Reader(s)! Please note that sometime over the next week I will be shifting the blog over to http://blog.vickiboykis.com to make room for a front page that doesn’t make me look like a crazed Nutella lover, a fact that people will find out only on the blog. Mwuahahaha. Not too drastic of a change, but you’ll want to update your bookmarks. RSS shouldn’t be affected *crosses fingers* Danke schoen.
Thanks to a tip from Mr. B’s cousin, I am now writing looking at the trainwreck that is The Year of the Jewish Woman Calendar (MOST DEFINITELY NSWF,) produced by Jamie Sneider (whose blog is also somewhat NSWF.) Here is the full set of pictures for the 2009 calendar.
Go ahead, take a glance at the half-naked woman with the brisket. Also with a challah. What a nice Shabbat meal. And the, uh, body heat keeps her warm, right?
Here’s what Sneider writes about her motivations for the calendar,
This calendar is dedicated to my Nana, Edith Sneider.
Edith managed a bakery in Miami, Florida called “Kosher Treats.” She loved kibitzing and schmoozing with the customers, and she especially loved the baked goods.
During our family trips to Florida, each day my Papa took my sister and I to visit my Nana at her bakery. When we walked in my Nana would yell, “THESE ARE MY GRANDCHILDREN EVERYONE!” And then I’d always order the Rainbow Sprinkle cookie and my sister would get the Chinese Cookie with a dollop of chocolate.
I have fond memories of my Nana’s refrigerator full of small white bakery boxes she brought home from the bakery. When everyone was sleeping, I would open the boxes and sample the delicious pastries. I especially loved the cold chocolate-dipped, jelly finger cookies on a warm Miami night!
The idea for this calendar began in April 2008, when I walked into a Jewish bakery in Los Angeles. The smell of rugelach, babka and hamantashens brought me back to my childhood, and the love I had for my grandparents.
This calendar is in honor of all of my grandparents: Edith and Benjamin Sneider, and Max and Bertha Shuman.This calendar has become so much more than an ‘ode to food.’ It is a celebration of my identity as a Jewish woman. I wanted to express the strength, humor and sexuality that I love about a Jewish woman, and all women. It’s my ode to being alive.
That’s heartwarming. I know now that the way I’ll be honoring both of my dead grandmothers (one Jewish and one not) is by wearing, alternately, hamentashen instead of real clothes, and suggestively posing naked with some spires of St. Basil’s Cathedral in strategic places. Hey, I know feminism says you’re not supposed to judge women for how they express feminism. And Judaism says you’re supposed to embrace whatever encourages Jewish culture amongst the youth.
But honestly. I think this is an awful way of expressing both because it doesn’t offer sexy innuendo as much as it does shove sex down your throat and cheapens some of the best parts of Judaism. I did like the Rosh HaShana picture, but, honestly, I think it would have been much more tasteful if it were at least a pregnant naked woman, who truly symbolizes rebirth, instead of an ode to vanity, which this calendar seems to be.
A shekel for your thoughts?
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s definitely not what I’d think of doing if I wanted to honor my grandparents. Kind of reminded me of Leonard Nimoy’s Shekinah photo project, with just a touch less creepiness.
Also, I’m a little confused at one statement Ms. Sneider made. She mentions that her grandmother managed a bakery in Miami, FL called “Kosher Treats.” I lived in North Miami Beach for many years, and while there was a store called “Kosher Treats”, it was a takeout place that featured lots of hot foods, kugels, soups, etc.
Next door, however, there was a bakery called “Pastry Lane” which was quite popular – it was the one place in Miami at the time that would bake “kosher for passover” cakes and the like.
Both establishments were definitely popular with both the elderly and Orthodox clientele, two groups who probably wouldn’t go for a calendar of this type.
I don’t know if it was as much to honor her grandparents as to say, “I’m Jewish and I’m proud of it.” Regardless, this whole thing, along with your prescient comments about the accuracy of the name of her grandparents’ restaurant, puts an even more dubious shadow on the whole affair.
All I can think of at times like this when things I see just do not add up in my “Jewish Mother of young children” brain is… WTF!!!!!!!!!! OK, sorry, I could not help that. There is just so much wrong with this girl…where do I start? Ugh… I have to run take my kid to her Hebrew School class.
I can’t wait to hear what you think is wrong with her.
Er, I didn’t expect it to be all of the same woman, that is weird . . .
Why weird? Do you think it’s narcissistic? Or just creepy?
Can’t it be both?
I’m trying to cut her at least a little slack and see the other side
Both! Eww! And twelve versions are clearly insufficient, so she needs to have eight or nine clones of herself on the same photos?
There is something seriously wrong with this girl…
I can’t believe I’m commenting on this blog, but since it’s my calendar, I thought I’d say a word. First, I love your blog Vicki -I’m not trying to suck up – I’m just being honest.
It strikes me as strange and it also hurts my feelings that people would think something was wrong with me for making the calendar. Especially that you need to rush your kids to Hebrew School. That’s pretty intense.
I’m actually a quite reserved Bostonian Jewish woman who was performance artist for many years in NYC. I was married to a non-Jew (not anymore) and I felt that I lost my Jewish identity;. By nature, I am an artist, exhibitionist and feminist (even if you don’t agree on the last point.) I also was a Jewish studies minor and lived in Krakow, Poland. I take Judaism seriously, but I also am a comedian, and humor is a part of Judaism’s history. I didn’t want to “cast” other women in the calendar, so I used myself as the subject in hope that the props, image, costume, etc. would stand out more.
It’s a comedy project on one level and an assertion of MY Jewish identity which I am sure differs from yours, but it’s my statement. It’s funny you mention Leonard Nimoy – because we were both just interviewed for a documentary on Sex and Religion.
I think you need to see the physical calendar to really understand it -there are over 70 pictures and I wouldn’t have spent thousands of dollars of my personal money if I didn’t believe in it. I think last thing we need is to limit Jewish self-expression if it disagrees with one’s modest views.
Vicki, thanks for writing about it.
Best, Jamie
Jamie,
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and to state your perspective on the calendar. It really helps me to understand where you’re coming from, as did some of the posts on your blog.
I had a similar experience of not having a Jewish identity and then struggling in leaps and bounds to make it up in college. I minored in Hebrew as well, and I always enjoy different, especially humorous perspectives on Judaism. I love reading Heeb Magazine, for example.
I completely understand that you believe in it and that it is an important project for you as an expression of your Jewish identity.
However, for me it is not so much that I disagree with it based on modesty (I’m not opposed to the nude/almost-nude male or female form. Especially if it’s Gad Elmaleh,) but that fact that, to me, this calendar represents voluntary objectification of women and tries to combine it with Judaism in a representation that, again in my opinion, comes across as crass instead of humorous and as more of a gimmick rather than something striving to create levels of interpretation. Again, I think that, for example, representing Rosh Hashana with an image of a naked pregnant woman, for example, would be creating artistic levels of meaning. Or, here is an image of six Jewish women that is both touching, a bit funny, and an expression of Jewish identity: http://www.jewishpost.com/images/news/Six-IDF-Women.jpg
I can’t say to you that this isn’t how you should express feminism because feminism means something different for everyone, but to me, it’s just going back to women as objects to be devoured by men. You said that your main goals for this project were comedy, assertion of Jewish identity, and that the props would stand out. There are a number of different ways I could see achieving this without the use of nudity/scant clothing for the sake of nudity (for example, I’m not sure why, for the May image, you used majorettes http://www.jewcy.com/gallery/years_worth_jewish_ta and how it connects to Judaism.)
That having been said, interpreting art is always a fine line and I’m glad that your calendar has created a lot of discussion within the Jewish community.
Good luck getting people behind this one. Though you make some VERY fascinating points, youre going to have to do more than bring up a few things that may be different than what weve already heard. What are trying to say here? What do you want us to think? It seems like you cant really get behind a unique thought. Anyway, thats just my opinion.
Thank you for creating this web site! I am so happy to be able to watch the progress of this restoration. I am filled with admiration for what you are doing! Best of luck with your work.
Great post! I’d like to see something that’s pretty simple and easy to understand at a glance, but with a lot of motion and activity to reflect the vibrancy of the community. Can’t wait to see what you and morgamic come up with.
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