The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture

Joshua Rose
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We are right at the beginning of what some have called "The 21st Century Jewish Cultural Renaissance," and The Genesis is the podcast watching it unfold, in real time and up close. Each week Rabbi Josh Rose has a conversation with a different Jewish artist or cultural figure to explore questions of artistic creativity, individual Jewish identity, Jewish expression and how Jewish arts are reshaping what it means to be Jewish. Our main focus in on the artists from Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture, and Jewish artists in the Pacific Northwest. Rabbi Josh also engages national leaders (Rabbi Shai Held of Hadar, Seth Pinksy of New York's 92nd Street Y) about the broader world of Jewish culture. So, if you're interested in 21st century Jewish life, Jewish ideas, Jewish arts or just good conversation, you're in the right place. *The Genesis was originally a podcast of Co/Lab, founded by Rabbi Josh. Today the Genesis is a production of Art/Lab where Rabbi Josh continues to shape its unfolding.

  1. 2D AGO

    S3E41 Is Music the Purest form of Spirituality? (Michelle Alany)

    Welcome to the genesis. In this episode, I talk with violinist, vocalist, and composer Michelle Elani, who was part of the first art lab cohort way back when. She is a musician who weaves together different musical and cultural universes into a totally unique and beautiful fabric. Michelle has lit up a great many venues with her music. She's toured internationally with both her own music. And is a supporting artist in various capacities around Europe. She's toured with a fusion rock driven Viking blues band. She's played with the Trans Siberian Orchestra and then sold out theaters performing silent movie film scores in Texas, and she's brought music to packed jazz and blues Listening rooms in Austria led raucous jams and Chilean bars, as well as other international dives and halls. Not to mention an ongoing gig that she has at her current hometown of Portland, Oregon, where she plays regularly at the Laurelthirst. Flowing into her musical soul, into her sound is her background in classical music. Traditional and original Sephardic. That is Judeo Spanish music, Balkan in Israeli song, klezmer, jazz, blues, rock. It's all in there. Michelle and I talk about family musical calling and the search for a sound that feels rooted and free. We discussed the role that music played in her upbringing, how her Jewish identity finds its way into her work and her projects, and what it takes to find one's unique voice. As an artist, but for me, the core and the most delightful part of this conversation is our discussion about the spiritual quest that is part of musical expression. Take a listen. See what  the show notes contain so you can find her recorded music and take in a performance of hers here in Portland or wherever you might be listening here and beyond. Thanks so much for listening to the genesis. The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture is conceived of and created by Rabbi Josh Rose, and is a program of Art/Lab: Jewish Arts and Culture. Theme music by Rabbi Josh Rose.   Links Art/Lab: artlabpdx.org Michelle Alany: michellealany.com, @michellealanymusic, facebook.com/michellealany, youtu.be/JHoX4USW_zE. , www.youtube.com/live/yzXBAX9tFdk?si=Zr89g-QzBlGLup0N, www.youtube.com/live/HVX3vjceVZ0?si=Hviveui1eOfKRtHa Michelle's Allbums: michellealany.bandcamp.com/ Barbès Brooklyn: barbesbrooklyn.com LaurelThirst Public House: laurelthirst.com

    43 min

  2. APR 1

    S3E40 What is the Art of Exodus?

    Rabbi Josh offers a perspective on the artistic significance of the Exodus.

    10 min

  3. MAR 27

    S3E39 Making Jewish Art & Making Jewish Community ? (w/ Eddy Shuldman)

    In this episode, I speak with Portland fused-glass artist Eddy Shuldman, co-founder of ORA: Northwest Jewish Artists, about the long path by which art, teaching, and Jewish life became inseparable for her. Eddy describes how she first turned to art not out of artistic ambition, but as a discipline of humility while working with at-risk youth: she wanted to keep learning hard things, failing publicly, and modeling perseverance for her students. That path eventually led her from stained glass to fused glass, where, as she puts it, the medium finally came alive for her. We talk about the technical unpredictability of glass, the spiritual intensity of working in a fragile medium, and the way Hebrew letters, liturgy, Torah, and Jewish memory become visual form in her work We discuss the (impossible question of) what makes art Jewish, how artists nourish one another in community, and why ORA has mattered so much in Portland Jewish life. Eddy reflects on ORA's origins, its role in creating exhibition and community space for Jewish artists, and the more elusive but more important work it does in helping people connect Jewishly through creativity. We also talk about a powerful piece she created during COVID in response to anti-Black violence, the spiritual process behind her work, and the way Jewish phrases, texts, and experiences can surface in art even when the Jewish content is not overt.  Enjoy this conversation with Eddy Shuldman.   Links Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture: artlabpdx.org ORA Northwest Jewish Artists: https://www.northwestjewishartists.org Eddy's Blogspot: https://sparksofspiritglass.blogspot.com Rabbi Goldie Milgram: http://www.reclaimingjudaism.org/

    40 min

  4. MAR 18

    S3 E38 An Iranian Jewish Painter Beyond Labels (with Dana Nehdaran)

    In this episode, I speak with painter Dana Nehdaran about art, memory, and the complexity of Jewish-Iranian identity. Dana resists being reduced to a label and prefers to think of himself simply as a painter, but our conversation shows how deeply history and identity can still inform an artist's work without confining it. We discuss his upbringing in Iran in a traditional but not especially religious Jewish family, the Jewish community of his hometown, and the way he came to create Esther's Children, his series based on archival photographs of Iranian Jewish life. Dana describes how those images allowed him to explore both his own connection to Jewish history and a broader claim: that Jewish history in Iran is inseparable from Iranian history itself. We also turn to Dana's more recent self-portrait work, especially his "Interrogation Room" series, in which he repeatedly paints himself under stark light as a way of asking, again and again, "Who are you?" That opens into a rich conversation about painting as self-examination, the tension between talent and technique, and the painter's way of seeing color, shadow, and form. Throughout, Dana emerges as both fiercely individual and deeply rooted: an Iranian-born Jewish artist who is wary of identity categories, yet whose work preserves, reimagines, and complicates Jewish-Iranian memory in striking ways. The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture is conceived of and created by Rabbi Josh Rose, and is a program of Art/Lab: Jewish Arts and Culture. Theme music by Rabbi Josh Rose. Links: Art/Lab: artlabpdx.org Dana's website where you can also encounter the work of his brother Darius Nehdaran: https://www.nehdaran.com/ Dana's Instagram (@dananehdaran_studio):  https://www.instagram.com/dananehdaran_studio/ Dana's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dananehdaran1030 Esther's Children catalogue on Dana's site:  https://www.nehdaran.com/assets/pdf/dana-nehdaran-esther%27s-children-dubai-exhibition-catalogue.pdf Esther's Children (the Book): https://www.facebook.com/houman.sarshar

    37 min

  5. MAR 12

    S3E37 Jewish Artist Daniela Naomi Molnar Reads Her Own Work

    We're starting something new here at the podcast. Periodically, we're going to Jewish invite artists to share their work directly with you. So today we bring you Daniela Naomi Molnar reading three of her poems. Daniela is an Art/Lab alum. I interviewed her for this podcast, so you might be familiar with her work. I interviewed her back in season number one and last season she and I hosted a conversation at Annie Bloom Books. You may also know Daniella from her published work. Daniella's debut book Chorus won the 2024 Oregon Book Award for poetry and her work Protocols: An Erasure, which is an extended erasure poem was published in 2025. That extended work is composed from the foundational antisemitic forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion, along with prose meditations on the subject. It is a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. In addition, Daniella's work has been  published and shown widely in public and in private collections here and internationally as well. In this episode, Daniela reads three poems from her forthcoming Memory of a Larger Mind (Link is below): "The World is Full # 145," "Memory of a Larger Mind #2," and "Kaddish #3."  It will be published in October 2026 from Omnidawn. Thank you to Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry for allowing us to use the audio (here) and video (on our Youtube channel, @thegenesisjewishpodcast) from Daniela's appearance with them. Yetzirah's original video, which includes other artists as well, can be found here: https://vimeo.com/1140200036?fl=pl&fe=sh The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture is conceived of and created by Rabbi Josh Rose, and is a program of Art/Lab: Jewish Arts and Culture. Theme music by Rabbi Josh Rose. Links Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture: artlabpdx.org Daniela Naomi Molnar: danielamolnar.com Daniela's Memory of a Larger Mind: https://www.danielamolnar.com/memoryofalargermind Yetzirah: A Hearth for Jewish Poetry: yetzirahpoets.org

    17 min

  6. MAR 5

    S3E36 When Does an Artist Become Jewish First? (W/ Andrea Stolowitz)

    In this conversation with playwright Andrea Stolowitz, I found myself moving back and forth with her between cities, art forms, and identities. We begin with the contrast between New York and Portland—how New York's sheer density of artistic life (and vastly stronger funding) can make theater feel culturally central, while Portland as a City has to keep stretching to match the artistic talent here.  We talk about what it means to make live theater now, when audiences are trained toward screens and when nonprofit theaters are financially squeezed into taking fewer risks. Andrea describes theater as an "artisanal bread" enterprise—inefficient, expensive, and irreplaceably real—especially in an age when people are increasingly unsure what's authentic. We talk about The Berlin Diaries, where she uses her great-grandfather's 1939 diary and a journey to Berlin to ask a blunt, painful question: how much of her family's dysfunction is Holocaust inheritance, and how much is ordinary human messiness. What emerges is not just trauma, but the power of omission—the knowledge that never got passed down, the silences that shape identity as much as the facts that are spoken. We end in the present: the constraints and anxieties around representation, the way scarcity turns "radical hospitality" into competition, and how post–Oct. 7 realities have pushed Andrea to put Jewishness closer to the center of her work—and to confront the fact that sometimes, making art means you can't just compile voices; you have to own an argument. Enjoy the conversation.  The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture is conceived of and created by Rabbi Josh Rose, and is a program of Art/Lab: Jewish Arts and Culture. Theme music by Rabbi Josh Rose. Links: Art/Lab: artlabpdx.org Andrea's website: https://andreastolowitz.com/ Berlin Diaries Audio Drama: https://vimeo.com/1164043554?fl=pl&fe=sh Abbey Theatre: https://www.abbeytheatre.ie Sabbath Queen:https://www.sabbathqueen.com Numbered Be Our Days: https://www.cyclonerep.com/numbered-be-our-days

    41 min

  7. FEB 26

    S3E35 What Happens When A Jewish Artist Takes on Counterculture Pop Art? (w/ Steve Marcus)

    My guest this week is Steve Marcus, a New York–based artist who's on our radar because he's currently on exhibit at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. His work is visually striking—sometimes funny, always interesting—and it's a genuinely profound engagement with Jewish ideas and identity through the language of pop culture. A lot of his aesthetic is rooted in the comic-book, counterculture world of artists like Robert Crumb and others who rose to prominence in the '60s and '70s, but Steve puts a distinctly Jewish twist on it. And if you're watching this on YouTube (as opposed to just listening on the podcast), you'll actually get to see some of the work—we throw images up on screen as we talk. In our conversation we get into Jewish pop, "kosher pop art," and Jewish futurity—what it means to make Jewish art and culture feel alive, contemporary, and relatable, especially for people who maybe didn't grow up with it but are open to it now.  Steve is also deeply rooted in the Jewish tradition, and that comes through most clearly when we talk about learning. He does a lot of daily study. We talk about Daf Yomi—daily Talmud study—and he has a really interesting take on the very aspects of Talmud that some people find off-putting: the minutiae, the details, the endless specificity. He loves the discipline of doing it every day, and he's found real beauty in the details. We also talk about teshuvah—what it looks like for people who haven't been connected to Jewish tradition to return to it—and how his work is an expression of that process for him. If you haven't seen his show at the museum, I really encourage you to go. And one more reminder: the Portland Jewish Film Festival is happening right now. Head to the Oregon Jewish Museum's website—our partner in so much of this work—to see what's playing around town and what you can stream online. Enjoy my conversation with Steve Marcus, and thanks so much for listening.  The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture is conceived of and created by Rabbi Josh Rose, and is a program of Art/Lab: Jewish Arts and Culture. Theme music by Rabbi Josh Rose. Links: Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture: www.artlabpdx.org Oregon Jewish Museum Exhibit: www.ojmche.org/events/psychedelicatessen-a-powerful-dose-of-art-by-steve-marcus/ Artist's Website: www.smarcus.com 

    43 min

  8. FEB 18

    S3E34 A Jewish Art of Work (with Toby Perl Freilich)

    In this episode, I speak with filmmaker and journalist Toby Perl Freilich about why some subjects demand the documentary form. Freilich contrasts writing's breadth with film's "shallow medium that packs a punch," arguing that moving images—especially archival footage—can create an unusually immediate kind of understanding. Our discussion centers on  Freilich's feature documentary Maintenance Artist, centered on Mierle Laderman Ukeles—best known as the long-time artist-in-residence for the New York City Department of Sanitation.  That movie, along with several others, are featured as part of the Portland Jewish Film Festival later this month.  We explore the subject of the film and her radical insistence that "maintenance labor" is both essential and worthy of dignity. Freilich and I also  discuss Ukeles's institutional critiques (including her famous "mummy/vitrine" intervention at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art), her reframing of "invisible" work, and the film's Jewish ethical undercurrent (tzelem Elohim and a values-based Jewish imagination rather than "ritual-object" Judaism). Finally, my guest  offers a rare window into craft: the years-long fundraising, the editorial architecture shaped with her editor Anne Alvergue, and the deliberate design choices that keep the film visually "clean" while dealing with the aesthetics and politics of waste. Enjoy my conversation with Toby Perl Freilich. The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture is conceived of and created by Rabbi Josh Rose, and is a program of Art/Lab: Jewish Arts and Culture. Theme music by Rabbi Josh Rose. Links Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture: https://artlabpdx.org  Maintanance Artist, film website: https://www.maintenanceartist.com Portland Jewish Film Festival (at OJMCHE): https://www.ojmche.org/events/portland-jewish-film-festival/sting  Mierle Laderman Ukeles and the Art of Work - at the New Yorker Magazine.

    42 min
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About

We are right at the beginning of what some have called "The 21st Century Jewish Cultural Renaissance," and The Genesis is the podcast watching it unfold, in real time and up close. Each week Rabbi Josh Rose has a conversation with a different Jewish artist or cultural figure to explore questions of artistic creativity, individual Jewish identity, Jewish expression and how Jewish arts are reshaping what it means to be Jewish. Our main focus in on the artists from Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture, and Jewish artists in the Pacific Northwest. Rabbi Josh also engages national leaders (Rabbi Shai Held of Hadar, Seth Pinksy of New York's 92nd Street Y) about the broader world of Jewish culture. So, if you're interested in 21st century Jewish life, Jewish ideas, Jewish arts or just good conversation, you're in the right place. *The Genesis was originally a podcast of Co/Lab, founded by Rabbi Josh. Today the Genesis is a production of Art/Lab where Rabbi Josh continues to shape its unfolding.

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