Mordecai Kaplan on Art, Artists, and Creativity

Mordecai Kaplan on Art, Artists, and Creativity Rabbi Bob Gluck University at Albany March 2, 2014 A paper delivered at the “Architect of the Jewish Future: A Conference on the Life, Work, and Legacy of Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan.” Sponsored by the Mordecai M. Kaplan Center For Jewish People, The Department of Jewish Studies, McGill University, The Program For Jewish Civilization, Georgetown University. At Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The Arts held a central place within Mordecai Kaplan’s envisioned renaissance of Jewish peoplehood.1 For Kaplan, the aesthetic engagement of the senses served an important function, capturing the imagination of its members, embodying and vividly bringing to life its collective values and symbols. The Arts help each individual see her or himself as an integral participant in the history and experience of a group. As Kaplan wrote in his seminal 1934 work Judaism as a Civilization: “The art of a civilization is its individual interpretation of the world in color, sound and image, an integration that is familiar and profoundly interesting to the people of that civilization. This art contributes a unique expressive value to each object of the spiritual life of that people.” 2 [JAC 205] Kaplan also held that the Arts could potentially play a unifying factor in a diverse and, even in his own time, divided Jewish world (this was published in the 1950s): “The days of such creedal and ritual uniformity are gone. Because of changes in our thinking and living, religion, instead of being a unifying force, has become a divisive influence… The arts, by giving an emotionally stirring interpretation of the experiences shared by Jews, create a common intellectual and emotional content for Jewish life. The same art form can unite in a common emotion people of widely different points of view...” [QJA, 369-370] In Judaism as a Civilization, Kaplan’s first book, appearing in 1934, his formulation assumes that Jews would recognize and resonate with the sounds, colors, and images of Jewish civilization. This is in spite of his call for full engagement in both the Jewish and broader societies, something that has for many changed the nature of our experience of Jewish life. He also poses the possibility that there could be “a common emotion” shared across a Jewish civilization that we know to have multiple versions. I first learned about Kaplan one summer, two years after college, when I read Judaism as a Civilization. I took copious notes on three chapters (15-17) and as a musician whose history teacher mother was sitting by his side on a Cape Cod beach, I took particular notice of one phrase: “A civilization cannot endure on a high plane without the preservation and cultivation of its arts. The art creations become part of the social heritage which is the driving force of the civilization, and come to be the means of calling forth from the group the civilization’s characteristic emotional reactions.” [JAC 203] 1 2 1 In his 1948 work Future of the American Jew, Kaplan looked forward to “the long overdue flowering of creativity in the domain of new Jewish cultural values, where the arts reign supreme. This is the area in which it should be possible to render Jewish life visibly, audibly and tangibly beautiful and fascinating. For the development of that area we need the best that the most gifted of our sons and daughters can contribute.” (FAJ 116) Kaplan’s imaginative vision represented a tall order for a people he saw as disengaged, dispirited, ignorant of their heritage, and disinterested in the Arts. He expressed frustration when he wrote in The Meaning of God in Jewish Religion (1937): “The very attempt to abstract Jewish religion from all the other aspects of Jewish life shows a woeful misunderstanding of the vital and organic relationship between religion and the other elements of a civilization.” [MGJR 17] Here, Kaplan speaks as a sociologist or anthropologist of traditional societies, where what we in the modern west call Art is integrated into the rituals of daily life, as people work, celebrate, and mourn with singing, dance, and drama.3 4 At the same time, Kaplan recognized that a modern conception of Art represented more the creative impulse of individuals5 than artisans working on 3 For instance in some traditional agricultural societies music has played a functional role. People may sing in rhythms that support plowing and harvesting, with words that reinforce and nurture the effort and solidarity involved in those endeavors. The melodies would reflect folk traditions, where the role of a singer or dancer is to enact, preserve, and transmit an inherited form intact in support of daily activities. It is not to initiate something new or to reformulate the old. 4 I’ve often wondered whether Kaplan’s sociological, collectivist understanding of the Arts can be tied to his own early memories of the small town in Lithuania (Sventzian), where he spent his first seven years (a fire destroyed parts of the town when he was five). Although Kaplan is not generally thought of as a romantic, I imagine an image of young Mottl, as he was first called, walking with his mother to a small shop where he hears a melody that might have been a more rhythmically accented version of one he heard elsewhere as a synagogue chant, which in turn might have originated in a folk song… 5 That is, individuals who craft objects designed for aesthetic contemplation, such as that shown in museums and concert halls. 2 behalf of the collective.6 As a religious naturalist theologian, Kaplan empowered the individual artist by reframing the idea of God as creator to mean that creativity itself is divine. He wrote in the Meaning of God in Jewish Religion: “The artist is the human being as creator par excellence. Out of a block of stone with a chisel, out of some grains of colored earth with a brush, or out of a few disparate sounds, he (sic) can fashion an environment of culture and spiritual illumination… It is in what a man creates that his personality finds its complete fulfillment.” [MGJR 77] Kaplan acknowledged, as he wrote in Judaism as a Civilization, “[the fact that] “certain types of art, chiefly literature and sculpture, require very little direct and immediate social cooperation toward their production.” [JAC 202] Yet Kaplan modified this statement by referring to “the meaninglessness of any art which is without relation to the group life.” Later in the same book, he expands upon this seemingly antimodernist conception by adding: “it is questionable whether the arts have had the same sublimity since their divorce from worship…” [JAC 457] Singing the same tune three years later, Kaplan observes: “Art also has always reached its heights when it was the expression of a social life. The decadence of modern art is largely due to the fact that it is no longer the expression of the community spirit, as it was, for example, in the Middle Ages, but has been made an accessory to the “conspicuous consumption’ of the wealthy.” [MGJR 240] Kaplan may anticipate the high heeled consumerism of the 21st century Art marketplace, but here he casts a negative light on what many of us would refer to as the triumphs of 20th century Art.7 Is it not true that many find a holiness within modern Art, music, and dance that is Kaplan never fully accepted the romantic notion of the western artist as a lone genius. Even in the premodern west, a composer like Johann Sebastian Bach thought little of borrowing from his peers and from his own earlier work. He held a folk-like conception that places far less value on originality or individuality. This is distant from the romanticized ideal of Frederick Chopin or even Ludwig van Beethoven. Many, maybe most of us who are simultaneously artistic creators and religiously minded would question Kaplan’s critique of secular art. While many would agree with his contention that “We 6 7 3 autonomous of conventional religious or communal functions?8 We hear Kaplan’s ambivalence about these questions later in the same volume, where he writes: “To produce art is to be creative, to give new meaning to reality. Since the experience of value in life constitutes our knowledge of God, all sincere art is sacred. In the past, religion emphasized “the beauty of holiness”; modern religion must also emphasize the holiness of beauty.” [MGJR 358-359] One might read Kaplan here in light of his belief in the self-realization of the individual. Yet I think that we also find here an anxiety that is at least partially rooted in Kaplan’s observation as early as the 1920s that the Arts were exerting a far stronger pull on modern Jews than was Judaism: “Modern estheticism, though it has no direct bearing on abstract conceptions of God, has become so enlarged in scope and enriched in content that it offers a far greater variety of opportunities for the satisfaction of the human spirit than the limited range of beliefs and practices identified as traditional Judaism… The wealth of productivity in the fine arts which the emancipation has released in the Jew is in striking contrast to the conspicuous absence of religious and ethical genius, or even talent displayed by Jews who have come under the influence of western civilization.” (JAC, 42) In reality, Kaplan was only mildly informed about the Arts in practice, being one who liked what he liked and resisting much else. His eldest daughter Judith was a musician who studied at the Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School of Music). In his journals from the late 1920s, seek God, whenever we explore truth, goodness and beauty to their uttermost reaches,” we may challenge his critique of art that fails to encapsulate all three of these virtues, and thus represents what Kaplan terms as “some partial truth, some mistaken goodness, or some illusory beauty.” [MGJR 31] 8 Parenthetically, one might ask about the value of music that reflects a communal spirit yet one of an oppressive regime. 4 Kaplan speaks self-critically about his reactions to artistic works.9 Upon visiting the studio of Israeli artist Reuven Rubin, Kaplan wrote that he prefers “his landscapes more than his portraits which are done in what I believe to be impressionistic style [as opposed to realism]. I confess that I am a consummate Am-Haaretz [ignoramus] in matters musical and artistic.”10 (November 24, 1928) Kaplan refers to his “uncultivated taste” when it comes to sculpture after visiting the studio of Enrico Glicenstein. (April 13, 1929).11 And he confesses “once in a great while I seek escape to a movie picture palace only to come out even more bored and vexed than before. Vaudeville holds my attention somewhat; I enjoy the occasional dialogue, articulate clever thought or repartee more than anything else in the arts. For that matter any kind of skill captivates me.”12 (May 30, 1929) More than two decades later, Kaplan noted after attending a choral concert that included three compositions by his daughter Judith: “I have no musical knowledge whatever. I nevertheless felt that the compositions had both strength and beauty. In my heart, I thanked God for the happiness they afforded me.”13 It may be that Kaplan is being modest, but these being his private journals, he is most likely simply acknowledging his limitations. Certainly, any time at the theater or a gallery only took away from what mattered most to him, his writing, speaking, and teaching.14 9 Examples offered are from November 1926 to Spring 1929, during the period covered by the first volume of Mel Scult’s collection: Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, Volume 1. Wayne University Press, 2001. 10 Ibid, 282. 11 Ibid, 322. 12 Ibid, 335. 13 Kaplan diary entry, Wednesday, December 23, 1953. Unpublished manuscript provided by Mel Scult, Kaplan biographer and leading scholar of Kaplan’s diaries. The concert, at Hunter College, was given by an amateur group called the International Chorus, conducted by SAJ chorus leader Harold Aks. The program included “three musical compositions by Judith [Kaplan Eisenstein] which are included in our Sabbath Prayer Book.” Kaplan adds: “I confess, however, that I was irritated by the undue emphasis in the program on sanctimonious Christological compositions to mask the current Christmas season, with the leader and the majority of the chorus being Jews.” On several occasions Kaplan comments about periodically going out to the theater, in one case noting that he “was too weak willed to say no,” yet went largely for the rare oppportunity “to enjoy the company of intelligent friends or to take part in scintillating conversation.” (Nov. 1, 1926; 235-236) In 1928, he expresses concern that his daughter would do better to teach music privately rather than do so in a Jewish institutional setting because “the demand for Jewish culture being so limited.” (April 29, 1928; 14 5 What Kaplan cared deeply about was that Jewish ritual deserved aesthetic treatment. In Judaism as a Civilization he wrote: “In organizing public worship, the aim should be to utilize as much as possible of poetry, music, song, drama and the dance.” (JAC 458) In his subsequent book, he observed: “...The embellishment of houses of worship, craftsmanship in the production of objects of ritual significance, the development of liturgic poetry and music, all attest the urge to give esthetic expression to religious motifs.” [MGJR 358-359] The realization of these ideas were no simple matter. In the early 1930s, the synagogue that Kaplan founded in 1922, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism (SAJ), commissioned at their rabbi’s strong urging a large mural for the sanctuary. Titled “Elements of Palestine, Old and New,” the large three-panel mural was painted by Jewish artist Temima Nimtzowitz (later Gezari). Nimtzowitz, Kaplan’s former student at the JTS Teacher’s Institute, was influenced by politically-engaged Mexican painter and muralist Diego Rivera. Rabbi Deborah Waxman and Joyce Norden describe its distinctly, and for some, controversially figurative and secular content as that of “a Labor Zionist vision of pioneers.” Despite the lukewarm response of members, some of them influential, the mural was championed by Rabbi Kaplan as a dual symbol of the role of Zionism and of “a vigorous arts program” needed to promote the revitalization of Judaism. Eventually the work, dedicated in 1935, was moved to the social hall during the redesign of the sanctuary.15 259). There is no mention of concerts or other musical events in volume one of his journals other than at a celebration of his anniversary when silly songs were sung in his and Lena Kaplan’s honor. Waxman and Norden, “The challenge of implementing reconstructionism: art, ideology, and the society for the advancement of Judaism's sanctuary mural.” American Jewish History, 2009. The dedication was preceded by a full January issue of the Reconstructionist on the topic of Art. 15 6 SAJ members uniformly affirm that their synagogue was a profoundly musical place.16 Noted musicologist A.Z. (Abraham Zevi) Idelsohn (1882-1938) was engaged briefly—for maybe just six months, and possibly informally--as the SAJ’s first cantor.17 18 He was followed in 1924 by the fourty-six-plus yearlong tenure of Moshe Nathanson (1899-1981).19 20 In an August 1995 interview, Judith Kaplan Eisenstein recalled: “We (at the SAJ) were a singing congregation right from the start, and it stayed that way. The volunteer choir sang certain parts of the service, and other parts the congregation sang. We never gave up the congregational singing. That turned out to be a very good thing for us. When people got tired of the choir, they moved back into the congregation, but they would still sing along with the choir, so everybody was singing. It was really quite exceptional.” 21 Writing in 1934, Kaplan hailed the progress of the development of visual arts and architecture within the context of synagogues, yet had bemoaned that: “A less spectacular, though none the less courageous effort, is being made by those who insist upon fostering Jewish music in American Jewish life... choral societies... music contest...the idea of having talented Jewish musicians write special liturgical music for the synagogue...” (JAC 64-65) 17 Idelsohn is best known for his extensive notated collections of liturgical and folk melodies from Jewish communities around the world. Hebraeisch-orientalischer Melodienschatz (Thesarus of Oriental Hebrew Melodies), 1914-1933. Multiple volumes published in English and Hebrew by various publishing houses, among them Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister, and Berlin: Benjamin Harz. 18 Idelsohn recalls in his a that his first, aborted plan to Palestine was to quit music and become a farmer; eventually he indeed made the trip to collect samples of the historical repertoire. Interestingly enough, Idelsohn’s autobiographical essay makes no mention of the SAJ. He only notes that following a musical education and career as a hazzan in Germany, with visits to Palestine, Vienna, and then in 1922 the United States. “In 1924 I settled down in Cincinnati [at Hebrew Union College] as Professor of Hebrew and Liturgy, as well as Jewish Music, but before that I toured the country lecturing, from coast to coast. he lectured across the country before.” A.Z. (Abraham Zevi) Idelsohn, “My Life: A Sketch by A.Z. Idelsohn,” Jewish Music Research Center. http://www.jewish-music.huji.ac.il/content/abraham-zvi-idelsohn. Accessed January 31, 2014. First published in Jewish Music Journal 2:2, 1935, 8-11, and reprinted in the Abraham Zvi Idelsohn memorial volume, Yuval Monograph Series 5, 1986. 19 Moshe Nathanson biography. Jewish Music Research Center. http://www.jewishmusic.huji.ac.il/content/moshe-nathanson. Accessed January 31, 2014. Like Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, Nathanson was trained at the Institute for Musical Art. To fill out the interlocking biographies, Idelsohn had been choir director at the elementary school in Jerusalem where Nathanson studied as a child, following a few years in heder. Nathanson’s reputation spread well beyond the SAJ in part due to his highly regarded liturgical compositions which fill the pages of Zamru Lo, the Conservative movement’s musical anthology that he edited. “’Ilu Finu Maley Shirah’: ‘Were Our Mouths Filled With Song’: An Interview With Dr. Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, August 28-29, 1995.” The interviewer was historian Reena Sigman Friedman. Reconstructionist, 62:1, Spring-Fall 1997, 11-12. 16 20 21 7 Kaplan records in an unpublished 1940 diary entry that a congregant who was a cantor’s son had raised the idea of establishing a formalized choir.22 Two years later, Nechemieh Vinaver initiated leadership an official congregational choir, which as Judith recalls “sang every Shabbat. He was a first-rate choral conductor who knew the literature, and he had them singing much better than an ordinary volunteer choir.”23 The choir consisted of synagogue members24 plus two professionals.25 In a October 14, 1942 diary entry, Kaplan tells us that it was Ira Eisenstein, his protégé, collaborator, successor, and of course future son-in-law26 who “prodded” and secured Vinaver’s involvement in formalizing the choir, as well as helping Kaplan translate the liturgy into an English text which would be placed in looseleaf binders.27 The troika of Kaplan, Kaplan diary entry, February 7, 1940, Vol. 9. Unpublished manuscript provided by Mel Scult. Kaplan notes that the congregant, a physician named Dr. Glushak had recently stepped up his occasional attendance at services after the death of his father, who acted at the instigation of a Mr. Beimel (maybe an SAJ board member?). Beimel hoped that Kaplan would “introduce cantorial music into our service, to organize a choir and to have a Friday night service at which special attention would be given to the rendition of Jewish liturgical music.” Glushak also urged Kaplan to professionalize cantorial training and thus “raise the standard of the cantorial profession by having an institution like the Seminary take over the training of cantors.” Might the request to “introduce cantorial music” have been a veiled critique of Moshe Nathanson, who had by this time served as cantor for sixteen years, or simply a desire to move beyond the informality of the existing volunteer choir? 23 Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, ibid. 24 In his diary, Kaplan mentions choir members Reuben and Lillian Isaacson, “no[t?] regular attendants of the and classes” who joined the choir at its founding “and have seldom missed a rehearsal or a service in which they had to sing.” In the two years leading up to the date of this journal entry, the couple was joined by their daughter Judith. Unpublished Kaplan diary entry, Monday, October 13, 1952, provided by Mel Scult. 25 Eight years later, in 1950, Kaplan writes, a Mr. Leo Kopf arrived in his office, a personal reference in hand from Dr. Eric Werner, a founder of the School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College [and later, Judith Eisenstein’s doctoral advisor], offering his services as a successor to Vinaver as choir director. It is unclear to me what came of this, although a 1953 Kaplan diary entry speaks of a Harold Aks as choir leader. Unpublished Kaplan diary entry, Wednesday, December 23, 1953, provided by Mel Scult. Kaplan’s 1950 diary entry was focused mostly on his critical view of the top-down structure and financing of Jewish professionals within the Berlin Jewish community in which Kopf had previously served two synagogues. Unpublished Kaplan diary entry, February 1, 1950, Volume 14f, provided by Mel Scult. Kaplan first encountered Eisenstein in 1927, in his classes and soon in the pews of the SAJ. Eisenstein became book review writer and then editor of the SAJ Review, and later the Reconstructionist, executive director, and in 1931 what Eisenstein describes as “assistant leader” (Kaplan, in his June 2, 1931 diary entry as “assistant rabbi”; page 440). After a decade during the 1950s as a pulpit rabbi in Chicago, Eiseinstein returned to New York. He led the Reconstructionist Foundation, while Judith entered a PhD program in musicology at Hebrew Union College. Ira subsequently served as founding president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. 27 Unpublished manuscript provided by Mel Scult, Vol. 11e. 22 26 8 Eisenstein and Nathanson organized what would become a more formalized order of musically inclusive Shabbat morning services, two-hours in length, initiated that Sabbath.28 Judith Kaplan Eisenstein also remembers the congregation sponsoring concerts and Jewish arts festivals, outside of services. Anecdotally, her father editorialized, within the aforementioned 1940 diary entry: “What a pity that so important a field as Jewish religious music should be permitted to go to waste and so excellent an opportunity to develop Jewish esthetic values as afforded by the organization of Jewish choruses should be so neglected. What a stupid people we are!”29 The Judith Kaplan-Ira Eisenstein courtship began with a collaboration on a musical show Punch and Judaism, for which Ira served as lyricist and Judith as composer. In his autobiography,30 Ira recalls that the work was designed to feature young actors from the SAJ and was performed at the 92nd Street Y. The couple married in 1934, and they continued their collaboration during the 1940s, with five cantatas. In 1990, while I was interim dean of students at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College while otherwise serving as the movement’s outreach director, I encouraged the Eisensteins to make a return visit as part of a “college time” series on spirituality. Ira was of course founding president of the RRC. Having not been to the College for several years he and Judith were agreeable to engage with students, faculty, and staff in an open forum. At one point, questioned about their reputedly intellectualized approach at the SAJ, Ira responded in exasperation: “For goodness sake, we were singing all of the time. What do you think we were doing?!” What the Eisensteins meant was that the experience of singing at services well That the well-received inaugural service exceeded its planned duration by fifteen minutes, due Kaplan, explains, to a full Torah reading (about which he was ambivalent), seemed to have been a source of anxiety to Kaplan that day. Kaplan mentions that his sermon lasted 35 minutes, but this isn’t included as a reason for the extra length of the service! 29 Ibid. 30 Reconstructing Judaism: An Autobiography. New York: The Reconstructionist Press, 1986, 132134. 28 9 transcended the literal fact of making music, but extended to a much deeper, more internal yet collective experience, one that in 1990 might have been called “spiritual.” One point of frustration for Kaplan was that there had been little partnership between Jewish institutions—which didn’t seem interested in Art, and Jewish artists--who didn’t seem to be engaged in Jewish life. In 1948, Kaplan wrote: “We have highly talented Jews in all the fields of art, in music, drama, dance, painting, sculpture and architecture, but most of our people still lack the understanding that, unless all these arts begin to function in Jewish life, there can be no Jewish life in the Diaspora...” [FAJ 52] He held out the positive hope that if “many artists, who now view Jewish life as dull and drab, would develop a new interest in Judaism” they might “discover in it new emotional experiences that would goad them to artistic expression.” [QJA 372] Surely, Kaplan realized that mere hope without a concrete plan would bear no fruit: “But the element of artistic creativity cannot be left completely to spontaneous achievement. It is a plant that must be carefully and tenderly nurtured.” (JAC 485-486) As a forum for experimentation with the Arts the SAJ provided a fascinating balance between Art created by professionals and participational Art for everyone. The two are not the same thing. Kaplan reconciled the two by suggesting that skilled artists could create works in which the general populous could participate. But much work on the highest artistic level is neither populist nor participational. And not all work that is populist and participational is on a high artistic level. The contemporary trend now is to consider the role of synagogue music as fundamentally participational--engagement and inspiration for people who may not be well educated in, nor captivated by the language of the liturgy or the format of conventional services. I imagine that Kaplan and the Eisensteins would continue to see the skilled--and maybe elitist-performance model and the participational as two elements in an aspirational balance. 10 In our own day, a plethora of Jewish artists create work with Jewish content.31 Jewish institutional life does a reasonable job supporting populist, collectively engaging art. But truly forward reaching work continues to receive short shift. On one hand, Jews as individuals continue to be in the forefront of the farthest reaches of the worlds of Art, music, dance, film, and multimedia. On the other hand, Jews appear to collectively and institutionally support work that is generally the most comfortable and familiar, and thus often the most conservative.32 There are exceptions.33 Yet the decline, during the past decade, of both the Foundation for Jewish Culture in New York and the Center For Jewish Culture and Creativity in Los Angeles are symptomatic of the impediments facing a broad realization of Kaplan’s vision that would place the Arts at the center of renewed Jewish life. Truly, Kaplan’s optimism continues to inspire, challenge, and maybe rebuke, when we recall his observation, more than 65 years ago, that “we are only at the very beginning in the process of creating a modern Jewish art.” [FAJ 52] It was Kaplan’s hope that the establishment of the State of Israel would bring about at least a “spiritual” unification of the Jewish people and help spur the develop “a Jewish art will eventually arise that will be distinctive in both form and content.” (QJA. 370-371) 32 Quite often what people seem to hold the most dear in synagogues is that which they know from childhood, often from Jewish camp settings, be these Conservative or Reform, or what may sound the most catchy. There are of course exceptions, among them the evolving traditions of meditative chant originating in Jewish Renewal circles, the Israel secular, transdenomenational movement [loosely affiliated with the Israeli Network of Emergent Communities] of Kabbalat Shabbat services feature contemporary Israeli songs and poetry. And there are signs of a shift in the Reform movement towards a more expansive and spirited collective singing, sometimes in place of spoken responsive readings. 33 Outside of the main institutions, small pockets of collective Jewish endeavors rise and fall, some overly self-insulated from broader participation (such as John Zorn’s “Radical Jewish Music” centered in Downtown New York City), and others undermined by a lack of institutional support. In Israeli as well, contemporary music, such as that created in electronic music studios, rose and fell between the 1960s and 1990s. On a more positive side, JCCs in New York’s Upper West Side, California’s East Bay, offer potential wellsprings of life for the Jewish Arts, as of course do the various Jewish Art museums, the ongoing KlezKamps, and outposts like and 92Y Tribeca in New York and Temple Micah in Washington D.C., where dancer Liz Lerman has played an important role. Many synagogues have an annual Shabbat Shira service, where a musical focus takes over for the occasion. A new festival of the Arts in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Musrara is an example of an indigenous Israeli event that supports a plethora of creative rather than just the most popular Art forms. 31 11 Mordecai Kaplan works referenced: Judaism as a Civilization (JAC): 1934 The Meaning of God in Jewish Religion (MGJR): 1937 The Future of the American Jew (FAJ): 1948 Questions Jews Ask (QJA): 1956 Mel Scult, editor, Communings of the Spirit: The Journals of Mordecai M. Kaplan, Volume 1 By Ira Eisenstein: Reconstructing Judaism: An Autobiography: 1986 All volumes are available from Reconstructionist Press. 12