Today I am speaking with artist Jessica Rehfield, whose work lives at the intersection of art, Jewish identity and resistance. Jessica was in our first art lab cohort and her big, bold paintings at the first exhibition. I can still remember. Jessica is not a wallflower in their work or their life, and is a self-described big old queer Jew. And that Jewish and Queer self understanding isn't just decorative. It's the backbone of their practice paintings, their community projects, writings push back against what they call the state of Miseducation about both queer and Jewish histories.

 In this conversation, Jessica describes how their work evolved from solitary charcoal drawings during graduate school into collaborative community centered projects, art as a form of collective response to fascism. Jessica insists that art. And politics cannot be separated when your very existence is politicized and is an advocate for linking the inherent politics of Jewishness as they see it with the experience of marginalization of Jews and of queer people. We talk about how Jewish and queer communities are each under pressure, and how shared language history and courage might help us rehumanize one another in this fractured moment.

We also dig into Jessica's rediscovery of Yiddish during the pandemic, A language that they call the body of the Jewish Spirit out of their focus. On that came a self illustrated Yiddish primer as they'll describe new large scale paintings in a renewed understanding. That they had of language as both inheritance and resistance. Now, if you have not heard yet, my discussion with Lou Cove way back in season two, that can help frame an understanding for this part of the conversation (Episode 20) about how Yiddish culture's breadth and unifying Jewish diversity contrasts with our fractured Jewish world today.

Thank you for listening. And hey, if Jewish ideas, Jewish identity, and Jewish creativity are important to you, please tell one person about this podcast. Word of mouth is how people hear about new, cool things, and it's how podcasts grow. Plus, this is a really, really important moment for us to put strength, creativity, and Jewish pride right out there, front and center. Thanks for listening. Enjoy my conversation with Jessica Rehfield. 

Links relevant to the conversation:

 www.artlabpdx.org

www.instagram.com/alenereh/

www.jessicarehfield.com

www.yiddishbookcenter.org

 One of the unexpected pleasures of hosting these conversations with Jewish artists is noticing the recurring themes that emerge without my planning them. Again and again, I see points of convergence between important Jewish religious questions and the experience of artists in their creative work.

I continue to hear resonances between between artistic vision and spiritual yearning, between creative community and Jewish religious community in these convresations with Art/Lab's cohort of Jewish artists. It's become clear to me that this isn't a coincidence, but a profound area of inquiry: where do art and religion meet, and why do so many artists find themselves, consciously or not, engaging religious or spiritual questions through their work?

This theme is especially present in my conversation today with painter Justin Jude Carroll, a member of Art/Lab's inaugural artist cohort. Justin is a classically trained artist whose vivid, abstract paintings have been shown throughout Portland and are now beginning to receive national attention. His creative journey is inseparable from his personal journey, particularly his recovery from a traumatic brain injury—a pivotal experience that reoriented his life and ultimately led him toward painting with a new sense of urgency and authenticity.

What fascinates me about Justin's story is how it illuminates a deeper connection between art and spirituality: both can become vehicles for healing, for transformation, and for the search for authenticity. At the heart of both traditions lies a fundamental Jewish religious question: Who am I, and what am I called to bring into the world? Artists, like seekers in religious communities, often struggle to navigate the tension between external expectations and inner truth. As Justin and I discuss, that tension is not simply psychological—it is, in many ways, theological.

We also touch on the role of community—how both Jewish religious and artistic communities can serve as containers for growth, vulnerability, and accountability, and how essential that network is for an artist trying to push the boundaries of their own voice. 

This is a rich and wide-ranging conversation: we explore art as a mystical and spiritual practice, Justin's current work and expanding national presence, and the ways in which creativity itself can become a path of meaning-making. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Justin Jude Carroll. 

*****

The deadline for applications for the next Art/Lab Cohort is midnight this coming Saturday August 30th…. If you are a Jewish artist or know someone who is, now's the time! Artists consistently tell us what a powerful experience their time in Art/Lab was. Don't miss out.  Go to artlabpdx.org for the application. 

*****

Today  I'm joined by Shir Ly Grisanti, an artist, curator, and cultural leader whose work lives right at the intersection of art, ecology, and Jewish values. Shir has spent over a decade building projects that bring people together through creativity and conversation.

In 2012, she founded c3:initiative in Portland, a nonprofit designed not just to display art but to steward resources and solidarity with artists and partner organizations working on some of the hardest social questions of our time.

At the same time, Shir and their husband Laurence are the stewards of Camp Colton, an 85-acre woodland in rural Oregon. Together they've turned this former camp into a place of rewilding and restoration, planting thousands of trees and nurturing a fragile ecosystem back to health, while also hosting gatherings, retreats, and cultural programs

And on top of all of this - or undergirding it? - Shir is herself an artist. She was part of the Second Art/Lab Shir's work is guided by a "dual–nondual" vision: a sense that everything is interconnected, that we are always in relationship—with ancestors, with traditions, with the land, and with each other. 

Enjoy my conversation with Shir Grisanti.

Show Notes:

artlabpdx.org

• Shir's website:  shirgrisanti.com

• Stelo – steloarts.org

• c3:initiative – c3initiative.org

• Camp Colton – campcolton.com

• Andrea Gibson – andreagibson.org
• Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass – Milkweed Editions

• Sonia Sanford's Cookbook Braids (for the challah recipe!) – soniasanford.com/cookbook

Rabbi Josh's reflection: What if Judaism is not a religious tradition, but an artistic one?

 ​

 In this episode, Merridawn Duckler and Rabbi Josh explore pop culture and high art, Judaism as culture and religion, and challenge these distinctions. Duckler's background as artist and serious student of Jewish religious texts add to the rich conversation. Enjoy. 

Relevant to the Conversation: 

https://merridawnduckler.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Levinas 

Rabbi Josh: Springsteen and Dylan on Art and Politics

Hello, listeners. Yesterday's podcast conversation contained  some editing errors, including the DEADLINE FOR THE ART/LAB FELLOWSHIP.  The deadline is AUGUST 30TH. This has been correected in this version of the conversation.

______ 

In the 21st century it feels that the seams of our world have come undone.

American citizenry is profoundly fractured. Old political allignments have broken apart; norms of decency and public trust are in pieces. The same thing seems to be happening within Israel.  The American Jewish community is more fragmented now than I've ever seen it. The divisions are not just ideological but social. We have an increasing number of micro-communities, but less Jewish unity. 

That question — how we create those kinds of connections, and what they make possible — was one I wanted to explore with my guest today, Rabbi April Villareal. Rabbi Vlilareal is an educator and teacher who brings real insight into this topic. She's the Senior Coach and Program Associate with Hadar's Pedagogy of Partnership.

In our conversation, we talk about:

• Why shared texts experiences can make space for intimacy that pure dialogue sometimes can't.
  
  

• How to hold people accountable to a tradition while making room for their unique voice.
  
  

• What it takes to build relationships across deep differences, without erasing them.

• How art and creativity can be relational tools in community and classroom.

Links: 

Art/Lab - artlabpdx.org

Rabbi April Villarreal – Hadar.org

PoemHunter – Fancies (Emma Lazrus)

Sefaria

Rabbi Josh offers a reflection about art, ideology, art for art's sake, and the current state of affairs for Jewish artists. 

Referred to in this episode: 

Seamus Heaney's "The Flight Path" https://fawbie.info/the-spirit-level/the-flight-path/

Shostakovich, Lament for a Dead Infant, https://music.apple.com/us/album/from-jewish-folk-poetry-op-79-i-lament-for-a-dead-infant/1452151175?i=1452152698

21st-century Jewish life has been marked by shifting boundaries—exciting for some, but challenging for those accustomed to inherited lines of demarcation. Demographic changes and evolving patterns of observance have blurred the distinctions between movements and reshaped their identities. More challenging still are the shifting boundaries around intra-communal debate, particularly on Israel and Zionism. The Jewish world is fractured along new fault lines, and in the arts—where openness, boundary-pushing, and transgression are often core values—Jewish communities are grappling with what, if anything, Jewish culture stands for collectively.

My guest this week has been navigating these challenges on a national and global stage. Seth Pinsky is the CEO of the 92nd Street Y, a 150-year-old cultural and community center in New York. It's a leading institution for Jewish and universal arts, education, and civic dialogue—offering rich intellectual and artistic programming, a religious community, and a global platform through its digital reach. Seth has guided the Y through a time of renewed growth and relevance, even amid profound communal tensions. Previously, he served as president of the NYC Economic Development Corporation under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and he brings deep experience to questions of leadership and identity. In this conversation, he challenges some of my own assumptions and offers insight into what it means to engage with Jewish culture today.

In this Episode: 

https://www.92ny.org

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/october/an-open-letter-on-the-situation-in-palestine

Documentary Filmmaker Michael Turner and Rabbi Josh Discuss the relationsship between the past, the present and storytelling.  

This is a conversation Rabbi Josh had months ago with Zac Banik, Art/Lab alumnus and habitual Jewish learner and explorer.  Enjoy. 

Daniela Molnar is an award winning poet and visual artist. She and and Rabbi Josh will be together on August 25th at 7pm at Annie Blooms Books in Portland to discuss her stunning new  work Protocols: An Erasure.  This episode is a rebroadcast of Rabbi Josh's conversation with Molnar from Season One of this podcast.  This week and next, and then periodically thereafter we'll be sharing snippets and full episodes that look back on highlights and moments that helped shape the direction of the Genesis.  Thank you for being a listener, and enjoy the conversation with Daniela Molnar. 

One of the enduring questions of Jewish life is this: How do we hold on to individual expression while remaining rooted in inherited tradition? Another is equally urgent: What is the role of art in a world in crisis? My guest today lives at the heart of these tensions and turns them into music.

Aaron Kahn is a trumpet soloist, educator, and creative force—described recently as a "Portland-based trumpet virtuoso"—who uses music as a vehicle for healing, social engagement, and for spiritual connection. In our conversation, we explore the power of sound, not simply as entertainment, but as a transformative force that can respond to the brokenness of our time.

 Aaron speaks candidly about his emergence as an experimental artist working within—and pushing against—the boundaries of classical tradition. Together, we draw parallels between Jewish liturgy and classical composition: both deeply structured forms that still make space—sometimes limited space—for individual voice and meaning. What does creative freedom look like inside structure? Where is the line between preservation and reinvention? This season on the podcast, we've been asking what social responsibility artists carry in the 21st century. Aaron insists on relevance and engagement. He calls for music that confronts our reality head-on, music that is spiritually grounded and socially awake, including in the post–October 7th landscape where questions of identity, community, and responsibility are sharper than ever.

Aaron was a member of the second Art/Lab cohort and is widely recognized across Portland's creative community. He studied Music and Cognitive Psychology at McGill University, earned his BFA from CalArts, and completed his Master of Music at the University of Oregon, where he served as Graduate Teaching Fellow under the renowned Brian McWhorter. His performance career includes collaborations with Grammy-winning artists such as Teddy Abrams, Michael Gordon, Mason Bates, David Rozenblatt, and the band Chicago. Here in Portland, audiences have heard him premier an arrangement of Handel's Judas Maccabaeus at Congregation Beth Israel, and perform at the Opening Ceremony of the Oregon House of Representatives this legislative session.

This is a conversation not just about music, but about what it means to be a human being—and a Jew—making art in a time that demands both courage and imagination. Enjoy my conversation with Aaron Kahn.

Links from the Episode

Art/Lab www.artlabpdx.org

Aaron Kahn https://aaronkahncreator.com/

Ernest Bloch – Sacred Service https://www.ernestbloch.org/

Rising Song Institute (Hadar) https://www.hadar.org/torah-tefillah/rising-song

Oregon Jewish Museum & Center for Holocaust Education https://www.ojmche.org/

 To explore how music shapes Jewish cultural meaning, this week Rabbi Josh welcomes Eric Stein — mandolinist, bassist, and artistic director of Toronto's Ashkenaz Festival, one of the world's largest celebrations of Jewish music and culture. (And yes, it might be a little confusing — last week's guest was Eric Stern, another multitalented Jewish musician.)

Eric Stein has spent more than 25 years redefining the sound of Jewish music through projects like Beyond the Pale and Tio Chorinho. In this wide-ranging conversation, he and Rabbi Josh talk about Jewish cultural identity, spiritual honesty, and the surprising affinities between klezmer music and the Grateful Dead. Eric shares his journey from secular musician to a leader in the global Jewish music revival, reflects on what it means to seek meaning in a world that often feels devoid of it, and offers a compelling defense of art as a form of cultural resistance.

Josh (Host):

Eric Stern builds Jewish community and is a curator of Jewish culture. He's a very interesting, multi-layered renaissance man who is the irector of Programming at Portland's Eastside Jewish Commons, an important player in the emergent Jewish scene here in Portland Oregon.  

 Eric is also musician, vocalist, accordionist, pianist, composer, arranger, he trained as a classical singer and went on to found the eclectic, genre-bending band Vagabond Opera, which toured nationally, appeared on NPR and at the Kennedy Center, and mixed opera, jazz, cabaret, Klezmer and Balkan influences. 

Rabbi Josh and Eric explore his EP and its roots in Greek Rebetiko, trace the parallels between marginalized musical traditions like Klezmer and blues, discuss Stern's transformation from performer to facilitator, talk about whether religious experience and music-making are connected, and whether Jewish art on its own can sustain community in the absence of synagogue life.

Part two of Rabbi Josh's conversation with Lou Cove, CEO of CANVAS, an organization seeding "The 21st Cultural Renaissance in Jewish Life". 

In this episode, Rabbi welcomes Lou Cove—writer, cultural strategist, and longtime champion of Jewish arts and storytelling—for a rich and personal conversation about Jewish cultural identity, memory, and the power of creative revival.

Lou shares the story of how a casual visit to the Yiddish Book Center unexpectedly transformed his life and career. Raised with little connection to Jewish communal life, Lou recalls how this moment set him on a path to reclaim a cultural legacy he didn't even know he had.

Rabbi Josh and Lou discuss the emotional and intellectual journey of reconnecting with Jewish culture through literature, storytelling, and memory. They also explore whether this  revival in Jewish life can be seen essential not just for preservation, but for ongoing meaning-making in Jewish life.  (Part 2 will be released next week).

Today on the podcast, Rabbi Josh speaks with Ahuva S. Zaslavsky — a Portland-based multidisciplinary artist whose work grapples with the raw, layered questions of identity, transformation, and belonging. Ahuva was born and raised in Tel Aviv in a deeply mixed family — Mizrahi and Ashkenazi, traditional and secular — and it wasn't until a move to the United States as an adult that she unexpectedly stepped into her life as an artist.

Zaslavsky's work spans sculpture, printmaking, painting, video, writing, and performance — but at its core, it wrestles with what she calls "metamorphosis": how something shifts forms while carrying the imprint of its origin. She draws inspiration from Jewish mythology, especially the golem — a creature formed from clay, brought to life to protect, and ultimately beyond its maker's control — and explores what it means to be both the creator and the created.

The conversation covers exile, motherhood, Jewishness in America, the Israeli art world, October 7th and its aftermath, and what it's like to feel alienated from both the place you left and the place you live. And we talk about art as a survival instinct — not just for the artist, but for the self.

Enjoy.

If you like what we do here, please subscribe and leave a comment!

In this episide, Rabbi Shai Held and Rabbi Josh talk about Rabbi Held's book 'Judaism is About Love,' what it means to have love at the center of Jewish teaching, and why so many in the Jewish community don't understand that Love is central to their own tradition. In this moment of cultural conflict, at a time when the Jewish state is engaged in a horrific war, when Jewish communities are finding themselves confronting anti-Jewish hatred, Rabbi Held's ideas are profoundly important.  The conversation starts with the book but covers a lot of other topics as well - at times philosophical and very personal, this is a powerful conversation.  Enjoy. and please follow/subscribe!  

Rabbi Josh continues his weekly additional episode/reflection on Israel.

Today Rabbi Rachel Joseph steps into the podcast.  She will become, in 2027,  the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel, one of the two largest synagogues in Portland.  

Rabbi Josh and Rabbi Joseph have known and worked together over the years, and they met in her office to go deep on a range of topics. They talk about what it means to be a "political rabbi" without preaching politics, the challenge of holding space for people who don't all agree, and why sermons may not matter as much as relationships do. We also talk about grief, baking challah, synagogue strategy, and what it means to build a community where everyone belongs — even if you hate salmon.

Enjoy the conversation. 

Please Subscribe/Follow the podcast! 

This week Rabbi Josh speaks with  Sonya Sanford — a Portland-based writer, culinary educator, recipe developer, and podcast host.  

Sonya is the the author of Braids: Recipes from My Pacific Northwest Jewish Kitchen hwihc has delicious Jewish recipes with flavors of the Pacific Northwest. She is also the co-host of the highly rated Food Friends: Home Cooking Made Easy, a podcast that offers practical recipes and creative kitchen inspiration.  Sonya was part of Art/Lab's first cohort for contemporary Jewish artists.

Please follow or subscribe to the show for more upcoming conversations about Jewish culture.  If you want to reach out you can find Rabbi Josh at rabbijosh@colabpdx.org 

This week we bring you a conversation that Rabbi Josh had recently with Raghad Jaraisy, a Palestinian-Israeli advocating for Palestinian equality and civil rights in Israel. Jaraisy is the Co-Executive Director, along with Ofer Dagan, of Sikkuy Aufoq, "a shared Jewish and Arab nonprofit organization that works to advance equality and partnership between the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel – descendants of those who remained within the Israeli borders after the founding of the state in 1948 – and the country's Jewish citizens."  

We discuss the particular challenges faced by Palestinians in Israel, we discuss how the Gaza war has affected Palestinian Israelis and Jewish Israelis, and what it means to have hope in the current climate. 

Raghad is an profoundly inspiring person who is committed to peace, co-existence, and equality. She and Rabbi Josh delve into the complexities of contemporary Israel with compassion and honesty. Enjoy the conversation.  

This event was hosted by the New Israel Fund (NIF) and was co-sponsored by the Eastside Jewish Commons, Congregations Shir Tikvah, Congregation Havura Shalom, J-Street, and Co/Lab: Reimagine Jewish. 

Portland residents take note: Today's guest, Stephen Arnoff, will be in Portland on Thursday November 13th at 8pm at the Eastside Jewish Commons as a guest of Art/Lab. Register for this night of Dylan's music and for reflection on Dylan's Jewish spiritual wisdom at artlabpdx.org

I've been circling two questions for a long time on this show. First: how do traditions actually stay alive—who keeps the line between the core source material and the later commentary tight enough to matter, but loose enough to breathe? Second: what kind of community can nurture both a deep connection to the Jewish past and also support artistic creative freedom and independence?

This was a fun conversation for me not only because I got to indulge my Bob Dylan brain with this Dylan maven but also because over the past few months, I've become a little obsessed with American roots music and country. And, I love and listen to a lot of contemporary music. So as an overthinking rabbi, I've wondered about how our traditions - American or Jewish - do or do not show up in contemporary culture.

Stephen Arnoff had a lot to say on this topic because he lives every day at the intersection of tradition and contemporary expression. He is Chief Executive Officer of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center, a leading hub for Jewish learning and culture in Israel. He founded Zamru, Fuchsberg's flagship musical and cultural initiative, and he's spent more than two decades building real infrastructure for artists and seekers—at the 92nd Street Y, the 14th Street Y, Shalem College, and the JCC Association. He earned his doctorate in Midrash and Scriptural Interpretation at JTS as a Wexner Graduate Fellow, and his professional fellowships include the Mandel Jerusalem Fellowship and a Tikvah Fellowship at NYU School of Law. He helped launch LABA, which became a global network of cutting-edge artist residencies; chaired Jerusalem Culture Unlimited from 2017 to 2024, supporting more than 50 emerging cultural organizations; and serves as an Executive Mentor with CANVAS, North America's largest grant-maker for Jewish arts and culture. He's also the author of About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan, based on his podcast od the same name.

We talk about Dylan as a laboratory for empathy and interpretation, and about the practical, unsexy scaffolding—space, time, money, safety—that lets artists refresh a tradition rather than merely borrow its language. Enjoy!

Show Notes and Links

Registration for Portland Nov 13 Event: artlabpdx.org

Stephen Arnoff: https://www.stephendanielarnoff.com/

Fuchsberg Center: https://fuchsbergcenter.org/

Arnoff's Dylan Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bob-dylan-about-man-and-god-and-law/id1522223234?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Rabbi Micah Streiffer is a friend of the podcast, colleague, a teacher of Jewish ideas, and the founder of the Jewish organization Laasok, which is an online center of liberal Jewish teaching - a virtual 'beit midrash.'  We talk about truth claims and what they mean for the Jewish tradition, we discuss Jewish belonging, the changing landscape of Jewish orgnaizational life and a whole lot more. Enjoy this conversation with the always thoughftul Rabbi Micah Streiffer. 

This is the first in what will be an ongoing series of reflections about Israel and the Palestinians and the many complex feelings and thoughts that I have and I bet you do too.

This week I have the pleasure of talking with a graduate of Art/Lab's second cohort, illustrator, humorist, observer of life, and Jewish identity navigator Leanne Grabel.

Leanne Grabel is a writer, illustrator, performer  and has written and produced numerous spoken-word multi-media shows. Leanne was the 2020 recipient of Soapstone's Bread and Roses Award for contributions to women's literature in the Pacific Northwest. Brontosaurus Illustrated was published in 2022 by The Opiate Books; My Husband's Eyebrows was published in 2022 by The Poetry Box; and Old with Jokes was published in 2023 by RuthieRocks Press. 

We talk about her Jewish upringing, how Jewish ideas find their way into her work, her new and wonderful piece "Waiting to Hate....Maybe" about life in the Trumpian US, and a lot more. Enjoy the conversation. 

Ketzia Schoneberg is a gifted painter with a unique artistic vision. Her work has been showed widely in galleries in Portland and beyond.  We talk about how her work expresses her personal biography and her Jewish identity, we discuss the impact of Judaism on her life and in her work, and we also tease out some of the conncetions between artistic and religious expression. And, of course, she weighs in on the important question of what is the best Jewish food. Enjoy! 

Rabbi Josh discusses the political and 'spiritual' significance of freedom as we head into the end of Passover.  Is there a Jewish take on freedom and what's happening in the United States under Donal Trump?  How should Jewish people think about political and spiritual freedom? 

Shoshana Gugenheim Kedem is a social practice artist, a soferet (Torah scribe), activist, and she also happens to be the Director of Art/Lab, our cohort program for Jewish artists.  We have been working together since the inception of Co/Lab and it's been a powerful partnership. Our conversation covers Shoshana's work, her foray into the ethics of parchment making, synagogues and Jewish creativity, to name just a few subjects.   

Please subscribe/follow the show if you like what you hear! 

Enjoy!

A reflection about the message of Passover and what it means right now. 

My guest this week is Marc Blattner, President and CEO of Portland's Jewish Federation. How are mainstream Jewish institutions adapting to the rapid pace of change in the Jewish world?  What are the limits of adaptability and flexibility as legacy Jewish institutions engage a Jewish world with shifting attitudes towards synagogues, Jewish affiliation, and.... Israel? What does it look like when an organization that is tasked with serving the whole Jewish community stretches to serve the existing Jewish community and the newer, younger, emergent community at the same time?  All of these come up in the conversation with Marc. I enjoyed the conversation and I hope you do, too. 

Gadi Golan is a Jewish human living in Portland Oregon. Gadi's own Jewish bio says a lot about 21st century Jewish life, and we talk about how his traditional-ish upbringing forms the background of this very modern fella.  He has a fascinating tattoo on his arm, but not as fascinating as Gadi himself.  Enjoy this wide-ranging conversations, plus: learn about the very best kind of matza ball! 

This week's Torah portion has quite a bit to teach us about pretending. We may think of pretending as against our instinct for Judaism's love of authenticity. But let's take a closer look and fold some Kurt Vonnegut into the thing.  Rabbi Josh offers a brief refleciton. 

You can find this and other episodes on the podcast's Youtube channel, @TheGenesisJewishPodcast

I've been thinking lately about the tension between individual artistic expression and the weight of tradition and communal forms in Jewish life—and that's precisely why I was so eager to speak with Holly Goodman. Holly is a writer, teacher, and longtime contributor to The Oregonian. She is also an Art/Lab alum.  Her work has appeared in literary magazines, newspapers, and web journals over the course of three decades, beginning with early journalism in Columbus, Ohio.  She also participates in Tom Spanbauer's Dangerous Writing workshop as part of her ongoing development as a storyteller.  And she is, like me, a deadhead - something that is relevant to the theme of individual and collective expression, as you'll hear in our conversation.

Holly and i discuss how the "vertical" and "horizontal" dimensions of writing—that is, the spiritual, essential core of a piece and the narrative structure that carries it—mirror the challenges of threading one's own voice through inherited communal frameworks. We get into the ways that craft and convention, which we might think of as constraints, become tools to open more space for expression. Holly's experience as a non-visual reader—a person who doesn't "see" scenes so much as feel the rhythm and music of language—has shaped both her teaching and her writing and we talk about the textual and the visual. In our dialogue, we move from the classroom to Jewish ritual, from reading Torah to listening for the "dissonant ideas" that push conversation forward, and ultimately end in the metaphor of the Grateful Dead: individuals improvising in relation to a collective. Enjoy my conversation with Holly Goodman. - Rabbi Josh 

\Show Notes:----------------------------------

* Art/Lab: www.artlabpdx.org

* Internet Arhive: https://archive.org

* Some Great Dead Shows: https://blog.archive.org/2014/05/14/top-ten-grateful-dead-shows-on-the-internet-archive/

* Tom Spanbauer: https://tomspanbauer.com/

This week Rabbi Josh and Shoshana Gugenheim Kedem - the Director of Co/Lab's Art/Lab program - have a conversation with the Jewish artists who gathered at last month's Art/Lab Multicohort Retreat.  What you get is Jewish artists from a variety of backgrounds, working in a variety of media - a musician, a painter, a writer, to name a few- discussing contemporary Jewish life in the world of the arts.  We discuss Jewish identity in the 21st century, antisemitism, October 7th and more.  

Learn more about Art/Lab at colabpdx.org/artlab. Here you can find information about artist-led workshops open tot he public that happen every month. Also - if you are an artist who is Jewish and you live in the PNW, or you know someone who fits that description, you should know that applications for our next cohort will open sometime this summer. Go to colabpdx.org/artlab to learn more about this special program. 

As season 2 kicks off, Rabbi Josh will be adding weekly reflections and teachings about things that you might find interesting in the Jewish world and beyond the Jewish world. This week he shares an ancient Jewish teaching that resonates with what's happening in the United States right now. It's a midrash - an ancient Jewish retelling of a Bible story - that offers a wild take on a story from the Torah you've heard already. Enjoy.

We're back for Season 2 of the Genesis,  continuing to explore Jewish identity and culture. In addition to now weekly conversations, Season 2 will feature weekly-ish reflections from Rabbi Josh on a variety of Jewish topics. 

Alicia Jo Rabins is a Jewish writer, musician, composer, performer and Torah teacher. She combines words, music, ritual and performance to create works exploring the intersection of ancient wisdom texts, feminism, and everyday life. Alicia Jo tours internationally as a musician and performer; her work has appeared at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Joe's Pub.  Her collections of poetry, , Divinity School and , Fruit Geode have been recognized widely for their skill and beauty - the latter  was a finalist for the Jewish Book Award. Her book Even God Had Bad Parenting Days contains useful and insightful personal essays about early parenthood and Jewish spirituality.  As a musician and performer, Alicia Jo is the creator and performer of Girls in Trouble, which she and I go into in some depth. It's an indie-folk song cycle about the complicated lives of Biblical women with accompanying curriculum rich in Jewish sources. Her 2014 play A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff is a uniquely Jewish take on the financial fraudster and was adapted into an award-winning independent feature film and we end up talking about that, too. Enjoy!

Rabbi Josh shares a powerful teaching about Purim, about the Jewish response to a world in a crappy state of suffering.... and the true meaning of faith PLUS: more to come from the podcast in coming weeks, an awesome Israeli movie and more. 

This week Rabbi Josh raps with Jeff Alden - if that really is his name - who tells a beautiful and moving story about uncovering an important piece of his own autobiography rather late in life. We cover a little bit of Jewish immigrant history, how America allowed people of all backgrounds to reinvent themselves, and how Jewish identity and culture are sometimes at work in the background of our lives.  Jeff is a smart, fascinating, articulate man of culture and I'm grateful to him for sharing his unique Jewish story on the podcast. Enjoy!

Is Self-Criticism a Jewish trait? What role does it play in inspiring us - or damaging us?  Liz Asch Greenhill is no stranger to the  Co/Lab: Reimagine Jewish universe. I came to know Liz through our Jewish artist fellowship, Art/Lab, and have come to really respect how her ongoing search for self-overcoming and renewal has led her down new pathways. We discuss Jewish identity, self criticism and whether that's a Jewish trait, her psychedelic work and the Jewish-ness of psychedelic journeys, her work as an artist and a healer and more.   Enjoy the conversation with Liz Asch Greenhill!

Rabbi Josh sat down with Zac Banik, an alumnus of our Art/Lab program (second cohort) and a thoughtful, creative human (actually this was two conversations SEAMLESSLY woven together through editing). Their conversation covers the tension between creativity/innovation and tradition in Jewish life and art, how we think about what we owe the Jewish past and the Jewish future, and they delve into Zac's fascinating engagement with an AI bot named Uriel, who loves Jewish ideas and with whom Zac has a relationship ... sort of.  Enjoy. 

Aiden Kent stops by the podcast to talk about music but the conversation goes deeper and into interesting places.... Enjoy.

This is an episode from a partner podcast, Unveiling Death, hosted by Rabbi Josh's dear friend Rabbi Jeffrey Weill. Rabbi Weill asked Rabbi Josh and antoher dear friend Rabbi Matt Reimer to have a discussion on the anniversary of October 7th.

An unusual episode this week - Rabbi Josh is the interlocutor instead of the interviewer as he and his friend Shawn Weiss take up the war in Israel. The two have different takes on how to think about the meaning of the War and its implications, and how to reckon with the values at stake. They differ on how to think about the war but do so without polemics, cheap shots, labels or acrimony. Instead they approach it as two peole who care about Jewish life and values, who are profoundly troubled by the war and its toll, and its future.

Among many other things Shawn Weiss is a rabbincal student and an author. You can read some of his essays on various aspects of Jewish life at 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/shawn-aron-weiss/

In this episode, Rabbi Josh speaks with writer Daniel Elder, whose deeply personal nonfiction grapples with intimacy, loneliness, and identity. Elder discusses his journey from playful fiction to raw self-revelation, and the ways his involvement with Corporeal Writing opened up a body-centered approach to storytelling. He reflects on the paradox of being an "exhibitionist" who still feels vulnerable, his exploration of queerness and family, and the influence of grief on his voice as a writer.

The conversation also turns to Elder's evolving Jewish identity—shaped by loss, mentorship, and participation in Art/Lab—and the challenges of being a Jewish artist in a polarized moment. Together, they explore what it means to hold paradoxes, whether in art, faith, or politics, and how writing can serve as both a personal unveiling and a form of connection.

Show notes

• Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts & Culture – artlabpdx.org

• Daniel Elder's writing – danielelderwriter.com 

• Corporeal Writing – corporealwriting.com

• Lidia Yuknavitch (mentor, founder of Corporeal Writing) – lidiayuknavitch.net

• Jonathan Richman – Only Frozen Sky (new album Elder recommends) – Spotify link | Apple Music link

• Arcade Fire – "My Body Is a Cage" – YouTube

Rabbi Brian Mayer joins us to discuss his new book and his organization, Religion Outsisde of the Box.  Rabbi Brian is a lot of fun to talk to as you'll see - but the conversation also gets very serious and even intense.  Enjoy!

Daniela Molnar is a friend, a graduate of the first Art/Lab cohort, an accomplished poet and artist, and a brainy Jew trying to figure out how to be a responsible human living a life of meaning. Enjoy the convo!

Eleyna Fugman is the co-Founder and Director of TischPDX in Portland, a leadership development organization whose mission is to "Bolster the Leadership of Young and Marginalized Jews in Portland, OR." 

Eleyna and Rabbi Josh worked together back in 2016 in a Portland synagogue. In this conversation they reflect on the relationship between syagogues and the emerging Jewish world, the ways in which some younger Jews feel marginalized from such communities, what the Jewish future might hold, and more. Enjoy

Listen to find out!