Sharing StoriesInspiring Change

Selling Soap, Smashing Sexism, Seeing Ourselves

with Twersky Finalist Rabbi Mike Rothbaum

Sharing StoriesInspiring Change

JWA documents Jewish women's stories, elevates their voices, and inspires them to be agents of change.

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Who is this person?

What did this person do?

Why did they do it?

Who am I?What do I

do / What do I want to do?Why do I do

it?

You Cannot Be What You Cannot See

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What is the Twersky Award?

• Named for Natalia Twersky, the mother of JWA’s founding director, Gail Twersky Reimer.

• Celebrate, honor, and recognize our educator partners

• Share best practices

• Weaving in the stories and voices of Jewish women

• Deep engagement with primary sources

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Who am I? Rabbi Mike Rothbaum

• Rabbi and educator at Beth Chaim Congregation in Danville, CA.

• Faith-based social justice work with Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Bend the Arc, and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

• Columnist for Zeek, and also featured on WAMC Public Radio, CNN, and WABC-TV

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Why teach about Barbara Kruger?

● Develop a critical eye in looking at images of women in advertising AND have the opportunity to discuss their reactions to those images

● Identify Kruger’s use of advertising tropes to convey social and political messaging

● Become more familiar with powerful “slogans” within our written Torah

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Why teach about sexism and feminism?

Gertrude Berg as “Molly Goldberg” in The Goldbergs

Jewish stars of the Bravo reality show Princesses: Long Island

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Setting for the lesson

• Part of a semester-long elective on Jewish art and artists

• At a community high school

• Taught over the course of three sessions

• Designed for students in grades 8-12

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General arc of the lesson

1. Start with a trigger activity

2. View images of women in advertising and discuss

3. Learn about Barbara Kruger and her work

4. Look at Torah Quotes

5. Make art

6. Share and discuss student art works

Have you ever been affected by a picture or message in an advertisement?

Did it make you feel something about yourself?

?

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Discuss

• How do these images make you feel?

• Who is each of these images talking to? (Who is the intended audience?)

• Is there a unifying message in this advertising? What is it?

• Who is speaking in each advertisement? Where to they get their authority?

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About Barbara Kruger

A kind of propaganda in reverse, Kruger’s works grab one’s attention much as an effective advertisement does, with one significant difference. Where advertising conceals its methods of persuasion, Kruger draws attention to them, asking us to scrutinize these methods, so as to better educate ourselves about the power of the media. The artist uses advertising’s techniques—enticement, shock, provocation, and a direct address to the viewer—in order to teach us how the two languages of persuasion—photographs and words—influence us. Believing that no message is neutral, Kruger would have us be critical interpreters, rather than passive consumers, of the media.

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Discuss

• How are these works of art similar to the advertisements we looked at previously? How are they different?

• How do these images make you feel? Do you like them?

• Is there a social message in each of these works? What is it?

• Are they persuasive? Where do they get their authority?

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Artists’ statements

• “My work is about how people are with each other. It's about

social relations. I'm using aggressiveness and direct address to

foreground that. It's what we do to each other.”

• “It's about fear of difference and wanting to destroy it. From

road rage to war, the behavior is not that dissimilar. Whether it

is a battle around issues of race or aesthetics, it's all nuts.”

• “Humor is an important part of the work. I'm trying to create a

collision between the hilarious and the tragic.”

• New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl says of Kruger, “What

can sell soap can smash sexism.”

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Discuss

• Does Kruger’s work make you think about how people act with each other? How?

• Can a work of art be both funny and tragic?

• Do you feel that the works of art smash sexism and other social prejudices? Are they more or less effective than persuasive arguments?

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Examples of Student Work

What questions do you have?

How might you use these ideas in your work??

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About the Twersky Award

• Any Jewish educator working with students in grades 6-12

• Apply for the award or nominate a friend/colleague

• Two prizes• Winner receives $2,000 + $400 for their school/program

• Finalist receives $500 + $100 for their school/program

• Deadline: Monday, June 1, 2015

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Submission requirements

• Statement of purpose

• Lesson plan

• Classroom product (handout, assignment, etc.)

• Two examples of student work

• Two letters of support (from supervisor, colleague, student, parent, etc.)

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Other Examples