-Ariel Goldberg

Last year, the Jewish Museum of Maryland presented an exhibition titled Material/Inheritance: Contemporary Work by New Jewish Culture Fellows. Curated by Leora Fridman and presented in partnership with the New Jewish Culture Fellowship, this groundbreaking show featured 30 Jewish artists dealing with themes like chosen and biological family, queer and trans identities, embodiment and sexuality, diasporic homes, ritual reinventions, activist movements, political histories, and so much more.

One of the artists featured in Material/Inheritance, Ariel Goldberg, contributed to the exhibition by creating an episode of the Disloyal podcast with co-hosts Mark Gunnery and Naomi Rose Weintraub. 

Ariel Goldberg is a writer, curator, and photographer based in New York City who curated a show titled Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s. That exhibition, which is on view at the Chicago Cultural Center through August 4, 2024, explores photographic documentation of activism, education, and media production within lesbian, trans, queer, and feminist grassroots organizing from the 1970s through the 1990s. It was commissioned by the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial, and was on view at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York City last year. 

On this episode of Disloyal, Goldberg talks about their research into the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) traveling slideshows, reading texts related to that project, and playing audio from interviews they did with the LHA’s Joan Nestle and Alexis Danzig. They also spoke to Disloyal hosts Mark Gunnery and Naomi Rose Weintraub about queer imaging practices, the importance of intergenerational knowledge sharing in queer communities, and ways that images and education fit into social movements.

Read Ariel Goldberg's curatorial statement here.

This episode features “Angry Atthis” by Maxine Feldman and “Prove it on Me,” a cover of a Ma Rainey song, by Bell’s Roar aka Sean Desiree. Thank you to Helen...]]>“The thing that I am fighting against is the same thing that I think that the impulse to found the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974 was. We are in a life struggle project, which is to stop erasure and build stronger coalitions with people that are battling a lot of repression. And I think that liberatory projects absolutely depend on intergenerational knowledge sharing.”

-Ariel Goldberg

Last year, the Jewish Museum of Maryland presented an exhibition titled Material/Inheritance: Contemporary Work by New Jewish Culture Fellows. Curated by Leora Fridman and presented in partnership with the New Jewish Culture Fellowship, this groundbreaking show featured 30 Jewish artists dealing with themes like chosen and biological family, queer and trans identities, embodiment and sexuality, diasporic homes, ritual reinventions, activist movements, political histories, and so much more.

One of the artists featured in Material/Inheritance, Ariel Goldberg, contributed to the exhibition by creating an episode of the Disloyal podcast with co-hosts Mark Gunnery and Naomi Rose Weintraub. 

Ariel Goldberg is a writer, curator, and photographer based in New York City who curated a show titled Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s. That exhibition, which is on view at the Chicago Cultural Center through August 4, 2024, explores photographic documentation of activism, education, and media production within lesbian, trans, queer, and feminist grassroots organizing from the 1970s through the 1990s. It was commissioned by the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati as part of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial, and was on view at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art in New York City last year. 

On this episode of Disloyal, Goldberg talks about their research into the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) traveling slideshows, reading texts related to that project, and playing audio from interviews they did with the LHA’s Joan Nestle and Alexis Danzig. They also spoke to Disloyal hosts Mark Gunnery and Naomi Rose Weintraub about queer imaging practices, the importance of intergenerational knowledge sharing in queer communities, and ways that images and education fit into social movements.

Read Ariel Goldberg's curatorial statement here.

This episode features “Angry Atthis” by Maxine Feldman and “Prove it on Me,” a cover of a Ma Rainey song, by Bell’s Roar aka Sean Desiree. Thank you to Helen Thornton and Sean Desiree for permission to include these songs.

You can see Ariel Goldberg on Tuesday, May 14, on Zoom or at the Center for New Jewish Culture in Brooklyn, New York, where they will be hosting an event called Abundant, Rich Lives: Returning to the Lesbian Herstory Archives Slideshow. Ariel will be in conversation with longtime activists Alexis Danzig and Deborah Edel about the Lesbian Herstory Archives slideshow, and they will screen clips of a recently digitized version of it. The panel will also reflect on media production within lesbian, queer, and trans grassroots organizing of the recent past and its relevance for today’s social movement struggles. Click here for more information.

Mark Gunnery (he/him) and Naomi Rose Weintraub (they/them) hosted a live taping of Disloyal at the Jewish Museum of Maryland on June 1, 2023, to discuss the JMM's latest exhibit, Material/Inheritance: Contemporary Work by New Jewish Culture Fellows, with: 

• Leora Fridman (she/her), writer, educator, New Jewish Culture Fellow, JMM Curator-in-Residence, and curator of the exhibit;
• Adam Golfer (he/him) filmmaker, artist, and New Jewish Culture Fellow whose work was featured in the exhibit;
•  Rabbi and poet Mónica Gomery (she/her), who sat on the curatorial panel for the exhibit. 

They spoke in front of a live audience at the JMM about the exhibit, the New Jewish Culture Fellowship, the challenges and joys of presenting contemporary art in Jewish spaces, and much more. 

Material/Inheritance: Contemporary Work by New Jewish Culture Fellows is an exhibit of boundary-pushing, community-building contemporary Jewish art, and features 30 artists whose work has been supported by the New Jewish Culture Fellowship, a national arts fellowship that advances the work of groundbreaking Jewish artists.

To learn more about the exhibit, visit materialinheritance.com.

Leora Fridman is a writer, educator, New Jewish Culture Fellow, and the JMM’s Curator-in-Residence. She curated Material/Inheritance.

But this week we have a special episode hosted by Naomi Weintraub (they/them), production assistant for Disloyal and Community Artist-in-Residence at the Jewish Museum of Maryland. Naomi speaks with Rebekah Erev about reclaiming Jewish magic, holidays, time, and rituals, and what the summer full moon festival of Tu B’Av can teach us about love in all its manifestations.

Rebekah Erev (they/them) is an artist, a teacher, and a kohenet, Hebrew priestexx. Rebekah is co-creator of the Queer Mikveh Project, a collaborator on the Olam HaBa: Dreaming The World To Come planner project, and creator of the Moon Angels/Malakh Halevanah Oracle Deck and the in progress Golden Oracle. 

-Annabel Rabiyah

In the final installment of our series on A Fence Around The Torah we're joined by two artists who were part of a four-person group multimedia installation for the exhibit titled “I mean…how do you define safety?”

Annabel Rabiyah and Arielle Tonkin discuss Jewish Iraqi food, recipes as family heirlooms, assimilation, the roles of food and ritual objects in pushing back against cultural erasure for Mizrahi Jews and more.

Here’s what the artists behind "I mean...how do you define safety" said about the installation in their artist statement.  

“I mean…how do you define safety?” is a multimedia exhibit of oral history, visual art, and nourishment. It explores what “safety” means for Jews from Arab lands, who after hundreds to thousands of years of relative safety in the region, were torn from their homes, customs, languages, and ancestral roots upon the establishment of the state of Israel. This piece explores the questions, longing, and desires of the women who are descendants of those who left. Although much was lost, stolen, and erased – remnants of our food, language, and other anchors connect us to our ancestors.”  

Annabel Rabiyah (she/they) is an urban farmer, chef, and cofounder of Awafi Kitchen, an Iraqi Jewish cultural food initiative based in Boston. Through sharing recipes and making meals, Awafi pays tribute to a lesser-known culinary heritage. In addition to their social media presence, Awafi Kitchen hosts pop-up restaurant events, virtual cooking demos and presentations on Iraqi-Jewish history. Awafi Kitchen is a platform centered on building community between members of the Iraqi diaspora, Jews with lesser-known histories, and anyone interested in the history and stories behind food.

Arielle Tonkin (they/she) is a queer mixed ashkesephardimizrahi artist living on Ohlone land in the so-called San Francisco Bay Area. Arielle works to dismantle white supremacy through art practice, arts and culture organizing, and Jewish and interfaith education work. The Muslim-Jewish Arts Fellowship, Arts Jam for Social Change, Tzedek Lab, SVARA, and Atiq: Jewish Maker Institute are among their networks of accountability, collective power, creative collaboration and care.

-Rosabel Rosalind

Visual artist Rosabel Rosalind discusses the work she contributed to the Jewish Museum of Maryland's exhibit A Fence Around The Torah. It's a series of drawings featuring both historical and ahistorical figures like Queen Isabella I of Castile, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, and Holofernes from the deuterocanonical Book of Judith. They are depicted with Hebrew text covering their faces and bodies, watched over by a bird that is present in each drawing. The bird has a human nose, and a stereotypically "Jewish" one, instead of a beak.

We discuss the use of antisemitic tropes and symbols in Jewish art, depictions of Jewish bodies in Christian art, Rosalind's upcoming comic project, and Barbara Streisand.

Rosabel Rosalind is an artist based in Pittsburgh who received her BFA in printmaking, painting, and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. She’s been included in group exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hyde Park Art Center, and Sullivan Gallery in Chicago, and solo exhibitions at Vienna's Museums Quartier and Improper Walls Gallery.

Liora Ostroff is Curator-In-Residence here at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, where she curated A Fence Around The Torah. She is a painter whose work explores themes like queerness, Jewishness, violence, and the idiosyncrasies of life in Baltimore.

Judith Joseph is a Chicago-based visual artist who works across multiple media, including printmaking, painting, calligraphy, and installation. She has exhibited her work around the world and her work is in hundreds of public and private collections. She has participated in fellowships from Spertus Institute and the Amen Institute Visual Arts Project, and is a two-time Illinois Arts Council Fellowship Awardee.

Liora Ostroff is Curator-In-Residence at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, where she curated A Fence Around The Torah. She is a painter whose work explores themes like queerness, Jewishness, violence, and the idiosyncrasies of life in Baltimore.

-Arielle Tonkin

As part of our ongoing series on the contemporary art exhibit A Fence Around The Torah, we’re joined by three artists who were part of a four-person group multimedia installation for the exhibit titled “I mean…how do you define safety?”

Here’s what they said about the installation in their artist statement.  

“I mean…how do you define safety?”  is a multimedia exhibit of oral history, visual art, and nourishment. It explores what “safety” means for Jews from Arab lands, who after hundreds to thousands of years of relative safety in the region, were torn from their homes, customs, languages, and ancestral roots upon the establishment of the state of Israel. This piece explores the questions, longing, and desires of the women who are descendants of those who left. Although much was lost, stolen, and erased – remnants of our food, language, and other anchors connect us to our ancestors.”  

Arielle Tonkin (they/she) is a queer mixed ashkesephardimizrahi artist living on Ohlone land in the so-called San Francisco Bay Area. Arielle works to dismantle white supremacy through art practice, arts and culture organizing, and Jewish and interfaith education work. The Muslim-Jewish Arts Fellowship, Arts Jam for Social Change, Tzedek Lab, SVARA, and Atiq: Jewish Maker Institute are among their networks of accountability, collective power, creative collaboration and care.

Coral Cohen (she/her) is a director, writer, and performance deviser born and raised in Los Angeles and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work spans multiple forms, media, and subjects, but is largely defined by an emphasis on creative collaboration and deep engagement with the people and subjects she approaches. Coral has written and directed a short film, Wresting Place, which is slated to premiere in 2022.

Hannah Aliza Goldman (she/her) is a performer, writer, producer, and voiceover artist based in Brooklyn. As a writer, Hannah has contributed to Alma and The Forward. She is an active member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) and produced their inaugural Mimouna event celebrating Mizrahi culture.

-Nicki Green

As part of our ongoing series on the art exhibit A Fence Around The Torah we're joined by Nicki Green for a conversation on ceramics, trans and queer mikveh, or water immersion, rituals, and the symbolic meanings of mushrooms and fermentation.

Nicki Green is a transdisciplinary artist working primarily in clay. Her sculptures, ritual objects and various flat works explore topics of history preservation, conceptual ornamentation, and the aesthetics of otherness. Green lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area but is currently a resident artist at Cal State Long Beach.

Liora Ostroff is Curator-in-Residence at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, where she curated A Fence Around The Torah. She's a painter whose work explores themes like queerness, Jewishness, violence, and the idiosyncrasies of life in Baltimore.

One, In The Kitchen, is an audio play and piece of communal oral history made by and for Jewish women with heritage in Arab lands. As artist Hannah Aliza Goldman puts it, "it explores themes of home, of culinary heritage, of womanhood, of family, and collective memory."

The other, Dangerous Opinions, is a video collage that takes footage from the 1988 film, Dangerous Liaisons, and uses it as a jumping off point to discuss, as artist Danielle Durchslag puts it, "the political and psychological complexities of American Jewish wealth" and "the phenomenon of WASP drag, in which rich Jewish clans copy the rituals, aesthetics, and rules of the Christian aristocracy in the hopes that a subtle kind of passing as American royalty will equate long-term security."

Hannah Aliza Goldman is a performer, writer, producer, and voiceover artist based in Brooklyn. Her audio play, In the Kitchen, is featured in A Fence Around The Torah as part of a group multimedia installation with Coral Cohen, Arielle Tonkin, and Annabel Rabiyah titled I mean… how do you define safety?

Danielle Durchslag is an artist and filmmaker based in Brooklyn. She's shown her work around the world, and is a New Jewish Culture fellow.

Liora Ostroff is Curator-in-Residence at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, where she curated A Fence Around The Torah. She's a painter whose work explores themes like queerness, Jewishness, violence, and the idiosyncrasies of life in Baltimore.

-Melissa Martens Yaverbaum

We continue our series on the exhibit A Fence Around The Torah with a conversation about the mixed-media installation We Would Come Home But You've Locked The Door, which deals with themes of inclusion and exclusion in Jewish communities.

Daniel Toretsky is an artist and architectural designer based in Brooklyn. He plays trombone in the Hungry March Band and Mrs. Toretsky’s Nightmare.

Melissa Martens Yaverbaum is the Executive Director of the Council of American Jewish Museums, and was on the curatorial panel for A Fence Around The Torah. She also used to work at the Jewish Museum of Maryland.

-Joy Ladin

We discuss poetry and trans theology with one of the artists featured in A Fence Around The Torah, poet Joy Ladin.

Joy Ladin is the author of many books, including her memoir of gender transition, National Jewish Book Award finalist Through the Door of Life, and the Lambda Literary and Triangle Award finalist The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective. Her most recent book is Shekhinah Speaks from selva oscura press.

Liora Ostroff is a painter and curator-in-residence at the Jewish Museum of Maryland.

Naomi Weintraub, artist, educator, Artist-in-Residence at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, production assistant for Disloyal

Ami Weintraub, teacher, organizer, writer, rabbinical student in the Aleph Ordination Program, founder of Ratzon: Center For Healing And Resistance, and creator of podcast art for Disloyal

Marisa Baggett, a multi-discipline creative who, as she puts it, combines contemporary sensibilities with beloved Jewish traditions via kosher food, paintings, and writing

Justin Fair, lay leader with the Jews of Color Mishpacha Project and curatorial panelist for A Fence Around the Torah

Val Schlosberg's contribution to the exhibit is a series of clay vessels called golems. Golems are creatures from Jewish mythology that are created using clay and magic in order to protect Jewish communities. Val considers "the golem not only as a vengeful fighter of fascism, but also as an enlivened piece of earth and as a metaphor for the human body."

Coral Cohen is part of a four-artist multimedia installation called I mean...how do you define safety? The installation explores, as the artists wrote in their statement, "what 'safety' means for Jews from Arab lands, who after hundreds to thousands of years of relative safety in the region, were torn from their homes, customs, languages, and ancestral roots upon the establishment of the state of Israel." Coral Cohen devised and directed an audio play along with writer and performer Hannah Aliza Goldman called In The Kitchen.

Val Schlosberg, writer, artist, and educator currently based in Zhigaagoong, also known as Chicago, and working towards ordination as a Hebrew Priestess at the Kohenet Institute

Coral Cohen, director, writer, and performance deviser born and raised in Los Angeles and currently based in Brooklyn, New York, whose short film Wresting Place will premiere this year

“Roasted Cockroach for Scale expands an intergenerational experience of disability, epigenetic illness, and ableism into a social practice-turned-film project made with my Jewish-Polish-Ukrainian-Israeli-American father, Haim. Addressing the links between inheritance, illness, trauma, displacement, militarism, and ableism in the particular Jewish context of cyclical nation-state violence, my film seeks to reckon with the lasting impacts of our heritage, probing how trauma and the political systems that cause it have become internalized, in big and small ways.”

Katz Tepper, interdisciplinary artist based in Athens, Georgia

Maia Ipp, co-director of the New Jewish Culture Fellowship, contributing editor for Jewish Currents, and curatorial panelist for A Fence Around the Torah

Sol Davis, Executive Director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland

Liora Ostroff, Painter and Curator-in-Residence at the Jewish Museum of Maryland

New episodes every Friday.