Happening

Lox with Black Beans & Rice: Portraits of Cuban Jews in Florida

The contemporary Cuban-Jewish community in South Florida is portrayed in 30 large-scale photographs and narratives reflecting a rich diversity from all walks of life. 2010 marks 50 years since the summer of 1960 when there was a massive exodus from Cuba to Florida due to the communist revolution. Through September 5 at the Jewish Museum of Florida in Miami Beach.
jewishmuseum.com

See Israeli Films Here!

Just launched at the JCC in Manhattan, the Israel Film Viewing Library at the Israel Film Center now hosts the most extensive collection of Israeli cinema in North America. You can watch — free — Israeli films and television shows for your own pleasure, for research or to scope out which ones to include in film festivals or other programs. This treasure trove is available by appointment Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10 am to 4 pm, and viewings must be scheduled in advance. israelfilmcenter.org

Faces of Israel

What does it mean to live in a state that is both Jewish and democratic? A new film poses questions on such hot topics in Israel as civil unions, homosexuality and same-sex unions, the role of liberal branches of Judaism and the Israeli chief rabbinate. These questions are answered through interviews with Israelis ranging from openly gay, secular university students, to leaders in the Conservative movement to ultra-Orthodox Jews. Check out some of the footage at Facesthemovie.com.

All Rise

is artist Helene Aylon’s imagined feminist court of Jewish law, the Beit Din. She has created a performance piece that addresses the patriarchal construction of a Jewish court. Aylon suggests one solution for the plight of the aguna, a “chained woman” who cannot escape her marriage if her husband denies her a Jewish divorce. If there were three women judges, posits Aylon, the aguna might have a chance to be heard. The installation is part of “Reinventing Ritual,” an exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco until October 3, 2010. On September 12, Aylon’s work will spur a discussion with writer Ayelet Waldman, co-sponsored by the Jewish Women’s Archive. thecjm.org

Asian Jewish Life

Jews living in Asia today are a tiny minority, usually unified by tradition and common contemporary concerns. Now they’re also connected via a new, free quarterly periodical of Jewish Diaspora life throughout Asia. Asian Jewish Life, founded and edited by Erica Lyons, attempts to “promote unity while celebrating diverse backgrounds and customs.” asianjewishlife.org

The Line

is a 24-minute documentary in which a rapist is confronted by his victim, who is also the director. Nancy Schwartzman’s film is about a one-night stand in Jerusalem that goes terribly wrong. Told through a self-described “sex-positive” lens, the filmmaker, an American woman, confronts her Israeli attacker a few years later, recording the conversation with a hidden camera. In the film, sex workers, survivors and others are asked about the line defining consent, and discuss justice, accountability and “today’s rape culture.” whereisyourline.org

Curious George and Margret and H. A. Rey

It turns out that the incurably curious monkey, repeatedly getting into trouble, was not unlike his creators, the husbandand wife team who rode bicycles and narrowly escaped disaster in Europe during World War II. This exhibition, created at the Jewish Museum in New York and shown until August 1, thejewishmuseum.org, will be shown from November 14, 2010 to March 13, 2011 at the C ontemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.

Become a Doula to Accompany and Comfort the Dying

We know about doulas who accompany pregnant women through childbirth. Now there is a program to train volunteers who provide companionship and comfort to people whose life expectancy is 18 months or less. Well-prepared doulas serve people who have limited support from family and friends, and provide emotional, spiritual and social support to one person at a time until the person dies. A training program from the Shira Ruskay Center requires a minimum commitment of 18 months after qualified volunteers complete a six-week program. doula@shiraruskay.org

Teen Dating Violence and Sex Ed

One in three adolescent girls in the US is a victim of physical, emotional, or verbal abuse from a dating partner, problems only compounded when young women do not have access to comprehensive, medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education. The National Council of Jewish Women is raising awareness about comprehensive sex education’s critical role in eliminating teen dating violence. http://action.ncjw.org/ncjw/join-forward.tcl

Women in Judaism, online

Watch for the electronic publication of a new issue of Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal. The new issue features fiction, poetry, reviews and such articles as “Abraham, Sarah and Hagar as a Blended Family: Problems, Partings, and Possibilities.” You can access the journal at http://www.womeninjudaism.org.

Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism

Personal paintings by Eva Hesse, Audrey Flack, and Lee Lozano created at the dawn of a resurgent feminist position in postwar American art open an exhbit that includes pioneering feminist artists Ida Applebroog, Judy Chicago, Joyce Kozloff, Elaine Reichek, Miriam Schapiro, Joan Semmel, Joan Snyder, Nancy Spero and Hannah Wilke, who used diverse techniques, such as abstraction, photorealism, collage and embroidery to create new styles and directly confront taboos of sexual representation and discrimination. Extending to the present, paintings by Nicole Eisenman, Dana Frankfort and others target the representation of women in popular culture. The show will also include several male artists who create paintings that embody a feminist aesthetic. September 12, 2010 – January 30, 2011 at the Jewish Museum in New York, thejewishmuseum.org.

Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women

This show is a real first — a museum exhibition which shows how women’s “raw, revealing diaristic and confessional work has influenced the world of comics over the last four decades,” according to Michael Kaminer and Sarah Lightman, co-curators of “Graphic Details.” Among the showcased artists are several familiar to Lilith readers. Comics pioneer Diane Noomin, editor of the influential Twisted Sisters series, will be represented by original work, as will indie comics favorite Aline Kominsky-Crumb. Trina Robbins — creator of It Ain’t Me, Babe, considered the first underground comic written and drawn solely by women — has appeared in Lilith several times since 1980. Kaminer wrote in the Forward: “While women have been writing frank confessional cartoons since the early 1970s, the context has changed. Personal problems have also supplanted gender politics as a dominant theme. But these young artists are just as ruthlessly honest, presenting their bodies as nakedly as their emotions.” “Graphic Details” runs September 25, 2010 through February, 2011, at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. In March 2011, it will move to Toronto’s Koffler Centre.