The Lilith Blog

February 23, 2021 by admin

Jewish Artists of Color: A Candid Conversation

Inspired in large part by a call to action put out by No Silence on Race last summer to build a more inclusive, anti-racist Jewish community in Canada, FENTSTER (Yiddish for ‘window’) gallery has focused on programming work by Black and Jewish artists — first in their street-front window gallery in downtown Toronto, exhibiting new work by photo-video artist Ella Cooper, followed by an online conversation and artist showcase that has been viewed over 500 times. Out of those initial projects, an idea was born to create a space specifically for Jewish Artists of Color to come together — a closed conversation that would be welcoming and safe, informal and intentional.

And so, FENTSTER curator Evelyn Tauben teamed up with No Silence on Race (whose founder — Sara Yacobi-Harris — is also a filmmaker, among many other things) to give shape to PRISM. Together, they assembled a diverse core team of JOC creatives from across North America — artists, performers, curators and producers from Toronto, Texas, New York and Vancouver. The PRISM core team includes Rabbinical student/theatre artist Kendell Pinkney, Carmel Tanaka – founder of one of Canada’s only Jewish queer trans organizations, JQT Vancouver, writer / cultural producer Devyani Saltzman, dancer/community organizer Adam McKinney and No Silence on Race’s Yacobi-Harris. Over the last months, this group has been dreaming up a context to allow fellow JOC artists and arts professionals to be able to come together with the hopes of building connections, artistic collaborations and community. Despite the limitations of the pandemic, the move to online gatherings presents possibly the best moment yet to begin to seed a new Jewish creative network.

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January 14, 2020 by admin

Winnipeg Jews & the Garment Industry

 A STITCH IN TIME! Winnipeg, Manitoba in the 20th century was a hub of the garment industry, and Jews were involved in its manufacturing, retail and union organizing, as the sector moved from a cottage industry sewing farmers’ work clothes to factories of high fashion. Historians of this prairie city note that the shift was driven in part by the success of the movement for women’s suffrage. As women’s presence in the clerical workforce became more accepted, women needed clothing for these new roles. An online exhibition explores the history of Winnipeg’s garment industry

and its relation to the city and its Jewish community. It also describes the industry today, and how it has changed since its beginnings at the end of the 19th century. Integrating photographs, documents, oral histories, and artifacts with interviews with factory owners, workers, and labor personali- ties, this modest Canadian exhibition considers itself a starting point and welcomes the addition of your stories, photos and memorabilia. The Jewish Heritage Center of Western Canada. jhcwc.org

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