With vines growing out of an old woman's boot, an assemblage of pita and a commanding, makeshift mezuza that stands taller than the 81-year-old artist, Jo Milgrom's Jerusalem home is an ad-hoc gallery, full of her artworks that study the intersection between modern life and biblical text.
The collection of collages and assemblages from found objects that she launched at age 60 - 10 years after getting a doctorate in theology and the arts at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley - served as inspiration for her 1992 book Handmade Midrash: Exercises in Visual Theology (Jewish Publication Society) and the classes she continues to teach on art as biblical commentary.
The idea of connection between art and theology was almost unheard of here in the earlier decades of the modern state and through the centuries, apart from ritual objects, illustrated manuscripts and some classical painting and sculpture illustrating biblical stories, primarily by Christian artists.
The Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem hired its first lecturer relating aesthetics and visual art to Jewish philosophy only in 1989, more than 80 years after its founding. So when the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem founded in 2000 a center to teach Judaism and the fine and folk arts to MA students, artists and the public, it was the country's first such program of study, where Milgrom would teach.
Creating contemporary images that contemplate biblical and midrashic sources was less controversial in her native Berkeley, California. But in Jerusalem, some religious visitors have bristled at her flexible use of materials and subject matter, from prayer shawls and Torah covers no longer used for ritual to images that express feminism, sexuality and humor in a Jewish context.
Since moving here with her husband, biblical scholar Dr. Jacob Milgrom, in 1994, she has become the country's primary lecturer in art as midrash at the Schechter Institute. And now, compiling her archive of images of ancient and contemporary artists, and working together with biblical scholar Dr. Joel Duman, she helped launch last week "Virtual Midrash," the first on-line fine and folk-art index of the Bible and its commentaries, under the auspices of the TALI Education Fund.
What is the relationship between theology and art?
You can't teach literary text without realizing that there are images behind the words. Words have multiple meanings; they provoke our imagination. When you look at the painting of Michelangelo's hands, for example, you can see his interpretation of how God created man through the magic of language, when he says, "Let us make man." Michelangelo's imagination translates God's words into a gesture of hands - God's hand reaches out to Adam's hand, but their hands do not touch. Thus, God does not control Adam, and Michelangelo's hands express the theology of freedom of will. This is really a good example of the intersection of art and theology. So you can say that art is a primary text, parallel to words.
Were images always used as commentary on biblical text?
Archeologists in 1929 found the third-century Dura-Europos synagogue in Syria. With its walls painted with figurative images of Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Esther, etc., it is the oldest known source of biblical and midrashic images.
Theologians asked if Jews didn't historically make less art because of the Second Commandment that forbids the making of graven images. What follows says that you do not bow down to them, but it doesn't say why, unless you connect the two sentences. So you can understand that one can make images, but you better not worship them. The Bible saw the Israelites as a new religion squashed between Egypt and Mesopotamia - the major image makers. The Torah was saying don't be like them - resist the influence of idolatry.
Jewish art is not as abundant as Christian art, which flourished in a major way, but these synagogue paintings precede Christian art by two centuries. There were periods where Jewish art goes underground, but when the Jews were more secure, Jewish art begins to flourish. Jewish art is like a pendulum, it swings back and forth, yes, no, maybe, yes.
More recently, since the Haskala [period of enlightenment], Jewish artists came more to the fore, though some Jews have felt some non-encouragement. Like the story in My Name Is Asher Lev [by author Chaim Potok, whose main character is] under the influence of religious extremism, and extreme influence still exists. That's why even today you don't find art studies in religious schools beyond arts and crafts for children. Yeshiva University does have a museum of art. But there are outside influences in the Jewish world that are still extreme and fearful.
Why create a web site for biblical art?
We took ancient and contemporary art works, searchable by artist, subject, medium or biblical source, and put them in context for students and teachers. If you are teaching the story of the Garden of Eden, for example, you can search the word "tree of life" and find all biblical, talmudic and midrashic sources, and all artists, including the date of their work, materials and any information about the work.
It is not only Jewish art and texts from the Jewish Bible, midrash and commentary. There are Christian and Muslim art works and writings on biblical subjects, too. So far there are 560 of my 3,000 slides entered into the Web site, with essays in English and Hebrew on 20 themes, including creation, Cain and Abel, Abraham, Hagar and Sarah, Jacob and his dreams, and Moses: the giving of Torah and his journey in the desert. We are looking for funding to keep adding works.
Are there particular stories of the Hebrew Bible that have inspired the most works of art?
There are hundreds of works on the akeda, the Binding of Isaac, and many prefigure the crucifixion, so a lot of Christian interpretations see Isaac as Jesus.
What works of art have been surprising?
The discovery I mentioned of the third-century Dura-Europos synagogue, whose walls were covered with figural art, was the surprising event in Jewish art history. The surprise was that Jews made art, contrary to the stereotype that words, not images, characterized Judaism. When archeologists and biblical scholars examined these pictures, they also saw elements that were not in the Bible, which forced them to look for midrash. Sometimes a picture is not just commenting on the Bible, but you can see the midrash reflected in the work.
In the Dura synagogue, Moses is a central figure. What is he doing in this drawing, throwing a stick in a well? Striking the rocks? There were all those stories about how Moses gets water for his people. What you see here are the 12 tents of Israel with a sanctuary in the middle. That is how Israel traveled in the desert. Moses had an engineering problem - how do you distribute water to each individual tribe in the desert? Midrash tells us that the well was portable and traveled with Israel as long as they observed the Torah. Streams flowed from this well, bringing water, which is [a metaphor for] Torah, to each of the tribes.
You are a prolific creator of contemporary art as midrash, often using discarded religious items, which is disturbing to some viewers. How and why do you use these materials?
Using discarded ritual objects is not for purposes of degrading Judaism. During a visit to a funeral home, I came upon quantities of discarded ritual objects. I asked the director, "Rather than bury these in a geniza, would you like to give these items a second life in my assemblage art? They could become new vehicles for connecting the past with Jewish issues today." That is how I first came to adapt torn tallitot, empty tefillin boxes, detached straps and fragments of once-sacred texts - not to degrade or misappropriate what is dear, but to give a new presence in Jewish material culture to these retired items fallen into neglect and disuse.
Art like Torah is controversial [and can] change your perspective. Sometimes it refreshes and challenges. It may not be easy; sometimes you unexpectedly confront what you reject or fear. Yes, piety comes in unexpected ways, sanctifying the untutored, modest stuff of daily life. "Turn it over, turn it over, everything is in it" [a quote from Pirkei Avot] may also mean overturn it. Better a feisty, controversial life than dullness and burial.
You have a collage of Marilyn Monroe wearing a prayer shawl. Is thsi relevant to recent events at the Western Wall where a woman has been arrested for wearing a tallit?
Women in the second century, according to a major rabbinic source, Sifre, were not only allowed to, but required to wear tallit. In a later talmudic period, women's privileges were suppressed. The Sifre commentary on making tzitzit in Numbers 15 asks, "Who do you mean by the Children of Israel?" The answer given is af hanashim bamashma - "even the women."
What is a major theme in your work?
A mezuza is a little thing that is mostly ignored, but probably has the most powerful symbolism of anything in Jewish life. It should honk at you when you pass through the door; it is the symbolism of a threshold, a gesture that reminds us of a connection to God, if we are conscious. Being conscious of the meeting of space and time at the threshold makes it holy, and the mezuza marks that. I have made dozens of mezuzot. My favorite one is made of retired mailboxes and a hazard reflector and text calligraphed by my student, Adi Savran.
What is your funniest work?
This sculpture of a lady - which is actually a tefillin box on a wig. The straps of the tefillin carry the viewer's eyes down to a series of four words on computer keys and a dress label, from top to bottom it reads: "end. madness. shift. control." This is a midrash on the equality of women in Jewish life.
Is hutzpa an element in any of your works?
There is a passage in Song of Songs that says, "Ani l'dodi v'dodi li, bein shadai yalin" [I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine, between my breasts he lies]. I took a lace bra and stuffed it with etrogim - the tip of the etrog in Hebrew is pitom, related linguistically to the word pitma, or nipple. Etrog is a feminine fruit. I draped this on an upside-down tallit case. People often say, "How can you hang such a thing on a tallit case and why is it upside down?" My midrash is that in love, there is no right order.
What is your hope for this new website?
When I began teaching the artist as Bible commentator, my only resource was a 1964 Life magazine double Christmas issue on Bible and art. This was not enough. My collection of slides since then grew to thousands and is now available on-line for any interested student and teacher. We have hopes and dreams for the Web site, in English and Hebrew, to also include Spanish, French and Russian. I hope the site will make Bible much more accessible to the interested public. The Bible is still a best-seller, but it often collects dust on the shelf. It has affected the values of the Western world, for better or worse. And the more
enlightenment we can achieve, the better.
To visit the TALI Virtual Midrash site, click here: tali-virtualmidrash
