Hey y’all! Feel free to check out my exhibit. Art steps was not my friend the past 48 hours so I’m sorry if transitions aren’t very smooth… (let’s just say I had to use 3 different laptops on loop because they all kept overheating lol). Much love to you all and it has been so great to be in this class <3

Bridgetown Exhibit

https://www.artsteps.com/curate/608b1ca7b71aed05c93713a1/5

Here is the link to my final project. I hope that it works.

I really enjoyed getting to know you guys over the year and I hope to see you all in person next year. for those leaving, all you need do is ask and I shall reveal my contact info. Anyhow, have a lovely day

Check out my completed exhibit on Chicago Jewish life here!

Edit 5/13/21 3:30pm: For some reason the guided tour doesn’t seem to be working and the information that I put in the descriptions for the tour is also not showing up. I deleted and re-did all of the guided tour points, but that didn’t change anything. You can just walk around or use the menu of points to jump from object to object!
Check out the “Chicago Guide Point Info” section on the Chicago City Directory for the guide point labels.

I have to say, this was one of the most fun projects I’ve done in a while. Thank you to everyone in this class and Laura for making this an awesome semester filled with learning and great conversation. I wish everyone luck in getting through the last day of finals week and I hope you all have relaxing summers! Congrats to the seniors and I hope to see everyone else in the classroom again 🙂

Find all sources for the exhibit and further reading on the subject on this page on the Chicago City Directory blog.

Exciting news: I have finally completed my final exhibit on Paramaribo, Suriname. I’ll attach a link below if anyone besides Laura feels compelled to check it out! Taking this class was such a fun, vibrant, rewarding experience, and I feel that a lot of that can be attributed to you all being such a wonderful bunch. Thank you Laura for such an amazing and informative course, and I hope you all have relaxing summers!

Final Project: https://www.artsteps.com/embed/608b1c4590c9bb02f3aab6d5/560/315

Works Cited: https://blogs.reed.edu/eng303s21/files/2021/05/Final-Exhibit-Works-Cited-.pdf

The common ground here is that the race of Jews is defined by hegemony culture. And since those who colonized the Americas came from Christendom, that is Europe, the predominant culture was thought of as white. Therefore, since Jews who colonized the Americas were not black, they were defined by their whiteness. However, in actuality, there are Jews of different races throughout the world since Judaism was proselytized until Constantine, and was spread as a religion by traveling merchants. It was brought to enslaved persons and other people of color in the Americas as well. 

In reality, Jews have never been only white. This matters because Jews of color are not counted when considering Jewish demographics, they are not usually talked about nor included when discussing Jews and Jewish history in general, and they are not actively welcomed into the larger Jewish community. Gordon argues that in order to learn Jewish history and study Jews, it is essential that we must learn about Jews of color and make an effort to bring them into mainstream contemporary Jewish life. 

One of  the strengths of Gordon’s article is his argument that Jews exist across the globe: instead of going out to see in which communities you might find Jews, go to any community and you will (likely) find a Jewish population within it. I also found Gordon’s personal relationship to the topic of the article to be a strength. He leverages his own identity as an Afro-Jew within the article. In particular, he shares his decision to name the department at Temple University the Afro-Jewish Studies Department in order to spark interest in the type of diversity he is referring to (as opposed to socio-economic or Sephardi/Ashkenazi). He explains to those who seek clarification that the studies relate to those like him who identify as both African AND Jewish, as opposed to the assumed focus on the relationship between African Americans and Jews.)

 While I agree with the author, it seems to me there might be a hole in his argument in the second to last paragraph of this article. Gordon argues that halakhically some descendents of enslaved people are Jewish, which I don’t think would make sense (only halakhically speaking) if they are descendents of a Jewish father/slave owner (unless Jewish women were being impregnated by non Jewish black men, which I assume was rarely the case). If what he meant was that the enslaved persons were Jewish because they identified with their owners, or because they were the descendents of Jewish fathers, that would not be halakhic (based on traditional Jewish belief in matriarchal descent). I also feel that the article would have been stronger had Gordon provided more hard evidence. While Gordon does a great job using anecdotal evidence, there aren’t very many statistics or actual research results presented to verify his claims. Of course, it is one of Gordon’s contentions that researchers have ignored collecting demographic data from Jews of color, so that might be why. However, without even some very rudimentary statistics, it might feel like Gordon’s assertions are not as significant as he claims. 

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/mexico-virtual-jewish-history-tour

Henry Belman Mexico city project

Like a BrideDownload

Like a bride by Rosa Nissán was originally published in 2002. It later recieved a movie adaptaition. It is a semi autobiagraphical tale from the point of view of a young Mexican Jewish girl. It examines the struggles of being jewish and of being a woman in Mexico in the mid 50s.

Various jewish locations and facets of jewish culture in mexico are touched upon in this book. the

Lagunilla Market on Comonfort Street is shown to be a hub of jewish life in Mexico city

In the begining especily, the shame of being jewish is brought up, and this also points to the aspects of gentile Mexicans not always knowing much about jews despite there being jews in Mexico city.

• 2  works of Jewish literature from any era from your city
  • Like a bride by Rosa Nissán
  • the Yiddish Columbus

• 2 portraits of Jews from your city any era (miniatures, paintings, silhouettes, daguerreotypes, photographs)
  •  Picture from a gravestone
• several of the portraits on grave stones depict their inhabinents in Charro suits. Charro suits are, to some, the ultimate expression of Mexican pride. This is cementing these Jewish dead as Mexican, which shows some degree of devotion to the nation.
  • Either a random picture of a random jew in Mexico city, or a photo of anita brenner in her big hat. 
• 3 Jewish objects from your city (gravestone, food, music, newspaper, ritual bath, judaica, house, marriage contract, etc.). One object must be a synagogue. 
  •  The three big synagogues in Mexico City built in the 40s
  • A newspaper article 
  • Maybe that confession of a judaizer

• 1  map of your city with at least 5 Jewish sites indicated on it
  • done
• 1 event that changed Jewish life in your city
  • The Spanish Inquisition (which caused the original jewish community to move there  and later adapt to life under it by the creation of the crypto jewish communities)
• Your exhibit should covers at least 3 historical eras of the five discussed in this class
  • 1492-1762, the Inquisition, crypto Jews, some of the connections to other places with similar jewish experences.
  • 1836-1912 (some of the immigration talk and the revolutionaries)
  •  1913-1945 (More of that and the synagogues)
  • 1946-present  (Literature and the map and wrap up)
• Three themes that you think are important for understanding Jewish life and literature in your city.
  •  The assimilations of Jews into life in Mexico city and why they are often overlooked
  •  How Jews shaped mexico city both for themselves and everyone
  • Why they came and what kinds of oppression they face.
• One connection or comparison to Jewish life/literature in a different city in your region.
  • The inquisition faced by Jews in both Mexico city and all other spanish colonial cities. 
    • Many Jews who Immigrated to the colonies to avoid the inquistion that was raging in spain found that it followed them to the new world. This created the custum of cripto jews, Jews who would publically convert but still practice Judasm in secret.
• One connection or comparison to Jewish life/literature in a city outside of your region (but is on the class list).
  • The surge in immagration after the holocaust?
  •  Cookbooks that integrate traditional jewish recipes with local flavors, that often differ depending on sepharidic and ashkenazi?
  • Maybe the rivalry between ashkenazi jews and sephardic jews and the hate of intermarrage, found everywhere

Here is my Exhibit Brief

Hi all,

don’t forget to check out the information on the final project including the checklist! Reprinted below for your convenience:

Your final project is to create an exhibit on Jewish literature from and life in  your city using Artsteps. You may use items you analyzed in your shorter assignments and that are on the syllabus, but you aren’t limited to these. Your exhibit should contain at least the following items related to Jewish life:

• 2  works of Jewish literature from any era from your city
• 2 portraits of Jews from your city any era (miniatures, paintings, silhouettes, daguerreotypes, photographs)
• 3 Jewish objects from your city (gravestone, food, music, newspaper, ritual bath, judaica, house, marriage contract, etc.). One object must be a synagogue. 
• 1  map of your city with at least 5 Jewish sites indicated on it
• 1 event that changed Jewish life in your city
• Your exhibit should covers at least 3 historical eras of the five discussed in this class
• Three themes that you think are important for understanding Jewish life and literature in your city.
• One connection or comparison to Jewish life/literature in a different city in your region.
• One connection or comparison to Jewish life/literature in a city outside of your region (but is on the class list).

Here are some online collections that you may find useful as you select items for your exhibit and your city directory:

• Jewish Atlantic World Database
• Jews Across the Americas Archive
• AJHS Archive
• Portraits: Loeb Portrait Database
• Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica, U Penn
• U Washington Archive (also Sephadic Studies Digital Projects)
• Magnes Collection, UC Berkeley ( also Western Jewish Americana)
• JTS Digital Collections (marriage contracts and more)
• John Carter Brown Library Digital Collections (by location) (Archive of early American images)
• Jewish Heritage College, College of Charleston; College of Charleston Special Collections (digital); Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life
• National Museum of American Jewish History (Philadelphia & US); More exhibits.
• Fotoarchief Stichting Surinaams Museum
• Biblioteca Digital del Patrimonio Iberoamericano (BDPI)
• SALALM Digitized Primary Sources (Latin American and Caribbean)
• Jewish Diaspora Collection (Florida, Latin America, Caribbean)
• Newspapers Resources: By location.  Historical Jewish Press Collection (US). Jewish Newspapers, NYPL. Caribbean Newspapers, 1718-1876. America’s Historical Newspapers. Latin American Newspapers.
• Maps: David Rumsey Map Collection
• Food: American Foodways: The Jewish Contribution. Jewish American Cookbooks, NYPL. The Jewish Cookery. The Settlement Cookbook. Converso Cookbook. [General Digital Collections of cookbooks, not all Jewish!l: Historical Mexican cookbooks. Feeding America. Vintage Cookbooks. 10,000 Vintage Cookbooks. ]
• Music:  Music & Prayer, Jewish Digital Collections
• Slavery: enslaved.org

https://qz.app.do/pg/what-currency-did-ny-use-when

So excited for this upcoming event! Thursday, April 22 at 5:30 pm CST.Panelists: https://events.tulane.edu/…/black-and%E2%80%8B-or…Register: https://tulane.zoom.us/…/regi…/WN_mRD8W16ORGqBFFNBADEpHA