Fine art is always on display at the JCC.
The JCC Taube Center for Jewish Peoplehood mounts multi-media art shows four times a year, presenting both local and international Jewish artists. These seasonal exhibitions highlight a variety of themes pertinent to the Jewish calendar, holidays, values, text, and traditions.
The exhibitions have featured work from prominent artists including Lawrence Kushner, Siona Benjamin, Laurie Wohl, Lauren Bartone, MIND the HEART!, Hillel Smith, and many others.
Exhibitions are well publicized and are enjoyed by all who visit the JCC.
Current Exhibit
January 8th – March 27th, 2024
Hillel: Radical Kindness
ARTISTS: Robin Atlas | Shoshannah Brombacher
Nancy Current | Karey Kessler
During the spring of this year, four artists, Robin Atlas, Shoshannah Brombacher, Nancy Current, and Karey Kessler read and studied Yitzhak Buxbaum’s book, The Life and Teachings of Hillel, together. Brombacher, who is also a recognized maggid (storyteller and teacher), was already quite familiar with Hillel and his teaching and had recommended the Buxbaum book to the group. Hillel and his teachings were a new experience for Atlas, Current, and Kessler, and their work in this exhibit is a direct result of their group study. Most of Brombacher’s work in this exhibit was created from her earlier study of the same subject matter.
Misery and hatred are the products of a toxic mix of intolerance, supremacism, and an unwillingness to listen to what others have to say. When convinced of their own superiority, people lose the ability to respect others’ ideas or ways of living, and feel they have the right to deny others the right to coexist in an equal way.
How different was Hillel’s attitude! He drew more people toward him with his spoonful of honey than others did with their barrel of vinegar, showing radical kindness to everybody, including people who disrespected him, and changed them for the good. Hesed (kindness), like gevurah (strength), is one of the mystical ten Sefirot, the attributes of HaShem (one of words for God). In this world, we need gevurah. But we need hesed even more. Striving for social justice through hesed is one way of doing tikun olam (repairing the world).
The genre of art in this exhibit is known as visual midrash. Midrash means commentary, and visual midrash is art which is commentary on Biblical or other texts. Visual midrash offers a fresh approach to teaching and learning, where an artist’s visual interpretations provide viewers with new ways to understand concepts of universal importance to humanity. It can make difficult ideas more accessible and provide a springboard for public discourse.
The precursor of modern visual midrash was the ancient use of imagery to tell stories and commentary from Torah and prophets on walls and floors of synagogues in the Middle East almost 2,000 years ago. One of the earliest known sites is the Dura Europos synagogue in Syria (244 CE). For several hundred years, synagogues in the holy land were fully decorated with paintings and mosaics of biblical stories which pre-date Christianity and its Byzantine mosaics. The rabbis obviously understood the value of this artwork for their communities. Since the 1970s visual midrash has had a resurgence in popularity and has become an important genre of contemporary Jewish art.