The Lilith Blog

October 8, 2020 by admin

Clamor in the Desert: A Shelter for Anyone Who Feels Forlorn

We are living in uncertain times. In Argentina, my home, the flights are almost totally suspended and the feeling of confinement and distance becomes more evident.

I am an artist born in this country to Auschwitz survivors. Their story of exile and loss of their homeland, their language, their culture, marked my life and of course my art. I always felt some responsibility to try to renew and make their ancestors’ culture live in their new chosen land. That choice was obviously by default since they arrived in Argentina clandestinely as refugees. 

Thus, borders, migrations and exiles, human rights, and the mother tongue have always been an essential core in my artistic concern, since I consider that art has the gift, but also the commitment to transmit and contribute to the formation of culture and popular thinking. 

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July 27, 2020 by admin

Comedy? You Bet!

LAURA BEATRIX NEWMARK is the Director of LABA at the 14th Street Y. Her work at the intersection of the arts, media, activism, community building and Jewish programming spans two decades.

At the 14th street Y’s LABA program, where artists study Jewish texts together and nurture their own work, we were supposed to do five nights of performances this spring—and we couldn’t. But we did put together a show—“Jewnight Show Pandemic Passover.” It was terrifying to do all this virtually.

It turns out we were ahead of the curve, as everything went virtual. Yet human beings need to be around people. It’s a nice interlude to provide theater virtually, but it’s hard not to connect in person.

In the meantime, to cope, I’ve been consuming comedy. We need it. From the beginning, the funny videos people post, the angst, the parodies are the only thing giving me comfort. The viral video of an Israeli mom complaining about having to homeschool (“Now, our children will find out how dumb we are. It’s not right!”) is a perfect example: comedy that gives us a release.

I had actually picked humor as the theme for LABA this year—we had a long discussion about how in Jewish humor there’s this balance between observant and profane, between intimacy and shared trauma; it’s all rooted in struggle. I think we are going to see interesting humor emerge. And just making people laugh is important.

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