Years of forced migration, displacement, and exile have inextricably linked the Jewish people to the notion of placelessness, and Judaism has become a "portable" faith that manifests itself through "imagined" connectivity engendered through ritual and scholarship.Employing the Talmudic tradition of non-linearity--that links together past, present, and future--this paper will trace public and private expressions of Jewishness and discuss how these expressions of identity contribute to an evolving discourse, one that I argue is essentially what Jewishness is.From the Talmud, to newspapers, to the blogosphere, Jews use these spaces as platforms for following Jewish law halacha while simultaneously engaging in dialog concerning the actions they are performing.In the first section of this paper I discuss how I have located myself within the virtual landscape of the web. Over the past three years I have spent a significant amount of constructing online identities. I will explain the process by which I create profiles on various social networking sites–join online groups, post blogs, images, videos and articles and tag myself with specific labels from the opposing and related discourses I wish to address. In the second section I will detail how my public positioning of three video blogs Blues Alchim, my shtreimel, and eruv stl labled with tags such as: halacha, modernorthodox, minhag, yeshivish, blogosphere, and eruv, helped set the conceptual foundation necessary for the piece Berlin's Eruv, which I will highlight in the third section of the paper.
Blues Alchim is a youtube video blog that I found on the hassidic reggae artist Matisyahu's youtube channel MatisyahuTV. Backstage at the House of Blues in Cleveland, Matisyahu stands in front of a group of young men, all waiting to pray while the singer records a video blog. Upon noticing a giant painting of John Belushi covering the room's eastern wall, Matis (as his friends call him) expresses concern that the group might transgress the Jewish legal prohibition against praying while facing an image. The singer decides to take matters into his own hands and announces to the group that they will construct a barrier that will block Belushi's face, allowing them to pray without fear of transgression.
my shtreimel also approached Jewish ritual observance with a similar humorous undertone. This video features a young man who sits alone in a room making a video blog about a personal ritual that he performs on the sabbath-- wearing a fake fur hat while citing obscure torah references. The description of the video reads "what is your minhag ? send in a reply."eruv stl is posted as a response to my shtreimel. An eruv is a rabbinically sanctioned demarcation of space that transforms public space into private space for the purposes of the Sabbath, allowing Orthodox Jews to carry in public places, a practice which is otherwise prohibited. Modern eruvs are often made of wire strung between utility poles, a gesture towards a "walled courtyard," indicating an enclosed, private space. In eruv stl two people drive around in a car with a map, trying to locate this barely visible boundary that surrounds Washington University's campus.Berlin's Eruv, is a conceptual project that I initiated last summer while studying in Berlin. Prior to that trip, I had never been to Germany- nor did I have any particular reservations about going or not going, but it seemed everyone else had their own opinion on the matter."Germany, how can you go there as a Jew?" "There are Jews in Germany? I thought they were all dead?" "You are so brave to go to Germany..."Ultimately people's projections as to my intentions for going to Germany became the filter through which I experienced Berlin. 1While I was in Berlin I conducted interviews with members of the community concerning the highly visible presence of the monuments and memorials commemorating Jewish life (death) have impacted their individual and communal Jewish identities. Other topics included: the notion of German Jews vs Jews living in Germany and how this differs from an American Jewish identity, their status as diaspora Jews and their relationship to Israel, their thoughts on the European Union, antisemitism and the widespread use of facebook as a mode of connection.The title of the piece Berlin's Eruv is a play on the fact that there is not actually an eruv in Berlin. Just as the eruv exists in the minds of the people who abide by it, Berlin's Eruv manifests itself through the conversations surrounding the idea of the piece. The interviews I conducted in Berlin relied on the presence of instituationalized markers of Jewish idenity, to give weight to the idea non-presence of the living Jewish community. On the web, Berlin's Eruv relies on it's framing within the Jewish Blogosphere in relationship to existing conversations concerning Jewish Identity.When presented at the Museum Berlin's Eruv has four parts: 1) an ipod which features selected interviews from members of Berlin's Jewish community, 2) a door sized silent looping projection of someone wandering aimlessly through the Memorial to the Murderd Jews of Europe, 3)to the right of the projection is a list of blue hyperlinks that represent the conversations that need to take place for the piece to manifest. 4) and a small monitor (at an off site location) that plays the three youtube video blogs: Blues Alchim, my shtreimel and, eruv stl.______________________________________________________1 Many of the young Jews that I interviewed in Berlin shared stories about their experiences with American Jews, who come to Berlin having been taught that there is no Jewish Life in Germany, and feel that it is their duty to reclaim that which has been taken from the Jewish people. I will explore this complicated claim territoriality further in this paper.
Example of Hyperlinks that would be on wall of the kemperhttp://www.pipsworks.com/contact/projects/eruv.htmlhttp://berlinseruv.com/rabbijoshspinner/index.htmlhttp://youngisrael-stl.org/contactus.php#eruvhttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Talmud/introerubin.htmlhttp://apikorostalmud.blogspot.com/http://www.dziga.com/idea/http://www.manuelherz.com/t-courtjester.htmlhttp://books.google.com/books?id=icnnz9-xhWgC&pg=PA34&dq=eruv&lr=&ei=91ZRSZTfApmUMaqU5cYE#PPA18,M1http://www.skulptur-projekte.de/kuenstler/wallinger?lang=enhttp://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/257752/jewish/Eruv.htmhttp://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/700456/jewish/What-is-an-Eruv.htmhttp://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ritual/Shabbat_The_Sabbath/In_the_Community/Eruv/Women_and_Eruv.shtmlhttp://jewschool.com/2008/06/22/13661/internal-eruv-hatred/http://www.pipsworks.com/contact/projects/eruv.htmlhttp://berlinseruv.com/rabbijoshspinner/index.htmlhttp://youngisrael-stl.org/contactus.php#eruvhttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Talmud/introerubin.htmlhttp://apikorostalmud.blogspot.com/http://www.dziga.com/idea/http://www.manuelherz.com/t-courtjester.htmlhttp://books.google.com/books?id=icnnz9-xhWgC&pg=PA34&dq=eruv&lr=&ei=91ZRSZTfApmUMaqU5cYE#PPA18,M1http://www.skulptur-projekte.de/kuenstler/wallinger?lang=enhttp://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/257752/jewish/Eruv.htmhttp://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/700456/jewish/What-is-an-Eruv.htmhttp://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ritual/Shabbat_The_Sabbath/In_the_Community/Eruv/Women_and_Eruv.shtmlhttp://jewschool.com/2008/06/22/13661/internal-eruv-hatred/http://www.pipsworks.com/contact/projects/eruv.htmlhttp://berlinseruv.com/rabbijoshspinner/index.htmlhttp://youngisrael-stl.org/contactus.php#eruvhttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Talmud/introerubin.htmlhttp://apikorostalmud.blogspot.com/http://www.dziga.com/idea/http://www.manuelherz.com/t-courtjester.htmlhttp://books.google.com/books?id=icnnz9-xhWgC&pg=PA34&dq=eruv&lr=&ei=91ZRSZTfApmUMaqU5cYE#PPA18,M1http://www.skulptur-projekte.de/kuenstler/wallinger?lang=enhttp://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/257752/jewish/Eruv.htmhttp://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/700456/jewish/What-is-an-Eruv.htmhttp://www.myjewishlearning.com/practices/Ritual/Shabbat_The_Sabbath/In_the_Community/Eruv/Women_and_Eruv.shtmlhttp://jewschool.com/2008/06/22/13661/internal-eruv-hatred/