A celebration of Jewish life

A celebration of Jewish life — that’s what the Jewish Children’s Museum in Brooklyn is all about. Think Jewish history, culture and traditions brought to life through exhibits and programs featuring hands-on learning and contemporary technology.

Museum materials note that it’s “a setting for children of all faiths and backgrounds to gain a positive perspective and awareness of the Jewish heritage, fostering tolerance and understanding.” The diversity of Jewish culture is well-represented by a giant face on the front of the museum — a composite of smaller photographs of vastly different faces.

The museum has welcomed more than 500,000 visitors since opening in April 2005 — and is “dedicated to the memory of Ari Halberstam, the 16-year-old Yeshiva student who was shot and killed by a terrorist on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994.”

I toured all but the fourth floor during a recent visit to NYC, because new “Voyage through Jewish History” exhibits were under construction. They’ll debut during an April 9 grand opening celebration. These new exhibits include “Patriarchs and Matriarchs,” “Mount Sinai Experience,” “Temple and Tabernacle,” “Land of Israel,” “Sages through the Ages,” “Jewish World Today,” “The Holocaust” and “One Good Deed.”

I first explored the second floor, where dozens of elementary-age school children with chaperones were enjoying interactive activities. While there, I lingered to admire the remarkable details of a 20-foot original mosaic by Chassidic artist Michoel Muchnik — plus a Michael Schwartz work featuring 387,000 letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

Next I headed to the third floor, home to exhibits titled “6 Days of Creation,” “Shabbat,” “Kosher Supermarket,” “Kosher Kitchen” and “World of Good.” Also “Jewish Holidays” — where I walked through the replica of an old-fashioned shtetl (village) in which children explore the Jewish holiday cycle through hands-on activities like retelling the Purim story with puppets or reading about Passover while exploring a giant Seder plate.

Finally, I made my way to the fifth floor, where I discovered a miniature golf area dubbed “Six Holes of Life” and a “Gallery of Games” with giant wall-mounted activity boards that let children search for hidden Jewish treasures, create images of Jewish objects with light and more.

The Jewish Children’s Museum makes clear the power of coupling education with entertainment in the service of understanding and appreciating history, culture and tradition. I can’t help wondering what it might be like to explore a children’s museum spotlighting the art, history, beliefs, practices and people of all the world’s religions.

— Lynn

Note: The Jewish Museum New York invites you to celebrate Passover by exploring their online collection — which you can click here to enjoy.

Coming up: Quilting for justice, What’s new at Valley museums?

Art meets religion

Artwork provided by artists readying the "Miracle Report" exhibition at the ASU Art Museum

Five religions. Fifty-plus examples. More than 1500 years. That’s what you’ll experience during an exhibition titled “Sacred Word and Image: Five World Religions” coming to the Phoenix Art Museum Wed., Jan 4, 2012. Folks who find their way to the museum at noon that day can enjoy a 30-minute gallery talk by Janet Baker, Ph.D., the musuem’s curator of Asian art.

The exhibition features items from the museum’s collection as well as several private collections in Arizona — and “explores themes of sacred space, language, otherwordly visions and miraculous events, symbols of power and divine beauty in Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic and Christian works of art.”

Featured objects will include manuscripts, textiles, prayer rugs, gilded shrines, icons, jeweled reliquaries and painted altarpieces. The Phoenix Art Museum has documented the exhibition by creating its first electronic catalogue — featuring short essays by Arizona experts on five world religions and detailed digital photographs. The exhibition runs through Mar. 25, 2012.

The film “Kundun,” which explores the life of Tibet’s 14th Dalai Lama, will be screened at the Phoenix Art Museum at 1pm on Mar. 4, 2012. The film, directed by Martin Scorsese, examines issues faced by the young Buddhist leader — including Chinese oppression and other social obstacles — and considers how the Dalai Lama’s faith guided his politics. It’s being presented by the ASU Center for Film, Media and Popular Culture.

The Phoenix Art Museum presents another religion-related exhibition through Jan. 22, 2012. “Seeing is Believing: Rebecca Campbell and Angela Ellsworth” features artwork by L.A. artist Campbell and Phoenix artist Ellsworh, both of whom “spent their childhoods in Utah and within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”

The “Seeing isBelieving” exhibition features painting, sculpture and installations that “touch on memory and nostalgia but are grounded in the present and the reinterpretation of their experiences as well as Mormon traditions and practices.” Ellsworth’s great-great grandfather was the fifth prophet of the Mormon church.

The ASU Art Museum at Arizona State University in Tempe presents an exhibition titled “Miracle Report: Juliane Swartz and Ken Landauer, Social Studies 8″ from Jan. 21-June 2, 2012. The opening reception takes place Tues., Jan. 20 from 5-7pm. “Social Studies” is an artist-in-residence program at the museum.

Artists Swartz and Landauer will “explore the miraculous through people’s perceptions of it in their lives, interviewing students, school children and community members of all ages and backgrounds” — then combine their findings into “an installation of fleeting vignettes.” The artists envision a final product that blends beauty, hocus-pocus and unexplainable magic.

This project is supported by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as part of the Social Studies series. Initiated by John D. Spiak, the “Miracle Report” exhibition is curated by Heather Sealy Lineberry with Nicole Herden.

“The idea is that miracles come in all flavors, shapes and sizes,” according to Deborah Sussman Susser with the ASU Art Museum. “So religion will play a role for some, and not for others.” Folks interested in retelling their own miracles — or inviting an artist to record miracles recounted by members of a community group — can contact Herden at nicole.herden@asu.edu.

— Lynn

Note: For some, the debate over guns takes on near religious fervor. Folks interested in second amendment related-issues can experience “Securing a Free State: The Second Amendment Project — Jennifer Nelson, Social Studies 7″ curated by Lekha Hileman Waitoller at the ASU Art Museum through Dec. 31, 2011. Susser notes that the museum is open 11am-5pm on Sat., Dec. 31.

Coming up: How low can you go?, Library meets love affair

Plays on Jewish identity

See Josh Kornbluth perform at the Herberger Theater Center through Sunday

Valley audiences have two chances this month to explore issues of Jewish identity through the medium of performance art — as two plays take to Phoenix stages.

First, “Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?” presented by Actors Theatre through this Sunday at the Herberger Theater Center in downtown Phoenix.

It’s a reflection by playwright and monologist Josh Kornbluth on a series of Andy Warhol prints that caused quite a stir when first exhibited in 1980.

The prints feature ten prominent Jews of the 20th century– including Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Louis Brandeis, George Gershwin, Golda Meir, Sarah Bernhardt, Sigmund Freud and the Marx brothers.

Kornbluth’s show is described as “an irreverent mix of autobiography, music, philosophy and improvisation.” It’s “a wide-ranging meditation on art and religion” that recounts, in non-liner fashion, how Kornbluth’s discovery of his own “Jewishness” was fueled by Warhol’s work.

Tickets for remaining performances are available for just $15, making this one of the best theater values in town. Perhaps Kornbluth’s musings will even inspire you to discover your own “artistness.”

See Michael Kary, Ben Tyler and Andrea Dovner perform with Arizona Jewish Theatre Company starting March 24 (Photo: Mark Gluckman)

Second, “My Name is Asher Lev” by the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company presented March 24-April 3 at the John Paul Theatre on the campus of Phoenix College.

“My name is “Asher Lev,” by Aaron Posner, is based on a novel of the same name authored by Chaim Potok. It’s the story of a young Hassidic painter in New York City who’s torn between his observant Jewish community and his need to create.”

Themes include beauty, truth, ambition and tradition. Plus “difficult choices” — between “art and faith” as well as “passion and family.”

Both works consider what it means to be Jewish and what it means to be an artist — but by vastly different means. Seeing both, I think, presents a rare opportunity to explore the diversity and depth of modern-day storytelling.

— Lynn

Note: When you visit the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company website, be sure and check out information on their summer theater camps for youth. With any luck at all, Kornbluth will decide to do a summer camp for grown-ups.

Coming up: That’s absurd!