Righteousness and Justice?

On Sunday, Nir invited me to the Gina Gallery of International Naïve Art for an event sponsored by KolDor. I had never heard of either Naïve art or KolDor, so before I went I attempted a very cursory self-education. KorDor, according to its website, “which translates both as ‘Voice of the Generation’ and ‘Every Generation’ – aims to strengthen global Jewish Peoplehood by connecting diverse Jewish leaders and activists from around the world in order to enhance their capacity to act for the Jewish People individually and collectively – be it in Tel Aviv, San Francisco or Buenos Aires.” Basically, it’s a Jewish social/activist network. The Gina Gallery’s website was also extremely helpful is explicating the Naïve genre:

“Naïve art is characterized by a refreshing innocence and the charming use of bright colors, child-like perspective and idiosyncratic scale. It portrays simple, easily-understandable and often idealized scenes of everyday life. The naïve artist - often self-taught - treats us to a uniquely literal, yet extremely personal and coherent, vision of what the world was, is or should be.”

The gallery and the event – a networking session and roundtable discussion on “Philanthropy in the Jewish World” – were thus unrelated to each other except for the fact that the gallery owner, Dan Chill, seemed a successful Jewish businessman with one foot in for-profit, one in philanthropy.

Sadly the event was under-attended, but after a very informative introduction to Naïve art by Mr. Chill and a tour of the gallery, Tova Serkin of the organization JGooders and Karin Dimant of Brandality Inc. led a wide-ranging discussion on the meaning of philanthropy, giving time versus giving money, the personal value of volunteering, the challenges facing the Israeli non-profit sector, the Israeli attitude toward philanthropy and social activism, etc. I offered a comment about the Jewish notion of “tikkun olam,” or the idea of repairing the world through social action. It is one of the traditional categories of tzedakah (righteousness and justice). I believe that the most meaningful social action – and one of the most powerful ways of reorienting the Jewish world toward a new sense of global community – is to marry these traditional concepts to new ways and means.

I’ve pretty much realized now that my optimal function for Nir is as a research assistant –and I’m not at all displeased with the work or its place in my growing portfolio. In a past entry I wrote about the various people we are thinking of nominating as the first Israeli Ashoka fellows. I’m focused now on writing their profiles, doing background research, reference checks, and compiling as much information as possible on their person, idea, methodology, strategy, short-, medium-, and long-term plans.

In addition to my work, I’m still exploring the city and – especially now given that we have less than three weeks left – visiting some other students’ internships. Today (Wednesday), I took the bus to the Tel Aviv University campus to see Sharona and get a little tour of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies where she too is a research assistant. I met a couple of her colleagues and two of the other interns there. She told me about her days – again, similar to mine, spent reading, researching and writing. We then walked through the Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, which is probably one of the best-designed Israeli museums I’ve seen. It was very compelling, especially the memorial room. There, in a little niche, was a book I’d very much like to spend more time with called something like the “Scrolls of Fire.” It was 52 psalm-like poems accompanied by modern artwork, each one representing a struggle, catastrophe, or challenge to the Jewish community since the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE.

We wandered, talked, trying to grope from various angles our feelings about Israel, Judaism, the politics of language, rhetoric, religion, history...

Then, from the deep shadows of the museum, we walked out into the ever-illuminated, ever-humid and ever-confounding landscape, so dirty and beautiful and righteous and unjust. (Apologies for the brief poetics, but the land really does inspire it at times.)