Whatever Is Contained Must Be Released: My Jewish Orthodox by Helène Aylon

By Helène Aylon

Growing up an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn, Helene Aylon spends her Friday nights in a sea of nuclear family because the Sabbath candles flicker. She goals of get away yet marries a rabbi and turns into a mom of 2. all at once her global splits aside while she is widowed at thirty. Aylon reveals a house within the burgeoning environmental artwork scene of the 1970s—creating transgressive works that discover id, women's our bodies, the surroundings, disarmament, and the suggestion of God. ultimately she asks of Judaism what she by no means dared to invite as a toddler: the place are the women?

Examples of Aylon’s paintings incorporated are her early doorways for the Jewish chapel at JFK airport, her peace pillowcases (including one worn via Grace Paley), and her present look for the hyperlinks among feminism and Judaism

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The next day, I was asked to give the invocation in Mandel’s shul. The word “invocation” was not used in Boro Park. All I knew about invocations was that they were given at graduations and United Nations sort of events by eighty-year-old male dignitaries who cleared their throats many times before they started to invoke and kept their heads bowed until they finished. indd 38 4/11/12 3:38 PM For the invocation I pulled my hair back in a chignon to appear older. I wore a hat with a veil. I thought of mother’s constant refrain: Belong, belong.

Here, put on Uncle Abe’s sweater. It’s cashmere. ” “Oh you’re going? Wait. ” If the kitchen was the center of planet Earth, the dining room represented the outer reaches of the heavens. The white linen tablecloth was always fresh should some brood arrive unexpectedly, or a gang from shul trample in unannounced. indd 30 4/11/12 3:38 PM until the company left. Mother didn’t have to like someone to treat them as a wedding guest. “Better to have friends than enemies,” she’d advise me. The only one I can think of whom she spoke against—actually railed against—was my sister Sandy’s first boyfriend.

The word “invocation” was not used in Boro Park. All I knew about invocations was that they were given at graduations and United Nations sort of events by eighty-year-old male dignitaries who cleared their throats many times before they started to invoke and kept their heads bowed until they finished. indd 38 4/11/12 3:38 PM For the invocation I pulled my hair back in a chignon to appear older. I wore a hat with a veil. I thought of mother’s constant refrain: Belong, belong. You’ll be happier. And so I prayed at my first invocation, V’taher libeinu l’avdicha b’emet, purify our hearts to serve you in truth.

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