Dwelling, Passover Edition

by Ronit Muszkatblit, Director of Arts and Culture, Artistic Director of LABA Dwelling in a Time of Plagues is a Jewish Artist collaboration that spans six cities: NYC, Baltimore, Toronto, Boston, Charlotte and Detroit, funded by CANVAS a Jewish Funders Network.  Seven Jewish artists have created original pieces that represent a current plague of our

New Year נומי: Choose to be a Dreamer

by 2021 LABA Fellow Dvir Cahana The theme for this year’s Laba art fellowship is “Chosenness”. And so, in writing this blog, one question keeps coming up in my mind. What makes this week chosen from all other weeks? This weekend is a very exciting weekend in the Jewish calendar. Not because I am going

The Revolution Will Be Open Questions and Listening…Live

by Rebecca S’manga Frank, 2021 LABA Fellow Thank you Gil Scott Heron (not me) for the reminder that whatever the revolution is, it does not happen in a virtual world from home. That means that revolutionary change would appear to be hamstrung by the Covid-19 pandemic, but not necessarily so. There are at least two

The LABA Fellows Have Been CHOSE-N!

By, Laura Beatrix Newmark, Director of LABA NY Welcome to a new year of LABA. A new year of ancient questions and modern realities. A new year of investigating the core tenet of much of Judaism, to ask questions, and that very elusive concept of choice and chosenness. This is a year like no other,

TO EVERY SEASON, THERE IS A CHOICE

By Laura Beatrix Newmark, Director of LABA NY Hillel said many things in his lifetime but a particular few lines has gotten more air time in recent years than many other Rabbinic scholars. “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I’m only for myself, who am I? If not now,

Every Minute Matters

by, Ronit Muszkatblit, Director of Arts & Culture, Artistic Director of LABA These days, when I watch a movie, or a video of a dance or theater piece, the first thing that strikes me is that I am watching a world from the past: the people are in crowded rooms together, they are hugging, touching

The Jew Without Memory

by LABA Rabbinic Fellow Kendell Pinkney Several years ago, I was fortunate to travel to Stockholm with a group of young American and European Jewish lay leaders and entrepreneurs to take part in a Jewish life program. The program was described as a week-long intensive where we would discuss “big Jewish ideas,” study with renowned

DWELLING IN A TIME OF PLAGUES

JEWISH ARTISTS & MUSEUMS LAUNCH GROUNDBREAKING DWELLING IN A TIME OF PLAGUES. Coinciding with the Jewish holidays of Sukkot and Passover, outdoor artinstallations — in Portland, Ore., LA, Tucson and New York — respond to contemporary crises. At a time when artists, along with countless others, are facingunprecedented challenges as a result of the global

Project America

LABA Rabbinic Intern Kendell Pinkney interrogates the meaning of America today. ‘I wish I could be optimistic,’ I uttered hesitatingly, my eyes more pinned to the ground than on the faces arrayed across my computer screen, ‘but to be real, I think I am done with the American Project.’ As soon as the words dribbled