The CJM Blog

Once a generation, a major institution like the San Francisco Opera stages the four-part Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner. The slightly arch title of our June 23 program, Who’s Afraid of Richard Wagner? , is suggestive of the difficulty of engaging this titan of nineteenth-century music, both because his work is sonically overwhelming and because his politics were anti-Semitic.

What would Gertrude Stein and Michael Jackson say to each other at a dinner party? Or Billie Holiday and Virginia Woolf? More importantly, what would they eat?

A look at the technology behind the exhibition Are We There Yet? .

Bay Area artists Gil Gershoni and Ken Goldberg present a contemporary take on the inquisitive impulse with an installation opening at the CJM on March 31. Are We There Yet?: 5,000 Years of Answering Questions with Questions combines the latest in intelligent cameras and acoustics to create a reactive sound environment that encourages visitors to reconsider the history and future of curiosity. In preparation for the installation’s opening, Gershoni and Goldberg recently sat answered a few questions about their project. How did you come up with the idea? It started with a phone call from [Contemporary Jewish Museum Director and CEO] Connie Wolf who began the conversation with a question: Any interest in creating a new installation in the CJM’s Yud Gallery that would engage the broader community?

Thoughts from scribe-in-residence Julie Seltzer on what she's writing, her process, and the experience of writing a Torah on public view. Sometimes I like to stop and just stare at the wall. A really great wall to stare at is the one that leads into the Torah exhibition . Many visitors pass by without more than a glance, unable to decipher the Hebrew-laced barcode symbols that plaster the hall on either side, to the right and to the left. It’s actually my favorite part of the exhibition, this piece by Israeli artist Dov Abramson . The wall is patterned in the 613 mitzvot (commandments), with little icons symbolizing to whom and where the mitzvot apply, and what scary form of punishment will follow if they are transgressed.

The San Francisco Giants aren't the city's only champion this year. San Francisco is also home to Johnny "Hei'z" Heywood, the reigning Major League Dreidel champion, who this Thursday, December 2, will be at the Contemporary Jewish Museum for Rit Lab . Last December, the 27-year-old Heywood knocked off competitors like Spincent Van Gogh, Spinny the Pooh, and Spindianna Jones on his way to becoming the first gentile champion of Major League Dreidel.

Thoughts from scribe-in-residence Julie Seltzer on what she's writing, her process, and the experience of writing a Torah on public view. Last year, b’etzem hayom hazeh , on this self-same day, As It Is Written: Project 304,805 opened. Another important event in my life happened on this day as well: sixty-one years ago, on October 8th, 1949, my mother, z”l, was born.