Arts Activities Support

Over 50 people attended at least one event throughout this author series that had never previously participated in a Jewish arts program. Approximately 30% of attendees chose to purchase the author’s book after hearing them speak, indicating a desire to delve deeper into literature. Our proposal consisted of four artistic goals. We believe that all of these goals were met during the course of our project. Our first goal, to celebrate and explore Jewish identity and culture and highlight the rich diversity of the Jewish experience through a variety of engaging and unique narrative voices, was met by the wide range of topics discussed by our featured authors, as well as their unique backgrounds. Topics ranged from interfaith friendships and marriages to stay-at-home fathers, and from tensions between Israelis and Palestinians to rock n roll. The range of topics throughout the series also helped us to meet another goal, to attract and engage a broad audience by presenting notable artists likely to have wide recognition and appeal. Several audience members attended two, or even all three events, but many simply attended the singular event that they connected most deeply with on an individual basis. Although attendance numbers were not as high as we had hoped overall, we did succeed in attracting audience members from many walks of life. As books struggle to stay relevant in our ever more technology-driven world, we hoped to honor and celebrate literature and the written word through these events. We believe this goal was accomplished first by simply inviting these authors to come and speak to our community, and to share their stories and their art form with us. We also accomplished this by making copies of each author’s book available for sale at their event. Some audience members attended having already read the book, but many came simply because they were interested in the topic. After hearing from these authors, many in the latter group were excited to continue exploring the topic at hand by reading the author’s book. Our final goal, to build community and strengthen individual growth by stimulating dialogue and discussion was met through rich, engaging conversation between audience and authors. We successfully reached members of all three different audiences that we set out to target, including people who are already strongly identified with and active in the local Jewish community, people who have a connection to the local Jewish community but are not actively involved, and people who may have an interest in Jewish arts and culture or overlapping areas of interest. Each of the three events had audience members from each of these three categories, although interestingly, and somewhat unintentionally, each event seemed to attract more from a different category. Our first event, with author/journalist and illustrator Christopher Noxon, who addressed issues of interfaith marriage and stay-at-home fathers, attracted primarily members of our first targeted audience, those that already have strong ties to the local Jewish community. Those that have a more indirect connection to the local Jewish community, such as secular or unaffiliated Jews and non-Jewish friends and family members, were the primary audience for our second event with author and journalist Anthony David, who addressed tensions between Israelis and Palestinians through the story of a surprising friendship between two powerful women on each side of the conflict. Our third event, featuring musician Steve Katz, welcomed a large number of non-Jews with an overlapping interest in Katz’s music. By hosting all of our events in our own auditorium, we ensured a space that was open and accessible to all, with step-free entrances and wheelchair access. Attendees who were not able to provide their own transportation utilized our Special Transportation Services certified transportation program, and a small number of ticket fees were waived based on need.