Please wait...
Tag : quarantine
January 25, 2021 by admin
A Performer Forbidden Her Audience
ILANNA STARR, 25
I am an opera singer. It has been almost a year since I last entered a concert hall, performed for an audience, or had an in-person rehearsal. My industry has been forced to close all doors, cancel performances and wait.
I know this is what we have to do to protect artists, neighbors and loved ones. Yet, the uncertainty of when we will meet again in person has left me and most of my colleagues worried about careers we have spent our lives training for, and the future of the arts that give our lives meaning and beauty.
Today, my version of working from home means daily vocal practice, perfecting my diction in more than 10 different languages, learning new roles and repertoire, and creating and participating in virtual projects. All of this work, normally done in the company of teachers, coaches and colleagues, now takes place through my computer.
The transition to virtual life has rendered artists unable to make music with others in real-time and be heard, transforming the collaborative process of music making. Yes, technology affords some semblance of musical collaboration, but singing along with a karaoke track is challenging and confining, even after months of acclimatizing to this new reality.
I had taken for granted the fact that an audience would always be there to engage with, that I could make music together and in real-time with colleagues, and that I could learn and train in the same room as my teachers and coaches. This pandemic has amplified for me something I have long known: that my life has been fueled and energized by collaboration.
On my own, I have developed new skills. I have created a home studio to record projects, and learned more about sound engineering. I have grown my voice studio online and cherish the hours of the week that I get to share with my students. I have had more time to practice music that I love from all different genres and to better understand myself as an artist.
There have been so many days when I have been too overwhelmed by the state of the world to sing, days when words of encouragement to support fellow singers and friends are impossible to muster, and days when I have been consumed by existential questions and hopeless realizations about the future of performing arts.
But beneath these despondent moments, I believe that when our world opens up, people will pour into venues everywhere. So, though it would seem prudent to pivot and find a more lucrative career, I am more resolved than ever to continue honing my craft. It is extremely challenging to be an artist right now, but when this is all over my colleagues and I will be there to remind you of live art’s unique value—and how much you missed it.
Ilanna Starr is pursuing a Master of Music in Voice & Opera Performance at Northwestern University.
- No Comments
January 25, 2021 by admin
Is Gen-Z Alright?
Ten feminists, ages 18 to 27 squint at the future imperfect through a coming-out journal, religious faith, long-distance love, an opera career on pause, working retail to survive, and more.
From top left: Chaya Holch, Tziporah Herzfeld, Ilana Starr, Rachel Fadem, Rena Yehuda Newman, Kira Yates, Makeda Zabot-Hall, Abigail Fisher, Noa Wollstein, Arielle Silver-Willner
- No Comments
January 25, 2021 by admin
Battling Depression in Quarantine
RACHEL FADEM, 19
This September, I moved back to New York City, where I’m in school, and began online classes. With the new expectation that we should be performing our best, even with the restraints of the pandemic, my hard-won equilibrium from the summer faded. I missed large chunks of days from constant dissociation. I felt inhuman.
It took me about a month to recognize something was really wrong. My therapist asked me if I had any thoughts of death during one of our sessions. At that moment, I realized that I had been repressing serious mental health issues because I wanted to be “okay.”
I debated dropping out of school for the semester. I just couldn’t seem to deal with my responsibilities. I texted a friend because I needed to vent, and I knew that she would to listen. She called me and spent her night helping me make a plan for my mental health.
As we talked I realized that, in an effort to keep up with internships, student club boards, running my handcrafted jewelry business, and writing for pleasure—all on top of being a student and trying to manage my health– I had put too much on my plate. Since that conversation, I’ve been making an effort to emphasize self-care over my other responsibilities. I have been able to get more done, and I’ve been feeling better about my life, my future, and the world around me. I would still consider myself depressed, but I’m functioning. It’s the small victories that count.
I’ve been making a conscious effort to take every opportunity I can to find joy. If I don’t have anything due the next day, I spend my nights cooking for myself, doing an activity I enjoy, looking to my community to find comfort.
Now, even though I’m stuck inside for most of the day, I tell myself that I’m not alone. This pandemic has been difficult for so many and what we are able to produce or accomplish during this crisis does not determine our value.
—
For anyone in a crisis text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor.
Rachel Fadem is a Lilith intern and NYU sophomore studying journalism and gender and sexuality studies. She hopes to one day get paid to write about rape culture and sex work through a feminist lens. When she isn’t busy with school or working at Lilith, you can find Rachel listening to the You’re Wrong About podcast and making earrings.
- No Comments
January 25, 2021 by admin
A Faithful Young Jewish Woman Struggles to Understand Why…
There is nothing quite like being in shul on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I never feel the impact of the phrase, “k’eesh echad b’lev echad,” that the Jewish people are like one person with one heart, as strongly as I do on the High Holy Days, when everyone is gathered together and wearing emotions openly.
This year, however, because of the pandemic, the world I treasured so deeply was ripped from me. I have a neuromuscular condition which makes me immunocompromised, and I need to be hyper-careful, knowing that even completely healthy people have suffered horribly from this disease. I can’t take any chances of potentially getting the mysterious COVID-19, so for months I knew that I would not be able to go to shul in person for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Even with all of the safety precautions my congregation was taking, I realized I could not risk sitting next to someone who did not wear a mask at all, or did not wear it properly covering her nose and mouth.
Since I am a consistent shul-goer, it was difficult for me to reconcile myself to this. As a child, I sat with my mother rather than going to youth groups. My father took me to shul every Shabbos and Yom Tov. As I’ve gotten older, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are especially poignant and meaningful days for me, and I take the seriousness of the teshuva season extremely seriously.
The months of Elul and Tishrei are times of self-reflection. Yet, the beginning of the pandemic was instead a time of fear, anger, sadness, confusion. Of course, I am just a human being. Often, I wondered why Hashem is making this pandemic last so long. I questioned the curveball thrown into our daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly religious traditions, laws, and obligations; making it difficult to accomplish doing the mitzvot. Now, a few months later, I feel I’ve gained perspective.
Some people’s hardships are more evident, while other people have deep, secret hardships about which they do not speak. A human being is not defined by this. What defines a person is how he or she deals with, overcomes, or accepts hardship.
Sometimes we become too complacent, jaded, or ungrateful. When this happens I believe that Hashem sends us a message in order to shake us, wake us up, and show us that we need to do better, whether we need to be kinder and more understanding to ourselves, or to others. While it was painful for me to stay home on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I came to realize that I was not meant to be in shul. I stayed home this year so that, hopefully, Im Yirtzah Hashem, if God wills it, I can be there safely next year, and the years to come.
- No Comments
July 27, 2020 by admin
Immigration Activism Met Spirituality at Our Quarantine Seder
My husband, Aryeh, and I have been counting many things over the past several months: the days of quarantine; the omer, those days between Passover and Shavuot; the days that Darwin Ramos will remain with us in our home.
Aryeh and I were at an immigration protest at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Manhattan last August when we met Darwin for the first time. Aryeh is a Talmud professor and a community organizer, and had helped to organize this protest. Our observant and progressive Jewish communities convened for a ceremony to commemorate Tisha B’Av, and to highlight family separation and the deaths that were occurring on the border and in detention centers. Darwin’s story was part of the ceremony. We heard about his torture at the hands of Honduran drug cartels who were threatened by his environmental activism, the journey he took northward to save his life, and his experiences as an asylum-seeker here in the U.S. That day we got just a chapter of his story.
A mutual friend introduced us. He was helping Darwin to secure reliable housing after release from the Adelanto Detention Center. We were about to become empty-nesters. Could we take him in? We had a lot of questions. How would we explain kashrut and Shabbat? Would he be okay without being able to cook meat in the house? We have one shower in our house, would that be comfortable for him and for us? With my college Spanish and Aryeh’s very basic activist Spanish, would we be able to communicate if there were things that weren’t working for him or for us? What would it feel like for us to have a stranger living in our home?
We were all beginning to feel more comfortable with one another. When Darwin and I were in the kitchen at the same time, we might get caught up in animated conversations: national and global politics, family, religion. Occasionally, I walked into the kitchen to find Aryeh in a theological conversation, via Google Translate, with Darwin, who had attended seminary as part of his activist training. Darwin is enthusiastic and curious, warm and intelligent, fierce in his perspectives but gentle in demeanor. Darwin’s lawyer had connected him with the Project for Torture Victims. As he worked with the psychologist, Darwin slowly began sharing more of his story.
ANDREA HODOS, The Lilith Blog
- No Comments
May 28, 2020 by admin
When Will the Counting End?
The Jewish holiday of Shavuot starts tonight. My husband, Aryeh, and I have been counting many things over the past several months: 1) the days of quarantine. 2) the omer. 3) the days that Darwin Ramos will remain with us in our home. Like everything else this year, Shavuot will be different. Not only because of the quarantine, but also because we will be spending this holiday in quarantine with Darwin.
- No Comments
April 14, 2020 by admin
All-of-a-Kind Seder in the Time of Covid-19
In the unfolding of COVID-19, while some friends were frantically dashing back to Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven or Ling Ma’s Severence, I reached for All-of-a-kind Family, by Sydney Taylor. It’s an old children’s book, doubly old—published in 1951 and set in 1912—about the five all-of-a-kind sisters, dressed alike and running around in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, surrounded by their fellow Jews. It was the confluence of two events that brought it to mind—quarantine and Passover.
- No Comments
April 1, 2020 by Rebecca Katz
Migraines in Quarantine: A Comic
I’ve never tried to draw my migraines before. Then again, I’ve never lived during a pandemic before, so there are so many new things happening in my life. I found my couple of weeks working from home busier and more stressful than before the crisis, but without my normal valves to control my anxiety. It all erupted in a fantastic migraine that kept me company for many days.
- No Comments