Susan Reimer-Torn's blog

How does an Orthodox center for rich and rigorous Jewish learning reach out to self-styled artists who are often in the margins of communal life?

Avivah Zornberg overlays a dizzying tapestry of midrashic, psychoanalytic and literary sources on her biblical themes. Her most satisfied listeners allow for the unmooring of the categorical mind. Zornberg, most recently the author of “The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious,” suggests that the hidden meaning of our classical texts is best perceived with our own porous and poetic unconscious minds.

Happiness... there is a word for it in every language, yet, what it is and how best to sustain it is a perennial puzzle. There is hardly a culture, religion or political platform that fails to mention it, while few have defined it in consistently satisfying terms.

For the past 62 years, two seemingly unrelated events in the Jewish world mark the early days of spring in New York City: The Annual Israeli Folk Dance Festival and preparations for the Passover seder.

It all started when the puppeteer Randy Ginsburg went to Bali at the age of 22 and his orthodox Jewish friends expressed fears that he would worship pagan gods.

What is it that identifies secular Jews as a people -- be they Israeli or of the Diaspora, progressive or neo-con, early feminists or members of the Larry David fan club -- across generations and throughout the world?

As one of the first artists to re-introduce autobiography to the art world during the late 1960s, Eleanor Antin created an imaginary theatre interweaving personal and political narratives.

These are not glamorous people.

Jacqueline Nicholls is an artist deeply informed by Jewish teaching and text, but her message — expressed in mediums as diverse as embroidery, corsetry, clothing, paper-cuts and print — is both subtly and explosively subversive.