The Yom Iyun!

Zach Narin ('14) helped create the repurposed printer
for the Yom Iyun and also was a docent at the event's art exhibit 

This past Sunday was our long-awaited Yom Iyun, Day of Learning, which we call Sichot B'Emunah, Discussions in Faith. The event, which took place at Frisch from 4:00-7:00 PM and drew about 55 participants, was dedicated by Anne and Jerry Gontownik and their family in memory of Mr. Gontownik's brother, Sidney Gontownik.

Akiva Mattenson, a driving force behind our Religious Identity team, introduced the event with a beautiful thought from the Sefer Ha-Chinuch:

The Sefer Ha-Chinuch discusses the obligation to write a Sefer Torah and asks whether a person needs to do so if his father already wrote one. The Sefer Ha-Chinuch thinks a person is for two reasons:

1) Books should proliferate among the Jewish people. We should encourage the reading -- and therefore writing -- of books and thereby enable the multiplying of books among our people.

2) Old books become worn and used and perhaps people won't want to read them. Writing new books makes them appealing to a new generation, and the act of writing them forces the new generation to grapple with them. Each new generation should renew our people's texts both literally and figuratively.

Akiva said that the aim of the Yom Iyun is to have the new generation, the students of Frisch RealSchool, grapple with the texts of our heritage and share their insights with their grandparents, parents, teachers and friends, thus continuing and renewing the mesorah, our tradition. Furthermore, the Yom Iyun art exhibit, which is a visual journey of text is another way to imagine and reimagine the texts of our tradition and shows, throughout our history, that we've have constantly been using the arts as well to think about the Big Ideas our religion presents us with.

Akiva introducing the Yom Iyun

Here are the sessions participants were able to choose from:

And here are some of our presenters:

Ronit Langer ('15) discussing family dynamics in Bereishit, Genesis

Penina Warburg ('13) discussing Hagar's journeys and the akeidah,
the sacrifice of Isaac

Solomon Wiener ('14) comparing Qohelet with Ayn Rand's Objectivism

Here are Laura Friedman ('13) and Rebecca Zakheim ('13) (on the left), the curators of the art exhibit, putting the final touches on it with Talia Schabes ('14) (on the right), a highly involved RealSchool member who, as usual, was present and helping out in tons of ways at this RS event. Zach Narin ('14) (pictured at the top of the blog post) was also an indispensable part of getting the exhibit ready for game day:

On the right, you can also see the Studio Art contributions to the exhibit

For a fuller explanation of the exhibit, see our blog post on it and read more here:

Yom Iyun 2013 Art Exhibit

Yom Iyun 2013 TEXTING

One of our favorite parts of the exhibit was the repurposed printer the art history students created. Here is how it came out and following the photo is an art historical explanation of it:

Yom Iyun the Ten Plagues

Student-created work is obviously always big with us. Here is Laura's illuminated manuscript. Our exhibit was timed for Yom Ha'atzmaut, ending as it did with a celebration of Israeli life. Laura took an old art form and one all Jews indulged in -- illuminated manuscripts -- and utilized Ashkenazi and Sephardic styles to reimagine this new Jewish prayer for the Welfare for the State of Israel:

Neat or Messy? That was participants' choices for their own texting projects, which we'll post soon:

Get messy with fingerpaints, charcoals and oil pastels!

Stay neat with paper and colored pencils!

All in all, the grandparents, parents, teachers and students who attended enjoyed the event and went home with new perspectives on text and our tradition. Thanks to everyone who made the day possible!

Texting: RS's Yom Iyun Art Exhibit

This coming Sunday, April 14, is the second annual RealSchool Yom Iyun, Day of Learning, entitled Sichot B'Emunah, Discussions in Faith. The event, which will take place at The Frisch School from 4-7 PM, features a selection of student presenters who will lecture on a variety of topics in Tanakh, Talmud and Jewish thought as well as an interactive art exhibit called Texting: From Bondage to Liberation. 

Bondage and the Passover story

The part of the exhibit on slavery and bondage will take participants through a history of Hebrew illuminated Haggadot and an AP Art History class' interpretation of the Ten Plagues.

Here is the research the AP Art History class completed so far on Haggadot:

Redefining texting: a printer repurposed into the Ten Plagues

For a modern take on texting and the Exodus story, the art history class has been repurposing a printer -- which helps us create text -- as well as using textiles and cutting out text from discarded books in order to bring to life the Ten Plagues. Here are the art history students at work in Mrs. Mantell's art room:

Students in AP Art History take apart a printer and sift through paperbacks
as they repurpose and retext mixed media into an artwork about the ten plagues

You'd be surprised how many book titles worked well for the Ten Plagues theme!

Once we got into the swing of things, we began to see shapes
like a frog in the printer's parts

The printer is really starting to look like the plagues!

Liberation and Yom Ha'atzmaut in the exhibit

The Liberation part of the exhibit will begin with an illuminated manuscript made by one of the curators, Laura Friedman ('13), who worked on RealSchool's first event, last year's Maurizio Cattelan-style Chanukah art exhibit. This year, Laura used her Frisch LEADs research paper to explore illuminated manuscripts, and for her LEADs project and the art exhibit, Laura created her own illuminated manuscript out of the text of the Prayer for the State of Israel. 

Mulling ideas for the art exhibit

Laura's illumination of a contemporary prayer about the State of Israel, just in time for Yom Ha'atzmaut, will provide a springboard into an exploration of the work of contemporary artists as well as of Frisch art students who have interpreted Jewish texts and Israeli culture in a variety of artistic ways. The Frisch art students, for example, are working on Pop Art interpretations of Israeli food packaging:

The Yom Iyun exhibit will also be shown at the school
for Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day

After the Yom Iyun participants take in the art exhibit, they'll have the opportunity to interpret artistically their own pieces of text. Participants will choose from a group of texts that the student presenters submitted to be photocopied.

Two student presenters researching their topics. The presenters and curators came
 to school on a Sunday (!) in order to prepare for the Yom Iyun

The texts will be ones which are most germane to the lectures' main points and which lend themselves to being interpreted creatively. Each participant will choose a text s/he prefers and then sit down at a NEAT or MESSY station to "illuminate" it, decorate it as s/he chooses. In the NEAT station, participants can choose to work with media such as textiles, paper, and colored pencils, while in the MESSY station, fingerpaints, charcoal and pastels will be available for use.

We're having a lot of fun creating this interactive Artists Beit Midrash, and we hope the Yom Iyun participants get a lot out of the experience as well!

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Additional points

* Included in the exhibit will be information provided by Mrs. Wiener who teaches the art history class and runs RealSchool. Here's what Mrs. Wiener posted for the art history students about Passover that is now being used in the exhibit:

The March to Freedom: Liberating Art

* Overheard while the art history students were painting printer parts: a debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Students teaching students, debating with each other, broadening each other's minds, and talking to each other with respect: we love it!

* What do you think is a more meaningful learning experience: this project or cramming over 1000 artworks into the brain for the AP art history exam? (On a side note: to make up for the lost class time, those students taking the AP art history exam will meet each week for at least two hours after school. Drill. Kill. Bubble Fill.)

* Thanks to Laura for the Sichot B'Emunah artwork and to Ari for his work on the flier!

What's New in Religious Identity and The Arts

The Religious Identity team has decided on a topic for a series of discussions it wants to have this year about Judaism. The topic is -- drumroll, please! -- Relationship with God, and members of the Religious Identity team will moderate discussions about different approaches Judaism takes to building a relationship with the Creator. Those different approaches include:

* Prayer
* Philosophy
* The Torah
* The Halakha, the Jewish legal system

The first discussion will take place on November 28, 2012 and will be on Prayer!

Meanwhile, as usual, The Arts is supporting Religious Identity's endeavors. The team is going to the Jewish Museum this Sunday, November 18, to see an exhibit on Hebrew illuminated manuscripts from the Bodleian Library collection. That exhibit will kick off a year-long study of Hebrew illuminated manuscripts that will result in an exhibit at RealSchool's Second Annual Yom Iyun, Day of Learning,which we call Sikhot b'Emunah, Discussions in Faith.

While the Religious Identity team will get you ready for the Festival of Lights by enlightening you about Prayer, The Arts team is using the following lecture on Chanukah by Menachem Leibtag as a jumping off point for an exhibit that will hopefully enhance your holiday:

Lecture on Chanukah by Rabbi Menachem Leibtag