Session: Our Tomorrow is Now

Cafe Dilemma Session OR Lecture & The Jewish Future & Jewish Cultural Renaissance 

Session Length: 70-80 Minutes (Can be either a workshop or lecture, depending on the needs of the community requesting it)

This session is just as much of a call to action, as it is an exploration of the artistic and cultural present and future. We’ll start the session with a roughly 20 min lecture/presentation on the contemporary Jewish art world as it relates to Jewish problems of today, and the exploration of how new and unique Jewish cultural movements can lend their strength to rejuvenating our people in the form of a Jewish Renaissance as a response to Post-Oct 7th reality worldwide. This will immediately be followed by a 20-30 minute cafe dilemma program, whereby participants will either be broken into groups of 2-4, or simply be prompted to discuss in a roundtable-setting, with each group/the group given a pressing crisis or dilemma faced by the Jewish people, potentially including but not limited to: Antisemitism, Assimilation, Communal Growth, War, etc. The goal will be for each pair or group to come up with creative (and pragmatic!) solutions as to how to address these grand questions utilizing the arts of any and every medium (Visual arts, Music, Literature, Poetry etc.) We will wrap up our session with a 20-25 minute open dialogue of the ideas each group thought of to address their respective dilemma, and create an “Idea Board” of potential projects which participants could collaborate on following the session.

Our broader goal with this session is to end on a note of hope and encouragement. To have our participants investigate their own relationship to their respective Jewish identities and modes of creativity, and strengthen their hands to grow and develop their own grassroots projects, and ensure the vibrancy of their own communities. Our participants will walk away with the arc of Jewish past, present, and future in mind, as it relates to the arts, and the courage to take destiny by the reins, with each of us playing our role in the great Jewish Renaissance to come!