 Program
Sunday, November 19, 2006, 9:30am-8:00pm, at the Bronfman Center at NYU
7 East 10th Street New York, NY 10003 (bet. 5th Ave. & University Place)
9:30
Opening “Lechaim”
Welcoming Remarks by Ruth Calderon, Founder of Alma Tel Aviv and Alma NY, and Irit Koren, Director of Alma New York
StorahStage: Artists from the Storahtelling Company present performances of live music, spoken word, and original storytelling throughout the day, at the café stage.
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| After Party |
Join the StorahStage musicians and Basya Schechter for the closing party, featuring live music, dancing and drinks! |
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Program details:
Hannah Pressman
Babel/Babble/Bible: Genesis 11:1-9 and the Problematics of Sacred Language:
Looking through the lens of translation theory and sacred language, this class will engage in a close reading of the deceptively simple Tower of Babel narrative, Genesis 11:1-9. Our discussion will be enhanced by excerpts from Jacques Derrida's essay "Des Tours de Babel," which sees Babel as a powerful symbol for different kinds of language confusion. We will come to a new understanding not only of this foundational Biblical myth, but also of the double-edged role that sacred language plays in our modern lives.
Text study And Beit Midrash.
Michael Paley
“And Lot’s Wife Turned”: Narratives of Conflict and Reconciliation
The story does not end with Lot’s wife turning to salt. Because of this incident friends and enemies were created that took thousands of years and many other stories to be resolved. We will explore Israel and Moab, Isaac and Ishmael, Judaism and Islam.
Text study.
Irit Koren and Abram Sterne
Adam's Tragic Flaws: A Failure of Empathy and Sexual Intimacy, as Seen Through the Story of Lilith and Eve:
Adam's zeal for naming the world is matched by his feelings of loneliness, yet he rejects Lilith who was formed from the same earth as his own. Even when he names Eve, a creation of his own body, and the gender stereotypes associated with man and woman are established, the story of Eden ends in failure. This session will utilize Jewish texts and psychological perspectives to look at the gender differences implicit in human relationships through the exemplars of Adam, Lilith and Eve, and how those differences can impact our lives.
Text study and discussion.
Yael Erel and Roy Tzohar
The Structure of Creation – A Philosophical and Spatial Debate
Yael Erel and Roy Tzohar will discuss the spatial and structural conceptions which underlie the act of creation in western and eastern creation myths, by examining them through the prism of philosophy and works of art and architecture.
Text Study.
Movie - Human Nature
Directed by Michel Gondry (director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Follows the ups and downs of an obsessive scientist, a female naturalist, and the man they discover, born and raised in the wild. As scientist Nathan (Tim Robbins) trains the wild man, Puff (Rhys Ifans) in the ways of the world - starting with table manners - Nathan's lover Lila (Patricia Arquette) fights to preserve the man's simian past, which represents a freedom enviable to most. In this philosophical love story, writer Charlie Kaufman exposes the perversities of the human heart and the idiosyncrasies of the civilized mind. Human Nature is a comical examination of the trappings of desire in a world where both nature and culture are idealized and through humor, explores the development of humanity.
Jill Hammer
The Generations of Adam: Analyzing the Birth and Death Dates of Matriarchs and Patriarchs:
We will look at how and why tradition assigns dates to the birth and death of matriarchs such as Sarah and Rebecca and patriarchs such as Isaac and Joseph. We'll discuss how the lives of our ancestors lend meaning to the Jewish calendar as a whole.
Text study And discussion.
Anat Litwin
Arche-trip-tych : Archetypes from the Book of Genesis:
This workshop will discuss archetypes from the Book of Genesis, and will relate to archetypal thinking from both contemporary psychology and contemporary art. Participants will be invited to become themselves creators of archetypes by exploring their own interpretation of biblical imagery through collage and writing, using a range of found materials including mass media print, Google images, art magazines and text. This process aims to offer a challenging opportunity for reflection and internalization of Jewish text through the creative process.
Hand on workshop of art and text.
Ruth Calderon, Dore Ashton and Ran Oron
The Mythical Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs and Some Other Caves:
The Talmudic stories of the Cave of Machpela and Rembrandt's paintings of Jews in 17th century Amsterdam will be our threshold into the space of the cave. Inside this real and metaphorical space of interiority, we will take a journey into darkness to discover a world of visions and enlightenment.
Text study.
Peter Pitzele and Amichai Lau-Lavie
Inside Sarah’s Box:
A taste of the 5 Books Club, featuring live bibliodrama and interactive text study in exploration of a lesser told tale from the Genesis archives.
Bibliodrama and interactive text study.
Movie - All I've Got (kol ma she-yesh li)
Directed by Keren Margalit. A grandmother dies and finds herself on a boat to the hereafter. On the boat she meets her first love, who was killed in a road accident in which they were both involved when they were young. She is presented with a fateful choice: to be in the afterlife as a 22-year-old – her age at the time of the accident – and to relinquish all her memories of the life she has lived with her husband and children; or to be with her husband as she is. .
Eve Keller and Ruby Namdar
“Perhaps I Shall be Built Up through Her”- Reconstructing Hagar:
In this session, a professor of literature and a fiction writer will piece together several passages in Genesis in order to build a portrait of Hagar, the Egyptian slave girl whom Sarai gives to her husband Abram in the hope that she, the still barren Sarai, will be “built up” through a surrogate’s son. Owned as property and eventually outcast, Hagar exists in diminished counterpoint to the main characters of the stories she inhabits. And yet her stories invite enrichment: though a slave girl, she, like Sarai, receives divine announcement of her conception, and she, like Sarai, gives birth to a son who will sire a nation. By reading closely the language of the text, by looking equally at what’s said and what’s withheld, this session will build a picture of the character of Hagar, one of the Bible’s most enigmatic heroines..
Text study.
Andy Bachman
Moses and Zipporah: Who's the Jew?
Moses, born in Egypt and seen as an Egyptian prince, forgot to circumcise his son, a mitzvah taken care of by his Midianite wife. What's it all about and what does it say about the current dynamic among Jewish and non-Jewish partnerships today?
Text study.
Leon Morris
It's Greek to Me: Translating Torah and the Language of the Other:
Can ideas transcend language? Is there such a thing as a "literal" translation? The early Rabbis' debates about writing the Torah in Greek serve as an interesting reference point for exploring whether Jewish thought can be "translated" into the language of foreign cultures and whether the results enhance or diminish Jewish life. Our texts will include several midrashim, passages from the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud, as well as essays by contemporary Jewish philosophers.
Text study.
J. Rolando Matalon and Saeed A. Khan
Akedat Yitzhak- Aherim Omrim: Yishmael (The Binding of Isaac - Others Say: of Ishmael):
A Jew and a Muslim explore God's testing of Abraham in the Bible and in the Koran.
Text study.
David Kalb
"I am Joseph; is my father still alive?" A Study in Uncovering the Real Joseph
A study in uncovering the real Joseph: In the book of Genesis, Chapter 45, Joseph meets up with his brothers who had sold him into slavery. When he reveals himself to them he says in Line 3, "I am Joseph is my father still alive?" It has been 22 years since he has seen his father Jacob, what's more he has been the Viceroy of Egypt for 5 years, where he had every power available to him to find his father and re-unite. Why all of sudden does Joseph seem to care so much about his father? We will attempt to answer this question by trying to uncover the real Joseph.
Beit Midrash.
Movie - The Syrian Bride
Directed by Eran Riklis. The Syrian Bride follows the true story of a Druze bride living in northern Israel, who is set to marry a man on the Syrian side of the border and be torn away from her family and home. This unforgettable film takles both in theme and in the actual making of the film the borders that separate us in life.
Esther Perel and Ruth Calderon
The Shadow of the Third - Rethinking Fidelity:
Every couple lives in the shadow of the third. Or, at the border of every couple lives the third. The one not chosen. Going back and forth between biblical stories of Rachel, Leah etc., with the intricacies of our modern adult intimacies, we will explore the shadow of the third.
Text study.
Elie Kaunfer
Genesis in Prayer - A Literary Interpretation of the First Blessings of the Amidah:
The first two blessings of the Amidah contain multiple allusions to the patriarchs. What is the underlying message of these blessings? Who is present, and who is absent? How does the original Biblical context help us connect to the prayers? Join us as we delve into the deeper meaning of this classic Jewish prayer. This class relates to the theme of brotherhood: both the internal Biblical connections between patriarchs, and the “brotherhood” created between the modern worshiper and the patriarchal (and matriarchal?) subject of the Amidah.
Text class and Beit Midrash.
Ruby Namdar and Ofri Cnaani
Nimrod: Villain or Culture hero:
Writer Ruby Namdar and video artist Ofri Cnaani will unfold the ambiguous character of the hunter king Nimrod, and will follow – through Midrashic tales and the modern sculpture Nimrod by Yitzhak Danziger – its reincarnation as the personification of "the new Jew."
Text study.
Storahtelling- Leanne Darling, Deanna Neil, Bronwen Mullin, Shawn Shafner and Franny Silverman
Birth of Laughter:
The Birth of Laughter is Storahtelling’s original adaptation of the oldest and most troubling family saga in the Middle East – the Tribe of Abraham. Join us for a tale of biblical proportions and current political relevance, complete with traditional Hebrew chanting, live music, movement and audience interaction. As people struggling with the history of hatred between the children of Isaac and the children of Ishmael, how do we create a future of peace among all the children of Abraham?
Performance.
Movie - Mivtza Savta
Directed by Dror Shaul (50 min, Israel, 1999). Experience this hysterical satire of Israeli society. Three brothers attempt to bury their grandmother in an Israeli comedy which has become a modern cult classic. The eldest brother, who is an officer in the military, takes control of the situation and plans the funeral as if it were a major army operation. Despite the careful planning, things go wrong in the most comical manner.
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