Posted By Gary Rosenblatt
You Fuse You Lose / Gary Rosenblatt in New York
Jewish educators would do well to encourage teens to pursue their interest in the arts without trying to make them produce Jewish art – at least not at that age.
That was the advice of Rabbi Daniel Lehmann, founder of BIMA-The Berkshire Institute for Music and Art, a summer program for Jewish high school students, at a panel on “Fusing Arts and Culture Into Jewish Learning” at the second annual Sidney Krum Jewish Culture Conference.
Better known as Shmooze `07, the two-day gathering of about 175 serious professionals dealing with various aspects of Jewish art, was held at UJA-Federation headquarters in New York, and was the brainchild of music entrepreneur Michael Dorf. (Actually, Dorf says the inspiration for the conference came from his participation several years ago at The Conversation, a conference retreat sponsored by The Jewish Week.)
When it comes to fusing arts and culture into Jewish learning, as the topic suggested, Lehmann is against it, proclaiming at the outset: “I want to speak against integration” – in contrast to the previous speaker, and to conventional wisdom on the subject.
Lehmann, whose work as founding headmaster of Gann Academy-New Jewish High School of Greater Boston earned him a Covenant Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, described the serious time provided to the arts at the school and camp he heads, including playwright David Mamet teaching creative writing. “Not Jewish creative writing,” he noted, “just creative writing.”
Lehmann said teens don’t want adults “giving them pre-packaged integration; they reject it.”
His advice: let the young men and women develop a true love for art and instill in them the idea that the Jewish community cares about them as people and as artists without “using” them to produce Jewish art.
Let the students do their work in an intensely Jewish setting and then sit back and observe. “Interesting things will happen,” he said, if not in the short term then at some point in their careers.
It was a refreshing take on a much-discussed topic among Jewish educators.
That was the advice of Rabbi Daniel Lehmann, founder of BIMA-The Berkshire Institute for Music and Art, a summer program for Jewish high school students, at a panel on “Fusing Arts and Culture Into Jewish Learning” at the second annual Sidney Krum Jewish Culture Conference.
Better known as Shmooze `07, the two-day gathering of about 175 serious professionals dealing with various aspects of Jewish art, was held at UJA-Federation headquarters in New York, and was the brainchild of music entrepreneur Michael Dorf. (Actually, Dorf says the inspiration for the conference came from his participation several years ago at The Conversation, a conference retreat sponsored by The Jewish Week.)
When it comes to fusing arts and culture into Jewish learning, as the topic suggested, Lehmann is against it, proclaiming at the outset: “I want to speak against integration” – in contrast to the previous speaker, and to conventional wisdom on the subject.
Lehmann, whose work as founding headmaster of Gann Academy-New Jewish High School of Greater Boston earned him a Covenant Foundation Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, described the serious time provided to the arts at the school and camp he heads, including playwright David Mamet teaching creative writing. “Not Jewish creative writing,” he noted, “just creative writing.”
Lehmann said teens don’t want adults “giving them pre-packaged integration; they reject it.”
His advice: let the young men and women develop a true love for art and instill in them the idea that the Jewish community cares about them as people and as artists without “using” them to produce Jewish art.
Let the students do their work in an intensely Jewish setting and then sit back and observe. “Interesting things will happen,” he said, if not in the short term then at some point in their careers.
It was a refreshing take on a much-discussed topic among Jewish educators.