My new piece is titled: ‘Ambiguity, Antisemitism and the Active Citizen:The far right, racial politics, and popular culture in the time of Corona.’ It is published in the Australian Association of Social Educators and Citizenship Journal, The Social Educator’s Journal, Vol. 39 (2), August 2021, pp. 28-43.
An Article for Plus 61J
Plus61J has a new piece I wrote on the paperback edition of my book. Available at https://plus61j.net.au/jewish-world/the-fin-de-siecle-zionist-artist-who-put-women-in-charge-of-their-own-libido/.
My article describes the work of Ephraim Moses Lilien, often called “the first Zionist artist.”
He was one of the most significant Jewish artists of the modern era. With little formal academic training, Lilien matured into a master printer, a prize-winning photographer, and a renowned illustrator, publishing three major illustrated books during his brief lifetime.
Lilien befriended many of the celebrated Jewish intellectuals of the German-speaking world, including Stefan Zweig, Theodor Herzl, Martin Buber, and Chaim Weizmann. He became the darling of the German Jewish art world, playing an important role in the cultural Zionist art movement. He worked, albeit briefly, at the first Israeli national art school, Bezalel, in Jerusalem when it opened in 1906.
His iconic photograph of Theodor Herzl looking out over the river Rhine is better known for its emotional rhetoric than for the name of the artist who snapped the image.
Israeli and Jewish history buffs recognise the photograph of Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, who stands looking east toward a hopeful future for the state of the Jews. Yet most are unaware that Lilien accumulated a large following for his modernist black-and-white illustrations during the first decade before World War I.
ABC Radio National’s 'Soul Search', Sander Gilman and me
Last week I appeared on ABC Radio National’s Soul Search, in conversation with Professor Sander L. Gilman (Emory University, Atlanta).
Sander and I talked with the host Dr. Meredith Lake on topics of racism, antisemitism, representation of Jews, education, and my new book Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation. The program begins by quoting Martin Luther King, who said that people are judged by the content of their character – not by the colour of their skin. During COVID-19, when prejudice has raised its ugly head, these themes are worth revisiting. The program is available for streaming via ABC RN’s site and iTunes.
A brief post on my new book:
At the end of January this year, before COVID-19 was on anyone’s agenda, Bloomsbury Academic Press published my first book. Encompassing my passion for intellectual intersections: modern European history, Jewish history, gender studies and visual culture. Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation is about one of the important (but overlooked) Jewish artists of modern times, Ephraim Moses (E. M.) Lilien.
E. M. Lilien has often been romanticised or demonised, depending on your view, as the ‘first major Zionist’ artist. Surprisingly there has been little in-depth scholarly research and analysis of Lilien's work available in English, and my research makes an important contribution to historical scholarship. Indeed, most of the historiography on Lilien so far has concentrated on his groundbreaking iconography of the muscular (male) Jewish body, much discussed among scholars of Israeli and Zionist art historiography. There has been very little debate on his images of the modern Jewish women.
Morrison's Hairdressing Rule Created by Men for Men
Recently the Commonwealth government decided that hairdressers were essential. On March 26 Scott Morrison announced that nail clinics, beauty salons, and gyms will all close but hairdressers were a necessary service. Phew, every woman over a certain age and in possession of a certain amount of money, breathed a collective sigh bringing into even sharper focus the strange decision to add a caveat. However, he added, haircuts are now restricted to thirty minutes.
As soon as I heard the words flying out of the mouth of our Prime Minister, I imagined many women all over the country crying out “What the? That’s not enough time for anything”! This decision has now been reversed, due to the overwhelming response from the hairdressing industry. Slamming the decision to keep them open despite shutting down every other beauty profession.