Monday, August 20, 2012

A Proustian Moment


It has been a long time since I have written on this blog.

It has not been for a lack of things to write about, but the insignificance of my own ups and downs pretty much snuffed enthusiasm.  Or perhaps, as a person of faith and a student of sacred texts, all the outrages brought by "religious authorities" have worn me down.  I became sleepy.

However, something about the recent conviction of three young artists in Russia for hooliganism has reawakened me, a very Proustian moment - an involuntary autobiographical memory - to when I was 24 years old and passionate about the Soviet Jewry movement.

On June 22nd, 1978, it was reported that a Soviet Court sentenced Vladimir Slepak, 50, to five years internal exile and Ida Nudel, 40, to four years after they were convicted of malicious hooliganism in separate courts for a silent protest they staged from their apartment windows. They were seeking religious freedom from the Soviet State.

On August 17, 2012, three young Russian artists, in a band called Pussy Riot (Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich) were found guilty by a Russian Court of hooliganism. They were seeking freedom from religion: the close connection between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian State.

Time to wake up.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Camp Swig Poster Workshop

I was honored by the request of the online journal Jewish Educational Leadership to submit a contribution to the summer 2011 edition, "The Arts in Jewish Education." No better way to describe the Camp Swig Poster Workshop than to collaborate with Lisa Sloane, then a young teen, now a multi-media artist.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B1WofNEKVNfdODVjM2VlNTAtMzBkNS00MDI3LWJkNzItOWZkNmE5M2YxMzg0&hl=en_US