A Picture Perfect Friday Night
Philadelphia, PA — Art aficionados look forward to First Fridays, when they can browse everything from contemporary to classical paintings at open house galleries. At one Philadelphia gallery, visitors are also experiencing Shabbat as it morphs from the abstract to the impressionistic with the help of the local Chabad-Lubavitch representatives.
On the first Friday of the month, hundreds of culture hounds out to sniff and sneer at contemporary paintings and sculptures catch a whiff of Shabbat at Old City Jewish Arts Center in Philadelphia.
Slashes of black seize the mid-ground of ‘Conversations,’ a work by Philadelphia artist Rhea Dennis now on view at the 3rd Street Gallery. Down the street, a conversation of how Shabbat can fit into an art lover’s life takes place over kosher Merlot. Every 20 minutes, Rabbi Zev Baram, Chabad’s rabbi in Old City, recites the traditional Sabbath blessing over wine.
“Amens” number in the hundreds by the time the evening is done. There’s no shortage of foot traffic in the brick-walled space. The center, opened as a joint venture between the Jewish Heritage Program and Lubavitch House of Philadelphia, times its Shabbat hours to coincide with “First Friday,” a giant open house thrown by Old City’s arts community from 5 to 9 p.m. on the first Friday of each month.
“We see this as a way to fuse Judaism and the arts together,” Chani Baram, representative of Chabad of Old City told Lubavitch.com. “People who would not feel comfortable in a synagogue setting may be open to incorporating Judaism through art.”
Article continued (Lubavitch.com)
leah goldblatt
i finally get to see the Art gallery i have heard so much about first friday
Former Arch Street resident
Chani, Ze’ev, and a whole team of helpers put togther a flawless presentation every month. Its a mind blowing experience, for the non-frum as well as frum. Keep up the great work guys!
shoresh poreh rosh
What have we become?!
how secular are these shluchim willing to go?!
do we belong in this type of setting?
and Merkos endorses this?!
my take is: if it looks reformed, sounds reformed and smells reformed, than it’s got to be reformed.
Chasidic Artist
what is reform about exposing yidden to jewish art, having them hear kiddush, and get to know shluchim in a setting they perceive to be unthreatening and familiar? every good deed leads to another, thats what the rebbe teaches us. lets stop judging our fellow shluchim and be unified in our goal to bring the rebbe and make the rebbe proud.
Shmuly
And thats why your not a shliach my good friend. You cant take your head out of the box….
Keep up the good work Ze’ev.
mister pragmatic
To shoresh poreh rosh.
This allows hundreds of yidden to discover yiddishkeit without minimizing its values.
It’s misnagdim like yourself that keep moshiach at a farther distance.