I first heard the lyrics of Zemer Nugeh, a poem by seminal pre-state Israeli poet Rahel, as a 14-year-old at summer camp in the early 90’s. I had no experience with heartbreak or loss, and yet the haunting words affected me. I’d spend the evenings walking through open green fields, kicking up dust at sweaty folk dancing sessions, feeling inspired by nature and Hebrew culture and pining for the summer when I’d get to spend six weeks in Israel.

Art as a form of healing. Art as a form of escape. Art as a form of human connection, or livelihood, or emotional fulfillment. Art as everything that you need it to be. 

While my Jewish views are different from Helène’s, she and I have similar artistic views. Just like Helène, I think art can be utilized as a powerful weapon to fight various forms of oppression and injustice. I believe that art ought to be used more often in the everlasting fight for gender equality. 

This Rosh Hashanah, I’m thinking about change. We look at transformation as something that happens overnight, but if the women I learn about every day at JWA are any indication, change happens in surprising ways and at unexpected times. It can be sudden or slow, a product of one determined action or years of effort.

In a society where we’re constantly told what we should love and what we should hate about ourselves, we can forget that our bodies belong to us. There is little space for women to create their own narratives, express their own fears, and admire their own features. Artist Miriam Ross gives women the opportunity to do exactly this in her project, The Body Journey.

Adults may scoff, and my friends may hypocritically mock me, but I can never deny that I would want to stand out in a crowd. Whether a college application, a creative thesis for school, or even the food that I bring for lunch, I want to discover a personal uniqueness that I carry so I can have some special pride in my stride. Luckily for me, I can already claim an artistic and spiritual individuality that I bring to the table as a female Jew.

Beate Sirota Gordon (1923-2012), feminist and Asian arts impressario, was only 22 years old when she wrote women's rights into Japan’s constitution. In her postwar career as a director of performing arts, first for the Japan Society and then the Asia Society in New York City, she introduced Americans to Asian visual and performing arts, from Japanese wood block prints to Burmese music to Vietnamese puppets.

The room was filled with an open, excited energy.

Anita Steckel was 82 when she died last March. But Anita, her many fans would insist, was way younger than most of us will ever be.

Wonder Woman, created in the 1940s, showed the world that women could kick butt.

As part of Yeshiva University Museum’s “Graphic Details – Confessional Comics by Jewish Women” event, I attended the October 24th “Close and Personal: Jewish Women Artists and Their Graphic Diaries” panel at the Center for Jewish History, which featured authors from the exhibition in dialogue about the confessional nature of comic book art. The panelists come from distinct backgrounds: Lauren Weinstein is the lead singer of a metaphysical rock band; Miss Lasko-Gross is creating an iPhone app about religious fundamentalism; Ariel Schrag is a lesbian screenwriter for HBO and Showtime series; and Miriam Katin is a holocaust survivor. Yet these women share a commonality: they are comic book creators with semi-autobiographical stories about coming of age as a Jewish woman.

Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s and 60s, we got our doses of high culture at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women is the first museum exhibit to explore this unique niche of autobiographical storytelling by Jewish women. The touring exhibit, sponsored by The Forward, features the work of 18 Jewish women artists. The Jewish Women's Archive is interviewing each of the artists about their work and their experience as a female, Jewish graphic artist.

Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women is the first museum exhibit to explore this unique niche of autobiographical storytelling by Jewish women. The touring exhibit, sponsored by The Forward, features the work of 18 Jewish women artists. The Jewish Women's Archive is interviewing each of the artists about their work and their experience as a female, Jewish graphic artist.