the archive and her academic life into the studio and into her Jewish life. Leila talks also about the Jewish Studio Project and the impact that that had on her. And if you listen to last week's episode, you will have heard from the co-creator of the Jewish Studio Project, Rabbi Adina Allen, and you can go back and hear that episode if you want to understand the underpinnings of that. Leila and I discuss all of that and we cover a lot of other ground. We talk about the erased world of Yiddish modernist culture and how it's been reclaimed by feminists and queer artists. We talk about Refrom Judaism not as a watered down tradition, but as a bold engine of invention. And really at the heart of our conversation and underlying all of this, is a discussion about whether creativity itself is the real through line of Judaism after the destruction of the temple. So she brings her own experience of Jewish creativity from what she's learned. And from her own creative impulses and brings it all together in this vision that she has of what it means to live a Jewish life. Leila brings it all down to ground level with her work on mikvah, on ritual immersion, that is as a tool for transition, and on transforming broken glass from anti-Semitic vandalism into shimmering ritual art, which kind of encapsulates what she does. We also wrestle with fear and safety, armed guards or community peacekeepers, hiding damage or making art out of it, and what it all means to stay Jewishly rooted if you don't think of yourself as religious at all. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Leila Wice. Art/Lab: www.artlapdx.org Jewish Studio Project: https://www.jewishstudioproject.org  SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva: https://svara.org  Yiddish Book Center: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org  The Way We Think: A Collection of Essays from the Yiddish (2 vols., 1969) Joseph Leftwich (ed.), Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/15900/persepolis-by-marjane-satrapi  Monsters Are Afraid of the Dark, Marjane Satrapi
