10th Radical Seder | Radically at Home
image: Thea Cohen; design: Matthew Giddings
“Radically at Home”: Elsewhere’s 10th Annual Radical Seder
Tuesday, March 30th, 5:30-7:30PM EST
Virtual Event (Zoom(
“My mother had two faces and a frying pot where she cooked up her daughters into girls before she fixed our dinner.”
-Audrey Lorde, From the House of Yemanjá
"Radically at Home" is Elsewhere’s annual celebration of Passover, the Jewish ritual retelling the ancient tale of slavery, plagues, and liberation from the Book of Exodus (Shemot). As a contemporary adaptation, the event has woven together old traditions with Elsewhere’s Jewish legacy, social justice texts, and museum art-ifacts to build a narrative relevant for today.
2021’s event was named “Radically at Home” to mark one year under quarantine, connecting again through the virtual world that is just a big constellation of our far flung homes. We will not hold an ordered seder as in past years, but instead will hold an interactive gathering with speakers, readings, and discussions. The event will encourage us to look at the meaning (even sacredness) of the objects we gather in our home, as well as the institution of home as the foundation for self-care, for living out our values, and for social justice work. The kitchen table is a place for both nourishing and building.
2021’s event was built collaboratively with The Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum (@greensborocontemporaryjewishmuseum) Founding artist and co-director, Shoshana Gugenheim and co-director Adam Carlin, Gabrielle Berlinger and her Jewish Folklore class at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and UNCG Director of Public History Anne Parsons. The event featured special guests Rabbi Sandra Lawson (@rabbisandra), Southern Jewish food writer Marcie Cohen Ferris and artist Beatrice Schall.
We made a special dedication with the help of artist Beatrice Schall to our long-time friend, Seymour Levin, who we and so many in our community and beyond hold such deep love and admiration for.
Sponsored by Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum, Greensboro Jewish Federation, and Carolina Jews for Justice.
Image by Thea Cohen (theacohen.com).
Collaborators
The Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum, the only Jewish museum of its kind in North Carolina, is a Jewish museum created in collaboration with faculty and students in the Jewish Studies program and College of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and the greater Greensboro Jewish public.
Shoshana Gugenheim Kedem (Founding Artist and Co-Director) is an interdisciplinary artist, Torah scribe, curator and chutzpanit.
Adam Carlin (Co-Director) is a sculptor and social practice artist that lives and works in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is currently the Director of Greensboro Project Space, an off-campus contemporary art center at the University of North Carolina - Greensboro, and Director of Community Engagement for UNCG’s College of Visual and Performing Arts.
Anne Parsons, Director of Public History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Gabrielle Berlinger, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Assistant Professor of Undergraduate Studies, and Assistant Professor of American Studies and Folklore, and Babette S. and Bernard J. Tanenbaum Fellow in Jewish History and Culture; with her twenty student “Traditions in Transition: Jewish Folklore and Ethnography” class (FOLK/JWST 380)
Special Guests
We will be joined by friends and family of Joe and Sylvia Gray
Marcie Cohen Ferris is an emeritus professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she serves as an editor for Southern Cultures, a quarterly journal of the history and cultures of the U.S. South. Ferris is the author of The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region, (UNC Press, 2014), Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South (UNC Press, 2005; nominated for a James Beard Award, 2006), and co-author of Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History (Brandeis, 2006). In 2018, Ferris received the Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Foodways Alliance. Her current book project with UNC Press, Edible North Carolina: A Journey Across a State of Flavor, explores the vibrant contemporary food movement in the Tar Heel State.
Rabbi Sandra Lawson is an activist, public speaker, and musician. She serves as Associate Chaplain for Jewish Life at Elon University. Lawson became one of the first openly gay, female, black rabbi in the world in 2018. She is a veteran, vegan, sociologist, personal trainer, food activist, weightlifter, writer and musician. Lawson has been described as "Snapchat’s Top Rabbi.
Beatrice Schall is a mixed-media artist who lives and maintains her studio in Greensboro, NC. She holds an undergraduate degree in Studio Art, and a Master’s at College Teaching in Studio Art degree from the UNC-Chapel Hill, NC. She has exhibited her work and lectured widely. Solo shows include Instituto Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Russell Sage College, Albany, NY; The University of South Carolina, Spartanburg, SC; Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art, Greensboro, NC; Durham Art Guild, Durham, NC; Floyd County Museum, New Albany, Indiana; artspace, Raleigh, NC; University of Central Arkansas, Conway, Arkansas, SomArts Gallery, San Francisco, CA; among others. Invitational and juried shows include, The Weatherspoon Art Museum(Art on Paper), Greensboro, NC; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; The Franklin Furnace, NYC; and Cynthia Broan Gallery, NYC; among others.
She has received two emerging grants from the United Arts Council of Greensboro, and a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council which supported her solo traveling exhibit, “The Vestige Series”. Her work is included in numerous private and public collections nationally.
She was a founding member of Center/Gallery, a woman’s run artist space in Chapel Hill, NC. She is active in the Women’s Caucus for Art, and international group of women artists, and was the Southern Vice-President for number of years. In 2009, she developed the workshop “Imagine: A workshop for People in Transition”, to help those dealing with grief. She later expanded the concept and changed the name to “A Life Story” which focused on people who have had cancer, are in treatment for cancer, or are caregivers for people with cancer. She has presented these workshops through The Hirsch Wellness Center in Greensboro, NC. She received the honor of being named a Life Director of the Weatherspoon Art Museum.
Sponsors
Related Events
Passover Dessert Baking with Hadar Kedem!
Sunday, March 14 @ 11 am PST / 1pm EST on zoom
Join us for a live Pesach dessert making workshop with local baker extraordinaire, Hadar Kedem. She’ll be teaching us how to make her "can't get enough" Chocolate Ganache Tart. Perfect for your meat or dairy Passover table and for all experience levels.
Zoom Registration here. Ingredient list here.
About Hadar Kedem: Hadar Kedem loves to bake, bake, bake. She got her start in Israel (her motherland) making pita on an open fire in the desert and has moved on to home ovens where she makes bottom scraping tarts, log cakes, keylime pies, cheesecakes (vegan ones too), lemon macarons and a whole lot more. Hadar had her first baking residency at age seven with the Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum and Elsewhere Museum in Greensboro, NC. Today she is nearing nine and all she wants for her birthday is her very own bright red stand mixer.
This workshop is a collaboration with Congregation Shaarie Torah of Portland, OR + The Gugenheim Portland + The Greensboro Contemporary Jewish Museum + Elsewhere Museum
PAST RADICAL SEDERS:
Content warning: Retelling stories of slavery, plagues, and liberation.
The Radical Seder is Elsewhere’s annual celebration of Passover, the Jewish ritual retelling the ancient tale of slavery, plagues, and liberation from the Book of Exodus (Shemot). As a contemporary adaptation, the event mixes old traditions with Elsewhere’s Jewish legacy, social justice texts, and museum art-ifacts to build a narrative relevant for today.
In the wake of COVID-19, the 9th annual event (2020) titled Pesach for a Digital Diaspora was hosted via Facebook Live by Zach Whitworth, currently Elsewhere’s sole occupant! Zach and guests walked through a reinterpretation of the classic story on a guided digital tour across the museum’s three floors.
Zach’s Haggadah (Seder storybook) is now available to follow along at home.
OPTIONAL: If you would like to have a seder plate at home to follow along the components are as follows. (These are primarily symbolic, and we are using what we have on hand.)
Red wine or juice (We are using wine)
A bitter herb (We are using pickled kale)
A spring vegetable & salt water (We are using pickled celery)
A fruit paste or fruit/nut/wine blend (We are using applesauce)
An egg (We are using a plastic egg)
A bone (We are using a toy lamb)
It is also customary to place a cushion or small pillow on your chair for added comfort during the seder.
Previous Seders
Seder 2018
Elsewhere hosted the 8th annual evening of traditional foods with an untraditional telling of the Passover story across the museum’s three floors. Elsewhere’s Seder connects Jewish liberation with historic and contemporary liberation texts.
Unlike other Seders, we explore the story of Jewish liberation alongside others’ liberation. Excerpts include Marsha P. Johnson, bell hooks, David Wojnarowicz, Baal Shem Tov, Malcolm X, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Susannah Heschel among others. Like all other Seders, ours is a retelling of history, a performance of senses, and a meal made and shared with friends.
