Category: yidSide

In the late 1980’s, on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of Soviet Jews were finally allowed to leave the USSR. What these people did not expect was that their final destination, America, no longer welcomed them with open arms. In 1988, American policy suddenly changed and thousands of Soviet Jews were stranded in Italy. Stateless.
This documentary captures that unique slice of history from the point of view of the émigrés as well as expert accounts of the situation from influential Jewish leaders including David Harris of the AJC, Mark Handelman of NYANA and Mark Hetfield of HIAS among others.
Stay after the screening for a panel discussion with the filmmaker as well as Mark Hetfield, Mark Handelman and others!
Stay even longer and enjoy a reception with wine and hors d’oeuvres.
For tickets, please click here.
This project is made possible through a grant by the BluePrint Fellowship project of COJECO, funded by the UJA-Federation of New York and Genesis Philanthropy Group.

Litvakus will perform a program of rarely heard and newly discovered traditional Eastern European Jewish, Belarusian, and Polish music at American Folk Art Museum at Lincoln Center in New York. This is a FREE show, since it is part of Free Music Fridays series.

The Jewish Art Salon catalyzes and celebrates contemporary art with Jewish themes. The Salon is an innovative and global community of artists, art professionals and art enthusiasts
RJeneration partners with the Jewish Art Salon to invite you to “Finding Home: “Parallels in mythology from around the world”. An event for you as the writer and teller of your own life story.
This lecture and workshop will bridge world mythologies to individual stories. Presenter: Siona Benjamin, a painter from Bombay, living in the US connects mythology to personal stories in a sensitive and though provoking way. Her work reflects her background of being brought up Jewish in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim India.
Siona will compare mythological stories like the Indian Matsya , Jonah and the fish ,Noah’s Ark , Aleksandr Pushkin’s “The tale of the fisherman” , Gilgamesh , a Babylonian myth from 2000 BC. We will discuss the science/geology of the “flood” or massive change. Participants will bring ideas and objects from home that speak of their family, culture, religion, identity, transformations. In a facilitated journey, participants will connect the parallels in mythologies of the world with their own personal stories.
6:00 – 6:30 PM – Light buffet dinner 6:30 – 8:30 PM – Program
Presenter:
Siona Benjamin is a painter from Bombay, now living in the US. Her work reflects her background of being brought up Jewish in a predominantly Hindu and Muslim India. In her paintings she combines the imagery of her past with the role she plays in America today, making a mosaic inspired by both Indian miniature paintings and Sephardic icons. She has been recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for an art project titled: Faces: Weaving Indian Jewish Narratives. Her NY solo exhibit will open March 6 at the Flomenhaft Gallery.
This programs are sponsored by Center Without Walls, a project of COJECO, funded by the UJA-Federation of NY and Genesis Philanthropy Group. Co-sponsored by the Tribeca Synagogue for the Arts.

With the Unemployed Fortune Tellers and Burlesque with Minnie Tonka.

“Inheritance of a Story” is a COJECO Blueprint Fellowship Alumni art exhibit of three New York artists: Anya Roz, Tanya Levina and Yuliya Levit, juxtaposed with poetic prose of Clarice Lispector, mystical Brazilian writer of Jewish-Ukrainian descent.
This show is a multimedia exploration of the tales of strangers in the strange lands – recurrent narratives of Jewish diaspora.
Clarice Lispector’s works will be recited by the renowned avant-garde poet Steve Dalachinsky at the opening reception that also features a musical performance by an Israeli-American violinist, singer and composer Efrat Shapira.
Clarice Lispector was born in the same part of Ukraine responsible for the birth of Hasidism and her work was shaped by the same experience of historical rupture and trauma that produced the great Jewish mystics. She became a national icon of Brazil whose face adorned postage stamps. ‘I keep looking, looking. Trying to understand. Trying to give what I have gone through to someone else, and I don’t know who, but I don’t want to be alone with that experience’.
For more info on the Efrat Shapira see: http://efratmusic.com/
The BluePrint Fellowship Alumni Projects are part of the Center Without Walls project of COJECO, sponsored by the UJA-Federation of New York and Genesis Philanthropy Group.
This event is presented in conjunction with Ticún Brasil.
Ticún Brasil is a global social justice NGO founded in 2008 with help of COJECO. It partners with Brazilian NGOs to implement various projects in the areas of Jewish life, arts, child development, sports, teaching English, media & design innovation, health education and housing construction in Rio de Janeiro. Ticún also conducts cultural and educational events in the US to promote volunteering in Brazil.

Yiddish songs – twinkling lullabies and earnest songs of love and love gone wrong. Raw, beautiful and elegant in their simplicity, many of the songs are rarely heard treasures of old Soviet era anthologies of songs collected in the shtetls of Ukraine in the 1920s.
Inna Barmash’s first started singing in Yiddish back in her home city of Vilnius, Lithuania as a child in the late 80s. This concert celebrates the release of Inna’s new recording of Yiddish love songs and lullabies and is a return to Inna’s roots as a Yiddish singer after many years of performing gypsy and folk repertoire from Russia and Romania in her band Romashka and exploring contemporary folk-inspired music as part of her husband’s band Ljova & the Kontraband.
Joining Inna on stage are Lev ‘Ljova’ Zhurbin (viola/fadolin), Shoko Nagai (piano/accordion), Dmitri Zisl Slepovitch (clarinet/bass clarinet) and Dmitry Ishenko (bass).
The recording project is made possible through a grant by the BluePrint Fellowship project of COJECO, funded by the UJA-Federation of New York and Genesis Philanthropy Group.
Tickets on sale NOW

YCROP and Jewish Art Salon invite you to a screening of the acclaimed documentary Punk Jews, with film producers Saul Sudin and Evan Kleinman attending. 
Punk Jews explores an emerging movement of provocateurs and committed Jews who are asking, each in his or her own way, what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century. Profiling Jewish artists, activists and musicians from diverse backgrounds and communities: such as Yishai, lead singer of Moshiach Oi; radical performance group the Sukkos Mob; the renegade Orthodox participants of Cholent; the Amazing Amy Yoga Yenta; Kal Holczler, founder of Voices of Dignity; and African-American Jewish hip hop sensation Y-Love.

Read The NY Times article about the film
6:00-6:30 PM: Light buffet dinner & vodka
6:30-7:30 PM: Film screening
7:30-8:30 PM: Q&A with film’s producers
$8 in advance, $10 at the door. Registration/ticket is transferable. Bring your ticket.
For advance tickets go to Paypal.com and send payment to jewishartsalon@gmail.com
This program is sponsored by Center Without Walls, a project of COJECO, funded by the UJA-Federation of NY and Genesis Philanthropy Group, and The National Center for Jewish Film.

Film’s by and about Israel’s minority populations. Founded in 2007, The Other Israel Film Festival uses film to foster social awareness and cultural understanding. The Festival presents dramatic and documentary films, as well as engaging panels about history, culture, and identity on the topic of minority populations in Israel with a focus on Arab citizens of Israel/Palestinian Citizen’s of Israel, who make up twenty percent of Israel’s population. Our goal is to promote awareness and appreciation of the diversity of the state of Israel, provide a dynamic and inclusive forum for exploration of, and dialogue about populations in margins of Israeli society, and encourage cinematic expression and creativity dealing with these themes. Our programming is guided by our mission to showcase quality cinema that brings to the big screen the human stories and daily lives of Arab Citizens and other minorities groups in Israel, often overlooked by mainstream Israeli society and culture. The festival presents a week of top films and engaging conversations like no other festival.
For tickets click here

Message from Igor Molochevski: Please join me during showcasing of my interactive installation, dedicated to the memory of the victims of nazism.
“Dehumanization occurs when uniquely human characteristics (e.g. refinement, moral sensibility) are denied to an out group. This has happened with Black Americans in the United States, Jews during the Holocaust, and the Tutsi ethnic group during the Rwandan genocide.”
– Wikipedia, Article on “Dehumanization”
This project is made possible through a grant by the BluePrint Fellowship project of COJECO, funded by the UJA-Federation of New York and Genesis Philanthropy Group.

New York City – it inspires millions every day to profess their love. People dream, sing, write, film, rap, and create poems about it, even when they don’t live here. In the rush of leading our hectic New York City lives, we often lose sight of the places we pass by everyday and how they affect us. But no more! This is your chance to stop and look up, to re-imagine, and rediscover our beloved city, by creating a music video to a NYC-themed song.
RJeneration presents: FILMIK, NY edition. The rules are simple. We provide you with a Flip camera, a soundtrack, and three hours to shoot your ode to New York City in teams of 3-5 people. Upon completion, all the works will be judged by a panel of your peers and winning team be presented with “Best New Yorker” award.
No prior experience required, but space is limited and will disappear in a New York minute.
Registrants will receive in advance a list of preselected New York-themed “soundtracks”. The earlier you register, the earlier you get the songs list (read: creative prep time). Don’t wait!
See past videos: http://vimeo.com/rjeneration/videos/