I was describing my new video/film to a man in the Orthodox community. I told him that I was working on a piece about kashrut—keeping kosher—in America. After I described some of the segments that I had already filmed, the people that I had interviewed and what I still planned to do, he replied with a plea that I have heard many times before: “I hope you are making a positive film about keeping kosher. It should look good. Don’t make it look too difficult to keep kosher, or the people who see your film won’t want to do it themselves.”
I am an observant Jewish woman, a photographer, and a video artist. My artwork is often about religious observance and the roles that women play. My photographs reflect my own experiences: what I do, what I know, what I feel. Consequently, I find that members of the Jewish community who know me take it for granted that I will engage in Jewish public relations in my art. They expect me to show religion only in a positive light. Since I am on the “inside,” I must tell the world how beautiful and how spiritual observant Judaism is.
My films and photographs do reflect the beauty of Judaism. But my artwork is also about reality—the reality a woman faces when she chooses to follow the traditional laws of religious life in today’s modern society. This reality is not always simple and spiritual. Sometimes it is complex, sometimes it is time-consuming, and sometimes it is difficult to reconcile with the expectations of today’s woman.
My film, “Cycle: The Mikvah,” which screened at film festivals around the country, portrayed one Orthodox woman’s honest response to the monthly practice of mikvah (the ritual bath). The video, which combined documentary footage and artistic imagery, explained how a religious ritual that is conceptually beautiful can become burdensome in the reality of daily existence. The piece was structured around the repetition of the menstrual cycle: from the time a woman is allowed to have relations with her husband, to menstruation, to counting her “clean” days, to washing her body, to immersion in the mikvah, and to, once again, having relations with her husband.
Before screening the piece, I was concerned about how it would be received by the religious community. I was describing a practice so private, that mothers do not discuss it with their daughters until they are of marriageable age. Was I being heretical because I was exposing something that is usually only discussed in hushed tones?
Some responses were negative. The piece was, I must admit, “earthy.” Soiled women’s toiletries represented menstruation, and an undressed woman actually immersed on screen in the mikvah, although no nudity was shown. Some Jewish viewers questioned my dedication. They questioned my observance. How could a devout, religious, modest woman who practices the mitzvah of “taharat hamishpacha” have the audacity to portray it realistically—let alone create a film about its difficulties? But I also received positive and supportive reviews, especially from other modern religious women. They had experienced what I portrayed—men’s lack of understanding of a woman’s feelings about the mikvah observance.
This response inspired me. I then created a photo essay titled “Ervah: Hidden Sensuality” about Orthodox women’s hair-covering. I photographed myself as I visited different religious Orthodox Jewish communities in New York, dressed like the women of that community. In Boro Park, I wore a sheitel (wig). In Monsey, I wore a shpitzel (the yarn head covering worn at the hairline under a kerchief—particularly in the Satmar and Vishnitz communities). In Williamsburg, I wore a hat on top of my sheitel. In Flatbush, I pushed my hair into a snood. And in Manhattan I donned a stylish hat on top of my long, flowing natural curls. I tried to blend in.
“Ervah: Hidden Sensuality” was exhibited in a gallery in Washington D.C. and was shown, in part, at the 2002 JOFA conference in New York. It showed how hair-covering can display a woman’s dedication to her Judaism and identify her affiliation. The irony is that a practice which is designed to preserve modesty is, in today’s society, one of the most public display of religious observance and identification. Distinctive hair-covering not only identifies women in the Orthodox Jewish community, but divides them. “One of us” is readily distinguished from an “outsider” by how a woman covers her hair. The message is: “If she covers her hair differently than I do, she does not practice my style of Judaism.” While I was creating the photo essay, I discovered that, in its own way, the religious community puts as much emphasis on a woman’s appearance as does today’s secular society.
At the exhibit, the general public viewed it as an interesting documentation of hair covering. But the curator told me that the photographs spurred a great deal of talk within the Jewish community. What most viewers wanted to know was: “Who is the artist? Is she religious? Does she cover her hair? How does she cover her hair? What are her views?” My viewers in the Jewish community needed to know who I was and where I fit in before they felt comfortable looking at, interpreting, or processing the photographs on display. Why? How much does one have to know about Monet, Modigliani, Cindy Sherman, or Diane Arbus before being able to enjoy the artist’s creation?
In the Jewish community, we expect one of our own to portray Judaism positively to the rest of the world. If a religious artist raises questions about traditional practices, viewers become confused. How can she both genuinely practice religion and criticize it at the same time?
But there is a difference. I am not hostile. My work is not a rejection of religion. I ask questions to better understand the practice. My art poses questions that are otherwise difficult to express. Art does not have to be beautiful. Art can be challenging. Art should make you think. Art should help you see things from a different perspective. And if in my art, I am expressing the frustration felt by me and perhaps by other women about particular aspects of Judaism, I would hope that I am adding, in some minor way, to the healthy debates that have historically facilitated the development of our tradition.