GWU – From Under the Fig Tree

Playing with blocks

joselitAugust 28, 2017November 29, 2017Leave a comment

In what has become an annual tradition come late August, GW’s Program in Experiential Education & Jewish Cultural Arts welcomes its new, and hopefully merry, band of students to town by hosting a whirlwind orientation called Mosaic.

Click on image to read the brochure

Drawing loosely on the theme of building blocks, this year’s Mosaic had us both poolside, sipping cocktails, and in an old-fashioned parlor, playing the 21st century equivalent of parlor games.

When not sitting down, we walked around Dupont Circle, taking in its architectural delights; made our way downtown to Sixth and I for a lively exchange about institutional sustainability; and took the measure of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s deployment of space. We ate a lot, too.

The point throughout was to think about what it takes to build relationships, institutions and community. Without literalizing matters too much, the big idea behind this year’s Mosaic was to cast a searching eye on the constituent elements — the building blocks — that the students will draw on in the course of their training
as well as in their subsequent careers.

What kind of “structures” will they end up fashioning? It’s too early to tell, of course, but over the course of the next 13 months, they will have ample opportunity to pick up and assemble the right tools.

The conversation

joselitNovember 2, 2015November 16, 2017Leave a comment

These days, we’re apt to pride ourselves on our communicative abilities, pointing to our continuous tweeting and texting. I don’t doubt for a nano-second that multiple and meaningful forms of exchange do take place, but honest-to-goodness conversation ain’t among them. I mean the old-fashioned kind of give-and-take, the sustained, lively, impromptu, generative discussion that entails two or more people actually talking to one another, face to face and with words, intonations and physical gestures.

Last Juan Munoz. Conversation Piece (1994-5). Flickr/cliff1066

You had only to be in the crowded room last week, when GW commemorated the centennial of Leo Frank’s lynching, to see for yourself the evocative power of conversation. Moderated by Blake Morant, the Dean of GW Law, “Reckoning with the Ghosts of Leo Frank,” as this event was called, featured David Kendall, the renowned Washington lawyer, and Steve Oney, author of the And the Dead Shall Rise, the definitive account of this tragic moment in American history.

The rise and fall of their voices held the audience spellbound, as did the high intelligence with which they addressed the many complicated issues at hand. Bringing passion and urgency to the proceedings as well as smarts, the three participants made history and the law come alive.

The same thing happened when, a few days later, Steve Oney visited my undergraduate seminar in American Jewish history. I’m not exactly sure what it was -- his nonpareil descriptive powers, his easy interaction with the students or a combination of the two -- but something about Mr. Oney’s presence and voice not only had everyone mesmerized but encouraged their participation as well.

Conversation, as many of us discovered or rediscovered this past week, is good for the soul.

Speaking of which, you may have noticed that my posts have not been as forthcoming as they usually are. It’s not that I’ve run out of things to say, heaven forfend. It’s that a series of seemingly intractable digital snafus have made a hash of things. Here’s hoping that you’ll bear with me, and the IT boys, as we seek a solution.

Piecemeal

joselitAugust 30, 2015November 16, 2017Leave a comment

No matter how many years you’ve been in school, the start of the fall term is always fraught with tension. Leaving behind the casual pace of summer and its many pleasures for the rigor of the classroom and its multiple challenges is no easy matter.

To smooth the transition from one environment to the next, GW’s Program in Experiential Education & Jewish Cultural Arts instituted a whirlwind, multiple-day orientation for its incoming as well as its returning graduate students. Mosaic is its name.

This designation was intended to invoke tesserae, bits of colored glass that, when added together, form a whole -- a mosaic -- or, at the very least, a pattern. At the risk of literalizing things too much, the big idea here was to liken the various components of the Jewish cultural arts to a mosaic, one that the students would help to fashion.

But as is often the case, especially one paved with good intentions, names tend to accrue a different set of meanings than originally intended. When it came to Mosaic, as its participants discovered last week, the literal definition of the word -- ‘pertaining to Moses and his laws’ -- came to the fore and with full force.

Wherever we went and whatever we did, from meeting with leading Jewish cultural professionals to learning firsthand of the politics of Israeli cuisine and going behind the scenes at DGS Delicatessen, issues of authenticity invariably popped up. As we took the measure of contemporary Jewish life -- its context, its food as well as its culture -- where mixing things up is de rigueur, you had to wonder where tradition ends and improvisation takes off. Or, to put it another way: “What would Moses say?”

I’m not sure we’ll come up with the right answers, but we’ll be spending much of the next year in their pursuit.

The printed word

joselitDecember 16, 2014November 16, 2017Leave a comment

As the semester draws to a close, I’m prompted to reflect on some of its highlights, from a lively cooking class with food writer Leah Koenig to an affecting performance, at the Arena Stage, of Fiddler on the Roof.

Middle East Librarians Association GW — Middle East Librarians Association display/GW

Though profoundly satisfying, both experiences were trumped by an unexpectedly moving encounter in the library: The Kiev Collection’s display of “Hebrew Printing in the Arab and Islamic World.” Assembled by its knowledgeable and sage curator, Brad Sabin Hill, and timed to coincide with the annual meeting of the Middle East Librarians Association, this assortment of 30-odd books touched me to my very core.

I’m not sure why. Surely, it wasn’t their subject matter, which ranged from grammatical commentaries on the Bible to a liturgy for mourners. Nor was it a matter of their visual properties, for virtually all of the books on display bore little by way of illustration. And it certainly wasn’t the simple, honest and direct manner in which they were exhibited, row upon row on a wood table. No bells and whistles, no pyrotechnics, dazzled, or distracted, the eye.

But dazzled I was, all the same. Perhaps it had to do with their geographical origins, which spanned Istanbul and Beirut, Tunis and Salonika, Alexandria and Aden -- places which the Jews once called home, but are no more. Then again, maybe it had to do with the ways in which these humble texts managed, somehow, to survive the vicissitudes of Jewish history and to come to rest in Washington, D.C.

Whatever the reason, I left the inviting precincts of the Kiev Collection heartened -- and haunted -- by the presence of these books and the stories they carry.

On the go

joselitJune 23, 2014November 16, 2017Leave a comment

This past week marked the debut of GW’s Program in Experiential Education and Jewish Cultural Arts, which has been in the works for quite some time now. Although I’ve written often, at some length and with passion about the program here and elsewhere, I’m delighted to report that nothing quite beats the thrill of implementation.

Mosaic The Institute — Mosaic brochure (click to open)

To set things in motion, GW hosted a three day retreat for students and faculty before the formal start of classes. Actually, to call it a ‘retreat’ isn't quite apt: ‘embrace’ is more like it. On the go from morning to night, we went behind the scenes at GW’s museum-in-process and gathered in front of the footlights at Theater J; participated in a master class on Jewish art song and another class on trans-media and the Jews; and listened as professionals from a wide variety of institutions from grand museums to aspiring ones spoke freely about the challenges they face, day in and day out. Through it all, the students began to lay claim to and take the measure of the vast array of treasures, both human and institutional, that make up the arts and culture scene in D.C.

Our whirlwind encounter, at once dazzling and dizzying, was called ‘Mosaic,” a testament to the process by which fragments constitute a whole, as well as a call to the students to pick up the pieces that define Jewish culture and to fit, or, as the current lingo would have it, “embed,” them in new patterns of meaning.

It won’t be easy. But the rewards of thinking smartly and imaginatively about loss and absence, demystification and exposure, process and context – to name just a few of the themes that surfaced, time and again, these past few days – are well within reach.

Come Blow Your Horn

joselitNovember 17, 2013November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Cue the trumpets: GW has just launched a brand new MA program in Experiential Education and Jewish Cultural Arts. A sibling to the MA program in Jewish Cultural Arts, which made its shining debut just a few short months ago, it will supplement that initiative through its attentiveness to the ways in which the practices and pedagogy of experiential or informal education enhance Jewish culture -- and the other way around.

The wonderful details -- of which there are many -- can be found on the respective websites of each program: Master of Arts in Jewish Cultural Arts and Experiential Education and Jewish Cultural Arts.

What I want to herald here, within the context of the blog, is the broad communal significance of these two undertakings. At a time when the American Jewish community is feeling rather beleaguered and perhaps even unloved and under-appreciated, GW’s decision to throw its weight behind the formation of not one, but two, programs devoted through and through to the critical study, promotion and dissemination of Jewish culture is something to cheer about.

What’s more, that the Jim Joseph Foundation, one of the Jewish community’s most far-sighted and imaginative philanthropies, saw fit to make the MA in Experiential Education and Jewish Cultural Arts possible through its generous support and thoughtful stewardship, should encourage us to cheer more loudly still.

Jewish culture, as growing numbers of people have come to understand, isn't just a tool of engagement or an alternative form of commitment. Yes, it contains all those possibilities. But what truly renders Jewish culture such a vital and generative phenomenon -- let’s call it a life force -- is its status as a gift. From one generation to another and from one iteration to another, Jewish culture gives us license to be creative.

À la carte

joselitApril 7, 2013November 16, 2017Leave a comment

Much of what we read about the modern university -- the endless faculty squabbles, the pitfalls of digital education, bored undergrads -- leave most of us with a giant headache.

But were we to look beyond the headlines and more squarely at the day to day business of the university, a decidedly more heartening portrait might emerge, one in which college education complicates and enlarges our sense of the world.

A case in point is the Frieda Kobernick Fleischman Lecture in Judaic Studies, which is presented annually by GW’s Program in Judaic Studies. A high point of the program’s calendar, this lecture brings to campus celebrated scholars of the Jewish experience to reflect on one or another of its varied manifestations.

This year’s Fleischman Lecture, which is scheduled to take place on Monday evening, April 15th, at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., features Professor Pierre Birnbaum, one of France’s leading political sociologists and historians. His talk, Sur la table: Food, Identity and the Jews in Modern France, casts a searching eye on the often surprising ways in which gastronomy has as much to do with citizenship as it does with the palate.

Making its way through a dazzling array of sources -- menus, official pronouncements, news clips, Jewish communal records, even song -- Professor Birnbaum’s presentation promises to enrich our understanding of what it means to be a citizen and, in the process, to reveal the university at its very best.